We Run the Tides(16)
Tonight it’s my mother’s turn to host the monthly Bitch ‘N’ Bitch meeting. It’s a special night: the TV episode filmed at Joseph & Joseph is airing this evening. I leave notes in Maria Fabiola’s, Julia’s, and Faith’s lockers making sure they know the show starts at 7. My hope is that it reminds them of how close we used to be.
From the way my mom torpedoes through the door that afternoon I can tell she spent her bike ride home from the hospital making a mental list of all she needs to get done. She asks Svea to help her in the kitchen with the meatballs and the lutefisk. For reasons I don’t fully understand, I’m not trusted in the kitchen—it’s my mother and Svea’s terrain.
“How can I help?” I ask, trying to secure an invitation into the quiet camaraderie of meal preparation.
“Hmm . . . maybe you can make a welcome sign for the guests,” my mom says. “You can hang it on the front door.”
“But some of your friends come through the back door,” I say. I want to be included, not make a sign.
“Then you should put a sign on the back door telling them to go around to the front door,” Svea suggests.
“Good idea,” my mom says.
I take sheets of paper and colored pencils from the art supply drawer and make two signs, using an orange pen and my finest approximation of calligraphy. One sign says: “Welcome Bitchers!” The other says: “Bitchers! You came to the wrong door. Bitch yourself around to the front.”
My father comes home from work as I’m taping the sign up to the back door.
“That will show them,” he says.
“Why do you think they complain so much?” I say. “I mean, it seems the main thing they complain about is America. Sometimes, I want to yell, ‘Go back to Sweden!’”
“How do you think I feel?” my dad says. “They use ‘American’ as a negative.”
“They tell me I don’t look Swedish because of my dark eyes,” I say. “They mean it as an insult.”
Then we sigh almost in unison because the truth is we kind of love the Bitchers. They’re good friends to my mom.
It’s a brisk November evening. At 6 p.m., when the doorbell rings, my family falls into their Bitch ‘N’ Bitch party-hosting positions. My mother opens the door for her guests, my father offers each of them a drink, and Svea walks around with a tray of meatballs that have been stabbed with toothpicks bearing the Swedish flag. Somewhere between the opening of the door and the offering of meatballs, it’s my job to collect the coats and hang them in the hall closet.
There are a dozen members of the Bitch ‘N’ Bitch; many of them have the same name, so each woman has been given an adjective. There’s Tall Mia, Short Mia, Fat Ulla, Thin Ulla (whose California license plates say “Uuulala”), Loud Lisa, and Quiet Lisa. They really call themselves by these names. Things got complicated when Fat Ulla did a juice fast and dropped a couple dress sizes, and Thin Ulla gained weight during menopause, but no one bothered to change their monikers—not even Fat and Thin Ulla themselves. My mother is the only Greta.
As a group, they are blond and punctual. My arms are promptly loaded up with similar lightweight wool coats, each smelling crisp, like business envelopes that have just been sealed. Tall Mia is the last to arrive, and her coat stands out in the closet—it’s the only pink one. She once got her colors done and was told summer was her most complementary palette. She promptly discarded any article of clothing that wasn’t pink or orange. Her nail polish is usually one of these two colors, as is her lipstick. Tonight Tall Mia is wearing burnt orange pants and a burnt orange blouse so that the overall effect is that of a large autumnal leaf that’s fallen from a tree. She sits on the backless imitation Louis XIV couch, which is like a daybed, with cylindrical ivory pillows.
I approach her and sit near her because I can usually count on Tall Mia to prop me up. She’s the one who tells me that my style is impeccable and that I resemble Sonja Henie, the Norwegian figure skater. She started making the Sonja Henie remark one day when she was at our house and I was coming back from an ice-skating party for Julia’s birthday. So I think her praise has more to do with the fact that she once saw me in ice-skating apparel than my appearance. But she is different this evening, and I am shallow, I think, to come to her wanting reinforcement.
“You can’t count on men,” Tall Mia says. “Those boys? The fancy boys at dancing school? You should forget about them. Believe me. Steve is fancy and he has been nothing but bad news.”
Steve is the married man she’s been dating. He’s been the subject of many Bitch ‘N’ Bitch conversations. None of the Bitchers think Tall Mia should be dating a married man. They don’t seem to object on moral grounds—their collective reservation has more to do with the nuisance of it all. They treat her relationship with Steve the same way they would treat the idea of getting a puppy. Why would you get a new puppy when you’d spend weeks training it and cleaning up after it? Why date a married man when that means you have to deal with a wife? These women are very practical.
“I’m going to jump,” Tall Mia informs me.
I look at her, not knowing what she means. Then I follow her gaze to the Golden Gate Bridge.
“You’ll probably hurt yourself,” I say. It’s the first thought that comes to mind.