Hanging by a Thread

by Karen Templeton

  “Uh, yeah. Why?”

  “Because I enjoy your company. And I could use a friend in New York.”

  Yep, that’s me. Miss Port in a Storm.

  “I can’t believe you don’t have other friends here.”

  “I have professional colleagues. And acquaintances. But trust me, nobody I can talk to the way I did to you tonight.”

  I feel my mouth stretch tight. “I’d be using you, Alan. How fair is that?”

  “I’d be using you, too. So we’re even.”

  I think about this a minute, then say, “Define ‘friend.’”

  He grins. “Define ‘using.’”

  “Maybe I should get back to you on that.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He kisses me again—okay, so maybe something stirs this time, but nothing to write home about—and I get out, watching as he drives away. Then I look over at Mrs. Patel’s flamingo, spotlighted from opposite angles. Even though Independence Day was a week ago, the little fellow’s still dressed in his Uncle Sam attire, complete with a striped top hat. He’s also still standing like a happy drunk, which somehow seems at odds with his patriotic attire. And I’m sorry, but this is really bugging me. So, being the good neighbor that I am, I troop across the street, hike my skirt up to my crotch and carefully climb over the spiked wrought iron fence to straighten him up.

  Which is when an alarm worthy of Leavenworth goes off.

  Lights go on, windows fly open, a string of Hindi assaults me.

  “It’s just me, Mrs. Patel,” I shout over the alarm as I shield my eyes from the glare of a extra-high-powered flashlight beam. As if the spotlights weren’t enough?

  “Who is me, please?”

  “Ellie. Levine. Um…you might want to turn off the alarm before you piss off the neighbors?”

  She disappears from the window; five seconds later, the alarm mercifully dies. Although my ears will be ringing for a week. Then she pops back at the window. “Ellie? What are you doing out there, please?”

  “The flamingo was crooked.” A giggle bubbles up in my throat. “I was just trying to fix him, that’s all.”

  “Oh. Oh, I see. Well, thank you. But next time, perhaps it would be better if you just told me and let me do it?”

  “I’ll do that, Mrs. P.” I say, hefting my form back over the fence. “’Night.”

  “Good night, dear,” she says, and the window slams shut.

  Brother, I think, as the giggles take over. I can’t even straighten out a meshuggah plastic flamingo without screwing things up. How the hell am I supposed to straighten out my life?

  chapter 26

  The kit arrives the next day. During the very five minutes I’d zipped next door to check out a “funny noise” in Mrs. Nguyen’s kitchen, which turned out to be a rattling wok on top of her refrigerator.

  As promised, the box is discreetly labeled. However, since Ellie Never Gets Packages, and since clearly nobody, including the cat, has a life, a trio of eager, curious faces greet me upon my return.

  “What is it?” Starr asks.

  I really thought I was ready for this.

  Ha. Ha.

  “It’s a test.”

  “For what?”

  Oh, boy.

  “To help us find out who your father is.”

  My sister’s head spins around so fast I’m surprised it doesn’t launch into orbit. Starr, however, just frowns.

  “How does it work?” she says. Hmm…maybe she doesn’t understand how babies happen as clearly as I thought she did. My heart rate ratchets down a notch or two as I calmly explain the cheek swabbing process. Although I suppose I kinda give the impression that I only need her sample in order to find out.

  Starr speculatively eyes the box in my hands. “Will it hurt?”

  “Not at all.”

  Not physically, anyway.

  “And then we’ll know?”

  “After the results come back from the lab, yes.”

  “Does this mean he’ll come live with us?”

  Oh, God. I squat down and take her hands. “I don’t really know what’s going to happen. But I doubt anything’s really going to change.”

  “Just checking,” she says and leaves the room.

  I turn to my sister, sitting on the sofa, clutching the cushion welting on either side of her thighs as though afraid of being launched into orbit after all. Figuring I might as well get this part of things over with, I sit down beside her and wait. Sure enough, she glances around to make sure the kid’s not within earshot, then whispers, “I don’t know what’s more unbelievable—that you don’t know who Starr’s father is, or that you waited this long to find out! Jesus, Ellie—what were you thinking?”

  “Jen? If you think you can possibly make me feel worse than I already do, fuggedaboutit.”

  “But why? Why would you do something like that?”

  Bile rises in my throat as I see in her horrified face a sample of what I’m going to face dozens of times over the next little while. I get up, walking over to the window with my arms tightly crossed over my roiling stomach.

  “All I can say is, I had my reasons. Reasons which I thought made sense at the time. And believe me, it’s no picnic knowing that no matter what I do now, or what I did then, somebody is going to hate me for it, or think I’m stupid or selfish or a total twit.” I turn to her, tears fogging my vision. “That Starr will think that, one day.”

  “Oh, shit,” Jen says, getting up to wrap me in her arms. She has never, to my knowledge, hugged or held me before, and it feels very strange now.

  “Honey,” she says into my hair, “if you’re stupid or selfish or a total twit, where does that leave me?” She loosens her hold to grimace at me. “It’s just…a shock, you know?”

  “Yeah. I know.” Then I think, oh, what the hell, and tell her the rest of it.

  “Luke?” she squeaks, her eyes huge. “While he was married?”

  “Give me some credit, for God’s sake! Of course not! It happened before. And it was one of those drunken insanity things.”

  “But you’re not sure?”

  Now it’s my turn to grimace. “I’d slept with Daniel two days before.”

  “Jesus.” She pauses. To recoup, I’m guessing. Then: “Does Luke know? That she might be his?”

  “He can count, Jen.” At her flummoxed expression, I add, “For what it’s worth, the decision to keep this secret wasn’t just mine.”

  She lets go of me, crossing her arms. “Let me guess. To protect Tina.”

  “Yeah.” At her snort, I add, “But you weren’t around then, you didn’t know—”

  “Trust me, once a manipulative little bitch, always a manipulative little bitch. And before you jump to her defense, remember who you’re talking to.” Her mouth pulls to one side. “We’re like alcoholics, you know. We’re never really cured.”

  I open my mouth to defend Tina anyway, only to remember all too clearly our last conversation. And back before that, how she always knew exactly how to get our sympathy, how adept she was at playing Luke, knowing where his soft spots were. Are.

  Mine, too.

  “God. You must think I’m a weenie of the first order.”

  “Sometimes. But that’s only because you want to see the good in people. And be helpful. And be liked.” When I wince, she says, “Which is one of the reasons I hated your guts when we were kids. Because you were liked. By pretty much everybody.”

  I let out a sigh. “Guess those days are over.”

  Jen slings an arm around my shoulder. “Welcome to my world, babycakes.”

  Over the past twenty-four hours, I’ve left four cryptic messages on Luke’s various answering machines, fielded a call from some woman named Renee Tomaszewski who’d been at Heather’s wedding who has a dress shop in Forest Hills and would I maybe be interested in whipping up—her words—a few gowns for her more zaftig patrons (I told her I’d get back to her), allowed Alan to talk me into going out with him again (I need the diversion) and
thought a lot about what Jen said about Tina.

  A lot.

  See, the thing is, I’m finally beginning to realize most of the mess I’m in stems from my being an approval seeker of the first order. In school I was a major brown-noser; in every job I ever had, I’d knock myself out just to eke out a word of praise from my superiors. What can I tell you, working for Nikky Katz fed my ego. So basically, I’d do anything—and overlook anything—in order to ensure I stayed in someone’s good graces.

  Now I think I can finally, maybe, accept that not everybody is going to like me, no matter how much I want them to. That I might have to occasionally tick off somebody in order to save my own neck. And that, amazingly enough, I’ll still probably be able to have a relatively okay life. However, what I hadn’t fully understood (before Jen so eagerly shoved my face in it) was that in my zeal to keep Tina as my friend, I guess I did sorta overlook her tendency to be a mite on the manipulative side now and then.

  Like every chance she gets.

  That’s not to take away the times she was there for me. Or that her childhood really was crummy. Nor do I think she’s “bad” because she had an abortion, or because she doesn’t want kids. But she knew damn well that Luke and I felt sorry for her, and she milked it for every drop.

  And she still is.

  What I’m going to do about this, if anything, I have no idea. But I think I just snipped another thread tethering me to someplace I no longer need to be.

  Whee.

  I try Luke’s number again. Still no answer. Finally I take the bull by the horns and call Frances, figuring if anybody would know where Luke was, she would. “He’s gone away with Tina for a few days, baby—didn’t you know?”

  Okay, that does it. I’m tired of trying to fix this all by myself, tired of worrying about hurting this or that person’s feelings, tired of the whole stinking deal. So, after I hang up with Frances, I pack up the kit, with Starr’s sample safely tucked inside, schlep the damn thing to the post office and mail it to him. Whenever he gets around to taking care of it is fine with me.

  Meanwhile, I’ve got a life to live.

  Somewhere in here.

  Two days later, he calls.

  “What the hell’s the big idea, sending this to me?”

  “I got tired of leaving messages. So sue me. Why? Is she there?”

  “Who?”

  “Tina, who else?”

  “Tina?” He actually sounds confused. “No. Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  He sighs into the phone. “Let me guess. Mom told you we’d gone away.”

  “Well, yeah, when I couldn’t get hold of you, I asked her. I guess she didn’t figure it was like this big secret or anything.” Criminy—what’s with the reversion to teenybopperdom here? “So anyway, I figured sending it to you was the easiest thing, that’s all. The instructions are in it, just send it on whenever you’re ready—”

  “She told me.”

  My heart skips a beat. “She told you what?”

  “That she had an abortion.”

  “Oh, Luke—”

  “And that you knew.”

  He doesn’t sound angry as much as…worn-out.

  And hurt.

  My insides get so twisted up I can barely breathe. “It wasn’t like I asked to know. But once I did, what was I supposed to do? Do you guys have any idea how often you’ve stuck me in the middle with all these secrets—?”

  “Yes,” he says. “I do. And now…” He lets out another sigh, then says, “Funny thing. All these years, the three of us thought we had this unshakable relationship, when actually…I dunno, El. Were any of us ever totally honest with each other?”

  But before I can figure out what to say, he says, “I’ll send this out tomorrow, okay?” and hangs up.

  I nearly crumple from the sudden emptiness I feel inside, a void so great and vast and cold I can’t imagine how I’ll live through it. Because maybe Luke didn’t say that was the end, but I could hear it in his voice. That our friendship had been like a sweater with the first rows off-kilter, so the more we kept adding to it, the more off it got. And now we have this huge, ugly, unwieldy thing, but no one in their right mind could call it a real sweater.

  And who has the energy to rip it all out and start over?

  Frito jumps into my lap; I hug his mangy, furry body to my chest and hang on. He doesn’t seem to mind. In a way, this is almost harder than having someone die. Because at least that’s final. Yeah, it hurts like hell, but there’s nothing you can do about it except grieve and move on. But this…

  This just sucks.

  A week later, when Jen’s gone into the city for a couple of job interviews, Dolly calls and invites Starr and me to lunch. I eagerly accept, since I’ve determined that I am not going to sit around and mope about Luke like some dorky adolescent. Or eat myself into oblivion. So, since moping and eating were taken off the schedule, that left me with cleaning and fixing.

  The house actually sparkles. I even cleaned behind the refrigerator (found an earring I haven’t worn since tenth grade, among other things). And the rental house not only has all new screens, but I’ve got most of the wood trim around the porch scraped and ready for new paint.

  I am hot stuff when I’m depressed, let me tell you.

  Anyway, so Dolly asked us to lunch, and we accepted. She and I have talked a few times since the Big Revelation (according to Liv, after the initial shock, the family’s really rallied around their mother/grandmother. Oh, and by the way? Dolly’s mother, grandmother and maternal aunts all lived well into their nineties. So maybe I’ve got a little more time to figure things out than I’d thought.) and Dolly’s taken Starr for an outing or two, but this is the first time I’ll have spent any real time with her since then.

  We make quite a picture, we three. If there’s a color in the rainbow not represented somewhere on our bodies, I don’t know what it would be. And we’re all wearing hats—me, a cute little straw with a turned up brim; Starr, a bright yellow ball cap crammed onto her frizz; and Dolly, a purple, floppy-brimmed number, secured under her chins by means of a gauzy, floral scarf. But you know, she looks twenty years younger. And, she says on the bus going up to Jamaica (she says there’s this great little Italian place she’s been wanting to try, but she doesn’t like eating out alone) she’s lost ten pounds.

  “Without even trying,” she says, beaming, her face slightly lavender underneath the purple brim. “There’s a lot to be said for shedding a burden you’ve been lugging around for fifty years.”

  So that’s the secret? Ditch your problems, lose your butt? Who’d’ve thought?

  Anyway, we have our lunch in this joint, it’s nothing special, I’m not sure I see what the big deal is. I’d also like to know why my daughter keeps giving me this furtive little grin, like something’s going on. Sure enough, after Dolly pays the check, she says, “There’s something I want to show you, a couple blocks up.”

  Starr’s smile widens.

  “Oh? What?”

  “You’ll see,” my daughter says, slipping her hand into her great-grandmother’s. We start out down Jamaica Avenue at a dignified, full-of-pizza pace, (so much for not eating myself into oblivion), but my grandmother and daughter suddenly pull out in front, urging me to get the lead out, already. Now I can see someone, a woman, standing out on the sidewalk, obviously watching and waiting for us.

  Frances?

  Then a second woman appears.

  Jennifer?

  “What’s going on—?”

  “Promise you’ll keep an open mind,” Jen says as Frances unlocks the door to the tiny, nondescript three-story building, flanked by a shoe repair shop on one side and a florist’s on the other. It’s your basic little store, retail space in front, complete with a few leftover racks and display cases (as if the previous tenants stole away in the middle of the night), storage room/office in back, tiny bathroom, kitchenette. A pair of minuscule dressing rooms. Two large floor-through apartments upstai
rs, Frances says.

  It’s not even officially on the market yet, she says.

  And an unbelievable bargain.

  So we’d need to move fast.

  I look at her. “What the heck are you talking about?”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Mama!” Starr huffs. “Get with the program, already!”

  “It would be perfect,” Frances says as I gawk at my daughter. “You could have a shop down here, but convert the second floor into a workroom.”

  “And I could rent the top floor,” Jen says.

  I’d sit down if there was someplace to sit. They’ve all gone mad. Mad, I tell you.

  Dolly slips her arm around my waist. “It would be perfect, wouldn’t it?”

  “Perfectly insane! I mean, yes, it’s great…” I look around, thoroughly annoyed with myself that I can already visualize what the place would look like fixed up. And I haven’t even seen the upstairs yet. “But I can’t possibly buy a building and go into business, just like that! And certainly not on this scale!”

  “Well,” Jen says, “you certainly can’t keep working out of our basement.”

  “Especially since the city’ll get on your case about having customers come to the house in a residential zone,” Frances says. “Besides, you can take out a second mortgage on the rental house to swing the down payment. If Dolly’s investment won’t cover it.”

  My eyes swing to my grandmother. “Your what?”

  “I’ve been thinking about this for a while,” she says, her mouth set in a fierce, don’t-even-think-about-bucking-me line. “And I decided I want you and Jen to have the money your grandfather left to me. I didn’t expect it, and I don’t really need it. And I’d love to invest that money in your new business. With the stipulation that you make me the head of your workroom.”

  “And,” Jen says, positively fizzing with excitement, “I’ll throw a totally awesome launch party for you!”

  This is surreal.

  I sit down anyway, right on the tatty root beer slush-colored carpeting, trying not to think about what might be crawling around in there.