Certain Girls Read online

  Bruce bent his head over his folded sheet of paper. He wasn’t making any noise, but I could see his shoulders shaking.

  A minute later, two rows’ worth of mothers, plus the sex-change dad, were having a noisy conversation about kosher caterers, and about some lady from Malvern who’d booked the Four Seasons two years ago for a June wedding, even though she didn’t have a fiancé or an engagement ring, or even a boyfriend, and now was refusing to give up the date. “Dog in the manger, that’s what I call it,” one of the mothers said. “Hope springs eternal, I guess,” said someone else.

  Deirdre Weiss was clapping her hands. “Parents!” she said. “Children!” Her charm bracelet jangled. Everyone ignored her. “EVERYONE!” she yelped. “Let’s . . . let’s take a little break, all right? Fifteen minutes? And then we’ll reconvene, maybe parents only?”

  I slid off my seat and hurried out of the sanctuary with my hands in my pockets and my head down. Tamsin waved at me from the doorway of the library. “Hey, what’s Bruce doing here?” she asked. I was just about to answer when Amber Gross grabbed my hand.

  “Let’s ditch,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “Come on,” she said, and tugged me toward the door. I looked over my shoulder. Tamsin was still standing there with her lips pressed together. Sorry, I mouthed. Tamsin narrowed her eyes, spun on her heel, and stomped toward the library. Amber yanked me through the synagogue’s front doors. Sasha Swerdlow was sitting on a bench by the front of the white marble building with her legs crossed, jiggling her feet. “Are you ready?” she asked, bouncing up.

  “Lock and load,” Amber said.

  “We can leave?” I stammered.

  “Who’s going to stop us?” Amber said. She raised her hand and instantly a cab screeched to a stop at the curb in front of us, which I guess is what happens when you’re Amber Gross.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as the three of us piled into the squishy backseat.

  “Surprise!” said Amber. I watched through the scratched windshield as we sped up Spruce Street, dodging potholes and buses and bikes, past Pennsylvania Hospital, then across Thirteenth Street, the restaurants with their tables set out on the sidewalks, the boutiques that sold fancy dog beds and dresses and baby clothes.

  The cab stopped at Eighteenth and Walnut. Amber peeled a ten-dollar bill out of her brown-and-gold leather wallet, and I followed her out of the cab and into the Kiehl’s store on the corner.

  “What are we—” I started.

  “Just come on!” Sasha hissed.

  Amber grabbed my arm and pulled me along. “Hey, who’s the hottie?” she said, giggling, and I felt slightly sick, with scenes from my mom’s book dancing in my head, as I said, “That’s my dad. My real one.”

  The shop was small and crowded, with high glass windows on one side and shelves and shelves of tubes and jars and bottles on the other. There were three women with glossy hair and white coats and name tags. One was behind the cash register, one was talking to an old lady in a fur coat. Amber walked confidently over to the third lady. “Hello,” she said. “I’m looking for something for my dry, itchy scalp?”

  Sasha, over by the lip gloss, grinned. Even though I had my hearing aids in, I was positive I’d heard wrong. Amber Gross had a dry, itchy scalp? While Amber talked to the saleslady, I looked up and saw Sasha picking up a bottle of sunscreen from the counter and slipping it in her pocket. She caught my eye, winked at me, and made a big show of putting some of the sample lip gloss on the back of her hand. Her lips formed the words try it as she walked by. And I knew she wasn’t talking about the lip gloss.

  I moved down the counter slowly, my heart hammering, picking up containers of sunscreen and Silk Groom, then putting them back down. There was a detangling conditioner that I bet would work for my hair, and a cuticle cream in a black-and-white tube. I looked at the door to make sure there weren’t any sensors, then checked to make sure the salesladies weren’t watching. Two of the white-coated salesladies were having an earnest conversation with Amber, one of them lifting a lock of Amber’s hair between her fingers. “The flat iron’s, like, killing me!” Amber said, and the salesladies smiled. Sasha was still browsing. No, I told myself, watching her hand dip into her pocket again, Sasha is still stealing. She turned and raised her eyebrows, looking at me as if to say Get on with it. I grabbed an amber-colored glass pot of something and dropped it in my coat pocket, where it sat like a grenade. I haven’t done anything wrong, I told myself. Not yet. Until I walked out the door, I could still say that I’d meant to pay for it, that I’d just put it in my pocket to keep my hands free.

  The clerk was piling samples into a brown paper bag for Amber: makeup remover and concealer and hand cream. Probably they’d never suspect that Amber was the kind of girl who would steal anything. A pretty girl like her, with the shiny hair and the sparkly braces and the just-right clothes, didn’t look the part.

  “You guys are the greatest!” Amber told the salesladies. I managed a weak smile and promised myself that as soon as I got back to temple, I’d give the cream to Tamsin and tell her that I was sorry for ditching her. Then Sasha grabbed one of my arms and Amber grabbed the other and the three of us tumbled out of the store and onto the sidewalk, with the bell on the shop door tinkling behind us.

  “What’d you get?” Sasha asked. Her lips were shiny with gloss.

  I pulled the glass jar out of my pocket and showed it to both of them. “Anti-aging cream?” said Sasha. Her forehead puckered.

  I could have told her, You’ll need it if you keep scrunching your face up like that. Instead I just said, “It’s never too early to start a good anti-aging regimen,” which was something I’d heard Aunt Elle say more than once.

  “Huh,” said Sasha. She unscrewed the lid, dipped her finger into the pot, and smoothed some lotion on her cheeks.

  Amber pulled a cell phone out of her pocket and flicked it open to look at the time. “C’mon, if we hurry, we can hit Anthropologie.”

  “You guys go ahead,” I mumbled. “My mom will freak out if I’m late.”

  The two of them looked at me curiously. Then they headed across the street, arms linked, laughing, with their coats unzipped and hoods bouncing on their backs, boots clicking on the pavement, two girls out walking on a spring day, two pretty not-quite-teenagers who would, of course, pay for everything they took. I stood there for a minute, my cheeks burning in spite of the chilly wind. What was the penalty for a thief? How many goats or oxen would I have had to sacrifice if I’d lived back then?

  I turned the little jar of cream over in my hand. Then I pushed it deep into my pocket and hailed a cab on Walnut Street and rode back to the synagogue, where my mother would be waiting, the way she always was.

  NINE

  I walked home from synagogue flushed and furious and trying hard to hide it from Joy, who sauntered alongside me like she didn’t have a care in the world. Bruce Guberman! In our synagogue! In the sanctuary! By my daughter’s invitation!

  My voice was level as I asked Joy what Bruce was doing there. Hers was just as reasonable as she hurried down the sidewalk and explained that it was an event for blended families, and Bruce was part of hers.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’d invited him?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I just figured you knew he’d be there, because he’s part of my family.” Her logic was unassailable. I couldn’t argue. Instead, I seethed, and fretted, and, as we turned onto Third Street, mentally reviewed the contents of my kitchen for possible succor. There was a quart of mint chocolate cookie ice cream that I’d stashed in the back of the freezer for an occasion just such as this. I’d take out the ice cream, let it soften, set the table, have a glass of wine . . .

  I’d just set my purse down on the half-moon table by our front door when Peter came over and kissed me hello. “Get out your checkbook,” he murmured into my ear. I pulled off my coat and sniffed the air. I could smell pot roast in the Crock-Pot where I’d left it, its rich s
cent of garlic and onions mixing with the distinctive tang of Fracas perfume and liquor.

  “Cannie!” My little sister was wearing her red leather cowboy boots, glossy hair piled on top of her head, and leather pants cut low enough to display a few inches of supple midriff and jutting hip bone. There was a wineglass in her hand. From her flushed cheeks and glazed eyes, I guessed it wasn’t her first beverage of the evening.

  “Aunt Elle!” said my daughter.

  “Joy!” Elle cooed, and smacked Joy’s cheek, sloshing wine on the floor. Her Louis Vuitton weekend bag was by the door, along with her purse. She’d already plugged in her cell-phone charger and set her phone, blinking, next to the blue-and-white pottery bowl where I kept my keys, bus tokens, and spare change. I hugged my sister hello, mentally forgoing the drink I’d been planning on and doubling the portion of ice cream.

  My sister was born Lucy Beth Shapiro, but she shed the name years ago. Although she claims to be “thirty-two and holding,” she’s actually eighteen months younger than I am, but she’ll be the first to tell you that she doesn’t look a day over twenty-five. For the past eight of her thirty-second birthdays, she’s lived in New York City, supporting herself as a bartender, a waitress, an occasional extra in whatever soap opera or HBO drama is filming in her neighborhood, and, every December, doing a two-week stint behind the cosmetics counter at Bergdorf’s (which entitles her to a year-round discount).

  “I didn’t know you were in town,” I said, moving her sunglasses aside so I could plug in my own phone.

  “Well,” Elle began. I followed her into the kitchen, where she perched her admirable bottom on one of my bar stools, unfolding a not unfamiliar tale of woe involving a misplaced rent check and an irate landlord ending with a request to “just chill with you guys for a couple of days, if that’s okay.”

  Peter, retrieving a beer from the refrigerator, made a face. I frowned at him. “Of course it’s okay!”

  “You’re always welcome,” said Peter in a voice a few degrees cooler than my own. Elle either didn’t notice or pretended not to.

  Joy perched on the seat beside Elle’s while I whisked vinaigrette, and the two of them bent their heads together, giggling, with Frenchie happily snorting at their feet. I got a dish towel and went back to the entryway, where I mopped wine off the hardwood. Back in the kitchen, I set the table with my favorite plates, glazed pumpkin and goldenrod yellow, and the napkins that matched. I put out bread and butter, salad and the dressing, a pitcher of water and the half-empty bottle of wine, and called everyone in for dinner.

  “Yay pot roast!” cheered Elle as she sashayed into her seat. “So homey!” She sat expectantly while I set the pot roast and potatoes on the table. Peter, who’d emerged from the office, filled our water glasses and offered both of us wine. “So sweet!” my sister said, giggling, as Joy stared at her worshipfully and Frenchelle eschewed her dog bed to curl at my sister’s feet.

  After dinner Peter and I cleared the dishes. I wiped off the counters and recentered a vase of lilies and gerbera daisies on the dining room table while he loaded the dishwasher. Then he took his crossword puzzle and was heading up to our bedroom when Joy and Elle breezed in for dessert. “Any ice cream?” my sister asked innocently. I pulled out my brand-new quart of mint chocolate cookie ice cream and opened it to discover that someone had meticulously removed each chocolate chunk, leaving behind a pockmarked mass of green. I tried not to make a face, found a quart of vanilla, and handed it over, along with slices of the sugar-dusted pound cake I’d baked the night before.

  Elle took her bowl and pulled a stack of magazines out of her purse. “We’re going to look at bat mitzvah dresses!” she said.

  “Great.” My heart sank. God only knew what Elle would think was an appropriate dress for a thirteen-year-old. By the time my sister was through with her, Joy would probably be demanding a pimps and hos party complete with monogrammed condoms in the gift bags.

  Joy and Elle went back to the living room. I reopened the denuded mint ice cream and stabbed at it with my spoon, bracing myself for the argument Peter and I would be having in bed, the one I already knew by heart, the one that had once ended so badly that I’d tuned the TV set to the LUV channel (which plays only Hallmark Hall of Fame movies), packed the remote controls in my suitcase, and gone to Samantha’s for the night.

  “You can’t keep bailing her out,” Peter will tell me—his inevitable opening gambit. “You’re enabling her.”

  I will squirm guiltily and recite my lines: There will always be a gap between what Elle is capable of and what the world in general and her landlord specifically require, and it’s my job, as her sister, to bridge it. He’ll repeat the word “enabling.” I will tell him loftily that I prefer to think of it as generosity, or as tzedakah, if I’m feeling particularly religious or especially obnoxious. He’ll roll to the very edge of the bed and stay there until I fit myself against him, kissing the back of his neck and saying that if he had a ne’er-do-well brother or illegitimate child, I would be the very picture of generosity and compassion.

  Then he’ll make himself scarce for the remainder of my sister’s stay, and I’ll take pains to hide my checkbook and ATM receipts so that he’ll never figure out the full impact of her tenure, while quietly thanking God that we never merged our finances. I’m sure there are marriage counselors who would recoil in horror at the notion of such duplicity, but, as possibly the only woman alive who’s read Erica Jong’s memoirs as both cautionary tales and financial-planning primers, I firmly believe that the path to lifelong love is paved with separate checking accounts and that foolish is the woman who does not keep her investments in her own name.

  I stomped into the living room with my needles and yarn and plopped myself onto the couch. Elle and Joy had the TV tuned to the Fashion Channel, and they’d spread their material out on the floor: I saw Vogue and Elle and Prom! and even, God help me, a bridal magazine. Elle looked up, wide-eyed. “Everything all right?”

  “Fine,” I said, trying for a smile. Peter came back downstairs, probably for his nightly cup of tea. On his way back from the kitchen, he draped an afghan over my shoulders and retrieved my empty ice-cream mug from the table. When he kissed my forehead, Joy winced, and Elle gave us a sappy smile. “Look at you two,” she cooed. “Ward and June.”

  I spread the green-and-gold afghan, one I’d knitted when Joy was tiny, over my legs, and wondered whether my sister had ever guessed at the truth, which was that Peter and I almost never got married at all.

  Things came to a head on a hot August night. Peter and I were in the car, parked on the street in front of my apartment, while Joy, who had just turned one that April, dozed in the backseat. Peter’s face was lit by the streetlamp. His hands were clenched on the wheel.

  “Why does it matter?” I asked. “We’re together. Why do we need to go stand in front of some rabbi and spend all our money on a party? What will it change?”

  “I want a real wedding,” he said in his deep voice. “It matters to me.”

  I sighed. We’d spent the day at Fairmount Park, at a barbecue for the weight and eating disorders department, where the diet doctors and nurses and support staff played horseshoes and vigorous rounds of volleyball, and the burgers came in your choice of soy or turkey. Peter wore khaki shorts and a dark blue polo shirt with a stethoscope where the alligator would have been. I’d chosen a thin cotton sundress paired with the new miracle panties guaranteed to slim my hips, lift my butt, and prevent the dreaded thigh chafe. They worked, but underneath my dress, I could see the dents in my thighs where the spandex ended and I began . . . and I assumed, sadly, that if I could see them, everyone at the barbecue could, too.

  After dinner, Peter and I drove home, sunburned and sated, with Joy dozing in her car seat. Everything was fine until we swung by Rittenhouse Square, where there was a wedding in progress.

  We were stopped behind a trash truck, which gave us plenty of time to check out the bride and her attendants posing in fr
ont of the fountain in the twilight. Her bare shoulders gleamed against the silk of her dress. She had pearls twined in her updo, and one of her attendants was fanning her with a program.

  “Nice,” said Peter.

  “Pret-ty,” Joy said sleepily from the backseat before her eyes slid shut again.

  I sighed, knowing what was coming, knowing there was no way to avoid it. Peter had proposed on New Year’s Eve, eight months before, and I’d said yes tearfully, joyfully, gratefully. I’d been wearing his ring ever since, while craftily avoiding the question of when we’d actually get hitched. That night I sat in silence as Peter pulled the car up to the curb and asked, “So when is that going to be us?”

  I bit my lip and shrugged. That bride was beautiful, elegant, and slender. Both of her parents were there, the mother glowing in a blue dress, the father puffed up and proud in his tuxedo, directing the photographer.

  “Give me a reason,” Peter said. “One good reason why not.”

  Because I’m scared, I thought. But I couldn’t say that. Peter had given me no reason to be afraid. I just couldn’t imagine actually going through with it: walking down an aisle, taking the vows. Years ago, before Joy, I’d imagined marrying Bruce Guberman in the synagogue where he’d been bar mitzvahed. I could picture myself standing under the chuppah with his family on one side and mine on the other. In my vision, Bruce had cut off his ponytail, and I’d been radiant in the fitted white gown that I somehow, magically, would have lost enough weight to wear, and my father would have reappeared in time and apologized sufficiently for me to allow him to walk me down the aisle. Our wedding announcement would appear in the Times (sans photograph, of course), and Bruce and I would buy a house in a leafy suburb convenient to both of our jobs, where we’d have two babies with his metabolism and my work ethic, and live happily ever after.

  And what had those dreams gotten me? An illegitimate baby whose premature birth had come, I was convinced, courtesy of Bruce’s new girlfriend, who’d shoved me into a sink when we’d met by chance in the ladies’ room of the Newark airport. The Pusher, I called her, even though my doctors in the hospital and, later on, my shrink, had told me that my mispositioned placenta would have caused problems whether my belly had met the porcelain or not. So: one premature baby. One hysterectomy. An ex-boyfriend who’d left the country, who had wanted nothing to do with his daughter. His mother sent me five-hundred-dollar checks each month—drawn, I’d noticed, on her account, not Bruce’s.