“Are you Miri?” she asks.
“I’m Ruby.” I’m so nervous my leg is trembling. I will it to calm down. “Friend of Penelope’s. Miri is sick, so I’m here to help with the planning meeting.”
“Okay.” They look at me, slightly confused.
“I’m Jewish,” I say, as if this clears anything up.
“That’s great?” she says with a distinct question mark at the end of the statement. I’ve officially lost them, and also I have no idea who they are. “Well, Louise just finished her blackjack game, and I’m about to serve tea in the parlor.”
“Thank you…” I trail off, wondering if this person will introduce herself.
“I’m Alma! Pronouns are she/they.” There’s a pause where I wait for them to offer their connection to this mysterious family. “I’m Louise’s nu—aide.” Alma smiles. “Louise’s aide. And I’m Filipina,” she adds, leaning in like we now share an inside joke.
“Nice to meet you.” I smile gratefully and shake the hand Alma offers. “I’m she. I mean, she/her pronouns.” Just permit me to evaporate at this point. “Where do I find the, um, parlor?” I look in either direction from the atrium. It seems I’ve hit my head and fallen into a Jane Austen novel.
Alma points to my right. “She lost blackjack, so she’s in a bit of a mood.”
“I heard that!” a distant voice shouts.
“Told you,” Alma sings, before walking in the opposite direction of the parlor.
“Thanks for the heads up,” I mutter, before marching my Mary Janes toward the ominous, bodiless voice. I make sure the collar of the dress is straight and my knee socks aren’t drooping. There’s a ribbon tying back a sectioned puffball of hair that I castsevere doubt on as I cross the atrium. Have I miscalculated and gone too coquette?
In the parlor, a pale woman in a peacock-patterned kaftan holds court in a chaise lounge by a bay window, looking like a glamorous and elderly Dionysus. Birds of paradise bookend her, and Lake Michigan sparkles out the window behind her. To the left is an oversized marble fireplace and on the right a sofa sits beneath what is most certainly an eight-foot Cy Twombly. Yep, definitely a real Chihuly in the atrium.
“Who are you?” the woman asks in a scratchy, radio-announcer voice, peering down her nose at me. She’s younger than I would have thought from Penelope’s description; she can’t be older than mid-sixties. Her thin hair is carefully coiffed beneath a headscarf that matches her kaftan, and she has on bright pink lipstick.
“I’m Ruby.” I enunciate both syllables. When I offer my hand, Louise shakes the living daylight out of it.Ow, I mouth to myself.
“Ruby. Like the gem?”
I nod.
“I like that. Gem. Good name.”
“It’s Ruby?—”
“You still haven’t answered my question.Whoare you? Last time I checked, the top-of-the-line wedding planner we hired was named Miri.”
“Oh, right, um, Miri is sick, so I’m—” I gnaw on my lip, a caged animal. “Filling in!”
Louise harrumphs, a sound I am incapable of interpreting. “You look like a Parisian streetwalker.”
Did she just say I look like a prostitute? I roll my shoulders and barrel forward, deciding to completely ignore it. “Are you excited? Big family wedding coming up!”
“Itwillbe exciting. Once my niece actually takes the time to fill me in on what’s happening.” Louise sits back and looks out the window, effectively ending our small talk.
I explore the room while we wait for the woman of the hour to make an appearance. It’s an indulgent concept, the idea of a room existing purely to sit in. No TV, no computer. Not even an iPad. I take a slow stroll around the perimeter, seeing a framed sketch that looks like either Picasso or a five-year-old did it, a marble bust of someone stately, and a bookshelf. I settle on the bookshelf. I start reading the titles and realize the entire shelf is taken up by editions of Alfred Feeney novels. The oldest one is a first edition of his first novel,Lily in the Grass—the book that practically invented the modern literary romance. It’s likeLady Chatterley’s Loverhad a baby withEmma, and that baby went to Woodstock.
He hasn’t published a book in a couple years, and his last one was decidedly sadder than the rest of his canon. It’s calledBlue Rose, about a golden-years couple dealing with cancer. As much of a Feeney fan as I am, I haven’t been able to bring myself to pick it up.
“You a big Feeney fan?” I ask Louise, holding up the book.
She smiles, a faraway look in her eyes. “That’s one word for it.”
“What’s another word?” I ask, wondering if she’s familiar with the concepts offangirlsorstans.
“Wife.”
