Chapter 4 #8
“Katie, can you look at me?” Susan says. There’s a tremble in her voice.
Katie turns around. “I forgive you,” Katie says. “Promise.”
Susan tries to believe her. In doing so she feels a weight lifting; the guilt that’s been squatting in her brain shifts, making room, perhaps, for other feelings.
She takes out her phone and texts Angie, “We’re going to the movies. Just wanted to say goodnight in case you’re in bed when I get home.”
Susan wakes up late on Thanksgiving morning with a salt hangover; everything on her body is puffy. Too much popcorn, she thinks, splashing her face with cold water.
As she brushes her teeth, she gets a text from Jake.
“Susan, I’m really sorry for how I reacted when you told us about Kyle.
He was a good friend to me. I mean, he was there for me when my grandfather died last year, and he helped me move a bunch of times.
It didn’t occur to me that he’s not good to women, which is dumb.
I’m really mad at myself for not realizing it. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
Her eyes fill with tears, though it’s way too early to cry.
It’s not that Susan ever questioned Katie’s enduring love for Jake, but she’s never really seen his depth like this. She’s moved by it, by the fact that Jake is such a mensch and that good straight men still exist. She wants to tell him that she loves him but reins herself in.
“Thanks, dude,” she texts back instead. “I obviously forgive you.”
The next text comes from Katie: “I promise I didn’t ghostwrite that text for him.”
Susan laughs, sends back a heart, and then puts her phone away.
As she descends the stairs, she smells turkey, gravy, potatoes. It makes Susan’s stomach twist; Thanksgiving food in the morning is a disgusting thought. Her mom always starts cooking this meal at dawn, even though it’s just for the three of them.
“Hello,” she calls out as she rounds the corner into the kitchen.
“Hi, honey,” her mom says from the living room.
Susan puts on a fresh pot of coffee and inhales a banana while she watches the drip start.
Her mom appears in the doorway wearing an apron over her pajamas, her gray hair sticking up in every direction.
“Did you have a fun night?” she asks.
“It was fine,” Susan says. “I convinced them to go to the movies instead of to a bar.”
“That’s my girl,” her mom says. “I never liked bars either.”
It’s not that Susan doesn’t like bars, but it’s not worth explaining.
Instead, she says, “Can I help with anything?”
“You can make a salad later,” her mom says. “Otherwise just relax. Come watch the parade with us.”
Looking around, Susan notices that the appliances in the kitchen have been upgraded; the ancient microwave that she used to joke was the original model has been replaced with something sleek and black, and the rickety electric stove is gas now, industrial-looking and sturdy.
“I didn’t know you guys were updating the kitchen,” she says.
Her mom smiles. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she says. “Our stocks are finally in a good place so your dad wanted to fix things up around here.”
“Oh,” Susan says, surprised. Nothing about this is on-brand for her parents, who are famously suspicious of the stock market and always drag their feet on home repairs. “That’s nice.”
“Thank god the economy is back on track.”
“The economy,” Susan repeats. She’s not really one to follow financial news, but she’s plugged in enough to know it’s rare to hear someone—or at least, someone who votes blue—say something positive about the current state of the country. “I didn’t realize you guys cared about the economy.”
Reading between the lines, her mom says, “Say what you will about Trump, but he’s been good for our wallet.”
Susan brings a hand to her mouth.
“I don’t love him as a person,” her mom says. “Most of the time I wish he’d just shut up. But we can’t deny that things have been easier for us, under him.”
“What about people who aren’t like you?” Susan says, wishing she had her coffee before facing this conversation.
What she wants to say is: What about people like me?
She knows her parents accept her in a way that means they don’t see her as different from them, don’t imagine that there are other sets of rules for her that depend largely on the people in office.
It’s something she herself has only recently realized, thanks to the targeted hate speech coming from elected government officials and the people who voted them in.
She also knows it’s a privilege to have remained apolitical as long as she did.
“What do you want me to say, Susan?” her mom says, losing patience. “Should we suffer because others are suffering?”
“No, but…”
“We were poor for a long time, and now we’re less poor,” her mom says.
“You always contradicted me when I said that.”
“I wanted to protect you from the truth of our situation.” Her mom throws her hands up. “Sue me. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. There’s money in the bank and I intend to enjoy it.”
“For now,” Susan says. “You think this is going to last? Isn’t he known for being a failed businessman?”
“Well, the markets certainly like him.”
“Just because your stocks are up this month doesn’t mean he’s made life better,” Susan presses. “It just means rich people with power are conservative.”
Her mom gives an exaggerated sigh. “Susan, updating our kitchen because Trump made us some money doesn’t mean I agree with his politics.”
Just as Susan’s trying to figure out what she could possibly say, her mom adds, “But he is better for Israel.”
Deep in the folds of Susan’s brain, something snaps.
“How can that be true, when there are all those Nazi rallies in his honor? And what does ‘better for Israel’ mean, anyway? Don’t you think he just supports Israel because he hates Muslims more than he hates Jews?”
They stare at each other for a few tense moments, each doing mental calculus about how much effort they want to put into this conversation.
Her mother’s shoulders slump first. “Maybe you’re right. You know, they always say that you get less radical as you get older, but I never thought it would happen to me. Turns out money does make a difference.”
Susan instantly feels bad for how defeated her mom seems. “I’m glad you guys have some more resources,” she concedes. “It’s just hard for me to trust it if it’s because of that goon.”
“I hear you, honey,” her mom replies, and Susan feels a brief burst of satisfaction, like maybe she’s made a microscopic difference in something.
When the coffee is done, Susan brings a steaming mug that says BEST DAD EVER into the living room and squeezes between her parents on the brown corduroy couch they’ve had since she was born. Her mom seems to have forgotten the argument already; she welcomes Susan with a smile.
She rests her head on her mom’s shoulder and her dad pats her knee.
Later, she’ll call Angie, and at some point, she’ll check her work email and make sure all the scheduled tweets have gone out, but for now she’s happy to be pressed between her mom and her dad, pretending that she’s ten years old, the outside world and everyone in it just abstract ideas that don’t touch her life at all.
In December, Susan is turning thirty.
Yo La Tengo is playing all eight nights of Hanukkah at the Bowery Ballroom, and Susan pulls some strings to reserve a small roped-off section for her friends up on the balcony.
“You have the same taste in music as a forty-five-year-old divorced father of three,” Katie says when Susan calls to invite her.
“Taste in music is Gen X’s only redeeming quality,” Susan says. She’s lying in her bed with her feet up on the wall, her small Bed-Stuy bedroom with its view of brownstone rooftops feeling like the most special place on earth. “And you used to like Yo La Tengo.”
“Some of us evolve,” Katie says, but she’s just teasing, and Susan laughs.
“Ugh, yes, sure,” Susan says. “It’s just hard for me that all the new music sounds like pop. It’s like top forty dance garbage but with indie girl voice. I miss when everything sounded like folk.”
“I know, baby,” Katie says. “You like what you like.”
“Every time I think I find something new to like, it turns out to be the solo project of someone from a band we used to listen to in high school.”
Katie laughs. “You’ll have to make me a playlist. Anyway, we’ll be there. And we can’t wait to meet Angie.”
“She’s a good one,” Susan says.
The small invite list is Jonny, Angie, Katie, Jake, Mia, Heather, and Drew.
The show falls on Susan’s actual birthday, a Friday.
She briefly considers getting dressed up, touching the old dresses in the back of her closet, and instead lands on black skinny jeans and a white band T-shirt. She feels like herself.
“Look at all these sad dads,” Katie says when they arrive. It’s true: The crowd is mostly made up of lone white men in their forties, standing around in their tortoiseshell glasses and Doc Martens boots and denim jackets. “I should have brought my single friends.”
“I’m single,” Heather says, making eyes at a man across the room who smiles sheepishly back.
“Oh, he’s cute,” Mia says. “Do we think he brought a friend?”
“Pay attention to me,” Susan whines at them. “No heterosexuality on my birthday.”
“Sexuality isn’t a choice,” Katie reminds her. “If it was, we’d all be gay.”
“Yeah, because being gay is so easy and fun in Trump’s America,” Susan says.
“Hey, this is where we met,” Angie interrupts, beaming at Susan.
“Duh, babe,” Susan says.
They kiss, and everyone cheers. Susan laughs into Angie’s mouth.
The VIP section is on the balcony; no seats, but at least it’s their own area where no one can bump into them or block their view.
It’s nice to have all her people together, and even nicer that they are there specifically for her.
She is so, so happy that her twenties are finally over.
She imagines that in her thirties she’ll be more confident, more settled, clearer about what she wants and needs and more able to say so.
“You know, I turned thirty once,” Heather says, and Jonny lets out a snort.