“Hello, dear. So good to see you. How is your family?” Margaret is simply the kindest woman on the planet. She’s been a homemaker her whole life, has three amazing grown sons who Jean spoils rotten, and recently became a grandmother for the first time, which is, according to Jean, the thing she was really born to do. She would never say a bad word about anyone, but the look in her eyes right now implies that she is having some opinions. I wink at her, and she smiles.
“They’re good; thanks for asking. I know they would want me to send their love.”
Margaret and my mom served on a board together many years back, so our two families got to spend a lot of time together at various events and fund-raisers.
“Please send my love back. I owe your mom a call and a lunch.”
“We just love that Jeanine has such a wonderful, supportive set of family and friends around her,” Therese says.
Gary is raising eyebrows at me, and Richard gestures around the room with his head. I take a closer look at our environment.
Everything that isn’t nailed down has a pithy aphorism scrawled on it. You know, those “Dance like nobody’s watching” Bed Bath & Beyond art pieces? They are everywhere. Pillows that have “When I count my blessings, I count you twice!” embroidered on them. Sayings are stenciled on the walls. It looks like Pinterest threw up in here. And while they aren’t my personal taste, I’m not dissing these wholesale. I know many lovely people who have one of them tastefully displayed in their homes. One. Not seventeen in the great room alone. Ruth’s eyebrows have knitted themselves into a knot of distaste.
“Isn’t it lovely? Hanna did such a great job with this place; she designed it herself.” Therese busts me checking out the décor. “You must come have the full tour!”
“Oh, yes,” Richard says with profound sincerity. “You must.”
Margaret makes a move to go save Glenn in the kitchen, but Hanna’s mom grabs her arm and pulls her towards the stairs. “You come too, Margaret!”
“But, um, I took the tour earlier, remember?” Margaret has bad knees, bad enough that she and Glenn recently traded their three-story family home for a sprawling ranch on the same block with no basement so that she didn’t have to do stairs anymore.
“Oh, I know, but don’t you just want to see their reactions? Especially when we are bonding.”
Oy.
Margaret, unable to simply say no, sighs deeply, and we follow Therese upstairs through a series of rooms, all of them in the shabby-chic pastel mode. All the furniture is painted with that ghastly chalk paint that gives me the willies when I touch it, and more sayings have been stenciled on nearly every surface.
“Cute pup,” Ruth says, looking at a photo of a yellow Labrador in the master bedroom.
“Yes, he was,” Therese says, voice full of venom. “That son of a bitch took him when he left.”
Margaret’s eyes fly open, and it is clear that the ex-husband is none too popular with Hanna’s people.
“Here is the hope room!” Therese says, back to her cheery self, as she escorts us into a fully kitted-out nursery. “Since they had so many bedrooms, when Pippi got too old for her crib, Hanna just left this all set up and moved her into her big-girl room next door. Siblings are just so wonderful. Well, you know that better than anyone; don’t you, Margaret?”
Margaret has gone absolutely white.
“I could use a drink. Anyone else?” Ruth says, taking Margaret’s arm and leading her down the stairs.
In the kitchen the caterer is setting up the buffet. I ask Gary, “Where are the rest of the people?”
“This is it,” he says pointedly.
“Where are all of Hanna’s friends?”
“Dunno.”
I do a quick head count. “There’s only nine of us.”
“Yep.”
“She hired a caterer.”
“To grill the burgers and hot dogs.” He nods over into the kitchen.
I look at the buffet. Sure enough, hot dog and hamburger buns, appropriate condiments, a green salad, a bowl of pasta salad, a bowl of coleslaw, and a chafing dish with corn on the cob. The caterer is indeed in the backyard grilling burgers, dogs, and chicken breasts. On the dining table is a vegetable platter, a shrimp platter, and a cheese and sausage platter. There is enough food for forty people. And if there were forty people coming, I would say, “Absolutely, hire a caterer; have at it.” But for nine? When it is just casual BBQ fare and the usual suspects? Using the gas grill in the backyard? That seems excessive. We’d all have been happy to potluck if she didn’t want to cook everything, and lord knows I would have been happy to man the grill myself.
I look back towards the kitchen and see that Hanna is arranging something on the counter. It turns out to be individual servings of sangria. In glass bottles. With stripy paper straws. Decorated with a garland of no fewer than three different types of ribbon, a seashell glued to the knot, and a paper tag that says “Sangria” in curly script. She is photographing them from many angles.
Richard cants his head out towards the backyard, and I look outside.
The table set in the backyard has a clear beach theme, apparently related to their upcoming Connecticut trip. And when I say “theme,” I mean that the White Party is a mere dress code suggestion in comparison.
The table has striped beach umbrellas overhead, which I’m grateful to see, since today’s balmy Chicagoland weather is about ninety-nine degrees. Underneath the umbrellas hang paper lanterns in the colors of the ocean. Each chair has a striped beach towel draped on it, and the place mats are brown craft paper over cardboard. The plastic flatware has been tied in a starfish shape with the same ribbon configuration as on the sangria bottles, also with a small shell glued to it. At each place is a thin piece of wood cut in the shape of an ornate square picture frame, and resting in it is a cardboard cube, the outside of which has been covered in glued-on sand. These boxes have the same ribbon and shell thing, as well as a paper tag.
Down the middle of the table are large glass containers filled with sand and seashells. Larger seashells and starfish are strewn about. There are sandpipers made of burlap, rope, and wire scampering down the center of the table. Pillar candles, with more ribbons and tags.
This tablescape makes Sandra Lee look both sane and sober.
Ruth grabs my elbow and pulls me outside, past the table, to where an easel is set up.
“Check out this shit here,” she hisses in my ear. On the easel is a large framed print. It shows the silhouette in gray scale of two women holding hands with a little girl and walking on the beach. Over this image is printed a poem that Hanna has clearly written herself, describing Jean as being the “light in her darkness and the joy in her despair and her forever love.” I think my quick intake of breath scares Ruth.
“Two months,” I whisper.
“Not even,” she whispers back.
Gary and Richard join us.
“Have any of you talked to Jean about her? I mean, are they both in this place, and we just didn’t realize?” I ask them.
They shrug. “Not a word,” Gary says.
“Not to me,” Richard says. “I just found out they were dating when the invite came.”
Margaret is trying to come outside to join us, but Therese grabs her by the arm and announces that they are going back upstairs with Pippi to bond some more. Margaret looks stricken and disappears back inside. Apparently Hanna isn’t the only one on board with the full-court press. I keep waiting to overhear her dad mention the details of her dowry while Glenn goes for his third bottle of sangria.
Since it is hotter than the surface of the sun out here, the four of us tear ourselves away from the easel and head back inside.
“Ten minutes!” Hanna yells out.
Ruth grabs a bottle of sangria, pointedly removes the tag and ribbons and straw, all of which she drops neatly
in the garbage can, and takes a deep swig. Her eyebrows raise. She looks very much like someone who wants to spit. I motion my head towards the counter where Hanna was mixing this elixir, where there is a canister of Crystal Light fruit punch, a bottle of triple sec, and a large jug of Gallo table red. Ruth leaves her denuded still-full bottle on the counter and grabs a can of Diet Coke from the galvanized bucket on the sideboard to wash the taste out.
The caterer comes in with all the food and puts everything in the various chafing dishes. Hanna has a quiet but clearly unhappy conversation with him, he goes running out the front door, and we hear the truck chug to a start.
“She’s coming!” Hanna hisses frantically, shuttling us all out to the backyard and thrusting her camera at Ruth and demanding she capture the exciting moment. We’re both shocked that she has stopped taking pictures of her own crafty handiwork long enough to remember there is a reason for the event.
Jean turns the corner to enter the backyard. We all yell, “Surprise!” and “Happy birthday!”
The look on Jean’s face is that of someone who has indeed been surprised.
By a drive-by rectal exam or an unexpected Amazonian jumping spider in her cornflakes.
“Wow!” she manages to get out. “Look at all this.”
Hanna grabs her in a lip-lock that stops just shy of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and then allows her to make the rounds to greet the small gathering of family and friends. She thanks us all for coming with a deer-in-headlights look that tells me that perhaps she and Hanna are not quite in the same emotional headspace.
“Go tell Jeanine happy birthday and how much you love her!” Hanna’s mom pushes Pippi in Jean’s direction. Because nothing is more comfortable for a three-year-old than having to tell some woman she has met four times that she loves her. Pippi begins to cry. Hanna’s mom thrusts the soggy child at poor Jean, but Pippi is having none of it and runs for her mother.
“How silly, Pippi. You know you love Jeanine!” Hanna says to the poor thing, who is clutching her leg like it’s a life raft. She leans down and picks up Pippi, who now has a charming double trail of thick snot falling over her upper lip. I think about how many times Jean has said that she loves children “well behaved and living at someone else’s house” and decide that Ruth and I don’t really have to worry, because no sex in the world will be good enough to convert Jean into a suburb-dwelling Pippi-has-two-mommies girl.
“Everything’s ready. Everyone make a plate!” Hanna announces, gesturing us all inside to the buffet. We follow her in and help ourselves to the food. The caterer has returned, and he and Hanna have another intense side conversation, and the look on Hanna’s face is of deep hatred. We fill our plates and arrange ourselves at the table outside, Gary and Richard sitting across from Ruth and me. We all struggle to untie our beribboned flatware, but I think the hot-glue gun she used to attach the seashells and tags may have melted the pieces together. We generally give up, eating mostly with our hands, and Glenn snaps the top off his trapped fork and uses it to eat his pasta salad. Hanna and Pippi are nowhere to be found.
“Where’d she go?” Gary asks twenty minutes later when they haven’t reappeared. Most of us are done with our first plates and heading back to the buffet for seconds, more out of boredom than actual hunger.
“I think she went to go scrapbook this precious moment before she forgot a detail,” Ruth mutters. Richard snorts sangria up his nose. Hanna’s parents share a charming story about bringing Hanna’s brother into the family business and then firing him, and imply there are reasons he was not invited to this gathering. Guess that whole “Siblings are precious and family is everything” motto has some loopholes. Jean, trapped at the end of the table next to Hanna’s empty chair and flanked by Therese and Hanna’s dad, Nick, is trying to look like she doesn’t want to crawl into a hole.
Eventually Hanna returns, having put Pippi down for a nap. The sand-covered boxes appear to be the favors. Ruth opens hers to find that it is full of peanut butter cups, which are all completely liquefied as a result of having been outside in the heat for several hours baking in their boxes. She eats one with the half a broken spoon Gary is finally able to wrestle out of its ribbons.
Hanna’s parents regale the table with how much they hate Pippi’s dad, whose name is either “that son of a bitch” or “you know who,” and how much they love Jeanine. These two things seem very connected for them.
“This is the best play I’ve been to all year,” Richard says dreamily.
“I think I’m going to pitch Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner for next season,” Gary says.
“Where are we going to drink when we leave here?” Ruth asks.
“My house,” I say. “Bubbles is going to need details while they’re fresh.”
“Done. Her martinis are the best anyway,” Ruth says, nodding.
After lunch, Hanna makes a big show of presenting Jean with her framed poem print. Jean looks it over quickly and then says she wants to focus on it later, privately.
Probably after she gets home and determines if there is a dead bunny in the pot on her stove.
The cake is served, and we are all relieved to see that it does not have a tiny little bride and bride on top. Although we can’t be sure of what was originally planned, since apparently all the frantic whispering in corners with the caterer earlier was because he forgot to pick up the specially ordered cake from the bakery. There was no time to go into the city to get it, so he ran out to fetch a basic one from the Jewel instead. Only Hanna seems upset at this. At a birthday party? In this heat? Jewel cake is just the ticket. I’m deeply grateful she didn’t ask me to bake one.
After dessert, Ruth gives me the “I can’t take much more” signal, and we get ready to make a quick retreat. I stop in the bathroom, where I am confronted with a huge wall stencil informing me that “Laughter is the light we sprinkle about the world.” Super. I get up, turn to flush, and am taken aback by what appears to be a small blue jellyfish attached to the inside of the bowl. Momentarily I wonder exactly what horrible disease of my girl parts would result in my peeing tiny, slimy sea creatures, but on closer inspection I realize it is some sort of disinfecting gel-pod thing. Whew.
Ruth and I make the rounds, giving Jean big, deep hugs and asking her to call us later, and Jean plasters on the kind of smile you save for smelly aunts who give wet kisses, says that of course she will, and thanks us so much for coming to share this special day. Gary and Richard invite us to join them for alcoholic slushies at Sidetrack, but we take a rain check. Margaret and Glenn hug us both and promise to call next time they are coming downtown.
“Thank you both so much. I’ve just always wanted sisters, and it means the world to me that you are that for Jeanine, and I’m just feeling so happy to have you in our lives,” Hanna says. Because, cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!
“What the fuckety fuck was that?” Ruth asks as soon as we get in the car.
“That was simply the best story we will ever be able to tell about Jean when she introduces us to her next rational girlfriend.”
“God, I hope so,” Ruth says, peeling out like the bad guys are chasing us. “I hope that insane woman doesn’t have some surprise beach wedding planned for next weekend.”
“Even Jean wouldn’t let herself get trapped into a spontaneous wedding.”
“I know. I know,” Ruth says. “The table . . .” She drifts off and we start to giggle, and if laughter is the light we sprinkle about the world, then we did some serious light sprinkling all the way home. And in the Nook, with plenty of emotion, we made Bubbles sprinkle so hard she had to run to the bathroom before she peed her pants, and I discovered that if you snort ice-cold martini up your nose while laughing, it gives you brain freeze, but in a good way.
By the time we finish our martini-fueled giggle fest, it is after six, and Ruth heads for home to salvage her evening. I’m suddenly ravenous.
> “Do we need grilled cheese?” I ask Bubbles.
Her face becomes slightly sheepish. “So sorry, schnookie. I’ve got dinner plans.”
“That’s nice. Who with?”
She looks around, not meeting my eyes. “Just a friend, dear. My goodness, I should be getting ready as we speak!” And quick as a flash, she’s off upstairs to change. Very cagey.
“Well, looks like it’s just you and me and the TV, old Snatcheroo,” I say to the dog, who glances up from gnawing his paw just long enough to register complete indifference, and then returns to his ablutions.
I grab the nonstick skillet, put it on the stove, and fetch four slices of bread from the breadbox. I’ve been playing with a new bread recipe, a cross between sourdough and English muffin, baked in a sliceable loaf. Makes fantastic toast, and I’ve been craving grilled cheese with it since I brought it home yesterday.
I liberally butter all four slices all the way to each edge, place them butter-side down in the skillet, and top each with a thick slice of American cheese. Then I turn the skillet on. Starting the sandwiches in a cold pan is my secret to perfect grilled cheese. That way, as the pan slowly heats up, the cheese starts to melt, and by the time the outsides are crunchy and crispy, the cheese is a goo-fest, and nothing gets burnt. And I always make two, because one grilled cheese sandwich is never enough.
I grab a bag of chips from the pantry and the jar of pickles out of the fridge, and put both on the table in the Nook. I pause. What the hell. I also grab the tub of French onion dip I made two nights ago when I got home to an empty house and a note from Bubbles saying that she was out at the movies. I didn’t have the energy for much of a meal, so I grabbed the onion soup mix and a container of sour cream and spent the evening dipping just about anything I could find into it.
I slide the perfectly cooked sandwiches onto the cutting board and let them sit for just a minute before I cut them, so all the cheese doesn’t ooze out. While I’m waiting, I run upstairs and grab my laptop. I can eat and catch up on Wedding Girl emails with one eye on TCM.
Wedding Girl Page 21
