Girls in White Dresses

by JENNIFER CLOSE

  Isabel a’s left side hurt. It started in her shoulder, then moved up to her jaw and down to her leg. She complained for a month, until Harrison told her she had to go to the doctor. “I mean, it’s probably an advanced tumor,” she said to Harrison. “What can they do for that?”

  “I promise, it’s not a tumor,” Harrison told her. She knew he had no authority to make such a promise.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’l go to a chiropractor.”

  “You have a mean case of TMJ,” the chiropractor told her. “You’re carrying a lot of stress on this side. Your alignment is al off.”

  “So what can I do?” Isabel a asked.

  “I’l show you some stretching exercises. And you should get a mouth guard to stop clenching your jaw at night. You can come back and see me.

  But what you real y need to do is lower your stress level.”

  “Oh,” Isabel a said. “That’s al ? Thanks.”

  “You should take yoga,” Mary told her. “It wil relax you.”

  Isabel a went to hot yoga, which turned out to be a horrible mistake. The room was a hundred degrees, and Isabel a could barely breathe. “You may feel nauseous or faint during class,” the instructor told everyone. “This is normal. This is a normal reaction. Just work through it.”

  “This is not normal,” Isabel a thought. During tree pose, her legs were so sweaty that she slipped and fel .

  “Don’t go to that yoga class,” Lauren told her. “Oh my God, that’s, like, the worst one. Go to hatha.”

  Isabel a’s new yoga class was better. It was a normal temperature, and kind of reminded her of church with al of the chanting and bowing and putting hands in prayer position. At the end of the class the teacher sprinkled them with lavender water as they lay stil , which was nice. But her yoga mat smel ed like feet, which got in the way of her transcendence.

  “Maybe we should move out of New York,” Isabel a said to Harrison. “Things aren’t going wel here.”

  “It’s not like other cities are in great shape,” Harrison said. “Plus, we both stil have our jobs.”

  “For now,” Isabel a said.

  “For now,” he said.

  “I pushed someone on the subway,” Isabel a admitted. “They were going too slow, and I just pushed a little bit.”

  Harrison laughed. “So you think you need to leave New York?”

  “Yeah,” Isabel a said. “I always said when I push someone, it’s time to go.”

  “Wel , that’s something to think about.”

  Isabel a went out for drinks with Lauren and Mary. Al they wanted to do was talk about Beth White.

  “The house is a piece of shit,” Lauren told them. “They didn’t take care of it, and in this market? They aren’t going to get anything for it.”

  “Spoken like a wonderful real estate agent,” Mary said.

  “I told them not to sel ,” Lauren said. “Beth wouldn’t hear of it. She said she wants it gone.”

  “Jesus,” Isabel a said. “What happened, exactly? Does anyone know?”

  Lauren shrugged. “She said it was mutual.”

  “That sucks,” Mary said.

  “I was wondering why they weren’t having kids, though, you know?” Lauren said. “I knew something was up.”

  “She told me that she’s getting custody of the dog,” Mary said.

  “That’s the saddest sentence I’ve ever heard,” Isabel a said. When she got home that night, she looked at Winston and said, “You would go with me, right? You love me more.” The dog yawned, and looked away.

  “What’s happening?” Isabel a asked Cate. She’d gotten stuck on a subway with no air-conditioning and was twenty minutes late to work. When she walked onto her floor, the conference room was ful of people and some of them were crying.

  “They closed the whole YA division. They just told everyone today.”

  “So al those people are just fired?”

  “Yeah,” Cate said. “Crazy, right?”

  “How can they just close a whole division?” Isabel a asked. Her dress was stuck to her legs, and she tried to pul the material away without being

  obvious.

  “The company is in some serious trouble,” Cate whispered. “I say, we’re lucky if we’re stil here in a couple of months.”

  “There’s nothing you can do about it,” Harrison told her. “Just make sure your résumé is updated, and do your job. That’s al .”

  Isabel a felt sick to her stomach, and heard the yoga instructor in her head saying, “You may feel nauseous. This is a normal reaction.”

  “But that’s al that I’ve worked for,” Isabel a said. “If I leave now, with the title I have, I won’t be able to get a job anywhere.”

  “You stil have your job for now,” Harrison said. “You’re very resourceful.”

  “You’re very resourceful? What kind of a thing is that to say to someone?”

  Harrison told her to calm down, and she started screaming. “I hate when people tel me to calm down! You calm down. Don’t you cal me resourceful, and then tel me to calm down.”

  Isabel a packed a bag and left the apartment. “I’l be back tomorrow,” she said. Harrison stood in the door and looked confused.

  Isabel a went over to Mary and Ken’s apartment. Ken took one look at her and carried Henry into the other room.

  “I think you’re just stressed from work,” Mary told her.

  “Maybe,” Isabel a said. “But I don’t think that’s it.”

  “It doesn’t sound like Harrison was real y out of line, though,” Mary said.

  “No,” Isabel a said. “I’m out of line.” She thought about her left side, al gnarled and crooked. Then she sent Harrison a text message that said,

  “I’m sorry. I’m crazy.” He wrote back, “That’s okay.”

  Isabel a and Mary drank a lot of wine, and Isabel a ended up sleeping on the couch. She woke up to Henry dancing in front of her while he watched Sesame Street. “Hi!” he said to her. Isabel a saw how ful his diaper was before she smel ed it. She sat up and smiled at him. “Hi,” she said back, and this pleased him so much that he smiled and squatted.

  “I think Henry needs a new diaper,” she cal ed to Mary. Then she stood up and ran to the bathroom to vomit. She heard Henry banging on the door. “Ummmbl l !” he screamed. Isabel a knew he was saying, “Let me in! What are you doing?”

  “Not now, Henry!” Isabel a cal ed.

  “Bl l , baaa!”

  “I know,” Isabel a said. “I’m a disgrace.”

  Every day at work, Isabel a was sure she was going to be fired. And, as if that weren’t stressful enough, Peggy, one of the copy editors, wouldn’t leave Isabel a alone. She asked her about every comma, every semicolon, until Isabel a wanted to scream. Peggy was in her forties and wore odd-colored pantsuits with large shoulders and funky buttons. Whenever Isabel a looked at her, she thought of her fifth-grade social studies textbook.

  Peggy looked like she should be in there, with a caption that said, “Someday you wil work in an office and you wil have coworkers. Women and men work together as equals.”

  Peggy alternately repulsed Isabel a and made her sad. She complained about her almost every night to Harrison. Then one day she came into work and found out that Peggy had been fired.

  “They got rid of half of the copy editors,” Cate told her. “Crazy Pantsuits is gone.”

  Isabel a went home that night and cried. “I feel so bad,” she said to Harrison. He rubbed her back and said, “I know.”

  Lauren had been trying to plan a trip for al of their col ege friends for the past year. She’d started out suggesting that they go to the Bahamas, but was met with too much resistance. Final y, she planned a weekend in the Hamptons. “This is pathetic,” she kept saying. “This was supposed to be a trip for our thirtieth birthdays, and it’s a whole year later. And al we’re doing is going to the beach?”

  “It wil be fun,” Mary told her. “The Hamptons wil be perfect.”

&nb
sp; Beth White was excited about the weekend. She kept sending e-mails out to the whole group that said things like “Watch out for the divorced lady” and “It’s like a reverse bachelorette party for me!” It was making everyone uncomfortable.

  “I think she’s lost it,” Mary said.

  “No kidding,” Isabel a said.

  Harrison lay on the couch and read the paper while Isabel a packed for her trip. Winston was curled up on his chest. Every so often, Winston lifted his head and licked Harrison’s chin. Winston was a little white fluff of a dog and when he sat stil , he looked like a stuffed animal. Isabel a loved him more than anything. As soon as she got her suitcase out, he wouldn’t look at her. He turned his head away and only paid attention to Harrison.

  “Harrison, if we break up, would you give me the dog?” Isabel a asked.

  Harrison lowered the paper and looked at her. “Excuse me?”

  “Beth White is getting the dog, but she said that she had to fight Kyle for him.”

  “Oh,” Harrison said. “I see.”

  “So would you give me the dog?”

  “No,” Harrison said. “If you broke up with me, I would kidnap Winston. Then I would take him around the country and photograph him in different states, so that I could send you the pictures and taunt you.”

  “Fair enough,” Isabel a said. She sat down on the bed and rested her head on Harrison’s chest, right next to the dog.

  “I love you,” she said.

  He took the end of her hair in his hand, twirled it around his finger, and said, “Good to know.”

  “You look tired,” Isabel a said to Mary. They were sitting on the top level of the double-decker train to the Hamptons. Mary stared out the window with dark circles under her eyes.

  “I didn’t sleep wel last night,” Mary said. “Can I tel you something weird?”

  “Always,” Isabel a said.

  “Okay, but you have to promise not to tel anyone else. It’s real y weird.”

  “I promise.”

  “I woke up from a nightmare and I was biting Ken on the arm,” Mary said.

  “Jesus, what was the dream?” Isabel a asked.

  “Wel , I dreamt that Ken was marrying this big black woman. And he kept saying, ‘Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry. We can stil be together, but I have to marry her.’ And I was crying, and then the woman came over and started fighting me. I bit her ankle, and then I woke up to Ken screaming.”

  “That is real y weird,” Isabel a said.

  “I know. What if that’s what I do now? What if I just keep biting Ken in my sleep?”

  “I don’t think that wil happen,” Isabel a said.

  “It might. Plus, I’m a bad mom.”

  “No, you aren’t,” Isabel a told her. “Where did that come from?”

  Mary sighed. “Henry was sick last week, and I didn’t even notice. He was rubbing his ear on the floor and whining, Niii, niii, before I noticed anything.”

  “So? You took him to the doctor in time.”

  “I guess so. Now I feel bad for leaving him this weekend.”

  “I pushed someone on the subway last week,” Isabel a told her.

  “Real y?” Mary asked.

  “Yeah, it just happened. Does that make you feel better?”

  “Yeah, it kind of does.”

  Lauren bought about a mil ion bottles of wine for the house, and when everyone walked in they said, “Oh, that is too much wine. We’l never get through that.”

  “I planned for five bottles a girl for the weekend,” Lauren said. “Believe me, we’l go through it.”

  “No,” everyone said. “No, that’s too much.” By the second night, more than half of it was gone and everyone stopped talking about it.

  Beth White talked the whole weekend. From the moment she got there, she went on about her divorce. “Such a hard decision,” she said. “But I’m in a much better place now.”

  Isabel a tried to avoid getting caught alone with her. “I know she needs to talk about this,” she said to Lauren, “but she has a therapist, right?”

  Lauren shrugged. “God, I hope so. I know way too much about their bedroom life now. Way too much.”

  “I’m not changing my name back,” Beth told them. “I thought about it, but I’m going to stay Beth White.” Isabel a didn’t think this was a wise decision.

  “Why wouldn’t she go back to Beth Bauer?” she asked Lauren. “She doesn’t have any kids. It’s so weird.”

  “I don’t know,” Lauren said. “Maybe she’s afraid no one wil remember who she is.”

  “Maybe,” Isabel a said. The thought left her uneasy.

  The last night, they went out to a seafood restaurant. They returned to the house stuffed and tired. Everyone was drinking wine and talking when they noticed that Beth White was crying in the corner.

  Her head was down and her shoulders were shaking. She was crying so hard that no one could understand what she was saying. “What happened?” Mary whispered to Isabel a. She just shook her head. “I have no idea,” she said. They sat and listened to Beth gasping for breath.

  “She’s choking,” Isabel a thought. She tried to remember the proper steps for CPR in case they needed to use it. They al stood around and watched until Isabel a stepped forward and knelt in front of her. She touched Beth’s leg and said, “This is a normal reaction.” Lauren was standing to her right and shook her head at Isabel a. Final y, their friend Sal ie took Beth by the arm and walked her upstairs. The rest of them dispersed in silence. No one wanted to talk about what they had just seen.

  Mary and Isabel a sat on the porch, and Isabel a smoked a cigarette. “I thought you quit,” Mary said.

  “I did,” Isabel a said. “This is an emergency.”

  “I don’t real y miss smoking as much as I used to,” Mary said.

  “You sound disappointed,” Isabel a said. Mary shrugged.

  “Where’s your wine?” Isabel a asked her.

  “Oh, I left it inside, I guess.”

  “Are you pregnant?”

  “What?”

  “Oh, my God, you are! You’re pregnant, you fucker.”

  “Most people say congratulations.”

  “I can’t believe you’re pregnant!”

  Mary smiled and looked embarrassed but pleased. “It’s real y early. I haven’t even told my mom. I’m like, three days pregnant.”

  “Wow,” Isabel a said, “you’re going to have two kids. You’re going to have two kids before I’m married.”

  “I wish you were pregnant too,” Mary said to her.

  “So you would have someone to be sober with?”

  Mary nodded. “Yeah. I’d be happy. If you got knocked up right now, I wouldn’t even feel bad. I’d just be happy for me.”

  “You,” Isabel a said, “are a good friend.”

  Mary laughed. “Don’t tel anyone, okay? It’s so early. Anything could happen.”

  “Okay,” Isabel a said. “And I’l make you a deal. If you wait for me, I’l time my first pregnancy with your third. Then we can be pregnant together.

  Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  They al woke up on Sunday morning with headaches. Mary had to take an early train and was gone by the time Isabel a got up. The house was a mess, and they al walked around in silence, throwing out cans and bottles. Lauren attempted to sweep the floor, but there was so much sand that she gave up after a few minutes.

  Beth White came downstairs with her packed bag. Her hair was wet and slicked back in a ponytail. She looked young standing there, like a high school girl who’d just finished swim practice. Abby and Shannon stood a little behind her on either side, like they were her jailers or her bodyguards, ready to step in if needed. “I’m sorry,” Beth said. “I’m sorry I caused such a scene.”

  “Don’t apologize,” they al said. “Don’t be sil y.”

  Isabel a left to catch her train. “Fun weekend,” she said to Lauren.

  “Yeah,” Lauren said. “That’s one word
for it. What a way to celebrate our thirties.”

  “Everyone says it’s the best decade,” Isabel a said.

  “I know,” added Lauren. “But I think it’s just to make you feel better, like when people say it’s good luck that a bird poos on you, or it rains on your wedding day.”

  “Maybe,” Isabel a said.

  “Maybe not, though.”

  “Yeah, maybe not.”

  Isabel a fel asleep on the train ride back, and woke up cranky and thirsty as they pul ed into Penn Station. Everyone on the train jostled one another to get out first. Normal y, Isabel a elbowed her way out with the best of them, but now she just let everyone go past. She climbed up the steps to exit Penn Station, and then noticed that the man in front of her had stopped and was taking his pants off.

  “Excuse me,” she said and ran past him.

  The sun was bright as Isabel a waited for a taxi. She stood and watched al of the people returning to the city. They popped out of Penn Station, one by one, in their wrinkled clothes. Sunburned and sweaty, they raced to get cabs. Girls carried bright paisley-covered bags stuffed ful of wet bathing suits and sandy shirts, and walked quickly in their flip-flops as they typed on their cel phones. Everyone was tired from too much sun and too many drinks, and they al just wanted to get back to their apartments.

  They were al scrambling, Isabel a thought. Scrambling, scrambling.

  She got in a cab and rol ed down the window. Harrison sent her a message that he was making dinner. Harrison knew how to make exactly two things: Manwiches and fajitas. Her phone buzzed again and she looked down. “It’s fajitas,” Harrison wrote. Isabel a smiled.

  The air blew through the window, and she watched al of the people moving like ants outside. She was happy to be sitting stil in a cab, happy to be on her way home. She imagined Harrison and Winston sitting on the couch waiting for her. The cab stopped at the corner of Fifty-ninth and Eighth, and she saw a man standing there wearing al white. He was a tiny man, with a perfectly round face. “Jesus is coming,” she heard him say, and she laughed out loud. The cabdriver looked at her in the rearview mirror. “I know him,” she said. It felt lucky to her. What were the odds? She couldn’t explain it, but she was so happy to see him. She smiled at the man and waved her hand out the window. He looked up and waved back to her as the cab pul ed away, and she leaned her head back and closed her eyes and let the breeze blow over her face.