Untitled (8 page)

    Jack says, "Having company makes it less boring."

    "Boring, they're not. They're adorable, but you don't want to spend too much time locked in very tight places with them."

    Our main courses have arrived. My tofu sukiyaki smells delicious.

    As we dig in, I ask Morrie, "What's happening with those two cases, the wealthy society ladies in West Palm Beach and Boca? You hear anything new about them? I know it's not in your jurisdiction . . ."

    He looks puzzled. "You mean the woman who died on the golf course?"

    "And," I add, "the one who died of heart failure in the steam room at the spa."

    Suddenly, I am winging it. Up to this minute I hadn't given a thought to mentioning these events. But as I listen to their crime stories, my library research resonates in me. "All that money? Sure sounds like a motive to me."

    "You're reaching," Jack says mildly.

    "Don't you think their precincts investigated?" This from Morrie.

    "And I'll bet both husbands had perfect alibis."

    "From what I've heard—they did. But they didn't need alibis."

    "I think it was murder." Even as I say the word, something icy creeps into my heart.

    They both stare at me.

    "I mean, in all the books and all the movies, the husband is always the prime suspect."

    I can't stop my mouth. It just won't listen to my head. "Sure, death by sports and leisure. Maybe the next one will be a 'heart attack' in a hot-air balloon."

    Two sets of chopsticks are put down. Two sets of eyes show astonishment.

    Why can't I stop myself? I babble on.

    "You don't like the husbands? Maybe there's a serial killer who is after very rich women. Someone who had a very deprived childhood." In my embarrassment, I'm trying for a light tone. But I sound like an idiot.

    At Morrie's raised eyebrow, I continue my imitation of a lemming jumping off a cliff. "Maybe some other very rich ladies want to get on the twenty-five-wealthiest roll and they're knocking off these women so they'll move up on the list."

    Morrie says, "What don't you understand about 'natural causes'?"

    "You'll change your tune when the next heiress bites the dust. Pardon me for mixing my metaphors."

    The two of them now talk over my head, pretending to ignore me.

    Morrie asks Jack, "What would you do about such insubordination if she were in
your
precinct?"

    "I'd probably demote her to Traffic," he answers. "And tell her to stop reading so many books and watching so many movies."

    "Stop talking about me as if I weren't here." I need to get off the hot seat. "Enough about me. So, Jack, tell me. How did a nice Jewish boy like you decide to become a cop?" I pour myself some jasmine tea. I need the distraction. I could kick myself for getting on to this subject.

    Jack's obviously told this story many times. "As the old ads used to say, I was a ninety-pound weakling and I was getting smacked around a lot. We grew up in a tough neighborhood in Brooklyn where there were three sets of immigrants—Jews, Italians, and Irish. And since Jews always seem to be the 'chosen' people, I was chosen to get beaten up by whichever gang was roaming the streets that day.

    "So I joined a gym, buffed up, and met some guys who were cops. Italians, Irish,
and
Jews. They taught me how to fight back. They became my mentors and I followed in their footsteps. I had found my career."

    "And, naturally, I followed in my dad's footsteps," adds Morrie.

    "Now if you'd marry me, we'd have three detectives in the family."

    I shouldn't say it but I do. "Jack, just don't tell me you were in Homicide."

    He looks at me for a long moment and says in a flat tone, "Then I won't tell you."

    The two men stare at me curiously.

    Why did I bring it up? Why? I lower my eyes and clutch my fingers around my chopsticks. I never talk about that. Never.

I
squint at the clock in the very early light. Six a.m. Dream wake-up time again. Don't these dreams of mine ever give me a break and come at a decent hour?

    I'm supposed to analyze you, Mr. Dream? Wait. First I've got to deal with Mr. Coffee.

    This one usually makes me smile. Get this: Imagine an MGM extravaganza. In Technicolor, with the Glenn Miller band playing "Moonlight Serenade." A glamorous Busby Berkeley Hollywood set all in white and gold. With a double staircase and glittering chandeliers. Here they come, the Dancing Books. Perched atop sexy legs, like the old Chesterfield TV ads, tap-dancing their way down to center stage, then into the audience where I sit enraptured, front row center. Each book kisses me gently on my forehead as it imparts its story to my mind and heart.
Little Women. Marjorie
Morningstar. Catch-22. Madame Bovary. To Kill a
Mockingbird. Bonjour Tristesse. The Catcher in
the Rye. Breakfast at Tiffany's. East of Eden.

    On and on they come.

    I keep saying thank you, thank you, for loving me. I keep smiling until
The Reluctant Hero in
Modern Fiction
jumps off the stage and hits me in the head.

    And as usual, that's when I wake up.

    Thanks, Jack. You always ruin this happy dream. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that, my darling. I must explain that I'm referring to the first Jack, Jack Milton Gold, the love of my life, the man I married when I was twenty. He of the glorious light brown curly hair and hazel eyes and infectious smile and love of everything and everybody.

    I met him in college five years after the end of World War II. Those were the happy days, that era of my most intense reading. I went to college and discovered I wasn't an alien from another planet after all. There were actually others like me.

    He was getting his master's in literature; I, my B.A. in library science. We met in Chaucer, fell in love in Shakespeare, and decided to get married halfway through the Romantic poets.

    Could anyone have been happier? Living in New York in the fifties, the home of everything artistic and exciting. We had our very own, very small three-room apartment near the Hudson River. Jack taught at Columbia University. I was a happy housewife, learning to cook and trying to study at the same time. Fanny Farmer in one hand, the Dewey decimal system in the other.

    And then our beautiful baby, Emily, arrived.

    I was blessed.

And then I was cursed.

    
The Reluctant Hero in Modern Fiction.
That was the title of the textbook Jack wrote and used in his classes. And it always hit me in the head at the end of every Dancing Books dream.

    Once, during one of our all-night study/lovemaking sessions, I asked him to tell me about his war. I remember him saying that, yes, war had been hell, but afterwards, if you survived, life went on with or without your participation. "You have two choices," he told me. "You can wallow in what you can't change or you can fall in love with the miracle of every single day."

    Jack Gold was my hero. He chose to fall in love with me and with life.

    When the fairy tales I read as a child told me I'd find a hero to love, they were right. They also promised I'd live happily ever after. I didn't know "ever after" was only eleven more years.

    I distract myself from dredging up the past by rereading a few pages from an old favorite,
Gone with the Wind
. (Is that a boring title, or what? I guess all the good biblical titles had been taken.)

    Is it eight a.m. already? I see the girls out my window gathering for our morning workout and I close the book.

    Like Scarlett, I'll think about the bad stuff tomorrow.

I
t's eleven a.m. and the mail has arrived. Front doors open, people stroll over. For many, this is the big event of the day.

    Evvie is already at the mailboxes. It's also the day her weekly Lanai Gardens
Free Press
is delivered, and she's graciously handing them out to her admirers. There's something for everyone in this newspaper my sister started years ago because, as she said, she desperately missed the
Daily News
and the
New York Post.
She covers everything from Hadassah meetings, clubhouse events, and religious services to garage sales. Everybody reads her reviews of plays, movies, lectures, and concerts, written in her own highly individualistic style.

    Sophie is down early, a minor miracle. The pile of
Bingo Bugle
s is there and she can't wait to see the photos of this week's big winners from all over the country. Sophie's flavor today is lemon and she's dressed head to toe in that confection.

    I open my mailbox to find letters from my grandchildren in New York. Bless them, they write me every week, with a little urging from my daughter, Emily. I look around to make sure Ida isn't here. She never gets mail from her family. It breaks her heart, and I don't like to read mine in front of her. This week's offerings are drawings. Elizabeth, the oldest, sent ballet sketches. Erin drew her beloved horses. Pat sent cartoons he's created, and Lindsay, the budding photographer, sent funny photos of her menagerie of dogs and cats. I put the mail in my pocket to reread and enjoy again later.

    I hear a smattering of laughter and I turn to see a group clustered around one of the picnic tables. Tessie is holding court. I walk over to see what's got everyone's interest. Tessie is reading Evvie's latest review aloud. She's laughing so hard her massive chins and arms are jiggling. Her audience is rapt.

    Our two newest tenants, the cute cousins Casey and Barbi, are enjoying the entertainment. They look like they are just about to leave to play tennis, and they are adorable in their tennis togs. It's nice to see young faces around here.

    Even Denny Ryan, our maintenance man, has stopped sweeping the palm fronds to listen. Denny has finally recovered from the harrowing escape he had two months ago. He's back to working on his garden, and he has a new interest: the adorable Yolanda, who takes such good care of our Millie. So far, the two of them have only exchanged shy smiles, but we hope they'll soon get further along in their relationship.

    When Tessie sees me she starts over. I want to tell her not to bother, since Evvie makes me read everything before she sends it in, but Tessie starts emoting.

    " 'Knishes or Knocks? Good Girl Goes Très Bad by Evvie Markowitz. Review of the French movie
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not.
' "

    Evvie, pretending to stroll, is watching people read her paper, occasionally smiling at a thumbsup sent in her direction. Hearing Tessie, she turns. She waves toward us in her most grandiose manner, graciously bowing, like the true
artiste
she is.

    Tessie waves back. As she continues to read, Evvie lip-syncs along with her.

    " 'Another French movie, and you know how this reviewer loves French movies.' We sure do know, Evvie." There is a happy nodding and murmuring at that.

    " 'We loved her in
Amélie,
but I warn you, you're not gonna love Audrey Tautou here as she stalks a doctor, a handsome cardiologist who she loves. Wink, wink, a cardiologist, a doctor of the heart. So how come he doesn't love her back, she's so sweet? But then again, he's married, so maybe that's why. At first it doesn't look like she's stalking, she looks like a girl in love. But believe me, she is stalking, because later in the movie everything turns all around and what was one thing five minutes ago is now something else. But we don't care; she's gorgeous whether she's good or bad, until she starts destroying her friend's apartment and then rips up her wedding dress. She gets weirder and weirder and we start to think maybe she should have gone for a psychiatrist instead of a cardiologist. It was a confusing movie but I'm sure I explained it perfectly.' " Tessie grins as she finishes the review. " 'So, Knishes or Knocks? I give it two knishes. Loved Audrey but the story was not much.' "