Girls In White Dresses (28 page)

“So, are you thinking about it?” she asked.

“I guess so. I’m not sure I have a choice.”

“Right,” Isabella said. “I guess you don’t.” Isabella started to cry and Harrison watched her.

“Do you want to go with me?” Harrison asked. It was later, almost the middle of the night. Neither of them was sleeping.

“Go with you where?” Isabella asked.

“Isabella. To Boston.”

“Oh,” Isabella said. “I don’t know. Do you want me to go with you?”

“Yeah, I do. I know it might be unfair to ask, but I do want you to come.”

“Okay,” Isabella said.

“Okay, you’ll go?” Harrison asked.

“No. Just okay.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure. What if you just stayed?”

“I can’t,” Harrison said.

“Well, you could,” Isabella said. “You could do anything you wanted to.”

“I’m not going to, though,” Harrison said. And then they both lay there until it was morning.

“Isabella,” her mom said. “The important thing to do is to stay calm and make a rational decision.”

“You say that like it’s easy,” Isabella said.

“I’m just saying that it’s no help to wallow in your misery. People have ups and downs, but I’m telling you, when the worm turns, you will be stronger for having gone through this.”

“You know,” Isabella said, “I’ve never heard you use that expression before in my life until the last couple of weeks. Not ever.”

“Of course you have. Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“You’re the one who keeps talking about worms.”

“The baby is really cute,” Isabella said to Mary at the hospital. “Any closer to a name?”

“No,” Mary said. She squinted at the baby. “I really thought I would go with Ava, but look at her. She’s too big to be an Ava, don’t you think?”

“Um, I think whatever you think,” Isabella said.

“What I think, is that I never thought I would have a nine-pound baby, and it’s throwing me off. I pictured Ava being a tiny baby, and now it just doesn’t fit. If I don’t think of a name soon, I think Ken is going to kill me. He still likes Ava.”

“Henry and Ava do sound good together,” Isabella said. “Also, I think that Harrison is being transferred to Boston.”

“No!” Mary said. “I don’t believe it.” She immediately started crying.

“Mary? Are you okay?” Isabella asked.

“Yeah,” Mary said. “It’s just the hormones. Start at the beginning.”

“Do you want to concentrate on naming the baby before Ken gets back?”

Mary sighed. “That could take days. Why don’t you go first?”

“That sucks,” Lauren said.

“I know,” Isabella said.

“I was wondering why you wanted to meet me in a bar in the afternoon,” Lauren said. “Not that I mind.”

“It seemed like the only place to be,” Isabella said. She took a sip of her grapefruit and vodka. “Plus, this has juice in it, so it’s completely appropriate to drink it during the day.”

“Totally,” Lauren said. “So, do you know what you’re going to do?”

“I have no idea.” Isabella started crying. “Except apparently, I’m going to cry about it every day.”

“Good,” Lauren said. “You should cry about it every day. It’s a good release. Crying helps you live longer.”

“Really?” Isabella asked. “I’ve never heard that before.”

“Well, I sort of made it up. It’s a theory that I have. But it makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Isabella said.

“Listen, whatever you decide to do will be the right thing,” Lauren said.

“How do you know?”

“Because if it wasn’t the right thing, then you wouldn’t choose to do it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Isabella said.

“Or does it make perfect sense?” Lauren asked.

“Are you drunk?”

“Yeah, I think I am.”

“Good,” Isabella said. “Me too. Let’s order grilled cheese.”

“Did you think any more about it?” Harrison asked.

“Yeah,” Isabella said.

“I really want you to come with me. I don’t want to be there alone.” He took her hand and waited for her to talk. “Don’t you want to be with me?”

“You’re the one that’s leaving in the first place,” Isabella said.

“Isabella, I don’t think you should move to Boston with Harrison unless you two are engaged,” her sister, Molly, said. She’d called Isabella just to tell her this. “Mom thinks it too.”

“You know what else Mom thinks?” Isabella asked. “She thinks your haircut was a mistake. I do too. I don’t think you should get a lesbian haircut unless you are really ready to make the leap into that lifestyle.”

“I’m trying to help you,” her sister said.

“I’m really trying to help you too,” Isabella said. “Do not cut your hair again. I know it will take years to get it to an acceptable length, but you need to do it. In the meantime, clip a bow in it or something.”

Mary was trying to tell Isabella a story, but she kept crying. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“It’s okay,” Isabella said.

“This didn’t happen with Henry,” Mary said. “I think my hormones are permanently damaged. I can’t stop crying.”

“I’m sure you’ll be back to normal soon,” Isabella said. “Now, what happened next?”

“Okay.” Mary took a deep breath. “So I’m at Target, and I’m trying to return the bottles, and the woman at the counter told me that they had a policy that you could only return three things in a month. And so I couldn’t return the baby bottles even though someone gave them to me as a gift and I didn’t need them.” Mary stopped here to blow her nose.

“Okay,” Isabella said. “Okay. Try not to get too upset.”

“I know, I know. I just told that bitch that we got duplicate presents and she acted like I was trying to shoplift. She kept saying, ‘Ma’am, you need to calm down.’ Like it was my fault.”

“She sounds awful,” Isabella said.

“She really was,” Mary said. Her voice wiggled just a little. “Okay, I’m done. Now we need to talk about you and Boston. Do you think you’re going to go?”

“I’m not sure yet. What do you think?”

“Sometimes I wish Ken would be transferred to another state,” Mary said.

“Really?” Isabella asked. “You want to move?”

“No, not move. But if Ken was transferred to Boston or something and then he traveled all during the week. That would be nice.”

“Really?” Isabella said.

“Yeah, I mean, I could have the remote every night and we’d still see each other on the weekends. It would just be nice to have some alone time.”

“Well, you’d still have the kids,” Isabella said. “You wouldn’t really be alone.”

“Right. Yeah, I guess it wouldn’t work.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine. Sometimes I’m just tired of having people all around me. Sometimes Ken asks as many questions as Henry. He offered to go to the store yesterday and then he called me three times while he was there. If he doesn’t know what kind of American cheese we buy now, will he ever?”

“Probably not,” Isabella said.

“No,” Mary said. “Probably not. It’s exhausting. I’d rather just do it myself. He came home with fat-free American cheese and pepper-smoked turkey. I mean, what is wrong with him?”

“Maybe he just needs practice?” Isabella said.

Mary shook her head. “No. He’s had practice. He just doesn’t know how to do it. I can already tell in ten years he’ll still be calling me from the store to ask if we get pulp-free orange juice or not. He drinks it every morning and he still doesn’t know!”

“Was he always like that?” Isabella asked.

“Yeah,” Mary said. “He was. I just never really thought about the fact that he was going to be like this for the rest of my life.”

“So what are you going to do?” Isabella asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, are you happy?” Isabella asked. She didn’t know if this was the right thing to ask, or if she was even allowed to.

“Yeah,” Mary said. “When I think about it, he might really bug me but I like having him around more than I don’t like having him around.”

“So if he took a job in Boston?”

“Yeah, I know. I was just talking. I wouldn’t really like it, I know. Sometimes it’s nice to dream. But I know it’s not what I really want. I like the bastard.”

“That’s good.” Isabella let out a breath. She had been worried that Mary was going to tell her she was leaving Ken.

“I guess that’s how you decide about Harrison and Boston,” Mary said. “If you like him enough not to be away from him.”

“Yeah,” Isabella said. “I guess so.”

“But you know what?” Mary asked.

“What?”

“I’m going to start writing out the most detailed grocery lists ever for Ken. And if he comes home with the wrong stuff, I’m going to send him back out.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Isabella said.

“It really does.”

“Sometimes things in life aren’t easy,” her mom said. “Sometimes you have to make really hard choices.”

“I know,” Isabella said. “But some people don’t. Some people don’t have to make decisions like this at all.”

“And some people in this world are starving, Isabella. Life isn’t fair.”

“I know,” Isabella said. “But that seems unfair.”

“You can’t move,” Lauren said. “You’re my last babyless friend. If you go, I’m going to have to start going to Mommy and Me just to see people.”

“I don’t think you would like that class,” Isabella said.

“Yeah,” Lauren said. “Not to mention it might raise red flags if I go without a baby.”

“Probably.”

“So, you’re really going?”

“Yeah,” Isabella said. “I guess I am.”

“I feel like that’s a really adult decision to make,” Lauren said.

“Really?” Isabella said. “Because I feel like I’m fourteen.”

“Join the club.”

“What about the second apartment we saw?” Harrison asked. “The one that was in the Cleveland Circle area. It had the really big closets.”

“I’m not sure I really liked that one,” Isabella said.

“Why?”

“It’s in Boston.”

“Right,” Harrison said. “I forgot about that.”

“I think you need to network more,” Harrison told her. She still didn’t have a job in Boston. It didn’t bother her that much. If she didn’t have a job, she could pretend that she wasn’t really moving there.

“I think
you
need to network more,” Isabella said. Harrison sighed.

“I’m serious, Isabella. It’s not a good time to get a job. You really need to get out there and pound the pavement.”

“Pound the pavement? Could you sound more like my seventy-year-old father if you tried?”

“I’m just trying to help.”

“Well, you aren’t.”

“It seems like you don’t really want to find a job,” Harrison said.

“What are you worried about? That I’m not going to be able to pay rent? Calm down, I got it covered.”

“It’s not that,” Harrison said.

“Then what? What?”

“Nothing,” Harrison said. “Forget it.”

“I’m not going to forget it. You know, I’m only moving there because of you.”

“I know,” Harrison said. He walked out of the room and left Isabella lying on the bed. Two hours later he came back. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“Good,” Isabella said.

“I don’t care if you have a job or not,” Harrison said. “I just want you to be happy and find something there that you like.”

“I know,” Isabella said. “I know.”

“Are you sure you want to go?”

“Yeah,” Isabella said. “I’m sure.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’d rather have you here than not here,” Isabella said.

“That sounds pretty simple,” Harrison said.

“I think it is.”

“The only pill in the pot,” her mom said, “is that you’ve never driven a U-Haul before.”

“The pill in the pot?” Isabella asked.

“Isabella,” her mom said. “Don’t be difficult.”

“Well, anyway, I’m not driving it. Harrison’s going to. He’s the pill in the pot.”

“No,” her mom said. “I meant that the rest of your moving plan sounds good, but that the drive will be difficult.”

“Maybe the worm should take the pill,” Isabella said. “Then there won’t be a pill in the pot.”

Her mom sighed. “Isabella, I think you’re the pill in the pot.”

“People on the subway that stand too close,” Harrison said. “Put it on the list.” He threw the boxes on the floor and the dog jumped.

Isabella got up and went to the refrigerator, where they had hung a running list of things that they hated about New York. It was supposed to make them feel better about leaving. So far, they had rats, cockroaches, huge puddles that you have to leap over, people walking with umbrellas that hit you, Duane Reade pharmacy workers, and now people on the subway that stand too close.

“Oh, and how about people on the subway that let their leg rest against yours and then when you move over, they move closer?” Isabella asked.

“Isn’t that the same thing?” Harrison asked.

“No way,” Isabella said. Harrison nodded.

“Put it on the list,” he said.

“I can really have your couch?” Lauren asked. She was holding Mary’s new baby. She and Isabella had been passing her back and forth all night and drinking wine. Mary just sat on the couch and watched. She didn’t even seem worried that every time they passed her to one another, they said, “Don’t drop her.”

“Yeah,” Isabella said. “You can have it. I don’t think it will look right in the new apartment.”

“Why didn’t you offer me the couch?” Mary asked.

“You have a baby,” Lauren said. “You don’t need a couch.”

“Yeah,” Isabella said. “That’s why.”

“Why is there so much crap in this apartment?” Isabella asked. “Do we never throw anything away?”

Every drawer they opened was full of garbage. Every shelf was crammed full of clothes they never wore.

“We’re pigs,” Isabella said. “We are pig people.” She held up an old sweater of Harrison’s that had a neon sort of print on it. “Harrison?” she asked. “What is this?”

Harrison shrugged. “A sweater.”

“Yes,” Isabella said. “I realize that. But why do you have one of Bill Cosby’s sweaters?” Harrison grabbed it away from her and put it in a garbage bag of give-away clothes.

“It’s old,” he said.

“Please put it on,” Isabella said. Harrison sighed and took it out of the bag and pulled it over his head. He was very willing to appease her these days. It was cropped and boxy, with a pattern that resembled a lightning bolt. Isabella bent over laughing until her knees buckled and she sat right down on the floor.