“Earlier I couldn’t get Sean to go anywhere with me. But then you texted him. And all of a sudden he wants to go shopping. Isn’t it funny how that works?” She caresses his cheek. The way she dreamily stares at him. The pride she has.
“When we’re out together, I tell people I’m her boyfriend,” he says. “Her young stud.”
“Oh, Sean. Such a flirt. Just like your father,” his grandmother says. “Always talking about the ladies. He’s my only grandson who will do this, you know. Come in and visit me and spend one-on-one time like this. And I have eight grandsons. He’ll make a wonderful husband one day.” She strokes his cheek. I blush. I’m not sure if she’s saying this directly to me, or if she’s just entertaining herself.
“Blythe.” I hear my mother hissing from the other side of the room. Ignored, left in the corner with a sales associate. Not a good look for her. How could I leave her behind like that, I’m sure she’s thinking.
“I have to get back to my mother,” I say. The embarrassment rolling through my words.
“Here, I’ll take you,” he says, and leads me between the large black-tie gowns, under a massive black chandelier. I want him to push me up against the chartreuse velvet couch. Kiss my neck. Imagine his hands all over me.
“This is too crazy,” I say to him, breathless.
“Nothing’s crazy. It actually all makes complete sense. Finally something makes complete sense.” His face closer to mine. “I’m not scared, B.”
But I can barely speak.
I whisper that I have to go, and spin around, leaving him there between the gowns.
* * *
I run back to where my mother is standing. “We need to get out of here,” I say, because I’m flushed, too excited. I squeeze her hand. But this is my first mistake, trusting her. She shakes me off.
“Sean Nessel? Are you kidding me?” My mother does her thing with her eyebrows. Her array of faces. “You look like a tart, Blythe. A crush on your boyfriend’s best friend? I saw the way he was looking at you in that dress. You don’t think that was apparent to everyone, except for maybe his grandmother who is ninety-five years old? Did you make out with him behind those dresses too?”
“Mom—Jesus. What are you doing? Stalking me from the corner of the store?”
“You just left me alone here—standing here like a fool. What was I supposed to do? Talk to the sales girl the whole time?”
Here we go. Leaving her alone. It’s always about her being left alone.
“This was our shopping trip. Our time together,” she says. “The only thing we barely have. That I barely have. And you what? You had Sean Nessel meet you here? Because don’t tell me this was a coincidence.”
The anger in her face. The envy. That I have everything and she has nothing. It’s the way Sean looked at me; she saw that. And what does she have? My father who spends his time running away from her. Dumping her with me. Therapists and doctors. Running off to live his own life.
I slip into the dressing room to take off the dress.
“I heard his grandmother has a Chagall or maybe it’s a Cézanne,” my mother says outside the dressing room, her tone changing. “At the very least, maybe we can get an invitation? Maybe she’ll invite us up. Show us her art collection. We can catch a breeze on the terrace.”
“This is not the time for your mania to kick in, Mother.”
She swipes open the dressing room curtain. Squeezes my arm. “Don’t be a shit, my darling daughter, because I know exactly what is going on here. I can see it in your face, and especially your nipples.”
I look down. My nipples are headlights, charging through the chiffon. I conceal my chest with my arm. Whip shut the curtain.
My mother’s seething explosion is not unfamiliar to me. Half of it mumbled and garbled in mania. This is how we converse when she’s not so heavily medicated. She flips out, says nasty things. I say nasty things back. She cries. She holes herself up in her bedroom for days. I apologize. Start again.
I walk out of the dressing room and hand the dress to Blanche. Kiss her on both cheeks.
“Are you taking it, my dear?”
“Of course we are,” I say. “Is there any other choice?”
24
BLYTHE
Sean calls me around nine o’clock.
I see his name and I’m scared to pick it up. What his voice will sound like. What I want to say to him after today at the store. That we got swept up in something. Me in that dress. Him with his grandmother. The way he held my hand.
“Where are you?” I say.
“Out for a late jog. I like running at night. It helps me think,” he says.
“Where?”
I don’t hear his voice. For a few seconds I think maybe he just hung up. That this is it. That it’ll stop here.
“On your street.”
My body jolts for a second. All of it, falling to my tummy. And further. Like I can’t breathe.
“I’ll be at the back fence. I’ll let you in. But don’t open the fence.”
“Why?”
“It squeaks.”
* * *
We crouch down behind my shed, our backs up against it. Our thighs touching. He’s out of breath still, sweaty and dank. I don’t care. I don’t care at all.
“You have cute knees, B,” Sean says, and touches my knee. Just a flicker. With his fingers. His hand stays there. “How come you don’t wear many skirts? Or dresses like the one you wore today?”
I lean back more, really sinking into the cold grass.
“You looked beautiful today, B.”
“It’s sweet that you shop with your grandmother.”
“She’s a trip, my grandmother. People take pictures of her on the street. Did you know that? They think she’s famous. She loves it.”
“She looks famous.”
“Do you feel nervous right now, B?”
“Yes.”
He slides his hand farther up my leg and turns to
