by Wendy Wax
The Sandcastle, Nags Head
Have you ever done something without thinking it through? I did on occasion when I was a small child, before I understood what my mother’s “rest” vacations really were or that a crayon masterpiece drawn on the formal dining room wall would not entice her to leave her darkened bedroom to play with me. Or that the attention I’d get from my father for that kind of transgression was not worth seeking.
I did it on my wedding day when I choked at the altar and again just after I gave birth. That was forty years ago and ever since I’ve been excruciatingly careful not to leap without looking.
At the moment I’m unloading the dishwasher and eliminating the remnants of last night’s birthday dinner and remembering the months leading up to Lauren’s birth. Even after all this time most of the memories are painful.
My mother started crying the moment I halted the extravagant wedding that she’d planned. She cried harder when I told them I was pregnant, and never really stopped. This precipitated another of her “rest cures,” which were no longer referred to as vacations. My father’s first words were “How could you do this to us?” As if it were all some elaborate plan to make them look bad. As if my mother’s nervous breakdowns hadn’t already sparked unwelcome speculation. He barely looked at me after that.
His plan was to send me to a home for unwed mothers where I would give birth, hand over my child for adoption, and come home to Richmond as if nothing had ever happened. I knew a lot of girls who did exactly that. Because on the one hand the ’70s was a time of streaking and free love, but getting pregnant and giving birth without the benefit of matrimony was heavily frowned upon. In Richmond, in my parents’ circle, it was a mortification not to be borne. (Yes, bad pun intended.)
In the end he took me to Charlotte to my mother’s older sister, Velda, before the truth became undisguisable. It was a better and kinder option than being sent to some group home, but the end result was supposed to be the same. Give the baby up then come home and get on with my life. As if she’d never happened. I was way too numb to argue or come up with a plan of my own. I vaguely remember sleeping those months away. But giving birth wakes you up in ways you never imagine. Once I held her in my arms and felt her tiny fingers clinging to mine, there was no way on earth I could ever hand her over to anyone else. Not even to wealthy, loving, potentially great parents. I didn’t really think. I just took her and ran, scared to death but determined to be the mother mine didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to be.
I pour myself a cup of coffee and carry it to the kitchen table, still unable to believe how little thought I gave to the most important decisions of my life. How much I underestimated how hard it would all be. How little I considered the potential fallout. It had never occurred to me that my father would be angry and embarrassed enough to cut his daughter and granddaughter out of his life and force my mother to do the same. Or that they would die before either side could forgive or make amends.
And, of course, I never imagined that when my brain cleared and the panic subsided and I realized that Jake was the man I actually would love “till death do us part” he would already be engaged to someone else.
And then my aunt Velda—the only member of our family who wanted to have a relationship with me—and who never lost touch with her girlhood friends in Richmond, started sending me tidbits about him and the woman he married. Things I really wish I’d never heard. Because the more I heard the more I knew that I could never tell him about our daughter.
* * *
Lauren
New York City
“Oh my God. Let me see that ring.”
We’re with friends at a crowded table in Bar Centrale, a small unmarked place built into what was once an apartment above Joe Allen’s restaurant on 46th in the middle of Restaurant Row.
I hold out my hand somewhat dutifully and let the stone speak for itself. It’s been doing a lot of talking lately and so has Spencer. I now know all the smallest details about his shopping expedition to Tiffany, the other stones that were considered and rejected, the planning of the proposal, and the logistics required to orchestrate it.
“Were you totally surprised?”
“Yes,” I answer truthfully. Everyone seems so satisfied by the absolute theatricality of it all that there’s no way I can say that I’m still stunned and trying to absorb the fact that I’m engaged to be married or that a more private proposal might have left me a little less off-kilter.
These people live and breathe drama. They are delighted by spectacle. They create it for a living. They are thrilled that Spencer has pulled this off.
I can see how sincerely happy Spencer seems. How glad he is not only that he pulled the proposal production off so seamlessly, but that he is genuinely happy to be engaged to marry me. I know I should treasure this enthusiasm, given that so many men have to be lassoed and hauled to the altar. I love him and I have no real doubts about marrying him. But at the moment I’m wishing that at least one of these normally loose-lipped people had tipped me off.
“Have you set a date?”
“Where are you going to hold the wedding?”
“Ohh, a museum would be cool. I went to a wedding at the Guggenheim that was absolutely gorgeous.”
“Or what about the Park Avenue Armory or The Frick? They’re both so elegant.”
I can’t really keep track of who says what. All of Spencer’s friends are talented and driven and most of them have made it to the higher rungs of a ladder that’s ridiculously hard to climb. I like and respect them. Usually I enjoy them. But they’re still more his friends than mine.
I have a handful of longtime writer friends, but our friendship is a quieter thing and typically plays out online via group e-mails or texts or in an occasional phone call. We get together when one of us needs human contact. And to celebrate when something good happens or to support one another when news is bad. But losing Bree was so painful (kind of like having an arm ripped off) that I’ve been careful not to let myself get that close—or be that vulnerable—again.
So far tonight I haven’t had to say much, which suits me just fine. I really don’t have it in me to start contemplating logistics. It’s all I can do to beat down my discomfort at how important a topic our wedding plans have already become.
“Will the wedding be in New York?” A lighting director named Martin asks.
A shocked silence follows this question.
“Well, don’t people typically get married wherever the bride is from?” Denise often handles casting for the touring companies of Spencer’s plays.
“Where are you from again?” This comes from Spencer’s favored choreographer, Brett.
Puzzled looks follow. Despite the fact that Spencer is the only person at this table who was actually born and raised in Manhattan, those who have chosen to live here and in many cases fought hard to be able to afford to stay here, like to pretend their lives began only after they arrived.
“Lauren’s from the Outer Banks,” Spencer says. “Nags Head.” He pronounces the name of my hometown with relish.
“What a great name.”
“How cute! I love the sound of it.”
I try not to cringe as I tell them that some claim the name comes from locals tying lanterns to horses to try to lure ships onto the rocky shoals in order to scavenge the resulting shipwreck. The Outer Banks is composed of a long string of barrier islands that are bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east and the sounds that separate it from the North Carolina coast on the west. Its beauty is even more dramatic than the people assembled here. It’s majestic. Breathtaking. Its easternmost coast is referred to as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, for God’s sake. And while some parts of it have become a bit built up and bulge with tourists during high season, cute is not a word I would ever apply to it. Nor would any Banker.
“You never told me what your mother said when you
called her.” Spencer smiles comfortably. He’s planned and pulled off the proposal. All is right in his world.
I give myself a moment to finish my wine. Then I pat my lips dry with a napkin. Only then do I meet his eyes. Which look first horrified and then hurt. “Was she upset that I didn’t ask for her permission?”
The concern on his face is really kind of sweet. But I’m a forty-year-old woman who’s been on her own in New York for close to two decades. I can’t imagine why he’d ask my mother.
“No, of course not. She wouldn’t be expecting that. I mean, you two haven’t even met yet.”
He gets an odd look on his face and I hurry to rephrase. “In fact, when she called the other morning to wish me a happy birthday she told me I needed to bring you down to meet her.”
He goes very still and I realize my mistake. That call took place before his proposal.
“You mean you haven’t told her?”
“Well . . . no, not exactly.”
“Really? You got engaged to be married and you didn’t think that merited a phone call?” His tone turns cool but I can see the shocked surprise in his eyes. I know that Broadway Spencer has a thick skin—almost reptilian—you don’t make it in the entertainment fields if you’re too soft. And he tends to lead with his cocky, successful, privileged-yet-talented persona, but I have seen inside him to his very real flesh-and-blood self with complex thoughts and hurtable feelings. It’s clear I’ve hurt them now.
“It’s not that I haven’t wanted to tell her.” I’m scrambling now. “I’ve left her several messages, but I didn’t want to leave great news like this in a voice mail.” This is a lie but I put everything I have into selling it. “Maybe we can try and reach her together tonight when we get back to my place.” I offer a hopeful, half-pleading smile.
“Sure.” His eyes are plumbing mine. “That’s a good idea.” Then he matches my smile and puts his arm around my shoulders. But I can see that the damage has been done.
Five
Bree
The Sandcastle
I can tell as soon as Kendra picks up the phone that Lauren’s on the other end of the line. There’s something in Kendra’s voice that’s there only when she speaks to her daughter. It’s not that she gushes or overemphasizes or anything but there’s a subtle something extra there, a connection, an instinct, like that thing that lets an infant know to cling to or fall quiet for its mother. I get a special tone, too, but it’s slightly different in timbre. I’m aware of the widely differing vocal cues from long years of comparison. I hear what steals into my voice when I speak to Rafe and Lily; it’s there even when I’m frustrated or angry with them. My own mother has no tonal variation that I’ve ever been able to discern; she has one tone whether she’s speaking to me or a class or a group of possible sponsors.
Kendra doesn’t leave the kitchen where we’ve been drinking hot cocoa or make any attempt to exclude me—she hates the distance between Lauren and me and has made it clear to both of us that she’d like nothing more than to see us “kiss and make up.” So I not only hear the happiness in her voice and see it on her face, I also see the slight tension that settles on her shoulders as she listens. Something has taken her by surprise.
“Oh my goodness! Really?” She holds the phone tighter to her ear. “Why . . . how . . . oh my gosh! Right there in the restaurant? How wonderful!” She listens again intently. Then she covers the mouthpiece and whispers, “Lauren’s engaged!”
Shock and surprise take my breath away. Waves of conflicting emotion wash over me. There is excitement, even delight. Lauren and I dreamed of this when we were little girls. Whispered about it for hours on end. Imagined our weddings and each other’s roles in them repeatedly, sometimes even scripting them out.
Those initial happy emotions give way to darker ones. Dismay. Regret. A yawning loss. Because I’m hearing this secondhand where once I would have heard it even before Kendra. Would have known it might happen. The stab of jealousy comes last, and I latch on to it because it’s the sharpest and most familiar, the one I’ve been nursing the longest. And it doesn’t hurt as much.
I watch Kendra’s face for more clues. It must be the playwright that I Googled not long after they started dating. A high achiever even by Lauren’s standards. Good-looking and from a wealthy, philanthropic family. Lauren has never done anything by halves so I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. Since there’s no longer any need to pretend I’m not listening, I move in closer to mine Kendra’s voice and body language for more clues.
“He wants to talk to me?” Kendra asks, clearly pleased. “Of course. Put him on.”
There’s a long pause as she presumably listens to the man who’s about to become her son-in-law use his gift with words on her.
“Of course I forgive you for not asking me first,” she says, like the Richmond debutante I know she once was. “I promise I’ve been asking her to bring you down.” She laughs. “Yes, she can be a little stubborn.” And then because Kendra would never willingly hurt anyone’s feelings, especially her daughter’s (how else could she walk the minefield between us all these years without being blown up?) she adds, “But I believe she comes by that naturally.”
Apparently there’s more because she chuckles, nods, smiles. “Yes. Lauren and I can talk about the details later. But I’m so excited for you both and I look forward to meeting you.”
She laughs at whatever he says next and then adds, “I know just how discriminating my daughter is, so you are clearly a paragon of all things.” She laughs again. “Besides, how could I not approve of someone who loves my daughter?”
I busy myself rinsing out our mugs and puttering about until the good-byes are finished.
I spend a little of that time secretly hoping that Lauren will ask to speak to me, that she’ll want to use this pivotal moment to apologize for appropriating the book we plotted together and using it to become the Queen of Beach Reads. (At which point I might attempt to point out that my not getting on that bus to New York was not about her. That she is not in fact the center of everyone else’s universe.)
This doesn’t happen, of course, and so I focus on smashing my jealously back down into the dark hole where it lives so that Kendra won’t see it. I owe this woman virtually everything and will not intrude on her right to be happy for her daughter. I’ll have to settle for being happy for Kendra.
When she hangs up she’s crying what are clearly happy tears. “I’m so happy for them both. And so incredibly grateful that she’ll have someone to love and to share her life with. Like you do. It’s not even too late for children.” She whispers this last part as if Lauren might overhear her.
I just nod and smile in a brainless bobbleheaded way while Kendra continues to both grin and cry; a contradictory response that reminds me of “a monkey’s wedding,” a phrase my parents once told me South Africans use to describe a sun-shower.
It’s odd how huge this announcement feels to me when in truth it has nothing to do with me at all. Kendra envelops me in a hug and I wish that Lauren and I were still five-year-olds who believed we were sisters and that a pinky swear could actually last forever.
Neither of us mentions that there’s been no talk at all of THE DRESS. And whether Lauren plans to wear it.
* * *
Kendra
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when I dream about weddings all night. It’s all vague, barely formed images. Bits and pieces of everything from Princess Di and Charles’s “wedding of the century,” to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s more recent joining. Liz and Chris on 30 Rock appear. Bree and Clay’s wedding flits by and includes shots of Lauren’s unhappy face. Of course, no disturbing dream sequence would be complete without a highlight reel from my own botched ceremony. Me being helped into THE DRESS. Me walking down the aisle on my father’s arm. The expression on Jake’s face as he watches me draw near.
I wake groggy
and distressed and with an odd sense of foreboding that no amount of splashing cold water on my face dispels. I pull on my bathrobe and walk into the kitchen to brew my first cup of coffee, telling myself that it’s silly to react this way to such good news. That Lauren is a grown woman who knows her own mind and not the panicked twenty-one-year-old I was. I pull my wool shawl from its hook near the back door and wrap it around me then carry the coffee outside to the back deck, where I lean over the railing and stare out across the dunes and the narrow strip of beach that separates them from the ocean.
Even as I sip coffee in my favorite spot on earth, my mind is still filled with images of my wedding day, the horrible way it ended, and all that followed.
I had no idea where I was headed when I tiptoed out of my aunt Velda’s house, more to keep my aunt from being an accessory than because I thought she’d bar my way, buckled my swaddled newborn daughter into the bucket seat next to me, and fired up the engine of the blue 1970 Dodge Challenger convertible my father had given me on my sixteenth birthday. I just got on Highway 64 and headed east until I reached the coast of North Carolina, then drove over two long, wind-battered bridges that seemed to go on forever and left no question that you’d left the mainland behind.
I stopped for gas and snacks on Roanoke Island, where the Outer Banks begin, then took yet another bridge that spanned Roanoke Sound to NC 12, a winding, narrow two-lane strip of asphalt that connects most of the islands together and that locals still refer to as the Beach Road.
From my deck I can see the vague outline of Jennette’s Pier jutting out into the ocean a couple miles down the beach. That’s where I ended up that first day and where I carried Lauren all the way out to the tip of the fishing pier where I stood right out over the ocean.
I still remember those first heady breaths of air. How blue and clear the sky was. The rush of wind in my ears. It was wild and untamed. I felt freedom and possibility all the way down to my toes.
