Too Good to Be True - Kristan Higgins [23]
Natalie had no part of this, I assured myself. It was just that I hadn’t really found The One, no matter how deceptively perfect Andrew had looked, felt, seemed. Nope, I thought as I sat in my newly painted living room in my newly purchased house, power-eating brownies and watching Ken Burns’s documentary on the Civil War till I just about had it memorized. Andrew just wasn’t The One. Fine. I’d find The One, wherever he was, and, hey. Then the world would know what love was, goddamn it.
Natalie finished her degree and moved back East. She got a nice little apartment in New Haven and started work. We saw each other often, and I was glad. It wasn’t like she was the other woman… she was my sister. The person I loved best in the world. My birthday present.
CHAPTER FIVE
On Sunday, I had the misfortune of attending my mother’s opening at Chimera’s, a painfully progressive art gallery in West Hartford.
“What do you think, Grace? Where have you been? The show started a half hour ago. Did you bring your young man?” my mother asked, bustling up as I tried not to look directly at the artwork. Dad lurked in the back of the gallery, nursing a glass of wine, looking noticeably pained.
“Very…very, uh, detailed,” I answered. “Just…lovely, Mom.”
“Thank you, honey!” she cried. “Oh, someone is looking at a price tag on Essence Number Two. Be back in a flash.”
When Natalie went off to college, my mother decided it was time to indulge her artistic side. For some reason unbeknownst to us, she decided on glassblowing. Glassblowing and the female anatomy.
The family domicile, once the artistic home only for two Audubon bird prints, a few oil paintings of the sea and a collection of porcelain cats, was now littered with girl-parts. Vulvae, uteruses, ovaries, breasts and more perched on mantels and bookshelves, end tables and the back of the toilet. Varied in color, heavy and very anatomically correct, my mother’s sculptures were fuel for gossip in the Garden Club and the source of a new ulcer for Dad.
However, no one could argue with success, and to the astonishment of the rest of us, Mom’s sculptures brought in a small fortune. When Andrew dumped me, Mom took me on a four-day spa cruise, courtesy of The Unfolding and Milk #4. The Seeds of Fertility series had paid for a little greenhouse on the side of the barn last spring, as well as a new Prius in October.
“Hey,” said Margaret, joining us. “How’s it going?”
“Oh, just great,” I answered. “How are you?” I glanced around the gallery. “Where’s Stuart?”
Margaret closed one eye and gritted her teeth, looking somewhat like Anne Bonny, she-pirate. “Stuart… Stuart’s not here.”
“Got that,” I said. “Everything okay with you guys? I noticed you barely spoke at Kitty’s wedding.”
“Who knows?” Margaret answered. “I mean, really. Who the hell knows? You think you know someone… whatever.”
I blinked. “What’s going on, Margs?”
Margaret looked around at the voyeurs who flocked to Mom’s shows and sighed. “I don’t know. Marriage isn’t always easy, Grace. How’s that for a fortune cookie? Is there any wine here? Mom’s shows are always better with a little buzz, if you know what I mean.”
“Over there,” I said, nodding to the refreshments table in the back of the gallery.
“Okay. Be right back.”
Ahahaha. Ahahaha. Ooooh. Ahahaha. My mother’s society laugh, heard only at art shows or when she was trying to impress someone, rang through the gallery. She caught my eye and winked, then shook the hand of an older man, who was cradling a glass…oh, let’s see now…ew. A sculpture, let’s put it that way. Another sale. Good for Mom.
“Are we still on for Bull Run?” Dad asked, coming up behind me and putting his arm around my shoulder.
“Oh, definitely, Dad.” The Battle of Bull Run was one of my favorites. “Did you get your assignment?” I asked.
“I did. I’m Stonewall Jackson.” Dad beamed.
“Dad! That’s great! Congratulations! Where is it?”
“Litchfield,” he answered. “Who