to wash the bourbon glass Faith drank from the night she died? Who threw away the half carton of milk and the tin of coffee? The brie. The last few eggs. Whatever else Faith might have eaten if she’d wakened that morning three months ago. All those things Isabelle helped me do after Matka died.
Ginger fingers the clip that holds back her still-windblown-from-sailing hair before she starts unpacking the Sierra Club bags. She pulls out a half loaf of bread. Hummus and bananas. Goat cheese. Green onions. Butter. Whole wheat fettuccine. There are nine brown eggs in a cardboard carton. Three slots empty. Locally farmed.
“Have you ever met anyone sweeter than Max?” she says. “Too bad he’s vegetarian. I sure could use a hamburger.” She means this to temper Mia’s attraction to Max. Mia likes her meat pretty much just short of a moo.
Ginger disappears into the Sun Room. Flips on a light. Van Morrison sounds at high volume. Her hips swing as she returns. But the courage she’s marshaled is leaking out from under her mom’s khaki slacks and white shirt. She thinks she’s fooling us.
She’s all wide mouth and straight bleached teeth as she resumes unpacking groceries. “Ah, here we go! Sipping tequila. Thank you, Max!” She looks at Mia. “You can see why even his own kids adore him. The man doesn’t miss a thing.”
Mia is unwilling to risk making a fool of herself by voicing the question: Max is married?
Ginger hands the bottle to Mia, saying, “Pour.”
Mia finds four small jelly glasses. Spills a generous shot into each. We lift them. There’s an awkward pause. What the hell is there to toast?
“Ad fundum!” Laney says.
Mia and Ginger and I smack our glasses down on the counter. Thrust finger crucifixes at Laney. Shout, “In manners, too, dominate!”
In manners, too, dominate. A phrase no one but a Ms. Bradwell would laugh at. But ever since that night in the hot tub it’s been the waywe laugh together at ourselves: at Laney for relying on Latin to make her seem smart; at Ginger for forever needing to one-up us; at Mia and me both for steadfastly rejecting the possibility that someone else might know something worth knowing that we still need to learn.
It feels so good to laugh.
The first sip hits sharp on my tongue. I let it sit in my mouth. Savor it for a moment. It burns its way down my throat as “Crazy Love” gives way to “Caravan.”
How different that spring break would have been if we’d scraped together the money and gone to Cancún. If we’d settled on the white sand of a Mexican beach where there was no one to share any tequila we might have bought. So much depends on which turn you take. And you never know which one is best until the reasonable, responsible path leads you to places you spent your whole life avoiding. Without even realizing you had.
Van encourages us to turn up the radio. Ginger turns the knob on the stove and sets a cast-iron skillet on the burner. Tosses Laney the green onions. “Chop.”
Laney takes a sip of tequila. Pulls knives from the block on the counter. Finds just the right one.
Ginger tosses the half loaf of bread to me. “You’re toast.”
“Any senator in that room today could tell you that,” I say. They all stare at me for a second. Then burst out laughing. What else are we going to do?
“Who wants to be a judge, anyway?” I say. I launch into a riff on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? “I’d like to phone a friend, Meredith,” I say. I do my best phone ring, the old-fashioned kind that was all we had in the days before cellphones and ring tones. Bbbrrrring. Bbbrrrring . “Mia! Thank God you’re … where are you? How did they find you? Well, never mind. There’s no time for that. So here’s the situation. This woman, Lilly Ledbetter, discovers as she’s retiring that the Goodyear Tire Company has been paying her less than the men she’s worked beside for nineteen years. She sues. Her victory is appealed to my Supreme Court.
Ginger fingers the clip that holds back her still-windblown-from-sailing hair before she starts unpacking the Sierra Club bags. She pulls out a half loaf of bread. Hummus and bananas. Goat cheese. Green onions. Butter. Whole wheat fettuccine. There are nine brown eggs in a cardboard carton. Three slots empty. Locally farmed.
“Have you ever met anyone sweeter than Max?” she says. “Too bad he’s vegetarian. I sure could use a hamburger.” She means this to temper Mia’s attraction to Max. Mia likes her meat pretty much just short of a moo.
Ginger disappears into the Sun Room. Flips on a light. Van Morrison sounds at high volume. Her hips swing as she returns. But the courage she’s marshaled is leaking out from under her mom’s khaki slacks and white shirt. She thinks she’s fooling us.
She’s all wide mouth and straight bleached teeth as she resumes unpacking groceries. “Ah, here we go! Sipping tequila. Thank you, Max!” She looks at Mia. “You can see why even his own kids adore him. The man doesn’t miss a thing.”
Mia is unwilling to risk making a fool of herself by voicing the question: Max is married?
Ginger hands the bottle to Mia, saying, “Pour.”
Mia finds four small jelly glasses. Spills a generous shot into each. We lift them. There’s an awkward pause. What the hell is there to toast?
“Ad fundum!” Laney says.
Mia and Ginger and I smack our glasses down on the counter. Thrust finger crucifixes at Laney. Shout, “In manners, too, dominate!”
In manners, too, dominate. A phrase no one but a Ms. Bradwell would laugh at. But ever since that night in the hot tub it’s been the waywe laugh together at ourselves: at Laney for relying on Latin to make her seem smart; at Ginger for forever needing to one-up us; at Mia and me both for steadfastly rejecting the possibility that someone else might know something worth knowing that we still need to learn.
It feels so good to laugh.
The first sip hits sharp on my tongue. I let it sit in my mouth. Savor it for a moment. It burns its way down my throat as “Crazy Love” gives way to “Caravan.”
How different that spring break would have been if we’d scraped together the money and gone to Cancún. If we’d settled on the white sand of a Mexican beach where there was no one to share any tequila we might have bought. So much depends on which turn you take. And you never know which one is best until the reasonable, responsible path leads you to places you spent your whole life avoiding. Without even realizing you had.
Van encourages us to turn up the radio. Ginger turns the knob on the stove and sets a cast-iron skillet on the burner. Tosses Laney the green onions. “Chop.”
Laney takes a sip of tequila. Pulls knives from the block on the counter. Finds just the right one.
Ginger tosses the half loaf of bread to me. “You’re toast.”
“Any senator in that room today could tell you that,” I say. They all stare at me for a second. Then burst out laughing. What else are we going to do?
“Who wants to be a judge, anyway?” I say. I launch into a riff on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? “I’d like to phone a friend, Meredith,” I say. I do my best phone ring, the old-fashioned kind that was all we had in the days before cellphones and ring tones. Bbbrrrring. Bbbrrrring . “Mia! Thank God you’re … where are you? How did they find you? Well, never mind. There’s no time for that. So here’s the situation. This woman, Lilly Ledbetter, discovers as she’s retiring that the Goodyear Tire Company has been paying her less than the men she’s worked beside for nineteen years. She sues. Her victory is appealed to my Supreme Court.
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