The Mother's Promise(14)
9
In a small circle of people, Sonja was pretending to follow a conversation with an impressively chatty thirty-something woman when she felt George’s lips against her temple and the coolness of a glass against her fingertips. His sudden presence made her jump.
“Oh.” She accepted the champagne and took a sip. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
George stood next to her and smiled at the small group. They all smiled back with considerably more enthusiasm. George wore a gray suit and had a name badge pinned to his right pocket, bearing the logo of the organization that was putting on this event and his name above the words KEYNOTE SPEAKER.
“I’ve just been chewing your wife’s ear off about you,” said the chatty woman. “I’m Laurel, a social worker for the county of San Francisco.” Laurel wore a tight black skirt suit and stiletto heels. “One of our directives this year is to address the mental illness problem in homeless teens, so I’m really looking forward to your speech.”
Laurel was young enough to be George’s daughter, but her body language—legs slightly parted, leaning inward—made it clear that she thought of him as anything but fatherly.
“Sonja’s a social worker too,” George said, reading the situation accurately. After ten minutes of small talk, Sonja knew about Laurel’s rescue dog (Roger), her root canal gone wrong, and the family rift created over her grandmother’s inheritance, yet Laurel hadn’t even bothered to ask Sonja what she did for a living.
“You don’t say?” Laurel said. She eyed Sonja’s black shift dress, her pearls, her gold bangle. Her hair, pale blond and bobbed. You don’t look like a social worker, Laurel wanted to say (Sonja could tell). And you don’t look like you belong with George.
It was true that Sonja, by an outsider’s standards, was doing well for herself. George was a good-looking man, even at sixty. He was intelligent and charismatic and impressive. Oddly enough, someone like Laurel might be a better fit for him. Young and pretty, not to mention so clearly up for it. Then again, Sonja had been up for it once too. Before she understood what up for it meant with George.
Sonja had met George at one of these sessions. Back then, her clothes were less expensive but her waist was narrower and the lines on her face were not yet Botoxed. At forty-two she’d considered herself attractive. But twelve years could make a difference. It had been a small workshop, held at a hospital in San Francisco. George had been speaking about depression in the caretakers of the terminally ill, and Sonja had been in the front row. He’d glanced in her direction more often than seemed necessary, enough to make her cheeks hot, and make her unable to look at him. After the presentation he didn’t even try to play it cool—he just bowled up to her and said, “You dropped this.”
“What?” she said.
“My business card,” he said smoothly, tucking it into the palm of her hand. “Call me.”
And then he stole away into the crowd to speak to her superiors.
Sonja had thought it bold that he expected her to call. But she was so hypnotized by him, she put it out of her mind. Women like Sonja didn’t date men like George. They dated men who drove cabs or sold used cars or didn’t work at all. Men who chatted up other women in bars and spent the grocery money on a horse that “just can’t lose.” In comparison, George was a prize. Who cared that he wanted her to call? Perhaps he was a feminist?
“Are you nervous?” Laurel asked George now.
George smiled into his drink because it was a tough one to answer. To not be nervous is to be arrogant. But to admit nerves is to care too deeply about ego. The best response was to simply dodge the question entirely. Or let his wife answer it. And Sonja answered right on cue: “George is more comfortable behind a lectern than he is in his own living room!”
Laurel and George laughed and, ridiculous as it was, Sonja felt pleased that she had got it right. In this world—George’s world—she never really knew. The rules were just different. For one thing, people never said what they meant. They told people their hideous outfit was lovely, and they laughed at things that weren’t funny. And they always pretended things were great, because admitting your life was less than perfect brought shame upon you—even if the shame rightfully belonged to someone else—for having the audacity to actually talk about it. It was the curse, Sonja thought, of the middle class.
In the world Sonja grew up in, people came right out and said things, usually loudly.
“My husband’s a shit.”
“Can’t go the movies. I’m broke.”
“The kids are driving me nuts.”
“Frank was completely wasted last night. Woke up the entire street. I was ready to call the cops on him!”
It always felt peculiar to Sonja, the way everyone pretended. And yet, unwittingly, she had joined them. Now Sonja was the expert in pretending.
A man appeared at George’s shoulder and whispered something. George nodded. “Excuse me, everyone,” he said. “Looks like I’m required to give a speech.”
Everyone laughed and started to drink up their drinks and shuffle toward the double doors. George’s hand grazed Sonja’s bottom and, on instinct, she jerked away. He raised his eyebrows at her—Are you all right?—and she nodded that she was. Pretending, yet again.