The Gift Bag Chronicles Read online

  “I think she’s the one who wants the prize,” Steven said.

  “Well, that’s true,” I say. “Mother of the Year.”

  “And you, all but barren.”

  But then, as my best friend, Steven gets to say things like that.

  The kitchen door swings open. Jack, thank God. “Hey, gals,” he says, pushing in with all his blustery paternal energy, the testosterone ballast that has kept our family on more or less even keel all these years. “Alex, how’d you sleep?” he says, pausing first to kiss Helen on the cheek and then coming over to give me a kiss on my head.

  “Fine, Dad,” I say, smiling up at him.

  “She had an early call,” Helen says, arching her eyebrows slightly. “I was just saying, I hope she can stop working while she’s here, since we don’t get to see her all that often.”

  “Well then, what do you say we get this weekend under way this morning and shoot a quick nine and grab some lunch at the club?” Jack says, doing what he alone seems able to do, thread the impossibly narrow needle between Helen’s shifting moods and the reality the rest of us live in.

  “You two go ahead,” Helen says, pushing off from the counter. “I have too much to do before everyone gets here. Besides, Amy’s coming over to drop Bevan off this afternoon while she runs some errands.”

  “Oh, you’ve got to see him, Alex,” Jack says, reaching in the refrigerator and emerging with a brown bottle of pills. Or maybe it’s vitamins. I can’t tell from where I’m sitting.

  “I saw him at Easter, remember?” I say, watching Jack. I’ve never seen him take vitamins. Well, other than a gin and tonic. And pills in our family had been largely limited to aspirin taken only in emergencies. Nothing in a brown bottle that needed to be refrigerated.

  “Oh, that doesn’t count, they change so fast at this age,” Helen says, filling a glass from the tap and handing it to him.

  I watch my father knock out two pills or whatever they are and down them. I’m about to ask what he’s taking when I think better of it. At least while Helen’s in the room. Besides, it’s going to be a long weekend, and I’ll have time to get the scoop from Amy. The one good thing about her living back out in the suburbs again. Better intelligence about our parents.

  “Well, Mom, if you’re sure you don’t need me for a few hours,” I say, pouring one more hit of coffee.

  “I need you to keep your father company,” she says, which strikes me as not something she would normally say. “By the way, when is Charles arriving?”

  “He’s going to call,” I say, heading up the stairs, cup in hand, wondering suddenly if I have anything suitable to wear on the course. If I brought anything other than flip-flops and mules, and if my clubs are still in the basement. It’s been so long since I’ve done anything that didn’t involve work, I’ve completely lost track of that part of my wardrobe. I mean, when was the last time I actually wore a bathing suit? On a beach? “He’s going into the office for a few hours and then catch a three o’clock train,” I add. “Four at the latest.”

  “Well, just so long as I know he’ll be here for dinner.”

  “He’ll be here for dinner,” I call down. “Hey, Dad, are my clubs and shoes still in the basement?”

  “No, your mother had a garage sale and we got rid of the clubs, but I think your shoes are still there.”

  I stop in my tracks. I haven’t played in years, but my clubs had been a birthday present from Jack during my freshman year in college. Just a set of irons and two drivers in a little plaid bag, but during my summers home he and I had played nine holes every weekend and I’d actually gotten pretty good.

  “You got rid of my clubs?”

  “Honey, when was the last time you played?” Helen says. “You can borrow Amy’s.”

  “You threw out my clubs but you kept Amy’s?”

  “She plays more often than you do,” Jack says.

  “She never plays.”

  Helen sighs. “Well, not now that she’s had the baby.”

  “We’ll get you a set of ladies’ graphite at the club. Better than what you had,” Jack says.

  “That’s not the point,” I say, realizing that between my redecorated room and now the missing clubs, there’s almost nothing in the house that belongs to me anymore. “I can’t believe you just threw out my clubs. Without even asking. What if I wanted them in LA.?”

  “You play in L.A.?” Jack says.

  “Honey, I’m not going to stand here on Labor Day weekend and argue about a set of old golf clubs,” Helen says. “Time moves on. Whether you want it to or not.”

  I’ve been here what, six hours, four of which I’ve been asleep, and already Helen and I have resumed our old battle positions. It’s like my own version of Groundhog Day, where I’m reliving the past over and over again.

  “You’re right, Mom,” I say, turning back upstairs. “They’re just old clubs. Not worth arguing about.”

  “Are they on your case yet? Have you had some quality time with the heifer? Have you launched the watch yet?”

  I’m back upstairs, door closed, cell in hand, Steven on the line. I used to hide all my reading from Mom. Now, I’m hiding all my work. “Yes, no, and no, although the weekend is only just starting, so I could still send out a distress signal from my wrist,” I say, heading for the bed, phone in one hand, coffee in the other. Steven had gotten us the latest Hollywood must-have watches last Christmas — stainless steel monsters with built-in transmitters that call rescuers in emergencies. Like terrorist attacks or hijackings. Or the Barneys sale. Ever since he’d accidentally summoned the coast guard during a charter cocktail cruise off Maui, he’d insisted I wear mine whenever I traveled.

  “I knew they’d come in handy,” he says.

  “Yeah, but other than Helen, I don’t see a lot of disasters waiting to happen in Bryn Mawr.”

  “Well, it only takes one and Helen will do.”

  “Hey, I’m the only one allowed to make cracks about my parents,” I say. “Besides, I have nine holes with Jack in my future, so things are looking up. By the way, did Jennifer reach you? She’s having a fit about the gift bag and the media confirmations.”

  “Yes, she’s messengering the garters to me even though I told her I had the same samples, which were, not so coincidentally, exactly what she’d approved.”

  “Why do we even go through the whole client approval process if they just forget what they’ve approved?”

  “What, and take all the fun out of changing their minds and blaming us for it? She doesn’t remember what she approved. None of them do. I swear all the memos we send them — media contacts, corporate sponsors, gift bag participants, the materials board — they’re just toys to shove in the baby’s hand. Like a rattle or a mobile. ‘Look at all the pretty colors, Jennifer.’”

  I laugh so hard I spill my coffee on the bedspread. Oh, shit. A nice black stain on the toile Amy picked to match the curtains. Oh well, that’s what she gets for tossing out my stuff. “Yeah, but she’s still not supposed to call me about it,” I say, trying to wipe up the spill with the hem of my robe. “I mean, what’s the point of this elaborate hierarchy if she just jumps the chain of command?”

  Steven sighs. “That is the point. Otherwise how would we know she’s really upset?”

  “Okay, okay,” I say, bored now with the Kabuki dance of Hollywood power plays. Not that it really mattered. The entire town was infected with celebrityitis. The divalike behavior that had once been the province of only A-listers had become the industry’s default mechanism all the way down the food chain. And not just the B- and C-listers, but any star’s entire entourage, their posses, just come armed with way too much attitude. Now, if you are Charlize’s stylist or Jennifer Lopez’s hairdresser or the DJ Leonardo DiCaprio hired to reorganize his CD collection, you expect, demand, to be treated like a star. Which means handling the Jennifer Schwartzbaums of the world is now no different than handling the Jennifer Anistons.

  “Okay, let’s just deal with this when I get back on Tuesday,” I say. “I mean, we are trying to have personal lives.”

  “Speaking of that, is Chuck there yet? Has Helen met her future son-in-law?”

  “Charles will be here by dinner, and as you well know, he is not her future son-in-law, although God knows you’re probably right about Helen thinking that. I’m still trying to figure out exactly where Charles and I are right now, and she’s probably thinking we’re picking out rings. God knows, she’s already giving me shit about working too much.”

  “And the baby you forgot to have?”

  “I’m sure that’s coming, but so far Bevan’s distracting her.”

  “See, I knew the heifer would come in handy.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s due here this afternoon. Right now, I have to go play golf.”

  “Well, break a leg or whatever they say,” Steven says. “If you need me, I’ll be at the beach all weekend.”

  I hang up and am just debating about whether to call Caitlin and yell at her for giving out my parents’ number — there’s a reason everyone at the office calls her Princess behind her back — when my cell burbles. “Lara’s Theme” from Doctor Zhivago. Charles.

  “Hey, big guy, I was just going to call you,” I say.

  “Alex” comes crackling down the line. It may be Charles’s phone, but it is definitely not Charles. Taryn, Charles’s assistant, and with what sounds like midtown roaring in the background.

  “Taryn?” I say, shouting over the noise. I’ve gotten messages from her before, but never on his cell phone.

  “Alex,” she shouts back. “Charles wanted me to call you and say he’s catching the —” The rest of her sentence is drowned out by static and traffic noise.

  “What?” I say. “Where’s Charles?”

  More static and then Taryn’s voice. “— okay, so he’ll call you from the station before —”

  This is pointless. But unfortunately typical of how he’s been lately. Going in a million directions at once and where I feel like I’m another one of the items on his to-do list. I don’t even bother saying I’ll call back but click off and dial the office. The service picks up. Shit. Everyone’s already gone. I try Charles’s apartment and get the machine. I don’t want to talk to Taryn again, but I redial his cell. Voice mail. I’m about to leave a message and move on to Caitlin and the Mount Everest of messages I know she’ll have for me, holiday or no holiday — God knows, we’re already in the thick of the annual Sundance–People’s Choice–Golden Globe–Oscar party–planning cycle that starts every July and won’t finish until the last envelope is opened in February — when there’s a knock at the door.

  “Yeah,” I say, sounding more irritated than I mean to, the phone still pressed to my ear.

  “Honey, I found these downstairs.” I turn. Jack, holding my old golf shoes.

  I look at him. My dad. Or he was once. Now, I see a gray-haired man in a cardigan sweater holding out a pair of scuffed golf shoes like a peace offering.

  “Hey,” I say, clicking off without leaving a message. “Let’s go play golf.”

  “You look happy. Didn’t you shoot well?”

  Amy. Without breaking stride from spooning what looks like green slime — excuse me, organic green slime — into her son’s mouth.

  Jack and I are just back from the course, clattering into the kitchen in that noisy, flushed way you get after nine holes and lunch at the club with the rest of the silver-haired retirees. My tee shots stank — I shot so badly, I quit keeping score after the fifth hole—but the Bryn Mawr Country Club never fails to leave me with a God’s-in-his-heaven-all’s-right-with-the-world feeling. A feeling that lasted until I spied Amy’s Volvo SUV — preppy piety on steroids — parked in the drive. She and I have never been close. We’re sisters, but it’s like we were from two different gene pools. Or generations. Now that we are officially the Career Divorcée and Stay-at-Home Mom, well, anyone can do that math.

  “Actually, we both shot great,” I say, ignoring Amy to plant a kiss on Bevan’s slightly sweaty head, my hands on his tiny shoulders.

  “Careful, Alex, he’s eating, and watch out for that watch,” Amy says, wiping Bevan’s mouth. “That could hurt him.”

  Gee, really? I’m about to say something equally stupid back — Yeah, I was really hoping to bean my nephew with my Dick Tracy two-way wrist TV— when Helen bustles in with her purse and suede jacket.

  “Oh, good, you two are back,” she says. “Amy and I were just trying to decide how to get these errands done, but now we can go and leave Bevan here with you.”

  “Consider yourself saved,” Jack says, bending down to kiss Bevan, and I wonder, briefly, given all the affection they get as kids, why men turn out to be so difficult in adult relationships.

  “What errands?” I say, heading for the refrigerator in search of the bottled water I know Helen won’t have. “I hope you’re not going to a lot of trouble just because Charles and I are here, because we don’t—”

  “We’re not,” Helen says. “I just have to pick up some things for the party.”

  Party? I haven’t heard that word for two years without knowing it’s only a euphemism for months of mind-numbing, grinding work followed by hours of harried hand-holding, troubleshooting, nose-wiping, all of it frantically masquerading as “fun.” Now, on one of my only weekends off, there’s a party I’m expected to attend?

  “Okay, stop right there,” I say, backing out of the refrigerator. “What party?”

  “The cocktail party we’re throwing tomorrow night,” Helen says, rummaging in her handbag for her keys.

  “Aw, Mom, why are you doing that?” All my hard-won equanimity after nine holes and lunch with a nice glass of pinot grigio is totally out the window.

  “Honey, it’s just a Labor Day get-together,” she says, looking up in that pained way she gets when someone, usually me, isn’t going along with her plans. “Some of the neighbors and our friends from the club. We thought it would be nice since you’re hardly ever home and what with Charles coming in and all.”

  Oh, God. I should have guessed she’d pull a stunt like this. Ever since I upended my life, divorced my stockbroker husband, Josh, and bolted from Manhattan and my job in publishing for life in L.A. as a Hollywood publicist, I’d been suspect in her eyes. Even if half my clients wound up on the covers of the magazines my mother leafed through at the checkout stand, I’d still given up a perfectly respectable life, emphasis on the respectable, to run away to Hollywood with the rest of the misfits, dropouts, and other assorted weirdos. Now that I was returning to the fold with a guy in tow, Helen was wasting no time in trumpeting the news. Just when I’m starting to seriously wonder where Charles and I are actually going, Helen’s probably hoping we’re going to announce our engagement or something.

  “Well, I only meant that my time here was so limited it seems a shame to spend it talking to the Schmidts from next door,” I say, futilely trying another tactic.

  “It’s not just the Schmidts. The Atwaters are coming. And the McIlleneys. They’re all looking forward to seeing you.”

  The Atwaters and the McIlleneys. And I had thought getting through the weekend with Charles and my parents was going to take all my concentration. Now I have Charles, my parents, and half of Bryn Mawr to deal with.

  “Look, you two go shop, and Alex and I’ll babysit,” Jack says, stepping once more into the breach.

  “Yeah, Dad and I’ll stay with Bevan,” I say, still annoyed about Helen’s impending party, but brightening at the idea of an Amy-free afternoon. I check my watch. Just about 2:30. If I’m lucky, by the time they get back, Charles will be here and I’ll have my buffer in place. Speaking of that, I need to check my messages and find out what train he’s catching.

  “Well, he’s going down for his nap, so there’s really nothing to do,” Amy says, spooning the last of the slime.

  “Well, if that’s the case, I can man the fort myself if all you gals want to go,” Jack says.

  “No!” I say a little too quickly. “I mean, I’m a little tired from golf, and after the flight last night, I wouldn’t mind cleaning up before I go pick up Charles.”

  “Doesn’t jet lag work the other way? I mean, if you’re flying west to east,” Amy says, unstrapping Bevan and lifting him out of the high chair. “I thought you’d be waking up right about now.”

  I shoot her a look, but, typically, her face is unreadable.

  “Well, Jack, if you’re sure you’ll be okay on your own, we could get more done if we all went,” Helen says, still rattling around in her handbag for her keys.

  “More done?” I say, eyeing her. “Where are you planning on going?”

  “Alex,” she says, looking up with a mixture of surprise and fatigue. “Even with Maria coming over tomorrow to help with the hors d’oeuvres, there’s still all the shopping to do. And I thought you might have some ideas about the favors we could hand out.”

  “You’re doing a gift bag? At a cocktail party?” I can’t believe this.

  “Not a bag. Just a little something. Give it some thought,” she says, pulling her keys from her purse. “I gather you’re the expert at these things.”

  “Mom,” I say, sighing. “You don’t need to do this.”

  “I know I don’t need to do it, honey,” she says. “We want to do it. We want our friends to meet Charles and see you after all these years.”

  “It’s your coming home party,” Amy says, her tone equally unreadable, as she heads for the stairs with Bevan. “I think it will be fun.”

  My definition of fun has topped out with golf with Jack and lunch with wine. From here on out, whatever transpires this weekend falls under the heading of family obligations and nothing else. God knows, I wish it was otherwise. I mean, there are families where they actually get along. Maybe if I’d stayed in New York, it would have been different. Or if I’d stayed married to Josh. We might even have a kid by now, a little Josh Jr. running around in a yarmulke. Like that would warm the cockles of Helen’s WASPy heart.

  Or maybe I’m just fooling myself. Maybe time ends up fracturing the tightest of families. Maybe we never even had a chance.