I was off the hook. “We ate in Chinatown,” I told my mother, “we walked around. Then we got on the subway, he said he’d take me home. When we were approaching Times Square he asked if he’d be able to come in when we got uptown. I told him if he wanted we could watch the news and I’d make some tea. He said he didn’t want tea and he wasn’t interested in the news. He wanted to make out with me on my couch. And if I had no interest in making out with him I should let him know, because Times Square was where he made his connection and he didn’t want to wind up uptown and have to pay another token to go home if, ultimately, he wasn’t going to get what he wanted.”
My mother looked heartbroken. “I don’t know what’s wrong with these guys,” she said, finishing her eggs. “I think the whole world’s crazy.” Millie paused. “You didn’t go home and make out with him after that I hope.”
“You want me to even answer you?”
“What can I tell you,” Millie said, when there was really nothing to say.
“Let me clean up,” I said.
“It’s all right. I’ll do it.” Millie collected the dishes and brought them inside the house.
Henry waved to the neighbors across the way. Molly Berger, and her husband, Hal, were on their deck playing with their grandchildren. The kids saw Henry and waved back. Henry was a kid magnet. He started to play with them by throwing his cap in the air and pretending not to be able to catch it. The children watched from across the court. Whenever the cap seemed to almost touch bottom, they squealed with delight, only to get more excited when Henry actually caught it.
Molly motioned for Hal to keep both eyes on the kids when she saw me on the deck. She left hers and walked across to ours. Her gold sandals clacked against the wood as she made her way up the stairs.
“Karrie, hello,” she said, pulling me into her large frame and hugging me. “How are you? When did you get up?”
“Two days ago.”
“Really? I didn’t see you. What have you been doing?”
“You want a cold drink?” Henry asked her. “It’ll only take a minute. We’ve got iced tea, seltzer, sodas, whatever you want.”
“No. I just had something with the kids. I’m running back,” said Molly, pulling over a chair and sitting down.
“So tell me…” she said, as if I knew what it was I was supposed to tell.
“Tell you…?”
“Everything!”
“About?”
“You know…”
Molly and I were in cahoots. And the fact that I was clueless didn’t seem to make any difference. She looked at me and crossed her arms. “Karrie, you’re a smart girl. What do you think I’m talking about?”
“Molly, no offense. I have no idea.”
“You seeing anybody? I love to talk with single girls,” she confessed to Henry. “I know you just turned thirty so you must be interested in settling down.”
I looked up at Henry and smiled a closemouthed smile. Actually it was much more like a grimace.
“How are your grandchildren?” I asked Molly, changing the subject. “They look cute. How old are they now?”
“Jessica’s three and Zachary’s five next month. Wendy has her hands full. But my Scotty does very well, thank God, and she has help. You know, they have a very big house in Roslyn. You should visit. Maybe Scott has some friends for you.” She winked.
“Yeah,” I said, standing up and walking a few feet away. I put my leg up against the edge of the deck and knelt over it, stretching my calves as I contemplated a run.
“Grandma Molly, come here.” Molly turned her head to see Zachary on the deck calling her. “We’re hungry.”
“I should be getting back.” Molly stood and waved to Millie through the glass door. “See you later,” she said, walking to the edge of the deck and putting her hand on the handrail for support. “Don’t worry, Karrie. In this world all you need is a little mazel.”
“What was that?” I said. Henry went back to his paper. He didn’t want to get involved. “What was that, Henry? What’s the matter with her?”
“Keep your voice down,” he said, reaching to light his cigar. “She only meant well.”
My mother came back outside wearing a green-and-black-striped bathing suit with a white chiffon kerchief wrapped around her head.
“Who meant well?” Millie asked as she unfolded a reclining beach chair. She lay down on the chair, pulled the straps of her bathing suit down and basked in the sun.
“Do me a favor and don’t talk to anyone about me, Ma, okay?” I decided I would go for a run around the lake. I decided I might jump in.
“What did I say?”
“Nothing, no one said anything,” said Henry.
“She comes over here,” I said to my mother, pointing my head toward the Berger house, “and has a one-way dialogue with me, about my life. Asks the questions and even answers them herself.”
“Don’t pay attention,” my mother said. “I just wouldn’t answer her.”
“Just don’t pay attention,” said Henry.
I stopped stretching, stood up and leaned over my mother in her reclining position.
“What do you mean? Just have someone sit and invade my privacy and not care? Not answer? Just sit and let people talk at me as if they were talking to a wall?”
“I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up about this,” Henry said, flicking his cigar ashes into an ashtray. “She means well.”
Millie folded her right hand across her chest, holding her bathing suit up, while she used her left to prop up her body.
“I don’t know why you take everything so personally,” she said.
“She’s talking about me. It’s personal.”
“She doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just conversation, Karrie.”
“Mom. It’s condescending.”
“It’s not condescending, it’s talk. If you were happy it wouldn’t bother you.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just what I said. If you were happy it wouldn’t bother you.”
“What makes you think I’m not happy?”
“I don’t want to talk anymore,” Millie said, lying back down. “Talk to Henry.”
“People just want to see you happy,” he explained.
“People just want to gossip,” I said.
“So what?” said Millie. “What do you care?”
“Would you like people to come to you and feel they can comment on your life?”
“There’s nothing to comment on in my life,” said my mother. “My life is normal.”
“And what does that mean?”
“My life is a normal life,” my mother said defiantly. “I have a normal job, a husband, a daughter, a house. Normal.”
“By whose standards?” I was furious. “What makes you think anyone around here sets the standard for normalcy?” I made a grand gesture to the entire development of Nottingham Forest. It was just built and in its first year. I didn’t know anyone there so it was doubtful Molly and Hal did set the standard, but it proved my point. Or at least it tried to prove the only point I had.
“All