by Delia Ephron
“Your mother had a rough day,” Joe says to Jesse.
“Duh?”
“Duh?” Joe repeats threateningly.
Jesse sits up straighter. “I mean, I figured. That’s why we’re having takeout.”
Joe, Jesse, Ifer, and I are sitting at the dining room table, where the food has been hastily thrown. The white Chinese-takeout containers are open next to the brown paper bags they arrived in. The bags stand there upright, empty; I haven’t bothered to remove them. Plastic packets of duck sauce, mustard, and soy sauce are strewn around, along with a bag of crispy noodles, a few fortune cookies, and several sets of chopsticks in paper sleeves.
Unlike my mother, I have always prided myself on my cooking. But in the past week we have dined on sandwiches, grilled cheese or tuna, and tonight we are having Chinese food taken straight from the front door to the dining room table. I don’t have the energy not to be my mother.
“My father had some sort of fit today when I returned him to the Home. Like an epileptic fit,” I explain to Jesse.
“I once saw someone have a fit,” says Ifer. “When I was at the supermarket with my mom. It was really creepy.” She puts her elbows on the table, props her chin in her hands, and stares at me balefully.
“Did it come out of nowhere?” Joe asks.
“I was talking to him.”
“About what?”
I pick up a container and start poking around for a water chestnut. “I don’t remember—nothing.” Maybe I could bring my father takeout Chinese? Maybe he could choke on a water chestnut and because he’s in a wheelchair there’s no way anyone could do the Heimlich maneuver on him. “Is death by choking painful?”
“Why do you want to know that?” Joe smiles, immediately sensing that this is not an innocent question. I have no privacy with my secret evil thoughts.
As a way of counterpunching, I get more serious. “I was just worried. He doesn’t have his teeth in, so he can’t chew.”
“Euu,” says Ifer.
Jesse runs his fork back and forth across his plate to pick up the last of the soy sauce. He licks the back of his fork. “So, uh, Mom, are you done?”
“Done what?”
“Done talking about this stuff. Ifer and I were thinking of hitting the movies.”
“Yes, I’m done.”
“You sure? ’Cause if you want to carry on and everything, it’s okay with me.”
“I’m fine, Jesse.”
He gets up, and Ifer jumps up right after him.
“Take your plates,” says Joe.
Ifer dumps the cat on my lap. “Hold Buddha, Mrs. Marks. She’ll help you feel better. Like if you get cramps, she keeps you all warm like a heating pad.”
“Thank you.”
“Bye,” says Jesse.
“Bye,” echoes Ifer.
Joe waits until we hear the slam of the front door. “I talked to him,” he says, “about being so self-centered.”
“I can tell.”
The phone rings. Neither of us moves.
“I’m not getting it. I’m not talking to anyone, I don’t care who it is, I’m exhausted.”
Joe stretches back so his hand reaches from the dining room inside the kitchen to the wall phone. He can’t quite pick up the receiver, but manages to flip it off the hook and catch it. “Hello? Oh, hi, Madeline.”
“I’d better talk to her,” I say.
“Your sister’s right here.” He hands me the phone.
“Maddy, my God, are you all right? I’m so sorry you lost your part on the show. You must be so upset.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are?” I am caught up short. “How could you be fine?”
“They’re giving me a huge exit scene. Where I get to explode at my boss. I’m really going to have tape now.”
“What is tape?”
“Videotape, God! So I can show people how good I am.” There’s a beep on the line. “Ohmygosh, that’s probably my agent. He’s negotiating my settlement, hold on.”
I hang up. I sit at the table and resume eating cashew chicken. “I hung up,” I tell Joe.
“I see that.”
“I don’t have to hang on while she leaves me on hold.”
“I agree.”
The phone rings. I grab it. “Hello?”
“Did you hang up on me?”
“I am sick of call waiting, Madeline. It’s completely rude.”
“But I just got off for a second.”
“Joe and I are eating dinner, what do you want?”
“I need call waiting, Eve. Suppose there’s a crisis with my baby, how could they reach me?”
“Who?”
“The baby-sitter.”
“Your baby isn’t born yet.”
“Well, when it is, God.”
“Get a second number. Look, if you’re going to put me on hold, I’m going to hang up. I hate call waiting. You hear a beep, you say, ‘Hold on,’ meanwhile the person is sitting there like a dolt while you decide whether the new call is more important than the old one. Do you think I have nothing better to do than hold on? I’m in the middle of this Nixon party. It’s in ten days, I’m still dealing with the menu, and the mariachi band canceled. Do you think there’s nothing else going on in my life that I have time to hold on while you get your stupid phone calls?”
I slam down the receiver, crash back into my chair, and glare across the table at Joe.
The phone rings.
“I’m not answering.”
“Me neither,” says Joe.
Dimly I hear the machine pick up in Joe’s study. I strain to hear, attempting not to give the least indication of it, just folding my napkin over and over. “Hello, Eve, this is Angie calling—”
I dash for the study, jabbing my side into Joe’s desk as I race around it to the answering machine. “I’m here. Wait a second, I’ll turn this off.”
I try to find the Off button. I can’t figure out where it is, somewhere on the side of the machine. I can’t read the tiny lettering. I squint. I still can’t read. I hit a few buttons. Nothing happens.
“Sorry, Angie, I can’t figure out how to turn this thing off. Just talk anyway. How’s my father?”
“He’s fine.”
“Fine?”
Angie sighs. “It’s been a very long day. I’m not thinking anymore. Your father was such a sweetheart, I miss him.”
“Did he die? I thought he was fine.”
“He’s not dying. But between the fits—”
“Fits? He only had one.”
“So far. And the unpredictability. Oh, I miss your old dad.”
“You do?”
She bleats on. “He used to call me all the time from his room. ‘Don’t be mad at me, Angie,’ he’d say, when it was the fifth call and I was about to bust. I’ve still got some old messages of his. ‘Just checking in.’ Isn’t that sweet? Here’s another. ‘Georgia won the Pulitzer.’ He was so proud of your sister winning the Pulitzer and all. And he never complained about taking his pills. I never knew your father to hide a pill under his tongue.” Good for him, I think. Perhaps you would consider pouring an entire bottle of them down his throat.
She rattles on. “But I realize, now that he’s back from that Geriatric/Psychiatric place, we don’t have the staff to cope with him.”
“What?” I squeak.
“Could you hire a private nurse?”
“A private nurse? How much will that cost?”
“Twenty-five dollars an hour.”
“Are you kidding?”
She goes on.
I don’t hear anything she says. “Excuse me, what?”
“I can hire the nurse for you, if you write the check. You know, honey, you don’t have to do it right away. Take the weekend.”
“Does his Medicare cover it?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe this,” I say when I return to the dining room.
“What is it now?” Joe asks.
�
��First of all, Dad needs a private nurse. Second, I need glasses. I can’t read anything anymore. I can’t read the blasted words on the answering machine.”
“Everyone needs glasses after forty. Why should you be any different? I’ve worn them since I was five.” Joe throws his napkin down and walks into the living room.
Why should I be any different? Why should I be any different? Joe sits on the couch, picks up one of his weekly papers, and starts reading. I want to rip the newspaper out of his hand. Why should I be any different? That’s the whole point, Joe.
I can see the boy with the fist in his eye. He’s sitting in the chair across from Joe. He’s got his feet propped up on the coffee table. He’s making himself at home.
I stare at the back of Joe’s paper. Read, that will help. That will blot out your torturer. “Nursing Home Nurse Guilty of Murder.” Maybe Angie will take pity on my father and murder him. “Joe?”
“What, sweetheart?” He puts down the paper and gives me his complete attention.
“I ran out of my father’s room. I didn’t want to mention it when Jesse and Ifer were around. I freaked.”
“I’m sure it was frightening.”
“My father almost dies in front of me, and I flee?”
Joe shrugs.
“He had his fit right after I shouted that Lola was a lesbian. Did I give him the fit? Did I almost kill him?”
“Wait a minute.” Joe twirls his pen in the little rewind motion he makes to his engineer when he broadcasts. “You told him Lola was a lesbian?”
“Yes.”
Joe cracks up. He roars with laughter. He laughs so hard he has to wipe tears from his eyes.
“Joe, stop it, it’s not funny. Stop it.”
“You can’t expect to talk to your father as if he’s normal.”
“How would you know? You haven’t seen him.”
“Eve,” Joe says quietly, although he has to wait a beat so he doesn’t break up again, “I’ve offered to go before, and I will go with you to visit him tomorrow.”
“I’m not going tomorrow.” Omar wouldn’t laugh. He would listen and then he would say something warming, soothing, calming. “It is good you know a lesbian. I will tell my mother.” Something like that. “Good-bye, Joe.”
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere.”
I storm upstairs into our bedroom and stop dead, assessing the options. I zap on the TV. I change the channels. Zap, zap, zap. Finally I hit the news. Show me something or I zap you.
“In California’s Palm Desert today, a star high school basketball player collapsed on an outdoor court in hundred-four-degree heat and died.”
Maybe I could take my father out for a walk in the sun. Maybe I could walk him to death.
Joe appears in the doorway. “Take it easy, Eve.” He doesn’t say this sweetly. It’s an order.
I move my eyes back, over to the television. This feels exquisitely mean and satisfying, just to move my eyes and not acknowledge his statement even with a turn of my head. I hate you, Joe. I don’t say it. We have rules, boundaries. But I hate you.
Angie said to take the weekend. I do. I hole up in my office completing arrangements for the party. I don’t speak to Georgia or Madeline or the Jewish Home for the Aged. I take care of flowers—table arrangements of hyacinth and heather, daisy chains for the doorways, and single white roses for the women when they arrive. Kim and I design a program, Madge approves her welcoming speech. I love this part, going down to the wire, when I get to cross things off the list. Each detail is defined, manageable. Why can’t everything in life be planned, known, seamlessly executed like this party?
Well, I can try. On Monday I attack these messy family calls as if they were business.
“Maddy, Eve. Dad needs a private nurse or they’re going to ship him out. Medicare doesn’t cover it, so I’ll have his accountant pay the bill off his bank account. He may eventually run out of money, which means your baby won’t inherit anything, but unless you have another solution, that’s what I’m doing.”
“Fine.”
“Good-bye.”
“Georgia?”
“Eve, it’s almost over.”
“No, it isn’t. The doctor says he could go on like this—”
“I was talking about the anniversary issue. We’ve almost closed it. I dropped the article on eggplant. It was a tough decision, but you know, the other day I saw a menu that listed eggplant pizza, and I thought, There is entirely too much eggplant in the world. It was a gut reaction, but if I know nothing else, it’s that I have to go with my gut.”
“Dad needs a private nurse. Would you call his accountant and see how much money he has left in stocks and treasuries? And tell the accountant to expect nursing bills.”
“Absolutely, don’t worry about it. Anything I can do. My assistant will take care of it. Corinne’s a gem. You should have him sign a blank check.”
“Why?”
“Then you can withdraw everything from his checking account and we can use it. And in case he does die, we’ll have one less account to deal with.”
“A blank check?”
“Can you find one?”
“I suppose so.”
“Guess who we are putting on the cover of the tenth-anniversary edition of Georgia.”
“Who?”
“Georgia.”
“Who?”
“Me! Isn’t that daring? Corinne, pick up the phone.”
“Hi.”
“Hi, Corinne,” I say.
“I just told Eve, and she’s speechless.”
“That’s true.”
“Hang up now, Corinne.”
“Bye.”
“Bye, Corinne.”
I keep dialing. Sometimes, when I start I can’t stop. The mouth wants to talk. The body wants to feel the snug security of the receiver tucked between the ear and the shoulder. The whole self craves the high that comes from playing the phone. I press those buttons with amazing speed and dexterity, and then I connect. No matter for how long or with whom, talking on the phone quells my anxiety. Although it’s arguable that, when the hit is over, when I disconnect, the anxiety returns with greater force. Does the phone actually calm me down or rev me up? I don’t know the answer.
“Hello, Madge, this is Eve.”
“Wait, before you say anything, I have the most delicious idea. We should name all the food in honor of Richard Nixon. For example, Potato Puffs Charlene should be Potato Puffs Patricia. That will be so original.”
“It’s a wonderful idea.”
“But we’ll leave out the painful parts, I think, just dwell on the positive. China, his daughters, his love of music, and his roots.”
“Definitely. Madge, do you have the RSVP list handy, because there’s a doctor that I was wondering … I was wondering if this doctor is on it. His name is Kunundar. K-U-N-U-N-D-A-R.”
“Just a second, dear, I’ll look, is he a friend?”
“Well …”
“You don’t need to answer. I’m just being nosy.”
“He’s an acquaintance.”
“Well, he’s on the list. Omar.”
“He’s coming?”
“Well, he’s been invited.”
“Has he RSVP’d?”
“Thus far, he’s nonresponsive, but there are five days left, and I’m sure we’ll hear from him. Ear, nose, and throat doctors tend to be reliable. They’re more like dentists, really.”
“Well, thanks. As soon as you change the names on the menu, fax it to Kim.”
“Adrienne, you busy?”
“I’m making tea. And I’m having warm chocolate chip cookies. Hold it.”
I hear her refrigerator open and close. I know she has just poured the tea from her pink two-cup pot with the dancing lady on top. She bought it before she met Paul, when she thought she’d never meet her Paul, and she said that the dancing lady was her, all alone having a very good time. I know that right now Adrienne is adding so much milk that the t
ea turns a light tan. One of Adrienne’s gifts is to make everything more comforting, often more fattening.
“Ann Sothern,” she says.
“What about her?”
“That’s the actress, isn’t it?” She takes a moment to sip her tea. “Short, wide, with bangs.”
“No, it’s not. This one’s wimpier. Wifey, in a really fifties way, or is it forties, I’m not sure. Anyway, listen to this: Georgia is putting herself on the cover of her magazine for the tenth-anniversary edition.”
“Your sister is insatiable. Egomaniacal.”
“Driven. Oh my God, that’s it.”
“What?”
“The D word. ‘Driven.’ She’s doing an article on it and I couldn’t figure out what it was. She is really smart. I mean, everyone is using that word.”
“She’s not that smart. She’s like one of those pigs that hunts truffles. She’s always got her nose to the ground and eventually she comes up with something.”
“Adrienne, that’s mean.”
“You know what I’m saying.”
“A pig that hunts truffles. Adrienne, my God.”
“I’m just saying she’s very New York, and in New York everyone thinks they’re smarter than everyone else. Why do you suppose I live here? Have you kicked that girl out yet?”
“Who, Ifer? No. You know, she’s just like Maddy. I think we’re having an intelligent conversation, and then, bang, she mentions Ouija boards or reincarnation. Maddy’s always hitting me with ‘Take Dad to the sun.’”
Adrienne sighs. “It’s like Spanish television. I’m switching from channel to channel, looking for something to watch, and I think I’ve found a riveting black-and-white forties movie, and the next thing I know, everyone is speaking Spanish. I’m trying to do a cartoon called ‘Oops, Spanish Television,’ but I haven’t nailed it yet. I’d better go. I’ll talk to you soon. Say hi to Joe.”
