The History of Great Things (9 page)

T
he best man escorts you down the aisle, drops you off to the right of the chuppah, which is covered entirely in pale pink peonies. (Nina's one big idea that got through, though the final shade was downgraded from hot pink.) There are some three hundred people at the temple; it's one of those weddings where half the guests are friends or business contacts of the parents, in this case, Nina's in-laws. Nina hadn't put up a fuss about it until her mother-in-law invited her manicurist, at which point Nina gently suggested she didn't want it to be that big a wedding (she hadn't wanted a big wedding at all), which was when the mother-in-law less gently explained that this was how things were done. (Nina had never understood this at all, but when she came to you to talk about it, your chosen strategy—which in your mind was something like tough love—had come out feeling a lot more like blame the victim:
Nina, you have to just tell her you want a small wedding and that's it. I can't. Of course you can. I really can't. Why not? I don't want to make her feel bad. Okay, but now you feel bad and it's your wedding. You have to speak up for yourself. I don't know, I can't start out my marriage having problems with my mother-in-law. But you
do
have problems with her. But she means well, you know?
)

The best man, Harm (
Harm?
), is a corporate lawyer, nice-looking if notably more conservative than your usual type, but he's single, and he's smiling down the aisle with you like it's his wedding, and all during the ceremony he smiles at you from the other side of the chuppah; he's got the wedding bug, and it's that
I could marry that girl
look, which you've seen a time or two before, that pretty much renders him altogether physically unattractive. After dinner he asks you to dance, then if you'd like to have dinner sometime, and you agree, mostly because it's a weak moment. You're moving into this headspace of
Maybe this is the best I'll ever do
, although usually this is a thought that comes with a mediocre or bad choice, and here in front of you is an attractive law partner who wears cologne and combs his hair. You're not looking for a poverty-stricken drug addict, but you are 100 percent certain that you will never fall in love with a guy like this. The kicker is that you feel altogether shitty about it. You should want a guy like this. Doesn't everyone? Time is running out. Right? Isn't it? But his name is
Harm
.

You lost track hours earlier of how much champagne you've had, but it's a lot, even though you're not falling over. Nina has failed to pay proper attention to you, instead bustling around to every table to greet each guest. When she takes a brief break to sit down for the toast, you tell her not to worry about saying hi to everyone again, that's what the receiving line was for.
Well, Mrs. D
told me I have to say hello to each table. You don't even know half those people. Meanwhile I'm sitting here by myself like a lump.
Nina is far too kind to agree with you on that one, doesn't even think it, goes straight into problem-solving mode by pointing out how
Harm is obviously smitten and why not get to know him? He's not my type, Nina. But who is?
This is as stern as words ever get from Nina, but they're not even intended as
such. She's asking from a genuine place, as though perhaps she might help you find him right now from among the guests here tonight. But you miss this completely.
I think I'm going to go home
, you say.
No, no, you can't, we haven't even cut the cake, plus I've been planning to toss the bouquet right to you!
All you can do is shake your head. If you stay, you'll cry, and you don't cry. Not for people to see. Now, of course, Nina is about to cry, so you tell her you're sorry, champagne doesn't agree with you and you should just call it a day.

Harm puts you in a taxi, calls the next day for the following Saturday night, as is supposed to be the rule; even though he is dying to go out with you as soon as he possibly can, he does everything by the book.

You hate that book. It's not even a book. When he calls, you mean to let the answering machine pick up, but knock the phone off the receiver by mistake.
Hello? Betsy?
you hear from the general area of the floor, so you pull the phone back up even though your head is throbbing.

Date night, he comes to pick you up for dinner bearing a bouquet of flowers that look like he yanked them right out of a Van Gogh. You don't have a vase because you don't get flowers. You have a slightly burnt coffeepot. He's wearing a navy blazer and khakis, you've got on jeans and an oversized sweater from the Gap. It's not like he's in formalwear and you're in a potato sack, but that's the effect. To him, because you're on the arty side, you're practically exotic; that only adds to it for him.

Harm orders a bottle of red wine with dinner, not your favorite, but it helps with the conversation, which dries up not long after where are you from, how many brothers and sisters do you have and such, and a second bottle is ordered before dinner is over, which makes him the tiniest bit more attractive, and
the only reason you don't drink it all is that you figure if you leave some in the bottle he won't report back to Nina that you drank too much, which in truth is no danger at all, all he sees when he looks at you is the woman of his dreams. The booze allows you to let him kiss you, to think, Well, maybe he's not so bad, he likes you, give him a chance; you agree to go out again the next night for a movie; he picks you up again, tries to hold your hand in the movies; all you can think about is how to slip your hand out of his, how it's too soft and small in yours, almost like a child's hand, but not in a good way, just not right; you formulate an entire thesis in your head around why the feel of his hand is more than enough evidence that he's not the right guy, why didn't you get popcorn or candy so your hands would have something else to do, why did you agree to a second date, how are you going to break it off without hurting his feelings. You have never felt such immense relief as you do when he says he has a busy work week ahead, but that he should at least have time for drinks on Wednesday, and you agree to this because it's free drinks, and because the least you can do is tell him in person that you don't want to see him anymore. Maybe by Wednesday you'll be able to make up an excuse that sounds like a good enough reason besides his hands being too small. (That this shouldn't be a legitimate type of reason makes no sense; if a shirt or sweater were too small, you'd take it back, and no one would get upset about it.
I'm sorry, your hands just don't fit me. Oh, okay then. I might know someone the right size
.)

Harm tries to pick you up on Wednesday, but you insist on meeting at the All State, arriving early enough to have a pre-drink drink, which you hope will increase your courage but instead works to soften your judgment again; he looks at you so sweetly when he walks in, you want to like him, or a guy
like him, you really do, things would be so much easier if you did, this guy would be so happy to support you financially, and you could just write or do whatever you decided you wanted to do next until you figured it out, or didn't. The All State is the perfect place for an ending. It's dark, grungy, you can get a big mug of beer, try to say nice things to make up for crushing his hope, and that will be the end of that. It doesn't go quite like that, of course, even though it's barely been more than a couple of weeks, his plan is to tell you he's falling for you. He's wanted to tell you since your first date, but hadn't wanted to scare you off, doesn't know that scared doesn't have anything to do with it for you, or at least that's what you think, anyway; you find it in you to bring up the subject, to say
I'm not looking to get serious
, which is an epic lie (His name is Harm. You can only figure it's short for Harmless. You just can't.), and he looks disappointed but says he's happy to take it slow, which you maybe could have anticipated, but you are committed to not taking it at all, and you say things like
You're such a sweet guy
, and he says things like
I could have seen us spending our lives together
, and he looks like he's trying hard not to cry, and you hate yourself. He offers to walk you home, he's crushed, knows he won't see you again, and you say no, it's only three blocks, though you don't mention that you want to stop at the deli for a bag of Milanos and more beer. Before turning away, you see in his eyes that he would have done about anything you'd wanted, tried to be about anything you'd wanted, if only you'd asked, and you are now entirely sure that you will be punished for this by forces unknown. You grab two bags of Milanos and a six-pack and finish all of it off at home. Alone. Again.

T
he oratorio is a huge success. You sew yourself a gorgeous gown for the occasion, a long column of puce satin with a chiffon overlay; you receive a standing ovation, you're swarmed afterward, sign a program for an eight-year-old girl, pose for photos with the other singers and the conductor, pull Dad into one of them, though that's a bit of an afterthought. He's brought a bouquet of roses—and he's not a flowers guy, he's a guy whose wife's friends occasionally remind him to act like a flowers guy—and roses are decidedly not in the budget but it's a special occasion. The feeling, absorbing all this attention, is unlike any you've had before. The applause and the audience on their feet move into you like a new power source, like you've just discovered solar energy. In the local paper the next day, you get a special mention as someone to watch, a bright new soprano on the horizon. The following week is a whirl, a buzz, magic, but the week after that is quite a bit different. The buzz is gone. And then you remember you're pregnant, for the first time in a week, and the first thought in your head is that this is a conflict.

You should be able to do both, have a baby and sing, why not, who said you couldn't? People have nannies. You don't have a budget for a nanny, you're on a professor's salary right now, but
as your career gets going, you'll earn plenty in no time. You do want this baby, you're sure of it, pretty sure, granted the timing is suddenly not great, but it's too late now. So you'll just do both. Make a daily schedule and just make it work. Meanwhile, before the baby, you've got things to do. You've got a nursery to set up, which will need to be the best nursery ever. But in this era, you don't get to know whether it will be a boy or a girl, and you don't like yellow so you'll go with pale blue, you like blue, and you sort of hope it will be a boy, you aren't exactly sure why, though in remote parts of your brain where thoughts come not in words or sentences but hang around like smoke in a windowless room, there's a vague sense that raising a girl, for you, will be a challenge, though right now there's no time to give real attention to this, and if it does end up a girl you'll just add some pink accents later, a couple of pillows, switch out the curtains, easy enough. Audrey and Inge throw you a lovely baby shower. Pink-and-blue cupcakes with diaper pins on top, pink-and-blue ribbons everywhere, a pink-and-blue banner that says
HELLO BABY
hanging on the porch of Audrey's house to welcome you. Inge escorts you to a rocking chair with a big bow on it—that's from Dad—and you open boxes filled with stuffed animals, linens, rattles, books; the expected
ooh
s and
ah
s come from the group, but instead of building excitement—hooray, the blessed event is near! this is really happening!—when you feel a kick, instead of feeling the miracle of life or even placing a maternal hand to the belly, you are however briefly resentful, sure that this was a setup, that there was a conspiracy among your family and friends to steer you toward this path; but that's crazy, so you focus, focus, you were sure you wanted this, it's what every woman wants, and you want it too, but as you open more presents (carefully, saving the paper, always) and get to
boxes of bottles and diapers, a picture emerges in your head of what those things are actually used for. Smile, Lois, just smile, your friends have done this lovely thing for you, they mean so well, they love you, and they have babies and toddlers, they're all still smiling, they're fine, you will be too, you're certain of it.

Y
ou decide that twenty-nine is too old to wait tables, so Victor gets you a job as a receptionist at the talent agency where he works. Oh, wait! I totally forgot that you moved to Los Angeles for a week. Let me go back. First, you decide to wait tables in another city.

—Seriously, Mom?

—Well, you knew what I meant.

So we throw a big going-away party at the restaurant. All your friends come for the send-off, and you and I pack up your stuff and put it in storage. Everything else gets shipped ahead; your old friend Jimmy from Fire Island has an extra room in his house in Laurel Canyon.

The night you get there, you and Jimmy catch up, and a couple of bottles of wine into this, it becomes a good idea to mess around. The next morning, not so much. How best to navigate this? Ah, yes, you will not get out of bed. You're in no hurry to drive anywhere anyway, and your head is a balloon filled with cement. Good enough. Until Jimmy brings you a breakfast sandwich from the deli down the road and says
Let's
talk
. The cement in your head is preventing you from picking up any meaningful nuances in this
Let's talk
, but those are words you've never much cared for. You would love to know who the asshole was who first put those two words together. It makes talking seem like a terrible thing. Talking is a fantastic thing. You love talking. Until someone says
Let's talk
. And in this case, you have no idea if this
Let's talk
is going to be followed by
This is awkward
or
I've always really liked you and I'd like to see where this goes
or what, but you don't care, because you do not want to deal with either end of that range. You want to not remember what happened last night and start over. You came here to start over. Why do other people who drink have the good fortune to forget the shit that happened that they don't want to remember? You have had no such luck. What you've been lucky enough to forget, other people have reported back. Meanwhile, as you're mulling this over, Jimmy is still sitting on your bed and he does not look like he wants to talk about anything terrible, but today talking at all is not going to happen.
Can we talk later?
you ask.
I'm not feeling all that great. Sure, no problem
, he says, and kisses you on the head and leaves the sandwich, smiles before he closes the door behind him. He is adorable. He looks like a guy you should love.

The next morning, you listen carefully for Jimmy's footsteps and the sound of the front door locking before emerging from your room. This is as good a time as any to look for a job, so you drive over to Hollywood and walk around looking for Help Wanted signs, which is your best idea about how to do it, and you come across one restaurant with a sign in the window that says
HOSTESS NEEDED
(well, you come across a few signs, but this is the only one you deem suitable on this day; the distinctions might be microscopic to the average job-hunter, but the
restaurant job you are seeking is one in which your hard work will be recognized, where there is a general and apparent good vibe, where the staff gets along, ideally one where you can wear whatever you want, but definitely not one that requires a uniform, or a terrible or embarrassing uniform, like a workplace sitcom with the usual cast of unlikely comrades—you, the arty one who doesn't have an art—but you're all in it together, all of this needing to be perceptible through a brief glance inside the restaurant); anyway, you haven't considered maybe putting on a skirt and some lipstick, you're wearing ripped jeans as usual, and the manager lets you fill out an application but it's obvious from the way she hands the application over without a pen that this isn't going to happen. You ask for a pen and the manager looks at you like you asked for a speedboat. Feeling like you've done enough for one day, you head back to the house, but it rains—pours, actually—and you've only just gotten your driver's license even though you're twenty-nine, and I get a hysterical phone call from you about rain, and how you just can't do it, and I tell you it's all fine,
It's not going to rain every day, Betsy, you'll get used to driving, give it time
, but you call back the next day when it's raining even harder, and there's no milk in the house and the closest store is a tiny market a mile down the steep hill where you live. You say
You don't get it, Mom, you can't even walk there, it's too steep, even if I rolled myself down the hill, I couldn't walk back up. You walk a mile easy every day in New York
, I say.
You can't walk anywhere here
,
Mom
.
Well, why didn't you think about that before you left?
I ask, and you say you just didn't. You call back the next day again, same thing, complaints about how driving is the worst, that the freedom of car ownership is obviously an epic myth perpetuated by the auto industry that for mysterious reasons has been swallowed whole by the entire country, and
there's nothing here for you and you want to come home. I urge you to give it more time, though unbeknownst to me, you have already more or less made up your mind.

Meanwhile you're stuck in the house with Jimmy, whom you've been trying to avoid for days, to the point where he's knocking quietly on your door not knowing if you're even in there, asking if you need anything from the grocery store when he goes, because he knows the only food in the house is his. When you finally open the door to tell him
Yes, that would be great
, because you realize now that your existence here, were you to stay, would be limited to whatever might happen at home; you should just go ahead and grow long braids, claim your place as the Rapunzel of Laurel Canyon. Jimmy offers to help you get more comfortable behind the wheel, and mentions that he has a friend who knows about a waitressing job. You say
Thanks, maybe
, though at this point you're pretty sure he knows that none of these things are going to happen, and as such, thankfully, whatever it was he wanted to talk about can be put off for a few decades, until, hopefully, you will have gotten your shit together.

—So, do I do anything besides mess up relationships during this time?

—I don't know, do you?

— . . .

—Seems like you're kind of messing up everything during this time, no?

— . . .

—You remember not telling me much of anything about anything, right?

—That part you have right.