Chapter 12 The Favor
Chapter12 The Favor
The Mother of the Bride
“You’re still up?”
“Isn’t the question are you still up?” Alexa asked the familiar voice on the phone. She loved hearing Simon Fox’s posh voice on the other end of a call,
no matter what time zone she was in. It was eight in New York and her friend was on London time. “It’s the middle of the night
for you, isn’t it?”
“Actually, I got into New York two days ago, so I’m adjusted.”
Typical Simon, giving her 90percent of the details and keeping back some critical information. “Were you trying to avoid
me? Or were you attending to your secret life?”
It was a running joke between them since their university days. They had met as first-year students studying economics by day and the London music and club scene by night. They became fast friends early in the term when one night, after too many pints, they discovered they had both lost their mothers at a similar age and were sent to boarding school to grieve. Simon was banished from his bucolic home in Herefordshire to an austere place in Wales, and Alexa was forced from her island paradise to dirty, loud Athens. They both survived, but it was the scars that bonded them and their love of New Wave music. She and Simon remained dear friends, but it would be untrue to say they were only friends.
At certain times, they’d been more than that to each other, much more. The occasional romps in college, the wild night here
and there in their late twenties and early thirties when her moviemaking schedule crossed over with his music journalism schedule.
They could spend a night or two as lovers and leave in the morning as friends. But now in their sixties, with the addition
of children and a spouse in their lives, there was none of that heat left. Well, almost none. There were times when a glance
from Simon or the sound of him saying her name could generate a flash of desire through Alexa. Still, even after decades of
shared experiences with him, she still had the sense that Simon Fox was hiding something.
As for Simon, he loved his effect on her and leaned into their history when appropriate. “You know, the only secret I have
left in my life is you and that trip to Glastonbury in eighty-seven.”
Oh, she remembered that weekend. Alexa had been in London for work, her first trip back since moving to California, and had
a few days to kill between meetings. Simon was still scrambling for regular writing assignments and thought a blockbuster
recap of the underfunded music festival might lead to a breakthrough. New Order was headlining so they decided to be goths
for the weekend and hit the road. What she remembered was the mud, the dirty tent with no real privacy, and the gallons of
cheap retsina they traded for food and clove cigarettes. And the nights, of course. “Do not mention Glastonbury tomorrow around
the in-laws-to-be!”
“Pity. From what you’ve told me, I’m sure they are huge New Order fans. How dull,” Simon quipped. “Speaking of dull, I’m trying to secure a distributor here in the States for our hard cider. And our new hard seltzer, sort of a rummy apple soda. Really turning up the British charm in a meeting with alleged mobsters. Did you know the entire beverage distribution system in the US is run by the Mafia out of a warehouse in Brooklyn? Very strange. Anyhow, I’ve been up to nothing more nefarious than that.”
“I don’t believe you,” Alexa teased.
“If I was here meeting some paramour, would I have asked you to stay with me in the apartment? Or have agreed to go to the
country to meet the new in-laws? Of course not! I’d be shacked up with somebody scandalous and have no time for you, my dear
confidant.” Simon made adultery sound like Shakespeare.
It was true. Alexa had spent many nights in Simon’s efficient two-bedroom Gramercy Park apartment, a luxury he bought long
ago when he was a music journalist and his life was his own, free from family and family obligations. She was sure a lot of
bad behavior had gone down during his trips to New York, Simon entrenched in its music scene, which involved drinking, drugs,
and groupies galore even for a journalist. But now he was married with two of his own children. His wife, Hazel, was twenty
years his junior, the daughter of a country lawyer and well suited to life on a farm. She had turned their estate, Caston
Park, into a destination orchard with a small restaurant, a gift shop, even a glamping area at the far edges of the property.
There was merchandise and a revived apple festival in Ledbury, to the delight of the locals, thanks to Hazel. His boys were
in boarding school, but closer to home and in a warmer environment than Wales. He was content, fulfilling his obligations
to crown and country. His trips to the city that never sleeps were few and far between. And much tamer than in the past.
For years, Alexa had used the apartment whenever she was in New York, whether he was in residence or not. She could have stayed with him on this trip but wanted some space and to be closer to Penny’s apartment. Plus, she didn’t want to give the new relatives anything to suspect. The dinner had left her with the impression that the Blakemans had a very narrow definition of acceptable behavior. And she needed Simon to be his best self for her real concern: her daughter. “Thank you for coming tomorrow. You’ll be a welcome buffer between Penny and me. She’s running hot and cold. Today she had a breakdown in a public place over a friend’s divorce and the wedding industrial complex. And then later, she told me to calm down when she was describing the exact blue and white place settings that she wants for the venue we haven’t secured and probably can’t afford. I’ve barely heard a word about this wedding, and she’s already tablescaping, which she informed me is what one does at a reception.”
Alexa filled Simon in on all the details from the last thirty-six hours with Princess Penny, including the bit where the bride
informed her mother that she should not wear yellow at any official events, because it had never really been her color. “As
if I would wear yellow to a holiday wedding. And for the record, I love yellow. Wait until she sees my outfit for the engagement
party. I’m losing her, Simon.”
“Aren’t brides allowed to go off the rails a bit? Isn’t wedding planning considered a sanctioned escape from decent behavior?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Alexa replied dryly.
When Alexa decided it was time to become a mother, she was thirty-five, never married, certainly single, and had recently
bought the travel business. While she had plenty of female friends, she didn’t have one that could be counted on to talk through
this decision without bringing all their personal baggage. At the time, her thirtysomething female friends were going through
their own tribulations: finding a husband, staying married, conceiving a child, coming to terms with their sexuality or knee-deep
in nappies because they had recently given birth and were overwhelmed. And she’d learned the painful lesson that everyone
had biases to bring to a conversation about a single woman like her giving birth.
Over the years when Alexa had hinted at single parenthood, her friends had scoffed. Or rolled their eyes. Or, worst of all, lectured her about how incredibly selfish she was being, having a child on her own, without a father in the picture. Especially when there were so many “spare” children around, as if newborns were so plentiful they hung out in parks together, eager to be adopted by single parents. Wait, they all advised. You still have time to find a partner and do it the right way. Alexa knew she didn’t want a full-time partner, but she did want a child. And who was to say what constituted the right way? She’d certainly heard enough stories of terrible childhoods or awful fathers or miserable mothers to know that having two parents didn’t guarantee a happy life. She was enough for one little baby.
She thought of her mother often during those months and years of decision-making. A young woman whose family was so ashamed
of their unmarried, pregnant daughter they shipped her off to a faraway island to give birth. Her mother turned that punishment
around and made Patmos, her accepting new husband, and her four children her life. Alexa knew that she didn’t want to “avenge”
her mother by having a baby on her own, that wasn’t the right term, although she did feel anger toward the grandparents she’d
never met. She wished she had been old enough to have a conversation with Leni about her choices before the accident. But
it never occurred to her as a teenager to speak to her mother about such personal things. But now, in her thirties and feeling
an overwhelming need to have a child, she wanted her decision to honor her mother.
She knew what she had to do.
She flew to London and spent a week with Simon on his farm to talk through it with him. He wouldn’t have the issues her female friends had, but she learned he had his own issues. His father and brother had died in a train accident the previous year, a tragedy that was all over the news because the number of dead was in the dozens. The estate, which was never meant for him as a second son, became his along with the title and the seat in Parliament. All Simon had wanted to do was to live in London and be a music journalist of some acclaim, but now he was back in Ledbury, tending to the apple and pear orchards, like generations of Foxes had before him. He was lost when Alexa arrived. And the minute Alexa told him about having a baby on her own, he was found.
“Let me be the father,” he had begged. “I need some sign of life. I want to give you this. And you’ll give me something, too.
I don’t need to be a couple and I don’t think you want to be either. And I know that you don’t want to live here on the outskirts
of humanity worrying about the bee population, like I do. This is my duty, Alexa. This estate and these people. But I’d love
to know that my child was out there in California, free to choose whatever they want to be. Please, Alexa.”
It was a nondecision. Of course this was the solution. Maybe it was why she had made the journey in the first place, knowing
that this was where their relationship would lead them, after years of dancing around the edges of romance. She and her best
friend spent the week eating, drinking, walking through the apple trees, and trying at least once a day to conceive a child.
Like it was the most normal situation in the world.
They weren’t kids anymore, depending upon the potent fuel of youth, drinking, loud bands, and dark clubs to spark their interactions.
Nor were they hardened twentysomethings squeezing in sex between intense work obligations, like it was a high-impact aerobics
class. For this week, which Simon kept referring to as the Maculata Conceptionis, a bastardization of his schoolboy Latin
and a reflection of his misunderstanding of the Immaculate Conception, they were both conscious and self-conscious of being
together. They eased into the daily ritual, trying to find the balance between fertility and fun. All it took was a few glasses
of a good white burgundy at lunch, a rainy afternoon, and the call of the pressed Irish linen sheets in Simon’s bedroom. They
could laugh at the folly of it all and then get down to business, but in between there were moments of such tenderness. Yes,
these were two dear friends.
A few weeks later, Alexa learned that she wasn’t pregnant. She was disappointed, but Simon was distraught. How could you spend your whole life trying not to get someone pregnant and then fail in your first serious attempt to do so? Alexa made a quick decision before Simon got any crazy idea that they were a couple. A trip to the sperm bank and several home inseminations later, she was pregnant. She knew the baby wasn’t Simon’s and Simon knew the baby wasn’t his, but they acknowledged that he was the spiritual father, the impetus and the inspiration. Without Simon’s enthusiastic support, there would have been no Penny. So of course he was Penny’s godfather.
Back in the present day, more than thirty years since that week of the Maculata Conceptionis, Alexa had another favor to ask.
“Can you do something for me tomorrow?”
“Of course. A toast. Or a proclamation. I’m very good at those, you know. Constantly proclaiming things now that I’m an MP.”
“Tell me what you think about Chase. And the family. I want to know your impressions.”
“You sound worried. Do you think there are issues?”
“Everything seems to be moving so quickly. And the decisions are so big, life-changing. Marriage, moving, becoming a political
wife. Penny has never expressed any interest in a life of public service. Why now? And the fact that the district is heavily
Greek, that makes me wonder if this union is about expediency. I feel terrible saying this. You know about these sorts of
people. Old money, politics, WASPs. You’re them. I want you to tell me what you think of the Blakemans.”
“You know I love Penny like my own daughter,” Simon said softly, letting the words sink in. He would do as his old friend
asked. “I’ll uncover what I can tomorrow at the engagement party and report back. Now I’ve got to run. I’m off to dinner.”
Dinner? Alexa was planning on room service and an early night. “There you go. There’s that secret life of yours again.”
From the Desktop of Dearly Beloveds and Betrotheds
Dear B & Bs...
Time to clear out that mailbox! This week, I’m answering your questions about engagement protocols. Are there any other life
events where the journey from joy turns to tyranny in so brief a time as from the proposal to the engagement announcement?
What starts as a profound moment between two people deciding to share their lives morphs into a nonstop question-and-answer
period about everything from the style of your dress to the date you plan to procreate. If you can control the chaos, couples,
you might have a chance of enjoying this liminal period between single and married.
Dear Aunt B,
My boyfriend and I got engaged on a super romantic camping trip in Yosemite, far from people and cell service. He dropped
to one knee at the foot of El Capitan and then we spent a week in the backcountry, just the two of us. It was perfect. When
we arrived home, we stopped by my parents’ to announce our engagement and they freaked out. How could we have kept it a secret
for a week? My mother was hurt and angry I hadn’t driven 100 miles to cell service to call her with the news and my father
was furious that my boyfriend hadn’t asked for “permission.” I’m a thirty-three-year-old woman, not chattel. Now, they are
refusing to host the engagement party we suggested. Plus, so much drama. Whyyyyyyyy?
Signed, Melissa from Manhattan
Dear Melissa,
First off, no one owes you a party. Not your parents. Not your friends. Not your neighbors. So, let’s put the party planning
aside and get to the propriety of the situation. Secondly, is camping ever really “super romantic”? This former Manhattanite
is suspicious.
As for asking for your father’s permission, yes, it’s a throwback, old-timey gesture that originated in the days when women
were chattel and marriage was a business deal. And in today’s modern family structure with parents of all types and couples
of all genders, who is asking for permission from whom? It’s a relic of a tradition best left buried.
Let’s reframe this moment. It’s not about permission so much as it is about inclusion, celebration, and, frankly, buy-in.
Lots of couples choose to include their parents, family, and friends in the engagement moment with all of them being “in”
on the secret except the one getting the ring. Facebook tells me so. Given that you had a destination engagement with the
two of you in a bubble, a big granite bubble, I think your parents are feeling left out. Why don’t you acknowledge that with
your parents?
And do you want me to tell you that your mother is being ridiculous? Okay: Your mother is being ridiculous. Everyone knows
that there is no cell service in national parks. But instead of forcing your parents to throw you a party, why don’t you take
them out to dinner, just the four of you, and reset this engagement off on the right foot?
Dear Aunt B,
My soon-to-be in-laws hosted an engagement party at their home over the holidays in honor of my fiancé and me. It was festive
and well attended. Everyone seemed to be genuinely happy for us, but here’s the problem: no gifts. Not one gift. Now we are
putting together our guest list and my future mother-in-law wants to include some of the engagement party attendees at the
wedding. I told my fiancé I don’t want a bunch of freeloaders taking advantage of us again. He’s afraid to tell his mother
the real reason we’ve limited her guests. What’s the best way to inform her?
Thanks, Chicago Suzee
My dear Chicago Suzee,
Your self-righteousness is... what? Courageous? No, it’s deplorable!
An engagement party is a small gift-free celebration for a happy couple to acknowledge their commitment to each other and
the institution of marriage. It can be hosted by either side of the engaged couple’s families. Or, in cases of deficient real
estate on the parts of the parents, dear friends. It’s a glass of champagne, a toast, and best wishes for the future. Plus,
for pure fun, it’s a chance for family friends to check out the Bride or Groom.
It’s not supermarket sweeps or a lottery payout. Not every event in the wedding cinematic universe is a gift-collecting situation.
Even your actual wedding.
Someday, when you are less young and less self-righteous, you’ll understand the joy of simply being included in life’s lovely moments. You’ll understand what being a witness to love means and the importance of those witnesses in the tapestry that is your life. Honestly, to use a haggard phrase that is one hundred percent on-target in this instance, their presence is your present.
Dear Aunt B,
My boyfriend and I became engaged two months ago. We’ve really enjoyed how happy everyone is for us. Buying us drinks! Treating
us to dinner! Sending small gifts. We were in no rush, but now we’re really in no rush. Is two years too long for an engagement?
We’d like to enjoy this outpouring for a while longer.
Patient Pamela
Dear Pamela...
Kudos to you for discovering the spontaneous benefits of betrothal. Celebrating love is contagious. That said, unless there
is a military deployment or medical reason for a long engagement, I encourage you to speed up your timeline. Those same people
who toast your happiness now will get bored and cynical if you don’t fulfill the promise of your engagement within a year,
eighteen months at the outside. Momentum is meaningful in matrimony. Keep the ball rolling by picking a date and sharing news
as you have it. The good news for you is that you clearly have a tremendous circle of support. Every couple needs that. Don’t
make them wait too long for the vows.
Big Kiss & Wedding Bliss,
Your Aunt B