By the Numbers (8 page)

“Who's this?” Kelsey demands, narrowing her eyes at Adrienne. Kelsey should consider becoming an eye-narrowing professional; truly, she sets the standard.

Also? Uh-oh.

“This is . . . This is . . .” I try to come up with something that won't set off Kelsey like so many atomic bombs.

Adrienne shifts her weight from one clunky Dansko to the other. “I am definitely not here in a professional capacity.”

Kelsey's eyes turn to slits. “What?”

“Isn't she funny? This is Adrienne. We've been seeing each other,” Topher says, slipping his arm around her waist. “Totally caj, haven't really mentioned her.” He plants a kiss on Adrienne's cheek, and she plays along beautifully, resting her head against his. “So glad you stopped by, Ades. Missed you much. Catch you on the flip side, bae.” Topher begins to guide her out the front door, his hand on the small of her back, but Kelsey blocks her exit.

Oh, boy, here it comes.

I brace myself.
Of course
Kelsey's not going to buy Topher dating a conservative former farm girl almost nine years his senior, especially with her messy bun and big plastic glasses, dressed in a cardigan with too-long sleeves, because she looks . . . well, actually, a lot like Kelsey's friends.

Wait, when did Kelsey's peer group start dressing like harried executive assistants from America's dairy land?

Kelsey begins shrieking and dancing around the entry hall.
“Topher is seeing someone? How is this possible? You have a GIRLFRIEND and you didn't tell me? No way! Ohmigod! Adrienne! You have to come to the wedding tomorrow! You HAVE to come! Say yes!”

Stricken, Adrienne pivots her gaze back and forth from me to Topher. “I have, um, a . . .”

“A date! With my baby brother! For my wedding! This is so great! I'm always so worried because he's
such
a gaylord! He never makes time for girls, but here you are, without any of us even knowing. At this point we all thought he was smooth like a Ken doll down there, right? Like practically neutered.”

In a heroic act of self-restraint, Topher says nothing. He's dated plenty of nice girls in the past few years, just none of them seriously enough to subject them to his sisters' scrutiny. And who could blame him?

Kelsey squeals, “This changes everything! I'm
so
happy. So you'll be there. Of course you will. Everything starts at six o'clock. See you then. This is going to be amazeballs!” With that, Kelsey gives Adrienne a squeeze and stomps back up the stairs. “Jessica! Jessica! You'll never guess who's not a eunuch!”

A stray Cherry, Cherry Danish wrapper floats down in her wake.

“Kelsey's not my favorite person right now,” Topher says. “Any chance she can just stay over there in Italy after her honeymoon? Like, forever?”

“We can always pray for an international incident,” I reply. To Adrienne, I say, “Please don't feel like you have to come.”

“Heck, I'm kind of afraid not to. Plus, I'm now invested in what happens with the tub,” she replies, hoisting her cross-body bag over her shoulder. “What should I wear? I have a black cocktail dress
that's cut pretty low in the back. You think that's okay, or will it be too much?”

“Sounds wonderful,” I reply.

Topher snorts. “Don't look at me.
I'm
a gelding, according to my sisters. Wait, you lived on a farm—what's a bull called when you castrate him?”

Adrienne replies, “A steer.”

“Then I'm a
steer
. Apparently you can show up naked and that would have no impact on me.”

Adrienne giggles. “Don't worry. I'll cover the R-rated parts at a minimum. I guess you've got yourself a date, Topher. I hope you know how to do the Wobble. Anyway, take it easy today, Penny, and please know I'll keep Vanessa from unlawfully entering your office. She did try yesterday, but I busted her. Pfft, like she doesn't have her own Scotch tape dispenser. See you tomorrow night.” She exits and makes her way down the long drive, pausing to chat with Patrick, who has just arrived and is staring at the tub.

At some point in the conversation, Marjorie materialized behind us. “You have a date with that clever girl?” She ruffles Topher's hair. “Bloody well-done, lad.”

• • • •

“Twirl.”

I oblige.

“Love. Love, love,
love
.”

“Really?” I ask, turning to inspect my reflection in profile. “You're not just blowing sunshine up my skirt?”

“When have I
ever
done that?” Patrick asks.

“Excellent point.”

We're up in the master bedroom, and I'm taking a break from the Great Immovable Tub Crisis to model my mother-of-the-bride dresses for Patrick. Jessica's been busy wrangling bridesmaids and Kelsey's too wrapped up in being Kelsey, but even if they weren't both preoccupied, I'm not sure either would much care what I wore.

Patrick, on the other hand, hasn't stopped agonizing over my options since the moment Milo and Kelsey Instagrammed their engagement announcement from the Mumford & Sons show.

Patrick lounges on my puffy white duvet, nestled between all eighteen of my artfully arranged throw pillows, which is one of the few upsides to now being single. I can keep as many goddamned pillows on the bed as I'd like.

“Take the compliment, bitch. You look phenomenal in
both
the dresses you picked out. No one's more surprised than me about this. But the tickets to the gun show?” he says, referring to my newly toned arms. “That's just
beyond
. You look like a less ropy Madge. I knew you'd been working out but did not know you'd gotten so cut.”

Ever since I stopped monkeying around with Pilates and started pumping iron, I've seen a change in my body for the better. My shoulders are square and my muscles tightly defined for the first time since I used to swim all those summers ago. Apparently I still had triceps and biceps hiding underneath all that middle-aged skin; who knew?

“Did you just compare my upper body to Madonna's?”

Patrick nods and fiddles with a tassel on one of the smaller, tufted, down-filled models. Chris did not understand the feminine fascination with multiple pillows. He claimed no one ever needed more than two pillows, because that's enough to prop yourself up to read or watch
SportsCenter
in bed. Anything past
that is just egregious. “I did. Your shoulders and back, too. Oh! I know! Remember when Kate was doing the rowing machine before the royal wedding? That's what you remind me of—that shot of her on the boat in the black tank top and those leggings. Bravo. Mean it.”

Full confession? I sort of don't love the pillows now, either, and I see what Chris meant. Yes, I cackled with glee as I sped down the aisles of Bed Bath & Beyond, tossing in cushions with abandon. I must have looked like a lunatic, careening past all the candles and wineglasses and towers of towels, filling three whole shopping carts in my zeal. Then I came home and shouted expletives as I placed every single goddamned, ass-reaming, shit-snacking, goat-sucking one of the bastards on top of the new duvet cover and
it felt good
. Not Terry-McMillan-
Waiting
-
to
-
Exhale
-set-his-car-ablaze good, but still supremely satisfying. But now? Now it's like playing a never-ending game of Tetris every morning when I make the make the bed and each evening when I strip it.

“Did you know your triceps are actually a three-headed muscle—hence the ‘tri' prefix—and they comprise about two-thirds of the overall mass of the upper arm? I see people in the gym only hitting their biceps and I think, ‘You're never going to achieve proper definition without compound movement. No mass for you
.
'” I flex in demonstration, pointing out the brachii lateral, medius, and longus. “See?”

He tosses a (cursed) pillow at me. “Only you could nerd-up pumping iron.”

I duck, but he still pegs me. “It's a gift.”

Patrick says, “Remember Gam-Gam's arms?” referring to Marjorie and Auntie Marilyn's mother. Our maternal grandmother was a true victim of the times. As a teenager during Prohibition, she
made a small fortune brewing, bottling, and distributing her own beer here in Chicago, only for our grandfather to gamble away her whole nest egg once they were married. She never forgave him, but she never left him, either. If the world were different back then, I have no doubt she'd have kicked his butt to the curb and then gone off to run a Fortune 500 company. Instead, she had seven children to whom she showed nothing but indifference and an occasional flash of contempt. The whole story makes me sad.

“Gam-Gam's arms were like a couple of kimono sleeves made out of flesh. Kind of glad she wasn't a hugger.”

“Talking about Gam-Gam always puts our mothers into perspective, doesn't she? Marilyn and Marjorie may be obnoxious and controlling, but at least they want to be involved in our lives, you know?” Patrick refluffs the bolster behind his back.

“Lucky us.”

I ran the numbers on the damn pillows, by the way. I spend about four minutes each morning putting the pillows on the bed, which means it takes me four minutes to clear them off the bed. I may be under the weather a few times a year and I don't make my bed those days. If you factor in time I'm traveling, let's say I go through this ritual twice a day, three hundred and fifty times each year. That works out to twenty-eight hours. If I live another thirty years—and the actuarial tables do favor this outcome—that works out to eight hundred and forty hours moving pillows. That is
thirty-five full days
. More than one full month of my life. I will spend
more than one month of my life
engaged in the Sisyphean task of arranging feather-filled discs on this bed, only to move them around again twelve hours later because I have the pathological need to prove something to the one person who I can guarantee will never actually sleep in this bed again.

Of course, every one of these pillows is a metaphorical way of saying, “Bite me, Chris Sinclair,” so you can see my dilemma.

Patrick says, “Anyway, let's not speak too ill of the dead. I don't trust that bitch not to haunt us. Back to you and your new guns. Let me say this—the Divorce Diet may have destroyed your psyche, but, girl, it's done wonders for your physique.”

“Tell me more about how fab I look. Please spare no detail,” I say, but I can't hear his response, what with all the screaming.

For a second I wonder if the specter of Gam-Gam has found a way to break through from the spiritual realm and we've somehow accidentally summoned her à la
Beetlejuice
, but then I recognize the familiar timbre.

Ah, yes—that's pure Kelsey we're hearing.

We both take off down the hallway, our instincts kicking in—mine propelling me toward my child, who sounds to be in pain, in danger, in trouble of the worst sort, and Patrick, who's automatically drawn to anything smacking of drama or intrigue. Our sock-clad feet slip and skid on the hardwood, and we both end up inadvertently
Risky Business
–ing into Kelsey's room.

“Quite the entrance,” Jessica remarks as Kelsey draws a breath to howl again. Jessica's perched in the window seat across the room from Kelsey's bridesmaids, who are clad in their dresses and forming a protective semicircle formation around the bride. Then I realize that Kelsey's trying on her gown, too. I try not to feel bothered that I was excluded from this moment.

“What on earth is the matter? What happened?” I ask, noticing the splotches on Kelsey's chest. “Are you hurt? Are you bruised? Were you
hit?
Wait, are those . . . birds?”

Kelsey begins to wail in earnest. While she's a striking girl, fair-skinned and symmetrical, with high cheekbones and bow-
shaped lips, she is not a pretty crier. I'm talking a veiny-headed, red-rimmed, pinchy-pinchy, snot-bubbled fish mouth here. Jessica, on the other hand? Cries like a movie star, and tears simply make her lashes look thicker and her eyes bluer. (Of course, Jessica would never deign to allow anyone to see her so vulnerable.)

“Are you upset about your tattoos, sweetie? Do you have buyer's remorse? We can get some Dermablend and cover them right up. You know, thirty-six percent of your peer group has ink, so it's not a big deal either way,” I offer by way of comfort.

“Noooooooo,” she sobs. “I love my sparrows.”

That's when I notice all the bridesmaids have a matching sparrow tattooed on their collarbones as well, save for her friend Zara, who has a duck in flight in the same spot instead. A mallard, I believe.

“Then what is it? Honey, I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong.”

From behind me, Patrick leans in and quietly says, “Girl, you'll be a waffle soon.
Real
soon.”

Bella, her maid of honor, with a heavy fringe of bangs poking out from under a crocheted cap reminiscent of what Gam-Gam used to cover the spare roll of toilet paper, steps aside, and I spot the problem. Kelsey's dress won't zip.

At all.

“When was your last fitting?” I ask.

“I'd guess it was before she was elected mayor of Carb Town,” Jessica offers with a smirk.

“Not helpful!” I say. “Where's the dressmaker?” I try to recall the name on the check I'd written, having never been invited to the shop. Was it in the city? The suburbs? I don't actually know. “We'll go there now and have a seam let out. This is easy. This isn't hardball; this is softball. Wiffle ball, no problem.”

“The lady's out of town,” Bella says. “She's making the dresses for a destination wedding and she's there doing the final alterations. That's why we had to pick up the gown early.”

“Then on to Plan B. Jessica, you can sew, right? You took classes.”

She shakes her head vigorously. “Not under these circumstances, I can't, not for this goat rodeo. I'm not going to be held responsible for her happiness.”