“Massage is a documented remedy for sadness,” Mrs. Simpson says, handing me a gift certificate and patting my shoulder like I’m a household pet. Lindsey beams with pride over the incredible generosity of her family. How freaking annoying. I look at a crack in the ceiling until I can open my mouth without informing them a back rub won’t cure shit.
Getting out of this town can’t come soon enough. The only person I’ll miss is my mom’s friend Paige. She at least has the balls to admit this whole thing sucks and leave it at that. Everyone else is either a moron or offensive. Usually it’s adults who piss me off and my friends I find stupid. Lindsey and her mom just managed to accomplish both with one sentence. I know they mean well, but I’m starting to see that the high-school social scene is a math formula. What you look like + athleticism + the clothes you wear = who you hang out with. I’m pretty enough, MVP of the tennis team, and wear mostly J.Crew, so I date the cocaptain of the soccer team who wears mostly Abercrombie and we hang out with the other athletes as long as they don’t buy clothes from Target. Lindsey and I are about equal in where we fall on this plastic equation, so we’re besties. It’s lame.
I shove the gift certificate in my backpack and beeline to the parking lot. It was another miserable day in my new miserable life and I just want to go home and sleep through the rest of the school year. But John is at my car.
“Hey, beautiful,” he says, certain I’m happy to see him. Before Good Friday I would’ve blushed and given him a peck on the cheek, but you can’t fake blush and I don’t have the energy to get on my tippy-toes.
“I paid for our share of the limo today. What time do you wanna meet at Lindsey’s for the preparty?”
“Preparty?”
His eyes bug out. “Prom? Next Saturday?”
Now my eyes bug out. How does he expect me to go from dead mom to the prom? Or dead mom to kissing? Or dead mom to anything at all? If I go with John, we’ll probably win Junior Court and I’ll have to pretend I actually care. It’ll be impossible to look grateful for the honor of wearing a fake tiara, sitting on the back of a Jag convertible on loan from Kara’s dad’s dealership, and waving to a crowd of people who are all wondering what horrible, unmentionable things happened during my childhood. If I don’t go, the guidance counselor will consider it a “red flag” and pull me from class for another progress report on where I am at “dealing with my grief.” I decide to play both sides. I’ll buy a stupid dress so people assume I’m going and then claim pinkeye like my mom did the night she bailed on her twentieth high-school reunion. She claimed it was the perfect excuse because it’s highly contagious but only lasts a day.
“Right. Prom,” I say. “I’ll check on the preparty and let you know.”
“Great.”
He stands there waiting for more—an invite to hang out at my house, a promise to call later tonight, a hug, something. A small wave is all I have to give.
When Dad gets home from work, I approach him about prom-dress shopping. It’s ten past seven; the stores close at nine. “Why didn’t you go this afternoon?” he asks, as if I created the prom to bug him.
“Mom liked to approve what I picked out. You should see some of the choices.”
He loosens his tie and shakes his head as though that’s the dumbest thing he’s heard all day. “Well, I trust you.”
I bite my tongue hard with my molars because I can’t stand his expression when I cry. “Pretty sure Mom trusted me too.”
He sighs. I exhaust him. He disappoints me. “That’s not what I meant, Bean. You know that’s not what I meant. I just can’t fathom anything I want to do less than go to a mall right now.”
Oh. My. God. How did I miss what an ass he is when Mom was alive? No wonder she bailed. “Don’t call me Bean. I am not, like, five.” I turn to the stairs.
“Come on, Eve,” he says to my back. “Don’t be dramatic. It’s a damn dress. Take the credit card and get one tomorrow. Or ask Paige to take you. She only has boys. She’d love—”
I slam my door.
Last year, Mom and I made a whole day of dress shopping for homecoming. We went to Newbury Street, got our nails done in a matching hot-pink color, and had lunch at a fancy Italian café. She even let me sip her chardonnay. I pretended to be surprised by the taste. She laughed and said, “I’m not as clueless as you wish I were.” Then she asked whether I trust her.
“Of course I do,” I said.
“Good. Tell me a secret.” I thought about it. We were sitting in a window booth. Every woman who walked by looked so put together, so confident. I remember wishing I were older. I pictured Mom as a coworker or a college roommate or the wife of one of my husband’s colleagues. When I snapped back to reality, she was still waiting for a reply. Mom wasn’t afraid of silence. She claimed when you gave people time to think you got a better answer. I had loads of little secrets I could disclose to make her happy, but I wanted to be clever, so instead I said, “I’ll tell you a secret, if you tell me one.”
“Deal,” she replied, rubbing her hands together. “You go first.”
I smiled. “I’ve heard you and Dad before, like, at night.”
Mom gasped, but then smirked. “Fine,” she said. “Two can play at this game. My secret is that Christie Anderson called last month to say she saw you and John under their deck, and you had your hand down his pants.” She took a bite of her caprese salad, satisfied.
I stared at her in complete shock. “Shut up! What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
She raised her eyebrows. “I should ask the same question.”
“Mom, seriously, why?”
She smiled to let me know it was all in good fun. “For a lot of reasons. Christie is a ruthless gossip. I didn’t want her to be the basis for one of our talks.”
“And?”
“And … and … so what? We’ve talked about all that stuff. I trust that if you need anything, advice or anything at all, you’ll come to me.”
It was confusing. She never dodged hot topics. I have friends whose mothers get all cray-cray over hand-holding. Not my mom. She figured that stuff was natural. Last year I confronted her, disgusted, with a tube of K-Y I found in her nightstand. “I don’t get why you’re upset,” she said, not bothering to ask what business I had in her room. “You’re mad I have vaginal dryness?” When she worded it like that I felt silly.
“So why tell me now?” I asked.
“You embarrassed me, so I wanted to embarrass you.”
That was how she was: ask a question, get an answer. We laughed nervously for a couple minutes before moving on to safer topics. It was a great day.
I obviously didn’t expect my father to re-create that Newbury Street scene on a Tuesday night with one hour to shop, but I had hopes for something. It’s laughable since I don’t plan to wear it either way, but I pictured coming out of the fitting room after trying on a few dresses and him saying, “That’s the one, Eve. You look wonderful.”
Instead, he offered his credit card. Typical.
Brady
“Thank you, it looks delicious,” I say without looking. The door is almost shut when she thrusts her arm out as if to hold an elevator.
What’s with the divorcées in this neighborhood? They scare the shit out of me.