Suzanne floats into the hall, says to Tory, “Thank you for answering the door, sweetie-pie. Did you say hello to Mrs. Harada and offer to take her coat?” Before Tory can answer or I can object to being called Mrs., Suzanne’s face lights up with joy — there is no other word to describe how happy she looks — at the sight of my tired face and hunched right shoulder, the side of which I am gripping with my left hand in the belief that touching the sore spot will make it better.
“I’m so glad you came,” she says, all sweet breath and breathily sweet, and I am struck anew by how pretty she is, how small her head, how shiny her hair, how slim her shoulders, how perfect her clothes: a silk sweater in the season’s “it” colour, a necklace made of small, shiny precious stones, and black pants cut short to reveal tanned slim ankles and small feet clad in fashionable shoes.
My arm stops aching for a second, and I understand why the junior scion married her — because I want to, too.
I hand her the hostess gift I’ve brought — a jar of fleur de sel — and as she thanks me prettily, the doorbell rings again. Suzanne excuses herself to open it and greets the next arrival, a woman styled like her, only with long chestnut-coloured hair instead of blonde. Suzanne’s face lights up, the picture of pleasure once more, she says, “I’m so glad you came,” in the same joyful way she said the same words to me, and the spell is broken. How could I have forgotten? She is a robot, programmed to be pleasing.
I move toward the kitchen, from where I can hear Danny giving a guided tour, speaking in full voice about the marble this, the cherry that. On the way, I nod at little Tory, who lurks in a corner of the hall, tiara askew. She sticks out her tongue at me — atta girl — I return the gesture, and I head for Danny, a roomful of fake smiles, and two hours of bullshit.
When I was in my mid-thirties, and suffused with the arrogance of youth, I thought women aged fifty were anachronisms from another era. At a time when I was not fabulous, but still believed I could be, my opinion of women that age was that they talked too slowly, told too-long stories, and were too hung up on social conventions like table manners, the wearing of slips, and thank-you notes.
If you’d asked me then to describe a fifty-year-old woman, I would have started with a no-nonsense, short hairstyle, in an undyed shade of gray, the end result of a roller set. Someone that age would wear a blouse and slacks and pumps and pantyhose and use those antiquated words to describe her clothes. She would not ever have smoked pot (and she would call it marijuana) and not know Jim Morrison from Jimi Hendrix, but she would know how to dance, could be counted upon at a wedding to take to the floor and jive away — looking graceful, if dated — with the husband for whom she cooked, cleaned, and ironed.
That was the image I had, but now I’m the anachronism, because somehow, over the course of Jesse’s fourteen and three-quarters years of life, the woman I’ve described has become seventy, and the woman of fifty, surprise, surprise, is me. I’m too tired to dance, good at avoiding housework, and I’m working what I’ll call a classic — and someone else might term staid — fashion look rather than paying heed to any current ludicrous trend. This fifty-year-old dyes her hair and wears it long and sometimes wishes she knew where to score a joint — a safe, not-too-strong one. (I’d like a hit of relaxation, not hallucination.) I swear like a longshoreman (and I know what a longshoreman is), I brought up my child the way I wanted, and I’m unmarried, since taking care of a man was never part of my deal.
My foremothers — or, I should say, older sisters — didn’t fight the feminist fight so that I could do a man’s laundry or heat and serve him dinner when he comes home late from work and tries to delegate evening child care to me, my full-time job notwithstanding. No. What I am, at fifty, is the single mother of a dear and sometimes difficult teenage boy; I’m an independent, self-sufficient, strong woman who answers to no one, who race-walks to her own rhythm track.
That’s except for the times when I miss my turnoff because I’ve put my driving brain on autopilot and forgotten where I’m going. Or when I leave a pot on the stove to boil and forget about it and burn blackened broccoli marks onto the pot’s surface and worry that next time I might burn down the house. I am woman, hear me roar, except when I fuck up.
We are eight for lunch chez Suzanne, eight seated around a large dining table dressed in linen, china, crystal, and platters of designer salads that are passed around so that we can help ourselves using Suzanne’s antique sterling silver serving utensils.
I’m holding a platter of wild rice salad, made with apricots, roasted almonds, and mint, when the woman on my left says, “So Suzanne tells me your father is a famous artist.”
“Was. He’s dead. And he wasn’t that famous. His fifteen minutes happened in the sixties. Were you even alive then?”
She laughs because I’m so funny. Or bizarre. “I love Japanese art,” she says. “And Japanese ceramics. I collect Japanese dishes. They’re so delicate and beautiful.”
I fork some food into my mouth so that I won’t say anything too raw to her, like that I have no time for people who think their fascination with Asian culture is in any way relevant to me. Go be all Zen/samurai/tea ceremony somewhere I’m not, honey. When I’m done chewing, I say, “My father’s parents were Japanese, but he was Canadian — born and raised in Vancouver. His art is considered Canadian.” And the massive, organically shaped sculptures he’s known for aren’t delicate at all.
She says, “Is it true that Japanese children are taught at a young age how to handle dishes carefully?”
Is it true that she’s obtuse? “I wouldn’t know,” I say, and either the edge that has crept into my voice or her inability to reconcile my responses to her boxed-in ideas shuts her up.
Silence may reign in my vicinity, but Danny holds up his end of the table conversation with aplomb — he exclaims over every little thing and makes entertaining insider foodie talk about a funky downtown restaurant that serves Maritime-style lobster rolls, but only on Tuesdays, and off the menu. At one point, he even moderates a panel discussion about china patterns.
When the topic of private schools comes up — all the women either have kids in private school or expect to enroll them in the near future — I tune out and try to estimate what time I’ll make it home, if I can still fit in my afternoon nap, if a good dessert will be served, or if I will eat my usual square of Belgian chocolate with my two o’clock cup of tea, though at this rate I’ll be lucky to be home in time to put the kettle on before three. And in so musing, I miss the first part of a new conversational thread.
Danny says, “To be forever twenty-nine is such a cliché. That’s why my inner age is a far more original, believable, and attractively mature thirty-six.”
Danny is in his early forties but has kept himself up and could pass for thirty-six, or thirty-eight, anyway. But how old one looks does not appear to be what we’re talking about.
The chestnut-haired woman says, “I still feel like I’m eighteen. I’m surprised every time I look in the mirror and see someone older. I read teen magazines in the supermarket checkout line, for goodness’ sake.”
Another woman says, “I’m stuck at twenty-seven, my age when I got married. I still consider myself a newlywed, and it’s been five years.”
Suzanne asks the guest on my right how old she feels, which means my turn is coming,