FORTY NINE
"Read more!" Maggie said. "I can't," Lewis insisted, and gave her an extremely dignified look across Ella's dining room table. "It would be a breach of journalistic ethics." "Oh, come on," Ella pleaded. "Just the first few sentences. Please?" "It would be very, very wrong," he said, and shook his head sadly. "Ella, I'm surprised that you'd even want me to do such a thing." "I'm a bad influence," Maggie said proudly. "At least tell us what Irving ordered." Lewis threw his hands in the air in mock resignation. "Fine," he said. "But you're sworn to secrecy." He cleared his throat. " 'Irving and I do not care for French food,' " Mrs. Sobel's latest began. " 'The dishes are much too rich for us. We have also found that many French restaurants are noisy and dim, which is supposed to be romantic, but makes it hard to read your menu, let alone see your meal.' " "Poor Mrs. Sobel," Ella murmured. Lewis shook his head at her, then kept reading. " 'Most cooks do not know how an omelet should be made. An omelet should be fluffy and light, with the cheese just melted. And I am sorry to report that
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Bistro Bleu is no exception. My omelet was overcooked and rubbery. The potatoes were not as hot as they should have been, and they were made with rosemary, which Irving does not care for.' " "Again with Irving," said Ella. "Irving's trouble?" asked Maggie. "Irving's allergic. To everything," Lewis explained. "He's allergic to things I didn't know you could be allergic to. White flour, shellfish, all seeds, all nuts . . . half of that woman's reviews are devoted to how long it took her to find Irving something to eat, and then there's another quarter of the review reserved for the discussion of how whatever Irving ended up eating didn't agree with him . . ." "This is Irving Sobel?" asked Mrs. Lefkowitz, shuffling toward the table. "Felt. He came to a party I had once and wouldn't eat a bite!" Maggie rolled her eyes. Mrs. Lefkowitz, their dinner guest, was not in a good mood. She wore a pink sweatshirt, explaining that if she spilled her borscht, it would blend right in, and tan polyester pants. She didn't explain her pants, but Maggie figured that if she spilled anything at all on them, it would only constitute an improvement. Mrs. Lefkowitz seated herself with a small groan, picked up a kosher dill pickle, and began expounding on the state of the nearby mall. "Hooligans!" she said, through a mouthful of pickle. Maggie relocated her textbooks from the Makeup for Theater class she'd enrolled in at the local community college and set dishes and silverware in their place. "I think it's called Houlihan's," she said. "No, no, hooligans," said Mrs. Lefkowitz. "Ruffians! Hoodlums! Teenagers! Everywhere! The mall is full of them, and all of the clothes are these teeny-tiny things with, with ruffled sleeves," she said. "Miniskirts! Shirts that you can see right through! Pants," she continued, glaring at Maggie, "that are made out of leather. Have you ever in your life heard of such a thing?" "Actually—" Maggie began. Ella bit back a smile. She knew for
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a fact that Maggie owned a pair of leather pants, and a leather miniskirt, too. "What's the occasion?" Ella asked instead. "What were you shopping for?" Mrs. Lefkowitz waved a dismissive hand over the bowls of borscht. "My son. Remember him? The actuary? Mister Excitement? Well, he calls me up and says, 'Ma, I'm getting married.' I say, 'At your age? You need a wife like I need tap-dancing shoes.' He tells me that his mind's made up, and that she's a wonderful girl. I tell him that at fifty-three he's got no business going with girls, and he tells me I've got nothing to worry about, she's thirty-six, but a very mature thirty-six." She glared at Ella and Maggie as if they were responsible for causing her son to fall in love with a very mature thirty-six-year-old. "This I should live to see," she concluded, and helped herself to a piece of rye bread. "So now I need an outfit. Which of course I can't find." "What are you looking for?" asked Maggie. Mrs. Lefkowitz cocked a gray eyebrow. "The princess speaks!" "I talk!" cried Maggie, affronted. "And it just so happens that I am an expert shopper." "Well, then, what would you suggest for my son's third wedding?" Maggie considered Mrs. Lefkowitz carefully—her cap of tousled iron-gray curls, her eyes, bright blue and inquisitive, the pink lipstick she applied even to the drooping corner of her lips. She wasn't fat, exactly, but she didn't have much of a shape, either. Her waist had thickened, her breasts had drooped. "Hmm," Maggie said out loud, considering possibilities. "Like a science project, she looks at me." "Shh," said Ella, who'd seen Maggie look this way before, curled on her couch at night, poring over her poetry books in a pool of lamplight with a concentration that almost made it seem as if she were hypnotizing herself. "What's your favorite thing?" Maggie suddenly asked.
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"Hot-fudge sundaes," said Mrs. Lefkowitz promptly. "But I'm not allowed to have them anymore. Only with frozen yogurt," she said, wrinkling her face to demonstrate her feelings about frozen yogurt, "and that fat-free fudge topping, that they aren't even allowed to call fudge, because it's not. Fudge topping," she said again, and shook her head, clearly prepared to deliver a speech on the failings of fake fudge topping. But Maggie stopped her. "Your favorite thing to wear." "To wear?" Mrs. Lefkowitz looked down at herself as if she were surprised she was wearing anything at all. "Oh, I like what's comfortable, I guess." "Your favorite thing ever," said Maggie, twisting her hair into a ponytail. Ella perched on the edge of a dining room chair, eager to see where this was going. Mrs. Lefkowitz opened her mouth. Maggie raised her hand. "Think about it first," she said. "Think carefully. Think of all the outfits you ever wore, and tell me what you liked the very best." Mrs. Lefkowitz closed her eyes. "My going-away suit," she said. "What's that?" "My going-away suit," she repeated, as if Maggie hadn't heard her. "Like you'd wear when you were leaving your wedding and going to the airport for your honeymoon," Ella explained. "Right, right," said Mrs. Lefkowitz, nodding. "It was a black-andwhite-checked print, and the skirt was very fitted here," she said, smoothing her hands along her hips. I had black pumps . . ." She closed her eyes, remembering. "What was the jacket like?" Maggie prompted. "Oh, short, I think," said Mrs. Lefkowitz, sounding almost dreamy. "With jet buttons down the front. It was so beautiful. I wonder what became of it?" "What if. . ." said Maggie. "What if we went shopping together?" Mrs. Lefkowitz made a face. "That mall again? I don't think I could stand it." Maggie wasn't sure she'd be able to stand it, either, making her
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way through the stores at Mrs. Lefkowitz's snail's pace. "Or how about this?" she said. "You tell me your size . . ." "Oh, now she wants to get personal!" ". . . and you give me your credit card . . ." Ella could see Mrs. Lefkowitz getting ready to shake her head. She held her breath and hoped. ". . . and I'll find you an outfit. A few outfits, even. I'll give you a choice. We'll have a fashion show here, you'll try them on for us, and you'll pick the one you like the best, and I'll return the rest of them." Now Mrs. Lefkowitz was looking at Maggie curiously. "Like a personal shopper?" "Just like that," said Maggie, walking a slow circle around Mrs. Lefkowitz. "Do you have a budget?" she asked. Mrs. Lefkowitz sighed. "Two hundred dollars, maybe?" Maggie winced. "I'll try," she said.
FIFTY
Maggie spent two solid days searching for Mrs. Lefkowitz's wedding finery. Which was good, she thought. It kept her from sitting by the telephone, wondering whether Rose had gotten her letter yet, and whether Rose would call. Mrs. Lefkowitz was a challenge—no doubt about it, Maggie thought. There was no way she could put her in the kind of fitted suit she'd described, but Maggie could, she thought, find something that would make Mrs. Lefkowitz feel like she was wearing that outfit again. A suit would work, and the skirt could even be on the short side—from what she'd seen of them, Mrs. Lefkowitz's legs weren't bad—but a short jacket was out of the question. Something long, maybe, hip-length, but with a trim to make it look dressy, something that suggested those jet-black buttons. Something she'd seen before. Macy's? Saks? She finally remembered that it had been at neither of those places, but in Rose's closet. Rose had a jacket like that. Maggie swallowed hard and kept shopping, visiting department stores, consignment stores, thrift shops, flea markets, and the community college's costume department, after she'd promised the head of the department that she'd help with the makeup for an upcoming production of Hedda Gabler. In the end, she came up
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with three choices. The first was an outfit she'd found on sale at the Nordstrom's outlet—a knee-length skirt, fitted but not too tight, in pale pink linen, heavily embroidered in hot pink and red thread, along with a modest matching tank top and an embroidered cardigan that went on top of that. Mrs. Lefkowitz fingered the fabric doubtfully. "This doesn't look like my going-away suit," she said. "And a skirt with a sweater? I don't know. I was thinking a dress, maybe." "It's not the look we're going for," said Maggie. "It's the sensation." "Sensation?" "The feeling you had wearing your going-away suit," she said. "You can't wear the suit again, right?" Mrs. Lefkowitz nodded. "So what we're going for is an outfit that gives you the same ..." She struggled for words. "... the same sense of yourself that the suit did." She handed Mrs. Lefkowitz the outfit, still on hangers, plus a wide-brimmed pink hat she'd snatched from the college's costume department. "Just try," she said, and ushered Mrs. Lefkowitz back to her bedroom, where she'd set up a full-length mirror. "I feel ridiculous!" Mrs. Lefkowitz called, as Ella and Lewis sat on the love seat, waiting for the fashion show to begin. "Just let me see it," said Maggie. "Do I really have to wear the hat?" came the reply. "Come on out," called Ella. Slowly, Mrs. Lefkowitz emerged from the bedroom. The skirt was too long. Maggie could see that right away. And the cardigan sleeves fell past Mrs. Lefkowitz's fingertips, and the tank top gaped. "They're making clothes for giants these days," she complained, and shook one fabric-covered fist at Maggie. "Look at this!" Maggie stood back, assessing the look. Then she walked to Mrs. Lefkowitz and rolled the waistband up so that the skirt lifted just
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past Mrs. Lefkowitz's knees. She folded the cardigan's sleeves, pulled and tucked the tank top into some semblance of a proper fit, and plunked the hat on top of Mrs. Lefkowitz's head. "There," she said, and turned her toward the mirror. "Take a look." Mrs. Lefkowitz opened her mouth to object, to say that the outfit was horrible and that this hadn't been a good idea at all. Then she closed it. "Oh!" she said. "You see?" asked Maggie. Slowly, Mrs. Lefkowitz nodded. "The color," she began. "Right, right!" said Maggie, who was more excited, more animated, more happy than Ella had ever seen her. "It doesn't fit you right, but the color, I thought, with your eyes, and I know you like pink." "Not bad, not bad," said Mrs. Lefkowitz, and she didn't sound snappish, or crabby, or anything except enraptured with this vision of herself, with her blue eyes sparkling against the pale of the pink. What was she seeing? Maggie wondered. Maybe herself as a young woman, a newlywed, standing on the steps of the synagogue, holding her new husband's hand. "So that's choice one," said Maggie, gently pulling Mrs. Lefkowitz away from the mirror. "I'll take it!" she said. "No, no," said Maggie, laughing, "you have to see what else I found." "But I want this!" she said, clutching the' hat to the top of her head. "I don't want to try anything else, I want this!" She looked at her bare feet. "What shoes do I need? Can you help me find shoes, too? And maybe a necklace." She brushed her hand over her collarbones. "My first husband gave me a strand of pearls once ..." "Next outfit," said Maggie, pushing Mrs. Lefkowitz back toward the bedroom. Outfit Two was a long sleeveless tube dress made of some slinky black synthetic, heavy enough to drape gracefully. She'd found it on sale at Marshalls, and paired it with a black-and-silver wrap with a black fringe on the ends.
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"Ooh la la!" called Mrs. Lefkowitz, slipping the dress over her head and sauntering out of the bedroom, waggling the ends of the wrap in a vaguely suggestive fashion. "Racy! I feel like a flapper!" "Hot stuff! "called Ella. "It's nice," said Maggie, studying her carefully. The dress fell in a single column, suggesting the outlines of waist and hip rather than clinging too tightly, and it gave Mrs. Lefkowitz the appearance of a figure. She'd need heels, for sure, to pull it off, and Maggie wasn't sure that an eighty-seven-year-old woman in heels was a very good idea. Ballet slippers? she wondered. "What's next?" asked Ella, clapping her hands. Outfit Three was Maggie's personal favorite, probably because it had been the hardest one to find. She'd found the jacket on a back rack at a consignment store in a too-hipfortsown-good neighborhood in South Beach. "Hand sewn," the salesgirl had assured her—which, Maggie supposed, was meant to justify the one-hundred-and-sixty-dollar price tag. At first, it looked like a regular hip-length black jacket—nothing special. But the sleeves were decorated with swirls of black embroidery, and the pockets—embroidered, too—were set into the jacket on an interesting angle, which served to create the illusion of a waist when there wasn't much in the way of an actual waist there. Best of all, the jacket had a fabulous violet-colored lining, so Maggie had paired it with a long violet skirt and a black top. "Here," she said, presenting the three pieces together on one hanger, so that Mrs. Lefkowitz could get the idea. But Mrs. Lefkowitz barely spared it a glance, just snatching it out of Maggie's arms and hurrying back to the bedroom . . . and was it Ella's imagination, or was she humming to herself? When she came out of the bedroom, she was practically skipping —or skipping as much as someone who's recently suffered a stroke can skip. "You did it!" she said, and kissed Maggie carefully on the cheek, and Ella beamed from the love seat. Maggie looked at
