“No, because he always thought he knew everything. You could sense it about him. Not that I minded him. He had a real y interesting energy.”
“Right.”
“Do you want to say hi to your niece? She’s right here.”
“Sure, put her on the phone.”
Abby heard rustling and then she heard Thea say, “Say hi to your aunt Abby. Tel her hel o!”
“Your mother is a moron,” Abby said into the phone, and then she hung up.
“We should go snowshoeing,” her mother said on the third day she was home. “It wil do you good to get out in the fresh air.”
“Okay,” Abby said.
“You’re so young,” her mom said as they trekked across the snow. “You’l see that this is for the best.”
“I’m twenty-five,” Abby said. “When you were my age, you already had Thea.”
“Wel , I wasn’t married.”
“So you think I should get pregnant?”
“Oh, Abby,” she said. “I hate to see you so sad.”
“Thea cal ed,” Abby said. “She told me that you and Dad never liked Matt.”
“That’s not true. We like anyone that you bring home. Anyone you like, we like.”
“But that’s not the same thing. Did you real y like him? Are you happy we’re not getting married?”
Her mom sighed. “Abby,” she said. “You have always known what you wanted. I never doubted you. But things happen for a reason, and if there was trouble, then yes, I am glad that you aren’t getting married.”
“I didn’t say there was trouble.”
“People don’t cal off weddings if everything is hunky-dory.” Her mom’s nose was dripping, and she wiped it with her glove. Abby looked down at the snow and pressed her weight forward on her snowshoes. “Come on,” her mom said. “We should get back. Your father wil be worried.”
Abby watched her mom pat her arm, but she couldn’t feel it through al the layers of clothes. She watched her go pat, pat, pat on her sleeve. Then her mom turned and started off ahead of her, stomping in the fresh snow. Abby waited until she was about ten steps in front of her, and then she fol owed.
Before Abby left New York to come home, she sent an e-mail to al of her friends that said: “The wedding is off. No one reason, just lots of little ones. I’l explain more later. Abby.”
She was sure her friends had been cal ing and e-mailing, but she didn’t get any cel service at her parents’ house. For once, she was relieved.
Usual y it drove her crazy, and she would stand on chairs and hold the phone up in the air to try to get some sort of signal. “Come on!” she would say to the phone. “Give me something.”
This time, Abby hadn’t even taken her phone out of her bag. She knew she’d eventual y have to go back to New York and face it. She would have to see her friends and drink vodka and listen to them tel her that it was for the best, that she’d be happier in the long run. She would exhaust herself, going out almost every night, deconstructing every part of her relationship with Matt until it wasn’t hers anymore. She would do it, but just not yet.
“We can stil live together,” Matt said, after he told her about the wedding.
“No,” Abby said. “No, we can’t.”
Abby’s parents didn’t have cable, so she watched old movies until she thought she could fal asleep. She read the books that were left in her room: Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, A Day No Pigs Would Die , and Bridge to Terabithia . She didn’t remember them being so sad. They were al so sad.
Abby didn’t want her mind to be free for even a second. Because when it was, she heard Matt saying, “Abby, I don’t know about the wedding.”
“What don’t you know?” she asked him.
“I don’t know if I can do it,” he said. He didn’t even sound mean when he said it. Actual y, he sounded nice and a little apologetic. Like he was sorry for what he was doing. Like he was sorry for ruining her life.
When she didn’t feel like reading anymore, she wrote. She made lists of things to do when she got back to the city. A list of things to buy for the apartment now that Matt was gone. A list of shows that she could watch now that he wasn’t there. She wrote down names of people who had been through worse things than this: her aunt Eda, the war widow; her friend Crystal, whose parents were kil ed in a car crash; Helen Kel er; Baby Jessica.
When she tried to go to sleep, her head was fil ed with the weird things people had said to her. She lay and listened to them, and then final y she got up to write them down. She thought maybe if she got them on paper, they would stop bothering her. She got out a pad of paper. The neighbors are neglecting their exotic birds, she wrote. Then, I won’t drink the Kool-Aid. Then, It’s a more humane way to kill birds. Then, We can still live together. Then, I’m not getting married. She read these over again and again, until the sentences didn’t mean anything. Then she closed her eyes and fel asleep.
Abby woke up to the sound of a child screaming and sat up in bed with her heart pounding. She’d been having a nightmare, but she couldn’t remember what it was about. She walked downstairs, and found her mom peering out the kitchen window.
“It’s the peacock,” she said, without turning around. “He’s been getting noisier. One of the peahens is sick, and we think he’s upset.”
The peacock bleated and bobbed around the pen, and the peahens fol owed. One of the peahens was slower than the other one, and she limped as she tried to keep up.
“Why is she fol owing him like that?” Abby asked. “Why doesn’t she just take care of herself?” It made her angry, that stupid fucking bird, using al of her strength to waddle after him.
Her mom shrugged. “If we knew that,” she said, “we could solve al the mysteries in the world.”
Abby watched the peacock raise his feathers, and they were beautiful. The peahens raised their feathers too, but they were shorter and not nearly as magnificent, which seemed unfair. The peahens waddled around, fol owing the peacock wherever he went. He couldn’t see in the night, so he wandered aimlessly in the pen. Go the other way, she wanted to scream at the gimpy peahen. Stop worrying about where he’s going and just rest.
It seemed to Abby that the peacock was strutting, showing off his feathers to an invisible audience in the night. It didn’t look like he was worried about the peahen. He looked selfish and self-absorbed, like he knew he was beautiful. Abby watched his feathers blow in the wind, and she watched as the peahens fol owed with al of their strength. They fol owed because it was al they had ever done; they fol owed because it was al they knew how to do.
W hen Isabela waitressed in colege, she saw customers come in for blind dates al the time. “Has a man named Stuart come in yet?” they would ask. Or “Is there someone here who’s waiting for a Jessica?” When Isabel a would shake her head, they would look around nervously. “I’m meeting someone,” they would explain, and she would nod. “Someone,” Isabel a would think. “Someone that you don’t know.”
Isabel a always felt bad for these people, wandering into a restaurant, looking for something but not knowing what it was. “How sad,” she always thought to herself. “How sad and a little pathetic.” She remembered this as she agreed to go on her first blind date. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,”
she said to Lauren.
“You promised,” Lauren said. “You have to.”
It was the summer of yes—that’s what Isabel a and Lauren decided. “We’re going to say yes to every invitation that comes our way,” they told each other. “We’re going to be positive, and put positive energy out there, and then we wil meet someone.”
Mary decided that she would be a spectator for the summer of yes. She was studying for the bar exam and made it clear that she couldn’t say yes to anything. “I’m going to have to pass,” she said. “But I total y support you guys.”
“You think we’re crazy, don’t you?” Lauren asked.
“Maybe a little,” Mary said. “But it can’t hurt to say y
es, can it? Plus, if you get Isabel a to go on a date, then it wil al be worth it.”
“That’s what I was thinking!” Lauren said.
“You guys, I’m right here,” Isabel a said.
“Yeah,” they said, “we know.”
Isabel a hadn’t dated anyone since Ben moved out. “Get back out there!” her friends kept saying. Isabel a didn’t want to.
“Get back on the horse,” her sister, Mol y, told her.
“You get back on the horse,” Isabel a said to her.
“Nice,” her sister said. “Very mature.”
Her cousin suggested online dating. “That’s how I met Roy,” she said. Roy was a dentist with a beak for a nose, and he slurped his spit whenever he talked. “Wow,” Isabel a said. “I’l think about that.”
“I think I miss Ben,” she told Lauren one night.
“No, you don’t,” Lauren said.
“But sometimes, I real y think I do.”
Lauren sighed. “Isabel a, you miss the essence of a boy. That’s al .”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. It’s better that he’s gone. He was a pothead, remember?”
“What are you?”
“I’m a pot enthusiast,” Lauren explained.
“Right,” Isabel a said.
Isabel a had never lived alone before, not real y, anyway. She’d gotten her own place years ago, but Ben was there almost every night, and then he moved in. Now that he was gone, it was just her and the dust bal s.
Sometimes she talked out loud just to hear her voice. She missed having someone there to discuss what to eat for dinner. “I think I’l make a tuna sandwich,” she would say to no one. “Or maybe a veggie burger,” she would tel the couch.
She started sleeping with the television on at night. It blared reruns and gave her strange dreams. One night she woke up to a pop! and the TV
screen was black. She sat up in bed and looked around. The air smel ed like electrical burning, so she unplugged the TV and tried to go back to sleep.
“I could’ve died,” Isabel a said to Mary the next day. “It could have exploded and started a fire al over the place.”
“I think you would have woken up,” Mary said.
“Maybe.”
“I wonder what happened.”
“I kil ed the TV,” Isabel a explained. “I was too needy.”
“You have to meet my friend Jackson,” her coworker told her. “He’s an accountant, he loves to go wine tasting, and he’s a ton of fun.”
“Okay,” Isabel a said. “Yes, okay.”
Her coworker arranged it so that Isabel a and Jackson would meet at a bar and then go to a Mets game. “You are going to have so much fun!”
her coworker told her. Isabel a smiled and felt sick inside. “Oh, one more thing, just so you aren’t surprised,” her coworker said. “Jackson is a little bit bigger than most guys.”
“Okay,” Isabel a said. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
It turned out that Jackson was, in fact, obese. And by the third inning, he was so drunk that Isabel a couldn’t understand him. He yel ed at the guy in front of him for standing up, he yel ed at the beer man for being too slow, and he yel ed at the hot dog guy for running out of relish.
“What about me says, Set me up with an obese person?” Isabel a wailed to Mary and Lauren later that night. She had made it through the game and then gone to chug wine at Lauren’s apartment.
“Nothing,” Mary said firmly. “Nothing about you suggests that you should date an obese person.” Lauren nodded in agreement.
“Your coworker is obviously an idiot. Or an asshole,” Lauren said. “I’m not sure which, but she’s one of them.”
“You guys, I mean he was real y fat. Seriously.” She took a Kleenex and blew her nose. “Great,” she said. “I’m the meanest person. I date fat people, and now I’m obviously going to hel .”
Isabel a’s friend from high school came to visit. Kerry Mahoney was a chipper blonde who wanted everyone to be married. “I am total y setting you up with my cousin,” she said. “He’s cute and fun, and you guys total y have the same sense of humor. I’m going to give him your number, and maybe you guys can get together next week.”
“Yes,” said Isabel a. “Can I see a picture of him? Okay, yes.”
Isabel a walked into Mexican Radio and looked around for someone who matched the picture she had seen. A boy with brown hair was at the bar, sipping a giant frozen pink drink with mango floating on top. He looked at her and smiled and she smiled back. “Isabel a?” he said in a singsong voice, tilting his head to the right.
“Hey-a,” she said. She meant to say hi, but it came out wrong. It was just that she was shocked that she was on a date with a gay man.
“First obese and then gay,” she said to Lauren later that night.
“At least it wasn’t both at once,” Lauren said.
“Are you ever afraid that you aren’t going to meet anyone?” Isabel a asked Lauren one night. They were finishing their last drinks at the bar, and Isabel a final y asked the question she’d been thinking for a while now. She didn’t want to say it out loud. She was embarrassed that she even thought it, and waited for Lauren to lecture her about being a strong woman. Instead, Lauren finished her drink, crushed an ice cube in her teeth, and said, “Al the time.”
“I’m exhausted,” Lauren said. She was on two kickbal teams, a softbal team, and was an alternate for a beach vol eybal league. “I have scabs al over my legs,” she said, pul ing up her pants. “Look! Look at this!”
“I don’t think the summer of yes should be taken so literal y,” Isabel a said. “It’s not like you have to do everything people ask.”
“Yes, I do,” Lauren said. “That’s what I set out to do, and now I have to fol ow through. I just didn’t know that everyone was going to ask me to be on so many intramural teams. Am I that athletic?”
“Not real y.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Isabel a met a guy sel ing art at a street fair on the Upper East Side. “I’m just trying to make a living doing what I do,” he said. “I’m trying to perfect my craft.”
He was handsome, and so when he asked her to hang out, she said okay. “I wil ignore his weirdness,” she told herself. “I wil not be judgmental.
This is the summer of yes.” She gave him her number and he cal ed the next day.
“A friend of mine from art school is having a party in Greenpoint. You want to go? You can bring some of your girls if you want.”
“Yes,” Isabel a said. She hung up and went to Lauren’s apartment to beg her to come with.
“Please?” she asked. “Please? For the sake of the summer of yes?”
“Fine,” Lauren said. “But if anyone there asks me to play on any teams, then I’m saying no.”
“Fair enough. Oh, and it’s also a costume party,” Isabel a said quickly.
Lauren stared at her. “What kind of costume party?”
“Um, so Kirk kind of explained it as that—wel , um, okay. So, what everyone is going to do is dress up as their spirit animal.”
“Isabel a, are you serious?”
“Yeah. He kind of sprung it on me at the end.”
“He sounds like a freak,” Lauren said.
“Yeah, he might be.”
“I hate the summer of yes,” Lauren said.
“I don’t think I have a spirit animal,” Isabel a said.
Lauren ended up making out with a guy at the party who was wearing a green sweatsuit and shamrock antlers. “What are you?” Lauren asked him when they walked in.
“I’m the spirit animal of St. Patrick’s Day,” he said.
“That’s real y stupid,” she answered.
“That’s what I’m going for,” he said. Twenty minutes later, they were grinding on the dance floor and Lauren was wearing his shamrock antlers.
Kirk was dressed up as a deer. “I’m gentle inside,” he told Isabel a. She wanted to hit him with a car.
“What are you?” he asked her.
“A bunny,” she said.
“That’s your spirit animal?”
“No, it’s just the costume I had.”
“Isabel a, do you mind if I make an observation?”
“Go for it.”
“You strike me as a closed-off person.”
“Real y?”
“Yes.”
“That’s too bad,” Isabel a said. She watched Lauren and tried to gauge how much longer she would have to stay.
“Would you like to have dinner with me?” Kirk asked.
Isabel a thought for a moment. “Absolutely not,” she said.
Isabel a decided to quit her job at the mailing-list company. “I don’t even understand what I do,” she would say when people asked her to explain her job. “I organize lists, okay?”
The thing about this job was that Isabel a was good at it. She had been promoted three times since she’d started. “I am now an account manager,” she told Mary. “I am an account manager of a mailing-list company.”
“It’s a good job,” Mary said. “Your salary is decent, the hours aren’t bad. It’s a good job.”
“I hate it.”
“Then you should quit. If you real y hate it, you should quit. But you should do it now. You’ve been saying that you hate it for a long time, but the longer you wait, the harder it wil be to leave.”
“I want to work at a publishing house,” Isabel a said.
“Then you better get on it,” Mary said.
Isabel a nodded. She hadn’t updated her résumé in five years. It took her a week to find the file, and when she did, she realized that she should just start over. “The last thing on my résumé is an internship at Harper’s Bazaar, ” she said, looking at the piece of paper.
“You have to do it sometime,” Mary said. “Just get it over with.”
Isabel a sent out e-mails to every single person she knew who might have a contact in publishing. She typed cover letters and perfected her résumé. She hounded the HR departments of every publishing house she could think of. She did not get one single interview.
“Why did I waste al this time?” Isabel a moaned to Lauren one night. “Why didn’t I do this two years ago?”
Girls in White Dresses Page 7
