The Late, Lamented Molly Marx

by Sally Koslow

  “What you got today, Charlie?” he asks. Hicks tells himself that if this job doesn’t work out, he’s going to move upstate, buy a herd of goats, and learn to make cheese. He’s already ordered two used books on the subject from Amazon. Every few weeks he logs on to real estate websites and pictures himself with forty acres, a shiny green John Deere, a manure spreader, a brush hog, and a compost heap. Even one of New York’s finest can dream.

  “Try this ricotta,” the vendor says, offering Brie and Hicks tiny wooden spoons filled with opalescent white cheese. “Heaven?”

  That’s another thing I miss: really sharp, tangy tastes. Also anything salty, crunchy, or spicy. Dammit—and every other word in the vocabulary of your average Tourette’s sufferer—I miss food. Fresh, home-cooked, fancy, not fancy. I especially miss Italian—even the Olive Garden—Indian, French, Thai, Vietnamese, Peruvian, everything but midwestern-bland. I miss McDonald’s fries, pastrami on rye, dim sum, dark chocolate bars studded with almonds, the hamburgers at Gramercy Tavern, my own spaghetti and meat sauce, my mother’s hokey Thanksgiving sweet potatoes with marshmallows, hamentaschen, butterscotch sundaes, and Kitty’s cheesecake. I think especially about the fudge cake covered with shaved chocolate I’d planned to buy that last afternoon. Life is short—eat dessert first should have been my religion.

  “I’m going to have to bring home some of that, Charlie,” Hicks says, pulling out his wallet. I’ve noticed that he actually weeds out its receipts every night so its fine leather doesn’t bend and bulge. “And two of those.” He points to the chèvre wrapped in green grape leaves. As they walk away, he gives one to Brie.

  “Detective, is this bribery?” she says, lifting the cheese high as Jones sniffs it curiously.

  “There’ll be more where that’s coming from if you know anything else about your friend’s case,” Hicks says.

  “I wish I did,” Brie says. “You have no idea.”

  Every day since Brie got Jones, she’s been talking to him about me. “You’d have loved Molly, Jonesy. She was silly, like you. There was the time when we didn’t have dates on New Year’s Eve and at eleven-thirty we got all dressed up to have martinis at a hotel bar in town. And Molly couldn’t sing on-key, but she was always the first to volunteer for karaoke, so no one else would feel like an idiot. Her song was ‘Night and Day.’”

  Brie carries on like that until I have to leave. I can’t take it.

  When Brie turns to inspect a row of beribboned pound cakes, each loaf no bigger than a good-sized tropical fish, I see Hicks look at her in admiration and outright surprise. I feel comfortable with this woman, I hear him think.

  The thought flashes through his mind just as Brie is thinking the same thing. This Hicks, he’s easy. I could use a little easy right now.

  I am wondering if my powers have anything to do with this connection. Could I be willing it to happen? I’m going to have to talk this over with Bob, who has never mentioned the spontaneous combustion of matchmaker capabilities.

  I’m getting very excited.

  “Detective, what’s your opinion on crawfish étouffée?” she asks.

  “In my top ten,” he says. “Providing it’s swimming in garlic and cayenne like my Grandma Hattie cooks it down in New Orleans.”

  I have never known my friend Brie not to act fast. Do it, Brie, do it, because there’s no way Hicks will. Don’t fail me now. Don’t fail yourself.

  “I’m inviting you to dinner then, that is, if you’re available,” she says before she remembers that she can’t cook. “If you promise not to expect too much.”

  Why can’t I hug her? I truly can’t recall if I have ever seen my best friend blush.

  “I accept,” Hicks says. Maybe I am getting my break, he thinks, and then he douses the thought. No expectations, boy, he says to himself. No expectations.

  “Seven?” She has shocked herself but doesn’t regret it, and since she’s on a roll, hoping tonight is a beginning and not another ending, she continues. “I have another question.”

  He nods.

  “May I please call you Hiawatha?”

  Once again, Hicks doesn’t hesitate. “Absolutely not,” he says, and strolls away. Brie can’t see the smile on his face, but I can.

  Thirty-three

  WRAP PARTY

  ow about we meet at the Morgan?”

  “We haven’t seen each for three weeks and you want to meet at a library?” Luke said.

  “I was thinking of the dining room,” I said, the spot where I could least imagine a fur-flying scene. Decorum bonded the hush-hush Morgan’s brown, shoebox-sized bricks, and its restaurant flew so far under the radar I couldn’t imagine anyone younger than eighty lunching there. This safely excluded Kitty and every friend she or I had except my neighbors Sophie and Alf, who I happened to know were in the Galápagos.

  “Hey,” Luke said, “I admire an original Mozart manuscript as much as the next guy, but I’ve been dreaming about you.” While I was searching for a response he elaborated. “Your lips, your skin on my skin, the way you smell like sunlight and happiness—”

  “Stop,” I said. Through endless motivational self-lectures—during my shower, my sleep, and my commutes—I’d promised myself that after that day Luke and I would be a wrap. But I wanted to terminate everything in person, to see him one last time and dive Lucy-style to the bottom of our relationship’s murky pool. I told myself that whatever we thought we had between us deserved as much. “I don’t have a lot of time today.”

  “So let’s reschedule,” Luke said, breathing deeply, clearly puzzled that I had brushed off his poetry. “How’s Thursday?”

  I’d trained for that day as if it were the bad-girls’ marathon. Postponing was not an option. I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it as if it might offer an answer. “Molly?” I could hear Luke saying. “Are you there?”

  What’s one more abbreviated apartment visit? the phone asked. See him. You’ll take a mental picture and carry it with you for the rest of your life. Then it will be over. Skedaddled. Monogamy forever forward.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be at your place at one.”

  When I arrived, Luke stood in the doorway wearing his usual welcome-mat grin, shy but sly. He enveloped me in a tender, tight embrace, which as my automatic pilot ignited I found I could not resist. Not that I tried. I circled my arms around his shoulders, leaning into him. God damn you, Luke, I thought. I am going to miss everything about you. Every decadent molecule.

  As the kiss continued, a remote, still-functioning part of my brain noted that there I was again, whizzing down the double-black diamond that always led us to the same place. My thumbs slipped into the back of Luke’s jeans, where his warm skin invited me to come closer. No underwear. No self-assurance shortage. He easily led me by the hand to the bedroom.

  “Would you like your gift before or after?” Luke asked as he lit the remains of a candle I’d given him early in the fall. A faint scent of ginger enveloped the room as the flame burst and sputtered, casting shadows that pirouetted on the walls.

  “After,” I said. “After.”

  “Does that mean you want me as much as I want you?” he said as he pulled my sweater and then my lacy camisole over my head.

  I would never know the answer to that question. But what I said was “Allow me,” unbuttoning his shirt as if he were the promised present. I knew this much: whoever believed that couples should hurry to become stark naked is missing half the point. I lazily moved my fingers along Luke’s bare chest, tracing his dark, curly hair until I reached his belt, which I unbuckled in one deft, practiced move, and continued on to his jeans. I pushed them to the floor as he did the same with mine.

  Stop now, Molly, I told myself. There’s still time. All bets off.

  My flesh ignored my brain. As we went on, I was a photojournalist, out of body, circling and shooting away. Who is this wife—not old, but surely old enough to know better—recklessly playing in sheets that aren’t hers, running
her hands along a man’s well-muscled back, tasting his sweet mouth with her tongue and lips? Who is this man who knows exactly how to love her and acts as if he does?

  “Molly, where are you?” Luke said, stopping and finding my eyes, which had not closed. “You’re in orbit.”

  I answered with numerous thoroughly animated body parts. Soon enough the journalist left the room and I alone remained, giving myself to Luke with the urgency of a woman shipping her soldier off to war. I memorized every stroke and sigh, every small scream and low, satisfied groan. They would have to last for a lifetime.

  Then it was over. The two of us lay side by side, wordless. I closed my eyes and tried to think of … nothing.

  Luke stepped out of the bed and disappeared into the hall. Cool air touched my shoulders and back, which were beaded with sweat, his with mine, mingled, Luke-and-Molly No. 5, the now and forever fragrance. I wanted to yank the downy comforter to my forehead and burrow beneath it, to postpone what was to come, but when Luke returned I was sitting up, half dressed, if a chartreuse lace hipster thong counts as clothing.

  “It’s the last of the Syrah,” he said, handing me a glass of wine as he sat on the rumpled linen. “To us,” he said, clinking my glass. “I told you I missed you. Tell me how much you missed me. This time in words.”

  He’s playing you an overture, Molly girl, I told myself, twice. Don’t miss your cue. But I was preempted.

  “Wait,” Luke said. “Your gift.” He put down his glass and walked to the armoire. My inner Annie Leibovitz came to life and captured the small scar on his back from when he was a Cub Scout and fell from a tree and needed seven stitches. When Luke returned, he carried a small box. I eyed the white package with curiosity spiked by guilt.

  “Open it,” he ordered, a smile lifting his face.

  I quickly untied its bow and peeked. Catching the candlelight were lilac-blue gemstones, small and round, framed in warm matte gold and dangling from delicate gold threads. The earrings suited me. I might have chosen them myself.

  “With your blue eyes,” he said, looking for a sign that he’d picked well. “They’re Victorian. I bought them at auction.”

  Luke, you’re making this too hard, I thought. “They’re perfect,” I said. This was true. “But such an extravagance …”

  “You deserve them.” He pulled me to him and we kissed, once for each earring, and I slowly replaced my prim pearl studs with the antique treasures, which Barry surely would not notice. “Thank you. You shouldn’t have.” I wish you hadn’t.

  “They’re for Christmas,” he said. “But you know me—zero impulse control.”

  Which goes for both of us, I thought. And do I know you? I didn’t even know myself. Don’t be a wuss. Don’t waste time. Whatever the protocol might be for what you plan to do, this isn’t it. Start talking. But first I dressed, taking time to wash carefully, including the streaks of mascara that had migrated beyond my lashes, making me look as if I’d lost a fight. By the time I left the bathroom, Luke was back in his jeans, still shirtless, and had moved into the living room.

  “What’ll it be?” he asked, combing through CDs. “Django Reinhardt? Josephine Baker?”

  “You pick,” I said. I wondered if a country and western star had written a twangy ballad about a cosmetic surgeon’s wife breaking up with her lovable photographer boyfriend. If nobody has, somebody should. But moments later, Edith Piaf’s voice began “Les Amants de Paris.”

  Luke sank into one of his couches and motioned me toward the space beside him. The opened bottle of wine was on the table next to our glasses, which he’d refilled. “Wouldn’t it be great to go to Paris?” he said. “Maybe I can cook up a trip. It’s corny, but what do you say to April? I know this place near Montparnasse, twice as romantic and half the price of Shutters.” Shutters was the exceedingly charming hotel where we’d stayed in Santa Monica. We’d gotten up early each morning to take long windy walks by the Pacific.

  “I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves,” I said as I pulled out the camera.

  “Oh, man,” he said. “There it is. Thanks—I’ve been missing that sucker. Want to take some shots now?” he said. “Hand her over and give me a big Molly smile. Too bad you have all your clothes on.” I believe he winked.

  “Luke, I don’t think so.”

  “Not in the mood?” he said. “You look so good right now I’d like to go right back into the bedroom.”

  “Luke, I can’t.”

  He put the camera on the table, brushed away a lock of hair from my forehead, and cradled my face in his hands. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I closed my eyes to stanch the tears I knew would come. My effort didn’t work.

  “Please don’t tell me we have a problem. Did Barry find out about us?”

  I was sorry I was wearing the new earrings—I never should have opened the box, never should have let myself do a lot of things. But I refused to be one orgasm short of rational thought. I was glad I’d prepared a speech.

  “Luke,” I started. “I can’t do this anymore, and it’s not because Barry knows about us, because I don’t think he does. It’s that every minute of every day I feel as if I’m in an opera that keeps getting louder and louder. I can’t hear my own voice anymore. I can’t think. This feels wrong. I love you, but—”

  He put a finger on my lips. “‘I love you, but.’” Luke stood, crossed his arms, and walked a few steps away from me. Tension ironed horizontal lines in his forehead. “But you’re going to break my heart?”

  “But I do love you. That’s not it.”

  He started talking as if he were slicing off each sentence with a knife. “Excuse me, Mrs. Marx, but weren’t you more than happy to be all over me fifteen minutes ago? When did you make up your mind about this? Have you spent the last few weeks planning how to break things off or did the idea just occur to you?”

  I was despising myself for being the sort of spineless, duplicitous woman who had chosen to have this conversation after I went to bed with him. I looked at Luke miserably, hopelessly. I wished I could go into the bathroom and start banging my head against the tile floor.

  “I thought our feelings were based on love and kindness and respect,” he said. “I guess I’m the fool here.”

  He looked angry but he sounded sad, and that made it worse. I’d come here to unload everything I’d been thinking for the last few weeks, to take each particle of doubt and build it into the Great Wall of China, to separate us, and now it was coming out wrong. “We’re not together all the time,” I added, as if that needed to be pointed out. “We’ve never discussed that this would last forever, that you wouldn’t—couldn’t—be with other people.”

  “I don’t want to ‘be with other people.’ Don’t you get that? You’re making me feel like a fool, used and deceived.”

  “How have I deceived you?” I heard my voice rising. “I’ve no more deceived you than you’ve deceived me.”

  “Look who’s on her high horse,” Luke said quietly. “The doctor’s wife.” He stared at me. “And by the way, I don’t buy that your marriage is one coast-to-coast crap storm. You’re never going to leave him, never, not in my lifetime.”

  I’d hoped for poignant eloquence and gotten a cheesy daytime drama. But you and I have never even talked about being together, I thought, and hissed, “Well, I certainly won’t leave Barry now.” I snatched my bag and walked toward the front hall. I took the time to remove the earrings and place them on a table, then grabbed my jacket and slammed the door behind me, breathing heavily as I ran down the stairs, not bothering to wait for the elevator.

  As I reached the second-floor landing, Luke shouted at me, running down two steps at a time, “Molly, come back. I don’t want to fight. You’ve blown everything out of proportion. This is idiotic.”

  When I shot out the front door, one of his neighbors was exiting a taxi, which I took as a sign. I mumbled apologies as I bumped the woman and catapulted myself into the cab. It tore away as L
uke reached the sidewalk. In the rearview mirror, I saw him, still shirtless, growing smaller and smaller.

  “Where to, lady?” the driver said.

  Good question, I thought.

  Thirty-four

  DR. STAFFORD AND DR. SCHTUP

  When did marriage counselors convene and decide this was the word to kick off deep introspection? What did Felicia Stafford, M.D., expect me to say, that Barry and I were here to discover, on a scale of 1 to 10, if our conjugal discord was off the charts or merely and pitifully average?

  Never had I felt more cynical. I hadn’t entered into matrimony a skeptic, but my own behavior and seventy-two questionable charges to Dr. Barry Schtup’s credit cards had turned me into one. If I, Molly Divine Marx, could have morphed into a cheater and believed that my husband was unfailingly unfaithful for—basically—always, then couldn’t every other wife be in the same stinking, sinking lifeboat?

  Snap out of it, Molly, I told myself. Grow up. You can make this right. Isn’t that the reason we’re sitting in this tastefully furnished Fifth Avenue office at three o’clock on a glum Tuesday? I had parked myself across from Dr. Stafford in the middle of a couch upholstered in the orange of a deer hunter’s jacket. I wondered if she’d chosen the fabric for its happiness quotient or to remind patients not to pull out a shotgun. There was ample room next to me, but Barry had chosen a stiff Windsor armchair at a right angle to both of us. On the end table separating us was a large box of tissues.

  “So, we hoped you could help us,” I said, shifting in place, trying to get comfortable. I’d obsessed about what to wear. My version of a mini? Well-worn three-inch ankle boots? Even a hint of cleavage? Bimbo, bimbo, bimbo. Jeans, a cotton T-shirt, or cargo pants? Juvenile. I settled on flat leather boots, a black cashmere turtleneck, and a long black skirt, although God only knows what Dr. Stafford would read into its schitzy diagonal hem.

  “And you, Dr. Marx?” Dr. Stafford said.