Single Wife

by Nina Solomon

  Kane made a toast, which began “In absentia” and ended with “To my best friend, wherever he may be, we’re not saving him any cake, and if he doesn’t get here soon, I’m taking Gracie. Just kidding, Milt. Love you, Paulette, and you too, Laz.” Everyone laughed and clapped. Grace could always count on Kane to fill these social gaps until Laz showed up—better late than never, he’d always say. All the guests remarked on the exquisite flowers, claiming that the cake was too beautiful to eat, but then all except Bert Sugarman proceeded to devour it and to comment about how truly blessed she and Laz were to have each other.

  As she looked around at her and Laz’s friends and family, Grace was aware that just the pretense of Laz was enough for them to feel they were part of his life. And people wanted to know her, his wife, because by virtue of being near her, they were close to him. But as little as they knew her, they knew Laz even less.

  AFTER THE PARTY, Kane carried the shopping bags filled with anniversary presents down the elevator and through the parking lot to his car. Most of the presents were useless gifts: an array of tacky bottle openers, which Laz collected from around the world; an electronic drum set with matching headphones; and his-and-her Lladró figurines, from the Sugarmans. It didn’t matter that the presents were ludicrous, the more ludicrous the better. Laz would have loved them.

  Kane opened the passenger-side door for Grace and put the bags in the back. He got in, buckled his seat belt, and reached under the seat. Grace saw that he was holding a square white box that was wrapped with a gold elastic ribbon diagonally around it.

  The box looked so familiar. Grace tried to place where she might have seen it before, then she remembered boxes identical to this one that Laz used to bring home for her from the novelty store on Amsterdam Avenue, each filled with some vestige from her childhood.

  “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” she had exclaimed one time, kissing Laz as she opened a box containing two spinning pups. When she was a child, her father used to enchant her by insisting that the miniature magnetic dogs could move by themselves. Laz had set the pups up on the dining room table and sent the black and white Scotties flying across the glossy surface, making them do figure eights around the salt shakers.

  Kane stopped at a light and handed her the box.

  “Open it when you get home.” Grace looked at Kane and realized that even though he was smiling, his eyes looked far away, sad even. She tried to brush away the feeling that she was in part responsible for his disappointment, that he missed his friend, too, and she was deceiving him. Grace held the box on her lap, and they rode home in almost complete silence until they stopped at a light a block from her building.

  “Laz missed a great party. You know he loves you, right, Gracie?”

  “Of course, I do.”

  UPSTAIRS, GRACE PULLED off the ribbon and lifted the lid from the white box. She unfurled the tissue paper and took out a shiny black globe. A Magic 8-Ball. Kane had written a note: To Grace and Laz. For when there are no answers. Grace wondered if Kane knew, but she remembered how he’d looked in the car, and she knew that he couldn’t possibly. Then she noticed the carton of Duro-Lites by the front door. She’d forgotten to thank her father.

  “Will Laz come home before another bulb burns out?” she asked, closing her eyes. She turned the 8-Ball over and waited for an answer to appear. Ask again later. But Grace could not wait. She shook the ball until there were bubbles in the inky blue liquid. Finally she got the answer she was waiting for. You may rely on it.

  6

  IT’S A MYSTERY

  The day after the anniversary party, Grace awoke with a dull ache in her temples, which she suspected was from the champagne. She’d had a fitful night’s sleep. At three in the morning, she had awakened from a dream about Laz. His voice had vibrated in her ears and she had heard the faint tinkle of pocket change. I hope you liked the flowers, Gracie. It had seemed so real; she’d even felt the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck as he spoke. In the morning, she found Laz’s gold-knot cufflinks on the night table. A nice touch, she congratulated herself, not that she recalled having put them there. Next time she’d go easier on the champagne.

  She wasn’t looking forward to the Scrabble game that evening. The thought of trying to put two words together, let alone more than two letters, seemed overwhelming. She wanted to float in a tub of warm water—sprinkling in twice the recommended amount of Dead Sea salts so that the water turned a deep sky blue, which had a strongly soporific effect. Her morning cup of mint tea did little to revive her.

  She contemplated returning to bed, but then remembered the carton of Duro-Lites that had been delivered the day before and decided to replace the burned-out bulb. If changing the bulb didn’t serve to brighten her spirits, then at least it would brighten the room. She stood on the stepladder with a new Duro-Lite in her hand, steadied herself, and screwed the bulb in. It was too bright now, so she tried adjusting the dimmer. After several tries with no noticeable dimming, and a phosphorescent tint to everything she looked at, she decided to call the building’s handyman.

  Before the handyman arrived, Grace closed the bedroom door and slung Laz’s favorite yellow Hermès tie over the doorknob. They had won the tie in a raffle last May at a diabetes ball chaired by Laz’s mother. It had a striking pattern, but right now Grace thought its motif looked more like squiggly sperm on lily pads rather than green tomatoes.

  She recalled many nights when Laz had come home late—too late, he’d said, to call—not wanting to wake her. But the truth was, he knew she would be up waiting for him. After one of those late nights, Laz would usually sleep till noon. Grace had continued the tradition, asking Marisol to forgo the vacuum so as not to wake him, and even Grace found herself trying to be extra quiet. Sometimes, with the shades drawn and the bed slightly rumpled, she could almost fool even herself.

  “YOU HAVE A big problem, Mrs. Brookman,” the handyman said as he removed the light plate. She caught herself before she said she knew. He was in his stockinged feet as if he, too, were trying not to disturb Laz, having left his work boots by the door, a detail that Grace found somewhat disagreeable.

  Whenever anyone called her Mrs. Brookman, Grace would turn around, half expecting to see Laz’s mother in a teal blue leather pants suit, waiting for the driver to take her to Zabar’s and announcing to whoever was within earshot how exquisite their octopus salad was. Laz called his mother a dame. Grace didn’t call her anything. Just a casual, “Oh, hi,” when she called.

  “I’m gonna have to take the whole thing out—the wires are crossed,” the handyman said, clearly losing his patience. “But I can’t do it today.” Grace nodded. “I’ll be back tomorrow with the right splitter. Whoever put this in did a lousy job.”

  Grace knew full well who had done it. She remembered how Laz had twisted the red and blue wires together, snipping them with the wire cutter. He’d tested the dimmer, artfully ignoring the few snaps and sparks that shot out from the switch, then lifted her up onto the three-leaf table.

  “Keep the lights off until I come back. You could short out the whole line,” the handyman said. Grace imagined the entire West Side going dark because of an accidental flip of the light switch. She gave the handyman a ten-dollar bill and closed the door after him.

  WITH THANKSGIVING LESS than a week away, Grace decided it was wise to thaw out the cranberries in advance for the relish she was going to make. She found the cranberries in the freezer behind two Ziploc bags of bagels and the container of Francine Sugarman’s meatballs. Grace’s mother had purchased the cranberries last year, a week after Thanksgiving, when they went on sale. “Only fifty-nine cents,” her mother had beamed. As Grace reached for the bag, she saw the frosted glass fishbowl she and Laz had put in there three years ago. Frozen in the ice was a key to his old apartment.

  They had argued about his not giving up the apartment, eventually agreeing to put the matter on hold, at least symbolically. They would thaw the key out and deal with it later. Grac
e had read about this technique in an article about relationships, and it seemed to work—except that they had never thawed the key out or spoken of it again. In the top drawer of Laz’s dresser, however, there was a spare key, and Laz still went to his old apartment occasionally to write or listen to his old records.

  The fishbowl had once contained a goldfish and a Japanese fighting fish. On one of the previous occasions when Laz had left, Grace neglected to feed the fish or to change the water in the bowl. Every time she passed the bowl, she told herself she would feed them later. By the time Laz returned, the water had become so clouded that Grace couldn’t even see the fish, who were by then floating belly-up on the water’s surface.

  GRACE WAS STILL holding the fishbowl in her hands when the phone rang. Her fingers had frozen to the glass. She ran the bowl under warm water, dried her hands, and put the bowl back in the freezer. The machine picked up. Hi, Gracie, it’s Dad. I didn’t send the bulbs. He paused, sighing deeply. It’s a mystery. Give a call. Normally, Grace liked her father’s expressions, such as Give a call. Or Greetings! instead of hello. But It’s a mystery was one she’d never liked.

  She had mentioned the bulbs to her mother on the phone last night. Her father had already gone to bed. Now a mystery was at hand, and the family was mobilizing like ants marching to a sugar cube. Mysteries were common in Grace’s family. There had been the mystery of the disappearance of the roll of quarters, still unsolved to date.

  “I don’t know,” her father would say. “I guess it’s a mystery.” And the subject would be dropped until the item was located weeks, maybe months, later in her father’s sock drawer, where it had been all along.

  And then there was the mystery of the gas-guzzling car, which eventually turned into a conspiracy theory about someone from the garage driving their car. Or the mystery of the Electrolux vacuum, still a sore subject in their family; it was discovered inexplicably years later in the linen closet concealed like a body inside Grace’s blue nylon camp sleeping bag. The method was never questioned, or its purpose analyzed. It’s a mystery. That catchall phrase was used by her parents as liberally as salt for all unexplainable occurrences, the equivalent of poof to prestidigitators.

  Grace hated mysteries. She wanted an immediate answer to where the roll of quarters could have gone. She would search all over until she was exhausted and nauseated. When the item was still not located, she felt as if some supernatural power was at work. Extension cords could disappear without a trace, and things could happen without warning, like bulbs arriving with no explanation.

  LAZ’S ABSENCE AT that night’s Scrabble game was one mystery that everyone seemed eager to let slide, for now.

  “Laz is where?” Bert asked, swallowing a stuffed grape leaf in one bite.

  “Utica,” Grace answered. “He’s giving a lecture at Hamilton College.”

  “Utica? Really, there’s quite a storm expected for the day after tomorrow,” her father interjected. “A nor’easter,” he said, as if he were a Long Island fisherman. “Could dump a foot and a half of snow.”

  “Tell him to pick up some sheets while he’s there,” her mother said.

  “What are you talking about, Paulette?” Milton asked.

  “You know—J.P. Stevens. The sheet company.”

  “He’s probably too busy to pick up sheets, dear.”

  “Well, he might feel like browsing.”

  “Why didn’t you go with him, Gracie?” Francine asked.

  Grace’s mother nudged Francine and whispered, “You know, Laz says she’s becoming agoraphobic.”

  “Agora-what?” Bert asked.

  “I’m not agoraphobic, I’m acrophobic,” Grace said, remembering the onset of her fear on a trip across the Continental Divide. “And this was just supposed to be a quick trip.”

  “Agoraphobia. Is that a fear of sweaters?” Bert asked, flipping through his O.E.D.

  “Sweaters?” Francine asked.

  “You know, like angora,” Grace’s father joked. “Gracie’s afraid of fuzzy sweaters.”

  “Did you see that movie Arachnophobia?” Paulette asked Francine. “I go weak in the knees when I see a daddy longlegs. Gracie hates spiders, too. Right, sweetheart?”

  Actually, Grace didn’t mind spiders. It was moths that made her uneasy. The way they got into her drawers and ate through her sweaters, leaving tiny holes even when the drawers were closed tight, or the way they found their way into sealed garment bags. Worst of all was when she found a dead moth on the windowsill and how the moth turned to dust when she touched it, as if it had never been quite real at all. She could not tolerate the smell of mothballs, so theoretically Bert was correct—whenever she could avoid it, she did not wear wool.

  “Could you just go already?” Bert snapped.

  “Whose turn is it anyway?” Grace’s mother asked, passing the grape leaves.

  GRACE TUNED OUT the bantering and bickering. She thought about the nor’easter. It was still unseasonably warm out. The thought of snow when it was nearly sixty degrees outside seemed utterly improbable. Still, when she returned home, she turned on the Weather Channel. The swirls of clouds and jet streams captivated her.

  As she watched, she began to see the dramatic tension and even a narrative drive to the gathering clouds and high-pressure systems—a testament to the underlying forces of nature. She began to see her father’s obsession with weather as almost poetic, noble even. There was a dirgelike pattern and rhythm, a mournful tone. Laz might not make it back for the holiday. It was an unusual thing to wish for, but a nor’easter might just be the answer to her Thanks-giving prayers.

  7

  WOODSTOCK

  The snow arrived in huge drifts all along the eastern seaboard, making air travel impossible, causing long delays on Amtrak’s service, but somehow bypassing the tristate metropolitan area and reconfirming Grace’s faith in the National Weather Service. Laz would no doubt miss the holiday, and everyone, especially Grace, felt the loss.

  THE AMARYLLIS HAD begun to bloom. Laz had brought the plant home just before he left—a wooden crate containing three bulbs covered with sphagnum moss.

  This morning, Grace noticed a tight red blossom on one stalk. After she had come up from bringing José his coffee, the blossom had begun to open. Grace usually left the tending of all plants to Marisol, who fertilized them, trimmed off dry leaves, and knew exactly how moist to keep the soil. Grace either overwatered or neglected the plants altogether. When Laz gave her the amaryllis, he told her that it would bloom for six weeks (which she now took as some sort of sign), and then would need to be cut at the stem and kept in a cold, dark place for six months. His words resonated, and she wanted to tell the amaryllis that there was no need to rush.

  Grace looked out the window, marveling at the sight of families gathering on both sides of the street more than two hours before the start of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, some carrying stepladders and planks of wood to contrive curbside seats. It was an unspoken assumption that Grace and Laz would host a brunch every Thanksgiving for all their friends and relatives who had small children so they could enjoy the spectacle of the parade without obstruction or exposure to the elements.

  The parade was still a wonder for Grace and for Laz, the two of them bundling up each year to watch the balloons being inflated the night before. The year that the remake of Miracle on 34th Street was filmed, they had been able to watch the parade over and over as they drank their morning coffee, like a perpetual Thanksgiving.

  Grace’s family was small, or rather, there were only a handful of relatives she and her immediate family kept in touch with. Grace had been a teenager when she’d finally realized that Francine and Bert weren’t her aunt and uncle.

  She knew her cousins in a fleeting way; they generally came out of the woodwork just before the holidays. She didn’t know all of their names, so when a group of them arrived at nine that morning to watch the parade, Grace just said a general, “Come on in,” which she was afraid soun
ded insincere and flat. She led her guests into the living room, where they assembled themselves on the window seat like sparrows at the boccie court in Central Park.

  MARISOL HAD PREPARED the batter for the Dutch Baby the previous day, which she told Grace to bake in a preheated oven for twenty minutes before serving. Grace placed a half stick of butter in the hot pan, watching it sizzle and melt. Then, as per Marisol’s instructions, she poured the mixture into the center of the roasting pan. After placing it in the oven, she sat on her knees to watch the batter bubbling and rising along the sides of the pan, something she remembered having done as a child. She still found it utterly amazing that the end product would turn out so perfect—a giant popover, hollow and steaming. And it worked every time.

  The doorbell rang, and as Grace stood up she felt disoriented and wondered if the daily routine of putting on an act was catching up with her. When she saw Kane standing in the doorway, holding a white box, she suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to tell him everything.

  “Happy Thanksgiving, Grace.”

  “You, too, Kane,” Grace said, taking the box from his hands. “Another Eight-Ball?” she asked, smiling.

  “I think one’s enough, unless it’s not working.”

  “No, I think it’s been quite accurate thus far.” Kane unwrapped the knitted scarf from around his neck, and Grace could see his skin was blotchy and red as if he, too, had an aversion to wool. He followed her into the kitchen, where the Dutch Baby was rising nicely, and he opened drawers to look for a pair of scissors. He cut the string from the box and removed one of the almond croissants that Laz was so fond of. He broke it in half, handing a piece to Grace.