Our drinks arrive, frothy on top with extra lime juice, just the way Yvette makes them at home. We meet our glasses in the center of the table. “To the best medicine there is.” Yvette does not mean gin. Sometimes I wonder if Jen’s frigidity is a rebellion against her mother’s resounding sex positivity.
Yvette tips her drink to her lips and laughs. “My daughter would die of embarrassment if I ever said such a thing in front of her. Speaking of. I heard you saw her recently.” Her eyebrows slump together. They really only express in two directions: together or apart, concerned or conserving energy. Nothing surprises her enough to raise them anymore, though I could tell her some things.
“She looks really healthy,” I tell Yvette, earnestly. It’s a complicated dance, to be friends with the mother of a woman neither of us likes very much. My party line is this: I respect Jen but not necessarily the message her business sends to women, a hugely more forgiving position than Yvette has taken. If anything, my friendship with Yvette is predicated on her disappointment in her daughter’s chosen profession and the positive spin I put on it. I remind her how impressive it is that Jen helms a multimillion-dollar company, that the investors have not felt the need to bring in a seasoned single Y chromosome to oil the machine. “That’s a big deal, Yvette. Something to be really proud of,” I’m always telling her, and sometimes I wonder if Yvette is even putting on her contempt a little bit. To force me to find things I admire about Jen.
“She’s doing really well,” Yvette says. “Professionally, that is. I just worry about her. I know she wants to find someone, to get married, and to have children. It feels like the show has steered her away from all of that.”
The pianist holds the final key of “Tupelo Honey” and Yvette claps bossily, so that others put down their drinks and follow her lead. My heart races the applause as I ready myself to say what I came here to say. “Yvette, this is awkward. But I think Jen is trying to sabotage me.”
Yvette appears truly stricken on my behalf. “Sabotage you?”
My eyes get a little teary because for a moment, I consider telling her everything. The truth. If anyone could understand it, it might be her.
Yvette’s gentle gray eyes get even gentler. “Darling girl! What is it?”
I immediately change my mind. I cannot take the risk that Yvette may never look at me like this again, may never call me darling girl. “It has to do with the show.”
Yvette makes a tickled noise that means What now. Yvette was once signed on as a recurring character, but she politely recused herself when Lisa became the showrunner in season two, the season our principles went down and our ratings went up. She’s concerned we are contributing to a culture that paints female friendships as catty, conniving, and deceitful, rather than bucking that stereotype, as was the show’s original intention. I hear that but unfortunately, no one is interested in watching a bunch of women get along. Jesse says it’s our burden as the first feminist reality show to make the show palatable to the unwashed masses. She says it’s no different than what I’ve done with SPOKE: helping third-world women by charging first-world women twenty-seven dollars to listen to Lady Gaga and pedal nowhere. Maybe one day we will live in a world that will binge on five independently successful women doing nothing but building each other up. Until then, we have to occasionally knock each other down.
“You know I told you that this year it was my turn to plan the trip,” I say, “and that I wanted to take everyone to Morocco and introduce them to the women who are getting so much out of the bikes.”
“It’s wonderful,” Yvette rests a cocktail straw next to the base of her glass, “when the show gets to be what it is.”
“Except it’s not happening anymore.”
“I don’t understand,” Yvette says, lifting one hand in her confusion. “Why not?”
I give her the streamlined version: I had a falling-out with Stephanie, and the others seem to have chosen sides—her side—and now we may not be going to Morocco after all. I feel completely cheated out of a trip and unsupported by the other women when all I’ve ever done is support them, and worse, like I’ve misled my investors. I sold them on SPOKE getting a lot of airtime this season and now I’m worried they’re going to feel duped.
“Here’s what I think,” Yvette says when I’ve finished my ramble. “First, breathe. Breathe. Take a deep breath and remember that whether or not the show gives Morocco the full treatment, it has no bearing on all the good you will do there.”
Yvette pauses, and I realize she actually wants me to breathe. I take a deep inhale and look at her expectantly. She doesn’t say anything so I take another.
“That being said,” Yvette continues, appeased, “I don’t believe in just sitting aside and letting others trample all over you. Stephanie has done a brave thing in telling her story, and I appreciate all she is doing to help women who have experienced similar traumas, but that does not make her beyond reproach. She is a very commanding personality and I don’t think she always uses that power for good. Nearly all women can stand adversity, but if you want to test someone’s character, give her power. Lincoln said that.”
“You knew Lincoln too?”
“I’m that old, yes. And he was a great man.” She draws her hands a foot apart, scrutinizes the distance, and adds another inch. “The greatest.”
“Yvette!” I laugh.
“Good. See? You’re laughing. Not dying.” Her head traces the pattern of the music as she thinks for a moment. “I think you and my daughter need a face-to-face. No Lauren. No Stephanie. No Jesse and please God, no Lisa.” Yvette grimaces. “I know you and Jen haven’t always gotten along but Jen knows what it’s like to have a lot to lose. I think you could appeal to her.”
That was an odd thing to say—Jen knows what it’s like to have a lot to lose—but I don’t dig. I’ve already asked too much of her. “I feel like she’ll never agree to meet me,” I say.
Yvette hmmms, holding up her finger when she’s got something. “How about this? We’ll be at the house next week. Why don’t you come out for the night? It will be peaceful. Private. You haven’t even seen the remodel yet.”
Jen and Yvette’s 1880s whaler’s cottage underwent an extensive face-lift this spring. I hear the East Hampton town council is none too pleased about it, which must mean it’s spectacular.
“Huh.” I consider. “I guess I could fold some work into it. You know we’re doing this temporary yoga studio in Montauk and they’re building out the old hardware store.”
“Make it about work, don’t make it about work, just come, Brett. You don’t need an excuse to stay with me. You’re family.”
Yvette swipes her knuckle against my cheek, affectionately. Would she still love me like a daughter if she knew the truth? I lower my chin and take a lengthy pull from my cocktail straw. She would. I’m sure of it. It’s not that bad, what happened.
Or is that just the Tanqueray, telling stories?
CHAPTER 6
* * *
Stephanie
I can hear the empty bottle of Sancerre in Lauren’s laugh from the hallway. I rap my knuckles on Jen’s door, inciting a fit of barking and a searing rebuke from Jen.