“The good silver?” Rachel asked, still making those weird gestures.
“Sure. Oh, fuck-my carrots,” Linda said, rushing to the stove before the steamer went dry.
“The carrots are fine,” Rachel said.
“The carrots are fine.”
Still nothing. Rachel had thought it a good bit of wordplay, but no one else noticed, not even Joshua, who was in on the joke, or should have been. She began collecting crystal stemware, continuing to flutter her fingers. She wasn’t crazy about religion, but she approved of Linda’s dinners. She was going to do something similar when she had children. Maybe not a Shabbat dinner, but something regular, ritualistic.
With Joshua parked on the sofa by himself-Henry was upstairs, doing something with the kids, no doubt-Rachel continued to set the table, wiggling her fingers at Linda every chance she got, but her sister remained distracted, probably by the weather news. What a horrible job Linda had. She was important only when things went wrong and then she became the face of the public utility, the messenger that everyone wanted to kill.
“Everyone is coming tonight, right?” Rachel asked, putting out the silverware. The good stuff, which had belonged to their great-grandmother. She was surprised Bambi hadn’t pawned it at some point and wondered at her decision to give it to Linda. Had she despaired of Rachel ever having a family? Rachel and Marc had owned nice china and silver, but it had come from his family and gone back to them. She wondered if he and his second wife, a pretty, pliable girl whom he had married in an insultingly short time-and most definitely not the woman he had cheated with-were putting out the silver tonight. No, she would be forced, as Rachel had been forced, to eat in the Singers’ claustrophobic dining room, the cold and formal antithesis to this lively hodgepodge.
Bambi and Michelle arrived. Somehow, it was still a surprise to Rachel how much Michelle resembled their mother now that she was in her twenties. And yet Bambi retained some indefinable edge, even at fifty-five going on fifty-six. Her beauty was more profound, while Michelle’s felt flashy and fleshy, a little too carnal.
The meal ready, the prayers recited, Rachel took the seat to her mother’s right and plopped her hand between their plates. Still, no awareness. Was she going to have to send up a flare? It was Michelle, down the table, who finally noticed. Magpie Michelle never missed anything shiny.
“Is that a yellow diamond?”
“It was my grandmother’s,” Joshua said quickly, more or less as they had planned. “We got married this week.”
Rachel and Joshua had not planned on the long silence that fell. A grave, judging silence.
“Congratulations,” Henry said when it became clear that the other three women were not going to speak. “It takes a tough man to marry a Brewer woman.”
“Oh, hush,” Linda said. “That’s hardly the right thing to say.”
“And I’ve never thought of you as particularly tough, Henry,” Michelle said.
“I’m the only son-in-law,” Henry said, unperturbed by Linda’s corrections or Michelle’s insults. “I’m thrilled to have the company.”
“You weren’t always the-” Michelle began. It was hard to say if she stopped speaking of her own accord or because of the look that Linda shot her.
“When?” Bambi asked, slicing her tenderloin into very tiny pieces.
“Two days ago,” Rachel said. “At the courthouse.”
“Smart,” Henry said. “No tax implications for 1995.”
“I mean, we’re very happy for you-we all love Joshua,” Bambi said. “Only-why that way? You could have had a small wedding.”
“I don’t like weddings,” Rachel said. “I never have.”
“Yes, we all remember your Vegas elopement,” Michelle put in, earning another glare from Linda. It didn’t intimidate her. “You could have had a judge just come to a party and marry you.”
She was enjoying this, Rachel realized. Michelle was usually the one who disappointed the others. Taking an extra semester to get her degree, then moving back home because she had done absolutely nothing about finding a job, threatening to answer those “live model” ads in the back of the City Paper if her mother and sisters didn’t get off her back. She would, too. Michelle was never lazy when it came to vindictiveness.
“No, you can’t,” Joshua put in. “If you get married anywhere but the courthouse, it has to be someone religious.”
“Okay, so a rabbi, then.”
“I don’t like rabbis.” True. Very true.
“Then a Unitarian minister or a Wiccan priestess or whatever,” Michelle continued. “It’s only a ceremony. What’s the big deal?”
“I just-I was embarrassed,” Rachel said. “It is a second marriage for me.”
“But it’s Joshua’s first,” Bambi said. “At least-I think it is.” A gentle yet pointed barb. Joshua had been accompanying Rachel to family gatherings for more than a year now, but he never offered much information about himself.
“It is,” Joshua assured Bambi. “And although it was hard to let go of that vision I’ve carried of my wedding day, I found I didn’t mind.”
Joshua’s joke fell flat. Even Rachel found it wanting, and Joshua’s sense of humor was a large part of his appeal. But she wouldn’t glare at him or correct him. She didn’t want a Henry, who loved to be nagged so he could play the henpecked spouse, straight out of a sitcom. Linda and Henry’s marriage worked for them, but it wasn’t right for her. And Bambi’s way hadn’t worked for her, either. Rachel was going to find her own way of being married this time.
“May I throw you a party?” Bambi asked. “A small one, for family and friends?”
“No,” Rachel said quickly, too quickly, but she had to shut that down. Why did Bambi always want to spend money she didn’t have? Good Lord, couldn’t she remember what parties had cost her? But, no, she never remembered because she had been bailed out time and time again. And whose fault was that? Mostly Rachel’s.
Linda’s oldest, Noah, bored by talk of weddings, begged to be excused and allowed to eat his food in front of the television. The three younger girls-“Linda breeds like an Orthodox,” Bambi had once noted in an unguarded moment, exhibiting that weird anti-Semitism that only Jews could carry-understood enough to realize they had been gypped out of being flower girls. Their voices rose, cascading over one another’s until Linda silenced them with a few well-chosen threats, softened by a promise of dessert if they behaved. Rachel looked forward to the day when her children would join them, hoped the cousins would be close.
“So,” Henry said, “Linda tells me this blizzard is going to be the real deal. The big one. Is everyone prepared?”
Rachel smiled at Henry, grateful that he had managed to divert everyone from the topic of her marriage-although Michelle left her place for a better look at the ring, which even she couldn’t help admiring. The talk ebbed and flowed away from Rachel. Henry had a gift for public relations, too, Rachel realized. Or maybe he just had a lot of experience at soothing angry Brewer women.
Linda brought out the dessert, Berger cookies and ice cream. Linda was very canny about knowing when to do things herself and when to delegate, Rachel thought, where effort made a difference and where it didn’t. Rachel sipped her coffee. The evening hadn’t been as she had hoped, but it was behind her now. The announcement had been made.
Then Bambi asked out of the blue: “Have you told Joshua’s parents?”
“We had dinner with them last night,” Rachel said.
“That’s not a yes or no,” Michelle said. Jesus, Michelle, go to law school already.
“We did the same thing,” Rachel said. “As I did with you. I waved my hand around a lot, trying to catch the light. His mother noticed-but it’s her mother’s ring; she gave it to Joshua.”