The young receptionist had transparent eyelashes and waxy, pale blonde hair. She greeted Steven with a wide smile. “Have a great workout, Steven,” she said. “And is this handsome young man your son?” David couldn’t tell if she was complimenting him, hitting on him or commenting on his looks the way one would a three-year-old sitting in a car-shaped barber’s chair.
“Actually, he’s my son-in-law-to-be. My younger daughter is getting married this week.”
“Wow, how exciting! You must be a very proud daddy.” David then realized her slightly condescending tone wasn’t reserved for him—she spoke like a volunteer at a retirement home to everyone.
“Would you two handsome gentlemen like a free soy smoothie?” she asked. “Or could I interest you in a calcium supplement? Our flavors today are Chocolate Sin and Macadamia Nut Felony.”
“No thank you,” Steven said. “I don’t think we’re going through menopause!” When she failed to laugh at his attempted joke, he added, “What I mean is, I’m not sure those nutrients would provide as many benefits to males.”
“Pfft,” she said. “That’s just marketing. Soy and calcium are good for everyone. Osteoporosis is not just a women’s disease.” She wagged her finger at him.
“It does disproportionately affect women, actually,” Steven said. “But if what you’re referring to is low bone mass, point well taken.”
The gym staff was all female, except for one skinny, redheaded teenage boy who was organizing the weight plates and wiping down a few sweaty machines. The staff wore purple slacks and candy-pink polo shirts. David wondered how the boy would try to explain that uniform to his friends. He probably told them he was working at Ben & Jerry’s.
David began his workout on the treadmill, running at a steady pace with a slight incline. He ordinarily felt a little competitive with other members at LifeSpin, craning his neck to see how fast they were running and increasing his own speed to match. At Barbelles, he noticed other patrons staring at him as though he had magical powers because he had started his treadmill at level six.
As he ran, he inadvertently made eye contact with the woman on the treadmill next to him. She was in her seventies, wiry and short with a spiky pixie cut. She was walking slowly, but at an impressive incline, swinging her fists as she walked. When she saw he was looking, she smiled at him and kept on walking.
He wished his mother had been like her. With the hours she’d put in at her job, she never really had the time for a workout, or at least that was what she said. She’d stayed up late on business calls, finger-combing her ash-blond hair as she sipped coffee into the night. She’d also smoked, although she tried to hide it from the kids until they were old enough to identify the smell.
On the weekends, she would take the boys to pumpkin patches, apple orchards, amusement parks—even the Renaissance Faire once, at Nathan’s request. (After eight-year-old Nathan scolded a man dressed as King Arthur because King Arthur was a Medieval figure, not a Renaissance figure, they never returned.) David never saw her take any time for herself. He wished he had urged her to relax a bit more, maybe see the doctor more often, or even just have a full night of sleep, but he’d been too young to know better. As a child, all he cared about was whether or not she would be able to leave work early enough to watch All That with him on Nickelodeon. More times than not, she couldn’t.
He was about to head over to the bench press when he felt his phone vibrating. He sighed when he saw that it was his boss.
“Hey, Robert,” David said.
“Just got back from surfing at Half Moon Bay. The waves were infuckingcredible.”
Robert never missed an opportunity to talk about surfing. David suspected he had chosen this hobby to lend ruggedness and eccentricity to a personality that was otherwise entirely colorless. Employees who had actually gone surfing with Robert reported that he was strictly at the beginner level. His surfing consisted mainly of donning a wetsuit, lying prone on his board, and tentatively paddling out from shore.
“So what’s up?” David asked.
“Do you have a minute?”
“Um, well, actually, it’s my wedding week.”
“Of course! I just thought I would ask you since you’re always my go-to on this kind of thing. But I don’t want to bother you, man. I could always ask Zach...”
He should have seen this coming. Zach, an executive David’s age, had the same title as him, the same responsibilities, and the same role in Robert’s ongoing science experiment of pitting them against each other.
“No, no, this is a good time, actually. What’s up?”
“I have great news. We got the second round of funding from BluCapital.”
“Wow, Robert, that’s amazing.”
“I need you to tweet about it. I know you’re on vacation, but your social media style is great and the more tweets on this the better—we’re trying to get TechCrunch to pick up this story.”
“Sure, no problem.”
“Thanks. I knew I could count on you. Between you and me, Zach isn’t the best with social media. By far the best analytical mind in the office, though.”
Kevin
Kevin was in baggage claim, looking for his driver. He scratched his chin. He needed a shave. When he was growing up he wished that he could grow a full beard, and he hadn’t been able to until he was twenty-five. Now that he was twenty-eight, he couldn’t go more than a day without shaving. He wasn’t confident that he could pull off a beard. They worked better on guys who owned bars, or their own line of designer hoodies.
In the swarm of limo drivers holding cards with the names of passengers, he found one with the name Hayes. The driver was a short older man with frizzy gray hair and a jolly round nose. He looked as if he could have had a supporting role in The Lord of the Rings, but his black suit and tie ruined the illusion.
“That’s me,” Kevin said. He knew that a limo was kind of a splurge, but it wouldn’t break him. He was smart about money. He bought his own tuxedo six years ago, and it had paid off—since then, he had been a groomsman in eight weddings. Besides, he liked the envious looks the other passengers gave him as they trod to the endless taxi line.
The driver looked at his phone. “So we’re going to the Ritz Carlton in White Plains?”
“Oh my gosh, I’m sorry to interrupt, but you’re going to the Ritz?” Kevin heard a high-pitched woman’s voice behind him and turned. She was striking: nearly six feet tall and thin as a model, dressed in black from head to toe, with long, thick black hair. She had a narrow nose and brown eyes with long eyelashes. Her skin was light brown, and her lips were full and painted with dark berry lip gloss. She must have been around his age, but she had the bubbly voice of a college girl.
“Yeah, why do you ask?”
“I’m sorry if this is super weird, but my phone died and I can’t get an Uber. Mind if I share with you? I will totally pay for half the ride.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’ll be my treat. I’m Kevin.”
“I’m Jennifer.”
The driver led the way to the car. Kevin noticed she was carrying a large garment bag in addition to her monogrammed suitcase. “Need help with that?” he asked. “Wait, this isn’t your wedding dress, is it?” He flashed his winning smile, the one that always made women fiddle with their hair. She was no exception.
She giggled. “Absolutely not. Twenty-nine and single, don’t rub it in. I’m a bridesmaid. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!”
“That’s something we have in common. I’m here for a wedding too, and I’m not the bride.”
“Not your wedding?”
“No, definitely not mine. It’s my friend’s wedding.”
He picked up her garment bag and caught a glimpse of the peach chiffon dress inside.
“So where are you from?” he asked.
“Oh, I get that all the time,” she
said, looking slightly irritated. “I’m half Japanese and half Greek.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I just wanted to know where you flew in from. I just got in from DC.”
“Oh! You’re from DC? Unfortunately, I flew in all the way from San Francisco.” She pointed behind her, like she was a human compass and knew exactly which way San Francisco was.
“Why is that unfortunate? It’s a cool city.”
“Yeah. It is. I don’t know why I said that. It’s not unfortunate.”
“I’ve only been out there once. It was great, except for this one guy dressed like a frog who tried to hump my leg outside City Hall.” Kevin smiled wistfully at the memory. That had made an amazing Twitter post back when it happened. Seventy-three retweets!
“What brought you to San Francisco?”
“To see a friend. He’s actually the one getting married this weekend.”
“Wait, this might be totally crazy, but is your friend David Porter?”
Kevin smiled. This was going better than he thought. “Yeah, he is.”
“Oh my gosh! That’s the wedding I’m going to, as well! You’re a groomsman, I’m a bridesmaid—that is totally crazy! What are the chances?” She smiled. “What a hella small world. Aren’t Emily and David literally the cutest?”
“I actually haven’t met Emily yet. I know David from high school.”
“They are literally adorable.” She put her hands over her heart.
“Do you know anything about the other groomsmen? When I visited David in San Francisco, he was just settling in and hadn’t made all these friends yet.” He wasn’t sure what kind of a group David had fallen in with out there. There was a chance that he had made friends with other fun-loving, athletic guys, like the kids they hung out with in high school. There was also the chance that he had gotten mixed up with suddenly wealthy tech guys—smart but socially idiotic—who used their new money in every appalling way possible to compensate for how little ass they got in high school.
“Oh, well, there’s Mark. He is totally awesome. His wife, Gabrielle, who is one of my best friends, is pregnant. He’s literally a surgeon. Like, that inspires me. Honestly.”
“Oh, well, that’s cool.”
“There’s also Jason, that’s Emily’s brother. I don’t know much about him but he’s a little older than us. He just got divorced and his ex-wife is gorge. At least online. Some people look amazeballs online but shit in real life. I just look like a gremlin no matter where I go.” Kevin knew she didn’t really believe that. Jennifer was gorgeous, if not a bit too perfect, like those women on billboards who were more Photoshop than person. He imagined with five fewer pounds of makeup she’d look a bit better.
“What? No, you’re...very attractive.”
“Oh, you’re just being nice. I weigh like five hundred pounds.”
“Well, that’s obviously not true.” He usually didn’t fall for these sorts of traps, but she was sweet and it wouldn’t kill him to say something that made her happy. “So back to the other groomsmen. Have you ever met Nathan?”
“Oh, right. David’s brother. I’ve never met him either, but I’ve seen him in pictures and, no offense to him, he seems like kind of a loser.” She put her hands on the side of her face, as though she felt bad about calling Nathan a loser but also wanted to look adorable while feeling bad.
“I knew him in school. He’s...interesting.”
“Aw, you weren’t mean to him, were you?”
Kevin smiled. “I probably could have been a little easier on him, but...oh, you’ll see what I mean. He really asks for it. When he was in tenth grade, he tried to sniff this girl’s sweatshirt hood in class because he wanted to see what her head smelled like. Apparently he’d had a crush on her for, like, a year, but he had never even talked to her. He even started writing these weird-ass letters to her and pasting them on her locker. When she stopped responding he got pissed. I think he called her a ‘treacherous harpy’ or something like that. So a bunch of my friends started writing him letters ‘from her’ saying she was in love with him all along, you know, and he totally bought it.”
“That’s super mean!” She punched him in the shoulder.
“Yeah, not my finest moment, but you can’t coddle people like that. Life will kick their asses if you don’t do it first, you know? I can only hope he’s changed. I would feel bad for him if he didn’t make it so damn easy to laugh at him.”
“Maybe you can teach him your ways.”
“My...ways?”
“I don’t know, you seem like you know how to put yourself together.”
“Oh, thanks.” Kevin didn’t think he looked especially put-together that day. He was just wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and a pair of Adidas sneakers. “So what do you do?” he asked.
“I’m a dermatologist. That’s actually how I met Emily. I work at the same hospital as Mark, and Mark is David’s best friend, so I came with Mark and his wife, Gabrielle, to a party at David’s house and totally fell in love with Emily. She is hella sweet.”
He raised his eyebrows involuntarily. She didn’t seem stupid, per se, but he imagined that a person with a medical degree would sound a little less like a sorority girl.
“Wow,” he said. “So can you tell me if the freckles on my face are okay?”
“They all look amazing,” she said, laughing. “I mean, I wasn’t looking that closely. I would need to do a full examination.” Kevin couldn’t tell if she was speaking factually or offering to get naked with him, the way a fake dermatologist would at the beginning of a porno. It wouldn’t have been the first time a girl shamelessly came on to him. He once shared an Uber with a woman who didn’t say anything to him for the entire ride but, when they arrived at her destination, slipped a piece of paper with her phone number into his jacket pocket and ran off.
“Oh my gosh!” Jennifer laughed, a little too loudly. “You thought I was hitting on you! I’m so sorry, I totally wasn’t. I just don’t want you to sue me or something if I say you don’t have some skin condition and then you do. Just ignore me.” She laughed again, covering her berry-stained lips with her hand. “So what do you do?”
“I manage political campaigns.”
“That is literally amazing.”
Emily
The three Glass siblings sat on the beige suede couch in Marla’s office in order of birth—Jason closest to the window, Lauren in the middle and Emily closest to the door. There were fake plants on the windowsill that had been there so long that, through discoloration and damage, they had begun to resemble real plants. The room smelled like cinnamon and blood orange, thanks to Marla’s Anthropologie scent diffuser. Abstract paintings on the walls looked like rectangles of rust and gold. The tan carpet rivaled the beige walls and sofa for blandness. It was noon and bright outside, but the shades had been lowered and the room was dim.
Marla’s office was ten miles from the house, on the first floor of a brick office building. Dr. Abe Leibowitz, a psychiatrist, shared the suite of offices with Marla. She sent him patients who needed medication; he was the one who had prescribed Ritalin to all three Glass kids in the late nineties. Emily always suspected that Dr. Leibowitz just rubber-stamped Marla’s diagnoses, such as their debilitating ADHD, which prevented them from taking the SATs in the standard amount of time, or her assessment of all three children as “profoundly gifted.”
When they were little, they would sometimes sit in Marla’s waiting room after school and do their homework. They would stare at the people who were waiting to see their mother and speculate about what was wrong with them. Marla’s patients became cautionary public service announcements for the kids, her own version of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. Emily assumed that all the stories were true when she was little, but by the time she was a teenager, she started questioning their veracity. There was Evelyn, the eighteen-year-old who had sex in high school and eve
ntually wound up becoming bulimic because of her low self-worth. There was Rose, the woman whose son died when he smoked weed at a party and jumped off the roof because he thought he could fly. There was Marissa, who disobeyed her parents’ wish for her to go to college and wound up being homeless (Marla never elaborated on how she discovered Marissa was homeless years after her therapy ended). There was Katie, the girl who sent her boyfriend a sexy email of her masturbating with a zucchini, and when he sent it around school, the principal punished her by forcing her to watch the video with her parents. Katie’s story was echoed in a series of urban myths around Emily’s school and online—sometimes the item was a broom, sometimes a hairbrush, sometimes a plunger—except in the plunger story, she slipped and the plunger impaled her and came out through her mouth.
“So, Jason,” Marla said, crossing her legs. She was wearing a long patterned hippie skirt with a pair of thick-soled sandals. “Why don’t you start—oldest first?”
He cleared his throat. “Well, um, Mom, I don’t really know what to say. I haven’t done this before.”
“You were in therapy with me as a child. And with Dr. Leibowitz.”
“Well, yeah, but that wasn’t a group session.”
“We’re all here to support each other. Don’t be afraid of judgment.”
“I’m not afraid, I just don’t really know what I would even have to say. Can you at least kick this off?”
“That’s fair. I’m so glad you all agreed to do this. I guess I’ll start by saying I have noticed a pattern of all three of you feeling...uncomfortable expressing gratitude toward me and your father for all that we have done for you. I can’t help but think you have some residual anger at us, and I want to help you come to terms with that anger.”
Family and Other Catastrophes Page 9