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January 29, 2005

There Once Was A Lady From Nantucket...

Lani, feeling really lame...

I got nothing. I'm sorry. I've been in my office writing all day, trying to get a proposal for the next book in to my editor on time, and the well hath run dry. I thought if I just sort of came here and started babbling, I might come up with something interesting or funny, but so far... not so much.

Well, what did I expect, really? It was a bad plan. This is actually beginning to be painful, like those horrible dreams where you're standing naked on a stage in front of an audience expecting you to quote Shakespeare only the only quote in your head is "There once was a lady from Nantucket..." and you're pretty sure ol' Will didn't write that.

Yeah. This is a little like that.

Wow. And still you clicked on the link to read the rest of this lameness. How sweet. How faithful you are.

I don't deserve you.

Really. You keep reading, but I have nothing for you. No funny quips, no butt-talking five-year-old stories, no sassy stories from my misspent youth. Not even a choppy thought.

Oooh. Except... oh, wait... I might have something.... let me just check...

Oh! I found it! An unpublished short story I wrote ages ago and which probably sucks, but what the hell. After exhibiting that kind of faith, you've earned a hastily-written, previously unpublished crap short story.

So... here you go... and remember, aside from the editors who rejected it, only Literary Chick visitors will get to see this piece of junk. Feel special.

Jake's Girl
By: Lani Diane Rich

It’s not that I don’t like her. It’s not that she makes me uncomfortable. She’s pretty, and polite. I don’t think my son could have done better. Well, of course he could have, Jake is a fine boy. But you know what I mean.

It’s just that she’s so bright. And when I say bright, I don’t mean bright like intelligent – although she’s smart enough. She did pick Jake. But no, I guess I mean bright like loud. When she’s around my retinas ache.

I don’t know much what I’m trying to say, really. But it’s not that I don’t like her. It’s just that when I think about the wedding, I crave a gin and tonic. That’s all.

She hates me. I know it, I feel it in my bones, the woman hates me. Jake says no, no, no, she’s fine with you. And she is fine with me. Her lips get all thin and tight and she tends to squint when I walk in a room, but she’s fine with me.

For the most part.

I wish I’d just followed my instincts when Jake brought me home to meet them last Thanksgiving. I said no, I don’t want to do it on the dining room table. It’s rude. And what if they come back? But he got all worked up and started kissing my neck. They’re at church. They’ll be gone for hours. C’mon baby, I’m so hot, blah blah blah. And then the very second my panties hit the floor, in they walk.

See, that’s why you should always follow your instincts. Because if you don’t, your future mother-in-law will see your panties on her dining room floor, and that doesn’t make a great first impression.

She and Jake came over today. They seemed happy enough, although there was some tension when Jake forgot the name of the girl who’s going to be the maid of honor. She didn’t make a big deal out of it, but there was definite tension.

But what couple doesn’t have tension? George and I don’t, but we’ve been married for so long now. We’ve just ironed it all out. God knows it takes time.

There were a few awkward moments when Jake and his dad went into the garage to find the title for the Toyota – we’re giving it to them, we really don’t need the extra car anymore now that Olivia is off at college – and she and I were alone in the room together.

“I think you’ll look very pretty in that wedding dress you chose,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said.

“And I think it’s just fine that it’s not white.”

“Thank you.”

Then we both stared at the door to the garage for a while. It wasn’t a good idea to send Jake into the garage with his father. They could be hours.

“Would you like a gin and tonic?” I asked.

“Yes. Please.”

I had just handed her the drink when Jake and his father came back. Jake gave her a strange look and walked over to stand next to her.

“Honey,” he said. He was speaking softly, but I could still hear him. “It’s eleven in the morning.”

She thinks it’s fine that my dress isn’t white. I knew we should have gone to Vegas. We should have just gone to Vegas and gotten married and let everyone get all pissy after the fact. They’d get over it.

And I could wear whatever damn color dress I wanted.

She didn’t mean anything by it, Jake said. She’s just uncomfortable, trying to be nice. Yeah, well, I said, she wouldn’t have to try so hard to be nice if she’d never seen my panties lying on her dining room floor, and Jake threw his hands up in the air. Are you ever going to get over that? he asked.

Probably someday. But not in the foreseeable future.

The woman does know how to make a gin and tonic, though. I’ll give her that.

We should invite them to dinner, I said as I leaned over to turn off the light. I’ll cook.

You can’t cook, he said.

I can cook. I’ll cook. It’ll be fine. I’ll just drink a lot of wine, and it’ll be just fine.

They have invited us over for dinner. We have to go. There’s no way around it. I’ll just have a drink before we go. Maybe a couple of drinks. The more drinks I have, the less my retinas will hurt.

“You know, Mom,” Olivia said on the phone, “you’re going to have to learn to like her. She’s going to be part of the family now.”

“It’s not that I don’t like her.” And that was the truth.

“It’s just that she’s too bright,” Olivia said.

“Yes,” I said. “Exactly. Can we fly you up here early, and you can go with us?”

“I have finals.”

“Fail them.” I was half-serious. “We’ll pay for an extra semester of college.”

Olivia laughed. “Just have a few drinks and remember that Jake loves her, and you’re going to have to find a way to live with her.”

I don’t understand how a child of nineteen can have such tremendous wisdom when it comes to my life, and yet doesn’t recognize how off-putting a tongue piercing is.

George sat down in bed and put his hand on my breast. I picked it up and put it gently back on his stomach. He sighed. “Too tense?”

I nodded. He shrugged and reached for the remote control. “I’ll be glad when this damn wedding is over.”

I stood helpless in the kitchen, talking to myself. I can’t cook. I can’t cook. What was I thinking, asking them to dinner, telling them I’d cook? The pasta is all sticky and the chicken is dry and there isn’t enough wine in the world to make that bundt cake look like anything other than a run-over poodle.

When Jake came home from work, I was sitting on the kitchen floor, crying, my legs splayed out with my hand resting on the neck of the bottle of wine I’d almost finished. His parents were due in twenty minutes. It wasn’t looking good.

He picked me up by my armpits, told me to take a shower and get ready, he’d run out someplace and get some decent take-out. It doesn’t matter if you cook, he said. They’re gonna love you anyway.

They’re gonna hate me anyway, I said. I went upstairs and got in the shower, and Jake left to get take-out, saying he’d put a note on the door for his parents to let themselves in.

They weren’t there. They’d left a note on the door for us to let ourselves in, so we did. It smelled like something had been burning in the kitchen. They were probably getting take-out. We let ourselves in and sat down at the dining room table. I accidentally knocked into the table and the bud vase almost tipped over.

“How many of those drinks did you have?” George asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Five.”

His eyebrows raised up high. “Five. You’re serious?”

“Yes.” I gave him my special smile. “But I’m not tense.”

George smiled back, and I remembered our first place together, and how we would sit at the dining room table and talk and laugh and drink wine. Of course, we were married before we ever lived together. I was never bright like Jake’s girl.

It took me a while to dry my hair and feel presentable. Jake was probably already down there with them anyway, so I took my time. If I wasn’t going to cook, at least I was going to look nice. I even chose my cream-colored dress. I figured she’d appreciate seeing me in white at least once.

I heard some movement in the dining room, but no talking. That should have tipped me off, but the I was still time-delayed from the wine. Then I turned the corner from the living room into the dining room and saw my future in-laws on my dining room table. I didn’t process what I was seeing until something white caught the corner of my eye. I looked down and focused.

My future mother-in-law’s underwear was lying on my dining room floor.

They gasped and shuffled when they saw me and I fled into the living room and sat on the couch. I was alone there for about five minutes and then they came in, holding hands like a couple of teenagers, their faces flushed and damned if she didn’t stumble a bit.

She’d been drinking. That explained a lot.

I couldn’t look at them. I stared at my hands, wringing my fingers, desperately trying to come up with something to say. But, I’ll tell you, it’s tough to come up with witty repartee when you’ve just seen your future in-laws getting busy on your dining room table.

Suddenly I understood that it wasn’t that she hated me. It was never that she hated me. It was just that she had the image of me and her son on her dining room table burned into her retinas. Now it all made sense.

He started to laugh. It was a deep laugh, and her tinkling giggle complemented it perfectly, like a waterfall in a cavern. I looked at them, their faces red and their hair a little mussed, and let loose. We laughed hard, each of us riding it in waves, one stopping and then the other starting up again, getting all of us rolling again. My sides hurt. Tears stained my cheeks, ruining my mascara, but I didn’t care.

Everything was gonna be all right.

Jake came in and saw us all laughing. I think he was surprised. I think all of us were. She got up and helped him with the take-out, never saying a word about walking in on us on the dining room table. They served us dinner and we drank and ate and laughed and before we knew it, it was eleven o’clock and time to go home. I hugged her on my way out the door and it felt good. Genuine.

Everything was going to be okay.

On the ride home, George put his hand on my knee and squeezed it.

“Well, you’re gonna have to like her now,” he said with a chuckle. “She’s got something on us.”

“I like her fine.”

“Oh, yeah?” I could see him steal a glance as he turned the car onto our street. “How are your retinas?”

I smiled and put my hand on his. “They’ve never been better.”

And that was the truth.

copyright 2005 Lani Diane Rich. No part of this may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the author.

Thank you for believing in me! Hope it was worth the click of the faithful!

Posted by Lani at 4:00 PM | Comments (7)

Comments

Posted by: joshilyn at January 30, 2005 11:18 AM

Posted by: Michelle C at January 31, 2005 7:01 AM

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Posted by: jenny at January 31, 2005 10:50 PM

Posted by: ZaZa at February 6, 2005 2:24 AM

Posted by: Jennifer at February 9, 2005 4:42 PM