Loose Screws (6 page)

“I've got some errands to run,” he says as Mike bounds off my lap, leaving a shallow gouge in my right thigh in the process. Bill lunges for the excited dog, grabbing him by the collar and shoving him back in the car. “So I'll pick you up to go to the other house say in—” he checks his watch “—an hour?”

My mother and I exchange a glance. “You're not having lunch with us?”

He laughs. “Uh, no. Dad's in the neighborhood today, doing his relating-to-the-constituency thing. I don't dare hang around.”

He walks back around to the driver's side, says “See ya,” and is gone.

“I told you this was a weird family,” my mother mutters as we tromp up to the front door.

I bite my tongue.

Concetta, the Munsons' Salvadoran housekeeper, opens the door before we ring the bell, although Phyllis is right behind her, that smile as carefully applied as her twenty-dollar lipstick.

“Oooh, you're just in time,” Phyllis says as the maid rustles out of sight. Her eyes dart to my mother, right behind me; if Nedra's unexpected presence has thrown her, she doesn't show it. Instead, she clasps my mother's hand in both of hers, welcoming her, after which she flings out her arms and engulfs me in a perfumed hug, which I hesitantly return. She is nearly as tall as I am, but she feels
frail somehow, more illusion than reality. Sensing my discomfort, Phyllis pulls back, her hands gently clamped on my arms, sympathy mixed with something else I can't quite define swimming in her pale blue eyes. I tense, panicked she's going to say something for which I'll have no intelligent reply. I'm a little in awe of this woman, to tell you the truth, even though she's never done a single thing to engender that reaction. Well, except be perfect. To my immense relief, all she does is smile more broadly, taking in my outfit.

“Don't you look absolutely
adorable!
” she says, glancing at my mother as if expecting her to agree. Quickly surmising she'll get little support from that quarter, she returns her gaze to me, shaking her head so that her perfectly cut, wheat-colored pageboy softly skims the shoulders of her light rose silk shell. “What I wouldn't give to be young enough to get away with those colors! And those
legs!
” She laughs. “I had legs like that, about a million years ago!”

Underneath those white linen slacks, I imagine she still does.
Faces may fall and bosoms may sag, but good legs go with you to the grave,
Grandma Bernice, Nedra's mother, used to say.

“But come on back,” Phyllis says with a light laugh. “Concetta has set lunch out on the patio, but it's no trouble at all to add another place.”

As always, Phyllis Munson's graciousness blows me away. Chattering about the weather or something, she leads us through the thickly carpeted, traditionally furnished Colonial Revival, one befitting a Westchester congressman and his lovely anorexic wife.

Although the decor is a little bland for my taste—the neutral palette seems almost afraid to offend—there's something about this house that's always put me at peace the moment I set foot inside. The orderly, predictable arrangement of the furniture; the way the lush pile carpeting feels underfoot; the almost churchlike hush that caresses us as we make our way through the house to the back. What it says is, sane people live here.

Which is not to say that the house doesn't tell Designer Ginger things about the owners they'd probably just as well
the world not know. While the blandness isn't offensive, the paint-by-number decor doesn't reveal a whole lot about the owners' personalities, either. There are no antiques, no quirky family heirlooms, to break the monotony of the coordinating upholstery and draperies, the relentlessly matching reproduction furniture. Oh, the quality is as good as it gets for mass production—Henredon rather than Thomasville—but it is a bit like walking into a posh hotel suite. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I've always fantasized about staying in the Plaza, too.

But there's something more, something I discerned within minutes of my first visit, six or so months ago: that the house's self-conscious perfection stems in large part from the Munsons' eagerness to cover up that neither of them hail from either old money or prize stock.

Unfortunately, it's all too easy to spot the newly, or at least recently, arrived. They're the ones petrified of making a mistake, the ones who constantly ask me if I'm sure this fabric or that piece of furniture is “right,” far more concerned about what their guests will think than they are their own preferences. The moneyed, the monikered, don't give a damn. And now, as Phyllis leads us out onto the patio, her back ramrod straight, her voice carefully modulated and devoid of even a trace of a New York accent, I realize that describes my ex-almost-mother-in-law, as well. As gracious and naturally friendly as she is, her fear of being exposed as a poseur—White Plains masquerading as Scarsdale—is almost palpable.

Her insecurities do not bother me. If anything, they make her more human. More accessible. In her place, I imagine I would feel much the same way. I mean, wouldn't you? Unfortunately, it's Phyllis's very insecurities about her background that brand the Munsons as phonies in my mother's eyes.

Phyllis touches the uniformed maid lightly on the arm, whispers something to her. The woman nods, disappears through a second set of French doors leading, if I remember correctly, to the kitchen. The terrace is open-air, although deeply shaded at this time of day. I've never been out here before, I realize, I suppose because it was either
nighttime or too cold, the other times I was here. Now I glance out across the “yard”: if there are other houses beyond the dense growth bordering the property on all three sides, they are undetectable. A pool, flanked by dozens of urns and pots overflowing with brilliantly colored annuals, shimmers below us. I somehow doubt it's ever used.

Oh, yes, I'm well aware I'm having lunch in The Land of Make Believe. I don't care. That doesn't make it less peaceful, or tranquil. Besides, after two hours in my mother's company, I'm desperate.

We sit. Concetta bustles about, setting the extra place, deftly serving the first course, fresh fruit segments in a serrated cantaloupe half, followed by deli sandwiches on fresh rye. Nothing fancy or pretentious. We make excruciatingly brittle small talk, for a while, until Phyllis unwittingly gives my mother the opening she's been waiting for.

“It must be very comforting, Ginger, having your mother around at a time like this.”

I can sense my mother's coiling for the attack, but unfortunately I can't get hold of a rock quickly enough to stop her before she strikes. I try glaring, for all the good it does.

“And maybe,” Nedra says, “if you'd taught your son that social prominence is no excuse for cowardice, there wouldn't be a ‘time like this.'”

“Nedra—”

“No, Ginger, it's all right,” Phyllis says quietly, even though her face is now a good three shades darker than her blouse. Her left hand, braced on the table in front of me, is trembling slightly; I notice her diamond wedding set is askew, too large for her sticklike finger. I feel sorry for her—I'm at least used to my mother. She isn't.

“Gregory has embarrassed all of us, Mrs. Petrocelli. I assure you, he wasn't raised to be inconsiderate, or to act like a coward. The last thing I would do is insult your intelligence by trying to make excuses for him. Both his father and I are deeply ashamed of our son's actions—” she looks at me, reaches for my hand “—and cannot begin to convey how badly we feel for your daughter. Both Bob
and I truly love her, and are heartbroken at the idea of not having her as our daughter-in-law.”

Wow. I knew they liked me, but…

Wow.

My mother seems equally stunned. Which is a rare phenomenon, believe me. Although I'd like to think my glaring at her had something to do with it, as well. You know the look—
if you ever want to see your grandchildren again, you will apologize?
Okay, so there aren't any grandchildren. Yet. But I believe in planning ahead.

Then I noticed something else in her expression, a slight pursing of the lips, the merest narrowing of the eyes. An expression that says, clear as day,
“Bullshit.”

My face warms at the implications of that expression, even as anger incinerates the remains of sandwich and fruit in my stomach.
What?
I want to scream.
You got a problem with believing that maybe, just maybe, they really do like me?

And while I'm sitting here, trying to get my breathing under control, I hear Nedra take a deep breath, then say, “I'm sorry. That was uncalled for. After all, I don't suppose it's fair—” she looks pointedly at me “—to hold the parents accountable for their children's irrational behavior.”

I tear off a bite of roast beef sandwich and masticate for all I'm worth. Hey—there was nothing
irrational
about agreeing to marrying Greg. I've had one irrational moment in my entire life, and that took place ten years ago, in a cluttered supply closet smelling of musty mops and Lysol and Aramis. I catch on quick, as they say, and
that
lapse of judgment has not been, nor will it be, repeated. Obviously, considering the events of recent days, I cannot always prevent my being made a fool of, but I can at least control my contribution to my own downfall.

In the meantime, Phyllis is waving away my mother's half-assed apology with another smile and some murmured reassurances about her understanding. But the damage has been done. True, after this afternoon, I probably will never see Phyllis Munson again. But I wouldn't have minded leaving things on at least something of an up note, for crying out loud. But noooo, my mother has to open her big mouth and screw everything up. As usual.

This is exactly what I was afraid would happen, because it always does. It simply never occurs to Nedra that she doesn't have to voice every thought that goes tromping through her brain. I really don't give a damn if she hates Greg's guts—I'm not exactly in a forgiving mood myself—but why take it out on the man's mother?

Not to mention her own daughter?

I'm so upset, I can barely get down more than ten or twelve bites of the chocolate mousse Concetta has brought out.

Suddenly I realize Phyllis is saying, her voice tinged with sadness, “You have a wonderful daughter, Mrs. Petrocelli, which I hope you realize,” and I nearly choke on what I now realize is the last spoonful of mousse.

Fortuitously, Concetta picks that moment to appear with the extremely welcome news that Bill is waiting for us out front. My mother and I both spring up from our chairs as if goosed, although for very different reasons, thanking our hostess for the lovely lunch as we angle ourselves in the direction of the doors.

“No, please,” Phyllis says, rising to her feet. She's around the table in an instant, her hand grasping mine. “Would you mind,” she says with a fixed smile for my mother, “letting Bill show you around the house and grounds? And you can assure him his father won't be here, that he called and said he wouldn't be home before dinnertime.” Then the smile zings to me. “I'd like a minute alone with Ginger.”

“A
nd then what happened?”

It's the next afternoon. Sunday. Terrie is looking at me with huge black eyes across Shelby's Danish contemporary dining table in the three-bedroom West End Avenue apartment Shelby's in-laws bought for some ridiculously low ground-floor price when the building went co-op in the early eighties, then “sold” to Shelby and Mark for an even more ridiculously low price when they decided life was better in Boca. My cousin, a pair of tortoiseshell barrettes holding back her perky little blond bob, sits on the other side of the table, a forkful of Nonna's ravioli poised exactly halfway between her plate and her mouth. Her expression is equally poleaxed.

I'm still shaking from yesterday. After Bill dropped me and all my junk off about four, then took Nedra (note to self: research feasibility of having some old gnarled Italian female relative put evil eye on own mother) on to her place, I played about a million games of FreeCell on the laptop, went to bed, got up, played another million games of FreeCell, finally deciding this definitely called for an emergency Bitch Session.

Shelby, Terrie and I have been calling these with sporadic regularity for probably twenty years, or approximately for as long as we've known that meaning for the word. Bitch, not years. Rules are simple: anyone can call one at any time, no low-fat food items allowed, and whoever calls the session gets the floor first. In the past ten years, I think I've called maybe a half dozen, Shelby none, and Terrie approximately five hundred.

And yes, I know what I said, about preferring to handle crises from the comfort of solitude, but these are extenuating circumstances. First off, it's a known fact that too much FreeCell causes brain rot. And second, these two women are like extensions of my psyche. They'd only nag the hell out of me until I spilled my guts anyway. A favor that, in the past, I have regularly returned.

It's definitely weird, the way we're so close, since we're all so different. But we go way back—Shelby and I to birth, practically, since we're first cousins and only three months apart in age, with Terrie joining us in kindergarten. I suppose we initially glommed onto Terrie because she'd regularly beat up the other kids who'd hassle Shelby—who was eminently hassleable in elementary school—thus taking the pressure off me to do something for which I have no natural proclivity, namely, shedding blood. Especially my own. As for why Terrie, with her sass and street smarts, hitched up to a pair of white wusses…well, that's a no brainer. We kept her supplied in Twinkies and Cokes for at least six years.

In any case, even after we grew out of needing her protection—Shelby grew into a Cute Little Thing and wormed her way in with the popular crowd, while I went on to cultivate the fine art of the Cutting Remark—we remained friends. The kind of friends who can say anything to each other, and do, which means we regularly tick each other off but we always get over it. All through adolescence, Shelby and I looked to Terrie to pave the way for us, a role Terrie was more than willing to accept. Not to mention reporting back to the troops, who'd listen in silent, envious awe. Or disgust. (Took poor Shelby six months to recover after Terrie described, in minute detail,
her first French kiss. Of course, we were only twelve: at that point, we couldn't even imagine a boy's
lips
touching ours, let alone his
tongue.
We got over it.) In any case…Terrie got her period first, got kissed first, got felt up first, got laid first, got married first, got divorced first. Twice. Shelby bested us both only in one category—getting pregnant. Other than death or an IRS audit, I don't suppose there are many firsts left.

So these days we content ourselves with muddling through our lives, dealing with our womanhood and all the crap attendant thereto. Shelby, of course, has been the Resident Married Lady since she was twenty-five; I have, for lo these many years, borne the standard as the singleton; and Terrie has been the switch-hitter, considering herself an expert on both sides.

The Bitch Sessions, and a passion for all things edible, unite us. But these sessions serve more of a purpose than simply outlets for venting and binging, at least for me: I know I can count on Shelby to be sweet, on Terrie to be snide, thus giving me two views of any given situation I may not be able to see myself, even as I know they both only want the best for me, as I for them. Husbands, boyfriends, jobs, may come and go, but these are my friends forever.

Friends who, at the moment, are hanging breathlessly on my every word as I relate the conversation between Phyllis and myself. I've already dumped on them about my mother, Greg's phone call, and Bill's flirting—every Bitch Session needs a little comic relief—although I decided to forgo the Nick business for now. See, Nick was the main course at a particularly hot Bitchfest some ten years ago. Dragging his sorry butt into a conversation now would only raise too many eyebrows—not to mention rampant speculation—for my comfort.

Anyway. Terrie, sporting about a thousand sleek little braids that hit her just below the collarbone, is giving me her get-on-with-it look. Not one to be rushed, I drag over the cheesecake. It's presliced. I pick up a slice as if it's a piece of fruit and bite into it. Much as I adore Nonna's ravioli, today I go straight for the hard stuff.

“So,” I finally say, “after my mother leaves with Concetta, Phyllis leads me into her study. So I figure my best bet is to apologize for my mother before Phyllis can say anything.”

Shelby pops the fork out of her rosebud mouth. “What'd she say?”

“Well, she laughed, which was the last thing I expected. Then she went on about it was just a motherhood thing, you know. Nedra protecting her pup. Then she says something about knowing all about women like Nedra.”

That got a grunt from Terrie, whose beaded braids were beginning to remind me of a Gypsy fortune-teller's plastic bead curtain. But don't you dare tell her I said that. “There
are
no women like your mother.”

“That's what I would have said. But then she said…what was it? Oh, right—” I take another bite of cheesecake “—about how when she was in college, she had to deal with all these liberal, feminist types who were convinced she was whoring herself because she did beauty pageants….”

I fade out for a moment, chewing and thinking about Phyllis's pale blue eyes as she spoke, like a pair of small, cautious creatures peering out from behind a thicket of heavily mascara'd lashes.

Oh, they made a lot of noise, and raised a lot of hell, all those women whose families could afford to pay for their education, about women's rights and how people like me were setting the women's movement back by at least three centuries. None of them ever bothered asking me what I really thought, or bothered to consider that perhaps there were worse things in the world than a woman using her looks to get ahead.

I'd caught a whiff of desperation then, which I'd never noticed before, in her voice, her expression, the way her makeup was a little too carefully applied….

Terrie smacks my arm, making me jump. “Hey. Back to earth.”

I blink, fill them in, at least about Phyllis's comments. Terrie opens her mouth as if she has something to say, only to close it again. Frowning, Shelby reaches for the cheesecake while there's still some left. As I repeat the
conversation as best I can remember it, I realize rehashing it is stirring something inside me, way below the surface, too far down to identify.

“Then she said something about how we all make choices, and that it doesn't really matter what they are, as long as we're happy with them—”

“Well, I think that's very true,” Shelby says.

“—that so many women today seem to forget, or perhaps they don't want to acknowledge, that sometimes we have to take what seems to be a step or two back in order to get enough momentum to propel ourselves through the barriers men have been erecting in front of them since time began.”

“Huh.” Terrie grabs her own piece of cheesecake, opting as well for the direct-from-box-to-mouth approach. “Spoken like a white woman who
had
choices.”

“Not as many as you might think,” I say. “She didn't come from money, remember. Which is why she got into the beauty pageant stuff to begin with. But, anyway, that's just a sidetrack issue, because
then
she says, out of nowhere, that she just wanted me to know Greg didn't back out because of anybody else.”

Two sets of eyebrows dip simultaneously.

“I know,” I say. “So of course the minute she says that, I'm like, oh, crap—is she covering up something?”

But Shelby shakes her head. “No,” she says, then swallows. “I don't think that's why he dumped you, either.”

Terrie and I just look at her. Shelby continues eating, oblivious.

Then Terrie squints at me. “But you
are
ready to rip his entrails out, right?”

Shelby glances up for this. I sigh. “I don't know. I should be. I mean, I am, but…” I look from one to the other. “I think mostly I'm just confused. And hurt.”

Terrie humphs. Shelby nods, even though I can tell the whole thing's going over her head. She clearly can't imagine her and Mark ever going through anything like this.

“So,” Terrie says. “She know where the jerk is?”

“No. Or so she swears. But then…she said I should forgive him, give him a second chance.”

“Like hell,” Terrie says. “Besides, it's kinda hard to forgive somebody whose sorry ass isn't around for you
to
forgive.”

I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. I feel Shelby's hand light on my wrist. A light breeze from the air conditioner stirs her hair. “You still love him, don't you?” she asks, a note of hope hovering in her wispy voice. Shelby cannot stand an unhappy ending. I don't think she's ever quite forgiven Shakespeare for
Romeo and Juliet.

“The man stood her up,” Terrie interjects. “What do you think?”

“What's that got to do with how she feels?” My cousin may be the most gentle soul in the world, but that doesn't mean she can't stick up for her convictions. And right now, she's glaring at Terrie like a Yorkie whose chew toy is being threatened. “I mean, Mark once forgot my birthday, and I was so hurt I could have spit. But that didn't mean I didn't still love him, did it?”

I can tell Terrie is fighting the urge to bang her head on the table. Shelby is no dummy, believe me—she'd been a crack editor for a major magazine prior to her deciding to stay home with her first baby—but her eternally optimistic nature has definitely corroded her brain when it comes to matters of the heart.

In any case, I wrest back the conversation, since I called the meeting. “
Anyway,
what I said was, I didn't know what I was feeling.”

They're both frowning at me again.

Exasperated, I throw both hands into the air. “Whaddya want me to say? Okay, no, it's not like I expect this to get patched up—sorry, Shel—but I'm not like you, either, Terrie. I haven't had the practice you've had at getting over men.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Okay, so that didn't exactly come out right, but you know what I mean.” I reach for the cheesecake; Terrie slaps my hand. So I guess I'm stuck with the ravioli. I get up to stick the plastic tub in Shelby's microwave. “In any case, while a good part of me says I should write him off,
there's another part of me that isn't sure. I mean, if he should come back.”

Terrie is clearly appalled. “You have got to be kidding. You'd crawl back to the skunk?”

“Did I say that?” The microwave beeps at me; I take out the ravioli, sink back into the chair at the table with a disgusted sigh, although I'm not sure what I'm disgusted at. Or with. Or about. My own ambivalence, maybe. Or that Greg's actions have put me into this untenable position. “Of course I'm not about to crawl back to
him.
” I look up, fighting the tears prickling my eyelids. “He humiliated me. If, by some chance, he wants me back, he'd have some major groveling to do. But…”

“Oh, Lord. Here we go.” Terrie lets out an annoyed sigh. Shelby shushes her.

“But what, honey?”

“You weren't there,” I say. “You didn't see Phyllis's face when she told me that I was the best thing that ever happened to Greg. That I would have been more of an asset to him than he could possibly have understood. That…” I take a deep breath, setting up the punch line. “That women are always the ones who have to
fix
things, that pride is a commodity we can't afford.”

“That's true,” I hear Shelby whisper beside me, although Terrie lets out an outraged, “Oh, give me a freaking
break.
” Her eyes are flashing now, boy, as she leans across the table and buries herself in my gaze.

“Girl, men have been able to get away with the crap they have for thousands of years because women like Phyllis Munson feel they have some sort of duty to perpetuate that myth. God—it makes me so mad, I could spit.” At this, she gets up, grabs her handbag from the buffet along one wall, rummaging inside it without thinking for the cigarettes that aren't there, since she quit smoking a year ago. So she slams the bag back down onto the buffet and turns back to me, one hand parked on her hip.

“What that man did to you isn't forgivable. Or fixable. I mean, come on—he calls you up and apologizes on the
phone?
”

Shelby actually laughs. Terrie and I both turn to her. “Well, of course he did,” she says. “He's a man.”

“No kind of man I'd want hanging around me, that's for damn sure. Besides, none of us is ever gonna break these chains of male domination and oppression if we don't change the way we think about who's gotta do what—”