The Pursuit of Alice Thrift (29 page)

He said, “I have my pride. I scrimp wherever I can. When you work for yourself, you're the guy you turn your expenses in to. It's a hell of a way to make a living.”

I pointed toward the kitchen. “Please bring me my wallet.”

Ray said, “I can't have it both ways: ‘Marry me, Alice. Be my wife. Whoops, sorry, that didn't count. Let's do it over. Let's be engaged.' Only a loser would take money from his fiancée.”

I said, “I'm your wife. I have money in the bank. If I want to give you some, you should accept it.”

“How much?”

I looked in my wallet. “I have six twenties. Is that enough?”

He asked if a couple more twenties were possible.

I said, “If you didn't mind running down to the ATM.”

“Password?” he asked.

“Edema,”
I said, and spelled it.

He tapped his temple. “Can I tell you what's really going on up here? I want your parents' approval. I think it's time to back off and let them put their signature on this wedding. I'm putting my nose to the grindstone to demonstrate that I can take care of you as good as any guy you might have picked up at the country club or the library.”

I said, “I've never been to a country club in my life. Besides, no one has to take care of me.”

“You're not saying you don't want me to go on this trip, are you? Because you knew when you married me that I'm not a guy who sells fudge over the phone.”

“It just seems a little sudden. And a little long.”

He smiled. “You know what you're saying? That you're going to miss me.” He smoothed the map across my knees. “Look: Here's Boston. And here's me, driving along these highways all by myself—no colleagues to shoot the shit with and eat lunch with, no neighbors across the hall.”

“You could bring some audio books,” I said.

“That's not my point. My point is, who's going to miss their partner more? You or me?”

“You?”

“No question. How can you even compare the two? Me living out of a car, the smell of cocoa fat turning my stomach by about day three. Do you think I'd be doing this unless I absolutely had to?”

I said no, of course not. Sorry. Here's my bank card. Bring it right back.

“When I first met you I thought, This is a girl who will always understand that work comes first.” He kissed my forehead and murmured, “I'm doing this for us. You believe that, don't you?”

I said I did. And the disturbing part? I meant it.

A WEEK LATER
, I received an invitation to my own wedding—Mr. and Mrs. Bertram Thrift requesting the pleasure of my company at the marriage of myself to Mr. Raymond Joseph Russo, seven weeks hence.

How had I landed on my own guest list? Was it meant to be a sample? A souvenir? A sign that I'd be on the outside looking in? It turned out to be the act of the calligrapher/cousin and her low IQ, but still it was unsettling. I sent the preaddressed RSVP card back promptly to the hosts, and checked off, after considering the options, “Chicken.”

30.
A Free Woman

SORRY, NO﹔ NOTHING DRAMATIC HAPPENED AT THE ACTUAL
ceremony.

Everyone said I looked my best. The dry cleaner had worked magic, returning my dress spotless, sized, stuffed with tissue paper. My shoes matched the cream-pink of my dress, and I surprised everyone by wearing my mother's pearls and a nearly red blossom behind one ear. As for my bouquet, I couldn't say; I left that up to other people.

My mother had decorated the church with weeping figs and other cumbersome potted plants, requiring a nursery as well as a florist. The groom's side of the aisle was sparsely populated: a few unnamed relatives, the female guests of cousins George and Jerome—best man and solo usher, respectively. There was a woman said to do Ray's books; another woman said to be the switchboard operator at the parent confectionery company. If there were others in attendance, I've forgotten.

I found the ceremony overly ambitious for what it was, a reenactment. We recycled the gold bands that we had used the first time. In modern Unitarian terms I promised to love, respect, treasure, listen to, learn from, share with, and celebrate Ray, who then promised to do the same. Upon being pronounced husband and wife, Ray kissed me in a fashion I found too fervent for the occasion. “It's been ages,” he told the Reverend Walter Webb.

One would think that the recessional would be a blur, tears of joy compromising my vision. But not so. I noticed every face, every peculiarity of expression: my aunts Janet and Patricia looking at Ray in appraising fashion; neighbors from Einstein Drive looking anxious to get home before guests blocked their driveways; Leo in a dark suit and Sylvie in a black dress, visibly worrying from the last pew.

Following the congregation's environmental guidelines, the guests showered us with birdseed in lieu of rice. Some flung their allotment, I noticed, with more force than others.

IT WAS GRAY
and humid with temperatures more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with the tent adding to the oppression. Thunder could be heard to the north and west. Ray's dance-floor dreams had to be downsized when the reception moved indoors. Waiters were enlisted to remove the Bokhara and its pad from the first-floor study, uncovering the hardwood floor and enough dust to make my mother call for the vacuum.

The food, everyone said, was fabulous—raw fish suspended in spicy emulsified liquids housed in martini glasses, to name one particular smash hit. The ice sculpture was meant to be a representation of my hospital—I recognized the cylindrical parking ramp on its face—but it quickly melted into formlessness. The bartender was hailed as a martini genius, with much of the banter concerning which subcategory and hue of the house drink guests had selected. “Open bar!” Ray announced more than once, directing traffic toward the gins, the vodkas, the dry vermouths.

Whether it was the advice of parents worried about our earning potential, or merely custom, the majority of our guests slipped checks to Ray, who managed to look both surprised and deeply humbled at the appearance of each white envelope.

“Want me to put those in my purse?” I asked.

“Eventually,” he said.

It wasn't like other weddings. Maybe it was the setting, or the “Fêtes by Frederick” van in the driveway, or my mother's stricken look, but it reminded me of the receptions I'd attended after each grandparent's funeral. I asked Ray why his family was so underrepresented. Hadn't we each invited seventy-five?

“Saturday's a workday,” he said. “Plus some felt a little intimidated by you.”

“Without ever meeting me?”

“On paper, I mean: MIT, Harvard Med. The fact that the reception was in Princeton, New Jersey. On Einstein Drive. Some of them have never been outside Suffolk County.”

He took a sip from his green martini. “Besides, who needs more people scrambling to get in line when they blow the lunch whistle?” He grinned. “Not me.”

“And I suppose that's fewer thank-you notes to write,” I said.

“Are you kidding? You send a present whether you show up or not.”

There was a loud squeal of feedback—my mother with a microphone in one hand and a brackish martini in the other. “Please, everyone. Gather around. I promise I won't filibuster, and I promise that there will be music and more of Frederick's brilliant food.” She patted her French twist and took a deep breath. “In today's world, a mother never knows if she'll ever be standing up before friends and relatives, toasting a daughter's marriage. But here I am, raising my glass to Alice and Ray.” She smiled bravely. “When I first saw these two together, I didn't think
soul mates.
In fact—and I can't believe I'm going to confess this—I thought he was her driver. But it didn't take too long before I understood the dynamic. Ray is fun-loving, pragmatic, street-smart. Alice, on the other hand, is the consummate professional. Work and science trump people every time. Or so I thought. As the person who has known Alice longer than anyone else, who felt her heartbeat under my breast for nine months, who nursed her, raised her, drove her to her various enrichment programs and competitions, I think no one is better qualified than I to say that my baby has found, against all odds and across a great figurative distance, a man who sees beneath the surface . . . a man who has discovered that Alice's heart speaks volumes even when it's inarticulate or mute. Yes, she's the scientist. But he's the one who put her under the microscope to discover what was pumping and clotting and surging through those undiscovered veins. And although Ray is something of an unknown—by which I mean a relatively new acquaintance—a parent only has to see the way he looks at Alice to feel that this wedding is a cause for celebration and gratitude and, well,
relief
might be too strong a word, so I'll just say
peace.
Please join me in raising your glass in a toast to the bride and groom . . . to Alice and Ray . . . to a whole—
w-h-o-l-e
—that is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Everyone raised their glasses, including Ray, who mouthed a quivering “Thank you.”

I felt an arm around my waist—Sylvie's. When the
hear hears
subsided and the tray-bearing waiters resumed their rotations, she whispered into my ear, “Can Leo and I talk to you in private? Maybe upstairs?”

Ray, at the same time, was pulling me toward the few square yards of hardwood that had been designated as the dance floor.

“Let me get this over with,” I told Sylvie.

Though my mother had won the music battle, engaging a violin, a flute, and a harpsichord, Ray squeezed in a deejay to administer the mandatory first dance, the father/daughter dance, a mother/father dance, and sundry novelty dances that evolved into lines.

Guests applauded as the Righteous Brothers CD brought forth “Unchained Melody” and the bride and groom. It was incumbent on us to smile and exude marital happiness. Absent that, to chat. I asked, “How was the swing through the Monadnock region?”

“Didn't I talk to you after that?”

I said, “The last call was from Concord.”

“Which is when I finally got phone service. It's the capital. People who live in that state must have ridiculous roaming charges.”

“Luckily,” I said, “I was able to follow your progress online through the debit withdrawals. At least I knew you were staying in motels and eating three meals a day.”

Ray led us into a pivot and a mild dip. “You mad?”

“I left messages. I thought we'd have a chance to discuss these things before today.”

“I'm a little superstitious,” he said. “Mary and I had dinner together every single night for a week before our wedding. Need I say more? By the way, I love the flower in your hair. I'm going to take a nibble.”

“It's poisonous,” I said.

He landed a kiss proximal to the flower anyway. “Where's your old man? He's supposed to cut in.”

“Did you get my message about work?”

Ray said, “Remind me.”

“I'm no longer on probation.”

“That's my girl,” he said.

Nothing was premeditated, but as soon as I introduced the topic, I grasped its probative value.

“Go on,” he said, his voice confident. “I'm holding my breath.”

I said simply, “I'm out. On my ass. A free woman.” I snapped the fingers he was holding against his chest. “Just like that: ‘Thrift? Sorry. It's not working. You'll have to clean out your locker by midnight tonight.' ”

Slowly, expertly, he said, “Sweetheart. You must feel terrible. Are you okay? Why didn't you tell me?”

“I tried. You were out of range.”

“But you still have a job, right? It's like you didn't get promoted. Like you're staying back a grade?”

“No. It's like getting kicked out.”

“But just from being a surgical intern, right?”

“From anywhere. I'm washed up.”

“I know you're joking,” he said. “I know you're still a doctor. That doesn't go away.”

“I'm afraid it does in my case,” I said.

His dancing slowed to a near standstill. “You're saying that with all the hospitals in Boston, you can't come up with something? You can't call up your old teachers at Harvard Medical School and ask them to make a few phone calls on your behalf?”

I shrugged. “If I wanted to I could.”

“You're gonna want to, believe me,” said Ray.

I sighed. “The word's already out: Tear up the application of anyone named Alice Thrift.”

Ray said, “You could apply as Alice Russo.” His voice brightened. “Or you could move to another city where they don't usually get Harvard Medical School graduates.”

“That would have to be pretty far away.”

“You do what you have to do,” he said.

Until then, I'd been assuming that a scrupulous nonliar such as myself would reveal by song's end that she'd been kidding. Instead I said, “I know this comes as a shock; I know how much you were looking forward to being supported in a style to which you were hoping to become accustomed.”

“What about the apartment? Do you have to give that up if you're laid off? And what about health insurance? What if one of us gets sick?”

“I'll keep my black bag,” I said. “I can treat any number of diseases at home.”

“How're you gonna pay for those vacations in South America fixing the faces of the poor if you're not pulling down a big salary the rest of the year? How are you going to make
those
dreams come true?”

I said, “I can't. But here's the bright side: I'll be around. I'll be a real wife, which will make you an actual husband.”

Ray said nothing. He motioned to my father, who was surveying us from the bar.

“Don't say anything to him about my job,” I whispered. “It might spoil the wedding for him.”

My father, obediently, tapped Ray's shoulder. The preselected music changed to “Isn't She Lovely?” Paternal relatives applauded.

Ray didn't linger. “Take good care of her,” he said.

“Where's he going?” asked my father.

I said, “Probably to look for Mom. That's the protocol: The groom dances with the mother of the bride if his own mother is dead.”

“Your mother's needed elsewhere,” said my father.

I smiled and nodded because we had an audience. “No one else is joining in,” I noted.

“It's not a dancing crowd,” he said.

I LOCATED SYLVIE
and Leo on the stairs, one pink and one blue martini in their respective hands. Sylvie insisted the pink drink was just the accessory I was missing, if not a remedy for what appeared to be my bridal fidgetiness.

“She's never wrong,” I said.

“So,” said Leo. “What's new? I haven't heard much from you lately.”

“Likewise,” I said.

“She got married,” said Sylvie. “She got into a groove at work. She pulled her job out of the fire. She got married all over again.”

Leo bent down from the step above Sylvie to clink glasses with me. “Congratulations on most of those,” he said.

“What's new with you?” I asked.

“Me? Hardly anything. I'm still in the NICU. I'm still living in the same place. Still fathering children promiscuously all over Greater Boston.”

“Are you drunk?” I asked.

“On three and a half martinis? Absolutely not.”

I said, “I never accused you of being promiscuous.”

Sylvie said, “Let's be nice. No one wants to look back on this day with any more regrets than are absolutely necessary.”

I said, “I delivered a baby with Meredith. Did she tell you?”

“She mentioned it.”

“She was amazing. So calm. Very empathic. Fun, even. I was really impressed.”

“Exactly the circumstances of my meeting her,” Leo said. “Which is to say at her absolute best.”

“So then what?” Sylvie asked. “You witnessed her winning bedside manner, and you thought, ‘How do I get me some of that?' ”

Leo said, “And while you try to solve the mystery of me and Meredith, I'll try to figure out how the friendship between you and Alice ever got off the ground.”

“We discuss this ourselves,” I said.

Leo said, “Why is it that Alice doesn't have to make sarcastic comments about the mother of my child? In fact, she takes time out on her wedding day to say, in effect, that she understands what I might have seen in Meredith for one brief shining moment.”

“An opposing view,” said Sylvie, “which I say with undying affection, is that Alice is altogether too nice.” She patted the carpet next to her. “Sit down, cookie. We have to speak to you.”

THEY HADN'T BEEN
looking for trouble. They hadn't come to spy or to eavesdrop. But Ray, they said, before the ceremony, talking outside the church among his pals—the best man, the usher, and their dates—seemed agitated. Very.