Then She Found Me (31 page)

Cissy practically curtsies, bobbing her head to each of us in turn.

“Jack is a golf pro,” Bernice says airily. “Isn’t that an interesting line of work?”

“A golf pro. That
is
interesting.”

A waiter approaches our table with pen and pad. Bernice says, “So nice to meet you. And give my regards to all those old friends who saw you on the show.”

“I will,” says Cissy. “You bet I will. And I’m gonna tell them I met you here.”

“With my family.”

“You bet,” says Cissy and backs away. We smile strained smiles of farewell until she’s back at her own table.

“We need a few more minutes,” Bernice tells the waiter.

“They never come back when you do that,” I say.

Bernice waits until we are alone before murmuring, “The high point of Cissy’s life.”

“Are you serious when you say that?” Jack demands.

“Can’t any of you take a joke, ever?”

“What about me? I’m your best audience,” says Dwight.

She turns to Jack. “Didn’t I do a nice job making you part of the moment?”

“My
escort
for the evening, some guy I met an hour ago. Yeah, that was a thrill.”

“That’s right! Because it’s ridiculous to give a fan the
time of day. I could have been seventy-five percent less charming and she’d still watch. God knows they bother you all the same in restaurants.”

“If it wasn’t for people like her, you wouldn’t be on the air,” says Jack.

“You mean ‘Lesson One in Famous Broadcasters School: Be nice to your fans. Where would we be without them?’ Because you can become a slave to that.”

“It’s not such bad advice,” says Jack. “I think when you’re in the public eye, you have to put yourself out a bit. I’m not saying I’m in the same boat as you, but I know a little bit about being nice to the people whose dues pay my salary. If you don’t like getting interrupted at restaurants, you should find another line of work.”

“Or eat at home,” I say.

Bernice emits a disgusted huff. How could we ever understand the life of a famous person? “Let’s change the subject,” she says. “What are we eating?”

“It’s my treat,” says Jack.

“No, it is not,” says Bernice.

“We’re grown-ups. You don’t always have to treat,” I say, looking at Dwight.

“You save your money for your mortgage payments,” says Jack. “After you’re married and you’ve established some kind of financial schedule you can pick up the check. But I insist this time.”

“All
right!”
says Bernice, “This is boring. You pay. I don’t care.”

“Good. Let’s have some moo shu pork with those pancakes. And how about cashew chicken?”

Bernice laughs and says, “For a change.”

“Their whole crispy fish is good,” I say.

“Too exotic for Jack.”

“Do we want a shrimp dish?” asks Dwight. “Shrimp with garlic sauce?”

“Sure. And one more,” says Jack.

“Noodles—house special noodles,” I say.

“She has my metabolism,” says Bernice.

“Jack’s pretty svelte,” I say.

“That’s true,” Bernice murmurs without looking up from the menu. We catch the waiter’s attention. Bernice recites our list, adding her own adjectives—that marvelous shrimp with garlic sauce, those fabulous house special noodles. After he leaves, Bernice smiles coyly. I detect a self-consciously naughty statement bubbling up inside her. “No,” she says to us. “I shouldn’t.” She takes a sip of her wine and studies the glass.

“What?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“C’mon,” says Dwight.

She leans sideways and says to Jack, “April thinks you and I need to talk.”

“Oh, yeah?” he asks.

“She thinks we need to turn back the clock sexually.” Bernice stops. “Am I quoting you accurately?”

“I didn’t mean for this to be a public forum.”

“What?” Jack asks. “What are we talking about here?”

“This is between the two of you,” I say.

Bernice blinks at me determinedly. She adds a slight jerk of her head until I get it and say, “Maybe Dwight and I will go for a walk until the food comes.”

Jack squints at me, then Bernice. “The food’s coming,” he tries.

“We’ll be right back. Once around the block.”

“Is it safe around here?” asks Jack.

I lead Dwight to the front door and out to the sidewalk. I tell him they need time alone.

“So do we.” He squeezes my hand.

“I didn’t want to be there when she says, ‘Jack, have you ever had a total-body massage on satin sheets?’”

“‘
fabulous
total-body massage—’” “‘And do you mind if I wear transparent French underwear while I straddle your body?’” I add.

Dwight fakes a start toward the restaurant. I pull him back.

“I might be missing some classically excruciating question, though,” he says. “‘How does Jack Remuzzi
really
feel, in here, inside, about the woman he called Bernie—’”

I put my fingers in my ears, close my eyes, and rattle my tongue noisily to block out hypothetical Bernice questions.

Dwight stops me with a kiss; his face is warm. I remember noticing in the restaurant a touch of sunburn on his cheeks, and I tell him how beautiful he looks, even in the dark.

They leave together after dinner, Jack’s van following Bernice’s white Mercedes. We are told that she’s leading him to 93 North because he gets mixed up on Storrow Drive and ends up at the airport. Dwight and I try to look convinced; we know he can get to 93 North blindfolded. Jack rubs his face during her explanation, leaving the suggestion of a sheepish smile.

We watch them pull away from their parking spots. Bernice honks and signals; the Ponemah Country Club van noses out and they are gone. I wave nonchalantly, as if Jack really needs directions, as if Bernice isn’t lying. As if, in my head, I haven’t tied old shoes and tin cans to their bumpers.

T
wo weeks later, Bernice calls me the afternoon of our Thursday dinner date and tells me I should dress up. She feels, well … festive! Summer dresses will make us lovely and give us the option of eating elegant or casual. She personally is going to wear her gold silk sheath with the Mandarin collar and cap sleeves. Assuming it meets with my approval?

I wear my new navy blue Laura Ashley dress, long-waisted and vaguely sailorish, selected to complement my engagement ring. It is Trude’s diamond. Dwight has had it reset in yellow gold, flanked by triangular sapphires. Bernice hasn’t seen it yet, and I won’t tell her that the heart of it was my mother’s. I want her to fuss over it and play with my hand in the candlelight as if no food or conversation could detract from its glory. The first day I wore the ring to school I thought it would hypnotize my class—that thirty pairs of eyes would follow my newly
adorned hand through every gesture. No one said anything. Not one pair of eyes focused on my finger. When I picked up my mail in the main office, I waved to Anne-Marie from across the room. She was on the phone, but pointed to my hand, rocked in her chair, and mimed a scream which, if executed, would have been grounds for psychiatric leave.

When I arrive at Bernice’s, she says she is dying for fish. Legal Sea Foods, or that café in Copley Place? She’ll call and see which place has the shorter wait. The doorbell rings a minute later as Bernice is looking up a number. “Get that, please,” she sings from the kitchen.

Smiling women, faces I know, are standing outside like carolers, each holding a lit silver candle and a wrapped present. They are singing, “I’ll be with you in apple blossom time … I’ll be with you to change your name to mine….” Bernice is at my side suddenly, her arm around my waist. Belatedly they yell “Surprise!” as I stare stupidly, then burst into tears. They file past me into Bernice’s living room: Anne-Marie; Dwight’s mother and sister Lorraine; Bernice’s stylish TV assistants; my high school friends Lizzie and Joan, whom I haven’t seen since my mother’s funeral; Sheryl Kierstead and Rita McDonald, whose homerooms flank mine at QHS; and finally, Sonia. Yards behind them is the hired help, a handsome young man wearing a T-shirt tuxedo.

“It’s a bridal shower, you dope,” says Anne-Marie when we are all inside. I begin pointing and introducing the disparate guests, but they drown me out with good-natured groans about how, after hiding out together in a neighbor’s apartment for an hour, they’re hardly strangers. Bernice’s refrigerator, it turns out, is packed with the pot-luck contributions. The Harvard Student Employment worker is immediately on the job pulling off plastic
wrap and turning the counter into a buffet table. Exotic flowers are released from their hiding place in Bernice’s shower.

“I prayed you wouldn’t open the fridge or use the bathroom,” Bernice shouts to me over everyone’s head.

I tell her it is the nicest surprise ever. The planning, the organizing, the birds of paradise against the black of her kitchen.

“This is what I’m best at,” she says. “Didn’t I tell you that once? I am made for this role.” It is true. Bernice is laughing with every task, working side by side with the student. She participates socially, it seems, by remote control, monitoring conversations in every room and yelling her comments across the kitchen’s half-wall, happily, good-naturedly.

Only Sonia is familiar enough to return her loud shouts of laughter. She winks at me when she sees me listening to their badinage.

I walk to her side and say, “I’m awfully glad you’re here.”

She grabs me for a long hug and tells me I look great.
“And,
lemme look!” She holds my left hand in her open palm and peers at my new ring. “Absolutely gorgeous,” she says. “Wear it in good health.” We both smile down at it. I return some of her compliments: she is stunning tonight in her taupe jersey dress.

“Do you believe how this has turned out?” she murmurs, wiping her coral lipstick off my cheek. “I never thought I’d hear from her again.”

I tell her I’m sorry—Bernice pressed me for the name of my informant and I buckled under. I tell her we should have no regrets, though; just the opposite. Even Bernice would say everything turned out okay.

“About the fatherhood thing? About Jack?”

I nod. “I’m really very fond of him.”

“She told me.”

“You know they never got divorced?”

Sonia closes her eyes and says, “Unbelievable.”

“Did she tell you the whole story—how they went to court but the judge threw them out? Now they date.”

“I know. It’s ludicrous.”

“No, it’s not. He’s very sweet.”

Sonia nods slowly, analytically. “And you think that’s what Bernice is compatible with? Sweet?”

I laugh. “Who the hell knows what she’s compatible with?”

“You’re sweet.
Jack
is sweet. I’m sweet, for chrissakes. Bernice is not sweet. Why push them together and make both of them miserable? She’d eat him alive. Let him divorce her and find some nice little woman to live happily ever after with.”

“You think Bernice wants that, too?”

“Sure she wants that. She likes him…. She
appreciates
him in her own peculiar way—a nice-looking escort, the father of her child, available at relatively short notice. No demands.” She smiles slyly. “Let me amend that—no demands she
objects
to….”

I ask her what she means.

Sonia measures the distance between us and the nearest eavesdropper. “Bernice and I are talking again. Really talking. And I’m not shy about asking questions.”

I look over at Bernice, still bustling happily. “She does look happy,” I say.

Sonia squints at me. “You think it’s that simple—she looks happy because of Jack? Because they
satisfy
each other when it’s mutually convenient?”

“No—”

“Because this arrangement of theirs is not a reconciliation. I’m talking about a truce, an understanding, with fringe benefits.”

I say maybe Bernice is putting on an act, pretending it’s all modern convenience so Sonia won’t give her a hard time. Maybe she and Jack actually have something—

“You want everyone to have what you have, which is darling, of course, but it’s a fantasy, isn’t it? A daughter’s wish for two effectively spouseless, maybe desperately lonely people?”

“I’m not the only one. Dwight thinks it’s possible.”

“Because he’s darling, too, sweetie. He wants you to be happy. And he knows you
think
you want them back together. You want an intact family that can just shrink itself down to normal proportions—”

“I want Bernice to have someone besides me.”

“Which is lovely. She’d love your saying that. And they are adorable as a squabbling couple. But they don’t belong together. As much as you and Dwight belong together, that’s how much Jack and Bernice don’t.”

I say I’m not so sure.

She pats my arm and smiles wisely. She turns and asks how all of these people fit into my life. Dwight’s mother, she decides, is handsome in a tall, pioneer-woman kind of way. I offer to take her around. “I can do that myself. You mingle.”

Before I walk away I ask, “Has Bernice told you explicitly that she and Jack won’t get back together?”

Sonia touches my cheek, adjusts the rotation of my head so we are looking directly at each other. I watch her outlined coral lips say “It does not affect you. He is not divorcing his daughter. Repeat after me: I am not going to lose him again.”