My Three Husbands (6 page)

“Are you pissed off with me because I can get married and you can't?”

He thought about it. “Maybe. A little. Because you don't seem to know or value permanence.”

I flicked my ashes into the glass he was holding. “Maybe that's because I never had much when I was growing up.”

“Get over it! You had your mother and you saw your father at least twelve times a year.”

“Wow, twelve times a year,” I said, remembering how simultaneously excited and angry ten-year-old me would be when I was about to see my dad again.

That anger was my worst enemy. It was evil. It lay in wait like a big black boiling-mad monster that would just suddenly rear up and grab me. All sorts of things set it off. Resentment was a big part of it. Daddy
claimed
to love me, but he didn't love me
enough.
I wanted him to think of nothing and no one but me, and he didn't. When he wasn't there, I felt like I was being punished somehow. The punishment was his absence. And the time we had was so short. We saw each other every month. Either Daddy flew out to Portland for a long weekend or I flew out to New York for a week. In Portland I had him all to myself, for three paltry days. In New York I had to share him with Whitman, and I had to spend my days with Whitman in the apartment while Daddy was at work.

Three days or a week, it was never enough. The world was an entirely different place when I was with Daddy. He plucked me out of the cruddy garage-sale life I lived with Carolee, that world of used but “perfectly good” clothes that never quite fit and toys that were always missing one critical part so you couldn't play with them.

I wanted to savor every moment with Daddy. But the monster wouldn't let me. I'd be in some wonderful spot with Daddy, having fun, and suddenly Carolee's bitter, wine-slurred voice would echo in my ears. I'd hear her cursing and complaining about
him
, about how rich
he
was, or
they
were, and how poor
we
were. And then my own music-box of resentments would start to play. The terrible public school that I had to go to. A school where I learned nothing, was afraid for my life, and had no one to protect me. There was no one who understood what I was going through, or cared enough to do something about it. There was no one who gave a shit about what happened to me day after terrifying day as I eluded gangs of girls out to rob and beat me up and boys who threatened that they were going to “get” me. Daddy was the only one who could save me from all that, but he didn't. He
wouldn't.
Instead, he lived a
fun life
with Whitman in New York.

The monster would grab me by the toes and yank me down to his lair. From a sunny moment of having fun with Daddy, I'd suddenly disappear into a black hole of rage. I'd spend hours stewing in the dark stinking sludge with the monster, thinking up ways to punish Daddy, or Whitman, or both of them, and Carolee, too. Someone had to pay for my misery. Otherwise I'd have to accept it as an everyday part of my life.

I wasn't that angry ten-year-old girl anymore, but every now and then I felt her kicking, like a baby, wanting out. She was there now, wanting to scream at Whitman, but I clamped a hand over her mouth.

“Your dad and I lived like paupers in New York,” Whitman was saying, “so we could fly you out there, and have your dad fly back here, and pay Carolee alimony and child support.”

“I'm sorry I was such a financial burden,” I said.

“I don't want to get into a blame game here,” Whitman said. “I just want some assurance that you know what you're doing. That you've actually thought about it. That you aren't just rushing into this marriage because you can't live without having a man around.”

“It doesn't matter what I say, Whitman, you won't believe me.”

“Venus,” he said, “I've been watching you since you were five years old. I've seen how you behave. I've seen how you make your decisions and present them to your parents as
faits accomplis.”

“What does that mean?”

“You don't ask for approval or advice; you just tell them what it is you're going to do. Quit school. Become a model. Get married. Get divorced. Join the army. Be a lesbian. Get married. File for bankruptcy. You're an only child, so they give in to you. They've never put any limits on you because they want to believe that you know what you're doing.”

“This time I
do
know.” I got up and paced around the big bedroom. “Tremaynne and I love one another. We want to be together.”

“Okay.” Whitman held up his hand. “The next question is, what are you going to do for a ceremony this time?”

“It's about time you asked,” I said. “We're writing our own.”

“Well, don't forget there's a grammar and a spell check on that computer I gave you. Next question: Where is it going to take place?”

“At my mom's. I told you. She told you. At two in the afternoon.”

“Her place is awfully tiny,” Whitman said. “How about if we did it here? It could be very pretty. What are you wearing by the way?”

“It's a surprise.”

“Doesn't Donna Karan have some simple white dresses this season? Jackie Kennedy sort of nineteen-sixties A-lines. Maybe we should go down to Saks and find something that covers at least some of your tattoos.”

“I don't want a suck-ass dress from Donna Karan,” I lied. “I've got everything all planned out.
My way.”

“Okay. Next question. This event is to take place on July Fourth. Doesn't that seem a tad inappropriate?”

“Why?”

“Well, it's such a patriotic day.”

“Carolee had a chart done. The astrologer said the Fourth is auspicious for me.”

“Is this going to be one of Carolee's pagan ceremonies?” he asked cautiously.

“Sort of. We're planning everything, me and Tremaynne.”

“Tremaynne and I. And what about the reception?”

“A big costume party.”

“What about Tremaynne's family?”

“He doesn't want anything to do with them.”

“Oh.” Whitman dipped his cigarette into the glass of water and watched it fizzle out. He stared out the glass doors. He didn't say anything. I thought maybe I'd pissed him off.

“What's the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing. I was just wondering what I would do if I could get married to your dad. I mean really married.” He turned to me. “I was raised so differently from the way you were.”

By which he meant his family was rich and had come over with the
Mayflower
—the ship, not the moving company. Daddy said the Whittlesleys were one of the oldest families in Boston. That's about all I knew. Whitman rarely talked about his family.

“You know, I used to get into huge fights with your dad about you,” Whitman said.

I waited for more, always eager to slurp up any emotional crumb he might toss my way.

“I'll tell you a secret,” he said. “I'm the only person I know who identified with Joan Crawford in
Mommie, Dearest.
Not the coat-hanger thing. No. Her strict sense of order and discipline. Everything you didn't have when you were growing up. I worry that you're just going to drift through life. Like a jellyfish.”

I put my arms around him and kissed him on the lips. He obliged with his usual chaste pucker. “Don't worry, Daddy dearest,” I said. “I'm a big girl now.”

“Okay, time to suck in the guts.”

He was zipping up his pants and I was buttoning my bustier when the bedroom door opened and Tremaynne walked in.

 

 

Later that night I barged like a mobster into my mom's house and screamed, “Just what the fuck did you think you were doing showing up in a fucking clown suit?”

Her face had that wincing, please-don't-hit-me look that makes me even madder.

“A clown suit!” I raged. “Did you think it was funny or were you trying to humiliate the dads and me or what?”

“Sweetheart, it was part of my clown therapy,” she whimpered. “I
had
to do it.”

I rolled my eyes. “Clown therapy? What the
fuck,
pray tell, is that?”

Mom told me all about it, trying to calm me down and defending herself at one and the same time.

Clown therapy was Carolee's latest attempt to put some meaning into her life. The astrology charts and psychic forecasts weren't yielding any results. The ten thousand affirmations she taped to the fridge (“Today I will rejoice in my hunger between meals”) and bathroom mirror (“I honor the goddess within every time I look at my body without shame”) just weren't doing the trick. Clown therapy was the newest of the endless alternative therapies she was forever trying out. None of them ever did any good that I could see. They perked her up for awhile, like a new boyfriend, and then she'd get tired of them and her spirits would droop and the whole cycle would begin again.

“It was my initiation,” she said. “The first time has to be the hardest. You have to choose the group you fear most.”

“Let me get this straight. You choose the group you fear most and then make yourself into a fool in front of them? And that's supposed to help you?”

“It helps you to externalize your fear,” she said.

“You looked like a fucking idiot!” I shouted. “And you made me, your daughter, look like an idiot. And the dads, what do you think they felt like?”

“Whitman
thanked
me,” she shot back. “He said I was brilliant.”

“He was being nice.”

“Well, it all worked out in the end, didn't it? I'm the one who got those Jesus freaks to back off so the dads could get inside.”

I stomped outside so I could light up. “So what do you do,” I sneered, “go to a clown college or something?”

“Not yet. First you do a course on video.” She waved a cassette at me from the other side of the door. It was the first in a series of ten videos that she was supposed to buy, along with “approved” clown merchandise, as she moved up the ladder toward clown mastery.

“It's a pyramid scheme!” I shrieked. I knew because I'd been suckered into quite a few of them myself, before bankruptcy. “Oh Mom, how could you be so stupid?”

“I know that's what it looks like,” she said, “but it's not. Really, honey. This is something I've felt all my life. It's about releasing the little girl within. It's about turning grief into joy.”

I didn't want to hear about her grief so I kept my yap shut.

“I don't like to talk about it,” she said in a confiding tone, “because I don't want you to worry, but my nutritionist says I am seriously depressed.”

“That's because you're horny, Mom.”

“No it's not, honey. I talked to Corinna my psychic about it. It's all because of past-life experiences. Evidently I was a child laborer in Victorian England. I never got to play and have fun.”

“That may be, Mom, but you're also a forty-five-year-old woman living today. You need to go out and have some fun. Now, before your hormones go on permanent disability.”

“And who, pray tell, am I supposed to go out with?” she asked.

“Men. Guys.”

“And where, pray tell, am I supposed to meet these guys?”

“I don't know. Be creative.”

She sighed. “Sweetheart, I'm not young and bee-you-ti-ful like you. As Dorothy Parker said, ‘Men don't make passes at women with fat asses.' ”

“Then maybe you should try a woman again.”

“Maybe I should.” She gave her clown horn a couple of forlorn honks.

“Just promise me—
promise
me—that you won't turn up at my wedding in that clown suit. Promise. Because if you do, I won't let you in. I mean it.”

“But I thought you wanted to have the ceremony here.” She sounded nervous, as if she was afraid I was going to rob her of an opportunity to serve me.

“Whitman said I could have it at their house.”

Her voice rose a notch. “He never told me that. Oh, sweetheart. I've been planning all the pretty decorations.”

“We don't want any decorations,” I informed her.

“No decorations?” She couldn't believe her ears.

You have to understand: My mom uses any excuse to decorate. She loves balloons, party favors, cute little hats, funny cards, and most of all, presents. She just can't resist giving things to me, although sometimes she does have to be nudged in the right direction. For instance, I knew if I played my cards right I'd get a couple hundred prewedding bucks out of her.

 

 

“He's never, like, done anything to you, has he?” Tremaynne asked, slowly untying the laces on my bustier.

“Are you kidding?” I sucked in my breath as he tugged it free, his hand brushing against my breasts. “He's always been like a stepfather to me.”

“Yeah, but stepfathers abuse their kids all the time,” Tremaynne said, kissing the rose tattoo above my heart.

“Not Whitman,” I said. “Never.”

“When I came in the bedroom and saw him zipping up his pants,” Tremaynne whispered, sucking my earlobe into his mouth, “I thought—You know.” His tongue moved up to probe my ear. “You didn't look upset or anything. But I wondered.”

I threw my head back so he could give my throat a good swab with his overactive tongue. “Yeah,” I sighed, lightheaded with delight, “I've wondered myself.”

“You have?” He pulled me closer, breathing hard, kneading my butt like it was bread dough. “What?”