As Long As It's Perfect Page 5

  But over time, my feelings had changed from feeling proud to feeling left behind. I constantly wondered if I was missing out. What good did it do to live frugally when you didn’t have a two-car garage and everyone else you knew did? In my mind, FOR SALE signs signaled happiness. To me, they said: The Talberts are trading up to a French manor in the Hill Section with a three-car garage and a swimming pool, where they will be more fulfilled and successful, and The Labradas are moving to a five-bedroom colonial in the Township and pursuing something that you’re not—novelty, adventure, and sumptuous living. I knew I was confusing material success for actual happiness, but I didn’t care. I was lusting for a more luxurious life. My dreams were growing too big, and I needed a place to put them.

  It seemed everyone was either renovating their home or trading up—including, I suddenly realized, our siblings. Both our moms had dropped hints for years: “Maybe in your next house you’ll have a mudroom, garage, laundry room …” and so on. Who could blame them? We lived in a culture built on improvements—characterized by relentless upgrades to cars, computers, appliances, and homes. We assumed that when something got replaced, the new item would be better.

  Every time I learned about another family moving out of the neighborhood, I felt envy. I felt as if we didn’t measure up, as if we were somehow less-than.

  A skein of birds flew overhead, their loud calls marking the end of spring. “Look,” Wim said, pointing to the sky. I looked up from my House Beautiful magazine and marveled at the perfect V formation in the sky. Dramatic, efficient, and simple—the same features we wanted for our new house.

  We’d been searching and searching—had conducted numerous interviews, spent hours doing background checks, and reviewed references using a screening process worthy of Homeland Security. Yet we were no closer than when we’d started to hiring an architect.

  “We’re going to be spending a lot of time with this person, you especially,” Wim had said when we started looking. “It’s important that we find someone we have chemistry with.”

  With our remodeling project, Wim and I had assumed new roles in our marriage—roles I hoped would build more togetherness into our relationship. Other than a few part-time babysitters we’d had over the years, we’d never hired anyone together.

  I turned to him, noticing how his skin, due to his usual defiant avoidance of sunscreen, had turned bright pink. “Do you remember the first architect we interviewed? That hippie with the ponytail and Birkenstocks? He was kind of out there, wasn’t he?”

  “Architects seem to march to the beat of their own drums,” Wim said.

  After the hippie, there’d been Bill, the guy with the impressive portfolio—a real charmer. But he’d reminded me of an ex-boyfriend who used to say, “Trust me,” and then cheated on me.

  Then there was the handsome and slick multimillionaire architect who’d pulled up to our house in a red convertible sports car. That had been a brief meeting, because once he’d told us his fee, we both knew that his Porsche was one of several we’d pay for by the time our house was finished.

  I feared that if we couldn’t find the right architect for the job, we’d be forced to design our house ourselves. I’d read those stories in home design magazines where a woman being interviewed says: “My husband and I started talking about it one day during our flight to Barbados, and before we knew it we had designed our entire two-story, ten-thousand-square-foot home on the back of a cocktail napkin!” But I knew that wasn’t our reality. One, neither of us was particularly artistic. And two, with two mortgages to pay, we wouldn’t be traveling to the Caribbean any time soon.

  “I’m going in.” Wim removed his sunglasses and rose from his chair.

  I glanced up from my magazine, taking notice of my husband’s body for the first time in months and realizing that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him undressed. Lately, I’d been focused less on body construction and more on house construction. I gazed at his broad shoulders, appreciating how his trim physique was silhouetted by the forest of trees in the background.

  “You know where to find me.” I reclined my chair and settled back into my magazine, back into my house-absorbed world. I flipped past sumptuous bathrooms with walk-in showers, elegant breakfast rooms with French doors, and droolworthy bedrooms with tray ceilings, gazing at the images with intensity, ogling the glossy spreads of dramatic entryways and exquisitely accessorized rooms layered with color and texture—surroundings of perfection. I took in a glamorous kitchen with crisp white cabinets, soapstone counters, and a metallic tile. I felt its warmth and luster, and it made me want to create my own House Beautiful—a desire so profound it made my blood surge. I hungrily tore out pictures from the latest issues of Ideal Homes and Dream Kitchens and Baths, knowing that soon, instead of fantasizing about designer rooms, I’d be living in them. All the pretending I’d done in my childhood playhouse had been a dress rehearsal for my life now, and the big moment was finally here.

  Minutes later, Wim was standing over me, dripping water like a wet dog. His white legs stood out in stark contrast to his blue swim trunks.

  “I was just talking to Jack Geller in the pool and he said his brother-in-law is an architect who does really detailed work,” he said, wiping water from his face.

  “Really?” I handed him a towel.

  He rubbed his head and sat down next to me. “Jack gave me his phone number.” He handed me a soggy scrap of paper with expanding ink.

  I could just make out the blurry numbers. “I’ll call him tonight.”

  The following Saturday, the doorbell rang at 9:00 a.m. sharp.

  “Right on time. That’s a good sign,” I said to myself. I took a deep breath and opened the door to a tall man who looked to be about my age or slightly older. He wore a suit and tie—a nice touch, I thought, considering it was the weekend.

  “Pleased to meet you.” He extended his hand, and we shook.

  His grip was firm and confident. I ticked another box on my mental checklist.

  “Your newspaper was in your azaleas. I think your delivery boy could stand to improve his aim.” He smiled and handed me The Wall Street Journal. With that, I was sold.

  Wim and I led Luke into the dining room, and we all sat around the table. I noticed a pleasant mix of ease and formality about him. I also noticed an unpleasant odor emanating from his direction. It was a smell so pungent I half expected to see fumes.

  Wim and I shared a confused glance but said nothing. I looked back at Luke and scrutinized him more closely. His clothes appeared clean. He looked freshly showered. So why did he stink?

  I tried to ignore it and focus instead on Luke’s questions about our project, the way he listened closely and nodded with understanding. Sitting there at my parents’ old mahogany dining room table under the bright light of their old brass chandelier, I studied Luke’s countenance, his squared jaw and well-proportioned features. Even his glasses were proportional to his face, which I saw as a good sign for an architect.

  “I started out in construction, working summers for my uncle,” he said. “By fifteen, I was doing everything: framing, drywall, painting.” More recently, he’d worked for a reputable architectural firm and then branched out on his own. “Creative differences,” he explained.

  Observing his cropped hair, receding and speckled gray in customary forty-something fashion, I considered his bold career decision while trying not to inhale too deeply.

  “There’s one thing I should warn you about,” Wim said. “Janie and I have a lot of our own ideas and want to be involved in every step of the design process.”

  I closed my eyes for a brief moment and imagined Luke hightailing it out the door. When I opened them, he was still sitting there, looking unfazed.

  “I enjoy having clients who know what they want,” he said. I could feel his enthusiasm for the project as palpably as I could smell the foul odor permeating the air.

  We wrapped up the interview, and as soon as we escorted him o
ut the door I turned to Wim. “I really liked him! But … that smell!”

  Wim agreed.

  I walked back over to the table to realign the chairs and found that the smell was as strong as ever. There, behind Luke’s chair, lay an enormous pile of fresh dog poo. Our Wheaten terrier, Copper, had seemingly picked this discreet location to do her business that morning. It was a miracle that Luke hadn’t stepped in it on his way out.

  He’d probably left our house thinking, Nice people, but their house smells like shit.

  CHAPTER 9: LIPSTICK AND SPEED STICK

  Downey, CA – September 1974

  As a child, I welcomed the chance to spend time with my parents. I would accompany my mom on visits to her hairdresser or the butcher. One of my favorites was joining her when she went to see Mrs. Obermeyer, her dressmaker. We would pull up to her bungalow-style house and, as my mother gathered an armful of garments to be hemmed, I’d race ahead to ring the doorbell—a mechanical one with a lever that slid from side to side.

  “Well, young lady, look how much you’ve grown!” Mrs. Obermeyer would say, her grandmotherly eyes twinkling behind thick glasses. Then she’d call off Sparky, her frantic Jack Russell terrier, and lead us into her spare bedroom, a tangled mass of sewing supplies and fabric bolts, a Singer sewing machine table in the corner of the room. My mom would stand in front of the antique floor mirror while Mrs. Obermeyer kneeled beside her, pinning up her hem. I would sit on the floor in a litter of fabric scraps, gazing up at a small collection of perfume bottles whose faceted glass sparkled across the oak dresser.

  “What do you think, Mrs. Wolf, do you want the hem to fall below or above the knee?” she’d ask through her pin-filled mouth.

  “Which makes my legs look longer?” my mom would answer, turning her slim body side to side.

  Standing at the custom-built bar in the family room, my dad liked to prepare his daily after-work martini before settling into his mustard-yellow leather armchair to watch the six o’clock news. It was my job to fetch him two cocktail onions from the adjacent kitchen. I would carefully center and pierce the vinegary onion pearls onto a colored wooden toothpick. I had learned to respect my dad’s reserve and would deliver his garnish with little fanfare. My reward came as an affectionate pat on the head before he returned to David Brinkley’s evening update.

  On occasion, just for the thrill of it, I’d steal a sip of crème de menthe from the crystal decanter my parents kept on the bar shelf, temptingly close to the Lucite candy dish with the lift-up top inscribed, “Have a nosh with Arlene and Jerry.”

  On Saturday nights, when my parents hosted dinner parties, my role changed from Dad’s barmaid to Mom’s assistant chef. Our quiet kitchen would erupt into a cacophony of clattering trays, clanking ice cubes, and Mom’s signature three-inch heels clicking against the linoleum floor as she scurried around the kitchen, readying dinner for our impending company.

  In the kitchen it was just the two of us, side by side at the countertop, working under bright light thrown from a beaded chandelier, a dozen giant white mushrooms looming before us. One by one, we gently wiped the fleshy fungus, each one larger than my eight-year-old fist. “They’re a lot of work but they look impressive,” she said. The supersize mushrooms had been purchased especially for the occasion at the California Mushroom Farm in nearby Santa Fe Springs, where, hand in hand, my mother and I walked through the cool, dark warehouse, my T-shirt pulled over my nose to buffer the overwhelming stench of horse manure.

  Homemade stuffed mushrooms, fried wontons, and spinach triangles wrapped in phyllo dough weren’t the only reason I delighted in my parents’ entertainment. The chiming of the front doorbell thrilled me. Guests arrived through the elegant foyer, where, at night, a crystal chandelier illuminated wall-to-wall travertine floor and wall tiles. The house came alive with chatter and laughter.

  My mother, frosted hair teased high in a bouffant, double-strand white pearls on her neck, and bright coral red on her lips, greeted guests with a cheek-to-cheek air kiss. My father collected coats and stoles, and Mom led guests into the shag-carpeted family room, where the men, wearing leisure suits with wide-collared shirts, hunched on low stools around the coffee table and swigged Harvey Wallbanger highballs. The women, wearing wrap dresses and platform shoes, sat with their legs crossed on the sectional sofa and sipped chardonnay from Waterford glasses.

  Following drinks and hors d’oeuvres, guests moved into the dining room. There, with my bedtime approaching, I fluttered from guest to guest, refilling glasses from a water pitcher and breathing in the exotic scent of perfume and aftershave, watching the adults drink and flirt. It was all so glamorous.

  “Look at mother’s little helper!” Beverly would say as I filled her glass. Her husband, Sammy, my dad’s best friend and our family doctor, would give one of my curly pigtails a playful tug, and Beverly would turn to my mother. “Arlene, she is a little doll.”

  “She is,” my mom would say. “I think we’ll keep her.”

  Even though I was regularly in their presence, I longed for a closeness with my parents that felt beyond my reach. I often lay for hours across the bedspread on their king-size bed in the shadows cast by a towering eucalyptus tree outside the window while my mother leaned back in her cane-back chair, her feet propped on her desk, and chatted on the phone with friends. Sometimes I wandered off the bed over to the desk cabinet, took out the S&H Green Stamps catalog, and browsed through the toy section, circling all the things I wanted. After what seemed an interminable amount of time, I’d tap my mother’s shoulder. “Mom?”

  I knew I shouldn’t interrupt her, but she was so close I couldn’t help myself. Despite her always saying no, she didn’t like games, I hoped that this once she might sit on the floor with me and play Barbies or Monopoly or run through the house and play hide-and-seek—I hoped that this once, she would set aside time just for me.

  “Hold on, Phyllis,” she’d say, cupping the receiver. “What is it, honey?”

  “When are you going to be off the phone?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie. Why don’t you go play?”

  I never bothered concealing my disappointment, because she’d already have the receiver back to her ear. “Where were we, Phyllis?”

  Eventually, I’d get tired of waiting and retreat to my bedroom, where I looked out through the slatted wood blinds into the empty street.

  Some mornings, I’d go into my parents’ master bathroom and watch my mother sitting at her custom-built vanity on a leopard-upholstered stool (the only seat in the house low enough for her to firmly plant her feet on the floor) and putting the finishing touches on her makeup: a single squeeze of the eyelash curler to the naturally long lashes of each eye; a smooth swipe of L’Oréal “pink shell” over her full lips, softly frosting the coral undercoat; and a final application of hairspray to her carefully teased hair. This last step always prompted the same singsongy warning: “Step away from the spray”—my cue to move back into her bedroom. There, from a safe distance, I would watch my mom shake a can of Aqua Net and spray with wild abandon, sending into the air a thick chemical fog.

  I delighted in playing with her makeup; the blueprint of her cosmetics is still mapped out in my mind as vividly as is the layout of our house. The drawer on the right held mascara, blush, and eye shadow in varying shades of blue—the drawer on the left, a stack of false eyelashes and adhesive glue. My favorite item was the retractable lipstick brush. It was the size of a tube of lipstick, but more slender and tapered at both ends. It was sage green and had a plastic button on one end that, when pressed, sent a brush out the opposite end. The tiny brush allowed my mom to apply color to her lips with the precision of a diamond cutter. Each push of the little button also brought a satisfying click—a sound as reliable as Mrs. Obermeyer’s doorbell.

  On occasion, I would wander over to my dad’s side of the bathroom and peek into his sparsely filled medicine cabinet: Arrid deodorant cream in a jar, electric razor, and first-aid ointments,
reminders of his easy good sense. I loved to explore the nooks and crannies in my parents’ bathroom, sliding open the long and narrow medicine cabinet, flipping up the protective brass hood of the recessed toilet paper holder, and taking National Geographic issues from the built-in magazine rack and staring at the exotic covers. It wasn’t a fancy room—the floor was linoleum and the counters laminate—but the comfort I found there gave order to my world.

  And then, one morning, that sense of order vanished. It was an unusually cloudy day, and low light filtered through the row of frosted privacy glass windows situated high above the built-in cabinets, casting a dull gloom over the long, narrow bathroom. The quiet shuffling of my mother’s makeup applicators was punctuated by the frustrated barks of Hilda, the gray Weimaraner next door—a dog who was frequently set off by an array of backyard fauna: skittish crows, foraging coyotes, and, on occasion, our provoking outdoor cat, Whiskers.

  I stood behind my mother and stared at her reflection in the freestanding backlit makeup mirror, observing an older version of my own oval face and big blue eyes. “What’s this for?” I held up a black tube and removed the lid to reveal a creamy beige stick.

  “That’s to conceal the bags under your eyes. You won’t need that for a long time.”

  “And this?” I unscrewed a bottle of beige liquid.

  “Careful, that’s expensive. It’s foundation. It helps smooth out my complexion and hide the wrinkles.” She turned away from the mirror and wagged a finger at me, and the ruffled sleeve of her long peach satin nightgown slid away from her wrist, revealing a nickel-size curling iron burn mark. “Always take good care of your skin. Your face will thank you later.”

  She rose and I followed her like a puppy into her bedroom, careful not to step on the billowy robe that flowed behind her like the train of a royal wedding gown. As she dressed I walked over to her bureau, slid open her jewelry drawer, and picked up a long strand of pearls. I loved how the pearls felt as they spilled into my hands. I wanted to try them on.