The Wedding Sisters (12 page)

Her mother looked at her, still screaming, but something in her eyes shifted, a sudden clarity, and she reached out hesitantly to touch her. Meryl moved forward and pulled her mother into a hug, and the screaming stopped. Her mother began rambling in her native Polish, a language she dropped as soon as she arrived in the United States and never bothered to teach her children.

“I'm here, Mom. It's okay,” Meryl said. It felt strange to have such physical contact with her mother. Rose Kleinman was decidedly
not
a hugger. And she certainly was not overly affectionate in the past few decades with the daughter who had so bitterly and irrevocably disappointed her.

But the hug seemed to work.

“Meryl,” her mother said.

“What's wrong? What's going on?”

Her mother shook her head, looking around the room.

“Mom, wait here a minute, okay? I need to check on something. Will you be okay for a minute?”

“Of course. I'm fine. What time is it? Is it time for my stories?”

Meryl found the remote and turned on CBS for her mother's soap operas.

“Mom, I'll be right back.”

Out in the hallway, the neighbor had retreated back into her apartment but Oona and Mr. Curello were still talking.

“What's going on? What happened, Oona?”

“Mrs. Becker, this is the third time this has happened this week. The last time was at two in the morning, when she woke up half the floor and the family living in the apartment below her,” said Mr. Curello.

“What? Oona, why didn't you tell me?”

“I thought you knew. I thought you knew that she do this.”

“No, I had no idea this was happening.”

“Mrs. Becker, this has become a tremendous disturbance to the other tenants in the building. I've gotten word from management that the tenants downstairs have threatened to stop paying rent.”

“Oh my God. I'm sorry. I—”

“Management won't be renewing your mother's lease.”

Meryl's stomach dropped. She scrambled to think of when the lease expired. Was it this December? Or next? Had they signed a two-year last time?

“I understand,” she said quietly, glancing back inside the apartment. “I need to talk to her.” Meryl went back to the bedroom and closed the door. “Mom, what's going on?” she asked.

“Nothing,” her mother said.

“Did you realize you've been screaming?” She didn't know what was more terrifying—the thought that her mother was doing this on purpose, fully aware, or that she had no recollection of the episodes.

“Maybe it was a bad dream,” her mother said.

“You were speaking in Polish.”

An expression crossed her mother's face that she'd never seen before, a look of intense vulnerability. Rose didn't like to talk about Poland, the country she'd left when she was just seven years old. Meryl's grandparents had moved to America in 1937, just two years before the Nazi invasion of Poland. Rose admitted that they had always planned to visit, to return someday to see the friends and family they left behind. But their town had been wiped off the map. If Meryl's mother rarely spoke about Poland, her grandparents never did. And oddly, they had somehow gotten rid of even their Polish accents, while Rose's speech was still thick with it.

“That's nonsense,” Rose said. “I don't even remember Polish. If this is how you're going to behave, just leave.”

Meryl did not mention the lease. She would talk to Hugh first. She wasn't entirely sure it was even legal for the building to take that kind of action, though she suspected it was.

She held it together the entire cab ride back to the Upper East Side. But as soon as she paid the fare and stepped onto the curb at Eighty-fourth and East End, she lost it. Her mother, so fierce, so eternally independent and stoic, was finally showing a crack. And Meryl had no idea what to do about it—didn't even know where to start.

Her phone rang. Amy. Meryl swallowed hard, clearing her throat, hoping her voice sounded normal.

“Did you get my e-mail?” she squealed.

“E-mail? No, hon. I've been with Gran.”

“Mom, drop whatever you're doing and check your e-mail. Call me back.”

Meryl juggled her bag and her keys and her phone so that she could click onto her Gmail. Amy had sent her a link to the
New York Post.
She clicked it, and a photo of Meg and Stowe filled her screen. Incredulous, Meryl scanned the text. She laughed, covering her mouth, the crisis with her mother momentarily forgotten.

“Oh, honey, look at that,” she said as soon as Amy picked up again. “You're officially a boldfaced name.”

“So crazy, right? Jeffrey thinks it's great. I mean, the tone of the piece is snarky, but that's just Page Six. And all publicity is good publicity, right? I've got to run to a meeting—don't tell Daddy. I'll call him later.”

Meryl felt the day turn around. Whatever was going on with her mother, she would figure it out. There was too much to be happy about to let it get her down.

By the time she walked into her home, she had a smile on her face again. But then she saw Hugh's canvas messenger bag on the dining room table. What was he doing home?

“Hugh?” she called.

She looked at her phone. It was barely noon.

His office door was closed. Heart pounding, she didn't bother to knock, opening it to find him sitting at his desk and staring into space.

“Why aren't you at work?” she asked, alarm in her voice.

A part of her, the irrational but deeply hopeful part, thought maybe he'd somehow sensed that she needed him, that after thirty years, their connection was just that strong. That's what marriage was at its best—you didn't have to tell your partner to look out, that you were falling. They were just there to catch you, the ever-present net.

“There's a problem at school.”

“What kind of problem?”

“It's Janell. She plagiarized another paper. In Ethan Pogrebin's class.”

“Oh, Hugh, I'm sorry. I know you really had high hopes for her.”

“He turned her in. And she said she felt it was unfair because I had given her a warning, so why couldn't he?”

Meryl's stomach dropped. “She told Ethan you gave her a warning,” she said slowly.

“No. She told Harrison.”

Harrison Winterbourne, the school chancellor.

“Okay, so why are you here instead of at school, dealing with this?”

“I've been suspended. Pending a disciplinary inquiry.”

“Suspended!
For what?
”

“Breach of ethics.”

“Jesus, Hugh! I told you!” She paused, and took a deep breath. “Okay, okay—I'm sure they just have to go through the motions with this. How long will a disciplinary inquiry take?”

“A few weeks. A month.”

She shook her head, hugging herself. “It will be fine. I just wish … Hugh, I just wish you had talked to me about all this.”

“I
tried
talking to you,” he said. “You were too busy worrying about dinner that night.”

She looked at him blankly; then she remembered his phone call while she was on her way to her mother's the day of the Campion dinner.

“Let's try to look on the positive side,” she said, trying to find one. “If you're home for a few weeks, you get to be more involved in the wedding planning. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise.”

“Yes, well, about that: We need to put the spending on hold for now.”

“That's not the kind of involvement I was hoping for.” She tried to smile.

“The suspension is without pay.”

What?

Math was not her strong suit, but she immediately calculated the loss of income for the next four weeks and considered how tight their budget was to begin with. And this was the key time they would be putting down deposits for everything: the dress, the florist, the band. They had savings. But not what they should, thanks to the market bottoming out in 2008.

“Okay, let's think. Let's think.” Meryl paced in front of Hugh's desk. “You just need to talk to Harrison. Go in tomorrow, tell him it was a misunderstanding. Beg if you have to. Hugh, this cannot happen.”

“It's not that simple, Meryl.”

“Of course it is. It might not be easy, but it
is
that simple.”

“It wasn't a misunderstanding. I believed—still believe—that Janell deserved one warning. That she should be punished, but not thrown out. The policy we put in place is too dogmatic, and needs revision. I see that now.”

She wanted to strangle him. “Hugh,” she said, sitting across from him as she took his hand, trying to be calm. “Do you really think that this is the time to draw a line in the sand?”

“I made a mistake with that zero-tolerance policy, Meryl. And now a girl's future is at stake.”

“Our future is at stake!”

“Don't be melodramatic.”

“Okay—how about your daughters? Did you give them any thought when you took your high-and-mighty stand for educational justice?”

“I don't appreciate your mocking this. They'll be fine. Meg is marrying into one of the most powerful families in this country. So is Amy. I don't think you can put them on par with a parentless girl from the Bronx who is about to lose her one shot at a real education. At college. At a better life.”

“Is this your way of pushing back about the weddings? Of making sure I don't ‘go overboard'? Of making me go to the Campions with my tail between my legs, taking help from them? Well, I won't. These weddings are going to happen one way or another.”

“I have no doubt,” he said.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“I just know how you get when you set your mind to something,” he said.

“You know what? I wish you would set your mind to something other than your goddamn students—and the book.”

“Our girls got a first-rate education at Yardley, thanks to my position there.”

“Yes, and they grew up among the children of the rich and famous, and now they have certain expectations for weddings that you suddenly don't want to meet. What did you think would happen with them going to that school? You expose them to the best of everything, and then tell them not to want it for themselves? Don't act like Stowe Campion or Andy Bruce are coincidental. Once we sent the girls to that school, their paths were set.”

“That's not true.”

“I think it is. So don't act surprised now, or like none of it has anything to do with you. It has everything to do with you. I would have sent them to PS 290 and East Side Middle and Eleanor Roosevelt High School. But those options weren't good enough for you, because you're an academic snob. So our daughters grew up with the elite, and are now marrying into the elite, and big weddings are a part of that deal. So I would appreciate it if you didn't act like this is all my fault.”

The doorbell rang.

Hugh, clearly relieved for the distraction, brushed past her to answer it. She leaned back and found that she was shaking. It was so like Hugh to pull something like this. He was more into the idea of something than what that idea or ideal actually meant. The private school for the girls: great in theory, but it exposed them to things beyond their means. Writing the Alcott book: great in theory, but after two decades, a cloud of unfinished business hanging over him. Maybe even marriage: great in theory, but maybe somehow emotionally messier than he had bargained for. Creating a family did not have the neat dramatic arc of a Louisa May Alcott novel. Not even if you named all your daughters after the characters in one.

“Where's Mom?” The sound of Jo's voice snapped her to attention. Jo, in distress.

Meryl rushed into the living room, suddenly in full mother-bear mode. With all the drama concerning Rose, she'd forgotten to check on Jo.

Jo's long hair was in a messy knot on the top of her head, her face drawn. Without hesitation, she flung herself into Meryl's arms.

“It's over,” she cried, her thin body racked with sobs.

It felt strange to hug Jo. She wasn't a hugger, and at five foot eight, she was the tallest of the girls and a full three inches taller than Meryl. But still, her baby. Meryl kissed the top of her head, inhaling her organic, tea tree oil shampoo scent.

“Baby, are you sure?” Meryl asked, not wanting to offer advice until she knew more.

“She's met someone else. A guy!”

Oh, dear goodness. That had to hurt.

“Is there a chance this is just temporary? Something she has to explore before you two get any more serious?”

Jo shook her head, her body trembling. Meryl tightened her arms around her, embarrassed by the reflexive pleasure she felt in being able to comfort her.

“She's going to marry him.”

“Oh, Jo—I'm so sorry.”

The sobs again. “Looks like everyone's getting married. And I never will.”

“Jo, you know that's not true.”

“It is,” Jo said, her voice heavy with conviction.

Hugh appeared with a bottle of Sam Adams. He uncapped it and handed it Jo, who took it gratefully, disengaging from Meryl long enough to take a deep swig. Meryl tried to catch his eye, but he avoided her, their unfinished conversation hanging heavily between them. But it would have to wait until Jo was calm and ready to go home. The last thing she wanted was news of this work crisis to get back to Meg and Amy before they resolved it. They were good girls, and if they thought for a minute that the weddings would strain Meryl and Hugh, they would refuse help. And Tippy Campion and Eileen Bruce would be planning the weddings that Meryl had spent the past few decades dreaming of. Ever since the girls played dress-up brides, maybe even before that. Maybe as early as the first day she held Meg in her arms.

“Mom,” Jo said, tipping back the beer again. “I can't go back to the apartment. Okay if I crash here tonight?”