There would be a small, graveside funeral for him. Some of his friends came over afterward, but we’d had enough of funerals so it wouldn’t be the elaborate function we had for my grandparents. We’d had enough of funerals.
After that, besides the sound of the phone ringing, you could have heard a pin drop in the house. Mom didn’t want to talk on the phone. I was to tell people, “She’s indisposed right now,” and even though I didn’t know what the word indisposed meant, I said it anyway.
There was no more dancing on the linoleum in the kitchen. No more home movies made. Later, when I asked Mom to buy me some prune juice, she looked at me cockeyed. Babysitters started coming to the house on Saturday nights. None of them wanted to play bridge. I’ve totally forgotten how to play.
Sometime after they died, I wondered if maybe I was sort of making them more than they were. I tried to remember their worst moments. My grandmother could be really annoying. As I’ve said, she had (has) this high-pitched nasal voice and everything that comes out of her mouth sounds more like a question or a demand than a statement. My grandfather was (is) a quiet man. It might have just been that my grandmother was always talking over him though. Maybe he was a real talker before he met my grandmother. Really, though, he was just an even-keeled guy who worked as an accountant and brought home the bacon (or dance shoes, as it were). Maybe it was weird that uncle Morris never got married or never even had a serious girlfriend and lived next door to my grandparents. I knew all those excuses were crap though. They were (are) three of the greatest people I’ll ever know, possibly the greatest, because, no matter what their flaws were, those people knew how to live, and seeing them again, even in death, it still couldn’t be more true.
Now you know why that last night with my family sticks out as the third best day. Now you know why I love snapper soup and the play Annie.
It was the last time I’d have five parents instead of two. It was the last time everyone talked over one another and laughter and dancing existed in our house instead of silence.
It was the last time I’d ever be the miracle child.
Dear Alice in Heaven
"Grandmom?” I say with tears in my eyes as she picks up the phone.
"Al, what’s the matter?” she asks, frantic.
“What’s the matter?” I hear Grandpop ask in the background. This is the way conversations have always been on the phone my grandparents. Everything has to be repeated to Grandpop. Why he never picks up an extension, I’ll never know. I’m used to it though.
“Nothing, I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Al, I’m worried about you. This essay is too much for you. Do you want Grandpop to come over and write it with you? He’s always been good with a pen.”
“I’ll leave right now,” I hear him say.
“No, that’s okay. I just finished the part where you die. It just made me sad and I needed to hear your voice.”
“And that’s the best day of your life?” she raises her voice, offended.
“What’d she say?” I hear Grandpop ask in the background.
“She put our deaths in her essay test as one of the best days of her life!”
“No, I didn’t,” I have to repeat three times so she’ll hear me. “It’s not about your deaths, it’s about the last great night we spent together.”
“Oh,” she says, adding to Grandpop, “our dying wasn’t one of the best days of her life, my mistake.”
“Oh,” I hear him say.
“Gram?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“Do you think that I could come over tomorrow night and we can all play bridge?”
“Sure we can. I just have to make sure that uncle Morris isn’t busy, but you can count on it. On second thought, why don’t you invite Adam?”
“Oh,” I think quickly, “he’s got plans.”
“Who’s he got plans with?”
“Who’s he got plans with?” Grandpop repeats.
“His great-great-grandfather. They’re going fishing.”
“Okay, then I’ll call uncle Morris.”
“Thanks, Gram, and can we have prune juice?”
“Of course we can. A bottle just showed up in my refrigerator this morning.”
“And can we watch Mildred Pierce?”
“Will that make you feel a little better?” she coos.
“Yes.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. Anything for our Alex.”
“Thanks, Gram. This is just hard stuff,” I say, wiping my tears.
“You’ll get through it, sweetheart, and just know we’re always here for you no matter what plane of heaven you’re on.”
“Promise?”
“We’re always here for you. What are your plans for today? Why don’t you go into town or something? You haven’t even seen anything since you got here.”
“Oh, I am, actually. I’m going to meet Alice Oppenheim. She was Mom’s friend.”
“Alice Oppenheim?”
“What about Alice Oppenheim?” Grandpop asks.
“She’s meeting Alice Oppenheim for lunch.”
“Where’d she meet her?”
“Where’d you meet her?”
“I called her on the phone.”
“You called her on the phone?” Grandmom repeats like it’s the strangest thing she’s ever heard. “How’d you get her number?”
“The operator, 411.”
“You can do that?” she asks, mystified, as she repeats, “The operator gives phone numbers!”
“How else do you think you get phone numbers, Evelyn?” Grandpop asks, starting yet another fight between the bickering Firesteins.
“I never heard of such a thing.”
“What do you mean?” he asks. “How do you get your phone numbers?”
“I have my address book. People give me numbers.”
“But what if you needed a number that no one gave to you?”
“It’s never happened before.”
Can you imagine what this woman would have gone through had she lived with the Internet? Forget universal remotes.
“I’m actually going to be late, but I’ll call you later,” I interrupt.
“Wait, what’s the number for the operator?” Grandmom asks.
“It’s 411!” Grandpop and I scream at the same time.
“And this is where I get the phone numbers?”
I have to hang up. I’d shoot her if I didn’t love her so much— that, and she’s already dead.
“I have to go, Gram. I’ll tell Alice you said hi,” I say, but she doesn’t hear me.
“For Christ’s sake Evelyn,” I hear Grandpop say. “You dial 411 and the operator asks you the name of the person you’re looking for . . .”
I hang up.
“And so if I write a good essay they’ll let me stay here in seventh heaven, and if I don’t, they’ll send me down to fourth heaven with no Adam, or bedroom for a closet, and I’ll have to make reservations for dinner,” I tell Alice, wiping my tears while grabbing a french fry from my steak frites.
Alice’s eyes had been focused on me like I was telling her the most incredible story she’s ever heard. Her mouth gapes open. She pauses and takes a deep breath.
“Do you understand? You’re like . . . you’re like a rock star! All the famous people are in fourth heaven!”
“Who?” I asked, perplexed.
“OMG,” she said, literally saying the letters O, M, G. “Jimi Hendrix and Elvis and Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison and Billie Holiday and Judy Garland. It’s a party down there every single night!”
“Didn’t all those people die from drug overdoses?”
“Did they? Well, they sure played some great music. Fourth is a really cool place to be.”
“But I don’t want to go down to fourth heaven. I want to stay up in seventh!” I started to cry again.
This was a mistake, meeting this girl. This girl seems like one of the most immature people in heaven.
Fi
rst of all, she told me just to get in my car and say the words, “French restaurant in town.” Well, there are like eight French restaurants in town! I had to get back in the darn Porsche and go, “Next French restaurant in town.” I went through all eight French restaurants until I finally found the one she was talking about. Luckily, there’s no such thing as parking meters up here and there’s always a space in front or else I would have gone ballistic.
So, I arrive a half hour late, and no Alice. Twenty minutes later, just as I was getting really annoyed, a young woman came in. She spoke to the waitress, who escorted her to a table across the room. Not Alice, I assumed, right? Another twenty minutes go by and I realize that it is Alice across the room. The idiot girl asked for Alex Firestein, my mother’s maiden name. She thought it was the funniest thing when I finally asked her who she was, after watching her eat three baskets of bread by herself. What a moron. She’s cute though. Nice figure—I’d say a solid size six. She’s wearing white Juicy sweats, a white tank, and a white knit three-quarter-length sweater jacket, probably DKNY. I’m in my black leggings and an Alexander McQueen plaid miniskirt, black Robert Clergerie boots, and a black long-sleeved T-shirt. We look like yin and yang, and I feel like our personalities are the same way.
“Look,” she says, taking my hand. “I know it seems like the worst thing in heaven that you might have to go down a few planes, but really it’s all heaven, all of it is good. All the material stuff is great and everything, but on any plane in heaven, the feeling of being loved, of knowing that you did a good job, is what’s important. That’s what heaven is all about.”
She’s throwing her hands all around like she’s saying something mystical.
“I just feel like I’m being punished.” I start to cry again. “And for what? It’s not like I did anything so awful.”
“First things first. Why are you assuming that you’re not going to pass this test? Jeez, you’re such a downer,” she says, taking some of my fries. “I’ve seen this happen before. I was a guardian angel for years, you know.”
“And did the person you watched over pass the test?” I ask.
“Oh no, the person I was watching is still alive. I’m just saying I knew someone who had to take the test. He didn’t pass, and the guy lives on the fourth plane, but he gets to hear some great music.”
This girl is of no help.
“Wait, why were you a guardian angel?”
“Well, when I got up here, I had no family. I was only sixteen, you know. I had some great-grandparents, but they really weren’t my scene. I was sad for a time that I died when I did. You know, I never fell in love or got married or got to have children of my own. I just wanted to experience all of that, so I signed up to see life on earth. It was fun. I got this girl from Chicago. It was the 1960s and man, did we go to some great places. That’s how I know all those great musicians.”
“What ever happened to her?”
“Sheila? Oh, she’s great. She got into the women’s movement in the 1970s and then she met this guy and fell in love and they moved to Dallas. She’s got three kids now. I think she might even have a grandchild. I stopped looking after her when I turned twenty-five and someone else took over my angel duties. My mother died then, and I wanted to be with her. My brother, Butch, died a few years ago, so most of my family is back intact. I got to see Sheila fall in love and have a child. It was really beautiful, and I got to see what life would have been like. It was really worth it.”
“So you don’t regret dying young?” I ask her.
She pauses and thinks about it for a second.
“You know what I’m pissed off about?” she kind of whispers, leaning over the table and looking right into my eyes. “I’m pissed off that I didn’t get a chance to change the world. I’m really pissed that I didn’t get to be part of the women’s movement. It was amazing what all those women were doing, equality and all that. In my time, it was all about the men. I wanted to burn a bra so badly.”
I think she’s done, but she’s not.
“Anyway,” she says, taking a breath, “that’s also when I decided I didn’t need to age anymore. I like being thirty. Thirty is kind of that point when you’re still considered young but you get to sit at the big people’s table. Thirty is a great age, the best of both worlds,” she says, sitting back in her chair like she’s just made peace with herself.
“What big people’s table?”
“The big people’s table. You know, at family dinners when the kids sit at one table and the grown-ups sit at another? That’s the way I look at it anyway.”
“I get it,” I tell her. “We just never had a kid’s table when I was growing up. I was the only kid.”
“Oh, that’s right, you were an only child. How are your grandparents, anyway? I remember your grandparents, they were wild.”
“They still are,” I smile. “They’re fine.”
“They must have been happy to see you.”
“They were,” I smile again.
“So, let me ask you,” she says, leaning in again and looking into my eyes with this intense look of eager anticipation, “did you get to change the world? What was it like being a woman at the end of the twentieth century? Do you know how lucky you were to grow up in a time when women were treated equally?”
All of a sudden I realize where she’s coming from, and I feel like a jerk. She might look thirty, but she’s really only sixteen and a 1950s sixteen at that.
“Did you get to change the world?” she asks me again.
I have to think about that for a second.
I wore the LIVESTRONG yellow bracelet, and I voted in the last three presidential elections. I wore the pink ribbon for breast cancer and the red one for AIDS at charity benefits.
Aw, crap. Did I do anything to change the world?
“Well, young women in the last part of the twentieth century didn’t have to change the world for ourselves. Our mothers did it for us,” I tell her.
“So what did you do?” she asks.
“To change the world?” I ask her.
I want to joke that I bought a lot of shoes and bags, but I’m not sure she’ll get it and it’s not really a joke exactly. Consumerism is what keeps us thriving, isn’t it? I don’t say that though. Frankly, I have no idea what I did to change the world. Was I too young? Was I too lazy? Did I really have to change the world anyway? I read the New York Times (okay, just the Style section, but I did glance at the other sections from time to time). I kept up with things, all that stuff going on in Africa. I watched Oprah. Wait, is this why they might demote me to fourth heaven? Because I didn’t change the world?
“I don’t know,” I say softly.
“Maybe the essay will help you find that answer,” she says.
I don’t say anything. I’m starting to get a big headache. Can you believe I’m getting a headache in heaven? Do they even have Advil here?
“Hey,” she says, getting really excited, “let’s go shopping!”
“I don’t know, I kind of have to get home,” I lie as I think of my not-such-a-joke earlier about buying bags and shoes. Maybe I’ve done enough shopping for one lifetime. But Alice is determined.
“Oh, come on,” she says, pulling me up. “Your mother would get mad at me if she heard I hadn’t cheered you up in some way. Don’t tell me you hate shopping.”
This makes me laugh, and before I know it we’re off.
Here’s the thing about shopping in heaven. Duh, it’s a delight. I told Alice I needed some more wifebeaters. There’s a store that just sells wifebeaters, only they’re not called wifebeaters here. I’m not kidding you. There’s an actual store called Ha-Ha Now You’re In Hell Beaters. There are wife . . . er, ha-ha -now-you’re-in-hell-beaters in every size and shape: racer back, plain old tank—like thousands of them.
“Hi, Alex,” the saleslady says, giving me an air kiss. “I was waiting to meet you. We just weren’t sure if you wanted formfitting or loose.”
“I’ll tak
e them both,” I laugh with Alice.
“That’s what we figured,” the saleslady says, putting ten of each into a bag.
“I love your all-black look,” Alice tells me as we head into Sleek and Chic. “I’m still used to wearing all white from my guardian angel days.”
Everything, as you can imagine, in Sleek and Chic, is black.
“Welcome, Alice, to Sleek and Chic, where black is always the new black.”
I try on a pair of black oversize trousers with one of my new ha-ha-now-you’re-in-hell-beaters. Alice puts on a Jean Paul Gaultier military peacoat with gold buttons, from the 1980s.
“It’s fantastic!” I shriek.
“Fabulous,” the salesperson says.
“You think?” Alice asks me.
“If you don’t get it, I will,” I tell her.
She really does look adorable in it, but, as you know by now, whatever you put on up here looks amazing.
I’m starting to have fun with Alice. Maybe I was wrong to judge her so harshly. She is just a kid after all.
We decide on matching four-carat diamond studs at Four Carats and Up because, if you had the choice, would you ever go under four carats?
We take in Dolce & Gabbana’s new fall collection at the Skinny Mini Store (where a size two fits everyone). I buy (or take) the lower-cut numbers, and Alice takes the more subdued items. I’m so not into puffed three-quarter sleeves now that my saggy arms are gone, but Alice is.
“I’ll just never get used to the way you younger women dress,” Alice says, suddenly sounding older than her sixteen-going -on-thirty persona.
I’m trying on a silver bustier with cropped pants when I realize how much fun I’m really having. In the last two hours, I haven’t thought about the essay or fourth heaven or any of it. My mom would be having such a field day up here.
“Hey, Alice,” I ask her as she tries on some Cole Haan moccasin flats and I strap into some Louboutin six-inch black spikes, “what’s the deal with getting into my parents’ dreams? I just want them to know I’m all right.”
“Well, you know, it takes a lot of practice,” she tells me, checking out her shoes in the mirror. “It’s the kind of thing that has to come from within you. You just concentrate and balance your mind and spirit and suddenly you’re there.”
The Ten Best Days of My Life Page 9
