Jackie Rose - Slim Chance

“Lillian’s no treat herself,” Claire said sharply. “Bruce, I’m just glad your mother had the foresight not to offer her another drink.”

“She wasn’t drunk,” I protested. “She was just nervous.”

Bruce snorted. I guess he finds it funny when I defend my mother, since I spend most of the time complaining about her. But just because she’s a bit of a lush or maybe not as sophisticated as some doesn’t give anyone else but me the right to judge her.

“Well,” I said, “I guess I’d drink too if I knew certain people would be judging everything I said and did for six hours straight. And what the hell was all that about Bertie’s charity work? And how she’s so happy and grateful that she didn’t have to work a real job, and how important it is to be there when your kids come home from school. What a witch!”

“Uh, Evie? I’m still here, remember?” Bruce grumbled as Claire pulled up in front of our place.

I suppose I was being a bit of a hypocrite about this—criticizing one’s mother should be the domain of blood relatives alone. But in-laws must form some sort of exception, shouldn’t they? Especially when they’re so wicked.

“Come now, Evie. Take it down a notch,” Claire said seriously.

“Sorry,” I said. “But it’s not like she doesn’t know Mom worked when I was growing up. And that she still works. Like there’s something wrong with working! She knows working isn’t a choice for some women. Some women just have to work!”

“Your mother did the best she could, Evie. For the hundreth time, you know she never meant to leave you out on the stoop that day. She had no way of knowing Mrs. DeFazio wouldn’t show up that aft—”

“I know that! I’m not talking about that!”

“Come, now—you’re getting hysterical,” Claire said, patting my hand.

“Would you mind if I come home with you tonight, Claire?” Bruce asked, managing to make me angrier than I already was.

She laughed loudly. “Brucie dear, you know there’s always a bed for you at my place. You’re a pleasure—a real pleasure. Evie, I wish I could say the same for you.” Bruce snickered.

Claire wiped the corners of her eyes and sighed. “But I’m afraid you’re on your own tonight, Bruce. You two go inside, talk it out. That’s what separates the good marriages from the bad, you know—not the fighting, but the making up.” She paused to think for a moment, then looked at me. “We had some doozies, your grandfather and I. And don’t believe that crap about never going to bed angry. There’s nothing wrong with going to bed angry. Nothing wrong with waking up angry, either, come to think of it. That’s going to happen. So long as you can agree to disagree, you’ll be fine. Respect each other’s differences. That’s the real truth of it,” she smiled, and winked at Bruce.

I hugged her and we got out of the car. “’Bye, now!” she said cheerily as I closed the door. She turned the stereo up right away, and we could hear the muffled strains of James Taylor blaring from behind as we trudged up the steps to the front door. We turned and watched her old Lincoln float off down the street until it disappeared out of sight.

By Monday, I couldn’t do up my pants. After a brief period of abstinence Friday morning, I’d spent the whole weekend in sweats, eating leftover turkey and, when that was all gone, cranberry sauce out of the tin. If I could have called in sick, I would have, but I’d just used up my last sick day of the year the week before when Morgan needed some hand-holding at the gynocologist’s following three inconclusive home pregnancy tests. It was the second time this year she’d thought she was pregnant, but, mercifully, it was not to be. She suspects Billy’s been poking holes in the condoms, although there’s been no real evidence of any tampering.

“Maybe you should go on the Pill,” I suggested.

“Yeah, right!” She cackled, tightening the lid on her cup of pee. “Me—on the Pill. I’d be pregnant and I’d have the clap.”

“The clap? Are you kidding me? Do you really think Billy would sleep around? He doesn’t seem like the type. I mean, you know him better, but I just thought he was really into you and only you, you know?”

She raised her eyebrows and looked at me like I should know better.

“Oh,” I said, the light dawning. “Who?”

“Peter.”

“Morgan, not again,” I groaned. Peter is Morgan’s boss. He’s an absolute jerk—gorgeous, married, rich and heartless. Morgan adores him, or rather, adores being thrown down onto his big glass desk and ravaged every once in a while after everyone’s gone home.

She shrugged her shoulders unapologetically. “After a few months, the sexual tension just builds to the point where we have to release it or it’ll become obvious to everyone.”

“Couldn’t you ask for a transfer or something?”

“Why would I want to do that?” she said, throwing her long red hair back over one shoulder. “I like Mergers and Acquisitions. Besides, I didn’t spend all those years busting my ass in business school just to let a prick like Peter get in the way of what I want.”

“Well, excuse the hell out of me, Madam Maneater,” I said.

“Gimme a break, Evie. I’ve been working my way up there for three years and it’s one of the top investment banks in the city. I’m not about to throw it all away!” She slammed her bottle of pee down on the desk in front of a frightened receptionist, and plopped down on a chair between two very unhappy women who appeared to be about ten months pregnant. What a piece of work.

I pictured poor Billy, sitting at home alone poking holes in condoms by candlelight, an uneaten dinner for two laid out on the table. Innocently believing Morgan was working late, as she often does. She probably just forgot to call, he assures himself.

I suppose love really is blind. Actually, in Billy’s case, love is deaf, dumb and blind.

I wonder if Bruce would do something devious like that. The condom, I mean, not the cheating. Probably not, on both counts. The idea of having kids thrills him, I know that. Plus, the thought of condoms brings out his softer side, if you get my drift. In any case, birth control sabotage isn’t his style. The only thing Bruce might consider poking a hole in would be the theory of relativity or something lame like that. Besides, he probably charts my cycle to know exactly when I’m ovulating, anyway.

I reached into the back of the closet and pulled out the black Anne Klein II Fat Suit (Allure, December: “Five Work Essentials To Suit Every Figure”). In a state of emergency such as this, I would never get on the scale. But judging from the snugness of never-fail Fat Suit—and the lines my underwear were leaving on my hips—things had gone from bad to worse. Better skip breakfast and break out the big guns. After work today, I’ll stop by the drugstore. Annie told me that Nicole dropped ten pounds in four weeks on a combination of ginseng ampoules and chromium supplements. I haven’t seen her, and I’m sure she still looks frumpy, but ten pounds, for her, that’s something. I bet she probably took laxatives, too. There must be something at Walgreen’s that’ll work for me.

At work, I studied the calendar. Let’s see…today was Monday, November 27. That gives me about nine and a half months to go until the wedding. Or 265 days. Thank God it’s a leap year—that’s an extra day which might come in handy.

I lost five pounds in a single day once, on the cabbage soup diet. But if I wanted to buy my dress soon, there was definitely no time to mess around. Besides, my metabolism ain’t what it used to be. When I was twenty, I lost (and then gained) ten pounds six times in a single year. It was so easy—all I had to do was cut out French fries and chocolate. But I’d been doing that for two whole months, and I’d gained God knows how much. Maybe there was something wrong with me, like some sort of fat-creating disease or something. It was a hopeful thought.