Keep Your Mouth Shut and Wear Beige (36 page)

“No. I’m done. This is perfect.” I turned and looked at the side view. Maybe I should go put on a padded bra.

Rose looked at me again. “No, it isn’t perfect. It isn’t bad, but it certainly isn’t perfect.”

“Oh, but we’re done with trying to make anything perfect.”

Rose nodded, agreeing. She opened her jewelry box and handed me a silver necklace and earrings. They were chunky and sort of primitive-looking, and they helped. Then, ten minutes later, Annie got her hands on me. She found a silver belt, raided
everyone’s jewelry boxes for more silver jewelry, and I thought I ended up looking pretty good . . . although the champagne that one of the bridesmaids was passing around probably helped my vision a bit.

I doubt that any of the guests truly minded not having to sit through a wedding ceremony. Instead of sitting in upright chairs, obediently silent, they seemed happy to start mingling immediately, drinking, talking, and laughing. I was surprised at how pleasant so many of them were. Of course, I said the same thing over and over . . . I was Jeremy’s mom . . . yes, everything was beautiful . . . an emergency tracheotomy, that was nothing, what anyone would have done.

Again I was treated like a heroine. In fact, a few of the men glanced at my left hand and asked if I ever came to New York. I must have looked better in turquoise than I’d thought.

One of the men said he would be coming to D.C. a lot on business because his married daughter lived there and was about to have her first baby. He asked for my number, and I gave it to him.

Nothing might come of it. He might never call. I might not like him . . . although I could pretty much guarantee that I would like the baby. But if he had asked for my number a year ago, there would have been no hope. I would have judged him only by the
extent to which he was or was not Mike. Now, at least I would be able to see him as . . . as whatever his name was. I had already forgotten it.

The sun was slanting, leaving golden shadows across the lawn. The catering staff drew back the curtains on the big dining tent. I went to stand on the bridge to look at the tables from there.

Each table was different. Some were round, some were square. Every tablecloth was a different color, but they were all the soft colors of a misty English garden—violet, lavender, and lilac, primrose, lemon, and buttercup, and every shade of pink. Nor did the chairs match. Some were wood, some were wicker, some wrought iron, some gilded. Everything was unstudied, informal, and inviting.

I saw Mike break free from a group and climb up the low arch of the bridge to join me.

“You look very nice,” he said.

“Foil,” I said.

“I beg your pardon? Did you just call me a fool?”

“No, I said ‘foil’ as in aluminum foil. To make dinner for one person.” I started talking fast. “Put some vegetables on a piece of foil, you may have to steam them in the microwave first. Then lay a piece of fish or a deboned chicken breast on top of them, brush it with a little olive oil, maybe some soy sauce. Add some fresh herbs if you have them. Fold the foil into a little packet, but tent it so there’s room for steam. Put it in the oven for fifteen or twenty minutes. Make some rice in the microwave and then you’ve got the kind of homecooked meal that you’ve been missing.”

“Wait . . . wait . . .” he said. “How much olive oil? What herbs? And what was that about microwaving the vegetables first? How do I know?”

“I’ll e-mail it to you. I wrote it all out for Dad after Mom died. His dilled salmon with honeyed carrots is the talk of the retirement home.”

“Would you? That would great. The one thing I haven’t figured out about living alone is a decent homecooked meal.”

I could have told him how to do this a couple of years ago. “Mike, if I ask you something, will you understand that I’m not trying to get into your pants?”

He blinked. “I suppose I can stipulate to that . . . although I am eager to hear why I need to do so.”

“Do you want to go on a trip together this summer? Vacations are the one thing I haven’t figured out. Do you know how we always talked about going to the national parks in Utah? Let’s fly out there, rent an RV, and be road bums for a couple of weeks.”

“Just you and me?”

“We can invite the boys and Cami, or even see if Rose and Guy want to get an RV for themselves, but let’s go even if no one else can. It would be fun to cook in one of those little kitchens.”

“If you’re cooking, I’m coming.”

In a perfect magenta and scarlet world, I would want to trade recipes with every woman he got involved with, and he would want to golf with every beau of mine. That was probably too much to expect, but at least we had gotten to a place where we could try. I was never going to read anyone’s blog again.

Rose and Guy came up to join us. Rose had her hand through his arm. I’d never seen the two of them walking so closely together. They needed to do that more often.

“Do you want to come to Utah with us this summer?” I asked. “We’re going to rent an RV. I think they make them so that the bathrooms don’t smell.”

“An RV?” Rose drew back, surprised. “The two of you?”

“We’re happy to make a caravan of it. You’ve got to admit that Finney would love it, a little bed over the cab of the truck or one that somehow becomes the table during the day. What eight-year-old wouldn’t adore that?”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Why not?”

“Can I bring someone to drive ours?” Guy asked.

“No, you big wuss. You can be a regular person again.”

“I suppose I can remember how to do that,” he admitted, “and this isn’t out of the realm of possibility, since we just got offered a phenomenal amount of money from someone who wants to rent this house for the rest of the summer, and they want to take possession in time for the Fourth of July.”

That was two weeks away. “Someone comes to a party and offers to rent the house before we’ve even served dinner?”

“Rent with an option to buy. This is the Hamptons, baby.”

“Are you going to do it?” Mike asked.

“Probably. This place isn’t right for us. If we’re going to unload it, now’s the time. Wall Street bonuses were huge this year; those people have cash that they didn’t have last year.”

“But they have to take it furnished,” Rose said, “and that includes the books. I just got Guy to unpack them two days ago. There’s no way they’re getting repacked. So we may be available for Utah, but, Darcy, in the meantime, what are you doing for the next two weeks?”

“Probably applying to graduate school.”

“Good,” said Rose. “I need you in Brooklyn. Your Jeremy’s making noises about a church ceremony. You and I have another wedding to plan.”

I’m grateful to Kathleen Miller for answering questions about colleges and for suggesting a key scene. My niece, Nellie Gilles, was my source for being a teenager in Park Slope. Ann Salitsky spotted countless errors in the manuscript, while Cindy Matlack helped me with my Web site. Elizabeth Holcombe Fedorko has a more artistic eye than I do; this book is better because of her willingness to imagine what things would look like. Welmoed Sisson literally provided light; she gave me a lamp I really like. Throughout my work on this book, Pat Petinga and Julie Bowersett provided me with lots of other things to think about; then, at the last
minute, the two of them stepped in and performed CPR on one of my characters. My neighbor, Mary Candace Fowler, continued to be the gracious, knowledgeable recipient of my early-morning e-mails about commas and hyphens.

I have a startling number of friends with offspring applying to medical school, a process so stressful that I am grateful to my daughters for not wanting to be doctors.