Alison planned a shopping date for bridesmaid dresses with my mom, and in typical Winslow family fashion, my mother conveyed this information to April, but not to me.
“Jared’s picking me up at four,” I say as I come down the stairs on Saturday and help myself to the platter of bacon.
“Picking you up for what?” my mother asks. She looks healthy. True, she lost a bit of weight on the last round of chemo, and she hasn’t regained it. But since her motto is “never too rich or too thin,” she’s far from bemoaning the fact that she once again fits into her size two jeans.
“For the concert.” Technically, it’s called the Music or Lose It Tour, and it’s headlined by one of Jared’s and my favorite bands, but there’s no way I’m bothering to explain that to my parents. “Remember? He got us the tickets for Valentine’s Day. It’s up in Hartford tonight.”
This is when my mother informs me of the dress shopping plans and tells me that trumps any silly concert.
I force down the bite of bacon. “When did you decide this?”
“A few weeks ago. We had to pick a day that didn’t interfere with April’s practice schedule.”
“Well, what about my schedule? You didn’t think to ask me?”
“I’m sure we did. You didn’t mention any prior commitments.”
“Um, hello? Concert? If you’d asked, I would definitely have mentioned it!”
My father puts down his newspaper. “Claire, this is your cousin’s wedding. That takes a bit more priority than your boyfriend.”
A wedding for a cousin I see once a year and who spelled my name Clare in the email telling—excuse me, asking—me to be a junior bridesmaid. How is that more important than my boyfriend of seven months? You know, the guy I see every freaking day?
I attempt to be rational. “That’s not the point. You didn’t ask me, and Jared spent a couple hundred dollars to get these tickets.”
“And your aunt and uncle are spending a hundred thousand dollars on your cousin’s wedding. Your dress isn’t even included in that because we’re paying for it.”
That’s supposed to make me feel better? Jared had to take a part-time job to pay for these tickets. My Uncle Doug might be insane, but I’m guessing he didn’t work extra hours at the office to afford the wedding. Telling my parents about Jared’s job, though, is a bad idea. They’ll only turn up their noses even further.
The smell of the eggs on my plate is screwing with my stomach. “I’m not blowing off the whole wedding. I just can’t go dress shopping today.”
“You’re going.”
“I’m not.”
Across from me, April smiles, perfectly smug, and stuffs another forkful of scrambled eggs in her mouth.
“Yes, you are,” says my dad. “You don’t have my permission to go to this concert. The discussion is over.”
“You gave me permission last month.” I should have gotten it in writing.
“I gave permission to let a seventeen-year-old boy drive my fifteen-year-old daughter to Hartford for some concert? No, I don’t think so.”
My parents love to play the age game with Jared. Although he’s only one year ahead of me in school, thanks to his birthday being in the spring, he’s currently two years older.
“And in that piece-of-shit truck of his?” My father reddens with the very idea. “It’ll probably break down before you reach I-91.”
My mom smoothes her napkin out on the table so the embroidered violet lies flat. “If he gave you the ticket as a gift, then it’s your choice whether you go. There’s nothing that says you have to. He should have asked about the date first.”
“You should have asked about the date. The concert was already planned.” I can’t take it anymore. I push away from the table and lock myself in my room.
I went to the concert, too. I called Jared, snuck out the back of the house, and spent all day with him until we left, my cell phone off. I knew I’d pay for it later, and sure enough a massive grounding followed. In fact, that would turn out to be one of the pivotal events cited by my parents as a reason I should break up with Jared. The good, pre-Jared Claire would never have done anything so horrible.
The radio station jumps to commercial break, and I’m abruptly pulled from my memories.
“What do you think of these?” April holds her phone up to my face.
I shake my head. “I can’t look now. I’m driving.”
Driving? Hell, I’ve been zoning. It’s only April and the heavy traffic that dragged me off memory lane and back onto the Mass Pike.
I rub my eyes beneath my sunglasses. “What are you looking at anyway?”
April frowns into her phone. “Shoes to go with my dress for the Michelsons’ party.”
“We still have to go to that thing?”
I swear I can hear April rolling her eyes. “You really thought we could get out of it? Dad was talking about it the other night. Which you’d know if you hadn’t had your earbuds in.”
I haven’t the faintest idea what other night she’s referring to, nor the desire to ask. Absently, I scroll through my music. Janis and the radio station are long gone. I want something more current now. Something that promises the future instead of replaying the past.
April continues to shop, undaunted by the size of her phone screen. “I’m looking for you, too, since you don’t want to do it. Feel free to thank me anytime.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Gee, thanks. I know it’s a hardship for you.”
Just another way my sister takes after our mother—the shopping gene. More so than tennis or organizing fundraisers for the local art museum, my mother loved to shop. And I don’t just mean for clothes and shoes and all the usual things either, and certainly not just for herself. She was annoyingly generous that way, buying me new backpacks, earrings or whatever else she thought I needed to update more frequently in my life than I did.
In fact, the longer I was with Jared, the more she tried shopping for a new boyfriend for me, shuffling through the possibilities like boys were something you bought off the rack at Nordstrom.
Do you like the blue sweater or the green one? The brunette or the blond? Oh, honey, pick any boy but that Jared one. He’s too shabby for you and he clashes with your future.
Speaking of the Michelsons, the most blatant memory I have of her doing just that was the afternoon of their annual party two years ago. My mother’s hairdresser has come to the house to fix April and me with elaborate up-dos because that’s what you do before going to the Michelsons’ gala. I’m not even sure how my dad knows the Michelsons, but we’ve been going—and I’ve been suffering—through these parties once a summer for as long as I can remember. Think champagne, caviar, ice sculptures, boasting and evil gossip disguised by tuxedos and glittering jewelry. It’s a lot like how I imagine The Great Gatsby went down only without the cool flapper dresses.
“What about Sam Cohen?” my mom asks.
The hairdresser yanks too tightly on my head and I wince. “What about him?”
“He’s cute.” My mom so innocently tries on one of her wigs, scrunching her face up as if that will help her figure out which one goes best with her gown.
I stare wistfully at the bowl of blueberries several feet away. I can’t eat while Candy tortures my scalp, and I can’t fight with my mom right now although I know where this is heading. “No, he’s not.”