by Tracy Barone
When they get home, Michael goes into his medicine cabinet and gives Cheri a pill. “Ativan—it’s good for anxiety. Take one now and another one if it doesn’t bring you down in an hour or two.”
“We don’t know if this had anything to do with anxiety,” she says. Ignoring her, Michael pours her a glass of water from the kitchen sink and hands it to her. “At least you picked a historical place to collapse. Dillinger was gunned down coming out of the Biograph Theater with the Lady in Red on his arm.”
“Let’s not say collapse. I was conscious.”
“I noticed you didn’t tell them about the fertility drugs.”
Please don’t make this about my ovaries, Cheri thinks. “I’m not on them now—it can’t be related. It’s not about that.”
“Hello—infertility is a major cause of stress. Look what you’ve been going through for the past year, even longer.” He looks at her, concerned. “What’s going on right now? How are you feeling?” She’s speedy, flushed, tired, dizzy, embarrassed, muddled.
“I’ll be fine.”
“If you push yourself too hard, you’re going to collapse; that’s how it goes. You laugh at me but meditation would be good for you. I know how you feel about my shrink too, but talking to someone couldn’t hurt.” Cheri exhales angrily, and Michael takes a step back, hands raised. “Okay, I won’t make any more suggestions. But that was scary for me, and I know it was scary for you. Don’t do that to yourself again, okay? Please. Call a doctor.”
“Okay.”
Michael approaches again and mushes her into a hug. “Relax, let me hold you.” Standing there in the kitchen, Cheri feels trapped, pinned. Michael senses it, and she can tell by the way he pulls away he takes it personally.
“Listen, I’m still wired,” she explains, “I just need to hang out for a bit, try to unwind, wait for the pill to kick in. I’ll be fine.”
She is not fine. At three in the morning, she decides she needs banana bread. She goes into the kitchen in her T-shirt and underwear, throws ingredients in a bowl, and starts mixing with aggressive strokes, thinking, How do you get the banana lumps smooth? They had only one egg; maybe it needs two. She takes the other pill with a shot of rum and splashes some into the batter to thin it before it goes in the oven, but her body keeps surging. Her mind, however, is glazed. It’s a good combination for doing things like cleaning out the top drawer in the kitchen, the one where they throw rubber bands and parking tickets and business cards of plumbers. When she remembers to check on her banana bread, it’s charred on the outside and raw in the middle. She eats it in hot fistfuls; it’s leaden and tasteless.
Whatever it was that Cheri experienced that night, she knew this much: it was not fine. Panic and anxiety—not words she associated with herself. She’d survived far more stressful times at work without getting so much as a cold. While she was still hormonally out of whack, attributing it to hormones was akin to saying she had PMS.
“For someone so smart, you are totally dumb!” Taya tells her the next day when Cheri recounts the episode. “Of course this has to do with stress. And hormones. When I was pregnant I had a million nervous breakdowns! Fertility drugs are worse than going through menopause. Fuck meditation! Hold on, hold on. Shut up back there right now or I’m going to put you both on the sidewalk! You want to walk home? You don’t need Michael’s New Age shrink, you need an MD who does meds and will load you up with Xanax.”
Besides mandatory evaluations on the police force and a drug counselor she’d seen during her breakup with speed, Cheri had never been in therapy. But being that out of control, her heart clenching so unrelentingly, scared the hell out of her. She had a hard time filtering her thoughts; every time she got stuck in a loop of Samuelson’s voice, telling her to apologize for a transgression she didn’t commit, she’d get that buffalo feeling on her chest. She had to admit, the Ativan helped. She’d used up Michael’s prescription and wanted more. “Fine,” she told Taya, who promised she’d get back to her with a referral via her vast network of friends who knew the best of everything in every city, “I’ll see a meds doctor.”
Dr. Marlene Vega’s office looks like the place where sixties art goes to die. The doctor herself is the kind of woman who calls pants slacks, wears pearls and blouses with bows at the neck. Cheri answers her questions with the minimum amount of detail necessary, quickly pointing to the factors leading up to the Punch-Drunk Love incident: bad eggs, marriage in the netherworld, the Richards complaint.
“You don’t have to just stick to the facts,” Dr. Vega says, “you’ve led an interesting life, and we have plenty of time left.”
“I’ve never had anxiety issues. I’m used to functioning in high-stress situations and I haven’t exactly shied away from them.”
“They produce a dopamine response, which is adrenalizing. You didn’t say what led to your career change, which was quite a significant one. Did it have to do with the stress of the job? That’s very common for law enforcement.”
“No, it wasn’t that,” Cheri says, wanting to get off that topic. There is no way to enter that dangerous territory without betraying or being betrayed. “Listen, I just want to prevent this from ever happening again. I’m sure there’s something I can take…”
“There’s no magic pill for the ups and downs of life,” Dr. Vega says. “I can give you some Ativan, but all benzodiazepine drugs are highly addictive.” Fortunately, Cheri opted not to mention her history as a speed freak when she filled out the patient-intake form. Dr. Vega hands her a script. “Don’t take it for more than three days in a row. We need to do talk therapy as well. You have a lot on your plate right now. You can set something up with my receptionist.”
Cheri walks out of the pharmacy into the shank of the late-July day, pops open the bottle of Ativan, and swallows a pill. She slaps on her dark sunglasses and merges with the Gold Coast denizens who walk in and out of buildings drinking their coffees, some leading dogs, others being led by various desires. Cheri catches a whiff of perfume—light, citrusy—and it reminds her of the Jean Naté bubble bath her mother used on her when she was a kid. It gave her a terrible rash. Cici became so distraught all she could do was cry. She had to give Cheri oatmeal baths for weeks afterward and swathe her in Saran Wrap. Cheri’s throat aches at the trust of a child, any child, her as a child. How young her mother was then, how insecure; it fills her with a sadness that’s close to love, but more akin to pity—the kind of pity that eventually provokes cruelty.
40bday 1.0
Cici’s silk blouse is wet under the armpits, and, porca miseria, she forgot to put in those pads. The stain will dry like a Rorschach test inkblot with a chalky outline from her deodorant because the air-conditioning in her closet is never cold enough. She retreats to her walk-in jewelry vault and plops down on the ottoman. It’s soothing in here, with the white marble floor and the gleaming wood drawers from floor to ceiling; like a museum. She surveys that stronzo Cookie, who is slow and shrunken with arthritis nibbling at her bones; a little wind could snap her in two. Sol arranged for Cookie, who’s spent forty years with them, to get her salary for life whether she worked or not. But Cici hasn’t told Cookie that, although it’s painful to watch her straining to do the simplest task, like going up the ladder to get the boxes down. And that wrinkled old black-and-white uniform.
“I pay you now the whole year of salary if you throw that away and wear real clothing.”
“Last week you said two years, so I guess you like it more this week. Is this the damn thing already?” She holds out a black felt jewelry box.
“No, no, no. That is for the tennis bracelet, not a ring. Put it down, put it down!”
“All look the damn same to me, crazy woman,” Cookie mumbles under her breath. Cici directs her to the other side of the vault and sips her Sancerre. Cookie comes down the ladder, moves it over a few rows, goes back up.
“Why is it your Choo-Choo, she never talks to you like Cheri, she talks to me? It has to be trouble with that hus
band, Michael. Why else is there no baby? And he is not giving her a party for her birth-day!”
“With Cheri, you always up in her business. Didn’t work when she was little, and it doesn’t work when she’s big.”
“It hurts when she is mean to me. I think we get older, it doesn’t hurt so much, but it still does.”
“Nothing stops hurting. Something else just hurts more and you forget. Now, what exactly are we looking for?”
“We have to make the list so it is up-to-date what is in here. Sol, he always said without lists, they cut off the insurance.”
Cookie almost loses her footing on the ladder. She hates listening to Mz. M. getting misty over that dead fool.
“What are you trying to do? Kill yourself? Basta, Cookie, basta! Come down from there.”
Cookie shakes her head in disgust, then slowly descends.
“I go up myself.” Cici totters on her heels like a glittering catcher at the bottom of the ladder, trying to figure out where to grab Cookie to help her down.
Cookie waves her off. “I can do it my damn self.”
Cici dispatches Cookie to get another bottle of Sancerre, knowing she’ll take a pull off their liquor bottles while she’s downstairs, like she’s been doing for decades. Cici clicks on the intercom and asks for profiteroles as well. There’s some muddled answer. Cookie pretends she doesn’t know how to use the intercom so she can later say, “I didn’t hear you ask for that.”
It is less than two weeks before Cheri’s birthday, and Cici hasn’t decided yet on the piece of jewelry she will send her. A ring? It’s a tradition, to give something of hers to her daughter each year—why save it all until she dies? She’d gladly give Cheri anything she wanted, but her daughter doesn’t want any of the things she has to give. No matter what she picks, Cheri won’t wear it or like it. But perhaps one day it will have meaning for her. After their last conversation, she’s tempted to skip the ritual this year. Family stays together, not in a hotel!
Cheri was never a warm child. She didn’t like to cuddle or be hugged; she was hard to get to know and even harder to understand. Sol simply treated her coldly in return, but Cici wasn’t the kind of mother to pull away, like her friend Charlotte Detemeirs, who never once spoke about her son after he was in the newspapers for taking part in a money scandal.
Looking through her vault is like spending time with old friends. Without opening the box, Cici remembers when and where she got each piece, the carat size, country of origin, the luster, brilliance, dispersion, and scintillation of each gemstone. They speak to her in different ways and different tongues. Like this jabot pin that somehow got mixed in with the cocktail rings. She immediately recalls: 24K gold, tenth-century, made from horse-bridle ornaments. Solomon purchased it at an antique shop in East Hampton and gave it to her when she came back from her first trip to Italy with Cheri. It was an apology for the fight they’d had over the portrait. Looking back, it was more her fault than his. Cici had meant it to be a nice surprise for him, a painting of his two girls, Cici and Cheri. She didn’t think he would want to be included; he was so busy with work, and men did not want to sit and pose for hours. But she had used the wrong words to describe it. “This isn’t a family portrait,” he kept saying, accusing her of leaving him out of his own family. She was so upset that all she saw was his anger and not his hurt. Even after she had the artist redo the portrait, Solomon insisted she hang it in the guest room where he would never lay eyes on it. When she goes to return the pin to its rightful drawer, she spies a heart-shaped black velvet box all the way at the back. Indian ruby Bulgari ring in 24K gold setting, June 6, 1981, Lutèce in New York City. Ruby: preserves chastity, kills poisonous snakes, can cause water to boil, declares love. Well, it was a declaration. Whether it had anything to do with love and happiness was another matter.
She thought Solomon was happy when he gave her the ruby ring for her fortieth birthday. His patents for the special coating on pills were making him a lot of money; he’d just bought a pied-à-terre in the city. Providing for her, buying her beautiful things, he said, made him happy. He was rarely home before seven thirty. But on her birthday that year, it wasn’t even six when she heard the crunch of his tires on the gravel path and saw his headlights sweep up their driveway. She sipped her negroni.
She smoothed her skirt while standing at the kitchen sink and rubbed a cut lemon under her nails to remove any traces of garlic. She had been making pasta sauce that day, freezing it to give to Cheri, now at NYU, so she’d have something decent to eat. Solomon promised to spend the weekend in Montclair to celebrate Cici’s birthday. She’d wanted Cheri to come home too, but Cheri, as usual, preferred to stay in the city with her friends.
Cici could tell by the way Solomon was whistling “Just the way you look tonight” as he walked through the front door that he was happy. She heard him place his keys on the hallway entrance table, listened to his footsteps, the slight drag of his left shoe. His legs had become swollen and stiff from phlebitis. He had always been so strong, with such beautiful legs in his white tennis shorts. But she tried not to let it bother her. “Nothing else for today, Cookie,” she heard him say.
They went to their favorite restaurant, Lutèce, and sat at a table by the fireplace, next to the wall with elegant paper that looked like yellow flowers and green leaves on trellises. In the sophisticated quiet, they heard the clink of silver, the clearing of a throat, the sound of an aged port being poured into heavy lead crystal. He kissed her hands and put the pigeon-blood ruby ring on her middle finger. As she raised her champagne flute to toast Sol’s gift, the large gem slipped to the side. But Cici twisted it back with her thumb before Sol could see that the ring was much too big for her finger.
They ate ginger crème brûlée and profiteroles and drank too much. It was rare that they were alone. She spoke about her concern for their daughter, wearing torn clothes, piercing her body, and looking so thin. He told her about how he managed to scoop up the new apartment and recounted with pride his outmaneuvering of the co-op board, how there were many people who’d wanted that apartment. Now Cici had a new design project; there would be architects and plans to coordinate and she could spend more time in the city, more time with him.
He touched her back. She shivered; was it from his touch? She would like to feel sexy with him; maybe tonight she could. He steered her out of Lutèce into the drizzle of the street and helped her into their waiting town car with its purr of classical music. “Buon compleanno, Carlotta,” he whispered in her ear, “you are more beautiful to me at forty than you were at eighteen.”
When they got home, she peignoired herself, put her hair up, lingerie and pearls beneath. She browsed through Architectural Digest because it was on her nightstand and she didn’t want to appear too eager. It was a sensitive situation. Would he want to make love? Ever since her hysterectomy, even when she craved his touch, intercourse was painful for her. She’d tried the olive oil her doctor suggested, but it made a great mess; she’d tried the breathing exercises and reading sexy stories. Once, they’d watched an erotic movie together. She had tried. But it never felt the same again and she could not have an orgasm. And Sol could always tell when she was just doing it for his sake. She felt ashamed and guilty. They slept like spoons, kissed hello, good-bye; he did not often try to do more. He never came home early.
“I have news, sweetheart,” he said when he slid next to her in bed wearing his green silk pajamas. His face was smooth and she could smell the warm cashmere of his aftershave. “I’ve decided to go to law school.” He announced it like a boy bringing home a blue ribbon. She didn’t know what to say except “But you are a dottore.”
“And soon I’ll be a lawyer. Goddamned lawyers—they always travel in groups, three on a call, three at a lunch, and three per hour on your bill. I added up what I’ve been spending on lawyers for Entercap—it’s ludicrous. I could prosecute my own patents with what I’ve learned in the past decade. This just means I’ll have more control
over my business, sweetheart. I’m still a dottore. But I’m also a businessman.” Cici had been so proud of her husband, standing tall in his white lab coat, inventing something to change the world. “I’m doing it for you and for Cheri. And for the children she might have one day.”
“Of course she will have children,” Cici replied. She imagined herself posing with them on a family Christmas card.
Sol had already given her such nice things; their house with the lilac trees in Montclair had been plenty. But once his pill coating had been adopted by every major pharmaceutical company in the United States, there was more money. Yet the more money Sol made, the more he felt he needed to make. Now he was always traveling, working, meeting, can’t talk, late business dinner, He’s unavailable right now, Mrs. Matzner.
“Are you no too old for school?”
“I’ll certainly be the world’s oldest law student.” He laughed. “You’re right about that.” The more questions came to her, the more anxious she became. Would he still be a doctor? Cici liked being a doctor’s wife. She knew what it meant. “I don’t need to practice anymore, but I’ll still run the research facility,” Sol reassured her. “I know this is unconventional, but law school will be easy compared to med school. I’m doing all of this now, while I still can. Entercap is my legacy—and yours.”
“Where is this law school, is it out of the state?”
“Here, Cici. Of course, right here in New York. I’m looking into a few accelerated programs in the city so I’m close to my office. NYU has a good one.” Cici sat up straighter.