What Nora Knew

by Yellin, Linda

  I love my sisters dearly; I just can’t believe we came out of the same womb.

  My father sawed into his steak and tasted his first bite. The boys wrangled over the ketchup bottle. My mother poured lemonade into everyone’s plastic cup from a Minute Maid carton. Jocelyn checked her watch. She’s always checking her watch, even when she has nowhere to go. “Perfect!” my father said.

  “Overcooked,” Shirley said. “You’ve got the palate of a corpse.”

  “Best steak I’ve ever made,” he said. When it comes to his mother-in-law, he also has the hearing of a corpse.

  Six months earlier my grandmother moved into independent living. She’s in a building on the water that looks like a Civil War plantation with big white columns. Lisa particularly loves it. The only reason my grandmother even considered such a lifestyle change was because she got into a huge fight with her former building’s condominium association over their choice of new lobby wallpaper and taught them all a lesson by selling her place and moving out. She also complains about the food at independent living. “Last night dry salmon, and now this,” she said, snatching the ketchup out of Tate IV’s hand. The boys wolfed down frankfurters. Travis dropped a spoonful of potato salad on the ground. Tate IV spilled his lemonade. My mind wandered to Deirdre, wondering if she was reading my article over the weekend. And if I’d still have a job after the weekend.

  “Can we go swim now?” Travis asked.

  “Yeah, I’m done!” Tate IV said, pushing back his plate while my mother mopped the lemonade spill.

  “Wanna come swim, Aunt Molly?” Travis said.

  “No thanks, sweetie. The pool’s a little snug.”

  “Why don’t you work on your Father’s Day cards for Grandpa?” Lisa said.

  “Let them swim,” my mother said.

  “Aren’t they supposed to wait an hour?” Lisa’s hair was done up in a French twist, the hairdo she’d adopted when she moved South. Her tank top was pink, her shorts lime green; she only wears pastels. The life of a Southern belle suits her.

  “That’s an old wives’ tale,” my mother said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure! Do you think I’d send my own grandsons to their deaths?”

  “Okay,” Lisa said. The boys ran off in the direction of the pool with Lisa calling after them, “Don’t drown!”

  “The boys are lovely,” my mother said.

  “The cutest,” I said.

  “Wild Indians,” my grandmother said.

  “Grandma, have you made friends at your new place?” Lisa asked. We are all careful not to use the word home.

  “It’s dog-eat-dog in there,” she said. “A man with a pulse isn’t halfway unpacked before those women are all over him batting their cataracts and clucking their dentures.”

  “Maybe you’ll meet a boyfriend,” I said.

  “Forget it. Any man I’d meet in that place would be a saggy old geezer. And I don’t believe in settling.”

  “What have you got against companionship?” my mother asked.

  My grandmother made a harrumph sound. “If I want a companion, I’ll buy a dog.”

  I said, “Grandma, what’s wrong with a mature relationship between two adults who respect each other and enjoy each other’s company? I think it’s smarter to look for long-term values.”

  “I’m eighty-four years old. Screw long-term values. Unless someone delivers on the bells and whistles, who needs it?”

  “I agree,” Jocelyn said. She was wearing a pantsuit and pearls, which might be all you need to know about my sister Jocelyn.

  “Well, you shouldn’t agree,” Shirley said. “You need to get laid.”

  “Mother!” my mother said.

  “Grandma!” my sister said.

  “But once you do get laid,” my grandmother told her, “hold out for romance. Everything else you can get from a friend.”

  “Tate’s very romantic,” Lisa said. “Just the other night he gave me a neck rub.”

  “You’ve got a six-year-old boy giving you neck rubs?” my grandmother said.

  “My husband Tate,” Lisa said. “Tate the Third.”

  “Ridiculous Southern names,” my grandmother said.

  “Anyone want more steak?” my father asked.

  “Well, I don’t plan to settle,” Jocelyn said. She checked her watch. “I want a man who cherishes me.”

  “Maybe you should go on Match,” Lisa said. “You aren’t going to meet anyone on Long Island.”

  “There are plenty of men on Long Island,” Jocelyn said.

  “Married men,” I said.

  “I wonder if you and I would have been paired on Match,” my mother said to my dad. They were sitting side by side. She elbowed him and smiled like a schoolgirl.

  “Absolutely,” my father said, “as soon as I wrote ‘searching for a woman who can decoupage.’ ”

  “Ziggy Grossman was the most romantic man I ever met,” my grandmother said. “Started every morning by making me breakfast. Two fried eggs and buttered toast.”

  “Oh, that is romantic,” Lisa said. “Up until the day he died?”

  “Up until my cholesterol went to hell.”

  “Sid took me to see a romantic movie the other night,” my mother said. “Bridesmaids.” My dad chuckled. My mother did not. Anyone other than my father could tell she was being sarcastic.

  “I heard it’s amusing,” Jocelyn said.

  “I want to see it,” I said.

  “I saw it,” Lisa said. “It’s not for children.”

  My mother clasped her heart. It would have been a lovely gesture if a tiny glob of potato salad wasn’t on her index finger. “Nobody makes great romantic comedies anymore,” she said. “I saw Desk Set on TV last week. Did you know it was written by Nora Ephron’s parents?”

  “Never heard of it,” Lisa said. “Travis, don’t splash!”

  “A darling movie,” my mother said. “Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.”

  My grandmother flapped her hand like she was swatting a bug. “They were both ancient in that movie. The two of ’em half-dead.”

  “Katharine wears the most beautiful dresses,” my mother said. “How do you suppose somebody working in a research library could afford those dresses? Or a New York apartment with a working fireplace?”

  “You realize we’re talking about a movie, right?” I said. “Make-believe?”

  “Everyone in it’s happy. Nothing’s raunchy. Nothing’s crude. Gig Young was dating Katharine Hepburn for seven years and they never had sex.”

  “Says who?” my grandmother said.

  “It was the fifties, they weren’t allowed to have sex,” my mother said.

  “Were you allowed to be gay in the fifties?” Jocelyn asked.

  “Katharine bought Gig Young a bathrobe for Christmas,” my grandmother said. “You don’t buy someone a robe if you aren’t having sex with them.”

  “Grandma, you buy me robes all the time,” Lisa said.

  My mother snapped the lid shut on the coleslaw container. “Well, anything Judd Apatow produces is raunchy, not romantic, like in Nora’s movies.”

  “Julie & Julia shows older people having sex,” my father said.

  “She implies it, she doesn’t show it,” my mother said.

  “Stanley Tucci I could enjoy seeing naked,” my grandmother said. “Spencer Tracy, no.”

  We cleared the table and my mother brought out a decorated cake from Stop & Shop; the boys scrambled out of the pool and sang “Happy Father’s Day, Dear Grandpa” and gave my dad the cards they hadn’t finished drawing. Dad opened the same gifts he opens every year. Aftershave he doesn’t wear. Golf sweaters he doesn’t need. And two dozen Ping-Pong balls that would end up stored in the basement with the supersize ketchup bottles and corn flakes. My father got all misty-eyed, said a few words about the greatest joy in a man’s life was being surrounded by his family. He stood, lifted his lemonade glass, and made a toast. “To the mother of my chi
ldren,” he said, turning to the mother of his children. “The reason we’re celebrating today.” She looked up at him with such adoration. “Bitsy, you gorgeous broad you,” he said. “I’ve loved you since I first set eyes on you. I don’t need romantic movies. You are the star of the movie of my life.” He leaned over and kissed her as Travis shoved a handful of cake into his brother’s face.

  * * *

  The passengers on the train back to Manhattan were carrying Tupperware containers, foil packages, and bulging plastic grocery bags. I turned down my mother’s offer to wrap some slaw to take home. I was carrying my purse and The Great Gatsby. After transferring at Jamaica, I jaggedly swayed through the cars, gripping seatbacks for balance, as the train rumbled beneath my steps. In the rush for seats, I’d flunked out.

  “This taken?” I mimed to a guy silently bobbing his head, wired to his iTunes, sitting next to a gym bag. He pretended to doze off. I kept walking. Someday I’ll write my opinion of people who hog train seats with backpacks.

  Going home had felt good. My family has its share of wackiness, but I consider them my emotional landing place, the one constant in a constantly changing terrain. I thought about my parents and my father’s toast and how it must feel to star in the movie of someone’s life. To experience that much love. That much acceptance. I spotted two open seats in the front of the car, across from one another on opposite sides of the aisle. Over one I saw a poster advertising Lipitor, how it was good for your heart. Over the other, Cameron Duncan’s latest crime novel, along with a photo of him, grinning that off-center grin of his. Even in a photograph I felt as if he were looking right through me in a way that made me shiver. I chose the seat beneath the drug.

  9

  EyeSpy is in an office building built over a hundred years ago, back when news reporters sat around playing cards while waiting for the ticker tape, versus now when we sit around playing Angry Birds while waiting for coffee break. The building’s tenants are doctors, shrinks, lawyers, and CPAs. If you see someone walk into the lobby wearing blue jeans, you know they’re going to our office; we’re the only creative occupants. Unless there’s some creative accounting going on with those CPAs. The lobby boasts marble walls, a soaring ceiling, gold chandeliers; but it all adds up to dingy because of the gloomy lighting. The small newsstand across from the elevators provides the one bastion of decent light. It’s also where I buy my weekly box of Tic Tacs.

  “Must be Monday!” Mr. Pupko greeted me. He’s my pal. Grumbly, with a beer-barrel chest. When he’s not ringing up chewing gum and magazine sales, he sits behind the counter doing the crossword puzzle in the New York Post and making inappropriate comments like “What’s a four-letter word for great ass?”

  “How was your Father’s Day?” I asked.

  “Good.”

  “How’s your wife?”

  “Good.”

  “How’s your bad knee?”

  “Bad.”

  I was about to pay for my Tic Tacs when I looked over and noticed Cameron Duncan exiting an elevator, squinting at his phone and hurrying toward the newsstand. I wanted to duck behind a—Well, there was nothing to duck behind unless I wanted to hide under Mr. Pupko, and I sure wasn’t about to do that. Damn, I thought. Maybe Cameron had a therapist in the building; running into me could be totally embarrassing for him.

  “Molly!” he said, looking up from his phone. “I was hoping I’d run into you.”

  “Really?” Maybe he was with a lawyer. “At a candy stand?”

  He picked up a Daily News, opened it to the back, and flipped through the sports pages. “Missed the game last night.”

  “Busy?”

  “You can’t imagine.”

  I imagined something blond, brunette, or redhead.

  He folded back the paper, skimmed a page, then happily pumped his fist. “Yes! Thank you, Miguel Cairo.”

  “Reds fan?” Mr. Pupko asked, looking up from his puzzle.

  “You bet,” Cameron said.

  Mr. Pupko grunted.

  “Is Miguel Cairo your favorite baseball player?” I asked Cameron.

  “He is today. He hit a two-run homer.”

  “But what about the days he doesn’t hit a homer?” I glanced down. Cameron was wearing loafers without socks. I like loafers without socks. Loafers without socks are sexy.

  “I like him those days, too,” he said.

  Mr. Pupko was making change for a man buying a Forbes and Juicy Fruit. The man took four pennies from the take-a-penny-leave-a-penny dish. Mr. Pupko grunted again.

  “I read your restaurant review,” Cameron said.

  “What did you think?”

  “Rather scathing on the brisket.”

  “Well, don’t use my name if you call for a reservation.”

  Brady the cloud administrator dashed in and bought a pack of Marlboros. “Hey, Molly,” he said.

  “Hey, Brady,” I said. “Those’ll stunt your growth, y’know.”

  Brady is six feet four.

  He paid for his cigarettes and dashed out, calling over his shoulder, “See you upstairs.”

  Cameron checked his watch. “I’ve gotta go, too,” he said. “I guess I should pay for this newspaper now that I’ve mangled it. What are you buying? My treat.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “No, really. I insist. What were you getting?”

  “Tic Tacs.” The only thing worse would’ve been if I were buying a pack of condoms. “I buy them for the flavor,” I said.

  “Really? I buy them for my breath. Make it two!” he said to Mr. Pupko. He handed me my Tic Tacs. “Now we’ll both be kissable.”

  “Bye, Cameron.”

  “Bye, Molly.”

  After he left, Mr. Pupko said, “What’s a four-letter word for horny?”

  * * *

  Deirdre walked into my cubicle and, despite her perfume, caught me off guard. I was wearing my headphones, waiting for my computer to boot, and leaning over to stuff my purse into my file drawer when I saw her from the feet up in a pair of high-heeled wedgie platforms.

  “Deirdre! Hi! Sorry.” I sat up straight, tugging off my headphones. She wasn’t smiling. She was gripping a handful of paper. Whatever she wanted, it didn’t involve a raise, a promotion, or a column. “Nice weekend?”

  Okay. That was inane. She didn’t come into my cubicle to chat. She’d have sat down if she wanted to chat and she was still standing. I felt uncomfortably aware of her eye level above my eye level. Her breasts at my face level. Deirdre looking down at me like a disappointed parent.

  “Molly, what can I say?”

  “About what?” But I knew what.

  “I believed you could pull this off. That you could handle a bigger opportunity, bring a different dimension to EyeSpy.”

  “But I didn’t?” I honestly thought I’d done a good job.

  “This lacks sparkle,” Deirdre said, holding up the sheets of paper.

  “Sparkle?”

  “And edge.”

  “Edge?”

  “And any sense of magic or hope.”

  “Hopeless?”

  She read aloud from my article. “ ‘Men who easily say I love you may not love you at all. Darling is a euphemism for “I forgot your name.” Is there a one? Don’t ask that question when it’s closing time in a bar.’ Molly, this is the first piece you’ve written that I have to reassign.” She continued reading. “ ‘Some people never find the one. No, they prefer one option after another.’ ” Deirdre let out a long, rueful breath.

  “I can still work on it, maybe the structure’s off,” I said. “I can interview more couples.”

  “Structure’s fine. Information’s all here,” she said. “You just don’t have a grasp for romance. You’re too detached.”

  Emily’s head rose up like a big ol’ smiling man in the moon. “Oh, Deirdre!” she said as if surprised to see her. “Anything you need?”

  10

  Braless, in a cotton sundress, wearing fishnet stockin
gs and high heels, my hair clipped with barrettes, I was trying to look like Eva Mendes as a prostitute. I’d hauled out the good china, lit a couple of candles, and downloaded the entire sound track from Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call—New Orleans. And Russell still hadn’t guessed I was creating a romantic dinner the way I figured Eva and Nicolas Cage would’ve had a romantic dinner if a cop and a whore had bothered to have such a dinner in Bad Lieutenant. I didn’t know how to make a National Treasure dinner, short of decorating the room with cash, but I’d gone to all this trouble to give my boyfriend a romantic fantasy. And to prove to myself that Deirdre was wrong. I wasn’t detached. I did have a grasp on romance.

  We’d finished the gumbo and were eating the crab cakes and the Cajun chicken I’d brought home from Citarella’s. “Do you like the music?” I asked Russell.

  “Sure, it’s great.”

  “Like the chicken?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  “It’s Cajun. Like they serve in New Orleans.”

  “Great chicken,” he said. He had his tie tucked into his shirt.

  I was about to polish off my crab cake but set my fork down and asked, “Russell, do you consider me romantic?”

  He paused midchicken. “In what way?”

  “In a romantic way.”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “Well, for starters, I’m dressed like a prostitute and you haven’t noticed.”

  He leaned closer. “I thought your hair was different.”

  “How do you like eating by candlelight?”

  “It’s fine if it makes you happy.”

  “It’s supposed to make us happy.”

  “Candles are for women.”

  “Women?”

  “Sure. A woman will light candles in her bedroom. A woman will take a bath and light candles. No guy would do that.”

  “You’ve had girlfriends who take baths with candles?”

  “No comment.”

  “Did you take baths with them?”

  “We’re talking about candles.”

  “We’re talking about romance. I lack sparkle! Magic! I’m trying to fix that.”