Keep Your Mouth Shut and Wear Beige (21 page)

Those of us who are really good in the ICU, who can provide great patient care year after year, don’t turn into totally different people when we go home at night. Our attitude about our own problems is the one we take to work—fix it if you can, and then move on. Furthermore, seeing what problems the ICU familes are facing puts some perspective on your own little deals.

So I was sitting in the backseat of a well-maintained, well-insured car driven by a law-abiding, completely sober individual. Where exactly was the big problem?

But Annie had checked the school’s Web site. The tournament was starting two days after Christmas and had been on the team’s calendar all season. Qualification had never been in question. Obviously Holly had simply decided not to come.

So Guy, extrovert that he was, had invited any and all who didn’t have holiday plans . . . and people who, on December 22, don’t know what they are doing on Christmas frequently aren’t the most socially adept beings on the planet. It had not been a fun family holiday.

Rose came into the kitchen to help me unpack the groceries. “We have appointments with the caterer for tastings and at the rental company to try to finalize the linens. And the dishes . . . and the chairs and God only knows what else. I hope you know you’re welcome to come.”

I knew that Claudia would be very interested in everything at the rental company. “Can I go to the caterers and skip the tablecloth thing?”

“Absolutely,” Rose said. “Now I assume Claudia told you what she wants to do with those rehearsal-dinner dresses?”

“No, she hasn’t said anything. I suppose we ought to get started on finding a location and stuff.”

“Finding a location?” Rose had been folding a grocery bag. She stopped and sounded exasperated. “Everything’s almost done. Claudia’s just waiting for us to finalize the wedding menu so that she doesn’t duplicate things. Do you really know nothing about it?” Rose jerked the folds of the bag. “When the two of you don’t communicate, that puts me in the middle, and I don’t like that.”

I grimaced. She had a point.

“I know,” Rose continued, “that when she makes plans and decisions—like with that Christmas trip or now with the rehearsal dinner—you figure that it’s her responsibility to call you, and you’re probably right. But she’s not going to do that. As far as she’s concerned, you don’t exist. She never talks about you; she never refers to you.”

“That’s sort of creepy,” I admitted, “but I guess that’s better than her trashing me all the time.”

“Actually, from my point of view, it would be easier if she did trash you. I could discount the negatives, and at least I would have some information.”

“I hadn’t realized that it was so extreme. I’ll try to do better. What’s going on with—” I broke off. “No, I’ll ask her. Or Mike. He bears some responsibility here.”

“Not with what she wants us to wear. I’m sure that’s her bailiwick.”

Apparently Claudia had a hypothesis to prove—that the aesthetic quality of candid group photographs could be improved if some thought was given to a few garments. Her notion, according to Rose, was that if the dresses of the key female participants included, for example, the same diagonal lines, the resulting photographs would be more pleasing.

“She wants people to dress alike?”

“Oh, no,” Rose assured me. “She says that none of the garments would look anything alike, some would be separates, some would be dresses, all different colors and styles, but they would each have this ‘unifying diagonal.’ ”

“This is beyond creepy,” I said. “Where are people supposed to find these clothes?”

“She’s going to make them all and then write an article about it. With all of us illustrating it.”

I couldn’t think of anything I less wanted to be involved in. “I’m totally cool with not existing on this one.”

“Too bad. If you’re not in on this, then we aren’t. I’m not willing to go through another event like the engagement party where you are sitting in Siberia.”

I made another face. “You weren’t suppose to notice.”

“No, Darcy, you’re wrong there. I
was
supposed to notice. That was part of the point.”

I wondered if Claudia had any idea how observant and
shrewd Rose was. “I’m sorry that you have to deal with my family’s crap.”

“I am too,” she said bluntly. “But it’s not only you. It took me less than a month in this house to realize that we had handed ourselves a plateful of other people’s status issues. Yes, Jill Allyn likes working out here, but she really likes telling everyone that she can come out here anytime she wants, that she’s so special she doesn’t need an invitation. Then Guy wants to invite all the people who she’s trying to make feel bad.”

“That sucks.”

“Yes, it does.” Rose put the bags in the cabinet below the vegetable sink. “I really like you, Darcy, and I hope you like me. But if you want to help me, you’ll start fighting your own battles. Don’t make me fight them for you.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. I fought my own battles, didn’t I? “I pick and choose.” I wanted to defend myself. “I try not to sweat the small stuff. If something is important, I stand up, but this nickel-and-dime, who wears what, who sits where, I try to let that go.”

Rose shook her head. “What you are calling ‘small stuff’ are actually symbols with a great deal of potency.”

She was talking like an English major . . . but that didn’t mean that she was wrong. I might have pretended that I didn’t mind sitting at the losers’ table, but in truth, it had made me feel awful. “So what’s going on with the dresses? I don’t know that I want her making a dress for me.”

“You’d rather shop for one?”

“No, Lord, no.” But I did feel as if I had been shoved onto a train without anyone asking me where I wanted to go.

“How does Cami feel about all this? Aren’t more photographs going to add to the stress?”

“Claudia swears that the photography will be very unobtrusive,
nothing more than what we might ordinarily have. And, to be honest, Darcy, Claudia is helping Cami and me a lot. She can look at seven different unity candles and pick the one that will look best with our flowers. I’m inclined to humor her on this.”

I didn’t even know what a unity candle was.

I was going to talk to Mike first. Claudia might be maneuvering to turn me into a blank space on the canvas, but in truth, she didn’t owe me anything beyond basic decency. Mike did.

After lunch I drew him aside. “I just found out from Rose that you and Claudia have made almost all the rehearsal-dinner plans already.”

“Well, yes. Claudia said June’s a busy time of year out here, that we needed to lock in the restaurant now.”

“Shouldn’t you have consulted me? Or at least told me what you were doing? It was awkward hearing it all from Rose.”

He blinked. “Oh. I just assumed . . .”

“Assumed what? Did you assume I didn’t care? Or did you assume that it was Claudia’s job to tell me?”

He didn’t answer.

I knew what was happening. He was preparing his defense. He was going to tell me all the reasons why he had done nothing wrong. “I don’t want hear it, Mike,” I snapped. “I don’t want to hear that somehow you’ve done nothing wrong, and this is all my fault.”

I started to brush past him, but he surprised me. “No, Darcy, wait. You haven’t done anything wrong. I didn’t assume that you wouldn’t care, and I didn’t assume that it was Claudia’s job to tell you. To the extent that I thought about it, which wasn’t enough, I unconsciously assumed that you would be in touch with her.”

“That’s not fair,” I said. “That’s not fair at all. Am I supposed to call everyone you ever have dinner with and welcome her into
my family? That’s nuts. Why would you ever imagine me doing that?”

“Because it’s what you did with my mother.” He was speaking slowly as if he was only now understanding this. “The whole time we were married, you and she always figured out when we were going to get together. I’d just show up.”

“Mike, that was with your
mother,
my children’s grandmother. I’m not going to make those kinds of calls with your girlfriends.”

“No, no, of course not. I see now that I was taking it for granted that you were going to handle it.” He took a breath and looked straight at me. “That was wrong. I apologize.”

Now I was surprised. I didn’t know what to say. It was unlike him to make such a simple, sincere apology.

“So can I show you everything now?” he asked. “I know that Claudia brought all her files.”

I followed him into the family room. Claudia was sitting at the table with Rose and Annie. Because her posture was so good and her torso so long, she looked tall when she was sitting. Now that I was a resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia, I knew all about Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general. He wasn’t a tall man, but because his height was in his torso, he looked really great sitting on a horse.

But he still lost the war. I hoped that that was a good omen for me.

“Claudia, I want to go over the rehearsal-dinner plans with Darcy,” Mike said. “The files are in here, aren’t they?” He gestured toward a satchel made from some interesting Oriental fabric.

Claudia was on her feet instantly. She didn’t even look at her watch. “Let me get them. I was waiting to show them to everyone.” Clearly she didn’t like the idea of Mike and me in the corner going over her files and her plans.

They had chosen a restaurant on the other side of East Hampton, selecting it because of its beautiful garden. “I’ve done a mock-up of the invitation,” Claudia said. “And as you can see, I wanted to keep the soft, vintage look of the wedding invitations, but still do something different.”

I would have loved to hate Claudia’s invitation, but unfortunately it was about the coolest thing I’d ever seen. I felt as if I were being handed a passport to travel on the Orient Express. The background was a very subtle, very muted 1920s roadster-type map of the Hamptons. A vellum pocket was sewn onto the map and the lettering was superimposed on the vellum. “Michael Van Aiken, Claudia Postlewaite, Darcey Van Aiken request the honor . . .” The directions and other travel information were on a manila luggage tag inside the pocket.

“It’s not a theme party,” Claudia assured us. “The table cards may be similar to this, but that’s it. We won’t have mini-steamer trunks in the centerpieces.”

Oh. Mini-steamer trunks sounded cute, but what did I know?

We were passing around the invitation. Annie looked at it longer than the rest of us. “Is that how you spell your name, Darcy? Finney would love it if you had an
e
before your
y,
but you don’t, do you?”

I peered over her shoulder. “You’re right. That is a typo.”

“It’s only a mock-up,” Claudia assured me. “I’ll fix it.”

Then we talked about her dresses with their unifying diagonals. She had sketches for everyone’s dresses. Mine looked pretty plain, which was just fine with me.

“These are for the dinner on Friday night,” Claudia said. “But what about the wedding itself? How are you doing on your mother-of-the-bride dress?”

Obviously she was speaking only to Rose.

“Didn’t you tell her, Mom?” Annie said. “We found a dress.”

“Really? That’s great,” Claudia said. “I’ve been waiting until you got yours before even thinking about mine. Do you have it here? Can we see it?”

Once again I felt as if I didn’t exist.

“Of course. Annie, will you run upstairs and get it? This isn’t the actual dress. They only had my size in a print, but they can order it in a solid color. I wanted Cami to see it before I did the special-order.”

Annie came down with a pistachio-colored vinyl garment bag, unzipped the bag, and extracted the dress.

“Oh, yes.” Claudia said instantly. “This neckline wrap is going to be great on you.”

She had taken out the hanger and was examining the dress. All I could see was the fabric. It was a print, but very soft and impressionistic, swirls of violets and mauves.

“What’s wrong with that fabric?” I asked. “I think it’s very pretty.”

“I don’t wear many prints,” Rose said. “Do you ever see mothers of the bride in a print?”

“Not usually, but you know . . .” Claudia was thinking. “Maybe we should wear prints—you, me, and, oh, yes, you too. Darcy.”

“I could do that,” I said, thinking of the scarlet and magenta poppies that I hadn’t bought for the engagement party. I wondered if there was any chance that that dress was still at the store.

“It can’t be just any print,” Claudia said. “We’ll use this one as the model. Soft colors, low contrast, an even balance between figure and ground, soft outlines. If we do that, then Cami and the bridesmaids will really pop in the pictures.”

I couldn’t think of anything about my scarlet and magenta poppies that would fit Claudia’s criteria . . . except maybe the “even balance between figure and ground.” I had to exclude that because I had no idea what it meant.

“I’ll do my best,” I said bravely. “But you’ll need to write all that down.”