Good Riddance

by Elinor Lipman

  25

  Miss Daphne

  Thanks to the unwavering tenets of Maria Montessori, the towns of Pickering, New Hampshire, and New York, New York, were never so closely aligned—with their natural-wood furniture, their white and beigeness, their floor mats, their strict order and placement of every learning material for every life activity. And I was Miss Daphne again, advising, supporting, facilitating without overhelping.

  Montessori had started to wear on me in Pickering, and Manhattan earnestness soon reminded me why. On my third day, a little boy was turning four. Would it be the same ritual we observed in New Hampshire? Indeed: His parents had packed, in lieu of any confection, pear slices with tofu brie. The birthday boy, Beckett, selected a helper, Finn, who asked each child sitting in the circle whether he or she wanted the alleged treat. If yes, Finn gave the child a plate, just the plate. Then Beckett followed, placing his pears and “cheese” on each waiting vessel. After snacking, we sang “Walk Around the Sun” while a teacher named Miss Inez lit a candle representing the sun. Then Beckett picked up a miniature earth and walked around the candle one time for each of his four years. Science! Astronomy! Self-esteem! I found it tedious and a little creepy, which made me wonder how many birthday observations I could endure.

  My dad was too pleased to hear about the job. “I knew it,” he crowed. “You were bored. That chocolate thing—where was that going? Not that you weren’t talented in that arena, but you always seemed to love your teaching job back home. In fact, I always thought it was a little rash—moving to Manhattan without asking for a transfer.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. It’s not like I worked for Proctor & Gamble and wanted to move from Cincinnati to New York. Besides, I needed a break from the family business. New York was me rebelling.”

  He laughed at “rebelling,” and I let him. I confessed that when Holden’s friends had asked me what I did, and I said, “Montessori teacher,” it stopped the conversation cold. None had children. Their expressions seemed to say, How quaint, how minimum wage. That was when I stopped applying for teaching jobs and embraced stay-at-home bride.

  Over the phone, Dad’s relief and enthusiasm were rendering him tone-deaf. “This is what I call progress, hon, even if you think it’s not a step forward. You went into teaching because you loved it, not because it’s what your mother and I devoted our lives to. I’m like you—I hate being idle. I’m not sitting around watching cable. I’m walking dogs! I get to be these little creatures’ favorite human for forty-five minutes. Sometimes I wonder if their own parents are kind enough or attentive enough. It’s extremely satisfying.”

  I said, “I know one doggy parent you don’t worry about being kind enough.”

  I expected him to chuckle or convey the verbal equivalent of a blush. “You mean Kathi?” he asked without the affectionate tone I was expecting.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You’re still seeing her?”

  “Of course I am. I walk Sammi five days a week.”

  “That’s not what I meant. No more coffees or sherries or dates?”

  “That hasn’t happened in a while.”

  I asked exactly how long a “while” meant.

  “For the past week. Something’s not working.”

  Uh-oh. I hope he didn’t mean you-know-what. I pretended it didn’t. “Then ask her what’s wrong. You’re not shy. I saw how she looks at you. It’s hard to believe she’s cooled off.”

  “Maybe she realizes that a younger man would be more suitable,” he said.

  Do nothing, say nothing, let my father sound defeated and unloved or get to the bottom of it? I emailed Kathi, asking if she’d like to meet me for a late-afternoon coffee. She didn’t answer for a whole day. Finally, an email reply said, “Late afternoon is tricky. Let me check with your dad to see if I can switch Sammi’s walk earlier in the day. Back soon.”

  I wrote back quickly, “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about my dad, so can we keep this between ourselves?”

  My cell phone rang instantly. “What about your dad?” Kathi asked. “Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine. It’s just that when I spoke with him last night . . . he sounded a little down. He thinks something’s amiss between the two of you.”

  When she didn’t jump right in to contradict that, I became the worried one. “Is it true?” I asked.

  There was a call-waiting click on her phone, and I almost said, Don’t take that! Answer me first! at the same time thinking like a jealous lover, It’s him. The competition. The interloper. The younger man!

  “Sorry,” she said, back with me. “Habitat for Humanity—well, this is awkward. Your dad thinks I’m upset about something, but I’m not.”

  “So he’s just imagining things have cooled off?”

  “I’ll be blunt,” said Kathi. “I know what’s bothering him, why he thinks I wouldn’t want to be with him . . .”

  But nothing followed that. Was she waiting for a prompt? I said, “He mentioned the age difference. Is that what’s bothering him?”

  “It’s related to that . . . I think he’s embarrassed and avoiding me. Not the other way around.”

  Later, I realized I shouldn’t have asked reflexively, “Embarrassed about what?”

  “It’s personal”—pronounced in a whisper that automatically translated “personal” to “sexual.” Which is when this soft-spoken, never-married—virginal, for all I knew—teacher of piano studies whispered, “ED. Could you talk to him?”

  Now it was unmistakable: She was talking about my father’s penis. I said, “He thinks you’re backing away. Talk to him! And tell him either you don’t care or there are pills to take!”

  I heard a meek “I know I should’ve.”

  “And don’t tell him that you discussed this with me!”

  “Can I tell him you wrote me? Because I’m really touched that you reached out—”

  “No! Because he’ll figure out that you confided in me and that’s why you’re speaking up.”

  “Then I won’t,” said Kathi.

  I’d regained my equilibrium enough to say, “He was married for a long time. It’s probably scary to be with a brand-new woman. Not that you’re scary. No, just the opposite. And who knows, as a widower, he might be feeling guilty on some level, like he’s breaking his marriage vows.”

  “Oh, God. I hope it’s not that.”

  I was already sorry for saying such a thing. I asked when she’d be seeing him again.

  “Tomorrow. When he picks Sammi up and brings her back.”

  “Which is what time?”

  “Between four and four-thirty.”

  “Will he have other dogs with him?”

  “No. He does Sammi solo.”

  “And you’re alone then, no student there? Not teaching?”

  “I don’t teach on Fridays.”

  “Okay. Here’s what you do: Make the place dark. Light some candles. Greet him in something slinky. Do you have anything slinky?”

  There was a longish pause. I could hear soles clicking on the hardwood floor, then the squeak of a drawer being opened. “I have slips,” she said.

  “Close enough. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

  “I do. But I don’t want to give him performance anxiety.”

  “It’s not about that. It’s to say, ‘There’s other stuff. Closeness. Warmth. Affection’ . . .”

  “You don’t think I have to tell him first, about not caring what happens once we get . . . you know?”

  Newly anointed sex therapist Miss Daphne said, “This isn’t necessarily leading to bed. This is your making a gesture that says, I want to be with you. I’m not backing away.”

  “This is good,” she said. “I’m not sure, though, about the slip. Won’t that be a weird way to answer the door?”

  “Okay—then how’s this. Pretend you just got out of the shower. How about a bathrobe? Do you have one that’s not quilted or a big terry-
cloth job?”

  “I do somewhere. A kimono. I hardly ever use it.”

  “Okay, so the doorbell rings, you buzz him in, the big cargo elevator doors open, my dad sees the room is dark, candles lit, and you’re in a silk bathrobe. PS: nothing underneath it. And remember: You never talked to me.”

  “I’ll try my best,” Kathi said.

  A good day’s work straight out of Maria Montessori’s book: Provide a nurturing environment to teach social interaction and emotional skills. I knew it by heart: Education is not a chore but a joyous exploration of life’s mysteries.

  Pretty close, except for the founding principle that children teach themselves.

  26

  Nine-One-One

  By now, I knew Geneva’s slothful schedule: She slept late, made no appointments before noon, ran no errands because she had everything under the sun delivered. It was a Monday holiday, no school for me. She was home for sure because the delivery man from the Turkish restaurant had mistakenly knocked on my door with her order.

  I’d sent him off in the right direction and given her just enough time to eat that bag of food, then made it my business to knock on the door, prepared to—what? Negotiate? Threaten? Throw myself on her mercy?

  There was no answer. I knocked some more. She was home and clearly avoiding me.

  After another bang, I put my ear to the door. This time I did hear something, a muffled noise. Was she in the bathroom? I yelled, “It’s Daphne. I need to talk to you.”

  A noise came back, and I swear it was a “Help!”

  “Are you all right?” I yelled back. I tried the doorknob. Locked. More helps from within, louder. “Can you let me in?” No, of course not. Why even ask! Now I was scared in the way of a daughter whose mother had collapsed from an aneurism and had been found by her walking buddy after not showing up at their appointed time and corner. I yelled that I was getting someone to open the door for me—the super, a doorman, anyone! I’d be right back.

  I ran for the elevator, then realized, No, faster to call him. I patted my pocket. Oh, shit. Nothing! I ran back to my place, got my phone, yelled into it that Geneva Wisenkorn in 11-J couldn’t come to the door, maybe an accident, maybe—who knows!—shot, stabbed, being held hostage.

  “Calm down,” said the super, whom none of us liked.

  “Please get up here with a key!”

  “I’m on my way,” he said wearily.

  “Fast! She could be bleeding to death. Or having a heart attack.”

  He did come, and brought his wife, name now forgotten, who explained as he tried various wrong keys, “He brings me when it might be a woman who fell getting outta the tub—like the way a doctor has a nurse in the room when he examines your privates.”

  Finally, the right key and the click of the lock. “Okay. You’re in now,” he said.

  “I’m not going in alone! What if she’s dead? What if those two guys who escaped from prison upstate are in there?”

  “Oh, sure. With doormen around the clock? That makes a lotta sense.”

  “Geneva?” I was yelling, now inside the foyer, down the hallway, past the bathroom, toward the wounded-animal noises. And there she was, splayed on the bedroom floor, blood on the carpet and dripping down her forehead. She was fully dressed, caftan over flowing pants, barefoot, toenails painted a startling emerald green. The super asked her, “What happened? Did you break something?”

  “My head, you idiot! Look at me. And my arm is killing me.”

  “Did you fall?” asked the super’s wife.

  “I don’t know. I must have.”

  “You must’ve?” the super’s wife repeated. “How does someone not know if she fell?”

  “Sometimes you just fall! I hit my head on the corner of the goddamn bureau. I need stitches!” She explored her head and screamed at the sight of the blood that came back on her fingertips.

  I said, “I’m calling 911. Can you get up?”

  “Would I be flat on my ass if I could get up?”

  “What if we each took you by the arm—”

  “I broke it! Or some part of it!”

  “You’re not supposed to move an injured person,” said the super’s wife. “You could do something to the spine and she’d be paralyzed for life.”

  I said that settled it: I’m calling 911 and getting a facecloth. I’d be right back. Not to worry. Everything would be fine. Head wounds bleed a lot. You probably won’t even need stitches.

  “Want us to stay?” the super asked when I returned.

  “Oh, is your lunch getting cold?”

  “No need for sarcasm,” said his wife. “It’s not like we can do anything.”

  Geneva’s eyes were fixed on me, and maybe I was projecting, but they seemed to be asking, Why did SHE have to find me? I’m in the hands of the enemy.

  “Did someone do this to you?” asked the wife. “Like a boyfriend?”

  “Jesus! I fell! I passed out and fell, or I fell and got knocked out.”

  What to do but wait for the ambulance, stroke her arm, issue reassurances, convey that I would do no harm.

  “I’m going with you in the ambulance,” I told Geneva. “Oh, wait . . . your handbag. You’ll need that.” And to the super, “Stay with her while I look.”

  “What do you need her pocketbook for?” asked the wife, immediately identifying herself to me as someone who couldn’t be trusted with another person’s purse.

  “Her insurance! Her keys! Her wallet! Her phone! Did you think I was going to help myself to some cash?”

  “Just do it already,” said her husband.

  “Do you know CPR?” I asked them. “Just in case?”

  Geneva was now swearing in a way that wasn’t pain-filled, but in indignation over our discussing an imminent downhill slide. I said, “No, no, you’re going to be fine. I don’t know why I asked that. I’m sure the emergency room doc will just write a prescription and you’ll be on your feet as soon as I can fill it. I’ll be right back. Do you have insurance cards in your pocketbook? And your keys?”

  “I don’t know where the hell my phone is. The kitchen? My study? Just get it.”

  Her shoes were next to the bed, one of them under her torso. I freed it gingerly and handed the pair to the super’s wife. “Here, put these on her.” And repeated to Geneva, “I’m not going anywhere, I promise. In the meantime, you guys listen for an ambulance”—which in this city was as logical as saying, “You guys listen for a horn to honk.”

  It would reflect quite badly on me to admit exactly when the opportunism arose, but it could have been as early as hearing the first cry for help. But hadn’t I done the right thing? Answered her distress call? Got the door open? Called 911? As promised, I ran out to the hall, and I did flag down the attendants as soon as they stepped off the elevator. But between leaving her side and climbing into the ambulance for the thankfully short ride to Mount Sinai, I’d had time to enter her study, rummage through her desk, find the yearbook, and repossess it.

  27

  Who Are You Again?

  Borrowing her thumb, I unlocked her phone, called all the numbers listed under Wisenkorn despite her protests from the stretcher. I figured out the one named Myron was her father and the “Mom” listing was her mother, whose 802 area code suggested she lived too far away to be of help.

  I was relegated to the waiting room because I’d flunked the sister test—apparently a ruse used by every friend posing as next of kin. I said, “Okay, we do have different last names. I’m just her half sister. I’m the product of her mother’s second marriage. Doesn’t that count?”

  “Her emergency contact is Myron Wisenkorn.”

  I asked how they knew that.

  “It’s on the computer. She’s been here before.”

  “We’ll tell you as much as we can,” said the desk each time I inquired.

  I also called Jeremy, who promised to get to the ER as soon as possible. I said no, not necessary, just an FYI. She’d be released after she was s
titched up or x-rayed or whatever was taking so long.

  After I left three messages for her father, he finally called back. And, after battling the Long Island Expressway, arrived two hours later. He was just what the situation needed, a take-charge guy, maybe seventy, tanned in winter, camel coat over high-end dad jeans, used to yelling and demanding the best doctors that money could buy.

  “Who are you again?” he asked, finally taking a seat next to me.

  “Just a neighbor. I live on her hallway.”

  “You found her?”

  “I did. I’d come over to talk to her—”

  “About what?”

  Yes, that kind of guy, illuminating in a bad way, deficient in manners when talking to a nobody. I continued, “I knocked on the door and she didn’t answer. Then I heard ‘Help!’”

  “So you went in?”

  What he implied with that, judging by the accusatory tone, was that I had trespassed. I said, “Are you familiar with the term Good Samaritan? Because I probably saved your daughter’s life. I did not go in. I didn’t have a key. I called the super. He opened the door and I rushed”—I put a Florence Nightingale spin on rushed—“to the back bedroom where she was lying prostrate on the floor in a pool of her own blood.”

  Despite my protest that he did not have to meet me, Jeremy arrived, in makeup, in the middle of Mr. Wisenkorn’s cross-examination, which he paused only to bark, “Who’s this one?”

  “Another neighbor,” I said.

  “Named?”

  “Jeremy Wynn.”

  He didn’t seem to approve of that, either.

  I said, “I’m sensing you think we had an ulterior motive. It’s very insulting. By the way, where’s your husband? Why isn’t he with you in a family emergency?”

  Was I suggesting that he couldn’t be such a tough guy if he’d married a man and might be a tad more human and gentler than the heterosexual asshole he was portraying? No. My point was that I wasn’t some stranger who’d helped myself to a crisis, but that I knew Geneva well enough to have chatted about her father’s same-sex wedding.