Tales From A Broad

by Fran Lebowitz

  ‘Posie,’ I call.

  She appears at my side. ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  ‘I need you to do some shopping for Frank’s party.’

  ‘For Sir?’ she says, brightening.

  ‘Well, for the party. Yeah.’ I tell her what to get, and write it down as well. ‘I’ll need corn chips, they cost about $4; cheddar cheese, $7; smoked salmon, $7; caviar, the black kind, $10; Greek-style yogurt, $3 …’ I draw a sketch of the type of baguette I want and extend my arms to show her ‘this big’. I write down the names of all the wines we need and their prices. I tally up for her the money she will likely need. I grab the coffee can where we keep some household money and hand her $300. ‘Now, that should cover it. See you soon.’

  The kids and I go out. It is a cloudless, glorious day – hot as ever and perfect for a morning at the pool. Everyone is already there. My friends are poaching in the shallow end of the baby pool and the kids are teetering on the edge of the turtle pond. I sunscreen Sadie and Huxley, put Hux in his inflatable armbands and waterproof diapers, and set them free. I take my place next to Valerie.

  ‘How goes it, matey?’ she asks.

  ‘Ugh, I’ve got some problems,’ I answer. I didn’t know I’d be going down this path but she caught me off guard with the ‘How are you?’ I could have said ‘Fine’, like most normal human beings. But I have always been so touched by the term ‘How are you?’ that I’ve never been able to remember the word ‘Fine’, or that I’m not supposed to pause, contemplate and launch into a monologue. When I say ‘Well’, it’s not my final answer; I’m not saying ‘Fine’. I’m beginning: ‘Well … I had an awful day already …’ Sometimes people walk away, but, hey, they asked an intelligent question and I’ll talk as long as I bloody well like. Valerie is too relaxed and too firmly planted between my hips and Tilda’s to do much else but listen.

  I tell her about the promise I made ten years ago and how it has not been forgotten but, rather, has snowballed in meaning. I tell her about the man who followed me in New York, and we laugh.

  Tilda asks, ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Well, you know it’s Frank’s birthday … you are coming over, aren’t you?’ She nods. Tess, Caroline and Dana make their way over. ‘You’re all coming tonight, right?’ They nod.

  ‘Sorry, Valerie, but I’ll have to back up.’ I repeat it all.

  ‘Frannie, only you would feel old on someone else’s birthday,’ Dana says.

  Sadie paddles over. ‘What’s so funny, Mom?’

  We burst out laughing.

  ‘I know,’ Tilda says, ‘why don’t you have Sadie and Lucy asleep in your bed when we get back tonight?’ Lucy is her daughter. Her kids, in fact most of our guests’ kids, are coming over tonight. By the time we all go to Anywheres, they’ll be sleeping on floors and sofas and beds, to be taken home later in parents’ arms. The sense of extended family at Fortune Gardens is probably the single most precious aspect of my new life. In the light of day, around my friends, I feel the complications easing up. They are upbeat and pull the humour out of me easily and appreciatively. The environment is safe, perhaps because it is relatively temporary but also anchored by how important each day is to small children. We are well suited to each other and are quickly becoming essential to one another, sharing events and histories, dreams, learning the depths and oddities of each other’s character, without ever having to revisit places in the past where we don’t want to venture. To them, I am not the person on the freezing cold deck worrying that life was not working and working was not life. The beauty and relief wash over me. And then I start picturing each one naked with Frank.

  ‘Put two Barbies on the pillow,’ Valerie guffaws. She’s got nice shoulders, good stomach – too good, actually.

  ‘Dress up in a wig,’ Tess offers. She has a beautiful face, luxuriant hair. Nu-uh.

  ‘Have Collin dress in a wig,’ Dana adds. If Dana covered her eyes and strapped down her boobs … she’d still have those lips.

  I am surrounded by sensuous, lovely, adored women, mothers, my age. I feel better thanks to their efforts to package my issues up as a gag. But somehow, in the course of my life with Frank, this 35th birthday quest was merely a salient example of my vow that I would never grow up. Cantor Donald prophesised: ‘Changes will challenge the ties you forge today.’ Amen, Cantor Donald!

  Frank calls to say he won’t be able to come home early. His friends are taking him to lunch. ‘Oh, okay, but don’t eat anything. I’m making a special dinner.’

  What friends?

  ‘Schnitzels?’ he asks.

  ‘Well, no, but you’ll like it.’

  Panicked that I hadn’t thought of how much Frank likes German food on his birthday, I decide that when Posie returns I’ll send her out again for something German – maybe pretzels.

  I remember Frank’s 30th birthday in Manhattan, before kids. I had invited dozens of friends to a dinner I organised at Frank’s favourite restaurant, The Heidelberg Inn on Second Avenue at 86th Street. I had just discovered that I was persona non grata at my job with The Very Famous Agency because I pissed off a very important person in the department. I told him I couldn’t get him coffee, that I was busy. When you’re a hopeful assistant at The Very Famous Agency, you’re supposed to say, ‘Thank you, Sir, can I have another?’ Thwack. But I lacked the correct upbringing to knowingly humiliate myself. Anyway, by the time we all convened at the Heidelberg, I was pretty much out of work. I whispered in a few ears, ‘Listen, I don’t think I can pay for all of this …’

  ‘Don’t worry!’ was the constant rejoinder.

  I had decorated the tables with cloths and streamers made up of cheques written out to Frank Rittman for $ 1 million. He had always wanted to be a millionaire by the time he was 30. I had questionnaires for everyone to fill out about their experiences with Frank. We drank, we ate good German food and danced with the oompah band. Word must have spread about my predicament because everyone shoved wads of bills into my pockets at the end of the night. After the last guest had left, Frank and I had a nightcap and I took out my roll to pay the bill. ‘It’s a wonderful life,’ I said. ‘I made $400 on this party!’

  Where is Posie? I wonder. I look at my watch. It’s four o’clock. I have to get moving on slicing the brisket. I thought she’d like to watch me do it but I can’t wait all day. I select the best knife for the job, even though brisket really just falls apart; it’s the nature of the meat. It’s what makes it so good. I take the tinfoil off the first pan and spear the hunk. The fork doesn’t slide in as easily as I would have expected. In fact, it takes a great deal of effort to penetrate at all. One … final … puuush … from above on a chair. At last! Next, I move it to the cutting board. I slice. I slice. I slice. I get another knife. With a little more downward pressure, I should manage okay. I get another knife. What is it with these things? I go to Frank’s toolbox. I start sawing, axing, hammering, screwing, wrenching. Each pan is the same. I am exhausted and there is nary an Aussie-gram worth saving.

  Posie comes in.

  ‘Oh, thank God you’re here, Posie. I am in a terrible state. I have to get back to Prestons right away …’ I stop because I notice she is unpacking four bags of corn chips. Maybe there was a promotion. ‘I’ll be much faster if you stay with the kids. If I can even make it there and back in …’ I stop again because she is taking out the third container of yogurt. ‘Posie,’ I say sharply, ‘what is going on?’

  ‘I ran out of money, Ma’am. I couldn’t get the wine.’ She puts the seventh block of cheddar cheese on the counter.

  ‘Posie! We went over this. The little dollar sign means how much money not how many. Oh my God! I even counted it out in front of you. We have ten jars of caviar and seven packages of smoked salmon but no wine. People will be very thirsty, Posie! You better take this back.’ And then I think to add, so there can be no confusion, ‘Take the extras back. Get the wine. Take the kids with you. Good luck to us all.’

  I drive like a maniac to Pr
estons, squeal into two parking spots and hoist a trash bag full of mutilated dinner over my shoulder like a carnivorous Santa. I walk in and swing it onto the counter, madly ringing the bell for service. The butcher comes out. ‘Ah, so good to see you. Come back for more –’

  ‘You have the nerve to call this brisket?! This cow must have been roaming the streets of Calcutta for the past 90 years before you fellows swooped down!’

  He laughs.

  ‘It’s not funny! I have a dinner party. Ten Australians, remember?’

  ‘Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Brisket sometimes do that.’

  I start to cry. ‘Don’t worry? How can I not worry? Shit!’

  ‘Take this.’ He hands me a perfectly gorgeous roasted tenderloin worth twice as much as my brisket. ‘And this.’ He gives me a large platter of grilled vegetables. ‘Oh, you might as well take this since it so late now, no one else come in for it.’ He gives me a tray of roasted potatoes and 50 jumbo shrimp.

  Now I am really crying. ‘Oh, thank you, thank you.’ He hands me a tissue and I wipe my eyes. I hear his service bell ring. An angel just got his wings … It’s a wonderful life.

  With all this prepared food, I have time to get dressed. Posie even sets things up, sort of, kind of, not quite the way I would have done it but not altogether half bad, that is to say there is much room for improvement but it’s not a disaster.

  Frank is the first to show up. He apologises for not being around and asks if it all went okay. I say, ‘Of course it did. We had fun, didn’t we?’ The terrified faces of Sadie, Huxley and Posie go up and down automatically. ‘How are you?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m feeling double happiness,’ he says.

  My stomach clenches. Frank kisses Sadie on her forehead and Huxley on his big fat cheek.

  As the night wears on, no one shows any interest in eating. A few nuts here, a few dips there would have been fine for this crowd. We become increasingly loud, my girlfriends hoarsely whispering, ‘What are you going to do?’ and me answering, ‘I don’t know yet!’ The dancing is starting but I whistle us over for dinner anyway. The food is perfect, really, and I take full credit. Frank says he particularly likes the sauerkraut canapé. I think he’s being sweet, but I’m glad I thought of it at the last minute. By 12, no one really feels like going dancing any more.

  ‘I’ll vomit if I dance now,’ Sam says, opening a VB.

  ‘That place is full of poofters,’ Clive adds.

  ‘Look, you have thousands of CDs. We’ll dance here,’ says Tilda.

  ‘I brought dessert,’ Dana says. ‘Wine and fags!’

  Tilda puts on ‘Voulez Vous Coucher Avec Moi’ … Ha ha, very funny.

  We take turns playing our picks and soon, cautiously at first, I’d say we’re rocking. Until Tilda puts on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and I hear someone laughing at ‘Love the One You’re With’. There isn’t a good way to move to most of this CD, so we take a breather.

  I go into the kitchen and get the cake out. I don’t expect to, but I start to weep. Frank hasn’t glanced my way, he hasn’t told me I look good, he really hasn’t said much to me at all. He doesn’t seem like a man who wants to be with me whether or not I bring a friend along. But as I light the candles, his arms encircle me from behind and he turns me to dance with him in the privacy of our kitchen. ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ I don’t answer. I breathe into his shoulder. To ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’ we sway fifth-grade style.

  I won’t let the past remind me of what I am not now.

  His hand caresses my back, seventh-grade style.

  I am yours … I am my beloved’s … and my beloved is mine.

  He kisses me, like my husband. Like a man 35 years old, in love with his wife. And I remember the most important thing Cantor Donald said, the most important vow: I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.

  I kiss him back like a 32-year-old; a 32-year-old who doesn’t like to share.

  By 2 am, everyone has left. Frank and I ignore the mess and venture into the kitchen for a Baileys. As I pour, he presents me with three gifts. ‘Early Christmas,’ he says.

  Inside the first package is a can of tuna from Taiwan. In the second, a can of tuna from Thailand and in the third, a can of tuna from Indonesia. Proof positive of his travels. I am laughing when he hands me the can opener and says, ‘Go on, try them.’ He brings out some mayonnaise and crackers, puts them on the counter. We start to fool around. He undresses me and we make spectacular love on the kitchen floor. As we lounge, in a daze, bare-bottomed on the cold floor, leaning against the counters, I know I am off the hook. So, I try a little from every can.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Pat!’

  ‘Bill, pick up the phone,’ Frank’s mother calls out. ‘Fran and Frank are on.’

  ‘Well, tell them I only want to talk to Huxley.’ I hear Bill’s slippers scuffling down the hall of their Westchester home.

  ‘Now tell me, how are you? Bill, Bill, for goodness sake, Bill.’

  He is either taking another nip of good cheer, turning on the TV instead of getting on the phone or dipping his finger in a dish meant for later.

  ‘That’s for later,’ Pat admonishes. I hear Bill pick up the phone in the den; there’s the faint sound of a game show in the background.

  ‘Where’s Mama?’ Frank asks, referring to his 93-year-old grandmother.

  ‘Where she always is,’ Bill grouses. ‘Here. Here for our 49th Christmas. Here for our 49th summer vacation. Here for our 49th wedding anniversary. And if she isn’t here, Pat’s there.’

  ‘Merry Christmas, Bill,’ I say. ‘So, how is everyone? What are you doing?’

  Pat gives a tremulous sigh, a beleaguered sound. ‘Oh, nothing much. It’s a quiet Christmas.’

  There is no doubt she’s exhausted and feeling put upon. Why? Because she does all the work, because getting anyone to contribute to the Christmas spirit in that house is about as easy as kicking yourself in the behind, because she is telling herself for the hundredth time that it is better to give than to receive, and because she is growing weary from saying things like ‘What an adorable cat-shaped garlic tree; it is just what I wanted’ or ‘What an adorable cat-shaped piece of driftwood; it is just what I wanted’ or ‘What an adorable cat-shaped ink blotter; it is just what I wanted’. Now add to that the fact that we took her two adorable grandchildren 10,000 miles away after living in the same postal code for two years and, frankly, I’m amazed at her composure.

  ‘Is Walter there?’ Frank asks, referring to his brother.

  ‘He was but he told me the food looked inedible so he went to Pete’s Tavern. He did give me the most adorable cat-shaped potholder. It’s just what I wanted.’

  ‘I don’t know why you bother with this every year, Pat,’ Bill says. ‘Where’s Huxley?’ he asks.

  ‘Bill, Huxley can’t talk yet,’ Pat corrects.

  ‘Well, put Sadie on the phone. I want to talk to him,’ Bill says.

  ‘Sadie is a girl!’ we all say.

  ‘I know that. I like to tease.’

  ‘You guys, Huxley can talk,’ I defend. ‘He doesn’t just jabber; he speaks in complete sentences and never forgets to put in adjectives. He even knows his days of the week.’ I put the phone to Huxley’s mouth. ‘Tell Grandma and Grandpa the days of the week.’

  He swats the phone down. I pick it up. ‘Huxley, come on, tell them the days of the week.’

  A big drop of drool lands on the receiver. ‘Come on, Hux. Sunday,’ I coax, ‘Monday …’ He puts the phone in his mouth. ‘I guess he’s tired. Anyway, he says it like this: “Sunday, Monday, Dinnertime, Saturday.” It’s so cute.’

  ‘Oh, the dear.’ Pat’s voice catches.

  ‘Yeah, he’s my mush. Everyone loves him here.’

  ‘Yeah, ’cause he looks like Buddha,’ says a small voice.

  ‘Is that you, Sadie Dean?’

  ‘Hi Grandma. Merry Christmas.’

  ‘What did you get from Father Christmas, Sadie Dean?’

  ‘
Mom said we don’t have a chimney so he had to come through the garbage chute. I got Barbie and a kitchen set and that’s all, I think.’

  ‘Sadie, what about the clothes and books and backpack?’ I remind her.

  ‘Well, that was all I liked.’

  ‘Pat, we had the best time here. I wish you two could have come.’

  ‘I know. I couldn’t leave my mother,’ Pat says.

  ‘Forty-nine Christmases, 49 Easters, 49 Thanksgivings. Every summer. She even sits in my chair,’ Bill laments.

  I cut him off. ‘We had a Christmas Eve formal cocktail party at our friend’s apartment. Oh my gosh, you should have seen the decorations …’

  Caroline is famous for her holiday zeal. Weeks before Christmas, she had a different set of themed earrings on every day: Rudolphs that lit up, wreaths made of pine, Santas that said ‘ho ho ho’ when she tugged her earlobe. Her apartment was chockablock with paraphernalia on Christmas Eve, from the tree that swayed to the music, to the one that had ornaments in the shape of her family, from the electric train that went through all 10,000 square feet of her apartment, to the authentic Santa sleigh that vibrated when you fed it coins. She had replaced her curtains with ones bearing a winter wonderland pattern. There were matching slipcovers and pillows. She somehow had icicles hanging from the ceiling. My favourite decoration was the life-sized manger with robotic holy men and a stereo playing ‘We Three Kings’, ‘Little Drummer Boy’ and ‘Silent Night’. Caroline was decked out in a fur-lined red dress. She and Todd had the space, they were very generous and genuinely enjoyed having a crowd. Todd was jolly though rather busy. When he wasn’t handing out red and green Jello shots, he was untying Barbie from the train tracks. Just when he thought he could mingle, he spotted something amiss in the manger. ‘Hey, Clive, put Mary back. She doesn’t like that.’