The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2 page)

Next morning, Pippa was alone in the living room, supine as an odalisque in a turquoise raw silk kimono shirt and jeans. Her rather flat, feline face, with its high cheekbones and almond-shaped, upturned gray eyes, was framed by hair tinted the color of rose gold. Even in middle age, she resembled a Madonna in a Flemish painting, but rounder, juicier. Her head resting on a Moroccan pillow whose geometric pattern was intended to break up the monotony of the taupe Swedish Modern couch she'd bought to go with the clean lines of the condo, she surveyed her living room with satisfaction. Nothing here was extraneous. She had deliberately rescued each vase, bowl, painting from the morass of belongings that the family had built up over the years, most of which she had given to the children or donated to charity with uncharacteristic abandon when they moved to Marigold Village, storing only the few important pieces she thought she or the kids might one day miss. Each object Pippa had selected to survive this merciless culling now seemed charged with memory, isolated as it was from its peers in this sterile backdrop devoid of associations, walls painted dove gray: the luminous red glass ashtray Herb and Pippa bought in Venice on their honeymoon; her mother's treasured heart-shaped candy dish decorated with tiny shamrocks; the conch shell that her children had held up to their ears long ago, transported expressions on their faces, as they listened to the rush of the sea.

This house makes me feel strange, Pippa thought languorously, propping herself up on her elbow and taking a pair of brand-new binoculars from the glass coffee table. The sliding glass doors were open, and Pippa squinted through the powerful lenses at a
wall of emerald green lawn with an opal of sparkling blue, a tiny, artificial lake – one of the many that dotted Marigold Village – at its center. She jerked the binoculars back and forth until she spied a bird, an oriole, nervously hopping on a willow branch. The bird had a black hood and saffron yellow chest feathers, fading into white at the abdomen. It looked precisely like the glossy picture of a Baltimore Oriole in Pippa's manual,
Birds of
the East Coast
, which she had bought at the Marigold bookstore only a week before.

On the day she purchased the manual, she noticed a sign on the bulletin board in the bookstore: ‘Marigold reading group meets every Thursday evening at seven. New members welcome.' This caught her interest. It might be a good way to meet people. The following Thursday, she was knocking on the door of the prescribed unit, wearing one of Herb's shirts and a loose linen skirt. She felt she should hide her still solid body from the old women. It seemed only kind. A tiny lady with the tight white curls and pull-on trousers of the nearly aged swung open the door. ‘Another young one!' she pronounced rather loudly, half-looking over her shoulder. ‘Come on in. Very exciting, us old crones like new blood.' Pippa introduced herself, walked into the living room, and saw a group of women in their sixties, seventies, and eighties seated in a circle like a witches' coven, purses tucked by their sides; in each of their laps lay a paperback copy of Sam Shapiro's latest novel,
Mr Bernbaum Presents
. Pippa nearly bust out laughing. This was too much.

‘I'm Lucy Childers,' said the woman who had answered the door. ‘This is, let's see … Emily Wasserman, Ethel Cohen, Jean Yelding, Cora O'Hara, and – Where's Chloe?' Just then, the other ‘young one' came out from behind the bathroom door. Chloe was of an indeterminate age; her taut face was frozen in a semi-smile, having been ratcheted up several notches and enhanced by prominent cheekbones that looked like Ping-Pong balls under her skin. The two swollen halves of her upper lip drooped suggestively, like
a set of red velvet curtains tied at the corners of her mouth, Pippa thought. The tip of her nose was pinched, as though a pair of fingers had squeezed a clay sculpture as a prank. Her eyelids seemed Krazy-Glued open a little too wide. She spoke in a very quiet, level voice, as one might speak to a child having a tantrum.

‘It's lovely to meet you,' she said, her startled eyes staring out of that approximation of a face like a prisoner peering out of a chink in a stone wall. Pippa said something polite and looked away, feeling a mix of pity and repulsion.

‘This is Chloe's last meeting with the club,' Lucy Childers said. ‘Her husband has recently passed and she's moving back to the city.'

‘I'm sorry,' said Pippa.

‘Thank you,' whispered Chloe.

Lucy Childers perched herself on the edge of the couch, back straight, her small feet in their white leather nurse's shoes lined up beside each other neatly, and opened the discussion with her own erudite thoughts, one tiny, stiff hand chopping the air each time she made a point, then moving it swiftly to the side, as though scraping peelings off a table. Lucy admired the symmetry of the book, the careful pacing, the slow but steady drip feed of information – not too much, not too little; she called it a ‘mystery of character.' Then she turned to Chloe, who murmured, ‘It's a mean book, but I liked it.' Pippa tried to shrug off the unwelcome mix of dread and kinship she felt with this person.

The oriole flew off. Pippa moved the binoculars down a bit, found Herb's red Converse sneakers. She followed his brown, skinny legs, the little hill of his belly, until she came to his rugged face, lower jaw clamped over front teeth in a grimace of concentration as he read a four-inch-thick manuscript on the lawn chair. The truth was, Herb hadn't retired. He was running the company from here, buying manuscripts, making deals.

A household list filed through Pippa's mind on an endless loop,
the way the breaking headlines run under the TV news:
dry
cleaning … toilet paper … plant fertilizer … cheese …
She had been lying in this luxurious position dreamily for half an hour, having cleaned the house and planned dinner by ten. The circle of the artificial pond, Herb's legs, the brilliant, green lawn … Pippa wished she could paint it. It was an odd desire for her; she always said of herself, almost proudly, surrounded as she was by creative folk, that she had no talent of any kind.

The buzz of the doorbell startled her. She sat up and swiveled around to see Dot Nadeau waiting behind the screen door. Dot was a bleach blonde with leathery skin and a sultry, New Jersey voice. She lived just across the artificial lake, in 1272. In their late sixties, Dot and her husband, Johnny, were among the younger residents. Pippa, at fifty, was practically a child bride.

‘Do you have a minute?' Dot asked in a muted tone. She looked harried.

‘Sure. I'm supposed to be doing errands. But who cares,' said Pippa.

They sat down in the kitchen. Pippa poured out a cup of coffee and handed it to Dot. ‘Is everything okay?' she asked.

‘Well, we're fine, but … my son, Chris. Remember I told you about him?'

‘In Utah?'

‘Yes. He's thinking of relocating and … he might be coming east.'

‘Oh, well, that would be nice, if they would move near you.'

‘The thing is, he's having trouble … It's just a mess, Pippa, a real mess.' There were tears in Dot's eyes. Pippa checked to see that Herb was still ensconced on his lawn chair and fetched Dot a Kleenex.

‘What is it?' asked Pippa. She felt awkward. She didn't know Dot very well. They'd had coffee a couple of times, but they'd never gotten past the pleasantry stage.

‘He's had some kind of crisis with his wife, and he's left her,
and he's lost his job – it wasn't even a real job, he was working in a men's shelter. How do you lose a job like that? I think he's living in his car. Thank God there are no kids. I don't know what to do.'

‘Well, he's an adult, I mean … what can you do?'

‘He was always sort of half-baked, you know what I mean?'

Pippa wondered what Dot meant. Was the boy retarded? A drunk? Stunted in some way?

‘It's painful, but sometimes you just have to accept that they are who they are. I mean, I feel that about mine.' Tender Ben and tyrannical Grace. Now and forever. Nothing to be done. As if on cue, Ben walked in pulling a well-worn seersucker jacket over his sloped shoulders. Whenever Pippa saw him, she was amazed he was no longer a boy. ‘Hello, darling,' she said. ‘Dot, this is my son, Ben.'

‘The lawyer!' said Dot, gazing at him admiringly.

‘Not yet,' said Ben.

‘Columbia, right?' asked Dot. Immediately Pippa felt a pang of guilt for having a son in law school when Dot's boy was unemployed and possibly homeless.

Dot turned to Pippa. ‘You're right,' said Dot. ‘I knew I should come to you. I had a feeling. I'm just going to let him cry it out on his own. He can't come running to me every time his life falls apart. It's no favor to him.'

‘Of course he knows if he's ever really in trouble …'

‘He has me.' Dot hugged Pippa and left.

Ben bit into an apple. ‘What were you right about?'

‘I have no idea,' said Pippa. ‘She said her son was half-baked, and I said sometimes you have to accept things the way they are.'

‘Well, she left satisfied, anyway.'

‘Half-baked?' said Herb, who had come in when he heard Ben's voice. ‘Is that code for half-wit?'

Pippa took a blood pressure cuff from a drawer, Velcroed it onto Herb's arm, and started pumping it up. Ben stood to read the dial with her.

‘Since when are you two on the staff of Mount Sinai?' asked Herb. ‘Don't get mad,' said Pippa. ‘Your blood pressure goes up.'

‘How about if I hang myself?' said Herb with a grim smile. ‘What happens then?'

‘A little appreciation for your ministering angel, Dad,' said Ben in a jocular, warning tone. Herb slid the local paper across the table, scanned the front page, grimacing. He hated having his blood pressure taken in front of people, even the kids. Pippa could feel his petulance rise up in her like a tide. She should have waited till Ben had gone. Shit, she thought. Oh, well. She poured Ben a bowl of Grape-Nuts cereal and listened to the swift animal crunch his teeth made when he ate it, the same crunch they had made when he was five. She loved that sound. ‘Oh, by the way,' Ben said. ‘Stephanie brought a cat home from the pound.'

‘Another one!' she exclaimed, laughing. Ben's girlfriend couldn't resist lame animals. She was a dear, earnest person. Pippa was sure they would produce a fine family, as long as Ben didn't get distracted by someone more exciting. But he didn't seem to crave thrills, strangely enough.

Ben stood up. ‘Back to the salt mines,' he said.

‘Are you still working on that same paper?' she asked.

He nodded, pushing his glasses back up his nub nose. ‘The paper that ate Ben Lee.'

‘You're just thorough,' Pippa said.

‘I actually think I might be onto something,' he said.

‘Isn't that great,' she said, beaming. As she walked him out to his car, he put his arm around her.

‘Mom,' he said. ‘Come to the city next week and we can have lunch. Or dinner. You can stay over.'

‘We're having lunch with Grace on Wednesday.'

‘Oh. Right. If you want to get together another time, call me, okay?'

‘I will,' she said. ‘Of course I will. Stop worrying about me, will you?'

‘I just want you to have a little fun,' he said.

After Ben drove off, Pippa stood quietly staring after him. The list, which had rolled by under Dot a couple of times while she was talking, came into full view now:
cheese … dry cleaning …
plant fertilizer
…

It was only three minutes to the mini-mall. Pippa drove over, picked up all the things she needed at the grocery store, dropped off the dry cleaning, then eased herself back onto the searing car seat and started creeping through the parking lot. She was in terror of mowing over one of the aged people, dressed in pink and pistachio, their tanned faces collapsed, shriveled skin coming away from knees and elbows.

*

The relentless buzzing of a lawn mower dragged Pippa from a black sleep like a body from a river. As she opened her eyes, she felt a dull pain in her temples. She wanted water, and coffee. Sitting up in the bed, she glanced at Herb. As a rule she tried not to look at him when he was sleeping. Eyes shut tight, mouth slack, he looked like an ancient, fragile old man. She turned away and stood. She knew that when his icy blue eyes, with their conquering stare, opened, she would feel reassured again. She loved this man so much. It was a condition she had tried to cure herself of many times; the symptoms could be painful. But she'd given up the fight long ago. She was the woman who loved Herb Lee. Oh, and many other things besides, she thought to herself as she pulled on her cotton robe the color of new leaves. Mother. Two decent, productive human beings living in the world because of me. That's not nothing. She walked into the kitchen, squinting in the blinding light. Everything was white. Formica table, counter, tile floor, lost their edges, bled into a field of light, their perspective flattened. Shadows from the window casings threw a blue grid over the room. With her vision blurred from sleep, the effect was so dazzlingly abstract that she had to take a moment to get
her bearings, and when she did she was so confused by what she saw that she questioned her own memory.

The table had been set chaotically, plates scattered at random, as if tossed by a furious domestic. Some of them had chocolate cake on them. Others were bare. Pippa noticed something the color of peanut butter spread on one of the slices of chocolate cake. She sniffed it cautiously. It was peanut butter. Yet she distinctly remembered sponging down the table the night before. The place had been immaculate. A chill went up her spine, and she swiveled around, imagining a malevolent pair of psychotic eyes staring at her from the living room – some escaped lunatic, brandishing a dirty cake knife. Seeing no one, she went to the kitchen door, tried it. Locked. She walked around the house, checked every door, every window. All locked. No one had come in. It must have been Herb. But they had gone to bed together at eleven. Herb had fallen asleep first. She tried to imagine him getting up to let people in, after midnight, for chocolate cake and peanut butter. It was out of the question. Then how had the cake gotten there? She cleared the table, scraped plates into the garbage, and stacked them in the dishwasher. Made coffee.