The air-conditioning wheezed as Daphne further lowered it. An unseasonable late-September eighty degrees outside combined with the women’s rising body heat threatened to create a humid brew that could threaten their carefully blow-dried hair.
Delicate lingerie floated over everybody except Daphne and Veronica, who wore Alchemy smocks. Thin white cashmere robes, gifts from Lili and Marissa, remained discarded, flung on the couch as increasing humidity tried to curl everyone’s hair despite the cranked-up AC.
“Will she be doing your face?” Sunny asked Daphne. She nodded toward Veronica, who hovered over Bianca with a mascara wand.
“Don’t move.” Daphne took a step back and examined her mother’s skin. Thick serum, rich moisturizer, a primer for aging skin, and a layer of foundation filled with the magic of mica crystals masked her mother’s fine lines and wrinkles, making her appear five years younger than her sixty-nine years.
“Veronica took off ten years,” Daphne said. “And in answer to your question, I always do my own makeup.”
“I want you to be as kind to yourself as you are to us. You’re a magician.” Sunny took Daphne’s hand and kissed it. “Such talent you possess. And such goodness.”
Daphne blinked a few times, having never mastered a formula for warding off Sunny’s kindness. “Lift.” She tipped up her own chin to illustrate.
After warming it on her forearm, making it easier to spread, Daphne dabbed extra concealer on Sunny’s age spots. Obvious traces could be dusted away with finishing powder. Most typically, artists began with the eyes, but Daphne sculpted the face first. Allure had called it her trademark when naming her a “Best of Boston” makeup artist some years ago. Before challenging a woman’s eyes with shades unknown in nature, she used subtle coloring on the face, deepening and camouflaging, bringing out a woman’s natural beauty.
Bianca preened, judging first her right side and then her left, practicing the mysterious Mona Lisa look she favored. Only her sisters knew that such an affectation hid the fact that she hated her gummy smile. Just as they knew she worried about her skin as though it might turn on her at any second.
“Thanks, Veronica.” She turned to Daphne. “Hey, sis, why didn’t you let me give you a free tweak like everyone else did?”
“I’m still fond of the way my face is arranged.”
Bianca came close and squinted. “If it were me, I’d get rid of the elevens before they rooted like permanent horrors.”
Daphne pulled back as her sister pressed on the offensive lines between her brows.
“Stop fooling around.” Sunny waved away Bianca. “Let your sister concentrate.”
After gazing at the array of blushes, Daphne swept a dusky rose on her mother’s cheeks. Fair-skinned brunettes, sharing fine hair, slashes of dark, dense eyebrows, and small bones—her mother and sisters all possessed the raw material that could be transformed from ordinary-pretty to smoldering. Everyone but Daphne reached into closets secure in knowing whether choosing sumptuous Armani suits or jeans and white tees, they’d appear coolly finished.
Bianca, Marissa, and Sunny were tight and spare, while her body resembled silly putty grafted onto a lump of clay.
Her mother’s sighing statements, the ever-present “Namath back” sobriquet, and the piles of baby carrots Sunny pushed should have doomed Daphne to a world of soccer games and tangled hair, but instead, she had become addicted to pilfering her mother’s makeup and living in a world of make-believe, while model-lovely Marissa became the lesbian. Sunny still suspected God had made a genetic stockroom error.
Years before, at the age of eight, when expanding from teddy-bear cute to blocky, she had attended Wheelock Family Theatre classes— Boston’s best children’s drama program. Sunny hoped pushing her daughter onstage might encourage starvation.
At Wheelock, Daphne owned the parts of the shopkeeper, the mother, and the headmistress. Onstage, she inhabited her entire body. She learned cosmetic techniques that morphed her face into something approaching lovely.
Daphne didn’t easily earn the insult flung at fat girls: “But you have such a pretty face!” Her appearance, including her eyes, the color of sea glass, presented a boring, blank canvas when unlined and without mascara. Daphne had to work for the offense of “such a pretty face,” but work she did. By high school she glowed, glazing her face with tinted moisturizer, highlighting it with touches of copper, and topping the transformation with daubs of bronze-pink blush. She lived her life above her shoulders, dreaming of overcoming her broad back just as Barbra Streisand overcame and even glorified her nose.
Daphne entered Boston’s Emerson College intent on turning her body into a theater tool. But by her third year of studying theater, not looking forward to a lifetime of playing “woman drinking coffee,” she learned to be an expert at stage makeup. Daphne became the artist everyone wanted.
• • •
The modern sculpture strewn around the DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum appeared to be toys of the gods. An eagle woven into the grass via leaves of different shades was visible from the patio as the guests relished drinks and appetizers. Waiters wearing tight silver tee shirts and painted-on black pants complemented metal statues.
Indian summer’s brilliant sun rested comfortably on women in sleeveless dresses, spun linen shawls glancing their bony shoulders. Daphne roasted along with the men in their suits.
Moisture gathered. Under her arms. Her forehead. The back of her neck. Wearing her hair down in a thick mat of waves had been idiocy. Waves begot curls that birthed frizz, as perspiration crept ever higher on her head, bonding with too much product, solidifying into a carpet of impenetrable sweaty kink.
Dabbing at her forehead with blotting sheets offered a few moments’ relief until a new layer of dampness formed.
Sam tipped his head with concern. “Take off your jacket. You look like a cooked beet.”
“Nice.” Daphne imagined three shades of red battling for the horror of being her: shiny, vegetable-colored face; dampening mauve fabric; and dense, sweaty carrot curls.
“Isn’t this place gorgeous?” Audrey wobbled toward them in strappy too-high heels. “I love, love, love it, and I love my dress. And I love you and Daddy.” She threw her arms around Sam and squeezed him, and then fell on Daphne for a double cheek kiss, the strong scent of sangria explaining her burst of filial love.
“How much wine have you had?” Daphne asked.
“How long till I’ll be in college? One year,” Audrey answered her own question. “Better start letting go, huh?”
Daphne gathered her words of motherly warning and then swallowed before they took flight. “You are simply beautiful, sweetness. But you don’t want to get sick.”
As though by magic eraser, Daphne’s admonition wiped the love from Audrey’s face. “I’ll limit the champagne if you hold off on the appetizers.”
The treat in Daphne’s hand grew heavier, as though the peppered grits in the martini glass had morphed into mini kettlebells.
“Watch yourself,” Sam said. “You appear exquisite—now act beautiful to match.”
“Sorry, Mom.” She made an apology pout, looking six, and teetered off.
“What did I do to deserve you?” Daphne leaned her head against Sam.
“I don’t want her growing up to be your mother. I want her to be like you.”
“Chunky?”
“Kind. Here. Drink some of that expensive wine Lili chose.” He held a delicate glass to her lips, letting her sip the earthy Pinot Noir, while she kept hold of her food. Her balding, crane-like husband’s appearance hid a secret sensualist who wished she could appreciate his appreciation of her.
She sipped again. Alcohol and perimenopause combined in a flash of suffocating heat. Sam shook his head in understanding and coaxed off her jacket. The rush of air and relief in removing the sticky fabric brought ecstasy.
Thank you, she mouthed.
“Open up.” He winked and popped in a tiny chocolate ball filled
with bourbon.
TIP: People who suffer from depression are especially vulnerable to sugar’s evil power.
—Psych Central
Sugar Busters! Diet.
WEIGHT LOST: 19 pounds.
WEIGHT REGAINED: 25 pounds.
Bliss suffused Daphne. Lili’s family, a constellation of earthen to golden tones and Marissa’s, from olive to the palest chalk, along with their friends of every shade, mingled as though posing for an ad for upscale peace. Joy to the world flowed. Audrey flirted with a young Indian man, a potent diamond stud flashing in his ear. Gabe with his Colombian girlfriend, Rosie, completed the frieze of their new century family.
Lili’s oldest sister clapped. “Time to gather for the ceremony.” She pointed downward from the patio toward gold and purple balloons lining a path.
Strung lights guided guests down a path leading to giant bronze hearts in the distance. They passed the brides, their final moments of singleness captured as they posed in a granite water garden—a miniature Stonehenge, water alight with golden flashes interrupted by purple bubbles of electrical magic.
A willowy column of inky black billowed around Marissa’s pale legs. White beaded fabric shimmered against Lili’s brown skin. They’d declared to hell with being hip and dressed in ebony and ivory. Fire red lipstick covered Lili’s lips; smoke and grape lined Marissa’s eyes. Their beauty blazed.
Daphne swelled with heat, tenderness, and sadness about the ugliness of her heart. Upon learning that Marissa had fallen in love with a black woman, her selfish reaction had everything to do with herself and nothing to do with Marissa’s joy. Daphne prayed that her sister had chosen an ample black woman, a plus-sized lesbian embodying every possible trope of a big gay woman. Because Daphne, more than anything, wanted a large sister-in-law to join her in the family.
Lili turned out to be pin thin and reserved in every way but her bubbling laugh. Daphne, it turned out, had proven to be racially and culturally stupid.
Rows of chairs tied with purple and gold curled ribbons faced the towering heart statues. Quiet fell as the Unitarian minister gestured for them to stand.
Lili and Marissa walked themselves down the aisle. Daphne’s heart broke open upon seeing her tense baby sister so loose and happy.
They smiled and recited their simple loving vows. Lili’s father’s recitation of Audre Lorde’s “For Each of You” hushed the already quiet night. Sunny, possessed of an amazing contralto, sang “Sunrise, Sunset,” bringing tears to both families. Lili and Marissa each stomped on a glass wrapped in a napkin.
“Amen!”
“L’chaim!”
Audrey sat on one side of Sam; Gabriel on the other, hands linked.
A breeze caressed Daphne’s bare arms, blowing away hot envy and leaving cooling love.
With dusk settling, they walked toward the celebration tent. Daphne loved dancing with her husband, leaning against Sam’s chest, feeling his hands run up and down her back. She tingled in anticipation of champagne bubbles, fellowship, and family. The warmth of joining cultures enveloped the crowd, which headed toward the party in an undulating bracelet of mingled skin tones, crisp suits, and jewel-toned dresses.
Her parents approached holding hands. Her mother, lovely; her father, sturdy—she should appreciate the miracle of them.
Sunny separated from Gordon and walked to her.
“Congratulations, Mommy. Now all your girls are wed.”
Sunny kissed her. Daphne recognized a danger sign in the tight smile. Her mother took Daphne’s arm, pulled her close, and then turned to Sam. “Walk with Gordon. I need Daph for a teensy bit.”
“Are you all right?” Daphne peered at her mother and saw no obvious cosmetic failure. “Do you need something?” She chastised herself for not remembering, not honoring, her parents’ fallibility. Soon her mother would be seventy. Someday Daphne would take on the role of caretaker.
“You’re aware there will be another round of pictures, right?” Her mother’s pointed expression indicated that Daphne should understand what she implied.
“Do you want me to touch you up?”
“Daphne. Sweetheart. Look at you!”
Daphne glanced down, expecting wine stains, dribbles of grits, body fluids leaking, but all she saw was mauve. “What?”
“Your jacket! Where did you put it?”
“At the . . .” Daphne blanked, not knowing where Sam had left it after easing it from her shoulders. “Sam must have left it somewhere.”
Sunny grabbed Daphne’s upper arm. “Cover these,” she whispered. “The photographer is everywhere.”
Daphne couldn’t talk and hold back her tears simultaneously.
“Don’t cry.” Her mother blew out a hot sigh. “You’ll thank me when you see the pictures.”
• • •
Cool and clean, Daphne walked into the bedroom. Scalding water and hot tears had washed away the wedding. Wrapped safely in a voluminous tee shirt and oversized pajama pants, Daphne settled next to Sam, who’d fallen asleep with a book on his chest.
Sam fell asleep faster than anyone Daphne knew. Most people assumed Sam’s specialty, cardiac research, meant less time on call—which was true—but they dismissed the interminable hours spent reading journals, studying, and communicating with those whose time zones kept him from reaching them during the day.
Indeed, when people noted how incredibly decent Sam was—and he was—they missed the side that existed on a different plane from others. When they first lived together, when Daphne found him on the couch, gazing off with little expression, unmoving, no book in hand, no television playing, no computer whirring, she’d worried about depression. After some months, she asked him what was wrong.
“Nothing. Why should anything be wrong?”
It took her the longest time to understand why her husband sat, seemingly doing nothing. He turned ideas over in his head, needing no more than air to breathe.
Daphne took the book from his chest and took off his glasses. He opened his eyes, reached out, and touched a wet strand, gently pulling it out and letting it spring back.
“You erased your fancy style.”
“I don’t think I’m meant to be a fancy girl.”
“Fancy enough for me.”
She leaned against Sam’s shoulder. “What a horror she is.”
He gave a familiar whoosh of disappointment. “Your mother will never change. We simply need to keep her out of the bedroom.”
“I know. You’re right. It’s just—”
“We should have been dancing tonight, not letting her ruin your night.” He kissed her neck; the only bare skin available to his lips. He pushed up her tee shirt. “Let’s make love. It’s been so long.”
“I ‘let her’ ruin my night? My mother grabbed my flesh and waggled it in front of the world.”
“First, nobody saw.” Sam laced his fingers behind his head. “Second, time to pull away. You’re forty-three. Why can’t you stop renting her space in your head?”
Daphne pressed her lips, refusing to enter this soundtrack of their marriage. He loved her. Body and soul. He’d give anything for that to be sufficient. Yada, yada, yada. She became so tired of defending her judgment that she wanted to tell him to take his love for her and shove it. Which proved her stupidity evermore.
“If I had the answer to that, I’d be a hundred ten pounds.”
“You’re doing it again. How many times must I prove I find you sexy before you stop worrying about Sunny’s view of you? Do we have to wait until she dies?”
“God, Sam. She’s my mother.” As she said the words, she thought how much her mother’s death would release her. “What a horrible thing to say.”
“You know what else is horrible? Your mother ruling my sex life.”
Daphne opened her mouth to answer him, but not a single response seemed equal to the cruelty of his words—that this was a rare misstep for Sam made the moment hurt no less—nor did the meanness make his words less true.
> CHAPTER 9
* * *
DAPHNE
The following evening, with Gabe and Rosie back at Tufts University, and Sam holed up in his study, Daphne hungered for quality time with her daughter. She followed the television chatter emanating from the family room, determined to connect with Audrey. Seeing her daughter at the wedding, so nearly adult, Daphne wanted to pull in those last moments they might have before college.
Audrey curled on the large brocade couch, facing the enormous television hanging on the wall. On the coffee table, a minuscule pottery bowl held about a dozen peanuts.
“What are you watching?”
“Pounded.” Audrey drew her legs in to allow room for Daphne. “Don’t you recognize it?”
“Guess not. Sorry.”
“Jeez, Mom. I record it every week.”
Daphne turned her attention to the screen, where an enormous woman wearing a workout bra and Lycra bike shorts stood on a massive scale. Her arms looked like they were twice the size of Audrey’s thighs. Rolls of fat showed both under and over the stretched fabric.
The number 278 flashed on the screen above her.
“What is this?” Daphne reached for a peanut. Honey roasted. Salty sweet grit.
Audrey answered without moving her head. “I told you: Pounded.”
“Yes. But what is it?”
“A reality show.” Audrey glanced at her with disbelief. “You never heard of it?”
“You watch this?”
“Everyone watches it.”
Another woman stepped on the oversized scale, her bra top twinned by a second set of breasts formed by fat hanging down below the stretched fabric. Bright red numbers blinked 341, 347, 351.
Daphne, caught between fear, disgust, and overwhelming curiosity, peered at the television, wanting to freeze and study it but unwilling to reveal her fascination.
Looking away was impossible. Fat people, fatter than her, far, far, fatter, displayed like pinned bugs, letting America—maybe the entire world; maybe the secret obese of France also sat glued to their sets—see them in all their flesh.
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