Love and Miss Communication (2 page)

Another wedding for Evie Rosen. Not her own though. Tying the knot were Paul Kindling and Marco Mendez, Evie’s college and law school friends, respectively. They officially were married in a private ceremony at unromantic City Hall a few days earlier. Friends and the more tolerant members of their families waited to fete them in grander style at a lavish party downtown. Sixteen years, she thought, smoothing the fabric of her dress over her midriff one last time. That’s how long she’d known Paul. He was her first friend in college. And she was late to his wedding. Tardy, is what he would say.

Worse than her tardiness, though, was what she was thinking. Across the country, millions of people were trying to prevent unions like Paul and Marco’s, and yet they had still beaten her to the altar. Evie tried her best to be happy for them—to silence her envy and vanquish any useless questions like “Why not me?” Because Paul was a true friend, a co-navigator in that terrible thing called freshman year and now a formidable partner in the madness of New York City life, and while he could be flighty at times, he’d never let her down in any significant way in a decade-and-a-half-long relationship.

With an aura of sophistication that far exceeded his years, Paul had stood out from the other newbies at Yale, a dichotomy of prep school kids from the coasts and public school valedictorians from small towns in between. Dressed in a dark shirt and slim trousers, he resembled a salesperson at an expensive boutique, while Evie looked like someone pretending to shop there so she could use the bathroom. On move-in day they chatted in the center of the freshman quad, where they exchanged the prepackaged bios every freshman brings, along with a computer and a forbidden halogen floor lamp. It turned out they were assigned to the same dorm, which Paul helped her locate while her clueless parents ambled behind. It was hard to believe she’d known Paul for so long already—that after a chance conversation on the first day of school, she was rushing to get to his wedding.

As Evie was about to step into the hallway of her building, at last presentable enough for what was sure to be a chic affair, she felt an unfamiliar sensation ripple through her body. When it stopped and started again, she realized it was her BlackBerry, rhythmically buzzing inside her panties. She dislodged the phone and saw the call was from her grandmother, Bette. She debated letting it go to voicemail. But Bette was too sharp. All the way from her white-plastic lounge chair on the balcony of her Century
Village condo in Boca, she would know her granddaughter was dodging her call. Besides, her grandma was probably just calling to warn her about an outbreak of Listeria she heard about on the five o’clock news. Why deprive her of the opportunity to show Evie how much she cared?

Bette, Evie’s paternal grandmother, was an octogenarian force of nature—a survivor of the Holocaust who had long since parted with her oral filter. She referred to Evie’s singledom as “ze situation,” as in “vhat are ve going to do about ze situation?” Evie’s grandmother even had a signature move. When Bette would see Evie after any meaningful length of time, she would extend her hand—palm facing down—and point to her engagement ring, a tiny sapphire stone surrounded by diamonds on a yellow gold band. Bette wore the ring every day, even though Evie’s grandfather, Max, had been dead for a quarter of a century. Then she’d ask “Nu?” (shtetl slang for “so?”) and widen her eyes in expectation. Over the phone, Bette would resort to summoning a feeble cough and saying, “Don’t forget, your grandmother’s getting older. I’d love to see you settled.” And then the clincher, “I know your father vould feel ze same vay, may he rest in peace,” invoking Evie’s late father, Henry, who died when Evie was finishing her freshman year of college. Bette was a professional meddler and probably the person who thought the most about Evie on any given day. No, she would not ignore the call.

“Hey, Grandma,” she said breathily, hand still on the doorknob.

“Evie-le, vhat’s new?” Bette asked, her thick Eastern European refugee accent already making Evie feel guilty for needing to rush her off the phone. That accent was made for guilt-mongering. One
w
pronounced like a
v
and Evie crumbled.

“Not much. I’m on my way to a wedding,” Evie said. “I’m actually late so I can’t really talk.”

“Oh, very nice. Vish zem mazel tov,” Bette said. It still hadn’t occurred to her grandmother that not everyone Evie knew was Jewish. Imagine if she knew the couple getting married was short one X chromosome. “Anyvay, I just called to say hello. Oh, but zat reminds me, I just heard Lauren Moscovitz is engaged.”

Ahh. The real reason for the call.

“Good for her,” Evie said blandly. She used the extra moment on the phone to touch up her speedily applied makeup, lamenting that the call would surely get dropped if she got into the elevator. A disconnected call could easily send Bette into a nervous spiral about a possible terrorist attack in New York.

“He’s an orthopedic surgeon. Rose, Lauren’s bubbe on her mother’s side, called to tell me. You know Rose. She has zat horse face. Her husband vas a terrible gambler. Anyvay, she just couldn’t vait to tell me. It does seem like zis boy is a real catch.”

Evie sighed deeply, not sure what there was to say.

“You remember Lauren, no? She vas a little zaftig. I think you babysat for her a few times.”

Evie couldn’t say for sure if her grandmother was truly trying to help her recall Lauren, or was purposefully showing her that someone whose diapers she changed was getting married ahead of her. Evie did remember Lauren. She had been an especially ugly child, with frizzy tendrils and a nose that always seemed to have a precariously dangling booger.

“Anyvay, the vedding is at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston, vhere ze boy is from. Apparently he’s extremely vealthy.”

Despite the fact that Bette moved to Florida shortly after Evie’s father died, she managed to keep apprised of their old Baltimore neighborhood, and seemed particularly keen to share news of marriages and births with Evie. Surely some of their former neighbors were getting divorced, but those stories never extended from Bette’s grapevine to hers.

“That’s great for her,” Evie repeated, trying to keep her annoyance in check. “You know, Grandma, the wedding I’m going to might as well be in Boston because that’s how long it’s going to take me to get there with the downtown traffic. Let me call you from outside so I can at least look for a cab.”

“Okay, be safe,” Bette said, as though Evie lived in the trenches and not the yuppie-lined streets of the Upper West Side.

In the warm air of the June evening, Evie spied her competitors jostling for cabs at each corner—old ladies wielding canes, moms with strollers, and throngs of teenagers in their evening hooch-wear. Evie started downtown on foot, hoping to outsmart the masses by picking up a cab in front of Lincoln Center. She jabbed her grandmother’s phone number as she walked.

“Hi, Grandma. I’m back.”

“Good. I vas just about to ask, Evie, if you’re seeing anyone now? Someone special?”

“Not at the moment. Jack and I only broke up six months ago,” Evie responded, suppressing a groan. “But I do have some potentially good news. The partnership committee started meeting. I should hear by the end of the summer. Isn’t that exciting?” Evie asked, wincing as she realized just how much she thrived on praise.

“Oy. Vhat do you need to vork zose long hours for? How vill you meet someone if you’re alvays vorking? Your mother tells me you are practically living zere. You are sure you vant this?”

“Of course I want it, Grandma. Why else would I have been working so hard?”

Truthfully, it wasn’t crazy of her grandmother to question her desire to make partner. Evie had only gone to law school because her father had been a lawyer and every other political science major was signing up for the LSAT.

“Okay, who am I? If you vant it, zen I hope you get it,” Bette said, as though this would appease Evie.

“Yes, I want it. Anyway, let’s talk later. I need to focus on getting a taxi. I love—”

“Vait, I have something else to tell you. It’s important.”

“Yes?” Evie said, a smile creeping across her face. She knew what was coming. The warning about Listeria. Or some lifesaving tip Bette learned on
The Dr. Oz Show:
Eat jujuberries daily. Parabens are lethal. Yada yada yada.

“Listen carefully. I heard ze most vild thing at Canasta today. Louise Hammerman’s grandson just got engaged to someone from ze computer. She said zere are zese places vhere you can find people who are looking to get married. And zey’re all Jewish. Louise told me. Her grandson lives in Manhattan too. Vith eight million people zere, I don’t know vy anyone should need a machine to get married, but vhat do I know? It vorks. Anyvay, Evie, I can put you in touch with her grandson if you need instructions.”

Evie’s heart sank. So much for “I just called to say I love you.” This was a tactical phone call, and a useless one at that. In her grandmother’s mind, once Evie signed up for this “place” on the Internet, an eligible man would pop out of her computer screen like a stripper jumping out of a birthday cake. Evie didn’t want to let her down by telling her she’d already been on thirty-plus JDates in the last decade, her only welcome hiatus was when she was together with Jack. The men she met online were almost always disasters, boasting halitosis, neurosis, scoliosis, and, quite recently, osteoporosis.

“Um, thanks, Grandma, but I actually already know about JDate,” Evie said, keeping her eyes peeled for an available cab. Instead, already occupied, the fleet of yellow cars mucked up her shoes as they zoomed past her strappy-toed feet.

“Oh,” Bette responded. Evie could hear the disappointment in her monosyllabic response. “Vell, I’d tell Susan about zis, but you know, vy vaste my breath?”

Susan was Evie’s aunt who lived in New Mexico. She was a meditation consultant who loved all things hemp. It was hard for Evie to pinpoint even one strain of DNA her late father and her aunt shared. Only by Googling her estranged relative had Evie discovered that Susan lived in some bizarre commune called New Horizons. The most Bette ever said about her daughter was “vy me?” Aunt Susan served primarily to bring into stark contrast how much Bette was counting on Evie to lead a traditional life, i.e., get married and have babies, quickly.

“I know, Grandma.”

“Anyvay, Evie, did you see ze latest issue yet? I svear nobody has taste anymore,” Bette said, shifting topics like a seasoned politician.

Evie’s grandmother was referring to
Architectural Digest,
a.k.a. “the Bible,” which she and Bette both loved to analyze each month, hankering after outrageously expensive silk carpets or haranguing total strangers for choosing outdated damask curtains. Many of the apartments featured in the monthly magazine were located in New York City, but rarely was an actual address printed. Evie would sometimes gaze up at the windowed skyline and wonder: Are you the penthouse with the fabulous double-height living room? Are you the one with the Central Park view from the master bathroom?

“Not yet. Haven’t even had time to check the mail all week. Listen, I’m going to miss the entire reception. I’ll call you this week. I love you.”

Evie hung up, her mood deflated. She hated being a letdown to her grandmother. Despite their strong bond, when Bette started up with the whole marriage bit, her nudging had a way of eclipsing the finer points of their relationship.

Evie looked at her watch again. Shit. In front of Avery Fisher Hall, two well-heeled ladies exited a black town car and Evie
threw herself in the backseat before the driver could tell her he was not for hire. Black cars charged nearly double the rates of yellow taxis, but this was no time for frugality.

“Metropolitan Pavilion, please,” she said breathlessly. “Eighteenth Street.”

“Thirty dollars, miss,” the driver responded, and Evie nodded her acquiescence to the exorbitant price. She pressed her body into the soft leather of the seat and closed her eyes for a moment, letting herself take a one-minute breather before checking her work e-mail. It seemed hard to imagine Evie and her team would be ready for Tuesday’s closing, when Calico, the country’s largest manufacturer of plumbing supplies, would take over Anson-Wells, a related chemicals company in a stock-purchase agreement. But there was a certain thrill in racing to meet the deadline. As a senior associate, it was Evie’s job to marshal the juniors toward the finish line. Florencio Alvez, Calico’s COO, had sent her nine new messages in the last hour. She had a particular fondness for Florencio, who she knew had personally requested that she be put on the project. They had worked together previously when Calico sold off its residential parts division last fall. It was those moments—being in charge of a team, the satisfaction of a job well done, having her efforts rewarded by being personally solicited by a client—that made the tedious work and the grueling late nights almost manageable. She responded to Florencio and rested her head against the cushions once again, but couldn’t find peace. She was still stressed about being so late to the wedding, and even more so, unnerved by her conversation with Bette.

Looking out the window, she noticed there was still another ten blocks of Lincoln Tunnel traffic before they would pick up any speed. She decided to call her mother, Fran, for a pick-me-up. Fran was what most daughters would consider a maternal dream come true: wholly uncritical, perpetually optimistic, and unfailingly
supportive. If Fran ever expressed worry about her daughter being overworked or lonely, she was sure to mask it exclusively as concern for Evie’s happiness. This was unlike Bette, who didn’t bother with pretense. Bette was legally blind when it came to finding a bright side in bad situations, which was a personality trait Evie regrettably shared. Fran, on the other hand, was the master of manufacturing silver linings.

“Hi, Mom,” she said.

“Hi, Evie—where are you?”

“On the way to Paul’s wedding, though I’m like friendship-ending late at this point. There is so much Lincoln Tunnel traffic. Honestly, who knew so many people wanted to go to New Jersey?”