Holly said, “I’m getting you two out to LA when this run ends.”
Well, that was nice, but what run—tomorrow’s reading in a windowless fifth-floor room reached by a creaky elevator?
Jeremy added, “Wait’ll you see Daphne in action. She’s gonna kill. Give her a villain, and she lights up the stage.”
Epilogue
I know now: It’s harder than it looks. We didn’t make it to Broadway, or off-Broadway, or extremely-far-off-Broadway, unless you count one night at the Long Beach Playhouse’s New Works Festival, thanks to Holly making herself useful back home.
Kathi and my father traveled to California for the opening. I was lucky that, either with footlights or spotlights—who knows?—blinding me, and the audience in the dark, I couldn’t see my dad’s reaction. Backstage after the show, he told me it had been a very interesting experience and that I’d done a nifty job learning all those lines.
“And the audience loved it,” said Kathi. “People all around us were laughing, and when it was over, I heard nothing but praise.” Unsaid: the fifty friends of Holly and Doug’s who had a free night and a babysitter.
“You okay with it?” I asked my dad.
“Pretty good,” he said. “Maybe next time you won’t ask me to stand up and take a bow.”
“I did that on impulse,” I said. “It’s not in the script.”
“She’s become quite the ad-libber,” said Jeremy.
We never told Geneva about the out-of-town debut. Except for polite exchanges in the hallway and mailroom about nothing, Jeremy and I didn’t engage her, figuring she’d let us know if she ever raised a dollar. I Google her every few weeks to see if she’s producing, directing, or humiliating anyone new, but all there is in her IMDb profile is The Last Matzo Man and her wedding-video website.
My dad and Kathi were married at New York City Hall on the first of September and honeymooned in Paris, a first visit for both. Holly had flown in for the ceremony, insisting that even the simplest civil wedding needed flowers, a trip to Bergdorf ’s, and two maids of honor. What a brick my annoying little sister has turned out to be.
To the bottomless delight of Sammi the dog, her beloved handler and new dad moved into Kathi’s loft upon their return.
I hear from Peter Armstrong regularly only because I’m on his constituent mailing list. There’s no need to respond to or even read these emails with subject lines such as “Stand with Me Against Hate” and “I Need Your Help in My Final Push.” I’d never told him about Dirty Laundry or asked for a contribution. If it ever gets to White Mountains Regional High School, I’ll send him a ticket.
My father above anyone else holds the highest, unrealistic hopes for the eventual success of Dirty Laundry. Or maybe it’s his faith in me and wishful thinking about his acting lessons bearing fruit. He’s careful not to ask if there are any bites, any more festivals soliciting new work, churches or synagogues in search of an excellent night’s entertainment. I usually explain that success comes in many forms; that this one-woman flop, ironically, had brought me back to life.
“I know what you mean, but isn’t that a little melodramatic?” he asked.
I said yes, he was right: an overstatement, me being hyperbolic.
When Jeremy characterizes our show as dead on arrival, I correct that, too. I tell him, only half teasing, that if we ever make it to another stage, I’ll end by asking the audience to hold their applause; no curtain calls and no bouquets, either. It will look like I’m making one of those cast appeals for a favorite charity, but it’ll be me assuring the audience that despite its uphill battle, its rough patches, its flubbed lines, the so-called journey of Daphne has delivered its own form of success. So thank you for coming. Drive safely. Oh, and I probably should add: When your friends ask what you did this evening, it’s okay to tell them you were misled; that you thought you’d bought tickets for a one-woman show but what you heard, in lines spoken and unspoken, was a love story.
Acknowledgments
There would be no Good Riddance if Jonathan Greenberg hadn’t found an orphaned high school yearbook at the Stormville, New York, Airport Antique Show and Flea Market. Once home, he discovered that his new piece of Americana (“Ha,” said I) had belonged to the yearbook advisor to whom it had been dedicated. As the otherwise entirely fictional June Winter Maritch did, its owner faithfully attended reunions and made notes.
For every one of my books and beyond, I’ve had the wise and doting early editing of Mameve Medwed and Stacy Schiff.
I am beyond grateful to have Lauren Wein once again as my editor. Her sense and sensibility make every page more of what I want in the first place. Extremely helpful as the extra set of eyes is Houghton’s Pilar Garcia-Brown, who spotted and fixed what I had not.
I love being asked “Who’s your agent?” so I can say, “Suzanne Gluck,” my steadfast and quick-witted ally.
In the advice and verisimilitude department, I thank Sharissa Jones for her insider Montessori tips; Jake Lipman, actor, producer, and founder of Tongue in Cheek Theatre, for guiding Daphne’s stumble into acting; Frances Broudie of Chocarella for chocolatiering lessons; Rebecca Bogart for insights about teaching piano to adult students; and once again, Chief (ret.) James E. Mulligan of the Georgetown, Massachusetts, Police Department for advice on all matters police-related.
I do know that the TV series Riverdale is not filmed in New York. I took liberties with the cast, plot, and location for narrative convenience.
I thank my readers, new and old, met and unmet. Truly, I write these novels for you.
1
What Possessed Me?
IF I HADN’T BEEN NAïVE and recklessly trusting, would I ever have purchased number 10 Turpentine Lane, a chronic headache masquerading as a charming bungalow? “Best value in town,” said the ad, which was true, if judging by the price tag alone. I paid almost nothing by today’s standards, attributing the bargain to my mother’s hunch that the previous owner had succumbed while in residence. Not so off-putting, I rationalized; don’t most people die at home? On moving day my next-door neighbor brought me a welcome loaf of banana bread along with the truth about my seller. A suicide attempt . . . sleeping pills . . . she’d saved them up till she had enough, poor thing. And who could blame her? “Strong as an ox,” she added. “But a whole bottle?” She tapped the side of her head.
“Brain damage?” I asked. “Brain dead?”
“Her daughter had to make that awful decision long distance.”
I’d negotiated and settled with that very daughter. Sadder and spookier than I bargained for? A little. But now I know it was an act more logical than tragic—what a sensible ninety-year-old felon might consider the simplest way out.
I first viewed the property through rose-colored glasses on a sunny October day. There was a brick path leading to the front door, a trellis supporting what might have been August’s wisteria, and a gnarled tree that hinted at future fruit. Inside I saw gumwood that hadn’t been ruined by paint and a soapstone sink that a decorator might install in a Soho loft. The linoleum beneath my feet made me want to look up the year linoleum was invented.
The real estate agent, who said she’d gone to high school with my brother, had been Tammy Flannagan then, was now divorced. How was Joel? Divorced, too, she’d heard.
“He’s fine,” I said, somewhat distracted by the carved pineapple on top of the newel post, yet another harbinger of domestic tranquility.
There was hardly anything to see on the second floor, just a bathroom from another century, and two square, darkly wallpapered bedrooms facing each other, one with a view of the street, the other overlooking the miniature backyard. The bathroom had a claw-foot tub, its porcelain yellowed and its plug desiccated. The small sink had separate hot and cold faucets, which, Tammy insisted, were back in style.
I asked which one had been the master bedroom.
“Does it matter? They’re equal in square footage,” said Tammy.
“It might matter
to someone who’d rather sleep in a room where nobody died.”
She pointed silently to the back room, then directed my gaze to a hatch in the hall ceiling. “When you open that, there’s a ladder you can pull down.”
“Then what?”
“The attic.”
“Have you seen it?”
“Me personally? No. Someone from my office did, of course. I’ve been told it’s empty and dry. Want to see the cellar?”
I knew cellars were important—their foundations, water heaters, boilers, pipes, mousetraps—so I said, “Sure.”
“May need updating,” said Tammy, “but everything’s in good working order. This is a little doll house. I’d buy it myself if I wasn’t already in contract for a condo.”
I thought I should add, hoping to sound nonchalant about the property, “I’m engaged to be married. This would be fine for a single person, but I really need a bigger place.”
She helped herself to my ringless left hand, then dropped it without comment. I said, “We’re not a very traditional couple.”
“Congratulations anyway,” said Tammy. “Do you want to make an appointment to come back with him? Or her.”
“A man, Stuart. He’s away.”
“On business?”
His absence was hard to explain and harder to make sense of, so I just said yes.
Whether it was the impulse to change the subject or sound less like the real estate novice that I was, I said, “I couldn’t even think of moving forward without an inspection.”
But I’d already made up my mind. “A little doll house” sounded exactly right to me. Two bedrooms would be plenty, and I preferred baths to showers. There was a gas stove, green milk-glass mugs hanging from cup hooks, a one-car garage, leaded glass in the china closet, and a price that seemed too good to be true. So on that day, like someone who bought and sold properties with abandon, whose profession was flipping houses, I offered two-thirds of the asking price.
Tammy said, “Well, honestly, I don’t even think I can take that offer to the seller.”
I reminded her that this was a one-bath cottage, surely uninsulated, with an antique boiler and a postage stamp of a backyard. I’d have to start from scratch. “The wallpaper must be from the 1950s,” I scolded, at the same time thinking, I love that viny wallpaper.
Tammy looked up at the ceiling fixture, a white globe that was not unhandsome, and said, “I suppose I have to present your offer. Expect a counteroffer if she’s not too insulted to make one.”
“Every inch of this place needs updating. It’s my final offer. And it’s not like I’m in love with the place,” I lied.
It took one phone call, a counteroffer that I spurned, a fax, a signature, a return fax, and a relatively small check. On the other side was a lawyer representing the uninterested daughter five time zones away.
My counsel added to the purchase and sale agreement a sentence that struck me as curious: that if the lending bank refused to close for any reason—unrelated to my finances—I could back out.
“Is this standard?” I asked.
“Boilerplate,” she answered.
Simple. I signed it.
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About the Author
Elinor Lipman is the award-winning author of eleven novels, including The Inn at Lake Devine and On Turpentine Lane. She lives in New York City.
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