by Denise Dietz
The foot inside her chunky, rubber-soled, black waitress shoe was tapping impatiently. At the same time, she surreptitiously glanced toward her other tables. She’d asked him a question…
“The veal was fine,” he said. “But you, Miss Mary, give me indigestion.”
“Really!” She shoved her hand inside her skirt pocket, pulled out a small tin of Tums, and tossed the tin toward the salt shaker. “Here,” she said, “on the house.”
Along with the tin were a few coins, scooped up with the Tums.
Instinctively, Victor pried the coins loose from the tablecloth. Extending his hand, he said, “Here, on the house.”
“Keep it,” she said. “You need it more than I do.”
“Now just a minute!”
“Dessert, sir? Our special tonight is amaretto cheesecake.”
“Why are you so hostile?”
“What’s hostile about amaretto cheesecake?”
“How old are you, Mary?”
“Over twenty-one,” she snapped. “How old are you?”
He almost said over-twenty-one, which would have been juvenile. He had guessed her age at twenty-three. “I’ll be forty-two next month. Do you have any children, Mary?”
“No,” she said. “Not that it’s any of your business…sir.”
“Why do you always call me sir as if you hated me?”
“Would you prefer Mr. Cheapskate, Mr. Madison?”
“Aha! Now we get to the crux of the matter. Your tip.”
“What tip? You never leave a fucking tip!” With a shaky hand, she finger-combed the bangs away from her angry eyes.
Perversely, as her voice grew louder, he dropped his voice lower. “Do you know what the letters t-i-p-s stand for, Mary?”
“Do you, Mr. Madison?”
“‘To insure proper service.’”
“Are you saying I don’t give proper service? How dare you! Every week you walk in here like you own the place. You demand a table in my station, then you glare at me as if you wanted my intestines on the side, rather than spaghetti. You spend forty to sixty dollars, depending on whether you order a bottle of Il Fratello, Giovanni Dri Refosco, Estate Bottled Sterling Chardonnay, and/or a slug of Gran Marnier on your fucking canoli. Not that I remember, sir, but the most you’ve ever left me was fifty-fucking-cents, the change from three twenties!”
Victor saw the restaurant manager waddling toward the table, his belly one car-length ahead of his thick legs and saggy behind. If the manager had been a dragon, his nostrils would have ejected tendrils of smoke. His mustache reminded Victor of Laurel, or Hardy, the fat one. His name was something Italian. Rocky? No. Tony. Tony Dippolito.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Madison?” he said.
“No,” Victor said.
“Yes,” Mary said. “This liar, this bastard says I don’t give him proper service.”
“I didn’t say you don’t give me proper service.”
“You should see his table when he leaves, Mr. Dippolito. He’s worse than a rug-rat. Stains everywhere. He drinks a whole bottle of wine, and he’s so fucking smashed by the time he pours the last glass, there’s wine all over the ‑‑”
“Miss Sanchez!”
“I don’t care, Mr. Dippolito. He asks for my station, spends money like it’s going out of style, and never tips.”
“Please lower your voice, Miss Sanchez. Mr. Madison doesn’t have to tip. You know that. We don’t even talk about tips.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? Of course we talk about tips. How do you think we tip out the bartender and bus boys? How do you think we pay our fucking rent?”
“Miss Sanchez, you’re fired! Collect your things and leave immediately.”
Stunned, she took a few steps backwards. “I…I can’t leave, Mr. Dippolito. I have three other tables.”
“Miss Gluckman will serve them. I want you out of here right away or I’ll call the cops.”
“And charge me with what?”
“Stealing.”
“But I didn’t steal anything.”
“Who do you think the police will believe, Miss Sanchez?”
Although her eyes looked stricken and her lower lip quivered, she said, “Fine, Tony, great. You can take this job and stick it up your ass.”
Everyone in the restaurant applauded. Mary burst into tears and fled, heading toward the kitchen. Victor tried to follow, but was waylaid by the manager’s bulk.
“I can’t apologize enough,” Dippolito said. “Your next meal is on the house, Mr. Madison.”
On the house. Victor scooped up the Tums tin and strode outside. He had a feeling she’d leave by the front door, rather than slink out the back door, and he was right. As soon as she appeared, as if her exit had been a script cue, it began to rain.
She had changed into her street clothes, a faded blue denim shirt with an embroidered Tigger on the pocket, and a pair of skin-tight jeans that sculpted her butt and legs.
“I thought you might need these,” he said, pressing the Tums against her palm.
“Thanks,” she said, her voice colder than a frozen cappuccino, her eyes feral, “but I haven’t eaten yet.”
“I can remedy that. What kind of food do you like?”
“Anything but Italian,” she said. “And you, Mr. Madison, can go straight to hell. Do not pass go. Do not collect ‑‑”
“Do you have a car, Mary?”
“No,” she spat. “Do you?”
“No. But I’ve got a limousine, and you’re beginning to look like Audrey Hepburn in that last sappy scene from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
“Don’t be stupid,” she said, her voice suddenly weary. “I’m not wearing a trench coat and I don’t have a cat.”
“George Peppard carried the cat.”
“You’re wrong.” Once again her lower lip quivered. “George gave the cat to Audrey, and I’ve always given you proper service.”
“T-i-p-s,” he said. “To insure proper smiles.”
“Smiles aren’t on the menu, Mr. Madison.”
“Victor Madison.”
He waited for some sign of recognition, but she merely said, “I don’t care if you’re Victor fucking Mature. You have no right ‑‑”
“To act like a pompous asshole. I couldn’t agree more, Mary.”
Her eyes grew big as saucers and her mouth dropped open, and he couldn’t resist. Pulling her hard against him, his tongue darted between lips that were wet from the rain, lips that seemed glued to his. He felt her heart pound, heard her say, “Please…I…can’t…breathe.”
When he let her go, she said, “Kisses aren’t on the menu, either, and you look like a drowned rat.”
“You look like a drowned bird,” he said. “So fragile…so goddamn fragile. As for kisses on the menu, Mary, you don’t work here anymore.”
He could have reinstated her; a few words to Dippolito and she’d be back where she belonged, slinging pasta.
Instead, he took her home with him.
And no one was more surprised than Victor Madison when she was still there, ensconced inside his cottage, thirteen months later.
Chapter Twenty-five
When I was a little kid I had nightmares about flying monkeys.
Those dreams were followed by a nightmare in which I skipped rope and chanted: S, my name is Sandra and my husband’s name is Sam, we come from South Carolina, and in our basket we carry snakes. At which point, the jump rope would become a snake. Then I kept dreaming I walked into the boys’ bathroom by mistake. After I actually did it, the dreams stopped, although to this day I scrutinize bathroom doors at least three times before I enter, and I hate the ones that have cute euphemisms like Femme and Hombre or Neptune and Mermaid.
One of my worst nightmares put me in the bleachers at a high school basketball game. A naked cheerleader who had my mother’s face shouted, “Two bits, four bits, six bits, a buck; all for Frannie stand up and holler!”
A marginally better dream had me naked, sittin
g next to a naked Woody Allen, eating popcorn and watching Night of the Living Dead. In that dream, Woody leans over and quotes Albert Camus: “The absurd is sin without God.”
I suppose I continued having bad dreams once I’d reached adulthood. However, upon awakening I couldn’t remember them.
Until the Night of the Cast Party.
That night, upon arriving home, I piled some pillows against the bed’s headboard, clicked the TV remote to VCR, and watched Fiddler on the Roof. Rick owned every movie musical in the history of the world, but Fiddler is my mom’s favorite ‑‑ if you don’t count High Society, starring Grace Kelly. I fell asleep before the movie ended and dreamed Nana Jen was alive, tangible. She wanted to tell me something important, but I couldn’t find her.
She kept saying, Inside the mirror, Frannie, inside the mirror.
The directions were clear enough. I knew she meant her genuine, hand-carved, French beveled glass mirror, and I knew I could step through the beveled glass; Frannie in Wonderland.
And yet I was afraid to face my dear, sweet, precious Nana. How would she look? Porcelain skin or putrescence? Cucumber slices shielding her bright blue eyes, or dark sockets ‑‑ like the nightmare-people in Fiddler on the Roof?
Suddenly, I was at the Tony awards. Whoopi Goldberg told a joke, but I couldn’t hear her, so I held up my hands and tried to shush the audience. I saw Matthew Broderick in the first row. He was laughing and applauding. I’d had a crush on him practically forever, and my heart thrummed. The other actors in the audience were faceless, but they all wore formal clothes, evening gowns and tuxedos. I, of course, was naked. Ignoring the TV cameras, pushing Whoopi aside, I grabbed the microphone and said I want to laugh, too.
Someone, not Whoopi, said, Go to hell.
The curtain rose and Cat Sands sang Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match.
I lit a match.
Holding it to the wick of a bayberry-scented candle, I inhaled several times, as if I were Shelley Winters getting ready to swim underwater.
Then I walked through Nana’s beveled glass mirror.
Except for my small circle of candlelight, the darkness was impenetrable. I didn’t sense any demons nearby because I knew Nana wouldn’t have gone to hell. Not that she believed in heaven or hell, but nothing is absolute, and Woody Allen is fond of saying that when he dies he plans to bring along a change of underwear, just in case.
I exhaled when I saw that Nana didn’t look like a Fiddler nightmare person. She looked like…Nana. Slender save for a little bit of stomach, she wore her favorite purple velveteen bathrobe, belted. Underneath, she wore a long white nightgown with teensy purple flowers.
We could have been getting together for one of our “womanly” tête-à-têtes, only Nana’s feet didn’t touch the ground. That, I thought, killed the authenticity.
I know this is just a dream, I said, but you want to tell me something. Right?
As rain, she said, sounding like Bonnie.
Nana walked on ether, moving closer, and I could smell Cherry Lifesavers.
This is just a guess, I said, but you want to talk about the demon. Or the dybbuk.
What demon? she said. What dybbuk?
Asmodeus, I said.
Who’s Asmodeus? she said.
Stumbling backwards, I bumped into the mirror and dropped my candle. Nana followed me, still walking on air. A radiant nimbus defined her silver braids, bright blue eyes, and the diamond earrings she promised I could have when I turned twenty-one. Mom had insisted the earrings be buried with Nana’s ears.
Mom! I had a sudden thought.
Gracie, I said. You want to tell me about Gracie. Right?
Nana nodded, and to my horror I saw that her neck wasn’t attached to her body. Nevertheless, I said, Mom had a stillborn baby named Gracie. True?
This time Nana didn’t nod, and her head stayed put.
Grace Ingrid Rosen, she said. I’m going to give you a spell, Frannie sweetheart, an incantation that’ll get rid of Grace.
Get rid of Gracie? But she’s dead.
Don’t argue, princess. Listen carefully and learn it by heart. You have a memory like a sponge, so you won’t need a tape recorder, Nana said, sounding like Mickey Samson Roebuck. You must chant this every morning, as soon as you get up, before you go potty even.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Nana sounded like Nana again.
Frannie, sweetheart, stop kibitzing! Are you listening to me?
Yes, Nana.
You must say, ‘Palas aron azinomas.’
What does that mean?
Never mind what it means. Say it, sweetheart.
Palas aron azinomas.
Good. Very good. This time Nana sounded like Victor Madison. The next one is a little harder, like a day-old knish, she said, sounding like Nana again. And you must chant it every night before you go to sleep. ‘Bagahi Iaca Bachabe.’
Bagahi Iaca Bachabe.
Good. All right, darling, the last incantation is very important.”
Nana, I can’t remember all this, I cried.
Say the first two, sweetheart…now!
Palas aron azinomas. Bagahi Iaca Bachabe.
Yes, oh yes, that was terrific, she enthused, sounding like Suzanne Burton. The last one is easy, princess, she said, sounding like Nana again. It’s in English, and it doesn’t matter when you say it as long as you think of Grace, first.
Can I think of Gracie instead, Nana?
She hesitated, then said, Of course, darling. Here’s what you say. You say, ‘Gracie Ingrid Rosen, go hence, ghost of my ancestors.’ Frannie sweetheart, you’re not listening.
Sorry, Nana. I just wondered…I mean, I assume the Ingrid is for Grandpa Irving, but I was trying to figure out which dead relative’s initial Mom used for Gracie.
Nana began to laugh. Quickly, she raised her hands to cover her mouth.
However, she wasn’t quick enough. I saw spaces between her teeth, and the teeth she did have were…
Fangs!
I had caught a glimpse of Nana’s anterior fangs, looking like a picture in my college Zoology text, a picture of…
A poisonous spider!
You’re not my Nana, I said, probably the understatement of the century.
Of course I am, she said.
But she was already evolving into a creature with four pairs of legs and a red, hourglass-shaped mark on the underside of her black belly.
No, you’re not! I screamed.
The ‘G’ is for God, the spider said, as more laughter erupted, along with several noxious breath-puffs.
Usually spiders scare the shit out of me, especially if they’re five feet tall. But for some strange reason, I didn’t feel the least bit scared. Maybe because part of me knew I was dreaming. Maybe because…
Jenny Rosen, I said, go hence, ghost of my ancestors!
This time I didn’t need a beveled glass mirror. I found myself back at the Tony awards. Instead of Whoopi, Woody Allen stood in front of the mike. He must have been cracking wise because the faceless audience was convulsed with heehaws and Matthew Broderick knuckle-wiped tears of laughter from his eyes.
Woody waited until the heehaws became chuckles, the chuckles giggles, the giggles an occasional snicker.
Then he said, Showing up is 80 percent of life.
Apparently, an actor hadn’t shown up to collect his or her Tony.
I wished I hadn’t shown up in my own dream.
Then, as if God or someone had read my mind, I woke up.
Chapter Twenty-six
Thump!
Something inside the duplex had fallen over, and as I struggled to a sitting position I saw that my top pillow was soaked with perspiration.
So was I.
What the hell had happened to fearless Frannie? Maybe five-foot spiders scared the shit out of me, after all. And just for grins, how did that bitchy arachnid get its abdominal spinnerets on Nana’s earrings?
“The spider’s earrings were paste, not real,”
I said, and almost laughed at the incongruity. Dreaming about my Nana, I’d surely include the earrings Grampa Louie had given her on their Diamond Anniversary. If Mom died, god-forbid, and I dreamed about her, I’d include her most prized possession ‑‑ a genuine, red-paint-spattered mink stole.