Then I read the answers and tallied my score so I could be reminded of how brilliant I was.
Okay. But perhaps if I just retook the exam now that I understood the questions. I mean they really weren’t written all that clearly.
This game was purely ridiculous.
Okay. I am stupid and have a giant butt.
Hearing the phone, I glanced at the microwave clock illuminated in neon—8:36 AM. The caller was my mother, as warned by the brilliant invention of caller ID, ranking right below the electric toothbrush and Dustbuster. Considering that calls this early have familial latitude, I resolved to remove all bad karma at once and picked up the phone rather than have the machine be victimized by the rant of her voice-mail therapy.
“Emily, darling,” she said, her tone more in sync with an alpha wife than a submissive homemaker, which caused me to fumble the phone out of nervousness until the droop of Henry’s pajama sleeve skimmed my coffee, the stain creeping up the cotton fibers igniting an alternate anxiety.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” I shrieked, turning on the faucet to soak the sleeve under the running water.
“Emily, you really should control your anger. Here I am, calling you in the most cheerful manner with the most divine news. Perhaps I should just catch up with you at another time after you’ve dealt with your repressed issues.”
“Sorry, Mom. It’s just that I spilled coffee on Henry’s pajamas.”
“My goodness, is he all right? You know about that woman who sued McDonald’s because the coffee was so hot it burned her. She should be embarrassed for herself.”
“McDonald’s coffee? Lawsuits? What are you talking about?”
“Well, Emily, dear, it really isn’t polite to spill coffee on your fiancé.”
As opposed to someone else?
“Mom, I’m wearing Henry’s pajamas.”
“Excuse me!”
I could just picture her horrified expression—think eyes popping out of their sockets on bouncy coils, tongue sticking out, and flecks of sweat popping from her head—after imagining that Henry and I do indeed sleep together.
“And you really should attend to the stain before it sets in. There was this program on that home and garden channel with this crafty lady who used vinegar water. A Portuguese woman, from…” She paused, and I heard the snap of her fingers so she could jog her memory.
“From Portugal?”
“Precisely!
“And you should check out the Intimates Section at Barney’s. They have the most lovely nightgowns. Proper sleepwear. Especially important now that you will be a married woman. No more pajamas. Lingerie, darling. That’s how you keep your man from straying. And if he does stray, at least you’ll find out from the relationships you will cultivate with the lingerie shops. That’s how Mrs. Coleman found out Charles was cheating. The sales help at LaPerla ratted on him after selling him a thong that wasn’t in her size. Mrs. Coleman would never wear a thong—that’s an under-40 piece.”
If you ever sat in on one of my mother’s lunches, these were the kind of topics getting the heavy play, even during a national crisis of sending U.S. troops proportions.
“Didn’t you mention you had some news to share? I believe you even said ‘most divine news’?”
“Oh, right! I am giving you and Henry an early wedding present.”
Present! The most divine word.
“Mom, that’s really unnecessary, with all of your help in the planning,” I said, lying.
“Don’t be preposterous, take everything that you can get—from me and everyone, darling. Now, as you know it’s been a sort of family tradition to have our wedding portraits done. Your great-grandparents on my side, both your grandparents, and your father and I have all had our wedding portraits painted. As you know, your granny even sat for Sargent.”
That had been a striking mark on my mother’s docket, that her mother was painted by John Singer Sargent. No matter how badly Oliver or I screwed up, at least we had lineage, and this painting secured evidence to prove the impressive bloodline.
These wedding portraits all hung in the Traditional Room, the one room in the house that had never undergone a make-over from one of my mother’s decorating whims. From Hampton to Hagan, she had about as many renovation incarnations as Britney had publicity stunts. But in the Traditional Room, you experience the sort of time travel one would have when visiting Graceland, without the kitsch and with more chintz. There are hand-me-down works of art, porcelain knickknacks of fooffy dogs, and a pincushioned couch upholstered in my mother’s family plaid, which has the misfortune of hues in an appalling brown, green, and yellow (though she did look into changing the pattern, apparently forbidden by the plaid people).
Really she should just will those things to Oliver, as I’d auction them off and use the cash toward one blowout year of living the rock-star life. Travel, hotels, and fun restaurants for 365 days of carefree existing that no descendant would ever be able to match with all of their maintenance of a respectable, genteel life. Collecting inanimate luxuries with curatorial discernment only so they could be passed down and remembered through some silver teapot whose only use was holding a bundle of calla lilies for that John Pawson meets Shabby Chic effect.
Mother added, clearly impressed with herself, “I found a wonderful discovery. He lives in Brooklyn, but apparently has a studio in SoHo.”
The SoHo studio legitimized the Brooklyn part, I gathered.
“This Linus Heller,” she continued, “he painted the Lowell sisters and is just finishing up Autumn Benson’s portrait, having time to fit you and Henry in!”
“Okay. Let’s slow down here. First off, you know how uncomfortable I feel when having to pose, even for getting my passport picture taken. I’m reduced to a gerbil being stared down by a python. And as sure as I am that this Linus guy is quite talented, his painting Summer and all, I just don’t think Henry and I have the time right now. With his work, finding a new place—the wedding! Sitting around to have some foppish artist who gets his gigs because his mother plays bridge with women who have a day of beauty every day, it just seems an indulgent expenditure of our time.”
“Oh, Emily, you’re being quite the prima donna. ‘Indulgent expenditure of time’? You go for one sitting. He takes a snapshot of the two of you and finishes the rest on his time. How hard can that be? And now that you’re not working anymore.”
And so it began. After making the declaration that I would follow my calling as an artist, Mother interpreted this as “she’s seen our side.” Will never earn the income to match her lifestyle, ready to start a family, and mingle with Chapin moms so her daughters will be invited to all the right birthday parties. Being an artist was just some label to a nebulous career, like her vocation: “Catherine Briggs—Not For Profit Fundraiser.” She has the business cards.
Tic-tac-toe, I said to myself, which is what I do when I didn’t want to become entangled in a conversation with my mother that no one would win.
“Why can’t you at least meet with Linus? Or perhaps just find an artist of your choosing?”
Hmm. I walked over to the kitchen junk drawer to retrieve my Smythson business planner, which I had bought especially for organizing all my meetings with gallery owners, clients who wanted to commission pieces from me, etc. The only entry: a lunch with Daphne, my best friend, to discuss painting her children, who happened to be named