Keep Your Mouth Shut And Wear Beige Part 24

I had to think that Rose had had it worse than me. Claudia had simply wanted me not to exist. She thought she could get away with ignoring me. Jill Allyn want to humiliate Rose.

"She has not said one word to me about you," Guy say to Jill Allyn. His voice was firm. "She wouldn't. But I hope you haven't canceled your other reservation, because, except for the bridesmaids, we're sticking to the original plan. We're only having family at the house."

"But, Guy," she protested, "I am family, you know that. I'm Rose's best friend."

"Then why aren't you at the hospital with her?"

"Oh, hospitals." She shrugged. "I don't do well in hospitals, and my galleys came back on Wednesday. I have to read those. You know that."

"And no author in the history of mankind has been late with their galleys? You can't have it both ways, Jill Allyn. Either you are Rose's friend and you do what Darcy has been doing-you drop everything and move heaven and earth to help her-or you are one of our clients and all we want from you is that you do your job. Pick one-friend or client."

"But I'm both," she cried. "That's how it's always been."

"No, that's how it used to be, but it hasn't been that way in a very long time." Then with the lightning-fast, never-look-back decisiveness that had made him who he was, he made up his mind. "You know what, Jill Allyn, you're not worth it. You aren't worth it as a client, and you certainly are not worth it as a friend."

He paid no attention to her gasp. "What does your contract with us say? Thirty days' notice from either party? This is your notice from me. The Zander-Brown Agency is no longer representing you. Mary Beth will fax you a copy of that on Monday, and she'll return whatever ma.n.u.scripts we have." Then he turned his back to her, moving to the car. "I believe we're ready, Darcy."

A minute later we were at the end of the driveway. "Did she call Rose small?" he demanded. "Did she actually call Rose small?"

Why was this a surprise to him? "Did you mean that, not working with her anymore?"

"I sometimes torture people, but I rarely bluff, and I certainly wasn't then." He was drumming his fingers on the console between the two seats, but after a moment he flattened his hand on the padded surface. He was forcing himself to relax. "Okay, we're done thinking about her. We're done thinking about anything. We're going to have a very good time this evening even if we feel like Pip with Miss Haversham ordering him to play."

I could, in complete honesty, a.s.sure him that I would not feel like that.

At the restaurant, I went back to see if anyone had found the shoes I'd left behind yesterday. No one had, but the staff abandoned their ch.o.r.es to cl.u.s.ter around me, eager to hear how Finney was doing, even more eager to praise me for what I'd done. Even the chef came forward to shake my hand.

I pointed out the dark-haired waitress to Guy. He drew her into a corner of the kitchen and spoke to her softly. A minute later, she had her hands over her face. She was crying. Good tears, I a.s.sumed.

Word about my willingness to stick a kitchen knife into a little boy's throat spread among the guests, and I soon found myself as much the center of attention as Cami. In the hospital, grateful families may send fruit baskets to the nurses' station or write nice letters that go in your personnel file, but you rarely see that family again. I wasn't used to the personal accolades I was getting that evening, and after a while I ran out of ways to respond. It began to get a little embarra.s.sing.

I appealed to Guy for help. "How can I get people to shut up about this?"

"You can't," he said bluntly. "We always told our kids that they have to accept the consequences of their own actions. Now you're stuck with the consequences of yours."

"Just like the waitress-roll up a towel, monitor a pulse, and you're stuck with years more of schooling."

"Exactly," he agreed, "although I'd like to point out that she's being much more gallant about facing her fate than you are."

"You're right. I shouldn't complain. I'm only embarra.s.sed. She has to learn the names for all the bones in the foot."

And, let's face it, I did prefer this sort of embarra.s.sment to the one resulting from being seated at the losers' table.

I.

had volunteered to spend the night in the hospital so that Rose and Guy could get a decent night's sleep. I drove myself there; Rose would take my car back to Mec.o.x Road.

I parked, found Finney's room, and eased the door open. He was asleep, curled up on his side, one hand under his cheek. The sheets on his bed were white, and the loosely woven thermal blanket was pale blue. He looked very small. I leaned forward to kiss his forehead. He had a white bandage at the base of his neck.

Rose had been dozing in a recliner. It was a tangle of blankets and pillows. She started to straighten them, but I stopped her. "I can do that.

"And I am going to let you."

I gave her the car keys and helped her gather up her things. The bookmark between the pages of Wives and Daughters suggested that she had read nearly two-thirds of it, and it was probably six hundred pages long. "Do you want me to leave this here for you?" she asked. "It's really good."

"Ah . . . no, that's okay." I had finally remembered that Pip and Miss Haversham were from Charles d.i.c.kens's Great Expectations. I had done my duty by the Victorian novelists.

I settled into the recliner. At midnight, the nurse came in to take Finney's vitals. His temperature was normal, and he was oriented to his surroundings. He was in the hospital, and I was Darcy, not Mommy. He clearly wanted Rose, but I told him that I worked in a place like this and I liked places like this and as long as I was here, he would like it, and after a bit, he believed me.

He wasn't sleepy, so I took some things out of my purse-my phone, a tube of ChapStick, a parking stub, a credit card, a coin, about ten items in all. I laid them out on the tray table and had Finney look at them. Then I covered them with a towel and took one away. He did surprisingly well although it was harder when I rearranged the objects. Rose had said that his sense of s.p.a.ce was one of his strongest cognitive abilities. We played for nearly twenty minutes.

At six, Guy came in, smelling like fresh soap and shaving cream. I explained the game I'd played with Finney, knowing that Finney would probably want to play it again when he woke up. Guy patted his pockets, verifying that he had enough equipment to stock the tray table.

The house was quiet when I got back to Mec.o.x Road; everything was orderly and peaceful. I went up to my room to shower and change clothes. By the time I came back downstairs, both nieces were in the kitchen, laying out breakfast. A line of trucks was coming up the driveway, and the day had started.

It was a relief to know that nothing could be perfect. At ten o'clock, Rose and I sat down to redo the seating chart. It was a mess. We didn't know for sure who was coming and who wasn't. There were going to be empty seats; we just didn't know which ones. So I suggested that we alert the t.i.tle IX bridesmaids, Trish the volleyball captain and Jamie the c.o.xswain, they should get guests to switch seats if any of the tables were too empty.

"You do the best you can," Rose said, "and send flowers in the morning."

I looked up from the little escort-card envelopes that I was restuffing. "Where did you hear that?"

"Oh." She realized what she had said. "The same place you did, of course. Don't tell me that you haven't been reading Claudia's Web site. I won't believe it for a minute."

"When did you start?"

"Early enough to be tempted to buy red dishes to use at Thanksgiving. They would have looked awful with amber place-mats. And I also think that you do look better with a bust pad."

I grimaced, and she laughed-we were two girls giggling in the halls of junior high.

We made mistakes. If we had thought about the cake on Thursday, we might have been able to arrange for a less elaborate one, but we hadn't. It arrived in all its architectural, camellia-coated glory. Nor had we given the music any thought. Clearly we should have called the woodwinds who were going to play during the ceremony, paid them a cancellation fee, and asked the strings to come an hour or so early. We hadn't done that either.

So the woodwinds showed up several hours before the event was to start, expecting to play during the wedding ceremony and for a respectful crowd waiting beforehand. Guy and I were outside when they arrived, and he explained what had happened. Could they just play until the strings showed up?

Oh, no. They did not play background for a c.o.c.ktail party. And they weren't an opening act for a string quartet. They had accepted this engagement for the exposure. They knew who was on the guest list; they wanted to play. This event had been a career-building move for them. Apparently they too had had an agenda that had nothing to do with Jeremy and Cami.

Their proposal was that people should gather quietly and listen to them. Guy's proposal was that he would pay them and they would go away. No, they thought that they should be ent.i.tled to more than the original fee because this engagement would have led to others. Not playing would result in their occurring damages, and they should be compensated.

Guy invited them to sue him for these alleged damages. He further said that their suit would stand far more of a chance if he didn't pay them at all. In fact, if they really were planning on calling in the lawyers, it would be so much better for them if he didn't pay them. He'd actually be doing them a favor by not paying them.

They decided to take his check.

The bridesmaids had been looking forward to the hair and makeup session, so we didn't change those arrangements. This time the hair stylist brought two a.s.sistants and the makeup artist brought three. I tried to hide from them, but, like everyone else, they had heard about my little adventure as a combat medic, and one of the many a.s.sistants was sent to track me down. The makeup lady used a lot less gunk than she had on Thursday, and I actually liked the results. There was something about my eyes, and I don't know what it was . . . I just looked like a slightly better version of me.

I took another one of the mesh helmets and went up to my third-floor nanny's room to put on my amethyst Neiman Marcus, muted-print, low-contrast, mottled-leaves mother-of-the-groom dress.

This was a dark spot on my day. I wished that I loved this dress the way Jeremy had loved his first sports uniform. He'd been four years old, and his T-ball team had been issued red T-shirts and red ball caps. Jeremy's shirt had hung to his knees; the cap fit like a lampshade. But he'd loved them; they'd made him feel like a Hall of Fame athlete. He'd worn the shirt to his pre-K morning cla.s.ses; he'd slept in it. In fact, the bottom sheet on his bed developed a pinkish cast in the shape of his little torso. When I would wash the shirt, he'd hover near the washer, listening to the machine thunk and vibrate.

I wanted to feel that way about my dress. I wanted to love it. I wanted to feel transformed in it. I wanted to feel that that dress was worth every penny I had spent on it. I wanted to feel that I was worth every penny I had spent on it.

But I didn't. I picked up the scissors and slowly, reluctantly, reached under my arm to cut the tags. The great big number made me sick, but I didn't have a choice. I hadn't brought any other dress with me.

I had the scissors open, the blades on either side of the tag's strings when I stopped. I dropped the scissors onto the bed and marched down the back stairs and through the second-floor hall, the tags swinging under my armpit. I knocked on Rose's door.

She was in bed, propped up against the pillows. Guy was on the other side of the ma.s.sive room, b.u.t.toning his shirt. My father was spending the evening in the hospital so that they wouldn't have to worry about Finney too much.

"How nice you look," Guy said immediately. "What a pretty dress."

"Oh, shut up," I said, then turned to Rose. "I don't know much about sisters, but I do know they borrow each other's clothes. So-"

"In our family," Guy said, "they steal each other's clothes. At least Annie does."

I ignored him. "So, if you want to be all sisterly, lend me something to wear so that I can return this dress, and then I can afford to take a vacation this summer."

Rose swung her legs off the edge of the bed and went to her closet. "I've got more things in Brooklyn, but I think I've got something that would work." She disappeared into the closet.

I saw Guy looking at me. "No," I said. "No, you don't."

He threw up his hands, pretending to be innocent. "What did I do?"

"Nothing yet. But you're standing there, trying to figure out how to give me a vacation."

"It wasn't going to be a vacation," he defended himself. "Just a spa weekend, you and Rose, ma.s.sages, facials, wheat-germ breakfasts on trays by the pool."

Oh. That didn't sound half bad. I had never done anything like that. I needed to work on my heart-to-heart girl-talk skills; a thick white spa robe would be a great practice uniform.

If the world were truly a perfect place, Rose would have come out of the closet carrying the violet-blue dress with magenta and scarlet poppies. But the world is not perfect. She had an armful of turquoise green. Guy had already taken the cue to disappear, so I unzipped the amethyst dress and, half mindful of my hair and makeup, stuck my head through the neckline of the turquoise one.

I looked in the mirror. There was no doubt that the dress would have looked better on Rose. The low neckline needed her curves, and the looseness she needed around the hips made the dress look a bit sacky on me.

"It's too big. Maybe it would look better with a belt." Rose bunched up the fabric at the back of my waist and stared at me in the mirror. "Annie could tell us."

"No. I'm done. This is perfect." I turned and looked at the side view. Maybe I should go put on a padded bra.

Rose looked at me again. "No, it isn't perfect. It isn't bad, but it certainly isn't perfect."

"Oh, but we're done with trying to make anything perfect."

Rose nodded, agreeing. She opened her jewelry box and handed me a silver necklace and earrings. They were chunky and sort of primitive-looking, and they helped. Then, ten minutes later, Annie got her hands on me. She found a silver belt, raided everyone's jewelry boxes for more silver jewelry, and I thought I ended up looking pretty good . . . although the champagne that one of the bridesmaids was pa.s.sing around probably helped my vision a bit.

I.

nstead of making the theatrical entrance usual to a wedding, the young men and women of the wedding party were already in the garden to greet the guests as they arrived. Cami, even without her veil, looked magical; the white of her dress glowed against the weathered stone walls and walkways. The bridesmaids were everywhere; their soft green silk dresses fluttered as they moved. Instead of carrying bouquets, they had sprigs of flowers twisted in their hair; they looked like the morning fairies who come out after dawn to brush the dew off the roses.

I doubt that any of the guests truly minded not having to sit through a wedding ceremony. Instead of sitting in upright chairs, obediently silent, they seemed happy to start mingling immediately, drinking, talking, and laughing. I was surprised at how pleasant so many of them were. Of course, I said the same thing over and over . . . I was Jeremy's mom . . . yes, everything was beautiful . . . an emergency tracheotomy, that was nothing, what anyone would have done.

Again I was treated like a heroine. In fact, a few of the men glanced at my left hand and asked if I ever came to New York. I must have looked better in turquoise than I'd thought.

One of the men said he would be coming to D.C. a lot on business because his married daughter lived there and was about to have her first baby. He asked for my number, and I gave it to him.

Nothing might come of it. He might never call. I might not like him . . . although I could pretty much guarantee that I would like the baby. But if he had asked for my number a year ago, there would have been no hope. I would have judged him only by the extent to which he was or was not Mike. Now, at least I would be able to see him as . . . as whatever his name was. I had already forgotten it.

The sun was slanting, leaving golden shadows across the lawn. The catering staff drew back the curtains on the big dining tent. I went to stand on the bridge to look at the tables from there.

Each table was different. Some were round, some were square. Every tablecloth was a different color, but they were all the soft colors of a misty English garden-violet, lavender, and lilac, primrose, lemon, and b.u.t.tercup, and every shade of pink. Nor did the chairs match. Some were wood, some were wicker, some wrought iron, some gilded. Everything was unstudied, informal, and inviting.

I saw Mike break free from a group and climb up the low arch of the bridge to join me.

"You look very nice," he said.

"Foil," I said.

"I beg your pardon? Did you just call me a fool?"

"No, I said *foil' as in aluminum foil. To make dinner for one person." I started talking fast. "Put some vegetables on a piece of foil, you may have to steam them in the microwave first. Then lay a piece of fish or a deboned chicken breast on top of them, brush it with a little olive oil, maybe some soy sauce. Add some fresh herbs if you have them. Fold the foil into a little packet, but tent it so there's room for steam. Put it in the oven for fifteen or twenty minutes. Make some rice in the microwave and then you've got the kind of homecooked meal that you've been missing."

"Wait . . . wait . . ." he said. "How much olive oil? What herbs? And what was that about microwaving the vegetables first? How do I know?"

"I'll e-mail it to you. I wrote it all out for Dad after Mom died. His dilled salmon with honeyed carrots is the talk of the retirement home."

"Would you? That would great. The one thing I haven't figured out about living alone is a decent homecooked meal."

I could have told him how to do this a couple of years ago. "Mike, if I ask you something, will you understand that I'm not trying to get into your pants?"

He blinked. "I suppose I can stipulate to that . . . although I am eager to hear why I need to do so."

"Do you want to go on a trip together this summer? Vacations are the one thing I haven't figured out. Do you know how we always talked about going to the national parks in Utah? Let's fly out there, rent an RV, and be road b.u.ms for a couple of weeks."

"Just you and me?"

"We can invite the boys and Cami, or even see if Rose and Guy want to get an RV for themselves, but let's go even if no one else can. It would be fun to cook in one of those little kitchens."

"If you're cooking, I'm coming."

In a perfect magenta and scarlet world, I would want to trade recipes with every woman he got involved with, and he would want to golf with every beau of mine. That was probably too much to expect, but at least we had gotten to a place where we could try. I was never going to read anyone's blog again.

Rose and Guy came up to join us. Rose had her hand through his arm. I'd never seen the two of them walking so closely together. They needed to do that more often.

"Do you want to come to Utah with us this summer?" I asked. "We're going to rent an RV. I think they make them so that the bathrooms don't smell."

"An RV?" Rose drew back, surprised. "The two of you?"

"We're happy to make a caravan of it. You've got to admit that Finney would love it, a little bed over the cab of the truck or one that somehow becomes the table during the day. What eight-year-old wouldn't adore that?"

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Why not?"

"Can I bring someone to drive ours?" Guy asked.