Mad Girls In Love (49 page)

A TAPED MESSAGE FROM DOROTHY

I called Violet to ask if she could explain why Jennifer was acting so hostile. My cousin said she couldn't imagine a legitimate therapist saying those awful things. She went on to explain about how our relationships with our mothers are critical to who we become, and affect all other relationships. Then she told me to stop blaming myself. That in this case Miss Betty seized that role, so if anyone is to blame, it's her.

Violet laughed and said that even at her age she hesitates to call her mother because all she talks about is her coffee shop and her hot flashes and irregular periods. Violet said that Aunt Clancy is going through Menopaws.

I hung up and walked into the conservatory, leaning my cheek against a glass pane. Violet's voice was still in my head. I missed the days when we'd all been together. Despite all of my troubles, that era had been a sort of golden age. And it would never come again.

A TAPED MESSAGE TO BILL CLINTON

A NOTE FROM LOUIE DECHAVANNES

For days I kept his letter propped on my burled walnut desk, wondering if I should answer or just let it go. I didn't regret England for a moment but he had written faithfully for nearly a decade—this was impressive, considering his attention span. Not that I'd become dependent on those letters. I wasn't exactly leading a solitary existence. My friends were always introducing me to darling men, and I enjoyed their company immensely, but I never allowed myself to care. Every important relationship in my life had been damaged in some way—my mother, my daughter, my lovers. So I could not—would not—risk loving someone that deeply.

Each time I passed my desk, I picked up Louie's letter. It wasn't his threat of giving up on me, but his shaky handwriting that had gotten my attention. I had an image of him—all withered and stooped as he bent over the stationary, his fingers stiff and gnarled as they gripped the pen. Finally, I sat down at the desk, took out a sheet of paper, and began to write. But I couldn't find the right tone. I preferred to read a letter than to write one, especially one this important. In minutes, my trash bin filled with crumpled paper.

 

I tore that letter up, threw it into the bin, and started over.

I ripped up that letter, too. Then I grabbed another sheet and hastily scribbled my phone number. Before I could change my mind, I folded the paper in half and slipped it into the pocket of my cardigan, a lumpy, old thing I'd brought from 214 Dixie Avenue. I started to make tea, then I happened to glance at my watch. I had promised to meet my friend Rosamund at Waterstone's, where she was promoting her latest children's book. Rosamund was a tall, angular blonde who bit her nails to the quick and chain-smoked. I'd decorated her Kensington flat last year, and while we were very different, we'd become friends, despite her irritating habit of dragging me to book signings and parties, introducing me to eligible writer-friends—not my sort of chaps whatsoever. In fact, just last month, she'd insisted I attend a publishing party in Bedford Square, where I'd met her editor, a young, blond fellow named Ian. I tried to be cordial, but privately dismissed him as too young.

Hoping the outing to Waterstone's might clear my head, I dashed out of my flat and caught a taxi on Picadilly. When I reached the bookstore, Rosamund was nowhere to be found. Instead of my friend, I found her editor sitting on the floor, reading
The Secret Garden
to several dozen children. I sat down with the kids, mesmerized by his voice, the elegant flat As and blurred Rs. After he finished, he stood up and the children swarmed past him. I started to leave, too, but he called, “You're Rosamund's friend aren't you?”

“Right.” I extended my hand, surprised that he'd remembered.

“Nice to see you again.” He gripped my hand and gave it a firm shake. “Once again, Rosamund's gone missing. I was left carrying the can, wasn't I?”

“You were splendid.” I loved how the Brits added a rhetorical “wasn't I” to every sentence.

He muttered thanks—which came out sounding like
tah.
“I noticed it stopped raining,” he said, glancing out the window. Wobbly sunlight shone down on the damp street. “Do you care to take a stroll?”

We stepped out of the bookstore and headed toward a pub Ian knew just off Charing Cross. The clouds washed low, and it began to rain again. “It's
throwing
it down,” Ian said, handing me his umbrella. Then he stepped away to hail a cab. I slid one hand into my cardigan pocket, trying to warm up. A cab pulled up to the curb. When Ian turned to open the door, I started to close the umbrella, but I couldn't get the lever to work. I pulled my hand out of the pocket and my letter to Louie flew up and caught wind. I started to run after it, but then I saw that Ian was waiting. I gave the letter one last glance. It drifted over a phone booth, then caught an updraft and landed on an awning. I hurried over to Ian, and he helped me inside the cab. It smelled faintly of tobacco, but it wasn't unpleasant. Ian gave the pub's address to the driver—“four one treble six.” Beads of water clung to his hair and his raincoat. The driver sped off, jolting me against Ian's shoulder. It felt rather nice—solid, familiar. I smelled his cologne—bay and spice and something else. Ian smiled down at me and said, “Sorry about that.”

But I wasn't sorry. Not one bit.

 

FROM THE CRYSTAL FALLS
DEMOCRAT

Section F, Living, January 3, 1994

Mr. Claude E. Wentworth IV announces the engagement of his daughter, Jennifer, to Pierre Armand Tournear, of Atlanta, Georgia. Ms. Wentworth is the granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. Claude E. Wentworth III and Dorothy Hamilton McDougal and the late Albert McDougal. A 1989 graduate of Falls High, Ms. Wentworth attended Falls College. She is employed at Citizen's Bank as a vice president.

Mr. Tournear is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Thurmond Tournear of Marietta, Georgia. He briefly attended Kennesaw College and is currently employed at The Gap in Buckhead, Georgia.

The nuptials are slated for May 15, 1994.

After Dorothy mailed the newspaper clipping to Bitsy, she called her granddaughter to complain about not having been told. Jennifer's response was to tell her to take a chill pill. Then she said, “I totally feel your pain, Dorothy. But I WAS going to tell you.”

Dorothy couldn't think of a reply. She was sure Miss Betty had made Jennifer keep it from her. Nothing was enough for that woman. Not only had the lofty title of Grandmother had been claimed by that old witch, but Dorothy didn't get to have a special name, and that irritated the hell out of her.

“Are you going to tell your mother?” Dorothy asked. “Or shall I?”

“Dammit, stay out of my business,” Jennifer cried. “If you tell her anything, I'll personally send someone over to break your legs.”

“I promise,” Dorothy said. “But it sure is funny that you always cash your mother's checks but fail to return her phone calls.”

“Stop meddling. Get a hobby.”

“My family is my hobby.” Dorothy paused, then quickly changed the subject. “Where did you meet the Frenchman?”

“Pierre isn't French. He's from Georgia.”

“Well, that's a relief.”

“Oh, forget it. Just tell me Mack's tuxedo size.”

“Why?” Dorothy perked up. “Is he going to be an usher?”

Jennifer just snorted. “No, I want to make sure he dresses appropriately.” Then she said to make certain that he ordered the tux this week.

“What's the rush?” Dorothy asked. “The wedding isn't till May.”

“I just want to be organized.”

To Dorothy she sounded just like the crazies on Sally Jessie. Obsessive-compulsive brides cracking up on national TV. As if reading her grandmother's mind, Jennifer said, “Make SURE that you tend to Mack's tuxedo. Or better yet, just give me his measurements, and I'll order it.”

That night, Dorothy went over to Mack's house and rifled through his closet, pulling together all his sizes. She wrote them down on an index card then she handed the card to her son, and told him to please call his niece and give her the information, that she was having fits over the tuxedo.

Mack cracked open a Budweiser, sucked up the foam, and told her to handle it.

Dorothy reached for the portable phone and punched in her grand-daughter's number, then shoved the receiver into Mack's hand. As he recited his sizes to Jennifer, his face turned pink. He was almost bald, a pale, blue-eyed, bald-headed man with purple bags under his eyes, not to mention a sour yellow complexion.
If his liver is shot,
Dorothy thought,
I will give him mine
.

Mack's forehead puckered and he said, “Inseam? Mama didn't give me one.”

He held out the receiver, as if gripping a live copperhead. Jennifer was yelling, “I have never
heard
of someone not knowing his inseam. What kind of throwback
are
you? Listen, if you want to come to my wedding, you'd better get your sizes in order.”

Mack hung up the phone and scowled at his mother. “This is
your
fault. You didn't give me a fucking inseam.”

“No,” she told him. “But God did.”