Just One Day (18 page)

I look around. “I got nothin’.” And really, I don’t. All this time, I’ve been thinking
I was like Lulu. But I’m
nothing
like the girl in those movies. I wouldn’t want to be.

Jenn yawns and opens a laptop and pulls up a page on Louise Brooks, who apparently
had a life as tumultuous as Lulu’s, going from A-list movie star to a shopgirl at
Saks, winding up a kept woman, and finally a recluse. “But it says here she was always
a rebel. She always did things her own way. And she had a lesbian affair with Greta
Garbo!” Jenn smiles at that.

Kali grabs the computer and reads. “Also, she
pioneered
the short bobbed haircut.”

“My hair was cut into a bob when we met. I probably should’ve mentioned that.”

Kali puts the computer down and takes my hair out of its ponytail and folds it up
to my chin. “Hmm. With your hair
bobbed
, you
do
sort of look like her.”

“Yeah, that’s what he said. That I looked like her.”

“If he saw you that way,” Jenn says, “it means he thought you were very beautiful.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Or maybe this is all some game to him. Or calling me Lulu was a way
to distance me, so he never had to learn anything about me.” But as I throw out the
less romantic scenarios—and let’s be honest, the more likely ones—I don’t feel that
usual clutch of shame and humiliation. With these guys at my back, nothing feels quite
so fraught.

Kendra’s staying over at Jeb’s, so Kali offers her bed to Dee, and she crashes on
Kendra’s bed. When all of us nestle under our covers, we call out good night to each
other, like we’re in summer camp or something, and I feel that sense of rightness,
stronger than ever.

Dee starts snoring straightaway, but it takes me a long time to drift off, because
I’m still wondering about Lulu. Maybe it was just a name. Maybe it was just pretend.
But at some point, it stopped being pretend. Because for that day, I really did become
Lulu. Maybe not the Lulu from the film or the real Louise Brooks, but my own idea
of what Lulu represented. Freedom. Daring. Adventure. Saying yes.

I realize it’s not just Willem I’m looking for; it’s Lulu, too.

Twenty-five

APRIL

Miami Beach

M
om and Dad are waiting for me at my gate in the Miami airport, Mom having arranged
for their flight to get in a half hour before mine. I’d hoped I might have gotten
out of this year’s Passover Seder. I just saw Mom and Dad for spring break a few weeks
ago, and coming down for Seder means taking a day off from school. But no such luck.
Tradition is tradition, and Passover is the one time of year we go to Grandma’s.

I love Grandma, and even if the Seders are always mind-numbingly dull and you take
your life in your own hands eating so much of Grandma’s home cooking, that’s not why
I dread them.

Grandma makes Mom crazy, which means that whenever we’re visiting, Mom makes
us
crazy. When Grandma visits us at home, it’s dealable. Mom can get away, go vent to
Susan, play tennis, organize the calendar, go to the mall to buy me a new wardrobe
I don’t need. But when we’re at Grandma’s old-people condo in Miami Beach, it’s like
being trapped on a geriatric island.

Mom starts in on me at the baggage claim, sniping at me for not sending thank-you
notes out for my birthday presents, which means she must have asked Grandma and Susan
if they’d gotten theirs. Because other than Jenn and Kali—who baked me a cake—and
Dee—who took me out to his favorite food truck in Boston for dinner—and Mom and Dad,
of course, there was no one else to send thank-you cards to this year. Melanie didn’t
send anything. She just posted a greeting on my Facebook page.

Once we get into a cab (the second one, Mom having rejected the first one because
the AC was too weak—no one is safe from Mom when she’s on a Grandma trajectory)—she
starts in on me about my summer plans.

Back in February, when she first brought this up, asking what I was going to do over
the summer, I told her I had no idea. Then, a few weeks later, at the end of spring
break, she announced that she had made some inquiries on my behalf and used some connections
and now had two promising offers. One is working in a lab at one of the pharmaceutical
companies near Philadelphia. The other is working in one of Dad’s doctor friend’s
offices, a proctologist named Dr. Baumgartner (Melanie used to call him Dr. Bum-Gardner).
Neither job would be paid, she explained, but she and Dad had discussed it and decided
they’d counter the loss with a generous allowance. She looked so pleased with herself.
Both jobs would look excellent on my résumé, would go a long way toward offsetting
what she referred to as the “debacle” of my first term.

I’d been so irritated, I’d almost told her that I couldn’t take those internships
because I wasn’t qualified; I wasn’t pre-med. Just to spite her. Just to see the look
on her face. But then I’d gotten scared. I was getting an A in Shakespeare Out Loud.
An A minus in Mandarin, which was a first for me. A solid B in my biology class and
labs, and an A in ceramics. I realized I was actually proud of how well I was doing
in my classes and I didn’t want Mom’s inevitable and perennial disappointment to poison
that. But that was going to happen no matter what, though I was sticking to my plan
A—to show her my final grades when I made the announcement.

But finals are still three weeks away, and Mom is breathing down my neck right now
about these jobs. So as we pull into Grandma’s high-rise, I tell her that I’m still
mulling it over and then I skip out of the cab to help Dad with the bags.

It’s so strange. Mom is the most formidable person I know, but when Grandma opens
the door, Mom seems to shrink, as if Grandma is some ogre instead of a five-foot bottle
blonde in a yellow tracksuit and a
KISS THE MESHUGGENEH COOK
apron. Grandma grabs me in a fierce hug that smells of Shalimar and chicken fat.
“
Ally!
Let me look at you! You’re doing something different with your hair! I saw the pictures
on Facebook.”

“You’re on Facebook?” Mom asks.

“Ally and I are friends, aren’t we?” She winks at me.

I see Mom wince. I’m not sure if it’s because Grandma and I are FB friends or because
Grandma insists on shortening my name.

We step inside. Grandma’s boyfriend, Phil, is asleep on the big floral couch. A basketball
game blares from the giant television.

Grandma touches my hair. It’s to my shoulders now. I haven’t cut it since last summer.
“It was shorter before,” I say. “It’s sort of in between.”

“It’s better than it was. That bob was awful!” Mom says.

“It was a bob, Mom. Not a Mohawk.”

“I know what it was. But it made you look like a boy.”

I turn to Grandma. “Was she traumatized by a bad haircut in her youth? Because she
seems unwilling to let this go.”

Grandma claps her hands. “Oh, Ally, you might be right. When she was ten, she saw
Rosemary’s Baby
and begged me to take her to the children’s beauty parlor. She kept making the lady
go shorter until it was all off, and as we were leaving the salon, another mother
pointed Ellie out to her son and said, ‘Why don’t you get a haircut like that nice
little boy?’” She looks at Mom, smiling. “I didn’t realize that still upset you, Ellie.”

“It doesn’t upset me, because it never happened, Mother. I never saw
Rosemary’s Baby
. And if I had, at ten, that would’ve been entirely inappropriate, by the way.”

“I can show you the pictures!”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Grandma eyes Mom’s hair. “You might think of trying that pixie again now. I think
you’ve been wearing the same style since Bill Clinton was president.” Grandma gives
another wicked grin.

Mom seems to shrink another inch as she touches her hair—straight, brown, in a low
ponytail. Grandma leaves her like that, pulling me into the kitchen. “You want some
cookies? I have some macaroons.”

“Macaroons are not cookies, Grandma. They’re coconut cookie substitutes. And they’re
disgusting.” Grandma doesn’t keep anything in the house with flour during Passover.

“Let’s see what else I have.” I follow Grandma into the kitchen. She pours me some
of her diet lemonade. “Your mom is having such a hard time,” Grandma says. When Mom’s
out of sight, she’s sympathetic, almost defending her, like I was the one who riled
her up.

“I don’t see why. She has a charmed life.”

“Funny, that’s what she says about you whenever she thinks you’re being ungrateful.”
Grandma opens the oven door to check on something. “She’s having a hard time adjusting,
with you being gone. You’re all she’s got.”

I feel a pit in my stomach. Another way I’ve let Mom down.

Grandma puts out a plate of those gross jelly candies I can never resist. “I told
her she should have another child, give her something to do with herself.”

I spit out my lemonade. “She’s forty-seven.”

“She could adopt.” Grandma waves her hand. “One of those Chinese orphans. Lucy Rosenbaum
got a cute one as a granddaughter.”

“They’re not dogs, Grandma!”

“I know that. Still, she could get an older one. It’s a real mitzvah then.”

“Did you tell Mom that?”

“Of course I did.”

Grandma always brings up things the rest of us don’t. Like she lights a memorial candle
on the anniversary of when Mom had her miscarriage all those years ago. This, too,
drives Mom crazy.

“She needs to do something if she’s not going back to work.” She glances out toward
the living room. I know Mom and Grandma fight about Mom not working. Once, Grandma
sent a clipping from a news magazine about how badly the ex-wives of doctors fared
financially in the event of divorce. They didn’t speak for months after that.

Mom comes into the kitchen. She glances at the jelly candy. “Mother, can you feed
her some real food, please?”

“Oh, cool your jets. She can feed herself. She’s nineteen now.” She winks at me, then
turns to Mom. “Why don’t you take some cold cuts out?”

Mom pokes in Grandma’s refrigerator. “Where’s the brisket? It’s almost two now. We
should put it in soon.”

“Oh, it’s already cooking,” Grandma says.

“What time did you put in?”

“Don’t you worry. I got a nice recipe from the paper.”

“How long has it been in?” Mom peeks in the oven. “It’s not that big. It shouldn’t
take longer than three hours. And you have to cover it in foil. Also you have the
heat way up. Brisket’s meant to slow-cook. We’re starting the Seder at five? When
did it go in?”

“Never you mind.”

“It’ll be like leather.”

“Do I tell you how to cook in your kitchen?”

“Yes. All the time. But I don’t listen. And we’ve dodged many a case of food poisoning
because of it.”

“Enough of your smart mouth.”

“I think I’ll go change,” I announce. But neither one is paying attention to me anymore.

I go into the spare room and find Dad hiding in there, looking wistfully at a golf
shirt. “What are the chances I can escape for a round?”

“You’d have to throw down some plagues at the Pharaoh first.” I look out the window
to the silver-blue strip of sea.

He puts the golf shirt back in the suitcase. How quickly we all give in to her. This
Seder means nothing to him. Dad’s not even Jewish, though he celebrates all the holidays
with Mom. Grandma was supposedly furious when Mom got engaged to him, though after
Grandpa died, she took up with Phil, who’s not Jewish, either.

“I was just kidding,” I say, even though I wasn’t. “Why don’t you just go?”

Dad shakes his head. “Your mom needs backup.”

I scoff, as if Mom needs anything from anyone.

Dad changes the subject. “We saw Melanie last weekend.”

“Oh, really?”

“Her band had a gig in Philadelphia, so she made a rare appearance.”

She’s in a
band
now? So she can become Mel 4.0—and I’m supposed to stay reliably me? I smile tightly
at my dad, pretending like I know this.

“Frank, I can’t find my Seder plate,” Grandma calls. “I had it out for a polish.”

“Just visualize the last place you had it,” Dad says. Then he gives me a little shrug
and heads off to help. After the Seder plate is located, he helps Grandma get down
serving bowls, and then I hear Mom tell him to keep Phil company, so he sits and watches
the basketball with napping Phil. So much for golf. I go out onto the balcony and
listen to the competing sounds of Mom and Grandma’s bickering and the game on the
TV. My life feels so small it itches, like a too-tight wool sweater.

“I’m going for a walk,” I announce, even though there’s no one on the balcony but
me. I put on my shoes and slip out the door and walk down to the beach. I take off
my shoes and run up and down the shore. The rhythmic beat of my feet on the wet sand
seems to churn something out of me, pushing it through the sweat on my sticky skin.
After a while, I stop and sit down and look out over the water. On the other side
is Europe. Somewhere over there is him. And somewhere over there, a different version
of me.

_ _ _

When I get back, Mom tells me to shower and set the table. At five, we sit down, settling
in for a long night of reenacting the Jews’ escape from slavery in ancient Egypt,
which is supposed to be an act of liberation, but somehow with Mom and Grandma glowering
at each other, it always winds up feeling just like more oppression. At least the
adults can get drunk. You have to down, like, four glasses of wine during the night.
I, of course, get grape juice, in my own crystal carafe. At least I usually do. This
time when I go to drink my first sip of juice after the first blessing, I almost choke.
It’s wine. I think it’s a mistake, except Grandma catches my eye and winks.

The Seder carries on as usual. Mom, who, in every other part of her life, is respectful,
assumes the mantle of rebellious teenager. When Grandma reads the part about the Jews
wandering through the desert for forty years, Mom cracks it’s because Moses was a
man who refused to ask directions. When the talk to turns to Israel, Mom harps on
about politics, even though she knows this gets Grandma crazy. When we eat matzo-ball
soup, they argue about the cholesterol content of matzo balls.

Dad knows enough to keep quiet. And Phil plays with his hearing aids and dozes in
and out of consciousness. I refill my “juice” glass many, many times.

After two hours, we get to the brisket, which means we get to stop talking about Exodus
for a while, which is a relief, even if the brisket isn’t. It’s so dry it looks like
beef jerky and tastes charred. I move it around my plate, while Grandma chitchats
about her bridge club and the cruise she and Phil are taking. Then she asks about
our annual summer trip to Rehoboth Beach, which she usually comes up for a portion
of.

“What else do you have planned for the summer?” she asks me casually.

It’s a throwaway question, really. Along the lines of
how are you
? Or
what’s new?
I’m about to say, “Oh, this and that,” when Mom interrupts to say that I’m working
in a lab. Then she tells Grandma all about it. A research lab at a pharmaceutical
company. Apparently, I accepted the position just today.

It’s not like I didn’t know she would do this. It’s not like she hasn’t done this
my entire life. It’s not like I haven’t let her.

The fury that fills me feels hot and cold, liquid and metal, coating my insides like
a second skeleton, one stronger than my own. Maybe this is what allows me to say,
“I’m not working in a lab this summer.”

“Well, it’s too late,” Mom snaps back. “I already called Dr. Baumgartner to decline
his offer. If you’d had a preference, you had three weeks to make it known.”

“I’m not working at Dr. Baumgartner’s, either.”

“Did you line up something else?” Dad asks.

Mom scoffs, as if that’s unthinkable. And maybe it is. I’ve never had a job. Never
had to get one. Never had to do anything for myself. I am helpless. I am a void. A
disappointment. My helplessness, my dependency, my passivity, I feel it whorling into
a little fiery ball, and I harness that ball, somewhere wondering how something made
of weakness can feel so strong. But the ball grows hotter, so hot, the only thing
I can do with it is hurl it. At her.