Good Riddance

by Elinor Lipman

  A female priest read from the Book of Common Prayer and gave the eulogy. Bibi, she told us, was philanthropic. She loved her dogs, who were her second children. She had a way with orchids and African violets, and was famous for her porcelain vegetable forms—that eighteenth-century cauliflower! The nineteenth-century asparagus server! I looked around to see if this was registering with any other visitors as oddly impersonal. I saw nods: Ah, yes. The cabbage tureen! Those wily salt and pepper shakers shaped like artichokes!

  Holden spoke next. “My mother was, as most of you know, smart, stylish, even—some might say—charming. She was politically astute and generous when it came to a few pet charities, emphasis quite literally on ‘pet.’ She was passionate about this city, about her home and its furnishings and, yes”—he looked toward the priest—“its knickknacks. She liked to travel. She could take a cruise that lasted six months, or so it seemed to me as a child. And what made that all right? Modeling Princess Elizabeth, who left her children behind when visiting her subjects all over the globe. I think you know where I’m going with this: Bibi wasn’t the most maternal woman in the world. She had me at forty in the last gasp of a marriage and, as she liked to say, with her last egg.” He surveyed the room, eyebrows arched. “Dad? You here? Apparently not,” which got a nervous chuckle in the room.

  He continued, “If you’re doubting Bibi’s capacity for great love, just ask any one of the champion French bulldogs who worshipped the ground she walked on. By the way—anyone need a dog?” More nervous chuckles.

  I was half-appalled, half-thrilled, wondering if Holden was drunk. The priest seemed frozen. A white-haired man in the front row stood, walked up the altar stairs, met Holden at the rostrum, and said, “If I may.”

  “Be my guest,” said Holden. He flipped through the notes he hadn’t yet consulted. “Oh, right. I forgot to say that she graduated from Vassar and was proud of that, though Smith was her first choice.” He shrugged. “In her own way, she loved me.” He nodded. “Yes, I think that’s an accurate statement.”

  The man now had his arm around Holden’s shoulders. He identified himself as the husband of Bibi’s younger sister, Mary Jane. “I think our nephew suffered a shock—we all did. Bibi was fine one day. And then the call came from the hospital.” He tilted his head toward Holden, a silent acknowledgement of It’s the shock talking.

  Holden softened his unwanted-son expression long enough to say, “Thank you. I’m good now.” Meaning: Go back and sit down.

  He closed with “I hope I didn’t make a fool of myself up here.” He started his descent, then darted back to say, “Thanks for coming.”

  Was that it for Bibi’s good-bye, two lame eulogies? The mourners were stirring, whispering. The priest read the Twenty-third Psalm and said that the family would form a receiving line in the vestibule. And please don’t forget to sign the guest book.

  How to escape? Only one of the aisles led to the receiving line. I excused myself across a row, and headed for the front door that was farthest from Holden. I ignored the guest book, but once past it, I stopped, backtracked. I’d come, hadn’t I? Politicians attended the funerals of their mortal enemies. Estranged children and long-lost friends turned up after decades of not speaking. I might as well go on record.

  I was the first to sign. As I pondered whether I should set an example and write a word or two of condolence, I heard a male voice calling my name.

  Holden’s. He was gesturing toward the meager line of mourners. “You should be here, too,” he shouted.

  I pointed to my own breastbone. Me?

  More motioning. Here. Come here.

  Does one argue with a man in shock, who pays you alimony, who is alone in a receiving line except for Aunt Mary Jane and Uncle Reg?

  I did look the part this day, slightly mournful and dignified in my big black hat and dark glasses. My coat—also black, part cashmere, with mother-of-pearl buttons as big as Ritz crackers—had been purchased by its first owner at Bonwit Teller. As soon as I stood next to Holden, my inner actress came to the fore. “Thank you so much for coming,” I said to the mourners. Or “ I’m Daphne” with no further designation.

  When the last mourner had either embraced me or shaken my hand, and his baffled aunt and uncle had departed, I said to Holden, “Didn’t see that coming.”

  “Cardiac arrest. No history of heart trouble.”

  “I didn’t mean your mother. I meant your pulling me into the receiving line. Why confuse people? They might think we’re back together.”

  “So? I never see them.”

  “But—”

  “Hardly anyone knows we got divorced.”

  “Well, this could’ve been a good time to catch them up, don’t you think?”

  “No, I don’t. I was married and divorced in the space of—what was it—nine, ten months? My mother didn’t advertise that, and I don’t think she ever forgave either of us.”

  Instead of pointing out that I was innocent of any wrongdoing except stupidity, I said, “That was some eulogy you delivered. I could’ve done better and I didn’t even like her.”

  “That’s cruel. People know me. And it did get a few laughs, didn’t it?”

  I said something quasi-kind along the lines of “I’m sure many found your honesty . . . refreshing.”

  “Maybe I should’ve talked about the good times. Like a birthday party instead of her abandoning me for six months. Well, not abandoning. I had a nanny. I was no worse for the wear. I probably didn’t even notice she was gone.”

  “It’s never easy, even when they’re not candidates for mothers of the year.”

  He must have thought we had entered a confidence-sharing zone because he volunteered, “I’m seeing someone.”

  “Lucky her.”

  “She knows what happened between us—you and me. After I told her, she refused a second date, and a third, because of what it said about me. She thinks I used you.”

  “I’d like to have been a fly on the wall when you made that confession. Why would you even do that on a first date? Oh, I know—twelve steps? Rehab inspired you.”

  “Except I never made it to rehab.”

  The funeral director had entered the vestibule, had collected the guest book, and was standing by in obsequious fashion. “Sir? Are you coming?” he finally asked.

  “Do I have to?”

  “Have to what?” I asked. “Because I hope it’s not the cemetery you’re skipping.”

  “No, the crematorium.”

  The funeral director said, “Not at all. Most don’t.”

  Holden said, “Okay, thanks. You’ll drop off the ashes?”

  “Of course.”

  When the funeral director had bowed his way out of the church, I said, “You forgot to tell him not to bother you; just leave the ashes with your doorman.”

  “Don’t be mean, Daff.”

  I had been mean. I touched his forearm. “Okay. Finish what you were saying about the girlfriend. Obviously she agreed to give you another chance.”

  “I’m seeing a shrink. That was one of the conditions to reestablish trust with Julie.”

  I was tempted to mimic his “reestablish trust” as both psychobabble and a fib, but all I asked was “If everything is so fine with Julie, why wasn’t she here today?”

  “I told you. I couldn’t show up with a new woman by my side when hardly anyone knew about our divorce.”

  “So they’d find out right here in the receiving line. ‘Yup. Single again. Didn’t my mother tell you? No, don’t feel bad. It was never meant to be. Say hello to Julie.’”

  “You know why Mother kept it under wraps? She thought people would talk, might say, ‘Like mother, like son.’”

  I had to ask, didn’t I, before parting; before never crossing paths with him again, “Is everything going to you?”

  He looked up from whatever text he was writing. “Are you asking about my mother’s will?”

  “I am.”

  “I have no idea. Nor would
it be any of your business.”

  “It’s kind of my business, because I didn’t know when I signed the scroungy prenup that I’d be out on my ass and living on paltry alimony payments. You do realize that I’m struggling?”

  “Like you were when I met you. And that was struggling without an alimony check every month.”

  “I think a raise is fair, considering your new circumstances. And as Julie pointed out, you used me.”

  “You really think this is the time and place?”

  I looked around with some stagy gaping. “What place? An empty church right after I did you the giant favor of standing next to you and accepting condolences for your mother? I was duped into marriage. And when a woman signs a prenup, she doesn’t think, This is what I’ll be living on.”

  “Because you thought this—us—was forever?”

  “I certainly didn’t expect I’d be out on my ass in a year.”

  “Correction: You threw me out.”

  Technically, he was right, but why litigate that now? “I’m assuming you’re getting everything—the apartment, the money, the furnishings, the artwork, the ceramics. You need to do some deacquisitioning. I can help, in a way.”

  “What way?”

  “After you liquidate all that, you can give some to me.”

  He expelled a Ha that was pure scorn. “As compensation for coming today?”

  “No. Out of fairness and to help clear your conscience. You knew from the get-go that the prenup would be my living wage until I got back on my feet. I sure as hell didn’t. I signed it under false pretenses.” I added, for good measure, “A jury would award me damages for pain and suffering. You’re going to be richer than ever while your only ex-wife is living in squalor. We could be the plot of a tragic opera.”

  “You stand by that—pain and suffering and squalor?”

  “I live in an apartment that could fit into”—I gestured around us—“this vestibule, no, two-thirds of it.”

  “Didn’t I buy you that apartment?”

  “See? You have no idea what my situation is. No, you did not buy me the apartment. I rent.”

  “I have to talk to my lawyer and the trust attorney—”

  “Those tightwads? They’ll both say no. And let me say on Julie’s behalf—hire someone with a heart to draw up your next prenup.”

  “That’s a leap. I’ve only known her for a few months. And I’d prefer to leave Julie out of this—”

  “Fine. Do you have a check with you?”

  “Who would hit up a man at his mother’s funeral?”

  “Don’t change the subject. I didn’t know this would come up today. But carpe diem.”

  That was true. My demand wasn’t premeditated. I’d planned nothing more than slipping into a pew and leaving before any condolences needed to be expressed. I seemed to be making progress, though. “I don’t see any reason to wait until your mother’s assets are distributed. We can end this conversation right now if you promise to put a check in the mail—”

  “Jesus! I’m not writing you a check.”

  I took off my sunglasses to achieve more penetrating eye contact. “Did you want to follow that with a ‘but’?”

  “But . . . I’ll consider a cost-of-living raise.”

  “I’ll need it in writing,” I said, pointing to his phone. “Send me an email. Twenty percent raise okay?”

  “Don’t be absurd. Five percent.”

  “Don’t you be absurd.”

  “Seven and a half percent.”

  “Ten percent.” I dared him to guess what his Scrooge accountant was direct-depositing into my checking account every month, usually late. He didn’t know and, to his credit, looked surprised to hear what he was underpaying me. “Eight and a half percent, take it or leave it,” he said.

  “That is bullshit. I could go public, you living in splendor, me in a garret. I’m going to be telling my story in a podcast soon. Make it ten and you won’t have to worry.”

  “This is blackmail. In church, no less.”

  “Not that again. How about ten percent till I get a full-time job? That way I get a cushion and you get to tell Julie you’re a new man, making amends. Win-win.”

  “Don’t think you’re coming back next year asking for another raise. This is a one-off.”

  “Ten percent?”

  “Until a job comes through.”

  What a good and distant deadline that was going to provide. “Deal,” I said.

  21

  The Reevaluation of Daphne

  Geneva’s patron, her wealthy father, once again came through with enough money to get the podcast off the ground against my strenuous but fruitless objections. She proudly announced this on a formal visit to my apartment. Green-lit! She’d found a recording studio on Eighth Avenue willing to do one episode at a time with a real sound guy. She’d direct, and I’d be the first interview—a piece of news she delivered as if I’d be honored.

  “Count me out,” I said.

  I could see she’d come prepared for my lack of cooperation because her follow-up was “Fine. I’ll ask your father to kick it off.”

  “Nice try. Do you even know his name, let alone how to contact him?”

  “Tom.”

  “Tom what?”

  “Maritch, like you.”

  “Well, you’re not going to reach him through me.”

  “I can’t?” She raised her eyebrows.

  As I was reviewing the possible ways she had of contacting him—Was his number listed? Would she stalk him on Facebook? Would the internet yield his address?—she said, “Your polite father sent me a thank-you note after he came for Thanksgiving. On paper. With a return address.”

  Of course he would have. “Please don’t involve my father. This whole thing could be very painful.”

  That might not have been the smartest approach. Painful? In a way that made good copy?

  “I’m not ruling anyone out. You have to go first. Or do you want it to open with that valedictorian, the one who started the scholarship in honor of your mother? Didn’t she write him college recommendations?”

  What did she know? Had her offensive questionnaire yielded some link to Armstrong? I had to say okay, I’d let her interview me about the yearbook, the literal, physical one. Don’t ask me questions about the people in it or about my mother’s comments next to the pictures. Okay? I’d do it as long as she promised not to involve my father or Peter—I caught myself—“what’s-his-name, the valedictorian.”

  So I went to the Eighth Avenue studio, where Geneva was waiting, looking officious, trying to impress me with producerdom. Episode one, she instructed, would supply background; she wanted me to start with a physical description of my mother at her peak. She’d have her photo on the website—

  “What picture? What website?”

  “Every podcast has a website so listeners can donate. The picture from the yearbook—don’t tell me you didn’t know they gave her portrait a whole page?”

  I reminded her that it had been ages since I’d laid eyes on the damn thing. And what did she mean by donate?

  “Money.”

  “To the scholarship in her name?”

  She checked her watch, tapped a pencil on the table between us, and reminded me that she was paying for one hour and didn’t want to run over.

  A disembodied voice asked if we were ready. He wanted to do a sound check. Would I say my name and something else? I said flatly, “Daphne Maritch. I’m here against my will.”

  “Ready,” he said. “And don’t forget, if you stumble, don’t sweat it. Just repeat it. I’ll edit it.”

  Geneva told me that she’d recorded an introduction to the whole thing.

  “Which I’d like to hear.”

  “You will when it’s aired.” She scribbled on a notepad and slipped it toward me. The chip on your shoulder—good.

  “Happy to oblige.”

  Now in interview mode, she asked, “Your mother, June Winter. Can you tell us why this yearbo
ok, this class, these graduates, meant so much to her that she devoted her life to them?”

  “That’s not true. She devoted her life to her children and then, secondarily, to teaching.”

  “Is that so?” Geneva asked. “Pardon me for questioning your truthfulness, but what was this thing she had for this particular group of students?”

  “That’s easy. She taught there. And was the yearbook advisor. This one was dedicated to her.”

  “And how old was she in relation to the graduates?”

  I knew this figure by heart but pretended it was nothing I’d had any reason to calculate before this moment. I said, “About five years’ difference.”

  “Older?”

  “Yes, of course, older. She was their teacher.”

  “What else was she to them?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I think you know what I’m driving at.”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  “What else was she to them in a personal sense. Outside school?”

  I said, “I wasn’t born yet when she was their advisor. I only know that the dedication was a great honor for her.”

  I wrote on the same scratch pad, Stop it.

  Of course she had to report that I’d scribbled a note. “What do you want me to stop, Daphne?”

  She wanted to play dirty? I said, “You stole this yearbook! I’ve been trying to get it back for months!”

  “I stole it? Or did I find it in the trash?”

  “That was my mistake. I recycled it, but as soon as I found out you’d absconded with it, I wanted it back, and don’t say ‘Finders keepers,’ because I don’t think that would hold up in court.”

  Next, Geneva was talking to her audience. “Why would the family be so afraid of it falling into the hands of a producer—”

  That provoked me to yell out, “Who calls herself a producer on the basis of one documentary!”

  “We’ll edit that,” she said. “Aaron?”

  “Got it,” said the voice in my earphones.

  I had to sound calm. I had to stay on message, my own.

  “Shall we go back to your mother’s appearance? Would you be willing to say she was stunning?”