Getting Over Jack Wagner (12 page)

“Well, tonight is bound to be especially fun,” I inform her, as she shuts the drawer with a practiced flick of the hip. “Karl and I broke up last night.”

Camilla stops, midway across the kitchen. She squints at the shiny linoleum, trying to remember which one Karl is. Mom would say this is what I get for not bringing my “friends” to Sunday dinners. “Guitarist?” she guesses.

“Bass.”

“String bass?”

“No. Bass
guitarist.”
For the sake of clarity, I add, “He's in a band.”

“Which one?”

“Electric Hoagie.” She had to ask.

“Oh, right, right,” Camilla nods, several times. A fan of little wrinkles has appeared between her eyes, a combination of being worried and being thirty. “Liza. What happened?”

I shrug. I'm not getting into the ferreting details with Camilla. “It just didn't work out. It's not a big deal. We'd only been dating a little while anyway.”

“Well, I'm sorry,” she says. “I really am.” And she really is. Camilla's “sorry” works on different levels, though. Part of it is genuinely sympathetic, but listen hard and you'll hear another “sorry” underneath: one that is profoundly worried. Although my sister is a reasonably modern woman—reads
Ms.
magazine, uses unisex bathrooms—she is old-fashioned at the core. She is acutely aware of things like ticking biological clocks, thinning herds, and other awful metaphors for being unmarried and approaching thirty. Naturally, neither of us can forget the way Mom dissolved after Lou left. Sometimes I think Camilla married young to avoid becoming like Mom was, and I avoid settling down for the exact same reason.

“Don't worry,” Camilla says, and surprises me by reaching out to smooth my bangs off my face. “You'll find someone. Just be patient.” I feel a strange surge of comfort as she says this, at the same time I feel suddenly fifteen again. Maybe this is why Camilla always had so many friends calling her for advice.

She glances toward the living room and leans in close to my ear. “You never know,” she whispers, a singsong whisper, thick with innuendo. It's the same voice I hear in my head when I read advice columns in women's magazines. “It could be Mr. Right is right under your nose!”

Oh how disappointing. To make matters worse, she then raises one eyebrow in a shrewd, waxed, upside-down U and all I can see and hear is Nanny yelling
“Get your claws in him! Deeper! Deeper!”
until the eyebrow relaxes again, I duck out from under her hand, and Camilla turns to the pantry.

I glance over at Andrew. He is doing the predinner chat with Scott, who is gesturing widely with two hands as if to show something growing bigger. Probably his bank account. Or ego. Or mythical penis. For Scott, asserting his manhood is of primary importance. Ask him where he works and he'll not only tell you the bank's name and location, but launch into a defensive litany of facts and figures and net gains. He's the kind of guy who grunts as he swings a golf club, the kind of guy who mentions his college fraternity in almost every conversation.

If I listen hard, I can make out scraps of sports talk and stocks talk and one conspiratorial “So a Democrat walks into a bar…” It's frightening how easily Andrew slips into this manly mode. Rocking on the balls of his feet, throwing his beer back in aggressive swallows. His khakis look identical to Scott's and his voice, when I locate it, sounds as if it's dropped about three octaves.

Just as I am beginning to worry, Scott steps away to play with the stereo knobs and Andrew looks in my direction. He flashes me a grin that is totally zany, and instantly reassuring. He even succumbs to a few seconds of air guitaring which, for once, I do not mind. When Scott rejoins him—“Maggie May” suddenly leaping in volume, as if to announce that now the party is
really
getting going—I know Andrew is laughing as hard inside as I am.

Camilla reappears behind my shoulder. She's still humming (since when is she a hummer?) only now it's something more regal. It sounds like my eighth-grade graduation song about walking through the woods holding my head up high. She's fished a spare linen napkin from the pantry and even managed to fold it in the shape of something vaguely birdlike. Good God.

“Well, Liza,” she says, putting the final touches on the linen beak. Her voice sounds funny, as if she's amused herself. “If you want my opinion, I have a feeling you won't have to worry about getting grilled by Mom tonight.”

I'm about to inform her that of
course
I will, that I
always
do, and that she might be overestimating the power of Andrew Callahan
just
a little, but before I can get the words out she's cupped the bird, gripped the utensils, given me a wink, and headed for the dining room.

“Everybody!” my mother shouts. I hear a spatter of clapping, like an ineffectual teacher trying to get her students' attention. Any minute now the overhead lights might start flicking on and off. “Everybody! Time to sit down!”

I grab a beer from the fridge and head for the table.

 

Sometimes, like tonight, I regret giving Harv the silent treatment in high school. He arrived in Mom's life during my senior year, a time when I was capable of resenting practically anyone—crossing guards, bakers, grocers, nuns—so a stepfather didn't stand a chance. Honestly, I don't remember ever having a full, one-on-one conversation with Harv in high school, not even once. Mostly I remember the physical details that began appearing with him. The puddles on the bathroom floor. Whiskers in the sink. Thick, beige slippers with soles worn shiny as cue balls.
Sports Illustrated
s with pages crinkled from getting wet. The smells of foods my mother started cooking: liver and onions, beef and barley soup, stringy hunks of meat with knobs of bone.

But tonight, as Harv fumbles his way through sawing the roast beast, I have to like the guy a little. He tries hard. He adores my mother. He helped pay for my college education and, at graduation, gave me this dorky card with a ladybug on it wearing a mortarboard. He even walked Camilla down the aisle. And his name is Harv, after all, which provokes some automatic sympathy in me. I'm not sure exactly what going through childhood and adolescence named Harvey Mackey does to a person, but it can't be easy.

Harv sits at one head of the table, Mom at the other. “Camilla…” she begins to fuss. “Eliza…” This woman has no specific objective. Just general fretfulness leaking out, like yolk from an egg. “Eliza…Camilla…”

Since remarrying, my mother is no longer as nervous as she was alone. Nor is she as strict as she was with Lou. But both qualities still exist inside her and sometimes manifest themselves in strange ways, like the obsessive spritzing of her ferns or the pointless echoing of her daughters' names. Our names are close enough that Mom has always interchanged them, though they are actually as different as names come. Camilla is romantic, heroic, a girl who rides ponies and has suitors lining up at her chateau door. Eliza is a name with a sigh inside it; you can exhale it (go ahead, try it) without moving the lips at all.

In my more lucid moments, I understand that Camilla and I are the products of the same difficult childhood: we just reacted to it in different ways. She sought attention by over-achieving. I opted for underachieving. Her life was defined by Girl Scout badges, ribbons, trophies, boyfriends headed to Ivy Leagues, girlfriends with names ending in “i” or “ie.” My life was defined, first and foremost, by being none of the things my sister's was. After Lou left and Mom numbed over, Camilla matured into the responsible mother-substitute. I went in a slightly different direction.

If you think about it, though, there really isn't room for two in the responsible mother-substitute department. Once Camilla claimed the job, I had to explore other options. Given enough time, I could argue my entire adult life is, in fact, Camilla's fault (with the same logic I claim Z Tedesco's presence on the
Transformations
staff is responsible for my current, poverty-line copywriting job). When you have an older sibling who's already excelled in academics, sports, scouts, and socializing in general, it takes creativity to carve out your own niche, to discover your own special talents—in my case, piercing, breaking curfew, and blazing through flawed rock stars like a tornado.

“Girls, start passing,” Mom manages to articulate, fluttering her hands in the direction of the food. As usual, her nails are freshly painted and her face carefully made up. I notice, though, that her makeup doesn't look as natural as it used to; it seems more conspicuous, as if resting brightly on top of her true face instead of blending in. “The food's getting cold.”

Camilla, ever the dutiful daughter, picks up her pan of glaze and turns to her husband. “Honey? Want some?”

“You bet,” Scott says.

I shoulder my tuna and pass it to Andrew. “Want some, honey?”

Andrew scoops some casserole onto his plate. “Trying out a new recipe, huh, Eliza?” he says, which my mother finds positively hysterical. The rest of the food starts rotating fast and steamy as an assembly line. Roast beef slabs, mashed potatoes, string beans wading in butter, Camilla's brown glaze.

“It's Thai,” she explains, in answer to my grimace.

“She's on a Thai kick,” Scott adds.

“Is Schezuan the same as Thai?” Harv mumbles. “I know I've had Schezuan. I don't know if I've had Thai.”

“There was this guy in my fraternity,” Scott says, chuckling, “name was Billy Fenster. We called him The Fen. This guy was obsessed with Thai food, I'm telling you. I think the guy ate Thai for breakfast.”

Sometimes I really miss our doomed presidential candidate, Ivan.

“The Fen.” Scott gazes into his glaze. “I wonder what happened to that guy.”

“Maybe he runs a Thai restaurant,” Harv says without expression.

No one knows how to respond to this.

Andrew pitches in, “Why not?”

Then, from the other end of the table, Mom starts shrieking again, peering down at her napkin bird. “Ooh! I hate to ruin this little guy!”

Camilla squares her shoulders. This is the moment she has been waiting for. “They're swans,” she reports. “I learned how to make them in my night class, ‘Origami for the Home.'” You'd think by now my sister would stop bringing art projects home from school, but apparently not. “We make all kinds of things,” she continues. “Doilies in the shapes of little hats. Guest washcloths in the shapes of ducks.”

Who in their right mind would want such things in their houses (with the possible exception of Karl's mother) I have no idea. But the crowd is enthusiastic. There follows a burst of “ooh”ing, “aah”ing, quacking (from Andrew), and general unswanning of swans. Mom's gazing at hers like it's a dying swallow, whimpering as she unfolds each wing.

“It's better than that weaving class,” Scott puts in. “Remember that one, honey? We have enough potholders in our house to…” It should be a punchline, but falls flat on its face.

“Hold pots?” Harv offers.

Scott looks stricken. I almost laugh out loud. Andrew kicks me under the table, a preemptive strike.

In an effort to divert attention, Scott brushes imaginary lint off his shoulder, then starts kissing ass. “These mashed potatoes look delicious, Mrs. Mackey.”

“Well, thank you, Scott.”

“Everything does, Mom,” Camilla chimes in.

I concentrate on counting exactly three string beans onto my plate as Sue the cat comes whoring around my left leg. Being with Sue always reinforces my respect for Leroy. Sue's the kind of cat who constantly needs you, begs you, mauls you without invitation. I don't trust her kind of love.

“Get away, Sue,” I whisper, stomping my foot.

Sue scampers to Harv's leg instead. To my horror, he takes a forkful of my tuna and feeds it to her under the table. This is complete casserole sacrilege, though it does cause me to wonder if, had I been nicer to Harv in high school, he would have slipped me cash behind Mom's back.

Then Mom says: “Well!” and surveys the table. She's checking to make sure all plates are full, all drinks filled, all dishes safely landed. Satisfied, she gives us all a big smile. “Let's eat, everybody!”

This is the part my mother lives for. As everybody starts sampling everything, they make a lot of mmm-ing noises and compliment her up and down.

“This meat is just right, dear.”

“Did you use a different seasoning, Mom? Some kind of herb?”

“Everything tastes fabulous, Mrs. Mackey.”

There follows a long, noisy silence of clinking and chewing and swallowing. Mom is beaming as she lifts a spoonful of Thai soup to her mouth. I stare at my plate, trying to make myself invisible, but when I glance at Mom she's looking right at me. “So,” she says. “Eliza.”

And so it begins. The following are the only topics that could possibly come next:

a) my love life (“why don't you bring this musician around to meet us?”)