Slim Chance. Jackie Rose
know what to do without you. And you’re a much better person when you’re with him. And since you’re not breaking up anytime soon, you might as well tie the knot!”
“That’s exactly how I feel about it!” I knew she’d understand. “And I hope you know that this doesn’t mean things are going to change. We can still do all the things we planned, like our California road trip. Bruce doesn’t have to come.”
“You bitch!” Morgan laughed, impressed.
“Well, maybe we can all go together—you, me, Bruce and Billy.”
She snorted and said, “As long as they take a separate car.”
Morgan really is happy for me, which is good, since she’s the only one whose opinion counts. Whenever Bruce and I hit a rough spot, like when he wanted to get a cat, and I said I’d prefer to eat a cat, she knew just what to say to make me feel like I wasn’t being a bitch. There’s a very fine line between being right and being wrong, and Morgan helps me not to cross onto the wrong side. After all these years, she knows Bruce almost as well as I do, and isn’t afraid to point out what a jerk I can be, or how rare it is to find a guy you can trust.
Morgan’s a hell of a lot better at getting me to see the errors of my ways than my mom is, especially when Bruce and I are in a fight. Somehow, Mom has a way of getting Bruce to sound like medicine that’ll cure what’s wrong with me. It just makes me want to go home and flush him down the toilet.
Since I was still a little pissed off at her for last month’s whole therapy debacle (Cosmopolitan, August: “Does Your Mother Need Help? Tell It To Her Like It Is!”), and lest her reaction have the unanticipated side effect of me changing my mind, I thought I’d spare myself the trauma of a live scene and call her with the good news on speakerphone instead. I like secretly putting her on speaker. Bruce never used to believe me when she said something awful. At first he felt a bit guilty about it, but after he heard all the hideous things she says to me, he could no longer deny the pure entertainment value.
“Oh, Evelyn,” she sniffed, “I’m so happy for you.” Understatement of the century. She’s been dreaming about this moment for twenty-seven years. “I knew he’d get around to it eventually, 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!”