Mating Rituals of the North American WASP Page 2

  “Then you take one, too.”

  “No thanks.” Bex pried Peggy’s fingers from the vial. “From here on out, my body is a temple. No alcohol, no late nights, no stress. Only organic foods, yoga, and Josh giving me shots in my ass. Sexy, right? Put that pill back in here.”

  Peggy dropped it in. “Bex, do you think I’ve caught hepatitis? Or worse?” She was making herself breathless.

  “That guy was so conservative, he looked like a 1962 Brooks Brothers ad.” Bex clenched her teeth and finished in a mock upper-class drawl, “No one like that could possibly be diseased.”

  “That’s not true and you know it.”

  “And no one has sex and then puts his conservative pants, shirt, tie, socks, and shoes back on before passing out. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about whether you had safe sex, because you didn’t have sex.” Bex capped the pill vial and returned it to Peggy’s purse. “If I were you, I’d feel kind of cheated.”

  Nauseated. That’s how Peggy felt. “If you knew anything, you’d tell me, right?”

  “Only you know what happened. It’s back there in your subconscious. Concentrate.” Bex opened the in-flight magazine.

  The plane vibrated. Peggy’s heart jolted. She looked past Bex into the aisle, at the passengers chatting or sleeping, the flight attendants doling out drinks and bags of pretzels. Just a little turbulence. She made herself loosen her death grip on the armrests.

  Bex set down the magazine. “Did you get his name and number?”

  “Why would I want his name and number?”

  “He was cute. Did you give him yours?”

  “I thought you were going to be quiet.” Of course Peggy hadn’t given out her phone number. Then again, she realized with dismay, how would I know?

  “Think back to the last thing you remember.” Bex rustled the magazine so Peggy would see she was reading.

  Peggy had gone with Bex to Andrea’s room. There were margaritas from room service. She’d had one, possibly two. Jen, with whom Peggy had bonded over a mutual love of Wallace Stevens during their freshman honors poetry seminar, had raised a glass: “Okay, let’s go around the room. When did you know he was going to pop the—” She’d looked at Peggy and winced. “Yikes, Peggy, sorry.” To shake off the weight of the bachelorettes’ pity, Peggy had busied herself gathering trash and going down the hall for ice, reciting to herself a stanza from “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.”

  A man and a woman

  are one.

  A man, a woman and a blackbird

  are one.

  When she returned, Andrea was describing her wedding. It would be in Hawaii—just the bride and groom and their families. The other bachelorettes clamored to hear about the dress, the food, the flowers. Peggy had poured herself another drink, reminded herself to be happy for Andrea.

  They’d had steaks and martinis and hit the casino. Peggy, by then considerably more cheerful, had played roulette with Bex, jumping up and down and hollering, “Come on, rent money!” At some point, holding yet another martini, she’d lost her grip and seen her drink on the floor. She was, inexplicably, on the floor, too.

  “Are you all right?” The man had rushed over to her. He’d taken her hand and pulled her gently to her feet. She’d stood, leaning against him.

  Peggy tapped Bex’s magazine. “Why was I calling him my future husband?”

  “You know,” Bex said. “Because of the tiara.”

  It was frightening. Peggy rarely had more than a glass of wine with dinner and never in her life had gotten so drunk that she’d blacked out. What subconscious, self-destructive impulse had taken over?

  “Andie gave us tiaras at dinner. Remember?”

  Oh, right. Peggy did, thankfully, remember: The bride-to-be had presented them all with gag veils—froths of tulle attached to shiny rhinestone tiaras. Peggy had loved hers and worn it into the casino. “What happened to it?” She hadn’t seen it that morning in the man’s room.

  “You must have lost it. Anyway, you told Brooks Brothers you were a bride, and all you needed was a groom.”

  “I wouldn’t say that!” It was too hot on this plane. Peggy reached up to the air blower above her seat, but it was already on. “I respect Brock far too much. Don’t say a word about you-know-what,” she added—she’d just given her friend the perfect opportunity to mention Florida. Considering the way Peggy had acted last night, she was in no mood to hear Bex, whom she loved with all her heart, dig up a two-year-old mistake Brock had promised over and over not to make again. Bex’s disdain for Brock never failed to hurt Peggy’s feelings.

  “Well, I think it’s great that you broke out of your comfort zone,” Bex said cheerfully. “You should do it more often. And if you did sleep with Mr. WASP, you can just call it payback.”

  “Shut up, Rebecca. I mean it.”

  “Let’s change the subject.” Bex took a cardigan out of her bag. Peggy couldn’t understand how Bex could be cold when it was stifling in here. “How are Max and Madeleine?”

  “Remember Dad’s little cough that wouldn’t go away? He went to see some guy in the RV park. A retired veterinarian.” Peggy rubbed her temples. “He told Mom it was cheaper than paying a real doctor. What if it’s serious? Those two make me crazy.”

  “They’re cool—free spirits. All right, work. Think Padma accidentally burned down the store this weekend? Speaking of catastrophes, how much do you think the Evil Empire will raise our rent? I was sure we’d hit the jackpot in Vegas and our troubles would be over.”

  Peggy had been struggling all weekend not to fret about the inevitable increase in their store’s rent. It was the exact opposite of Bex’s way of coping—Bex liked to attack worries head-on. “Ugh, don’t remind me,” Peggy said.

  Bex immediately upended her frown back to a smile. “Don’t beat yourself up over last night. You had a fight with Brock, and you were acting out. Understandably, I might add.”

  “I gave him an ultimatum. I said if we weren’t engaged in a year, I’d leave him,” Peggy mumbled.

  “Maybe that’s a good thing,” Bex said. “To show him you mean business.”

  “He knows I’d never follow through. And to top that stupid move with last night’s stupid move—”

  “Sweetie, stop. All that happened was you drank too much and had fun with a man and didn’t make it back to our hotel room. Nothing bad. You’ll go home, and your life will be exactly as it was before. And if you do follow through on that ultimatum, my offer stands.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Peggy said. Bex, who still lived in the apartment she and Peggy had shared in their twenties, was always telling Peggy she could move back in anytime. Peggy was usually offended at the suggestion, but she had to think now that it might come in handy.

  “Here, eat.” Bex poked at Peggy’s bag of minipretzels. “And ask what’s going on with me for a change. It’s been Brock, Brock, Brock, all weekend.”

  Peggy opened the pretzels, ashamed of herself. “You’re right. I’m so sorry. When’s your appointment with Dr.…?”

  “Kaplan. Guess what New York magazine calls him? The King Midas of fertility—everything he touches turns to gold.”

  “So when are you going? Josh will be there, too, right?”

  “Tomorrow morning. It’ll just be me. Josh will be in court.” Bex’s husband was a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society.

  “I’ll go with you.” Peggy was glad for the chance to turn the tables and help Bex. “For moral support. You’re always taking care of me. I’ll call in Padma to open up the store.”

  “Some other time.” Bex helped herself to one of Peggy’s pretzels. “He’s just going to explain the protocol he’s picked for me. The real fun begins later: hormones and blood tests and more hormones and blood tests.”

  “And then what happens?”

  “Then they retrieve my eggs. That’s what they call it, ‘retrieval.’ Like the eggs are lost in there. Then they fertilize them in a petri dish or something, s
ee if any of them take, put those in me, and it’s Next stop, Babyville. I mean, if it works.”

  Peggy studied her best friend’s profile, the stubborn set of her chin. She ached for Bex whenever a customer came into the store with a baby, whenever one of their friends blithely announced another pregnancy. When she and Bex walked together on the Upper West Side, its sidewalks clogged with young families, Peggy tried to run interference. As if stepping between Bex and a stroller could shield her friend from the fecundity that mocked from every corner. “It will work,” Peggy said. “It has to.”

  “Says the woman who’s sure a thief stole her kidney.”

  Peggy laughed for the first time all day. “Then let me do the worrying, so you don’t need to. I’m excellent at it.” She took Bex’s hand. “Let that be my job.”

  It was nearly eleven when the taxi driver hoisted Peggy’s suitcase out of the trunk with a grunt and thudded it onto the sidewalk. “Thanks, sorry,” she said, and overtipped him.

  She stood in the middle of Fifty-ninth Street in last night’s dress and heels. She pressed her left leg against her suitcase, claiming it, and looked up at the glass-and-granite facade of her building, trying to spot the dark windows of her and Brock’s apartment on the twentieth floor; and then at the cab speeding off into the late-September night. A part of her wanted to chase after the taxi and have the driver take her…where, she didn’t know. She reminded herself of what Bex had said: “Life will be exactly as it was before.” Of course it would. Nothing had happened.

  In the elevator, she searched her purse for her keys. Before she’d stormed off to the airport, she was pretty sure Brock had said he was going to Chicago. Wait, Cleveland. Bengals at Browns. His return flight wouldn’t get in until past midnight. If you were going to be a sports cameraman’s girlfriend, you had to accept that he’d be away most weeks, from Thursday or Friday through late Sunday night. It had come to seem normal to Peggy. She spent her weekends minding the shop anyway and often came home drained from hours of bright-eyed girl chatter, with nothing to talk about beyond the typical store happenings—a European tourist who’d bought one of every soap, lotion, and shower gel on the shelves; a customer who’d tried to return an empty jar of body scrub. Tonight, Peggy was downright glad of Brock’s absence. For starters, she wouldn’t have to explain why she’d flown across the country in a little black dress badly camouflaged with an airport gift shop T-shirt that said “Sin City.”

  She stepped out of her shoes at last and dragged the suitcase through the dark living room into her and Brock’s bedroom. A bath. That’s what she needed to wash away last night once and for all.

  In the tub, Peggy channeled the instructor of a meditation course she’d once taken. She imagined Birch—that had been the woman’s name—in the lotus position with one of the different-colored stick-on bindis she’d change to coordinate with her tank tops, saying, If a negative thought enters your mind, observe it impartially, and let it go.

  It was time to let Las Vegas go. Peggy was home, where she was comfortable and knew her place in the world. Tomorrow at the shop she had two deliveries coming in and was planning to redo the windows and balance the books. A busy day, but she could do these tasks in her sleep. She’d just spent the weekend with her oldest and most beloved friends. Tomorrow morning, she’d apologize to Brock for her outburst. The truth was, they had been getting along far better than during the rocky period after Florida. Maybe that’s why Peggy had been so shaken this morning: She’d barely escaped pulling the rug out from under herself, upsetting the stability she’d worked so hard to create.

  She slid deeper into the tub, tipping her head back into the lavender-scented bubbles. She concentrated on relaxing.

  “Hey!” The front door slammed. “What’s for dinner?”

  It was Brock’s voice, she knew it as well as her own, but still she shrieked. There were heavy footsteps, and Brock appeared.

  “Sheesh!” He had his keys in one hand and a colossal bouquet in the other. “Kidding. I ate already.”

  “You scared me!” Peggy’s hands were shaking. “I thought you weren’t back until late.”

  “I caught an earlier flight.” He held out the bouquet. “For you.”

  So he was apologizing. Peggy reached out both hands to take the flowers—each bloodred rose the size of a child’s fist. She braced her arms on the edge of the tub. After Florida, Brock had sent bouquets just like this to the store—one a day for twenty-three days, until Peggy had relented and let him move back into the apartment.

  “They’re beautiful,” she told him now.

  Brock Clovis was black-haired, blue-eyed, a former high school football star with the shoulders to prove it. People on the street often mistook him for someone famous. When he smiled, a dimple deepened in his chin. “How do they smell?” Brock bent to nuzzle his face in the roses.

  “Careful, thorns.” Peggy waited for him to apologize so she could, too. Marriage was overrated. She and Brock were in a committed relationship. What did she need a piece of paper for?

  “Huh.” Brock lifted his head. “They don’t smell like anything.”

  Peggy drew her knees to her chest. “Could you please put them in a vase for me while I get out of the tub?” The bubbles were starting to dissolve, reminding her of a dream she had occasionally where she’d be in Grand Central, confused about which train to take, and she’d realize her clothes were slowly falling off.…

  A wisp of something, perhaps a déjà vu, drifted into her brain. A vague memory of laughing with a friend while lights sparkled all around.

  “Hang on a sec,” Brock said. The wisp drifted back out. “There’s one thing. It’s kind of serious.” Rarely emotional, he had the faintest tremble in his voice.

  Peggy shivered in the no-longer-hot water. She wasn’t irrational enough to imagine he knew how she’d woken up this morning, but something was clearly bothering him. Had he had another slipup? That’s what he’d called it last time: a slipup. Wouldn’t that be ironic, she and he both in the same twenty-four hours. “Brock—” she began.

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Something very odd happened this weekend.”

  “Close ’em.”

  Peggy bit down on the inside of her cheek and closed her eyes.

  “Open.”

  She opened her eyes.

  Brock was holding out a small blue box with a white satin ribbon.

  “Open it, Pegs,” he said as Peggy sat in the tub, finger-tips wrinkling, wet hair plastered to her face, the last of the bubbles melting away.

  TWO

  A promise ring?” Bex yelled. The string of bells on the shop door jingled as it shut behind her. “Brock gave you a promise ring? What is this, seventh grade? Hi, Padma,” she added to the only other person in the shop, their new, nineteen-year-old salesgirl, as if “seventh grade” had reminded Bex of her presence.

  “It’s an engaged-to-be-engaged ring. It’s pretty, see?” Peggy was behind the counter, unpacking a case of Gaia Apothecary’s Vision Body Splash, with extracts of hibiscus and ylang-ylang, reconciling the contents of the carton against a purchase order in her accounts binder. She held up her left hand to show Bex the ring, a spray of small diamonds set to resemble a flower and leaves. It glinted in the late morning light.

  “He couldn’t give you the real deal?”

  Peggy had known this was coming. “This is a major break-through for Brock. You know how afraid he is of commitment.”

  Bex rolled her eyes. “I realize he’d be shocked to hear this, but at a certain point men do grow up. Let me guess. He gave you that line about not wanting to turn into his dad.”

  “How was your appointment?” Peggy didn’t need to hear Bex say anything else discouraging.

  “It went well. Actually, I can’t stay long.” Bex took a square of paper from her pocket. “Would you believe it’s a prescription for—”

  The phone rang. “I’ll get it!” Padma shouted unnecessarily—the phone was three feet
away—and picked up. “ACME Cleaning Supply.” Pause. “We sell specialty soaps and lotions, uh-huh.…Um, Columbus Avenue, between, uh, Eighty-first and Eighty-second.” Peggy made a mental note to coach Padma on her phone manner. “Today’s Monday, right? Till eight.…Okay, yeah, bye.”

  “—birth control pills?” Bex went on, seemingly oblivious to the interruption. She walked through the store as she talked, neatening shelves, straightening sample bottles so their labels faced forward. “Kaplan says I’m supposed to take them for a few weeks before the hormone injections to ‘quiet my ovaries.’ All I can think of is my ovaries rampaging around in there like hyperactive schoolkids—Oh, no!” She interrupted herself, pointing out the front window. “Black and White Books is going out of business!”

  Black and White Books was an Upper West Side institution, a large, cluttered store across the street from ACME Cleaning Supply. Both Peggy and Bex hated to hear of any shop failing.

  “I can’t believe it.” Bex shook her head sadly. “I’ve been buying books there since I was six.”

  The phone rang. Peggy picked up before Padma could.

  “My darling. You’ve been ignoring me. I call and call.” Peggy recognized the voice of Mark, the sales representative for Promised Land, a line of biblical-themed products. His flirtatious greeting was a giveaway that he was about to try to wheedle her into placing a bigger wholesale order than she’d already committed to. Bex was better at dealing with the line reps; you had to talk fast or they wouldn’t let you off the phone. Yes, Peggy agreed with Mark; Promised Land’s frankincense-and-myrrh shampoo was flying off the shelves, but—

  Mark cut her off. Peggy let her attention roam around the familiar room. The store was a tiny, narrow rectangle, with windows at the front, a tin ceiling, and a trompe l’oeil cloud mural Peggy and Bex had painted on the back wall. It had taken them twelve years to build their little business, including two working at Bex’s parents’ store, Sabes Shoes, after college before landing a small-business loan for a place of their own. Peggy was proud of the shop and of herself for gambling on it in the first place. She’d been a different, braver person back then. The real me, she liked to think. She’s still in there somewhere.