PSV1 Fiction Draft #1

Frances Cleary /EDR 605

PSV1 – Fiction Piece

 

The soft pink and white cherry blossom trees against the jadeite green grass on the Boston Common resembled the colors in a delicate Chinese snuff bottle Tara had once seen in a museum. It was a temperate late April evening, and she breathed the blossoms’ lovely perfume as she walked to the T station after work to head home. She was in love and it was spring! As she walked past the stately historic red brick mansions on Commonwealth Avenue the euphoria of being in love filled her with a security she had not known since her childhood: a joy in knowing that she and David would build a future together. Tonight he had invited her to meet his mother for the first time.

Tara read the look of curiosity in her future mother-in-law’s piercing blue eyes when David introduced them. It was curiosity tinged with a challenge, a sort of sizing up. It made her feel as if she had been picked last for a team in gym class. It put her in a black mood, made her feel as if she were at a job interview with a stern interviewer who had already decided that she wasn’t a good fit. The severe cut of the black suit Bella wore gave her a forbidding look. Tara watched a thinly veiled frown cross Bella’s face when she asked Tara what her job was, where her family lived, and what her parents did for work. The inquisition took place at the long dining room table overlooking the crisp blue pond across the street. The red brick house was full of finely wrought details: the curving staircase with the wrought iron balustrade, the foyer with its Italian marble floor, the Palladian windows with French doors, and the living room’s Venetian chandeliers whose crystals flashed iridescent white circles around the walls when the sun hit them. Bella’s house was as perfectly coiffed as the beautiful streaks of blond in her hair. Her life exuded wealth, from her house to her car to her attire. But her icy demeanor left Tara cold.

 

          Tara knew she would never measure up in Bella’s eyes. Her background was too common, her parents’ house too humble, its furnishings too garish and “probably contained nothing that had ever been inherited,” Tara had overheard Bella saying into the phone one afternoon before quickly getting off when Tara walked into the room. It was clear Bella had been talking about her. Tara thought of the colonial with the red front door where she had grown up. She wished she could be there right now with her family sitting around the table reminiscing about the crazy going-ons in their neighborhood, like when Mr. Wilson broke that black phonograph record over her brother’s head. They had all roared with laughter at that one. The icy atmosphere when she was around Bella reminded her of the frustration of going snowshoeing and constantly falling through the snow. Tara felt everything she wore, said, or did was somehow wrong in Bella’s eyes: her religion, her degree from a state university, the clerical nature of her job at a bank in Downtown Crossing. Bella was a queen bee, and Tara had stumbled into her swarm, where she ruled her three sons, husband, and father as if she were Cinderella’s stepmother dressed in her 80s black power suit.

 

Tara could feel the atmosphere at David’s parents’ house turn frosty every time she and David visited after work. If she asked for cheese to put on a sandwich with meat, Bella would say, “Jews don’t mix meat and cheese.” If David and Tara sat with Bella in the living room to talk, Bella would speak exclusively to David, coldly ignoring Tara as if she weren’t there. If Tara and David had plans for a weekend getaway during David’s Christmas break from his graduate studies, Bella would insist David attend a party for a family business associate on the very Saturday they were supposed to leave. In a recent argument David had with Bella about her coldness towards Tara, Bella had referred to Tara as a “gold digger.” Her words stung, piquing Tara’s conscience. This was not an expression she had ever heard anyone called except on television. A gold digger sounded like a class putdown, so venal and coarse. Tara had never heard her parents once utter that word. In fact, one of their family rules was to never discuss money, particularly at mealtimes. The idea of being perceived as a gold digger was confounding to Tara. How funny that she was actually making more money than David right now! She found it hard to imagine that a family war had broken out over their relationship, but David’s mother’s cold behavior made her consider almost daily walking away from her relationship with David rather than being treated so poorly. Tara suspected her Catholic background was the reason Bella ostracized her. David was Jewish but considered himself an atheist. Tara wasn’t even a practicing Catholic! She found it baffling that a situation over which she had no control was being used as an excuse to banish her to Siberia.

 

          When Tara and David were married on the cusp of the following Autumn, the trees were still clothed in green leaves, providing much needed shade from the humidity and temperatures in the 70s. The day of the wedding the ice queen arrived in one of her black suits. She refused to wear her boutonniere or even engage in polite small talk with Tara’s family. Her icy behavior would be considered almost comical had it not offended Tara’s family so deeply. Tara remembered when she and David had met up for coffee with David’s parents the afternoon before the wedding. She had spent her entire summer making all the arrangements: the invitations, the Justice of the Peace, the photographer, her wedding dress and bouquet, the restaurant and menu, flowers, buying wine and champagne and delivering it to the reception hall to save on the corkage fee, and making hotel reservations. She had run around in the summer heat seeing to every detail for their September reception. The stress of attending to so many details had made Tara’s chin break out in pimples, and she worried that her wedding photos would be ruined by her sudden teenaged appearance. But more than anything she was looking forward to seeing her friends and family all together for their celebration, Bella be damned.

 

The reception venue was a lovely waterside restaurant terrace shaded by verdant maple trees in the bend of a river. Tara felt as if she were in a Renoir painting when she and David ate there the first time, and it quickly became their favorite restaurant. The smell of the coffee being served broke Tara’s reverie. Bella suddenly asked David what color his tie would be for the next day’s ceremony. When he replied “purple, Tara’s favorite color,” Bella turned to David’s father and exclaimed, “Tell him he can’t wear purple!” Tara knew that she would never forget Bella’s words or controlling icy tone. She looked at the ice sitting in a nearby wine bucket and thought how much she’d like to throw it right in Bella’s face. The scene reminded Tara of when she and David had driven to see David’s parents at the Cape the weekend they’d become engaged, and Bella, after looking at Tara’s engagement ring, asked where David had bought it. Sweet David proudly responded that he had bought it at Shreve’s Jewellers in Boston. He looked crushed when Bella responded by saying, “Jews don’t pay retail for diamonds.” David’s father remained silent through this exchange, and Tara couldn’t help silently counting the minutes until they could climb in their car and return to Boston. They had brought a bottle of champagne with them, but it was still sitting in the fridge on ice. Here again was David’s mother referring to money in such an open, vulgar way. The only looming black mark on her happiness at being engaged to David was his ice queen mother. She wondered if staying with David would come at too high a price.

 

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