The Good Life (8 page)

“No pie?” asked Ann, already knowing the answer.

“Let them go,” said Mike gently. Dismissed, Lauren and Nate bolted from the room. They moved quickly up the stairs to the landing, where they stopped and looked at each other.

“Oh my God,” said Lauren.

“Did you see his bib?” asked Nate. “It’s a national disaster area. For every piece of rice he actually got into his mouth, there are two on his bib.”

“How about just the fact that he has a bib?” said Lauren, following her brother down the hallway to their bedrooms. “I mean, what is he, a baby?”

“And Gran is acting like nothing’s wrong,” said Nate. “Do me a favor and shoot me if I ever get like that.” Nate disappeared into his room and shut the door behind him. Lauren lingered a moment. Seconds later, she heard music. She turned from his door and walked the rest of the way down the hallway to her room.

 

Downstairs, the four adults ate their dessert in the kitchen, at Mike’s suggestion. He told them he found the kitchen atmosphere much more conducive to quiet conversation. While this was true, he moved everyone mostly because he had seen too many bits of food bounce and slide off Sam’s bib onto his $50,000 Oriental rug. When they finished, Eileen lifted her napkin from her lap and gently wiped a blotch of whipped cream off her husband’s chin. “That was delicious,” she said. “What a lovely meal.”

“Thank you,” said Ann, looking at her watch.

“Well,” said Eileen, getting out of her seat. “Sam and I had better hit the dusty trail home. Let me just take these dishes over to the sink.”

“Leave them, Mom,” said Ann. “Emma will get them on her way out.”

“That seems silly,” said Eileen, collecting the plates and forks. “I’m heading that way anyway.”

“That’s what I pay Emma to do,” said Ann.

“Just because you pay her doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help her out.”

“Then by all means, do whatever you want.”

They all waited silently until Eileen returned to the table. “There,” she said. “That just took a minute.” Mike stood and helped Sam up. Eileen removed his bib. She folded it, stained and damp, and put it in the pocket of his sweater. She brushed the piecrust crumbs from his pants. “Ready to go?” she asked her husband.

“Yes, I am,” said Sam softly before turning to Mike. “Thank you for a wonderful evening.” Mike looked into Sam’s eyes, wondering if he had missed something. He took his father-in-law’s hand and shook it.

“You’re welcome, Sam.”

Ann opened the back door, and then she and Mike watched her parents amble down the brick path to the guesthouse. “My God,” she said, “I had no idea what a nightmare I was getting myself into.”

“It’s not a nightmare,” said Mike unconvincingly.

“No more dinners in the dining room,” she said. “From now on, we eat in the kitchen.”

“We’re not eating together every night.”

“Absolutely not,” said Ann. “Sundays only. Maybe a few other nights, sprinkled in here and there. We’ll see. The rest of the time, they’ll eat in the guesthouse.” Ann wrote a note to herself on the yellow legal pad she kept by the phone. “I’ll reconfirm the meal plan with Selma in the morning. Even though we’ve gone over this, I want to make sure she expects to do the majority of the cooking for my parents. She told me she loves to cook, so it’s not an issue.”

Mike kissed Ann on the forehead. “I’m going to do a bit of work before bed,” he said. “I’ll be up in a couple of hours.”

“And I’m going to make an Irish coffee and take a bath,” said Ann. “It’s been a terribly long day.”

“Skip the Irish,” said Mike. “And if you’re making decaf, I’d love a cup.”

C
HAPTER
4

A
nn walked from the garage into the kitchen to the unwelcome sight of her mother in an apron stirring something in a pot on the stove. Ann set her pastel shopping bags down on the floor and took a deep breath. The day had not gone as she planned. Her favorite treadmill at the club had broken down in the middle of her workout. She had lunch with Sally and had to listen to her brag about her kids and their academic achievements. While Sally talked about tough honors courses and the burden of extra homework, Ann made a mental note to ask Lauren for her report card and to ask Emma to search Nate’s room for his. And after lunch, Ann endured an endless budget discussion at the most tedious hospital board meeting she had ever attended. As a reward afterward, she hit the mall, which lifted her mood some. But now her mother, uninvited, was in her kitchen, using her expensive copper pots and humming a hymn Ann vaguely remembered from Sunday school. “What are you doing?” were the first words that came out of her mouth.

“Oh, hello,” said Eileen, turning around to face her daughter. “I was lost in thought and didn’t hear you come in. I’m trying out a soup for Thanksgiving. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Is your stove working all right?” asked Ann, tossing her keys noisily into the wicker basket on the counter.

“It works like a charm,” said Eileen. “Selma is making our dinner and I didn’t want to get in her way. Thanksgiving is only a week away, Ann. We have to start preparing. Come taste this.”

“We have nothing to prepare,” said Ann, peeling off her coat and hanging it on a peg. “I have it catered.”

Eileen’s eyes became full moons. “You’re kidding me, Ann. You cater Thanksgiving?”

“I’m not kidding, Mother. Thanksgiving is an underappreciated meal that’s devoured in seven minutes.”

“Thanksgiving is an American tradition, honey.”

“It’s way too much work.”

“Not if we roll up our sleeves and work together,” said Eileen. “We could spend next Wednesday in the kitchen, just you and me. It would be fun.”

“That,” said Ann, lifting her shopping bags and walking across the kitchen floor, “is
not
my idea of fun.”

“What is your idea of fun?” Ann stopped and turned to face her mother. “It seems like every day you leave here early in the morning and return late in the afternoon with a bunch of shopping bags,” said Eileen, turning off the burner.

“How would you know when I come and when I go?”

“I have eyes, Ann,” said Eileen. “Our little house has that beautiful picture window.”

“So,” asked Ann, reddening, “you’ve been spying on me?”

“I’m not spying on you, honey,” said Eileen, laying the wooden spoon down in the sink. “I’m interested in you. I want to know what your life is like.”

“Look around you,” said Ann, gesturing with her free hand. “This is what my life is like. It’s a fabulous life, and I love it.”

“That’s good,” said Eileen, moving the pot to the granite countertop. “I just want you to be happy.”

“I’m ecstatic,” said Ann. “I have everything I want. Who wouldn’t be happy?”

“Sometimes you seem a little edgy, dear.”

“I live my life on the edge,” said Ann grandly.

“Well, good for you,” said Eileen, looking into her daughter’s eyes. “I just hope you don’t fall off.” Ann was immobilized for just an instant by her mother’s remark. And then she slowly smiled, and—never breaking eye contact—backed the rest of the way out of the kitchen. She jogged down the hallway and up the staircase to her room. She shut the door behind her, sat down on the bed, and called Mike. He didn’t pick up.

“Damn it!” she said, sitting on the edge of her king-sized bed and breathing as if she’d just stepped off a treadmill. She sat for a moment, and then walked into her bathroom to wash her hands. When she returned to her bedroom, she emptied the contents of her bags onto the bed and stared at what she had bought. She took a permanent marker and a pair of scissors from her bedside table drawer and clipped the tags from the buttery cashmere sweaters and wool tops. Holding the marker, she turned to the shoes and labeled the box: Br Drive Moc w/ G Bkl. She took both the box and the clothes to her closet and put everything in its proper place. She hesitated at the wall of shoe boxes, and then sat on her chrome stool to count her fall/winter collection. She had seventeen pairs of everyday shoes in brown, including the new moccasins, twenty-three pairs in black, and sixteen pairs of what she called “funky everyday.” She had fifteen pairs of suit shoes, suitable for upscale charity meetings and business receptions, and thirty-five pairs of party shoes, her favorite. She got up from her seat, walked to the party section, and removed a box from its slot. Inside was a pair of Italian black satin sling-back pumps, with the daintiest heel she could stand upon without toppling over. She ran her fingers across the miniature toe box and along the skinny heel strap. She remembered Mike telling her how sexy she looked at Susie Dalton’s Christmas party the year before. She would have to find a reason to wear them again. She walked out of her closet and back to her bed, where she sat and removed her shoes. She grabbed the phone from the table next to the bed and called Jesse. “My mother is driving me crazy.”

“Hmm,” said Jesse.

“And I don’t want to hear, ‘I told you so.’ ”

“What do you want to hear?” asked Jesse.

“I want sympathy.”

“You poor thing,” said Jesse. “How’s that?”

Ann lay back on the bed. “She’s down in my kitchen making a concoction for Thanksgiving.”

“And?” asked Jesse.

“She’s got her own kitchen, for God’s sake. She doesn’t need to be nosing around mine.”

“As if you ever use your kitchen,” Jesse pointed out.

“I
do
use my kitchen,” stated Ann. “Just because I don’t cook very often doesn’t mean I don’t use my kitchen. I’m in it all the time.”

“You can be there when she’s there, you know,” said Jesse. “That’s probably what she’s looking for. She wants to spend some time with you.”

“And I want to spend some time with her,” said Ann, draping her free arm across her forehead. “But I want to do it on my own terms. If I spend the entire day with her, I’ll snap. Honestly, Jesse, I’ll just let her have it.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s my mother and all mothers drive their daughters crazy,” said Ann. “And because she’ll want to crawl into my head and into my life in a last-stab effort at getting to know me better. I don’t want her to know me any better. I want her to live in the guesthouse out back and come to me when she needs help.”

“I don’t think that’s how it’s going to work,” said Jesse.

Ann closed her eyes. “I’ve made a huge mistake.”

“No, you haven’t,” said Jesse. “You’re just going to have to be more flexible, Ann. We all do, at certain times.”

“I hate being flexible,” said Ann.

“Work on it,” said Jesse. “In the meantime, go be with your mother.”

 

When Ann walked into the kitchen fifteen minutes later, her mother was gone. On the counter was a plastic container filled with a thick orange liquid, still steaming. The blue lid sat next to it, plastered with a wide piece of masking tape and the words
Mama’s Butternut Squash Soup
written in her mother’s handwriting. The shining copper pot was hanging in its usual spot over the island, and the other dishes and utensils her mother used had been washed and dried and were sitting on a dish towel on the counter. A note in her mother’s handwriting lay on the counter next to the dishes. Ann picked it up and read:
I’m sorry I used your kitchen without asking you. I hope you like the soup. It’s your grandmother’s recipe
. Ann put the note down. “I hate this,” she said.

She put the soup in the fridge, then picked up the phone and called Mike’s office. She left a message with his secretary to have him meet her at the club at seven o’clock for dinner in the bar. She then called Nate’s and Lauren’s cell phones and left messages about where she and Mike would be for dinner and when they would be home. She told them to order whatever they wanted from The China Palace and to do their homework. She then put the menu and $40 in the middle of the kitchen table. She looked at her watch. She had enough time to do sixty minutes on the StairMaster, shower, change, and drive to the club. Mike would be late, but that didn’t matter. She could taste her first glass of wine already.

 

“Yes!” said Nate as soon as he listened to his mother’s message.

“What?” asked Jenny.

“My parents,” said Nate, selecting his sister’s cell phone number from his contact list. “They’re not going to be home tonight.”

“Want to have dinner at my house?” asked Jenny, flipping her long blond ponytail over her shoulder.

“No way,” said Nate. “We’re going out.”

Jenny opened her mouth to speak, but Nate held up his hand. “Lauren,” he said into his phone. “I’m going out, too. You go into my room, I’ll kill you.”

“I can’t go out tonight, Nate,” said Jenny as Nate put his phone back in his pocket. “It’s a school night.”

“A school night?” said Nate, feigning horror. “Why didn’t you tell me? I can’t go out, either. I’ve got to get home, take a shower, do all my homework—double-check my math answers—and get into bed early so I can get a good night’s sleep.” Jenny laughed. “Call your mom,” said Nate. “She’ll let you go out.”

Jenny looked at her watch. “She’s not home.”

“Even better,” said Nate. “Leave a message. Tell her we’re going out for pizza, and I’ll have you home early. Tell her it’s our six-month anniversary, or something.”

“It’s not our six-month anniversary until next week.”

“I know that,” said Nate.

 

“Crap,” said Lauren, after she listened to her messages.

“Who was that?” asked Pammy, an on-again, off-again friend from the volleyball team who was currently on.

“My mother and my brother,” said Lauren. “Everybody’s going out to dinner tonight.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“Yeah, for everybody but me,” said Lauren. “I hate it when my mom does that.”

“Goes out to dinner?” asked Pammy, looking at her hand, onto which she was writing a phone number with permanent marker.

“Blows me off,” said Lauren, shoving her school books into her backpack. “They do it all the time.” It was when Lauren was twelve, she decided, that her mother had chosen to be elsewhere rather than at home, preferring the gym, shopping malls, and nice restaurants to dinner at the kitchen table. Before that and before Emma, when Lauren was in elementary school and they lived in the old house, they had eaten at home most nights. And her mother had produced pretty good meals, routine stuff like spaghetti and meatballs, chicken dishes, and the like. Back then, when Lauren walked into the house after school, the kitchen smelled like something to eat rather than disinfectant. It was when they moved into the new house, the building of which had seemed to require her mother’s daily supervision and input, that she was suddenly never home anymore. Her father had never been home much for as long as Lauren’s memory could reach back. He had often arrived just in time for a late dinner, but he had a defendable excuse.

“I think you’re lucky,” said Pammy, drawing a heart next to the phone number. “I wish my parents would go out once in a while. They’re always around, dinner after dinner after dinner.”

“Want to come to my house?” asked Lauren. “We can eat takeout, just the two of us. It will be really cool.”

“I can’t tonight,” said Pammy. “It’s my little sister’s birthday. My mom is making her favorite dinner and then we’ll have cake and stuff.”

“Now
that
sounds like fun,” said Lauren, redoing her ponytail.

“Oh, it will be,” said Pammy, capping the marker and putting it into her jeans pocket. “Sometimes my mom gets my brother and me a present, too, just so we don’t feel left out.”

“You’ve got the coolest mom.”

“Yeah,” said Pammy. “Hey, I’ve got to run. Do you need a ride home or anything? My mom should be out back by now.”

“No thanks,” said Lauren, not wanting to go home yet. Her mother would be dolling herself up for an evening out, which Lauren had no interest in witnessing. She shrugged her backpack onto her shoulders, walked down two flights of stairs and out the back door of the school, where other mothers were waiting in warm cars for their kids. They would take them home, make them a nutritious dinner, and probably pour them a huge bubble bath or something equally nice. Lauren turned away from the line of cars and walked along the sidewalk. She was almost to the street when she heard someone call her name. It was Katie, another friend from the team, looking at her from the passenger side seat of their family minivan. “Do you need a ride?” she yelled.

“No,” shouted Lauren back. “I’m going to the library.” Katie waved and then raised her tinted window. Lauren crossed the street and walked the four blocks to the public library. She chose a table in the Catherine Whitfield room, down a narrow hallway from the main desk. It was a small, relegated quiet space—named after the daughter of the town’s founding father—with comfortable upholstered chairs, brass reading lamps, and walls covered with glass-doored, wooden cases filled with old-looking books Lauren had not wondered about enough to examine closely. She lowered her pack to the carpeted floor, took off her new North Face down jacket, and settled in at one of the four empty tables.

Ninety minutes later, she had done seventeen algebra problems and finished the rough draft of her English essay, tentatively titled “The Myriad Merits of Mediterranean Literature.” She called a cab, which arrived fifteen minutes later and took her home. She got out of the car and jogged up the front steps, where she used her house key to open the front door. She reset the alarm and then walked quickly through the dark hallway to the kitchen. The light over the table was on, illuminating The China Palace menu and the money. Lauren pocketed the bills, put the menu back in her mother’s file, and opened the fridge. Just as she was taking out the squash soup, she heard a knock at the back door. It was her grandmother. Lauren put on a smile. She pushed the alarm release code and opened the door. “Hi, Gran,” she said.