Drives Like a Dream (2 page)

Lydia had little patience for that old comparison between cars and women, and yet she couldn't help thinking, with increasing irritation, that her latest book mirrored her own life in uncanny ways. No wonder she was having trouble getting back to work.

She could hear the shower running and the heavy tread of Jessica walking down the hall above her. It was a familiar sound, something to take comfort in. How many times had Jess been the last to get up, late for school? She'd come downstairs un~ showered, in sweatpants and a pullover, her hair in a ponytail. She knew this drove her mother a bit crazy. "Cut her some slack," Cy would say when Lydia couldn't resist making a comment. "She always looks great."

As a teenager, Jessica had been expert at playing her parents off each other. She and Lydia had always been close, even through the storm of adolescence. They shared a similar character, the same pragmatic point of view, and, as the two women in the house, they had been virtually inseparable. But when Lydia and Cy had their occasional spats, Jessica would invariably take her father's position, assuming the role of daddy's little girl. She played both sides, almost as if to spark a charge into her parents' languishing marriage, forcing them to pay attention to her—and, by extension perhaps, to each other.

Lydia wondered sometimes if Cy would have left had she been more present, kept up with her personal ministry to him. Hadn't she buried herself in her work those last years, all the while ignoring the obvious signs that her marriage was coming apart? She took such pleasure in her research that living with an acquaintance who happened to be her husband had seemed not the worst circumstance. Men like Harley Earl, the legendary car designer who had been her father's boss at GM, had become more real, more attractive to her than Cy.

It was true that Cy
had
tried at times. Toward the end, he bought a 1957 Chevrolet Nomad, one of the classic GM family cars, and began a restoration project in the garage. It was a sentimental gesture. Lydia's workaholic father had helped design the original wagon. Inspired by the early Corvettes, it was one of the first cars of its kind to combine sportiness with the usual practical features. For a while Cy's devotion to the project gave Lydia hope that they could restore their marriage too, and she would join him in the garage to discuss the next phase for the car. But eventually, like the Nomad itself, the project failed. As with all of Cy's dreams, he grew frustrated and gave up.

Now Lydia filled the bowls with granola and took out grapefruit and English muffins from the refrigerator. She loosened the grapefruit sections with a paring knife, sliced the muffins, and stacked them on plates by the toaster. She filled a pitcher with cold milk, put glasses of orange juice at each setting, and took out the marionberry jam that Jessica had brought from Oregon. Then, checking her lipstick in the hallway mirror, she went upstairs, determined to appear, for her children's sake, as if this day were like any other.

Jessica sat on the edge of her canopy bed putting on a black choker. She wore a flowered dress and chunky-heeled shoes.

"Good morning," Lydia said, sitting down next to her. "Is that what you're wearing to the wedding?" Instantly she worried that she sounded too critical.

"Well, it's what I brought." Jessica got up from the bed and half twirled in front of the closet door mirror. "What do you think?"

"Nice," Lydia said, hearing the hesitation in her voice. In spite of herself, she still hoped to please Cy. She knew he would want the kids to look their best today.

"I wasn't about to buy an expensive dress. Even if I could afford it, what would be the point?" Jessica asked. "Maybe when you get remarried I'll go all out. Hoop skirt and crinolines. But I don't think Dad really cares."

Oh, he cared, Lydia knew. He didn't talk about Ellen per se, but he did call Lydia every couple of weeks, and once in a while they met for lunch to discuss the children.
How are their jobs? Any news on their love lives? Can you believe that Ivan turned thirty?
Cy would even talk about the upcoming wedding:
Will the kids arrive in time for the rehearsal? Can't they come in on Thursday instead? You're sure you don't mind all the trips to the airport?

Which was why she had an impulse now to fetch a brush, sit Jessica down on the bed, and comb her mass of black hair until it fell long and straight. Jessica had always been a beauty, with her thick hair and wide-set brown eyes. At five foot nine, she was taller than Lydia, but she still had an adolescent slouch. From an early age, Jessica had never paid much attention to how she looked. A standout basketball player, sweats and running shoes had been her high school uniform.

"I think maybe your father cares more than you think he does."

Jessica pulled back her hair and turned to check her profile. She had shaved her underarms—a welcome development since yesterday, Lydia noted.

"If Dad has a problem with the dress I'm sure he'll let me know. We're going out for brunch before the wedding."

"But I've made breakfast downstairs." Lydia felt her perfectly planned morning slipping away. Cy had said nothing about branch.

"Well, we're eating in less than an hour. But thanks, anyway."

Ivan, in a black suit and silver tie, came into the room and kissed his mother good morning. His hair had been clipper-cut so short that he looked like a Secret Service agent. Lydia wished he would grow it long and curly again, as it had been when he was young, to soften his strong features.

"You look nice, honey." She stood up and smoothed his lapel.

"I
am
the best man in my father's wedding. Tell me if that's not every boy's dream." Ivan stood behind his sister at the mirror and adjusted his tie.

"Where's Davy?" Jessica asked.

"Sewing a button on one of my old blazers. He didn't exactly come prepared."

"So, how was the rehearsal dinner?" Lydia tried to sound nonchalant, though she'd been waiting all morning for a full report. Last night she'd even offered to drive the kids to the restaurant, hoping to catch a glimpse of Ellen. Instead, Jessica had asked to borrow her car.

"My speech was brilliant. There were tears—" Ivan began, before Jessica clapped her hand over his mouth.

"It was fine," she said.

Lydia wondered how she could have such different children. From temperament to interests to where they had chosen to live, they had spun off in all directions. Out in Oregon, Jessica had discovered radical politics, and her phone calls home had become increasingly tense. She talked down to Lydia now, as if speaking to the unenlightened. Ivan, on the other hand, worked for the International Trade Administration; he was a government man, but Jessica never turned her hostility on him.

"Did Dad tell you he's shaving his beard?" Jessica asked her brother.

"For the wedding?"

"Yeah, this morning. It's probably headed down the drain as we speak."

Lydia realized that this news was meant for her. Cy had always worn a beard. For as long as they'd been married, he had groomed it every day with an electric razor that he kept at the same low setting. She hadn't seen him with a clean-shaven face since well before they were a couple. As he had aged—his hair and beard going from brown to grizzled to fully gray—he looked increasingly distinguished. People had often said they made a handsome couple. She favored long skirts and crisp blouses; he had worn his wire-rimmed glasses and the clothes that Lydia picked out for him. "The Mennonites step out on the town," Jessica used to joke. But during the separation Lydia realized how two people could put a lot of extra miles on a marriage if they looked as if they belonged together.

"Don't tell me he's going to dye his hair, too," Ivan said.

"No, he's been reading some men's movement book. It told him that the beard was a mask."

"Ah, yes. Of course." Ivan always responded badly to his father's soul-searching. Nothing infuriated him more than Cy's earnest talk about spontaneous healing, the God within, and random acts of kindness. And though Lydia would later laugh about this too—much later, after the tightly wound spring of her would at last uncoil—Cy's shaving his beard stood for something final.

"I should let you two finish getting ready. I'll be outside with the camera," she said quickly and headed back downstairs.

During one of his incarnations Cy had been an amateur photographer, and though he soon tired of lighthouses and freighters, he had continued to take pictures of the children. The result was a series hanging on the kitchen walls: of the kids on the front steps, a chronicle of their shifting hairstyles and demeanors, from the time Davy was five to just a few years ago. Lydia had decided this week to keep the tradition going. She'd bought film for the camera yesterday, and now she went outside to load it and wait on the porch swing.

She remembered when Jessica had sat here with her brooding friends or when the children had lined up with their duffel bags before leaving on trips: Davy to music camp at Inter-lochen, Ivan to college in D.C.—the only one in the family not to go to the University of Michigan.

All three kids came out at once, crisply dressed. Ivan sat on the third step down, Jessica in the middle, Davy on the top step.

Lydia knelt on the front walk and tilted the camera. "Look at these matinee idols!" she called out, and caught Jessica rolling her eyes.

After Lydia snapped a few frames Davy stood up. "Can we get you in here, Mom? Let me take over."

"That's okay." She waved him off.

He sat back down, cleaning his glasses with his tear drop-patterned tie.

"The groom will be here any second, you know," Jessica said impatiently.

"Just a couple more shots, then. How about some smiles?"

Jessica sighed.

"C'mon Jess," Davy said. "It's Mom's weekend too. She made us a nice breakfast and everything."

Thank you,
Lydia wanted to say. It was about time someone noticed. Nobody had said so much as "The place looks great" or "Don't you look nice this morning." She did look nice, as a matter of fact. And it
was
her weekend, too.

She had clicked off half the roll, her hands shaking a little, by the time Cy pulled up in front of the house. The kids stood up, looking almost solemn as their father got out of his car.

Cy's cheeks were pink, his small chin newly revealed, a hint of the face Lydia remembered from long ago. She should have known that without the beard, behind the so-called mask, he would resemble an overgrown boy: bright-eyed like Davy, ruddy like Ivan.

"Sorry I'm late. Got caught up with the endless details. So you took some pictures?"

"I did," Lydia said emphatically, though she wasn't sure why.

He leaned forward to kiss her chastely on the cheek, and as she felt for the first time, after more than thirty years of marriage, his shaven face touching her skin, flesh to flesh, a peculiar regret washed over her: she wished that she had been the one to shave him.

When Lydia was a girl, her father used to send her on errands to a tailor in Hamtramck. He was an ancient rheumyeyed Polish immigrant, and often when she walked into the shop early, before school, the tailor would be sitting on a stool by the cash register with a towel around his neck. His face would be covered in shaving cream, and hovering over him, a bone-handled straight razor in her fist, would be his wife. She would shave him with quick, adept strokes, slapping the spent lather against a towel in her hand, lifting his skin and drawing the razor down. The tailor would sit there, waiting out the daily ritual until his face was smooth and clean. Then he would rise to his feet and gather Lydia's father's suits. His wife would put the razor away, neatly fold the towels. Then she would ring up the sale. And as Lydia turned to wave goodbye, the tailor would say, "Remember, young lady. Don't fall in love."

That was marriage, Lydia thought—every morning a straight razor shave, routine and precarious at the same time. The domestic trinity of care, trust, and repetition all contained in that simple tableau. How long had the tailor and his wife been married? Fifty years? A hundred and fifty? Lydia half believed that if she were to drive across town to Hamtramck right now, she would find the two of them still holding down the shop. "Don't fall in love," he would say. And Lydia would answer, "Maybe I never did." Or, "I never will again."

She stood on the front porch as the kids piled into their father's new Infiniti sedan.

"Well, bye," she yelled out. "Have a wonderful time." And, as the doors closed, "Congratulations."

But Cy must not have heard her because he didn't look back, just gave a quick wave. They drove off and Lydia stood staring down the street as the car turned the corner. "Well," she said, then realized that no one was around to hear her. "Well."

She went back into the house and looked at the uneaten breakfast. Granola, grapefruit, zucchini bread, English muffins, even the jam that Jessica had brought—all of it went into the trash. Lydia poured the coffee, milk, and juice into the sink, put the dishes in the cupboard, wiped down the table, and turned off the light.

Then she climbed the stairs to her office and gathered her manuscript papers and laptop for the library. "Back when I am," she wrote on a white note card.

She put the note on the kitchen table, then locked the front door behind her.

T
OO LATE FOR
a sit-down brunch, Jessica, Ivan, Davy, and Cy decided to go to a coffee shop in Bloomfield Hills, land of the ladies' lunch. With their cappuccinos and scones they clustered in the window on high skinny chairs, looking out at the shoppers. Jessica was wondering if her father would quit his job at Michitel, since he seemed to be marrying into some family money. Or so he had hinted. The new Infiniti he was driving had been an early wedding gift from Ellen. He had always talked about retirement, even when the kids were young and he was making fairly modest sales commissions. But seeing him now, with his fresh face and newly whitened teeth, Jessica felt grateful—at least he was not on his own.