Hanging Up

by Delia Ephron

  “It is nothing,” says Dr. Kunundar.

  “My father is leaving UCLA Geriatric/Psychiatric today. He’s been there over three weeks. They say he’s stabilized, but who knows. He’s going back to the Jewish Home for the Aged, where he lives. My sister Madeline is picking him up and taking him there. It’s her turn.”

  He doesn’t respond immediately and I realize I am talking a blue streak, telling him more than he has asked for. I also realize I’m sweating and will have to take a shower all over again.

  “It is nice to hear. A good sister. She goes with you when you visit?”

  “She went once. Usually I go alone.”

  “Aha, that is why I am worrying.” Omar is excited. I imagine his hand thumps flat against his chest and remains there, a beautiful, graceful laser-operating hand, immobilized by concern. “I worry and I don’t know what, but then, yes, I find out.”

  “Well, don’t worry about me. Now that I don’t have to visit him anymore at Geriatric/Psychiatric, I’ll be fine.” That’s what I say, but what I’m wondering is, What are you doing a week from Saturday? Are you going to the party for four hundred fifty ear, nose, and throat doctors that I happen to be organizing at the Nixon Library? Will I meet you?

  “You say he goes back to the Home for Jewish Aged?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I am looking at an X ray of a nose that needs me very much and I am thinking, you need a mother.”

  “A mother?”

  “Good-bye and do not worry.”

  “I don’t understand. What about the estimate?”

  “Yes, that too. I am on the case.” He hangs up.

  On the case? What case? My father’s? My mother’s? Mine?

  “What did he want?” asks Joe.

  I didn’t even realize he was standing there. “He wanted to know how I am, that’s all. He’s nice.”

  “He wanted to know how you are? Isn’t he supposed to tell us how much we owe him to have his car fixed?”

  I don’t bother to respond. Joe and I are not friendly these days. I will not forgive his lack of sympathy and he is fed up with me for expecting sympathy. We act friendly but that is not the same as being friendly. I end the conversation by opening my date book and checking my appointments. While Maddy returns my father to the Home, I will go to the caterer’s. The party at the Nixon Library is ten days away; today we must select the menu.

  “Eve?”

  I don’t look up, but I act friendly. “What, Joe?”

  “If you think someone’s calling to inform you that your father’s dead, you shouldn’t tell Jesse to answer the telephone. He’s a kid.”

  “But you insist my father isn’t dying.”

  “He isn’t, but you think he is.”

  These conversations are worthy of the bouncy man. They go around and around. Their only goal is to express anger.

  “Are you telling me I’m a bad mother, Joe?”

  “Mom, Dad?” Jesse is at the door. It’s not one of his accidents that he shows up now. I know this behavior. I did it myself to my parents. He wants to distract us. “Ifer and I are leaving for school,” he says.

  “Have fun,” I say.

  “Work hard.” Joe musters a smile. Jesse makes a face at him.

  I head to the bathroom, using Jesse’s presence to make a getaway. “I’m taking a shower.”

  “I thought you already took a shower,” I hear Joe say as I lock the bathroom door.

  Starting my day over, standing there with the water beating down on my back, I think about my mother. She started over. So could I. I could leave my unsympathetic husband, my son, his car accidents. Omar was up last night thinking about me. Is he married? When I asked if he had gotten an estimate, he said, “We almost did this.” Is “we” he and his mother? He and his wife? Or is “we” just himself, and he has a problem with pronouns? I am almost my mother’s age. “I was forty-five,” that was the reason she gave me for dumping us.

  I remember her on the twig couch, her wavy hair softer, longer, more relaxed. Her back erect; even her posture expressed pride and no guilt at her new, family-less self. “I was forty-five,” she said to me.

  Life is finite, that’s all she meant.

  When I was a teenager, I couldn’t grasp this, because death was so much further than arm’s reach. But now my father has the dwindles and I can’t remember a short wide actress from the fifties. It’s late, but not too late, is it? I had better get to the taste-testing. Madge Turner will be waiting. Buddha needs her pill.

  I grab a towel and get out of the shower. If I left, I could leave Buddha behind too.

  I drive halfway to my office before I realize that’s not where I’m supposed to be going. This makes me fifteen minutes late to meet Kim and Madge Turner. It’s not a big deal to be late, but it’s demoralizing. I have a sense these days that no matter when I start my day, I am behind.

  Madge is examining a platter of canapés when I arrive. “Caviar, smoked salmon, mushroom, eggplant.” Leon, the chef and owner of Food for Your Fancy, points out each variety in the elaborate way he has of pointing, a very precise cocking of his index finger.

  “Hello. I’m sorry I’m late. I hope no one’s allergic to cats.” I dump Buddha on the floor.

  “We forgive you,” says Leon. He is wearing white trousers and a smock. His clothing evokes Dr. Omar Kunundar and what he might wear on his rounds. Leon leads me on a tour of hors d’oeuvres, main courses, salads, and desserts.

  “Here’s my philosophy,” I say.

  “Yes?” says Leon.

  “I’m willing to taste everything, but in general we should stick to food that’s recognizable. Guests shouldn’t have to ask what they’re looking at, so let’s not have crêpes with secret things inside. And I don’t think people should discover, once something’s in their mouth, what it is. I’m practically religious on that subject.”

  “She is.” Madge pats Leon’s arm. “Believe me, I know, this is our fifth party together. I have a wonderful idea.”

  “What?” I say.

  “Let’s imagine what President Nixon would like to eat.”

  “Cheeseburgers. His favorite food was a cheeseburger. Charcoal-broiled,” says Kim.

  “How do you know that?”

  “It’s in the Presidential Forum Room at the museum. The question is ‘What’s your favorite food?’ and that’s what he answers.”

  “But he’s dead.”

  “It’s prerecorded,” says Kim. “His favorite movie is The Sting.”

  “You want cheeseburgers for these doctors?” asks Leon.

  “No, of course not,” I answer. “We’d have to set up grills. What time is it?”

  “Are you expected somewhere?” Leon’s eyebrows curl with worry.

  “No, my father is being moved back to the Home today. I was thinking, my sister has probably picked him up by now.”

  “I wish I had a sister,” says Madge. “I’m just a poor old only child. Oh my goodness, taste this delicious thing.”

  “Potato Puffs Charlene. I named them for my daughter because she loves potatoes.”

  I sample some.

  “They’re fantastic. Will they taste all right cold?”

  “No. We’ll put them in a chafing dish.” On the wall is a list of the food, and Leon checks off Potato Puffs Charlene.

  “How many sisters do you have?” asks Madge.

  “Two.”

  “And no brothers.” She marvels at one of life’s most common miracles, siblings of the same sex. The phone rings.

  “Interrupted while dining.” Leon makes a tragic face. “Hello. Food for Your Fancy.” He holds the phone out to me. “It’s for you.”

  “Hello?”

  Heavy breathing.

  “Hello?”

  Heaving. Choking? Someone trying to catch his breath. “Jesse, were you in an accident again? Ifer?”

  “Maddy.” The end of her name is a squeak and now she is wailing.

  “What’s wrong?
Is it Dad? Did he die?”

  I realize Madge Turner is chewing her canapé in slow motion and her eyes are the size of salad plates.

  “They fired me.”

  “What?”

  Maddy sobs some more; then there’s quiet.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  She gulps before answering. “Joe. He gave me the number. It’s because I’m pregnant. They’re replacing me with the temp.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s terrible.”

  “They called me on the phone. They told me on the telephone.”

  “Where are you now? With Dad at UCLA?”

  “I can’t go there. I’m too upset.” She throws in more sobs. The first may have been genuine, but I swear these are sound effects. “Suppose I have a miscarriage? The doctor says I have to stay in bed. If I have a miscarriage, I’m suing them.”

  “But someone has to go.”

  “I can’t, Evie. My baby could die. Oh, hold a second, that’s my call waiting. Maybe they’re phoning to say they changed their minds.”

  I address the group. “I may have to leave.” Leon puts his hand over his heart.

  “It was the dentist’s office,” reports Madeline. “I was supposed to have my teeth cleaned tomorrow but I canceled. Oh, Evie, this is so sad for my baby. What’s going to happen to my baby?”

  “Your baby will be fine.”

  “Thanks, Evie.” Pause. “I’m going to have a baby and nothing else.”

  “I’m sure you’ll get another job.”

  “No, I won’t. And I’m a good actress, I really am. On Cheers, when Shelley Long was pregnant, they just showed her from the breasts up.”

  “I’d better go now, Maddy. I have to get to the hospital.” As I hang up, I see that Leon is staring desolately at the food. “Oh, Leon, you have to forgive me.”

  “Of course, it can’t be helped,” he says graciously. Nobly. Like a man whose heart’s been broken but who only desires my happiness.

  “Thank you.”

  “What happened to her baby?” asks Madge.

  “Nothing. She’s just upset and can’t move my father, so I have to.”

  Madge pats my shoulder. “Don’t worry about a thing. Kim and I have excellent taste buds.”

  I sling my purse over my shoulder and run. I am gunning the engine, waiting impatiently for a break in the traffic so I can pull out of my parking space, when there’s a knock on the window. It’s Madge, holding Buddha. I lean across and unlock the door. Madge carefully lays her on the front seat. “At least you have your kitty with you. They’re so comforting.”

  In the hall, with his wheelchair parked next to the plaque that reads “UCLA Geriatric/Psychiatric,” my father looks like a museum exhibit: “Geriatric/Psychiatric Man.” He doesn’t recognize me and has the sour face of a kid whose mother forgot to pick him up from school.

  I apologize to Doris for being late, and I blame Madeline for finking out as I fold his release forms into my purse and take his suitcase. “Hi, Dad.”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “How do you feel?”

  “He’s not talking today, lucky you,” Doris says. She unlocks the door to release us.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Mozell,” Dr. Kelly says brightly. “Don’t forget your magazines.” She plops a stack of Georgias on his lap.

  On the way down in the elevator, he is immobile. He has no reaction to leaving the place or the building, or to being out in the fresh air for the first time in almost a month. Jocko, the very large orderly, comes with us. He crams my father into the backseat of my car. Really, he just stuffs him in, picking him up and scrunching him through the door, and then putting him down on the seat and letting him expand back to normal, although “normal” is surely not the right word. Then Jocko collapses the wheelchair and puts it in the trunk, along with the suitcase and the collection of Georgias.

  I drive north on the San Diego Freeway, then west on the Ventura. Fortunately, my father’s not only in the back but on the other side from me. It does not seem impossible that, in his unstable mental state, he might strangle me from behind in the style of a gangland revenge murder. I keep an eye on him in the rearview mirror. He shows no interest in anything, and he has hardly enough wits or strength to live up to my fantasy, although every so often he leers as if some erotic vision has passed through his brain. He doesn’t react when I pull into the circular driveway in front of the Home.

  The Jewish Home for the Aged is a two-story brick building with green-and-white-striped awnings on every window. The awnings are cheerful in the way paintings brighten hospital corridors, which is to say they make absolutely no dent in the institution of it. Behind the double glass doors, which open automatically as if you were entering a supermarket, is a row of old people passing the time. It’s not a languid wait. It has nothing to do with mint juleps or lazy summer days in the heat, although it is always hot in the San Fernando Valley. It’s more forced—these are strangers trapped in a holding area, waiting for the plane to be announced.

  I manage to extract my father from the backseat with the help of a man who ferries patients up and down the halls in a golf cart, and Angie, my father’s aide here, who has spotted us from the window and hurried out. They wedge him into his wheelchair.

  “Welcome back,” says Angie, putting her sweet face an inch from my father’s. No reaction again.

  I can’t decide what to do about Buddha. Even to me, who has little cat sympathy, it seems she has spent too much time today in an automobile. I ultimately crank the windows open for air and stroke her head. The Georgias I leave in the trunk. I don’t think my father will be doing a lot of reading.

  A woman in the chair nearest the door has a walker and an oxygen tank, and tubes running into her nose. She smiles through all the equipment. “Hello, Lou.”

  “Dad, you remember—” I blank. “I’m sorry, I forgot your name.”

  “Frances,” she says.

  “Of course, Frances. How are you?”

  “Shut up,” says my father, coming to life for the first time today.

  Frances flushes bright red, as if she had done something wrong. I feel my stomach start to tumble. My father’s going to do something crazy, I know it. I have to get out of here.

  I slow down, letting Angie take charge of his wheelchair. Unfortunately, I have his suitcase. I’ll just walk into his room, put it down, and split.

  I see Angie and my father disappear into his bedroom. Into his “den,” that’s what it seems like. I speed up. Move quickly now. Do it before you think.

  Angie is turning down his bed, chattering about how everyone missed him.

  “Get rid of her,” he tells me.

  “Angie’s here to help you, Dad.” I put on a fake smile. “Well, I’m late to—”

  “I know what she wants,” he interrupts, snarling. “You think you’re doing it with us?”

  “Doing what?” Angie looks up from plumping the pillow.

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “You think I’m into that kinky stuff?”

  “I think nothing of the sort, Mr. Mozell. Would you like to get into bed?”

  “Not with you.” He cocks his head my way. “Kick her out, Lola.”

  “I’m not Lola.” I hear the trembles in my own voice. “I’m not Lola,” I shout.

  “I like them sassy.”

  “Sassy? Where the hell did you get that word?”

  “Eve?” Angie lays her hand on my arm.

  “Oh, I know, that’s from Luck Runs Out. It’s a stupid piece of dialogue that you wrote. Goddamnit, shut up. Lola’s a lesbian. She’s a lesbian!”

  My father starts twitching. Oh God, something weird is coming. Something even sicker. He makes strange sounds—p, p, p—his breath is backfiring. His head drops sideways, his arms and legs jerk like those of a lab rat in an electric shock experiment. His eyes roll back.

  I flee from the room, Angie behind me. “Help!” Our arms are waving like distress flags. We are evacuating, esc
aping terror.

  “The phone,” says Angie. “Dial the phone.”

  “The phone.”

  We spin around and rush back in. He’s still twitching. I press zero. “I think my father’s having a stroke.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Eve Mozell.”

  “We’ll be right there.”

  Angie and I stay stuck in place, listening for the siren, although there won’t be one, only the clatter of feet in the hall.

  “What happened?” A nurse rushes over to my father. As she checks his pulse, two volunteers in striped outfits appear, then another nurse.

  “My father’s having an attack, a stroke.” I move backward, easing my way out.

  “It looks like a seizure,” says the second nurse. “Wait outside, please.” She pushes Angie and me the final foot into the hall.

  Various residents emerge from their rooms. Angie and I are soon surrounded by gray heads and a motley collection of fuzzy bathrobes and floppy slippers. “What happened?” asks a man who has one eye covered with a piece of gauze and two crisscrossed pieces of masking tape.

  “We were just talking,” says Angie. “Just chatting with him.” I nod. “And he went off his rocker.” I nod furiously.

  A nurse exits his room. “We get one of these fits a week,” she says. “It’s from brain deterioration.”

  “That’s true,” says Angie, as if it should comfort.

  I collapse on one of the chairs that are placed every few feet along the hall so that anyone who tires can take a timeout.

  “I don’t think he’s in any immediate danger,” says the nurse. “We’ll just watch him for a while.”

  “I’m going home. I’m going home, okay?”

  “You do that,” Angie says. “I’ll call you later.”

  I get in the car and drive onto the freeway. My hands are sweating. I’m leaving big wet stains on the steering wheel. I change lanes quickly. A car horn blasts me. I check over my shoulder and see that I almost hit one of those big cars, one of those crosses between station wagons and jeeps, whatever they’re called. Maybe I should phone Omar. I mean Joe. Joe, Joe, Joe. I grip the wheel tighter. Pay attention. Pay close attention. I turn on the news, not taking my eye off the road. It’s the seasoned driver’s move—I know exactly where the radio knob is, without looking. “It’s seventy-nine degrees in Los Angeles. There was a drive-by shooting on the Ventura Freeway at one this afternoon.” We were on the Ventura Freeway then. I could have been the victim. So could my father. Suppose I shoot him? Suppose I walk into his room with a forty-five, press it against his head, and shoot him point-blank? What is a forty-five, anyway? These are words you hear only in the movies—“forty-five” and “point-blank.” Suppose I loaded the gun with Dad’s bullet? Suppose I took the bullet John Wayne gave him and put it through his head? I suddenly realize what I’m thinking about. You can’t think about this. I switch the station. Golden oldies, that’s what I need. I need to sing along.