A Little Help from Above

by Saralee Rosenberg

  Maria wasn’t much company either, as she was ignoring the malevolent daughter rather than engaging her in small talk. Apparently she knew enough to hold Shelby accountable for Lauren’s sadness and the fact Mrs. L’s recovery had mysteriously taken a turn for the worse.

  “Oh, what the hell.” Shelby opened the drawer and started rifling the contents in search of a mailing from Temple Judea. But she found no sign of the invitation in there. No luck in the duck, either. She stared at the ugly ceramic relic. Good God. Who spent fifty grand renovating a kitchen, then kept a cheap, made-in-Taiwan tchachke from A&S, circa 1972, on the counter? Aunt Roz. That’s who.

  Shelby threw the miscellany back in the duck’s bill. This whole thing was absurd. Even if she found the invitation, there was no guarantee the committee had located Matty. Or even if they had, that he still had feelings for her. It was time to face the facts. Matty Lieberman represented her past, not her future. As did the desire to have children.

  Damn Stacy Rothstein for mentioning those essays on motherhood she swore Shelby penned in third grade. Now she would always have to wonder if as captain of her ship, she’d steered her life so drastically off course, she’d lost sight of her own childhood dreams. Or, if Stacy’s memory was simply as bad as her method of birth control.

  But wait. Maybe Shelby could solve this mystery. Her room was practically archive heaven, and the truth could be as close as those musty boxes lying dormant for who knows how long. Shelby bolted out of the kitchen and up the stairs two at a time, then cringed when she flicked on the bedroom light.

  Even with the bright sunlight pouring through the darkened shades, the room looked shabby and abandoned. A pyramid of clutter here, a scrap heap of memories there. She hoped her mother wasn’t gazing down now, only to see her once meticulous decor awaiting a bulldozer and a broom.

  And yet it wasn’t the disarray that kept Shelby at bay. It was the realization she was about to enter a danger zone. A room filled with mementoes that appeared innocuous in nature yet were powerful enough to graze open wounds. Mementos that would surely remind her how her young life had been blindsided by death and deception.

  But five cartons and one hour later, she was breathing easier. There were no ticking time bombs for one very good reason. Sandy Lazarus was not a saver. Hell, she couldn’t even save herself. Her greatest priority had been keeping an immaculate home, not the dreamy-eyed writings of an eight-year-old.

  Aunt Roz, on the other hand, seemed to have saved everything, for there in the bottom of one of the boxes were Shelby’s diaries. She knew instantly they were the ones she’d kept in junior high, perhaps the most prolific time of her life, naturally because of the tragic loss of her mother.

  And yet to Shelby’s amazement, there was virtually no reference to her mother’s death. Only to her anger and sadness that Matty had never written her back or bothered to visit since his family moved to California two years earlier. Why won’t he write me? she’d scribbled in green ink in large, loopy letters. He promised he’d write EVERY week. I hate his guts. MATTHEW JAY LIEBERMAN IS A RAT FINK!!!!!!

  But in her very next entry, Shelby envisioned their life together. Naturally they would reunite to attend the same college, get engaged, get really good jobs that paid at least five thousand dollars a year, get married, and voilà, the smoking gun. She and Matty would have seven children, one for each day of the week. Unbelievable! Stacy had been right.

  She wondered what had ever possessed her to want a family large enough to form a baseball team? And how could that ridiculous fantasy have been more important than expressing her immense grief over the loss of her mother? Looks like good old Dr. Israel, may have been right about her. Maybe she was Da Queen of Da Nile.

  “Miss Shelly, Miss Shelly,” Maria called out from the master bedroom. “What in the bejesus are you doing in there?”

  “Research,” Shelby called out. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “That rat! That rat!” Maria ran in, yanked Shelby out, and quickly shut the door.

  “How dare you?” Shelby screamed. “I don’t care how long you’ve worked here, I will not tolerate name-calling by the hired help…”

  “Take the cotton out of your ears, Missy.” Maria rolled her eyes. “I’m sayin’ there’s a big old rat in there that comes down from the attic.”

  “Ewwwww,” Shelby bit her fingers and winced. “A real rat? In my room?”

  “Now that you mention it there were two.” Maria snickered. “The big gray one and you.”

  “Very funny.” Shelby flew down the stairs. “Thousands of comedians out of work, and they’re all housekeepers. What’s the name of the exterminator they use?”

  “Beats me. All I know is a bunch have been here already,” she shouted over the banister.

  “Then we’ll call in the goddamn National Guard,” Shelby shouted back. “The last thing we need around here is a dirty rat!”

  “You said it, sister,” Maria answered. “And I’m hopin’ she leaves real soon…”

  Pity for Maria the pest control company could only set a trap to catch the rat in the attic, not the one from Chicago.

  In the meantime, Shelby quietly went about her business, jogging on the treadmill, then closeting herself in the office to work at the computer, all the while listening for scratching sounds on the walls. Soon she forgot about what was lurking in the attic as she was more engrossed in what was lurking on the Internet. Particularly the Tribune’s website.

  Just because she was no longer employed by the paper didn’t mean she wasn’t curious as to the status of their on-line editions. Admittedly, the writing was crisp, even irreverent, but no matter how much Irving Davidoff insisted this was the wave of the future, she knew this year’s Pulitzer Prize Review Board wasn’t scouring the country’s digital editions looking for nominees.

  Shelby’s next stop on the Internet was her now voluminous file on DES, and today’s findings were especially disheartening. According to a report she downloaded, DES wasn’t just a case of drug companies introducing a pill they would later determine to be ineffective. DES was a case of broad-based negligence and total indifference to humanity. It was a case of major pharmaceutical companies marketing dozens of forms of a synthetic estrogen time bomb over a thirty-year period. Then running like hell when the nearly five million pregnant women who downed them on a daily basis discovered that not only didn’t the pills prevent miscarriages, the damn things hampered the normal development of their fetuses.

  Mounds of evidence also pointed to the fact daughters were at greater risk than sons as the DES exposure wreaked havoc on the female’s reproductive tract. DES daughters suffered extremely high incidences of miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, premature labor, autoimmune diseases like lupus and MS, rare forms of vaginal and cervical cancers and structural abnormalities such as T-shaped uteruses and deviated cervixes. All because in 1947, the government approved the use of a drug for pregnant women without first testing it on pregnant women.

  Finally in 1971, the FDA confirmed a link between DES daughters and vaginal cancer and pulled it off the market. Sorry about that, Shelby guessed the press releases said. Please forgive this little intergenerational tragedy we brought upon millions of families. Who knew?

  Shelby was grateful Lauren’s research skills were not as well honed as hers, as her sister might never recover if she understood the real ramifications of being a DES daughter. Lauren was already feeling desperate enough without having to be further victimized by the gory details.

  Question was, did this information change Shelby’s mind about becoming Lauren’s surrogate? Nothing doing! She was sympathetic, not insane. She didn’t even care about rediscovering there was a time in her youth she wanted children. That time had long since passed.

  Current reality was she was thirty-eight years old, fastidious about her body weight, terrified of doctors, self-centered, and not even remotely maternal. No way would she ever want some alien being growing inside her, d
epleting her of her much-needed sleep and vitamins.

  And yet these feelings didn’t get in the way of continuing her search for Matty. Knowing full well if she actually was to find him and live out her deepest fantasy, it would be to fall in love with him, get married, and have a family.

  On the other hand, there was one thing she couldn’t deny. She was probably the last person on the mind of a man she hadn’t seen in nearly thirty years. All the proof she needed was the fact Matty had never tracked her down. For surely if he’d tried he would have found her. Who was easier to locate than a high-profile journalist with a column in a large metropolitan newspaper?

  Maybe it was just as well there was no sign of Matty. By now he was probably happily married, the father of at least two, and owner of that many dogs, if not more. Oh, how Matty loved his dogs. Shelby’s only hope was that he hadn’t sold out to law or medicine, and was instead, teaching comparative literature at a small college in Vermont.

  On day three of confinement, out came the sun and dried up all the rain, so the eentsy beensty spider girl, who was positively ecstatic about the change in weather, crawled out of her hut in running gear and embarked on what she hoped would be a pleasant, three-mile jog.

  In spite of her recent hiatus from running, Shelby was on course to beat her best time. It was amazing what pent-up adrenaline could do for you. Until one hit a major roadblock, such as the scene of an accident. Like the one at the corner of Royal Lane and Prince Drive.

  Shelby noticed traces of blood on the curb and a man’s sneaker off to the side. Brand-new it seemed. Could it be her father’s? Why else would there be a stranded shoe at the very intersection where the accident occurred unless it belonged to the victim of the accident? She walked up the grassy incline to fetch the size 11½ man’s Nike, collapsed on the still wet ground, and cried.

  Her poor, innocent father. What a high price he’d paid just to keep his aging body from further deterioration after years of neglect and gluttony. Now his body was shattered, his future instantly redefined. The pain must be indescribable, she thought. How could she not be there to comfort him? She was his daughter, his firstborn, and the closest link to his beloved Sandy. She would go to see him. Soon. Or at least before Aunt Roz had a chance to tell on her.

  Shelby sprinted back to the house, sneaker in hand, arriving in the driveway with sweat pouring off her head. While bent over trying to catch her breath, Maria opened the kitchen door.

  “Miss Shelly, phone’s for you.”

  “Who is it?” she huffed, no longer bothering to correct the ignorant woman.

  “Askin’s not my job, dearie. Only answerin.” Maria let the screen door shut.

  It better not be Irma Weiner, that’s all I can say. Shelby wiped her forehead with her shirt and trotted into the kitchen. “Hello?”

  “Shelby? I don’t know if you remember me. This is Abby Cohen. Well, now it’s Rosenthal. Scott’s…wife?”

  “Sure. Hi. That’s so funny. I was going to call you.”

  “Yes, I heard. I ran into Stacy Alter at the dentist.”

  God, that woman was everywhere. “So she told you I was looking for…”

  “Yes. Are you seeing my husband?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Please don’t take me for stupid. Things aren’t exactly great right now. I need to know.”

  “Yes, I’m seeing your husband. At the hospital. My father and aunt were in a serious accident, and he’s one of their surgeons.”

  “Look, I know about the accident and you have my deepest sympathies, but I also heard you’re single and gorgeous, so just lay it on the line. Did he proposition you?”

  “No, of course not. Why would you think that?” Of course he did. They always do.

  “Because he hasn’t stopped talking about you. It’s Shelby this, and Shelby that. And Stacy said you’re like this big-shot journalist who looks like a Jewish Christie Brinkley and…”

  “I’m sorry. I did nothing to encourage your husband.”

  “Ah-ha! So he did come on to you.”

  “Okay. You want the truth, seeing as how that seems to be my speciality?” Shelby’s voice grew louder. “The truth, Abby, is you’ve made your husband’s life a living hell with your outrageous demands and unending quest for more and better. Frankly, you sound like a castrating bitch who puts his balls in a vise every time you don’t get your way. And yet I get the sense Scott really loves you and misses you. He needs you. So if you want my advice, here it is. When he comes home tonight, fuck his little brains out, chop up a few of your credit cards, tell him you want to start over, and I guarantee your worries will be a thing of the past.”

  Had they been on a radio show, the silence that followed would have been called dead air.

  “So, you’re not…” Abby didn’t finish.

  “God no. The last thing I want in my life right now is another man who thinks nothing of burping, farting, and picking his nose, then crawling into bed looking for oral gratification!”

  Abby laughed.

  “Now how about returning the favor and telling me something I want to hear.”

  “You want to know about Matthew Lieberman?”

  “Exactly. Any clue where he might be?”

  “I did ask around.” Abby cleared her throat, still embarrassed by her accusation. “The problem is no one seems to remember him. Didn’t he move away a long time ago?”

  “Yes. In December 1969.”

  “Wow. How could you remember that far back?”

  “Because it was a week after my mother died.”

  “Oh. I suppose that’s not a date you would forget.”

  “No. So did anyone know anything at all?”

  “Well I do have one possible lead,” Abby hesitated.

  “Really?” Shelby loved a lead.

  “Yes. This morning I was talking to my mother, and she thought her sister’s friend used to play mah-jongg with Matthew’s grandmother’s neighbor.”

  “Oh,” Shelby’s heart sunk. “In my business that’s not a lead. That’s a dead end.”

  “Maybe not. I took a shot and called my aunt, who called her friend, and the friend called the neighbor, even though they hadn’t spoken in twenty years, but it turns out she’d died last year. But her husband answered and he thought he remembered Matthew’s grandmother. Her name was Ruth, I think.”

  Amazing, Shelby thought. With all the sophisticated technology available to hunt people down, nothing compared to the precision of Jewish Geography. “What did he say about her?”

  “Unfortunately, not much. He’s close to ninety now and said he was just happy to remember where he left his teeth. But he did seem to recall something about his wife’s friend’s daughter, which would be Matthew’s mother, moving to California, then getting a divorce.”

  “Yes. I knew about the move to California, but not about the divorce.”

  “It’s probably why you can’t find him.”

  “What do you mean?” Shelby loved when someone else had the insights for a change.

  “Well if she got a divorce, it’s possible she remarried. And if her kids were still young at the time, and it was a messy divorce, maybe she let the man adopt them and they took his last name.”

  It was the most sensible thing Abby had said yet. “You could be right. Thanks, Abby. I really appreciate your trying to help me. In spite of, you know…”

  “I’m sorry about accusing you,” Abby said quietly.

  “It’s okay. It happens all the time. Women just automatically assume…”

  “Do you…this is a little awkward…” Abby stammered.

  “It’s okay. What is it?” Shelby asked.

  “Have you…Scott would love…By any chance, would you be interested in a threesome?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Shelby carefully spread out the plush towel, coated her skin with sunscreen, sipped from the frosty glass of water, and slowly eased her lithe body onto the oversize chaise lounge Papa Bear probably o
rdered from some rich-boy catalog. Was there any better way to ponder her future than to bask in solitude, comfort, and seventy-eight-degree sunshine?

  As she saw it, she had two choices. Plan A called for catching the next flight to anywhere that frowned on women who invited other women into their marriage bed for a little ménage à trois pick-me-up. Perhaps that leper colony in Maui she’d once read about was just such a place.

  Plan B would be much trickier. It required taking the high road, rather than the heavily traveled low road. It required staying in Manhasset so she could convince Lauren to return to this house and make peace with it, in spite of the deception that occurred here. Plan B also involved visiting her father, preferably while he was in a semiconscious state so he wasn’t fully cognizant of the havoc his eldest had created in the short time she’d been home.

  Which would it be? Thankfully she was free to explore her options in seclusion, as all the people she knew in the area were no longer speaking to her. Not even Pucci cared when she’d whistled for him to come over. Apparently word traveled fast in the canine community, too. Shelby Lazarus didn’t just report on bad news, she was bad news.

  Yet even with all the turmoil in Shelby’s life, the warmth of the sunlight penetrated her body, filling her with rays of contentedness. Within minutes her breathing slowed and she was in a dreamlike state, imagining a life where she was not only understood, but revered. Where her beliefs were not viewed as strange, but conventional. Where people came to her for guidance and direction. Where she could remove the top to her bathing suit without fear of exposing herself.

  At least she could live out that part of the fantasy, she thought. It was just her and the birds. She quickly untied her straps and tossed her top on the other chair. Or so she thought. It was hard to say how long Shelby had been baking when she was suddenly startled by the feel of ice-cold water dripping down her back. In a dazed state she jumped up so fast, she forgot her cupboard was bare.

  “Hi,” said Avi, the culprit, as he gaped at her firm, moist breasts, panting like Pucci.