Or maybe they could set up a special hotline offering advice on solving sticky mother problems. Like the one the folks at Butterball ran on Thanksgiving for those last-minute questions on preparing the holiday turkey.
I would e-mail my suggestions later. Meanwhile, I would try to fall back asleep, as I’d spent most of the night tossing and turning over what to do about my own sticky Mother’s Day problem.
“Knock, knock.” I heard Shari’s voice on the other side of the door.
“Hi.” I sat up. “C’mon in.”
“Did I wake you?” She stuck her head in.
“No, I’ve been up…. Happy Mother’s Day.”
“Thank you, Claire. I came up to…I’m not sure how to tell you this…”
“What?”
“Penny is on the phone for you.”
“What the…Why?”
“I don’t know. She called earlier, and I said I wouldn’t disturb you. But she just called again, and I said, ‘All right, let me go up and see if she’s awake.’”
“I can’t believe her. She disappears for thirty years, and now it’s like she’s stalking me.”
“She’s not stalking you.” Shari laughed. “She just seems anxious to, you know…talk.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to put you in the middle of all this, but there is nothing to talk about.”
“I know you’re hurt and upset, but please don’t be like this. It’s Mother’s Day.”
“Exactly. All the more reason to tell her to leave me the hell alone.”
“Maybe you could just pick up for a minute and listen to what she has to say.”
“No way! And if this offends you, then I’ll be more than happy to pack my things and go.”
“No. No. Of course not. You’re a grown woman. I respect your decision to handle this however you think best. It’s just that…I’ve never heard Penny like this. She actually seems nervous.”
“Good. She should be.”
“It’s so rare for her to show her vulnerable side. That’s why I thought you might—”
“Wait, wait, wait. You just said you respected whatever decision I made.”
“I do. Absolutely. It’s just that it’s…you know…”
“Mother’s Day. Which is why I plan to call my mother, and my grandmother, and my friend Sydney’s mother. I’ll call your mother. I’ll call everyone I’ve ever met who is a mother. I’m just not speaking to the woman who had the nerve to call at…what time is it?”
“Nine-thirty.”
“Nine-thirty on a Sunday morning so she can try to smooth over a little misunderstanding we had when I was born. ‘I’m sorry. Was I suppose to raise you? Silly me. I completely forgot.’”
“Actually, she happened to mention something about a possible film role.”
Damn! “I don’t care. If she wants to bribe someone, let her call a congressman.”
“Oh c’mon, Claire. I thought you were a bigger person than this. You do realize it’s only six-thirty her time. And, my God, she must have been up at the crack of dawn when she called the first time.”
“You don’t understand. The very idea of hearing her voice makes me want to—”
“I swear, you are just like her!”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m saying, you are most definitely her daughter. You’re as obstinate and pigheaded as she is…you can’t tell her a goddamn thing.”
So, fine. Maybe I had inherited Penny’s stubborn streak. All the more reason she should have understood that when I said I didn’t want to speak to her, I meant it. And nothing would change my mind. Not her ferkakte flowers, not the other calls she made that day, not the e-mails she sent (thanks for giving her my screen name, Delia), not the insistence of the entire Fabrikant family.
In fact, the greater the pressure they applied, the angrier I got. No one had any right to ask, let alone push me into doing something that felt so inextricably, undeniably, I’d-rather-eat-bugs-on-Fear-Factor wrong.
I was not trying to punish Penny, as Shari remarked (well, maybe a little), I was not trying to humiliate her (Ben’s two cents), not trying to hurt her feelings (Drew), not even trying to guilt her into being nice so she ended up buying me a house, a car, and taking me to Paris for a shopping spree (do you even need to ask who said that?).
And with apologies to Dr. Phil, I saw no need to work on my “kamuni-cation” skills. I was simply exercising my rights as a wronged person. Whatever lay ahead for me wouldn’t involve her, so why open the door?
My father was right, I told him when I called home. I had a mother. I did not need another who was clueless, insincere, and beyond fashionably late to the party. Although, to my surprise, even The Lenny and Roberta Show urged me to at least ‘listen to what the woman has to say.’
As did Sydney: “Get over it. You were fucked. Let the bitch make it up to you.” Viktor: “She is not so bed, really. Maybe you tell her she hez to find job for you in the movies, end then yule talk. Em I right?” Even Grams: “Whadaya got to lose? And tell her to make it up to you, she has to come over here and sign autographs at our big dinner dance next week. That son-of-a-bitch Vic Damone dropped out. I never cared much for him anyway.”
Still, I turned my back on Penny, just as she had turned hers on me. Didn’t care that it would deprive Grams of being a hero for delivering a big celebrity to the dance. Didn’t care that I was offending my gracious hosts. Didn’t care that I was spurning a woman who could call any of the biggest Hollywood producers and demand that they send me scripts. I chose, instead, to be “Penniless.”
For here is what no one but me seemed to get. No matter how grown up I appeared, I had officially reverted back to the emotional equivalent of a five-year-old who spent the whole day stomping and screaming, “It’s not fair. It’s NOT fair!”
It’s not fair that there was no justice in life. That Penny hadn’t suffered for her crime of abandonment. Instead, she was at the top of her game, earning millions every year, being glorified by the media, and living lavishly in a dream mansion. Surely anyone who left her tiny baby in a crib with a diaper bag and a note was not deserving of such riches.
And it wasn’t even that she’d been young and stupid when she made her dreadful mistake. It’s that she had grown up and laughed in the face of destiny without apparent remorse or regret. Otherwise she would have made herself known to my family. Not disguised herself in name and appearance, then built a fairy-tale existence to pretend that she was born without a past.
It just wasn’t fair.
Midway through a lovely Mother’s Day dinner at By the C, I leaned over to Cousin Drew and asked a huge favor. Could I please borrow his car, as there was someplace important I wanted to go after we dropped off Grams? He said yes, but followed with an immediate offer to have either he or Viktor take me wherever I wanted to go. How to tell him that that wouldn’t help me?
For one thing, I didn’t want Drew to know I was headed to a Greek coffee shop in order to consult with the psychic owner. For another thing, I would be too ashamed to ask Viktor to take me to the very place I’d offered to take him to dinner. Then he’d know my invitation was premeditated.
“Have you ever driven a Porsche before?” Drew asked.
“Many times.” Once.
“All right, then. But under one condition. Tell me why you’ve been acting so cool to me.”
“I am not acting cool,” I whispered. “I just think we should both try to get our lives in order before we jump into a new relationship.”
“You mean because of Marly,” he said.
“I mean because of Marly, and what’s going on with Penny and I, and because I’d like to fully recover from my injuries, and decide where I want to live, and—”
“I’ve rethought things, too. And I don’t care what happens with Marly, or Aunt Penny, or your injuries, or your career. I want us to be together.”
“Well, that sounds really swell. But it seems to me as if your life is all set here. You�
��ve got a big business to run, an endless supply of girls who dig you—”
“Whoa. Slow down. What girls? For the past two years, I was mostly with Marly.”
“Look, Drew. I think you’re amazing. And whenever I’m with you, I feel safe, I feel happy. It’s just when I’m not with you, the doubt creeps in. I wonder what you’re doing, who you’re with…who the hell Carly Honey is—”
“Carly Honey…. Do you mean Carly Deveraux?”
“I don’t know. Who’s that?”
“My cousin on the other side. My mom’s brother’s daughter. They just moved to Atlanta, and she calls me almost every day to bitch about how much she hates it.”
“Oh. Guess I blew that one…. I called you last night and you thought I was her. I just figured—”
“That was you? I’m sorry. I should have looked at the caller ID. I just assumed you were with your grandmother and you needed some time alone…. And that is one hell of a jealous streak you’ve got…a little scary, actually. This is a crazy business, Claire. But for me, it’s only business. I’m not into the whole bar scene anymore. In fact, I hate it. It’s one of the reasons I want to get out and do my own thing. The girls are all like Delia. Out-of-their-minds crazy, and after a while it’s so degrading. All they want from you is drugs and sex.”
“Actually, it’s no different in L.A. Did you know it stands for lotsa ass?”
“Hey, that’s what Miami needs. A catchy slogan like that.”
“No, wait. You haven’t heard my favorite. It was one of those local public service announcements about sexual harassment in the work-place. The tag line was the best. ‘Ladies, don’t forget. Harass is not two words.’”
Drew laughed, then kissed me for all the world to see. Or at least his family and employees. But how embarrassing when they all cheered, and Ben scribbled something on a napkin. It said, 9.5.
“You can do better than that, son. Your dismount was a little shaky.”
Was it just my imagination, or was everyone genuinely happy for us? The answer came in the form of a tune. I could swear I heard Delia hum, “Ding dong, the witch is dead.”
“I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions,” I whispered. “I’ve never thought of myself as the jealous type. But when you want something so badly, you panic just thinking that something will mess it all up.”
“So that whole business before about needing time to get your life together—that was a crock?”
I nodded.
“Good, because if I can’t have you, then I’m down to only one other first cousin, and she’s definitely not my type.”
“Oh. Not blond?”
“Not straight.”
When it was time to leave, Drew offered to come along on my errand, but I begged to go alone. I knew how to get there, promised it wouldn’t take long, and that I would tell him about it when I got back. Except that, as with everything else in my life, my little excursion didn’t go according to plan.
After driving around for ten minutes, the only parking spot I could find was three long blocks from the House of Athens. The streets were dark and deserted, and by the time I finally arrived, an out-of-breath mess, the CLOSED sign was hanging over the door. And yet there was a light on in the back.
I took a shot and rang the bell, but nothing. I banged on the window. Still nothing. I grabbed my cell and called the phone number on the door. No answer. Then, just as I was about to head back to the car and pray that I could remember where I’d parked, an older, heavyset woman spotted me.
“Closed.” She pointed to the sign.
“I know. It’s okay. I don’t want to eat, I just wanted…”
What? What did I want? To ask the owner if he remembered me? The girl with the good aura?
I must have looked pretty pathetic, because the woman opened the door. “We’re closed, ma’am. We open again tomorrow at eleven.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t actually want to order anything, I wanted to talk to the man who was here last time.”
“Who? Costa? My son?”
“Yes. Yes. That’s his name. Costa. Is he here?”
“Not now, miss. His wife had a baby two days ago. A beautiful little girl.” She smiled.
“That’s so nice. Congratulations.”
“Daphne Athena Christina Eugenia Amandes.”
“Oh, that’s lovely.” She’ll be ten before she learns how to spell it.
“So what did you want to ask him? You have problems?”
“Not just big problems. Huge problems. I’ve never been so confused in my whole—”
“Come in, come in. I’m just mopping up. You’ll give me a hand?”
“Sure. Absolutely. I’m a great little mopper.” I used to vomit from the smell of ammonia, but that’s another story.
“You got the job, honey,” she said after an hour of scrubbing, spraying, dusting, and sweeping.
“You do this every night?” I collapsed into one of the booths.
“For twenty-six years. Tonight I have no help because I send them all home to be with their families. The days are long, but it’s a good life. Next month we’re all going to Greece to visit my mother’s family.”
“That’s wonderful…. I’m sorry. I don’t even know your name.”
“I’m Althea. And you are…?”
“Claire Greene. From New York.” We shook hands. “Nice to meet you.”
“So you come a very long way for us. Why didn’t you say so?”
“Well, actually I’ve been here for a few weeks…very unexpectedly.”
“Uh-huh. You have good auras around you.”
“Oh my God. That’s exactly what your son said. But what does it mean? Because if it’s supposed to be bringing me good luck, someone didn’t get the memo.”
“Oh my dear, you’ve had nothing but good luck. You’ve got great beauty and intelligence, passion and abilities, love and friendship, good health…. You’re a very wealthy woman.”
“Really? I always thought rich girls had more than four hundred and seventy-seven dollars to their name.”
“Wealth is not only measured in dollars and cents, my dear.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Mastercard.”
Althea smiled. “You have wonderful colors around you, which tells me not only have you been blessed, but that you are guided and protected. I think by a male spirit…maybe a grandfather?”
“Yes…it’s my grandfather. He died on my lap, only I didn’t know it at the time.”
“That he died?”
“No, that he was my grandfather.”
“Now, there’s a story I’ve never heard,” Althea laughed. “One day you’ll have to tell me all about it. But it’s late. My family is waiting for me.”
“I know. And I’m sorry to keep you. But I did all that cleaning…and I have so many questions.”
“But you, my dear, have all the answers from within. The radiant purple around you tells me you have your own great psychic awareness.”
“No. Uh-uh. Can’t be true. I never saw any of this coming, ’cause believe me, if I had, I would have stayed away from shower stalls.”
“What answers do you need? Should you marry him? Yes. Should you talk to your mother? Most definitely. Should you put your inheritance away for a rainy day? It never hurts. Anything else?”
“Yes…. Wait. How did you know all that? Where do you get your information?”
“The same place as you, dear. I just listen to the voices from the other side.”
“But it’s not just voices. I hear music. I feel energy around me. I see the image of my grandfather in front of me. I know things I have no way of knowing.”
“It’s just like your name, which is so perfect for you. You are Claire. For clairvoyant.”
“Clairvoyant? Me? Are you sure?”
“I am most certain. When you walked through the door, I felt the great power of your spirit guides enter with you. It’s the sign that you often return to the other side for answer
s.”
“Return to the other side? You mean actually come and go? Like astral travel?”
“Don’t let the name scare you, dear. It is all quite natural. But I do sense that you have visited very recently. Perhaps, if you try, you will be able to remember the journey.”
Chapter 29
WHEN I WAS A KID, I USED TO CRINGE EVERY TIME MY FATHER THREW up his hands and asked, “How can I make plans if God just laughs?” Or when my mother would iron his shirts to the tune of “Que sera, sera, whatever will be will be.” As an already anxious nine-year-old, it was disconcerting to think my parents, my God-assigned protectors, were walking through life with an undertow of dread that at any moment the Almighty One could capsize their comfortable four-bedroom, split-level boat.
By the time I reached high school, I was so sick of their we-control-nothing attitude, I purposely dated a geek named Stephen Wishnick who believed in free will. It was so liberating to subscribe to his more enlightened ideology that we were here to program our own destinies, much like getting to decide which TV shows we wanted to tape on this new thing called a VCR.
Naturally I shared this with my father in the hopes of setting him straight. Why let the poor guy spend his golden years in an ignorant, misguided state?
“Free will, my ass.” He twirled a Salem in an ashtray. “There’s no such thing. It’s all decided before we get here. Like Rabbi Rubin says every Yom Kippur. Who shall live and who shall die. Who by trial and who by fire.”
After leaving Althea’s House of Predictions, it hit me that he’d probably been right. Free will was a crock. A concept we embraced to convince ourselves that we were independent operators, entitled to make decisions and choose actions as we saw fit.
So after all these years, why had I suddenly changed my mind? Because a total stranger had just zoned in on my most pressing issues: men, marriage, money, and mothers. Of course, a cynic—me, for instance—could say that those were the most universal of dilemmas, and the woman just got lucky.
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