40
My mother walked in a little after five, loaded down with shopping bags. I looked at her from the kitchen with raised eyebrows.
“Don’t look at me like that, darling,” she said, depositing the bags in the hall. “That’s how you get forehead wrinkles.”
I peeked around the corner and down the hall, making sure the children were still watching television. Which was unnecessary. I would have heard screams and objects breaking if they weren’t.
“Did you really just leave them at my office today? No warning, nothing?”
“Well, you told me to call Anna.”
“Yes, call her. Not abandon my kids to go shopping with her all afternoon.”
“Anna didn’t go shopping. But I figured once I was in Georgetown, I might as well make the most of it. I have so little free time these days.”
I rubbed at my forehead and its imaginary wrinkles. She was willfully missing the point. “Mama, you can’t just leave the kids at my office.”
“Whyever not? Your father’s secretaries watched you all the time.”
I had no memory of that ever happening. “Michael doesn’t even have a real secretary. We have Paul and his friends.”
“Paul who?”
“Louise Lefkowitz’s son.”
“See? It’s not like I left them with strangers. And Michael said it was fine.”
“Did you actually ask him?” I asked. “Or just deposit them and say”—I mimicked her voice—“You don’t mind, do you, Michael, darling?”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “I sound more like Audrey than Katharine if you’re going to do a dreadful Hepburn accent,” she said drily. “And either way, it was fine.”
“It wasn’t fine . This is my job!”
“Correction: this is your hobby,” she said. “You don’t need a job. But I have wholeheartedly supported your decision to work, to the detriment of my own marriage and social life. And which I continued to do today, by going to see Anna.” I was about to argue that she latched right on to this “hobby” of mine as a way to jump ship on her marriage, not that her marriage fell apart because I took a job, but she cut me off. “Don’t you even want to know how that went, by the way?”
I did not want to hear the inanities of gossip with Anna. But I needed to know if Michael was going to be meeting with the Wainwrights, so, silently fuming, I nodded.
“What’s that, darling? I didn’t hear you.”
“How did it go?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“Just lovely,” Mama trilled. “Be a dear and get the rest of the bags from the front step, won’t you? I didn’t want the cabbie to come inside. And then I’ll tell you more.”
I didn’t know how it was possible that more bags could have fit in a cab, but I did as she asked, carrying in several garment bags and two hatboxes. She clearly wasn’t worried about outliving her means being an issue in a future divorce.
Then again, as far as I knew, she had yet to even speak to a lawyer. Maybe there was hope there still.
I set the bags in the hall, but she told me to bring them to her room. “Except the Garfinckel’s bag; you can leave that here.” I draped one over a kitchen chair, but she corrected me—she meant the other one. And I graciously resisted throwing the whole stack at her head.
“Now,” Mama said when I returned to the kitchen, “open that one.”
“Mama, just tell me—”
“Ah ah ah,” she said. “Let me see what you think first.”
Inside the zippered bag was an absolutely exquisite dress. Black and beaded, it was strapless with a shrug that gave the appearance of covered shoulders, while drawing attention to the square neckline. It tapered at the waist and flared out in an A-line before it ended just below the knee.
“It’s lovely,” I admitted, fingering the beadwork. It had been forever since I had needed a fancy dress. Then again, my mother wasn’t exactly going out to galas anymore either. “But what do you need it for?”
“I don’t,” she said. “You do, to wear to Anna’s house. I assume Michael has evening wear?”
I looked at her in surprise. “You bought this—for me?”
“You can’t exactly turn up to a party at Anna’s in your everyday clothes.”
“A party?” I asked.
“You wanted an invitation. I delivered.”
“I thought she’d invite us for tea or dinner or something.”
“How uncomfortable,” she murmured. “No, this is far better. You know how connected they are to everyone worth knowing in Washington. Vice President Johnson may even be there—if Michael is going to be in the Senate, he’ll need to know him.”
She had a point. And that dress—
“When is the party?”
“Tomorrow night.” She looked me up and down. “I suggest you get your hair done.”
“Mama—”
“No need to thank me, darling,” she said, sweeping back out of the kitchen. “You’re a mother now. You know how it is to sacrifice for your children.”
I looked at the price tag on the dress and winced. A shopping spree on my father’s line of credit hardly felt like a sacrifice. Nor did depositing my children with strangers so she could do so. But she wasn’t wrong that an invitation to a Wainwright party was a golden ticket to the Washington elite.
“Mama—” I called after her again.
“Don’t worry, darling, there are shoes too. I’ll put them in your room when I find the bag with them. Did you bring everything in?”
I gave up. She was never going to change or recognize that she could have done anything wrong. And as long as she didn’t make a habit of leaving my kids at the office ...
I peeked in the oven to make sure I still had time on dinner, and then picked up the kitchen phone and called Michael’s direct line at the office.
“It’s me,” I said when he answered. Then I realized how awfully familiar that was and added my name. “Bev. Do you have an evening suit?”
“Is that different from a regular suit?”
I exhaled loudly. “We’ll have to go shopping tomorrow, then. I’ll—” I looked at the clock and swore. “It’s too late to call the salon. I’ll call first thing in the morning for an appointment and then work around that.”
“The salon?”
“For me, not for you. Although you should get a haircut and a shave. I’ll make that appointment for when mine is and then we can just run into Garfinckel’s.”
“Bev, what are you talking about?”
“We’re going to Anna and Henry Wainwright’s house for a party tomorrow night.”
There was a pause. “The Washington Post Wainwrights?”
“Yes. And you need dinner attire for that.”
“I—I’m lost. Why are we going to a party there? We don’t know them.”
“I do. And they are how you win elections in this town.”
“But we’re in Maryland, not DC.”
I threw a hand up in the air even though he couldn’t see it. “Listen, how do you think Johnson wound up on Kennedy’s ticket? That was Henry. And speaking of Johnson, my mother said he’s invited tomorrow night.”
Another pause. “Should I go tonight to get a suit?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head, but I was smiling. “No. I don’t trust a random shopkeeper to know how to dress you for the Wainwrights. If I send you alone, you’ll show up in a top hat and monocle.”
“I’ll have you know I look quite distinguished with a monocle.”
“There’s a reason we eat peanuts instead of voting for them.”
He laughed. “Point taken. But I can go for my own haircut on my way to work.”
I agreed and told him I would see him after that to get a suit. Then, after hanging up, I made a note on the pad next to the phone to call the barbershop and make sure they knew what to do with his hair. Men liked to feel independent even if you couldn’t trust them to get the details right.