I started calling my mother by her first name when I was 14. It was the day after my father deserted us. He left a message under a magnet on the refrigerator door:
Adeu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.
“That’s a line from The Merchant of Venice,” my mother said. “Before me your father wouldn’t have known Shakespeare from The Three Stooges.”
She looked like she was about to cry. That, or spit on the linoleum. I had to say something.
“He spelled adieu wrong,” I said.
My mother leaned forward, squinting. Then she started laughing.
“Maybe it’s a good thing he’s gone,” she said.
It wasn’t quite that easy. Later that night, over a bleak dinner of mac and cheese sprinkled with crushed Cheetos, my mother recalled how she met my father. It was her first day as an associate at a realty firm. Her desk was next to his. He noticed the tattoo on the inside of her left wrist.
“What is that?” he asked.
“A ghost orchid.”
“You know what they say about women with ghost orchid tattoos, don’t you?” he asked.
“No. What do they say?”
He never answered the question. It didn’t matter. My mother was a sucker for opening lines. They were married for 14 years. The first two a steamy blur, the middle seven steady and productive (one house, four promotions, two dogs, one daughter), the last two a jolting stretch alternating chilly silences with cyclonic confrontation.
And then he was gone, leaving us nothing but a misspelled adieu.
That night we watched a late-night Carole Lombard festival until 2 a.m., then went to bed. I followed my mother into the master bedroom. Their closet door was open. Precisely one half of the closet – his half – was empty with the exception of wire hangers tangled and dangling from the bar. It was like peering into a wound.
My mother wordlessly climbed into bed. I tucked her in. That’s when it happened. She wasn’t Mother anymore. She was Lorraine.
The next morning we had new lives, which is a chipper way of saying we moved on. Lorraine went back to work selling Cape Cods, Queen Annes and Tudor revivals, eventually co-owning an agency. She also retained her taste for opening lines. There was Daniel (Is it true realtors have wild inner lives?), Nathan (Have you ever read the Ars Amatoria?) and Cody (When’s the last time you rode on a Kawasaki, or met a guy named Cody?).
While Lorraine bantered with each of these charmers, I plucked away at school, made the honor roll (third in my class), student council (vice president), college (B.A. in physics), and more education (M.A. in education), before landing a job as a high school physics teacher.
In between all those milestones, I was there for Lorraine when her relationships ended, either from boredom (Daniel) or heartbreak (Nathan and Cody). I’d find her disconsolate and curled into a fetal position on the couch. The keys were motion and distraction. So we went to a movie. Or a bookstore. Or a mall. When I turned 21, we hit the bars. Alcohol is immeasurably more effective than watching the latest remake of Little Women.
It was a two-way street. Lorraine was there for me as I churned through boyfriends like cookie dough. They always started with the crackling intensity of a lightning storm and ended with the thump of a blackout. I always looked for flaws. I always found them. There was Adam (What is it with guys who always leave the toilet seat up?), Marcus (What is it with guys who don’t outgrow Star Trek?), Alec (What is it with guys who gape at women’s butts like they’re witnessing the aurora borealis?) and Simon (What is it with guys who always leave the toilet seat down?).
“I know, I know,” I said to Lorraine after pulling the plug on Simon. “I sabotage relationships.”
“You don’t sabotage them, you bludgeon them.”
“So what’s my problem?” I asked.
We both knew the answer. She finally said:
“Why don’t you just ask them if they can spell adieu?”
We both started laughing, and not because it was funny.
Shortly after my twenty-fourth birthday Lorraine said she wanted to get me a tattoo of a ghost orchid on my inner left wrist.
“Why?”
“We need to work at being more spontaneous.”
“But we’re always spontaneous.”
“So this shouldn’t surprise you.”
After it was done Lorraine wept and hugged me, then took me out for a birthday Pimm’s spritz at her favorite bar & grill. We were supposed to have a round or two, but stretched it to four. I was halfway wrecked. Lorraine was already there. While she was willing to take a chance on a DUI, I steered her to the grill part of the bar for dinner. We settled on a table for two at the back.
“I hope we get Patrick,” Lorraine said.
“Who?”
“Patrick. New waiter.”
“Ever talk to him?”
“No. But I’ve been window shopping with enthusiasm.”
She pronounced enthusiasm enthusem. I searched the menu for reliable alcohol soakers, and was settling on pizzadillas when a thirty-something six-footer appeared at our table. He had thick brown hair topped by a bun, perfect stubble and a dent in the precise middle of his chin.
I knew two things: this was Patrick, and Lorraine was a goner.
“And how are you ladies tonight?”
“We’re celebrating,” Lorraine said.
“What?”
“This,” she said, holding out her wrist and waiting for me to do the same. I obliged.
“Beautiful,” Patrick said.
“They’re ghost orchids,” Lorraine said. “I’ve had mine for years. My daughter just got hers. It’s her birthday.”
Patrick’s eyes widened and he took a step backwards. I had one thought: Here it comes. And it did.
“Daughter? I thought you two were sisters.”
Lorraine swallowed it whole. Four Pimm’s have a way of vaporizing incredulity. It was a trite opening gambit, but Patrick’s delivery was evenly leavened with irony and charm.
And he was a good waiter. He complimented my choice of pizzadillas (best in the city) and, sensing my purpose, recommended waffles rancheros, a meal designed to lower blood-alcohol levels. It paid off. He scored a good tip and Lorraine’s phone number.
In the next few months Lorraine carried on with Patrick, faithfully adhering to the steadily escalating social protocol of drinks, lunch and dinner-and-a-movie. They learned more about each other along the way. Lorraine recounted the travails of her first marriage, and, no doubt, of raising me. Patrick told her he was waiting tables to pay the bills while he wrote screenplays, and was in his “almost phase” (almost sold one here, almost sold one there). Next came the predictable quantum leap that led to the empty half of Lorraine’s closet slowly filling up with Patrick-related paraphernalia: jeans, shirts, two leather jackets and a jade-studded belt.
I wiled away the time with a few more boyfriends, including Zack (What is it with guys who equate guitar playing with foreplay?) and Raymond (What is it with guys who weep at movies?).
I also worked at being a better physics teacher, trying a variety of methods to augment my students’ ever-eroding attention spans. I settled on the Grab Bag Strategy. Each student would write a topic on an index card. I put them in a paper bag, shook it, then selected one. That would be our topic for the week. I was limping through magnetism when my cell started chirping. It was a series of incoming texts from Lorraine. I did my best to lead the classroom discussion while sneaking peaks at my phone.
“There are two explanations for why magnetic fields align in the same direction – ”
i think he’s gonna do it
“ – under classical theory, magnetic fields are clouds of energy around magnetic particles – ”
it as in IT
“ – that pull or push away other magnetic objects – ”
very romantic dinner at Toscono’s tonight
“ – but under quantum mechanics – ”
what should I wear? red ruffle top with sleeves?
“ – electrons emit undetectable, virtual particles – ”
or my sleeveless black ruffle top?
“ – and these particles tell other objects to move away or come closer – ”
call. please. armpits sweaty
After winding up with a few comments on quantum magnetic theory, I told the students to devote the last 20 minutes of class to reading (yeah, right) and headed to the teachers’ lounge to dial up Lorraine.
“Talk me out of this,” she said.
“Ok. Don’t do it.”
“Jesus. Don’t say that.”
“Ok. Go for it.”
“What about the difference?”
“What difference?”
“Our ages.”
“How old is he?”
“Thirty-three. Or maybe 35.”
Lorraine was 43. Or maybe 45. It depended on who she talked to.
“Ages don’t matter anymore,” I offered.
“Right. Don’t matter.”
“If you feel it, you feel it.”
“Right,” Lorraine said. “Feel it.”
There was a pause.
“But do I feel it?” she asked.
Apparently, she did.
Patrick popped the question that night, and Lorraine said yes. They wanted a late-summer wedding, and set a date for just two months away. Lorraine asked me to be her maid of honor, which also meant she was asking me to help plan the wedding. We booked the small ballroom at a nearby hotel for both the wedding and reception, and Lorraine quickly settled on an appropriate second-wedding dress (V-neck, champagne, full-length). They went the sentimental route for the rehearsal dinner, choosing the bar & grill where they first met, and where Patrick still worked.
About 30 people attended, a mix of family from both sides, Lorraine’s realty colleagues and members of Patrick’s screenwriting workshop. I lifted my Pimm’s spritz, toasted the couple, then nauseated myself by cooing over the alchemy of finding one’s true-life partner. I wound it up with some wisecrack about the marriage providing Patrick with plenty of fodder for his screenplays. Everyone laughed, except Patrick. He looked befuddled. For some reason, this made me happy.
“I hope I don’t pass out.”
It was an hour before the wedding. We were in a room at the hotel, and Lorraine was standing before a full-length mirror in her appropriate champagne dress.
“You feel sick?” I asked.
“No. But I’ve read all those stories.”
“Stories?”
“You know. People locking their knees during the ceremony. They topple like dominos.”
“So don’t lock your knees.”
“You’re such a help.”
“Just think about something else,” I said.
“Like what?”
“Your honeymoon.”
They’d booked a week in St. Thomas.
“Wonderful. I’ll start obsessing about sea wasp jellyfish.”
“What?”
“They’re really dangerous. They swim in the waters around the Virgin Islands.”
“Where’d you see that?”
“Internet.”
“Oh. It must be true.”
I deliberately kept up the bickering. It was the best way to occupy Lorraine before Zero Hour, which came soon enough.
“Can’t wait to try the new appetizer at the luncheon,” I said as we walked to the ballroom.
“What is it?”
“Poached sea wasp jellyfish.”
Lorraine almost laughed. I chalked it up as a win.
The ceremony went off without a hitch, or locked knees. The little crowd quickly migrated to the bar, where I ordered a scotch and held hands with my newest boyfriend, Cameron. He hadn’t watched Star Trek since he was 12, didn’t play guitar and was judiciously balanced on the toilet seat issue (sometimes up, sometimes down). Taking him to a wedding was the equivalent of a promotion, not to mention a rare nod to optimism.
After a few more rounds and a peppering of inane talk (children, promotions, Peloton regimens), the herd started drifting toward the tables to await the luncheon. It was my job as maid of honor to wait until everyone was settled at their tables before making the ceremonial toast. I perform best as an extemporaneous speaker. More specifically, I perform best as an extemporaneous speaker after three scotches. I’d only had two. When we found our seats at the head table, I dispatched Cameron to the bar for Number Three, sat down and surveyed the audience. Lorraine was at Table 2, merrily kibbitzing with her realty staff. Patrick was closer to me, chatting with two of our out-of-town cousins, Annette and her daughter, Emily.
I tried to pick up their conversation. Annette said something. Patrick took a step back. I knew what he was going to say before he said it:
Daughter? I thought you two were sisters.
At that moment Cameron returned, plunking the scotch in front of me.
“You okay?” he asked as he took his seat.
“What?”
“You okay?”
“Why?”
“You’re pale.”
I looked at Patrick, then back to Cameron.
“Spell adieu,” I said.
“Pardon?”
“Spell adieu.”
“Why would I want to spell adieu?”
“Never mind,” I said as I picked up my scotch. But I was thinking: What is it with guys who say pardon?
Patrick and Lorraine drifted to the head table. Lorraine sat down next to me, smiled and pecked me on the cheek. I waited for the last of our guests to take their seats, then picked up my scotch and stood up. The crowd fell silent. I raised my glass and began to speak. The words flowed. I couldn’t stop them. After a few moments I felt Lorraine’s hand on my forearm. She started squeezing. I kept talking. She squeezed harder. I didn’t care. I wanted to get it out. I wanted to say everything.
SG Fromm’s work has appeared in several publications including Salamander, The Summerset Review, The Westchester Review, Thin Air, The Opiate, and Allium.