And then, thank God, thought May, she was gone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
FLO AND LILA STOPPED BY THAT EVENING FOR WHAT FLO referred to as a “debriefing.”
“Has your daughter-in-law left?” asked Flo, peering in the door. “I sense a power outage.”
“Gone,” said May. “They took the five-twenty plane to Newark.”
“That woman has a mind like an overstuffed freezer,” noted Flo. “I’ve never seen so many ideas packed so closely together.”
“You know, she collared me and asked me why I never had children,” commented Lila. “She wanted to know why I didn’t plan better for my old age.”
“I’m sorry,” said May, “how rude.”
“No, no, coming from her, it wasn’t rude. I had the feeling that she was genuinely concerned. More than concerned. Ready to solve the problem. I thought maybe she could find me a few spare children for my old age.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” sighed May.
“Well, she dug up that Norman Grafstein for you,” noted Lila with approval. “I’d call that a nice gesture. And the other one didn’t look so bad, either.”
“Awful,” pronounced Flo. “Norman was fine, but the other one, Stan Jacobs, was a pill.”
“Flo was upset because he didn’t laugh at her jokes,” observed Lila.
“You were a bit direct,” agreed May. “You might have hurt his feelings.”
“Feelings—at his age? It’s an affectation to have feelings at our age.”
“Men don’t like to be made fun of,” cautioned Lila, “at any age. Or to think that you might be smarter than they are.”
“Well, I thought Stan Jacobs was nice,” said May.
“You think everyone’s nice.”
“Norman said that Stan lost his wife only a year ago.”
“So we all lost a spouse recently, give or take a year. I don’t see anyone walking on eggshells with us.”
“But Flo dear, you come at them with a sledgehammer,” said Lila. “A little gentleness is seductive.”
“Gentleness does not come as easily to me as it does to May. She’s gentle by nature. And I could see that she captivated Norman Grafstein—to his credit.”
“Oh, please,” said May. “He was only being polite.”
“From what I could see, he was very attentive to May,” agreed Lila.
“Yes,” laughed Flo, reverting to her usual tone, “when a man of that age actually registers your existence and doesn’t simply expound to the furniture, you know you’ve made a strong impression.”
“Oh, Flo, you’re terrible!” protested May, but it was clear that she was pleased. Norman Grafstein had noticed her, and she had to admit that she liked being noticed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THERE WAS NO CALL FROM NORMAN GRAFSTEIN THAT WEEK, BUT on the way out of the movies at City Place on Friday night, Flo and May (Lila had gone to dinner with Hy) bumped into him with a woman on his arm. May caught sight of him first and tried to maneuver to avoid a direct encounter, but Norman, apparently unembarrassed, hailed them down.
“Ladies, I was going to call,” he said jovially, looking at May in particular, “and I will, I promise. Excuse me, this is a friend: Dory Feldman.”
“Feldstein,” corrected the woman.
“My mistake, Feldstein. She lives at Broken Arrow. We’re neighbors.” He continued to smile at May with apparent unself-consciousness, as if to say that it was only natural that he would be at the movies with a woman, there being so many of them around.
“Well, we better hurry or we’ll miss the movie,” announced May, dragging Flo by the arm. Norman had seemed eager to chat, but she hardly felt up to it. She was more pleased to see him than she expected, and more disappointed to see him with someone else.
Once inside, Flo looked at the flustered face of her friend and shook her head. “You’re too upset, you know.”
“I’m not upset,” said May, trying to regain her composure.
“It’s not his fault,” said Flo. “I’m sure she asked him. He’s been widowed two years. The attention must be overwhelming.”
“I’m sure it is,” said May sadly. “I don’t see why he’d want to go out with me.”
“Because you’re sweet and modest and delightful to be with,” Flo explained. “Because you don’t wear bugle beads and your fingernails aren’t going to send him to the hospital for stitches.”
“I’m not flashy,” agreed May, “if that’s what you mean. But maybe he likes flashy.” She thought of the woman Feldman or Feldstein whom Norman had been with. She was wearing a cape and leather pants.
“I’m just saying that you’re naturally attractive, and if I’m any judge, he likes that.”
May blushed. “Do you think so?”
“I do. I’m guessing he’ll call you tomorrow—unless, of course, he’s too busy fielding calls from his admirers. But if he does call, you have to promise to be casual and not take it too seriously. I’m sure he’ll want to see more of you, but a man like Norman Grafstein isn’t ready to settle down again soon. He’s enjoying his popularity.”
Flo was right. Norman Grafstein did call May the next day.
“I’d been meaning to ring you up ever since the brunch,” he said, “only things got hectic. You know how it is. Obligations and so forth.”
May said that she did—though she didn’t. Her days, outside of the outings with her friends, were generally empty of commitments, and most of her time was spent, as she said, “puttering around.” She had a vision of Norman’s life as cluttered with elaborate social commitments of the kind featured on Entertainment Tonight.
“I just thought maybe you’d like to come over to the club for a bite on Thursday,” he continued in his easy tone. “You can bring your friend, since I know you don’t like to drive.”
He’d recalled the conversation they’d had at the party in which May admitted to being one of those dangerous Boca drivers who went under thirty on major thoroughfares. It was the sole area where Irving, her late husband, a man who rarely raised his voice, had lost patience with her. “Put your foot on the gas, for chrissakes!” he used to scream whenever there was a lane merge and she and another car engaged in a tortoise race as to who would get behind whom.
Driving up to speed was a source of stress that May carried with her whenever she took her Ford Escort to the Publix supermarket or the Glades Multiplex, her two principal destinations. The Escort was another project that Carol was working on.
“It’s unsafe,” her daughter-in-law had declared. “If you have to go American, why not a Cadillac or a Lincoln? Personally, I’d have you in a nice, solid German car—the war’s been over for more than fifty years and everyone in Boca has one, even the professional Jews, so don’t give me any excuses.”
It was on Carol’s list that she and Alan would buy May a BMW for Mother’s Day. May was against it. She hated to drive, so why spend money on a new car? And with Flo, a confident if reckless driver (they had actually done seventy last week on a trip the three friends had taken to South Beach), she hardly drove at all anymore.
“Bring Flo,” Norman repeated, “and I’ll try to drum Stan up for another tongue-lashing. Boy, did I get a kick out of hearing her give him what-for.”
Flo was more than ready to drive her friend, and May knew enough not to tell her about Stan’s possible attendance at the luncheon.
“I’m taking my role as chaperone very seriously,” Flo said. “And I admit I’ll take enormous pleasure watching the two of you together. From the little I’ve seen of Norman Grafstein, I’d say that he has a disposition almost equal to yours, which is an amazing accomplishment, if you ask me, for a seventy-five-year-old Jewish man who’s been successful in business. Usually, the combination produces someone with the looks of Zero Mostel, the ego of Alan Dershowitz, and the temper of a small, poisonous snake. Norman Grafstein is an exception on all counts.”
Driving through the manicured grounds of Broken Ar
row, having been properly vetted at an ivy-covered guard-house, May was dazzled.
“It’s like one of those old English estates!” she breathed admiringly.
“Please, spare me,” groaned Flo in a rare display of irritation with her friend. She credited May for her sweet nature and general good sense, but it was hard not to lose patience when confronted with this kind of esthetic judgment. Granted, Broken Arrow was a top-of-the-line club in Boca Raton, but it was no Blenheim Palace. In fact, it was merely Boca Festa on a grander and lusher scale, with every building material, every decorative object, every amenity ratcheted up to its most expensive version: Where Boca Festa had veneer on the staircases, Broken Arrow had mahogany; where Boca Festa had Corian in the bathrooms, Broken Arrow had marble; and where Boca Festa had a manicured yenta seating guests in the club dining room, Broken Arrow had a tuxedoed maître d’.
Flo was aware of the incongruities of life in the surreal nirvana that was West Boca, but she was of two minds on the subject. Sometimes, as at this moment when confronted with May’s schoolgirl effusions, she felt herself rebel against the mock-esthetic grandeur, the weird hierarchical distinctions, and the often provincial mentality of the residents. At others, and particularly when she heard Boca attacked by some of her “intellectual” friends up north, she rose stridently to its defense, arguing that its inhabitants were decent, often fascinating people, passionately devoted to their families, who had worked very hard all their lives and in some cases survived the worst atrocities in world history. They had earned the right to live comfortably together in retirement and enjoy whatever luxuries they could afford. Turning up one’s nose at club life in Boca Raton always struck her as a disturbing brand of snobbism that harbored its share of anti-Semitism (or self-hatred, if coming from Jews). That is, except when she indulged in it herself.
Norman was waiting at a table for four near the window as May and Flo entered the dining hall. May was literally agape as they made their way across the intricately parqueted floor and past the tables with embroidered tablecloths and ornate center pieces of fresh flowers.
“Close your mouth,” murmured Flo. “This isn’t Chartres Cathedral, for godsakes.”
“Flo, be nice,” whispered May, seeing that her friend was in one of her moods. She was glad to note that Stan Jacobs wasn’t there. Flo was in a state May knew could be dangerous; if she saw Stan and thought she’d been put on the spot, there was no accounting for what she might do.
Norman rose to greet them and, by the miracle of his disposition—a disposition that accounted for his business success more than any particular savvy when it came to calculating the need for leather goods in East Coast department stores—managed to make May feel immediately comfortable and even take the edge off Flo’s mood.
“I always say that there are two styles of decor in Boca Raton,” said Norman after May complimented him on the beauties of Broken Arrow. “There’s the Atlantic City casino look for the more with-it crowd, and the English country gentry look for the old-money types. Old money, by the way, means it’s actually been in a bank and not in a pillowcase. That’s what we have at Broken Arrow. All the furniture here looks like it’s been hijacked from one of those Masterpiece Theatre productions. You know how it is—Jewish men really want to be English country lords. Our fathers wanted it for us, which is why they gave us first names like Arnold, Murray, and Norman—and your husband’s, May, wasn’t it Irving? All these very pedigreed British last names suddenly become upwardly mobile Jewish first names. The fact of the matter is that our fathers missed the point. It’s the last name, not the first, that counts. We’re talking landed gentry, not the gent behind the deli counter.”
Flo and May both laughed.
“I can see you’ve given this a lot of thought,” observed Flo.
“I have,” conceded Norman. “And personally, if I weren’t so lazy, I’d move to the South of France.”
“Stop sounding like Flo,” said May, with more animation than was common for her. “I think it’s beautiful here.” It was apparent that she did, Norman noted happily, since he, too, for all his protesting (much of it learned from his friend, Stan Jacobs), liked it enormously. Broken Arrow was pretty much his idea of heaven on earth.
They seated themselves and began to peruse a calligraphied menu that to May was as impressive as an illuminated manuscript when Stan Jacobs walked in. He was wearing tennis shoes and was holding a racket, and had the air of someone who had wandered into the clubhouse by accident and happened to find three people he vaguely knew assembled in front of him.
“Oh, hi there,” said Stan. He shook May’s hand, but then seemed to lose interest in the amenities of greeting and only nodded to Flo. “I heard that you might be here, and Norman and I usually have a tennis match on Thursdays at two, so …”
“Good old Stan, gracious as ever,” laughed Norman. “Join us for lunch. Tennis today is off. I plan to drink at least two glasses of wine and give these two fascinating ladies my undivided attention all afternoon. Why the hell would I want to play tennis with you?”
“The court’s reserved,” said Stan in a tone of mild irritation. “You know how hard it is to get a court here.”
“Almost as hard as an audience with the pope,” laughed Norman, “and about as desirable, as far as I’m concerned right now. Though perhaps the ladies think otherwise.” He turned inquiringly to May and Flo. “We can play doubles if you like. The shop will outfit you in a jiffy.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s the kind of service we pay an arm and a leg for here.”
Norman offered the idea without much enthusiasm, and May, who rarely went into the water above her knees and for whom tennis was as foreign as skydiving, demurred quickly.
“I don’t play,” she explained, hoping that her athletic incapacity would not diminish her in Norman’s eyes. He looked as if he probably did all the sports like tennis, golf, and skiing that she associated with a lively, moneyed strata outside her ken. “But Flo is a wonderful player,” she added, hoping that her friend’s abilities might compensate for her own lack of them.
“Well, we’ll eat first,” said Norman, “and then Flo can decide if she wants to play I hope she does. That’ll get me off the hook, and maybe she can beat Stan’s ass and really make it worth my while.”
Stan looked doubtful about the idea of playing Flo, but he sat down and said nothing. Flo, who preferred the prospect of playing Stan to talking to him, remarked with exaggerated cheerfulness that she was “game for a game,” and didn’t need anything but a racket from the pro shop since she was wearing her shorts and tennis sneakers.
“I always come prepared, since court time is at such a premium in Boca,” she announced. “You know you’re retired when you’re ‘on call’ for tennis.” She gave Stan a dazzling smile, which, if one didn’t know her, might have passed as an attempt to be friendly.
In fact, it had always been a rule with Flo Kliman not to let unpleasant people register on her or cow her into submission. It was a compensatory strategy, she knew, that came from growing up in an era when women were supposed to defer to men. Hers was not a pliant nature, as she had demonstrated fifty years ago when she refused to entertain the banal dronings of the dental student judged by everyone in her circle to be a good catch. She could still recall the tearful pleadings of her mother, mystified by how her daughter, hovering on the brink of spinsterhood at twenty-four, could reject such a prospect. Fortunately, Eddie had come along soon afterward, a man secure enough to withstand a strong woman’s opinions and with a taste for combat that made spirited argument part of their marital sport. Flo felt she’d been lucky in her husband, as she had been in her career, but she still suffered pangs of envy when she saw women a generation younger who’d been able to embark more aggressively on their own paths. And her envy turned to awe when she looked at the present generation of young women, as exemplified in her great-niece Amy. Amy was twenty-one, a film student at NYU with an unshakable sense of her own worth and an openn
ess to the possibilities of life that struck Flo as breathtaking. If she could be born again, she often liked to say, it would be as Amy’s best friend. Amy, for her part, responded that her great-aunt was her best friend, not to mention her most dependable resource for all information (she’d been reaping the benefits of having a librarian for a great-aunt ever since the third grade). The two women maintained a lively e-mail correspondence on topics ranging from shopping to books to the eccentricities of various family members, whom both tended to look upon with a similar mixture of amusement and dismay.
“Have decided that you and I only sane members of family,” Amy had written the other day, after a particularly nasty confrontation with her father (Flo’s nephew), a successful tax attorney whom both women agreed was sadly lacking in imagination and humor. “Have traced father’s problem to failure to learn haftorah portion at his bar mitzvah. Has made cryptic mention of this over the years and always looks depressed afterward. Postulate that teenage shame accounts for years on the couch and inability to have fun.”
“Was at said bar mitzvah,” wrote Flo in her return e-mail. “Recall no failure with haftorah, though do recall very old rabbi with very bad breath (memory of which may have precipitated depression). Must insist that father/nephew’s problems reach back to earlier period. Possibly related to trauma of having insane father, driven so by ball-breaking older sister (i.e., yours truly).”
Flo and Amy found such exchanges endlessly amusing, reinforcing their affinity in a family besieged by rivalries and antagonisms, and giving them a solid anchor outside the turbulence of their own generation. It was a relationship that Flo, for one, valued greatly. Often, while in the midst of an experience, she would find herself thinking about how she would describe it in her next e-mail to Amy.
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