Chapter Fifteen
"Isn’t this wonderful?” Richard beams across the table at Jess and Carrie, the soft candlelight in Mario’s casting a flattering golden glow over everyone. “My two favorite girls together, all of us having dinner as a family.”
Carrie catches sight of Jess rolling her eyes, but she reaches out and takes Richard’s hand, relieved that finally there is calm in the house, bracing herself for the next outburst.
She realizes now that she hadn’t been the slightest bit prepared for Jess moving in. She had still carried a fantasy of them all living happily ever after, believing that a large part of Jess’s behavior was due to adolescence, and living with a mother who didn’t seem able to stop her appalling behavior.
“No child of mine would ever behave like that,” she’d told one of her editors at lunch just the other day. “I can’t believe the mother puts up with it. I would never allow it.”
“Why do you think she does?” the editor had asked.
“I think she’s probably too frightened of the tantrums. Everyone is.”
“Even Richard?”
“Especially Richard,” Carrie had groaned. “Jess has everyone wrapped around her little finger. She knows exactly when to scream, and for how long, to get her own way.”
“How old is she again?”
“I know . . .” Carrie had sighed in exasperation. “Thirteen. Going on thirty.”
Earlier today, before dinner, they had all gone to the farmers’ market. Richard and Carrie were holding hands, when Carrie was shoved roughly out of the way by Jess, who inserted herself between them, grabbing her father’s hand and squeezing herself up against him.
Carrie stepped aside, and Richard disengaged himself.
“Why, Daddy?” Jess started to whine. “I want to hold your hand.”
“I was walking with Carrie,” he said. “You just shoved her out of the way. Here, you go on my other side.”
“No, Daddy!” The whine got louder. “I want to walk on this side. Why does she have to come anyway?” Jess turned and shot an evil look at Carrie, who pretended not to see.
“Jess, come on. Be nice.”
“Why?” Jess pouted. “Why do I have to be nice?” And suddenly she started to scream. “I hate her,” she shouted, standing in the middle of the street and stamping her foot while people stopped and stared. “I hate her. Why does she have to live with us? She ruins everything.”
Carrie watched, feeling sick. Sick with anxiety, with frustration. She watched Richard take Jess aside to talk to her, Jess collapsing in sobs as Richard put his arms around her to soothe her. Twenty minutes later he walked Jess over to Carrie to apologize, but Carrie had seen Jess get exactly what she wanted: her father’s undivided attention for twenty minutes, while Carrie was left standing on the sidelines.
The editor had paused to order another glass of wine before looking back at Carrie. “If the mother isn’t setting boundaries, and Richard isn’t, do you think you can?”
Carrie had shrugged. “I don’t think it’s my place. I don’t want to act like a parent, that’s not my job. And anyway, I think she’d hate me even more.”
“Does she hate you?”
“I don’t think so, not really. I think if it weren’t for the fact that her father and I were living together, we’d get on like a house on fire.”
“You like her?”
“I love her. And her pain reminds me of when I was young. When she’s nice I adore her, and when she starts with the tantrums I just think she’s the most awful child I’ve ever met.”
“You sound like you’ve really got your hands full,” the editor had said.
“I have. But”—Carrie had smiled—“I love him. And this is a young girl in a lot of pain. It will sort itself out. It has to.”
“I’d love a story on it,” the editor had said. “Being an unofficial stepmother.”
“Not yet,” Carrie had replied. “Or perhaps under a pseudonym. ” And they’d both laughed.
Carrie thinks about that lunch, thinks about how complicated this relationship is, when Jess sidles up to her after they get home from Mario’s, and offers to help her dry the mugs in the sink.
“Can I watch Gossip Girl tonight? Please?” she says. Carrie sees Richard smile out of the corner of her eye, and she looks at Jess in surprise. This is the first time Jess has asked permission of Carrie for anything, treating Carrie like a parent.
“What time is it?”
“Nine. Please, Carrie? Can we watch it together? I really want you to see it and I promise I’ll go to bed straight after.”
“Promise?”
“Does that mean it’s a yes?” Carrie nods and Jess leaps up with joy and flings her arms around Carrie. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You’re the best!” And as Carrie reaches down to hug her in return she finds her eyes have filled with tears. Perhaps this is the breakthrough she has been waiting for.
Daff puts down the phone and sighs. Jess always sounds so distant when she phones. She remembers a colleague of hers, a divorced mother, saying she never phoned her kids when they were at their dad’s, always waited for them to call her because she would usually be interrupting them and they weren’t in the mood to talk to her and she would end up feeling unsatisfied and upset.
Daff knows that it is better to wait for Jess to call her, but she is so frightened Jess won’t call her, so frightened she is losing her daughter, that she can’t resist calling, even when Jess clearly doesn’t want to talk to her.
Her phone rings again and she snatches it up, hoping it’s Jess, calling back, wanting to chat.
"Daff? It’s Laura. How are you?”
“I’m great, Laura, how are you?”
“Good. I’m just ringing to see if I should pick you up.”
There’s a silence as Daff’s mind starts working furiously. “I feel completely stupid,” she says eventually, “but pick me up for what?”
“Oh Daff !” Laura starts to laugh. “You said you’d come to PJ’s tonight, remember? It’s singles night? I’m going with the girls.”
Daff groans inwardly. She had said she’d come, but that was weeks ago, and at the time it had seemed an abstract concept. The last thing she wanted to do tonight was get dressed up and go out with a friend from work. She was looking forward to a hot bath, climbing into bed in some oversized pajamas, and spending the night watching back-to-back Law & Orders.
“I . . . was that tonight? Oh Laura, I didn’t realize it was tonight . . .”
“What are you doing? You can’t make an excuse.”
“I’m just exhausted,” Daff tries lamely. “I’m planning on an early night.”
“No way,” Laura says. “I’m not letting you off the hook that easily. We’re meeting there at seven and you have to come.”
“I really don’t think . . .”
“Daff, when was the last time you went out and had some fun? I’ve been divorced much longer than you, and I remember those early days of getting into bed and watching television, but you can’t do that forever. I know you can’t use Jess as an excuse, and I promise you we’ll have a good time. If you hate it you can leave, but you have to at least try it.”
An hour later Daff walks into PJ’s, squeezing through the throngs of people, looking around for Laura and trying not to look desperate.
What the hell am I doing here? she thinks, hoping there is no one she knows sitting in the restaurant who might peer down and see her, obviously single, definitely not searching—but they aren’t to know that.
The women who surround her are dressed up to the nines— little black dresses, halter-necked sundresses in bright colors, tan skin exposed, tottering in super-high platform shoes. Everyone is made up, dressed up, the men in slacks and polo shirts, everyone looking around to see who is there, who has just arrived, who might be worth talking to.
Oh God, Daff thinks, not seeing Laura. Can this get any worse?
PJ’s has always been a thriving restaurant, but for years the large deck overlooking the water had been underused.
Occasionally they hosted weddings on the deck, and they had a few plastic tables and chairs, but it wasn’t until new owners took over and transformed it into a bar that PJ’s became a serious destination.
They started singles nights on Thursdays and Sundays, live bands on Saturdays, and quickly found that people came from miles away to cram onto the deck, drink frozen margaritas, flirt with the cute barmen they employed every summer. If there is such a thing as a professional singles scene, then PJ’s is the epicenter, the place where singles, divorcées and even the secretly married come looking for adventure, come to find love.
Perhaps not love. There is something too mercenary about the people here, they look jaded, look like they’re too busy searching to ever actually find—the thrill is all about the chase, the flirtation, the conquest, rather than finding a happy ever after.
“Hello!” Daff is leaning on the bar waiting for the barman to notice her, figuring that at least if she has a drink in hand it will give her something to do while she waits for Laura to arrive. She looks down to see a short man with a large smile grinning lasciviously at her.
“Hello,” she says, turning back to the barman, willing him to come over, to notice her, to get her a drink so she can get away from this man.
“I haven’t seen you here before,” he says. “I’m Adam.”
“Hi.” She doesn’t want to tell him her name, but nor does she want to appear rude. “I’m Daff,” she says eventually, hoping that if she sounds unfriendly he might go away.
“So is this your first time?”
“Um, yes.”
“Divorced?”
“Yes.”
“Me too. Can I get you a drink?”
“I don’t know. Can you?” Daff is now exasperated. “I’ve been standing here for about fifteen minutes and the barmen haven’t even noticed me.”
“Hey! Nick!” Adam cups his hands around his mouth and hollers. “Get over here and get the lady a drink!” The barman looks over and grins at him, and seconds later Daff is sipping a strawberry daiquiri.
“Thanks,” she says with a smile. “That was very kind of you.”
“I suffer from knight in shining armor syndrome,” he says. “How about trying to find a table so we can sit down and get to know one another?”
“That’s . . . well . . . I’m meeting friends and I think I should probably stay by the bar.”
“Okey-dokey. Fine by me. So tell me all about yourself, Daff. Why is a beautiful woman like yourself coming to a place like PJ’s on a Thursday night?”
Damn good question, Daff thinks. Why indeed?
An hour later Daff stands up, ready to go. Adam, while not her type in the slightest, has been her savior, for Laura has not appeared, and Daff is ready to kill her, but at least she has not had to stand around looking desperate, and has been able to have a perfectly fine conversation with Adam.
“Leaving so soon?” Adam says, when Daff finally says she really has to get home.
“I need to get back for the babysitter,” she lies. “But thank you again.”
“Let me walk you to your car.” Adam jumps off his bar stool and takes her arm. Daff stiffens. This was not what she had in mind, but her car is close, and soon she will be rid of him, safely back at home.
“Can I call you?” Adam says, as Daff presses the button to unlock the doors.
“You know, you’ve been very sweet,” Daff says, “but I’m really not ready to date anyone just yet.”
“Who said anything about dating?” Adam grins. “I was just hoping for a kiss goodnight.”
Daff looks at him in horror.
“I’m kidding,” he says, and she forces a laugh.
“Seriously, though,” he persists, “I’d really like your number. I’m not looking to date anyone either, but perhaps you and I could make one another happy in different ways.” He raises a confident eyebrow at her.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, don’t you get lonely going to bed by yourself every night? I find friends with benefits to be the easiest solution. You and I both stand to win. No commitment, just passion.” He growls on the last word and moves closer, putting an arm around Daff’s waist.
“Oh Jesus,” Daff groans, shoving him away and getting in the car, gunning the engine without waiting to see what he’s saying, although she glances in her rearview mirror as she drives off and he’s shouting something.
“That was the worst night of my life,” she says out loud as she drives home. “Not only am I going to kill Laura, I’m never ever going to a singles night anywhere for as long as I live.”
It’s not even as though Daff wants a relationship. What she wants, right now, is to find herself again. When she was married, she knew who she was. Perhaps she wasn’t entirely true to herself— she always felt, married to Richard, she was playing a role, being the dutiful wife, the loving mother, to the extent that she stopped thinking about what it was that would make her happy—but now that she’s no longer married she realizes she doesn’t have a clear definition of who she is.
Living in this small suburban town where everyone is married, everyone is defined by their role in the community, their involvement in school, she doesn’t have a role anymore.
Slowly, she realizes, her social life has dropped off. The couples they were friends with are no longer her friends. Friendly, yes, but she is no longer invited to dinner parties and get-togethers on her own, unless there is a single man someone wants to introduce her to, but they are few and far between.
She runs into those women sometimes at the grocery store, their carts piled high with industrial packs of Bounty, giant plastic bottles of Tide, three quarts of fat-free organic milk, and she feels self-conscious about her own shopping, particularly now that Jess is no longer at home—a couple of yogurts, sliced ham from the deli, a small packet of organic granola and half a pint of milk.
“We must get together,” the women will say, eyeing her small hand-held basket with pity as they pretend to be embarrassed at all their provisions. “Groceries,” they’ll say with a sigh. “Isn’t this a pain?”
Soon after the divorce she had read in the local paper about a women’s support group. She had gone, not because she particularly wanted support, but because she was lonely, was still trying to adjust to not having a husband to cook for, to having to do everything herself, and was hoping to meet some other women who had shared her experience, perhaps find friends, women she could get together with and have dinner, a coffee perhaps.
But she had found it frightening and toxic. A room full of bitter, angry women, each of whom seemed to have a worse story about the awful ex-husbands in their lives, from abuse, to laziness, to infidelity. Daff left the room each time in a deep depression.
“What about your husband?” someone would invariably ask as they lined up by the coffee machine in the break, and Daff, who could have regaled them with stories of Richard’s affair, chose instead to shrug and say it was just one of those things that didn’t work out, and they quickly lost interest.
What she needs now, she realizes, is a fresh start. A change of scene. She is booked on the ferry to Nantucket in three days, and she needs this rest more than she has ever needed anything. She needs to get away from home, needs to lie on beaches with stacks of good books, hell, maybe even start painting again. She needs to remember who she was before she became a wife, a mother and, most recently, a divorcée.
She needs to decide who she’s going to be next.