by Sally Koslow
“We’ll call to warn her, but you’re the one with the letter,” my father points out. “She should hear it.”
Even if she’ll laugh at my quotidian wisdom.
Barry says goodbye and puts the letter in the inside left pocket of his sport jacket. The envelope is as alive to him as I am not, throbbing for attention. Five minutes later he’s in a taxi, debating whom to call first, Lucy or Hicks, when his cell phone rings.
“Let’s get one thing straight—my sister would never kill herself,” Lucy says. She has traded her usual voice for the cool, low tone of a corporate president ready to eat another company alive. “I don’t know how you can suggest it, even as a boneheaded theory. She’d never commit suicide. Absolute idiocy.”
Please make Barry understand this, Lucy, I think as I watch her drive to work and talk on speakerphone.
“Who’s saying she did?” Barry asks.
“Whatever you found I need to see. Immediately.” Molly was a sentimental fool, Lucy thinks. This is probably one of those earnest letters a mother writes when a child is born and whips out when the kid graduates from high school. She probably got the idea from a women’s magazine.
Lucy is almost right. I wrote the letter when Annabel turned three and was planning to give it to her at her bat mitzvah or when she got her period, whichever rite of passage arrived first.
“You know, Lucy, this letter doesn’t seem like the sort of thing to fax.” Is that what she wants, to prove that he hasn’t faked it? He tries to stop short of sarcasm, but in any conversation he’s ever had with his sister-in-law, it’s the rhythm he knows best. “But let me read this one part now. ‘I have always hoped that someday you’d have a brother, but I’m going to share a secret. Before you were born, I asked God for a little girl, and that’s exactly what I would pray for again, because I’ve had a sister, and there is nothing more wonderful in the whole wide world.’”
“Barry!” Lucy screams as she skids to avoid an oncoming car. “Stop! I’m going to get into an accident. That’s all my parents need, two dead daughters.”
“I’ll overnight you and your parents copies of the letter—you’ll have them by tomorrow,” he says, bordering on kind. “And I should alert Hicks. Agree?” He doesn’t care what she thinks, because he’s already made up his mind.
Lucy likes being asked. “You should,” she says. Tears drip on the front of her jacket. She wishes her eyes had windshield wipers. “So I guess we’ll talk later, after the letter arrives?”
“We will,” Barry says. His taxi passes a flower shop selling big tubs of blue hydrangeas. I filled our home with these flowers the moment they were sold each spring. It’s a sign, he tells himself. Go ahead. Ask. He flashes to the incident with Lucy at Annabel’s school, about which he’s still fuming, no matter that my sister has written her own letter to him, of deep apology. Barry considers that he may be losing all reason and that his mother will be ready to commit him to an institution. “Lucy?” he says. “I need a favor….”
She braces herself for a nasty hit. No, I will not fuck myself, she thinks. Why am I being civil to Barry? This guy is vermin.
“After the High Holidays, could you please come to New York? It’s time that someone goes through Molly’s stuff. I can’t bear to do it myself.” And Molly would hate it if I asked my mother. “I was going to ask Delfina or Brie or …” But now that you’ve been on house arrest for all these months at your parents’, you’ve done your time, and I can ask you, Barry thinks.
You need me, Lucy thinks. But more importantly, my sister needs me.0 The moment for a smart-ass retort disappears. “I’ll be there.”
Thirty-six
TRUE CONFESSIONS
watch Barry slip into a maroon velvet pew. “What do you think of all this?” I ask Bob, who’s never attended a Yom Kippur service. He likes bagels, Billy Crystal, and Sandra Bullock (Jew—not a Jew? Discuss) and says mazel tov, but that’s as Jewish as he’s ever gotten.
“Why isn’t the place packed? What’s with the empty seats? Those of us raised with Confession couldn’t get by baring our souls one measly time a year. We’d be hanging from the rafters and snaking a line around the block, banging to get in, begging to upload our sins.”
Why didn’t I bring Bob last night, when the confessions were in freefall and eleven people tried to squeeze into rows meant for eight? Almost every soul had stripped to emotional underwear, with varied degrees of contrition and honesty. When the collective sob of the Kol Nidre bounced off the vaulted Moorish ceiling, there was a collective swaying and moaning, well-dressed willows in the wind.
“You’ll see—the place will fill up as the day goes by.” I turn my attention to Barry, standing bull’s-eye in a circle of loneliness, trying to pray. I’d love to know for what, exactly.
“For the sin which we have committed before You under duress or willingly,” Rabbi Strauss Sherman says in his express-from-heaven boom. Worshippers listen carefully to the spiritual boilerplate. “For the sin which we have committed before You by hard-heartedness … inadvertently … with an utterance of the lips … with immorality … openly or secretly … with knowledge and with deceit … for all these, God of pardon, pardon us, forgive us, atone for us.” After Rabbi S.S. says this, the invisible but exuberant choir repeats it, should anyone have missed the point.
Pardon me, Barry is praying. Forgive me. Like my Papa Louie and every male ancestor before him, he’s wrapped inside a silky blue-striped tallit, determined to make God, today’s star, hear him.
Yesterday, after Kitty’s dinner—matzo balls floating in golden chicken soup, tangy gefilte fish, prime rib, baked potatoes the size of Annabel’s shoes, and mile-high apple tart—Barry started fasting. For him this is new. Already, his stomach is saying, Feed me, and because he didn’t wean himself off caffeine a few weeks in advance—my secret weapon—his head throbs. I’m not sure why our forefathers felt this particular physical hardship put a person in the mood for prayer. Maybe there’s someone in the Duration who can clue me in on that.
I’ve never thought of either Barry or myself as religious. Even though he’d recently been appointed a trustee of the congregation and once in a while we’d attend a service, on most Friday nights we’d go to a movie, miles from a sweetly braided challah. Since I died, however, Barry—along with other mourners—has ushered in the Sabbath at temple and made a sizable donation to Annabel’s school. As a result, on the fifth floor of this very building there’s a well-stocked Molly Divine Marx Art Room whose centerpiece is an aquarium filled with hundreds of mollies in cocktail-hour hues—Gold Dust, Creamsicle, and other shimmers, plus the occasional active-wear Molly in neon green or orange.
“Want to see Big Molly?” I ask Bob, eager to get away from Barry’s obvious discomfort—and to lose my own. “She’s a Ghost Pearl.” I often get lost watching her and like to believe a speck of my soul circulates within this plump female and her hundreds of babies.
“Later,” Bob says as he settles in.
“For the sin which we have committed before You by false denial and lying,” the rabbi continues.
Bob gives me that look of his that telegraphs, Get serious. Maybe he has some atoning to do—I can’t get into his head and he rarely talks about himself—but my better guess is that he feels I could do with some of my own confessing. There’s plenty of transgression, wickedness, and moral trespassing to go around. I need to be accountable.
Rabbi S.S. has moved along to the sin of scoffing. I consider it. Nope. Scoffing, not my thing.
“For the sin which we have committed before You by a haughty demeanor.” On this count, my mind free-associates to Kitty. Where is that woman? Does she feel she needs no atonement? And what about the also absent Stephanie, who must be a member of this synagogue, since her son attends their nursery school? Does she honestly feel she’s sailed through the year sin-free? Come on. Let me count the ways. But I’m running up my own tab thinking about both of them, especially now that Rabbi S.S. is shifting into Molly territory.
My own sins are manifold, bacteria on a sponge. My essence curls inside Barry, so that we might beseech God as a team, as together as we’ve ever been. He is praying intensely, with the strain on his face I see when he does a pull-up, trying his best to make the Big Guy hear him. I blew it, he’s saying. Molly is gone and I’m to blame. To blame. To blame, to blame.
“And for the sin we have committed before you by a confused heart.”
A confused heart? Hey, God, over here. Was this always in the service, or did You slip it in expressly for me? I’m still waiting to meet You in the Duration, but I have not given up. You bet my heart was, and is, confused. It’s unhinged, in a spin. Do I have regrets? Does Yankee Stadium sell peanuts? Maybe I shouldn’t have married Barry or should have gotten out early, after the wedding or even before. But then Annabel wouldn’t be here, and how can I regret my child? I know You wanted Annabel to be. Which leads me to think that Barry and I could have learned to live happily ever after, Your five-year plan. Okay, God, maybe we got a running start in the wrong direction, but thanks to Dr. Stafford we’d reversed course. Some people grow up at twenty, the rest of us by forty if we’re lucky. But yes, God, in short, my heart was confused.
Should I have stayed away from Luke? Not my finest hour. But God, You know better than anyone that I never intended to hurt Barry. Can we both at least agree that while he wasn’t the best husband, my point wasn’t to be cruel? I know You know that what I felt for Luke was authentic. My passion for him was the most glittering emotion You ever let me experience, second only to the love I felt for my child and my parents. It was the rarest rainbow of sentiment: capital-Hove. Can that be bad?
God, let’s talk. What was I supposed to do when You threw us together? Luke drew me to Luke. I didn’t run in his direction because he was the Other Guy. Why did You do that? Not that I’m blaming anyone but myself. You knew I could never resist a man who listened to me the way Luke did, who manipulated my body as if it were a PlayStation 3, and who happened to look and smell and smile like, well, Luke. Did You put him on earth and let him trip me up just to tease?
Ah, but the moment for silent meditation is over. Rabbi S.S. is at it again.
“On Rosh Hashanah it will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur it will be sealed … how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created. Who will live and who will die at his predestined time and who before his time?”
My heart’s more than confused—it’s riddled with questions that I have the rest of eternity to sort out. Top of the list is why I, Molly Divine Marx, stood in this very synagogue twelve months ago, prayed as ardently as the women next to me and behind me to be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life for one more year, but wasn’t among the chosen. Yes, I’m as hideously culpable as any other commandment violator in this room. I am an emotional felon. But I can’t believe that Your thinking is so simplistic in the cause-and-effect department that infidelity is what has landed me in the Duration, especially when Barry and Luke got to stick around. You can’t possibly have a double standard, that cheating is worse for women than for men.
“Who by water … fire … sword … beast … famine … thirst … storm … plague … strangulation … stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried … who will enjoy tranquillity and who will suffer … who will be impoverished and who will be enriched … who will be degraded and who will be exalted?”
That elegant, mustached gentleman with the ebony cane who always sits in front of us—he looks as delicate as the white lilies on the altar. Will he be here next year, or six feet under? That enormous mom from Annabel’s school—will it make a rat’s ass of difference if she deep-sixes the Häagen-Dazs, joins Curves, and hitches her star to Jenny Craig? Will Kitty make the cut? My mother? Does being sealed in the Book of Life truly depend on how many merits and demerits a person has in her account and whether her atonement is heartfelt, or do You have a short list created by celestial lottery?
Barry is counting on the former. I know this much from listening to him. He’s fretting more about the future than the past.
“Do you think he’s really sorry?” I ask.
“I do,” Bob says. I would like to believe him. I’m working on it. Bob’s not a cynic. I am.
“He wishes everything were different,” Bob says. “Listen to him.”
Diffuse early afternoon light floods through stained glass, highlighting congregants in gilded pools of sun as they offer up silent entreaties. I tune back in to Barry, waiting for him to make a wish on Stephanie’s behalf, but his head is wrapped around Annabel, his mother, and “poor sweet Molly.” It’s a pitiful appeal, and I am relieved when he moves on to a lengthy entreaty on his own behalf. He augments his case with anecdotes. God, remember the time I waived my surgery fee because a child had a cleft palate and the parents couldn’t pay? See what a good father I am to Annabel? Take note of all my charitable contributions—thousands and thousands of dollars. Please recall the unsolicited raise I gave Delfina and the way I forgave Lucy Don’t forget I’m a good son. The best. I call my mother every day.
“In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, we remember them,” the rabbi says.
Do they remember me, really? Can they hear my giggle and picture my eyes? Know which eyebrow was higher than the other? Remember the taste of my chocolate chip cookies? Listen to Chris Botti or Chris Rock and recall, Molly thought those guys rocked.
I’ve had enough. All this remembering can bring a girl down when there’s no promise of blintzes smothered in sour cream, stuffed with cottage cheese or syrupy blueberries, to reward her at the end of the day’s fast, especially when the whole point is bargaining with God for one more year of blood, sweat, and tears of joy, for one more dizzying year of life. “In the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer, we remember them,” Rabbi S.S. intones as Bob and I take off. Before I leave, I glance back once more.
Barry’s been here all day long, prayer oozing from every pore, but damn, he still looks guilty.
Thirty-seven
WARDROBE MALFUNCTION
ucy lays a trio of my most beloved garments on the bed. “Did my sister think she was a prima ballerina?” she says out loud to herself. “Why would anyone ever need three lace skirts?”
The answer is obvious, if only to me. One skirt is layers of tulle that looked fetching with flats and a boatneck top whenever I tried to channel Audrey Hepburn. Another grazed my ankles. It’s the color of iced cappuccino, matches a filmy camisole that Lucy has yet to discover, and makes me feel tall, like an Italian heiress. The third is a gold pouf that barely hits my knees. I wore it once, to an Academy Awards party where I, Oscar the cross-dresser, won for Best Costume.
I don’t expect Lucy to appreciate my finery. To Lucy, clothes are a necessity, end of story.
I watch Lucy and not only do I miss my critical, irascible sister, but I’ll admit it, I also miss clothes—buying them, fondling them, and pretending that I’m someone else when I wear them. I miss my clothes, strangers’, and even mistakes-in-the-making I scoffed at in magazines. Maybe I am a scoffer after all.
Every few hours, Lucy phones my mother. “What should I do with the outfit Molly wore to Annabel’s naming?” Another nursing mommy might have chosen a flowing tunic and stretchy-waist pants that coordinated with projectile vomit, but I’d honored the occasion in a winter-white bouclé sheath and coat.
“I’d like it,” my mother says. “Ship it here.” She’ll hang it next to my wedding gown and hope it still smells of my perfume. Which makes me wonder, would my fortunes have been different if my scent had been, say, Paris by Yves Saint-Laurent and not Eternity by Calvin Klein?
“The sheared beaver coat you gave her senior year? It’s molting.”
“Maybe a charity wants it.”
“Her cheerleading uniform?”
“Home.”
Not the Smithsonian? I’m crushed.
“A boatload of black p
ants?” Lucy asks, wondering why ten pairs were necessary. I wore them all, cheap, expensive, gabardines, silk, wools, low-rise, cropped, cords, and especially the ones designed by Karl Lagerfeld for H&M. Fifty-nine dollars’ worth of unadulterated pleasure.
“Honestly,” my mother says, moving along to cranky. “Use your own judgment.” She catches herself for snapping.
This is the second day of the purge. Lucy already showered Delfina with piles of handbags and sweaters. Today she came to work with a gaily branded satchel—Coach! Coach! Coach!—instead of her reliable vinyl tote. I hope she looks inside the hidden zippered compartment, where she’ll find a twenty-dollar bill.
For Lucy this is a triathlon that requires focus and stamina. She doesn’t want Annabel to see her mother’s worldly possessions exhibited as if a yard sale were in progress, so she’s limiting her efforts to when my daughter’s away. My sister hasn’t even laid eyes on Barry. She’s checked into a small hotel on Madison, where she passed last night watching an American League playoff game along with a Kirin beer and a chaser of unagi rolls. This morning she charged through Central Park, timing her power walk to arrive after Annabel left for school.
But now, even though Annabel won’t be home for hours, Lucy’s heading out, shifting a duffel from hand to hand. The subway pulls into the station as she races down the steps. Good sign. Whenever the mass transit gods smiled on me, I considered the event to have profound cosmic significance. Unfortunately, I also read meaning into reverse karma, such as picking the seat next to the guy who’d forsworn deodorant or the teenage girl who shrieked “Motherfucka!” because my leg brushed hers.
Lucy gets off at Columbus Circle. Brie suggested lunch spots all over town—the Little Owl, Pastis, Le Cirque—but Lucy vetoed every one: too far, too French, too phony. She is not impressed by forty-dollar entrées, steaks with a resumé, gawking taxidermy, pickle juice cocktails, or snowy white truffles. The last food trend Lucy got on board with was frozen yogurt. What’s really going on is, of course, pride and prejudice. Lucy wants to be on an equal footing with Brie, not faced with her air-kissing a maître d’ or whipping out a black Amex card, insisting that Lucy be her guest. She’d rather eat toads than let Brie pay.
