The Ten Best Days of My Life (19 page)

“You're going to have to tell him,” Pen said when she saw my face and figured it out. “You've got to be strong with this or you'll ruin your life.”

So one night when Charles came home to change for our evening's activities, I finally told him:

“I'm sorry,” I confessed, “but this just isn't me. This just isn't how I saw my life going.”

“Don't be foolish, Alexandra,” he replied as though it was nothing. “I'm the luckiest thing that's ever happened to you.”

“I just can't do it,” I told him as I took off the ring and set it in front of him.”

He stared at the ring as though seeing something completely foreign—a pigeon at the table or something. “Think about what a mistake you're making,” he said finally. “Think about how many people you're going to hurt.”

That's when I knew it was never meant to be.

“But do you love me?” I asked him.

“Yes I love you,” he shot back.

“No, do you really love me or do you love all the outside stuff that comes with this relationship?”

He paused.

“That's why I need to end this now before someone really does get hurt,” I said to him.

“You're making a huge mistake,” he said. “You think everyone marries just for love?”

"Well, maybe everyone doesn't, but I will.”

I remember driving in my car, not knowing where to go or who to talk to. Penelope had left for Martinique with her husband, Melvin, that morning, and there was no way of getting in touch with her. I thought about calling information for a shrink, but that seemed crazy. I couldn't check into any hotels because everyone knew me and I didn't want the gossipmongers to start before I told my parents. That left just one place.

By the time I arrived at my parents' house, my father was waiting for me.

“Alex,” he said, “don't you even try to get into this house. You are not welcome here. I'm done with you.”

“Dad, let me explain!” I cried from the driveway.

“No, you've had enough explaining in your life. I'm through letting you explain.”

“Dad, how can you be like this? I don't love Charles. How can you be angry with me for that?”

“Jesus, Alex, I'm not angry with you because you don't love him. I'm angry with you for letting it get as far as it did. The night he asked you to marry him, why did you say yes?”

“Because . . . because everyone was staring at me.” I stumbled trying to come up with the right words. “I felt trapped with everyone sitting there staring at me. I couldn't say no.”

“Alex,” he said, calming down a bit, “don't you understand? I don't know what I can do for you anymore. I can put up with a lot of stuff from you because along with your mother you are the most important person in my life, but I can't have another sleepless night worrying about you. What are you going to do with your life now? I thought at least if you were married to Charles, then at least there would be someone to take care of you and I wouldn't have to worry so much.”

“So stop worrying!” I screamed at him.

“Then tell me your plans, Alex!” he shouted back. “If you're not going to marry Charles and you're not going to work in my office, what are you going to do? I'm at my wits' end already!”

“I'll make something of my life. I know I will.”

“With what skills? What can you do? Alex, do you understand how painful it is for me to see how lost you are?”

And then the strangest thing happened.

“Bill, I've heard enough,” my mother said, standing at the door. “Let me speak to Alex alone. Go into your study and don't come out until I tell you to.”

This shocked both my father and myself. In all my twenty-three years, I had never once heard my mother give my father a demand.

“Maxine, let me handle this,” he shouted to her.

“Bill!” she shouted. “Go into your study! Alex, get in the house!”

“Maxine, I know what I'm doing here,” he yelled at her.

“Bill! Go into your goddamned study and don't come out until I tell you to!”

Now, I suppose you're wondering at this point,
I don't get it. This is, like, the suckiest day. Wasn't this essay supposed to be about your sixth best day?

Yes, it was and here is why this was a best day . . .

My mother walked me into the living room and shut the doors. I thought she was going to tell me to go back to Charles. I really thought she was going to make me understand that marrying Charles was the best thing for me. Instead she said:

“Alex,” she took my hands in hers, “your father is very upset with you right now. He loves you so much and he's very frightened. You understand that, right?”

“Yes, but he won't give me a second to think for myself.”

“He can't help it, and maybe when you have children of your own you'll understand his feelings, but I want you to know something. I want you to know that I do not think there has ever been a day that I have been more proud of you.”

After she said that, I went full-on into a major Niagara Falls crying jag.

“Now, listen to me because what I want to tell you is very important,” she said, handing me a tissue to dry my tears.

It took me a second, but I finally calmed down.

“You don't think sometimes I regret the path I took in my life?” Mom started. “Sometimes I look at my life and I wonder if I did anything to benefit the world. I never had a job, I never lived on my own. When I was your age, you were a teacher or you got married. My generation had no choice, but you do. All my parents had to do in my day was to make sure I married a good man. Daddy doesn't understand that things are different now. Alex, you are so lucky to be living in a time when you can be whatever you want to be. If you don't want to get married, you have that choice. I didn't have that choice. Alex, sweetheart, do something for me, go out there and conquer the world.”

I did not know what to say. And you know, now that I've met Alice Oppenheim, I'm even more struck by how lucky my generation is. My mom and Alice had a much different life.

I love my mother more than anything, but I didn't want to be a carbon copy of her. I knew that I didn't want to go through life being Charles Kitteredge's wife. I wanted more out of my life, and when my mother sat me down and told me she completely understood, I knew that I was doing the right thing. It had nothing to do with whether I loved Charles. It had nothing to do with the fact that my mother had given up her dreams, whatever they might have been, for the man she truly loved. What mattered was that I wanted to see life on my terms. And suddenly her support gave me the confidence to do that.

“Show Daddy that he's wrong. Show him that you can think for yourself. I have every confidence that you'll be able to. If you had the strength to let this engagement go as far as it did before you ended it, then there must be more that you want to do for yourself. You will make something of yourself in this world and you'll do it on your own terms. I'm not worried for you anymore.”

It was the first time I'd ever made someone truly proud of me, especially someone I loved. That's why it was one of the best days of my life. I know that even if my dad wasn't proud of me, even if he still thought I was lost, I would, I could, prove him wrong.

Three days later, all of Philadelphia knew the marriage would never happen. The Philadelphia gossip pages were hungry to find out why. Some said it was because I was cheating on Charles. Someone said they saw me scoring drugs in Chinatown. I never even went back to the home I shared with Charles. Mom and I just went out and bought new clothes and cosmetics.

It was becoming clear, though, that I couldn't live in Philadelphia anymore. According to Tim from the mailroom, when I called to say hi, the people in Dad's office went from thinking I was endearingly crazy to thinking I was just plain crazy.

I thought about moving to New York, but it seemed too close to Philadelphia. Penelope even told me that some of her friends heard I had been committed.

I stayed in my parents' house for the next two weeks, watching movies and trying to decide what to do. I avoided seeing my dad as much as possible. My mom and I spent a lot of time talking, and I watched those three minutes of home movies more than once—the joy and certainty that life was okay.

Then one night I was watching
The Grapes of Wrath
with Henry Fonda, when it came to me. It was the last line of the movie, I'll never forget it. It was like it was saying something to me I'd always known but never had the strength to do. Ma Joad says:

“Rich fellas come up an' they die, an' their kids ain't no good an' they die out. But we keep a'comin'. We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out; they can't lick us. We'll go on forever, Pa, 'cause we're the people.”

To do anything in this world I was going to have to stop living off my parents.

I called Dana Stanbury, who by this time was living in Los Angeles, and she said I could stay with her until I got my feet firmly planted.

The next morning I told my parents I was moving to California.

“You'll get nothing from me,” my father said.

“Good,” I told him. “That's just the way I want it.”

(By the way, I can't go on record saying that I didn't take any money from them ever again. Mom slipped me some cash to help me get settled. After that, though, life was on my terms.)

A couple of years later, Charles was in Los Angeles on business and he called me up. We decided to have lunch. By that time Charles had fallen in love, gotten married, and had a baby on the way.

“I really want to thank you,” he told me. “I didn't understand why you did what you did, but I do now.”

Like I said, he wasn't a bad guy. He just wasn't the guy for me. I don't know, love complicates everything. It can make you sacrifice your own dreams, but when it's right, even when doubts rear their ugly heads, you know that the choices you made were right. Like my mom's love for my dad. When the love isn't there, though, even the grandest house with all the clothes and all the attention that comes with it can only add up to one thing: a huge waste of a life.

"You were always the devilish one,” Grandmom laughed to Alice as she poured some salt on her potatoes. "I always said to Maxine when you two were little, 'That Alice is going to get you into trouble one of these days.' ”

“Don't think Maxine was so pure, Mrs. Firestein. She knew how to get away with anything.”

“My Maxine was never bad,” Grandmom countered. “She was always the best little girl.”

“She had her ways,” Alice laughed. “She could change the plans to what she wanted by just putting on a smile.”

“She could,” I joined in. “She could get everything her way without saying anything.”

“How did she do that?” Alice asked me, laughing.

“I have no idea, never learned it myself,” I chuckled back.

“Well, she was a good girl,” Grandmom said. “No one could fault her because she was so pretty and charming.”

“True, true,” Alice agreed. “But she was no angel.”

“Yes, she was,” I laughed.

“Okay, she was,” Alice said as we all cracked up.

“The only time I really remember Maxine ever doing something wrong was a couple of weeks before my sweet sixteen . . . ,” Alice began.

“Oh no, not the crinoline story,” I shouted.

“Yes, the crinoline story!” Alice laughed. “She told you about that?”

“You told her that she could borrow your crinolines,” Grandmom defended my mom.

“Yes, but I didn't say
all
of them. Alex, you have to hear the story from my side.”

“All right, fine. I'll hear it from your side and then this story must die . . . along with us,” I deadpanned.

“Well,” Alice started, taking a deep breath, “your mother had a date with Sy Silverman and she came over to my house to borrow some crinolines. I don't know why she didn't have enough of her own.”

“I was using them,” Grandmom explained.

“Okay, you were using them,” Alice concurred. “So, I'm outside with my brother, Butch, handing him tools while he's fixing my dad's car and Maxine comes over and asks me if she can borrow some crinolines. Sure, I tell her, go ahead. I don't know what happened after that, the phone rang or I got busy with something else, but I didn't see Maxine leave with the crinolines. A couple of hours later, I go up myself to get ready for my own date and I pick out my dress. I go into the crinoline drawer and there're none there. Your mother took all my crinolines!”

“My mother always said she left one for you,” I tell her. She did, she always swore she left some.

“She left me nothing!” Alice exclaimed, still a little angered by the story. “I went over to her house and knocked on the door and you answered the door, Mrs. Firestein.”

“You never saw Alice look more pathetic,” Grandmom laughed as Grandpop cracked a smile from behind his newspaper.

“I wanted to cancel my date, but it was too late. We go to the party and there's gorgeous Maxine Firestein looking like a blooming flower, and I look like a wilted rose.”

“They woke up the whole block with their fighting when they got home,” Grandmom laughed.

“I can still hear the echo,” Grandpop smirked.