She Is Me (13 page)

Harry’s face slackened into peaceful relief. I feel the same way, she thought. Peace. Relief. Harry needed her, and his need protected her. No one could object to a mother comforting a child. No one else could call her away. Not Brett. Not Volfmann or Daisy. Not even her mother or grandmother. The demands of a child on a mother—natural, nearly sacred—won out over the demands of a mother on a child, and certainly of a grandmother. Didn’t they? Or had her mother and her grandmother become her children?

“Mommy,” Harry said, putting his arms out, reaching for her, and the demands of the world were immediately, thoroughly eclipsed. She was safe. For these few moments, on this little bed, she was safe.

“Thank you,” she said, lying down, settling herself next to him.

He furrowed his brow for a second, thinking, then nodded.

“You’re welcome.”

Her mother had been disoriented and in the hospital for almost three weeks when Greta arrived there one morning with Josh to discover that Lotte had returned to reality.

“Mama, how are you feeling? What an ordeal you’ve had,” Greta said.

“Status quo,” Lotte said. “Status quo with a bandage. But those men in the black coats and their filthy fur hats—and in this heat! They must be out of their minds! Hideous, the imagination. Just hideous.”

Then she asked how Greta was. “Do you still have that dirty rotten flu?”

Greta wondered what to say. The next day was chemo day. She would not have the strength to come back again to see her mother for days.

“No,” she said at last. “Of course not.”

The next day, she did manage to call the hospital, but Elizabeth picked up and told her Lotte was being bathed, then manned the phone like a telegraph operator, tapping out their messages.

“Tell Grandma to watch the ice-skating on TV tonight,” Greta said. “She likes that.”

“Grandma? Mom says to watch the ice-skating.”

“Thank your mommy, darling. But I don’t have the strength for that bastard of a television, with all their filthy violence.”

“Mom? Grandma says —”

“I heard. For Christ’s sake, this is skating.
Tell
her. Skating. Not violence. What violence?”

“I don’t know, Mom. I’m just telling you what —”

“Tell Mommy about the little girl, you know, the kidnapping. Eyewitness News —”

“Kidnapping? Elizabeth! She watches the local news, but not ice-skating? No wonder she’s hallucinating.”

“Tell her, Elizabeth! What this world is coming to . . .”

After a while, Greta sent a kiss to her mother and her daughter, and replaced the receiver feeling even farther away from both of them than she had before the call.

“Charles is a plastic surgeon,” Elizabeth said. She had allocated an hour for this lunch meeting. Then she had to go back to the hospital. “Chuck, I should say. So, not a chiropractor, but a plastic surgeon. Okay? But Chuck prefers treating emergency burn victims at the hospital instead of proper, private cosmetic-enhancement surgery patients. You see how that works?”

Daisy had an unlit cigarette dangling from her mouth. Elizabeth wondered if the director had started smoking Camels as a teenager, lured by the now-outlawed cartoon camel.

“
Does
it work?” Elizabeth said.

“Crude,” Daisy said, nodding her head thoughtfully. “But clear.”

Elizabeth let her pay the check.

“Is he a good plastic surgeon?” Daisy asked.

Elizabeth hadn’t thought of that. In the novel, Charles Bovary was a poorly trained, mediocre doctor pushed by his ambitious wife to do work beyond his limited capabilities. Patients under his care went from slight limps to amputated legs.

Elizabeth watched Daisy sign the bill. She noticed Daisy was left-handed. “It’s a public hospital,” Elizabeth said finally.

Daisy used the butter knife as a mirror as she put lipstick on. “In Compton?” she said, nodding an affirmative answer to her own question.

Every afternoon, Greta would make the journey to the mailbox. Down the twisting stone steps, through the garden, through the mist of the sprinklers. She pulled open the door of the mailbox with such eagerness. Often an enormous spiderweb stretched from the mailbox to the top of the gate. Greta walked through it once or twice, her face just registering the filmy strands. Now, whenever she approached, she tilted her head until she saw the delicate silver threads catch the light. Then she brushed the lace and hard work away with her hand. No time to be sentimental, she thought. I’m in a hurry.

There were spiders in the mailbox itself, too, on the day Greta realized what it was she had been waiting for, why she was in a hurry, the reason she had swatted at spiderwebs every afternoon at precisely four o’clock.

It was dark in the mailbox. She reached in. Dangling spiders sucked themselves up their silk and hid. Junk mail fell out onto the front walk, as well as
The New Yorker,
which had, as usual, arrived in her mailbox at the end of the week instead of the beginning. She picked up the spilled magazine and catalogs. She pulled the rest of the mail out toward her, her nails against the aluminum reminding her of the metallic taste of chemotherapy. She rested the letters on top of the catalogs cradled in her arm. She loved catalogs, though she never ordered anything from them, and was happy to see so many. She flipped through the letters.

When she got to the third envelope, she suddenly understood.

No,
she thought. Not me.

No, no, no, she thought.

Isn’t it bad enough that I have cancer? she thought. Is this some kind of joke?

The envelope was addressed to her in messy, heavy print. The return address said “Daisy Piperno.” Greta held it, stared at it. She had the impression of uninterrupted time, of all the time in the world, of a perpetual stillness, and the tug of breathless urgency. Her hands shook. She walked up the steps quickly, with difficulty.

Shit, Greta, she thought. Don’t do this.

In her bedroom, she closed the door tight, although no one was home. She sat on the floor beneath the window, her back against the wall. The light was rich and yellow. Leafy shadows trembled on her outstretched legs, on the envelope in her hand.

Don’t even open it, Greta.

But it’s what I’ve been waiting for. I see that now.

Don’t you have enough problems? You’re sick as a dog.

It’s just a letter, for Christ’s sake. A little thank-you note.

Yes, yes, but it’s what you’ve been waiting for. You said so yourself.

Nothing is going to happen.

Ah, but, Greta, you will make sure something will happen, won’t you?

“Yes,” Greta said out loud, opening the envelope. “I will.”

The clouds made the sky look low. Slate gray. Los Angeles squatted beneath it in a heavy rain.

“I’m going to play golf,” Tony said.

“In the rain?” Elizabeth said.

“I need to play golf.”

Greta was sitting in a chair in the living room staring at nothing. Tony paced the way he did the day they found out about Greta’s cancer. He bumped his shin on the coffee table in the same way. Elizabeth looked at the clouds and thought, Sometimes you have to wonder why another person seeks you out. For example, Volfmann. He could have hired a real screenwriter. He could have lunch with a real Hollywood person. With Barbra Streisand or Robert Altman. Lassie. Flipper. Rip Torn.

Maybe he likes you, Brett had said.

And Elizabeth had thought, but had not said, Maybe I like him.

“I’m going out of my mind,” Tony said. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

Greta said nothing. She seemed not even to have heard him. Elizabeth woke herself from her daydream about Volfmann, whose gruff voice she was imagining. It was saying, “This is marvelous, Elizabeth. Brilliant!” She woke herself and looked at her parents and wondered what the hell was going on. The two of them could have been separated by oceans, by continents.

“Mom? Hello?”

Greta turned to Elizabeth. Her face was hard and serious.

“Dad’s going to play golf in the rain,” Elizabeth said. “That’s very weird.”

“I’ve got cabin fever,” Tony said.

Greta sighed. Tears came to her eyes.

“Mom?”

“Go ahead,” she said, waving Tony off with one hand. With the other, she covered her eyes. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“I’ve got to get out of here,” Tony said, rushing to the door. “I’m going out of my mind.”

The rain came down then, loud and sudden.

“I can’t help it,” Tony said.

Elizabeth heard the door slam. The car start. The rain pound on the roof.

“What’s eating him?” she said.

“He can’t help it,” Greta said softly. But Elizabeth heard the tight threat of tears even in that short sentence.

She tried to cheer her mother up. She made ice tea, but Greta barely touched it. She made a smoothie, but Greta did not even look at it.

“You’re going to get better,” Elizabeth said.

“It’s not that.”

What else could it be? “Is it Daddy?” she said.

Greta stared at her, then turned away and said she was tired and went into her room.

Elizabeth sat holding her mother’s smoothie. She sipped it. She experienced a weary and grimly dispassionate sense of helplessness, and she thought, dully, My father is having an affair.

Lotte sat in her favorite chair in her own apartment. Brett’s hands were strong and large and he had lowered her gently into the lounger. She watched him as he adjusted the television so she could see it.

“A gentleman,” she said. “
And
a scholar.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That and a nickel . . .”

Lotte liked Brett. He could be superior and cold, it was true. And he never mentioned how she looked unless prompted, but once given his cues, he usually acquitted himself well. How much more could she ask? He didn’t drink or gamble, like that bitch Stanley, how her poor sister had put up with him she never knew, not like her Morris, a model of a man, how God could have taken him and left all the gangsters on this earth . . .

“Tea?” Brett said.

“Just a little hot water.”

Brett stared at her as if he hadn’t heard her.

“Hot
water?
” he said, at last.

Lotte wondered if he was on drugs.

“Hot water,” she said. “In a mug.”

Brett went into the kitchen. She heard the flicker as the gas went on. She closed her eyes.

“What?” Brett said.

Lotte opened her eyes. He was standing before her with a mug.

“What?”
she said.

“You said, ‘From Jericho to Kokomo.’”

“Did I?” If he heard her, why did he ask?

Brett handed her the mug of hot water. She sipped it, grateful for the warmth. Imagine if she were still in St. Louis, how cold it would be. Of course, it was August. St. Louis was hideously hot. And the humidity!

“Sit,” she said. “You’re making me nervous.”

Brett smiled. “Sorry.” He sat on the couch. He looked bored. Well, too bad, Lotte thought. I’m bored every day. Wait till you’re old, Mr. Professor.

“Can I get you anything else?” he said. “Or do you want me to turn on the television?”

“How old are you, Brett?”

“Thirty-three. Can you believe it?”

“Why aren’t you married to my granddaughter? I don’t understand this generation. I don’t understand anything anymore.” She held out her empty mug and closed her eyes. She felt Brett lift the cup from her grip.

“Elizabeth doesn’t want to. You’ve heard her on the subject.”

Lotte grunted.

“It’s not really necessary. You know what I mean?” Brett said. His voice faded slightly as he went into the kitchen.

“No,” Lotte said. “I don’t. But as long as you’re happy.”

“We’re happy,” Brett said.

“You should live and be well.” Lotte opened her eyes. He was back. She pointed at the remote control. Brett handed it to her. “That granddaughter of mine.”

“Mmm,” Brett said.

“Stubborn,” she said.

“Yes.”

“
Why
won’t she wear her hair down?”

Brett laughed. “I struggle with that daily.”

Lotte pointed a finger at him. He could laugh if he wanted. But Lotte was no fool. “I know what I know,” she said.

Brett reached over and took the hand pointing at him in his own.

“Please don’t worry about us, Lotte,” he said. “Marriage is a technicality in the end, isn’t it?”

“That’s what all the boys say,” Lotte said. She let out a whoop and slapped her thigh.

“You just got out of the hospital?” Brett said. He had a nice smile. Lotte sat up a little straighter. “You’ll be dancing any minute!” he said. “You’re quite a . . .”

“Pistol!” Lotte said.

Brett nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “A pistol.”

Lotte looked at the newspaper. She couldn’t focus on it. There was very little she could focus on anymore. She remembered suddenly that she had cancer. They cut off half my nose, she thought.

“A pistol,” she said, shaking her finger at Brett.

“You look pretty goddamned good, Lotte. The interns were fighting over you, I hear.”

She smiled. It took Brett a while to warm up. That’s all.

“Thank you for bringing me home,” she said after a while. “Just make an honest woman of her and you’ll be perfect. Where the hell is she?”

“She’ll be here any minute,” he said.

Lotte could hear he was covering something up. Trouble in paradise. She could smell it. What was Elizabeth up to? These rotten kids. Never satisfied. Never sit still. She was married to Morris from the time she was nineteen years old. Now, divorce every time you turn around.

“She had a meeting,” he said.

“A meeting,” she said, snorting. “And my poor Greta with her filthy flu.” She grabbed his arm. “Tell me the truth.”

“She’s okay,” Brett said. “That is the truth.”

Lotte shook her head, disgusted and relieved. No one would tell her the truth. No one.

“Greta’s a trouper, Lotte. You know that.”

From Benzedrine to Ovaltine,
Lotte heard herself saying. “It’s from a song.”
From Jericho to Kokomo . . . Benzedrine to Ovaltine . . .
She let her eyes close. After all, it had been a long day. She would take a little nap.