Laura Caldwell: The Night I got Lucky

“Who’re you bringing?”

“Shelly.”

“A new one?”

“Yep, and she’s hot. God, you should see her. You wouldn’t frickin’ believe how hot this girl is.” This was how Evan talked to me-again, like a fellow linebacker.

Strangely, many people in my life seemed to think I was a man, or asexual in some way. This now included Evan, and even my husband. We had gone from having sex at least twice a week prewedding to, if I was very lucky, twice a month postwedding.

“Who loves ya, girl?” Evan said as I neared the door.

I answered as usual. A listless, “You do.” Because Evan didn’t really love me, except as a close friend. That was enough, I knew logically-I was married, after all-but this little ritual often depressed me.

“You got it,” he said.

“Billy, honey, how did the new business meeting go?”

My mother knew entirely too much about my life. I’d mentioned once that such meetings usually took place on Monday mornings, and now here she was calling me, at precisely 11:00 on Monday.

“Not so great.” I put on my headset and clicked on the Internet. If I gave my mother’s daily phone calls my undivided attention, I’d never get any work done.

“What happened?” she asked. “Didn’t Roslyn like your stud finder ideas?”

Damn, had I told her about the Grenier’s campaign? That would add an extra ten minutes to this call.

“You should ask Dustin or Hadley about it,” she continued. “They probably know about those tools.”

This immediately saddened me. It was true that Dustin and Hadley knew something about hardware, but it was also true that they both avoided our mother, claiming busyness and time changes. My mom was only mentioning their names now to see if I’d spoken to them, to learn about the two daughters she didn’t know very well anymore.

“I got an e-mail from Hadley last week,” I said.

My eyes shot to the black-framed photo next to my computer monitor. In the picture, my mom and I, the short women in the family, are flanked by Dustin and Hadley, who rise over us, looking like twins. It was taken in San Francisco, right after Dustin moved there and a few months before Hadley was transferred to the London office of the investment bank she worked for. That was four years ago. I’d seen Dustin three times since then-once at her wedding, once at mine and once when I was out West for business. I’d only seen Hadley the one time at Dustin’s wedding. Hadley and her husband, Nigel, hadn’t been able to make it to mine. There was no great rift, no great drama, except for the little fact of what had happened twenty-five years ago-our father took off. None of us had seen him again. None of us had been the same since. It had wounded us each separately and we’d never been able to truly help one another. And so over time, Dustin and Hadley had drifted farther and farther away.

“What was in the e-mail?” my mother asked, her voice forlorn.

“Hadley is really crazy right now,” I said, hoping to assuage the melancholy in her voice. “The bank might be bought out, and so she’s in meetings all the time.”

Roslyn stopped by my cube and waved one of my press releases. “Can I see you?” she said in a loud whisper.

I put on a serious face and nodded. I pointed at the phone and mouthed, “Client. One minute.”

Roslyn sighed, gestured toward her office, then left.

“Is Hadley still trying to get pregnant?” my mom said. If it was possible, her voice became more heartbreaking. She knew little about Hadley’s procreative attempts, and since Hadley had sworn never to move back to the States. (“Why should I?” she’d said. “It’s more civilized here and people aren’t so nosy.”) We’d probably never see the result of those attempts, even if she were successful.

“I think so,” I said.

“Ah, well, I’m sure she’ll be calling to tell me soon.”

“I’m sure, Mom.”

I opened my e-mail program. You have 67 new messages, it said. “Shit,” I muttered.

“What’s that, Billy?”

“Nothing.” It was hard to cut her off, even when I had no time to talk. Somehow, I’d become my mom’s only daily social outlet. She had sisters who lived on the North Shore, but they hadn’t had much contact since my mom married my dad so many years ago. My aunts had foreseen what an utter schmuck he’d be, and my mother was too embarrassed to give them the satisfaction of admitting they were right. And since her second husband, Jan, died three years ago, she’d almost secluded herself, rarely visiting with the few friends she had in Barrington.

“What are you doing today, Mom?” I asked. “You should get out of the house.”

“I know,” she said simply. “I’ll try.” My mom kept saying how she wanted to move on-she wanted to get over Jan’s death and get on with her life, but her motivation seemed to have disappeared.

“So anyway, sweetie,” she said, changing the subject, “are you still seeing that therapist?”

I groaned and began reading my e-mail in earnest-one from Evan reminding me about the Hello Dave show on Friday night, one from my husband asking me to buy his flaxseed oil when I stopped at the grocery store on my way home. “Yes,” I said. “I’m seeing her tonight, actually.”

“And what will you discuss? You and Chris, I assume. How is he?”

“He’s fine, mom, and I’m sorry but I’ve got to go.”

“Maybe you can talk to her about your father, too. I was able to let that go when I married Jan. But you still need to work on that.”

“I know, Mom, I will. Love you. Bye now.”

“Bye, baby doll. And don’t forget to talk to that therapist about work, too. I think you’re angry.”

My mother was right. I did have some anger socked away. It had started small, somewhere in my rib cage. I’d trapped it there for a while, ignoring that tiny but festering wound, because I didn’t want to be one of those people who hadn’t a single good thing to say about their life. Yet that pocket of anger had grown over the past few years, despite my best intentions. I expected certain rewards from my life, I had worked to achieve certain milestones, and yet I’d missed the meeting when recognition and happiness were passed out.

The vice presidency was one issue. I’d earned it.

My mother was another. I loved the woman so much. She had raised three girls on her own, for years taking in stride the ridicule of a small Illinois town that gleefully watched as her rich husband escaped to the glitz of the west coast; a town that somehow enjoyed the carnage my father left in his wake. Much later, she finally moved to another suburb and found some peace with Jan, but he’d suffered a stroke while standing at the barbeque on a warm September day. Now she was alone again. Alone, and way too invested in my life. She needed one of her own.

On the other end of the parental spectrum was my father. I’d never gotten over him leaving. At seven, I was the youngest, and for some reason I’d always assumed it was his disappointment in me that had pushed him to flee. I wanted desperately to get over that notion. To be done with him.

My husband was the remaining piece of the anger puzzle. My clichéd attempts at seduction were too painful to recount-feel free to insert stereotypical woman wearing lingerie waiting with cold dinner image-and so I’d given up trying to entice him, trying to figure out what was wrong with him. With us. With me. We were roommates now. Roommates who occasionally, very occasionally, scratched an itch.

When I was in one of these black moods, there were two things that would help-throwing myself into work or hitting a bar and seeing some good, loud live music. The Hello Dave show was coming up, but Chris didn’t like seeing bands as much as I did, and we’d committed long ago to visiting my mom. I hated to disappoint her. So work would have to be it.