Everyone Worth Knowing (46 page)

gather to dance, drink wine, and "serenade the harvest," whatever

that meant.

I bounded over, feeling especially unfettered in a pair of wornout

cords from high school, a zip-up wool sweater, and a thickly

piled fleece pullover. It felt weird and wonderful, a relief from the

flimsy little tank tops and the skintight, ass-lifting, thigh-binding,

must-have jeans I now wore religiously. My feet were swathed in

fuzzy angora socks and tucked into a pair of mushy-soft Minnetonka

moccasins. Rubber-soled. Beaded. With fringe. They'd

been a horrifying fashion abomination in high school, but I'd worn

them nonetheless. It felt slightly impure to wear them again now

that they were splashed all over the pages of
Lucky,
but they were

too comfortable to reject on principle. I took a deep breath of the

late November air and felt something strangely akin to happiness.

"Hey, Dad, what can I do?"

"Grab that pile by the greenhouse and drag it over here, if you

can," he grunted while heaving a particularly huge log over his

shoulder.

He tossed me a pair of oversized work gloves—the kind that

had long ago turned black from so much dirt—and waved in the

general direction of the wood. I pulled on the gloves and relocated

the firewood from one area to another, one log at a time.

My mother announced that she was going to shower but had

left a pot of Yogi Egyptian licorice tea in the kitchen. We sat and

poured and drank.

"So tell me, Bettina. What is your relationship with that

fine young fellow from last night?" Dad asked, trying to sound

casual.

"Fine young fellow?" I said, more to buy time than to poke fun.

I knew they both desperately wanted to hear that Sammy and I

were dating—and God knows no one wanted that to be true more

than me—but I couldn't bring myself to explain the entire situation.

"Well, of course you know your mother and I dream of you

ending up with someone like Penelope's fellow. What's his name?"

"Avery."

"Right. Avery. I mean, it would be delightful to have a neverending

supply of really good grass, but barring a dreamboat like

him, this Sammy fellow seems all right." He grinned at his own

joke.

"Yeah, well, nothing too exciting to report. I just sort of gave

him a ride up here, you know?" I didn't want to get into it—it felt

like I was a little old to be telling my parents about something that

currently qualified as little more than a crush.

He sipped his tea and peered at me over the top of his Veterans

for Peace mug. Neither of my parents was a veteran of anything,

as far as I knew, but I didn't say anything. "Okay. Well then.

How's the new job going?"

I'd managed not to think about work for a full twenty-four

hours, but I suddenly felt a frantic need to check my messages.

Luckily, there was no cell reception at my parents' house, and I

didn't bother to call my number from their land line.

"It's actually pretty good," I said quickly. "Much better than I

expected. I like my coworkers for the most part. The parties are

still fun, although I can see how that can get old really fast. I'm

meeting a ton of new people. Overall, it seems like a good plan for

right now."

He nodded once, as though processing, but 1 could tell he

wanted to say something.

"What?" I asked.

"No, nothing. It's all just very interesting."

"What's so interesting about it? It's just events PR. It's not what

I'd call fascinating."

"Well, of course, that's precisely what I mean. Don't take this

the wrong way, Bettina, but we—your mother and I, that is—are

just somewhat surprised that you chose this route."

"Well, it's not UBS! I almost gave Mom a heart attack when she

found out that one of their clients was Dow Chemical. She wrote

me letters every day for three weeks accusing me of supporting

deforestation, lung cancer in children, and somehow—although

I'm still not clear how—the war in Iraq. Don't you remember? She

was so panicked, I finally had to get excused from that account.

How can you be upset that I have a new job?"

"It's not that we're upset, Bettina, it's just that we'd thought you

were ready to do something, something . . . meaningful. Maybe

grant-writing. You've always been a wonderful writer. Weren't you

talking about Planned Parenthood there for a while? What happened

with that?"

"I mentioned a lot of things, Dad. But this came along, and I'm

enjoying it. Is that so bad?" I knew I sounded defensive, but I

hated this conversation.

He smiled and placed his hand over mine on the table. "Of

course it's not so bad. We know you'll find your way eventually."

"Find my way? How condescending is that? There's nothing

wrong with what I'm doing—"

"Bettina? Robert? Where are you? The girls from the food co-op

just called, and they're on their way. Is the bonfire all set?" My

mother's voice reverberated through the wooden house and we

looked at each other and then stood.

"Coming, honey," my father called.

I placed both our mugs in the sink and brushed past my father

as I ran upstairs to exchange one pair of baggy pants for another.

By the time I'd run a brush through my hair and rubbed some

Vaseline on my lips (the very same lips that Sammy had kissed a

mere twenty hours earlier), I could hear voices in the backyard.

Within the hour the house was packed with people I didn't

know. Aside from a handful of neighbors and university people

whom I'd known for years, there were large groups of strangers

milling about, sipping hot cider and sampling the baba ghanoush.

"Hey, Mom, who are these people?" I asked, sidling up to her

in the kitchen as she mixed more lemonade. The sun had just

set—or rather, the sky had darkened, since there hadn't really been

any sun that day—and some sort of klezmer band had begun to

play. A man wearing sandals similar to my father's whooped happily

and began hopping in a way that could just as easily have in-

dicated a ruptured hernia as the desire to dance. Not your typical

Thanksgiving dinner.

"Well, let's see. Lots of new people this year. We've had more

time to socialize since your father's only teaching one class this semester.

The group sitting at the table is from our food co-op—did

you know we switched to a new one a couple months ago? Ours

was getting so fascist! Oh, and those two lovely couples we know

from the Saturday green market over on Euclid Street. Let's see.

There are some folks we met during the weeklong silent vigil to

abolish the death penalty last month, and a few from our committee

on building sustainable ecovillages. . . ."

She continued chatting as she filled the ice trays and stacked

them neatly in the freezer. I leaned against the counter and wondered

when, exactly, I'd lost touch with my parents' lives.

"Come, I want to introduce you to Eileen. She works at the crisis

hotline with me and has been a savior this year. She knows all

about you, and I'm dying for you two to meet."

We didn't have to search for long because Eileen appeared in

the kitchen before we could balance the pitchers on trays to carry

them out back.

"Oh, my, this must be Bettina!" she breathed, rushing toward

me, her fleshy arms jiggling. She was pleasantly fat, her overall

roundness and huge smile giving her a trustworthy appearance.

Before I could even think about moving, she had gathered me up

like an infant.

"Oh! I'm so glad we finally met. Your mother's told me so

much about you—I've even read some of the fantastic letters you

wrote in high school!" At this point I shot my mother a death look,

but she just shrugged.

"Really? Well, that was a while ago. Of course, I've heard such

good things about you, too," I lied. I'd only first learned the

woman's name thirty seconds ago, but my mom seemed pleased.

"Humph! Is that so? Well, come here. Sit right down next to

Auntie Eileen and tell me what it's like to be so famous!"

The "Auntie Eileen" bit was a tad much, considering she

looked to be a mere decade older than me, but I played along and

planted myself at the kitchen table. "Famous? Not me. I sort of

work with famous people—I'm in public relations—but I certainly

wouldn't describe myself that way," I said slowly, now convinced

that Eileen had me confused with someone else's daughter.

"Girlfriend, I may live in Poughkeepsie, but no one reads more

tabs than me! Now don't you hold back for a single second. What's

it like to go out with that god Philip Weston?" Here she took a

sharp intake of breath and feigned fainting. "Come now, don't

leave out a single detail. He's the most gorgeous man on the

planet!"

I laughed uncomfortably, running escape routes through my

head, but I didn't get really upset until I saw my mother's face.

"Pardon?" she asked. "Philip who?"

Eileen turned to her in disbelief and said, "Anne, just
try
and

tell me you don't know that your flesh and blood is dating the

world's most desirable man. Just
try I"
she screeched. "The only

reason I didn't ask you about it directly was because I knew I'd be

meeting Bettina tonight, and I wanted to relish every juicy detail

directly from the horse's mouth!"

My mother couldn't have looked more surprised if I'd hit her,

and I gathered in those short few seconds that my parents, thankfully,

hadn't read the latest installments by Abby.

"I, uh, I wasn't aware you had a boyfriend," she stammered,

most likely feeling doubly betrayed—not only had her daughter

omitted some crucial information, but this lapse in the motherdaughter

relationship was now on display for her coworker. I

wanted to hug my mom and pull her away and try to explain

everything, but Eileen kept hammering me with questions.

"Does he have an explanation for why he and Gwynnie broke

up? That's what I've always really wondered. Oh, and has he ever

personally met the Queen of England? I imagine so, what with his

family being royalty and all, but I wonder what that must be like?"

"Royalty?" my mother whispered, holding on to the counter for

support. She looked like she wanted to ask a million questions, but

all she managed was, "What about the boy from last night?"

"He was here?" Eileen instantly demanded. "Philip Weston was

here? In Poughkeepsie? Last
night?
Ohmigod . . ."

"No, Philip Weston was not here. I gave a friend a ride home,

and he stopped in to meet Mom and Dad. I'm not technically dating

Philip. We've just gone out a couple of times. He's friendly with

everyone I work with."

"Oooooh," Eileen breathed. This was clearly a good enough

explanation. My mother didn't look quite as thrilled.