She Is Me

by Cathleen Schine

  Elizabeth couldn’t breathe. Her father had said “shit.” Her throat had grown smaller and smaller. Her father never said words like “shit.” Funny. How could a throat shrink? How could her father say “shit”? She realized that now that her throat was shrinking, she could not swallow through such a narrow passageway. And how was the air to get from her nose to her lungs, her lungs to her mouth?

  “I’ll be down tomorrow,” Josh was saying. “Tomorrow morning. As soon as I can get there.” Elizabeth had forgotten she was on the phone. She handed it to her father.

  “Z-z-z . . .” she said.

  “What?” her father said. “Jesus, you’re white.”

  “Z-z-a-a . . .” she tried again. She pointed to her throat. She felt her eyes widening until they hurt. “Z-z! Z-z!”

  “Josh? Call you back. I think Elizabeth wants a Xanax.”

  It was afternoon by the time Josh arrived at the house the next day. Elizabeth sat at the top of the steps waiting for him. Harry had fallen asleep under the coffee table in the living room and she just left him there. She kept the front door open and sat on the top step and crushed lavender between her fingers and breathed in the sickeningly powerful perfume and waited for Josh. Then, there he was, getting out of a cab, and she wondered why she hadn’t gone to the airport to get him. She waved and stood up and watched him make his way up the stone garden path past the fat, blowsy roses. His skin was dark with sun and wind and, for all she knew, dirt. He had shaved his head before heading out into the field, and now, three months’ grown out, his hair stuck up in shaggy tufts. He caught sight of her and ran easily up the steps, grabbed her around the waist, put his face against hers, and burst into tears.

  They wept, holding each other, for so long . . . or was it? How long? Half an hour? Three minutes? Elizabeth had no idea. She held on to Josh. He was sturdy and had the big, comfortable hands and feet of a puppy. He was the only one who could understand. The only other one. Greta was their mother. No one else’s. Josh called Elizabeth by her childhood nickname, Tizzie, and he patted her back as she patted his.

  “Poor Mommy,” Josh said. “Poor Mom.”

  “Poor Mommy,” Elizabeth repeated. They meant it. But what they both also meant, and knew they meant, was: Poor us. Poor Josh, poor Elizabeth.

  “She’ll be okay,” Elizabeth said.

  “I know,” Josh said. “Of course she will.”

  And they believed this, too. Because, Elizabeth realized, it was inconceivable that she would not.

  In the early morning, the fog hovered as low as the rosebushes. It was Greta’s happiest time. The raggedy city had disappeared into a softened, silver light. She could sit on her steps in front of the door and drink her coffee in peace. Greta liked to be alone. It was only when she was alone that she forgot to be lonely. Everything around her, the dewy flowers, the grit beneath her feet, seemed perfectly articulated and beautifully balanced, with her own body as one more balanced, articulated part of the morning. This hour in semidarkness was the only time she had for herself. Or maybe it was the only time she liked for herself. These were surplus hours, the hours no one else wanted. She could claim them in good conscience, knowing she wasn’t depriving anyone of anything.

  Tony was still asleep. Josh had moved back into his old room, and he was sleeping, too. Elizabeth had gone back to New York with little Harry, and even they, in a time zone that put them three hours later, might still be in bed. Lotte certainly would be asleep now. She had always been a late sleeper, claiming the habit as a casualty of her days in the theater. Greta remembered sitting on the threshold of her parents’ room watching her mother sleep, her face distorted, smashed into the mattress, her arm hanging off the bed like the arm of a dead person. Greta would stare and stare at the motionless body until she had convinced herself that her mother was dead. Then she would start to cry, to wail, and Lotte would awaken from death with a start and comfort her hysterical daughter.

  But that probably won’t work this time, Greta thought. For either of us.

  Back in New York, Elizabeth taught her classes and worried. She put Larry Volfmann and the movie version of Madame Bovary out of her head, partly because the distant drama of her mother’s and grandmother’s struggles, the day-to-day pleasures of Harry and Brett, and even the demands, delights, and frustrations of her students took up whatever room there was. But also because, after her visit with Volfmann and Elliot King, after finding the young agent who was the nephew of one of her mother’s clients and willing to sign up just about anybody, she’d heard nothing more about it for months.

  Then one day in April, as the daffodils were blooming in the park, Elizabeth got a call from her new, young, undiscriminating agent saying, with unconcealed surprise, that Larry Volfmann really did want to sign her up to write a screenplay and had offered a reasonable amount of money, which to Elizabeth sounded like a completely unreasonable amount of money, coming to three times her salary as an assistant professor.

  “What should we do?” she asked Brett.

  “I think we should celebrate with a bottle of champagne,” Brett said.

  They put Harry to bed and ordered in sushi and broke out a bottle of Veuve Clicquot ’95 that Brett had been given as a thirtieth birthday present. It had been in the refrigerator for three years. They sat on the couch and ate off of trays, as if they were watching television, but they didn’t put the television on. Elizabeth was glad to be next to Brett, to feel his thigh against hers.

  “Does champagne really go with sushi?” she said.

  “I think we should talk about moving out there, Elizabeth,” Brett said. “At least temporarily.”

  “I guess champagne goes with everything.”

  “You love movies and you hate teaching,” he said. “What does this suggest to you? And it doesn’t matter to me.”

  “Everyone loves movies.”

  “Then perhaps everyone should shake the chalk dust from their shoes and head west.” Brett kissed her cheek. “And I can work from home there as easily as I can work from home here. At least you won’t be flying back and forth every minute.”

  How could he suggest such a thing? Just pack up and leave their home? Their overcrowded, overheated, overpriced apartment? Their friends? The ones she neglected now that Harry was around, those friends?

  “You know I’m right about this,” he said.

  “Just tie the mattress to the roof and drive west?” She wondered what it was like to be so calm and so generous. Was it glorious? Or was it a monstrous burden?

  “And we can get married,” Brett said.

  Elizabeth did not comment. They had had this conversation before. She supposed they would have it again. Her friends, who always said they wanted to get married and yet never did, could not understand her reticence. Neither could she.

  “You don’t have a child yet,” she would say to them, as if that explained it.

  “To you,” Brett said, raising his glass. “To Elizabeth in Hollywood, long may she reign.”

  They polished off the bottle quickly. But Elizabeth found it difficult to eat anything at all.

  “Can I have your salmon?” Brett said. His chopsticks were poised over her plate.

  “I would be close to my family,” she said. “They need me.”

  But the idea, at that moment, sickened her. She could almost smell her grandmother’s cold cream, taste the lipstick her mother left behind on the rim of a glass of ice tea. Her father’s feet, one toenail longer than the others, rose, enormous, in her imagination. To all this would be added bedpans, phlegm, sweat-soaked sheets, stiff limbs from which pale, wrinkled, dry flesh hung uncertainly. One oughtn’t be one’s brother’s keeper. Or one’s mother’s. Certainly not one’s grandmother’s. Surely that was what the Bible meant.

  “My mother,” she said. My mother might die. What would Elizabeth do without her mother? What does anyone do? It was unimaginable. She felt suddenly greedy for her mother, a desperate acquisitive need for Greta. She could hear Gre
ta’s laugh, a loud caw, and she could see her gold inlays sparkling in the California sun as Greta tilted her head back, her mouth open, and laughed and laughed.

  They moved to Los Angeles as soon as the term ended in May.

  “I hope you’re not doing this for me,” Greta said when Elizabeth called to tell them. “I don’t want you to make that sacrifice.”

  “God forbid anyone should make a sacrifice for you, Mom. No, I’m not doing this for you. Relax. This is for work.”

  Of course I’m doing it for you, you idiot.

  “It’s for her work,” said Elizabeth’s father, on another extension as usual. He was emphatic.

  “I can still hear, Tony,” said Greta.

  “I told you before, it was for her work,” Tony said.

  “I’m not deaf and I’m not senile.”

  “Work. I told you before.”

  Elizabeth waited until they were done. She could tell her mother was not completely convinced. But she could also tell that her mother had decided she didn’t need to be completely convinced.

  “Well!” Greta said. “Truthfully? I’m so glad you’re coming. So glad,” she repeated, her voice drifting into a weak near whisper that Elizabeth had never heard before. “My little girl. My sweet Elizabeth . . .”

  Was she crying?

  “Elizabeth can help you, can’t you, honey?” Elizabeth’s father said.

  “She doesn’t have to take care of me —” Greta said, indignant now.

  “With Lotte. She can help you with Lotte.”

  “Yes,” said Greta. “Right. Grandma will be so happy to have you here. And Harry! We’ll have Harry all the time!” She paused. “Just don’t worry about me, sweetie.” Another uncomfortable pause. “There’s nothing to worry about, anyway.”

  “Of course there’s nothing to worry about,” Tony said. Too fast, Daddy, Elizabeth thought. You agreed too fast.

  “I can look after myself,” Greta said. “You come and concentrate on your work.”

  You’re my work, Elizabeth thought. You. You will be my work.

  In her bedroom, Lotte leaned against the pillows and watched the girl exit. A nice girl, although she was so tiny. Practically a midget. And with that big ass on her . . .

  “Maria!”

  The girl turned around, holding Lotte’s breakfast tray.

  “Yes, Mrs. Franke?”

  “Maria, you must lose a little weight if you ever want to find a man.”

  Lotte watched Maria blush. Silly young woman.

  “Honestly, Maria! Don’t be a goose. I speak my mind!”

  “But, Mrs. Franke . . .”

  “I have a lot of experience, my dear.”

  Maria said, “But, Mrs. Franke, I have husband!”

  Lotte surveyed Maria. Well then, she thought.

  “You better lose that behind to keep him!” she said.

  Maria giggled and left the room. Lotte hated having her here. On principle. It was one thing to have a housekeeper to tidy up and vacuum, to keep house. It was another to have a nursemaid, a housekeeper who was really a keeper, as if Lotte were an animal in the zoo.

  “I’m very lucky, my dear,” Lotte called after her. “Very lucky to have you!”

  True, absolutely true, Lotte thought. Fat ass or no, Maria was sweet and quiet and she made the smoothest, most delicious Cream of Wheat.

  “But, Maria, darling, I’m afraid I just can’t afford an attendant right now. You’re a lovely girl. I’ll miss you.”

  Maria returned to the doorway. She looked baffled.

  “But Mrs. Greta, she pay me already. Don’t worry about nothing, I take care of you.”

  She came to the bed and took Lotte’s hand in hers. She smiled, encouragingly, soothingly. Sad, stunted little dwarf, Lotte thought. Trying so hard. It was a shame Maria should have to go through this. Greta should have thought before exposing a poor, desperate immigrant to such disappointment and embarrassment.

  “You’re very sweet,” Lotte said. She pulled back her hand. “You will kindly leave at once.”

  By the time Elizabeth arrived at her apartment, Lotte had showered and dressed. She hadn’t fallen in the shower, a point of considerable pride, but the effort had been tremendous. Each step, each turn had involved a slow, concentrated physical attention, as if she were dancing in slow motion. Pulling on her girdle had been even worse. Greta sometimes teased her about wearing a girdle. Lotte barely heard her when she did. The girdle was simply a part of her day. Like brushing her teeth. Or eating. But today, she could almost hear Greta’s voice: “Don’t forget your truss, Mother!”

  Lotte couldn’t bend enough to reach down to her feet to pull it on, so she had dropped the corset on the floor in front of the chair she sat in. Then she reached out her feet and slid her toes in. But then the girdle just lay there, motionless around her ankles. She couldn’t reach it. She stared at it awhile, a dingy, white elastic object that just then reminded her of calamari, which she loathed. What if Elizabeth arrived and found her this way? Staring at an inert girdle on a shag rug?

  Lotte closed her eyes. Knees! Knees! Knees! Knees! Movin’ up and down again. . . . Don’t you dare to frown again. . . .

  She opened her eyes. It is a curse to grow old, she thought. She looked around. A box of Kleenex. Bottles of pills. An empty glass. The remote control for the television, it should rot in hell with all its buttons, who could manipulate such a contraption? Her cane. She reached for the cane, hooked the handle into the girdle, and pulled it within reach.

  “Everything but my shoes and stockings,” she said when Elizabeth arrived with Harry.

  Elizabeth bent down and pulled socks onto Lotte’s feet, slipped her shoes on, tied them.

  “I got them from a catalog. Kenneth Cole.”

  Harry was hugging one ankle. If only Morris had lived long enough to meet his great-grandson.

  “Grandma’s pretty shoes,” Harry said, stroking her shoe as if it were a pet.

  “Only three years in America and listen to him!” Lotte said.

  “They’re not bad, not bad, Grandma. Très chic.”

  “You have taste, Elizabeth. Look what a wonderful little boy you produced.”

  As Elizabeth held Harry up so Lotte could kiss him, Lotte noticed Elizabeth’s shoes, rather clunky affairs, but fashionable, and nodded her approval. And that Harry! He was magnificent. Brilliant. End up a professor like his mother. A Ph.D., no money, too many opinions. She grabbed Harry’s face and pushed her lips against his cheek, over and over.

  “Driving me nuts,” Harry seemed to say. He wiped the kiss from his cheek in a manner Elizabeth recognized.

  “Where’s Maria?” Elizabeth asked. “Late lunch?”

  “Maria? It has nothing to do with me, dear,” Lotte said. “Nothing at all.”

  Elizabeth made dinner for her grandmother, called her mother with the news of Maria’s departure, called Brett to tell him they would be late, undressed her grandmother, helped her into her nightgown, then tucked her into bed. She was exhausted and wondered how her mother could stand it. It seemed as though she’d been with Lotte for months, not hours. I’m sorry, Grandma, she thought. I don’t mean to be disloyal. You can’t help it if you’re old. Old and selfish and stubborn. And a wave of love for Lotte brought tears to her eyes, tears of irritation and tenderness, the familiar poles of family feeling, wrenching and urgent. Thank God I’m here to help, she thought, and then, the next minute, Why didn’t I stay safe in my apartment in New York?

  Instead, here she was, driving to her new home in her new car. The car had been an embarrassment for both Elizabeth and Brett. They laughed at how self-conscious they were about their choice. But they admitted to each other, late one night, as if confessing an unusual sexual desire, that it mattered.

  “What tools we are,” Brett said.

  Elizabeth thought of her essay on Madame Bovary. Brand names have replaced the cliché, she had written, as the instrument of banality.

  “Slaves,” she sa
id. “We’re slaves.”

  Then, full of excitement, the slaves discussed what kind of car they would get. Not the academic’s customary secondhand Volvo station wagon, though they reread Stanley Fish’s essay “The Unbearable Ugliness of Volvos” for the occasion. The Volvo was a safe car, which suggested they were responsible people and caring parents; it was expensive, which showed they were doing quite well; secondhand signified they were still of the people; Volvo meant East Coast and superior, understated taste; and the choice of a station wagon indicated they needed to cart stuff around but were not willing to be sucked into the gas-guzzling SUV rage. But Brett wanted an SUV, and Elizabeth wanted a new car, and neither of them actually liked the big, boatlike Volvo station wagon they test-drove, so they leased a Subaru Forester instead.

  Where to live in L.A. had been easier than what to drive. They rented a little house in Venice Beach, just a few minutes from Greta and Tony’s house in Santa Monica. The real-estate agent called it a bungalow. Elizabeth liked the sound of the word “bungalow.” It was a bona fide Arts and Crafts bungalow, the agent said, which gave the house some architectural panache. It also gave it lower ceilings and smaller windows than they would have liked. On the other hand, the beautiful, rather wild-looking garden in front was cool and refreshing. Arts and Crafts bungalow, said the real-estate agent. And Elizabeth and Brett moved into a house with its very own brand name.

  “A brand name,” Brett had said. “It’s a sign.”

  Elizabeth drove up the alley behind the house and asked Harry if he wanted to press the clicker to open the gate, but he was asleep. She carried him inside and handed him, wordlessly, to Brett, and got herself a beer from the refrigerator. The phone rang.

  “Sweetheart? Did I take my pills?”

  “Yes, Grandma.”

  “You didn’t write it down.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You have to write it down. That’s our system.”