“Should I alert Reuters?” she said, “Or maybe CNN?”
As I laughed, I exhaled a lung full of smoke.
“I treat myself to one or two a year. On special occasions. Like when Matt announced he was leaving. Or when Mom rang me up in April to say that she had to go into hospital for tests, but she was sure it was nothing . . .”
Meg poured me a large slug of whiskey, and pushed the glass toward me.
“Down the hatch, honey.”
I did as ordered.
“Why don’t you go off with your aunt,” Rozella said. “I’ll finish up here.”
“I’m staying,” I said.
“That’s dumb,” Meg said. “Anyway, my Social Security check just cleared yesterday, so I’m feeling flush, and in the mood for something high in cholesterol . . . like a steak. So how about I book us a table at Smith and Wollensky’s? Have you ever seen the martinis they serve there? They’re the size of a goldfish bowl.”
“Save your money. I’m staying here tonight.”
Meg and Rozella exchanged a worried look.
“What do you mean, tonight?” Meg asked.
“I mean—I’m planning to sleep here tonight.”
“You really shouldn’t do that,” Rozella said.
“Understatement of the goddamn year,” Meg added.
“My mind’s made up. I’m sleeping here.”
“Well, if you’re staying, I’m staying,” Meg said.
“No, you’re not. I want to be here by myself.”
“Now, that’s nuts,” Meg said.
“Please listen to your aunt,” Rozella said. “Being by yourself here tonight . . . it is not a good idea.”
“I can handle it.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” Meg said.
But I wasn’t going to be talked out of this. After paying off Rozella (she didn’t want to accept any additional money from me, but I shoved a hundred dollars into her hand and refused to take it back), I finally managed to dislodge Aunt Meg from the kitchen table around five. We were both just a little bit tipsy, as I had matched Meg Scotch for Scotch . . . and lost track somewhere after the fourth shot.
“You know, Katie,” she said as I helped her into her coat, “I really do think you are a glutton for punishment.”
“Thank you for such a frank assessment of my shortcomings.”
“You know what I’m talking about here. The last thing you should do tonight is be alone in your dead mother’s apartment. But that’s exactly what you’re doing. And it baffles the hell out of me.”
“I just want some time by myself. Here. Before I clear the place out. Can’t you understand that?”
“Sure I can. Just like I can understand self-flagellation.”
“You sound like Matt. He always said I had a real talent for unhappiness.”
“Well, fuck that social-climbing bozo. Especially as he has a proven talent for creating unhappiness.”
“Maybe he has a point. Sometimes I think . . .”
I trailed off, not really wanting to finish the sentence. But Meg said, “Go on, spill it.”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I think I get things really wrong.”
Meg threw her eyes heavenward.
“Welcome to the human race, sweetheart.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No—actually I don’t. You’re successful at what you do, you’ve got a great kid . . .”
“The best kid.”
Meg pursed her lips—and a momentary flicker of sadness crossed her face. Though she rarely spoke about it, I knew that her childlessness had always been a quiet source of regret for her. And I remembered what she said after I announced I was pregnant: “Take it from me. I mightn’t have tied the knot, but I’ve never been short of guys. And the vast majority of them are useless, weak-kneed assholes who run a mile when they work out you’re an independent broad. In fact, the only good thing a guy can ever give you is a kid.”
“Then why didn’t you get yourself knocked up?”
“Because back in the fifties and sixties—when I could have done it—the idea of a single-parent family was about as socially acceptable as supporting the Russian space program. An unmarried mom was immediately labeled an outcast—and I just didn’t have the balls to handle the heat. I guess I’m a coward at heart.”
“I think the last thing I’d ever call you is a coward. I mean, when you get right down to it, I’m the coward in the family . . .”
“You got married. You’re having a kid. From where I sit, that’s brave.”
She immediately changed conversational tack. We never spoke about her childlessness again. In fact, the only time she let down her guard on the subject was at moments like this one—when mention of Ethan would be accompanied by a hint of ruefulness, which she would then banish in a New York second.
“Damn right, he’s the best kid,” she said. “And, okay, the marriage tanked. But, hey, look what you got out of it.”
“I know . . .”
“So why get so down about things?”
Because . . . oh God . . . I don’t know how to begin explaining that most ambiguous, yet all-encompassing of emotions—a pervading frustration with yourself, and with the place you’ve landed yourself in life.
But I was too tired—and too blotto—to get into this issue. So I simply nodded in agreement, and said, “I hear ya, Meg.”
“Too bad your mother didn’t raise you a Catholic. You’d make one hell of a penitent.”
We headed downstairs in the elevator. As we crossed the lobby, Meg slid her arm through mine, and leaned on me for support. The doorman hailed a cab. He opened the door and I helped her inside.
“I hope to hell all that Scotch will knock you out cold,” she said, “ ’cause I really don’t want you to be sitting up there, thinking, thinking, thinking . . .”
“There’s nothing wrong with thinking.”
“It’s dangerous to your health.” She clutched me. “Call me tomorrow—when you’ve emerged from the Twilight Zone. Promise?”
“Yeah—I promise.”
She looked at me straight in the eye.
“You’re my kid,” she said.
I went back upstairs. I must have stood in front of the apartment door for at least a minute before my nerve returned. Then I let myself back in.
The silence inside was overwhelming. My initial thought was, flee. But I forced myself to go into the kitchen and put away the last of the dishes. I wiped down the formica table twice, then dealt with all the kitchen surfaces. I got out some Comet and gave the sink a good scrub. I found a can of Pledge and dusted every item of furniture in the apartment. I went into the bathroom. I tried to ignore the peeling wallpaper and the large damp patches on the ceiling. I picked up a toilet brush and went to work. Then I turned my attention to the bath, scouring it for a good fifteen minutes, but was unable to lift the deeply ingrained rust stains around the drain. The sink was even more rusted. I must have spent another quarter of an hour manically scrubbing it . . . oblivious to the fact that I was doing all these domestic chores while still dressed in a really good black suit (an absurdly expensive, absurdly chic Armani number with which Matt surprised me five Christmases ago—and which I later realized was a major guilt gift, as Matt hit me with Suprise Number Two on January second by announcing he was in love with a certain Blair Bentley, and had decided to terminate our marriage, effective immediately).
Eventually I could take no more of this washer-woman act, and slumped against the sink, my white blouse drenched, my face beaded with sweat. The heating in Mom’s apartment was always turned up to subsauna levels, and I suddenly felt in desperate need of a shower. So I opened her medicine chest to see what soaps and shampoos I might purloin. I was suddenly confronted with around ten bottles of Valium, and a dozen vials of morphine, and packs of hypodermic needles, and boxes of enemas, and the long thin catheter which Rozella had to insert in Mom’s urethra to draw out her urine. Then I noticed the packages of D
epends Adult Diapers stacked in a corner under her vanity table, on top of a plastic bedpan. I found myself thinking: somebody, somewhere, manufactures and markets all this stuff. And, Jesus, their stock price must always be buoyant. Because if there’s one great certainty to life, it’s this: if you live long enough, you will end up in a Depends. Even if you get unlucky and, say, contract uterine cancer at forty, chances are that, toward the end of your terminal drama, you too will need a Depends. And . . .
I was suddenly doing what I swore I wouldn’t do all day.
I can’t remember just how long I cried—because I was inconsolable. The emotional brakes were finally off. I had surrendered to grief’s unbridled rage. A relentless deluge of anguish and guilt. Anguish because I was now all by myself in the Big Bad World. And guilt because I had spent most of my adult life trying to dodge my mother’s clutches. Now that I had permanently escaped her, I wondered: what the hell was the argument between us?
I gripped the sink tightly. I felt my stomach surge. Falling to my knees, I just managed to reach the toilet in time. Scotch. More Scotch. And a surfeit of bile.
I staggered to my feet, brownish drool dripping from my lips on to my good black suit. I returned to the sink, turned on the cold tap, shoved my mouth under it, and rinsed it free of vomit. I grabbed the king-sized bottle of Lavoris mouthwash on the vanity table—why is it that only little old ladies buy Lavoris?—unscrewed the big plastic cap, poured around half a pint of that astringent cinnamon-flavored gargle into my mouth, swirled it around, spat the lot into the sink. Then I lurched to the bedroom, pulling my clothes off on the way.
By the time I reached Mom’s bed, I was down to my bra and tights. I rifled through her chest of drawers, looking for a T-shirt . . . but then remembered that my mom wasn’t exactly a member of the Gap generation. So I settled for an old cream-colored crew-necked sweater: very Going-with-Tad-to-the-Harvard/Yale-Game-Fall-’42 vintage. Pulling off my underwear, I pulled on the sweater, stretching it down to just above my knees. It reeked of moth balls, and the wool felt itchy against my skin. I didn’t care. I threw off the bedspread and crawled in. Despite the Florida-like heat of the apartment, the sheets felt eerily cold. I grabbed a pillow and clutched it against me, clinging on to it as if it was the only thing on earth right now that could give me ballast.
I suddenly had an overwhelming need to hold my son. I suddenly started to cry. I suddenly felt like Little Girl Lost. I suddenly loathed myself for this burst of self-pity. I suddenly wondered why the room was beginning to tilt and keel like a boat in choppy waters. I suddenly fell asleep.
Then the phone started to ring.
It took me a moment or two to drift back into consciousness. The bedside light was still blazing. I squinted at the elderly digital clock by the bed—so 1970s that it had mechanically flipping numbers. 9:48 PM. I had been asleep for around three hours. I lifted the phone. I managed to mumble . . .
“Hello?”
. . . but my voice was so thick with groggy sleep that I must have sounded semi-comatose. There was a long pause on the other end. Then I heard a woman’s voice.
“Sorry, wrong number.”
The line went dead. I put the receiver down. I turned off the light. I pulled the covers over my head. And called an end to this fucking awful day.
THREE
I WOKE AT SIX. For about ten seconds, I felt curiously elated. Because, for the first time in around five months, I had actually slept for eight unbroken hours. But then everything else flooded in. And I found myself wondering: what deranged, grief-stricken despondency made me want to stay in Mom’s bed overnight?
I got to my feet, careened into the bathroom, took one look at myself in the bathroom mirror, and decided not to make that mistake again. I peed, baptized my face with cold water, and gargled with Lavoris: three basic ablutions that enabled me to leave the apartment without feeling like a total fire sale.
My suit stank of vomit. As I dressed, I tried to ignore the smell and paid no notice to its trashed condition. Then I made the bed, grabbed my coat, turned out all the lights, and slammed the door behind me. Meg was right: I really was a glutton for punishment. I decided: the next time I see this apartment again is the time I pack it up.
The early hour meant that I didn’t run into any of Mom’s neighbors in the elevator or the lobby. This was a relief, as I don’t think I could have handled another heartfelt expression of condolence (I was also worried that people might think I was auditioning for a female remake of The Lost Weekend). The night doorman—slumped in an armchair by the lobby’s fake electric fireplace—didn’t even seem to notice me walking briskly by. There must have been two dozen empty cabs cruising West End Avenue. I hailed one, gave the driver my address, and collapsed across the backseat.
Even to a jaundiced native like myself, there is still something wondrous about Manhattan at dawn. Maybe it’s the emptiness of the streets. Or the commingling of streetlamp light and the emerging sunrise. Everything’s so tentative, so hushed. The city’s manic rhythms are momentarily stilled. There’s a sense of equivocation and expectation. At dawn, nothing seems certain . . . yet everything appears possible.
But then night drops away. Manhattan begins to shout at the top of its lungs. Reality truly bites. Because in the harsh light of day, possibilities vanish.
I live on 74th Street between Second and Third Avenues. It’s an ugly, squat, white brick apartment building—of the sort favored by developers in the 1960s, and which now grimly define that bland Upper East Side cityscape between Third and the River. Being a West Side girl (born and bred!), I always considered this part of town to be the urban equivalent of vanilla ice cream: dull, insipid, devoid of edge. Before I got married, I lived for years on 106th Street and Broadway—which was anything but monotonous. I loved the exuberant grime of the neighborhood—the Haitian grocery stores, the Puerto Rican bodegas, the old Jewish delis, the good bookshops near Columbia University, the no cover/no minimum jazz at the West End Café. But my apartment—though insanely cheap—was tiny. And Matt had this rent-controlled two-bedroom place on East 74th Street, which had been in the family for years (he’d taken it over after his grandfather died). It was a steal at $,1600 a month, not to mention a hell of a lot more spacious than my single cell up in Jungleland.
But we both hated the apartment. Especially Matt—who was seriously embarrassed about living at such an unhip address, and kept telling me we’d move to the Flatiron District or Gramercy Park as soon as he left lowly paid PBS and got his senior producer gig at NBC.
Well, he got the big NBC job. He also got the big Flatiron pad—with that cropped-blond talking head, Blair Bentley. And I ended up with the much-hated rent-controlled apartment on 74th Street—which I now cannot leave, because it is such a bargain (I have friends with kids who can’t even find a two-bed place in Astoria for $1,600 a month).
Constantine, the morning doorman, was on duty when I got out of the cab. He was around sixty; a first-generation Greek immigrant, who still lived with his mom in Astoria, and who really didn’t like the idea of divorced women with children . . . especially those vulgar harpies who actually have to go out and earn a living. He also had the proclivities of a village stoolie—always checking up on people, always asking the sort of leading questions which made you understand that he was keeping tabs on you. My stomach sank when he opened the door of the taxi. I could see that he was interested in my trashy state.
“Late night, Miss Malone?” he asked.
“No—early morning.”
“How’s the little guy?”
“Fine.”
“Upstairs asleep?”
Yeah, that’s right. He’s been home alone all night, playing with my collection of hunting knives, while working his way through my extensive library of S&M videos.
“No—he’s staying with his dad tonight.”
“Say hi to Matt for me, Miss Malone.”
Oh, thank you. And yeah, I did catch the way you stressed Miss.
There goes your Christmas tip, malacca (the only Greek profanity I know).
I took the elevator to the fourth floor. I unlocked the three dead bolts on my door. The apartment was appallingly silent. I went straight into Ethan’s room. I sat on his bed. I stroked his Power Rangers pillow case (okay, I think the Power Rangers are totally dumb—but try having a discussion about aesthetics with a seven-year-old boy). I looked at all the guilt gifts Matt had recently bought him (an iMac computer, dozens of CD-ROMs, top-of-the-line roller blades). I looked at all the guilt gifts I had recently bought him (a walking Godzilla, a complete set of Power Ranger action figures, two dozen jigsaw puzzles). I felt a stab of sadness. All this booty, all this crap—all given in an attempt to ease parental remorse. The same remorse I feel when—two or three times a week—I have to stay late at the office or go out to some business dinner, and am therefore forced to get Claire (the part-time Australian nanny who picks up Ethan from school and looks after him until I come home) to stay on. Though Ethan rarely chides me for these evening absences, I always feel lousy about them . . . a megaguilt fear that, if Ethan turns out to be a sociopath (or develops a taste for crack at the age of sixteen), it will be due to all those nights I was out working late. Working, I might add, to pay the rent, to meet my half of his tuition, to meet the bills . . . and (I also might add) to give my own life some definition and purpose. I tell you, women like me can’t win these days. You have all these post-feminist “family values” creeps playing the “kids need stay-at-home moms” card. Then you have the depressing example of certain members of my generation who have decided to do the Soccer Mom thing in the ’burbs, and are silently going gaga.
When you’re a divorced working mom, you have stereophonic guilt . . . because not only are you not at home when your son comes back from school, but you also feel partially to blame for undermining your child’s sense of security. I can still see Ethan’s wide-eyed confusion, his terrified bewilderment, when, five years ago, I tried to explain to him that his daddy would now be living elsewhere.
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