She Is Me (16 page)

“Happy birthday,” she said.

“I’m a big boy now.”

Elizabeth looked down at his hand on her arm.

“You’re freezing,” he said.

“Here,” Daisy said. She had just picked up her own sweatshirt from a chair. She threw it to Elizabeth.

A familiar scent, Daisy’s soap or perfume, something faint and feminine, washed over Elizabeth as she put on the sweatshirt. Elizabeth hadn’t realized she was cold, but now she felt the warmth of the garment with relief. She watched the people around her and saw their mouths move.

“Tizzie’s blottoed,” she heard Josh say.

They blurred slightly, all of them, as if they were still underwater, or waltzing in a ballroom, around and around.

I won’t dance,
she sang softly.
Don’t ask me . . .

Josh and Tim deposited her on the guest-room bed beside Harry. She watched them go with half-closed eyes.

I won’t dance,
she sang, in a whisper.
Monsieur, with you . . .

Greta lived in a tunnel, a trance, a cloud, a cave. The metaphors came and went. Each day she forced the blur of life into focus. She didn’t want to miss any of it. Each day she tried to soften the outlines of Daisy’s hands, which were small and delicate and just a bit plump, of her lips, which were large and delicate and a bit more than a bit plump. She tried to muffle the sound of Daisy’s voice. But what she wanted to mute filled the air instead, and what she tried to lose in the shadows stood out clear and pure.

I’m tired of myself, she thought.

She was filled with a pity so tender and so true that it sickened her, for it was self-pity.

“You never complain,” Tony said, full of admiration.

“I’m miserable,” she said. “How’s that?” Tony grimaced, almost as if he’d been hit. “I’m miserable and I’m rude, too,” Greta said. “Sorry.”

The phone rang and Elizabeth answered it. “Hi, Grandma.” She glanced at Greta.

Poor Elizabeth, Greta thought.

“Mommy’s sleeping,” Elizabeth said.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Greta said. She grabbed the phone.

“It was a white lie,” Elizabeth said.

“Mama?” Greta said. “I’m up. How are you? I miss your gorgeous face.”

“White lies are okay,” Elizabeth said.

“Your grandmother would approve, anyway,” Tony said.

“Did you get the robe?” Greta was saying.

“Does that mean you
don’t
approve? What am I supposed to say? I don’t know when she wants to talk to Grandma.”

“Relax,” Tony said.

“You can put it right in the washing machine,” Greta said. “Can you believe it? Silk!”

“That’s all you can say,” Elizabeth said. “Relax, relax, relax.”

“Don’t worry,” Greta was saying into the phone.

“I don’t want to relax,” Elizabeth said. “I can’t relax. How can you relax?”

“I’m really fine, Mama,” Greta said. “I just don’t want to give you a germ. We can’t have you full of germs right now, can we? You have enough to contend with.”

“You’re not the only one under pressure, Elizabeth,” Tony said. “Okay?”

Greta shushed them both.

“How do
you
feel today?” she asked Lotte. “Status quo?”

“Same old status quo,” Elizabeth muttered.

After she hung up, Greta went into the kitchen.

“You all right?” Elizabeth asked, following.

Greta nodded and took a glass of ice tea into her room. She closed the door. She waited until she heard Tony’s car leave. She waited until she heard Elizabeth and Josh dive into the pool.

“I want to see you,” Greta said.

“I want to see you,” she said again, repeating the words slowly, carefully, as if she were reading them.

She picked up the phone and dialed.

“I want to see you,” she said into the phone.

“It’s me,” she said.

“Greta,” she said.

“Oh, status quo,” she said.

“I want to see you,” she said again. And her heart pounded. “I really do.”

Greta drove to the restaurant. She turned the air-conditioning up high. She wore sunglasses. The road seemed unfamiliar. The sky seemed unfamiliar. There was a sudden thump on the passenger window.

She got out of the car and saw the gull, stunned, but alive. She watched it totter, then fly off.

I am driving to my doom, she thought. I can read the seagull entrails. I am driving to my doom.

She got back in the car.

I’m driving to my doom. She smiled, hearing the words light and rhythmic and silly as a song. I’m driving to my doom! Doom, doom! She roared through a red light.

Very posh and stylized. Leo’s credit card doesn’t go through. Barbie pretends not to notice. He fishes out another, which works. She is looking at the lobby, turning in a circle.

BARBIE

Perfect . . . Perfect, perfect, perfect!

Barbie and Leo face each other. “I’ve Got a Crush on You” plays in the background.

LEO

I can’t believe you’re really here! Are you really here?

FLASH BACK TO Barbie as a schoolgirl, leaning her head out the window to feel the wild wind in her hair.

FLASH FORWARD TO Barbie now. She’s frightened. This is momentous for her. This is what she has lived in hope of, what she has despaired of ever finding. She reaches into her bag and takes something out, holds it in her closed fist.

BARBIE (cont.)

I’m here, you’re here . . .

She opens her hand slowly, reverently . . .

EXTREME CLOSE-UP of A PILL . . .

CUT TO Barbie’s excited face.

BARBIE

Ecstasy.

The pain had come back and Lotte refused to get out of bed. At lunchtime, Kougi tried to entice her with bits of food, but even the rice pudding she had taught him to make did not tempt her. Her jaw was red and swollen when she looked in the mirror she kept by the bed. She combed her hair and tried to put on lipstick, but her mouth was twisted by the surgery, by the tumor.

“Cockeyed pirate,” she said out loud.

Her face was distorted and discolored. Inside, her jaw was the site of a thousand deaths, a thousand hammers, a thousand axes, a spreading poison of a thousand twisted, ugly cells. The rotten cancer was spreading. Disgusted, she dropped her mirror onto the carpet.

“Dirty bastards,” she said into her pillow.

She called Greta, but Josh answered and told her Greta was out. Out? She could go out? She couldn’t come to see her sick mother, but she could go out?

Kougi dabbed at her cheek with a sterile pad. Something was oozing from the red sore on her face and he swabbed it and changed her pillowcase. She lowered her head onto the clean case and thought that even the tall bastard with the flashlight on his head, top man, world famous, was not helping her, the dirty hypocrite, but then again he wanted to see her, had called her just yesterday, taken the time from his busy schedule to call her
in person,
but then she would expect no less, and he had asked her to come into the office. She would go, of course. Such a handsome bastard. And did she have anything else to do? She snorted. Hah! What an idea! Where the hell else was she going?

She whimpered in pain, hoping Kougi would rush in, bathe her head with a cool cloth, which did absolutely nothing, but was something to take her mind off her troubles. Kougi did not hear her, though, and her whimpers turned to moans. She forgot all about Kougi. Stabbing pain. Was this what it was like to be stabbed? Over and over?

Lotte asked God to help her. She asked God to let her die. She asked God to let her live. She promised God she would go to the big-shot doctor.

“That’s my social life now,” she said to Kougi when he brought her some soup. “Why pretend?”

“Heaviness is the root of lightness,” Kougi said. He put the television on for her. They often watched CNBC together. “Serenity,” he added, counting out her pills, “is the master of restlessness.”

Lotte smiled. Kougi always knew what to say.

“Therefore the Sage, traveling all day, does not part with the baggage wagon,” Kougi said.

“Oy,” Lotte said. “A baggage wagon, yet.”

The bar was just off the beach. The solemnity of the dark room caught Greta off guard after the sunlight, the rush of bright air during the drive. Were all bars dark? She sat in a booth facing the door. She pushed her sunglasses on top of her head and the room was still dim. She drummed her fingers on the table, wishing she had a cigarette.

“Something to drink?” a waiter asked.

Greta barely noticed him. She said, “Martini.” Because she was out of the habit, she forgot to say, “Vodka.”

She sipped the martini.

“It’s gin,” she said.

There was no one to hear her. Gin makes me drunk, she thought. Which is, perhaps, just as well. She began to shiver. She had kicked off her sandals and now could not locate the left one with her foot. She bent down beneath the table. There it was. She watched her foot slide in. When she sat up, she half expected Daisy to be standing there watching her, amused, with that funny expression of detached curiosity. But Daisy wasn’t there.

Daisy entered the bar a few minutes later. Greta saw her turn toward another part of the room. She stood up and walked toward Daisy, noticing her back, her shoulders, bare and smooth, the tight fabric of her pants, the curve of her thigh, a flash of skin at her ankle. She thought, I’m staring at her ass. She caught up to Daisy. She put her hand gently on the small of Daisy’s back. Greta felt Daisy’s skin as her shirt twisted from beneath her fingers, as Daisy turned to face her.

“Hi, you,” Daisy said.

Greta kissed Daisy on the lips.

She felt Daisy’s lips with her lips. She saw the surprise in Daisy’s eyes with her eyes. With her own body, she sensed Daisy’s body press closer to her.

Daisy let out a quiet laugh and stepped back.

Was Daisy laughing at her? But Daisy was not laughing at Greta. Daisy was blushing. God bless you, Greta thought. You sweet, innocent little vamp. Greta had startled Daisy. This delighted her.

“I wanted to talk to you,” she said when they were sitting at the table.

Daisy nodded, biting her lip in an exceptionally delicate and appealing way. Daisy leaned forward on her elbows. Her hands, which were small and ladylike, were spread out on the table.

“Daisy, I know this is crazy . . .”

Greta stopped because it rhymed. Daisy seemed not to have noticed. “Look, I . . .” Greta stopped again. “Do you want a drink?” she said. She waved at the waiter, pointed at her martini. “Martini okay? It’s gin. Gin makes me drunk.”

“Good,” Daisy said. She had stopped blushing.

Does she mean the martini is good, or me drunk is good?

They looked at each other across the table. Daisy said nothing. Greta felt dizzy. “I’m married,” she said.

“I’m not,” Daisy said.

“I could be your mother,” Greta said.

“No, you couldn’t,” Daisy said. “And you’re not.”

“I’ve never done this before,” Greta said.

“I have,” Daisy said.

Greta held the stem of her glass. She saw Daisy’s hands on the table. She watched as her own hand moved, slid down the stem, onto the tabletop, across the table. Those were her fingertips touching Daisy’s fingertips. Their hands were moving. Her hand slid to Daisy’s wrist. Daisy’s fingers touched the inside of her wrist. The waiter brought Daisy’s drink and Greta wondered what she, Greta Bernard, married to Dr. Anthony Bernard for thirty-two years, was doing drunk in a bar at three in the afternoon straining toward the mouth of a young woman across the table from her as a waiter set down a chilled martini with too many olives.

I’m acting out, she thought. Because I have cancer. What am I trying to prove? That I’m alive? Couldn’t I take up oil painting instead?

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since I first saw you,” Daisy said. “Sleeping.”

And then Greta thought, I have always wanted to kiss this woman. My whole life. And now I know it. And now I will. And she pressed her lips against Daisy’s again, tasting a kiss that made her drunk.

When she kissed Daisy good-bye, outside the bar, Greta kept her eyes open, not wanting to let go of any one of the five senses of Daisy. She breathed Daisy in, she tasted gin and olives and Daisy, she felt the warmth and novelty of full, feminine breasts pressed against her own. She heard Daisy breathe and watched as Daisy, too, kept her eyes open, barely, hooded and alert.

Now Greta was driving to Lotte’s with Elizabeth beside her in the car. She realized she must have made some sound, seductive and predatory, just remembering that moment, for Elizabeth was asking what was wrong.

“Wrong?” Greta said.

“I don’t know. Forget it. You’re in another world.”

Elizabeth turned on the radio, then, almost immediately, off.

Forget it, Greta thought. If only I could. She sped up to make a yellow light and sensed Elizabeth stiffening beside her.

“And you’re kind of tailgating,” Elizabeth said.

“I was driving before you were born.”

Greta patted her daughter’s knee to reassure her. Elizabeth took her mother’s hand and placed it carefully back on the wheel.

Kougi, Kougi, lend me your comb,
Elizabeth sang when they pulled into the garage and parked in a visitor spot. She thought, Am I getting like Grandma?

Her mother stared at the concrete wall in front of them.

“Mom?”

“Don’t hate me,” Greta said.

“What?”

“Please,” Greta added, politely.

“Okay,” Elizabeth said. “Since you said please.” And she laughed. But she wondered, too. Her mother was still gazing vaguely forward, as if they were on the road, driving.

“Mom? We’re here.”

Greta turned to her. “I love you and Josh more than anything in the world,” she said. Then she smiled her big smile. “Okay!” she said, as if she’d just stepped out into the fresh air. She took a deep breath. “Off we go!”

Kougi answered the door wearing a yellow slicker. He had just given Lotte her shower.

“How is she?” Elizabeth said.

“Your grandmother has great inner strength,” Kougi said. “And she moved her bowels today!”

He led Elizabeth and Greta into the living room where Lotte sat in a bathrobe, her cane balanced against the arm of her favorite chair.