“That should be interesting for her,” Laura said.
“It’s not a punitive boot camp thing,” Margaret explained. “It’s about self-esteem. It helps kids feel good about themselves through work.”
Laura nodded. “That makes sense.”
Margaret unwrapped her sandwich. “Trip began acting up at this age. Took him years to get his act together as an adult, and he realizes now, it was because he didn’t feel good about himself, because he never had to work for anything.”
“That makes sense,” Laura repeated, because she couldn’t think of what else to say.
A man with a lizard draped over his shoulder strolled by, catching the attention of the sunbather, who looked up from her book to stare.
“In other news, I’m pregnant,” Margaret said.
She laughed at Laura’s bewildered expression. “Twelve weeks.”
“You’re not kidding,” Laura said, as Margaret pulled her shirt back to reveal a little bump. “Did you use . . . how did this happen?”
“The old-fashioned way,” Margaret said. “Don’t ask me why it worked, now, when I’m forty-four years old. It was an accident. Or a surprise, Janet says I’m supposed to say. My ob-gyn says I’m a medical miracle.”
“Oh, Mags,” Laura said. “This is wonderful news. Have you told Charlotte yet?”
Margaret took a bite of her sandwich and shook her head. “She’s about to find out,” she said, holding a hand over her mouth as she chewed. “That’s actually why I had to change our plans. We’d been holding off until I made it through the first trimester, but I just saw my doctor and he says everything looks good.” She swallowed. “Trip’s been in Houston for business and I wanted to wait for him to get back so we can tell her together tonight.”
“How exciting for her,” Laura said.
“I hope so,” Margaret said pensively. “Yes, I think it will be.”
“So Janet knows,” Laura said.
Margaret nodded.
“What about Edith, does she know yet?” Laura’s cheerfully casual tone rang false.
Margaret took another bite. “Mm-hmm.”
“Well, this is very exciting,” Laura said. “I’m very, very happy for you.” She took a tiny bite of her sandwich but had trouble swallowing. “I’m fine,” she said, realizing Margaret was looking at her. “I truly am happy for you. It really is a miracle. A miracle baby. I don’t know why . . .” She dabbed her eyes.
“Maybe I’m a little upset I’m not the first to know.” Laura mustered a smile as she blinked back tears. “I know it’s silly, it’s just that . . . well, when something happens to me, you’re the first person I tell. Usually the only person.”
Margaret looked distressed and unsure of how to respond.
“You know, I think it’s a birthday thing,” Laura told her. “I’ve always been a bit of an Eeyore on my birthday.”
Margaret rested a hand on her shoulder. “You know I love you, Laura.”
“Thank you,” Laura said. She was caught off guard by the pronouncement. “I do, too,” she said quietly a moment later.
Neither of them spoke for a little while.
“That’s what I’ll look like at my poor child’s high school graduation.” Margaret pointed to an elderly, slumped-over woman being pushed in a wheelchair.
“Look at this thing on my arm.” Margaret held up her wrist. “I noticed it just this morning. Do you think it looks suspicious?”
“It looks like a freckle,” Laura said.
“But freckles don’t just grow overnight.”
“You’ve always been afraid of death,” Laura reflected. “Ever since we were little.”
“Isn’t everyone?” Margaret asked.
“I’m more worried about the Earth,” Laura said. “I don’t want it to be destroyed from global warming.”
Margaret made a skeptical pffft sound.
* * *
ONE EVENING, JUST AS THEY were about to say good night, Emma said, “Oh, yeah, Mom, I need you to do me a favor that involves doing your least favorite thing.”
“What’s my least favorite thing?” Laura asked.
“Shopping,” Emma replied. “I need you to send me a new pair of jeans.”
“Okay. But what’s wrong with the pair we just bought you before you left?”
“They don’t fit me anymore.”
“Oh, no,” Laura said. “Shit.” Emma wasn’t eating enough; she was running too much. Dr. Marks was right—she wasn’t able to keep tabs on her in Vermont.
“What’s wrong?”
“You were a size two when you left,” Laura said.
“Well, I’m not anymore.”
Emma’s tone was curt. Whatever Laura said would further irritate her; to comment on the matter was to risk being hung up on. It was like trying to grasp the end of a chain that had slipped down the drain of the sink. There was no other way to retrieve it, but touching it might send it into the abyss.
“I’ll see if I can pick up a size zero tomorrow,” Laura said.
“Mom.” Emma groaned. “I’m not anorexic—my jeans don’t fit anymore because they’re too tight.”
“Oh.” Laura tried to hide the excitement in her voice. “And what size do you want me to get?”
“A four,” Emma said. “The uphill trail running has made my leg muscles grow.”
* * *
LAURA WAS IN THE BASEMENT putting her clothes in the dryer when she heard a voice from behind her. “What’s a person like you doing in a place like this?
“Sorry if I scared you,” Martin said, dumping a trash bag of clothes into one of the machines. “Always thought it would be funny to say that to someone down here. This basement’s so creepy. Very Silence of the Lambs.”
“I never saw it,” Laura said, returning Martin’s smile and turning the dryer on. As she left the laundry room and headed through the poorly lit dungeon-like tunnel that led to the elevator, she heard the echo of Martin’s voice: “Shit! Shit! Shit!” A moment later came the lumbering shuffle of socked feet.
“Forgot detergent,” he said as he caught up to her.
“I have some upstairs,” Laura told him.
“Yeah, me, too. Just annoying to have to go all the way back up and get it.
“Up and down,” Martin said, stepping in the elevator. “The elevator of life. Down and up, up and down, all day long—and the fun never ends.”
“Martin,” Laura said as they approached his floor. “When you bring the chairs back on Sunday, could you please bring them back by nine p.m.? I’d like to go to bed early because I’ve been having trouble sleeping recently.”
“Candooskey,” Martin said.
“What does that mean?” Laura asked. “Is that Polish?”
“Polish?” Martin smiled. “No—can, do, ski. No worries, it’ll happen, I can do it.”
“Oh,” Laura said. “I like that.”
* * *
THE FIRST WEEK OF OCTOBER, Emma started mentioning Jill, and also a boy named Lucas. Laura couldn’t tell if the latter was a romantic interest—from the stories it sounded like the three of them spent a lot of time together.
“Maybe you shouldn’t come Parents’ Weekend,” Emma said.
“Why not?” Laura had been looking forward not only to visiting Emma, but also to seeing Vermont’s autumn foliage.
“Jill’s parents aren’t coming, and I was going to keep her company all weekend.”
“She’s welcome to come to dinner with us,” Laura said. “Lucas, too.”
“I think it might make me sad again if I see you now,” said Emma.
“I get it,” Laura said.
* * *
“HEY, STRANGER!” CAME MARTIN’S VOICE down the cereal aisle of Associated Value. The excitement on his face suggested they’d just crossed paths in an international airport. He had forgotten to return the chairs on Sunday, but surely seeing her now would remind him.
“You shaved off your beard,” Laura said. “I almost didn’t
recognize you.”
“I’m joining the army!”
Laura was speechless.
“Just kidding.” He laughed. “I lost a bet. But I had you. Admit it! For a second I had you!”
“For a second,” Laura conceded.
After paying for her groceries, Laura discovered Martin waiting for her by the store’s exit. They walked home together.
“Did you know the dude who used to live in my apartment?” Martin asked, squinting up at their building as they waited for the light.
“Mr. Emory.” Laura smiled fondly. “He always wore a hat, even on the hottest day of the year. Toodle-oo, he would say when he got off the elevator.”
“Did you know he croaked in the apartment?” was how Martin followed this up.
“I was aware that he died,” Laura responded.
“But you didn’t know that he died inside the apartment and wasn’t discovered for three days?”
Laura shook her head. She had no interest in hearing the details of Mr. Emory’s death.
“Don’t you find that strange?” Martin said with a frown. “That a guy living ten feet below you could just die, and you’d have no idea he was just laying there dead.”
“He was a very old man,” said Laura.
They passed James in his usual spot on the corner. They both waved and James called out, “No more beard!”
“Joining the army!” Martin hollered.
“Yeah, right, man!” James cackled. “They’d never take you!”
“Manhattan apartments are a weird place to die,” Martin said as they entered the lobby. “The coordinated effort to dispose of the body in the fastest, most discreet way possible, with service elevators and back entrances and unmarked vehicles . . .
“I wouldn’t want to die in Manhattan, period,” he said as the elevator arrived.
“Where would you like to die?” Laura asked as they stepped in. It was a weird question. She wasn’t sure why she’d asked it.
“I don’t know.” Martin pushed his glasses up his nose and folded his arms across his belly as he considered this. “Somewhere in the country. A small town where everyone knows me and the mayor declares a holiday so everyone can attend my funeral and there’s a kind of parade through the streets afterward.”
“A parade?”
“You know, a brass band, a decked-out hearse, maybe a float with a giant papier-mâché statue of me.”
Laura giggled. She wasn’t entirely sure he was kidding.
“As far as my coffin, I’d like . . .” Martin rubbed his chin and shook his head. “Scratch the coffin, save the tree, I’d be, like, dressed in a tux, a baby-blue tux, and then I’d like to be . . . what’s it called, that kind of puppet with the strings?”
“A marionette,” Laura said.
“Yeah.” Martin smiled and nodded. “I’d like to be tied up like that, strings attached to sticks that will be manipulated by the pallbearers so that I’m lowered into the grave in a way that looks like I’m dancing while everyone in the village sings ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.’
“What do you think,” Martin said as the elevator arrived on his floor. “Do you think that’s too much?”
“It’s quite an image,” Laura responded.
“So,” Martin said, thrusting his hand out of the elevator to keep the door from closing. “How things going with you? Anything new?”
“Not particularly,” Laura said, wondering if she should mention the chairs or wait for him to remember on his own.
* * *
THEIR CALLS GOT SHORTER AND less frequent. By Halloween nearly all of them were initiated by Laura. Sensing Emma was in a rush to get off, she kept her updates to a minimum, and instead of asking questions that would prolong the exchange, she’d simply affirm the gist of whatever Emma had told her.
“Well, I think Lucas sounds very nice,” she said at the end of one of their chats.
“In case you’re wondering, we’re not a thing,” Emma replied.
“He’s not a boyfriend?”
“No,” she said. “He’s obsessed with Seth.”
“Your running coach?”
“For the millionth time, it’s cross-country.”
“Cross-country coach,” Laura corrected herself. “Lucas is romantically interested in him?”
“Yeah,” Emma said. “He’s bisexual.”
“I see,” Laura said, impressed by how casually the term rolled off Emma’s tongue. “So he’s romantically interested in both women and men.”
“Yes, Mom, he’s romantically interested in both genders. That’s what bisexual means. Do you have a problem with that? Do you think that makes him a freak?”
“Of course not,” Laura quipped. “Who do you think I am?”
* * *
THE SUNDAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING, EMMA told Laura she’d been invited to spend Thanksgiving break with Lucas’s family, who lived an hour from the school.
“It’s okay if I say yes?” Emma asked. “I know it’s last-minute, I said I’d ask first. I can come home if you want.”
Ten weeks had seemed like a long time to go without seeing Emma. Now it would be thirteen.
“I think that sounds nice,” Laura told her. “You should go.”
“But what about you—what will you do?”
“I’ll go to one-three-six,” she said. “What else would I do?”
“Yeah, but will Stephanie and Nicholas be there?”
“They’ll be in Florida.”
“It’ll just be you and Doug-Doug?”
“And Ellen Lowe.”
“Who’s that?”
“Mrs. Lowe, you remember her—we used to see her on Goat Hill walking her dogs.”
“The woman you said probably spent more money on her dogs’ cashmere sweaters than your entire wardrobe cost?”
“I don’t remember saying that, and I doubt they’re actual cashmere, but yes, that’s her.”
“That’s random,” Emma said. “Why’d you invite her?”
“I didn’t, Douglas did—they’ve become companions.”
“Companions?” Emma repeated with disdain.
“They meet for dinner, they do things together.”
“So it’ll just be you three?”
“That’s correct.”
“Who’s cooking?” Emma asked. “Are you making the turkey?”
Laura wondered why she was asking this, as though she were a coworker. “I think you know the answer to that question,” she told Emma. “Sandra is.”
“Well, you know what I think, Mom? I think it’s a little ironic, not to mention fucked-up, to make an immigrant cook a Thanksgiving turkey for you.”
“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to respond to that.” Laura reached for the last of the peanut butter Ritz crackers she’d made herself for dinner. “I hear that you’re upset, and I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“What I want you to say? Are you serious, Mom? That’s what our conversations are? You wondering, ‘How does she want me to answer?’ ‘Tell her what she wants to hear!’ So basically, our whole relationship is fake! Like a game of dolls!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, darling, of course it’s not,” Laura said. She wasn’t sure where this was going; she feared she was being entrapped. “What does that even mean, a game of dolls?”
“You make the doll say what you want her to say!”
Laura sighed. Anything she said would be used against her. There was no winning in these situations.
“Mom?” Emma spoke after a staticky silence. “Are you still there?”
“Of course I am.”
“Then talk to me!” Emma shouted. “Talk to me like a real person. Say what you’re actually thinking!”
“What I was actually thinking,” Laura said, “was that I agree. But you know my father.”
“Your fath-ah,” Emma ridiculed in her mock English accent.
“You know Doug-Doug,” Laura said. “It’s his house and he likes to do things a certain
way.”
Laura looked at the clock: it was almost ten. “It’s getting late,” she told Emma. “I should let you go.”
“Not tired,” Emma answered, suddenly composed.
“You want to stay on the phone and keep talking?”
There was a pause. “What are we doing right now? Why would you ask me that, Mom?”
Laura sighed. “Well,” she said, “it doesn’t really sound like you want to stay on the phone and keep talking.”
“What does it sound like?”
Laura’s hand tightened around the phone.
“To be honest, you seem a little combative, not so much interested in having a conversation, more wanting to pick a fight—and it’s late, and I’m tired, and not in the mood.”
“Well, good night to you,” Emma said tersely. “So sorry for keeping you up!” She hung up.
When Laura called her back, Emma picked up after the first ring.
“Mama,” she wept through the receiver. “You can’t make me feel guilty, you have no right! All I’m asking for, all I ev-er wanted,” her voice quivered, “all I ever, ever wanted, was to have a normal Thanksgiving, where we spent the day in our kitchen making our own food, and set our own table, like every other family in America!”
Dial tone. This time, when Laura called back, she did not answer.
“Emma,” she spoke to her answering machine. “My dear, little Em . . .”
Laura looked over at their table with its lone chair at the end. “I get it,” she continued. “I understand.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t give that to you,” she said before gently placing the phone in its cradle.
* * *
MARTIN OPENED HIS DOOR HOLDING a carton of rainbow sherbet.
“This is really embarrassing,” he said, licking the spoon. “But the first time you told me your name, I wasn’t really paying attention . . .”
“Laura,” she told him.
“You can call me Marty,” he said.
“Marty,” Laura began. “I’m here about the chairs. I’d like them back.”
“The chairs.” He knocked his head with his fist. “Totally forgot I still had them. My bad.
“Place is a little messy,” he said, letting her in.
In all her years of living in the penthouse of 166, Laura had never stepped inside another resident’s apartment, and she was surprised by how small Martin’s was—a quarter the size of hers. It felt even smaller, as it was cluttered with stacks of records and an antique phonograph, milk crates full of books, a stationary bike, a movie-theater popcorn machine, and a cactus, among other things. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture—apart from her chairs, which were lined up haphazardly at the other end of the room, facing the window.
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