Life After Yes (14 page)

“You have something on your lip,” I say.

Mom licks her lips. The speck of green disappears into her mouth.

“Something's off. I see it in those eyes of yours. Yes, you have a nice big ring on your finger and that might distract the rest of the world. They might miss the telltale gloss—of sadness, of fear? But not me. There's something going on in those eyes,” she says.

“Nothing's wrong. Did you travel all the way here to try to shake things up, Mom?”

“Maybe, if that's what I need to do. I came because I love you…Prue, you're getting married. And I needed to
see
you. Is that so bad? You can't tell anything over the phone. Certainly, not over e-mail, the Devil's creation,” Mom says.

“Well, here I am. Look at me all you want. Although it sounds like you don't like what you see. Too much makeup, an extravagant ring. I bet you think I'm wearing too much black, right?” I say.

I
am
wearing too much black,
all
black in fact.

A New Yorker indeed.

“Do you love him?” she asks.

“I do,” I say. “That much I'm sure about.”

She nods. “But you're not giddy.”

“Am I supposed to be giddy, skipping on sidewalks like a chick in a hair commercial? Sorry to disappoint you. This is not the countdown to college. This is
marriage.
I'm not looking at freedom from the parental hold, ubiquitous booze and boys, tailgates. I'm looking at an institution no one seems to understand. I'm moving toward something society tells me to covet and crave, but a reality no one really shares. All we're told with certainty is that half of them end in divorce. Half of them end. Does it make sense to be giddy about something that fizzles or fails fifty percent of the time?” My heart is racing. I finish my sangria.

Mom looks at me. Smiles big. “No. No, it doesn't. But I just hope you have giddy moments. Moments when you smile because you have no choice. Not because a smile is expected or appropriate. I want you to have moments where the world, this gray world, is rainbow again.”

“I want those moments too. But I'm overwhelmed. I'm scared. I have these doubts.” I cry. As I wipe my eyes, eyeliner, my excessive dose of eyeliner, comes off onto my hands.

“Good,” she says, crunching an ice cube. “Good.”

“Good?”

“Yes,
finally
you're making some sense. I was beginning to fear that diamond had stripped you of your O'Malley reason.”

“I love him. I do. I want to marry him. I do. It's just, I don't know, it feels different,
bigger
than everything else. Everything up to this point, Mom.”

“It is.”

“And…I had these dreams. They
got
me. They feel like warnings,” I say.

So, I tell her about the dreams. I tell her everything I can remember—which is almost everything: the wedding in the courtroom, the tearful young me as flower girl, the multiple grooms, the faceless judge. I tell her about the swelling thighs and missing diamond, about Kayla and Phelps.

Mom listens. And through the fog of my furious retelling, I glimpse her face. She appears more riveted than concerned. She digests each word, lets each of my sentences saturate. It seems this matters to her.

“Wow,” she says when I finish. “That would make for a great novel or screenplay. And no, I don't mean that as another jab at your career—
our
career. It's just so
cinematic
, so real and yet so
fantastical
.”

“Mom, this isn't a screenplay. Not a novel. These are not actors. Not protagonists. This is my dream. My
life. Me.
”

“Yes, of course it is. But admit that it's amazing that we can retain such creativity, such nuance in our dreams even when we shirk creativity in our waking life.”

Another unappreciated knock at my career in the corporate law world.

“So? What do you think?”

“I think you're getting married.”

“Genius,” I say.

“Marriage is a big deal,” she continues, undeterred. “I don't know what the consensus is in Manhattan these days, but where we come from, it's forever. You have an amazing ability to love, to be loved, Prue. You always have. It makes sense that while contemplating your future, your forever, you revisit your past. To find out how you got here, right?”

And she dissects my dreams like a seasoned surgeon and like a mom, telling me that the three grooms represent my past, present, and future. Victor could have been anyone really, she says, he's just a future face. There will be infinite faces in my future—ones who will tempt me.

“You will be attracted to other people. You will flirt, have crushes,” she says, and I think of Cameron. “You don't stop being human, Prue.”

She tells me the judge's face was blurry because we don't ever really know who the final judge is. Is it society? Our parents? Ourselves?

“Most important I think is that little flower girl, that beautiful soul who can't stand the thought of growing up and making big decisions. You are that girl, Prue. Growing up doesn't just happen. It's not a fact; it's a decision. You have to decide to grow up and you're doing that now.”

She makes it sound so simple, so poetic. This is what mothers do. They tidy chaos. They offer translations.

“What about Phelps?”

“You loved him, Prue. You may never stop. But you also left him. That means something.”

“But I didn't really have a reason,” I say. “I was bored, I met Sage. I didn't really have a reason to leave him.”

“Sometimes the best decisions don't require reasons. Or good ones, at least. Truth be told, you had a reason and you just might not know what it was. You'll figure it out. Reasons reveal themselves over time. Often, after the fact. If we waited for reasons to materialize, we'd never move forward.”

Something clicks. I've spent my whole life stockpiling reasons—for why I should go to law school, or become a litigator, or become a wife. Maybe some things don't need justification to be right. Maybe instinct is the best measure.

“And about those doubts…” Mom says.

“Yes?”

“Let them live. Nurture them. Doubt can be a beautiful thing. Embrace it. Let it teach you.”

“So, you had doubts about Dad?” I ask, not sure I want to know the answer, but somehow needing to.

“Up until the very end. Sometimes I'd look at the man when he was hunched over, cross-eyed, trying to tie a fly, and I'd think,
This is it?
I think you doubt the things you love most. You don't have doubts about things that don't matter. And don't ignore them—the dreams. See what they mean to you over time. You owe it to yourself, Prudence. And to Sage.”

 

That night, Sage, the moms, and I go out for sushi and there's no dream talk. Mom, ever the wonderful contradiction, delivers a diatribe, both artful and empirically sound, about the dangers of eating raw fish while sampling my tuna sashimi. She tells us how they have begun selling edamame in the frozen section of their supermarket in Wisconsin, and that
maybe she will throw a sushi dinner party for her friends out there, bring a little Manhattan back to the woods.

Mrs. McIntyre is on her best behavior. When there is a pause in conversation, she places her hand on Mom's and whispers, “I'm so sorry about your husband. There are no words, so I won't try.”

Mom nods and sips her drink. “Thank you. Where is your husband this weekend?”

“On business,” Mrs. McIntyre mutters, sipping tap water. “They don't have to be gone to be gone.”

Sage and I hold hands under the table, witnessing this miracle.

“You sure you don't want a splash of sake?” Mom says.

Mrs. McIntyre pauses and says, “Why not?”

And Mom pours far more than a splash. She holds her glass up to the table. “To mothers!”

Mrs. McIntyre smiles. “To sons and daughters.”

We clink glasses.

“Quinn, dear,” Mrs. McIntyre says, “I've been meaning to ask you. Will you please come to Savannah with Sage in August?”

For Henry's birthday.

“I would love to,” I say, smiling.

“Now, let's talk business. We have a wedding to plan,” Mom says.

Dreams are not necessarily bad things, I'm beginning to realize.

We laugh and sip sake. There's no mention of the ring, of how much makeup or black I'm wearing, of those dreams and doubts that made me cry in my guacamole only a few hours ago.

Every now and then Mom catches my eye. For once, I don't
dodge her glance. I don't look away. For the first time, I feel as if I don't have anything to hide.

“I was thinking that instead of numbering the tables, we can name each table after a fishing fly,” Sage says, smiling, poking me with his chopsticks. “We can have the May Fly, the Woolly Bugger, and of course the Hula Popper and the Jitterbug.”

“That's a
splendid
idea,” Mom says, and grins.

“And we can have a little picture of a fly on the top of the invitation,” he says.

“You're obsessed,” I say. “Are you going to get married in waders and a BuzzOff shirt? The attire can be angler casual. My veil can be made of fishing net,” I say, and laugh.

And it's a good moment. Stuffed with love and laughter and life.

“Well, we've taken care of that part, haven't we, son?” Mrs. McIntyre says.

“What part have
we
taken care of?” I say.

“We bought Sage the most darling tan suit today. We're having it tailored,” she says.

We.

The giddiness is gone. I slip my hand from Sage's.

In my mind, I see it now. That vast black-and-white of Mom and Dad, barefoot, sporting goofy grins, just married—at home on our coffee table. Dad in his tuxedo, crisp black and white against the white cloud of Mom's dress. “I thought
we
decided you'd wear a tux,” I say to him as Mom pours all of us an emergency round of sake.

But Sage isn't the one who answers.

“Nah, a light-colored suit's far more appropriate,” Mrs. McIntyre says, and smiles, rubbing her son's back. “Isn't it, son?”

I
've never liked dresses.

In fifth grade, my friends got girly (think: skirts, sparkles). It made sense, I guess. For the first time, there was talk of tampons, and boyfriends, and bras. But I went in the opposite direction (think: baseball caps, basketball jerseys). I nurtured a sudden passion for the Boston Celtics, which was odd since I was a New Yorker and swimming in a sea of budding Knicks fans.

“Mom, your little tomboy's all grown up,” my brother says. “On a mission to buy a wedding dress.”

Mom laughs. “Don't think ‘tomboy' was ever an adequate label for this one,” she says, patting my thigh. I think Mom was thrilled I wasn't a priss. No, like her, I was a toughie. In those days, people didn't worry like they do now. The fact that Michael was the one stealing her lipstick didn't faze her.

“Did you ever think this day would come?” I ask her.

“I feared it might,” she says through a smile. Our cab flies
through the park, nearly flattening a young mother and her twin toddlers. As we bump along, I attempt to check my BlackBerry.

“God, Quinn, if you were a kid today, you'd be put on a regimen of Ritalin with your Flintstones,” Michael says, flipping through a slim stack of wedding magazines.

He's right. I'm not sure I even have the attention span to shop for my wedding dress.

“She doesn't need Ritalin, Michael. She needs to get rid of that device,” Mom says, gripping the door handle for dear life, as if she didn't spend years surviving these rides.

“Mom, it's a BlackBerry. You know what it's called,” I say.

“I still think it's ludicrous that they would shroud such an evil piece of technology with such a sweet, natural name. That thing has the ability to wreck human interaction,” she says.

“Point taken, Dad,” Michael says. And Mom's eyes dilate with sadness for just a moment before brightening again. Michael throws his arm around Mom. “Nothing wrong with carrying on the Luddite legacy. Let Q finish her stuff and I'll swipe the sweet little Berry from her when we get to the store.”

“So, you ready to choose your very own princess costume?” Mom asks.

“Princess costume?” I ask.

“That's what you called them when you were little. You asked why everyone dressed up as a princess when they got married. Wondered whether it was like another Halloween. I assured you that if you chose to marry, you could wear whatever you wanted.”

I smile. This sounds like me. “Did you picture me walking down the aisle in a Larry Bird jersey?”

“Wouldn't that be a sight?” Michael says, “Cue the quartet. Here comes the butch bride.”

And in this little yellow haven, we forget political correctness. And laugh. Hard.

“Need I remind you, Michael? You told me
you'd
wear a princess costume on your wedding day,” Mom says. “Thrilled your father to imagine his only son in a dress.”

Avery and Kayla wait for us outside the boutique. Avery's the picture of Saturday morning fresh in her perfect ponytail and flats. Kayla, on the other hand, appears to be wearing her outfit and makeup from last night. Kayla talks. Avery appears to listen, but I know better. She checks her pearl-encrusted watch at least twice as I approach.

“Nice of you to join us,” Kayla says, unapologetic about her display of morning cleavage. “Frankly, this isn't how I usually choose to spend my Saturday mornings.”

“You don't say!” I joke.

Avery hugs me.

“What do you think of this one?” Michael asks, pointing to a sleek number made of banded satin in the window. It's draped on a pipe cleaner of a mannequin, arms akimbo.

“Pretty, but not exactly right for a Bird Lake bride,” I say. “Though that's exactly how I plan to look on my big day—bald, emaciated, snow white, about to run for the hills.”

Laughter erupts, and buoys me through the spotless glass door of the small salon.

So far, so good.

“Good answer, kid,” Michael quips. “I just read about that one. Vera made only one. It's a size two and costs a mere sixty-K. Exclusivity's a bitch.”

“Good to see my daughter still has good taste. And good sense,” Mom says, and smiles.

“So this Wisconsin thing's a done deal?” Kayla asks, linking her arm in mine. “There's nothing we can do to make Fisherwoman Barbie come to her senses?”

Three stick figures in matching charcoal skirts perch behind a tiny antique desk and shower us with matching disapproving glances.

Kayla fingers a crystal champagne flute on display next to a conspicuous sign that reads: “Please do not touch.”

“Can you believe this is
it
?” Avery asks, grabbing my hand. “On the hunt for your
wedding dress.
” Her smile is vast, open.

“Simmer down,” Kayla says. “It's not like she's choosing the groom.”

“I know. Some of us have already taken care of that part,” Avery says.

“I think you, my friend, have had your noggin buried in
Martha Stewart Weddings
and
The Knot
for a little too long,” Kayla says to Avery.

“
Someone
is rather schooled in the names of wedding magazines,” Avery says, and laughs.

Kayla, usually immune to the punch of humiliation, forces a smile as her face grows pink.

Avery sticks her hand out and stares at her engagement ring, a veritable carat overload, and makes sure Kayla sees it.

“Not too shabby,” Kayla says, looking at Avery. And we have ourselves a timely truce.

A sulky girl named Marisa ushers us up a winding staircase, her stilettos stepping softly on fluffy beige carpet. Upstairs, Marisa points to a white leather sofa. Everyone plops down except for Michael, who disappears into white horizons. Marisa balances a clipboard in her left hand, pen cocked, ready to take my vitals. Location. Head count. Vision.

“Vision?” I ask. “Not great. I wear contacts.”

“What kind of bride do you want to be?” Marisa asks, ignoring my failed attempt at matrimonial humor. And I half expect her to hand me a menu.

“The kind who gets married and gets on with her life,” I say.

Avery frowns.

Kayla nods.

And Mom smiles. “That's my girl.”

“Okay. Let's start over. Are you familiar with the rainbow?” she asks me.

“No. I'm a rookie.”

“Well, you have antique, ivory, eggshell, ecru, blush, champagne…” she says.

“And then you have the fun stuff,” Michael says, reappearing. “The jewel-encrusted tiaras, antique brooches, supersized bows, oddly placed strings of pearls. Some of the dresses this season even have color, Q. Touches of eggplant and turquoise, splashes of bright burgundy and rose.”

And finally, we have a smile from Marisa. “Thankfully,
someone's
clearly done their homework.”

“
His
homework,” I correct her. “Guess you don't need good grammar to sell a princess costume,” I whisper to Mom.

“Quinn!” Avery chides.

“How about ivory?” I say. “How will ivory look with a
tan suit
, one surreptitiously purchased by a very thoughtful mother of the groom?”

“The battle rages on. Why not pure white? Is white a little too pure for our little bad girl?” Kayla pipes in, eyes glued to the tiny screen of her BlackBerry.

“Brides historically never wore white,” Mom says. “Not until Queen Victoria. The white-as-tradition thing is another Western myth. Like the one that equates diamonds with love.”

“Ah, the big bad De Beers conspiracy,” Michael says.

“No complaints here,” Avery says, flashing that ring again. “A Diamond Is Forever.”

“More like A Diamond Is for Now,” Kayla says. “Thanks for the history lesson, Mrs. O'Malley. What color was your wedding dress?”

Mom doesn't answer.

Now Michael grabs Mom's left hand. “And check out the rock,” he says, pointing to Mom's engagement ring, the lone diamond, still sparkling after all these years.

Mom shrugs her shoulders. “More like a pebble.”

We all laugh some more.

“Lace?” I say, lamely. Back to business.

Avery smiles big. “Ooooh, I always imagined you'd wear ivory lace. There is something so classic and timeless about that,” she says. Avery's wedding dress is ivory lace. “Yes, I pictured you as a classic and timeless bride. Sure, antique lace is a bit old-fashioned, a tad grandmotherly, but in my daydreams as a little girl, that's what I envisioned.”

“I didn't daydream about my wedding as a girl,” I say.

“Start now then,” Avery says, smiling.

Michael and Marisa leave us, divide and conquer in the quest for ivory lace. They return under ivory piles. Marisa comes into the dressing room with me and stands there as I undress. Up close, I can see the wrinkles around her over-lined eyes, the rebel strands of gray amidst coiffed hair. I see for the first time that she doesn't have a ring of her own.

She helps me into the first dress, a simple strapless number. It barely closes in the back, pinching my skin.

“Bridal sizes run very small,” she says, a scripted assurance, as I attempt to breathe.

I come out of the dressing room. All eyes on me. Good practice for my wedding day.

Marisa tells me to stand on the white wooden box in front of the vast mirror, so I do. On this pedestal, I stare at myself in the mirror. The faces behind me blur and blend. And there I am, in sharp focus.

A fucking princess.

All of a sudden, I'm light-headed.

“Let me fix you,” I hear Marisa say.

“Please do,” I mumble.

Before I know it, Marisa is crawling around on the carpet and under my dress. “Adjusting the tulle,” she mutters.

“I didn't get a chance to shave this morning,” I apologize. “Or this month.”

“You know my theory about shaving,” Kayla says, her voice distant.

“Huh?” Her words nick me like an errant dart in a crowded sports bar. I catch a glimpse of myself again in the mirror. Confusion contorts my face, now pale, rearranging my features. For a moment, I don't recognize myself.

Mom perks up. She loves theories. “Let's hear it.”

“It's never a good sign when you stop shaving with a guy. Means the chase is over. Time to sit on the couch, take turns with the remote, and get fat,” Kayla says.

“I'm sure she shaves other important places?” Michael says, looking in my direction.

“Don't think it's overly appropriate to discuss pelvic grooming in such an institution,” Avery says.

A thank-you emerges from under my massive skirt.

“Plus, I think it's the opposite. There's nothing wrong with becoming comfortable with a man. It's good to relax, not
worry about every hair. It shows confidence, if you ask me, that something as silly as stubble isn't going to make him walk,” Avery says, defending me. She chooses not to mention the weekly waxing sessions she's kept since high school.

“What's this obsession with shaving?” Mom says. Should've known this was another ripe opportunity to peddle feminist ideology. “Society's goddamned preoccupation with returning to prepubescence? Hair is natural, a sign of maturity.”

Michael nods as Mom talks and then he lifts her pant leg, running his hand along her calf. “Smooth as silk.” Then it's back to business. “Not so sure about the lace,” he says.

“I think I agree,” Mom says. I'm beginning to wonder if this haven of femininity is traumatizing her. Or whether she, in all her smooth-shaven, diamond-wearing glory, secretly loves it here.

“Well, I think you look beautiful,” Avery says, wiping a tear from her eye. She's a crier. “I mean,
look
at you.”

Kayla slips her BlackBerry into her bag and looks at me. “A little prissy if you ask me,” she says, and shrugs. “A shred predictable.”

Mom nods.

“I hate to say it, but Special K has a point. Lace seems drab and boring. You don't want to be drab and boring. You want to be a contemporary stunner, an edgy sophisticate,” Michael says. “You want heads to turn.”

“I do?” I say, and think of my dream. The swiveling heads on bodies, convened for me, cloaked in white. “Oh yeah, I do.”

Michael continues his commentary, his voice animated. “Lace isn't you. You aren't on the fast track to becoming a muffin-baking Martha Stewart. In fact, I think you'll dodge that fate at all costs.”

“That won't be hard,” I say. My cooking repertoire—
college-honed—amounts to boiling eggs and burning toast. “Too bad skinniness hasn't been a by-product of my inability to make a meal,” I say, still sucking in.

Skinny Marisa pops out from under my dress and surrenders another smile.

Michael won't stop with the arguments. “Lace is fitting for platinum blond twinset-sporting country clubbers. The bride in lace was probably a respectful child who wore pigtails and ruffle socks and who didn't put up a fuss about an early bedtime. The lace bride will be the coiffed and well-balanced wife and mother who is expert at juggling kids and work and has a warm meal on the table and manages a lipstick smile even at the end of a hard day.”

“Can I suggest something?” Marisa asks.

“You
may
,” I say.

“You should try on many different types of dresses, even ones you never thought you'd like. That's really the only way to know what you want.”

A rational suggestion. I'll buy it. “Bring it on,” I say. In the mirror, I see that some color has returned to my cheeks.

Within minutes, I've hopped in and out of duchess silk and antique pointelle, blush and champagne organza. Finally, I emerge from the dressing room in a gown symmetrically smattered with stark black velvet embroidery.

“I saw this one online,” Michael says. “The model sashayed down the runway in tattered black cowboy boots.”