Mrs. Everything

by Jennifer Weiner

  The house on Alhambra Street was unchanged. There was the beige carpet and the boxy television set in the living room, where the couch lived its life beneath a shroud of plastic; there was the worn linoleum and the red-and-yellow tablecloth in the kitchen, and the faded yellow curtains at the window above the sink; there were the twin beds, now covered in white chenille bedspreads, in the room she’d once shared with her sister, although the closet was now filled with Sarah’s clothes.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Bethie shrugged. It was eleven o’clock at night in Detroit, which meant it was approaching breakfast time in Madrid. If she’d stayed, there would have been strong coffee and crusty rolls with butter and jam, wedges of hard cheese, and ribbony pink-and-white slices of jamón. Bethie hadn’t wanted to eat the ham at first—the only pork she’d ever had back home had been at the Chinese restaurant, and the bacon that Barbara’s mother made when they had sleepovers. Eventually, she’d gotten used to it.

  In the kitchen, Sarah pulled two plates out of the cupboard. With short, angry jerks, she opened a can of tuna fish, dumped it into a bowl, and cut a lemon into wedges. Bethie sat at the table, watching, as her mother tore half a head of iceberg lettuce into chunks and spooned tuna on top.

  “Delicious,” Bethie said mildly. “Is there any bread?”

  Sarah started to cry.

  “What?” asked Bethie, even though she knew. Sarah just shook her head, pulled a tissue out of the box near the sink, and wiped her eyes. Bethie ate her lemon-juice-doused tuna and every bit of lettuce on her plate. When she pulled a package of Gitanes out of her leather pocketbook, Sarah set out an ashtray, and when Bethie went to the bedroom, she could tell that her sheets had been freshly washed and ironed. So there’s that, she thought, rolling onto her side as the mattress creaked a protest. She’d get tears, and criticism, and probably nothing more than dry tuna and lettuce to eat. Sarah would never say I love you. She would let Bethie know what a disappointment she’d become in a hundred different ways . . . but there would be fresh sheets and pillowcases on her bed. A dentist appointment, a hairdresser appointment, and a new dress, in a size larger than Sarah would ever wear, hanging in her closet in time for Barbara’s wedding on Saturday morning.

  It had been a long road back home. After she’d stolen her boss’s money, she’d bought a bus ticket to San Francisco, but she’d ended up in New Mexico. There’d been a guy on the bus who’d gotten aboard in Chicago and had taken the seat next to Bethie. For the first hundred miles she’d ignored him, shaking her head in refusal when he offered his flask, pretending to sleep while he read a Raymond Chandler paperback. At some point she’d dozed off, and when she’d woken up, she’d been humming “Blowin’ in the Wind.” “Hey, you’re good,” the guy had said.

  “I was at the Newport Folk Festival, where Dylan sang it live.” The dream was returning to Bethie in snatches, the way she’d seen slivers of the glittering ocean when they’d driven into Rhode Island. “In Newport. With Joan Baez.”

  “Well, aren’t you a lucky duck.” The guy had introduced himself as Drew van Leer, and said he was meeting some friends in New Mexico, and that they were going to put together a band and that, as it happened, they were looking for a singer. He spent five hundred miles convincing her, and, finally, she got off the bus with him in Albuquerque, which was flat and beige, arid and empty. Bethie felt like she’d landed on the moon.

  Drew lived in Santa Fe, and while they waited for the rest of the band, Bethie got a job cleaning up in a fancy Japanese-style bathhouse, and she slept in Drew’s parents’ guest room. Two weeks later, when the drummer still hadn’t turned up, two of the other cleaning ladies proposed a camping trip in the high desert of Taos, Bethie packed Jo’s backpack and tagged along . . . and instead of going back for her scheduled shift on Wednesday, she stayed in Taos, sharing a rented room with a girl she’d met on the camping trip, washing dishes and waiting tables in a diner that sold pupusas and chiles rellenos. Three weeks later when a group of college students came through en route to Vegas, Bethie joined them and moved along.

  In Las Vegas Bethie sang sometimes, in bars, with bands, or in parks, with a hat out for money, and when she decided she’d had enough of the heat, she followed a guy to Portland, Oregon. She sang, and he played the violin, and they put together a set of Pete Seeger songs that they performed in Pioneer Courthouse Square. She cleaned houses and hotel rooms. She waited tables. She did the low-pay, low-status jobs that a young woman with no college degree and no fixed address could do. She did acid and mushrooms, smoked pot and hash, but only when she felt safe, usually when she was alone, and never so much that she’d have to worry about losing control. She earned money and sometimes, when she was feeling especially low or especially angry, she stole it. There were always men around, some of them mean and some of them gullible, men who’d fall asleep after the fucking was done, with their wallets on the nightstand, or in the pocket of their pants, discarded on the floor.

  After Portland was Seattle. After Seattle were Barcelona and Paris. Sometimes, in spite of her best efforts, Bethie would catch sight of her reflection, in a bus window or a bathroom, and see how big she’d gotten. Once, years ago, she’d overheard her mother discussing some cousin. It’s a shande, the way she’s let herself go. Bethie puzzled over that phrase, wondering how you could let your own body get away from you, like it was a car speeding away out of control. Now she understood. You stopped weighing yourself, stopped restricting yourself to small meals and salads, stopped picking French fries off your friend’s plate and started ordering your own. It doesn’t matter, she’d tell herself, but she never really felt free of the shadow of her larger body, the irrefutable evidence of her appetites and her weakness, unless she was high, or singing. With her eyes shut and the music all around her, she could give voice to her pain and her sorrow, and imagine herself as pure emotion, not a body at all.

  From Paris she flew back to Los Angeles, and from there she finally made it to San Francisco, joining the throngs of hippies drawn there by the Mamas & the Papas song, finding that, instead of a sun-dipped, golden-hued paradise, the skies were gray, the streets choked with trash and glittering with abandoned needles. There were kids everywhere, panhandling, shooting up, nodding out, lining up at Glide Memorial Church on Ellis Street for free dinner at five o’clock every night. Eventually, Bethie saved enough money to fly to London, and from there she’d gone on to Amsterdam and points east. With Jo’s rucksack on her back she traveled the route that Jo had meant to take, making her way through Tehran to Kandahar to Kabul to Peshawar and Lahore. It was easy for Bethie to attach herself to a group of college-age kids, to travel with them for a few days or even a week and then break off from the group, sometimes with some of their money or belongings in her pocket. Every once in a while, she would see a man, and the shade of his skin or the set of his shoulders would remind her of Harold Jefferson, and her heart would lift, but none of the men were ever Harold. Bethie would tell herself that it was better that way. If Harold could see her now, he’d be disgusted.

  She trekked through Nepal with a bunch of kids from Sweden, and slept outdoors, in Chitwan Park, in a hammock, while monkeys swung and chattered overhead. She spent six months at a mandir in Puttaparthi, where Sai Baba himself had paused on his walk through a crowd of a thousand white-clad penitents to place his hand, in benediction, on her head. In Milan, she’d met a guy who’d said he was in the import-export business and hired Bethie to bring leather goods to New York City. Bethie loaded up her suitcase with wallets and handbags, wrote “gifts and clothing” on her declaration form, breezed through Customs, and followed the guy’s instructions. She went to the shop whose address he’d given her and turned the handbags and wallets and belts over to the man behind the fingerprint-smeared glass counter, who gave her a hundred bucks in limp twenties that reminded her of the bills Uncle Mel had paid with. “Your cut,” he said. Bethie flew back to Italy, where the guy was delighted to see her. “I figured you
’d rip me off,” he said. “Who, me?” Bethie said. For almost a year, she made the circuit every six weeks, bringing over larger and larger quantities of goods. When the guy trusted her completely and sent her with her largest shipment yet, instead of taking the wallets and purses and bags to the little shop, she’d brought them to a different place, where the sign said FINE LEATHER GOODS and the owner didn’t ask questions.

  When her mind was clear, which was not very often—pot and hash were cheap and plentiful in the circles in which she traveled, and did wonders when she couldn’t turn off her brain, when she couldn’t stop thinking about that night in Newport—she could understand herself. Every man she stole from or ripped off was standing in for Uncle Mel, for Devon Brady, and for the guys who’d raped her. Make them pay, she’d think, and pull her top down a little lower, and smile a sweet, tremulous smile at some man she met in a tea shop or at a bar or in a park or on a bus, and the man would smile back, happy and oblivious. Even if she was fat, there were men who wanted to fuck her; men she could rob. It was like a game, and Bethie almost always won.

  * * *

  Barbara Simoneaux had dated a fellow named Larry Krantz from the start of junior year through high school, and had followed him to Michigan State. Larry was a nice guy who’d grown up with three older sisters and, thanks to them, had a talent for styling girls’ hair. At the end of their dates, Bethie remembered, he would roll Barbara’s hair up in empty orange-juice containers after he’d kissed her good night. Everyone thought that they’d be together forever, but Barbara had met someone she liked better. Ronald Pearlman had been her brother Andy’s freshman-year roommate at the U of M. Barbara had dumped Larry, who, she said, had taken the news with his usual Larry-like equanimity. She and Ronald had gotten engaged the previous June.

  “Remember when Andy used to want us to play Mister Potato Head with him?” Bethie asked as Barbara fussed with her dark-brown bouffant in the mirror.

  Barbara nodded. “And then he got older and he’d hide under my bed when you came over and try to look up your skirt.”

  “Really?” Bethie asked, and Barbara laughed.

  “Don’t be flattered. He did it to everyone.” Barbara turned, peering at her teeth in the mirror, making sure she hadn’t gotten any lipstick on her incisors. They were in the bride’s room of Adath Israel, the synagogue on Rochester Avenue where Jo had gotten married and where, once upon a time, Bethie had wowed the crowd with her improvisational performance as Queen Esther. “So, what’s it like to be back home?”

  “Strange. Everything looks too big.” It was true. The cars looked enormous, the yards looked as big as some of London’s parks, and the roads were as wide as football fields.

  “How’s it going with your mother?” Barbara’s voice was sympathetic. Of all of Bethie’s friends, Barbara was the one who knew the most of the story. She knew how Bethie had gotten pregnant, and how she’d ended the pregnancy; she knew how Bethie had run, how she’d missed her sister’s wedding, and how Sarah had let it be known, after Bethie’s departure, that Bethie had broken her heart.

  “Oh, just great. She’s happy that I’m back.” Bethie braced for questions. Barbara had to know that, even if Sarah was delighted to have her younger daughter home, she was surely less than delighted with Bethie’s appearance, and her lack of a college degree, or a husband, or a job.

  Instead of asking, Barbara turned back to the mirror, twisting left, then right.

  “Am I a beautiful bride?”

  “You are.” Barbara had chosen a simple sheath-style wedding gown that fell just past her knees, with no train, a fingertip veil, and white pumps that she was planning on dyeing some other, more practical color after the wedding. Bethie was wearing the less awful of the two choices her mother had brought home from Hudson’s, a shapeless dark-blue polyester tent that fell almost to her ankles, with a high neck, long, full sleeves, and a large paisley print that made it look like a slipcover. Mister Jeffrey had clucked at her hair, had trimmed off an inch—“just the dead ends, hon”—and had styled it to what were undoubtedly Sarah’s specifications, so that it obscured as much of Bethie’s round face as possible. Her jaw ached from having to remain open for so long, as her dentist tut-tutted over the state of her teeth. Her feet hurt because they were crammed into a pair of beige patent-leather shoes with a kitten heel. Bethie hadn’t worn any kind of heels since she’d ditched Michigan, and when she walked she felt like a lurching freight train, graceless and huge.

  Barbara’s mother, in her pale-pink mother-of-the-bride dress, stuck her head inside the door. “You gals ready?” Bethie saw the way Mrs. Simoneaux’s eyes shone when she looked at her daughter, and how her expression became sympathetic when she turned to look at Bethie. Anger surged inside her, and Bethie tried to push it aside. I could have this, if I wanted it, she told herself. She could starve herself thin again, cut her hair, find a guy, buy a little house in a neighborhood full of identical little houses. She could have everything Barbara had, everything her sister had, only she didn’t want it, not any of it.

  “All set.” Barbara rolled on more lipstick, smacked her lips together, and smoothed her dress over her hips. Bethie stood up. She fluffed her friend’s veil, picked up her bouquet, and followed Barbara out into the sanctuary.

  * * *

  After the wedding, there was a luncheon at the synagogue. After the luncheon, the guests saw Barbara and Ronald off in a shower of rice, and some of the younger ones went to Suzy Q’s on Woodward Avenue for burgers. After the burgers, they adjourned to a bar, and by eleven o’clock the crowd had thinned to Bethie, Barbara’s brother Andy, Andy’s friend Art Lipkin, Art’s girlfriend Suzanne Loeb, and Leonard Weiss, Jo’s old high school boyfriend.

  “She’s married?” Len asked. Bethie had spent the last hour or so telling stories of her travels—the ashram in India, the beaches in Goa, the forests in Nepal, where you’d fall asleep to the sound of monkeys swinging overhead in the trees.

  “Married,” Bethie confirmed. She could still barely believe it herself. She’d met Dave Braverman once, in New York City. She had found her sister’s husband handsome and charming. Maybe a little too handsome and a little too charming. She’d felt his eyes on her chest and her backside when Jo introduced her, when she took off her coat and sat down at their table. She’d been thinner then.

  Leonard lowered his voice and brought his head close to Bethie’s. “Hey, so, uh . . . you got any weed?”

  Finally, Bethie thought. “Yes. From Amsterdam.” “Amsterdam” was the magic word. Everyone assumed that, because pot was legal there, it was better than anything they could buy at home. “I’ve got Thai sticks and sinsemilla.” Bethie kept her voice businesslike, remembering how Dev used to speak to his clients. “I can sell the pot by the lid, or it’s a hundred dollars for an ounce.”

  “A hundred dollars?” Leonard’s voice was incredulous.

  “Worth it,” Bethie said, and smiled into his eyes. “I promise.”

  She reached into her handbag. Leonard bounced from foot to foot.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ve got some friends who want to buy. They can meet us out back. Can I call them?”

  Bethie nodded. Leonard went outside to find a phone booth. Ten minutes later, he checked his watch and nodded at her. They went outside to where a beat-up Mustang was sitting with its engine on. There were two guys up front, another two in the back seat. Leonard opened the door, and Bethie was just getting ready to climb inside when a cop car pulled into the parking lot with its lights flashing and its sirens blaring.

  “Shit!” Leonard yelped.

  “Step out of the car,” came a voice from the bullhorn on top of the police car. For a minute, Bethie thought about running . . . but where would she go?

  She stepped out of the car, trying to remember what Dev had told her. Don’t raise your voice. Don’t tell them anything except I want a lawyer. It’s just another adventure, she told herself as one of the officers escorted her away from Leona
rd’s friend’s car and into the back of his own.

  * * *

  Sarah didn’t say a word as she led Bethie out of the police station on Livernois Avenue and into the car. Not a word as she steered onto Twelve Mile Road, not a word as she merged clumsily onto the freeway, slowing down, then speeding up abruptly, as cars honked and flashed their lights behind her. Bethie waited for tears, or shouting, but Sarah was silent.

  “I’m sorry,” Bethie ventured when they were on Rochester.

  Her mother didn’t answer.

  “I’ll pay you back for everything,” Bethie said. She would need a lawyer, she thought. Maybe Dev would know one. If she could find him, and if he’d even take her call.

  Sarah pulled into the driveway and turned off the car. Instead of getting out, she sat behind the wheel as the engine ticked. Bethie sat beside her, head bent, waiting.

  “I thought you were the good one,” Sarah finally said. “My good girl.” Sarah shook her head. Her curls were still sprayed stiff from the wedding, but she had chewed off all her lipstick, except for a single splotch on the right side of her lower lip. “And now look at you. Jo’s married, married to a good man, with a beautiful little girl and another one on the way. Jo has a home, Jo has a family, Jo’s happy. And you!”

  “I’m happy,” Bethie said.

  “You’re selling drugs.” Sarah’s voice was a moan. “You came back here to sell drugs.”

  “I didn’t come back here to sell drugs, I came for Barbara’s wedding.” The drugs had been a last-minute decision, after Bethie realized that she wouldn’t be able to purchase a ticket to her next destination unless she scrambled up some cash, but she didn’t want to tell her mother that.