PART ONE
Everybody Knows ONE
When I was a kid, our small-town paper published wedding announcements, with descriptions of the ceremonies and dresses and pictures of the brides. Two of the disc jockeys at one of the local radio stations would spend Monday morning picking through the photographs and nominating the Bow-Wow Bride, the woman they deemed the ugliest of all the ladies whoâd taken their vows in the Philadelphia region over the weekend. The grand prize was a case of Alpo.
I heard the disc jockeys doing this on my way to school one morningââUh-oh, bottom of page J-6, and yes . . . yes, I think we have a contender!â Jockey One said, and his companion snickered and replied, âThereâs not a veil big enough to hide that mess.â âWide bride! Wide bride!â Jockey One chanted before my mother changed the station back to NPR with an angry flick of her wrist. After that, I became more than a little obsessed with the contest. I would pore over the black-and-white head shots each Sunday morning as if Iâd be quizzed on them later. Was the one in the middle ugly? Worse than the one in the upper-right-hand corner? Were the blondes always prettier than the brunettes? Did being fat automatically mean you were ugly? Iâd rate the pictures and fume about how unfair it was, how just being born with a certain face or body could turn you into a punch line. Then Iâd worry for the winner. Was the dog food actually delivered to the coupleâs door? Would they return from the honeymoon and find it there, or would a well-meaning parent or friend try to hide it? How would the bride feel when she saw that sheâd won? How would her husband feel, knowing that heâd chosen the ugliest girl in Philadelphia on any given weekend, to love and to cherish, until death did them part?
I wasnât sure of much back then, but I knew that whenâifâI got married, there was no way Iâd put a picture in the paper. I was pretty certain, at thirteen, that I had more in common with the bow-wows than the beautiful brides, and I was positive that the worst thing that could happen to any woman would be winning that contest.
Now, of course, I know better. The worst thing would not be a couple of superannuated pranksters on a ratings-challenged radio station oinking at your picture and depositing dog food at your door. The worst thing would be if they did it to your daughter.
Iâm exaggerating, of course. And Iâm not really worried. I looked across the room at the dance floor, just beginning to get crowded as the bânai mitzvah guests dropped off their coats, feeling my heart lift at the sight of my daughter, my beautiful girl, dancing the hora in a circle of her friends. Joy will turn thirteen in May and is, in my own modest and completely unbiased opinion, the loveliest girl ever born. She inherited the best things I had to offerâmy olive skin, which stays tan from early spring straight through December, and my green eyes. Then she got my ex-boyfriendâs good looks: his straight nose and full lips, his dirty-blond hair, which, on Joy, came out as ringlets the deep gold of clover honey. My chest plus Bruceâs skinny hips and lean legs combined to create the kind of body I always figured was available only thanks to divine or surgical intervention.
I walked to one of the three bars set along the edges of the room and ordered a vodka and cranberry juice from the bartender, a handsome young man looking miserable in a ruffled pale blue polyester tuxedo shirt and bell-bottoms. At least he didnât look as tormented as the waitress beside him, in a mermaid costume, with seashells and fake kelp in her hair. Todd had wanted a retro seventies theme for the party celebrating his entry into Jewish adulthood. His twin sister, Tamsin, an aspiring marine biologist, hadnât wanted a theme at all and had grudgingly muttered the word âoceanâ the eleventh time her mother had asked her. In between pre-party visits to Dr. Hammermesh to have her breasts enlarged, her thighs reduced, and the millimeters of excess flesh beneath her eyes eliminated, Shari Marmer, the twinsâ mom, had come up with a compromise. On this icy night in January, Shari and her husband, Scott, were hosting three hundred of their nearest and dearest at the National Constitution Center to celebrate at Studio 54 Under the Sea.
I passed beneath a doorway draped with fake seaweed and strands of dark blue beads and wandered toward the table at the roomâs entrance. My place card had my name stenciled in elaborate script on the back of a scallop shell. Said shell contained a T&T medallion, for Tamsin and Todd. I squinted at the shell and learned that my husband, Peter, and I would be sitting at Donna Summer. Joy hadnât picked up her shell yet. I peered at the whirling mass of coltish girls until I saw Joy in her knee-length dark blue dress, performing some kind of complicated line dance, hands clapping, hips rocking. As I watched, a boy detached himself from a cluster of his friends, crossed the room with his hands shoved in his pockets, and said something to my daughter. Joy nodded and let him take her hand as he led her underneath the strobe that cast cool bubbles of bluish light.
My Joy, I thought as the boy shifted his weight from foot to foot, looking like he was in desperate need of the bathroom. It isnât politically correct to say so, but in the real world, good looks function as a get-out-of-everything-free card. Beauty clears your path, it smooths the way, it holds the doors open, it makes people forgive you when your homeworkâs late or you bring the car home with the gas gauge on E. Joyâs adolescence would be so much easier than mine. Except . . . except. On her last report card, sheâd gotten one A, two Bâs, and two Câs instead of her usual Aâs and Bâs (and worlds away from the straight Aâs Iâd gotten when I was her age and had more brains than friends). âShe just doesnât seem as engaged, as present,â her teacher had said when Peter and I had gone in for our parent-teacher conference. âIs there anything unusual going on at home?â
Peter and I had shaken our heads, unable to think of a thingâno divorce, certainly, no moves, no deaths, no disruptions. When the teacher had folded her eyeglasses on her desk and asked about boyfriends, Iâd said, âSheâs twelve.â The teacherâs smile had been more than a little pitying. âYouâd be surprised,â she said.
Except I wouldnât. Other mothers, maybe, but not me. I kept a close watch on my daughter (too close, sheâd probably say). I knew her teachers, the names of her friends, the horrible, whiny boy singer she likes, the brand of twenty-bucks-a-bottle shampoo on which she blows the bulk of her allowance. I know the way she struggles with reading and is a whiz at math, and that her favorite thing in the world to do is swim in the ocean. I know that apricots are her favorite fruit, that Tamsin and Todd are her best friends, that she worships my little sister and is terrified of needles and bees. Iâd know if anything had changed, and Joyâs life, I explained, was the same as it had ever been. Her teacher had smiled and patted my knee. âWe see it a lot with girls her age,â sheâd said, putting her glasses back on and glancing at the clock. âTheir worlds just get bigger. Iâm sure sheâll be fine. Sheâs got involved parents and a good head on her shoulders. Weâll just keep an eye on things.â
As if I donât do that already, Iâd thought. But Iâd smiled and thanked Mrs. McMillan and promised to call with any concerns. Of course, thirty minutes later, when Iâd gone straight to the source and asked Joy whether anything was wrong, my interrogation had been met with the shrug/eye-roll combination that is the hallmark of adolescent girls everywhere. When Iâd said, âThatâs not an answer,â sheâd replied, âSeventh gradeâs harder than sixth,â and opened her math book to let me know definitively that the conversation was over.
Iâd wanted to call her pediatrician, a psychologist, her old speech therapist, at the very least the schoolâs principal and guidance counselor. Iâd made a list of possibilities: tutoring centers and homework-help websites, support groups for parents of premature children or kids with hearing loss. Peter had talked me out of it. âItâs one quarter of seventh grade,â heâd argued. âAll she needs is time.â
Time, I thought now. I sipped my drink and shoved the worries away. Iâve gotten good at that. At the age of forty-two, Iâve decided, ruefully, that Iâm slightly inclined toward melancholy. I donât trust happiness. I turn it over as if it were a glass at a flea market or a rug at a souk, looking for chipped rims or loose threads.
But not Joy, I thought as I watched my daughter shuffle back and forth with the boyâs hands on her hips, laughing at something heâd said. Joy is fine. Joy is lovely and lucky. And in the manner of almost-thirteen-year-olds everywhere, my daughter has no idea how lovely, or how lucky, she is.
⢠⢠â˘
âCannie!â Shari Marmerâs voice cut across the crowded atrium of the Constitution Center, where guests were clustered, waiting to take their seats for dinner. I clutched my shell and my drink and gave a halfhearted wave as she hustled over, all bright red lips and blepharoplasty, a new diamond solitaire trapped in the Grand Canyon of her cleavage. âYoo-hoo! Can-nie!â Shari singsonged. I groaned inwardly as she grabbed my arm with her French manicure. When I tried to pull away, her hand came with me and ended up lodged beneath my right breast. My embarrassment was instant and excruciating. Shari didnât appear to notice.
âYou and Peter are sitting with us,â she said. She swept me into the dining room, where I saw thirty tables for ten draped in aquamarine tablecloths with seashell centerpieces, topped with glittering disco balls.
âGreat!â I said. Why? I wondered. Shari and Scott had relatives, grandparents, actual friends who should have been sitting with them. And it wasnât as if Shari and I needed to catch up. Our kids were best friends, and even though weâd never become friends ourselves, we had years of shared history and saw each other plenty. Just last month weâd spent an entire day together, rehashing our latest reality-TV fixation and grating thirty pounds of potatoes for our synagogueâs annual preschool Latkefest. Peter and I couldâve been over at Gloria Gaynor with the Callahans, or at Barry Gibb with Marisol Chang, whom Iâd loved since Iâd met her ten years ago in Music Together class.
âWhat do you think?â Shari asked me, waving her toned, sculpted, and possibly lipoâd arm at the room as we made our way toward the head table.
âItâs fantastic,â I said loyally. âAnd Tamsin and Todd did a wonderful job.â
She tightened her grip on my arm. âDo you really think so?â
âThey were great. You look amazing.â That, at least, was the undisputable truth. Eight years older than me, Shari had been in advertising in New York before marriage and motherhood. Her job now was self-maintenance, and she worked at it harder than Iâd worked at any paid employment Iâd ever had. Frying potato pancakes in the synagogueâs kitchen, Iâd listened, awestruck and exhausted, as Shari had described her rounds: the personal trainer, the yoga and pilates, the facials, the waxing, the laser treatments and the eyelash tinting, the low-cal, low-carb meals delivered each morning to her door. It was, perhaps, the one good thing about never having been beautifulâyou didnât have to kill yourself trying to hold on to something youâd never had in the first place.
âAnd the party?â Shari fretted. âItâs not too much?â
âNot at all!â I lied.
Shari sighed as a gold-medallioned, Jheri-curled DJ who was a dead ringer for a pre-incarceration Rick James led her parents to the front of the room for the blessing over the bread. âTamsinâs furious. She says that marine biology is a serious science, and that Iâm . . .â Her bejeweled fingers hooked into air quotes. ââTrivializing her ambitionsâ with seashell centerpieces and mermaid costumes.â She blinked at me with her newly widened eyes. âI think the waitresses look cute!â
âAdorable,â I said.
âThey should,â Shari muttered. âI had to pay them extra to wear bikinis. Something about the health code.â She towed me through the crowd, past the tables draped in ocean-blue tablecloths, and over to Donna Summer. Of the ten people at the table, six were family, two were me and Peter, and numbers nine and ten were the programming director of the cityâs public radio station and his wife. I waved at my husband, who was standing in the corner, deep in conversation with a gastroenterologist of our acquaintance. Better Peter than me, I thought, and sank into my seat.
The elderly woman to my left peered at my place card, then at my face. My heart sank. I knew what was coming. âCandace Shapiro? Not Candace Shapiro the writer?â
âFormer,â I said, trying to smile as I spread my napkin over my lap. Suddenly the gastroenterologist wasnât looking so bad. Ah well. I supposed I should be flattered that Shari still thought my name was worth dropping. Iâd written one novel under my own name almost ten years ago and, since then, had produced a steady stream of science fiction under a pseudonym. The pay for sci fi was a lot worse, but anonymity turned out to suit me much better than my fifteen minutes of fame had.
My seatmate placed one spotted, shaking hand on my forearm. âYou know, dear, Iâve had a book inside me for the longest time.â
âMy husbandâs a doctor,â I told her gravely. âIâm sure he could help you get it out.â
A puzzled look crossed the aged partyâs face.
âSorry,â I said. âWhatâs your idea?â
âWell, itâs about a woman who gets divorced after many years of marriage . . .â
I smiled, sipped my drink, and tried to turn her synopsis into a pleasant blur of sound. A minute later, Peter appeared at my side. I shot him a grateful smile as he took my hand.
âExcuse me,â he said to the woman. âTheyâre playing our song. Cannie?â
I got to my feet and followed him to the dance floor, where a few grown-up couples had worked their way in among the kids. I waved at Joy, stretched up to plant a quick kiss on the dimple in Peterâs chin, and leaned in to his tuxedoed chest. It took me a minute to recognize the music. ââDo It Till Youâre Rawâ is our song?â
âI had to get you out of there, so it is now,â he said.
âAnd here I was, hoping for something romantic.â I sighed. âYou know. âI Had His Baby, But You Have My Heart.ââ I rested my cheek on his shoulder, then waved at Shari and Scott Marmer as they fox-trotted past us. Scott looked euphoric, puffed up and proud of his children. His round brown eyes and his bald spot gleamed under the disco lights, along with his cummerbund, made of the same red satin as Shariâs gown. âCan you believe thatâs going to be us this fall? I looked at Shari more c...