to help them along.”
“Okay,” Frankie agreed with me, but he was already looking down the hall to where
his suit was, empty and waiting for him. I nodded permission. I felt strong; I’d already
figured out how to proceed.
They were close enough in age that they could be friends, like Cherie’s kids were,
always dating each other’s roommates and hanging out in one big group. Socializing,
telling one another the things they didn’t tell us. A pack.
I waited until Sunday morning before calling Sloane and when I did, a man picked up.
Had she given me a fake number? I had expected hostility but hoped we were beyond
the lies.
“I’m sorry. I’m trying to reach a Sloane Reinhardt,” I said. There was a pause, and
the next thing I knew, her voice was in my ear.
“What.”
“If you’re not doing anything today, I wanted to invite you on a shopping trip. I
mean, you wouldn’t have to actually buy anything if you didn’t want to. You could
buy something, of course—I’d be happy to treat—”
“I have no interest in shopping with you.”
“This was Paige’s idea.” I would work this like the
Parent Trap
—tell Paige how much Sloane wanted to be with her, tell Sloane how much Paige wanted
to be with her . . . and poof! Reservations would melt. “It could be fun.”
Her voice softened, I swear, for a moment. “I can’t.” And then it was flinty again.
“Bye.”
“See you tomorrow, then.” As I hung up, I started worrying about who the man was,
which of course, having borne witness to Sloane’s high school years, I had very good
cause to do.
chapter thirteen
“WHEN YOU HAVE kids, make sure you have a daughter.” My mom always said this at least once during
our shopping trips. “So you can do this.”
“I’ll put my order in with the gods.” It was my standard response. Neither of us ever
mentioned the obvious possibility of that daughter being an estranged junkie, in which
case she’d most likely not be game for grabbing a chicken salad at Barneys every few
weeks. I supposed there was also a fifty-fifty chance of winding up with a daughter
like me, though, someone who lived for the shopping day tradition to an almost pathetic
degree.
Lunch was my favorite part of the routine, even now that my mom insisted on going
to the floors with the expensive designers and buying without regard for price. “Don’t
even bother looking at the tags,” she’d say, waving her hand as I imagined Marie Antoinette
did after her line about letting them eat cake. I loved the meal despite my mom’s
constant dieting, which was always the wacky, demanding, all-in variety, requiring
the deletion of at least one layer of the food pyramid. Earlier she had handed back
her menu with a packet of dried something and the request that the waiter mix it with
rice milk. He had bowed his head deeply and apologized; no rice milk. No almond or
cashew milk either, so the two of them negotiated and settled on soy. When he brought
her brown shake along with my summer salad, she made me swear I wouldn’t tell anyone.
“I’m really not supposed to have soy,” she whispered, as though she were about to
dig into an entire chocolate cake.
I traced a cross above my heart with my index finger, and she winked in response.
We felt off our normal groove; I’d been working to click us into track since we first
met up in the shoe department. They were showing dreary colors for fall—mustard and
purplish gray and brownish green—but we tried them on anyway, slipping cutoff pantyhose
over our toes and pausing in front of low mirrors, exaggerating our attempts to see
the style.
The whole morning I’d been thinking about that raw journal entry, which was, to say
the least, a new perspective on my parents’ we-met-through-work story. I had tried
to process it, rereading it in my mom’s voice. The tone and cadence were familiar,
just not the darkness
“Okay,” Frankie agreed with me, but he was already looking down the hall to where
his suit was, empty and waiting for him. I nodded permission. I felt strong; I’d already
figured out how to proceed.
They were close enough in age that they could be friends, like Cherie’s kids were,
always dating each other’s roommates and hanging out in one big group. Socializing,
telling one another the things they didn’t tell us. A pack.
I waited until Sunday morning before calling Sloane and when I did, a man picked up.
Had she given me a fake number? I had expected hostility but hoped we were beyond
the lies.
“I’m sorry. I’m trying to reach a Sloane Reinhardt,” I said. There was a pause, and
the next thing I knew, her voice was in my ear.
“What.”
“If you’re not doing anything today, I wanted to invite you on a shopping trip. I
mean, you wouldn’t have to actually buy anything if you didn’t want to. You could
buy something, of course—I’d be happy to treat—”
“I have no interest in shopping with you.”
“This was Paige’s idea.” I would work this like the
Parent Trap
—tell Paige how much Sloane wanted to be with her, tell Sloane how much Paige wanted
to be with her . . . and poof! Reservations would melt. “It could be fun.”
Her voice softened, I swear, for a moment. “I can’t.” And then it was flinty again.
“Bye.”
“See you tomorrow, then.” As I hung up, I started worrying about who the man was,
which of course, having borne witness to Sloane’s high school years, I had very good
cause to do.
chapter thirteen
“WHEN YOU HAVE kids, make sure you have a daughter.” My mom always said this at least once during
our shopping trips. “So you can do this.”
“I’ll put my order in with the gods.” It was my standard response. Neither of us ever
mentioned the obvious possibility of that daughter being an estranged junkie, in which
case she’d most likely not be game for grabbing a chicken salad at Barneys every few
weeks. I supposed there was also a fifty-fifty chance of winding up with a daughter
like me, though, someone who lived for the shopping day tradition to an almost pathetic
degree.
Lunch was my favorite part of the routine, even now that my mom insisted on going
to the floors with the expensive designers and buying without regard for price. “Don’t
even bother looking at the tags,” she’d say, waving her hand as I imagined Marie Antoinette
did after her line about letting them eat cake. I loved the meal despite my mom’s
constant dieting, which was always the wacky, demanding, all-in variety, requiring
the deletion of at least one layer of the food pyramid. Earlier she had handed back
her menu with a packet of dried something and the request that the waiter mix it with
rice milk. He had bowed his head deeply and apologized; no rice milk. No almond or
cashew milk either, so the two of them negotiated and settled on soy. When he brought
her brown shake along with my summer salad, she made me swear I wouldn’t tell anyone.
“I’m really not supposed to have soy,” she whispered, as though she were about to
dig into an entire chocolate cake.
I traced a cross above my heart with my index finger, and she winked in response.
We felt off our normal groove; I’d been working to click us into track since we first
met up in the shoe department. They were showing dreary colors for fall—mustard and
purplish gray and brownish green—but we tried them on anyway, slipping cutoff pantyhose
over our toes and pausing in front of low mirrors, exaggerating our attempts to see
the style.
The whole morning I’d been thinking about that raw journal entry, which was, to say
the least, a new perspective on my parents’ we-met-through-work story. I had tried
to process it, rereading it in my mom’s voice. The tone and cadence were familiar,
just not the darkness
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