Farewell, Dorothy Parker (23 page)

Violet remained standing. “It means I need you.”

“I suppose that’s roughly the same thing.”

“It’s not even
close
to being the same thing.”

“For someone asking a favor,” said Mrs. Parker, “you’re being awfully snippy.”

Violet was incredulous. “ ‘Snippy’?” she said. “You took over my body without asking. You made me have wild sex with Michael…and you knew I wasn’t nearly ready to sleep with him.”

“You needed it.”

“Stop acting like you did it for
me.
You wanted to get laid, plain and simple.”

“Well, it
has
given me a certain glow,” Mrs. Parker said, “don’t you agree?”

Violet lowered herself into the other wingback chair and put her head in her hands, picturing the word
incorrigible
tapped out on an old-fashioned manual typewriter. She wasn’t amused. “You don’t think you owe me an apology?”

“My dear, you knew I was desperate for sex. And you knew I could be a selfish little shit. So stop acting like a wronged innocent. You’re a bright woman. You simply had to know this was a possibility.”

Violet sat back in her chair. Was Dorothy Parker right? Had her
subconscious played a role in this, letting Mrs. Parker take over so she could act out her basest desires?

No, it simply wasn’t true. Dorothy Parker had pulled a sneaky trick on her with little regard for the consequences. It was obnoxious. It was reckless. And sure, Violet knew not to trust the infamous provocateur, but she never expected her to do something like this.

“At least you’ll never have the opportunity again,” Violet said. “I broke it off—told him I won’t see him anymore. I even stopped going to his martial arts class.”

“Stupid girl.”

“You traumatized me!”

“Rubbish, my dear.”

“Think what you like, but the truth is that it’s over between Michael and me, and that’s all your fault.”

“Ms. Epps, if you choose to use this incident as an excuse to stop seeing a luscious man who’s not only crazy about you but glorious in bed, that’s your problem, not mine.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I believe I do. You think you’re punishing me, but you’re punishing yourself.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Violet said.

“I disagree,” said Mrs. Parker. “I believe you’re angry at yourself for making such a terrible mess of your custody case.”

“Spare me the analysis.”

“I thought people of your generation loved that sort of thing—grand revelations of heartbreaking self-pity when you recognize your pattern of avoiding that which would give you the most pleasure.”

“Talk about projection,” Violet mumbled.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Projection,” she repeated. “But I guess that’s a modern term—the kind of Freudian jargon hijacked by my generation, navel-gazers that
we are. Your contemporaries would just say it’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

Dorothy Parker took a sip of her drink. “My contemporaries avoided clichés,” she said.

“Like you’re avoiding the truth?”

“How darling,” Mrs. Parker said. “You’re learning to parry.”

Violet was irritated, exasperated, and out of patience. No more waiting for Dorothy Parker to be ready for the truth. It was time to lay it all out.

“I’m talking about the white light,” Violet said. “
That’s
what you’re avoiding. People who have come back from the brink describe it as even beyond pleasure. They say it’s…rapture. And yet you resist. Why, Mrs. Parker? What’s in there that you can’t handle?”

“We were discussing you and that gorgeous man.”

Violet stared at Dorothy Parker, who gazed into her glass and wouldn’t look up.

“Is it your family?” Violet asked.

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, still staring into her drink.

“What are you afraid of?”

Mrs. Parker drained her drink. “A dry glass,” she said, holding it up. “Fetch me another, will you, dear?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I want you to tell me why you won’t go into the light,” Violet said. “Isn’t your father there? Your sister, Helen? Your
mother
?”

“I suppose.”

“Then why are you avoiding it? They say it feels like love, like pure love. Can’t you sense that?”

A dark flash of anger crossed Mrs. Parker’s face. “Now, why on earth would my mother love me?” she said.

Violet was taken back. The line didn’t sound like a wisecrack. Not with that hard expression. “Excuse me?” she said.

“Never mind,” said Mrs. Parker. “Get me another drink. I’m parched.”

Violet folded her arms. “Why do you think your mother didn’t love you?”

Dorothy Parker waved away the comment. “Please,” she said. “I’ve never been an analysand, and I don’t plan to start now.”

“Just tell me what you meant. Do you really think you’re so unlovable that—”

“Let’s not get carried away.”

“I just want you to clarify,” Violet said. “Explain yourself, and I’ll be happy to get you that drink. I’ll get you as many drinks as you want.”

Mrs. Parker put down her glass. “You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

Dorothy Parker paused, as if considering whether or not she would answer. Then she straightened up, in what Violet recognized as her courageous posture.

“My dear,” said Mrs. Parker, “I
killed
my mother. Now, another drink, if you please. And make it strong.”

“What do you mean you killed your mother?”

Dorothy Parker said nothing.

“Come on,” Violet said. “You can’t drop a bomb like that and not explain yourself.”

“You want an explanation? Fine. I was an accident, born when my mother was forty-two years old—a terribly dangerous situation in those days. She managed to survive my birth but was never well after that. Certainly not well enough to chase after an obnoxious and demanding toddler. So five years later it was all too much for her and she died, leaving her children motherless. There were four of us, you know.
So, as you can imagine, I was quite popular in the family. Everyone loves a mother killer.”

Violet was dumbstruck. This wasn’t a glib joke. Mrs. Parker honestly believed she had taken her mother’s life.

“And just like your niece,” Mrs. Parker continued, “I was excluded from the funeral. But unlike her, I got to visit dear mother’s grave every Sunday. Father believed fresh air and the stench of death built character. Also, what better way to prove the depth of one’s grief to strangers? We put on a grand show for anyone who happened to be walking by—the four poor children and the unfortunate widower.”

“You don’t think your father mourned your mother’s death?”

“He probably did, but the real truth is that he didn’t want to waste it by grieving in private. Better to trot us out for a good show. We were the Von Trapps of misery.”

God, Violet thought. No wonder she’s so unhinged about her mother. She was raised to see grief as hypocritical. She never got to mourn her mother in any very real sense.

“Have you ever gone back to the cemetery?” Violet asked.

“Why would I?”

“I think you need to visit your mother’s grave for the same reason Delaney needs to visit hers.”

“You think I would get some message of motherly love from her bones? My dear, you are sorely mistaken.”

Here, Violet felt she knew something about grief that Dorothy Parker didn’t. It wasn’t that she thought spirits communicated from their final resting place, but it was a way to find peace by paying your respects. Violet had visited her own mother’s grave many times, and always, she left feeling like she had had the chance to express her gratitude that her mother had lived to be part of her life. It didn’t make her any happier, but it made the pain more understandable, and it helped her remember that she would always be connected to her mother.

Perhaps one day she would put the guest book in her car and drive to the burial ground of Eliza Annie Rothschild so that the former Dorothy Rothschild could experience that opening of the heart.

“You need to do it,” Violet said. “You need to visit your mother.” Then she rose, took her friend’s glass, and went into the other room to fix her a cocktail. As she took the cap off the gin, she considered what else she could say to Mrs. Parker. Was there anything in her arsenal that might be able to break through so many decades of distortion?

There was. Of course there was. But was she ready to reveal it?

After making Mrs. Parker’s cocktail, Violet took out another glass, poured a slug of gin, and gulped it down. She made the decision. She was going to tell her secret.

“You did not kill your mother,” Violet said, as she entered the study and handed Mrs. Parker her drink.

“I most certainly did.”

Violet shook her head. “First of all, it’s not your fault that you were born when she was forty-two or that you made your appearance on this earth before certain medical advances that could have saved her. But beyond that, there’s something you need to understand. She loved you.”

“A ridiculous assumption. You weren’t there.”

“No, but I understand a thing or two about motherhood.”

“That’s aunthood, my dear. No matter how much you love your niece, you are
not
her mother.”

“I know what a mother’s love feels like.”

“Because your own dear mother loved you?” Mrs. Parker said.

Violet ignored the acid tone in her friend’s voice and took a deep breath. “Because I had a child.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Andrew and I had a stillborn,” Violet said. “A baby boy. I held him in my arms.”

“Dear God.”

“His name was Nathan. We were going to call him Nate. He would have been five years old now.”

“I had no idea.”

“I don’t talk about it,” Violet said. “It was…”
Excruciating,
she thought, but couldn’t even utter the word. “It ended my marriage and practically ruined me. But it did teach me how powerful a mother’s love is. Even though I never got to know him, the way I felt about that baby changed me forever. So that’s how I know. That’s how I know your mother loved you.”

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Mrs. Parker said. “Very sorry. I had three miscarriages, you know.”

Violet nodded.

Dorothy Parker sipped her drink. “I wanted a baby.”

“I understand,” Violet said.

“Still,” Mrs. Parker said, shaking her head. “I know you believe with all your heart that my happy ending resides in that white light. But I disagree. And I ask you to respect my wishes and close the subject.”

“But, Mrs. Parker—”

“Please,” the older woman said. “I request so few favors. Besides money and alcohol, that is.”

Violet let out a long breath. This was so tragic. But what could she do? It was clear she couldn’t change her friend’s mind. Not yet, anyway.

“Okay,” she said softly.

“Wonderful,” said Mrs. Parker. “I’m delighted that’s settled. Now, would you like to hear how I propose to solve your problem with the custody case?”

Chapter 27

The next night, Violet brought the guest book into the kitchen so Dorothy Parker could keep her company as she made herself dinner. Mrs. Parker sat at the table, pouring herself gin from a bottle, while Violet opened the refrigerator and scanned the shelves for ingredients.

“You know,” said Mrs. Parker, indicating the guest book, “I don’t even remember signing the damned thing. But then, everything from those Algonquin years is so vague.”

Violet pulled a head of romaine lettuce from the fridge and brought it to the counter. “Not to me,” she said. “I’ve read so much about that decade I feel like I was there.”

Violet knew that Dorothy Parker’s long and illustrious connection to the Algonquin Hotel began early in her career. She was twenty-five years old, working at
Vanity Fair,
when her friend and fellow theater critic Alexander Woollcott started inviting people to meet for lunch in the hotel’s comfortable restaurant. Originally, the cozy group of writers and actors dined in the back, at a long, rectangular table presided over by a surly waiter named Luigi, so they called themselves the Luigi Board. But once the group gained notoriety, the hotel’s manager understood how valuable the fame was to his business, and moved the luncheon to a large round table in the lobby, where they could be seen and quoted, as they often were. And while they took to calling
themselves the Vicious Circle—a term Dorothy Parker had coined—the newspapers referred to them as the Algonquin Round Table, and the name stuck.

In her later years, Dorothy Parker attacked the group and everyone in it, with lines like “Most of them are dead now, but they weren’t too alive then.” Yet there was no denying the impact it had on her life. For an entire decade, the Algonquin Round Table was a pop-culture phenomenon that came to symbolize the wit and sophistication of the nation’s most cosmopolitan city. And at the center of it was the tiny woman Tallulah Bankhead had called “the mistress of the verbal hand grenade,” Dorothy Parker.

Though Mrs. Parker was well known for her critical assaults—such as describing Katharine Hepburn’s performance in a play as “running the gamut of emotions from A to B,” or explaining that a certain scientific book had been “written without fear and without research”—even her close friends at the Algonquin Round Table didn’t escape her lashing. About Harold Ross, founder of
The New Yorker
, she said, “His ignorance was an Empire State Building of ignorance. You had to admire it for its size.” Once, when a boisterous actress at the table was described as outspoken, Mrs. Parker said, “By whom?” And when another woman had been said to speak eighteen languages, Dorothy Parker remarked, “And can’t say no in any of them.”