Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Nessa
"Nessie?" Ranney's voice on the phone was weak, and Nessa realized immediately that she must be having one of her migraines. Normally, she would have snapped, "Don't call me Nessie!" but she let it go this time.
"Mom? Headache?"
"Yes. I'm supposed to take Mame to a show at the Senior Center tonight and I just can't. Can you do it? I know she's been looking forward to it."
"Sure, of course. What time do I pick her up?" In her mind, she ran over what she needed to rearrange/cancel for the evening. It didn't matter; her grandmother was invariably more entertaining than anything she might have planned with friends of her own generation.
And she wasn’t in a mood to swipe right and take her chances these days.
Childhood memories of Mame, like old snapshots, showed a chic older woman in soft tweed suits and silk blouses, her hair combed into a French twist. She still dressed carefully; Miriam Silver was not a sweatsuit type of old lady.
Nor was she a baking-cookies type of grandmother. Saturdays with Nessa, her youngest (and favorite) grandchild, had involved lunch at the Ritz, followed by a decorous spin on the swan boat, and perhaps a quick stroll through a museum gallery. Sometimes they went shopping, and Nessa would go home with a new hand-smocked dress.
Age, however, had changed Miriam in certain ways. Tentatively at first, then more freely, she began to say what she thought. It started delicately, sounding more like loving suggestions than criticism: "Darling, do you think fairy sparkles in your hair might be for littler girls? You're so big now!" gave way to "My goodness, is that what's in style now? I'm not sure it suits you," and was now hovering around, "You're a pretty girl, Nessa, but you're no Gisele. Will you please get a better haircut before anyone I know sees you?"
Miriam loved her family and friends, and was generally funny and not often wrong. But still, you had to be prepared to be a good sport. And there was no knowing what direction the conversation might take.
Following Ranney's instructions, Nessa arrived at her grandmother's condo at six o'clock. Miriam opened the door, a martini glass in her other hand. Her housekeeper, Charlene, was behind her, putting on her coat.
"Your poor mother," Miriam said, as if they were in the middle of a conversation. "But this is much more fun. Ranney likes to sit in the back where I can't see. And she has that big, boring car. I'd much rather zip around in your little sports car."
"It's not a sports car, Mamie. It's a Mini. It's more like a box with wheels. Hi, Charlene."
"You're in charge now," Charlene said darkly. "God help you. I'm going home."
"Right. Well, tomorrow's Sunday, so you get to rest."
Charlene’s mood brightened. "No, no, no, tomorrow morning is church, and I wouldn't miss it for the world. We've got a temporary minister, and he is causing a stir. You have to get there an hour early just to get a seat!"
"Really? What's he doing? Is he saying radical things?"
"Oh, I don't think so. I'm not really sure what he says. I just like to look at him."
"Huh." Nessa wasn't sure what Charlene was talking about, but sometimes it was best not to ask too many questions. "I hope you have a nice time. Thank you for everything."
"What are you thanking her for?” Mame asked. “She doesn't do much. Spends the day drinking tea and standing in front of the linen closet like she's never seen sheets before. You should be thanking me for giving her a place to go."
Charlene rolled her eyes, but she didn't seem offended.
"Where's that roast chicken we had in the fridge? Do you have it in your bag?" Miriam asked suddenly, rounding on Charlene. Horrified, Nessa braced herself for what seemed to be coming next, but to her surprise, the two women looked together into Charlene's tote.
"I have it right here, wrapped in tin foil, in a zippered plastic baggie."
"Good. Be careful it doesn't leak. You'll attract stray dogs." Miriam, satisfied, said to Nessa, "I never know what to do with leftovers." Still holding her cocktail glass, she swept into the living room.
And we're off , Nessa thought.
When they arrived at the Senior Center at 6:45, Nessa took a close look at the poster for the show. At the top were two big, golden feline eyes with dancing cats in the pupils; below that, the title, CATS , was printed in white letters. Below that, in smaller type, it read: "The Newton Senior Center proudly presents this special performance, featuring the cast of the revival now on stage at The North Shore Music Theater. Tonight's event will benefit the MSPCA."
"Mame! This show benefits animals!"
"I know, darling. I saw it on Broadway years and years ago, with your grandfather, and we had such a wonderful weekend. This seemed like a good opportunity to see it again without driving all the way to Beverly."
"I'm going to give them a little extra money. This is something I really care about."
"That's nice of you, dear, but I think these performers are already being paid."
"No, Mamie, I mean…" but Miriam had spotted a friend across the lobby and was no longer within earshot.
When they found their seats, Miriam discovered more friends scattered through the audience, and Nessa found herself with time to read the program. Cast bios always fascinated her, so she studied those, then scanned the list of donors for familiar names, then the supporting organizations. First National Bank of Massachusetts, First Parish Unitarian Universalist, Friends of… wait, that was unusual, a church?
But then the lights dimmed, Miriam sat down again, and the show went on.
At intermission, Nessa was listening to her grandmother's reminiscences of theater in the sixties and seventies when she had that odd sense of being observed. Glancing around, she saw– for Pete's sake, how is this possible? –Matt Draper staring at her from three rows away.
The room wobbled. Was she right all along? Was he following her?
He smiled, waved, and began making his way out to the aisle, stepping on people's toes and clambering over their knees, his big body hard to maneuver in these narrow rows, obviously headed for her.
Adrenaline flooded her body. Several thoughts flashed through her mind in rapid succession:
1. I want to talk to him;
2. I don't want to talk to him; and
3. I absolutely don't want him talking to Mame.
Seated in the middle of her own row, flight was not an option, which left her with… fight?
"Nessa, do you know who that is?"
"Who?"
"That handsome young man is waving at me. Do we know him?"
Leave it to Mame to assume he was waving at her .
"Um, hmm," she stalled, trying to think quickly. He wasn't wearing his ministerial stole and robe, just a jacket and a shirt with a button-down collar and no tie. The glasses gave him a studious look. He must wear contacts, too, because he definitely didn’t have frames on the night they met.
If she said to her grandmother, “Oh, he's just someone I work with,” that would be technically true, and no better alternative was presenting itself. Even Mamie wouldn't be up for hearing, “Oh, he's just someone I accidentally slept with recently,” although it had the advantage of being the truth.
And their hot sex had been no accident.
The seats directly in front of them were temporarily vacant, the occupants having stepped out for the break. Matt sidled down that row until he reached them, and Nessa got to her feet with the vague idea that if she kissed his cheek politely, she could maybe whisper in his ear, head him off somehow. But instead, grinning broadly, he leaned forward and exclaimed,
"Miriam! How great to see you here!" Mame was right, he was waving at her. "And Nessa! Do you two know each other?"
"Well, my goodness, Matthew Draper! How is your grandmother? I haven't seen her in ages!"
"She's great–she's right down there, third row, on the end." He pointed.
This was all moving a little fast for Nessa, who hadn't yet figured out quite what she was going to say to him, but this was not in any of the scenarios she'd been considering.
"Matthew, this is my granddaughter–do you two know each other?"
"We've met," he said smoothly. "Actually, I've met three generations of your family now, all amazing women. Now I know where they get it."
"Aren't you charming?" Mame was in her element; flirtation was her lingua franca. "If I recall correctly, you're in the religion business. Now, you're not a Catholic priest, are you?"
So far, Nessa hadn't said a word, but she could see immediately where this was going.
"No, ma'am, I'm a Unitarian Universalist minister. Protestant." He frowned. “ Ish . It’s complicated.”
“Thank goodness. No vows of celibacy to get in the way.”
“Mame!” Nessa’s body lit up, though she wasn’t quite sure whether it was from embarrassment or arousal. Surely a bit of both.
Certainly Matt could see where this was going, too, but he was not about to try to rein Miriam in and stop the fun. "I am only single because I haven't met the right woman," he added in a confiding tone, egging her on.
"I myself am Jewish," she confided in turn, "as was my late husband, but our daughter married a Catholic. So Nessa here was brought up to be very open minded. Faith is the most important thing, don't you agree? Faith and family. And community. I think Nessa would fit right in with any group of like-minded people, Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu, Unitarian…"
"Mamie," Nessa interrupted in her sweetest voice, "let me walk you down to say hello to your friend. The aisle is on an incline. You wouldn't want to trip and fall."
"I am perfectly able to navigate the aisle of a theater that was designed for seniors in the first place," Miriam informed her, annoyed. "Just stay here and talk to this handsome, single man. If I recall correctly, he went to Harvard. Maybe next Saturday, you could have something better to do than go to the Senior Center with an elderly relative."
"It's not that I didn't have anything to do…” she began defending herself, but gave up. "I like doing things with you, Mamie," she finished weakly.
Miriam squinted toward the front rows.
"Are you sitting next to your grandmother, Matthew? Because she and I have some catching up to do, and I could see so much better from there. Why don't you and I just switch seats?" And, picking up her bag and moving much quicker than she had at any other point in the evening, she basically trotted away.
Matt burst out laughing. "She's awesome!"
"She's a force of nature," Nessa said ruefully. "Sorry."
"No sorry necessary. I've seen her off and on for years at my grandmother's. She's always said what she thought, but she seems a little more, ah, direct now?"
"I think she feels like she's running out of time to get the world set up the way she wants it. No time to waste on niceties like letting people run their own lives."
"Maybe we should let her do it. She just accomplished in five minutes what I've been unable to do for two weeks."
"What do you mean?"
"I've been trying to get you to go on a date with me since… well, since we met. Thanks to her, here we are." The dimples appeared. “I would have chosen something other than Cats, though. You look more like a Kinky Boots fan.”
"As if. I'm more of a Hadestown girl. And this is not a date!"
"Why not? We're at a play together on a Saturday night, right?"
"If this were a date, you would have asked me and I would have said yes. And I would have thought about it all week and talked about it with my friends and worn something special and you would have picked me up."
"Work with me here, Nessa. The end result is the same, right? Here we are."
“No – not a date. A date is what you have with Kayla.”
“Who?”
“Kayla, the bridesmaid from the Barr-Hopper wedding.”
“I – oh, no.”
Nessa made a smug sound. She hated that she was right.
“That – I told you she wanted a meeting to talk about me officiating at her wedding — ”
“She’s single, Matt.”
“Yeah. I know that now ,” he said in a sour voice. “She lied to me. Used the whole ‘be my minister’ spiel to get me to have coffee with her.”
“Wait a minute. What?”
Eyebrows up, he sighed. “Third time it’s happened to me. No one’s really ever creative, are they?”
“How did you figure it out?”
“The foot going up my calf while I drank my Americano was a clue.” He shot her a major side eye glare. “Coffee really hurts when you’re sputtering it. Hold on — that’s why you’ve been ignoring me? Because you knew Kayla was single? Are you two friends?”
“God, no.”
“Then how do you know so much about her?”
“I, uh... it’s on her social media. Relationship status is single. I, uh - ”
“You stalked her profiles?”
“I’m a wedding professional. It was research.”
The grin that started on his face didn’t stop. Leaning in, he smelled good. So good. Then he whispered: “You were jealous.”
“I was not!”
“Were too.”
“I thought you were lying to me.”
“I would never do that.”
The lights flashed, indicating that intermission was almost over and the audience should return to their seats. Miriam could be seen in the third row, chatting away with the woman next to her.
Nessa relented. "I – I don’t know whether that’s true, Matt. I want it to be true, though."
Matt looked to the right and to the left, but he was blocked in both directions. Putting a hand on the seat back for balance, he did a kind of mini vault over it, landing next to her, and she laughed in surprise. The house lights went all the way down this time and they settled in next to each other.
"Would you go on a real date with me?" Matt whispered. "What about Friday? Have dinner with me?"
"You're very persistent," she whispered back.
"This is nothing. How do you think I get people to join the Differently Abled Facilities Access Survey Committee? Or sign up for the Upward Bound Family Camping and Retreat Weekend? There is no organized religion without persistence, Nessa."
"SHH!"
Now she was giggling. "Just to be clear? I would never sign up for a camping weekend, upward, outward, or inward bound, no matter who asked me to."
"You say that, but camping with me is fun. You have no idea. I make a mean s’more.”
"SHHHH!"
"Maybe so," she said speculatively. "Maybe so."
Suddenly, her phone vibrated with a text, She sneaked a look:
Her stepmother, Natalya.
Nessa suppressed a groan as she scanned the text:
Kira likes topaz earrings on Instagram. If you don’t keep, please send to her.
“Everything okay?” Matt whispered as Nessa turned her phone off and tucked it away.
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem okay.”
“Just a gadfly.” Once Nessa’s Instagram following was big enough, companies started sending her product samples. Her father was rich, so Natalya could buy her half-sisters whatever she damn well pleased, but as Nessa’s profile had risen, her stepmother had suddenly begun doing... this.
Asking her for things .
It was entitled and oblivious, which described Natalya to a T.
And yet Nessa loved her little sisters. Loved having any connection to them. And they loved her right back – especially when they got early access to goods no one else could get. Nessa hated herself – just a teeny, tiny bit – for being such a people pleaser.
What she hated more was how much she happily ate up the breadcrumbs of attention.
The last thing she needed right now was to go into a shame spiral while sitting next to an attractive, intelligent, grounded, kind man like Matt, so she compartmentalized and shut all the confusing emotions away, focusing solely on the cats on stage.
When the play ended and the last curtain calls were over, Nessa picked up her bag and they got to their feet. She could see Miriam and Matt's grandmother doing the same in the third row.
"I should get down there," she told Matt. "I'm going to be swimming against the tide."
"Me, too. So what do you think? Dinner Friday?"
"Persistent," they said in unison, smiling at each other.
"Okay," she answered after a moment. "Yes, I'd like that. But…"
"What?"
"Can we keep it a secret? I'm still not sure this isn't crossing a professional line. And please– please –don't say anything to my grandmother!"
"I guess you don't want to do a selfie now? It would be great for the MSPCA if we both posted–"
"No!"
"Okay, got it. Friday, then, just us. The rest of the world's not invited."