The Careless Bride: A Novel In Progress

When I pulled my car into my mother's driveway, I sat still, just listening to music on the radio, and looking up at her enormous, pale yellow house. I thought it would be a good time to smoke a cigarette if I weren't seven months pregnant and if I hadn't quit years ago. I sat there and waited until the song was over, because it was Bob Dylan. His songs ran long.

Going into my mom's world felt so familiar and so foreign to me at the same time. It made me think of a movie I saw ages ago that got terrible reviews, The Long Kiss Goodnight with Geena Davis. She plays a suburban housewife who gets into a car accident. When she stumbles out of her car all bloody and disoriented, she sees the deer she hit, not quite dead yet, but suffering horribly, and she goes over to it and snaps his neck. That's her first clue that she had this whole other life where she was an assassin. She realizes she has all these other skills-- she can put together machine guns, give herself stitches. Going back into my mom's crazy upper class life, I felt like that, except instead of knowing how to kill people, I could recognize china patterns.

Miguel answered the door. "Mrs. Olivia! Hello, how are you?" He was dressed in his butler uniform, black pants and button down white shirt, even though it wasn't quite dawn.

"Tired. You must be too."

"Mrs. Barclay is back." He smiled, as if he were happy about it. "She's this way."

My mother was in the library. She blew her nose into a silk handkerchief, which, remarkably, she did soundlessly. When she saw me, she stood up in her white nightgown and walked over-- all pale skin and pale, yellow hair. She was so thin, she looked almost two dimensional, like a beautiful ghost. "Hello, Sweetie. It's so good to see you." She kissed me on the cheek. I hugged her bony body lightly, always afraid I'd break her, as if she were one of her Lalique figurines.

My mother's fragility always made me uncomfortable and anxious too. I didn't want to be like her, weak and needy for company, aimlessly wandering the resorts of the world, from one whiskey sour to the next, one boytoy to another. My mother always chose male companions for how she looked at their side, which was more difficult than selecting a mate for how he looked at her side. That was one of the conundrums of being a rich woman: pulling off the sidekick role, still being a foil, so the man can feel like a man even when his woman is richer than God.

Because mom's money could be so emasculating, she compensated, pretty successfully, with incompetence and helplessness, like a modern day version of those upper class women who fainted all the time. Mom couldn't operate simple things: remote controls, burglar alarms, car doors. She frequently lost stuff too, essential small objects like keys or heirloom earrings, that had to be found by some sexy man's eagle eyes, his Superman X-ray vision. She tripped frequently, Ally McBeal-like, giggling girlishly and reaching out for strong, Harrison Ford shoulders to steady her. That sequence of minor dependencies seemed to keep her femininity intact effectively enough to pull off short-term relationships.

But the whole princess in distress act sucked for me. I wanted a parent who could do shit. Instead, when there was no guy around, I had to step in. Of course, there were people working for her that could always be summoned, but when the two of you are sitting there, and someone has to work the VCR, it was much easier to just fucking do it. And those tasks may have seemed trivial or even meaningless, but they weren't. It was about being able to function in the world or being continually baffled by it. And in our screwed up mini-family dynamic, I got the functionary role. I was the one who could drive, navigate, work the stereo, use a corkscrew. That is to say, I was the man of the family.

My father was never around. They divorced when I was two, and he was always way too busy for me. When they met, he was a famous communist leader in Berkeley, and he became a Poli-Sci Professor there. He always had important things to do for the Revolution. Surprisingly, when my parents split, my dad fought my mom for joint custody and won. That was a big deal for a dad back in the seventies, and the case even got some press attention. I still have the clippings. My father saw that battle as part of his larger one; it offended his principles of equality that mom would get full custody of me just because she was a woman, or even worse, because she was rich. But it turned out Dad was into the idea of equality, not the reality. He rarely showed up when he was supposed to. At first, he'd call to make excuses, but then he just stopped coming. And from the bevy of women that surrounded him -- female TAs, honor students and young, tenure track professors-- all devoted and cult like, you'd never know that, at one time, he'd pretended to care about gender equality. Turns out that even revolutionaries needed people to lick envelopes and Xerox documents and make coffee for them.

"What would you like to drink, Olivia?" my mother asked as we sat down on her floral love seat.

"Water would be great."

"With lemon?" asked Miguel.

"Sure, thanks Miguel."

"And I'll have a scotch," said my mother. She put her empty crystal glass on his tray.

"So, what happened with Paolo?" I reached out for her hand. Her nails were short, perfect ovals, manicured, but unpolished. My mom thought polish was tacky.

"Latin men can be so jealous." She took a cracker off a plate that had a some cheeses and smoked salmon slices on blinis, dotted with crème fraiche and capers. Then she put her cracker back down. "We went to a party at the American Ambassador's. Marilyn Folger knows him, and he's such a wonderful man. She told me to look him up, so of course I did. He was so knowledgeable about China." She smiled in admiration. My mother had a beautiful smile, the kind that people say lights up a face, lights up a room, lights up the universe. She had the kind of cheekbones you could see from the back of her head. "And Paolo, he just can't speak well. He really should improve his English. I found a wonderful teacher for him months ago. But he made such little progress. It's a shame." She made a sad face, pouting her lower lip, an expression that annoyed me so much, the whole little girl thing, that I had to look away. Then she said, "Miguel has done so well with his English."

"Miguel's your butler, mom."

"That doesn't mean he's not intelligent."

"Oh God, I'm not saying Miguel isn't intelligent. I'm saying his motivation is different. His job is to please you. Paolo isn't your servant."

"You know I hate it when you call them servants. It's so disrespectful," my mother said.

If my mother were a superhero, she would be called "Irritating Woman," and her super power would be her ability to warp and distort things. She twisted around words I said into absurdities I never intended. But, to be fair to my mom, Henry had made fun of Paolo's English too. It was awful. And you couldn't have a relationship with someone you couldn't talk to. Paolo never seemed like the sharpest tack in the box. Still, I found myself empathizing with him, his inability to be fascinating enough to hold my mother's attention.

I had a hard time keeping her interested myself, and it made me sad. When I finally went to college, I thought I would be happy to be free of amusing her, just exit her whole glittery world and not look back. But she'd call me at odd hours wanting to talk. And I was relieved when she did. I worried about her constantly, wondering if she remembered to use her emergency brake when she parked the Mercedes on a steep hill. I wasn't always entertaining for my mom, but I was necessary. When I went away from her, I realized her neediness had made me feel important and powerful, and that even her selfishness and self-absorption made me feel superior to her in a way I liked. I finally understood-- and I don't know why it took me so long to get it-- that she had romanced me just as she had her suitors, kept me close, gave me an identity even, by making me feel so essential to her daily survival. Ironically, that role had become so much a part of me that without it, I felt lost.

Then sophomore year at Columbia, I read an article for a Women's Studies class: "The Masculinization of Wealth" by Gloria Steinem. Everything changed for me right then. I had one of those moments that everyone does in college, where my whole life made sense in a new way. I called my mother. I was going to rescue her once and for all. We would start a women's center together and save the world.

"Don't you get it, mom?" I said. "Women have made it to middle management, but look at the upper classes, the people with power, the people we grew up with, the gender disparity is huge. Look at our family-- all the men are running the world and all the women are dieting." Then I quoted Gloria directly, "The closer women are to power, the weaker they must be kept."

"I'm so glad you like school, Olivia," my mother said. "Did you look up Estee Lauder's grandson yet?"

So then I called my Dad, the freedom fighter Marxist, and he said to me, "Olivia, you're not comparing sexism to poverty?"

"Poverty is sexist dad. Women are disproportionately poor." But he wasn't listening. He was saying something about Cesar Chavez and then Che Guevera, finishing off with how rich women had nothing to complain about but their own greed. Later, when Princess Diana died, my Dad was completely baffled. He had no idea what all the fuss was about.

I didn't care much for Paolo, or any of my mom's boyfriends, but I wanted her to see his side, just a glimmer of it, recognize her solipsism. So I said to her, "Maybe Paolo was thinking that you should learn Spanish. Or that you should both learn Chinese. After all, you were in China. Why should you be speaking English in China?"

My mother looked around for her scotch.

"I'm just saying that Latinos are the fastest growing population in the U.S.," I said. "Probably, we should all learn Spanish."

"Olivia, I think it's wonderful to be multi-lingual. That's why I wish you would keep up with your Italian."

"Maybe Paolo thought you were being controlling, trying to make him over. You know, like you're Henry Higgins, and he's Eliza Doolittle." I tried to put things in a way that would make sense to my mother, to speak rich. My mom thought I was most irritating when I spoke to her as if she were mentally handicapped. She lowered her head and raised both eyebrows, looking up at me, another expression I hated, but she looked beautiful when she condescended like that, the angles of her face lit up from above, her blonde hair falling into her face.

"Oh, Olivia," she said, "You should have seen him. He was so glum and unappreciative of the ambassador's hospitality. I was embarrassed he was so rude. He sulked."

I could picture the whole scene-- my mom looking gorgeous, dazzling all those bored diplomats. "So what happened?" I put Brie on a cracker and ate it.

"When we left, he simply couldn't shake his mood. The next day, he was the same way. So I told him I'd had enough, and I left."

"You just left? You left him in China?"

"Well, I don't know if he's still there. It took me a whole day to get back." She began crying again.
"Mom, it's okay." She put her head on my shoulder.

"I liked Paolo very much. He just wasn't good socially," she said. "I really did want to see more of China. I think I might go back in June."

"When in June?"

"Oh, I don't know. Early June."

"My due date is early June."

"Sweetie, I didn't know you wanted me to be here when you have the baby."

"I just assumed you'd be here."

"I don't know how helpful I could be. And I thought your father would be here." My mother never referred to my father by his name. While he was the opposite. Whenever he talked about her, he called her "Helen."

"You think Dad is going to be helpful?" I knew I was sneering. Unlike my mother, I couldn't pull off looking good when I was talking down. On TV, I'd seen myself roll my eyes like a pissed off adolescent.

"Well, he lives here. You are having the baby here, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Olivia, I had no idea you wanted me here."

"I want you here," I said. "I don't want you to be with the Ambassador to China when I am giving birth to your grandchild."

"Please don't be dramatic."

"Having a baby is dramatic. It's a big dramatic, bloody scene. Don't you remember?"

"They put me out when I had you. And I'm glad they did. I don't know why they stopped doing that, having all these people in there like it's a Broadway show. It should be a private thing, between you and your doctor. Anyway, do we have to talk about all this now? I am so tired and upset. You must be tired, too. I never should have woken you."

Right on cue, Miguel came in with our drinks, and mom reached out for her scotch, taking it straight from his hand, having one sip and then another. He put my water down on an etched glass coaster and handed us linen napkins pressed into stiff squares.

"Oh, I almost forgot," she said. "I saw these beautiful baby clothes, and immediately, I thought of you." My mother pulled up a silver box from behind the sofa with a silky, yellow ribbon and handed it to me. Under lavender tissue was a black, cashmere sweater and matching pants.

"Oh my God, how beautiful. So tiny. You never see black baby clothes."

"I know you love black. Your daughter will, too. Or not." She smiled. Mom had spent my whole lifetime trying to get me to wear colors. Mainly, it was a seasonal issue for her, though also a geographic one. She couldn't stand it when we were in Palm Beach or Southampton, and I wouldn't wear something like coral. Even worse, I'd be with my friends I'd invited, somewhere like the Bath and Tennis club, and we'd all be in black. We huddled in the cabana right by the pool that my family had occupied for generations, drinking Bloody Marys, stubbing cigarettes out in an ashtray that had written on it, all around the perimeter in loopy cursive: "Follow the golden rule. He who has the gold makes the rules." Mom wanted us to lay out by the pool in bright, Lily Pulitzer bikinis, play croquet, and flirt with rich boys.

So those black cashmere baby clothes were a big deal, really touching, and I got teary eyed about it. The baby daughter I was going to have, who might or might not like to wear black. "They're perfect." I said. "Thank you."