By the Numbers (24 page)

“Your mother. Your mother is beginning to have a few problems—just a few memory lapses here and there and some trouble with judgment. She . . . Well, she made a bad investment without discussing it with me first. We're fine and have enough to live out our lives, but I had to sell the place in Florida to cover the loss. We still have the condo up here, and we legitimately did have water damage. However, we had water damage because your mother left the faucet running. She keeps forgetting that part.”

“Oh, no. She will hate every part of this,” I say. Poor Marjorie. She'd rather die—literally—than have any part of her be perceived as less than flawless.

“I'm aware. But she's going through a good phase right now. She's bright and alert and not lapsing into the British that much.”

“Wait, that's not a drinking or a
Downton Abbey
thing?”

“No. Right now we're seeing as much of our friends as we can before a lot of them go away for the fall and winter. I can't predict where her mind will be next year, so I want everyone to spend time with her now while she's still fully herself. The place should be done next week, so we'll be out of your hair soon enough.”

I realize something. “That's why you were so compliant about seeing the gerontologist. You wanted her to see it was no big deal?”

“Perceptive. Like I said, you're the smart one. At some point we'll sell our current unit and move into a senior living place with progressive levels of care, which hopefully she'll agree to, because it'll be about both of us.”

“You're so much craftier than I ever gave you credit for.”

“And what else did you learn from this conversation?” He wipes his hands on his napkin before placing it on the table. “I'm thinking about things that begin with the letter ‘M.'”

“She doesn't know you're friends with Miguel, does she? She'd hate everything about that relationship.”

“Every marriage needs a little bit of mystery,” he says. “And, of course, you will keep this conversation between us. You know how your mother needs to maintain the facade of everything being perfect.”

“I may have noticed that once or twice.”

An anxious look crosses his face. “Are you going to tell Foster what we discussed?”

“Yes, of course. I have to.”

He breathes a sigh of relief as he slides out of the booth. “Oh, thank God. I'm too old to have to do this twice, and you know I'd have to talk slowly for him. Pick up the check, won't you? I have to go right now. You don't keep Bunky Cushman waiting, after all.”

• • • •

Caroline has quickly rallied and is greatly enjoying what I call our “discipline walks” around the neighborhood. I'm teaching her basic commands, and she's responding beautifully. This is a dog that
wants to learn. However, our path today does not include the lakefront. As we found out yesterday, you cannot walk one hundred and thirty pounds of a web-footed creature genetically programmed to rescue drowning fishermen past a lake without incident. The boaters had a great sense of humor about the whole thing, but still, it was mortifying.

I imagine once we start with her new trainer, I'll learn how to handle her around larger bodies of water, but until then, she has to content herself with the baby pool in the backyard.

As soon as we come in the back door, she collapses on her bed. My strategy has been to walk the naughty out of her, and in the past two days, she's barely touched any of my delicious shoes, while her attempts to eat the ottoman were weak at best.

I feel Barnaby would be proud.

When I go upstairs, I notice Jessica's door is partially open, but I knock anyway.

“Enter,” she says.

“Hey,” I say. “I'm going shopping. Do you feel like joining me? I have a date, and I thought you could work your magic.”

Jessica's attitude has warmed toward me since Kelsey went home. Although we haven't spoken about it directly, Jessica did say in passing, “I can't believe you told her no.” Baby steps are still steps.

I wait for whatever snappy rejoinder she plans to hurl at me, but instead she says, “You're in luck. I'm free. Let me save what I'm working on and then we can go.” She hurriedly taps at her iPad and then scans the screen, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “This is genius.” Jessica glances up at me. “You should see this.”

I'm taken aback that she wants me to participate in anything, but I reply, “Sure.”

I look down at a gorgeous fashion pictorial, featuring the
Chicago lakefront in all its summer glory. I scroll past shots of her standing on the stone wall where Sloane Peterson comforted Cameron in
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
, past pictures of her poised on the swings in the sand, one shapely leg raised to catch the sun. There's even a snap of her from behind, looking impossibly chic in a vintage Chanel suit, white gloves, and wide straw hat while yanking the leash of a large black dog who's terribly interested in a pack of seagulls. “Maybe it's not New York, but it's not too shabby,” I say.

“No, it's not,” Jessica agrees.

I look closer at the pictures and I realize that Jessica isn't modeling the styles herself. The effortless blonde with the bloodred lips and the signature shades and the pricey bag is . . . Marjorie. Then I notice the site's new URL—SeniorSartorial.

“Is it just me, or is this amazing?”

Jessica is full-on grinning now. “It's not just you. The
Huffington Post
agrees. The phone's been ringing nonstop with new advertisers.”

“Are you too important to shop with me?” I ask.

“Not today,” she replies. She looks me up and down. “But you will change out of yoga pants before we go, of course.”

“Of course.”

• • • •

“How are we doing in here?” Brenda, the Nordstrom sales associate, asks.

“Everything is fine, Brenda,” I reply.

“Everything is
horrible
, Brenda,” Jessica says. “I'm going to need you to find something not horrible. Hint: That means no midriff bows. She's not a toddler. And what is she going to do with military-style
buttons? She's going on a date, not presenting a white paper. I need tits or ass, okay? I need to think ‘sex' when I see her and not ‘systems analysis.' If you can't imagine whatever dress you bring her in a ball on the bedroom floor, then don't bring it. Got it?”

Chastened, Brenda runs away.

“We're never going to see Brenda again. You realize that, right?” I say.

Jessica flips her hair. “Mission accomplished.” She paws through the stack of dresses in the room. “Try this.”

“But it's so skimpy,” I reply.

“Have you listened to a single thing I've said?”

I take the dress from her and pull it on over my head. I get caught in the complicated web of straps, and Jessica has to help me angle the dress into place. Nothing about this garment is my style, and yet it's not so bad once I have all the cutouts lined up in a way that's not pornographic.

“Not bad, but we can do better,” Jessica says. She snaps her fingers. “Off.”

She has to assist me in getting out of the garment, too.

Brenda gives a tentative knock on the door.

“You're not here with pantsuits, right? God help you if you brought us a pantsuit,” Jessica says.

Brenda vanishes without a sound.

“I'm considering sticking around,” Jessica says, apropos of nothing.

“I would like that,” I say. “I'm sure your father and your grandparents would like that, too. Can't really speak for Kelsey.”

I pull a linen Eileen Fisher piece off the rack, and before I can even remove it from the hanger, Jessica yanks it away from me, replacing it with a Tadashi Shoji embellished lace sheath dress.

“I had some trouble in New York,” she volunteers. “God, it's so expensive there. Not easy to keep up. Remember how I used to complain about how hard it was to compete in Glencoe? Yeah, New York was a wake-up call. I had it easy in Chicago. Thing is, I . . . ended up cutting some corners professionally and that eventually came back to bite me in the ass, so I'm kind of starting over right now. I racked up some debt. Nothing I can't get out from behind eventually, but I will have to live on the cheap for a while.”

I'm not sure what I should do here in terms of offering help, volunteering to write checks, or make calls, so I just listen.

Maybe all she ever wanted me to do was listen.

“I think if I rebuild now, I can do it on a more solid foundation. I don't really want to design—too cutthroat—and I'm sort of over the whole New York thing. I want to help regular people look their best. Doesn't have to be celebrities. Actually, it's easy to make famous people look fab. You can put them in anything and they're amazing. Fixing someone like you is a lot harder.”

I zip into the sheath dress while I try to figure out the best way to say what I need to say. “Those sound like achievable goals, and I'm proud of you for coming to those conclusions. My only suggestion is that you maybe tone down the blunt honesty. Offer up a little sugar to counteract the salt.”

“Do people not like that? I hate when people try to bullshit me.”

“People appreciate the truth as long as it's not delivered in a way that hurts their feelings,” I say.

“Huh.” This seems like brand-new information to her.

“You know what, Jessica? I blame myself for you not knowing some basic stuff like this,” I say, having a seat on the padded banquette of the dressing room. Jessica watches me via the threefold mirror. “Your only role model has been Marjorie, which is basically
like learning from a lesser Disney villain. I wasn't around enough during your critical, formative years. I thought I was doing right by you, but in retrospect, that was a mistake. I provided you things instead of time and attention. The worst of it is, I convinced myself that everything I did, I did for you, but that's not true. I liked the person I was at work. I liked being in charge. I liked being competent. Ultimately, I did us both a disservice, and I'm sorry.”

Jessica is still holding my gaze in the mirror. “You've never said that before.”

“I'm saying it now.”

She nods. “I waited a long time to hear that. Thank you.” She narrows her eyes at me. “We're not going to hug now, are we?”

“Not if that makes you uncomfortable.”

“Okay.” She helps me out of the lace sheath and sets it to the side. “This is the one. Did you see how it clung to all of your curves and showed off your arms and back but covered your knees?”

“Is there a problem with my knees?” I ask.

“Oh, look, a baby wolf,” she says.

“Is that you trying to not hurt my feelings?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks.”

“Can I ask you something?” she says, as we gather up our purses before we leave the fitting room. “Did you ever apologize to Daddy?”

“Did I apologize to him? Why would I apologize?”

“Because affairs don't start in a vacuum.”

Before I can respond, before I can even parse out her meaning, Jessica is halfway across the department, urging a middle-aged woman to put the capri pants down.

By the time we leave Nordstrom, I have the dress, a shopping bag full of new cosmetics courtesy of MAC, shoes with an actual
heel, and underwear that does not cause me great shame. And Jessica has a part-time job as a personal shopper. (Apparently Brenda's boss liked Jessica's hustle.)

By the time we leave Old Orchard Mall, my grays are gone via a trip to the In Style salon and I have subtle amber and russet highlights, à la Kate Middleton. Karin and Patrick are going to be thrilled. Jessica and I both got mani-pedis, too. Her nails are a matte aqua, while mine are (surprise) taupe.

Who knew that having a daughter could be kind of fun?

• • • •

I'm sitting at my dressing table, putting the finishing touches on my makeup, when Marjorie wanders into my bedroom and perches on the edge of my bed.

“Hi. Are we out of gin?” I ask.

She winks at me. “I always knew you were the clever one, darling. Boodles, please.”

“I'll bring some home after my date.”

“Are you going out with someone lovely?”

I dab some Tom Ford behind my ears and wrists. “Yes.”

“You planning to marry him?”

I laugh. “Not tonight, no. It's our first official dinner date.”

“I knew with your father on our first date. He was fourteen years old and didn't have a dime to his name, so we went for a walk. I'll never forget how he said, ‘Stick with me, kid, and I'll give you the world.' He used to find interesting rocks and tell me to hold on to them; one day I could redeem them for diamonds. He kept his word, and I had a lot of rocks.”

“That is so incredibly sweet,” I say.

“Mmm,” she says, nodding and sipping her drink. “Hard to believe it all began almost forty years ago.”

I rise from my dressing table. “I have to go, Marjorie. I'll be sure to pick up your gin.”

I grab my evening bag and begin my tentative trip down the back stairs on these precarious heels. I can hear Marjorie muttering to herself.

“Bloody hell, it's always, ‘Marjorie this' and ‘Marjorie that.' Such disrespect. Oh, for the days when these children called me ‘Mother.'”

• • • •

I arrive at the restaurant after him, and he's already at the table when I approach. “No, I insist. Don't get up.”

He gets up anyway. “You look beautiful, by the way.”

“Thanks. My daughter styled me.”

He sits back down. “So, we're really doing this.” He hands me a glass of chardonnay from the bottle that's already open on the table.

“We are. I'm ready. I had to figure out if I was ready, and turns out I am.”