Good Riddance

by Elinor Lipman

  “Grants. And a family foundation.”

  “Your family?” Jeremy asked.

  “Nothing official. It sounds better than ‘I have a rich, guilty father.’”

  “Guilty?” I repeated.

  “Divorced. He left my mother for a series of men. He finally married one. I filmed their ceremony in Southampton last summer as my wedding gift to them. It turned out to be the launch of my business.”

  “I thought documentaries were your business,” I said. “At least that’s what I found online.”

  “My secondary business, wedding videography, doesn’t show up on IMDb. But I can send you a highlight reel.”

  Why did I not welcome that news as proof that she knew how to hold a camera?

  Jeremy was kind enough to disparage the brides and grooms who think they can produce a wedding video on their friends’ iPhones.

  “The contract says that no guest can hold up a phone during the ceremony. The officiant announces that before he or she begins the ceremony.”

  This is when I said I had to run. I had homework to do. Or maybe I said I was meeting my dad. Neither excuse was true. Jeremy stood and said he had to get going as well.

  Out in the hallway, I asked what he thought of our neighbor.

  “Rich girl. Grew up on the Upper East Side. Majored in film. Wesleyan, maybe Bennington, maybe USC; tried LA for a while but got no further than assistant. Has to brag because she does next to nothing.”

  “Wow. When did she tell you all of that?”

  “Never. She didn’t have to.”

  6

  For Reasons I Never Understood

  One day ahead of the moving van, as my father was painting the bathroom of his empty New York apartment a deep, brave midnight blue, I was pushing a sponge around, mostly to keep him company. There was something about our working side by side, our heads covered in matching bandannas, that made me confess, on my knees by the tub, “Mom’s yearbook? The one she obsessed over? I had to declutter. I threw it out.”

  Expecting disappointment if not anger, I was surprised to hear “I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t want the damn thing.”

  I was swishing tepid water around the tub, which was clean to start with. “I thought you might be upset that I didn’t give you the right of first refusal.”

  “Why would I want it?”

  “Sentimental value? Because it meant a lot to her. Because she must’ve thought I’d cherish it—”

  “Nonsense! Signing up for every reunion! Joining the committees. She took that advisor thing way too seriously. After the first couple of reunions . . . never mind. I promised myself never to speak ill of your mother now.”

  “Give me a hint . . . It won’t leave this room.”

  “I’ll say this much: I thought her attending every damn one was unnecessary.”

  “That’s hardly speaking ill of Mom.”

  “Except that I found it . . . vain. How many times did she have to take a bow? I got that the thing was dedicated to her—but we’re not talking about War and Peace.”

  I asked how many reunions he attended with her.

  “Pickering High’s? None.”

  “Really? She didn’t insist? Didn’t want to show off the handsome Principal Maritch?”—out-and-out flattery, for sure, but it didn’t seem to be registering.

  “No, never. Apparently, a principal is considered a wet blanket at a reunion. It was her thing, her night out. She used to plan her outfit months in advance.” He was now rerolling paint onto the same track of deep blue. “She didn’t need me there—that was obvious. And you know how many of these acolytes came to her funeral? Not even a half dozen; not even the ones she had up on a pedestal for reasons I never understood.”

  I’d heard this sad fact before. After the funeral, after the visitors to our house had left, we’d remarked on the hallowed class of 1968’s poor showing. Holly and I had wondered aloud, not in front of our father: Had our mother’s devotion been one-sided? Worse: Had it been a topic of ridicule?

  I changed the subject by announcing that we had toilet-bowl cleaner but not a brush, so until we did, what else could I do? Should I run out for one?

  “It’ll be on the truck. I packed everything. So just keep me company. Tell me what else is new? Any prospects in the chocolate field?”

  With nothing to report and with my conscience nagging, I said, “I put it in the recycling bin on my floor, and someone found it.”

  “Are we talking about a toilet brush?”

  “No! The yearbook.”

  “You already told me that. I said I didn’t care.”

  “There’s more.” I skipped the email overture, the phone call, the cookies and vodka, and went straight to “The someone who found it wants to make a documentary out of it.”

  The roller stopped. He turned around. Drips of paint landed on the tile floor.

  “You said you didn’t need a drop cloth,” I scolded.

  “It’s latex. Just explain to me how a yearbook gets made into a movie.”

  “She, the alleged filmmaker, thinks the world’s in love with reunions. And at every one you get the ugly duckling who returns as a swan, the football captain who’s never topped his high school glory days, the nerds who founded software companies and show up with trophy wives, the high school romances that get rekindled.”

  “Are you in love with this notion, too? Because you sound pretty sold.”

  “No! I told her I’d have to speak to a lawyer. And to you. And I threw in Holly for good measure.”

  “But can she just show up in Pickering with the yearbook under her arm?”

  “She wants to start at the next reunion, whenever that is, and work backward.”

  “To where . . . ?”

  “To high school? To graduation? But we didn’t get that far because I kept saying no, no, no.”

  “So it’s over? Not going to happen?”

  I mumbled something noncommittal, followed by silence and the running of more tub water, before I said, “Paper towels, sponges, rubber gloves, milk, bread? I’ll make a list.”

  “You didn’t answer. Is it going to get made or not?”

  Wincing, I said, “I get the impression she can do it without our permission. Finders keepers.”

  He put the roller back in the tray and slipped the bandanna off his head. “I’ll save you a call. Where’s my phone? I’m sure I have Julian’s number”—his first cousin, the family one-stop lawyer.

  “I know what he’ll say about a potential movie: ‘The odds are it’ll never see the light of day.’ She’s only had one documentary made . . . and it was about matzo.”

  Not a good sign: that “matzo” failed to deescalate the conversation. “Will it be about the class of nineteen sixty-eight or about your mother?”

  “Both, I think. But remember—”

  “Even though she’s not here to defend herself? Those comments she wrote? Fat, rude, gay, felon. How do we know they don’t constitute slander? And some members of that class, believe me, could come forward and say things that would slander her.”

  About what? I chose to believe nothing more than her overwrought devotion to a class full of ingrates.

  7

  Holiday with Strangers

  “Where should I start?” asked Geneva’s subject line. The body of her email was blank except for her closing, a six-line signature/contact info/credential overload.

  The haplessness annoyed me out of proportion to its innocent-enough four words. I wasn’t going to answer, but then couldn’t help myself. “It’s your project. You’re the filmmaker. And”—the drum I was constantly beating—“without the yearbook in my possession, I have nothing to go on.”

  She wrote back. “That sounded hostile.”

  Now it was my turn to pick up the phone. As soon as she answered, without preliminaries, I said, “You the professional are asking me for advice?”

  “I thought you were in the business.”

  “What business?”


  “Acting. Isn’t that how you know Timmy?”

  Really? Do I even correct this? “Timmy’s his character. You mean Jeremy. I know him because he lives across the hall.”

  “Never mind. Listen, can you come with me to the next reunion? They have a whole website for the fiftieth. All we do is sign up, send a check to the class treasurer, Roland somebody—his address is on there—and show up!”

  “Wild horses couldn’t drag me.”

  Undaunted, Geneva asked how one gets to Pickering. Was there a train?

  “You fly to Manchester and rent a car.”

  “Do you think anyone else would be attending from Manhattan?”

  “So you could hitch a ride? Unlikely.”

  There was a pause. “Do you drive?”

  “I drive, but I don’t have a car. Plus, I’m not going.”

  “May I say something?” she asked.

  I waited.

  “If it was my mother who had some lifelong draw to this class—correction, lifelong obsession—I’m damn sure I’d be running up there to find out the who, what, and why of it.”

  “There is no who-what-why. Obviously, she considered the yearbook dedication a huge honor. And this is a town where there’s nothing to do—no clubs or movies or theater unless you count the high school musical every May. This is what she looked forward to, what she bought a new dress for every five years.”

  “There has to be more. That’s all I’m saying. There. Has. To. Be. More.”

  “If that’s what you’re counting on, some can of worms, you’re in for a long, boring night.”

  “I’ll pay for your ticket,” she wheedled.

  I didn’t think I was agreeing to attend by asking, “Are you sure any random person can go?”

  “Absolutely. There’s a box you check that says spouse, partner, sibling—”

  “I’m not going to go there under false pretenses.”

  “Wait. And one that says ‘other.’ We’d certainly qualify as ‘other.’”

  I tried to sound as grudging as possible when I asked, “When is it?”

  “Oh, wait. Let me get the info in front of me . . . Okay. November 30. Thanksgiving weekend, which means you’re probably going up there anyway to have Thanksgiving dinner with family.”

  What was I doing Thanksgiving weekend? Except eating the actual meal with my father, I didn’t have a plan, let alone for the dead days that followed. I gave this scenario a few seconds’ thought: Dad over for turkey; no, just the breast cooked in my apartment-size oven. I’d buy or borrow a roasting pan. I said, “I don’t have family up there. My dad’s in the city now.”

  “That settles it,” Geneva said.

  “Settles what?”

  “He’ll come with us.”

  “He never went to reunions with my mother. He’s certainly not going to start now. He and I will have a quiet Thanksgiving dinner. Just us two, but that’s fine.”

  “No, it’s not fine. Thanksgiving dinner has to be a party. You’ll bring him to mine.”

  “Party? I don’t think so.”

  “I call it that, but it’s just dinner. I round up my friends who have no place to go, the ones who eat out or volunteer at soup kitchens. I can fit a dozen around my table with both leaves in it.”

  I was torn. I didn’t want to be with the unmoored and orphaned, but I knew my father would consider such a gathering his coming-out party. I said, “I’d have to ask him. He was widowed not that long ago.”

  “All the better!” crowed Geneva.

  Should I call her on such an insensitive exclamation, or was her diplomacy an unrealistic goal?

  “What’s better about that situation?” And for added hostile measure: “I think you’ve forgotten he’s dead set against your yearbook project.”

  “All I meant was that my invitation would be all the more appreciated at a time like this. Is that not true? I order four different kinds of pies. Does he have a favorite?”

  “Lemon meringue” popped out.

  “You don’t think it’s a charity invitation, do you? Lost souls for Thanksgiving?” my father asked. We were meeting halfway between our Hell’s Kitchen apartments, rather unnecessary when you considered the short four blocks separating us.

  “Dad, this is New York. You’ll find out how many people moved here when they were young and never went back to Indiana or West Virginia or Baton Rouge. They’re actors and choreographers or buyers at good places like Saks and Bergdorf ’s. They got older. The lucky ones have rent-controlled apartments. Many never got attached along the way.”

  “Do you want to go?”

  I admitted that I hadn’t made a Thanksgiving plan. And the thought of just the two of us at either his small bistro table, transferred from the Pickering patio, or the rigged piece of wood that hung by a hinge from my kitchen wall . . . no, not that. I could make a reservation somewhere. Restaurants on every block here! Didn’t he love that about New York?

  “I’ve never eaten Thanksgiving dinner in a restaurant in my life,” he said.

  I asked if he wanted to think this over: a holiday with strangers. I added the piece of identification I’d failed to provide: “Our hostess is the woman who pilfered Mom’s yearbook.”

  Wouldn’t that put a whole new undesirable spin on this invitation? No, it did not. He said, “I can separate those two things. Remember: I was a high school principal. I’d be meeting with a parent who had one great kid and one total pain in the ass.”

  “Which applies to this situation how?”

  “I can compartmentalize. I could run a workshop on compartmentalizing.”

  Close to giving in, I told him that Geneva had asked what his favorite pie was.

  “Did you tell her strawberry rhubarb?”

  “That’s a summer pie. I told her lemon meringue.”

  “That’ll do. She can’t be all bad. I’ve found that women who cook and entertain are my kind of people.”

  “She’s having it catered.”

  “Ha. Another new experience for me.” He asked if it was potluck.

  “People don’t do that in New York. Somehow it works out. You’re the host, maybe you even cook, then they take you to dinner as a thank-you.”

  “I’m writing that in my book.”

  “Literally?”

  “Not that kind of a book. It’s a notepad. When I hear something that sounds like a New York custom or a recommendation for a restaurant or a movie or a doctor, I write it down.”

  Something about that made me worry about him. A babe in the woods of Hell’s Kitchen.

  I left a postcard at Geneva’s door. The front was a black-and-white photograph of a bakery shop window. On the back, I wrote, “My dad (Tom Maritch) and I accept your kind invitation to join you for Thanksgiving dinner. Let me know the time and what we can bring.”

  It took a day before I found the same card outside my door. She’d written over my ink scratches in a black Sharpie: COCKTAILS 6. DINNER 7? WINE RED OR WHITE THNX.

  We went around the table, introduced ourselves by name, and—at our hostess’s request—provided one interesting fact about ourselves. In the previous round, occupations, I’d learned we had two psychologists, an acupuncturist (Geneva’s), a gemologist, an SAT tutor, a physical therapist (Geneva’s), a cantor in training, and a food stylist.

  I almost said, “Pass,” when it was my turn because the interesting facts that others were confessing were either too personal or more impressive than I could come up with: Cancer survivor. Bernie Madoff survivor. Preop transgender. Ice-dancing judge in the 1988 Winter Olympics. Fired by Martha Stewart. Fired by Leona Helmsley. Taught Woody Allen and Soon-Yi Previn’s daughter in preschool.

  Dad and I were last. I’d been watching him take in his tablemates’ answers, thinking he might be shocked or awed. But what I saw was something like a relocation ratification. His answer, the least glamorous one so far, but a perfect accompaniment to his bow tie and herringbone jacket, was a simple “I just moved here from a
town with a population of under five thousand. You could call it a lifelong dream to live in New York.” Who knew that would be an exotic answer? It seemed to me that the whole table was clucking sympathetically. Geneva let that go on for a few indulgent oohs and aahs, before prompting, “Daphne? Something memorable to close out this round?”

  What did I have to report that was the least bit memorable? I decided on a truth I didn’t have to varnish. “I was bamboozled into a loveless marriage because my husband wouldn’t inherit his grandparents’ money while he was still single.”

  I meant to say it if not cheerfully then at least with enough irony to suggest it was behind me. Had I forgotten that there were two therapists at the table?

  “How long were you married?” one asked, overlapping with the other saying, “How’d you find out?”

  “The best man at our brunch wedding. Too many mimosas. Something he said made me think, He knows something I don’t know.”

  “But,” said my father, “Daphne gave it a chance, didn’t you, honey?”

  When did I ever have an entire dinner party’s full attention? I said, “I gave him every chance until he didn’t come home one night.”

  Geneva was either losing interest in my marital history or really did need to check on the food. She rose, and said, “I’d better see if Rosa needs me.”

  Only the New Hampshire Maritches asked if we could help. Geneva said, “Absolutely not. I’ll yell when the buffet is ready.”

  “Rosa is her cleaning woman,” someone offered.

  “Wouldn’t she need the day off?” my father asked.

  The preop woman said, “She’s probably happy to have the extra work.”

  Back to the topic of my failed marriage. One of the therapists, who was wearing as many necklaces as I’d seen a person manage at one time, asked me if we’d had counseling.

  “He didn’t want to stay married, didn’t need to under the provisions of the will.”