Molly and I were in cahoots. And the fact that I was clueless didn’t seem to make any difference. She looked at me and crossed her arms. “Karrie, you’re a smart girl. What do you think I’m talking about?”
“Molly, no offense. I have no idea.”
“You seeing anybody? I love to talk with single girls,” she confessed to Henry. “I know you just turned thirty so you must be interested in settling down.”
I looked up at Henry and smiled a closemouthed smile. Actually it was much more like a grimace.
“How are your grandchildren?” I asked Molly, changing the subject. “They look cute. How old are they now?”
“Jessica’s three and Zachary’s five next month. Wendy has her hands full. But my Scotty does very well, thank God, and she has help. You know, they have a very big house in Roslyn. You should visit. Maybe Scott has some friends for you.” She winked.
“Yeah,” I said, standing up and walking a few feet away. I put my leg up against the edge of the deck and knelt over it, stretching my calves as I contemplated a run.
“Grandma Molly, come here.” Molly turned her head to see Zachary on the deck calling her. “We’re hungry.”
“I should be getting back.” Molly stood and waved to Millie through the glass door. “See you later,” she said, walking to the edge of the deck and putting her hand on the handrail for support. “Don’t worry, Karrie. In this world all you need is a little mazel.”
“What was that?” I said. Henry went back to his paper. He didn’t want to get involved. “What was that, Henry? What’s the matter with her?”
“Keep your voice down,” he said, reaching to light his cigar. “She only meant well.”
My mother came back outside wearing a green-and-black-striped bathing suit with a white chiffon kerchief wrapped around her head.
“Who meant well?” Millie asked as she unfolded a reclining beach chair. She lay down on the chair, pulled the straps of her bathing suit down and basked in the sun.
“Do me a favor and don’t talk to anyone about me, Ma, okay?” I decided I would go for a run around the lake. I decided I might jump in.
“What did I say?”
“Nothing, no one said anything,” said Henry.
“She comes over here,” I said to my mother, pointing my head toward the Berger house, “and has a one-way dialogue with me, about my life. Asks the questions and even answers them herself.”
“Don’t pay attention,” my mother said. “I just wouldn’t answer her.”
“Just don’t pay attention,” said Henry.
I stopped stretching, stood up and leaned over my mother in her reclining position.
“What do you mean? Just have someone sit and invade my privacy and not care? Not answer? Just sit and let people talk at me as if they were talking to a wall?”
“I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up about this,” Henry said, flicking his cigar ashes into an ashtray. “She means well.”
Millie folded her right hand across her chest, holding her bathing suit up, while she used her left to prop up her body.
“I don’t know why you take everything so personally,” she said.
“She’s talking about me. It’s personal.”
“She doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just conversation, Karrie.”
“Mom. It’s condescending.”
“It’s not condescending, it’s talk. If you were happy it wouldn’t bother you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just what I said. If you were happy it wouldn’t bother you.”
“What makes you think I’m not happy?”
“I don’t want to talk anymore,” Millie said, lying back down. “Talk to Henry.”
“People just want to see you happy,” he explained.
“People just want to gossip,” I said.
“So what?” said Millie. “What do you care?”
“Would you like people to come to you and feel they can comment on your life?”
“There’s nothing to comment on in my life,” said my mother. “My life is normal.”
“And what does that mean?”
“My life is a normal life,” my mother said defiantly. “I have a normal job, a husband, a daughter, a house. Normal.”
“By whose standards?” I was furious. “What makes you think anyone around here sets the standard for normalcy?” I made a grand gesture to the entire development of Nottingham Forest. It was just built and in its first year. I didn’t know anyone there so it was doubtful Molly and Hal did set the standard, but it proved my point. Or at least it tried to prove the only point I had.
“All right,” said Henry, putting out his cigar, “let’s drop it.”
“Let’s not,” I said.
“Let’s,” said my mother. “Let’s not ruin this day. You’re upset because you just turned thirty and you’re not married.”
“That’s absolutely not true! You’re upset that I just turned thirty and I’m not married. I’m not.” I wasn’t. But I was a little upset that I had just turned thirty. And I was a little more upset that I didn’t currently have a steady boyfriend. And I was really upset that I had just been released from being on hold for three national commercials. But that wasn’t the point. None of this was. Molly Berger was an annoying Yenta and nobody came to my defense. Nobody would let me say what I feel.
“I’m not upset about anything. I’m completely happy,” I said. “Completely.”
“Good,” said my mom. She resumed her reclining position on the beach chair. “Just keep in mind that it gets harder to meet someone as you get older. People meet when they’re in college. That’s the place to meet.”
“That’s where Lenny met Sharon,” said Henry.
“First of all, Henry, Lenny met Sharon after college. After graduate school. Years after. In a bar in Boston. You may have college mixed up with college town. Second of all, I didn’t want to get married to anybody in college. I don’t even want to get married to anybody now. I’m an actress.”
“So what does one thing have to do with the other?”
It was the first question my mother posed that made any sense and I started to think about it. I wanted to talk about it. What did one thing have
