The Wedding Sisters Read online

  The third voice mail was from the superintendent of her mother’s building.

  “Mrs. Becker, Tom Curello here from the Clarion. Please give me a call as soon as possible.”

  Meryl jotted down the number. Had her mother forgotten to pay the rent again? Things like that were happening more and more lately. “Part of aging,” her mom’s physician had said. Basically, everything undesirable fell under that category. Lately, Meryl wished she had a sibling. Watching your parents age—and in the case of her father, dying—is terrifying and lonely. Of course, her mother had always been a challenging person. Not just overly opinionated, but also enigmatic in a way that Meryl could never quite explain. She had memories of her mother shutting herself in a dark room for entire days. Those days were fewer and fewer as Meryl got older, and now it seemed she’d almost imagined them. But if she’d had a sibling, she could discuss these things with someone who really understood.

  At least she’d done that right. No matter what life threw their way, her girls would always have each other.

  “Mr. Curello? This is Meryl Becker returning your call.”

  “You need to get over to the building immediately, Mrs. Becker. We have a situation.”

  * * *

  From the passenger seat of Toby’s car, Jo stared at the entrance to her apartment building, the lump in her throat growing. Her home looked different than it had the last time she saw it in daylight, and she knew it was because she was seeing it through different eyes. This time yesterday, her life had been whole. Now it had a giant crack running through it.

  “Thanks. For everything,” Jo said, kissing Toby on the cheek.

  “Maybe I should walk you in,” he said.

  “Tobe, I’m a big girl.”

  “I know. But these things are rough.”

  “How do you know? You’ve never had a serious relationship. At least not in the five years I’ve known you.”

  “That’s because the woman I’m seriously interested in happens to be in love with another woman. Isn’t irony great?”

  Regret flooded through her. In her blindly selfish quest, groping in the dark (literally) to stanch the bleeding of her heart, she had done some damage to Toby’s.

  She opened her car door, filled with sudden urgency.

  “I’ll text you later,” she called out, rushing to the front door without so much as a glance behind her.

  She took the stairs two at a time, and by the time she got her key in the lock, she was out of breath. “Caroline?” she called out as she pushed the door open.

  A strange man jumped up from the couch.

  A strange, gorgeous man. Tall with dark hair and blazing green eyes and a hipster beard (moderate length, as far as those things went), he looked like a young David Gandy.

  “Jo,” he said.

  “Who the fuck are you, and why are you in my apartment?”

  She already knew the answer to both questions, but that did not make it okay. And she wanted to hear him say it.

  “I’m Drew Finley. Caroline’s … friend.”

  “Where’s Caroline?”

  “She’s not here. She thought it would be easier if I picked up her things.”

  Jo felt like she might vomit. “Get out,” she said.

  Drew Finley was clearly not used to being unwelcome. Drew Finley had probably never been rejected in his entire life. And surely, Drew Finley had never come home to find the person who was trying to steal away the love of his life standing in his living room.

  “I’m really sorry,” he said. And he did look apologetic. He looked like he would hug her if she’d let him. In some perverse way, she wanted him to. What was so great about being in the arms of Drew Finley? What the fuck, Caroline?

  “Well, I’m sorry for you. Because Caroline is clearly just having a first-year post-college crisis. Maybe it’s the stress of law school. I don’t know, and I don’t care. The point is, this is going to pass. We are in love, and we have a history, and a future—and you don’t factor into any of that.”

  Jo marched to the front door and opened it, making a sweeping gesture with her arm. Get the fuck out.

  “I’ve asked her to marry me,” said Drew. “And she’s said yes.”

  * * *

  Meryl’s mother was still screaming when she walked into the apartment.

  It was a sound she would never forget, as if, God forbid, her mother were being stabbed to death. And apparently, her mother had been going at it for forty-five straight minutes.

  Oona was in the hallway, talking to the superintendent and her mother’s neighbor from across the hall. Meryl pushed her way past them, into the bedroom, where her mother stared straight ahead, wide eyed, rocking back and forth as she emitted her endless, bloodcurdling screams.

  “Mother! Mother, what is it? What’s wrong?”

  Her mother looked at her, still screaming, but something in her eyes shifted, a sudden clarity, and she reached out hesitantly to touch her. Meryl moved forward and pulled her mother into a hug, and the screaming stopped. Her mother began rambling in her native Polish, a language she dropped as soon as she arrived in the United States and never bothered to teach her children.

  “I’m here, Mom. It’s okay,” Meryl said. It felt strange to have such physical contact with her mother. Rose Kleinman was decidedly not a hugger. And she certainly was not overly affectionate in the past few decades with the daughter who had so bitterly and irrevocably disappointed her.

  But the hug seemed to work.

  “Meryl,” her mother said.

  “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

  Her mother shook her head, looking around the room.

  “Mom, wait here a minute, okay? I need to check on something. Will you be okay for a minute?”

  “Of course. I’m fine. What time is it? Is it time for my stories?”

  Meryl found the remote and turned on CBS for her mother’s soap operas.

  “Mom, I’ll be right back.”

  Out in the hallway, the neighbor had retreated back into her apartment but Oona and Mr. Curello were still talking.

  “What’s going on? What happened, Oona?”

  “Mrs. Becker, this is the third time this has happened this week. The last time was at two in the morning, when she woke up half the floor and the family living in the apartment below her,” said Mr. Curello.

  “What? Oona, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I thought you knew. I thought you knew that she do this.”

  “No, I had no idea this was happening.”

  “Mrs. Becker, this has become a tremendous disturbance to the other tenants in the building. I’ve gotten word from management that the tenants downstairs have threatened to stop paying rent.”

  “Oh my God. I’m sorry. I—”

  “Management won’t be renewing your mother’s lease.”

  Meryl’s stomach dropped. She scrambled to think of when the lease expired. Was it this December? Or next? Had they signed a two-year last time?

  “I understand,” she said quietly, glancing back inside the apartment. “I need to talk to her.” Meryl went back to the bedroom and closed the door. “Mom, what’s going on?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” her mother said.

  “Did you realize you’ve been screaming?” She didn’t know what was more terrifying—the thought that her mother was doing this on purpose, fully aware, or that she had no recollection of the episodes.

  “Maybe it was a bad dream,” her mother said.

  “You were speaking in Polish.”

  An expression crossed her mother’s face that she’d never seen before, a look of intense vulnerability. Rose didn’t like to talk about Poland, the country she’d left when she was just seven years old. Meryl’s grandparents had moved to America in 1937, just two years before the Nazi invasion of Poland. Rose admitted that they had always planned to visit, to return someday to see the friends and family they left behind. But their town had been wiped off the map. If Meryl’s mot
her rarely spoke about Poland, her grandparents never did. And oddly, they had somehow gotten rid of even their Polish accents, while Rose’s speech was still thick with it.

  “That’s nonsense,” Rose said. “I don’t even remember Polish. If this is how you’re going to behave, just leave.”

  Meryl did not mention the lease. She would talk to Hugh first. She wasn’t entirely sure it was even legal for the building to take that kind of action, though she suspected it was.

  She held it together the entire cab ride back to the Upper East Side. But as soon as she paid the fare and stepped onto the curb at Eighty-fourth and East End, she lost it. Her mother, so fierce, so eternally independent and stoic, was finally showing a crack. And Meryl had no idea what to do about it—didn’t even know where to start.

  Her phone rang. Amy. Meryl swallowed hard, clearing her throat, hoping her voice sounded normal.

  “Did you get my e-mail?” she squealed.

  “E-mail? No, hon. I’ve been with Gran.”

  “Mom, drop whatever you’re doing and check your e-mail. Call me back.”

  Meryl juggled her bag and her keys and her phone so that she could click onto her Gmail. Amy had sent her a link to the New York Post. She clicked it, and a photo of Meg and Stowe filled her screen. Incredulous, Meryl scanned the text. She laughed, covering her mouth, the crisis with her mother momentarily forgotten.

  “Oh, honey, look at that,” she said as soon as Amy picked up again. “You’re officially a boldfaced name.”

  “So crazy, right? Jeffrey thinks it’s great. I mean, the tone of the piece is snarky, but that’s just Page Six. And all publicity is good publicity, right? I’ve got to run to a meeting—don’t tell Daddy. I’ll call him later.”

  Meryl felt the day turn around. Whatever was going on with her mother, she would figure it out. There was too much to be happy about to let it get her down.

  By the time she walked into her home, she had a smile on her face again. But then she saw Hugh’s canvas messenger bag on the dining room table. What was he doing home?

  “Hugh?” she called.

  She looked at her phone. It was barely noon.

  His office door was closed. Heart pounding, she didn’t bother to knock, opening it to find him sitting at his desk and staring into space.

  “Why aren’t you at work?” she asked, alarm in her voice.

  A part of her, the irrational but deeply hopeful part, thought maybe he’d somehow sensed that she needed him, that after thirty years, their connection was just that strong. That’s what marriage was at its best—you didn’t have to tell your partner to look out, that you were falling. They were just there to catch you, the ever-present net.

  “There’s a problem at school.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “It’s Janell. She plagiarized another paper. In Ethan Pogrebin’s class.”

  “Oh, Hugh, I’m sorry. I know you really had high hopes for her.”

  “He turned her in. And she said she felt it was unfair because I had given her a warning, so why couldn’t he?”

  Meryl’s stomach dropped. “She told Ethan you gave her a warning,” she said slowly.

  “No. She told Harrison.”

  Harrison Winterbourne, the school chancellor.

  “Okay, so why are you here instead of at school, dealing with this?”

  “I’ve been suspended. Pending a disciplinary inquiry.”

  “Suspended! For what?”

  “Breach of ethics.”

  “Jesus, Hugh! I told you!” She paused, and took a deep breath. “Okay, okay—I’m sure they just have to go through the motions with this. How long will a disciplinary inquiry take?”

  “A few weeks. A month.”

  She shook her head, hugging herself. “It will be fine. I just wish … Hugh, I just wish you had talked to me about all this.”

  “I tried talking to you,” he said. “You were too busy worrying about dinner that night.”

  She looked at him blankly; then she remembered his phone call while she was on her way to her mother’s the day of the Campion dinner.

  “Let’s try to look on the positive side,” she said, trying to find one. “If you’re home for a few weeks, you get to be more involved in the wedding planning. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise.”

  “Yes, well, about that: We need to put the spending on hold for now.”

  “That’s not the kind of involvement I was hoping for.” She tried to smile.

  “The suspension is without pay.”

  What?

  Math was not her strong suit, but she immediately calculated the loss of income for the next four weeks and considered how tight their budget was to begin with. And this was the key time they would be putting down deposits for everything: the dress, the florist, the band. They had savings. But not what they should, thanks to the market bottoming out in 2008.

  “Okay, let’s think. Let’s think.” Meryl paced in front of Hugh’s desk. “You just need to talk to Harrison. Go in tomorrow, tell him it was a misunderstanding. Beg if you have to. Hugh, this cannot happen.”

  “It’s not that simple, Meryl.”

  “Of course it is. It might not be easy, but it is that simple.”

  “It wasn’t a misunderstanding. I believed—still believe—that Janell deserved one warning. That she should be punished, but not thrown out. The policy we put in place is too dogmatic, and needs revision. I see that now.”

  She wanted to strangle him. “Hugh,” she said, sitting across from him as she took his hand, trying to be calm. “Do you really think that this is the time to draw a line in the sand?”

  “I made a mistake with that zero-tolerance policy, Meryl. And now a girl’s future is at stake.”

  “Our future is at stake!”

  “Don’t be melodramatic.”

  “Okay—how about your daughters? Did you give them any thought when you took your high-and-mighty stand for educational justice?”

  “I don’t appreciate your mocking this. They’ll be fine. Meg is marrying into one of the most powerful families in this country. So is Amy. I don’t think you can put them on par with a parentless girl from the Bronx who is about to lose her one shot at a real education. At college. At a better life.”

  “Is this your way of pushing back about the weddings? Of making sure I don’t ‘go overboard’? Of making me go to the Campions with my tail between my legs, taking help from them? Well, I won’t. These weddings are going to happen one way or another.”

  “I have no doubt,” he said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I just know how you get when you set your mind to something,” he said.

  “You know what? I wish you would set your mind to something other than your goddamn students—and the book.”

  “Our girls got a first-rate education at Yardley, thanks to my position there.”

  “Yes, and they grew up among the children of the rich and famous, and now they have certain expectations for weddings that you suddenly don’t want to meet. What did you think would happen with them going to that school? You expose them to the best of everything, and then tell them not to want it for themselves? Don’t act like Stowe Campion or Andy Bruce are coincidental. Once we sent the girls to that school, their paths were set.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I think it is. So don’t act surprised now, or like none of it has anything to do with you. It has everything to do with you. I would have sent them to PS 290 and East Side Middle and Eleanor Roosevelt High School. But those options weren’t good enough for you, because you’re an academic snob. So our daughters grew up with the elite, and are now marrying into the elite, and big weddings are a part of that deal. So I would appreciate it if you didn’t act like this is all my fault.”

  The doorbell rang.

  Hugh, clearly relieved for the distraction, brushed past her to answer it. She leaned back and found that she was shaking. It was so like Hugh to p
ull something like this. He was more into the idea of something than what that idea or ideal actually meant. The private school for the girls: great in theory, but it exposed them to things beyond their means. Writing the Alcott book: great in theory, but after two decades, a cloud of unfinished business hanging over him. Maybe even marriage: great in theory, but maybe somehow emotionally messier than he had bargained for. Creating a family did not have the neat dramatic arc of a Louisa May Alcott novel. Not even if you named all your daughters after the characters in one.

  “Where’s Mom?” The sound of Jo’s voice snapped her to attention. Jo, in distress.

  Meryl rushed into the living room, suddenly in full mother-bear mode. With all the drama concerning Rose, she’d forgotten to check on Jo.

  Jo’s long hair was in a messy knot on the top of her head, her face drawn. Without hesitation, she flung herself into Meryl’s arms.

  “It’s over,” she cried, her thin body racked with sobs.

  It felt strange to hug Jo. She wasn’t a hugger, and at five foot eight, she was the tallest of the girls and a full three inches taller than Meryl. But still, her baby. Meryl kissed the top of her head, inhaling her organic, tea tree oil shampoo scent.

  “Baby, are you sure?” Meryl asked, not wanting to offer advice until she knew more.

  “She’s met someone else. A guy!”

  Oh, dear goodness. That had to hurt.

  “Is there a chance this is just temporary? Something she has to explore before you two get any more serious?”