The Ex Talk(91)

I listen to the two of us spar, laugh, tell stories. It tugs at my heart, it aches, but it doesn’t give me the kind of clarity I was hoping for.

Fact: I loved doing these shows with my dad.

Fact: I wanted to grow up and be on the radio.

I dreamed of telling stories that would make people feel something—the same way radio did for me. For a while, hosting a successful show felt like an answer to the questions I’d had my whole life. It was validation.

The Ex Talk gave me that, just for a while, but if I’m being honest with myself, I hadn’t felt it on Paloma’s show in a long, long time.

I keep clicking through files. I’m already at rock bottom, so what’s a little more suffering?

The funny thing is, my dad would have gone wild for what happened at our live show. Oh, he’d absolutely be disappointed in me, but he loved when radio went off script. He craved those human moments, the times you got to see the people behind the personas.

Well, here you go, Dad. Here’s how I ruined public radio.





34




My mother gets married in my childhood backyard on a clear July day.

It’s just shy of eighty degrees, perfect for a Seattle summer, and she’s radiant in her navy jumpsuit, red hair arranged in a sophisticated knot with a few curls tumbling onto her shoulders. Phil is in a charcoal linen suit and navy tie, and neither of them can stop smiling.

The wedding is small, only about thirty people. My parents were always proud of our backyard—lord knows my dad spent enough time maintaining it. Turns out, there’s enough space for a chuppah, several rows of chairs, and a small dance floor. Everything is adorned with yellow roses and elegant calla lilies, a marriage of my mother’s and Phil’s favorite flowers, and we strung tea lights along the fence. There’s a string quartet made up of their friends from the symphony, and later, the two of them will play, too.

It hits me that not everyone gets to see a parent so deeply in love like this, and that makes me feel lucky, that I’m privy to this side of my mother.

That I’ve seen her this in love not once but twice.

My new stepsiblings and their kids are enough to make a small party feel alive and electric, and while I’m wistful for the quiet celebrations I had with my parents, I think I could get used to, well, fun.

There’s so much to set up that I don’t get a chance to talk to Ameena and TJ, who arrive close to the start of the ceremony. I know I’ll have to talk to them at some point, but I’m putting it off as long as I can. My mother is my first priority.

The ceremony itself is short and sweet. My mother and Phil wrote their own vows, and they’re both appropriately sappy. They incorporate the Jewish tradition of breaking a glass—after which we yell out, “Mazel tov!”—and a Nigerian tradition where guests spray money at the bride and groom, which they opt to donate to a cancer charity in honor of Phil’s late wife.

“How are you doing?” my new stepsister Diana asks after the ceremony, while we’re in line at the small buffet next to the dance floor.

“Oh—I’m fine,” I say, because we don’t yet have the kind of closeness where I can be fully open about the fact that I’m drowning in self-pity with a healthy dash of self-loathing. But maybe one day we will. “Just . . . job hunting. Shockingly, no one’s knocking down my door begging to hire me.”

“It’s rough out there. Hey, if you want to babysit,” she says with a waggle of her eyebrows, “we’re in the market for a new nanny.”

I force a smile. While I like her kids, I don’t think I could be around them for that many hours a day. I still don’t even know if I want my own.

“Tempting offer, but I’m going to have to pass,” I say, and she snaps her fingers.

“Damn. I was really hoping we could wrangle some kind of family discount. Nannies aren’t cheap.”

“Are you trying to trick Shay into becoming our nanny?” her husband Eric says, heading over with a glass of white wine.

“Yes, and it’s not working. Who are the kids terrorizing now?”

“They’re calmly eating ravioli. At least, for the next few minutes.” He tips his glass at me. “Shay, can I get you anything?”

I’ve had enough wine in the past week to power ten weddings, so I probably shouldn’t. “I’m good,” I say. God, they really are so nice. I don’t know why I was ever so reluctant. “Thank you.”

Since I waited until everyone else had gone through the buffet line to take my turn, I carry my plate of food back to the only table with empty chairs. Of course it’s the one Ameena and TJ are sitting at. She’s in a lilac dress that I remember buying with her at an estate sale last year, and I wonder if she remembers the Capitol Hill boutique where I bought my powder-blue one. Everything else about her is so familiar that I can’t believe it’s been months since we spoke.

TJ gives her a gentle nudge forward.

And I just . . . crumble.



* * *



—

Ameena and I venture deeper into the garden to talk.

“I can’t believe everything that happened,” she says, sitting next to me on a stone bench my dad planted here so many years ago.

“I can’t wrap my mind around it, either,” I admit. “Sometimes it feels like a bad dream, but then I wake up and nope, I’m still extremely unemployable and extremely embarrassed.”