Happy Family (13 page)

“You don't have to just stick to the facts,” Dr. Vega says, “you've led an interesting life, and we have plenty of time left.”

“I've never had anxiety issues. I'm used to functioning in high-stress situations and I haven't exactly shied away from them.”

“They produce a dopamine response, which is adrenalizing. You didn't say what led to your career change, which was quite a significant one. Did it have to do with the stress of the job? That's very common for law enforcement.”

“No, it wasn't that,” Cheri says, wanting to get off that topic. There is no way to enter that dangerous territory without betraying or being betrayed. “Listen, I just want to prevent this from ever happening again. I'm sure there's something I can take…”

“There's no magic pill for the ups and downs of life,” Dr. Vega says. “I can give you some Ativan, but all benzodiazepine drugs are highly addictive.” Fortunately, Cheri opted not to mention her history as a speed freak when she filled out the patient-intake form. Dr. Vega hands her a script. “Don't take it for more than three days in a row. We need to do talk therapy as well. You have a lot on your plate right now. You can set something up with my receptionist.”

Cheri walks out of the pharmacy into the shank of the late-July day, pops open the bottle of Ativan, and swallows a pill. She slaps on her dark sunglasses and merges with the Gold Coast denizens who walk in and out of buildings drinking their coffees, some leading dogs, others being led by various desires. Cheri catches a whiff of perfume—light, citrusy—and it reminds her of the Jean Naté bubble bath her mother used on her when she was a kid. It gave her a terrible rash. Cici became so distraught all she could do was cry. She had to give Cheri oatmeal baths for weeks afterward and swathe her in Saran Wrap. Cheri's throat aches at the trust of a child, any child, her as a child. How young her mother was then, how insecure; it fills her with a sadness that's close to love, but more akin to pity—the kind of pity that eventually provokes cruelty.

C
ici's silk blouse is wet under the armpits, and,
porca miseria,
she forgot to put in those pads. The stain will dry like a Rorschach test inkblot with a chalky outline from her deodorant because the air-conditioning in her closet is never cold enough. She retreats to her walk-in jewelry vault and plops down on the ottoman. It's soothing in here, with the white marble floor and the gleaming wood drawers from floor to ceiling; like a museum. She surveys that
stronzo
Cookie, who is slow and shrunken with arthritis nibbling at her bones; a little wind could snap her in two. Sol arranged for Cookie, who's spent forty years with them, to get her salary for life whether she worked or not. But Cici hasn't told Cookie that, although it's painful to watch her straining to do the simplest task, like going up the ladder to get the boxes down. And that wrinkled old black-and-white uniform.

“I pay you now the whole year of salary if you throw that away and wear real clothing.”

“Last week you said two years, so I guess you like it more this week. Is this the damn thing already?” She holds out a black felt jewelry box.

“No, no, no. That is for the tennis bracelet, not a ring. Put it down, put it down!”

“All look the damn same to me, crazy woman,” Cookie mumbles under her breath. Cici directs her to the other side of the vault and sips her Sancerre. Cookie comes down the ladder, moves it over a few rows, goes back up.

“Why is it your Choo-Choo, she never talks to you like Cheri, she talks to me? It has to be trouble with that husband, Michael. Why else is there no baby? And he is not giving her a party for her birth-day!”

“With Cheri, you always up in her business. Didn't work when she was little, and it doesn't work when she's big.”

“It hurts when she is mean to me. I think we get older, it doesn't hurt so much, but it still does.”

“Nothing stops hurting. Something else just hurts more and you forget. Now, what exactly are we looking for?”

“We have to make the list so it is up-to-date what is in here. Sol, he always said without lists, they cut off the insurance.”

Cookie almost loses her footing on the ladder. She hates listening to Mz. M. getting misty over that dead fool.

“What are you trying to do? Kill yourself?
Basta,
Cookie,
basta!
Come down from there.”

Cookie shakes her head in disgust, then slowly descends.

“I go up myself.” Cici totters on her heels like a glittering catcher at the bottom of the ladder, trying to figure out where to grab Cookie to help her down.

Cookie waves her off. “I can do it my damn self.”

Cici dispatches Cookie to get another bottle of Sancerre, knowing she'll take a pull off their liquor bottles while she's downstairs, like she's been doing for decades. Cici clicks on the intercom and asks for profiteroles as well. There's some muddled answer. Cookie pretends she doesn't know how to use the intercom so she can later say, “I didn't hear you ask for that.”

It is less than two weeks before Cheri's birthday, and Cici hasn't decided yet on the piece of jewelry she will send her. A ring? It's a tradition, to give something of hers to her daughter each year—why save it all until she dies? She'd gladly give Cheri anything she wanted, but her daughter doesn't want any of the things she has to give. No matter what she picks, Cheri won't wear it or like it. But perhaps one day it will have meaning for her. After their last conversation, she's tempted to skip the ritual this year. Family stays together, not in a hotel!

Cheri was never a warm child. She didn't like to cuddle or be hugged; she was hard to get to know and even harder to understand. Sol simply treated her coldly in return, but Cici wasn't the kind of mother to pull away, like her friend Charlotte Detemeirs, who never once spoke about her son after he was in the newspapers for taking part in a money scandal.

Looking through her vault is like spending time with old friends. Without opening the box, Cici remembers when and where she got each piece, the carat size, country of origin, the luster, brilliance, dispersion, and scintillation of each gemstone. They speak to her in different ways and different tongues. Like this jabot pin that somehow got mixed in with the cocktail rings. She immediately recalls: 24K gold, tenth-century, made from horse-bridle ornaments. Solomon purchased it at an antique shop in East Hampton and gave it to her when she came back from her first trip to Italy with Cheri. It was an apology for the fight they'd had over the portrait. Looking back, it was more her fault than his. Cici had meant it to be a nice surprise for him, a painting of his two girls, Cici and Cheri. She didn't think he would want to be included; he was so busy with work, and men did not want to sit and pose for hours. But she had used the wrong words to describe it. “This isn't a
family
portrait,” he kept saying, accusing her of leaving him out of his own family. She was so upset that all she saw was his anger and not his hurt. Even after she had the artist redo the portrait, Solomon insisted she hang it in the guest room where he would never lay eyes on it. When she goes to return the pin to its rightful drawer, she spies a heart-shaped black velvet box all the way at the back. Indian ruby Bulgari ring in 24K gold setting, June 6, 1981, Lutèce in New York City. Ruby: preserves chastity, kills poisonous snakes, can cause water to boil, declares love. Well, it was a declaration. Whether it had anything to do with love and happiness was another matter.

She thought Solomon was happy when he gave her the ruby ring for her fortieth birthday. His patents for the special coating on pills were making him a lot of money; he'd just bought a pied-à-terre in the city. Providing for her, buying her beautiful things, he said, made him happy. He was rarely home before seven thirty. But on her birthday that year, it wasn't even six when she heard the crunch of his tires on the gravel path and saw his headlights sweep up their driveway. She sipped her negroni.

She smoothed her skirt while standing at the kitchen sink and rubbed a cut lemon under her nails to remove any traces of garlic. She had been making pasta sauce that day, freezing it to give to Cheri, now at NYU, so she'd have something decent to eat. Solomon promised to spend the weekend in Montclair to celebrate Cici's birthday. She'd wanted Cheri to come home too, but Cheri, as usual, preferred to stay in the city with her friends.

Cici could tell by the way Solomon was whistling “Just the way you look tonight” as he walked through the front door that he was happy. She heard him place his keys on the hallway entrance table, listened to his footsteps, the slight drag of his left shoe. His legs had become swollen and stiff from phlebitis. He had always been so strong, with such beautiful legs in his white tennis shorts. But she tried not to let it bother her. “Nothing else for today, Cookie,” she heard him say.

They went to their favorite restaurant, Lutèce, and sat at a table by the fireplace, next to the wall with elegant paper that looked like yellow flowers and green leaves on trellises. In the sophisticated quiet, they heard the clink of silver, the clearing of a throat, the sound of an aged port being poured into heavy lead crystal. He kissed her hands and put the pigeon-blood ruby ring on her middle finger. As she raised her champagne flute to toast Sol's gift, the large gem slipped to the side. But Cici twisted it back with her thumb before Sol could see that the ring was much too big for her finger.

They ate ginger crème brûlée and profiteroles and drank too much. It was rare that they were alone. She spoke about her concern for their daughter, wearing torn clothes, piercing her body, and looking so thin. He told her about how he managed to scoop up the new apartment and recounted with pride his outmaneuvering of the co-op board, how there were many people who'd wanted that apartment. Now Cici had a new design project; there would be architects and plans to coordinate and she could spend more time in the city, more time with him.

He touched her back. She shivered; was it from his touch? She would like to feel sexy with him; maybe tonight she could. He steered her out of Lutèce into the drizzle of the street and helped her into their waiting town car with its purr of classical music. “
Buon compleanno,
Carlotta,” he whispered in her ear, “you are more beautiful to me at forty than you were at eighteen.”

When they got home, she peignoired herself, put her hair up, lingerie and pearls beneath. She browsed through
Architectural Digest
because it was on her nightstand and she didn't want to appear too eager. It was a sensitive situation. Would he want to make love? Ever since her hysterectomy, even when she craved his touch, intercourse was painful for her. She'd tried the olive oil her doctor suggested, but it made a great mess; she'd tried the breathing exercises and reading sexy stories. Once, they'd watched an erotic movie together. She
had
tried. But it never felt the same again and she could not have an orgasm. And Sol could always tell when she was just doing it for his sake. She felt ashamed and guilty. They slept like spoons, kissed hello, good-bye; he did not often try to do more. He never came home early.

“I have news, sweetheart,” he said when he slid next to her in bed wearing his green silk pajamas. His face was smooth and she could smell the warm cashmere of his aftershave. “I've decided to go to law school.” He announced it like a boy bringing home a blue ribbon. She didn't know what to say except “But you are a
dottore
.”

“And soon I'll be a lawyer. Goddamned lawyers—they always travel in groups, three on a call, three at a lunch, and three per hour on your bill. I added up what I've been spending on lawyers for Entercap—it's ludicrous. I could prosecute my own patents with what I've learned in the past decade. This just means I'll have more control over my business, sweetheart. I'm still a
dottore
. But I'm also a businessman.” Cici had been so proud of her husband, standing tall in his white lab coat, inventing something to change the world. “I'm doing it for you and for Cheri. And for the children she might have one day.”

“Of course she will have children,” Cici replied. She imagined herself posing with them on a family Christmas card.

Sol had already given her such nice things; their house with the lilac trees in Montclair had been plenty. But once his pill coating had been adopted by every major pharmaceutical company in the United States, there was more money. Yet the more money Sol made, the more he felt he needed to make. Now he was always traveling, working, meeting, can't talk, late business dinner,
He's unavailable right now, Mrs. Matzner.

“Are you no too old for school?”

“I'll certainly be the world's oldest law student.” He laughed. “You're right about that.” The more questions came to her, the more anxious she became. Would he still be a doctor? Cici liked being a doctor's wife. She knew what it meant. “I don't need to practice anymore, but I'll still run the research facility,” Sol reassured her. “I know this is unconventional, but law school will be easy compared to med school. I'm doing all of this now, while I still can. Entercap is my legacy—and yours.”

“Where is this law school, is it out of the state?”

“Here, Cici. Of course, right here in New York. I'm looking into a few accelerated programs in the city so I'm close to my office. NYU has a good one.” Cici sat up straighter.

“You go where Cheri goes? Would you, Solomon?” More than anything, Cici wanted Cheri to have a good relationship with Sol. The kind that had been cut short with Cici's papa and that she had never had with Marco D'Ameri. “It would be wonderful, you can see your daughter more.”

“NYU is a big school. And I'll be taking mostly evening classes. I'm not sure she'd be so happy to have her father going to her same college. She's not very receptive, at least not to me.”

“No say that, Solomon. She is almost an adult now. It was difficult for me as well, with her so dark, so hard, nothing I did was good enough. But you fight with her and then you just give up. She is her own person. Maybe she is not as we want her to be—I pray that she can look pretty again, she is so pretty and smart.
Ma,
please, if it is not too late for school, it is not too late to try with your daughter.”

“It's not like I don't want to try, Cici,” Sol said with a sigh. “She just puts up so many walls. But NYU does have the most flexible program.”

Sol went downstairs to his office to make a call, just for a minute, he swore. Cici looked at her ring, the color of an unripe pomegranate, of pigeon blood. “The best rubies are pigeon-blood red,” she remembered her mama telling her. She would call Bulgari in the morning and get it sized. She slipped between the sheets of their marital bed and fell asleep waiting for Sol to return to her side. Her fortieth birthday ended as quietly as a ruby dropping onto a jeweler's felt.

The next day, Cici called Bulgari. It was such a simple request.

“I need to get a ring sized. Yes, it was purchased by Dr. Matzner.” Cici was in her kitchen in Montclair, talking into the phone and making hand gestures at Cookie, who was staring into a pot on the stove, confused about what to do. “No, I don't have the receipt, but you should…what? He bought two rings? Yes, I hold.”

“Come on, Mz. M., are you saying stir or pour? The rice is jumping around.”

“All these years I teach you how to do the risotto, you no listen? Yes, I am here,” Cici said into the phone. “Am I calling about the
emerald
ring?” Cici turned her back to Cookie. “Yes, that's right. Dr. Matzner's emerald ring…in eighteen-karat gold setting? Yes, that is correct.” Cici pulled out a pad of paper and Cookie gave her a questioning look. “I would like to know the address you have for me. Also the telephone number, yes, to make sure you have the correct information.” Cici's hand trembled as she scribbled on a piece of paper.