whose effects were, according to one of Sheryl’s sons, off the hook .
So , Erica said. Listen. I wanted to talk to you about the wedding?
Uh-huh , I said. Cipriani, February. Winter Wonderland. She’d been starving herself for the better part of a year. I was supposed to be a bridesmaid, wear a lavender gown. I intended to drink some moderate amount of alcohol for the first time in a long while. This moderate amount was going to get me Super Fucked Up. I was looking forward to it.
Yeah , so, Steve and I really feel that it’s our day, you know?
Sure.
I mean, what I actually mean is that it’s my day, really. It’s my day.
Christ. How estranged from yourself, how juvenile and spastic do you have to be to cling to that kind of idea? Like a kid with a behavioral disorder.
And here’s the thing . She had rehearsed this. “The Thing.” Up it came from the entitlement swamp, covered in reeds, wearing a muddy veil and clutching an enormous bouquet. So many of our friends have kids. And even though we love kids and love our friends’ kids and wish we could include everyone, we’ve decided we can’t have everyone’s kids, and it’s not fair to make any exceptions, so I just wanted to let you know that we’re not going to be having kids at the wedding . She had definitely rehearsed it; she recited it without pause. And I just feel that having kids there would just, like, take the focus off me. So! She took a closing breath, exhaled it noisily.
Erica. I’m nursing. He’s a newborn.
She set her jaw, ready to rumble.
We declined to stay the night. On the drive home the baby bawled in the back while I bawled in the front.
I’m really not sure who I should try and comfort first , Paul said.
Fuck you , I said, because he was the only person available.
We pulled in to a rest stop in Ulster County, devoured the most disgusting/amazing heat-lamped pizza ever.
Something’s crossed over in me, and I can’t go back. (That was Thelma in Thelma and Louise .)
Hey, uh . . . sorry to bother you? I’m a friend of Mina Morris’s. We’re at uh . . . Crisp and Jerry’s? The water cut out this morning. The hot water. There’s no hot water. And the heat might be on the fritz. We can hear this banging? Can you call us? Thanks a lot.
Male voice. I listen to it three more times. It’s pretty amazing that these houses are still standing at all, when you think about it.
Will’s happy to see me, I could swear he is. It smells of Nag Champa in there. He gets his coat. We walk. Sunny, freezing.
She’s having a baby. Any minute. Like, she might be having it right now.
Cool. You can show her the ropes.
How deep in shit she’d have to be!
The guy who opens Crisp and Jer’s door is upper forties, short, wool socks, handsome, glasses, flannel. Self-conscious, you can see it immediately in the clothes, which are just slightly too too. Hates his father, wants to impress his father. Not quite enough self-loathing to cancel out the narcissism. Deeply admires people less materialistic than he, can’t quite give up on impressing people more materialistic than he. You grow up among the rich, you become a veritable Jungian psychic where material self-representation is at hand.
Hey , the guy says.
He steps aside to usher us in. Teeth-grindingly cold. A space heater is doing very little to help matters. Mina is bundled so thoroughly in blankets on the couch that at first I don’t see she’s holding her newborn.
We stare.
They look like hairless rats when they’re this new, like soft mechanical dolls. The most riveting, shocking hairless doll rats you ever saw. So intense, what happens when there’s a newborn in the room. This negative energy charge, this weird, blessed pall. Difficult not to whisper, tiptoe, nice and easy, forget what you were going to say.
Hi , I say.
Four days ago , she says, not looking up.
So small and tender, shockingly close to nonexistence. It’s a whole lot like the dying. It’s
So , Erica said. Listen. I wanted to talk to you about the wedding?
Uh-huh , I said. Cipriani, February. Winter Wonderland. She’d been starving herself for the better part of a year. I was supposed to be a bridesmaid, wear a lavender gown. I intended to drink some moderate amount of alcohol for the first time in a long while. This moderate amount was going to get me Super Fucked Up. I was looking forward to it.
Yeah , so, Steve and I really feel that it’s our day, you know?
Sure.
I mean, what I actually mean is that it’s my day, really. It’s my day.
Christ. How estranged from yourself, how juvenile and spastic do you have to be to cling to that kind of idea? Like a kid with a behavioral disorder.
And here’s the thing . She had rehearsed this. “The Thing.” Up it came from the entitlement swamp, covered in reeds, wearing a muddy veil and clutching an enormous bouquet. So many of our friends have kids. And even though we love kids and love our friends’ kids and wish we could include everyone, we’ve decided we can’t have everyone’s kids, and it’s not fair to make any exceptions, so I just wanted to let you know that we’re not going to be having kids at the wedding . She had definitely rehearsed it; she recited it without pause. And I just feel that having kids there would just, like, take the focus off me. So! She took a closing breath, exhaled it noisily.
Erica. I’m nursing. He’s a newborn.
She set her jaw, ready to rumble.
We declined to stay the night. On the drive home the baby bawled in the back while I bawled in the front.
I’m really not sure who I should try and comfort first , Paul said.
Fuck you , I said, because he was the only person available.
We pulled in to a rest stop in Ulster County, devoured the most disgusting/amazing heat-lamped pizza ever.
Something’s crossed over in me, and I can’t go back. (That was Thelma in Thelma and Louise .)
Hey, uh . . . sorry to bother you? I’m a friend of Mina Morris’s. We’re at uh . . . Crisp and Jerry’s? The water cut out this morning. The hot water. There’s no hot water. And the heat might be on the fritz. We can hear this banging? Can you call us? Thanks a lot.
Male voice. I listen to it three more times. It’s pretty amazing that these houses are still standing at all, when you think about it.
Will’s happy to see me, I could swear he is. It smells of Nag Champa in there. He gets his coat. We walk. Sunny, freezing.
She’s having a baby. Any minute. Like, she might be having it right now.
Cool. You can show her the ropes.
How deep in shit she’d have to be!
The guy who opens Crisp and Jer’s door is upper forties, short, wool socks, handsome, glasses, flannel. Self-conscious, you can see it immediately in the clothes, which are just slightly too too. Hates his father, wants to impress his father. Not quite enough self-loathing to cancel out the narcissism. Deeply admires people less materialistic than he, can’t quite give up on impressing people more materialistic than he. You grow up among the rich, you become a veritable Jungian psychic where material self-representation is at hand.
Hey , the guy says.
He steps aside to usher us in. Teeth-grindingly cold. A space heater is doing very little to help matters. Mina is bundled so thoroughly in blankets on the couch that at first I don’t see she’s holding her newborn.
We stare.
They look like hairless rats when they’re this new, like soft mechanical dolls. The most riveting, shocking hairless doll rats you ever saw. So intense, what happens when there’s a newborn in the room. This negative energy charge, this weird, blessed pall. Difficult not to whisper, tiptoe, nice and easy, forget what you were going to say.
Hi , I say.
Four days ago , she says, not looking up.
So small and tender, shockingly close to nonexistence. It’s a whole lot like the dying. It’s
Similar Books
