So Jenny would fill her in about her future in-laws, and Sarah would send Ben a text. You can talk about politics with the husband (he votes Republican) or sports (Jets fan). The wife went to Italy last year with her book group (travel? reading?). They have a son with Down syndrome in an institution, so no retard jokes!
Sarah had tried to get Ben to show more of an interest in people, to be more open to new experiences—they’d gone to counseling about it for two weeks, before Ben told her he’d rather cut off his ears than “listen to that woman for another day”—but eventually she’d done what most wives do and just gave up. So now it was she who had to make the extra effort to ensure that social engagements went well.
Jenny was waiting for her outside the main entrance. She had on flared slacks and a T-shirt, with her hair in the kind of beret the girls were wearing these days.
“Mom,” she called when Sarah didn’t see her right away.
“Sorry,” her mother said, “my eyes are shot. Your father keeps telling me to go to the eye doctor, but who has time?”
They hugged briefly, efficiently, then moved inside.
“I got here early, so I got us tickets,” said Jenny.
Sarah tried to shove a hundred-dollar bill in her hand.
“Mom, don’t be silly. I’m happy to pay.”
“For a cab later,” her mother said jabbing the bill at her like a flyer to a mattress store they shoved at you on the street, but Jenny turned away and handed their tickets to the docent, and Sarah was forced to put the bill back in her wallet.
“I heard the best stuff is upstairs,” said Jenny. “So maybe we should start at the top.”
“Whatever you want, dear.”
They waited for the elevator and rode up in silence. Behind them a Latin family talked in animated Spanish, the woman berating her husband. Sarah had studied Spanish in high school, though she hadn’t kept up. She recognized the words for “motorcycle” and “babysitter,” and it was clear from the exchange that something extramarital may have occurred. At their feet, two young children played games on handheld devices, their faces lit an eerie blue.
“Shane’s nervous about tonight,” Jenny said after they exited the elevator. “It’s so cute.”
“The first time I met your father’s parents, I threw up,” Sarah told her.
“Really?”
“Yes, but I think it might have been the clam chowder I had at lunch.”
“Oh, Mom,” said Jenny, smiling, “you’re so funny.” Jenny always told her friends that her mother was “slightly batty.” Sarah knew it, or sensed it on some level. And she was—what’s the word?—a little absentminded, a little, well—sometimes she made unique connections in her head. And didn’t Robin Williams have the same quality? Or other, you know, innovative thinkers.
So now you’re Robin Williams? Ben would say.
“Well, he doesn’t have to be nervous,” said Sarah. “We don’t bite.”
“Class is a real thing,” Jenny told her. “I mean again. The divide, you know. Rich people and—I mean, Shane’s parents aren’t poor, but—”
“It’s dinner at Bali, not class warfare. And besides, we’re not that rich.”
“When was the last time you flew commercial?”
“Last winter to Aspen.”
Her daughter made a sound as if to say, Do you hear yourself?
“We’re not billionaires, dear. This is Manhattan, you know. Some of the parties we go to, I feel like the help.”
“You own a yacht.”
“It’s not a—it’s a sailboat, and I told your father not to buy it. Is that who we are now, I said, boat people? But you know him when he gets an idea.”
“Whatever. The point is, he’s nervous, so will you please—I don’t know—keep it light.”
“You’re talking to the woman who charmed a Swedish prince, and boy was he a sourpuss.”
With this they entered the main gallery space. Oversize canvases lined the walls, each a gesture of will. Thoughts and ideas reduced to lines and color. Sarah tried to let her daily brain go, to quiet the constant natter of thoughts, the chronic to-do list of modern life, but it was hard. The more you had, the more you worried. That was what she’d decided.
When Jenny was born, they’d lived in a two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side. Ben earned eighty thousand a year as a runner at the exchange. But he was handsome and good at making people laugh, and he knew how to seize an opportunity, so two years later he had graduated to trader and was pulling in four times that amount. They’d moved east to a co-op in the sixties and started buying groceries at Citarella.