Betsy Carter - Nothing to Fall Back On: The Life and Times of a Perpetual Optimist

Nothing to Fall Back On

The Life and Times of a Perpetual Optimist

Betsy Carter

FOR MY MOTHER

By now you must feel as though God is picking on youwell if he is, he has found a formidable opponent.

LETTER FROM A FRIEND

One

On one of those perfect days in September, when the full summer air and coolness of autumn make you wistful and optimistic at the same time, I got married. It was the second marriage for me, the third for him. I was forty-five, and felt that finally, I had met the man I was meant to be with. He was brooding and handsome with curly black hair and eyes the color of sea urchins. Although his name was Gary, my friends called him Thank God for Gary. It was supposed to be a joke, but it wasnt, really.

My friends thanked God because Gary was funny and kind; on a good daysay the Jets and Giants had both wonhe could be downright ebullient. He was smart and large and could carry you through a crowd if the going got tough. A real catch.

But they thanked God because now Id be someone elses problem and because they worried that I was not a good catch. Not after the blaze of bad luck I had just run through. They figured that with his physical strength and the sureness of his love, Gary had the power to reverse my misfortunes and beat back the bad karma. And I thought they might be right.

The morning of our wedding, Gary and I played two sets of tennis (I won the first, he won the second). We picked up a lunch of smoked turkey sandwiches, iced tea, and potato chips, then brought it to the beach, where we had a picnic on the sand. It was 2:34 when I looked at my watch. At two thirty-four every Saturday for the rest of our lives, lets always remember this time and this place and how perfectly happy we were, I said. Gary held out his pinky, a little finger that weighed about a half pound and was covered with hairif you could call it a pinky. Pinkies, he said. Pinkies, I answered. It was a rule left over from my childhood: Never make a wish or swear a promise without sharing pinkies first.

We were getting married at a restaurant that overlooked a harbor; the metal clips clanking against the masts of the small sailboats sounded like bells. Upstairs was a changing room where a few friends had come to help me put on makeup and get dressed. Victoria painted my lips Coral Blush and dabbed concealer on the deep furrow between my eyes, while Lisa read us a story from The National Enquirer about a boy whod raised a family of pigeons in his closet for two years before his parents found out. I pulled a blue garter over my thigh, slipped into my white silk dress, and stepped out onto the balcony. There, a photographer snapped pictures of me staring out at the late afternoon sky.

From my perch, I looked down and watched the guests come in and shake Garys hand. There was my friend Ron Rosenbaum. He showed up two hours early and paced around the parking lot, not wanting to be the first guest to go inside. Everything about Ron seemed to be stoked by a ferocious brainhis wild red hair, his fierce brown eyes, the way he couldnt stand stillit all kept the engine going. Ron had written personal ads for me in case no one asked me out after my first marriage ended.

He neednt have worried about arriving first. My ex-husbands parents beat him to it. They walked in, smiling and as gracious as the day I married their son. At that wedding, she was still a flirtatious beauty whod welcomed me into a large family unlike any I had ever known. He had bright blue eyes and was never afraid to tell someone she was wrong or that he loved her. Now a demure silk dress covered her hip replacement. The light in his eyes had dimmed and he had a slight limpthe result of a recent stroke.

Gary was bringing his eighty-nine-year-old mother over to meet them. She was large boned with big ears, and had a loopy smile. She was him without the beard. She hung on Garys arm as he introduced them, and I wondered what she might say. Weeks earlier she had told me in her broken Viennese English that when she found out at forty-three she was pregnant with Gary, shed considered having him destroyed. I hoped that she wouldnt bring that up again today.

At the far end of the bar, my boss was scrutinizing the labels on the wine bottles. Was he thinking about the precarious fate of the magazine I ran? My oldest childhood friend was standing on the deck right beneath me. She held her cardigan close to her chest and looked around uneasily at the room full of people shed never met. I heard her ask her husband, Do you think it will rain? in her familiar high-pitched voice. There wasnt a cloud in the sky, but she always was a little anxious. When we were eighteen, she made me promise that we would become lesbians together if we werent married by the time we were thirty.

And there were my dentists, both in dark navy suits. Id never seen them in anything but white. They were much better looking than Id ever realized. Come to think of it, Id never seen either of them in daylight. A few feet to their right was the shrink who once told me that I ought to consider having an exorcism. She was wearing too much makeup and overlarge hoop earrings, and was talking to my dour lawyer, whose eyes kept darting around as she spoke. He was the one who told me on the day that we met how we were destined to become close friends because with my life, Id always need a lawyer.

When we were putting together the seating plan, Gary and I had decided to put my shrink, my dentists, my lawyer, and my doctor at the same table. Gary had suggested that we drape black cloth over their table and put up a sign that said: The Dark Years. The Dark Years had become our code phrase for the seven years when my luck went haywire and everything I held dear came apart. Lets just say that several years later, when I told Ron how, during a bike trip, a bolt of lightning had hit the roof of the building next to me, causing it to burst into flames, he slapped me on the back and said, Congratulations! A couple of years ago it would have been you that burst into flames! You get the picture.

So while no one actually said it, I knew everyone there that day saw this wedding as a celebration of survival, an amen to a time they had all been part of, or at least witnessed like horrified rubberneckers. I appreciated how they had stuck by me during those years, and thought how they deserved this party as much as I did. How else to explain why a person with a sound mind would throw a wedding extravaganza more appropriate for a giddy young virgin than a divorced middle-aged career woman. The white roses framing the chuppah, the water gently slapping against the nearby sailboats, the sweet sound of Van Morrison singing Have I told You Lately, would surely put a lump in the throats of even those of my friends who reveled in dark humor.

I walked down the stairs as the band started to play Long Ago and Far Away (I dreamed a dream someday, and now that dream is here beside me.), then watched from the doorway as Gary loped down the aislea long winding deck on the bay. I took my fathers arm. He was so frail. He was unsure of his steps and leaned on me to help him. I couldnt remember when wed ever been this physically close for this long a period. The last time Id walked down the aisle, it was with a jubilant stride and a parent on each arm. My mother whispered in my ear, Sweetie, you should try and slow down a little. Now my mother was too sick to leave home and the walk seemed stiffer and sadder than I had expected. My sister, Miriam, was waiting for me under the chuppah, and we shot each other half smiles, as if to say, How can it be that were here again? Gary and I exchanged our vows, then he stomped on the ceremonial glass so hard that the entire deck shook. Even the rabbi had to laugh. We put our arms around each other and walked back down the aisle, my legs trembling underneath me. All the while, the sunset was a frenzy of reds, violets, and oranges. For me, theres never been another one like it.