Marrying Mom

by Olivia Goldsmith

  Buy the ebook here

  THE SWITCH

  Olivia Goldsmith

  The following pages contain an extract from Olivia Goldsmith’s new novel THE SWITCH, also available from HarperCollins.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sylvie stood for a moment in the cool dark hallway. It was the only dim place in the house and though Sylvie loved the light—in fact had fallen in love with the house for its light—she always found the comparative darkness of the hall a welcome contrast. She really had too much to do to be standing here, one hand on the simple carved mahogany of the banister. She put her thumb on the comforting place where the curve of the wood had been worn flat by years of other thumbs. You don’t have time to linger here, she told herself sternly. But despite her admonishment now, just for a moment, she would enjoy this quiet. She listened to the wall clock tick and then picked up the cup of tea she’d poured herself. The jasmine smell filled her head.

  Sylvie began to walk down the hall but glanced first into the dining room, then the living room opposite, before moving down the hall toward the music room. Oh, she loved her house. It wasn’t large by Shaker Heights standards—just a center hall colonial with only three bedrooms. But visitors, once in it, were always surprised by the grand dimensions and dignity of the house. Each of the four rooms downstairs was exactly the same size: all of them were large, light, airy rooms with ten-foot ceilings and long, high windows. Bob, at one time, had suggested they sell the house and buy a bigger one but Sylvie had been shocked and steadfastly refused. She didn’t need a guest room—guests stayed next door at her mother’s or camped out on the music room sofa. She didn’t need a family room: all the rooms downstairs were for the family.

  Sylvie knew how lucky she was. And she didn’t take it for granted. Bob sometimes laughed at her for her little habit of checking each room. “Do you think they’re going away?” he’d ask. Or “Are you looking for something?” he’d inquire. “Not for, at,” she’d told him. She was looking at her home, a place she had created slowly over time with Bob. Sylvie knew she’d been right to never consider selling the house. Perhaps they’d been the smallest bit cramped, but what would they do now with a larger place? Without the twins at home, the two bedrooms upstairs stood empty, but the rest of the house seemed to enfold her and protect her. It was not a house too big for a couple and perhaps someday she could turn one of the children’s rooms upstairs into a guest room. Maybe she’d make a den for Bob out of the other. Then he wouldn’t have to leave his paperwork all over the desk in the corner of the dining room.

  Sylvie moved down the hall to the music room, carrying her cup of tea before her as if the luminous white china could light her way like a lamp. She had only a few minutes before her first lesson and turned into the music room to see the usual organized clutter of sheet music. Schirmer’s Piano for New Students, piled beside A Hundred Simple Piano Tunes and Chopin’s Sonatas. Her gray sweater lay across the bench of the Steinway, but nothing sat on its beautiful lacquered top. Sylvie felt a little shiver of pleasure as she walked into the room. There was a touch of autumn in the air and she closed one of the long windows. It was too early for a fire but with the approach of autumn she knew that soon would be the time she liked best in this room, when she would give lessons and play while apple wood burned in the grate behind her. Though she missed the twins, this season was always a good time: September, when the children had begun school and she’d gone back to her full routine of piano lessons. It felt like the year was beginning. Students were returning from their summer holidays. Sylvie remembered that Jewish people celebrated their New Year about now. It made sense to her.

  No reason to be sad, she told herself, no empty nest syndrome here, just because the twins were no longer at Shaker Heights Elementary or Grover Cleveland High. Irene—Reenie to the family—would settle in at Bennington and Kenny already seemed perfectly happy at Northwestern. So Sylvie told herself she should settle in and be happy, too. And she was planning a treat. Bob had asked what she wanted for her birthday and she’d finally decided. She wanted romance. She had everything else.

  Sylvie had always felt sorry for women who had to work outside of their homes. She had been so very lucky. Lucky to meet Bob as early as she had, lucky that he came back to Shaker Heights and had seamlessly become part of her family. She was lucky that the twins were both so healthy, so smart, and had never been in any real trouble. The family had no financial problems. Bob had given up his music to become a partner in her father’s car dealership, and that had provided well for them, though it always caused Sylvie some regret. Still, Bob seemed to have done it willingly, though there was no doubt in her mind that he was the more talented musician. Perhaps his talent had actually made it easier for him to give up music as a profession; Sylvie didn’t mind teaching and wasn’t troubled by the knowledge that she was almost, but not quite, good enough to tour. Her talents had been exaggerated by a loving family, Julliard, at first a startling comeuppance, had been a pleasure once she realized she didn’t really have the stuff it took to be a concert pianist.

  But she had become a good teacher, and she enjoyed teaching. For her it was not a fall-back, the boring trap that serious musicians were so reluctantly forced into. She loved bringing music into people’s lives and she found that she also enjoyed the glimpses into their lives that the lessons afforded her. She was a woman who enjoyed process and for that she was grateful. She actually enjoyed teaching scales, just as she enjoyed playing them. She liked the orderliness of building one week’s lessons upon the next, and the slow construction of a musician, week-by-week, as people mastered fingering, timing, and sight reading until the moment came when music burst out in apparent effortlessness. Sylvie treasured those moments when students looked up from the Steinway keyboard, dazzled by their own ability to bring forth a waterfall of sound, to recreate the ordered noise that Handel, Chopin, or Beethoven had first composed.

  Oh, she was lucky all right. Lucky with her material possessions, with her family, and with her ability to be satisfied. She had, thank goodness, none of her brother’s constant dissatisfaction, or Bob’s restlessness, which Reenie seemed to have inherited. She was more like Kenny, her son. But then, she had never had to give anything up, to sacrifice anything as Bob had. She had gotten to keep her music and her family. She’d gotten to have it all: a good marriage, good kids, a house she loved, a career she cared about.

  Honey, her student, was late. Typical. She heard a noise in the hall and stepped out there again. The mail came sliding through the post slot in the front door. Maybe there was a letter from one of the children. Kenny would be bad about writing but Reenie might. Sylvie knelt to pick up the pile. The usual bills, some catalogues (soon the pre-Christmas deluge would begin), and a card from her sister. Irene was always early with her birthday greetings. Sylvie opened it.

  “Forty and fabulous” it said on the front, with a photo of a wizened old woman in frightened makeup. Thank you, Irene. And there was a postcard from Reenie. Sylvie read it quickly.

  It was the Sun Holidays brochure that excited her. Bob had been so busy and distracted lately that Sylvie was feeling a little, well, ignored. No, that was too strong a word, she told herself. But she felt as if she and Bob needed to rekindle the lamp, the light that had always been at the center of their relationship. And now, with the children gone, there would be time.

  The phone rang and Sylvie quickly took the mail with her to the hall table.

  “Are you in a lesson?” Mildred, Sylvie’s mother, began almost every phone conversation that way.

  “No. But Harriet Blank is due over any minute.”

  “Lucky you. The only woman in the Greater Shaker Heights-Cleveland area with no boundaries whatsoever. After her, do you and Bob want to come over for dinner?”

  “No thanks. I’ve defrosted chicken.” Bob loved Mildred. But he got enough of Jim, Sylvie’s father, on the car lot most days. Sylvie finished sorting through the mail. There was an envelope from Su
n Holidays.

  “Your father is barbecuing.”

  “Well, that is an inducement. I haven’t eaten charcoal since July Fourth. You know, Kenny says Grandpa’s burgers are carcinogens. Something about free radicals.”

  “The only free radical I know about is Patty Hearst,” Mildred snapped. Sylvie opened the holiday envelope. It was the glossy brochure she’s written away for. She unfolded it, her heart beating a little faster. The photos were like gems, glowing deep sapphire and emerald in the dimness.

  “I thought I’d do your birthday dinner on Thursday. In case Bob was taking you out someplace fancy on Friday.”

  “He hasn’t mentioned it. I’ll ask him.”

  “Maybe it’s a surprise.”

  “No surprise parties, Mom. I mean it. It’s bad enough being forty. I don’t need the whole cul-de-sac gloating. Not to mention Rosalie.” Sylvie held the brochure up. There was a picture of a guest room with a canopy bed hung in white. She and Bob, tanned, lying under the canopy …

  “Sylvie, are you moping? Not that I’d blame you. It’s hard that both children had to leave at once. For me, I had six years to get used to Irene, William, and then you leaving….”

  “I’m not moping. I’m happy.” Sylvie clutched the brochure and dropped the other mail into the basket. “I’ve got to get ready for my lesson.”

  “All right, dear. Call if you change your mind.”

  There was a tapping on the glass of the French door. Mrs. Harriet Blank—Honey to her friends—was standing at the back entrance. “You have a lot of leaves in the pool,” she said as she stepped into the room. “You should get that automatic pool sweeper.”

  “Nice to see you, too,” Sylvie said mildly. “It’s been a long summer.”

  “I practiced every day,” Honey assured her, defensive. The lazy students always told her that. Honey took off her sweater and lay her bag on the armchair. She moved toward the bench. “I saw you at L’Etoile, out by the lake, last week with Bob. You did something great to your face…”—Honey took a good look at Sylvie—“… that night anyway. I thought maybe you had a face-lift over the summer. You know, Carol Meyers did. She looks awful. Stretched. I hear she went all the way to Los Angeles for it. Anyway, you looked great at L’Etoile.”

  “Bob and I haven’t been out to dinner for months,” Sylvie said mildly. “Not since Bob started campaigning for Chamber of Commerce.”

  Honey made a face of disbelief. “Are you lying or did you forget?” she asked.

  “I wouldn’t lie about being with my husband,” Sylvie laughed. “Or a getting face-lift.” She touched the part of her neck that had just begun to go crepey.

  “Come on. You were there. The two of you were flirting like crazy. That’s why I didn’t even say hello. You guys looked so romantic.”

  “That proves I wasn’t there. In Shaker Heights, husbands don’t flirt with wives—at least not with their own.”

  “It was you.” Honey paused. “Only your face was somehow… up. And you had only one chin.” Honey examined Sylvie’s face more closely. “You didn’t seem to have a wrinkle. And you were tan.”

  “Honey, I never tan. Not since I was born. I turn red, crack and peel. My mother can verify that.” Honey was a pain. “Shall we?” Sylvie asked, gesturing to the keyboard.

  Honey leaned closer to Sylvie, examining her face. “Well, you were tan two weeks ago. Did you buy that thing on QVC with the tape and the rubber bands? That temporary face-lift thing?”

  “No, but I once did get the Thighmaster. It’s still under my bed. Want it?” Sylvie smacked her right leg and gestured Honey to sit at the bench. “Obviously, I never used it.”

  Honey seemed miffed by Sylvie’s response. They settled down to some finger exercises. It was clear that Honey hadn’t been practicing. Slowly they moved through the lesson. Somewhere near the end Sylvie thought she heard Bob’s car. She glanced over at the brochure, propped at the edge of the music holder. Sylvie smiled.

  At last the hour was up. Sylvie gave Honey a new assignment and walked her to the French doors. They said good-bye. Then Honey looked up at her. “If a person is going to look that good, even for one night, I think it’s really mean not to share how you did it with a friend,” Honey said.

  “I share all my musical tips with you, Honey,” Sylvie said. “Here’s my best one: practice.” Gently she pushed the door closed and turned to join her husband.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Bob wasn’t at his desk or in the living room. Sylvie checked the kitchen, flipped the chicken that was sitting in its marinade and sighed. Bob must already have slipped upstairs.

  Sylvie was halfway up the stairs herself before she realized that she had left the travel brochure in the music room. She turned around, bounded down the stairs, got the brochure and doubled back. Now she could hear the sound of the shower in the master bath. That was what she was afraid of. It meant that Bob was probably going out again this evening. The chicken would be wasted. Damn it! Sylvie didn’t want to have to put off this conversation, but she didn’t want to be forced to sandwich it in between Bob’s ablutions and departure.

  Since Bob had begun to talk about running for Chamber of Commerce president he’d been so busy. Why did he even want the position? It didn’t pay anything and it couldn’t really be any fun. And why he needed to shave, change, and dress up for a smoke-filled room was also beyond her. It seemed as if he’d become more vain lately—she didn’t remember him bothering to shower and shave before Rotary, even when he was the president of that. Sylvie got to the bedroom door, smoothed her hair and the brochure in her hand. It was time for a change for both of them. Charm and quirkiness worked with Bob. She smiled to herself as she walked through the bedroom. She stopped for a moment at her nightside table and took out a roll of adhesive tape. She’d get his attention.

  She went into the bathroom. The steam pushed up against the door, up against her body with a wet force. She couldn’t stop herself from looking at the place on the wall where the paint had begun to peel. She wished, for the hundredth time, that Bob would remember not to turn the water up quite so high, but he never did. Acceptance was just a part of marriage. Sylvie shrugged and walked over to the glass shower wall.

  Through the mottled texture of the glass she could see Bob’s body, but the effect the glass gave was to turn him into what looked like animated blots of color, kind of like the way technicians scrambled people’s faces electronically on television when they were being interviewed against their will. She stared. Pointillistic Bob. She picked up a hand towel and wiped down the glass. Jauntily, Sylvie pushed the brochure up against the shower wall and used the adhesive tape to secure it there, despite the moisture.

  “Hi, honey. I have a surprise.”

  “Your lesson over?”

  Sylvie could see that the white dots topping the pink dots of Bob’s head had just about been washed off the animated figure that was her husband. That meant that the shampoo was over and that he could safely open his eyes. She tapped the glass. “See what I brought you,” she said. She watched as he moved closer to the glass. He bent, suddenly almost against the textured partition and his face clearly emerged. Very wet, but recognizably Bob’s nice-looking face. Close to the glass the wavering images didn’t blur. She knew from the inside he could see the brochure.

  “Show and tell?” he asked casually.

  “Show and go,” she said.

  But then, to her disappointment, his head disappeared again. He became a Seurat painting: Tuesday in the shower with Bob.

  No. He had to pay attention. She tapped the shower stall again. “Bob! Look! There haven’t been colors like this since the seventies.”

  He was fumbling for something. “Beautiful. What is that? Something like Hawaii?”

  “Good, Bob. It is Hawaii.” For a moment she felt more hopeful, but then she realized he wasn’t even looking. “You see those two people snorkeling? Isn’t it weird how they look just like us? They could be us, Bob.” Sylvie p
aused for his reaction. Then, to her dismay, she saw more white, animated dots appearing at the top of her husband’s wavering form. He was shampooing twice. That was unusual. Bob never read the directions on any product or appliance, not since she met him. When did he ever read the instructions on the shampoo bottle? Since when did he soap up twice?

  Sylvie quickly took the brochure down. Already its crisp new feel had begun to be transformed by the bathroom steam. The pictures now sagged across the double-page spreads. For a moment the sag was echoed by the sag of Bob’s little belly, which emerged first from the stall, followed by the rest of him, only to be quickly wrapped in the special bath sheet he liked to use. Then, swaddled, he turned and inserted his arm into the shower, shutting off the water at last. The silence seemed startling to Sylvie, who felt more than a little bit forlorn for the moment. Perhaps Bob noticed, because he turned and gave her one of the big bear hugs that he was famous for. Just as she started to relax into it, he dropped his arms, turned to the sink, and took down his razor and the can of foam.

  “You hear from the kids?” he asked casually.

  “Nothing from Kenny, but Reenie sent a card. She says she wants to change her major again.”

  “No more French poetry?” Bob asked, spreading the foam along his right cheek and stretching his neck up in that way men did before they patted the cream on their jowls.

  “She feels she has to major in post-communist Russian studies.”

  “Has to? That seems like something no one has to do.” He pulled the razor down his cheek.

  As always, Sylvie felt she had to spring to the defense of their mercurial daughter. Temperamentally, Reenie and Bob were so similar that sometimes Sylvie had to run interference. “She’s been thinking about it a lot. I admit she’s a little at sea right now.”