Still Life with Plums Read Online Free PDF

Husband Number One and me have those anointed titles when we started our own family. It’s a good thing we lived three states away when she delivered that list over the phone, because we weren’t even expecting, or expecting to expect any time soon. Number One had strong feelings about children. Or against them, I should say. Jeremy is softer on the issue.
Whatever you want
, he has said numerous times.
I just want you to be happy
, he says, and I think I believe him.
    Someone has taken my seat next to Andi (or perhaps Andi had enough of my shenanigans and bribed them: Pa-lease sit here, won’t you? No, she’s
not
coming back—and don’t touch those nuts!). So I head for three vacant seats at the end of a different table, place settings untainted so I know they’re empty, and if I’m lucky, will remain so for the duration. I can be quite anti-social on occasion, surprise-surprise. This is a better seat, actually, closer to the bridal action, where I can inventory the opened gifts and see if there is anything worth borrowing, like that fancy-schmancy espresso machine, or that margarita maker complete with jumbo glasses and a special dish to salt the rims. Now
that’s
a gift worth getting. Maybe I should have opted for the shower after all.
    But no, I take that back as I assess Pam’s other spoils: place settings and flatware and irons and cookbooks. The detritus of a marriage that may not last, and though I’m hopeful for Jeremy and me—I give us a good sixty/forty chance—it’s hard to make a quickexit with all that junk piled on one’s back. Of course one could always leave it behind, like I did with my first marriage: Grandma’s mahogany dresser, that hand-blown cameo vase my best friend sent all the way from West Virginia, my jewelry box, dammit, with Aunt Frankie’s brooch and my favorite ankle bracelet. Leaving me to forever wonder if some other woman is wearing that brooch, if she’s sliding her underwear and socks into Grandma’s dresser, plunking dried roses in my cameo vase.
    God help you
, I offer to the conjured woman, understanding the bruising price tag that comes with those treasures.
    A finger taps my shoulder. “Is anyone sitting here?” It’s my huarache-shod, tire-changing hero, and I gratefully blurt, “No! Have a seat!” She pulls in with her fresh plate piled with ample servings, I note, though she is not ample herself by my standards, the weighty infraction reduced when I see the tire smudges on her shorts, the grit under her nails.
    “What did I miss?” she asks, mouthful of chicken salad, poor table etiquette endearing her to me even more.
    “Most of the cooing-over-the-pricey-gifts,” I say.
    “Thank God.” She nods toward the stack. “Has she opened my case of shoe liners yet?”
    “No, but my twelve-pack of air fresheners was a tremendous hit.”
    “I’m Peggy,” she says, not even bothering to wipe off the streak of mayonnaise on her palm before offering her hand.
    “Jackie,” I say, a blunt version of Jacquelyn, my honest-to-god name. Not Clodda, the fib I offered to Aaaandreaaaa, though a better fit than Jacquelyn, which is far too snobby, my mother’s precise intention that, like so many of her expectations, fell flat.
    Peggy, I learn, is the groom’s sister who owns a bakery in San Diego.
Does it get any better?
I again eye her stomach, only slightly convex, certainly not to the extent mine would be if I weresurrounded by cake batter and cookie dough all day—my version of heaven.
    I ask her to please, please tell me what a typical workday for her is like, and not to gloss over details like setting the oven temperature or greasing pans. She obliges, spinning a fantasy about baker’s chocolate and egg yolks and heavy cream. Caramel glazes and toasted almonds and liqueur-soaked lady fingers. She is a goddess and everyone in the room should bow down to her magnificence.
    And then the flower girl pukes—too many pirouettes—replacing the warm, gooey