Window Dressing

Shameful, maybe, but I fully admit that I enjoyed every minute of preparing that meal, even though I was going to be feeding it to Roger.

The plan was to fill the house with the scents of home cooking so he wouldn’t be able to resist accepting my invitation to stay for dinner. Then I’d whet his appetite with baby spinach and fresh pears tossed with his favorite vinaigrette and a sprinkling of blue cheese and walnuts and wow him with my honey mustard pork loin and my pan grilled vegetable medley. I’d lull him with freshly baked yeast rolls then move in for the kill with warm apple crisp.

First I’d have him eating off our wedding china, then I’d have him eating out of my hand.

One thing in life I was sure about. I was a damned good cook. It was one of the reasons Roger had married me.

It was just past noon and I was kneading the dough for the rolls when I heard the front door open and close, followed by the tap-tapping of high heels on my liability floors. I thought at first that it might be the Hawk again, back to insult the backyard or something. No such luck.

“Hello, Mother,” I said when I looked up to find her standing in the kitchen doorway. “What brings you out to the Cove?”

But I didn’t really need to ask. She had a shopping bag from the upscale boutique she managed dangling from her arm. The only time my mother made a visit was when she’d plucked something tasteful from a clearance rack that she was certain would be perfect for me. Luckily, with her discount, she got the stuff for next to nothing so I didn’t really feel guilty that I never wore any of it. I was totally honest with her about this, but Bernice, who’d done some modeling in the fifties and sixties and still dressed, groomed and moved like she was camera-ready at all times, just could not seem to give up trying to dress me. It’d been a battle between us since I was about ten and decided I’d rather be comfortable than look “pretty.”

My mother, even at sixty-two, was still what I thought of as a Hitchcockian beauty. Tall and blond and sophisticated with a very chilly edge. She was wearing a pencil-thin camel skirt and a cream cashmere twinset. Her skillfully colored champagne hair was drawn back in a perfect French twist. Her earrings were small swirls of gold surrounding pearls. I looked down at my flour-dusted denim coveralls and sneakered feet.

Like I said, my mother and I are nothing alike.

“I brought lunch,” she said as she held up a little shopping bag from the café near her boutique, “but it looks like I needn’t have bothered.”

“Actually,” I said, “I could use some lunch. This is for dinner.”

“Are you having a party?” she asked skeptically.

“No,” I answered as I went back to kneading the dough.

“Surely you don’t bake this kind of thing for yourself?” Her voice held the kind of horror mothers usually reserved for something worse than the possible consumption of carbohydrates.

“No, Mother, I don’t.”

She reached into the refrigerator and brought out a pitcher of iced tea.

“Is that your honey mustard pork loin marinating in there?” she asked.

“It is.”

She poured herself a glass of tea, then sat down in the breakfast nook and started to lay out what she’d brought for lunch. Salads sans dressing. My mother carried her own fat-free concoction in a handsome little bottle she kept in her huge, tote-size purse.

“Well, it can’t be that you’re seeing someone,” she said.

Although she was right, her tone still pissed me off. “Why can’t it?” I asked with the petulance that only she can bring out in me. “Just because I haven’t dated anyone since that excruciating blind date back in nineteen ninety-eight—” I sprinkled more flour on the ball of dough “—doesn’t mean that I couldn’t date if I wanted to.”

“Well, are you seeing someone?” my mother asked, her voice icily amused.

“As it happens, no,” I answered curtly.

“Then what’s with all this mess?”

To Bernice, a mess in the kitchen was anything that eventually led to washing dishes. My mother’s idea of preparing dinner is to stop at the deli or pick up the phone. I probably teethed on biscotti and I was pretty sure my first solid food had been something with olives and feta cheese.

“Actually,” I said, despite my reservations, “I’m expecting Roger for dinner.”

“Oh, my God,” Bernice exclaimed, a forkful of arugula halfway to her mouth, her beautifully made-up green eyes wide, “don’t tell me you’re so afraid of the empty nest that you’re going to try to win that asshole back.”

I stared at her, wondering if her latest Botox treatments had somehow affected her mind but she didn’t seem to be drooling or anything.

“Get serious, Mother. I would prefer,” I said, picking up the dough and giving it a good bashing, “to never be in the same room with him again if I could help it. It’s the nest I’m after—empty or not.”

Okay, I’d said it. And I knew it would bring on the questions. And I knew what her reactions to my answers would be. My mother was not going to be pleased to find out that I was willing to flatter and feed my ex-husband just to keep from getting my ass tossed into the street. But what the hell, might as well get it over with.

I took a deep breath. “Mother, there’s something I have to tell you,” I began, preparing to spill my guts while my mother sipped her tea.

“This has too much sugar in it,” she said before I managed to get one word out. “I don’t see why you don’t leave it unsweetened and offer your guests the option of artificial sweetener.”

I rolled my eyes like a teenager. “Well, Mother, it’s not like I have crowds coming through here every day asking for iced tea.”

She eyed my hips. “Then do it for yourself,” she said.

Maybe I’m too sensitive, but I’m not fond of pouring my heart out to someone while they’re insulting me. The fact that it was my own mother just added to the fun.

I slapped the dough against the breadboard, sending up a little puff of flour. And then I told her my story.

And what did she say?

“Of course, it would never occur to you to just go out and get a job.”

I had to force myself to stop kneading the dough. It was long past time to shape it. Face it, the last five minutes had been overkill, but I’d needed to keep my hands busy while I told my mother what a mess I’d made of my life. “Of course, I’m going to get a job,” I said as I opened a cupboard door and searched for a baking sheet. “But I need time to find one, Mother.”

“Right. You’ve only had ten years,” she answered.

That my mother disapproves of my choices in life is no secret to anyone who has ever seen us together. But, just in case I might have forgotten, she was kind enough to take this opportunity to remind me.

“I honestly have never understood why you didn’t finish college. You weren’t raised to be dependent on anyone, Lauren. Certainly not a man. I’ve been taking care of myself since I turned sixteen. I’ve—”

I found the pan I needed and slammed it onto the counter top. “Just because you programmed yourself to be the woman you wanted to become when you were twelve years old and first discovered that you had cheekbones doesn’t mean—”

She didn’t let me finish. “Oh, you think that isn’t exactly what you’ve done?” she asked.

I gasped. “That’s nothing like what I’ve done!”

She shrugged. “Keep your little delusions, Lauren, if it makes you feel noble. At least I have the consolation of knowing you aren’t trying to win back that jerk you married.” She stood. “That said, I hope you intend to do some grooming before Roger gets here. It wouldn’t hurt to have him feel sorry that he screwed up for a change.” She picked up her enormous purse. “Take a look at what’s in the shopping bag,” she said. “And don’t be stubborn about it.” She came over and kissed my forehead—easy since she was about five foot eleven, even without the mules, and I was five foot six—murmured disapprovingly over my hair for a few moments, then clicked her way back to the front door. “Good luck with Roger,” she yelled before the door slammed.

“That woman drives me nuts,” I muttered to the dough as I started to shape it into dinner rolls. Face it, we drove each other nuts.

I’d always suspected that my mother had “career girl” stamped on her birth certificate. It wasn’t that she didn’t like men—there had been no shortage of men over the years to take her to dinner, the theater, New York—she just didn’t want to be married to one. She certainly hadn’t wanted all the things that came with marriage in the fifties and early sixties. I was obviously an accident. She’d stayed married to my father just long enough to give birth to me. Gorgeous and irresponsible, Daddy had set out for the Florida Keys before I’d learned to talk, but I still heard from him every Christmas and on my birthday. And I still kept a picture of him, wearing swim trunks and a tan George Hamilton would envy, on my bedroom dresser.

I finished shaping the rolls, covered them with a gingham linen towel and went to the sink to wash my hands. I kept glancing over my shoulder at the shopping bag Bernice had left in the breakfast nook. Curiosity finally got the better of me and I wiped my hands on a towel and went to investigate.

Another little black dress. I drew it out of the bag and held it in front of me. Not bad. Maybe I’d wear it tonight. If it fit. I looked at the tag and was surprised to see that it was actually my size. Maybe Bernice had finally gotten it into her head that I was never going to be a size eight. I grinned. If that was the case, then anything was possible.