Chapter Seventeen
Seventeen
When the invitation came for Sylvie’s wedding, Marly was livid.
“What is this?” she demanded, thrusting the card in front of her mother.
It was a dreary March Monday in Marly’s junior year; she had only collected the mail because she liked to get the paper to check the society pages.
Sometimes Freddie de Marche was in there, grinning at the camera in that overconfident way of his.
That way that made Marly shiver all the way to her toes.
Mom was sitting at the kitchen table in her dressing gown, staring out the window at the melting sludge of snow, lost in thought. She frowned at the invitation Marly was holding in front of her nose.
“She’s getting married at the summer place on Tinker Street!” Marly raged. “Did you know about this?” she accused. “Getting married at Tinker Street was my wedding idea!” Marly dropped the invitation on the table and slammed around the kitchen getting breakfast.
“You’re not getting married,” Mom said, sounding irritated. She was irritable a lot these days. It made Marly feel like screaming. She couldn’t say anything to her mom anymore.
“Oh, isn’t that lovely.” Mom’s irritation evaporated as she examined Sylvie’s wedding invitation, her expression turning dreamy. “I do love a wedding.”
Marly scowled. Her mom loved Sylvie. She didn’t even care that Sylvie had stolen Marly’s wedding idea.
“I called dibs on the Tinker Street garden for weddings.” Marly had been dreaming of her wedding. To Freddie de Marche. Which would happen under the tree where they’d first met.
“You can’t call dibs on a garden.”
“Yes, you can. I said I wanted to get married in the garden and I wanted to carry daisies and look.” Marly pointed an angry finger at the daisy on the invitation.
“Marly, try and be happy for your cousin.”
“I am happy for her. I’m just not happy she stole my wedding idea.” Marly slapped the newspaper down on the table and flipped straight to the back. She scanned the page as she crammed her burned toast in her mouth.
“She didn’t steal your wedding idea. She just wants to get married at the coast. You’re not the only one attached to the house on Tinker Street, you know. Or to daisies.” Mom gave a heavy sigh. “It will be nice to go back to the beach. It’s been a long time between summers.”
Marly felt like throwing the paper across the room. It was bad enough it was Monday and she had a history quiz, but now Sylvie had stolen her wedding idea, Mom was being annoying, and there was no Freddie in the society pages.
“I’m going to call Bet about Priscilla’s wedding,” Mom said, heading for the hall.
“Sylvie’s wedding,” Marly corrected.
“What?”
“Sylvie. It’s Sylvie getting married.”
But Mom wasn’t listening. She was already out in the hall and Marly could hear the whir of the phone as she dialed.
“Have you noticed Mom’s been weird?” Bobby said, as he came into the room on a wave of drugstore aftershave. He’d been home from college for the weekend and seemed in no hurry to get back, even though Marly knew he had Monday classes.
“Mom’s always weird,” Marly told him shortly.
“No, I mean, extra weird. Did you notice that last night she couldn’t turn the TV on?”
“You mean she was lazy and asked you to do it.”
“Marilyn, stop being a pain in the ass for five minutes. I’m serious.”
He never called her Marilyn, so she listened.
“I watched her. She genuinely couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. And she had a face like… I don’t know… a confused little kid or something.”
Marly frowned. “Maybe she had a headache?” But now that Bobby had mentioned it, Mom had been a bit weird.
She’d forgotten to pick up Dad’s dry cleaning a few times, which Marly had suspected she’d done on purpose to annoy him, because Mom was tetchy with him a lot lately.
But that was weird too. Because she wasn’t a generally tetchy person.
Marly’s parents usually rolled along side by side peaceably. Neither of them liked conflict.
Since all the boys had gone off to college it was usually just Marly and her folks at home.
But Marly had been busy at school. She wrote for the school paper and was on the student council.
But even as busy as she was, she couldn’t help but notice that she and Mom hadn’t been getting along.
She’d overheard Aunty Betty telling Mom that it was “just teenage girls” and “it would pass.” Marly had been annoyed, because she thought it was a Mom thing, more than a Marly thing.
“You really haven’t noticed anything?” Bobby said, exasperated, sitting opposite her and leaning forward. “Because I’ll tell you, not having seen her for several weeks, she’s different.”
“Maybe she’s a bit distracted? She has been losing her keys a lot,” Marly admitted. “She had to get new ones cut the last time.” Which wasn’t like Mom. Mom had a little glass dish in the kitchen where she always put her keys.
“She called me Virgil this morning,” Bobby told Marly, frowning. “And when I told her I wasn’t Virgil, she seemed really confused.”
Marly frowned, her gaze drifting to the wedding invitation on the fridge.
Mom had called it Priscilla’s wedding. Not Sylvie’s.
Even though she’d only just read the invitation.
Okay, so maybe she had seen Mom confused a few times.
Maybe Mom had even mentioned being confused, last time Aunt Betty and Sylvie were over.
But Aunt Bet had just said it was a “time of life thing,” whatever that meant.
“Maybe it’s a time of life thing?” Marly repeated to Bobby now, with a shrug.
Bobby, being Bobby, didn’t drop it, though. He scowled at Marly and then went off to find Dad.
And then Dad got Mom to go to the doctor.
“It’s just time of life,” Mom and Dad reassured Bobby and Marly when they got back. Mom seemed terribly embarrassed about it.
“It’s lady business,” Dad said, seeming even more embarrassed.
But why would lady business make you forget how to turn on the TV?
Mom’s lady trouble only seemed to get worse over the following months, as Mom forgot more than just names.
She started forgetting how to get places and often had to stop at a payphone and call Marly for directions.
When she couldn’t get Marly, she called Dad in a panic.
By the time June rolled around, both Marly and her father were plenty worried.
Mom took Marly to Oxeye early for the wedding, so they could help Aunt Bet make wedding favors and decorations, and to keep Sylvie happy and calm.
Dad and the boys planned to join them later, for the actual wedding weekend.
But when Marly slid into the front seat of the station wagon to leave Boston for the coast, she found Mom staring at the dashboard, confused.
“Mom?” Something was wrong. There was a frightened look on her mother’s face.
Mom held the key in her hand. She was frowning and a little bit teary.
“Mom? Are you okay?”
“I don’t know where this goes,” her mom said in a small voice. She held up the key.
“What do you mean?” Marly felt a shiver of fear.
“This.” She shook the key. “I know it turns the car on. But how?” She sounded terrified.
“Here.” Marly leaned over and pointed at the ignition.
But her mom had started to cry.
“Hey.” Marly had only ever seen Mom cry at movies and funerals and didn’t know what to do.
“Don’t tell your father,” Mom begged. “He’s worried enough as it is.”
Marly had a cold quivery feeling in her stomach. Dad was worried? Dad, who barely ever showed an emotion?
Mom handed Marly the key. “Can you drive?”
Marly had finished driver’s ed, but it was a long way to Oxeye from Boston.
She kept darting glances at Mom, who wept for the first half an hour and then snappishly told her to keep her eyes on the road.
When they got to Tinker Street, Mom acted like everything was perfectly normal and didn’t mention it again.
Mom had sailed into the house, carrying her lace veil, which Sylvie was going to borrow, and calling out “We’re here!” just like she always did.
“You were right,” Marly told Bobby, when he arrived with Dad and Paul and Virge. With Sylvie’s bridal shower set to take place at Tinker Street, Dad had splurged for Marly and the boys to stay with him at Saint-Cyr. This should have made Marly gleeful. But Mom’s weirdness had ruined it.
Marly was sitting in the middle of Bobby’s neatly made hotel bed as he unpacked his suit and hung it up.
Paul was in the shower, singing “Heartbreak Hotel” at the top of his voice, and Virgil was still downstairs flirting with the girl at the front desk.
Marly took advantage of getting her brother alone to tell Bobby about the car incident.
Bobby looked troubled.
“Lady business doesn’t make you forget how to put a key in an ignition,” Marly told him vehemently. “Aunt Betty’s older than Mom. Surely if it was a time of life thing, she’d be having it too?”
“Okay, well, I guess we just keep an eye on her and talk to Dad again.” He checked his watch. “We’ve got the bachelor party soon. I’ll talk to him when we get back.”
Marly flopped back onto the bed, feeling all messed up. The door to the balcony was open and the woodsy seaside air floated over her.
“Isn’t there a girls’ thing this afternoon?” Bobby asked. “Don’t you have to get ready?”
“No.” Marly pulled a face at the ceiling. “I wasn’t invited. They said I was too young.”
Bobby guffawed. “Too young for what? Getting giggly on one drink and playing parlor games and all that garbage?”
Marly nodded. “I even made the stupid deviled eggs and chicken salad, and now I’m not allowed to go eat any of it.” She propped herself up on her elbows.
“Still, you’d probably rather be here anyway. You can laze about by the water.”
True. Marly considered her nails, trying to seem casual. “Is Freddie going along on this bachelor thing?” She hadn’t seen him yet, but she knew he’d been invited to the wedding as Priscilla’s date, and she assumed he’d be staying at Saint-Cyr, as he always did.