We Could Be Beautiful (12 page)

“Your hair is longer than mine!” I said.

“I haven’t cut it for five years.”

I had a feeling she meant that literally. “Wow.”

Besides having a fabulous time—this was a day to enjoy, Catherine, a day to enjoy—I was anxious. The host is always anxious. I checked the doorway again. Still not here. And there was a dead leaf on the ground. And one of the model-caterers seemed to be perspiring too heavily. I knew all those guys did coke and thought, No one better OD at my party.

“Are you having a nice time?” I asked Maya, who sipped her champagne with her pinkie extended straight out.

She swallowed and said, “Oh my God, are you kidding? This is fly.” She touched my arm. “So fly.”

“Good,” I said, trying to give the impression that it barely mattered to me what she thought.

In the doorway, not my mother but Vera with one of her sons.

“Hey you guys!” Maya wrapped her arms around them both.

“Hi Vera.” I hugged her lightly, a boss hug. “And hello,” I said to the boy, who must have been about fourteen.

Vera nudged him. “Introduce yourself.”

The poor thing was covered in volcanic acne, and when he opened his mouth to say, “I’m Dorian,” the sun glinted off the metal braces in his mouth.

“So good to meet you finally,” I said, sensing right as I said it that the
finally
had been too much.

“Yeah,” he said, the end upturned like a question. I wondered what terrible things his mother said about me at home, and hoped she was a good enough mother to tell only her husband these things and keep the kids out of it. Not that I cared.

“You look great,” I told Vera. At least she was looking more serene than usual. Her outfit was a floral polyester nightmare from T.J. Maxx, but she did look relaxed.

“Hey,” Maya said to Dorian, who was on his phone now, “don’t drink too much, okay?” She winked.

He smiled without teeth—the braces smile.

“No drinking,” Vera said, too seriously. That woman could not take a joke.

“Mom, I won’t,” Dorian whined.

“Let’s go get you a nonalcoholic beverage from the bar,” I said, and motioned for him to follow.

“Lucia!” Maya said. She had spotted Lucia and Jeff standing over the flowerbeds. They tended to stick together at these things.

“Hola, ciao.”

They started speaking in Spanish.

“Hey, no working,” I said to Jeff, who was still wearing his gross work pants. “You’re here to have fun!”

A fleeting thought: Yeah, Catherine, take your own advice.

“What do you want? A Coke?” I asked Dorian. We were standing in front of the bartender now, who waited with his hands behind his back. This one looked less sweaty. Good.

“Ummm, yeah,” Dorian said.

“Be polite,” Vera said.

“Coke?” the bartender asked.

“Yes, please.”

“Vera, what would you like?”

“White wine if you have it.”

“Of course. We have chardonnay, pinot grigio…”

A hand on my shoulder and I turned around to find Dan, who looked great, and also like someone else. I’d never seen him in a suit before.

“I almost didn’t recognize you.”

He smiled in his easy way. I was glad he was there; maybe his calm would rub off on me.

“You look great,” he said.

“Really? I shouldn’t put my hair up?”

I moved it to the other side. I was beginning to feel too hot. Also, did Maya’s hair look better than mine? When I looked again—she was still talking to Lucia—I thought, No, mine looks better. Her ends were weirdly tapered.

“Can I get you a drink? Champagne?”

“I’ll have a Coke,” Dan said.

“Of course.”

He ordered it from the bartender, then said to Dorian, “What’s that, buddy?”

“Coke.”

“Cheers.”

Dorian still looked like he was hating life, but maybe a little bit less.

“Catherine!” Susan yelled. There she was in a gorgeous periwinkle dress, her makeup perfectly fresh and her arm around a man. It took me a second to realize the man was Henry, Susan’s too-young-to-date manager, who was apparently now her date. He had grown a short beard and looked older.

When I hugged her, I whispered, “What the hell?” into her ear, and she whispered back, through a plastered smile, “Tell me about it.”

Since the sushi restaurant, Susan hadn’t been calling with her usual frequency. This was because of Henry, I now saw. This meant that we were fine. We were just focusing on our love lives right now.

“Dan!” She kissed his cheek.

“Henry, it’s so nice to see you,” I said.

Caroline greeted me by punching my arm and saying, too loudly, “I can’t believe you got engaged while I was gone!” People turned to look because she was so loud, and then she took my hand and said, “Oh my God, this rock!” I loved her so much in that moment.

Bob was there, too, with Spencer and his large Jamaican nanny. It was afternoon; the twins were napping. Caroline and Bob looked tan and jovial. She wore a super-tight black dress (it looked good; she looked more like a socialite than a hooker today), and Bob was plump in his khaki slacks and his white button-up, which he’d unbuttoned too much—his curly gray chest hairs were offensive. Bob hated dressing up. It wasn’t his thing. He was from Maine.

“Where is the man in question?” Bob took two glasses of champagne off a passing tray and handed one to Caroline. “Take us to him,” he bellowed, ridiculous, like a cartoon king.

“Come, come,” I said, and led them to William, who was talking to Michael now. It seemed serious. Michael stood with his chest puffed out—he had a wide torso and disproportionately small legs—and was wagging his finger at William. William was captivated, or pretending to be, saying “Yes, absolutely, yes.”

“No work talk.” I took William’s arm. “Hi, babe.”

He kissed me. “Hi.”

“Lovely party,” Michael said. His reflective glasses were expensive and gaudy, and his bronzed skin shone like a penny.

“Thanks all to my future wife.” William kissed me again.

“I want you to meet Caroline and Bob.”

Caroline dove in for a squeeze-the-life-out-of-you hug. “Soooooo good to meet you.”

William respectfully patted her back. His face looked shocked, scared. My sister was scaring him. “You, too, Caroline,” he said.

She pulled back and held his arms. “Yay!” she squealed, like a kindergartner.

“Yay indeed,” William said, studying her face. I assumed he was comparing her face to mine. I wondered what he saw. He still looked shocked. I remember thinking he must have expected Caroline to look different somehow, or be different somehow; that explained his surprise.

“And Bob,” I said.

“Hello there,” Bob said in his ridiculous regal voice. He shook William’s hand with one firm jolt.

“He’s hot,” Caroline whispered to me.

Spencer pulled at my dress. “Aunt Catherine, I want to blow bubbles!”

“I don’t know if I have any bubbles, Spencer.” I looked around for Jeff.

“You want bubbles, sweetie?” Caroline touched his fine blond hair and Spencer smacked her hand away. “Where’s Tonia?”

Spencer pointed at her, his arm snapping straight. Tonia, the large Jamaican nanny, was at the buffet, making herself a plate of food.

“Go ask Tonia to buy you bubbles.” Caroline patted his back twice. “Go, go.”

Spencer took off running.

Bob was telling William about the epic boating conditions in Playa del Carmen. “I prefer sailboats as well,” William was saying.

“Mom’s here!” Caroline announced.

My body flushed and tingled with a wave of anxiety. “Great,” I said in my best hostess voice, nearly out of breath because I wasn’t breathing again.

Caroline waved like a lunatic. “Mom! Over here!”

William looked at me, unsure. I gave him a look that said, It’s okay, don’t worry, we will get through this together.

“Mom! Over here!” To me she said, “Oh good, she’s with the one I like.”

Caroline meant Evelyn, whose name she should have known by now.

Evelyn led Mom by the arm to an empty gray wooden bench that matched the flowerbeds. Mom wore a red dress, high at the neck, with flowing see-through sleeves and gold flats. It was a miracle Evelyn had convinced her to wear flats. She looked at her feet as she walked, holding on to Evelyn, who shaded Mom’s face with the large white hat she held up like a parasol. Mom looked old, hobbling along, her footsteps small and timid as though the earth would open up and swallow her if she stepped too far. I reminded myself that now she was the child and I was the parent, and nothing she said could be taken to heart.

“I’ll go talk to her.” Caroline pressed her birdlike body into mine and squeezed, and then she teetered away in her strappy silver heels toward Mom.

The band finished their song. In the pause before they started again, a woman in the street yelled, “Cunt fucker!” and I thought, Why me? It’s always something with me.

“Catherine, I love this guy.” Bob’s bald head looked like a turkey basting in the sun.

“So do I,” I said. William put his arm around me. We kissed. Bob said, “Oh, you two,” and someone else (was it drunk Dierdre?) yelled, “Get a room!”

“Should we go say hello to my mother?”

“Wonderful,” William said in a cheery way, though it was clear he didn’t think it was so wonderful. He squinted, dutiful, looking around the crowd until his eyes settled on my mother’s red shape. “I’ll go,” he said. “Excuse me.”

Bob started saying something else about boats—“It’s like a catamaran, but bigger”—but I wasn’t paying attention. I was watching William make his way through the crowd.

“Sorry, Bob, I’ll be right back.” I touched his arm so he would stop talking and left him. “One second, one second,” I said to all the people who wanted to start a conversation on the way.

Evelyn stood behind my mother like a secret service agent: serious rectangular sunglasses and her hands behind her back. She wore an unflattering, tight blue dress that accentuated the pearlike curve of her childbearing hips.

“Mrs. West?” William was saying. “Mrs. West?”

My mother looked straight ahead into nothing, saying nothing. Caroline, who had been nibbling on a cracker, now plopped herself down on the bench and put her arm around Mom.

“Get off me,” Mom said, recoiling.

“God, sor-ry.”

“I know you?” Evelyn said. It was unclear who she was talking to at first, or why she was talking at all. “I know you, mister?” She was looking at William.

William put his hand on his chest. “Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“I’m sure you have me confused with someone else,” William said.

“Huh,” Evelyn said. She obviously thought she was right, and she was obviously wrong.

“Mom?” I didn’t want to squat in my dress, but I did anyway. Because I was a good daughter. And it was just a dress. I put my hands on her knees, looked up into her face. Her eyes seemed to focus and then detach. Her lipstick had smeared onto her chin. I did the kind thing and pretended not to notice.

“Mrs. West doesn’t like crowds,” Evelyn barked, and scanned the perimeter.

“Want a drink, Mom? I’ll go get you one,” Caroline said, and sprang up, and I took her place there on the bench. William, who was standing squarely in front of my mother, put his hands in his pockets. Then Evelyn, out of nowhere, having apparently decided the sun was suddenly too much, decisively stuck my mother’s white hat on her head.

“No! Don’t touch me!” Mom took the hat off and held it up, expecting it to be taken from her. Evelyn waited. Mom waved the hat in jerking motions, threatening to throw, but before she could, Evelyn swiped the hat and put it firmly on her head again. “You will wear this hat, Mrs. West.”

Mom conceded with a frown.

“Here, Mom, I got you champagne.” Caroline held out the glass.

Mom seemed pleased with this. She took it gently by the stem and sipped.

“Mom,” I said, “do you remember William?”

Mom took another sip.

“Mom?”

“Where’s the girl?” Mom said, panic rising in her voice.

“Right here, Mrs. West. I’m right here behind you.”

“I need my purse.”

“No purse, Mrs. West.”

“I need my purse.” Mom turned to face Evelyn but couldn’t see her because the brim of her hat was in the way.

Evelyn pulled the brim back and said into my mother’s face, “No purse, Mrs. West. Drink your champagne.”

William kneeled now. “I apologize for breaking your vase, Mrs. West. I’m so very sorry. Will you forgive me?”

My mother looked at his face, her eyes wandering over every part of it. It took a choked gulp of air to make me realize I had stopped breathing again.

“Who do you say you are?”

“I am William.” He smiled. Beads of sweat gathered at his hairline because it was so hot.

“I know you,” my mother said slowly.

“Yes,” he said.

“Your parents.”

“Edward and Donna.”

“Stockton,” she whispered. Her hand began to tremble; the champagne swished up the sides of the glass, almost and then not quite spilling. She became aware of the problem and used her other hand to steady the glass. I remember thinking, I should have taken the glass out of her hand. Why hadn’t I thought of that faster?

“Mrs. West, I am sorry I broke your vase.” William’s face took on a strained apologetic look and froze there. The poor guy. He looked so innocent.

“You,” she said, and we all waited. “You, you, you. You…are, you are, you must, you…you must leave.”

“What the hell?” Caroline mouthed.

Evelyn rubbed my mother’s shoulders with force, and my mother seemed fine with that, her head bobbing like a ragdoll’s. “Be nice to the man,” Evelyn said. “He’s apologizing to you, Mrs. West.”

Mom turned away. Of course she did. That was so like her. William looked very disappointed. I felt so bad for him. He didn’t deserve this. I stood and softly, sadly wrapped my arms around his waist in a way that said, At least we have each other.

When the band paused between songs this time, the woman in the street yelled, “Rats, rats, rats, rats!”

“And now,” the bandleader said into the microphone, “I think it’s time for a little toast. William, my man, where are you?” The bandleader shaded his eyes with his hand. The chatter on the roof receded and receded until all eyes were on us.