Save Me the Plums - Ruth Reichl Page 0,10
and it turned out to be true. The man she’d married instead—her first husband—had been wealthy, and although she’d married for love the second time, she tortured herself (and us) by making friends with fabulously rich people who owned giant apartments and vast country estates.
Even as a child I knew there was something pathetic about the way she made us dress up for cocktails at the Rainbow Room, the Forum of the Twelve Caesars, and the Top of the Sixes. We’d each order a single drink, stretching it out as long as possible. When we left, headed to dinner at the Automat, Mom would turn and stare longingly at the people in the dining room, wishing she were one of them.
She knew when every ocean liner came to town, and she’d make me and my best friend, Jeanie, dress up in our fanciest clothes so we could head down to the docks. In those days anyone could buy tickets to tour the great liners, and we’d board the Île de France or the Queen Mary and wander slowly through the luxurious staterooms, pretending we were there to see friends off. Afterward we’d stand on the pier, waving and shouting “Bon voyage!” until we were hoarse and the ship was gone. The wistful look on Mom’s face was painful; she would have given anything to sail away.
Now, looking up at the apartment, it all came back to me. I never knew what to expect when I came home from school, and I’d stand outside the apartment door, key in hand, afraid to put it into the lock. Afraid of what was waiting on the other side.
I might open it to find the mom who was a ball of energy and sent me off on endless errands that needed to be done right this minute. Or the mom who’d wake me in the middle of the night, insisting that I clean the house. During these periods I’d hear her at midnight, still on the phone, planning parties, typing manuscripts, sending urgent letters to the far corners of the world. She’d spin ever-more-fantastic schemes. This could go on for months.
In one of her more manic moments, Mom rearranged our apartment. “Why waste space on bedrooms?” she cried, rousting Dad and me from our beds so she could send them to the Goodwill. “If we sleep on pullout sofas we can use every room to entertain.” She threw parties, endless parties (in her manic moments she made friends with every stranger), so I never got enough sleep: Dessert was always served in my room.
Manic Mom ate nothing—she was too keyed up for food—and she went on epic shopping sprees to buy new clothes, new furniture, new birch trees. Eventually she’d work herself into such a grandiose state that she’d pick fights with all her friends. And mine: Once, when Jeanie had the temerity to throw a tissue into the trash, Mom turned on her in fury. “Don’t you dare put anything into my clean wastepaper basket!” she shouted at my trembling friend.
But inevitably the day would come when I’d arrive home from school to creepy quiet. Mom had gone to bed, where she would remain for months, reading the same book over and over (she was particularly fond of Vivien Leigh’s biography), eating sweets, unable to rise from the sofa bed, which was now never closed.
When you have a bipolar parent, you never know what’s coming. Change is always lurking, waiting to pitchfork you into a new life. You can’t control it and you never know what form it will take. How I envied Jeanie, who could count on finding the same mother every time she came home. Like all children, I craved consistency; all I ever got was change.
During one of Mom’s more manic episodes I asked Dad why he put up with it. Instead of replying, Dad went to his desk and returned carrying an old black-and-white photograph, curling at the edges, of a boy dressed in tails and a top hat. A huge medieval tapestry hung behind him; I could vaguely make out a unicorn. “Me,” he said, “at about your age.”
“Why are you wearing a costume?”
“It’s not a costume; those are the clothes I wore when my governess took me downstairs to say good night to my parents. I grew up with all the things your mother dreams of.”
“Even a boat?” I couldn’t resist.
“Oh, yes.” His smile was bitter. “My father was the commodore of the kaiser’s yacht