The Boyfriend

by Abigail Barnette

  “You should take Piett to the aquarium. Zie’s not too young.” If there was one thing I could say for my mom, she respected pronouns, even if she thought the gender-neutral baby raising was silly.

  Holli beamed. “That’s what I’m saying! Zie might not know what a shark is, but Zie would still benefit from the colorful fishies.”

  “By all means, take Piett to the aquarium,” Deja said with a shudder. “I will skip anything having to do with the ocean. You know that shit freaks me out.”

  “That’s too bad,” Mom said with feigned sadness. “Because Sophie and Neil have a yacht now.”

  “Well, I mean. I have a yacht. But I bought it as a Christmas present for Neil and El-Mudad,” I said, to make it clear that Sophie and Neil weren’t a unit unto themselves anymore. Now that the cat was out of the bag, it was just courtesy to accept that.

  Instead, Mom turned away and went to a book of designs lying on an industrial-chic side table.

  Deja shot me a sympathetic glance.

  “I was meaning to talk to you about this yacht thing,” Holli said. “Let’s pretend, just hypothetically, someone you knew and loved very, very much—”

  “Yes, you can use it.” I rolled my eyes. “You can use any of our places. You know that.” My gaze cut to my mother. “I offered to let Mom and Tony use the apartment in Venice for their honeymoon.”

  “And that was very nice of you,” she said without looking up, but a smile did touch her face. “But we’re perfectly happy with our cruise.”

  “You can take a cruise on a yacht,” Holli pointed out, and I almost frantically waved my arms at her. Holli and Deja hanging out on our yacht-built-for-three? Absolutely. Mom and Tony? Absolutely no way.

  “And my yacht isn’t even as nice as El-Mudad’s yachts.” I hoped he didn’t mind my blatantly volunteering his personal property; at least there was no real danger of her taking me up on it.

  “I have always wanted to go on an honest-to-god cruise,” Mom said, straightening. “Like the Love Boat.”

  “Well, good luck with that,” Deja said, just as a door to the back of the shop opened.

  The woman who emerged was tall and slender, with tan skin, light brown hair in a low ponytail-style that I could never pull off without looking I was in the fifth grade, and teeth so straight and white she was probably a dental model on the weekends. “There’s the bride!” She practically ran to my mom on the balls of her feet in her very tall stiletto heels. “Are you ready to see what you’ll be walking down the aisle in? Hopefully?”

  “Um, yeah, hopefully,” Holli said without humor. “There ain’t a lot of time to make a new one.”

  I elbowed her in her ribs.

  Mom embraced the dress saleslady more warmly than she’d managed to hug me recently. I decided on the spot that whoever this woman was, I hated her guts for stealing my mom.

  We were ushered into yet another utilitarian, highly-Instagrammable room. This one was stark white with floors that were probably ethically sourced reclaimed barnwood or some other hipster nonsense. I couldn’t believe my mom had chosen this snobby place to buy her dress, just because I had suggested it.

  Oh. Damnit.

  A dress form shrouded in black satin stood in the center of the room beneath strings of vintage-style lightbulbs. The windows were draped in sheer white curtains that could have been wedding dresses, themselves.

  “It’s like Pinterest projectile vomited in here,” I whispered to Holli, who snorted.

  The woman who’d led us into the room shot us a sharp look, but quickly recovered her customer service face. “Okay, Becky. Let’s get you a chair—“

  Of course, it was a wooden folding chair like that of an old timey ship’s deck furniture. Of course.

  Mom sat down and clapped her hands in excitement. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe I’m about to see my wedding dress.”

  I knew the feeling. Sort of. I remembered the first time I’d seen my dress. How excited I’d been to marry Neil, how magical the dress had seemed as part of the whole process. My mom had been waiting a lot longer. That wasn’t a dig at her age. It was an observation of just how much I’d screwed her life up for her. First, by existing, then by running off any guy who’d ever showed an interest.

  Suddenly, I felt like I shouldn’t be in the room with her. I was the obstacle she’d had to overcome for her happiness. And she was still unhappy with me. Tears sprang to my eyes and I blinked them back. If I stole the focus on a day as important as today, it would be yet another instance of me stealing my mother’s joy.

  The saleswoman made a big show of whipping off the black drape that concealed the dress. When she did, I was momentarily shocked out of my self-pity and blame. I’d always assumed my mom, being who she was, would go for some kind of giant, Princess Di fantasy that would make distinguishing between the cake and the bride a real challenge. Instead, the dress was a beautiful column of ivory satin with a cowl neck and full-length sleeves. It was plain and elegant and, well...

  “That’s like, totally not like you at all, Becky!” Holli exclaimed, and I was glad she did because I wouldn’t have mentioned it on pain of death.

  “Rude!” Deja scolded her wife. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because I was expecting leopard print or something short and trashy,” Holli defended herself. “That’s not mean, Becky. You know it’s true.”

  “It is true,” Mom admitted without a hint of shame. “That would absolutely have been my style. But I wanted something classy for the church.”

  “What about the reception?” I asked, hoping the answer wasn’t, “We’re not having a reception because my daughter’s freaky sex life has put me off partying at her house forever.”

  We already had the food ordered. Neil and El-Mudad would not be into eating canapés for three hundred people. Well, El-Mudad might have been. The guy could put away food like a teenager. But the point was, I still wanted my mom to have her wedding reception at our house. I wanted to be involved somehow, mostly because I feared it would be the last time Mom actually came to our house at all.

  “Oh, the reception is a totally different story,” Mom said. She got up and slowly circled the dress on the form. “I am going to need full-body Spanx to pull this off.”

  “You’re going to look beautiful,” Deja reassured her.

  “Why don’t we try it on,” the saleslady suggested, getting to work on the row of impossibly tiny buttons down the back.

  Mom finally made eye contact with me for the third time of the day. “What do you think, Soph?”

  “I think it’s gorgeous. Really, gorgeous.” I dared to make a little joke. “I mean, it’s not black, but it’s still gorgeous.”

  “Maybe I could have walked down the aisle in leopard print, after all,” she cracked back. “You didn’t wear white.”

  “We didn’t, either,” Deja said. “My wife desperately wanted hot pink.”

  “‘My colors are blush and bashful,’” Holli quoted Steel Magnolias.

  “Becky, shall we?” the saleswoman asked. She led my mom back into a dressing room, wheeling the dress form along with them, and I sat down heavily on the single chair.

  “So…” Holli said, uncharacteristically quiet. “Things are going like that, huh?”

  Deja looked between us, confused. “What do you mean?”

  “I know Sophie better than anyone on the planet,” Holli began, and when I raised my hand to object, she revised, “I know Sophie better than anyone on the planet who hasn’t touched her vagina. There was tension there.”

  “We haven’t been talking very much.” I wasn’t as sad as I was defeated and resigned to it. “I don’t think this is something we’re going to recover from.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Holli said, like it was no big deal at all for me to not be communicating with my mother. “The timing isn’t great. She’s moving away, there’s the wedding, it’s just like...this is one transition right on top of two others. It’s a hat
trick of stress. That doesn’t mean it’s going to last forever.”

  “Parents freak out about this stuff,” Deja added. “It’s not fair and it’s not right. But it’s what happens and there’s really no way of controlling how other people are going to react. My parents are of a different generation than yours and Holli’s. It took my folks a long time to be okay with me being a lesbian, and then when I got married, it brought up a lot of conflict between us again. That’s not fair or right, but I’m lucky. They’re my parents, and they love me, and they didn’t react the way some people do. The fact that your mom didn’t disown you on the spot, that she’s here with you today, that’s an indication that she’s not totally discarding you.”

  “She’s not totally discarding me, but she packed up and moved out real fast, didn’t she?” I said with a laugh that came out more sarcastic than I’d intended. I couldn’t figure out why I suddenly, desperately wanted my friends to think I was okay with everything going on. Maybe because I spent so much time mentally running in circles around the issue that I didn’t feel like verbally running in circles around it with my friends.

  Deja’s sympathetic expression only made it worse. “She wants you in her life. She just wants you there on her terms. It might take her a while to figure out that it’s not possible.”

  “And they were planning to move, anyway,” Holli reminded me.

  I shook my head. “Whatever. Let’s not talk about it right now. Maybe sometime when she’s not like, thirty feet away.”

  Not that she would have heard me over all the muffled chatter she was engaged in with the saleswoman, or the sound of a sewing machine churning away somewhere down the hall. That was such a relaxing, soothing sound. It did wonders for my nerves.

  The sales woman returned with an enthusiastic smile. “Here comes the bride, ladies!”

  Mom emerged, beaming, happy tears shining in her eyes. The dress was amazing. My mom was definitely what magazines would refer to as “plus-sized” and activists would refer to as “fat”, but she never feared fashion choices other women her size and age might have avoided. And of course, it paid off. The column of ivory silk fit her like a dream and highlighted all of her best assets, including the cleavage she adjusted matter-of-factly in the top of the gown. “These are going to look so much better in the bra I’m actually going to be wearing. I can’t believe I forgot it. The Spanx were the priority when I left the house, though.”

  “You look amazing!” Deja assured her.

  “Is it okay for a priest to pitch a tent during a wedding?” Holli asked, raising her eyebrows as Mom did a little turn. “Asking for a clergyman.”

  “Oh, stop,” Mom scolded her. “The only man I’m interested in impressing is Tony.”

  Her gaze moved to me, and her expression froze. “Sophie...what do you think?”

  “I think—“ My throat was suddenly dry. “I think you look beautiful.”

  She did look beautiful. But she looked alien and strange to me. My mom, standing there in her wedding dress, suddenly called to mind every relationship she’d ever had that I’d ruined with my bad behavior. Every date she couldn’t go on because I’d gotten “sick”. Every dog I’d pretended to be afraid of, every cat I’d feigned an allergy to.

  I’d destroyed her happiness so many times. Now, I was upset because she wouldn’t immediately give me what I wanted from her.

  I forced myself not to burst into tears, faked a cough, and asked the saleslady, “Would you mind getting me a glass of water?”

  “Certainly,” she said, and hurried away.

  Then, I got up and circled Mom, taking in the details of the stitching and construction. “I think you made a really good choice with the satin,” I mused aloud. “It looks so much better than the organza would have.”

  “You think?” Mom asked, holding out one arm to study the sleeves. They ended in points on the back of her hand, held in place with clear loops around her middle fingers.

  I picked up her hand and looked that part over. “I’m not a huge fan of this Elvira thing—“

  “It’s a princess thing, not an Elvira thing,” she said. “I may be too old for a full-on Cinderella wedding dress, but I can have at least something.”

  I took a step back, arms raised in mock defense. “Hey, it’s your wedding. I do really love that neckline, though.”

  She looked back over her shoulder. “I’m kicking myself for not going with a train, though.”

  “There’s still time,” Deja said, and when Holli snickered, she added, “What? For the money Sophie can put out on this dress, Becky could change her mind the morning of the wedding and still walk down the aisle in whatever she wanted.”

  “No, I think I’ll save myself the panic. Besides, a train would be too difficult to deal with at the reception,” Mom said, lifting the skirt off the floor. “It’s bad enough that I’m worried about stepping on it now.”

  “You’ll have taller shoes on, then,” I observed. “Also, we can get you a different dress for the reception.”

  She shook her head firmly. “No. No way. I have waited a very long time to wear a wedding dress. You’ll be lucky if you don’t see me wearing it to the grocery store two weeks later.”

  That innocent statement plunged yet another dagger into my heart.

  After the fitting and a quick lunch with Holli and Deja, we headed home. The atmosphere had thawed while the midday drinks and chatter had flowed, but once Mom ad I were alone together in the car, things were as tense as ever. After spending all day putting on a brave face, everything overwhelmed me. As we pulled onto her street, I burst into tears.

  “Sophie, what’s the matter?” Mom exclaimed.

  I wiped at my eyes, furious that I hadn’t thought to bring tissues with me. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. This is supposed to be your happy day, and here I am, bawling.”

  “It’s only going to ruin my day if it’s the bad kind of bawling,” she said, her brow wrinkling in concern.

  “It is the bad kind,” I admitted. “Mom, I am...I am so, so sorry for all that stuff I did when I was a kid.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” she asked in alarm. Her gaze narrowed. “Did you drink too much at lunch?”

  “Yes.” I would have to sober way the hell up before I saw Neil. He didn’t mind that I drank occasionally, but I always felt like an asshole when I did. “But I was feeling this way before then. You know how you said you’ve been waiting a really long time to wear a wedding dress?”

  Her frown deepened, as if she struggled to remember.

  She didn’t have to. I did. “You’ve always wanted to get married. And I’m the reason you couldn’t.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, reeling backward in shock.

  “I ran so many guys off, Mom. Remember the agriculture guy from Australia, the one who I pretended to be afraid of his dog?”

  “Nick?” she asked, as though she hadn’t thought of him in years. “Honey, you didn’t drive him off. I broke up with him.”

  “Right, but you broke up with him because of his dog. Because of me,” I insisted.

  She shook her head. “I broke up with him because he just expected I would uproot us from our lives and our family and our home to move to his ranch in Australia with him.”

  “Oh, like you wouldn’t have moved to Australia for love,” I said, almost an accusation.

  “I wouldn’t have. Not if it meant you were going to grow up so far away from your grandparents.” There was no wavering in her response. No doubt at all.

  Still, I felt the need to challenge her, rather than believe her. “What about the youth pastor from that weird church you took me to a couple of times?”

  The look she gave me answered the question better than words ever could have. There had probably been a very good reason she’d cut that guy loose.

  “Sophie, the only effect you ever had on my dating life was when I had to make choices that would have been healthy for both of us,” she explaine
d. “Sometimes, those choices sucked. And yes, there were men who went on one or two dates with me before they decided that they didn’t want a package deal. But most of the men I’ve dated? I’ve been the one to walk away. Because I didn’t want someone to settle for me, and I didn’t want to settle for anyone. I wanted true love. I wanted perfection. And I got that. And I got that because of you.”

  My chest hurt and I cried harder.

  She went on, “Just because I’m...uncomfortable with the way things are in your personal life doesn’t mean I don’t love you. And I don’t resent you for being a normal, jealous kid. You are the very best thing that ever happened to me. I don’t like your choices, and I sure as hell don’t like the fact that I have to live with them. But I love you.”

  That was a little too love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin for my tastes, but I supposed I had to take it or leave it. The thought of just walking away from my mom, no matter how much her feelings about my relationship hurt me, wasn’t one I could entertain. Maybe I needed to grow a spine and stand up for myself. Maybe I was enabling some kind of prejudice and I should be ashamed of that. But having just one parent and living with a constant fear of abandonment wasn’t something a person lived through unscathed. I’d grown up knowing my mom loved me, but also knowing what some kids didn’t; that a parent could opt out. That they could walk away. While most of my childhood fears had centered around my mom dying and leaving me an orphan, a small, mean part of me still, to that very day, insisted that a mother’s love didn’t have to be unconditional and that if I was so unlovable to one parent, I could easily become so to another.

  “Sophie? Are you not saying anything right now because you don’t believe me?” She knew me too well.

  I nodded. “And I know you hate when I do that. But I don’t know any other way to be.”

  “I know.” She reached over and rubbed my arm, squeezing my shoulder sympathetically. After a long moment, she asked, “What time would you want to have dinner on Sunday? Keep in mind, Tony and I have mass, and it’s a long drive to your place.”