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this up, Ella prayed. Maggie turned around. "Do you want . . ." What? What could she offer this wary girl with her watchful brown eyes, so similar to and so different from her own lost daughter's eyes? She held out her hand, and the drink she was holding, "It's a cosmopolitan. It has vodka and cranberry juice ..." "I know," Maggie said scornfully, "what's in a cosmopolitan." It was one of the longer sentences Ella had gotten out of her granddaughter. Maggie took the drink and swallowed half of it in one mouthful. "Not bad," she said, turned on her heel and strode into the living room. Mrs. Lefkowitz handed her the bowl of Fritos. Maggie plopped herself on the couch, swallowed the remaining half of her drink, and picked up a copy of Entertainment Weekly. "I've seen this episode," she said. "Oh," said Ella. On the one hand, that was bad news. On the other hand, it was a second unsolicited sentence from her granddaughter. And Maggie was there, wasn't she? That was something, right? "But it's a good one," said Maggie. She flipped the magazine back onto the coffee table and looked around. Ella glanced desperately at Lewis, who hurried out of the kitchen with the pitcher full of drinks. He refilled Maggie's glass. Maggie daintily selected a chicken wing from the platter and sat back with her eyes on the screen. Ella felt herself relax in increments. It wasn't a victory, she told herself, through four straight episodes of women saying things that would have gotten her mouth washed out with soap sixty years ago. But it was a start. She glanced over at her granddaughter. Maggie's eyes had slipped shut. Her eyelashes lay like a spiky fringe on top of her cheek. There was a dusting of Cheetos debris on her chin. And her lips were pursed, as if she were awaiting a kiss in her dreams.
After four cosmopolitans, three chicken wings, and a fistful of Fritos, Maggie had bid Ella and Company good night. She lay on the thin mattress of the pullout couch and closed her eyes, In Her Shoes 317
thinking that she might have to reconsider her plan for handling Florida. Initially, she'd decided to simply watch, wait, stay out of the way, until she could figure things out. That might take some time, Maggie'd acknowledged. Everything she knew about old people she'd learned from TV, from commercials, mostly, which told her that they had high blood sugar and overactive bladders, and were in need of panic buttons to press when they'd fallen and couldn't get up. She'd sit back and focus on the grandmother, who clearly had money. And guilt. Whatever Ella Hirsch had done or hadn't done, she clearly felt beyond awful about it. Which meant that if Maggie was patient, she'd be able to convert those awful feelings into cash—cash she could add to the pile growing slowly in the box beneath her bed. She was earning just minimum wage at Bagel Bay, but Maggie figured that with a few tearful scenes, a few sad stories about how much she missed her mother and how much she would have welcomed the love of a grandmother, or any woman, really, in her short but troubled life, she'd be waltzing out of death's waiting room—aka Golden Acres—with enough money to buy whatever she wanted. The problem was that getting things from Ella would be almost too easy. It wasn't enough of a challenge, after all of the challenges Maggie had been through. It felt . . . disappointing, somehow. Like gearing up to power your fist through a cinderblock wall and winding up punching a marshmallow instead. The grandmother was so absolutely pathetic that Maggie, who didn't feel bad about much, felt the tiniest bit lousy about planning to separate her from her money. She ate up scraps of Maggie's company, her attention, every word she said, as if she'd been starving in the desert and Maggie were a dish of good ice cream. Now there was the new television set, the DVD player, all of the food, in addition to Ella's constant offers of dinner, movies, day trips to Miami or the beach. Ella was trying so hard that it made Maggie's stomach twist. And the only thing she'd asked for was that Maggie
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call her father and tell him that she was all right. There'd been no mention made of rent, or of giving Ella money for gas or car insurance, or groceries, or anything at all. So why should she be in a hurry to leave? Watch and wait, she thought, tucking the pillow more firmly under her cheek. Maybe she'd get Ella to take her to Disney World. Ride the teacups. Send home a postcard. Wish you were here.
FORTY FOUR
"Tell me why we're doing this again?" Rose whispered. "Because generally, when two people decide to get married, it's traditional for their parents to meet," Simon whispered back. "And it's going to be fine," he said. "My parents love you, and I'm sure they'll like your father, and as for Sydelle . . . what's the worst that could happen here?" In the kitchen, Simon's mother, Elizabeth, was scowling at a cookbook. She was a short, plump woman with silvery-blond hair and the same milky skin as her son. Dressed in a long, flower-patterned skirt, a ruffled white blouse, and a yellow apron whose wide pockets were accented with fabric roses, she looked sort of like a domestic, Jewish Tammy Faye Bakker, minus the eyelashes. In her case, though, looks were deceiving. She taught philosophy at Bryn Mawr in the same flowery skirts and cashmere cardigans that she wore around the house. She was sweet, and funny, and e asygoing . . . but wherever Simon had gotten his talents for cooking, and food appreciation, it hadn't been from her. "Shallot," she murmured. "I don't think I have that. In fact," she said, smiling as her son walked in and kissed her cheek, "I'm not sure I know what it is." "It's sort of a cross between an onion and a clove of garlic," said Simon. "Why? Was it in your crossword puzzle?"
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"Simon, I'm cooking," she said firmly. "I can, you know," she added, sounding mildly offended. "I'm a very fine cook, when I do it. It's just that I usually don't." "And you decided to give it a go tonight?" "It's the least I can do to welcome the mishpochab," she said, beaming at Rose, who smiled back and relaxed, leaning against a counter. Simon, meanwhile, was sniffing the air suspiciously. "What are you making?" She tilted the cookbook so he could read it. "Roast chicken with wild rice and apricot stuffing," said Simon, looking impressed. "Did you remember to clean the chickens?" "They're from the organic grocery store," she said. "I'm sure they're fine." "Yeah, but did you take out the innards? The neck and the liver and all? The stuff that they put inside the cavity? Wrapped in plastic?" Now Rose sniffed, too . . . and noticed that the kitchen smelled a great deal like burning plastic. Mrs. Stein looked worried. "They felt kind of crowded when I was stuffing them," she said, bending to open the oven. "Nothing to worry about," said Simon, deftly extracting the pan of smoking, raw-looking chicken. "Towel's on fire," Simon's father remarked, strolling into the kitchen. "What?" asked Simon, whose attention was focused on the chicken. Tall and thin, with tufts of the same gingery hair that Simon had, Mr. Stein calmly swallowed the mouthful of cheese and crackers he'd been eating and pointed to a dish towel on top of the stove that had indeed burst into flames. "Towel," he said. "Fire." He walked to the stove, flicked the flaming towel neatly into the sink, where it hissed and smoked, and gave his wife a squeeze. "Calamity Jane," he said affectionately. She swatted at him, still studying her cookbook. "You're not eating up all the cheese and crackers, are you?"
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"Not at all," said Mr. Stein, "I've moved on to the cashews." He turned to Rose, offering the plate of cheese and crackers. "My advice," he said, his voice low and his tone conspiratorial, "fill up on this." Rose smiled at him. "Thanks," she said. Simon's mother rolled her eyes and wiped her hands. "So is your, um, Sydelle a good cook?" "She's usually got my father on some kind of weird diet," said Rose. "High-carb, low-fat, high-protein, vegetarian ..." "Oh," said Elizabeth, frowning, "do you think this will be okay? I probably should have asked ..." "This will be fine," said Rose, knowing that as soon as Sydelle arrived, food would be the last thing on her mind. The Steins, as it turned out, lived in a large, sprawling, somewhat messy mansion set on two acres of shaggy green grass on a street full of similarly impressive domiciles. Mr. Stein was an engineer who invented parts for airplanes. He'd patented two of them years ago, Simon had told her, which was where a lot of the money came from. Now he was almost seventy, semiretired, and he spent a lot of his time at home looking for his glasses, the cordless telephone, the remote control, and his car keys. Which was probably because Mrs. Stein seemed to spend a lot of her time at home moving things from one pile of stuff to another. That, and working in her overgrown vegetable garden and reading the kind of bodice-ripping novels that Rose had always read in secret, books that always had three words in their titles. Her Forbidden Desire was currently perched on top of the microwave, and Rose had also glimpsed Passion's Tawny Flame facedown on the living room sofa. Simon told Rose that in high school he'd given his mother a fake gift certificate for a nonexistent book he'd entitled Love's Moist Panties. "Was she mad?" Rose had asked. Simon thought about it. "I think she was actually disappointed that the book didn't exist." Now Simon sniffed the air again, looking worried. "Ma, the walnuts," he said. "They're fine," said Elizabeth Stein serenely, and shook dinner
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rolls out of a paper bag and into a napkin-lined basket that looked as if it had been kicked in on one side. "Oh, dear," she murmured. "Lopsided." This, too, was typical. Simon's parents tended to be unconcerned with formality when it came to tableware. Rose wasn't surprised to see the table covered with a handmade linen tablecloth, set with mismatched plates. She counted three plates from the Steins' set of good china, rimmed with gold, and three from their everyday plates, bought in bulk from Ikea. There were four water glasses and two coffee mugs for drinking water, three wineglasses, two brandy snifters, and a single champagne flute for wine, and a different paper napkin, one of which read, "HAPPY ANNIVERSARY," at each of the plates. Sydelle was going to shit, Rose decided, and smiled to herself, thinking that it suited her just fine. Simon walked up behind her, carrying a pitcher full of ice water and two bottles of wine. "My advice to you," he said, handing her a glass, "is start drinking heavily." A car turned into the driveway. Rose glimpsed her father's face, his familiar high forehead and bald spot, and Sydelle sitting beside him, resplendent in lipstick and pearls. She grabbed her fiance's hand. "I love you," she whispered. Simon stared at her curiously. "I know." The car doors slammed. Rose listened to the sounds of polite "hellos" and the sound of Sydelle's heels tap-tapping on the Steins' scuffed hardwood floors. Family, she thought She swallowed hard, squeezed Simon's hand, wishing for something she couldn't name, for ease and comfort, for a fast joke and a breezy manner, for the absolute right outfit. In other words, for Maggie. To be Maggie for one night, or at least have the benefit of her sister's advice and presence. This was her family, old and new, and Maggie should be here. Simon stared at her curiously. "You okay?" Rose poured herself a half-glass of red wine and drank it quickly. "Fine," she said, and followed him into the kitchen. "Fine."
FORTY'FIVE
"Rosenfarb!" Maggie shouted at the guard. The guard nodded slowly (no surprise—Maggie had quickly figured out that everyone at Golden Acres did everything slowly), and she stomped on the gas as the parking gate wavered up into the sky. In the months she'd been at Golden Acres, Maggie had privately been conducting an experiment to see whether simply shouting any Jewish-sounding last name at the security guards would be enough to gain admittance. So far, she'd run through Rosen, Rosenstein, Rosenblum, Rosenfeld, Rosenbluth, and, once, late at night, Rosenpenis, in her personal homage to Fletch. The guards (if you could call antiques in old polyester uniforms guards at all) had not so much as batted a gray eyelash as they waved her through. Maggie piloted Lewis's school-bus-sized Lincoln toward her grandmother's apartment building, parked it in the designated slot, and climbed up the stairs, heading for her bedroom, a room with blank walls and a beige pullout couch that could have been the little sister of the one Maggie remembered from Rose's apartment. The room was so spare and so clean that Maggie wondered whether Ella had ever used it, whether she'd ever had anyone stay overnight. It was three in the afternoon. She figured that she'd go upstairs,
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grab the bathing suit she'd found in Ella's closet, go to the beach, kill some time before dinner. Maybe she'd eat with Ella. Maybe they'd pop in another one of the DVDs that Ella had come home with the week before. Except when she opened the door, she was surprised to see her grandmother sitting at the kitchen table, hands folded in front of her, like she'd been waiting. "Hi," said Maggie. "Aren't you supposed to be at the hospital? Or the hospice? Or someplace that starts with 'hosp'?" Ella shook her head, smiling faintly. In black slacks and a white blouse, her hair twined around her head as usual, her grandmother looked shabby and small, a monochrome mouse crumpled in a corner. "We need to talk," Ella said. Oh boy, thought Maggie. Here it comes. She'd gotten this speech, or a version of it, from roommates and boyfriends—and, of course, from Sydelle. Maggie, you're taking advantage. Maggie, you need to contribute. Maggie, your father shouldn't have to take care of you his whole life. But Ella had a different speech in mind. "I owe you an explanation. I've been meaning to talk to you for a long time, but . . ." Her voice trailed off. "I know you're probably wondering where I was, all those years. ..." Ah, Maggie thought. So this was what Ella was getting at. Not Maggie's dependence, but Ella's own guilt. "You sent cards," she said. "That's right," said Ella, nodding. "And I called, too. You never knew?" She asked the question, even though she knew the answer. "Your father was very angry at us. At me and my husband. Then, after Ira died, just at me." Maggie pulled up a chair and sat down at the table. "Why angry?" she asked. "He thought I did a terrible thing to him," the grandmother said. "He thought that I—well, my husband and I—should have told him more about Caroline. Your mother." "I know what her name is," Maggie said irritably. The subject of her mother—her mother's name in this old woman's mouth—
