Girls in White Dresses

by JENNIFER CLOSE

  “What do you want to do?” Isabel a asked. Abby stayed quiet. They were in her room, which always put her on edge. After freshman year, wherever the group of them lived, Abby always got a single. It calmed her to at least have a place where she could go and shut the door and not have to worry about anyone watching her. She hated when they gathered in here.

  “Let’s take a road trip,” Kristi said. She rol ed over and sat up. “I know! Let’s go to Vermont.” She pointed at Abby. “Come on, we’ve never been there. I want to see the farm.” She started bouncing up and down on Abby’s bed. “Come on! Please! Let’s go to the farm!”

  “You guys, it’s so boring there,” Abby said. She tried to stay calm. “You think it’s boring here? You’l real y die there.”

  But the girls kept insisting and Abby didn’t want to protest too much, in case that would seem weird, and so it wasn’t long before the three of them were in Kristi’s car on the way to Vermont.

  Abby knew as soon as they arrived that it would be a disaster. Her mom answered the door with unbrushed hair, wearing thermal pants and a Tshirt. “Welcome, girls,” she said when they walked in. She hugged each of them, and Abby noticed that she wasn’t wearing a bra. “We’re so glad you could make it,” she said. “Leonard is off somewhere, but he’l be back for dinner.” The girls nodded and fol owed Abby upstairs with their bags.

  They stared out the windows at the farmland, and Abby wished she’d grown up in a suburb.

  Her dad never returned, and so they started dinner without him. “I just don’t know where he could be,” her mom kept saying. They were almost done eating when he got back. “Mary Beth, I need your help,” he said. Then he turned to look at the ful table and said, “Oh, hi, girls. Welcome to Vermont.” Isabel a and Kristi smiled at him and said, “Thanks for having us,” but he wasn’t listening.

  “Dad, what’s going on?” Abby asked.

  “The neighbors are neglecting their exotic birds,” her dad said. He stood in the doorway and stamped his feet on the welcome mat. “The neighbors are neglecting their exotic birds,” he repeated, and her mother just nodded, as though this was a normal thing to say. “I know,” she said.

  “It’s so sad.”

  “The neighbors have just let the birds out of the pen. They’re wandering al over the property and we need to get them. Mary Beth, can you help

  me find a flashlight and a bag large enough to fit a peacock?”

  Abby wanted to die. This was worse than she ever could have imagined. Isabel a and Kristi sat in silence and her mom got up to gather supplies.

  “The neighbors have these birds,” Abby started to explain.

  “Exotic birds,” her dad said.

  “Right,” she said. “Exotic birds. And they aren’t taking care of them.” She turned to her dad. “Are you going to steal them?” she asked.

  “No,” her dad said. “We’re just going to convince them to come here. Bob up the street is helping me.”

  “Bob’s a vet,” Abby explained to Isabel a and Kristi. She felt like she was interpreting.

  “We have to wait until it’s dark,” her dad said. “Peacocks are blind at night, so we can just put it in the bag and get it to the truck. The peahens are easy. They fol ow wherever the peacock goes. Did you know that?”

  “Fun farm facts,” Abby said under her breath.

  “Be careful,” her mom said. “I don’t want you to get arrested because of the peafowl.” Her dad nodded, took the bag, and he was gone. Abby looked at her friends and tried to think of something to say.

  “Your parents are so cool,” Isabel a whispered to Abby later that night. They were lying in bed after smoking her dad’s pot on the back porch. Kristi was passed out in the other bed. Abby had offered them the pot as soon as they were done with dinner. It seemed the least she could do after the exotic bird hoopla.

  “They real y aren’t,” Abby said. “They’re horrifying.”

  Isabel a laughed. “That’s not true,” she said. “You just can’t see it because they’re your parents.”

  “You wouldn’t feel that way if they were your parents,” Abby said. “Trust me.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “But I think they’re great.”

  When Abby stayed at Isabel a’s house, her mom made them spaghetti and meatbal s and they ate at the kitchen table with the whole family. They watched movies in the basement, and Abby slept in a guest room with a flowered comforter that matched the wal paper border in the room. Her mom wore a bra the whole time. It was the perfect weekend.

  Later that night, Abby heard her dad’s truck drive up the road. She got up and went to the window. Isabel a got up and stood next to her. Kristi snored behind them. “What’s going on?” Isabel a asked.

  “I think my dad has the birds,” Abby said.

  They watched as he unlatched the back door to the truck and then stepped back and began making a series of loud noises.

  “Oh my God,” Abby said. “He’s making bird noises.”

  “How does he know how to do that?”

  “He doesn’t.” But they watched as a peacock bobbed its way out of the truck and fol owed her dad to the pen.

  “Oh!” Isabel a said. “Oh!” The two peahens hopped out after him. “Look at that,” she said. “Look at that, they’re fol owing him!”

  They were both stil a little stoned, and they stared as the birds made their way to the new pen. Once they were there, the peacock opened up his feathers into a tal spray of blues and yel ows. The peahens stood on either side of him. They were pure white, which made his feathers seem brighter.

  “Wow.” Isabel a sounded like she had just witnessed a miracle. Kristi snorted in her sleep.

  “Don’t tel anyone about this, okay?” Abby asked her.

  Isabel a nodded but didn’t take her eyes off the birds. “Okay, sure.”

  Abby had asked her mom once why they’d sent her to the schools they had. Why couldn’t they have put her in public schools? “We just wanted you to get a good education,” her mom said. Abby found this a stupid reason. Didn’t they know she’d be al alone? Didn’t they know that as soon as they sent her away, she’d be separated from them and she could never real y go back? Didn’t they know that they couldn’t send her to those schools and walk into the kitchen and say, “The neighbors are neglecting their exotic birds,” and expect her to be okay with it?

  When Abby met Matt, she knew that he was going to save her. He was the answer, of course, the thing that would make her real y normal. He worked at Morgan Stanley, was from a suburb of Boston, and liked the Red Sox. He was so normal that it made her heart pound.

  “He’s a great catch,” Kristi said to her. Abby knew this before Kristi told her, and for once she didn’t care whether Kristi approved.

  New York made Abby happy. This was, she thought, because she was not even close to the weirdest person there. Every day she was there, she started to relax a little more, and soon she wasn’t looking around at people wondering what they were thinking of her. She left the apartment without looking in the mirror a hundred times, and when she walked down the street and tripped a little, she wasn’t even embarrassed.

  Abby and Matt moved in together after a few months of dating. “That’s real y quick,” Kristi said to her. But Abby didn’t care. And when they got engaged, she knew that al of her friends were surprised, but again she didn’t care. She was on her way to a normal life, and she wanted to get there as fast as she could.

  Matt came to the house in Vermont only once. He’d met Abby’s parents twice before, when they came to the city for a visit. Out of their element, they could almost pass as normal. But after the engagement, Abby decided it was time to bring him home. She warned him that her parents were different in the house. “Abby,” he said, rol ing his eyes, “I get it, okay? I don’t care if your parents are nudists. I can handle it.”

  “How did you know about the nudist part?” Abby asked him. He looked at her for a moment and then smiled. “You think
you’re so funny, don’t you?” he asked. “Just relax. It wil be fine.”

  Abby’s sister, Thea, came home for the weekend too. “I should meet your intended,” Thea told her on the phone.

  “Sure,” Abby said. “I guess you should.”

  Thea came home and brought her new baby girl, Rain. Thea and Rain lived on an organic farm in Vermont. “We work the farm and earn our keep,” Thea explained to Matt that night. She was breast-feeding Rain and let her breasts wag back and forth as she switched Rain to the other side. Abby could tel that Matt was trying hard not to look at them.

  “Is this making you uncomfortable?” Thea asked him.

  Matt shook his head. “No. No, this is fine.”

  Thea smiled. “Breast-feeding is the most natural thing in the world, Matt. I forgot what it’s like with most people on the outside. At the farm, if Rain

  is hungry and I’m not around, one of the other lactating mothers wil feed her.”

  “What kind of farm does she live on?” Matt whispered to Abby in bed that night. They had shared a joint walking around the farm and now he was giggly. “That’s like Jim Jones shit,” he said. “Lactating mothers … what the hel is that?”

  “So you don’t want to move there with me?” Abby asked, and he laughed.

  “I’d move anywhere with you,” he said, sliding his arms underneath her shirt and around her stomach. He rested his head in her neck and she thought he was sleeping until she felt his shoulders shaking. “But I won’t drink the Kool-Aid,” he managed to get out above his laughter. He lifted his face to look at her. “Even for you, Abby. Even for you, I won’t drink the Kool-Aid from the lactating mothers.”

  After Matt’s visit, Abby felt herself slipping back in time. It took her hours to pick out which shoes to wear, and when she final y did, she immediately regretted her choice. Her clothes seemed to fit differently, tight in places they never were before, too loose in others, and she pul ed at them, trying to figure out why they didn’t look right. “Do I look okay?” she asked more often. She stared at herself in the mirror until Matt grew impatient, tel ing her she looked fine when he wasn’t looking at her at al .

  Abby couldn’t help what was happening. She needed Matt around al the time, felt confused when he was gone, fol owed him around the apartment, her toes hitting his heels when he stopped short. “Your wanting,” he said one night, “is overwhelming.” It sounded poetic, but Matt was not a poetic person. One night, she woke up holding a fistful of his shirt. Matt stared at her across the darkness, then shook his shoulders like a dog does when it’s wet, and rol ed over to face away from her. She knew he would be gone soon.

  Three months after Abby woke up holding Matt’s shirt, she arrived alone at her parents’ house. As she pul ed into the driveway, she thought, “The neighbors are neglecting their exotic birds.” That was not unusual. Ever since the peacock incident, that sentence came into Abby’s head at the oddest of times. “The neighbors are neglecting their exotic birds,” she wanted to say when there was a lul at a dinner party or a friend told her that she was pregnant. And so she wasn’t surprised that on the night she came home to tel her parents that she wasn’t getting married, it was that thought that ran through her head: The neighbors are neglecting their exotic birds.

  It was no stranger than what she had come to tel them: that the wedding was off, that Matt had moved out, and that they would probably not be able to get a refund on anything. She turned off the car and thought about her options. “The neighbors are neglecting their exotic birds,” she said out loud to no one. Her breath made little puffs of white in the winter air, and she sat in the car until it was too cold to bear, and then she walked inside the house.

  “Mom, I’m not getting married,” Abby said as soon as she walked through the door. Her mother was reading a book on the couch, and she marked her place with her finger before she looked up.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I’m not getting married.” Abby made no move to take off her jacket or move farther into the room.

  “Al right, then,” she said. “Why don’t you come on in, and we’l talk about it?” She put the book down on the couch and stood up. “Would you like some tea?” she asked. Abby nodded.

  Abby’s mom didn’t even look surprised to see her. She’d driven al the way from New York, walked into the house unannounced, and her mom acted like she’d been expecting her. Abby had never been able to shock her mom. Once, in col ege, Isabel a had said, “Can you imagine if you had to tel your mom that you were pregnant?” She shuddered after she asked this and Abby made a sympathetic noise, but she couldn’t real y relate.

  Abby could have told her mom that she’d been arrested for heroin possession while carrying on a lesbian affair, and she would have taken it in and then suggested that they talk about it.

  “So, wil we stil have the party then?” her mom asked. They were sitting at the kitchen table with their tea, and it took Abby a minute to realize that she meant the wedding. She and Abby’s father were never official y married, of course, so maybe she thought they just decided to skip the legal part and live together forever.

  “No, Mom,” Abby said. “No party, no wedding.”

  “So you and Matt are …”

  “Done. We broke up.” She nodded and blew on her tea.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “That’s a shame.”

  Abby wanted her to scream or cry or jump on the table. Tears of frustration came to her eyes, and she shut them tightly.

  “Oh, sweet pea. Oh, Abby,” she said. “Come here.” Abby let her mother pul her onto her lap like she was a little girl. She cried for about two minutes and then felt like an idiot sitting on her mom’s lap, and so she got up and went back to her seat.

  “I’m fine,” Abby said. “It was for the best.”

  “Then this is the right thing to do,” she said.

  “Mom, I don’t think we’l be able to get much money back,” Abby said. “It’s only three weeks away. I don’t know what they’l do.”

  Her mom was already waving her hands at her. “That is not for you to worry about. Money is just money.” Abby wondered, not for the first time in her life, if her mom would stil think that money was just money if she didn’t have so much of it.

  “I have to stay here for a couple of days while Matt moves his stuff out of the apartment,” Abby said.

  “Of course,” she said. “Do you need help with anything else?”

  “Not now,” Abby said. “But I have to start cal ing people soon, I guess, to tel them that the wedding is off. I guess that’s what I should do.”

  “I can do that,” her mom said. “These things happen al the time. No big whoop. We’l get it al straightened out.”

  “Thanks,” Abby said. “Can I have a real drink?”

  “Sure, honey. Wine or vodka?”

  “Vodka,” Abby said. “I think this cal s for vodka.”

  The next morning, Abby walked downstairs to find her dad making eggs in the kitchen. He saw her and gave her a hug. “Your mom told me what happened, kiddo. I’m real y sorry about that,” he said.

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Do you want some eggs? Sunny side up or scrambled?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Scrambled, I guess.”

  Her dad nodded and turned back to the stove. He whistled while he cracked the eggs and beat them with a fork. “If you like, you can help me feed the birds when you’re done,” he said as he put the plate in front of her.

  “Sure, Dad,” she said. She waited until he walked out of the kitchen, and then got up and scraped the eggs into the garbage.

  Abby put on rubber boots that were by the back door, and borrowed her mom’s winter jacket. Stil in her pajamas, she slogged through the snow to the chicken coop. She thought about brushing her hair, but there was real y no need to. She pushed open the door to the coop and smel ed the coop smel of poo and bird dirt.

  “Dad?” she cal ed.

  “Back here, kiddo
.”

  She walked past the cages, wrinkling her nose at the dirty birds. Abby’s parents had started raising birds when she was twelve. “We eat so much poultry,” her mom explained. “And people are starting to talk about the way these birds are raised. This is much more humane, Abby. We know that the birds are fed right, and treated right.”

  Her parents didn’t kil the birds themselves. They had someone come in and do it for them and prep the meat. Abby had never seen it happen, but less than a year after they built the coop, she stopped eating meat.

  “Abby, don’t be ridiculous!” her mother would say. “This is good for you. This is delicious meat!”

  “It makes me sick!” she’d say. And it did. The thought of chewing chicken in her mouth made her want to gag. When she tried to eat it, it refused to go down her throat. Once, she got a bite halfway down and then promptly threw up on her plate. “Fine,” her mom said after that. “You don’t have to eat chicken anymore.”

  Abby’s dad was pouring seed from a bag into a trough. “Want to start feeding them?” he asked. She took a plastic pitcher they kept there and fil ed it with the feed. She poured the right amount into each of the birds’ feed bins. Every time a bird came clucking up to her, she stuck her tongue out at it.

  Thea cal ed that afternoon. “I heard what happened,” she said. “Mom cal ed and left a message. That’s rough.”

  “Yeah,” Abby said. “I guess you get out of your maid of honor duties, though.”

  “I guess.” Abby could hear her light a cigarette and take a drag.

  “Mom and Dad are being real y calm,” Abby told her. “It’s like nothing happened.”

  “You know how they are,” she said, exhaling the smoke and choking just a little bit. “Plus, they never real y liked Matt.”

  “Yes, they did.” Abby felt wounded to hear this.

  “Oh, Abby. I don’t mean that they hated him. But you know. He wasn’t their type.”

  “Why? Because he showered and wore clean clothes?”