I shut my eyes. I don’t even want to know what she’s thinking.
“Jen…ifer, you’re talking about peoples’ homes. And the Gomezes are expecting another baby within a matter of minutes.”
“I bet you don’t even know what the property’s worth.”
“Since it hasn’t exactly been a top priority to find out…nope. Haven’t a clue.”
“Take a wild guess.”
You know, there really ougghta be a law about letting people like her loose this early. I’m thinking the next millennium would be good. But if I have any hope of her going away and letting me enjoy my despondency in peace, I might as well play along.
“Couple hundred thou?”
Her laugh—shrill and slightly maniacal—startles me. “Are you kidding? A duplex in this neighborhood, and with the improvements Grandfather made on it…you’re looking at four hundred grand, easy. Maybe even five.”
I refuse to let my jaw drop.
“Did you say…four hundred thousand dollars?”
“Maybe five.”
Even in my early morning stupor, I can translate that into half a million freakin’ dollars. Kinda takes the sting out of being pissed that the she-devil actually got one up on me.
“And any halfway decent Realtor,” Jen is saying, “would probably be able to unload that puppy in a snap. So what do you think?”
“About what?”
“Selling. Think of all the things you and Stella could do with that much money.”
“Who the hell is Stella?”
Jennifer laughs, a breathy, irritating tinkle. “Your daughter?”
My eyes narrow. “Her name is Starr.” Then they narrow farther. “And why are you getting so excited about what would be my money?”
You’d have to know Jennifer to catch the subtle signs, but since I do, I did. Her smile starts to droop, just slightly. And the merest hint of a crease appears between her brows. And she’s always had this habit, when she gets nervous, of rubbing the thumb and forefinger of her left hand together.
“Stuart lost his job,” she says in a low voice, her eyes averted, as if the shame is too much to bear. For a second, I feel a small swell of sympathy. It passes. Especially when this news is followed by, “And, I just thought, you know, if you did sell, that maybe we could get a small loan?”
Ah. “How about instead Stuart gets another job? Or better yet, how about you get a job?”
Jennifer lets the second part of my suggestion sail over her two-hundred-dollar highlights. “Believe me, he’s trying. With the economy the way it is, though…” Her lips thin. “And you wouldn’t believe some of the lowball figures he’s being offered. With no bonus. It’s absolutely outrageous. So we’re kind of strapped,” she says, crinkling her Michael Jackson nose. “But honestly, all we’d need is, say, a hundred grand to tide us over. And we’d pay it back with interest, you know we would—”
“A hundred grand! Are you out of your mind?”
“It’s just for few months, until Stuart finds a decent job.”
“Who the hell needs a hundred grand to tide them over? For a couple of months!”
“Your voice is getting all shrieky.”
“You bet your ass my voice is getting shrieky! If you and Stuart are having so much trouble, here’s an idea—why don’t you sell your freakin’ house?”
“We can’t do that! It’s our home!”
“And my tenants? Those aren’t their homes?”
“That’s different! They’re just renting, for God’s sake!”
“I somehow doubt they’d agree with you.”
Her mouth goes all thin. “So you won’t even consider it?”
“I didn’t make the will, Jennifer. Our grandfather did. If you’ve got a problem with it, you’ll have to take it up with him.”
“That would be a little difficult, considering he’s dead.”
“Keep this up, and it won’t be a problem.”
That gets a cartoon affronted gasp, immediately followed by slit eyes. And a very strange, I-know-something-you-don’t smile.
I should know better. But I say it anyway. “What?”
“You have no idea, do you?”
“About what?”
“Not what. Who. Sonja.”
Crap. I’d forgotten all about her. “You know who she is?”
“Oh, yeah. I know who she is, all right.” Jennifer puffs herself up. “She was Grandfather’s mistress.”
I let out a sigh. “That’s not exactly a shock, you know. I mean, Nana’s been gone for more than a dozen years—”
“Oh, nonononononono,” my sister says, waving her finger in front of me. “Sonja wasn’t after Nana. Sonja was during Nana.”
Wow. She’s just full of surprises this morning. “Are you sure?”
“I guess Nana never told you, did she?”
No, Jen and my grandmother were the best buds in the family, I always assumed because Jen was much more Judith Levine’s…type. So I guess it was only natural they shared the odd confidence now and again.
“So you’re telling me Nana came right out and said, ‘Oh, by the way, your grandfather’s screwing somebody named Sonja Koepke.’”
Jennifer looks pensive for a moment, then says, “Yeah, pretty much. Only she was much too much of a lady to say ‘screwing.’”
“Unlike her favorite granddaughter.”
“Fu—” She catches herself, practically turning purple from the effort of swallowing what she’d been about to say. Since it’s early and all, I would appreciate knowing where my sister’s going with this. But from years of experience, I know she’ll get there eventually. And it’s mildly amusing to watch how she works. But eventually, she tosses her hair—she’s such a cliché, I can’t stand it—and says, “Still think our grandfather’s the wonderful man you always thought he was?”
“You mean because Nana told you something that might not even be true?”
Her eyes go to ice again. “Sonja’s in the will, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is. Which reminds me—you wouldn’t have any idea how to get in touch with her, would you?”
“No!” She actually recoils. “And even if I did, why on earth would I want to hand over what should have been part of our inheritance to some woman who couldn’t even keep her hands off another woman’s husband?”
Whether I like it or not, my gut cramps. In the dictionary, next to the word “shrew,” is my grandmother’s picture. Or Jennifer’s, depending on what edition you have. If Leo really was cheating on her—and if Jennifer heard her name from our grandmother’s lips, there’s probably at least some truth to her accusation—I can’t really find it in my heart to condemn him. Yet still, it stings, that he didn’t trust me to even mention her, not once in the twelve years since my grandmother’s death.
But I can’t take my frustration and anger out on Leo, because he’s not here.
My sister, however—my vindictive, hateful, always-looking-for-ways-to-get-a-dig-in sister—is.
“Get out,” I say quietly.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
She grabs her purse—Kate Spade, what else?—and impales me with her gaze. “I cannot believe you’re being this rude when I’m only trying to be helpful, for God’s sake—”
I grab her arm, which provokes a satisfying yelp. “Honey, you wouldn’t know helpful if it bit you in your Pilated butt. You think helpful is coming around and stirring up trouble—”
“That’s not true!”
“—and then you look at my daughter like she’s a puddle of something disgusting on the subway platform, you don’t even bother to speak to her until she forces the issue, and you’re calling me rude?”
Jen jerks her arm from my grip and flounces out of the kitchen and down the hall in a flurry of natural fibers, yanks open the front door and stomps down the stairs, beeping her Beemer unlocked from twenty feet away. I follow, because I’m obviously still not awake, so I’m right in th
e line of fire when she turns and says, “You know, Nana was right. You’re just like our mother, nothing but a two-bit, dumb-as-dirt Southern hick!”
The car is too polite to actually roar when she guns the engine and shoots down the street, but I get the idea.
Starr comes up behind me, watching Jen’s vapor trail.
“Geez. What’s her problem?”
“Beats me, honey,” I say, trying to control the shaking. Then we go inside and gorge on donuts until we almost make ourselves sick.
I finally get around to sorting through Leo’s things that afternoon. Frances and Jason have come over to help, turning what could have easily been a morbid activity into, well, something less morbid. I’d like to say I’m over my set-to with my sister, but her words cut deeper than I’d thought they could. Especially after all this time.
I never quite understood the enmity my grandmother felt toward my mother, who might have been Southern but was no hick, believe me. And God knows, she wasn’t dumb. Maybe it was because my mother was about as goyish as you could get. Or maybe it was because Judith was simply jealous of my mother, that she couldn’t stand seeing her son’s loyalties diverted. Because there was no doubt Dad adored Mom. As she did him. But whatever my grandmother thought of Connie Griffith Levine, she knew to keep her trap shut about her in front of my father. I even heard him say, one time when I was supposed to be asleep but had crept out to the landing because I heard them arguing, that he hadn’t married my mother to please Nana, but to please himself. And if she couldn’t deal with that, that was just too damn bad.
In her place, I would’ve been thrilled to know my son had found someone to make him so happy. Not to mention I can only hope Starr has half the guts her grandfather had, to go after what she wants, as well as the courage to defend her choices, no matter what. But that’s just me.
And here’s hoping I remember that the first time Starr brings home somebody that makes my heart drop into my shoes.
“God,” Frances says, dumping a load of boxes on the floor. She’s in jeans and a ratty old brown sweater, she’s not wearing a drop of makeup, her hair’s a mess, and she’s gorgeous. “Could this room be any gloomier?”
I’ve lifted both sets of blinds and tied back the sheers, but it’s still murky in here. Forget what I said about letting in the spring sunshine, since it started raining—a miserably cold deluge—right after Jen left and hasn’t let up since. Frances turns on every light in the room, including the overhead, so now everything’s a pale urine color. I could do without the interrogation room ambiance, but I’m not about to argue with someone who’s volunteered to go through an old man’s underwear, for Pete’s sake. Some of which I’m convinced predates the New Deal.
Two hours later, although our conversation’s been pretty much limited to the occasional “What do you want to do with this?” or “You think this is worth hanging on to?” we’ve made good progress. Everything’s been sorted into three groups: the few things I want to keep; the stuff that should’ve been tossed ten years ago; and the rest into boxes and bags for Frances to take to her church’s thrift store, a task she’s undertaken for my family four times in fifteen years.
But we don’t mention that.
However, it hasn’t all been morose. As Starr and I agreed, many of the items sparked an impromptu memorial, which more often than not got the two of us laughing, much to Frances’s obvious relief. The idea of giving most of Leo’s possessions away to strangers doesn’t seem to bother my daughter at all. In fact, she’s only keeping a trinket or two that sat on his dresser, as well as his watch and a pair of silver and onyx cufflinks I’d given him when I was ten. I tell her we can have them made into earrings one day, if she likes.
I, on the other hand, have held back a tweed sportjacket, all the sweaters the moths haven’t half devoured and two pairs of nearly new corduroy pants we’d just gotten for him at Christmas.
After Jason hauls off the first box of clothes for the thrift store, Starr climbs up onto Leo’s bed, slowly inspecting my choices.
“How come you wear men’s clothes so much?”
Frances looks over, clearly interested in what my answer’s going to be. Especially as I’m still wearing the same cardigan I’ve been in all week. Yes, because it still smells of my grandfather and it’s helping me to ease into the idea of his not being here. I’m well aware of what I’m doing. And why I’m doing it.
“Because they’re comfortable. And wearing Leo’s or Grandpa’s clothes helps me remember them. But I don’t just wear men’s clothes, I wear my grandmother’s, too, you know.”
Which might seem odd, considering my relationship with her. But hey—I can’t fault the woman’s taste. And we were close to the same size. It seemed a shame to just toss them simply because of a few negative association issues. Besides, I have a real strong feeling she’d pop her girdle if she knew I was wearing her duds. A good reason if ever there was one to strut around in them from time to time.
“You should wear that pretty red dress,” Starr now says. “The one with the big skirt.” She means one of my grandmother’s fifties outfits from when she was still in her twenties, a cranberry duppione silk I will cherish until the day I die. “You look like a girl in it.”
Again with the girl stuff. Although I notice her obsession seems to be focused on me, not on herself. “Question—how come I have to look like a girl and you don’t?”
“Because you’re the mommy,” Starr says, with a is-she-slow-or-what? glance at Frances.
“Frances is a mommy. Why doesn’t she have to wear dresses?”
“Because she looks just as pretty in pants.”
Ouch.
“Hey,” Frances says, her chin lowered as she points at my daughter. “You watch your mouth, little girl. Your mommy looks just fine the way she is.”
But Starr lets out one of those sighs that lifts her shoulders several inches. Clearly, we don’t get it. Although someday, I suppose I’d better make an effort to get it.
My cell rings. I find it under one of the piles, frowning when I see my work number. Have you ever noticed how you’re allowed exactly one week to recoup from a family death—especially when it’s a “routine” death, like that of an aged relative—after which you’re expected to buck up and get on with your life? Or rather, on with whoever’s life your personal problems have disrupted?
Nikky gave me seven days exactly. And showered me with sympathy—not to mention flowers and a fruit basket—during that official grieving period. But now we’re on Day Nine, in which case my sorrow is now on her time.
“Hello, darling,” she says, her voice laced with I-don’t-mean-to-prod-but-where-the-hell-are-you? kindness. “Just calling to see how you’re doing.”
“Oh…I’m getting there.”
“Any idea when you might be coming back?”
“Soon,” is my oblique answer. Funny how I was okay with this job until Mari dangled the other one under my nose. However, since that’s now moot, and this is the job I still have, and need, it’s not as if I can afford to blow it off. And I do miss the city. But the fact is, I’m not ready to go back to that madhouse and I don’t know when I will be. So there. “I still have to arrange for child care.” Starr’s eyes dart to mine, accusing.
“Child care?”
“For my daughter?” Okay, fine, maybe I don’t litter every conversation with the kid, but it’s not as if I’ve never mentioned her, for God’s sake. I walk over to the window, out of earshot. “She’s only five,” I say in a low voice, “and since her grandfather was her main caregiver when I wasn’t around, this might not be the easiest transition.”
“Oh, kids are more resilient than we sometimes give them credit for,” Nikky says brightly. “Look at my two—they’ve had nannies and caregivers from the time they were babies, and they turned out just fine.”
What’s sad is that she really believes that. “That may be, but I’m not going to rush things. Of course, if it’s really a problem and you n
eed to find someone to replace me—”
“No, no!” A nervous twitter tickles my ear. “Take all the time you need, dear. We’ll just…muddle through as best we can until you return. But keep me posted, will you? And by the way…I have a surprise for you.”
“Oh? What?” Another Return To Vendor shipment, no doubt, that she wants me to convince a department manager or buyer to take back.
“You’ll see. Just as soon as you come back.”
Then she hangs up. I stand there, staring at the phone, vaguely aware that Starr’s gone off with the returned Jason, leaving me with Frances. Who takes the phone from me and sets it aside, then gently pulls me down to sit on the edge of the bed with her, looping an arm around my shoulder. “Do you really need to go back there?”
“I need the money. Not to mention Manhattan.”
She ignores the second part of my sentence. “The rent money from next door isn’t enough?”
“Barely. And some of that goes back into maintenance, of course. But I don’t know…” I look at her. “My sister was here the other day, did you know?”
Her eyes widen. “Jennifer? You’re kidding?”
“Nope.”
“God. It’s been, what? Eight or nine years?”
“Ten. She was trying to figure out a way to somehow circumvent the will so I could sell the rental house.”
“Why? It was left to you, not her.”
“Ah, but she thinks if I sell, she can get a loan.” I explain the whole business about Stuart losing his job, etc., watching as Frances’s mouth gets increasingly thinner. Then she blows out a harsh breath.
“That girl always was a piece of work. If I hadn’t had six kids of my own, so I know how different siblings’ personalities can be, I’d swear one of you was switched in the hospital. And my money’d be on Jennifer.” Frances stands, hauling one of the boxes up onto the bed to tape it closed. “Anyway, there’s no way the will can be broken, right?”
“Not according to the lawyer. Is it true, though, that the houses are worth around four hundred thou a piece?”
Hanging by a Thread Page 18
