Significant Others

by Baron, Marilyn

  Speaking of my nose, sometimes I think Donny is lucky. Maybe it would have been nice to have been adopted. It would be handy to have a non-existent parent where I could lay the blame for my physical flaws. This nose? It must have come from my real father. Stanley Palladino’s nose looked just fine on Stanley Palladino, but on me, it was a different story. And there was absolutely no way to get past my fat ass, literally or figuratively. That big butt? Right again. My real mother.

  Actually, I got my tendency for substantial hips from Grandma Lewis, my mother’s mother. Probably as a result of the eight years she lived with us and admonished Donny, Helene, and me to “eat everything on your plate because the children in Europe are starving.” Grandma Lewis must have been the founding member of the clean plate club. I’d spent most of my adult life fighting the Lewis genes so I could fit into my own jeans. Thank God for Talbots® Woman. Other than Mom, I didn’t really know where Donny’s genes originated. But Donny was pretty much perfect in my eyes and owed no apologies to anyone. Everyone adored Donny, and I got to bask in the glow of that adoration, so I couldn’t complain. Even though it was obvious everyone preferred Donny.

  I picked up a picture of Donny and my dad that sat on the pass-through between the kitchen and the living room. Donny was probably eight years old when that picture was taken, dressed in a dirty Little League uniform, with smudges all over his face. It was taken right after his team had won the championship game and my dad was beaming into the camera, bursting with fatherly pride.

  Stanley Palladino was thrilled to have a son. He took Donny to Little League, taught him how to throw a ball, went to all his high school baseball games, and was as proud as any father when Donny, the hottest prospect in the country, was recruited by the coach of one of the top SEC East teams and later as a pitcher for his first major league team. But as much as Donny loved Stanley Palladino, I knew that my brother still secretly longed for his own father, even after all these years. Donny was a grown man, but he couldn’t stop searching for clues and connections, no matter how tenuous, to a man he never knew.

  Stanley Palladino’s death forced him to lose a father all over again. After mourning my father, he turned to his past with a vengeance and became obsessed with finding out all he could about his real father. Did I think it strange that my brother redecorated his condo to recapture memories of his father after all these years? Yes. Might I have gone to the same lengths to preserve my heritage if our situations had been reversed? Quite possibly.

  “You still miss him a lot, don’t you?” Donny asked. “So do I.” The sadness was still fresh for both of us, even a year later, I thought, as I wiped the tears from my face, blurring the moisture I saw sparkling in Donny’s eyes. I guess my mother wasn’t the only one affected by the anniversary of my father’s death. Stanley Palladino had not been a big man in stature, but his presence in our world had loomed larger than life.

  Donny took the picture from my hand and placed the silver filigreed frame back on the granite countertop.

  “Hey, we’d better not let Mom see us like this,” Donny whispered. “I don’t want her falling apart again.”

  Donny was a strapper, probably the biggest baseball player in history; so big, in fact, he could have played defensive football. He reminded me of a big stuffed bear I once saw at the Museum of Natural History in Miami. But Donny was not all brawn. He was also sensitive and very smart. Not many people knew that about my brother. Donny didn’t just slide through college on a baseball scholarship. He majored in botany, and his favorite pastime was puttering in his garden in Atlanta and ensuring that Jackson and his girls drank in everything he could teach them about tending indigenous plants.

  No one would have guessed that “The Slugger” grew tomatoes, green peppers, and cantaloupe in a compost heap behind his backyard. And no one would have suspected that beneath that bulk beat a soft, sensitive, and generous heart. I wished I could patch that gaping hole left by the loss of his real father, but I couldn’t. No one could.

  Donny walked over to the couch and began turning the pages of another one of the World War II picture books.

  “My dad was a hero,” Donny stated, “like the guys in this book. Do you think he would have been proud of me? I hope I’ve made him proud. I’m the only thing left of him in this world, except my kids.”

  “Oh, Donny,” I sighed, facing him. “How could you not? You’re the best person I know. Whoever had a hand in making you must have been pretty great. He certainly did something right.”

  “Then why did he have to die?” Donny bit his lip, and I could tell he was close to tears again. He tried to blink them away. At that moment, he looked as young and vulnerable as that eight-year-old in the photograph.

  “I wish I could answer that.”

  “And how come Mom never wants to talk about him?”

  “I guess it’s too painful to love someone and lose them like that,” I answered quietly.

  “I always thought that if I asked her it would seem disrespectful to Stan—to our dad—I mean. Now that he’s been gone for a year, I have some questions.”

  “I’m not sure now’s the right time,” I cautioned, indicating with a slight turn of my head that my mother was within earshot—right in the next room.

  “Questions only Mom can answer,” Donny persisted. “I wish I could have known him. I wish he could have known my children. Do you think they—the ones who’ve passed on—can see what’s going on down here?” And now I knew he was talking about both dads.

  That question was easier to answer. I talked to my dad, my dead dad, all the time, in my mind. His presence was tangible. I felt him looking down on me, watching out for me, watching over me, from wherever he was. I guessed Heaven. Heaven would be lucky to get a good man like Stanley Palladino. I didn’t think that made me crazy. It would have made me crazy if I couldn’t have reached out to him. I still asked his advice, and I thought I heard him answer.

  “I believe that,” I assured my brother. Inevitably, my thoughts drifted back to what my father would have wanted me to do about the sale of Palladino Properties. It was hardly the right time, but someone had to confront the elephant in the room. It was a topic I knew was on both of our minds.

  “Do you think Mom is really going to sell the company?” I asked, motioning for Donny to follow me into the guest bedroom, out of hearing range.

  “She has her mind made up. It’s really too good an offer to pass up, don’t you think?” Donny reasoned, walking behind me and closing the bedroom door.

  “But is it what Dad would have wanted?” I asked.

  “Probably not. But Mom’s plan was for them to sell the company so she and Dad could retire, travel, take time to live life. She didn’t expect him to die. But Mom thinks that’s still what Dad would have wanted. It’s not what we want, but we have to respect her wishes. It’s her decision.”

  “Dad would have wanted her to move on with her life, to find happiness again, but she’s not ready. And I don’t think she’s ready to make any decisions about the business, either,” I insisted.

  “I think she’ll come around, once we get her back to Atlanta,” Donny said. “Look, I’m heading back to the hotel to see Barbara and the kids. I’ll say goodbye to Mom and apologize because I can’t stay for lunch. I promised I’d take the kids swimming. Let Mom know we’re taking her out to dinner at her favorite place. I made reservations at The Addison for seven o’clock tonight. Meanwhile, you talk to her about the possibility of a merger. She listens to you.”

  After Donny left, I walked into the living room and found my mother sitting in the dark on a yellow chintz couch.

  “Hey, Mom, let’s let some light into this place,” I suggested gently, walking toward the sliding glass doors and pulling up the honeycomb shades.

  “The light hurts my eyes,” Dee Dee said, holding up her hands in front of her face. Seeing my vital, vibrant mother like this was so unbearable, I thought I was going to cry, and I couldn’t cry in front of my mo
ther. I was supposed to be supporting her. I’d left her alone way too long. She needed me and I needed her. But I wasn’t about to dump my marital problems on my mother when she didn’t even have a husband anymore.

  I turned around.

  “Honey, don’t step on the fringe,” she warned as I approached the Oriental carpet. “I just combed it.”

  “You comb the fringe on the Oriental carpet? Since when?”

  “It gives me something to do.”

  The situation with my mother was much worse than I’d ever imagined.

  The wall phone in the kitchen rang. I walked over to answer it.

  “Yes, this is the Palladino residence. Who’s calling? She did? Well, thank you so much for letting us know. Just leave it at the Service Desk, and we’ll be by later this afternoon to pick it up. I appreciate it.”

  “Who was that?” Dee Dee asked from the club chair.

  “A woman calling from Sam’s Club. Apparently you left your wallet at the register yesterday, and she turned it in to the manager.”

  “Oh,” said my mother, her face twisting in an embarrassed frown. “I was shopping for your visit, and I had to get out my ID at the checkout, and, well, I—”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll go over and pick it up after lunch,” I said smoothly, adding, “Does this happen a lot?”

  “It’s happened before. I...sometimes forget things.”

  “We all do,” I said, not wanting to sound critical.

  “You won’t mention this to Donny, will you? He hovers enough already. I don’t want him to think...”

  “It will just be between us,” I assured her.

  “I wish you had brought Hannah.” Dee Dee sighed.

  “Hannah has finals,” I said. “Then she’s going to Aruba with her friend’s family for Christmas break.” The only way I’d get Hannah here would be to tell her that Grandma Dee Dee had seen Channing Tatum’s face on that live oak tree.

  I could really use my daughter’s support now, and I’d really love to see her, but I’m not ready to tell her what is happening between her father and me.

  “I know you’re anxious to see the tree,” my mother said.

  “If you want to show it to me, after lunch,” I answered evenly, like I wasn’t chomping at the bit to get down to the golf course. But I needed to stop eating so much or those Lewis hips would come roaring back.

  “Actually, you can see it from here,” Dee Dee said, “if you stand out on the screened-in patio.”

  I followed my mother out to the tiled patio and opened the sliders that overlooked the golf course, offering a scenic view of the lake. The birds were chattering madly and they seemed to be mocking me. Even the birds were louder in Boca. Apparently it was mating season all year round here. There was a foursome playing under the window and golf carts traversed the green in the distance. I guess these people are retired and don’t have to—or don’t want to—work anymore. I squeezed around the glass coffee table and the padded lounge chair to get a better view.

  “Most of the trees were uprooted in the last hurricane,” my mother explained, straightening the cushions on the chair, her hands fluttering nervously across the leaves of one of the potted plants. “I can’t even remember the name of the storm. We were at the end of the Greek letters, I think. Half of those trees were damaged by lightning. I remember the night the lightning hit this particular tree. There was a big flash, and the boom shook the whole building. It sounded like the earth was coming to an end. It nearly scared me to death. And when I looked outside, I saw smoke and the tree was on fire. The rain finally put it out, but the lightning bolt had stripped the bark completely off the tree. The trees that weren’t hit by lightning lost a lot of foliage. My Jesus tree was one of the only ones left standing. It’s almost completely denuded. The leaves are beginning to grow back, and I’m afraid they will hide His face.”

  From this vantage point I could see uprooted trees scattered around the golf course. No one had come to collect them after the storm. There was a lone, leafless live oak tree directly in the path of my mother’s line of sight. The bottom of the tree was charred. The top branch was thick and pure chalk-white. But I couldn’t really see much from where I was standing.

  “You can see it better if we go downstairs,” my mother suggested.

  So we took the elevator four stories down and walked behind her building onto the golf course.

  “Watch out for these dead branches,” I cautioned, taking hold of my mother’s hand to help her negotiate around the uprooted trees. “I don’t want you to fall.” When older people fell, it was the beginning of the end. Their brittle bones never healed. Then they had to be put into a home. And before you knew it, they were gone.

  I’d already lost my father. I couldn’t stand the thought of losing my mother, too. She wasn’t just my parent. She was more of a friend. Working together builds that kind of closeness. At least it used to. Some phone calls between us were strictly mother-daughter. Some were business-related. Some calls were more informational. Some were, “Why didn’t you call me?” She was a wonderful mentor and a great role model. I imitated everything she did. How many people got to spend working daylight hours with their mothers? It was pretty special. I hoped to repeat that experience with my own daughter, when Hannah came to work at Palladino Properties after she graduated. If there still was a Palladino Properties.

  I had so much to pass on to Hannah, lessons that Dad and Mother taught me. Lessons about honesty and integrity and ensuring that our clients come first. My mother treated every client like she was their mother, and she took care of them like she’d always taken care of me. Now it was my turn to take care of her.

  When I moved closer to the live oak, the sunlight filtered through the tree to warm my face, and I was surprised to find a figure etched into the bark.

  “It looks like John F. Kennedy,” I said in awe, squinting as I looked up.

  “No, it’s definitely Jesus,” my mother stated, pointing. “It’s there as plain as day. Can’t you see those two branches forming his outstretched arms? I know it’s strange for a Jewish woman to see Jesus on a tree, but I know what I see.”

  I took a deep breath and tilted my head this way and that, circling the tree, approaching it from various angles.

  “I don’t see it,” I apologized. “I mean I see a face, but...”

  “Then maybe you weren’t meant to see it,” my mother snapped abruptly as she turned and stomped back to the condo.

  Chapter Three: Swimming with the Sharks,

  or, Who’s Stirring the Pasta?

  “I’m starving,” I announced to Donny and Barbara.

  “Well, tonight is your night,” Donny said.

  “Every night is my night,” I interrupted with a smirk.

  “Where do you want to eat? There’s a nice Cuban restaurant we just discovered, but it’s pretty far away. Or there’s a closer place with authentic Italian cuisine. The chef is from Naples.”

  “I’m in the mood for Italian.”

  “You’re always in the mood for Italian.” Donny laughed. “I don’t know why I even suggest other options.”

  “It’s too bad your mother couldn’t make it,” Barbara said. “She claims she was too tired.”

  “She’s always too tired,” Donny complained. “We’ll take her to The Addison tomorrow night. And anyway, I think we need this time to talk alone.”

  “I agree.”

  The hostess at Café di Napoli made the appropriate, expected fuss over The Slugger. Her eyes never left Donny’s as she nearly tripped over herself leading us to our table. Of course Donny took the time to autograph a menu with a special message to her son. I wondered whether the woman’s son would ever see Donny’s signature. Or if she even had a son.

  The hostess was reacting the same way all women reacted around my brother—either they were tongue-tied or their tongues were hanging out, panting. I am used to women giggling, gawking and gaping at, even groping, my brother in public. Whenever I
take Donny on an appointment with a client, the wife inevitably spends more time leering at Donny than looking at the house and the husband is so star-struck talking sports with The Slugger that they literally trip over each other to sign the contract.

  Apparently the chef’s head had been stuck in the manicotti for the past thirty years, because he had no idea who Donny Palladino was. Nevertheless, he was properly solicitous.

  “We have a lovely simmered octopus,” announced Chef Ricardo, after Donny, Barbara, and I were comfortably seated at a cozy table. “It looks scary, but it’s really wonderful. And you should try the lasagna, just like my mama makes it in Napoli.” He gestured with his hands, smacking his lips lightly with an air kiss.

  I took my food seriously, so it was a little disconcerting to see the chef out here talking to us when he should be back in the kitchen stirring the pasta. It reminded me of the pilot who walked the aisles making small talk with the passengers when he should be flying the plane.

  In the middle of the chef’s presentation, Donny’s cell phone rang incessantly and my BlackBerry didn’t stop burping. My daughter Hannah called the sound “making raspberries.” Marc called my BlackBerry by the more popular term, a CrackBerry, because he thought I was addicted to it. Maybe he was right. But the BlackBerry was my lifeline. Like Donny, he also urged me to get one of the new iPhones, but I wouldn’t give up my BlackBerry.

  “What wine do you suggest?” I asked Ricardo. “Or maybe I won’t have wine tonight.”

  “A woman without wine is like a flower without water,” Ricardo gushed.

  Jeesh! What a flatterer. But he was really cute. I wondered what he thought of my trim new butt. I was starting to notice other men now. I had to, in my current situation. I had to start putting myself out there.