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On Grace

Page 14

by Susie Orman Schnall


  When we get to Il Cielo, I realize that having lunch with my mom is like going to a high-society wedding: The crowd has been pre-screened for proper pedigrees, there are lots of air kisses, and you know you’ll get a good meal. Il Cielo is one of my favorite restaurants in Beverly Hills. I love it for the food and the ambiance. My mom loves it because she knows all the right people will be there wearing all the right outfits giving her all the right respect. As we enter the restaurant, which looks like a beautiful home, my mom double-cheek kisses the maître d’ who greets her by name and whisks us off to a table in the back garden, which is beautifully decorated with stunning flowers and pastel-dressed ladies. Usually L.A. women tend to show more thigh and cleavage than their New York sisters. But here at the rarefied Il Cielo, it feels very much like an ad from the Estée Lauder Beautiful campaign. Sans wedding dresses. And puppies.

  “Hi, Guillaume,” my mom says to the waiter as he approaches our table. “I’ll have my usual please, darling.” He smiles and writes something down. I think the only place I have “a usual” is at Starbucks, but the baristas never remember.

  “May I please have the tomato soup and the vegetable risotto?”

  “Very good,” Guillaume says. We order two glasses of Riesling and a bottle of Pellegrino, and then Guillaume saunters off purposefully to take special care of the lovely Nina Roseman’s lunch order. And that of her passable daughter. My mom waves to a well-coiffed woman dressed in cotton-candy pink on the far side of the patio.

  “What’s your usual?” I ask her.

  “The tomato soup. It’s divine. I’m so glad you remembered to order it, too, and the grilled calamari salad. It’s fabulous.” And a kiss is blown to a blonde in powder blue.

  “So tell me, Gracie, how is Cameron?” my mom asks with concern as she adjusts the double-strand necklace of large amber stones that looks beautiful against her khaki Burberry trench dress. (She sometimes changes three, four times a day.)

  “She’s doing okay. I think. It’s hard to tell sometimes with Cameron. She’s got such a tough shell, but I know this miscarriage really destroyed her. I don’t know what she’s going to do. She’s not even sure she wants to go back to work,” I say as I start to take a sip of my wine and then stop. “I want to talk about Cameron, but first I’d like to propose a toast.”

  My mom picks up her glass and smiles at me.

  I continue, “I’m so happy to be here, in L.A., in this beautiful garden, with you. I’m really so grateful that you are here for me, and I just want you to know I love you.” We clink glasses and before I can take a sip, my mom stops me.

  “And a toast to you, my beautiful Gracie. I would like to toast to your happiness and to only good things for you and Darren,” she says as she clinks my glass again.

  I wince, but she doesn’t notice because she’s smiling at a lady in cornflower blue who just walked by. I take a long sip of my wine and silently pray for an adequate supply of fortitude to last me the next forty-eight hours.

  “As for Cameron,” I say, “I just hope that she doesn’t give up, that she looks into IVF or adoption or something.”

  “Well, she probably shouldn’t have waited so long to have a baby,” my mom says.

  “Mom!” I say with a touch of anger.

  “What? It’s true. You girls, well not you Gracie, but a lot of my friends’ daughters were so set on having a career that they missed their windows. It’s very sad. My friend Melinda Waters has four children, and she’s still waiting for a grandchild.”

  “It’s not as simple as that, though. And it’s people like you and Melinda Waters who told us to find a career that makes us happy, that we could do it all, that we could be mothers and working women.”

  “Well, maybe we were wrong,” she says resignedly, fingering her bread and pushing it to the side of her plate wantingly.

  “Maybe we were just meant to be barefoot and pregnant. It sure makes everything easier.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m serious. I’m so conflicted about whether I’m supposed to have a job or whether I’m supposed to be home with the boys, volunteering at their school, learning mahjong. There are so many mixed messages about what women are supposed to do. It makes my head spin,” I say, as I spread butter on my olive bread.

  “Well, that’s always been your problem, Gracie,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand.

  “What?” I mumble, my mouth full of bread.

  “You’re concerned with what you’re supposed to do, instead of doing what you want to do.” She looks down at me. I feel like I’m seven. “Since you were a little girl, you worried about everything. You tried to be the best ballet dancer because you thought that’s what you were supposed to do, you tried to get the best grades because you thought that’s what your father and I wanted you to do, you did everything to get into the best college because you thought you had to for some reason. We couldn’t get you to just relax a bit and do what you wanted to do. Do you remember the pony farm?”

  “No.”

  “You were about five. I had taken you girls to a pony farm in Canoga Park. Eva and Danielle both hated it. Eva didn’t like getting dirty, and Danielle said it hurt. But you loved it. You said you liked the air in your hair. Your father asked you if you wanted to take lessons. You put your hands on your hips and said something like, ‘pretty girls do ballet, they don’t ride dusty ponies.’ You were five, and you were already worrying about what you were supposed to do, when all you wanted to do was put on your jeans and ride. We tried to convince you to try a lesson or two, but you wouldn’t give up your ballet. And you didn’t even like ballet that much when you were little.”

  “I didn’t?” I’m shocked. “I just remember doing ballet all the time.”

  “That was because Miss Natalya told us, told you, you had potential and that you were very graceful. You heard that and you asked to sign up for more classes. So we let you. You don’t remember crying because you thought the leotards were scratchy and you got headaches from the tight hair buns?”

  “No. Really?”

  “Really. I probably should have pulled you out of that ballet school and pushed you to ride horses.”

  We sit for a moment, and I feel emotional. Raw. This woman knows me. Knows everything about me and all of the small moments that collectively conspired to make me the woman I am today. She was present for all the little decisions that informed the big decisions. And it makes me lightheaded (or is that the wine?) to think that my character was set so long ago. Or was it?

  I realize that the character setting I put so much stock in was orchestrated by a five-year-old. And that five-year-old is still making the decisions, still telling me what I’m supposed to care about and what I’m supposed to do. I always justified my personality by saying “that’s just who I am.” But is it? If I had traded the ballet slippers and pas de bourrées for Levi’s and riding lessons, would I be a different person today? Is the “me” I am just a fabrication? Just a construct of a child? I know I can’t rewrite the past, but can I stop letting it inform my present and my future?

  “Do you think it’s possible for someone to drastically change the way they operate?” I ask my mom as Guillaume delivers our soup with a flourish.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’ve been this person for so long,” I say motioning around my whole body with waving hands. “This person who hungers for praise and recognition, who cares what other people think, who venerates the obligation over the desire, who analyzes everything in the hope that the overthinking might neutralize the fear and the uncertainty of doing the ‘wrong’ thing. Do you think that I can let go of all those hang-ups? Do you think I could just turn off the goddamn switch and start trusting my instincts more than my rationalizations? That I could finally lighten up a bit and stop having such high expectations for myself?” Before I can help it, I’m crying. My mom opens her Fendi, hands me a tissue, and smiles at me gently.

  “O
h, Gracie. I think you could certainly try. But why don’t you just practice it? Don’t make a firm commitment to it or else you will make yourself crazy trying to be an overachiever at that, too. My healer likes to tell me to ‘lean into things.’ Why don’t you try that, darling? I just want you to be happy.”

  “I know, Mom,” I say as I shake it off, smile at her, and dive into my soup. As I suck down the velvety, tomato-y goodness, I’m struck by the thought that maybe I can stop blaming my character flaws on some set DNA. What if I go all tabula rasa and just start fresh? Just be comfortable in my own skin, confident with my decisions, and happy doing what feels good instead of what looks good. I am giddy with the possibility that I have just made a major breakthrough in my life, right here at Il Cielo.

  We make small talk for a while about her latest interests: yogalates, labyrinth walking, wheatgrass, and then as our lunch plates are set down, again with a flourish, she asks me about Darren.

  “So what’s going on?”

  I take a deep breath. “I’m not really sure, to tell you the honest truth. I go back and forth with my feelings about it. Sometimes I’m ambivalent, sometimes I’m really angry. Sometimes I’m sure we’ll get past it, and sometimes I just can’t imagine how I could ever trust this man again. And what’s a marriage without trust?”

  “Not a very good one,” my mom says and looks down at her plate. “I’m not telling you to forgive him, Gracie. I just think forgiveness is overrated. I think you should somehow embrace the pain and let it propel you forward. Use it as energy.”

  “What exactly do you mean by that?” I’m all for spirituality, and I’m all for taking Cam’s Oprah advice, but sometimes I think my mom gets a little far-fetched.

  “I mean that you shouldn’t be all high and mighty about a mistake that your husband made. Just think of it as a mistake. If he added an extra zero onto some deal at work and got fired, would you divorce him for making that mistake?”

  “Mom, high and mighty? Come on, I’m not high and mighty. And I think you and I both know that’s not really a good analogy. His pencil didn’t slip. His penis did. He had sex with another woman,” I say, slowly for emphasis. “He lied to me. He made me feel like shit.”

  “I know, darling.”

  “No, you don’t know. You don’t really know what this feels like at all because Dad never cheated on you. Has any man ever cheated on you?” I ask, getting angry. And maybe a little high and mighty.

  “No, not that I know of,” she says quietly.

  “Well, then, I appreciate your concern about my marriage and what I’m going to do, but I just don’t feel like it’s fair for you to be so decisive about how I’m supposed to feel when you’ve never walked in my moccasins. Not that you would ever wear moccasins.”

  She laughs and reaches across the table for my hand. “You’re right. I don’t know exactly how you feel. I’m sorry for being hard on you. I just don’t want your family to be broken up like ours was. I regret that deeply, Gracie. From the bottom of my heart, I don’t want you to go through the same thing.”

  “I know, Mom. But you know I don’t blame you for that. I know you always tell me not to, but I blame Dad.”

  “No, Gracie. This was not your father’s decision.” She pauses. “We came to that decision together. Things just weren’t working,” her voice trails off, and she looks away. I can tell the memory of their divorce is still painful for her. She loved my father. I think she still might.

  “Well, I’ve never been a single mother and you have, so you’ve got some credibility there,” I say, trying to lighten the mood. “I don’t want to get a divorce. I don’t want to be a single mother. I don’t want to have to give up the boys every other weekend and have them go to Darren’s fancy penthouse in the city where his twenty-five-year-old girlfriend named Britney who probably doesn’t own any Spanx will make them the Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes they’re always asking for that I never have time to prepare. I don’t want that. So I guess I’m just going to have to figure out how to make this work. But I also feel, for the first time, that I could be strong enough to do this on my own. That I don’t need a man who made me feel so badly about myself around all the time to remind me of that. I don’t know. I’m so confused.”

  “I know, darling. But you’ll figure it out,” she says and pats my hand.

  We finish our lunch and talk about the plan for the rest of the weekend. After lunch, we’ll go back to my mom’s condo for a while. I’ll read on her terrace or nap. Tonight, we’re going to Eva’s house for dinner. I’m really looking forward to seeing my nieces and Eva’s adorable husband Sam. My mom decided not to join Eva and me tomorrow on our whirlwind day in L.A. She says she wants us to bond. It’s always been one of her life goals to have Eva and me be best friends. It will not happen in this lifetime, but I am always willing to let my mom think it will.

  “What is your plan for tomorrow night?” she asks me, taking a sip of her cappuccino.

  “Kiki and Arden are picking me up at 7:00. We’re meeting Scotty and Abigail and some other people at Koi at 7:30.”

  “Who are the other people?” My mom has always prided herself on knowing all of my friends.

  “I think it’s just Tommy Martin, Jake Doyle, and Sara Shaffer. I’m not sure who else. But I do know they wanted to keep this to just the old high school group. I guess there’s some official engagement party in a couple weeks with all of Scotty and Abigail’s grown-up friends.”

  “Oh, I remember that Jake Doyle. You had such a crush on him. What’s he doing now?”

  “I’m not really sure. I think he’s an artist. I saw him at the reunion, but I haven’t been in touch with him.”

  I don’t want my mom to know about Jake. There is absolutely no reason for my mom to know about Jake.

  “It sounds wonderful. Please tell Tommy to tell his mother hello from me. I see Sara once in a while. She’s always pushing a carriage along San Vicente. Always seems to have a new baby.”

  “Yeah, I think she’s up to four now,” I say.

  “I guess it’s easier that your father’s away this weekend,” she says.

  “I agree, it would’ve been hard to fit in a visit to see him, so it works out well. He’s coming to New York next week, though, so we’re meeting for dinner in the city one night.”

  My father, Reed Roseman, is a very powerful corporate attorney. He defended the Denihan case back in the 80s. When you tell anyone in L.A. that you were involved in the Denihan case, they nod deferentially. So my dad has been being deferred to for many years now. It defines him. He’s a good man, and I love him very much, but I can’t say he’s been the greatest father in the world. Both of his parents died when he was a baby, and he was raised by a distant aunt, so when it comes to being a father, he’s pretty clueless. He knows intellectually what he’s supposed to do in the dad department, so he checks in with me and tells me he loves me, but he’s never really been there emotionally. I think he’s finding it easier to connect with me now that I’m an adult. I know I’m finding it easier to connect with him.

  He’s currently vacationing at his house in Kona, Hawaii, with his wife, Amanda. My dad and Amanda got married when I was ten. At that time, Amanda was a nubile twenty-six, twelve years younger than my dad. She had moved to L.A. from Nebraska a few years earlier to become an actress, but the furthest she got was holding a sandwich board in hot pants in front of the exotic car wash where my dad met her. Now she’s fifty-five and a plastic-surgery addict because she’s worried my dad will leave her for a younger woman. I think she’s a vapid gold digger mostly because, well, she is a vapid gold digger. Eva tolerates Amanda better than I do. In fact, they go for mani pedis every few weeks because Amanda pays for them. And for the cappuccinos afterward.

  The rest of the day is nice and relaxing. And dinner at my sister’s is wonderful, though predictable. Eva only cooks from Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa cookbooks because she believes they’re the only recipes that turn out perfectly deliciou
s time after time. And she’s right. But Eva’s menus don’t vary much. It doesn’t bother me because I am at her house so rarely, but her husband Sam calls her the Unfairfoot Opressa because he feels deprived of variety. I thoroughly enjoy our dinner of grilled tequila lime chicken, fresh corn salad, and herbed basmati rice, and it’s nice to have someone else cook and clean for a change.

  But I spend the entire night distracted. Jake Doyle is on my mind, in my mind, everywhere. It’s something about being in L.A., about being back in the place where my childhood crushes and dreams blossomed. So, unfortunately, while my adorable nieces tell me about what they are going to be for Halloween (Hermione Granger and a ladybug), I imagine what Jake’s expression will be when our eyes meet at Koi. While my sister is going over our plan for tomorrow, I am thinking about what it would be like to kiss him. My sweet brother-in-law busts out his guitar and starts playing Van Morrison—music we bonded over when he and Eva met because, like her cooking repertoire, her music repertoire is based upon one somewhat zaftig but extremely talented woman: Mariah Carey. But while I sit listening, trying to focus on his playing, I wonder if I could ever go where Darren went. If I could allow Jake to take me back to his place in Venice, to undress me, to caress me while we listen to the waves crash along the beach outside his window. To let the butterflies fly.

  chapter sixteen

  I wake up confused and jet-lagged on Saturday morning. It takes me a second to figure out where I am and another second to figure out how I feel. I remember that today’s the day I’m seeing Jake, the culmination of all the interaction we’ve had over the last two weeks that I would be mortified if Darren ever knew about. I don’t feel like I’ve been cheating on Darren, but I’ve been hiding stuff from him and that’s the same as lying, and how far from cheating is that? I’ve gotten very good at justifying it all away, so that’s what I do again right now. Plus, it’s his fault I ever engaged with Jake in the first place.

 

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