Bread Alone (29 page)

After gushing over our dresses, Stuart starts on my mother’s hair and Jason turns to me.

“And how are we wearing our hair?”

“We’re wearing our hair in a French braid.” I smile sweetly.

“Let Stuart fix it,” he says.

“I can do my own hair.”

“I’ll fix some flowers for him to weave in. You’ll look so goddess, Wyn.”

My mother hasn’t said a word, but she has this sort of pleading look on her face.

I sigh. “Can’t pass up the chance to look so goddess, can I?”

The guys smile conspiratorially at each other. After Stuart finishes with my mother, I take her place in the hot seat. He brushes my hair and lifts it up to the light, rubbing it between his fingers.

“You have such great hair, Wyn. Have you ever tried cornrows?” He doesn’t wait for my answer. “You know, next time you’re in town, I’d love to style it for you. Crank it up a notch.”

He squirts something on my head and starts massaging it in.

“Don’t make it all sticky, okay?”

“Relax. It’s not going to be sticky, but we do want it to hold up for the afternoon.” He manages to subdue my mane into a French braid in record time, entwining it with a garland that Jason makes from stephanotis, rosebuds, and variegated ivy. It makes me nervous that they won’t let me look. Stuart fusses, pulling tendrils out around my face and at the nape of my neck till I want to slap his hands. He insists on applying more blush.

He smudges my eye shadow with his pinkie. “Subtlety, Wyn. Hard edges are definitely out.” He adds a little mascara to my lashes. I’m going to look more Beverly Hills than Amanda. Then he stands back and squints at me with one eye closed. “As close to perfection as you’re going to come in this lifetime, darling.”

Perfection? Maybe. What I feel as I stare at myself in the mirror is an overwhelming déjà vu. I can almost picture David standing next to me. In fact, if he saw me now, he’d probably forget all about the blonde. This is the way he liked me—all dressed up with someplace to go.

I sweep out of my mother’s room just as the bartender is stepping out of my bedroom. He’s wearing a dark suit, not exactly bartender attire. When he sees me, he grins, like we’re old buddies.

“Can I help you find something?” I use my best Hancock Park talking-to-the-servants voice.

“Sorry. I couldn’t find anyplace else to change.” He gives me an appraising look. “Nice dress. You must be Wynter.”

“I am.”

“It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

In my brain, there’s a tiny slot machine, with all the pictures lining up—oranges, flowers, dollar signs. No jackpot. Suddenly Howard/Richard comes bounding up the stairs. “There you are,” he says to the bartender. “I wanted to introduce—” He sees me. “Have you two already met?”

Oh shit. I think I’ve been ordering my stepbrother-pending around like hired help.

“We were just about to,” says Gary Travers.

“I’m so sorry. I thought you were—I’m really sorry.”

He has wonderful, thick eyelashes. When he smiles, they make his eyes look sleepy. “I figured that out when I didn’t see anybody I knew in the kitchen.”

The doorbell rings again. “That’ll be Lupe.” I make my escape, thoroughly mortified.

Field Marshal Amanda marches us through a quick dress rehearsal of who stands where and who does what to whom. In the intervening fifteen minutes before guests are supposed to begin arriving, I slip off to the kitchen.

If I close my eyes halfway, the scene resembles an anthill frantic with activity. Nobody pays any attention to me, which is good. I get a
glass of water and lean against the counter to watch. Boss Man Ron runs a tight ship. Everyone seems to know exactly where they should be and what they should be doing. I’m envious.

Abruptly the water glass is lifted from my hand and replaced by a flute full of bubbles. Gary pours the water into the sink. “Don’t drink that stuff, little girl. Fish fuck in it.”

I stick my nose over the rim of the glass to inhale the yeast. “They’d probably fuck in champagne, too, given the chance. I know I would.” Did I really say that? I feel my ears glowing.

His laugh rumbles pleasantly. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman make herself blush.”

“You obviously haven’t been around me enough.”

“Something I’m looking forward to.”

No telling where this might be going, but Ron chooses this moment to insert himself between us to reach for a fruit platter. Heather and Frankie are arranging trays of shrimp puffs and baked new potatoes stuffed with sour cream and caviar. Gary snags a couple and we devour them. I’m hungrier than I realized.

It begins promptly at two o’clock in the living room that my father always referred to as the non-living room because nobody spent any more time there than necessary. Decorated by my mother in the stiffly formal style that she grew up with, it was only pressed into service on the most ceremonial occasions, like having the boss and his wife over for dinner. The gray-haired presiding judge is an old friend of Richard’s. He’s big on significant pauses and winks and lots of inflection. As a prelude to the wedding service, he tells how Richard and Johanna met at Prentiss Culver and fell in love and got married to dwell happily ever after. I must be the only one who doesn’t know any of the details, because the rest of the fifty-odd guests laugh in the appropriate places, nod, and all but hum along.

In spite of my best efforts, I’m reliving my own wedding. Must be
those words. “To have and to hold from this day forward. Till death us do part.” Except at my wedding, I insisted on changing it to “As long as we both shall live.” David found it amusing that I was superstitious about mentioning death. He looked at me just the way Richard’s now gazing at my mother, as if she’s first prize in a random drawing and he can’t believe his luck. How can she not see what’s happened? He’s taken over her whole life, rearranging the house, selecting her clothes, changing her hair. She’s been redesigned and repackaged, a new and improved product. Why is it that they fall in love with a woman, and then they just can’t wait to start tweaking the details?

I’m so absorbed in my own thoughts that I’m startled when my mother turns to hand me her flowers so they can exchange rings. When they’ve finished the formalities and I give the flowers back to her, I notice Gary watching me, eyes brimming with questions. He gets points for being observant.

Then it’s over and everyone’s clapping for the performance. A blinding flash indicates the presence of subspecies Wedding Photographer. Champagne corks are popping like antiaircraft fire. I hug my mother and kiss Richard’s cheek.

I smile. “Take good care of her. Or I’ll break your kneecaps.”

“Oh, Wyn.” My mother laughs nervously.

Richard looks amused. “I don’t doubt that you not only would, but could.”

I watch them accept congratulations and listen to the details of the wedding trip to Hawaii and how they’re going to be living in this house until they decide where they want to build. They pose for pictures with Gary and me and just about everyone else in the house except the caterer. They read telegrams and cards from friends who couldn’t come. I’m introduced to people and five minutes later I’ve forgotten their names. I keep downing champagne, and whenever I finish a glass, Heather or Frankie is at my elbow with a refill.

“So you’re the daughter.” A man with a brown ponytail and a prominent Adam’s apple looms over me. His voice is so loud I automatically
back away. “I’m Chase.” As if I should know who that is. “You live around here?”

“No, I live in Seattle.”

“Seattle?” He shudders delicately. “Rain capital of the world. What do you do up there in Rain City?” I consider pointing out to him that it’s raining here, now. Has been since last night.

“I’m a baker.” He’s one of those people who scans the room for someone else to talk to while he’s talking to you.

“Which bank? I’ve got a lot of friends in banking.”

I debate whether it’s worth the effort to correct my image, decide against it. “First Queen Street.”

He frowns. “Don’t know that one.”

“Wyn, hi.”

When Georgia Graebel wraps me in her comfortable arms, I come perilously close to dissolving into tears. She tells me how beautiful I look and how beautiful my mother looks and what a wonderful man Richard is. “Don’t you just love him?” she says, beaming.

“I only met him yesterday, Georgie.”

She looks confused, then brightens. “Well, I know you’ll love him when you get to know him. He’s so, so nice. Worships the ground your mom walks on.” She holds my shoulders. “Have you lost weight?”

“No, I just misplaced it.”

She giggles. “How are you getting along up in the wild Northwest all alone?”

“Pretty good. I like my job. I have some friends.”

“Hang in there, honey.” She gives my arm a gentle squeeze. “It just takes time.”

Richard and my mother have this magnetic field between them. They can be on opposite sides of the room and, as if on cue, they both look up and smile.

I try to be happy with them, but they’re as remote as if I were seeing
them through the wrong end of a telescope. It occurs to me in one of those “Aha!” moments of self-revelation that I’m jealous. Love, marriage—okay, I admit it—financial security. All those things I’m supposed to have, that I had. Now she has them. And I don’t. I hate myself for the feeling, but there it is.

In the dining room, Tim Graebel hurries over. “Wyn, you look fabulous.” He hugs me enthusiastically. “What a happy day this is.” He puts on his sincere, friend-of-the-family expression. “I think Glenn would approve.”

Before I can say something I’d be certain to regret, Gary is standing beside me with a plate of food. “Have you eaten anything yet?”

I accept it gratefully, although the way my stomach is acting, I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get down. “Tim, this is Howard’s son, Gary.” I realize what I’ve said when they both look at me blankly.

“Who’s Howard?” Tim asks, but I’m laughing so hard that I’m afraid of losing control of my bladder, so I excuse myself and stumble to the powder room. My God, what is with me? I look in the mirror. My hair is starting to escape its confinement; there are black smudges of mascara under my eyes; I have no lipstick left. I can barely stand up without leaning against the wall.

The rain’s stopped and the clouds are breaking up, but the wind has turned frigid. I wrap myself in an old gray sweater and sneak out through the kitchen, into the backyard. The laughter is muffled and the air smells of wet brick and eucalyptus.

My father laid this patio when I was seven. He worked on it for several weekends, laying out the herringbone pattern and border while I tried to help by bringing him one brick at a time. I march up and down, like a duck, matching my feet to the angle of the bricks. Eventually my head stops sloshing around. I can’t remember what I did with my plate of food. All I want is to go back to Seattle, back to my own little house. I don’t want to talk to anyone else about anything. I don’t have any
more fake smiles left. I want to go to the bakery and make bread and then go home and sleep.

Voices are calling my name. “Wyn, what on earth are you doing out here? You’ll catch your death.” It’s my mother, frowning.

“It was so stuffy, I needed to get some air.”

“You’re shivering. Get inside this minute.” My inner child knows that tone of voice and meekly obeys. Then I notice that she’s changed into her travel outfit. “Run up and fix your face,” she says, more gently. “We’re getting ready to leave.”

Sunday I wake up before dawn, deservedly hungover. The illuminated numbers on my watch say 5:35.

It’s the middle of the night in Hawaii. I imagine my mother and Richard, lying in each other’s arms in some sedately luxurious hotel bed. Maybe they turn, moving together in a sleepy embrace. The thought of him touching her, making love to her—and isn’t it odd that I keep thinking of it as something he does to her? I can’t picture my mother as an active participant, welcoming his touch, pulling him down, wrapping her legs around him, arching her back. The thought is so disturbing that I sit straight up in bed. My head throbs in protest, and I lie down again, deliberately turning off the Hawaii picture.

At eight, I get up. It’s raining again. I open the door, step cautiously into the hall. I vaguely recall going berserk last night. Pushing some of Richard’s boxes out of my room and down the stairs. I walk out on the landing. Three boxes lie tumbled in the foyer, flaps jutting out awkwardly like fractured limbs. Papers litter the tile floor. Hopefully, nothing’s broken. A black windbreaker that says “An Affair to Remember, Catering for Special Occasions” hangs limply over the railing. There’s a gap in my memory between the newlyweds’ departure and my rampage. There was pizza, I know that. Gary and I ordered a pizza. I remember getting furious because he just opened the refrigerator and got a beer, as if he lived here. He reminded me that his father does indeed live here. The rest is fuzzy.