My Latest Grievance (15 page)

She pointed to her head, her heart, and, most embarrassingly,
her lap, all the while narrating, "I love him here, and here, and here! Every way that one human being loves another."

"This fast?" asked my mother.

"There's only one word that describes something this huge and instantaneous," said Laura Lee, "and that word is 'electric.' Which neither Eric nor I had experienced in our entire lives; not to this degree, anyway. What were we supposed to do? Walk away?"

"Does that mean that every time there are sparks between two people, you act on it?" asked Father Ralph.

"It's complicated," said my father. "One reads the signs; one examines one's own loyalties and commitments, one's own various codes of ethics and mores. One asks, Is this merely hormonal, or is it something more profound?"

"Are those inquiries one makes aloud?" Ralph asked.

"No," said my father.

"Well, wait," said my mother. "Mating dances in humans can be very elaborated and varied—"

"It wasn't a mating dance," said Laura Lee. "It was combustion."

"I wish I'd been there," said Ralph.

"When did he call you?" I asked her.

"That night. October twenty-seventh. He must have gone directly to his office and called my extension. I knew he would. I'd gone straight home myself—took a tea bag and a congo bar with me so I could have dessert by my phone. That's how sure I was."

"What did he say?" Ralph asked.

Laura Lee closed her eyes. "He said my name. Actually he said just 'Laura,' which he's since corrected. He said something neutral, in case he'd overestimated the, the—how would I define it?—opening fireworks. He said, 'This is Eric.' Just 'Eric.' Not 'President Woodbury.' Not 'Dr. Woodbury.' Just 'Eric.' I said, 'I know.' And then of course, it was on to the practical stuff"

"Which is what?" asked Ralph.

"The wheres. The hows. The whens."

"Can you be specific?" Ralph asked.

"Well, first I'll state the obvious: Eric and I both knew the subtext of any meeting. We weren't talking about a professional chitchat between a housemother and her boss—"

"Technically, he's not your boss," said my mother. "You report to the dean of residential life."

"I know that, Aviva," said Laura Lee.

I asked, "How long after that night did you and Dr. Woodbury sleep together?"

Laura Lee looked around the table. "Do I have her parents' permission to answer that? Because I can just as easily say 'Never. He's a married man. We're just colleagues and very good friends.'"

"We always prefer the truth," said my father. "Even if it's unsavory."

Laura Lee turned slightly in her seat to face me squarely. "The night we met, October twenty-seventh."

"No. When did you
do
it?"

Ralph swallowed audibly. I remember thinking that regular, nonprofessional parents would adjourn this meeting now, or at least forbid me to say another word.

"I just told you," said Laura Lee. "Thursday, October twenty-seventh."

"That same night?" I asked.

"Why is this so amazing? We met at dinner, no later than six
P.M.,
and we were off the phone before seven-thirty." She counted on the fingers of her left hand, "Bathe, dress, find my way over to the Olmstead."

"The Olmstead?" asked Ralph.

"The Olmstead Hotel? It's outside the city, in a suburb I'd rather not name, which is exactly why we chose it."

I looked at my parents and saw two faces projecting a single conclusion:
We've brought an amoral and exceedingly indiscreet woman to Dewing.

"Have I offended someone?" asked Laura Lee.

"They didn't want to believe the rumor," I said. "They're a little stunned that you're admitting everything."

My mother silently nominated my father to speak for the Hatches.

"Aviva and I are looking for some self-doubt," said my father. "Some hesitation, some remorse over the fact that innocent people may be hurt."

"Not if they don't find out!" said Laura Lee.

Ralph weighed in with the inevitable religious view of an all-seeing and all-knowing God, that more was at stake than a wife's sorrow or a wife's catching on, i.e., eternal life in the kingdom of heaven.

"Perhaps the word David is looking for is 'culpability,'" said my mother. "We hear you talking about this affair as if you're congratulating yourself."

Laura Lee said, "Both of you will excuse me for not feigning remorse when I'm the happiest I've ever been in my entire life."

"And you don't want her to lie, do you?" I asked the table.

"I want her not to sin," said Ralph.

"I'm not even Catholic," said Laura Lee. "I couldn't even tell you what sins fall under which categories."

"Thou shalt not commit adultery," said Father Ralph. "Is that not a part of your religion?"

Laura Lee said, "I belong to the Church of You Only Go Around Once in Life."

She wasn't trying to make a joke, but I giggled, causing Father Ralph to take the whole business out on me. "Do you know what blasphemy means? You don't make up churches to fit your romantic leanings, and you don't brush aside the Ten Commandments for carnal convenience."

"Maybe she's kidding," I said. "Maybe Laura Lee's exaggerating."

"Maybe I am," said Laura Lee. "Maybe I know a captive audience when I see one. Maybe I like to shock people. Or I'm inventing tales just to tease David and Aviva."

"Which would make perfect sense," I pointed out, "since they slept together while he was still married to Laura Lee."

"That's quite enough," said my father.

"Aren't I a good actress?" said Laura Lee. "Didn't I have everyone on the edge of their seats?"

"
Excellent
actress," I agreed.

"Trust me. No one's breaking any commandments, Ralph, and no one's disrupting any happy marriages," said Laura Lee.

For once, my parents let a sentence pass without regurgitating or torturing it.

"I pray you're right," Ralph said.

"You need a new name," said Laura Lee. "A symbol of your new beginning. How does that feel? Strange? Parental? Liberating?"

He smiled shyly. "My middle name is Joseph. I always liked that. I always wished that had been my first name, and people could call me Joe. Like a regular boy ... like an outfielder."

"Mint chocolate chip, Joe?" I asked.

H
ISTORICALLY, WHEN THE DORMS
closed for Christmas, we went to my grandmother's house in Adams, Massachusetts. She took her acculturation duties seriously, intent on exposing her half-breed granddaughter to as many Christmas table linens, heirloom cookies, and Yuletide songs as one uncommitted Presbyterian could provide. Holidays had meant five of us when my grandfather was alive. Since then, we would recruit the occasional stranded foreign student, who didn't mind hearing which ornament signified what passage in my father's infancy. The year Laura Lee came to Dewing, my grandmother proposed a plan of transportation that was so logical that no son or daughter-in-law could find it objectionable: We would drive Laura Lee as far as Adams, where her mother would pick her up for the last leg of the trip to Schenectady. Surely we were all comfortable around each other by now, correct? Bygones had become bygones?

"That's it?" my mother asked my father. "We drive her across the state?"

"Not entirely," he answered. "We may have to factor in Christmas dinner with the extended family.

"Call her back right now," said my mother.

My father looked at his watch. "She was heading for bed," he said.

Aviva dialed just the same, advising me between numbers, "You might want to observe how I handle this."

Her bare feet slapped the kitchen linoleum as she paced, winding her finger in the longest curly cord on the market. After a businesslike "Jane? Aviva," my mother listened, winced, opened her mouth, closed it, and finally said, "If you're saying that it's her rightful place at the table, then why don't I stay behind? It can be like old times—you, David, and Laura Lee. Frederica and I can go to my brother's in Montclair."

I stopped pretending that I wasn't listening. "
Can
we?" I asked. My Montclair uncle had two teenage sons with drivers' licenses, a Cairn terrier who acted in a soap opera, and a collection of arcade-worthy pinball machines.

"That's true," my mother was saying. "He
doesn't
celebrate Christmas—being both my brother and a Jew." She held the phone out to me. I declined with a shake of my head. "Your grandmother wants to talk to you," she pressed.

My grandmother went right to the cross-examination: Would I want to break tradition and spend Christmas celebrating Hanukkah at my uncle's house rather than come to Adams?

I said carefully, eyes on my mother, "I don't think Aviva was serious about changing our plans. She's used to taking votes and doing everything by committee."

"Tell me the truth," said my grandmother. "Is it going to be very awkward for all of you to travel together?"

"Not
very
awkward," I said.

"Bibi and I just assumed that your parents are educated in the social sciences and deal with awkward situations and disgruntled professors every day, so this wouldn't upset any apple cart. Twenty-four hours shouldn't be a strain."

"The ride only takes three hours," I said.

"I know that."

"But you said, 'twenty-four.'"

In a voice that conveyed
let me put this into plain English,
she continued. "You'll arrive on Christmas Eve. Bibi is coming for Christmas dinner on Sunday. I hardly thought it was fair to ask her
to make an extra trip to pick up Laura Lee on
Saturday,
especially if the roads are bad. We'll eat in the dining room. I ordered a fourteen-pound turkey."

I said, "That sounds like a lot of work—feeding us on Saturday night, then another big meal on Sunday."

My unsuspecting mother gestured, No, don't ask her to change plans. Christmas Day, Christmas Eve—what's the difference?

"I can't imagine Christmas Day without Christmas dinner," my grandmother was saying. "And I can't imagine Christmas dinner without extended family. Bibi is my only living first cousin in New England. Oh, and bring a dress."

Strictly speaking, Bibi and Jane were second cousins, and Schenectady was not in New England. I asked why I'd never met this Bibi at previous holiday meals.

"Timing," said my grandmother. "I think you know to what I refer."

"Has she ever met Mom?"

"Who?" asked my mother. "Has who ever met me?"

"Bibi. Laura Lee's mother."

"Never," said Aviva from across the room, as my grandmother was saying, "Bibi came to your parents' wedding."

"Did she crash it?"

"Of course not."

"Did she make a scene?"

"Bibi? Of course not. I invited her on the condition that she behave. She didn't stay for the reception."

"How come you never told them?"

"Where's your father?" my grandmother asked.

"At a meeting."

"At this hour?"

"There was a crisis somewhere," I said.

"Don't let your parents forget about Laura Lee," said my grandmother.

"Unlikely," I said.

"If you don't go, I won't either," I heard my father pledge the following afternoon. School had recessed at noon for Christmas vacation and I was wrapping presents in my room. "We'll put Frederica on a bus, and you and I will spend the holiday at a hotel."

It was my own fault. Second honeymoons were easy when you had a daughter who could fend for herself, who could now roast a bird, and whose ID card gave her entrée to an unchaperoned life.

I left my room and sat down on the piano bench. "You'd refuse to go to Adams all because of Laura Lee?" I asked my father.

"No. Out of respect for your mother," said David.

"I'm the wife of record," said Aviva. "I know your grandmother will never make peace with the divorce, but I've been happily married to her son for eighteen years, and I've produced a daughter that any open-minded grandmother would say was worth the rupture."

"Really?"

"Have we not conveyed that?" asked my mother. "Because if we haven't, I'm very concerned."

"Not so much lately," I answered. "Especially that part about putting me on a bus."

"That was conjecture," said my mother. "That was Daddy being gallant in the face of his mother playing favorites."

"Has anyone even passed along this Christmas invitation to Laura Lee?" my father asked. "Wouldn't it be ironic if all of this was the plotting of the two mothers, and no one had brought the proposal to the table?"

"Interesting question," said my mother.

"Call Laura Lee and ask her directly," I volunteered. "Or I will."

"For once," said my father, "would you consider keeping out of this matter?"

"Fine," I said. "I'll leave you two to your executive session. I hope I haven't used up too much space or oxygen in the past sixteen years."

One or both asked where I was going.

"Out."

"Don't leave campus," said my father.

"Do you have your ID?" asked my mother.

I patted it, through my clothes, against my sternum.

"Let's have dinner together," said my father. "Six at Curran?"

"No, thank you," I said.

"Then you name the time," said my mother. "Because we're definitely eating together tonight so this doesn't escalate."

"We could go out to a restaurant," my father offered.

I was slightly torn, remembering there were éclairs on the campus menu. "What restaurant?" I asked.

"Coach House?" he wheedled.

"Maybe," I said. "If you insist."

As I headed for our front door, my parka bunched under one arm, I heard, "Another father might tell you to put that coat on and zip it up."

I turned around. "Just tell me, then! Pretend you're the kind of father who tells his kid to put on her coat so she won't catch a cold."

"We don't tell you what to do," said my father. "If you want to get chilled, it's really none of our business."

I said, "Since when does reverse psychology work on me?"

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.