Facelift (7 page)

“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

“No.”

“You weren’t talking on your cell phone, were you?”

“What are
you
doing, Mom?” She’s wearing boxers and a skimpy T-shirt. And she didn’t answer my question.

“Cleaning.” I squirt more Windex on the faucet and take the toothbrush (not mine) to the grime around the edges.

“It’s two in the morning!” She scratches her flat stomach, lifting the tail of her shirt enough for me to catch sight of her pierced belly button—something she did without my consent after her dad walked out. “I cleaned the bathroom yesterday, Mom. Is this about Marla?”

My hand pauses for only a beat before I rinse the brush and start in on the tile. This time, I’m the one ignoring an uncomfortable question.

“Her face is a wreck, Mom. She won’t be able to give it the white-glove treatment. At least not for a few days.”

I just scrub. Maybe this is a test—a motherly approval test. If I pass, maybe I can get my husband back. Maybe Marla will take my side. Cliff always does what his mother wants. I’m not saying it’s a logical assessment, but it makes my arm push harder against any perceived grime around the faucet. “It’s been a while since you’ve seen her.”

“So when does Medusa arrive?”

I huff out a breath and brush my bangs off my sweaty forehead. “Tomorrow. That’s why I’m—”

“She won’t like the house or
you
any better. Even if you Clorox everything including the fireplace.”

“I’m not trying to make her like me.” It’s a total lie, and we both know it.

“Uh-huh.” Izzie turns on her bare heels and goes back to bed or to her cell phone. I hear the springs creak in confirmation.

I slide down the cabinet to the cold, tile floor. I feel nothing. Nothing. Just a dull
thump, thump-thump
of my pulse. Memories of when Marla came to stay with us after Izzie was born haunt me still. My own mother couldn’t come for another couple of weeks as she had a full-time job and made it clear my mistake was not her problem, so Cliff’s mother was waiting at our apartment like a spider on its web when I came home from the hospital, carrying a six-pound bundle in my arms.

“That’s not the way to change a diaper,” Marla said right off the bat.

I was a clueless nineteen-year-old. And when I say clueless, I mean in more ways than one. “They showed me at the hospital—”

“Where’s the baby powder? She’ll get diaper rash.”

“No one uses baby powder anymore, Mrs. Redmond.” That’s what I called her then, when I was just a baby myself. As the years passed and my respect for her faded, I didn’t refer to her in any particular way. I avoided any reference to her name if I could, sticking with
your mother
when appropriate.

She rounded on me. “Why not? Baby powder was good enough for Cliff and his brothers.”

“Experts say it’s dangerous for their lungs.”

“Experts?” Marla scoffed. “
Mothers
are the experts. Besides, baby powder doesn’t go anywhere near their lungs.”

Blocking out the memory, I push back to my feet, gather my cleaning materials. It will be better this time. Time has thickened my skin and hopefully made me marginally wiser. Her words and insinuations have made her feelings plain. But now faced with the possibility of Barbie as a daughter-in-law, Marla’s sure to like me better.

Or so I hope.

“Not that suitcase.” Marla grits the words through clenched teeth, which has become her new way of speaking.

After her release from the hospital and into my custody (so to speak), we drove to her apartment. It was a solemn experience.

A pressure bandage around the rim of her face remains but might serve all of us better if it tightened her lips and prevented her from speaking. Bruises have sprouted over most of the rest in an impressive garden of colors. She moves as if in slow motion, like she finally realizes she’s fragile. Of course, if she wasn’t walking around in high heels, then she might be more steady.

I replace the small carry-on bag I found in her coat closet. Marla’s new apartment consists of two tandem bedrooms, a compact den, and lipstick-size kitchen. It’s small. Quaint, as she describes it. She recently moved into this retirement village because of the elaborate and varied activities offered with other active seniors. Where did she put all of her belongings, her antique furniture, expensive vases and dishes, oil paintings that she once had in her seven-thousand-square-foot house? It took over a year for her estate to sell, or so I heard. I recommended to Cliff she should call me to help her stage it. She did, of course, after several months. She argued every suggestion I made, but she ultimately must have incorporated a few—the house sold not long after I visited. Not that I’m taking any credit. Especially since she never paid me. Not that I wanted compensation.

“We’re family!” she crowed before I could produce a bill and I didn’t want to quibble over the facts.

Above the small fireplace mantel sits the gargantuan portrait of Marla she had commissioned in her thirties. She was a striking woman with aristocratic features and vibrant red hair that made her easy to spot in any crowd. And Marla always wants to stand out in a crowd. She wants to be memorable. If she wasn’t before, she sure is now.

There’s a scene in
The Picture of Dorian Gray,
which I read my freshman year in college, when Dorian sees himself immortalized on canvas and is so taken with how beautiful he is. Is that how Marla feels when she looks at her own portrait? Or does she only see perceived flaws? A heavy sorrow expands my heart for this woman who is obviously desperate for something of worth.

She walks up beside me, follows my gaze to her portrait, and snorts. “At least I looked good once.”

“You will again.” But is that another lie? Are my words hollow or filled with promise? Marla’s down-turned mouth indicates she’s not buying my Pollyanna routine.

“This way.” She moves back toward her bedroom. “My suitcase is in there.” She waves toward her closet and sits gingerly on the edge of her queen-size bed, which overpowers the room with its bold mahogany headboard and four posters.

Her clothes are lined up neatly in her walk-in closet, sectioned off by season and designer. A shrink would have a field day with her. I spot a Louis Vuitton bag on the top shelf and jump to tip it with my fingers then catch it in my arms. I set the oversized bag on her bed. “This good?”

“May not be big enough. If we need more space, I have a trunk in the attic.”

“Terrific.” I dare not ask how long she plans to visit, but I should probably get something in writing that she’ll only stay for a week. What flack Izzie will give me when she sees me haul in this suitcase! I unzip the suitcase and begin to pack the clothes she’s laid out, but something catches my eye. On the bedside table sits something I haven’t seen in years—Bradford’s pipe.

“It’s a rusticated bent Dublin,” he explained to me when I showed interest back in the early days of Cliff’s and my marriage.

I reach for it, run a finger along the roughened wooden bowl. The smell bothered me back then, making me sneeze or simply stuffing up my sinuses. He’d puff away in his leather armchair, and Marla would come into his home office, jerk up the windows, and wave her arms about like a magpie. But as I grew to know Bradford, or “Dad” as I happily called him when he gave me that privilege after Izzie was born, I didn’t mind his pipe smoking. In fact, it became endearing. It was the one vice Marla allowed him.

He showed me how he cleaned the pipe, scooped up the Scottish blend of tobacco, and tapped it down with his thumb before lighting it. “Would you like a puff?” I pulled back and he smiled. “Won’t hurt you.”

So I agreed and quickly regretted it as my throat burned, eyes watered, and lungs contracted.

His merry blue eyes twinkled as he laughed, then he fetched me a glass of cold water. “Don’t worry”—he patted my back—“it won’t last long. You’ll be asking for a pipe in your stocking next year.”

Gulping the water, I met his amused gaze. So he knew I’d bought him an expensive pipe and slipped it into his Christmas stocking without anyone knowing. The glower on Marla’s face had been worth the price, but Bradford’s rumbling laugh gave me the greatest pleasure.

With all the complaining Marla did about his smoking, and then harping about how his bad habit had caused his heart problems, I’m surprised she’s kept it all these years after his death.

Bradford and I became partners in crime after my foray into pipe smoking. Because I loved him as the father I wanted and needed, I never questioned his elaborate pranks. He wouldn’t necessarily tell me where X marked the spot, but he’d give me the chore of planting traps along the way or hiding the ticking time bomb. I learned not to laugh out loud when a bucket of water spilled on one of his boys or when toilet seats were covered in Saran Wrap. Instead I perfected a shocked, open-mouth expression, stretching my cheeks downward so they wouldn’t break into a grin. Bradford carefully targeted everyone but Marla. She often laughed louder than anyone, enjoying everyone’s discomfort and humiliation. Instinctively, or maybe through experience, Bradford knew not to cross that line.

But one time a joke backfired. Bradford told everyone at Marla’s annual New Year’s Eve bash that he had made a chili cheese dip all by himself. Everyone of course sampled the concoction and dutifully raved about it. They came back for seconds and thirds, bragging what a wonderful chef Bradford had become. But then guests began to leave early, long before midnight, rushing out the door, as Bradford’s secret ingredient—bran—kicked in. Marla was not amused.

But Bradford’s most endearing quality, for me at least, was that he often stepped verbally between Marla and me when she aimed her criticism in my direction. “Oh, Marla, let the kids alone. They’re fine. They have their own lives now.”

When he passed away five years ago from a massive heart attack, the restraining belt snapped and Marla began her full-fledged assault on our marriage.

A carefully demure cough grabs my full attention. “I’d like to get settled at your house sooner rather than later.”

“Of course.”

Marla leans back against her headboard, readjusting a pillow at her back and indicating the chest of drawers. “My unmentionables are in the third drawer. Probably should take it all, just in case.”

In case of what? My washer breaks? She decides to move in permanently? I pull open the drawer. The rainbow of silks and satins look more like Izzie’s than my ex-mother-in-law’s and appear to have come straight from Victoria’s Secret. Beneath the intimate apparel are several slinky negligees made of sheer material and lace trimmed satin, peek-a-boo baby-doll styles and fly-aways, bustiers, and corsets. What kind of activities do they have in this retirement village anyway? If she wears any of these, then she’d definitely have some recovering to do. The material slides and slips through my fingers like mercury and into the luggage bag. Where are her sensible pjs? My pinky snags on a garter and I hold it up. It dances in the air like a stripper.

“Is there a problem?” Marla asks from behind me.

“Uh, no. I was . . . uh, just wondering if you were sure you’d need these.”

“You can never be sure what you’ll need.”

Oh, really?

“Of course, I need something to wear to bed.”

Okay then. Grabbing a handful, I stuff the rest of the lingerie into the suitcase, not wanting to think about it or know anymore about Marla’s private life. I’d rather just keep it under lock and key.

From there I move to her closet, holding out first one outfit for her approval, then another. All seem overkill for recovering as a couch potato while watching Oprah. She discards more outfits than she approves, but finally the suitcase is full to the brim. I pray she doesn’t make me climb into the attic for the trunk.

“Ready?” She props a hand on her narrow hip, tapping a bare fingernail against the seam of her A-line skirt.

“I think so.” I zip her bag, tugging hard as the contents threaten to burst the seams. “You have a lot here for just a few days.”

“If I need more,” she says in that gritty way, “you can come back for it.”

How long does she intend to stay? I match her squinty gaze, but her one remaining drainage tube bobs, tapping into my guilt. She looks like she’s gone fifteen rounds with Rocky Balboa.

Who knows what she’ll look like after she heals. I still don’t understand why she did it. Was she so unhappy with herself, so desperate to feel beautiful? Is the competition in the retirement village
that
brutal?

I wander back into the kitchen, carrying the designer bag, which is heavier than a brick of gold out of Fort Knox. “I think we’re about ready. You must be getting tired.”

She waves away my comment as if it’s inconsequential.

A knock at the door makes Marla gasp. Automatically I take a step toward the door.

“Don’t get that.”

The fear in her voice, the panic, stops me midstride. “What? Why? What’s wrong?”

“Pretend we’re not here.”

“But—”

“Do as I say.” Marla stands beside the door wide eyed (well, one eye wide, the other still squinting from the swelling), her hands splayed, forming a diminutive human barricade. Her look is more formidable than her stance. A clock in the apartment tick-tocks away the seconds, minutes.