The Social Climber of Davenport Heights (14 page)

“That was…nice,” I said a little uncertainly.

“It was for the best,” Chester said with resignation. “I suppose I couldn’t stay there by myself anymore.”

I knew that was right. I could see the evidence before my own eyes. Chester was in no condition to take care of himself. His nephew had put him here at Bluebonnet because he was trying to do a good thing. At that moment, it didn’t seem as if it was good. But what else could his nephew have done? What would I have done? I wasn’t able to answer either question.

A half hour later, as I walked through the lobby on my way out, I saw the little tree with the Snickers Miniatures sitting up on the counter at the nurses’ station. From the number of empty ribbons clinging to its branches, I could tell that the candy was disappearing fast. It made me furious. It was my gift to Chester. The nurse had no right to appropriate it the way that she had.

I got in my car and drove to a service station near the freeway entrance. I walked inside and perused the candy aisle. It took me a couple of minutes, but I found what I was looking for—a huge Snickers bar. I bought it and carried it out to the car. I had several small festively trimmed gifts in the trunk that I’d planned on delivering that afternoon. I carefully removed the paper from one, utilizing it to rather inexpertly wrap the candy bar.

Feeling very determined and justified, I drove back to the
nursing home. Chester might be spending Christmas alone with only two Christmas cards for company, but he was not giving up his only gift.

The door to his room was unexpectedly closed. Without thinking, I opened it and barged right in.

He was lying on the bed, turned away from me. The sheet was down, revealing the open back of a hospital gown and a thin, old body, naked except for bandages upon his legs. A nurse was giving him a shot in his bony-looking hip.

She turned and glanced at me, surprised at my abrupt entry.

“Excuse me,” I said, immediately trying to retreat.

“Oh, come on in, honey,” she called out. “I’m done here.”

Between her half-interested efforts and Chester’s, the man’s modesty was hastily restored. But I was embarrassed for him. He was obviously embarrassed, as well.

“They’re giving you antibiotics?”

It was as much a statement as a question.

“Antibiotics? Oh, yes, it…it was a flu shot,” he said.

I started to correct him. An antibiotic is a far cry from a flu shot, but I decided the explanation wasn’t worth the effort.

“I got you another Christmas present,” I told him. “Since Nurse Grabby decided to co-opt your Christmas tree.”

I handed him the hastily wrapped candy and he opened it.

“This is the biggest Snickers bar I’ve ever seen!” he said.

“It’s Christmas,” I told him.

B
RYNN’S PLANE WAS
delayed. I waited over two hours in a crowded airport, but I did so very happily, anxious to see her. If there was anyone in my life for whom I wanted to do something good, it was my daughter, Brynn. I had not been
Mommy Dearest
, but I hadn’t been all apple pie, either. I was eager for a chance to do better for my only child.

It seemed like a lifetime since she’d left, and when I saw her walking through the gate, I hardly recognized her. In the fall her hair had been, for the most part, style-free. It was mouse-brown, much like my own natural color, and she’d kept it long and pulled back in a ponytail most days. Except for her high-school uniform, she’d dressed only in baggy, shapeless clothing. Her face never bore any hint of makeup.

The young woman who stepped off the plane was a bleached blonde dressed in a short spandex skirt and a sweater that clung to her attractive nineteen-year-old figure faithfully. She had on enough mascara to be the wife of a television evangelist.

“Brynn?” It was, of course, impossible for me not to recognize my own daughter, but the question hinted at my total surprise.

“Hello, Mother.” The words were said without any emotion at all. She seemed so grown-up, such a self-possessed, sophisticated young adult. I was startled to discover myself at a loss for words.

“Let me carry that,” I said finally, offering to juggle her carry-on bag as she toted her laptop.

We began to walk up the concourse.

“Did you have a good flight?”

She gave me a long-suffering look. “The plane was packed for the holidays, Mother, and delayed two hours. What do you think?”

“I think you’re probably exhausted,” I answered. “When you get home you can have a nice long soak in the tub and maybe a little nap before dinner.”

She nodded but didn’t reply. The conversation lagged as we hiked through the hordes of holiday travelers and dodged handicapped-transport carts.

When we reached baggage claim, there was nothing for her to do but stop. Above the luggage conveyor her flight was listed, but it was not yet moving. She leaned up against a column.

Standing on one foot, she flexed her ankle as if attempting to relieve a cramp.

“Are the shoes new?” I asked.

Brynn looked over at me, her expression clearly conveying impatience.

“Of course they’re new, Mother,” she said. “I’ve just come from a shopping trip.”

“Oh yes, right,” I agreed.

She was tired, cranky, and I was the nearest available target. I was determined not to take it personally.

“I like your new look,” I said, basing my opinion not upon the actual fashion statement itself, but more on the optimistic
impression that she was developing her own style. Slut chic was all the rage with younger women these days. If Brynn wanted to venture in that direction, well, I was all for it.

“I suppose you think I’m going to become obsessed with my own grooming, the way you are,” she said.

I let that remark stand unchallenged. It wasn’t completely fair, but I do spend an inordinate amount of time and money being concerned about my appearance.

“I’m not anything like you,” Brynn continued. “That threatens you, doesn’t it?”

She didn’t give me an opportunity to reply.

“Dr. Reiser told me that you would be threatened.”

The statement was made in a tone so confrontational it could have been a gang member casting aspersions on a rival’s parentage.

“I’m seeing my own therapist,” I said in my defense.

“It’s a first step, Mother,” Brynn commented loftily.

I decided it was the better part of valor to change the subject.

“Dad and I are very excited to have you home,” I told her.

“Well, it’s good that somebody is,” she said. “Right now I am way too fagged to even care where I am or who I’m with.”

As if to illustrate her point, she leaned even more heavily against the pillar, her shoulders sagging in exhaustion.

“We will get you rested up while you’re home,” I assured her. “You won’t have to think about anything but lounging around and relaxing.”

“Brynn? Brynn Lofton? Is that you?”

The question came from a perky little blonde in low-cut leather pants and a sequined crop-T.

“Kasey!” Brynn screeched in delight as she sprang up to full height once more. “Oh, I hoped I would get to see you over the holidays.”

I tried to keep my jaw from dropping to the floor as I watched Brynn hug her friend from high school. Kasey Carlisle was the dowdy, nose-stuck-in-a-book valedictorian of St. Mary’s High.

“How is MIT?” Brynn asked her.

“Intellectually, it’s extreme,” she answered. “And for guy acquirement, it’s positively pullalating.”

“I am too jealous!” Brynn answered. “Simmons is so lesbo track, I spend half my waking hours scavenging for XYs. And most of what’s available is baseline wretched.”

“Classic,” her friend agreed.

The two chatted eagerly.

Kasey’s mother, whose banker husband was a little too boring for social life, nodded politely to me. We’d never had more than a passing acquaintance, but now for a rapt moment we shared the wonder of this strangely transformed pair.

Seeing Kasey had, at least, succeeded in getting Brynn out of her bad doldrums. But it also got her out of the house for the rest of the day. She had me drop her off at the Carlisles’ where Kasey already had the SUV running.

I drove home alone and unloaded the car, none too happily. I had never been one of those martyr mothers. Even in the worst of my relationship with Brynn, I’d never allowed my life to be controlled by the whim of my child.

Today, however, it had simply happened and I had been unable or unwilling to stop it. I thought of my own mother, who was probably turning in her grave. Never in all the years of our life together had my preferences ever come first. Of course, Mom wanted what was best for me. And she made sure that I went after it.

At that moment I envied her certainty. I had no idea what might be best for my Brynn.

Alone, my house felt surprisingly big and empty. I was there by myself most of the time without even noticing that five thousand square feet was a lot of personal space. With Brynn in town but not at home, I felt lonely.

I’d taken the whole day off in honor of her arrival. Her favorite dinner, merluza del vasco, was being catered from Le Parapluie. I could refrigerate everything I assured myself, and it would be just as good tomorrow.

I called David to let him know that Brynn had gotten home okay.

“I guess this frees us up to go to the Christmas party at the club,” I told him.

“You go ahead,” David suggested eagerly. “I’m going to put together a foursome, I think.”

“Fine,” I answered, not bothering to point out to him that there are no lights on the golf course for night play. “But you
will
be home later.”

The verb stress assured that he would know that it hadn’t been meant as a question. The last thing I wanted was for Brynn to suspect that her father spent his nights elsewhere.

“Of course,” he assured me. “I’ll catch up with you before ten.”

I had no choice but to take him at his word.

The party was like a hundred others I had attended. My trio of comrades d’chic and I laughed and drank champagne and picked apart our least favorite ladies in the crowd.

Teddy asked about Brynn and I made light of it.

“At this age,” I told my friends, “the last thing a young woman wants to do is go to a party with Mother and Dad!”

My statement brought laughter. It seemed perfectly reasonable. And I felt a little better about not being with her for her first night home.

Unfortunately I couldn’t spend the entire evening with Teddy, Tookie and Lexi. Such cliquishness was unacceptable at the club. Though there were dozens of tight little circles just like ours, the only image that was acceptable to portray was an egalitarian one, within the limits of the membership itself.

So we were forced to circulate a bit. Besides, if we stayed together too tightly, we wouldn’t find out what else was going on.

I wandered from room to room. Talking to people. Chatting meaninglessly. I repeated my statement about Brynn several times. Everyone laughed. Everyone agreed.

Next to the bar, I spoke to my father-in-law briefly. He was in a deep political discussion about the future of public education.

“Tax dollars shouldn’t be funding any of it,” he told his buddies. “If those welfare parents had to pay out of their own pockets, they’d care more about how their kids do in school.”

Those around were in full agreement. “Giveaways never foster initiative,” Les Weigan stated flatly.

His statement struck me as rather ironic. Weigan, like the other men present, was born into a family of wealth and privilege. Literally everything that he had, had been given to him, including a first-rate education and a profitable business. If that hadn’t fostered his own initiative, he would have been dragged into bankruptcy years ago.

“I haven’t seen my little Brynn. Is she here tonight?” W.D. interrupted their discussion to pose the question to me.

“She’s out with Kasey Carlisle,” I answered. “They ran into each other at the airport and made girl-plans for the evening.”

W.D. nodded, smiling, but somehow he didn’t look pleased. I wasn’t sure if he was simply disappointed that she wasn’t here, disapproving of her spending time with Kasey
Carlisle, or unhappy with me for not making things work out differently.

I extricated myself from his confab as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately for me, it was out of the frying pan and into the fire. I’d just made it to the doorway, when someone actually reached over and tugged at my sleeve.

I glanced up to see Beverly Mullins.

“I want a word with you,” she said, and then ominously added, “In private.”

“Of course,” I replied, feigning a brightness I definitely did not feel.

“This way, I think,” she said, leading me back through the room and out the side doorway. The deserted locker room was chilly and unwelcoming, the odor of sweaty golf shoes hung in the air.

Beverly faced me. Her demeanor was matter-of-fact, but her expression was serious. I didn’t know what she was going to say. She’d undoubtedly become aware of her husband’s fruitless pursuit of me. Or maybe worse, maybe she thought I was encouraging him. Perhaps she thought that I was actively trying to break up her marriage. Defending myself by saying what a worthless, pathetic jerk I thought Gil to be was insulting. I couldn’t do that. But what could I do? No matter what was said, afterward, our relationship, tenuous and shallow as it had always been, would cease to exist.

All I could hope was that this would be quick.

“There is no way to say this but just to say it,” Beverly began.

“All right,” I agreed. “Say it.”

“Gil let it slip that David’s building a house for that woman.”

“What?”

“That woman, Mikki,” she explained. “David is buying a house for her out in Stone Oak. Richland Garza did the
plans. Monck and Sons are the contractors. She’s quit her job and just spends her days out there making sure they do everything to suit her.”

I just stood there, stunned. I was so certain that she was going to accuse me of chasing Gil. I was completely unprepared for this revelation in my own marriage. He was building her a house? I was speechless.

“You did know about her,” Beverly said, looking at me with grave concern. “I was sure that you already knew about her.”

“Oh yes, sure,” I admitted. “I knew about her.”

“Good, that’s good,” she said. “Myself, I don’t even bother to keep up anymore. Who’s sleeping with Gil ceased to matter years ago, as long as it didn’t have to be me. But if he were spending that kind of money on somebody else, I’d want to know about it.”

“Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”

She accepted my gratitude a little uneasily. “I think your girlfriends know it, too,” she said. “Probably everybody does, or will. I’m sure they just didn’t want to have to tell you.”

“Yes, you’re probably right,” I said. “It really was good of you to let me know.”

“No problem,” Beverly answered. “Those of us with husbands like this have to stick together. Maybe we should start a support group, Women Married to Assholes. We could call ourselves the WMA and people would think we were a bunch of female doctors.”

Her joke wasn’t all that funny and I disliked her characterization of David as an asshole. I also didn’t appreciate having him lumped in with the Gil Mullinses of the world. I suppose there was enough love and loyalty left to make me want to defend him. I didn’t, however. I just thanked her again and made my exit from the locker room as quickly as possible.

I went back to join the party, but deliberately kept myself upon the edge of things, lost in my own thoughts.

I considered what Beverly had said, but I couldn’t really believe that it was true. Gil had told her about this. Gil was a man who definitely had an agenda of his own. Though how he might think a story like this could benefit him, I didn’t know.

Richland Garza was the architect, she’d said. David loved the man’s work. But it was much too slick and contemporary for me. I had put the kibosh on that suggestion for our house the minute David had proposed him.

Maybe Mikki hadn’t.

Perhaps she was building the new house. She could have changed jobs. I was sure that David had nothing to do with it.

There had been a number of “other women” in the years of our marriage. I’m not sure when David first began to be unfaithful. I’d been aware of a dalliance or two in the last ten years. I was pretty sure that what I knew was only the tip of the iceberg. This little hairdresser was just another one of those. Someone cute and sexy who made him feel young and virile. These affairs were never serious. David was very married. At least in the sense that his commitment to Brynn, and the concept of our family, was total. No amount of happy goodtime-girl would ever change that. Any of the people around me who felt differently obviously just wanted some soap-opera scenario to gossip about.

I continued circulating from room to room. Eventually I found myself on the sun terrace, a Saltillo-tiled enclosed porch facing the gardens. It had floor-to-ceiling glass doors on three sides, and in the spring it was opened up like a patio. Tonight it was closed, and heated against the winter chill, and was being utilized as the voting gallery.