by Delia Ephron
Grandpa? That makes my father sound like someone out of The Waltons.
“Can she stay?” asks Jesse. Ifer lowers her chin and makes it tremble, just as Maddy used to.
“Let me call your mother, Ifer, and tell her where you are. You can stay here a few days if it’s okay with her.”
Jesse and Ifer slap palms. He puts his palm out for me to slap. I do it but feel ridiculous. “Could I talk to you a second? Excuse us, Ifer.”
Jesse and I go out to the hall. “What is it?” he asks.
“I don’t want the cat.”
“Mom, Buddha is not a cat.”
“Don’t take that tone with me, Jesse. I don’t want to hear how Buddha has the six-thousand-year-old soul of an Indian guru. Buddha is a cat and I hate cats. I’m a dog person.”
“You don’t have a dog.”
“I don’t want that cat in here, do you understand? I have enough to deal with. Borrow my car, drive the cat back to Ifer’s, leave it, and come back.”
“That sucks, Mom.”
“Do you want Ifer to go too?” I see him debating a response, some nasty retort he doesn’t make. He goes back to the living room.
I have taken a stand. No cats. I feel a whole lot better.
At two a.m. the phone rings.
I sit up in bed. He’s dead, he’s definitely dead. “Hello.”
“Mom?”
“Jesse?”
“I need help.”
“Where are you?”
“In my room.”
“Are you nuts? Why did you call? Why didn’t you just come in here? Are you trying to scare me to death?”
“You always call me on the phone.”
“But I’m asleep.”
“You call me when I’m asleep. You know, I say, ‘Wake me in an hour’ or in the morning or something, and you call and wake me. God, Mom.”
“Forget it. What is it?”
“Buddha’s dying.”
“The cat? I told you to take the cat back to Ifer’s.”
“I know, please don’t get mad, but we didn’t.”
“Jesse, I’m hanging up. If you want to talk, come in here.”
Half an hour later we arrive at the emergency room of the La Cienega Animal Hospital. Ifer is sitting in the backseat, clutching her cat and sobbing. She and Jesse bolt out of the car the second I stop.
When I walk in, Jesse is elbowing his way to the front of the line—there actually is a line at two-thirty in the morning. “Excuse me, excuse me, we have an emergency,” he says, as if everyone here at this hour didn’t have an emergency.
“My dog was just hit by a car. Get out of here.” A man elbows Jesse back.
“Sor-ry.” Jesse says it high, then low, like a musical doorbell. He makes a face at the guy as he and Ifer take their places behind him.
The waiting room looks very much like the sitting room at UCLA Geriatric/Psychiatric. Everything linoleum and vinyl, easy to wash off, hard to destroy. There is a woman sitting with three bulldogs, two on her lap and one on the floor. She’s fat. Her chins rest on her chest and her bare pudgy feet are wedged into men’s … not Hush Puppies, but something like that. What are those men’s shoes that are associated with daddies? Anyway, is she my age? Do I look older than she does, or younger?
“Mom? … Yoo-hoo.”
“Look at that lady,” I whisper. “She’s covered in dog hairs.”
“Gross,” says Jesse.
I feel bad to have said this—to have pointed out that the woman is a shag carpet. I didn’t want to say that I am obsessed with aging and am standing in line wondering whether I look older than a woman with three bulldogs.
The biggest bulldog is gasping for air, making loud, frantic, deafening wheezes as if it has a drastic case of asthma. Ifer looks up from where her head is buried in Buddha’s scroungy fur. “Could you imagine living with that?” she asks. She buries her head again.
“May I help you?” We move quickly to the window.
The nurse or whatever this person is called at an animal hospital definitely looks younger than I do. She looks about three years older than Ifer. A shiny, bright-faced college student who undoubtedly washes her hair every single day, and holds it back with an elastic headband when she soaps her face. She is spanking neat and healthy, as opposed to Ifer, who looks just this side of trash.
“You’ve got to save Buddha,” begs Ifer. “She’s throwing up all over the place, and when she’s not, she just lies there.”
“She threw up?” I say to Jesse. “Where?”
He doesn’t answer.
“I hope not on the rug.”
“Buddha,” the nurse writes. “What’s her last name?”
“Marks,” says Ifer, sobbing. “I’m putting her in your family,” she says to me, before going off again into full-fledged hysterics.
“Female?”
“Yes.”
“Spayed?”
“No, I would never do that.” Ifer wipes her nose by drawing her entire forearm across it. Jesse pats Buddha’s head.
“It will cost fifty dollars for Dr. Robertson to see Buddha,” says the nurse. “Credit card, cash, or check?”
I suddenly realize why I’m here. I was so startled to be awakened, so carried away by the drama, I didn’t realize I’m the one with the money. “Credit card,” I tell her.
“This night’s a real bummer for animals,” says the nurse.
“It is?” Jesse lights up. “Weird. Weird-o.”
A guy dressed in blue scrubs comes out of the back. He looks like the guy who wheeled my father into the loony bin. He takes Buddha, and Ifer bursts into another round of tears. I find myself with my arms around her. “She’ll be fine. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“Can I live with you forever?” Ifer asks.
“No.” I hug her tighter. “Not under any circumstances.”
We sit and wait. If only Joe were here instead of me. He would be happy. The nurse would have confided how she gets her hair so bright and shiny. The woman with three bulldogs would have poured out the saga of her dog’s sinus problems. Joe would go home with stories. I will go home in a bad mood, worried I will be too tired to do my work tomorrow.
Fifteen minutes go by. I’m beginning to get that spaced-out feeling you get at airports. “Your Aunt Madeline and I used to hang out at airports when our parents were fighting.”
“What did they fight about?” asks Ifer.
“My mother fell in love with someone else.”
“I don’t blame her,” says Jesse.
The enormous asthmatic bulldog is transported into the back by two men in blue. The fat lady comforts her other dogs: “Sweet munchkins, don’t be sad.”
“Hey, Buddha’s parents,” the nurse calls. “The doctor will see you now.”
We all go into the examining room, which is very small and has a metal-topped table in the middle. In a second the doctor shows up. He’s slim, tall, and handsome, with glasses for wisdom. He looks, in short, perfect: old enough to be a doctor you trust but not so old he doesn’t know the latest medical developments; handsome enough to make you swoon, but not so handsome he looks brainless. Why does Buddha have someone who looks like a doctor, while my father has someone who looks like she’s going to jump in the air and do splits?
The doctor is carrying Buddha in his arms, and while he talks to Ifer, he strokes the cat and scratches her behind the ears. He uses her name, something I marvel at. I can’t imagine calling Buddha Buddha.
“Buddha is a very, very sick cat,” he says. “She has a serious ear infection. I suspect it’s entered her bloodstream.…”
Dr. Robertson, do you take care of old people too, I am wondering. Animals and old people. The way doctors have handles like OB-GYN, could you become an A-OP?
“Mom will do that.”
“Excuse me, what?”
Dr. Robertson goes blithely on. “Good. It will save Buddha’s life.” He bestows on me an irresistible smile.
I can’t sa
y, I have no idea what you’ve been talking about, I was in a walkabout, fantasizing your new medical specialty.
“She’ll need two pills every four hours for fifteen days,” says Dr. Robertson.
It starts to dawn. “Hey, wait a minute.”
“Two pills. Just drop them down her throat.”
“But I’m—”
“You don’t want to do it?” interrupts Jesse. “You want us to do it. Cool, we’ll stay home from school.”
“Yeah, we’ll miss finals,” says Ifer.
“I’m sure your mom doesn’t mind.” Dr. Robertson hands me Buddha. I pass her on to Ifer, who kisses her on the mouth.
Dr. Robertson shakes all our hands. “Good-bye, Mrs. Marks,” he says. He doesn’t call me Eve.
Jesse and Ifer go out to the car, while I pay the bill and get the pills.
As we drive home, Ifer croons, “Poor little Buddha, poor little Buddha.”
“You know, I really do have a lot on my hands right now.” I can’t not say it. I just can’t. “With your grandfather and all.”
“But Buddha’s got a lot of life in her,” says Ifer.
“Yeah. Your father’s finished.”
I stop the car in the middle of the street. It’s a very dramatic, foolhardy act, except that it’s so late there’s not another car about. I look Jesse in the eye. I penetrate deeply, as I did when he was five and he threw his apple juice can out the window: “A cat is not the same as a person.”
“You can love a cat as much as a person,” says Jesse.
“More,” says Ifer.
“Doesn’t that make them the same, Mom?”
“Jesse, for God’s sake, don’t you have any sympathy for your grandfather? He’s lost his mind.”
“He doesn’t feel anything for me.”
“I’m sure he does … did.”
“Right.”
“You keep referring to him as my father.”
“That’s what he is, Mom, technically. That’s like the first relationship, right?”
I start driving again. Ifer resumes crooning, “Poor little Buddha, poor little Buddha.”
“Do you think Dr. Robertson is older than I am?”
“No way,” says Jesse.
Ifer is lining the wicker laundry basket with two bath towels, making a bed for Buddha. It’s four in the morning, and I’m trying to think how I can get through the day. I will surely be exhausted. I can put off my meeting with Madge Turner—the party, now two and a half weeks away, is on track. I won’t see my father because there’s no point anyway, he’s out of his mind. Tomorrow Joe returns. I really need Joe.
“Why don’t you like your mother, Ifer?”
“She’s trying to control me. She’s a total, complete control freak. What I wear, what I think, where I go. She calls me Jennifer. My name is Ifer. I don’t correct her anymore, I just don’t answer.”
“A parent’s got to respect your integrity,” says Jesse, who has the refrigerator open and is staring into it. “She was supposed to die. I don’t know what happened.”
“What are you talking about?”
He examines some American cheese, peeling back the plastic wrap, then rejects it. “We asked the Ouija board when she would die.”
“You what?”
“Don’t have a cow. We didn’t tell it to kill her, we only asked, and it said—” Ifer and Jesse now chant together, “T-O-M-O-R-R-O-W.”
“That’s today,” says Jesse. He resumes his search through the refrigerator. “Well, really yesterday because it’s four in the morning so now it’s really tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Ifer shrieks. “I didn’t tell you, I didn’t tell you.” Her hands are on her head and she looks as if she’s about to pull out her hair in ecstasy. “My mom got sideswiped!”
“No!” says Jesse.
“Yes!” says Ifer.
They stare at each other with their mouths hanging open, spooked by the wisdom of the Ouija board.
I slam the refrigerator shut to get their attention. “Ifer, the cat sleeps with you in the den, is that clear? You’re lucky your mother loves you. I don’t want to hear one more word about sideswiping. Do you get it?” I am bellowing an inch from their faces. They nod docilely.
“Good. I’m going to bed.”
I am almost up the stairs when I hear, “God, Mom.” The last word. I’m never going to have it.
On a screen, a dot is flashing next to Joe’s flight number, indicating that his plane is landing. I have been sitting in the lounge next to his arrival gate, reading in People magazine about a woman who gave one of her kidneys to a waitress in a coffee shop where she ate breakfast. I would not give one of my kidneys to a waitress, even if I went to the coffee shop every single day and chatted with her about her divorce, her kids, and how there is too much useless mail coming into your home so that you don’t open half of it and who knows what to do about it. If she listened for hours about how I almost burst into tears this afternoon when I looked at the mail, I still wouldn’t give her a kidney. But would I give one to Georgia or Madeline?
Suppose their kidneys failed simultaneously? With my backbone of rubber, my inability even to tell the veterinarian that I don’t want to be saddled with Buddha, I would probably end up giving both my kidneys away. At least I don’t have to worry about donating to my father. He is too old and too sick for a kidney transplant. I hope.
A crowd gathers at the window as the plane can be seen rolling toward the gate. Joe is back. I am relieved. Elated. I’m going to feel safe again. Standing away from the crowd, so I have a view over it, I see him or rather the top of his head, the mini-haystack of hair that he’s forever pushing out of his eyes. “Joe!” I wave with both hands like a crazed referee.
He comes toward me in his loping, cheerful gait. “Hi, darling.” He drops his bag and puts his arms around me. As if I had been away and he were welcoming me home. “I’ve missed you.”
“Me too.” I tilt my head up for a kiss.
“You didn’t have to come to the airport.”
“I know.”
As we walk to the escalators, he puts his arm around my shoulders and laps it over my arm, which he holds on to tightly. I feel all tucked in.
“How were the bagel man and the cake lady?”
“She was the sweetest,” says Joe. “A doll, which happens to be her favorite word. ‘You’re a doll,’ she kept saying.” He takes a moment to watch a man whose two daughters, in cheerleading outfits, have greeted him waving pompoms.
“That would never have happened in my family,” I say. “What do her cakes taste like?”
“Not bad, except for the one she calls a ginger ale cake, which is made with ginger ale and grapes. ‘Gold and purple, doll, my high school colors.’ She’s plump and round, like a peach, and she wears pink stretch pants, and stuck in her belt, like a six-shooter, are a Ping-Pong paddle and—” He stops. His arm falls off my shoulder. He stands there puzzled, not paying attention as other passengers say “Excuse me” and bump around us. “What is that thing you put plaster on with? She uses it to sculpt scenes in the frosting. It was in my broadcast, did you hear it?”
“No, I missed it. Did you bring the tape?”
“Yeah, sure.” He stands there stumped.
“Put your arm back, okay, sweetheart?”
Joe wraps me up again and we start walking, step matching step. “What is that thing called?” says Joe. “It’s not a spatula, but doesn’t it start with an s? When we get in the car, we’ll put on the tape.”
“Adrienne and I are still trying to remember that short wide actress from the fifties.”
“Doris Day?”
“Short and wide, Joe.”
“What about the one who was married to Reagan?”
“Oh, I know who you mean, the one with bangs, but it isn’t her. This one has bangs too. She has totally dumb hairdos. Blond. God, it’s roasting.”
We have just hit the outdoors, where the Santa Ana winds are blowing. Normally, on
a southern California spring day, the sky is overcast in the morning, then the clouds burn off into a clear afternoon, temperature in the seventies. But every so often the Santa Anas kick up, the temperature soars into the nineties, and hot air swirls around you. It feels as though we have stepped inside a vacuum cleaner.
In anticipation of stickiness, I separate from Joe. We move quickly across the street to the parking lot and the car so we can be rescued by air-conditioning. “What’s this?” Joe is looking in the half-open window at Buddha curled up on the backseat.
“It’s Ifer’s. She’s moved in. Temporarily.”
“Who? The cat or Ifer?”
“Both. She and her mom are fighting, so I said it would be okay if she lived with us for a while as long as it was okay with her mother. Unfortunately, it was okay with her mother. She asked how long we wanted her.”
Joe puts his hand out for the car keys. “But why is the cat with us, right now, in the airport parking lot?”
“I took her to the office today. I have to give her pills every four hours or she’ll die.”
Joe slams the trunk closed and we get in the car. He doesn’t say anything until we’re at the parking lot exit. “You don’t have enough to do?”
“What?” This is a game I play called False Innocence. I know exactly what he’s talking about and I know he’s right, but if I admit it, I’ll have to do something about it.
“Eve, you shouldn’t be taking care of the cat.”
I know how to get him off my case. “Her name is Buddha.”
He smiles. “She’s probably sacred, right?”
“Probably. In the Kasmian religion.”
“Was there a founder of this religion? Mr. Casmo? Or is it from ‘cosmos’?”
“It’s with a k. I saw it written on Ifer’s jeans when I put them in the washing machine.”
“You’re washing her clothes?”
“I do Jesse’s, and they just go in with his.”
Joe nods.
“Actually, Jesse is driving me crazy. He keeps saying things about my father, like, ‘His brain is fried,’ or ‘He’s bought the farm,’ as if my father’s not even a human being.”
“You’ve talked about him like that for years.”
“Not really.”
“Oh, no?”
“Not in the same way. That’s not fair.”
