Within Arm's Reach (30 page)

“Mary is old enough to hear the truth.”

Mary looks as if she might have something to say for herself, but my mother cuts her off. Her voice is a combination of flustered and defensive. “Gracie is twenty-nine years old. I can’t forbid her to do anything. What do you expect me to do, be her chauffeur?”

She looks at Meggy nervously, as if she half-expects the answer to be yes.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “Gracie’s not coming here alone. Grayson’s with her, so he’ll probably drive.”

There is a muffled hum in the room as the women absorb this piece of news.

“Were men invited to the shower?”

“Is Gracie dating?”

“Someone other than the baby’s father?”

I almost speak up to explain that Grayson is simply Gracie’s boss and friend. But there seems to be little point in jumping in. I need to save my energy, and Gracie can handle the aunts’ questions when she gets here. I no longer doubt that she can. Gram is wrong; my sister does not need my help. She is stronger than she looks.

“Stuffed mushrooms?” A heavy platter is balanced on my mother’s hands. She glares at me. I am not being what she considers helpful.

“I hope this baby comes soon,” Gram says. She is sitting in the corner, but her presence there has made it the center of the group. Except for Mary, we are clustered around Gram, some standing, some sitting. Nurse Ballen is standing beside her chair. She seems vaguely uncomfortable. She has the look of someone who is trying to pretend that she is not in the room, and certainly not listening. She emanates:
I am on
duty, and nothing more.

“Noreen, won’t you please sit down?” my mother says.

“I’m fine, thank you. I sit all day. It’s nice to be on my feet.”

I press my fingers against the pane of glass. I watch my father pull into the driveway in his truck. I watch Grayson’s black sedan parallel-park into the space between my aunts’ cars at the curb. I watch Grayson hold on to Gracie’s elbow as she and her round stomach bob slowly across the lawn.

The windowpane, which was at first cold to my touch, grows warm. Just before I take my hand away, my sister looks up, sees me, and waves. She thinks I am at the window for her, to greet her, to perpetuate her belief that she is the center of every story. She is a little selfish in that way. My story fits only in the margin, scrawled in poor handwriting around the typewritten, spell-checked account of her life. Mine is thrown together at the last minute, secured with tape and spit, while hers is as real and substantial as the hard, round belly she holds in front of her. She will soon have a child, but she has a job and a lot of support; I am a dropout struggling to get back together with someone I used to sleep with. I can’t believe it, but I am actually jealous of Gracie.

Gram says, “It didn’t used to be like this. There was a much smaller gap between generations. Women had more children, and they had them younger. Families didn’t have to wait so long between babies. It’s the waiting time that’s hard. You lose your hope, and you lose sight of the point, when there are no young ones.” Gram’s purse sits on her lap, and she rests her glass of lemonade on the leather bag. I can see a ring of wetness beginning to form on the fabric. In the past Gram never would have done something so untidy and careless. The bag will be ruined.

She says, “A family needs the old, the young, and the infants. When you only have two out of the three, it doesn’t work.” Gram nods at the cluster of daughters around her. “I know some of you girls have been fighting over this baby. We all have. But we don’t need to fight. You’ll see when the child is born.”

Gracie walks in then, with Grayson behind her. My sister is wearing a light blue maternity dress, and her hair is up in a ponytail. She looks like a pale young girl who has swallowed a basketball.

Everyone regards her. Mom puts the tray of stuffed mushrooms down on the coffee table so quickly, I wonder if she’s afraid she might drop it. I hear my father come in through the back door and take off his boots and place them on the tile floor.

“Sweet Jesus,” Meggy says. “That baby looks ready to come out.”

“I think we’re getting there,” Gracie says. Her voice is shy. She has been mostly alone or with me for the latter part of her pregnancy. I’m sure she is startled by the attention, and is unsure whether it’s friendly. I want to tell her that I’ve been charting the swing of moods and that I think the combination of Gram’s speech and her appearance have softened all of the McLaughlin women to the core. For the moment, anyway.

Mom sounds practically giddy when she says, “I read about a few shower games in a magazine, and we’re all going to start a pool on when we think the baby will be born. Hold on one minute, and I’ll go get the pieces of paper where you each have to write your guess for the date, time of birth, sex, and weight.”

“How much is the pot?” Meggy asks, but my mother is already gone.

“Grayson,” Theresa says in a polite, let’s-dig-for-dirt voice, “are you Gracie’s birth coach?”

“Yes,” Grayson says.

“Um, no,” Gracie says quickly.

“It’s probably the birth father,” Angel says in a low voice to Meggy, but everyone hears her.

“Lila is the coach,” Gracie says with an apologetic look at the man standing next to her. “I asked Lila weeks ago.”

“Really?” Mom is back in the room, her hands filled with pieces of white paper.

“Isn’t that lovely?” Gram says.

Confusion clouds Grayson’s face. He turns to Gracie. “I should be the coach. I can’t be your husband waiting outside in the hall with the rest of your family. I need to be in the delivery room.”

The air leaves the room then, as effectively as if Grayson had used the last bit up. My aunts gape like fish. My mother says, “Your husband?”

“You’re
marrying
him?” I say. I can’t believe what I’ve heard. I can’t believe I’m finding out something this big at the same time as Mom.

Meggy says, “Isn’t this interesting.”

Mary gives her second laugh of the afternoon, then claps her hands over her mouth.

Gram says, “Gracie?”

Gracie gives Grayson a look that makes it clear that the timing of the announcement did not go according to plan. At least not according to her plan.

“We’re getting married,” Gracie says in a reluctant voice.

“On Thursday, at the Hackensack courthouse. You’re all invited.” Grayson is as pale as Gracie now. He’s not used to surprises. He likes to be prepared. I wonder how well he is going to fare making a life with my sister.

My father appears at the doorway to the living room then, clearly having heard this last part. His appearance is so sudden that he frightens Nurse Ballen, who visibly flinches.

My mother looks as if she’s afraid she’s going to drop the pieces of paper. She grips them so hard, I see her knuckles turn white. But she is the first to speak. Her voice tilts toward excited and gets faster as she goes along. “You’re going to be married,” she says. “What a surprise! Grayson, you’re the editor of the
Bergen Record,
aren’t you? Louis, you knew Grayson’s father. Remember?”

“Yes,” my father says. “I remember.” He looks stunned in a bad way, as if he has now had one more shock than he could take.

“Why are you doing this?” Gram asks, her searching eyes turned on Gracie. “Are you in love?”

The room is quiet, but still I am sure that I am the only one who hears another vehicle pull to a stop out front. I edge around the group, hoping to escape without my mother’s notice, without anyone’s notice. I hear my sister, caught by Gram the same way I was earlier, choose to lie as well. “Yes,” she says. “Well . . . why else would we be getting married?”

“You don’t have to do this. I told you I would take care of everything.” Gram’s voice sounds weak and is lost beneath the noise of my aunts, who have finally found their tongues.

“You were such a quiet girl growing up,” Meggy says. “Who knew you would provide this family with such excitement. A baby and a wedding to someone other than the baby’s father, all in one year. Well done.”

Theresa nods, seeming to agree in all seriousness with Meggy’s sarcastic comments.

“Oh Gracie, you should let your husband be your birth coach.” There are tears in Angel’s eyes. I wonder if they are from sadness, because she has now lost any chance of raising this baby. “That would be such a perfect opportunity for him to bond with the newborn.”

My mother gives Meggy a look. “A wedding should put all of your ridiculousness to rest.” She is as high as a kite, envisioning endings that make sense to her, that she can work with. “Maybe you should have a proper wedding, Gracie, in a church? Why have a rushed ceremony at the courthouse? We could plan a wonderful wedding.”

This is the last thing I hear as I make it undetected out of the room, down the front hall, and out the door just in time to stop Weber from ringing the bell.

HE IS standing on the front step with his hand raised. He takes a step backward when I appear, and makes room for me on the top step.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi.” We are standing very close together and I can smell him. He always smells like a sandy beach, like salt water and waves. He is wearing a sports coat and a tie. I have only seen him in jeans and one of his many T-shirts, or his fireman’s uniform. Today he looks like a boy dressed up as a man. Even his crew cut appears neatly combed. He has a wrapped present under his arm.

“I’ve never been to a baby shower before,” he says. “I didn’t know what to wear.”

I am pleased that my voice sounds fairly normal. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“I thought it would be bad karma to turn down an invitation from your grandmother.”

“Oh.” It occurs to me that maybe I should have worried about bad karma when I asked him to come here with a lie. The least I can do at this point is be honest. I have nothing to lose. Weber can’t even bear to look at me. He is here because of my grandmother. Never underestimate the power of Gram.

“I sent the invitation,” I say. “I put my grandmother’s return address on it because I didn’t think you’d come if you knew it was from me. Are you dating anyone?” The last question slips out, a surprise that makes my face burn.

“No.” Weber looks at me now. He seems to be blushing as well. “Why did you want me here, Lila?”

“So we could talk.” I think, Be more specific. “So I could apologize.”

“You could have called. I thought you might, a few weeks ago.”

This stops me. I should have called him. Of course. I’m an idiot. He was waiting for me to call.

The only response I can think to make is: “I dropped out of medical school because of you.”

Weber stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “You did what? Why would you do that?”

“It wasn’t all because of you . . . it’s just that you made me realize . . .” I stop. I can’t put into words the emotions that led me from seeing his face at the fire to making things official at the registrar’s office. I have no idea where to even start.

“Lila, you said that you didn’t care about me.” Sweat appears on Weber’s forehead almost as soon as he finishes wiping it away. I have the crazy urge to lean in closer and lick the beads of salty water away with my tongue. I want to taste him, to have that taste inside me while we talk.

“I meant it at the time,” I say. “I wish you’d kept ignoring me.”

“I ignored you at first because I thought you were putting on an act. I could tell you were scared. And I believed we’d been drawn together so that I could show you how good it could be.” Weber gives me a sharp look. “See, you can’t stand my talking like that, saying that we were drawn together, even now!”

“That’s not true,” I say, trying to keep my face perfectly composed. “I might agree with you, you might have been right.”

“Might have? That’s wishy-washy language.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“I’m trying to tell you why it doesn’t matter. Because that day at Dairy Queen I knew that you were talking to me. I mean, you were talking through that girl to me. You were telling me, in a different way, that you really didn’t want anyone around you. And I believed you. You were so furious that I had to believe you.”

I can feel my brain rushing around, grabbing bits of ideas. “So, you’re saying that you were wrong all along? We weren’t meant to be together? Your karma and destiny and all that lied to you? You can’t believe that.”

He seems unbelievably calm. “People have to work to meet their destiny, Lila. I think one of us just didn’t work hard enough, that’s all.”

“But I dropped out of school!”

“So? That has nothing to do with me.”

“Yes, it does.”

“How?”

I shake my head. How can he expect me to answer these kinds of questions? These kinds of questions are impossible. I say, “You should see the women inside, my mother and my sister and my cousin and my aunts. You think I’m crazy, but they’re the crazy ones. I’m sane in comparison to them.”

Weber looks everywhere but at me. He looks at the sky and he looks at his shoes and he looks at the present in his hands. His voice sounds as if it’s coming from far away. “Maybe we should go in. I can say hello to your grandmother and then I can leave. I know Gracie doesn’t want me there. I just remind her of Joel.”

I don’t want him to go in the house until I’ve said the right thing. I have to keep trying until I figure out what that is. I say, “I wasn’t trying to say anything to you through Belinda. I was just being a bitch. I can be a bitch sometimes.”

“I didn’t know what kind of gift to bring,” he says, his eyes on the wrapped box. “I never bought a present for a baby before.”

I stop trying then because he has stopped me. He tells me without saying a word that there is nothing else to say in this moment on the front steps of my parents’ house. I have exhausted the opportunity. So I step aside and let Weber walk into the blast of air conditioning. Then I follow, the skirt of my sundress in my hands because I need something to hold on to. But as I walk into the cool air toward the women in my family, I feel a strange, surprising hope beat against my ribs. I have the sense that I am walking toward my strength, toward my saving grace. The feeling is inexplicable, but still it feels like the most real thing I have come across in weeks.