We Could Be Beautiful (26 page)

When Dan kissed me good-bye that day, like he always did, I felt guilty. I shouldn’t have invited him to the party. I shouldn’t have invited him in to sit with Max and me on the couch. Had we really talked about seeing the Counting Crows together? What was I thinking?

Right after I closed the door, I called William. He didn’t pick up. I left a voice mail. “Hi honey, how’s your trip going? I’m thinking about you. Max and I had fun together. I’m, uh, just getting dinner ready now. I miss you. I’m so happy I met the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. Okay, well, call me if you get a chance. If you’re busy, that’s okay, don’t worry about calling. We can talk whenever you want—I’m here.”

24

I
spent the next three days working nonstop. My back hurt. The feeling of togetherness dissipated into a mild, chronic angst. Vera, looking haggard in a gross T-shirt that was probably her son’s, was too depressed to be very productive, and Maya had school.

I brought Lucia to help me pack up the office and do errands. She was happy to be out on the town, wearing real clothes instead of her cleaning scrubs. She even liked going to the post office. There were many interesting people at the post office, she said, to which I said, “There is something wrong with you.”

Dan e-mailed me about the Counting Crows. He sent a link. I didn’t click on it and I didn’t write back.

I kept checking Facebook. Still no word from Mae. Either she was busy, or conflicted about meeting me, or I had sent a message to some completely random person named Mae Simon.

Caroline wanted to know who else to invite to the party. I told her to call Susan. I mentioned I had invited Dan. She said that was “surprising.” I was short with her. “No,” I said, “it’s really not that surprising.”

“And William’s not coming, right?”

“Right.”

“Bob’s not coming either. He’s going to a conference,” she said sadly. “You know in that movie about Enron? How the guy cheats on his wife and stops at the gas station after to spill a little gas on his clothes on purpose so he doesn’t smell like perfume?”

“No.”

“That’s all I keep thinking about.”

“Caroline, we live in New York. Bob doesn’t even drive.”

“We do have a car.”

“Okay, but you never use it.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Does he smell like gas?”

“No, he smells like Bob. I keep checking.”

“Don’t invite Mom to the dinner. I think it will be too much.”

“I know. That’s what Evelyn said.”

“I have to get off the phone now. I need Tylenol. Lucia, can you get me Tylenol, por favor?”

Lucia gave me a thumbs-up.

“Okay, bye,” Caroline said. “And don’t worry about the party. It’s going to be fabulous.”

•

I was convinced the party would not be fabulous. It felt wrong to be standing there in a dress (Stella McCartney, black), drinking champagne and chatting when there was still so much to do. But of course that wasn’t actually true. Mostly everything had been done. Besides a few candles and the mouse to the computer (I had to remember to take that stuff home), everything was packed. The movers would come in the morning. This was it. I kept looking around thinking, This is it. The space, bare as it was now, reminded me of the day I had seen it for the first time. Those were the only things you remembered about a place, really: the day you moved in and the day you moved out.

Caroline had hired a good catering company to do a buffet-style meal, which was set up on a few round tables so people could mill around them instead of having to stand in a line. Somehow they had confused Caroline’s order with someone else’s and brought folding canvas chairs with little drink holders on the sides instead of whatever she had chosen. They were red and blue and would have been perfect for a tailgate on the Fourth of July. They looked ridiculous. “We thought this was an outdoor event,” I heard one of the caterers tell Caroline. Of course we would go out with camping chairs, I thought. It’s always something with me. Everything that had happened to me in this space was just so incredibly wrong. Including the terrible saxophone Musak someone had wrongly chosen—it sounded like we had been placed on hold.

Susan put her little arm around my waist. “You’re starting anew!”

“Cheers to that,” Henry said. He had traded his cutoffs for slacks and still looked exactly like a gardener from a ’90s movie. This meant his hair was the culprit, not his shorts.

Caroline seemed unhappy but she was holding it together. She kept checking her phone. I guessed she was waiting for a call from Bob.

William e-mailed me. I read it aloud to Henry and Susan: “ ‘Give everyone my love. On to bigger and better things!’ ”

“Bigger and better!” Susan said.

Lucia was having a ball talking to Maya in Spanish, and Maya was having a ball telling everyone about her grand plans for unemployment. She planned to learn origami now while eating popcorn on her couch. “How sad,” Vera mumbled, and drank more pinot grigio. When the sun went down, she said, with her head hung and her eyes glassed over, “This is the last time we’ll be here when the sun sets.”

“Unless it becomes a Marc Jacobs!” Susan said.

Jeff stopped by for a drink. He said the blinds for the house were coming. There had been an issue at the manufacturing plant. “Of course there’s an issue!” I said. “It’s always something with me!”

Trish stopped by with Herman. William had asked her to, she told me. People seemed to get a kick out of him for about one minute, and then it was time for him to leave.

Marty showed up with his boyfriend, who looked like a twelve-year-old model from Siberia. He wore a white T-shirt with a deep V-neck and a long gold necklace with a feather at the end. He stood with his bony hips jutting forward. “Hey, I’m Cass,” he said, in a surprisingly deep voice that proved he was probably legal. Cass was obviously a made-up name, and I wondered if Marty had named him.

“Tomorrow we’re back on the wedding full force,” I said to Marty.

Marty rolled his eyes. “I’m ready for you, honey.”

Cass took an olive out of his martini and held it between his fingers like he was doing a photo shoot for an olive campaign. “So,” he said, “cards?”

“Yes, we sold cards here.”

“That’s très,” he said. “I love cards. I love getting them, and I love writing them, even though I don’t write them enough.” Marty put his chunky little arm around Cass’s tiny waist. “Except to Marty. I write Marty cards.”

“I love your cards, baby. Even though they’re mostly napkins.”

“That’s true.”

They did an air kiss, and when I looked beyond them, Henry and Susan were hugging each other, swaying to the elevator music. I missed William. I felt lonely and alone. And then Dan arrived with a girl. My instinct was to hide behind someone, but none of the people at this party were tall enough to hide behind.

The girl wasn’t particularly sexy. Or maybe she was. She looked like a scholar. Short hair, glasses. Anyone with short hair and glasses looked smart—unfair advantage, and it didn’t necessarily mean anything. People with long hair had to work so much harder to prove their intelligence. She obviously did all her shopping at J. Crew: black stretchy jeans, a paisley button-down, black Mary Janes with girly pink stitching. She was probably from Greenwich, and she had probably gone to Harvard. Was she the ex?

They moved toward me. Dan wore a casual outfit of black jeans and a black button-down. The black on black was a poor choice—he looked like a bartender or a barista—but the J. Crew scholar obviously wouldn’t have been able to tell him that.

“Hi.” He kissed my cheek. He smelled like sour patchouli. “Thanks so much for having us. This is Ellen.”

Her name
would
be Ellen.

“Hi, great to meet you.”

“You, too. Dan has told me so much.” Ellen was so confident, she didn’t even need to finish her sentences.

“Are you Dan’s roommate?” I knew his roommate was Florence. I hadn’t forgotten that name, but I could play dumb. Women with long hair could play dumb better than women with short hair. That’s what we had and I was going to use it.

“No, we’re friends,” Ellen said, a little too quickly, and locked her eyes on Dan. There was obviously a lot going on here. She had to be the ex.

“Well, help yourselves to drinks and food—there’s so much!” I motioned to the spread.

“I’ll get us drinks,” Dan said, not asking Ellen what her drink was because he already knew.

“Thanks.” When Dan walked away, Ellen folded her arms across her chest. She smelled like a discontinued scent from the Gap. “So what are you going to do now?”

“I’m planning my wedding. I don’t know if you’ve ever planned a wedding, but it’s a full-time job.” I sipped my chardonnay, which was now warm.

“No, I’m too young for marriage. I’m only thirty.”

“Yeah, I thought that at your age, too.” I said this condescendingly, and gave her a look of understanding that made it even more condescending: you don’t know anything about the world.

Unflappable Ellen looked at me like she felt sorry for me and said “That’s interesting” in a way that showed no interest at all.

Continuing the thread of her original question—what was I going to do after this?—I said, “I am also in the middle of renovating my home, so that will take up a lot of time. And my mother has Alzheimer’s.”

“Sounds like you’ll be busy,” Ellen said. Had she not heard the part about Alzheimer’s? This was when she was supposed to say, “I’m so sorry.”

My heels were killing me all of a sudden. When I shifted my weight, I lost my balance, and Ellen saved me from falling by grabbing my arm. “Whoa,” she said.

I stood back up, fixed my hair, and pretended the almost-fall hadn’t happened. “Yes,” I said, “I will be very busy.”

Dan returned with drinks, and I excused myself and went to the bathroom. I wanted to text William and tell him how much I missed him, but this seemed pathetic, and then he would know I wasn’t enjoying the party.

When I looked in the mirror, I expected to find a sweaty, cakey, upset-looking face. I even prepared to sigh. But I looked good. Maybe a little tired, a little thin, but overall, good. This may have been why I went to the bathroom. Mirrors reminded me that it was what was on the outside that counted. I wasn’t transparent. I was real, solid, pretty. If I felt like a mess, nobody had to know that but me.

This was a good time to take pictures, I decided. Caroline had brought a camera, and she’d taken a few, but I thought Dan should be the photographer now. My sister shouldn’t have to be the photographer. It should be Dan. He and Ellen were the most random people there. They didn’t need to be in the photos. It made the most sense.

I took the camera off the table in the back where Caroline had left it and walked straight to Dan. “Dan? Would you mind taking a few photos of everyone? Maybe some candid shots, and then we can get everyone together for a group shot.”

“That’s a big camera,” Ellen said.

“Do you know how to use a camera like this?”

“Sure,” Dan said. He tried to make eye contact. I looked at the plate of chips and hummus in his hand. I waited for him to put it down. When he did, I put the camera strap over his head. “Please keep the strap on—this is expensive.”

“Sure, no problem.”

“Thanks so much.”

I went to get a cold chardonnay. Ellen and Dan stood with their heads close together, pushing buttons on the camera and talking. Maybe about what an asshole I was, but I didn’t care. No, I didn’t care at all.

Everyone in the room looked happy except for Vera, who’d been slumped like a dead animal in that blue canvas chair for way too long, and Caroline, who was checking her phone again. I would go console my sister because despite what Ellen and Dan might be saying about me, I was a very good person.

My sister looked so thin. Her collarbones protruded like handlebars. I didn’t know if I was disgusted or jealous. “Have you heard from Bob?”

She looked up from her phone. “We’re having a fight over text.”

“Oh, Caroline, I’m so sorry.”

She flopped her arms over my shoulders. Was she going to cry? I couldn’t deal with that right now. I pulled away.

“He’s saying he has to stay in Chicago longer.”

“For the conference?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that seems normal, right?”

“I don’t know what normal is.” She looked exhausted.

Dan snapped a picture of us from across the room. Good, a picture of me being a good sister. Nice job, Dan.

“William is traveling for work right now, too. It’s okay.”

Caroline put her hand on her cheek. “I don’t like it,” she whined.

“I don’t like it either, but they’ll be back soon.” I put my hand on her bony shoulder. I was aware of Ellen watching us. “Okay?”

“Okay,” Caroline said.

“Let’s enjoy the rest of this party. Do you want to go sit in one of those camping chairs?”

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry about those.”

“Don’t worry, it’s fine. I think it’s kind of funny.”

We sat by the wall with Vera, who was now roughly massaging her neck. I made sure Caroline sat next to Vera, not me. I felt too guilty to be near that woman.

I half participated in a conversation about MTA renovations with Vera and Caroline and kept my eyes on Dan. He was doing a great job as photographer. Ellen stood alone, eating cheese, not looking uncomfortable at all. She was so confident, she didn’t even check her phone. Eventually she started speaking Spanish with Maya and Lucia. They were close enough so I could hear. She didn’t know how to say
insurance
in Spanish so she said that in English. She was asking Lucia if she had health insurance. Lucia said, “Yes, yes, Miss Catherine gives it to me.” Ha bitch, take that.

“Everyone please get together for a group shot!” Dan said. He was taking his little job so seriously. It annoyed me, how good he was.

We all gathered by the front. Maya, Vera, and I stood in the center, with Caroline next to me. I tried to ignore Ellen, who stood behind Dan.

Dan said, “Okay, now let’s do a silly one.” Caroline immediately broke out into a crazy shape and stuck out her tongue. Vera, her face sullen, flicked the camera off. Maya pouted and looked over her glasses. I made a mean face. I meant it to be funny, but when I would look at this picture later, the funny part wasn’t apparent. I just looked mean.