She Has Your Eyes (26 page)

“Gee, thanks, Mags.”

“Take a look in the mirror.”

Thing is, I knew she was right. We were sitting on one of the couches at Perch (rather, she was sitting; I was slouching) after classes. I’d just recounted the story about the Great Wig Emergency. Despite her being so frantically upset when she called, the next day Mom awakened with the tenacity of someone on a mission. The counselor at the Cancer Center recommended a store, and when we arrived I couldn’t help but feel like a mother and daughter playing dress-up. I tried on just as many wigs as she did, and the sales assistants were top-notch (unfortunately, they had assisted many customers who were cancer patients—too many). Together we struck poses in the mirror, rating each other’s picks on a scale of one to ten—the retro Cyndi Lauper got a five on me, while the Senator Hillary Clinton got a seven on Mom. I even convinced her to try on a neon pink bob that made her look like a trendy Hamptonite. She fixed each one over the scarf she wore around her head—she wouldn’t let anyone see her
without it, not even me. And maybe it had been a good thing that she did, because I probably would’ve stared at her, not in a gawking way but one that drew me into her vulnerability, her personhood, her inner woman that I had been too self-absorbed to care about but now couldn’t get enough of. Every glimpse drew me closer to her, and I wanted to stay there.

Best of all, we
laughed
. My mother actually laughed and smiled and even encouraged me to buy one as well. I recalled an old
All in the Family
episode when Gloria buys a brunette wig, but accuses Mike of secretly wanting to sleep with another woman because he’s so turned on by the wig that he wants her to wear it during sex. The scene further prompted me to recall David’s and my recent encounter when he was Devin. Which was what had prompted me to buy a wig of my own—the same style as the neon pink one, only in neon blue. Mom wound up buying three wigs, all silver and similar to her traditional hairstyle.

Maggie, however, seemed more fixated with the other part of the story, which was David’s weekend in Hartford with Wylie.

“You mean he went anyway, given what just happened?” Maggie asked.

I shrugged a yes. “What else was he going to do, sit around and twiddle his thumbs at home?”

“Um, hello? He could’ve come to Long Island instead and supported you and your mother.”

“My mother wouldn’t even let my brothers see her without hair—no way she was going to let David within ten feet of her.” I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly defending David to Maggie when I had judged him for the very same things. I crashed to the side of the couch and lay there for a moment. “I’m burning out fast. The booster rockets aren’t firing. Impact is going to be at a crushing velocity—”

“Enough with the NASA metaphors!” she said. “We get it, you’re a mess.”

“There’s more.”

“
More?
”

“I’m meeting Andrew,” I blurted, then winced and braced myself as if she were about to hit me.

She dropped her jaw and kept it there for a full five seconds. “Are you
crazy
? Did you wake up one morning and drink a bottle of crazy juice?”

“Isn’t that what Red Bull is?”

Maggie gave me an ominous look. “Andi. You and David aren’t even married yet, and already you’re putting your marriage on the line.”

“It was on the line the moment he found out he had a daughter,” I argued.

“No. Don’t make Wylie your get-out-of-jail-free card. I’m not saying it’s not a situation wrought with complications, but it’s something you can get through
together
. And it seems to me you
were
getting through it together, until Andrew came into the picture.” Maggie stopped and put her hand to her chest. “Oh God, this is my fault. I never should’ve told you he was looking for you. I never should’ve opened my big fat mouth to him in the first place.…”

I put my hand on Maggie’s. “Whoa. Mags. Stop. You didn’t do anything wrong. Andrew would’ve gotten in touch with me one way or another.” I pressed on. “It’s not Andrew’s fault either. And it’s not mine, or David’s, or anyone else’s. Things are just… messed up. And Andrew’s been a friend. It’s just a lunch—a lunch between
friends
,” I emphasized.

Maggie remained unconvinced. “Please tell me you at least told David you’re meeting him.”

I nodded. I told him when we each got back from our
respective weekends. My intent was to wear the wig, play out another little game with Devin, and have much-needed makeup sex. But David was in no mood, and I wound up blurting out the news about Andrew.

“And?” said Maggie.

“And let’s just say makeup sex has been postponed.”

“Can you blame him?”

“Hey, he’s no saint in all this.” I sighed heavily. “Let’s talk about something else, please. Still no plans for Thanksgiving?”

“I’m following Jeff and Patsy’s lead and getting the hell out of here. Going skiing in Vermont.”

Jeff Baxter and his wife Patsy had shocked everyone when they announced they were taking a cruise Thanksgiving week. At the present moment I was considering stowing away in one of their suitcases. Maggie had lost her parents years ago, and she was an only child. Usually she spent holidays with cousins or friends or whomever she was involved with at the time, but lately the prospect of being by herself, of not feeling as if she’d been dropped off on someone’s doorstep or being taken in out of pity, appealed to her, and I empathized.

“How about you?” she asked.

David and I usually switched off the holidays between my family and his, but we agreed that we were going to be with my family this year. In fact, Joey and Tony and I already agreed to take charge of cooking dinner, and we’d stay either at Mom’s house or in town for Thanksgiving. Mom complained profusely about not being the one to cook—she’d had that duty for the better part of twenty-five years—but I knew she was also grateful to have all three of her children there. Joey was planning to bring his girlfriend and her daughter, Lisa, for dessert.

“What about Wylie?” asked Maggie.

“What about her?” I replied.

“She’s not joining you?”

“A little soon for that, don’t you think?”

“David is obviously working very hard to have a relationship with her. Why wouldn’t he want her there?”

“Wanting her there and inviting her are two different things,” I said. “Besides, would you invite a kid you’ve only known for two minutes to
my mother
’s house, even when she’s at the peak of health?”

Maggie considered this. “You’ve got a point.”

I instantly felt guilty for the remark. “I shouldn’t say things like that anymore. She’s changed a lot these last couple of months.” God, was that all it had been? Seemed much longer. “The last few years, really.”

“You can be angry at someone who has cancer,” said Maggie, no doubt thinking about her boyfriend James, who had lost his life to Leukemia about fifteen years ago. “I mean, you don’t want to stay angry at them, but it’s OK to be that way every now and again.”

I knew what she was trying to tell me. But I couldn’t help but see the bigger picture. In the past, when I took such potshots at my mother, I justified them as payback for all the grief she’d given me throughout my life. But in the present moment, I finally saw it for what it really was: petty resentment. It was time to stop. Time to let her off the hook once and for all. It was time to
start over
. Time for me to be a better person. After all, hadn’t I credited Andrew with that? And David? And her? They deserved the same from me, and more. Much, much more.

That night I suggested to David that we go to a movie—we hadn’t done anything “datelike” in ages. He agreed, but with
little enthusiasm. We were quiet to and from the theater, and although we held hands during most of the movie, the tension between us was palpable.

When we came home, before David could turn on the lights inside the house I pulled him to me in the dark and wrapped my arms around him. We held each other, the only sound being our breath. I shut everything out for that moment and focused on the feeling of our embrace: Safe. Solid. Real. I wanted to be present and committed to it.

He found my lips with his fingertips and kissed me.

“
Mia cara
,” he practically whispered. “I miss you.”

I hadn’t expected him to say that, and I wasn’t even one hundred percent sure what he meant. Was he missing my physical presence because of my trips to Long Island? Was he missing my company? My trust? All of the above? Was I missing him too? I was certainly missing the way things used to be, when it was just the two of us and no one else pulling us in different directions. Or maybe for the first time we were letting ourselves be pulled.

I embraced him again. “I miss
us
,” I said. With every inhale, I longed to breathe in David’s love, his firm grasp, his familiar fragrance.

“Do you really have to go?” he asked. He sounded on the verge of tears. It took me less than a second to realize that he was talking about my lunch meeting with Andrew the next day.

“I’ll be back,” I promised.

He held me even tighter.

“Where are we?” he asked.

I didn’t understand the context of the question. But asking him to elaborate would only pull us farther apart; after all,
shouldn’t I know what he meant? Was my inability to read his mind one more warning sign that we were in trouble? And how many more signs would I need before I finally heeded them?

“We’re home,” I replied.

He didn’t say anything else. I had no idea whether I’d gotten it right.

chapter thirty-four

Trying to decide what to wear for my meeting with Andrew was like trying to decide what to wear for a blind date. On one hand, I didn’t want to get all dolled up—I didn’t want to care at all, wanted to dress the way I would if I were meeting Jeff or Maggie or Miranda for a burger.

But I
wasn’t
meeting Jeff or Maggie or Miranda. I was meeting a man whom I had once been in love with a lifetime ago, who had once been in love with me. And I couldn’t help but want an eat-your-heart-out moment—for him to feel a pang of regret for having dumped me for Tanya. Hence, I showed up to Bertucci’s in Harvard Square (an approximate midpoint from where we each lived) dressed in boot-cut blue jeans (which were loose on me—Maggie was right about my having dropped weight since Labor Day weekend), a red cashmere sweater (Andrew used to say I looked good in red), and suede boots with a heel high enough to give me some confidence in the vertically challenged department, but not so high that they felt as if I were walking on stilts. I managed to fix my hair into some semblance of a style, and I did the best I could to conceal the dark circles with makeup.

Andrew was already waiting at the table for me. He looked different. His hair had gone considerably gray—the kind of gray that made a man look intelligent and distinguished rather than old—and was clean-shaven, as Maggie had reported, a change from the last time I’d run into him. Although he’d always been thin and a runner, he now looked as if he’d been weight training. He was dressed in blue jeans and a black cotton button-down shirt—he must have remembered that I always thought he looked good in black. Today Andrew looked stylishly handsome. He looked… humble.

He broke into a wide grin when he saw me and stood up as I strode over to him. And then he opened his arms.
Oh God, he wants to hug me.
My body tensed up as I allowed him to fold me in, and damn it for feeling nice. The scent of him took me back to another lifetime.

“You look wonderful,” he said, still grinning ear to ear.

“For someone who hasn’t slept in six weeks, sure,” I said as if making a friendly joke, but was secretly grateful for his assessment. “You, on the other hand, look like you’ve been taking care of yourself.”

“Stop,” he said. “I mean it. You’re so pretty.” I blushed. We sat at the table, and he stared at me for a few seconds, almost as if trying to place me. “God, Andi. It’s like you’re a completely different person.”

“I am a completely different person.”

“Even the way you walk. It’s—I don’t know, it’s like looking at someone who’s both familiar and foreign at the same time.”