Read Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter: A Memoir Online

Authors: Melissa Francis

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Personal Memoirs, #Entertainment & Performing Arts

Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter: A Memoir (32 page)

BOOK: Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter: A Memoir
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“When’s Dana coming?” Wray asked as we boarded United’s flight to L.A.
“Thursday. Which seems like a year from now.” I was banking on Dana to be my life jacket during this storm and keep me laughing. She always had the perfect quip or sarcastic remark to remind me that my mom’s nitpicking and crazy making was not life or death. It was like traveling with your own stand-up comic. I knew that when Mom fumed about some imaginary insult from a friend or family member or obsessed about the centerpieces, Dana would have the perfect joke about how our marriage hinged on the number of roses on each table.
Wray tried to soothe my nerves, but he didn’t take them that seriously. He was relentlessly positive about the rest of the wedding week. He thought he could smooth over any bumps in the road. I wasn’t sure he understood that smoothing over landmines didn’t stop them from exploding. Still my worrying wasn’t helping and I’d been snappy with him all evening, barking at him all the way to the taxi that we were leaving for the airport too late. I didn’t want to start our future life together this way.
“I’m really happy to be getting married. It’s not that. I’m just a little stressed about how this wedding is going to turn out. Bringing all these different worlds together seems like we’re courting disaster. My friends, your friends, your family, and my family . . .”
Initially, I’d been most concerned about Mom, who could be offended by the change of a stoplight. I’d seen her return a dish of food at a restaurant just to spite a waiter. She’d stopped talking to each of her sisters for years at a time over simple disagreements, like whose turn it was to pick up the check. Already, she’d channeled a little hostility my future mother-in-law’s way for no reason, dismissing or denigrating any of her ideas for the wedding weekend. Wray’s mom had even chosen a gray dress for the ceremony so she wouldn’t upstage anyone, but when she’d called to tell Mom about her dress, Mom was put out by the intrusion. It was irrational. I just wanted her to play nice this one time.
But I was actually most concerned about my sister, who didn’t even come to my bachelorette weekend in New York, when all my bridesmaids and close friends came to the city for a final weekend of staying out all night bar-hopping without boyfriends or husbands.
“It’s so far, and I don’t really know your friends. You don’t want me to come. I’m too old for you guys anyway!” she’d protested.
I’d told her that wasn’t true. But in my heart, I was relieved. She’d gone from being a party girl to a recluse in my parents’ house. All she had left was a few friends from Berkeley that she didn’t see much. She’d had a few jobs working in legal offices in the past year, but couldn’t hold on to them, telling us her job had been eliminated, or she didn’t like her boss. There was always a reason the job didn’t last. She didn’t go out with friends anymore. She hadn’t even wanted to go out with me and Wray the last time we visited. My parents had gone from concerned to frustrated to helpless.
Now I was flying in for this all-consuming wedding. Her little sister was getting married. I felt guilty about the position I was putting her in, how I’m sure my wedding made her feel, that I was leapfrogging her one last time, getting married first. And at the same time I felt resentful. I wished she could just share my joy, and I could share hers. That’s what sisters were supposed to do. But I had no idea how to help her make some joy of her own. She was stuck, and even worse, sinking.
 
 
When we arrived in Westlake Village, Wray took me to my parents’ house and abandoned me after a quick hello to my family. He checked into a nearby hotel with his family, where most of our guests would be staying too. The plan was for us to stay apart until the actual wedding. This was a horrible plan. I should have paid more attention when this scheme was being hatched.
The next two days were a series of gatherings where the wedding planner and my mom broke down the smallest decision into excruciating detail. Wray mostly hung out by the hotel pool and played golf with his groomsmen, while I got entangled in things I’d never notice on the wedding schedule, like who was going to tie two hundred bows on the programs I didn’t think we really needed anyway. Then when the programs disappeared, Mom blamed Wray’s side, none of whom had been within a hundred feet of them.
“Every time I enter a room, there’s a bunch of women crying,” Wray joked during one of the rare moments when I saw him. We were having lunch at Jack’s, a little café in Westlake Village Center.
“I’m dreading the rehearsal dinner tonight,” I said, taking a bite of salad. I had a hard time eating when I was stressed, and now most of the clothes I’d bought for the wedding week and honeymoon were hanging off me loosely. It was such a cliché to shrink before your own wedding, but I couldn’t help it.
“It’s going to be great. It’s a fish fry!” Wray said.
“Your mom realizes this is Southern California right? No one eats anything fried here. It’s like a sin. Even if it is fried, no restaurant would even admit it. It’s the kiss of death. They call it blackened or pan seared or pan-anything-but-fried.”
“Well, that’s more for us. She’s making everyone who came from Florida feel at home,” he said, always on his family’s side no matter what.
“Whatever. It’s sort of the least of my problems at this point. I gotta go back. I have another dress fitting.” I kissed him and bolted.
That night a hundred guests for the rehearsal dinner crowded into the courtyard of Lake Sherwood Country Club, just a few yards from where the wedding would take place the following day. A strong breeze swept through the clusters of couples as they stood in between the dining tables and chatted. Ladies more accustomed to Florida’s humid climate shivered in their short dresses as their dates held on to fluttering cocktail napkins. Waiters adjusted the temperature on the portable heaters they’d scattered through the party, even though it was nearly June.
Towering palms filled the center of each table, with delicate hanging votives dangling from the branches and twinkling in the night air. When a breeze struck, a tall arrangement here and there would topple over, causing a waiter to leap into action before the peach tablecloths caught fire.
In the middle of a group of guests, Wray’s mom, Martha, stood wearing cocktail pants and a tight camisole that showed off her slender build. Every strand of her cropped blonde hair was teased and softly sprayed into place. Her southern accent rose above the crowd as she greeted her friends. She was exactly the type of well-meaning, attractive, social woman Mom hated.
“Wow, Wray’s mom is so fit,” said Nicole, my chic friend from New York who had reintroduced me to Wray at the Bubble Lounge in New York. She was a perfect physical specimen herself.
“You should have seen her on the bike trip we took through the Loire Valley. She and Wray left the rest of us in the dust,” I said.
“That’s a nightmare,” Nicole said with a laugh.
A handful of waiters were busy setting out a buffet of traditional southern fish fry, consisting of small juicy chunks of flaky white grouper lightly battered, with tartar sauce and cheese grits on the side.
I stood with a few friends from high school and saw Tiffany hanging as close to Dad as a preschooler reluctant to be dropped off at a new school. She spoke to no one. I headed over to talk to her.
“Hey, I love that dress,” I said, as she pulled on the black knit hem.
“I got it with Mom at Nordstrom’s.” Her eyes only met mine for a second.
“Did you say hi to Dana, my friend from work? Have you met her yet? She’s so great,” I offered. I’d asked Dana to try to look out for Tiffany, but I didn’t see her now. Dana was disarming and funny, and the perfect person to put Tiffany at ease and try to include her.
“Did you know Wray’s family is doing a song? They are like standing up and singing. Can they sing?” Tiffany asked.
“Well, his sister can,” I said.
“Yep. It’s supposed to be a surprise but I saw them rehearsing. With props.”
“Shut up!” I gasped. She nodded slowly.
Before I could get more details, a tall, slender waitress with a neat blonde ponytail moved through the crowd letting everyone know the buffet had opened. Half the guests moved in, while the locals hung back, unsure of the cuisine.
I ushered Tiffany over to the line and took a plate.
“Is that Cream of Wheat?” my college roommate, Debbie, asked me as I stepped next to her in line.
“It’s cheese grits,” Wray said from behind me with a smile. “It’s delicious.”
Nicole was at the front of the line. A Texan, she had no aversion to Southern fare.
My bridesmaids and I settled at a table to the side, talking and eating, as my parents came and joined us. Waiters filled and refilled the wine glasses around the table. Mom smiled and talked to Dana, who’d been my salvation, occupying and appeasing Mom all day, while Dad tried to get Tiffany to come out of her shell and join in the conversation.
I put a bite of fish in my mouth and suddenly noticed Wray’s sister, Ali, his aunt, Pam, and his mom, all standing up in front of the crowd, wearing theatrical Sunday hats as if they were going to the Mother’s Day Parade on Fifth Avenue. Wray’s two little cousins, who were just five and eight, stood in front of them.
“Going to the chapel and they’re gonna get married,” they began to sing out of the clear blue. Nicole looked at me as if the people belting out the song before us had lost their minds.
In spite of their enthusiastic efforts, they were wildly off-key. They’d made up lyrics that explained how Wray and I had met, but it was impossible to hear the words as they all sang on top of each other. They must have reached the end because they stopped singing, and after a pause, the crowd started clapping.
Mom stood up and walked to the back of my chair with a rueful smile. “You would
kill
me if we stood up and embarrassed you like that,” she said, leaning over to speak in my ear. “Good luck with that.”
She was right. I would have been furious with them. But it was hardly the time to point it out.
 
 
“Please, just stay here with me,” I begged Wray as he deposited me in the room that was supposed to be mine but had nothing of mine in it. I’d fled the rehearsal dinner shortly after dessert.
“No, sweetie. I can’t do that. I have a million people waiting for me.” He smiled, itching to get back out the door.
I tried to kiss him. “Please, don’t leave me here. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Tomorrow is going to be a disaster. There are so many people and personalities to manage, I’m not sure how I’m going to keep everyone together for the whole day. Tiffany can’t relax and Mom is going to insult someone beyond repair. I can feel it. It’s going to be a disaster.” I sighed.
“Stop saying things like that. It’s going to be wonderful! You are starting to hurt my feelings with all this,” he said.
“You know that’s not what I mean. I just wish we’d planned a beach wedding somewhere, with no dress, and no programs, and no chairs with bows. Just here’s the beach where we are getting married, come if you can, don’t wear shoes, we’ll have a big party afterward with lots of margaritas. No big deal. We would have planned it. Very little fanfare. It would have been perfect. It would have been
my
wedding.”
“You’re tired. You’re stressed. Our families are making you crazy. Have a drink. Take some Advil. Go to bed. What can I get you?” he said.
I went inside the walk-in closet and changed out of my dress and into a chemise while we were talking. Then I walked out and pulled him to me and kissed him, thinking I could use some feminine wiles to keep him there.
“No. Not tonight. Tomorrow. Not here. Not now. Go to bed. Or come out with us,” he suggested.
“No. The last thing I need is to stay out all night drinking. I’ll be hungover and splotchy tomorrow.”
“Okay . . . ,” he agreed.
And with that, he disappeared.
 
 
In the morning I got up and went down to the kitchen to find Deborah, the wedding planner, waiting with coffee already made.
“Good morning! It’s the bride,” she said with way too much energy. I wanted to turn down her volume but I didn’t see the knob.
BOOK: Diary of a Stage Mother's Daughter: A Memoir
6.61Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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