“Miriam? Come along, girl. Let’s go to our table. You know, I don’t think you heard a word I said, did you?”
I realized my breathing was irregular. “I’m sorry…I was just thinking…”
“About what?”
I took a deep breath to calm myself. “About how terribly fortunate I am to never have been in that poor girl’s position. You know, forced to rely on day care while I slaved away in some underpaid menial job just to feed my sons?”
Kevin did not need to know every thought I ever had about little trollops and the bulging population of others like her.
“That’s what I love about you, Miriam. You always remember to appreciate the good things Charles did for you as well.” Kevin’s smirk was too obsequious for my inner cynic.
“What? That lout? Oh please! I stayed home because Charles insisted and you know it. It was a sign of his success that his wife didn’t have to work.”
“The cad,” Kevin said, changing political parties.
“The cad, indeed.”
“A bit like having a plump wife in a starving African nation…”
I stared at Kevin and wondered if he meant to imply that my figure had become matronly. I sniffed at him.
“Miriam! Not you, dear! In fact, I was just thinking how you’ve become a rake! You’re not doing some crazy diet, are you?”
“Please,” I said, smiling and warming in the glow of his affection. “We know better.”
The waiter took our order for Bloody Marys, home fries, and cheese-burgers. I was ravenous, and when the drinks arrived, I devoured the celery, crunching away at the stalk like a starving rabbit. Was I losing a little weight? Perhaps I was!
“So, how’s work down at the Temple O’Couture?” I asked him.
Kevin had been in charge of all visual displays at Bergdorf Goodman for years. His windows, which received accolades and awards from all over the world, dictated the ultimate fantasies of others.
“How’s work? It’s the same old horse manure day in and day out. How do we make outrageously priced clothes designed for emaciated teenage Amazons seem appealing to middle-aged women of normal proportions who hope that a certain dress or a particular gown will ignite the long-absent spark in their spouse’s eye?”
“Easy now, sweetheart. You’re treading the shallow waters close to home.”
“Oh, honey. I didn’t mean you, Miriam, and you know it. I was speaking only in the most general of terms.”
Kevin smiled and I was reassured that he had not meant me. Nonetheless, I spouted, “If there was such a thing as a dress that would bring Charles back to me, I wouldn’t go near it. I can promise you that.”
“And I wouldn’t let you!”
“Hmmph. Thank you.” I reached across the table and patted the back of his perfectly tanned hand. Where did he find the time to maintain a tan? Of course! He simply ran up to the Ciminelli spa on the seventh floor during his lunch hour and had himself sprayed with some bronzer. That was what he did. Probably. Well, I charged him so little in rent he had the resources for extravagances. In my world, I could barely afford a manicure once a week.
“Miriam?”
“Yes?”
“Honey? Are you upset about the funeral? You are so distracted today…”
“Oh, Kevin, I’m sorry. I just had another thought that if there was a dress that could make Charles bray at the moon like a donkey gone wild with regret, I might buy that one.”
“He was a colossal fool, Miriam, and everyone knows it.”
I looked straight in his beautiful blue eyes and thought how I loved him to pieces. They were the blue of the Mediterranean as I remembered the Mediterranean from the Charles Years, when there were no fiscal restraints. The good old days when I was naively uninformed of the facts.
The waiter reappeared with our food and asked if we cared for another cocktail. Of course we did. Wasn’t it snowing? I downed the remainder of the one I had and thought, Golly, you surely did get a good measure of vodka at old P.J.’s, didn’t you?
“Oh, to heck with Charles…did I tell you about the spring gala plans at the museum? You’ll have to be my escort again this year, I’m afraid. My, this hamburger is simply beyond divine.”
“There are still a few things worth living for, right? Pass the ketchup, please. Let’s see…can I suffer another evening of champagne and foie gras by the side of the fabulous Mrs. Swanson? Hmm. I think I can!” He slapped the table. “When’s the gig?”
“It’s in May.” We chatted about last year’s event for a few minutes. The waiter delivered our drinks, I sipped a few times and felt my well of steely reserve beginning to evaporate. “I want to chair the decorations committee so badly I can smell peonies and sword fern every single time I think about it.”
“There, there now, my Petal Puss, whom do we have to bribe?”
I giggled at his pet name for me. “Agnes Willis, the old stone-faced chair of the gala. Maybe she has a child or a niece who needs an apartment. I have to rent the second floor, you know. And quickly. What if Mr. O’Hara’s family doesn’t come for his things?”
“If they don’t come in two weeks, we’ll put them in storage and send them a bill. I can take care of that for you. And if you want, I’ll throw a coat of paint on the apartment, too.”
“Oh, Kevin! You’re such a lamb! What would I do without you?”
“Well, for starters, you’d have to rent the third floor as well. You’re not eating your potatoes. Do you mind?”
“Help yourself,” I said, and slid my platter toward him. “Heavenly days, sometimes I feel like a character from a Tennessee Williams play.”
“Hardly. Agnes Willis, huh? I think she might enjoy tickets to see the Bill Blass collection. Who wouldn’t? Maybe I can help you with Madame Rushmore. Every stone has a fault line, doesn’t it?”
Later, filled with hamburgers and the hope of a prestigious committee to chair and a wonderful new tenant living upstairs, Kevin and I made our way home through the snow. After I put on my snow boots. And Kevin had smartly brought his.
We had lingered over lunch as usual and it was getting late in the day. There were already about four inches on the ground at that point, and the snow was still falling as though it never intended to stop. The usual crowds of shoppers and tourists were down to a trickle of humanity, huddled in doorways and in small clusters waiting for a bus, stomping their feet to stay the numbness that only the very young did not feel. Taxis were nonexistent.
Familiar landmarks appeared different and we were unsure where the street ended and the curb began. No one had begun to shovel and we moved along with extra care. Nothing was more beautiful in the world than Manhattan hushed in a fresh blanket of pure white snow, even though part of me suspected it was radioactive. And here I was in New York all these years, now reduced to taking in boarders so I could hold on to my home, with two estranged sons in cockeyed relationships, a mother who had gone off the deep end, and an ex-husband who didn’t want me anymore.
“What’s going through your head, Miriam? You’ve got that look again.”
“Everything. I’m middle-aged, Kevin. The game’s half over and somehow I never got what I wanted.”
Kevin stopped, turned to face me, and put his hands on my shoulders. “The past is the past, Miriam. You have to stop all this brooding. Seriously! It’s got to stop! The looming question, my Petal, is what do you want now?”
I just looked at him and felt my jaw get tight as my volcanic bitterness grew. “I want to be vindicated from the guilt I feel. I want to be satisfied with my lot. All my life I conducted myself as polite society dictated, and look where it got me.”
Kevin nodded, understanding exactly what I meant. We arrived at the front door.
“I’m going to run around to Albert’s and buy us some veal chops and I’ll pick up a great bottle of red wine. When I come back, we’re going to make a plan. You set the table and think about this. It’s time for you to break a few rules, Petal, because,
you’re right, following them didn’t work worth a tinker’s damn.”
“Fine. That sounds good.”
I opened the street door of my town house and picked up the mail from the floor. Then I stacked Kevin’s mail on the hall table and opened the door to my part of the house. There on my coffee table stood Harry, my African gray parrot, who, at eleven years old, had matured into a very desirable roommate.
“Charles is a horse’s ass,” he said.
“You’re telling me?”
He followed me to the kitchen, hopped on my fingers, and I lifted him up to the top of his crate. Harry watched me as I dropped most of the mail straight into the trash. I gave him a small chunk of cantaloupe and he said, “Harry is a good boy.”
“Yes, you are. You are a marvelous boy.”
The message light on my phone was blinking. I pressed the play button and listened while I chose the least tarnished flatware for the table.
Hi, sweetheart! It’s your mother. I left a message on your cell you can ignore. I just saw a weather report that you’re having one dee-double doozy of a snowstorm! Just wanted to remind you to be prepared in case the electricity fails—water, batteries, logs for the fireplace? But then, I’m sure you think you know what to do…
There was no one like my mother. I mean, no one. Once the grande dame of Charleston, South Carolina, she’d flipped her chignon when Daddy died. Six months later, and to the utter shock of her known world, she sold our family’s gorgeous home and all the contents I didn’t want, moved to our funky old beach house on Sullivans Island, and became a hippie. She says she’s not a hippie but I think the term accurately describes her lifestyle. Perfect for her, mortifying to me. She threw away an extremely enviable life to live green, whatever that is.
The next message was from my son Charlie, named for his father Charles, the horse’s ass.
Mother? Ah, not home. Okay. Well, just checking in to be sure you’re doing all right in this weather, but if you’re out and about, you’re obviously fine. If you need anything, gimme a shout. Um, okay then. We’ll talk later…
Could he have said, I love you, Mom? No. He would never allow himself any overt display of affection. Especially toward me and especially after all that had transpired. But at least he still felt some obligation to his mother and I would just have to console myself with that miserly peanut.
The next three messages were solicitations and I erased them, saving the ones from Mother and Charlie to remind myself to return their calls. There was no call from Daniel, my youngest, but it was no surprise. He rarely called unless the earth moved in California or unless Nan got pregnant, and maybe those two events weren’t mutually exclusive. I grinned at my own cleverness. They had two precious little children that I thought were God’s gracious plenty. Nan had suffered enough miscarriages for a miniseries on the trials and tribulations of the reproductive system. The poor girl. Why she continued to attempt to have more babies, I could not begin to fathom. Nan should only have known all that I knew about the disappointments of raising children. I was sure she didn’t have a clue.
I touched the corners of the packaged log in my living room’s fireplace with the long lit match and watched the blue and purple flickers become gold and orange flames as it burned its way to life. The world was still revolving, the snow would come to an end eventually, and somehow, I would be vindicated.
Chapter Two
GESUNDHEIT!
Dear Mrs. Willis,
How can I ever begin to thank you for coming to my rescue with a tissue this weekend? So thoughtful of you! The membership table is such fun, don’t you agree? But with all the germs and flu that the visiting public and their crying toddlers in strollers bring around at this time of the year, I was so lucky to be near you when I sneezed. I do think they should leave their babies home with a sitter, but what can you do? This is what the world has become. In any case, how fortunate I am to be acquainted with someone who is ever at the ready! I do so hope our paths cross again soon. And I hope I shall have the opportunity to return your kindness.
Cordially,
Miriam Elizabeth Swanson
I sealed the envelope with a damp sponge, used my last special-edition Eleanor Roosevelt stamp, hoping to send a subliminal message that I was absolutely strong enough to chair the decorations committee. Call me Eleanor. I hate war. But no one knew how I emphatically despised the common indignities of the membership table. Good grief. Something had to happen to relieve me of membership duty.
Over the weekend, I had reminded Agnes Willis that I had some knowledge about flowers and branching materials. In the old days before Charles ran off with his whore, we enjoyed a nice friendship, sharing tables at events together, Charles; Agnes; her husband, Truman; and me. But once Charles’s betrayal was exposed, I lost all my friends. And well, the unfortunate truth was that our serendipitous meeting did not unfold as gracefully as one might have hoped.
She sauntered by with her snooty clothes-hanger friends, choked by the tight folds of their Hermès scarves, wrapped to conceal their aging crepe. There was no doubt Agnes Willis was there to verify to them that her lowly minions she summoned with her irrefutable power had shown up at our lowly posts.
I looked up to her and said, “Oh! Mrs. Willis!”
She nodded to me. I was not about to be snubbed. I stood, careful to raise myself to my full height, and extended my hand to her sour-faced friend.
“Hello, I’m Miriam Swanson.” I couldn’t tell you what she said her name was for love or money. “Mrs. Willis? Aren’t the flowers particularly spectacular this week? When my Charlie was a little boy he used to call them For Cynthia. I never had the heart to correct him.”
I referred to the huge yellow branches of forced forsythia that graced the center of the lobby mixed with long white tulips, marsh grass, and exotic leaves from who knows where.
“Pardon me?” she said. “Oh, yes, they are, Mrs. Swanson.”
Two of the ladies walked away, but the dour one said to Agnes Willis, “For Cynthia. How precious.” She gave me a purse-lipped smile.
I thought, Oh, why don’t you go eat a whole pizza, and don’t you know that was when the pollen or the dust or some rogue virus overwhelmed my sinuses. I sneezed with the brute force of a longshoreman, thoroughly spraying them with nature’s bounty. Agnes and her horrified friend stared me down as though I had just removed my panty hose and swung them around my head. But Agnes, still in possession of at least one gene of empathy, reached in her bag, flipped her wrist, and presented me with a tissue. I was completely demoralized.
“I’m going to the ladies’ room,” her friend said. “To bathe.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what—”
“It’s all right, dear,” Agnes Willis said. Her eyebrows knitted in disgust and she put her hand on her friend’s arm to delay her. “It could happen to anyone.”
They walked away together and I heard her say to her companion “she used to be married to Charles Swanson, you know”…yet again affirming to me that without Charles and his wallet, my social standing was greatly depreciated. She had not even bothered to whisper.
More than ever, I hoped Kevin would produce tickets for Agnes Willis to the Bill Blass fall show that was right around the corner. If I could be there as well, which was part of the plan Kevin and I had cooked up over dinner, perhaps it would provide the opportunity for me to remark on the flowers they would surely have in profusion. She might take the hint.
It was such a challenge and a frustration to remain a lady in the face of the endless stream of devaluations I endured. But that’s what my mother had always said I should do. It was also hopeless to think that Agnes Willis would divine the real meaning of my remarks and then completely insane to hope that she would act in my favor. Why would she? Especially after I sprayed her and her friend with enough watery mucus to float the Staten Island Ferry. Gross. And, to be honest, what did she stand to gain by doing anything for me? Well, maybe a seat at
Mr. Blass’s show, but she didn’t know that yet. I’d have to check with Kevin to be sure he didn’t forget.
So, down to the corner I hurried and off went my thank-you note sealed with my dreams. I congratulated myself for not mentioning the committee assignments in my communiqué. Another thing my mother, the formidable Miss Josephine, had taught me about the art of written notes was to stick to the subject at hand.
It was snowing again, freezing and gray outside. I maneuvered around the slicks of ice and salt, wishing I had worn gloves for the short trip. Pulling my coat around me, I hurried home sighing and sighing. It seemed that the relentless winter tirade would stretch into May. Just the few steps to the corner and reliving my meeting with Agnes had been enough to make me want to indulge in an old movie and a good cry.
“Not me!” I said, resisting self-pity and unlocking the front door.
It took my entire body weight to close the outside door good and tight. Every door in the entire house needed to be planed, repainted, and re-hung, but that was a job for the spring. In fact, the list of chores to be done and what they would cost frightened me. Rightfully so. Even Kevin, good and generous with his time as he was, couldn’t possibly see to them all. I worried about the shallow steps that led to the second and third floors. Over time they had begun to settle and slump to the west. I worried about the furnace and the chimneys and the gutters and the roof…on and on it went. But I was heartened by my decision to keep the first floor for myself. I wasn’t replacing the steps. Listen, I wasn’t exactly a little old lady, but I wasn’t getting any younger either.
Land of Mango Sunsets, The Page 2