but I was starting to wonder. It’s not like you’re getting any younger! Bruce are you there?”
She often has trouble choosing between the high road and the low road.
“Hi, Lilly. I’m here,” he said, stifling a laugh.
“Mom, wait till you hear how he proposed,” I said.
“Good, Bruce. You did good. So now you’ll officially be part of the family!” she said, ignoring me.
“That’s why I asked her.” Part of Bruce’s mission in life is to impress my mom.
“You got yourself a special girl, Bruce,” she continued. “You know that. Truth be told, though, she’s the lucky one. That’s what I’ve been telling her for years. But whether she’ll make a good wife or not, who knows?” They both cackled like hyenas.
“Ha, ha,” I said. “I’m still here, you know.”
“She’s going to make a great wife,” Bruce said, and squeezed my hand. “I have no doubt about that.”
“Well at least with Evie you can be sure there’s always gonna be enough to eat around the house!” she finished triumphantly. Bruce knew better than to laugh at this, although it looked like he wanted to.
“Aw, Lilly, you’re right. Evie is a great cook.”
Mom snorted. I don’t know which was more absurd to her—the fact that I might be a good cook (which I’m not) or the fact that her witless insult might accidentally have been misconstrued as a compliment.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not what she meant,” I said. Bruce snickered, and I shot him my meanest “you’re gonna get it later” glance.
“I just can’t believe it—my Evelyn, a married woman,” she said sweetly, and sighed. “After all these years…I just…I just…”
“You just what?” Enough already.
She somehow managed to compose herself, and continued. “I just never thought I’d be around to witness it.” I could just see her there, sitting at the kitchen table in her tiny apartment, her bottom lip trembling for effect with each tearful breath even though there was nobody around to witness it. She was trying to win Bruce back to her side.
“You’re really something,” I exploded. “Bruce is NOT impressed with this and neither am I. This silliness has got to stop. I mean, do you actually expect me to believe you thought you’d be DEAD before anyone wanted to marry me? Thanks a lot, but I don’t believe you!”
Bruce shook his head. “Now you’ve done it,” he said under his breath.
“Oh, Evelyn,” she sobbed, “being alone in this world is an awful, awful thing, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. To go through life alone is a curse…a punishment. I’m just thankful that at least you won’t have to.” There was that pesky high road, with a healthy dollop of guilt thrown in for good measure.
I wasn’t going to let her see that I felt bad. “Well you don’t have to worry about me anymore, Mom. I finally tricked some poor unsuspecting slob into marrying me.”
“I’d resent that if it weren’t true,” Bruce said. I laughed silently.
“Evelyn, dear, please don’t joke,” she sniffed. “Marriage is a holy institution.” So now she was pious.
It just wasn’t worth the aggravation. “Jeez, Mom, I never said you should be in an institution, I just thought maybe you should go and see someone. I think I’ve heard more than enough about this whole therapy thing. God, I wish I’d never brought it up.” It was either tease her or lose it completely.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do with you,” she sighed, exasperated. “Bruce loves you so much, Evelyn. And you love him so much.” Was that a direct order?
“So?”
“Marriage is a blessed union,” she continued. “Your whole lives are opening up before you. And it all starts with a wedding. A wedding! Oh, your grandmother will be so delighted. She’ll just flip out. Bruce, you’ll be making an old woman very, very happy.”
“C’mon, Mom, you’re not that old,” I said.
“Acch, you know what I mean, Evelyn. She really will be so happy to hear the news. Bruce, call her right away. Right now.”
Claire, my father’s mother, is pretty much the only family I have, aside from Auntie Lucy, Mom’s twin sister, who lives in England with her lame husband Roderick. After my dad died, Claire took Mom in for a few years, to help out with me and to get her back on her feet. If she hadn’t been around, I don’t know how Mom would have survived, especially since her own parents wouldn’t have anything to do with her. It’s not that I don’t understand the impulse to reject my mother; I do, but what a bunch of assholes they must have been to leave a grieving widow out in the cold just because my dad wasn’t Catholic. I know she tried to make peace with them a few times; after her mother died, when I was eight, she even brought me over to meet her dad, but he wouldn’t open the door. So Claire just kind of became her surrogate parent, united in grief and all that, I guess.
She’s the quintessential cool old lady, painting and taking classes and teaching self-defense to other rich old bags on the Upper East Side. My grandmother has also always been the arbiter between Mom and me. If it wasn’t for Claire, I probably would have killed her by now, especially after she wouldn’t let me go out West to school.
“We’ll call her right now,” I said.
“A wedding, at last! It’s going to be a real celebration,” Mom went on, her voice rising. I could hear ice cubes clinking in a glass. “Just like a fairy tale!”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Bruce interjected, sensing danger. We’d already decided that we wanted something very low-key, very elegant. I could just picture the big church wedding of my mother’s dreams—our worst nightmare.
“Well, whatever you want. As long as it actually happens, I don’t care,” she lied. “That you love each other, that you’re together, that you’ve opened your hearts to love—that’s the most important thing.” This from a woman who’s refused to go on a date in almost fifteen years.
Pruscilla worked me to the bone all week, to the point where all I wanted to do when I got home was eat dinner and go to bed. Okay—so that’s what I do every night. But this week I’d really planned to go for a jog every day after work and take at least three yoga classes at the Y (In Style, May: “Why the Stars Choose Yoga To Stay Fit”).
All this to say that I’d been engaged for over a week and had hardly told anybody yet. Not that I have a ton of friends; I prefer to limit my circle to a select few. Aside from Morgan, the only people I ever really hang around with are my roommates from college. Morgan doesn’t really like any of them too much. She thinks they’re all about getting ahead and giving it. I’d long ago given up on trying to integrate her into the group. Besides, they didn’t like her much, either.
When I did finally get around to sharing the good news, not everyone was as enthusiastic as Mom and Morgan. When I told Nicole, who might more aptly be called my arch rival than my friend, all she could manage after
