Other Words for Love

by Lorraine Zago Rosenthal

  “No,” I said.

  Her brow furrowed. “Why not?”

  Your friends scare me, I thought. I don’t know enough about designer shoes and dating rituals to fit in. But I couldn’t admit all that, so I just shrugged.

  “Ari,” she said. “I really want you to come with us. I can’t leave you by yourself.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll probably find Leigh around here someplace.”

  “Leigh?” Summer said. “She’s a weirdo and a drunk driver.”

  “Summer,” I said, and my voice held the scolding tone that usually comes from teachers and parents. “You shouldn’t talk about people like that. Or spread rumors about them.”

  Her eyes widened as if I’d just shouted “Summer Simon swallows.” “Yeah, I know,” she said, and I ate my sandwich alone after she was gone because Leigh never showed up.

  I didn’t see her until last period, which made me wonder if she slept all afternoon like Rachel and just strolled in for art because it was the only class that didn’t cause yawning fits.

  “Want to go to MoMA after school?” she said.

  She was wearing her Converses again, with the SUNY Oswego shirt underneath a blazer that didn’t match. And I did want to go to MoMA, but Summer wasn’t happy when I told her about it later that afternoon.

  “We’re supposed to ride home on the train together,” she said, and she was right, so I compromised. I invited her to MoMA, where she and Leigh and I looked at Picasso and at melting clocks in the Dalí exhibit.

  “This is idiotic,” Summer said. She’d never been an art fan.

  “I think it’s amazing,” Leigh answered, which Summer repeated in a sarcastic tone later when she and I were inside a subway car speeding toward Brooklyn.

  “She’s strange,” Summer said, examining her fingers. She spotted a chip in her manicure, took a bottle of polish from her purse, and executed a skillful touch-up. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. Haven’t you noticed the way she dresses? I’ve seen her wearing that shirt three times in the past week. From what I hear, Oswego is where her dead boyfriend went to school. It’s probably his shirt, and that’s not psychologically healthy. She has to let go.”

  I shrugged as lights flickered inside the subway car. I thought about the shirt, wondering if it really had belonged to Leigh’s boyfriend, if she never washed it because it smelled of him, if she wore it for the same reasons that I slept in Patrick’s shirt. Then Summer mentioned Thanksgiving. She asked if we were eating at Evelyn’s next week the way we usually did, and I shook my head.

  “My mother is cooking this year” was all I said, because she didn’t need to know that Evelyn wasn’t doing well lately, that Mom kept sneaking the telephone into our laundry room so that Dad wouldn’t hear her conversations with Patrick, or that Evelyn didn’t cook anymore, not even tuna casserole or no-bake cheesecakes. Patrick had told Mom that there was never anything in the house but Doritos and Dunkin’ Donuts.

  “We’ll all have a nice day today,” Mom said on Thanksgiving when she was bending into the stove and jabbing our turkey with a fork. “You’ll help with the baby so Evelyn can relax. Everything will be just fine.”

  She nodded as if that would make it so. But she seemed disappointed during dinner, when Dad and Patrick argued about football and Evelyn did nothing but eat. She drowned her turkey in gravy and devoured three slices of pumpkin pie, and from the look on Mom’s face, I knew she was worried that Evelyn’s weight would be an excuse for Patrick to screw around.

  Then a button popped off Evelyn’s blouse and landed on Dad’s plate. I wasn’t surprised—she was bursting right out of her bra.

  “Goddamn it,” she said, snatching the button back. Her face turned splotchy like it had been during most of her first pregnancy, when she’d cried about the squiggly purple stretch marks that left scars on her skin.

  “That happens to me all the time,” I lied. “Things are made so cheaply these days.”

  Evelyn’s jade eyes shot toward me. “Who the fuck asked you?”

  I didn’t think anyone had to ask me. I was just trying to be nice, but now I didn’t know why I bothered. Forgive her, I thought. Her hormones are still out of whack and she has no idea what she’s saying.

  Mom tried to fix things. “Evelyn,” she said. “Go find something else to wear in my closet. Take whatever you want.”

  Evelyn went upstairs. Dad took a walk to burn off some calories, Mom disappeared into the kitchen with the kids, and I heard the clang of dishes being washed while Patrick and I sat at the table.

  “Well, that wasn’t very nice,” he said. “Go get me a ruler.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “So I can smack some sense into my wife.”

  I giggled. I loved him for being on my side. He was gone a few minutes later, off to work his shift at the firehouse, leaving Evelyn and the boys for Dad to drive back to Queens later on. I fed Shane his bottle on the couch while Kieran spread out on the carpet with a coloring book and a box of Crayolas.

  “Mom,” I heard Evelyn call from upstairs. “Can you come up here, please?”

  Her tone was urgent, and I was worried that she couldn’t find a single thing that fit. I was wiping formula off Shane’s lips when Mom came out of the kitchen in her apron and slippers and headed up the stairs, and I’d just turned on the TV when she called my name.

  I climbed the steps with Shane in my arms. The hall was dark except for the light coming from my room, and my knees got wobbly when I saw Evelyn sitting on my bed with Patrick’s T-shirt draped across her thighs.

  Mom was in the doorway. Evelyn stood up and took Shane away from me. One of her curls smacked my right eye as she turned back to the bed. I felt sick. I had never expected that Evelyn would go rummaging through my closet.

  “What’s wrong?” I said, blinking the sting out of my eye, shocked at how calm I sounded. Nobody could possibly know that I was close to puking on Mom’s terry-cloth slippers.

  “Nothing,” Mom said. “Evelyn found Patrick’s shirt in your closet and she was wondering how it got there.”

  Evelyn rolled her eyes. “I know how it got there, Mom. Ari stole it from my house.”

  “Who gave you permission to snoop through my things?” I said.

  “Why can’t I snoop through your things?” Evelyn asked. “What are you hiding?”

  “Evelyn,” Mom said. “Patrick must’ve left that shirt here accidentally. Remember when he helped Dad paint the kitchen last spring? I know I did some laundry for him then, and it probably got mixed in with Ariadne’s clothes.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, because this was such a reasonable, innocent explanation.

  “Oh, please,” Evelyn said, glaring at me. “You know he makes you cream your pants.”

  I despised that expression. It was so crude, so crass, the type of thing that Evelyn’s low-achieving friends used to say while they smoked Marlboros on street corners instead of going to school. “You’re disgusting,” I said, clenching my fists so tightly that my nails dug semicircles into my palms.

  “Girls, girls,” Mom broke in before Evelyn could lunge at my jugular. She sat on the bed, stuffing Patrick’s shirt into the front pocket of her Kiss the Cook apron. “Evelyn, you shouldn’t talk to your sister that way. Patrick is your husband, and Ariadne would never do anything inappropriate. The idea is just ludicrous.”

  “Even if she did,” Evelyn said, lifting her chin, “it wouldn’t matter. Ari could strip naked in front of him and he wouldn’t go for it. He isn’t turned on by flat-chested teenagers, you know. Patrick only loves me.”

  The truth hurt. It hurt more than the worst migraine that ever festered inside my head. For a moment I hated Evelyn, sitting there all smug and haughty, the proud owner of Patrick’s love. The worst part was that she was right. He did only love her, and he loved her so much that he overlooked the extra weight and the eczema, her roller-coaster moods and tuna casserole.

  Then Shane started crying, which was good because i
t took the attention off me. But Evelyn got upset because his diaper was clean and he was fed, so there was no reason for him to be crying.

  “I always get the criers,” she said, pacing the floor while patting his back. “Kieran was exactly the same.”

  “They all cry,” Mom told her.

  “My friends’ babies don’t cry for nothing,” Evelyn insisted, and she started crying for nothing too. She wiped her runny nose with her hand and I didn’t hate her anymore. Don’t listen to your friends, I thought. They’re lying. Their babies cry too. Those horrible women want you to fail so they’ll have something to gab about at the pool.

  “I’ll take him,” I said. “Why don’t you lie down on my bed for a while and relax?”

  “Good idea,” Mom chimed in. “Isn’t that a good idea, Evelyn?”

  Red lines marred the whites of Evelyn’s eyes and she looked sorry for what she’d said before. She smiled; Mom and I closed the bedroom door and went to the living room with Shane. Dad took Evelyn and the kids back to Queens a few hours later, and I waved from the sidewalk as they drove away. It was cold outside, and crispy orange leaves spun in clusters on the cement. I turned back to the house, noticing Saint Anne watching me from the corner of her painted eye.

  Inside, I hung my coat in the hall closet and felt Mom behind me. She gave my hair a sharp yank that made me lift my hand to my head, feeling for a bald spot.

  “What was that for?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer. She smiled, holding up Patrick’s shirt with her left hand. There was a laundry basket in her right. “I’ll wash this and give it back to him.”

  Please don’t, I thought. You don’t know how much I need it. “Okay,” I said, but my voice wasn’t as steady as it had been in the bedroom, so I tossed my hair and cleared my throat to cover any sign of weakness.

  “I figured you wouldn’t mind,” Mom went on, jamming the shirt into the basket along with gravy-stained dish towels and Dad’s boxer shorts. “You’ve outgrown it, haven’t you? You really should have by now.”

  At that moment I knew Mom hadn’t forgotten the one time I sat on Patrick’s lap. It was so humiliating that I wanted to disappear. And I thought about how Mom was a talented ringmaster, orchestrating everything in our circus of a family, trying to keep us all on the right track.

  “Of course I have,” I answered, wondering if I ever would.

  Jeff’s Mercedes was in front of my house on Monday morning. While Summer examined her face in a compact, I sat in the back and noticed that our neighbors had been busy over the weekend. All the Thanksgiving decorations were gone, replaced by wreaths and bows tied on mailboxes and lampposts.

  “How is Evelyn doing?” Jeff said.

  I shrugged. “Not great.”

  “Is she seeing anyone?” he asked, meaning a psychiatrist, and I shook my head.

  When we reached Hollister, Summer went to her homeroom and I went to mine. Leigh was actually there, dressed in an oversized SUNY Oswego sweatshirt. I wondered if it belonged to her boyfriend, but I couldn’t ask.

  “You’re invited to a party,” she said. “A week from this Saturday.”

  I turned around. Leigh’s hair was pinned back. The arrowhead charm grazed her sweatshirt and her bracelet rested on her hand instead of her wrist because it was still too big. I thought she should hurry up and take it to a jeweler before it got lost forever.

  “What party?” I asked.

  She explained that her uncle was having his annual Christmas bash. It was at his apartment, a hundred people were invited, and he always let her bring a guest.

  “Is your cousin going to be there?” I asked.

  She knitted her brow. “You mean Del?”

  Who else could I have meant? I nodded, thinking about his name. Del. Delsin Ellis. It was just as distinctive as Leigh had said.

  “He’ll be there,” she said, then lifted her thumb to her mouth and chewed on her nail. She looked like there was something she wanted to tell me but wasn’t sure she should. “He thinks you’re pretty, you know.”

  I didn’t know. I never would have thought that—compliments were hard to come by. Del’s made me think about him all morning, through calculus and American history and even during lunch, while Summer babbled about an engagement party.

  “Do you want to do it?” she said, but I was clueless. I wasn’t listening. I was staring across the cafeteria at Leigh, who was flipping through ARTnews. I wanted her to look at me so I could wave her over to sit with us, but she probably wouldn’t have, anyway. Summer hadn’t exactly been charming when we’d been together at MoMA, and she was even less appealing now that she didn’t have my undivided attention.

  “You’ve got no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” she said, to which I meekly shook my head. Then she got huffy and spoke in a loud voice as if I was deaf or stupid. She told me that Tina was catering an engagement party next weekend and they could use my help if I was available.

  I wasn’t available. I’d been invited to a party at an apartment that was big enough to fit a hundred guests, with an older guy who allegedly thought I was pretty. I wanted to tell Summer, to brag the way she would, but I didn’t. I lied. I told her I was spending the weekend in Queens, which was an acceptable excuse. I was sure she’d get huffy again if she heard the truth. It would devastate her to find out that I’d once again jilted my best friend for a girl who wore the same shirt three times in one week.

  The next day Leigh gave me an invitation to her uncle’s party. Even though the party was going to be at his home, the invitation had been mailed from his office. It was made of thick red paper, tucked inside a gold foil envelope with printing on the back. ELLIS & HUMMEL, P.A. EMPIRE STATE BUILDING. 350 FIFTH AVENUE. 98TH FLOOR. Leigh’s uncle’s name was Stanford Ellis.

  I’d never been inside the Empire State Building and neither had my parents or Evelyn, because Mom said that real New Yorkers never did those touristy things. But I imagined that a man who owned a law firm on Fifth Avenue and whose Christmas-party invitation ended with the words Black tie optional expected his guests to wear something special.

  “Can I get a new dress in the city?” I asked Mom the weekend before the party. It was Saturday morning, and she and Dad were sitting at our kitchen table reading the newspaper over a coffee cake. Mom was already smoking a cigarette, and she gave me a look like I had suggested a trip to Mars.

  “In the city?” she said, as if the city wasn’t only a few miles away. She looked at Dad and they let out a simultaneous laugh, went back to the newspaper, and left me standing on the tiles.

  But I couldn’t go to Stanford Ellis’s party in some old clearance-rack rag from my closet. “The party is a semiformal, Mom. Black tie optional.”

  “Well,” she said. “La-di-da.”

  Dad laughed and I almost cried. Didn’t these people understand anything? Didn’t they notice that I never went anywhere interesting or did anything exciting? I wanted to tell Mom that I had to look decent at the party because someone who might be attracted to me was going to be there, but I was smarter than that. Boys are irrelevant, she’d probably say.

  We compromised. We went to a local Loehmann’s, where she promised to buy me a dress that was practical and sensibly priced.

  “This big-shot friend of yours,” Mom said as we browsed the racks. “She might invite you to some other parties, so pick out something you love. I’m not buying a new dress every time, Ariadne. You’re not Princess Diana.”

  I knew I wasn’t Princess Diana. And Leigh wasn’t a big shot. But I also knew Mom would make me leave the store empty-handed if I argued, so I didn’t. An hour later we were back in the Honda, where I clutched a shopping bag, grateful for what was inside—a knee-length black velvet number that had been on sale for twenty percent off. A little black dress. Summer always said that every girl should have a little black dress.

  I carefully packed it in a garment bag on the night of the party, and searched my dresser drawers for a pair of panty ho
se while Mom watched.

  “Is your homework done?” she said.

  “Yes,” I answered, trying not to sound snotty even though she’d asked me that same question three times already.

  “And Leigh’s parents … they’ll be at home?”

  I was going to Leigh’s apartment so we could get ready and take the car service to the party together, and I knew Rachel would be there, but the word parents threw me off. Leigh had never mentioned her father, and it would have been rude of me to ask. “Her mother will,” I said.

  “Her mother,” Mom said. “What about her father?”

  “I don’t know, Mom. They’re probably divorced. Just about everybody’s parents are divorced.”

  She grunted. I didn’t want to look at her, so I kept rummaging through the drawer. Then Mom gripped my arm and I had to look. Her eyes were puffy, and I wished she would dye her hair soon. She was so negligent about her hair.

  “Be back by midnight, Ariadne. Not a minute later.”

  Midnight was fair. I agreed, and then I rode in the sedan that Leigh had ordered for me. The driver took me to Leigh’s apartment, where Rachel opened the door. She was dressed in another nightgown, and her long hair cascaded over her shoulders.

  “Can I tell you something?” she said a few minutes later. I was sitting beside her on the couch and Leigh was in a chair across from me, shaking her head.

  “Oh, Mama,” she said, which was weird. Everyone I knew called their mother Mom or Mommy or Ma. The way Leigh said it reminded me of an old Elvis Presley interview I’d seen on television once. Mama and Daddy, that was how Elvis referred to his parents, and I guessed it made sense, because he was from the South too.

  Rachel’s accent was slight. I heard it after she ignored Leigh and spoke to me. “Ari,” she said. “You have beautiful eyes. But honey, you’re not tweezing those brows right. Let me fix them and I’ll make you gorgeous.”

  Leigh seemed insulted. “Mama,” she groaned. “What’s wrong with you? Ari didn’t ask for a makeover.”

  But I didn’t mind. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a professional makeup artist to make me gorgeous.