All Dressed Up (33 page)

I’m your
biological mother, Billy.

Oh, okay Emma,
no biggie.

She managed to
limit the expression of her guilt to a matter-of-fact, “You looked
fast asleep before. I didn’t think you’d wake up for a while. I’ll
plug you back in, okay?”

He nodded
again. Lainie hugged both of them good-bye – Oh God that was a
step-grandmother hug she gave to Billy, definitely! – and Emma got
him settled in the bed, smoothed out the sheets and pillows, made
sure the I.V. line and the cord plugging in the monitor were out of
his way, asked if he wanted to watch a video.

Okay.

She trundled
in one of the bulky TV monitors with its attached, ancient video
player, both of them chained to the wheeled stand, then found a
Disney movie in a battered-looking plastic case. She held her
breath through a minute of static and flickery image until the dirt
on the magnetic heads cleared and the picture steadied.

The hospital
probably wouldn’t update to DVDs any time soon because the
increasing obsolescence of video made the movies less likely to be
stolen. Who stole things from the goddamn pediatric floor of a
hospital? The parents of the sick kids? The people who cleaned up
the spills of bodily fluids? She hated that people stole things
from hospitals.

Thank God I’m
not a doctor any more.

Billy fell
asleep again in five minutes, Emma turned the movie sound down, and
only five minutes after that, Sarah came back. Ten minutes. She had
had ten minutes with him before Lainie arrived, and ten minutes
just now between Lainie leaving and Sarah showing up with the
Chinese food. Two lots of ten minutes, to rewrite ten years.

Start small,
Emma. Start like this.

The nurse put
her head in at the door. “So he peed, just now?”

“They’re not
measuring the output any more, are they?” Emma said.

“No, but I’ll
note that he did it. Nothing from the bowel?”

“He’s not
really talking. But I don’t think so. I’ll ask when he wakes
up.”

This is what
it is, it’s these little minutes. And when he’s home I should play
card games with him, and computer games, but not too lavishly and
enthusiastically and often, because that’s wrong, too.

On Wednesday
Billy went down for his second X-ray, which showed only a
negligible improvement in the state of his bowel. His surgeon came
at six-thirty in the evening to discuss their options. He
recommended the surgery, and said he hoped it could be done that
night, depending on what else was lined up for the O.R.

The Deans
waited all evening, with Mom repeating several times to Dad, or Dad
and Emma, or just to herself, “If they’re doing it, let’s have it
done! How much longer can he keep going with no food? He’s lost
almost eleven pounds, and he wasn’t big for his age.”

At nine
o’clock they were told that a big road trauma case had come in, the
O.R. staff were flat out, and Billy’s surgeon had decided to wait
until the morning. In the morning they were told that the surgery
had been scheduled for eleven. Billy had grown used to the N.G.
tube by this time, and had started talking again. His voice sounded
different. Plastic-flavored and nasal and tentative. With no
vomiting since Tuesday morning, he’d begun to feel better. He went
for a shower, managing with only a little help from the nurse, and
while he was in the shower cubicle a small but promising
development came.

It came on the
tiled floor instead of in the toilet bowl, but no one cared. “It’s
a good sign,” the nurse agreed.

There was
another delay in the O.R., and at around noon, Billy needed the
bathroom again. The nurse put a pan in there to catch the contents.
Mom told her, “I haven’t been this invested in his bowel activity
since he was a few months old.”

Emma took an
inner moment to observe that in this area, she was getting the
second chance she’d wished for – to be invested in her child’s
bowel activity as if he was newborn. She’d wanted to turn back
time, and this was how God, or whoever, had worked it. “Are you
going to tell his surgeon?” she prompted Mom. “We should tell the
surgeon. If there’s any chance he doesn’t have to have this second
operation…”

The surgeon
showed up without any advance warning, as usual, and agreed. He
proposed a revised plan. “We’ll send him for one more X-ray, and if
that shows any further improvement, we’ll hold off on the surgery.
We’ll leave him on Nil By Mouth until tomorrow morning, then
re-introduce clear fluids. If there’s the slightest sign that he’s
not tolerating them, then he’ll go straight into surgery, no more
messing around.”

Billy made
another sit-down visit to the bathroom in celebration.

“Wear this,”
Emma said. “This is gorgeous, where did you get it? I’ve never seen
it before.”

You have,
Sarah wanted to tell her, last winter in Bergdorf Goodman, when I
tried to convince you it could work for your wedding.

Emma held up
the dress on its hanger. Sarah had been proud of that hanger, or
rather, of the fact that the dress was on it. She’d taken it out of
the lavender shopping bag last Tuesday, the day Billy’s nasogastric
tube went in, after she’d come home from the hospital, with this
sense of My god, Billy might never be well again and yet I’m
incapable of hanging up a dress.

But not
capable of wearing it yet, it turned out. She felt sick. The sweet,
innocent little dress, victim of an over-protective childhood with
its impeccably finished seams and stitch-perfect detail, had no
idea of the havoc it caused. “I’ve had it a while. I’ve never worn
it. But I don’t think it’s the kind of thing you wear to a
bachelorette party and bridal shower,” she said.

“You’re right.
It’s too – “ Emma didn’t bother to finish. The possibilities were
understood. Classy. Demure. Likely to get stains.

A little giddy
with relief at Emma’s instant, uncomprehending support, Sarah added
rashly, “To the actual wedding, maybe.”

“To Brooke’s?”
They’d been invited, weeks ago, before Emma’s non-event. “Yes, I
think you could. You should. It’s not too close to white. It’s
butter.”

“I will,”
Sarah said, light-headed about the miracle of her progress. “I
will. I’ll wear it then.”

Not white.
Butter.

Angie sat in
Brooke’s friend’s apartment for the crowded first segment of the
bachelorette party and bridal shower, getting a handle on the
guests the way she did with her clients.

Scott’s mom,
what was she wearing? Did she knit that sleeveless coat thing
herself? Scott’s aunt, one of those obese women who couldn’t even
crack a smile at anyone halfway skinny. The Dean girls, trying too
hard. Brooke’s nursing friends, E.N.s most of them, not R.N.s.
Angie so hoped Brooke would eventually go for the higher
qualification.

Scott’s mom
introduced the Dean girls to the aunt and there it went, a tiny nod
from the woman, her concrete face never moving a muscle and her
eyes piggy and cold. She sat in the middle of her gross fat, buried
alive. She had some kind of personality disorder, you had to
think.

Is that what I
have, too? Thinking such nasty thoughts about people?

But the party
was fun, it really was. Brooke’s maid of honor Nicole had purchased
large, red raspberry penis lollipops, penis Jell-O shot molds and
x-rated fortune cookies over the internet. She had also bought
t-shirts for the groom and each of his three attendants. They were
white and pec-hugging tight, and read in black lettering Life’s a
BITCH and Then You MARRY One.

Angie laughed
along with the other guests but inwardly cringed a couple of times
on her daughter’s behalf. They played a game called Know Your
Groom. Scott and his friends each had to roll up a pants leg.
Nicole put a blindfold on Brooke, and she had to feel each man’s
leg and pick which one was Scott’s. She felt Ben’s leg, Scott’s
friend Kyle’s, Scott’s, Scott’s brother Paul’s, and stopped
there.

“This is so
easy!” She ran her fingers up and down Paul’s bare skin, and then
her tongue, and Angie nearly died for her.

“It’s not
his!” she burst out, but no one heard. They were screaming with
laughter, and when Brooke pulled the blindfold off, she joined in.
Scott didn’t seem to mind at all.

The men left
after the games. Brooke unwrapped the gifts, her cheeks so pretty
and pink and her eyes sparkling, as excited as Ash would have been.
Ash was home with a sitter. Nicole opened champagne and the
atmosphere became more raucous. Angie tried not to sit stiffly,
tried to smile at Scott’s mother, even though Scott’s mother’s
dress was so horrible she couldn’t understand how it had ever even
been made, let alone hung on a rack in a clothing store, let alone
chosen, tried on and paid for.

They would be
heading out of here, soon. Brooke had invited Angie along to the
dinner and bar hop later on, but she didn’t think she’d go. “I
don’t want to cramp your style,” she’d said. “I’ll go back to your
place and take care of Ash, and then you don’t have to pay so much
for the sitter.”

She said as
much to Lainie now, leaning into her shoulder and murmuring out of
the side of her mouth. “I’m not coming to the dinner, I’m taking
over from the sitter in time to put Ash to bed.”

Lainie looked
uncomfortable and said, “Oh, Angie, I was counting on you. I barely
know anyone else.”

“You know the
Dean girls.” Lainie had been talking mainly to them.

“That’s true.”
She smiled. “It’s good to see Emma like this, letting her hair
down.”

Lainie looked
so pretty today. Shockingly so. Blooming like a rose. Her rusty
hair suited her. She’d always had her height as an asset. It was so
hard for a shorter woman not to get dumpy, and not to be faced with
that impossible choice of having breasts that stuck out like
military hardware or else letting them slump down almost to your
waist, which was only a few inches below the hardware position when
you didn’t have the height.

Angie her
whole adult life would have practically killed for the height. Not
model tall, but just the extra five or six inches that Lainie had,
five feet seven inches, to Angie’s five feet one. It’s the little
things, Lainie, even when they’re not your fault.

And had she
even lost some weight? To be honest, you would have only said she
was around forty-two or -three, if you didn’t know, the way she was
laughing with Sarah and Emma. Was it that man? That Mac, making her
so rosy and fresh? Were they seeing each other? Where had they met?
The jealousy made a sick well in the pit of Angie’s stomach and she
just couldn’t hold it in. “Careful, though, with the Dean girls,”
she said. “Don’t you think you’re embarrassing yourself a little
bit, there?”

“No, I – Am I,
Angie?”

“Trying to be
so close to your one-time daughter-in-law and her family? Don’t you
think it looks bad? Like you’re crawling to try to bring them back
together? And what if they don’t? You can’t hardly go on seeing the
Deans if Charlie and Emma break up for good.”

Lainie flushed
and Angie sensed her vulnerability. She felt a little rush, a sick,
reluctant, triumphant rush, and couldn’t stand herself, but still
it wouldn’t stop. “You’re fifty-two years old, Lainie.” For another
three months she could relish the fact that she was on the right
side of fifty and Lainie wasn’t. “We had our turn. I’d be the first
to admit I don’t feel forty-nine, more like thirty-five, but that’s
our own denial, it’s not the reality. Just look in the mirror!”

Lainie’s mouth
dropped open. “I did look in the mirror.”

“And what did
you see, honey? Be honest!”

“I saw myself
looking happy.” She flushed again. “I know I don’t look
thirty-five. I don’t think I’m behaving the wrong way with the
Deans. Angie, if you’re not totally happy about having Scott for a
son-in-law, if that’s why you’re trying to avoid getting to know
his mother better and being so negative about your daughter’s dress
and her shower and – ”

“I haven’t
said a word about her dress! Or about Scott’s mother. Let alone
those goddamn lollipops!”

“It’s so often
what you don’t say, though, isn’t it?” Lainie’s eyes were bright
and swimmy as if she might cry. “Why don’t you say it to me? Am I
not exactly the person you should share that kind of thing with? To
me, of all people, why do you pretend so much?” Her back was
straight and proud, as if she was in the right. Don’t you dare do
that to me, Lainie, don’t you use those weapons. “You really
confuse me, Angie! You do so many lovely things, you’re so
generous, we spend so much time together, but then half the time I
think you don’t even like me! Admit it. Tell me the truth. You
don’t even like me.”

It was true.
“Lainie, you’re my best friend.” That was true, too.

Lainie looked
at her.

“Champagne
goes to my head,” Angie said, to excuse what she was about to say
next. “I’m jealous of you, if you want the truth. Of the way things
work out for you.”

“Work
out?”

“Charlie’s a
brain surgeon and you don’t even know who his father was. Wade did
the right thing and married me, and ended up a corrections officer
with a mean streak a mile wide and we’re divorced. I give you
advice from the kindness of my heart and you don’t take it and
still things work out. That man, where did you even meet him?”

“Charlie’s
father?”

“No, that man
from the other day in your front yard. Mac.”

“He’s the
minister at St James. He’s the one who was supposed to do the
wedding.”

“And now
you’re going out. Don’t tell me he’s just the minister, because I
could see it.”

“You don’t
want me to have a boyfriend?”

“Not when I
don’t have one. Not when you weren’t even trying.” Just look at
Lainie’s face, stricken yet seeing right into me. “Don’t start,”
Angie cut her off. “Don’t give me your pep talk. I just wish I
understood – ”