Christmas at Thornton Hall. Lynn Hulsman Marie

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СКАЧАТЬ excited about. Thinking about disappointing her made my head split. Or maybe that was the hangover. I concentrated harder on the road, lightheaded with hunger and the starkness of my new reality. If I had moved to New York and gone back to school, Ben in tow, Mother would have had to admit I wasn’t flighty. That I did have direction. Of course, flighty to her was switching from math camp to science camp my last year of high school. But marrying Ben would have given me gravitas. Or I hoped she’d see it that way. On the one hand, a successful lawyer, he’s a highly sensible choice, I thought, looking for a turn-off. On the other, although she approved of his profession, he is a man. And who knows if she could approve of any member of that gender.

      Men didn’t exactly play a starring role in my childhood. My grandmother, a surgeon and lab scientist in Chicago, divorced my grandfather when my mother was little. When she visited us, she flew solo. And my father, by the way, is a sample cup. Mom made sure I knew all about the science of conception, and what a sperm donor was, from the time I could toddle.

      “Juliet,” she told me time and again, “I wanted a child, not two children. Men, my dear, are children. Besides that, they cloud the brain. Take it from me, solidly establish who you are before you try blending with someone else. That way, you don’t get lost.”

      Her personal philosophies were sensible, well thought-out, and written in stone. She expected me to benefit from her experience and buy in hook, line and sinker. Growing up with my mother, good enough had never been good enough. She’s not a barrel of laughs, Mother, but she gets the job done and she taught me to do the same. I got A’s in school, and sacrificed dating and boys to do it. That suited her fine. I followed her directions until graduation, all the while gazing wistfully at the artsy crowd who smoked clove cigarettes, and even at the stoner crowd who smoked pot. At least they looked relaxed. When it came time for college, I got accepted to Duke, Vanderbilt, Penn and Cornell. Mother was horrified to the point of dumbstruck when I chose Bard, a liberal arts college near Woodstock, New York. She knew I wanted to be close to my aunt, who I may as well tell you is Suze Wyatt, the life coach you’ve seen on The Eva! Show.

      Everyone who ever lived has dreamt of being interviewed by Eva, the most famous and altruistic self-made woman on the planet. The woman who singlehandedly made book clubs cool, and started schools for girls in every remote corner of Africa. The woman who revolutionized daytime television. Everyone except for Mother. She hated Eva.

      To this day, I cannot believe I had the strength to defy Mother and go to Bard. It was like a little compass in my head directed me away from the life I had lead up to that point. Had the college not given me a full ride, Mother would have blocked my going.

      “What are you going to do, Juliet?” she had mocked. “Cruise through university taking basket-weaving? Next you’ll be telling me you’re studying to be a life coach! Why not skip college, seek an apprenticeship with Dr. Phil, and get your own TV show.” A thinly-veiled dig at Aunt Suze. She practically gagged when she mentioned television. She owned one solely for research purposes. An irrational thorn in her side, reality TV sent Mother into paroxysms of soapboxing. How many times had she ranted “Project Runway! Don’t the sheep realize that it’s not a competition, it’s a show about a competition? The producers get those kids drunk and they hide their scissors, all so we can watch them throw punches and scratch each others’ eyes out! And don’t get me started on the worst of the bunch, The Food Channel”?

      “Just because I love the food channel, it doesn’t mean my brain is soft,” I’d told her. “I happen to like Prunella Paulson.”

      “I wrote a journal article on that woman entitled ‘Images of Breasts: Conflating our Desire for Flavor and Nourishment with Sexuality.’ She sells with her boobs.”

      “What about Piers Conley-Weatherall?” I asked, naming another well-known TV chef. I smiled just thinking about him. “How can you not love that guy with his outrageous, curly hair and accent?” I mimed throwing a handful of spices into a pot. “Who’s your daddy?” I shouted in a gleeful Yorkshire accent. I never missed an episode. I know lots of people are like this with celebrities, but I felt like I really knew him. I followed him on Twitter because I loved all the sweet tweets he sent about his kids and the normal life his family seemed to have. They ate dinner, they went camping, the kids were allowed to believe in Santa Claus – something of which Mother didn’t approve. “He just draws you in.”

      Mother scowled. “Him.”

      “I think he’s adorable,” I said. “He’s the kind of man you’d spontaneously hug.” Mother raised an eyebrow. “Well, maybe not the kind of man you’d spontaneously hug, but the kind normal people would. Admit that you like my apron with his face on it! It’s really cute.” I’d won it in a Facebook contest.

      “The apron that asks, ‘Who’s Your Daddy?’ No, the man has a catchphrase, Juliet. He sings to food. He lives life in a dream. I don’t want to discuss him.” She took a long, hard look at me. I was a little uncomfortable under her gaze. “Really, sometimes it’s hard to believe you’re my daughter.” That stung. I wanted to be her daughter. She was my mother, and we all worship our mothers, don’t we? I vowed then and there that I’d become the kind of woman she would admire, someone she’d see as a scholar and a colleague. Become the therapist she wanted me to be.

      But I still loved Piers.

      I didn’t bring it up again, but I watched his show, even reruns, every night with the sound turned low, before falling asleep. Something about him soothed me.

      Mother is the most respected psychiatrist in Louisville, Kentucky, where I grew up. She divides her time between her elite clinical practice and teaching at the university. For kicks, she writes science articles. I like to think I’m more fun than she is, but I did inherit her work ethic. If she could succeed, I could succeed.

      A car blared its horn, startling me out of my reverie. Focus on the job at hand, I told myself.

      I glanced at my dashboard clock. I was making good time. Jasper Roth told the agency to have me arrive before the early guests were going to bed so that I’d be on deck to make midnight sandwiches and still be up early to lay the elaborate and excessive breakfast he always demanded.

      The hours at Thornton Hall were long and brutal, but at least Rose the housekeeper would be there. Just thinking about her nearly made me cry. The pure kindness she beamed was so unfamiliar: I think Mother skipped parenting school the day unconditional love was taught.

      I rifled around in my purse for a breath mint, remembering I hadn’t eaten all day and hoping to take the edge off my hunger. On the passenger seat beside it, among the many bags of groceries, was a sack of Welsh blue potatoes from Sainsbury’s. Roth reveled in having the best and most expensive of everything, so in the morning, I’d roll the potatoes in some dirt from the driveway and wrap them in brown paper. That way, when my boss came to micromanage, he’d assume I’d gone to the market and purchased them from a farmer. I needed a shortcut or two. I’m doing the best I can, I thought. And that’s good enough. Aunt Suze told me to repeat that to myself as often as possible.

      Thrown next to the potatoes was a pile of wrapped gifts for Ben’s family. I’d almost chucked them, but my frugal side put the brakes on that. If nothing else, I could pass them out to the staff at Thornton. After last year’s cancelled Christmas, I’d made sure to shop in advance for all Ben’s relatives, including the family spaniel. I’d even asked Posy to “style” me for the evening I was sure he’d pop the question, though without telling her why. From the beginning, she’d never been Ben’s biggest fan.

      I finally saw a BP station. I was bursting, and I hadn’t eaten a thing all day. Was СКАЧАТЬ