“Nu? Tell me something I don’t know.”
Phyllis sighed. Different was fine. It was lonely that was the problem. She didn’t know how long she’d been lonely. Certainly way before Ira died. After a while, it became a fact of life and you just didn’t notice it any more. That was the danger. It was like smelling gas: if you didn’t pay attention to it, it could kill you. In Florida, Phyllis hadn’t had a really good friend, one who understood her and got her jokes. Even Ira, long before he died, had stopped responding much. But nobody talked to their husbands. What was there to say after forty-seven years? “Do you still like my brisket?” “Do you think that I ought to shorten this skirt?” “Should we pull our troops out of Bosnia?”
Phyllis still had a lot to say, but who wanted to listen? And who had anything interesting to say back? Which was why she was now walking down The Broadwalk with Sylvia Katz. Sylvia was no Madame Curie, didn’t understand half of what Phyllis was talking about, but at least she wasn’t offended by Phyllis’s wisecracks.
Most of the women that Phyllis knew were offended by her. She had to face it, she had a big mouth. She always had. And if she offended most of the women she met down here, they in turn bored her. They’d talk about recipes, grandchildren, shopping, and more recipes. They bored her stiff. Sylvia was a relief. No kids, no recipes, no aggravation.
Phyllis’s own children interested her, but not just to brag about. They interested her because they were interesting, not because they were hers. Susan was brilliant, Bruce was remarkably witty, and Sharon … well, Sharon, she had to admit, favored her father’s side of the family. Still, she loved them. Like Queen Betty must love her brood. It didn’t mean she approved of their behavior, or that they approved of hers.
“This means you’ll be with the kids for the holidays. Nice for you.” She sounded wistful. “Nice for them.” Sylvia paused. “Do they know you’re going up?” she asked.
Phyllis was silent.
“You haven’t told them, have you?” Sylvia asked accusingly.
“Not yet,” Phyllis admitted.
“You have to. You have to,” Sylvia said. Her own son had both refused a Thanksgiving invitation and not extended one to her. “If you don’t tell them, I will.”
“Don’t you dare,” Phyllis warned.
“When are you going to tell them?”
“Next Purim,” Phyllis said, and opened the gate to Pinehearst for her friend.
You’re joking.”
“You wish.”
“Come on,” Sig Geronomous said cavalierly. “It’s just one of those empty threats. One of those nutty things she says that get us all jerked around for nothing. Like the time she corresponded with the Asian bride and wanted to import her for you.”
“She means this,” Sig’s brother, Bruce, told her. “Todd, get over here and tell her that it’s true.” Bruce didn’t live with Todd, but they had been spending a lot of time together. Whenever Sig asked if it was serious Bruce evaded the question.
“Bruce has the proof,” Todd shouted into the receiver.
“How do you know?”
“Because she gave Mrs. Katz the rattan magazine rack,” Bruce responded.
“The magazine rack? Oh my God!” Susan Geronomous—now known to her friends and business associates as Sigourney—accidentally dropped the telephone receiver. It crashed so hard against her granite countertop that her brother Bruce, at the other end of the phone, winced.
“What was that? Did you hurt yourself?”
“I wish.” Sigourney had gotten control of the phone; now she just had to control herself. This couldn’t really be happening … nothing was ever as bad as it seemed … absence made the heart grow fonder … too many cooks—she stopped. She was going crazy. This couldn’t be true. Christmas and her mother both coming? She might as well pull out the razor blades now. Sig looked down appraisingly at her elegant wrist. “She just casually mentioned that she gave away the rattan magazine rack?”
“I’m way ahead of you,” Bruce sang. “Mom didn’t tell me. It’s not a setup. It was Mrs. Katz who called.”
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“Mom could have put her up to it.”
“I already called the building manager. Confirmation. And there’s a garage sale this week.”
“A garage sale? She doesn’t even have a garage, for God’s sake.”
“Yard sale, lawn sale, tag sale. Sigourney, don’t play your word games now. It’s happening. So, what are we going to do?”
Sigourney tried to regain some control. “What did Mrs. Katz say when you talked to her? Exactly. Word for word.”
“That Mom was leaving Florida for good. That she’s packing up and moving to New York. She’s getting a ticket today. She wants to arrive on Wednesday.”
“Wednesday! That’s only six days from now.”
“Mmm. Good counting, Sig. That’s why you earn the big bucks. Actually, it’s five, since you don’t officially count—”
“Don’t be so anal, Bruce. And sarcasm is not necessary at this moment. We’ll have more than we can handle starting Wednesday.” Sigourney tapped the countertop. Her mother, living here in New York again. Calling her. Looking in her closets. Commenting. Criticizing. Oh God! Fear gripped Sig’s chest like a Wonderbra. “This is the end of life as we know it, Bruce. How can we stop her?”
“Hmmm.” He paused, ruminating. Bruce was smart. Maybe he’d have a solution. “How about plastic explosives in the cargo bay? We’d take down a lot of innocent lives, but we would know it was a small price to pay.”
“Bruce!”
“Come on, Sig. It would be an act of kindness. People love tragedies at holiday time. It gives them something to watch on TV. Makes them feel better about the tragedy unfolding under their own Christmas trees.”
“Amen, brother!” Todd yelled in the background. Todd had been raised a Southern Baptist in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before he ran off to New York City to become an agnostic photographer.
“Bruce!” Sigourney forced herself to exhale while simultaneously staring up at the immaculate blue ceiling of her seventy-thousand-dollar kitchen. Her home, her beautifully designed, luxurious, and comfortable home, was her haven, her safe place where perfection reigned. It comforted her as nothing else did. She breathed deeply. Then her eyes focused on a tiny line. Was that a crack right in the corner? Was the glaze going already, despite Duarto’s assurances that the fourteen hand-lacquered layers would last ten lifetimes? She had picked up the pen and jotted a note to herself to call him before she realized what she was doing. This news, this shattering news had come, and she was writing notes to her decorator? Where were her values, her priorities? It could only be denial kicking in. She’d better focus. “Did you speak to Sharon yet?” she asked her brother.
“You are losing it. I don’t bother to call her with good news—not that I’ve had any of that lately.” Bruce, at his end of the phone, eyed his shabby brownstone apartment. The two rooms, though neat and cozy, were cluttered not only with all his worldly goods but also with what remained of his entire business stock—the gay greeting card line he’d created and marketed until his partner had absconded with most of the money last year.