See Jane Date

by Melissa Senate

  “You know, you two,” Amanda began, “you’ll have to quit one day, anyway, when you get pregnant, so you might as well quit now.”

  Eloise and I looked at each other and laughed. “According to Jeff, if Jane doesn’t stop smoking now, she’ll never even have sex again,” Eloise pointed out. “So, she doesn’t have to worry about getting pregnant.”

  I raised my Cosmo. “Okay,” I declared. “I will smoke my last cigarette before I go to bed tonight, and when I wake up, I will join the proud ranks of the former smokers.”

  Eloise lifted her own Comso and clinked it with me. “I’m with you.”

  “It’s gonna change your whole life, you guys,” Amanda said. “Just you wait and see.”

  I emerged from the low-lit subway station at Continental Avenue to find myself in the middle of the very crowded outdoor mall otherwise known as Forest Hills, Queens. The affluent neighborhood was a shopping mecca for the middle class. Everyone’s favorite stores were packed next to each other on the mile-long Austin Street, including every type of store you might have to run an errand in. On the same block, you could buy everything you’d ever need for a lifetime, from a prom dress to a lamp shade to a hamburger.

  Every type of human being imaginable, every age, every race, headed slow and fast up the streets of Forest Hills. To avoid the crowd, I walked in the street itself, alongside the cars. Up at the corner, I could see Boston Market and farther down, toward Ascar Avenue, Aunt Ina’s familiar strawberry-blond head. She stood in front of a luxury apartment building, between beds of red and purple impatiens. She was reading the New York Post and popping something into her mouth from a little plastic bag around her wrist. A few women walked past her through the double glass doors, held open by two uniformed doormen. Members of the esteemed Dana Dreer bridal party. I recognized them from the wedding shower planning meeting and the first bridesmaids’ dress fitting.

  I instinctively reached into my purse for a cigarette, then remembered I’d quit at midnight. I was no longer a person who smoked. It was very strange to head into nonsmoking territory without storing up reserves of nicotine. And this ridiculous “finalization meeting” would have me itching to smoke. Cigarettes had allowed me to postpone entering places I didn’t want to go—Sorry, need a smoke! And they’d allowed me to sneak out for a nic fix—Sorry, need a smoke! Now I’d have no excuses. No postponing. No leaving. I wondered if I’d start twitching the way everyone said would happen during nicotine withdrawal. Then again, I wasn’t quite off nicotine yet; Eloise and I had each bought the patch last night on our way home. I’d slapped one on at midnight and hoped for the best. The good news at the moment was that so far, so good. And, at least I didn’t have to suck on a breath mint to hide my smoky breath from Ina. I was smoke-odor-free for the first time in ten years.

  “Aunt Ina,” I called as I neared her.

  She spotted me and waved. “Did you bring the shoes?”

  I held up my tote bag. “They’re in here.”

  Ina enfolded me in her arms and squeezed me. She looked me over with her pale blue eyes. “Did you take a car service or the subway?”

  “The subway,” I admitted, wondering how she could tell just by looking at me. Lying over the phone was one thing. Lying to my aunt’s face was another. I prepared for the lecture.

  “Jane!”

  “It’s very crowded during the day,” I insisted. “It’s safe.”

  Aunt Ina narrowed her eyes. “So nothing weird happened down there? No one bothered you?”

  “Nope,” I said. “I keep telling you. It’s not like it used to be.”

  Ina folded her newspaper and shoved it in her Bloomingdale’s Big Brown Bag. “‘It’s not like it used to be,’ she tells me. What do you think I’ve been standing here doing?” The doorman held open the door for us. “There were three articles in the newspaper about people getting pushed in front of trains by crazy people. So don’t you tell me it’s safe, young lady.”

  I sighed. “We’re here to see Karen Frieman,” I said to one of the doormen.

  He smiled and asked our names. I told him and he consulted a list, which made me roll my eyes. How pretentious. The doorman approved us, and we were ushered into the gold-and-brown marble monstrosity of a lobby. Mirrors everywhere. I stabbed the buttons to the three elevators.

  “Your hair looks nice,” Aunt Ina commented. “More natural. I don’t like it when you make it all pin straight. God gave you bouncy hair with a nice wave, and what do you do? Attack it with all that goo and a blow dryer.”

  It was the summer humidity—magnified a thousand percent by the subway—that had attacked my hair and made it all bouncy with the dreaded wave.

  Why did I have to quit smoking today? There was nothing I wanted more at this moment than a good, long drag of a Marlboro Light. I hadn’t done anything without a cigarette in ten years. Yet somehow, I was supposed to get through Dana Dreer’s bridal shower finalization meeting, a bridesmaids’ dress fitting and a blind date with a doctor named Timothy Rommely.

  “Here we are. Tenth floor,” Ina said.

  One minute later I was inside Karen’s huge apartment. The hostess and maid of honor herself opened the door for us; she looked me up and down as usual. For Aunt Ina and Grammy I’d worn a cute sundress I’d gotten on sale at Zara International last week. If I’d worn my usual summer weekend outfit of cargo pants and a white T-shirt, I’d never hear the end of it. How did I expect to get promoted or meet a guy if I dressed like a teenager—a teenage boy, no less? That sparkling gem of a comment always came from Dana.

  In Karen’s huge living room, which was, I had to admit, very nicely furnished, I counted thirteen women, including myself. Seven were bridesmaids, plus Karen, the maid of honor. Two were Aunt Ina and Grammy. And three were Larry Fishkill’s mother and his two grandmothers. Larry’s sister, Penny, had been included in the bridesmaid tally. I spotted Grammy chatting with Larry’s grandmothers by the cream cheese selection. Karen announced that we were to enjoy the bagel buffet and coffee, and then we’d get down to business.

  Grammy came over to me and Aunt Ina. “Give your grandmother a hug,” she ordered with a big smile. She practically squeezed the life out of me. “You’re looking a little thin.” Grammy turned her attention to Ina, who she hugged also. “Doesn’t she look a little thin?” she asked her daughter.

  “Young women and their diets,” Aunt Ina dismissed with her trademark sigh.

  Sometimes when I looked at my grandmother I could see my own mother. Virginia Gregg had had the same elfin chin and the same dark brown That Girl eyes, which I’d inherited. And we all had the same straight, small nose. I had my father’s hair, though, very dark and thick. My mom’s, like Grammy’s, had been light brown and pin straight. Aunt Ina and Grammy still got what they insisted on referring to as “permanents.” I’d tried to tell them that no one got perms anymore, but they told me what they always told me: What do you know from everyone does or doesn’t do, big shot?

  “So who’s this I hear you’re dating?” Grammy asked, leading me over to the buffet Karen had set up on a credenza against a wall. In front of us was every imaginable kind of bagel, four kinds of cream cheese, butter, fat-free margarine and three platters of mouthwatering lox. “Don’t take the light cream cheese,” Grammy said. “You really look too thin, especially in the face. Do you see how skinny her arms are?” she asked, directing this toward Aunt Ina. “You probably can’t even open a bottle of soda.”

  I definitely wasn’t looking too thin. But I appreciated the sentiment and the freedom to heap lox and vegetable cream cheese on a poppy-seed bagel without the slightest bit of guilt over how many fat grams I was about to ingest. Carrying my bounty to a group of hard-backed chairs by the windows, I joined Grammy and Aunt Ina.

  “So what’s his name, this new boyfriend of yours?” Grammy asked.

  I cringed. Lying about a phony boyfriend was one thing; giving him a name was another. Somehow, naming him gave weight and depth to what was re
ally just a fib, at least in my semi-guilty mind. What was I supposed to say? If I said Timothy, which was the name of tonight’s date, that would only work if he worked out. And he wouldn’t. No one would. There was one blind date after Timothy for next week, an investment banker named Driscoll Something-or-other. I couldn’t very well tell Grammy and Aunt Ina that my new boyfriend’s name was Driscoll. I’d save that if he worked out. Which he wouldn’t, either.

  My ego was really getting way too big.

  “Um, Timothy,” I said. At least I liked the name. When I brought no one to the wedding, I could always say that Timothy had been called out of the country on an emergency. Or that we’d broken up. At least then I’d get the sympathy I hadn’t gotten over Max’s wedding announcement. I had to suppress a smile at the irony of the Timothy situation. We hadn’t even met and I was already planning our breakup.

  “Timothy? So formal?” Aunt Ina criticized. “Why not Tim?”

  Why not, indeed? “Well, you know, Aunt Ina, guys like to sound older than they are, more professional, so they all tend to give up the nicknames.”

  Both Grammy and Aunt Ina nodded. I’d said the right thing. “So does this Timothy have a last name?” Grammy asked.

  “Um, Rommely,” I said.

  “Rommely. Where do I know that name from?” Grammy asked.

  “It’s from this month’s book,” Aunt Ina told Grammy. Aunt Ina sipped her coffee, leaving a red lipstick stain on the mug. She turned to me. “We’re reading A Tree Grows In Brooklyn for our book club at the senior center.”

  A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It was the only book that had ever made me cry. I always sobbed in movies at emotional moments, even at Hallmark commercials and those Seventh Day Adventist spots on television about lonely, misunderstood teenagers. But never had words on a page made me cry until A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Until a scene in which adults had carelessly tried to take something from young Francie Nolan that she would never, ever give up: her dignity.

  “Whose last name was Rommely?” I asked, swallowing a bite of lox and cream-cheese slathered bagel. “I thought the girl’s last name was Nolan.”

  “No, not her,” Grammy said. “The mother. The mother’s maiden name was Rommely. She was a strong woman. She did what was right, not what was fair. That’s the mark of a strong person.”

  Hmm. Perhaps there was some cosmic, karmic significance to the fact that my date for this evening was named Rommely. Doubtful.

  “So we have to wait till Dana’s wedding to meet him?” they asked in unison.

  “I think so,” I said, again feeling guilty at the lie. “I’ve got this and that, and he’s got that and this, and with all there is to do before the wedding, I doubt I’ll ever be able to get us all in the same room.”

  They sank their teeth into their bagels, nodding. Again I’d said the right thing. That was twice in the same fifteen-minute span. Unheard-of. A busy, hardworking boyfriend with this and that to do was all right by them.

  “You’re sure you don’t want to meet Ethan Miles?” Grammy asked. “I can see the two of you together. He’s such a nice young man. So polite. He’s from Texas, did Aunt Ina tell you that? Isn’t that something?”

  Grammy was romanticizing Texas, a state she knew only from television, books and movies. When I thought of Texas, I thought of Clint Black or the Marlboro Man or the image of a cowboy and a horse. I’d never been on a horse. The only horses I was familiar with were the ones who lined up miserably in front of Central Park and took people on hansom cab rides. But those didn’t count as Texas horses; they didn’t trot on grass and dirt paths or run wild through meadows—they moved alongside taxis and speeding ambulances and messengers on delivery bikes. There weren’t even horses in the Central Park Zoo, unless you figured in the two or three ponies in the Children’s Zoo. What would I ever have in common with someone from Texas?

  “Ma, she’s seeing someone,” Aunt Ina said, smacking her lips. “Let her be. This Timothy Rommely sounds nice.”

  It was interesting how all it took for someone to sound nice was a nice-sounding name. For all Grammy and Aunt Ina knew, Timothy could be a psycho killer. Thank God they hadn’t asked what he did for a living. I had a feeling they assumed he was an Internet genius. Larry Fishkill had bored all of us to death for three years about the Internet and how it had once made millionaires out of ordinary people. Grammy and Aunt Ina believed every word that came out of Larry Fishkill’s mouth. If I were to be honest, I’d have to admit that I sort of liked Larry, a little. He talked too much and he could be pedantic, but there was something real about him. He was far more down-to-earth than his fiancée.

  Anyway, I couldn’t tell Grammy and Aunt Ina that Timothy Rommely was a doctor. If he didn’t work out—which he wouldn’t—then whoever I brought to the Plaza would have to be a doctor—or at least play one at weddings. Why hadn’t I realized how widespread one stupid pride-saving lie could get?

  Grammy sipped her coffee. “All right, all right, she’s seeing someone.” She leaned in close to me, her dark eyes on Karen, who was consulting a legal pad on a clipboard, then returned her gaze to me. “This coffee’s too strong. And the bagels are hard. Probably from the supermarket.”

  I smiled. I loved when Grammy and Aunt Ina ragged on people I didn’t like.

  Karen Frieman clapped her hands together. “Okay, girls! Time to get started!”

  And I hated when anyone referred to women as “girls.” Especially when women did it.

  “It’s hard to believe,” Karen said, “but next Saturday is the big day. Dana’s bridal shower. Which will be possible thanks to the help of everyone in this room. Let’s all take a minute and give ourselves a hand. Come on, everyone, give yourselves a hand.”

  Oh God. How cheesy was this? I clapped twice, then a third time when Aunt Ina shot me a you’d-better-watch-it look.

  Karen eyed her clipboard. “Our first order of business is to make sure that the final details are covered. At this point, it’s all about picking up items and ensuring they arrive here in a timely manner. Let’s go down the list and make sure everyone knows what she’s responsible for taking care of.”

  Two months ago I’d been assigned the enviable task of getting the bridal shower invitations printed. My publishing credentials made me the “perfect person!” to walk into a printer’s shop and order one hundred invitations. Of course, the invitations were adorned by tiny Eiffel Towers. Karen had wanted French phrases, too; I’d convinced her that RSVP was enough. The invitations had been sent out four weeks ago. Grammy, who’d taken a calligraphy course, had been responsible for addressing the envelopes; she was also in charge of making the Congratulations banner. Aunt Ina had paid for the invitations and the stamps.

  Karen went down her clipboard. There was the French feast, catered by the local French restaurant. There was the French music, which one of Dana’s bridesmaids was in charge of since she was the only one of us who’d been to Paris. No one, it seemed, knew anything about French music. We’d all heard of Edith Piaf, but that was about it.

  The bridal party had to show up for the shower wearing stupid boat-neck tops with black-and-white horizontal stripes and black or white capris with little black or white Keds. Oh, and if we had a little black or white scarf to tie around our necks, “that would be great!” I didn’t. And I wasn’t borrowing Eloise’s. Aunt Ina was in charge of the Registry; she and Dana had spent three days traipsing around Bloomingdale’s, Crate & Barrel and Williams-Sonoma to choose everything a new bride could want for her shower and wedding. Grammy was in charge of noting down who gave what gifts at the shower; one of the bridesmaids had to create the stupid bow hat, a tradition I’d never understood. Every time Dana ripped a bow off a gift, the bridesmaid was to stick the bow onto a paper plate to make a hat that Dana would then cherish forever. Larry Fishkill’s sister, Penny, was in charge of taking official photos of the shower. His mother and grandmother were in charge of catering. The other bridesmaids were responsible for this and that.
And Karen was in charge of telling everyone what to do and keeping her ugly little fuzzy dog in the bedroom.

  I poured myself another cup of coffee and watched Aunt Ina chat away with Larry Fishkill’s mother. For the first time, I realized that my aunt’s family was growing. She and my Uncle Charlie were getting a son-in-law, who came complete with relatives of his own. Dana was getting a husband. Someone was joining their family. Someone new. I shivered in the air-conditioned room. I’d never felt separate from the Dreers before. They were mine, my family. But I was just a relative, a granddaughter, a niece, a cousin. I wasn’t the main thing, not to anyone. And I was the only Gregg left in the world.

  A Fancy Affair was owned and operated by a tiny German woman built like a tank. She never smiled and walked around with a yellow tape measure draped around her thick neck.

  “Let’s line up by size, girls, since that’s how the dresses will be kept in order.”

  Another woman who liked to call women girls.

  The bridal party surveyed one another. No one moved. Women knew better than to even suggest that another woman was bigger or smaller or even the same size. You just didn’t do it.

  Ms. Fancy sighed like Aunt Ina and called out our names. We were handed our dresses and told to change into them.

  My dress was a bit loose, I was surprised to see. Perhaps I had lost weight in the past month? Ms. Fancy wrapped the tape measure around my waist, then went down the line, whipping it here and there and writing down measurements in her little pink book.

  “In my day, women had twenty-two-inch waists!” she bellowed. “Today, we all eat too much, eh?” She let out a hard burst of laughter.