Charmed Thirds (26 page)

I remember glaring at Marcus Flutie and thinking, “You are trouble.”

July 31st

Dear Hope,

Wow. The photos you sent truly capture your joie de vivre. (I wish I could have turned a more interesting phrase
en français,
but I’m having a hard enough time thinking in English lately.) Everything about France—the art, the food, the wine, the men—sounds awesome.

So you’ll forgive me (again) for another lame-ass letter. My life isn’t nearly as interesting as yours is right now, and all I really wanted to do here was thank you for sharing it with me.

Appreciatively yours,
 J.

July 31st

Dear Marcus,

I wrote you a letter last month that never reached you. It’s better that it didn’t because I wrote about a lot of things that you don’t need to know about.

I got your current address from your parents, so I know this one will arrive as it should.

The thing is, now that I know you’ll get this, I’m not sure what to say. I don’t know how to end. This letter, or anything.

My apologies,
 Jessica

the sixth

“It’s you!”

We both sounded surprised, though I had better reason to be. G-Money was merely reacting to the unexpected sight of his sister-in-law on his front doorstep. I was not only reacting to the unexpected sight of G-Money at the brownstone at all, but a G-Money who was easily thirty pounds heavier than the last time I saw him, six months ago. Atkins be damned! Papa D’s Donuts/Wally D’s Sweet Treat Shoppe franchise must have a huge profit margin because it’s obvious that G-Money’s gorging himself on the goods. In a white Wally D’s Sweet Treat Shoppe polo shirt straining at the seams, my formerly fit brother-in-law has become a doughy, creamy personification of the very junk foods he shills.

In fact, the only reason I knew he was my sister’s husband was because he answered the door with one finger in his chin dimple—only now we’d need a search party to extract the lost digit from this fearsome cavern of excess flesh. I mean, you know you’ve gotten a bit hefty when you can pinch an inch (or two or twelve) on your
chin.
G-Money was a wheezing, waddling example of negative publicity if I ever saw one, one that could do severe damage to his efforts at taking his franchise national.

“Bethany and Marin are at the park up the street,” he said. “You can meet them there.”

Fortunately, G-Money and I don’t really talk to each other so what could have been an awkward silence wasn’t really all that awkward.

“Good-bye,” he said, shutting the door.

As I walked to the park, I thought about what a waste G-Money was. I mean, he was obviously smart. Smart enough to generate tons of dough. (Ha. In more ways than one.) But I would actually respect him if he used his brain for something other than making money and clogging arteries. Can his chosen vocation really give him a sense of purpose in life? Or is lacking a sense of purpose a fair trade-off for a summer house in the Hamptons, a plasma TV, and a 2005
BMW
SUV? Meanwhile, I’m poor
and
I lack purpose.

I followed G-Money’s directions and easily found Bethany and Marin. Being the culture chameleon that she is, the former looked like all the other young, hip, and hipless Brooklyn moms, from her head scarf down to her flip-flops. Thankfully, the latter showed her individuality as the only child on the playground wearing flowered rubber galoshes, a Spider-Man T-shirt, a pink sparkly tutu, a foam rubber Statue of Liberty crown, and a plastic sheath for a sword, only without the weapon. It looked like something Dexy would wear if she were in a “rejuvenile” mood. I was shocked that Bethany would let her progeny out in public in such an ensemble.

“Auntie J! Auntie J!” Marin gushed when she saw me. I think she’s finally forgiven me for the nonbreakup breakup. I scooped her up and sniffed her hair. It smelled like muddy strawberries.

“What’s shakin’, bacon?”

“Marin,” she said, all huffy. “Not bacon.”

“Okeydokey, artichokey,” I said.

“Auntie J!” she cried with exasperation. “Marin! Not ach-i-okie!”

She knows I know this. It’s all part of our game. Marin has a good sense of humor, one that I hope G-Money and Bethany don’t bore right out of her.

“I play now!” she said. “Ta ta!” She blew me a kiss before galloping off to the sandbox.

I joined my smiling sister on the shady park bench.

“She’s a real character,” I said.

“She chose the outfit,” Bethany sighed. “‘Let them dress themselves to express themselves’ the books say. Of course, my child is the only one who looks like a crazy bag lady.”

“I’ll be looking like that soon enough,” I said.

“What’s your crisis now?”

“You know they bought this new house, right?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “Mom told me.”

“Did she tell you the part about where I’ll have to drop out of college and become one of those homeless people who shakes a can and carries a cardboard sign that says
NEED
MONEY
FOR
BOOZE
,
DRUGS
,
AND
HOOKERS?”

“I’m not sure that would be the most effective way to penetrate the market,” Bethany said, obviously having learned the lingo from her husband. “And what would you need hookers for anyway?”

Believe me when I say that these comments were made without a trace of irony.

“I’m being hyperbolic,” I said.

“Hyper—what?”

“Forget it,” I said, watching Marin shake her little fist at a red-haired boy a head taller than she was.

Bethany jumped up. “Marin! Listen to Mommy! Stop that! Play nice!” Bethany turned to me. “She thinks she’s the queen of the playground and can boss the other kids around.” She sat back down. “You’re overreacting.”

“Easy for you to say. You already graduated from college.”

That my parents paid for my sister’s Stockton State College “education” (the best five and a half years of her life!) yet won’t fund my Ivy League degree is a cruel, cruel joke. Okay. Maybe I’m not being fair. Stockton cost about $8,000 annually—roughly one quarter the price of a year at Columbia. And her degree really has done her good. After all, you can’t hang out at the park with your kid and shop for coordinating head scarves and flip-flops (or whatever else Bethany does to fill the endless expanse of nonworking days) without a college education.

Oh, that’s right.
You totally can.

“You should be happy for them,” Bethany said. “They’ve got this amazing new home. Mom’s new business is thriving . . .”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah, Darling Designs for Leaving is booked through the end of the year. You didn’t know?”

I shook my head.

“How could you stay with them for a whole month and not know?”

“We don’t talk much.”

“Maybe you should talk to them more,” she said. “Maybe you’d get along with them better if you did.”

“I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“Every time I talk to them they have something shitty to tell me.”

“Marin! Listen to Mommy!” Bethany yelled, jumping up. “We don’t hit with shovels!”

Marin froze in midswing, then dropped her weapon.

“Mom’s a savvy businesswoman?” I asked. “That’s so weird.”

“Why is it weird?”

“Well, the real estate thing always seemed more of, like, a hobby than a career. I know she was good at it and all, but it was hard to take her seriously because I’ve always thought of her as you know, just a mom . . .”

Bethany’s oceanic eyes turned dark and stormy. “Just a mom?!”

“You know what I mean . . .”

A never-before-seen vein popped out of my sister’s forehead.

“Just a mom.
That’s your problem, Jessie. You don’t have a clue just how many sacrifices Mom made for us. She stayed home to raise us. And as someone who is making the same decision, I can tell you that playing with a baby all day gets pretty boring.”

She furtively looked around to make sure no one had heard her. Then she pulled a pair of oversized aviator sunglasses out of her Prada diaper bag, as if to disguise herself for the rest of her diatribe.

“Yes, you heard me. I love Marin, but there are only so many tea parties I can sit through before I want to scream. I’m sure Mom felt the same way, but she did it for the same reason I’m doing it: She didn’t want anyone else taking care of her daughters. She only went into real estate part-time when you were too busy with after-school activities to be considered a latchkey kid. Did you ever think that maybe she wanted a career all those years she was home with us? That after thirty years, she’s tired of being
just a mom?
That they’re not paying for Columbia—a school they were against because it’s so expensive and you didn’t get a scholarship—because they’re finally giving you the freedom you’ve begged for since you were three years old? That maybe, just maybe, she bought the house of her dreams because she’s tired of putting her dreams aside for a daughter who never seems to appreciate it?”

Stunned. I was positively stunned by my sister’s speech. And not just because (a) the only time I’d seen her this worked up was when
MAC
discontinued her favorite lipstick color and (b) she sounded exactly like my mother. No, I was mostly shocked because I was certain that she was 100 percent right. Even now, this realization doesn’t make me any happier about my poverty, but at least I can sort of understand it. Sort of, but not quite.

“And while you’ve got me on a roll, I’ll tell you this: I think you’re upset about something else.”

“Oh really?” I asked, scraping paint off the park bench with my fingernail as a distraction because this was getting too intense.

“You’re upset that Marcus is at gay cowboy camp.”

Bethany can say this with a straight face because she has no sense of humor.

“Marcus is not at gay cowboy camp! It’s . . .” I tried coming up with a better way of explaining Pure Springs, but words failed me. I changed tacks. “Wait, how did you know about this?”

“From your friend.”

“What friend?”

“Wally D’s daughter. The tan skinny one.”

“Sara?”

She nodded. “We saw her at the Papa D’s/Wally D’s opening on the Point Pleasant boardwalk,” she said. “She flunked out of school . . .”

“Sara flunked out of school?!”

“Marin! Listen! We do not dump buckets of sand on people!” Bethany yelled to a very triumphant-looking Marin. She turned back to me. “Yes, she’s out of school, so her dad gave her a store.”

Of course he did. Papa D to the rescue. Normally I would’ve made fun of this. But truth be told, I was kind of jealous that my parents weren’t so carefree with their cash.

“Funny how Sara neglected to mention this while slandering my boyfriend at Tiki Tiki Tonga.”

For the first time throughout this whole conversation, Bethany turned and gave me her full attention. “Your
boyfriend?”

“My
ex-
boyfriend,” I said, as I tried to dig out the paint that had gotten under my first fingernail with a second fingernail on the opposite hand. This worked in removing the blue shmutz from the first fingernail, but only at the expense of transplanting it to the second fingernail. I couldn’t see how this pattern could correct itself. It was hopeless.

“Listen!” Bethany snapped. I was looking down, so I was expecting her to chastise Marin for more unlawful sandbox behavior.
“LISTEN!”
she repeated, even more sternly. I was surprised when I looked up and saw her blue eyes targeted right at me, glasses off. “I think
he’s
what’s really bothering you. You’re not over him yet. And you’re never going to be happy until you are. Are there any prospects?”

In quick succession, Mini Dub, Scotty, and Bastian popped into my head—the last three men (well, two boys, one man) to show any interest in me. I lingered on Bastian’s image before providing Bethany with a simple answer. “No.”

“Well, you have to go out and make that ‘No’ into a—” Bethany sprung up again. “NO! NO! NO!” She ran toward Marin, who had lifted her Spider-Man T-shirt to flash the ankle-biting crowd. Girls Gone Wild: The Sandbox Edition. I know from my class about Children at Risk that this is perfectly normal behavior. Marin won’t necessarily end up modeling a Cool Whip bikini eighteen years from now.

Anyway, on the long subway ride back to campus, I thought about Bethany’s inadvertent advice and how easy it would be for me to take. I don’t think there’s anyone better than I am at turning a simple no into a NO! NO! NO!

the tenth

Tonight I let Dexy convince me to attend a Democratic fund-raiser downtown.

“You’ve been talking about how you want to be more politically active!” she said, waving a flyer in my face. “Here’s your chance!”

“I don’t have $250 to get in the door,” I said.

“You don’t need it!” Dexy said, speaking even faster than usual. “I’ve got two tickets already. Remember that guy I shagged last week?”

I didn’t—it was impossible to keep track—but I nodded anyway.

“Well, I was supposed to go with him, but he got Yankees tickets so he’s going to the game instead.”

I should mention that the event was being thrown by Beautiful People Against Bush, one of the tongue-in-cheek-yet-totally-serious political action committees that have popped up around town now that bashing Republicans has become fashionable. Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s great that my 18-to-24 demo is getting involved in the upcoming election, but too many of these events seem to be less about the Democratic Party and more about the
party
party. I mean, swilling “blue state” martinis (21⁄2 oz. vodka, 1⁄4 oz. blue curaçao) isn’t exactly comparable to standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square. And knowing what you know about me and social events in general, you can see why I was reluctant to go.

“Come on, J! Let’s go! It’s free! It’s for democracy!”

Then she broke into song.

“Well I’m proud to be an American . . .”

“Okay! I’ll go if you stop singing!”

Her voice is a violation of the Geneva Convention, I swear.

And so, while Dexy effortlessly assumed the guise of a young urban politically active hipster (low-rise Rock & Republic jeans,
THE
ONLY
BUSH
I
TRUST
IS MY
OWN
tank top), I agonized over my inability to so mindlessly do the same. There’s always so much pressure to have the right look in this city, especially in the downtown cobblestone territories, and I never feel like I get it right. After more time than I’d like to admit, I borrowed silver kitten-heeled flip-flops from Dexy to go with a cutoff denim miniskirt and the Jacksons’ Victory Tour ‘84 T-shirt that I’ve had since high school, which I thought could be interpreted as a political message, only one that wasn’t so in-your-face obvious.