ALSO BY ELIZABETH BERG
Home Safe
The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted
Dream When You’re Feeling Blue
The Handmaid and the Carpenter
We Are All Welcome Here
The Year of Pleasures
The Art of Mending
Say When
True to Form
Ordinary Life: Stories
Never Change
Open House
Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True
Until the Real Thing Comes Along
What We Keep
Joy School
The Pull of the Moon
Range of Motion
Talk Before Sleep
Durable Goods
Family Traditions
For Phyllis Florin
and
Marianne Quasha
High school, those are your prime suffering years. You don’t get better suffering than that.
—UNCLE FRANK (Steve Carell), Little Miss Sunshine
Every parting gives a foretaste of death as every reunion a hint of the resurrection.
—ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER
Maybe one day I can have a reunion with myself.
—SEBASTIAN BACH
ONE
DOROTHY SHAUMAN LEDBETTER SHAUMAN IS STANDING IN front of the bathroom mirror in her black half-slip and black push-up bra, auditioning a look. Her fortieth high school reunion, the last one, is one week away, and she’s trying to decide whether or not to draw a beauty mark above her lip for the occasion. It wouldn’t be entirely false; she does have a mole there, but it’s faint, hard to see. She just wants to enhance what already exists, nothing wrong with that; it’s de rigueur if you’re a woman, and it’s becoming more common in men, too. Wrong as that is. Dorothy would never have anything to do with a man who wore makeup or dyed his hair or carried a purse or wore support hose or cried or did any of those womanly things men are appropriating as though it’s their god-given right. No. She prefers an all-American, red-blooded male who is not a jerk. They’re hard to find, but she holds out hope that she will have some sort of meaningful relationship with one before she’s six feet under.
She regards herself in the mirror, tilts her head this way and that. Yes, a beauty mark would be fun, kind of playful. She pencils in the mark gingerly, then steps back to regard herself. Not bad. Not bad at all. Sexy. Just like she wanted. Helloooo, Marilyn. She pictures Pete Decker looking up from his table full of jocks when she walks into the hotel ballroom and saying, Va va va voom! And then, Dorothy? Dorothy Shauman?
“Uh-huh,” she will say, lightly, musically, and walk right past him. Though she will walk close enough to him for him to smell her perfume. Also new. One hundred and ten smackeroos. She got perfume, not cologne, even though her personal belief is that there is no difference. She’d asked the counter woman about that. She’d leaned in confidentially and said, “Now, come on. Tell me, really. If you were my best friend, would you tell me to get the perfume over the cologne?” And the woman had looked her right in the eye and said, “Yes.” Dorothy was a little miffed, because the woman had acted as though Dorothy had affronted her dignity or questioned her ethics or something. Like the time Dr. Strickland was telling Dorothy to get a certain ($418!!!) blood test and she’d said, “Would you tell your wife to get it?” And Dr. Strickland had drawn himself up and quietly said, “I would.” Dorothy had been all set to give him an affectionate little punch and say, “Oh, come on, now; don’t be so prissy,” but then Dr. Strickland had added, “If she were still alive,” and that had just ruined everything. It wasn’t her fault the woman had died! Dorothy had been going to refuse the test no matter what, but when he said his wife was dead, well, then she had to get it. Those dead people had more power than they thought.
Dorothy has never gone to a high school reunion. She’d been married when they had them before, and who wanted to bring that to a reunion. Now she is divorced, plus she saw that movie about saying yes to life. She steps closer to the mirror and raises her chin so her turkey neck disappears. She’ll hold her head like this when she walks by Pete Decker. Later, when they’re making out in his car, it will be dark, and she won’t have to be so vigilant. Oh, she hopes he drives to the reunion; she happens to know he lives a mere three and a half hours away. She knows his exact address, in fact; and she Google-Earthed him, which was very exciting.
In high school, Pete had a four-on-the-floor metallic green GTO, and Dorothy always wanted to make out with him in that car. But she never even got to sit in it. She bets he has something like a red Lexus coupe now. And she bets that at the reunion he’ll watch her for a while, then come up to her and say, “Hey, Dots. Want to take a walk?” And she’ll say, all innocent, “Where?” And he’ll get a little flustered and say something like “You know, just a walk, get some air.” She’ll hesitate just for a second, just long enough to make him think she might refuse, and then she’ll shrug prettily before she agrees to accompany him outside. They’ll go right to his car and he’ll open the passenger-side door and raise an eyebrow and she’ll say, “Pete!” like she’s offended at the very notion. But then she’ll get in, will she ever. She likes this part of the fantasy best: She’ll get in, he’ll come around and get in on his side, and then, just before he lunges at her, he’ll look at her with smoke practically coming out of his eyes. And in her eyes, a soft Yes, I know. I, too, have wanted this for years.
Dorothy does plan on being a little mean to Pete at first; she has finally learned it can be a good thing to be mean to men. Apparently they like it; it’s supposed to appeal to their hunting instinct. That’s why she’s going to walk right by him when he first sees her and notices how attractive she is. Considering.
Her daughter, Hilly, is the one who told her about being mean to men. She said you do it just at the beginning and then every so often, just to keep up a level of intrigue, like immunization shots. And it works, too, because when Hilly started doing it, wasn’t she engaged in what seemed like ten minutes! She’s getting married in Costa Rica next month, and Dorothy thinks it’s a wonderful idea, the destination wedding. Thank God Dorothy’s ex will pay for everything. Poor he was not. She supposes he’ll bring his new wife to the wedding, and pander to her every single second. Holding her hand, as though they were teenagers. Bringing her drinks, as though the woman is incapable of doing anything for herself. Staring into her eyes like the secret of the universe is written there. It’s nauseating, the way they behave, anyone would say so. Hilly calls them the Magnets, though she might only do that to offer some kind of support to her mother, who lives alone now and must take out the garbage and figure out whom to call for repairs and check the locks at night and kill centipedes in the basement and everything else. Dorothy suspects the truth is, Hilly actually likes her stepmother. She hasn’t said so directly, but she did say that she’s happy for her dad, and wasn’t that just like nails on a chalkboard. But Dorothy did the noble thing and said yes, she was, too. Uh-huh, yes, he did seem happy now, Dorothy said, and she just wanted to throw up.
Hilly’s fiancé is a doctor. A proctologist, specializing in the wonderful world of buttholes and rectums, but still. Dorothy is working up to asking the question that—come on!—must occur to everyone to ask him: What exactly made you choose this line of work? When Dorothy tried to ask her daughter about it, all Hilly did was get mad. It is true Dorothy could have used a more sensitive approach—what she’d asked Hilly was “Why in the wide, wide world would you ever want to look up people’s heinies all day?” Still, Dorothy doesn’t see why Hilly had to take such offense. Her daughter had said something like perhaps Dorothy should consider the fact that preventing and treating cancer is a pretty noble goal
. But that still didn’t answer the question, did it?
Dorothy thinks it was a book her daughter read that taught her about being mean to men. Who knows, if Dorothy had been mean to Pete Decker in high school, they might have gotten married. They went out once—well, not a date technically, but they did spend some time together on the class trip to Washington, D.C., and Dorothy was awfully nice to Pete and then of course that was that, he never called her. But if they had gotten married, they probably would have gotten divorced, and then she wouldn’t be looking forward so much to going to her high school reunion. Apart from her friends Linda Studemann and Judy Holt, she’s really only going to see him. And, to be honest, to show off her recent weight loss. That was the one nice thing about her divorce: During the grief part, before she realized how much better off she was without her husband, she lost twenty-three pounds. She bets she’ll look better than the cheerleaders, and even better than Candy Sullivan, who had been queen of everything. Not that Candy Sullivan is coming. According to Pam Pottsman, who is the contact person for this year’s reunion, Candy came to the five-year reunion and hasn’t come to any since. “Is she dead?” Dorothy asked, ready to offer an impromptu eulogy praising Candy’s good points, even though Candy never gave Dorothy the time of day. But Pam said no, Candy wasn’t dead, apparently she just thought she was too good to come, and then they both started talking about what a snob Candy always was, and she wasn’t even really all that hot. “Did you know she stuffed her bra?” Pam said, and Dorothy said, “Really?” and felt that delicious rush, and Pam said, “Yup, I sat across from her in Mr. Simon’s psychology class and I saw Kleenex coming out of the top of her blouse one day and I whispered to her that it was showing and she got all embarrassed and stuffed it back in and wouldn’t look at me.”
“But wait a minute,” Dorothy said. “I saw her naked in gym class, and she didn’t need any Kleenex.”
“What year?”
“Senior. And she did not need Kleenex.”
“Well, that psychology class was sophomore year,” Pam said, and she sounded a little disappointed that Candy Sullivan had outgrown her need for bra stuffing. But then she told Dorothy how a lot more people were coming this year than ever before, probably because it was the last reunion their class was going to have; and she named several of their classmates who had signed up. Dorothy thinks it will be fun to see poor Mary Alice Mayhew, who is coming for her very first reunion, just as Dorothy is. Though there the similarity ends, thank you very much. Such a little mouse Mary Alice was, walking down the hall and looking at the floor, all hunched over her schoolbooks. She wore awful plaid dresses, and she never wore nylons, just thin white ankle socks, not even kneesocks. And loafers that were not Weejuns, you could tell. From a mile away, you could tell. Poor thing. And wait, didn’t she put pennies in them? There’s always one of them, and in their school, it was Mary Alice Mayhew.
Oh, and Lester Hessenpfeffer, who was screwed the moment he was christened. Lester’s uncle, who was present at his birth, had just changed his own last name to Hess, and he suggested that Lester’s father do the same for the sake of his newborn son. Lester’s father reportedly screamed, “Change our name! Change our name? Why should we change our name? Let the rest of the world change their names!” Lester had told that story once when someone teased him about his name. You had to give Lester this: he was always an affable guy who didn’t ever seem to take things personally.
Poor Lester. Never dated. He had such a cute face, but he was too much of a brain, and too sensitive. He probably ended up in computers. Maybe he got rich, like that homely Microsoft guy. And if so, you can bet your boots that Dorothy will be saying hello to him, too.
If Mary Alice Mayhew really comes to the reunion, Dorothy will make a point of being nice to her. Yes she will. She’ll buy her a drink; oh, what a hoot to think of buying Mary Alice Mayhew a drink. So odd to think that they’re old enough to drink now. Mary Alice had silver cat-eye glasses with rhinestones on them and her hair always looked like she’d taken the rollers out and not brushed it. Dorothy has heard plenty of stories about how ugly ducklings come to their high school reunions as swans, but she’d bet money that Mary Alice looks much the same, only with wrinkles. She wouldn’t be the Botox type. Dorothy’s position on Botox is Thank God. Who cares if you can’t move your eyebrows around like caterpillars on a plate?
“Is Pete Decker coming?” Dorothy asked Pam.
“He is.”
“And his wife, too?”
“He only registered himself. You know Pete. Oh, I can hardly wait to see him again. What a dreamboat he was.”
“Oh, did you think so?” Dorothy studied her nails casually, as though she and Pam were talking in person. If you wanted to sound a certain way, even on the telephone, it was good to act a certain way—the feeling crept into your voice. You were supposed to smile when you were talking on the phone if you wanted to sound friendly. A lot of the people who made recordings for telephone prompts seemed to do that, though such recordings always make Dorothy want to bang the phone against the wall until the wires fall out.
“I thought Pete Decker was the most handsome boy in the school!” Pam said. “Didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. I guess a lot of people found him attractive.” Dorothy sniffed then, and changed the subject. No need for Pam to know of Dorothy’s designs on Pete; Pam was quicker than Twitter at spreading things around.
Dorothy turns and views herself from the side: not bad. The bra, bought yesterday on her final stop for putting together a killer outfit, is doing what it promised; her breasts are hiked up and perky, rather than hanging down so low they appear to be engaging in conversation with her belly button. Eighty-five dollars for a bra! At least it’s French. Dorothy always likes it when things are French. In the dressing room, she’d sniffed the bra to see if it smelled like Chanel or something, but no, it smelled like rubber. Not for long. Dorothy will have everything perfumed when she goes to that reunion, even her you-know-what. But she’ll have to remember to pat it on down there; last time she sprayed, she gave herself a urinary tract infection and, oh, does she hate cranberry juice.
She steps back from the mirror, then leans in to darken the beauty mark. Perfect. She should take a picture of herself to remember to do it just like this on Saturday night. They’re having a Saturday night dinner followed by a dance, complete with a DJ who’s supposed to be really good and not tacky, and then there’s a Sunday brunch. Two times for a final try at glory.
Dorothy’s stomach growls, and she puts her hand over it and says aloud, “No.”
TWO
LESTER HESSENPFEFFER AWAKENS ON A BATH RUG STUFFED into the corner of a gigantic cage and stares into the open eyes of the bull mastiff. The dog wags his tail once, twice, and Lester feels his chest tighten with joy. Just before he fell asleep, he’d been preparing a speech for the dog’s owners about how he’d done his best, how he’d tried everything, but…Samson had ingested a few Legos the day before, which the owners’ great-grandchildren had left lying about. One had perforated his intestine. By the time he was brought to Lester’s clinic, the dog was in shock and the prospects for saving him were almost nil. Lester had slept in the cage with him to provide comfort not so much to the dog as to himself. He’d known Samson since he was a puppy, and he was very fond of the owners, an elderly couple who thought Samson hung the moon. They’d wanted to spend the night at the clinic, but after Lester told them he’d be literally right beside the dog, they reluctantly went home. Lester had hoped they’d get some sleep, so that they could more easily bear the news he was pretty certain he’d have to deliver in the morning. This is always the worst part of his job, telling people their pet has died. Sometimes they know it, at least empirically; on more than one occasion someone has brought a dead animal into the office hoping against hope that Lester can revive it. And when he can’t, he must say those awful words: I’m so sorry. He’s noticed a certain posture many people assume on hearing those words. They s
tep back and cross their arms, as though guarding themselves against any more pain, or as though holding one more time the animal they loved as truly as any other family member, if not more. Oftentimes, they nod, too, their heads saying yes to what their hearts cannot yet accept.
But here Samson is, alive and well enough to give Lester’s face a good washing with a tongue the size of a giant oven mitt. “Hey, pal,” Lester says. “You made it! Let’s have a look at that dressing.” He rises to his knees and very gently turns the dog slightly onto his side. Samson whimpers and holds overly still, in the way that dogs often do when they’re frightened. There’s a lot of drainage, but nothing leaking through. He’ll give Samson something for pain and then call Stan and Betty. By the time he’s done talking to them—he can anticipate at least a few of the questions they’ll have—he’ll be able to change the dressing without causing the dog undue distress. He thinks Samson will be able to stand and move about a little this afternoon, and imagines him lifting his leg with great dignity against the portable fireplug his staff uses for cage-bound male dogs (the girls get Astroturf). The portable bathrooms had been Jeanine’s idea; she was always coming up with good ideas. She had the idea for Pet Airways before they came up with Pet Airways, although her suggestion was that pets and owners fly together—cages would be installed next to seats so that an owner could reach down and scratch behind an ear, or speak reassuringly, or offer a snack. This was a much better idea for alleviating the stress caused to animals when they fly, and Lester advised Jeanine to write to Pet Airways suggesting it. She said she’d rather keep the idea for herself because she wanted to start Dog Airways, as it is her belief that only dogs really care when their owners are gone. She is by her own admission a dog chauvinist, but she’s good to all the animals who come to the clinic, even the hamster whose hysterical owner brought her in because she was gobbling up her babies as soon as she gave birth to them.