Sorority Sisters (23 page)

My family has not met Doug yet, but they will like him very much. He is the kind of man that people are drawn to, that they admire, that they seek out. I wish Doug's schedule were such that he could be around more; the only reason he's here today is that he's stationed in Lemoore, just south of Fresno, but he wasn't always stationed there. It's been difficult having a relationship with a navy pilot, but I know I'm not the first woman to say that.

After dinner Karen and Jim circulate through the room, chatting with everyone. I watch them together, so easy in their awareness of each other, so effortlessly in tune. They look
good
together.

I look at Doug. Doug is bent over, retying his shoe, his shoulder bumping the table and setting the flowers to trembling against the confines of the clear vase. I look away from the vase and the flowers and Doug to watch Karen and Jim. In their circuit of the room they've saved our table for last, on purpose, I think, because Karen collapses into the chair left vacant by one of her work friends, motioning for Jim to do the same, which he does with a grin of delighted compliance. Karen slips off her white pumps and lifts her stockinged feet onto Jim's lap. She sighs in high exaggeration. Jim chuckles as she wriggles her toes.

“Laurie tells me you've bought a house,” Doug says to Karen. Jim is rubbing Karen's feet, one at a time, his large hands dwarfing her foot. Jim's affection for Karen is so casual, so ordinary, that I catch my breath.

“We did,” Karen says, smiling. “It's not a big house, but it's on a quiet street, so we're happy. We can add on later.”

Jim groans and starts rubbing Karen's other foot.

“Are you still in Santa Monica?” Doug asks. The other couples, the older ones, have left the table with quiet excuses, leaving the four of us to ourselves.

“La Crescenta,” Karen answers. “It feels like the country with big trees all around the house and a beamed ceiling in the family room, and the house is tucked against a hill. It's just so cozy and cute,” she says, her voice getting more and more animated.

“Laurie didn't tell me you'd left Santa Monica,” Doug says, looking at me.

Didn't I? I mentally shrug. Was it important that he know that?

“It's a shorter drive to Santa Anita, where my parents are, so that was appealing,” Karen says. “And Jim's parents gave us the money for the down payment as a wedding gift—wasn't that sweet of them? So Jim's moved in already and is painting old woodwork and stripping wallpaper, and I moved out of my apartment and back in with my parents until the wedding, but I've been over to the La Crescenta house so much, doing this and that, that I feel like I live there already.”

“Funny. It didn't feel that way to me,” Jim says.

“Jim's got wallpaper elbow,” Karen says.

“Is that what it's called these days?” Jim says, grinning.

“Manners, manners,” Karen says, giggling.

Giggling.
When was the last time I giggled?

“It's so nice that your parents live here now. That must be great,” I say.

“Well . . .” Jim says on a drawl. Karen kicks him in the ribs, still giggling.

When it was obvious that Karen was staying in Los Angeles, and it became blindingly obvious once she met Jim, her dad retired and Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell moved to a two-bedroom house in Santa Anita, where I hear they've become regulars at the track and have made a whole new group of friends. I think I had a harder time than Karen did, thinking of that lovely home in Avon belonging to another family.

“Speaking of moving,” I say, “did you know that Cindy and Bob live in San Diego now?”

Karen nods. “I heard that. Didn't he get a job with the Padres, something about baseball?” Jim laughs and shakes his head at her. “I'm a newlywed,” she says, grinning at him. “Don't mess with me.”

“Roger that,” he says. Karen and I look at each other, our eyes wide in mirrored delight, and then we burst out laughing.

It's Diane. We caught the navy bug from Diane and it hasn't let us go. Doug doesn't laugh, and it occurs to me for the first time that I didn't catch the navy bug from him. “Candy and Steve are still in Hawaii, aren't they?” Karen asks. She's been busy planning her wedding and working long hours and most weekends; it's fallen to me—how, I'm not sure—to keep up with everyone. I nod my response. “I thought that was temporary,” she says.

I shrug. “I think it's going well. She loves it there and he just got promoted, again. They bought a condo right on the beach. It's older, just one real bedroom and then an open loft bedroom, but it's right on the beach.”

“We should go and visit her,” Jim says briskly. “I'm sure she'd love to see you. And me.”

Karen laughs and pokes Jim with her foot. Jim grabs her feet with both hands and holds her still. She grins in delight to be so fully captured.

“She says the door's open. Anytime,” I say.

“Have you been?” Karen asks, looking at me.

“Laurie and I went to Kauai for a week last October,” Doug says. Karen's gaze skims to Doug, registers his remark, and then looks back at me.

I nod. “It was wonderful. We had the best time, and Candy was amazing. She's such a great hostess she might even be in the running with Diane. We didn't lift a finger if she could help it, and she has a little girl who is just adorable.”

“I'd love to see her,” Karen says, looking at Jim, lowering her feet to the floor, her toes searching blindly for her shoes.

“We just bought a house, remember?” Jim looks at me. “Have you got any sorority sisters who can swing a hammer, work a chop saw? They don't even have to be nice. We're not fussy.”

Karen laughs and shoves her palm against his shoulder, knocking him backward about an eighth of an inch. Jim just grins. I feel my heart melt a little and look at Doug, wanting to share the moment, make our own moment of melting hearts.

Doug is looking at Karen with a small, fixed smile on his face.

My heart stops melting.

“You should really try and go,” Doug says to Karen. “There's only one bathroom, but being on the beach like that . . .”

“The view is amazing,” I add, looking at Doug.

Karen is shaking her head, grinning at her husband, when Doug says, “There's a great restaurant about a mile from their house. You can walk down the beach to get there. We did. It was fantastic; wasn't it, Laurie?”

“It was,” I say, watching Doug. Watching Doug watch Karen.

“It sounds amazing,” Karen says, “but, aside from the house—and what
is
a chop saw?—I don't want to leave my parents.”

“How are they?” I ask, looking discreetly around the room for them. Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell are sitting at a table near the high table, their backs to the wall, their faces tired and relaxed. Mr. Mitchell looks a little gray and completely exhausted.

“Dad's getting old,” Karen says. “He's looking old, you know? But Mom's great, full of energy and ideas.”

“
Lots
of ideas,” Jim says.

“Oh, shut up,” Karen says with a grin. “Your mom has ideas.”

“My mom lives in La Jolla,” Jim says. “Her ideas have farther to travel.”

It all sounds truly wonderful. I don't have any of it. My family is scattered across the world; my sisters are all married with children and husbands and in-laws of their own. I have a niece who was just sent away to boarding school, falling in line with family tradition.

“Well, back to mingling,” Karen says, standing up, reaching a hand out to Jim and mock-pulling him to his feet. He towers over her, his height looking protective and sheltering. “Don't skip out, okay? I want to talk to you some more before we leave,” she says, staring at me, her eyes seeing things in me I don't want her to see.

Living with Karen for that year, the two of us in that apartment, changed things. They changed things in me and in her; I'm not sure why or how, but they did.

“No skipping,” I say. “I promise.”

But I'm not sure if I mean that or not.
Just be happy, Karen. Be happy today!
My eyes tell her that even if my mouth doesn't, and I know she can see that in me, because she smiles her biggest smile, her eyes beaming down into mine, and links her arm through Jim's and says, “Come on and show me a good time, cowpoke,” and off they go, Jim laughing under his breath.

Doug and I are alone at the table, deserted in some sense, and I
feel
alone and deserted. I don't understand why. The feeling hangs over me until all I can think of is how to escape it.

“I'm going to say hello to Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell. I'd like to introduce you,” I say to Doug. I don't know why I'm being so formal. Why can't I sling my arm through his and say, “Follow me for a good time, sailor,” or some such silliness? Why can't we
play
together?

“You go ahead,” Doug says. “I'm going to get something from the bar. Would you like anything?”

So formal. Have we always been like this? I can't remember anymore.

“No. I'm fine. I'll find you at the bar; this won't take a minute.”

I make my way to the front of the room and Mr. Mitchell smiles to see me approach. He was a middle-aged, slim man with a fringe of grayish hair when I met him that summer in Connecticut; now he's a skinny old man with a rim of silver hair. He's aged two decades in four years. He looks frail and brittle, as if he'd crack into shards if he fell to the floor. But his smile is still wide and welcoming, just as it was then. He welcomes me as if I'm precious, because he believes I am precious to his daughter. Perhaps I am. I hope so.

Mrs. Mitchell looks just the same. She gazes at me warmly, her smile brilliant, but I still approach her somewhat hesitantly, and I feel guilty about my hesitation, but that doesn't change anything. Mrs. Mitchell intimidates me, just a little bit.

“Congratulations!” I say, leaning in to give them both a hug. They've risen to their feet to hug me in return. “It's a beautiful wedding and a beautiful day, and doesn't Karen look amazing?”

“Oh, do you like her hair?” Mrs. Mitchell asks, sitting back down and offering me a seat with a wave of her hand. “I prefer it shorter,” she says, without waiting for a reply from me, “but I suppose you girls like long hair for a wedding.”

“It's traditional, I suppose,” I say.

Mr. Mitchell just smiles at the two of us; I'm not certain he understands the undercurrents of the conversation. I'm not sure I understand them either.

“Well, hair is hair. It can always be changed,” she says. “Now, what are you up to, Laurie? Karen tells me congratulations are in order. Congratulations on finishing law school and being hired right off the bat! Your parents must be so pleased.”

“Thank you. Yes. They are,” I say. I think it might even be true.

“Are you excited?” Mr. Mitchell asks, smiling at me. He's the most genial, pleasant man.

“I am. A little scared, but mostly excited,” I say. “But how about you? Are you two enjoying retirement?”

They laugh together, at the same time, and fully in harmony, looking at each other askance. It's just the way Karen and Jim are: the same harmony, the same bone-deep humor.

“We're staying out of trouble,” Mr. Mitchell says, a gleam in his pale gray eyes.

“At the racetrack?” Mrs. Mitchell responds, laughing at him and at themselves.

Mr. Mitchell shrugs and laughs in mock innocence, his hands raised.

“Now, Laurie, when is it going to be your turn?” Mrs. Mitchell says, turning the conversation back upon me like a ricocheting bullet. “Any marriage plans?”

Marriage plans? I have nothing but marriage plans. The problem is that I don't have a marriage proposal. But I don't say this out loud, even though the words crowd against the roof of my mouth, pounding against my teeth.

No, I don't say anything, but Mrs. Mitchell must see something of it in my face because she loses her smile and leans toward me and says, “Laurie, it's none of my business and your own mother should be saying this to you, if she hasn't already, but if he hasn't proposed by now, after all this time and at your age, he's not going to. I wouldn't say anything, but I hate to see you hurt, and I hate to see you waste any more time on a man who isn't going to marry you. You're a sweet girl. I just want you to know what you're getting into.”

Or not getting into.

The words hang in the air, between us, before slicing into my hopes.

I smile woodenly and get to my feet. “Thank you. I'll keep that in mind. It was so good to see you again. Congratulations!”

I walk away before the words have reached their ears, but I've said them; I've said all the right things in just the right order. I haven't said anything that I'll regret later. I haven't said anything of importance either, but that's the price of civility and decorum and the appropriate level of personal privacy. It's a perfectly reasonable price and I'm more than happy to pay it.

Ellen waves me over to where she's sitting, giving me a destination. The band has started and Karen and Jim are dancing their first dance, grinning at each other as newlyweds do, so aware of each other, so aware of everyone witnessing this moment in their lives, this joining. It's a moment both so private and so public, I can't think of any other moment like it. I sit in the empty chair next to Ellen. Mike is nowhere to be seen, and for this I am thankful; I tolerate Mike—even more, I work to not actively dislike him. I wish I had the precise word to describe what it is about him that I don't care for, but I blame him for that. He's a very difficult man to describe. He can be charming, in a dangerous way, and that eternal bad-boy type appeals to a lot of women, but not to me. It's that he knows he's a bad boy, which makes it all so false, so premeditated. Does a true bad boy know he's bad? Isn't he just being himself? I think that's the heart of it; Mike is too self-aware, and that seems very calculated, and that I don't like. I also don't like that he can't seem to find his way out of the schoolhouse. There's something very calculated about that, too.