Wedding Girl (10 page)

The hardwood floors squeak and give splinters, none of the bedrooms have closets, and the bathrooms are tiny. The pantry in the kitchen has walls coated in stucco so pronounced and spiky that every trip to fetch ingredients for dinner is an opportunity for shredded skin and blood loss. I still love the old apple tree in the backyard, but the screened-in porch it shades is rotting away, and the garage is so rickety that my folks haven't parked in it for the better part of the last two decades.

Mom and Dad bought it for only $30,000 in 1975, back when it needed a new roof and all new electrical and plumbing, and some serious tuck-pointing and foundation fixes. To their credit, they enlisted all of their hippie-dippie pals, housing up to a dozen of them at a time and feeding them brown rice and black beans and cheap beer and pot brownies in exchange for labor, both un- and semiskilled. Over the course of six years, while my dad passed the bar and joined the overworked and underpaid team at the public defenders' office, my mom oversaw a constantly changing set of houseguests and squatters, learning from books how to DIY every possible aspect of renovating an old house. Two years in, they bought the vacant lot and a half adjacent to the house from a cash-strapped neighbor for another twenty grand, fenced it in, and my mom planted her urban garden, all sorts of vegetables and herbs—culinary, medicinal, and probably illegal as well—and set up a beehive. By the time the house was fully watertight and structurally sound, she was pregnant with me. Slowly they managed to move their motley crew along, and apparently, for the first six months of my life, it was just the three of us. But that didn't last. Some complications when I was born meant that my mom had to have a hysterectomy, so I was destined to be the only one of my kind.

Eager to give me a sibling experience, my folks embarked on hosting a steady stream of foreign exchange students. My childhood was a cacophony of languages and accents, young men and women of all nationalities coming and going, alternately doting on me or resenting my presence. In my memory, the dining room table was never
not
covered by textbooks and school projects. But I also remember celebrating every conceivable holiday from every religion and nation, and I recall a constant influx of exciting new foods and flavors, each “brother” and “sister” bringing in the spices and tastes of his or her homeland. As soon as I was old enough to hold a spoon, I was the official kitchen helper, and under the watchful eye of my mom's charges, while she was upstairs studying or working on her doctoral thesis, I learned about the food of the world.

“Hi, Mom,” I say when she opens the door.

She pulls me into a deep hug, kissing the side of my neck with loud smacking noises. “Hello, honey. Come on in.”

The house smells, as it always does, of a combination of old books, exotic cooking, beeswax candles, and the essential oils my mom uses instead of perfume.

“There she is! Princess Summer Sunshine!” My dad comes down the stairs and grabs me in a bear hug, then leads me, in his lumbering way, in a dance around the living room.

We half waltz, half polka through the living and dining rooms and into the kitchen. Where I stop.

“It's really, um . . .”

“Clean!”
my mom says, smiling.

“Yeah. Clean,” I say, gobsmacked. For my whole life, between my parents' crazy work schedules and the endless stream of students from far-flung places, the kitchen was occasionally tidy, rarely organized, and never truly deep-down
clean
. My parents laugh at my shock, and it occurs to me that they seem to be in particularly good moods. Even their physical affection, which on
any normal day is just shy of pornographic, seems somehow full of love instead of lust; there's an electricity between them that seems palpable and full of joy. I squint at them. Something is up.

“Let's sit,” my mom says, gesturing to the worn white laminate table that is in the dining section of the kitchen in a large, curved bay window. The oval table, shiny white when they got it, is now matte with years of use and abuse, the edges chipped, chunks of laminate veneer missing. I used to love hiding in the half-moon nooks in the base when I was small. The table is set with Mexican woven place mats that look like little serapes, and the plates my dad made when he took a pottery class over at Lillstreet Art Center. In the center of the table is a classic deli platter of lox and tuna salad with all the fixings, bagels, and cream cheeses. And on a trivet, a noodle kugel, a casserole of egg noodles suspended in a light sweet custard, with a crunchy topping of crushed cornflakes mixed with cinnamon and brown sugar. It was always my favorite thing my mom ever made.

“All your favorites.” My mom beams at me.

“And mine too. Let's eat!” my dad says, swatting my mom on her ample tush.

We make our plates; I grab a plain bagel and top one half with tuna salad and dill pickle, and the other with chive cream cheese and cucumber. I also help myself to a large corner chunk of kugel, for maximum crispy edges, and some coleslaw. Clearly someone went all the way out to Kaufman's on Dempster in Skokie; I can tell by the bagels. A slight crunch on the outside gives way to perfect dense chewiness.

“Okay,” I say, after a large mouthful of kugel. “What's up? What's wrong? Is someone sick or something?”

My dad laughs, and my mom looks startled.

“Why would you think something is
wrong
?” my mom asks.

“Because
both
of you have clearly taken today off from work,
which is unheard of, and the house looks really good, and you've brought in my favorite brunch stuff and made a homemade kugel, which you never do except for the holidays, so clearly something is going on, and this feels a lot like softening a blow. So I'm just asking what the blow is.”

She shakes her head at me and takes a bite of tuna fish salad.

“Not a blow, honey; just a change,” my dad says. My mom reaches over and squeezes his hand. I brace myself.

If my dad wants to be a woman, then he should be who he is, and I will support the crap out of him, and call him Roberta or something. Some things would make sense—the devotion to his ponytail, that year they came back from Scotland with a kilt that he wore endlessly on the weekends.

“A really positive change,” my mom says. She is clearly also being great about this, which doesn't surprise me. If ever there was a woman to stay with her partner post-transition, it is my mom. And it won't be so bad; after all, my best friends are both lesbians. If my parents become lesbians, so what? As long as everyone is happy and healthy, love is love.

“Well, whatever it is, I support you both unconditionally.” I try to fill my voice with love and calm.

“We appreciate that so much, sweetheart, because it will be a huge shift for us all,” my dad says, his voice full of kindness, as I scan his face for signs of hormone treatments having softened his features. Looks pretty much the same to me.

“We're selling the house,” my mom says.

Wait, what? “You're selling the house? That's it?”

“What else would you prefer?” my dad asks. I decide this is not the time to tell him I was picturing him in a tasteful wrap dress.

“I'm just surprised; you guys love this house. Why are you selling?”

“We'll always love the house, honey, but it is a lot of house
for the two of us,” my mom says. I can see that; it is three stories, over 4,500 square feet, full of bedrooms that have been mostly empty since they stopped taking exchange students about six years ago after one of them was discovered to be running a streaming-video porn site from her bedroom.

“And we always thought that our retirement project would be to do a systems overhaul, but at this point we'd have to move out for the better part of a year to do it, and there is something about heading back into construction mode that is just beyond our ability at this stage of our lives,” my dad says.

“So when we were approached by a developer,” my mom says, “we had to really listen to his proposal.”

Which apparently was beyond substantial. Between the house itself and the fact that it sits on a lot that is effectively more than three and a half lots wide and in the heart of Lincoln Park, the developer offered my folks $5 million. Cash. No contingencies, as is, covering all closing costs, with a flexible closing date that gives them up to eight months to find a new place and move.

I almost choke on my tuna salad.

“Seriously?”

My dad nods. “Seriously.”

“My god, that is amazing.” I knew the place would be worth a ton, particularly because of the land, but I had no idea it'd sell for that much, especially since the market isn't fully recovered yet. But apparently, in Lincoln Park, what they are sitting on is a gold mine of insane proportions.

“It's enough that we can buy something scaled properly for the two of us, easier to manage and maintain, and it'll go a long way towards bolstering our retirement savings, giving us some extra to travel with, maybe even think about a little place out west to spend the winters when we are ready,” my mom says, and
I can see that they are both really excited about the prospect of moving on.

“Well, then congratulations are in order!” I wish that I were fully openheartedly happy for them. It is an amazing financial opportunity and will change their lives and future for the better. I know that over the years, they have often reduced the amount they put away for retirement to support a cause they believed in, or dipped into savings to be able to pay bills while providing services for free to those who needed them. But taking the money and running seems so antithetical to who they are and how they have always behaved that I can't really wrap my head around it. Additionally, knowing that my finances are such a mess, and that my own foray into real estate left me no better off than if I had never owned my own place, adds a layer of bitterness. Especially since I would never ask them to share their windfall with me. If they knew how in debt I was, let alone the reason? Their disappointment would be oppressive and debilitating. They may not have always approved of the focus of my career path, but they have always been supportive of me and proud of me. If they knew about my abusive co-dependent relationship with Visa and MasterCard? I'd never get over the shame. In one moment it occurs to me that it is sort of horrid that I was fully prepared to embrace my dad's wanting to be a woman, but am struggling with the idea of my parents' wanting to have money for their third act.

My dad jumps up, runs to the fridge, and grabs a bottle of champagne. I get a peek at the label. Krug. Apparently, for all their simple, frugal tastes, you throw a bunch of money at them, and they go all Robin Leach in a hot minute.

“To a new adventure,” my dad says.

“To the end of an era,” my mom says.

“To the two of you,” I say. Whatever my own bullshit is, I love
them both and I am very happy for what this change will mean for them. And if the new reality means I occasionally get to sip Krug on their dime, how bad could it be?

Bubbles looks wonderful in a simple navy blue dress, the top showing off her still-lovely collarbone, which is accented with a necklace of sparkly green peridots. The diamond drop earrings my grandfather bought her when my dad was born add a touch of glamour. In the last few years she has given up her trademark stilettos for more manageable kitten heels, but she's lost none of her sass; tonight's shoes have a super-pointy toe and are in a jaunty leopard-print patent. Her silver hair is up in a chignon, courtesy of an afternoon salon appointment. She takes from the closet her prized possession, an embroidered moss-green velvet cocoon coat that had been her mother's, from the 1920s or so, with ermine cuffs and collar. It is the perfect thing for a chilly spring evening, and she looks simply gorgeous and elegant, and could have stepped right out of one of our movies.

“You are a vision.” I come over to kiss her soft cheek. “If Nick Charles is at the opera tonight, then Nora has some serious competition.”

“Pish,” she says, blushing prettily. “I'm just an old lady all tarted up.”

“Well, don't let Mrs. Barkley see her husband flirting with you; people will talk.”

“The Barkleys hate opera as much as you do, darling.”

“I can never keep track.”

“Nor should you. Us ancients are terribly boring. Something smells good in here. Spicy.”

“Lamb shawarma.” I figured that Amelia would appreciate something of a Middle Eastern/Mediterranean feast filled with things Brian would hate.

“Yum. I almost hate to leave.”

“I made plenty for leftovers; we can have it for lunch tomorrow.”

“Not if you burn it,” she says, sniffing the air, and I run for the kitchen, shouting at her to have a lovely evening, and grab the pot of freekeh that is boiling over on the stove. I turn down the flame and return the pot to the burner. After my lunch shock with Mom and Dad, who asked that I not share their news with Bubbles just yet, I headed for the stores up on Devon and loaded up on goodies for this evening. As soon as I got home, I took a hot bath, followed by a nap. I let the news of the day wash over me and made a conscious decision to just be happy for my folks. Or at least to pretend that I'm happy for them until I'm actually happy for them.