Hanging by a Thread (23 page)

I have no idea how to deal with that.

As we near our house, I see Dolly, Liv's grandmother, hustling out the door to Liv's apartment, looking a little flustered. I haven't seen her in a couple weeks, since Liv has been functioning on her own with the kids for a while now. The old woman's beehive is as red as ever, her lipstick as fluorescent, but she seems to be having difficulty negotiating the steps.

“Dolly!” I call out when we get closer. “What's the matter? Are you hurt?”

Her silvery green gaze jerks to mine. Then she smiles. “Oh, no, sweetheart! My knees act up a bit when it's going to rain, but nothing serious.” As we approach the stoop, she says, “I came over because Liv's got some sort of tummy bug, I'm just on my way to the corner to get some Coke for her, she never keeps it in the house, you know—”

“Oh, don't do that. Come on inside, I'll get you some.”

“I don't want to put you out—”

“You're not putting me out, I've got plenty.” Starr and I haul the full grocery cart up the stairs like a dead body, then Dolly and I troop back to the kitchen. Starr clomps upstairs, calling for the poor cat. If he's smart, he's halfway to Guatemala by now.

“This is so nice of you, but I'll pay you for it—”

“Don't be ridiculous, it's just a couple cans of Coke, for heaven's sake.”

I toss the just-purchased ice cream in the freezer, realizing the soda's all in the basement. I explain to Dolly that I keep a
small fridge down there filled with goodies so I don't have to keep coming back upstairs while I work. Although considering the way my butt is spreading since I've been home all day, maybe hauling said butt up and down the stairs a few more times a day wouldn't hurt.

I think about this for a moment.

Naah.

“Work?” Dolly says. “What do you do?”

“It's just temporary, I'm making a friend's wedding gown and her bridesmaid dresses. So I'll just zip down—”

“Could I see?”

Terror strikes deep in my heart. My work area is not a place one allows sweet old ladies to see. As I've (unfortunately) always suspected, I'm definitely one of those creative types who thrives in chaos. And believe me, I don't mean a few threads and fabric scraps lying around. I'm talking the-trailer-park-after-the-twister devastation.

“Um, gee…”

“If you don't mind, that is. I just love wedding dresses.”

“Uh…you sure you're up to more stairs?”

“Actually, the more I exercise, the less problems I have.”

Figures.

“Okay,” I say as we descend into Hell. “I have to apologize, it's a little messy….”

I flip on the light.

“Oh my God, sweetheart! Call 9-1-1! You must have had a break-in!”

For a second, I'm tempted to let her believe this. But I shake my head. “No, it's okay. I'm not a very neat worker, I'm afraid.”

“
You
did this?”

But I realize Dolly's no longer talking about the rampant disarray, but Heather's nearly completed gown, on display on the dress form in one (clean) corner of the room. When she gets
closer—think forging through the rain forest—she says, “But this is
beautiful.
Did you use a pattern?”

“See the photograph on the bulletin board behind it? I took it from that.”

“I'm sorry, but I'm only seeing one photo…”

“Yes, that's it.”

She turns to me. “You honestly think this dress is the same as that one?”

I frown. “Well, I did make a few changes—”

“No, you designed a whole new dress, sweetheart. Yes, yes, they both have tulle skirts, but other than that… And your workmanship…my God! Not a single pucker along the piping, even at the curves. Absolutely exquisite.”

Curiosity overrides my blush. “Do you sew?”

“I used to,” she says softly, her gaze fixed on the dress. “But not since Liv's wedding dress. And you said you are doing bridesmaid dresses, too?”

“I've only got the pattern and one mock-up I did from some old drapery sheers to make sure it would work.” Then I laugh. Slightly hysterically. “Although how I'm going to get sixteen of these done—in ten different sizes—in six weeks, I do not know.”

“Did you say…
sixteen?
”

“Yes. And each one has three layers of rolled chiffon hems. What
was
I thinking?”

Dolly looks at me, her mouth twitching in amusement. “God alone knows. So. You need help, yes?”

For a second, I think she means help as in the kind where you go lie on a couch and barf up your past to some stranger. Then I realize she's talking about another pair of hands. Specifically, hers.

“Oh, no…I couldn't ask you—”

“You didn't ask, sweetheart. I'm volunteering. Because you'll never make it otherwise and I didn't realize…” Again,
she looks around. “I didn't realize how much I missed it until just this minute. So. I'll bring my machine and you'll give an old lady something to do, yes?”

I think I need to sit down. “Ohmigod, I don't know…I mean, I'm not sure how much I could pay you, but—”

“Did I ask for money?”

“Well, no. But I don't want to take advantage of you.”

Something in her eyes goes strangely…brittle. But it passes so quickly I think perhaps I imagined it. Except then she says, “That will not happen. Believe me. Once upon a time, I might have let myself get into situations that put me at a disadvantage, but I learned from my mistakes. Now I call the shots,” and I realize I didn't imagine it at all.

God, I love these tough little broads. I can only hope this will be me, one day.

“You've…worked with chiffon before?”

Her smile is enigmatic. “Chiffon, organza, velvet—you name it, I've handled it. So. Do we have an agreement?”

“I…guess so.”

“Good. Then if you will give me those Cokes, I will go. And if Liv doesn't need me tomorrow, I'll be here at nine?”

Oy. My blood doesn't even start pumping until ten these days. But I smile and say, “Nine is perfect.”

After I've seen her to the door, I go back downstairs and sit on my stool, staring at the mess and thinking, Dude—I've got an assistant.

Hot damn.

 

Next Sunday, five o'clock, the Scardinares. Starr (on my right) and I are totally scarfing down the manicotti while Jen (on my left) is picking at it like a member of the bomb squad disabling a particularly sensitive device.

Yes, that's right. Jen is here. At least, her body is. What's left of it, anyway, since she's lost, I'm guessing, a good fifteen
pounds since she moved in. No telling where her head is, though. All I can say is, her defenses must have really been down when Frances ambushed her yesterday. But she's not exactly fitting in, if you know what I mean. Oh, once we got past the shocked expressions—it's been years since Jen's been here, after all—everyone tried to draw her into the conversation. Except conversation with the Scardinares is a little like getting too close to the wrong side of a jet engine. So perhaps Jen's reticence is the more prudent choice, after all.

Especially since I'm picking up on all sorts of weird vibes today, lurking like a poison gas underneath the deafening, incessant chatter about Heather and Pete's wedding. Primarily from Luke and Jason. Understandable, since this is the first time I've seen or talked to either of them since the Jason Kissy Face incident. I have no idea what Luke's problem is, but something tells me Jason's ill humor has something to do with his brothers razzing him about having a girlfriend. Or rather, his not having one. Especially since Scardinare testosterone tends to kick in around kindergarten.

At the latest.

Poor kid. He keeps shooting me these looks, but what am I supposed to do? Explain that their baby brother's juices are flowing just fine, they're just leaking for the wrong person? Oh, yeah, telling Frances her son's got the hots for his half-Jewish, eleven-years-his-senior neighbor oughtta go over
real
big.

But if he doesn't stop staring at me, I may scream. Doesn't he care that somebody might notice?

Finally he leaves the table, along with several of the older nieces and nephews who, with Starr, barrel out into the backyard to play. An eyeblink after they leave, Jennifer whispers, “The way Jason was staring at you was really creeping me out.”

As I was saying.

I am also amazed that my sister has initiated a conversation in which she is not the focal point. So, as an experiment, I de
cide to see how long she can keep it up before she cracks under the strain of thinking about somebody else.

“He's got a crush on me,” I whisper back, then explain about the kiss.

“Oh,” she says, getting up to help clear the table. “That explains it, then.”

“That explains what?”

But she hustles her butt out to the kitchen without clarification.

Well. It was only five words, granted. But I can officially say that Jen got through
an entire conversation
without mentioning herself once.

Family and guests disperse throughout the house as they always do—women to the kitchen, men to the living room to watch sports. This is the way it is in this house; rabid feminists need not apply. Especially since the trade-off is the men watch the babies and younger kids while the women do the dishes. Sounds fair to me. Besides, who can talk dirty with a bunch of men in the room?

Once in the kitchen, the women take up their appointed tasks like a precision military machine, getting dessert plates and forks, making coffee, scraping dishes and filling the dishwasher. I've been a dish-scraper ever since I was deemed old enough to join the women, around when I turned eighteen. Of course, there weren't as many of us back then, since only Jimmy Jr. was married at that point. Just me and Frances and Julie, J.J.'s wife.

And Tina. Whom I miss today with a sharpness that takes my breath away.

I glance over at Jennifer, standing apart from the swarming mass of estrogen. She asks Frances if she can do anything, but it's a futile question, since it's obvious there's no place for her. Maybe I'm transferring my sadness over losing Tina's friendship onto my sister, or maybe the manicotti has put me in a very good mood, but I say, “Come here and help me scrape.”

She looks as pleased as a kid picked for the best team. Jesus.

“So what's for dessert?” Kristy, Johnny's wife, asks. At twenty-four, she's the youngest daughter-in-law, still thin after delivering twin boys a year ago. We would all hate her, except it would be like hating Mother Teresa. If Mother Teresa were gorgeous, had seventies hair and was, you know, alive.

“Jimmy made his chocolate cake,” Frances says, and we all pause for a moment of awed and respectful silence.

“With the chocolate buttercream frosting?” This from Monica, Vinnie's wife, her brown eyes like saucers underneath maroon-highlighted bangs.

“Of course, what else?” Frances says, and my guess is that more than one of us comes perilously close to orgasm.

Still, despite the camaraderie, for all that my position as après-dinner dish-scraper is mine for as long as I want it, it occurs to me that I'm still on the outside looking in with this family. Never mind that I know the intimate details of their sex lives, their finances and their menstrual cycles, that Julie had a benign cyst removed last year and Monica feels guilty about wanting another baby when she and Vinnie already have three kids. I
know
these people, but I'm not
part
of them. I used to think it was because I'm not actually related, either by blood or marriage, but more and more I'm beginning to think it goes deeper than that. And right now, as I scrape and salivate in anticipation of this cake, it hits me—I've got ethnicity envy. Not because they're Italian, specifically, but because they
are
part of something. Except for Jen and me, everyone in this room knows who they are, where they come from, what's expected of them. An Italian meeting another Italian—or a Jew another Jew, a Greek another Greek, whatever—shares an immediate bond. They get the inside jokes. They know the secret handshake. It's like they're sirloin tip roast and I'm…meatloaf.

Not that there's anything wrong with meatloaf. It's just you don't always know what you're getting.

And whilst I'm wandering down these philosophical paths, and the cake is sliced and passed around while we wait for the coffee to brew, they all stop their good-natured significant-other bashing long enough to wax rhapsodic about Heather's dress.

“All I have to say is,” says Julie, “if I ever get married again?” Her fork jabs in my direction. “You are so doing my dress. Come to think of it, it might be worth dumping J.J. just so I
could
get married again!”

We all hoot with laughter as Frances yells, “Hey! That's my kid you're talking about!”, especially as we all know Julie wouldn't dream of doing any such thing. Especially not with four kids including a four-month-old.

“But are you really sure the bridesmaids' dresses will be ready in time?” Heather asks, longingly eyeing the cake the rest of us are “sampling.” Everybody else except Jennifer, that is, who's again retreated to her spot by the kitchen sink, her arms crossed over her stomach, watching but not participating. If I'm on the sidelines, Jennifer is in a whole 'nother stadium.

“No problem,” I say around a full mouth, thinking if they don't have this cake in Heaven, I'm not going. Then I tell them about Dolly and her offer to help. Which she's been doing for the past week, making herself immediately indispensable. “It turns out she worked in the costume department of the Metropolitan Opera for years. Isn't that wild?”

“And she's working for you for free?” Frances asks.