Clean Sweep

by Jane Heller

  “That’s a good girl. What pressing problems. Is business still bad at Sandy’s store?”

  “Yes. But that’s not the most pressing problem right now.”

  “Oh? Then what is it?”

  “It’s something else.” It was perverse of me, I know, but I loved making my mother pull information out of me. After years of being manipulated by her, it was my way of turning the tables.

  “It’s not your health, is it?”

  “No.”

  “Your job at the newspaper?”

  “No.”

  “Something to do with the house?”

  “In a way.” I figured I’d back into the subject of divorce. My mother felt the same way about divorce as she did about dangling participles. She and my father had been ecstatically happy during their short-but-sweet marriage, which came to an abrupt and tragic end in August of 1960, when I was ten. It happened during the annual Mixed Member Guest Tennis Tournament at Grassy Glen, the country club my parents and all their friends belonged to. My father, Seymour (everybody called him Sy) Waxman, was an “A” player and the hands-down favorite to win the tournament, especially since his doubles partner was the formidable Jack Goldfarb, the men’s champion over at Rolling Rocks, another club in Layton. But on match point—just as my father and Mr. Goldfarb were about to secure their victory—my father wound up to serve and then suddenly grabbed his chest, fell to the red clay surface, and died. Just like that. Game, set, match. Fortunately, my mother and I were not there when it happened. She was at Neiman Marcus buying Christmas presents (yes, it was summer, but she liked to plan ahead, and yes, we were Jewish, but we still bought Christmas presents). I was at sleepaway camp in Maine, learning how to excel at archery, synchronized swimming, and other activities that would prove completely irrelevant to my life as a grownup. When I found out my father had died, I went into shock. Sy Waxman, the Mattress King, had always been my security, my stability. I couldn’t believe he was gone. I couldn’t believe he would no longer be there to hug me, kiss me, love me. I couldn’t believe he would leave me alone to deal with my mother for the rest of my life—my mother, who handled his death by becoming an impossibly angry, lonely woman. The first thing she did after he died was to turn their bedroom into a shrine, hanging photographs of him wherever there was wall space. The second thing she did was to refuse to give his clothes away. The third thing she did was to boycott the country club where he’d met his untimely end. For months, she just sat around the house, chain-smoking her Winstons and watching “As The World Turns,” the one constant, besides me, in her life. Never a barrel of laughs, my mother became The Grouchiest Widow in Connecticut, maybe even in the Tri-State Area. Consequently, I became The Daughter Who Was Forever Trying to Cheer Her Up, which is another way of saying I was always trying to please her. I cleaned my room. I combed my hair. I did my homework. I spoke in grammatically correct sentences. And I told jokes—lots of grammatically correct jokes. Here’s a sample:

  “Knock, knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Marmalade.”

  “Marmalade who?”

  “Mama laid me. By whom were you laid?”

  As I grew older, my eagerness to please my mother manifested itself in a new, more disturbing way: I began dating, and eventually marrying, rich men. She was thrilled when I got married to Roger, but you should have seen her face when I told her I was going to marry Sandy! This woman who smiled only on rare occasions was so happy she broke out into a grin the size of Imelda Marcos’s shoe closet.

  I never knew where her reverence for rich men had come from. I supposed it stemmed from her humble beginnings in Queens. I knew there’d been a man in her life before she met my father—a man who’d made it big and then left her in the dust. Whatever the reason, her obsession with rich men was hard to take, try as I did to take it.

  “I know this is going to disappoint you, Mom,” I began, “but Sandy and I are calling it quits.”

  Dead silence. Then a big inhale and exhale. I could practically smell the cigarette smoke through the phone.

  “What did you do?” my mother asked. It had to be my fault.

  “Sandy has gone back to Soozie.” An enormous lump formed in my throat.

  “He picked that woman over my daughter?” My mother was taking Sandy’s defection personally. “She’s a nobody. A person who cooks for people. And isn’t her father a gentile?” My mother’s attitude toward Christians was that they had low IQs and zero taste in clothes.

  “Yes, Mom,” I said.

  “Your father would never have understood all this…this…casual marrying and divorcing. I know I don’t. Why can’t children today finish anything they start? Why can’t my only daughter finish anything she starts?”

  “I have finished things,” I said weakly. “For eleven years I’ve worked at a newspaper owned by Alistair Downs, former Hollywood star and U.S. Senator from Connecticut. I may not be buddy-buddy with the man, but I’ve been his loyal employee. That’s something to be proud of, isn’t it?”

  “Something of which to be proud. But what about your personal life, Alison? It’s an embarrassment.”

  “An embarrassment? To whom?” I knew to whom: my mother’s friends at Grassy Glen, where, except for her brief boycott following my father’s death, she’d been playing canasta three times a week for years.

  “I’m sorry about you and Sandy, dear,” she conceded. “But these divorces of yours are wearing on me.”

  “On you?”

  “Of course, on me. I’ve been waiting a long time for you to settle down with the right man, and I’m not getting any younger.”

  “None of us are,” I said.

  “Is, Alison. None of us is.”

  “I’ve got to go, Mom. Someone’s at the door.” Someone wasn’t at the door, but I used this ruse frequently when I wanted to get off the phone with my mother. It never occurred to her to ask who was ringing my doorbell at all hours of the day and night, and it certainly never occurred to me to be honest with her—i.e. tell her to fuck off.

  My next call was to Janet Claiborne, the broker at Prestige Properties who had sold us our house.

  “Mrs. Koff. I’ve been expecting your call,” she said.

  “You have?”

  “Yes. So soddy about the divorce,” she said in her Connecticut lockjaw voice.

  “How did you know my husband and I were getting a divorce?” Did everyone in Layton know I’d been dumped, or was it just that real estate agents made it their business to know everybody else’s?

  “I attended a Junior League luncheon the other day, and Soozie Koff of Soozie’s Delectable Edibles was dishing up the most divine chicken salad.”

  Obviously, Soozie had been dishing up more than chicken salad. Small-town life was such fun. “Well, about the house…”

  “So soddy you have to sell,” Janet Claiborne said, barely able to conceal her joy at capturing our three-million-dollar listing yet again. “The market is a bit depressed right now,” she added, covering her ass, “but properties like Maplebark Manor—isn’t that the charming name you gave the place?—are absolutely recession-proof.”

  Janet promised to send someone over with papers for me to sign, and pledged that Prestige Properties would not only advertise Maplebark Manor in Town & Country and Unique Homes, but produce full-color brochures showcasing the house and mail them to Japanese businessmen who, she felt, would be our best customers.

  Having dispensed with my duty calls, I debated what to do next: hide in the house so I wouldn’t have to face every body in Layton gossiping about me, or go out in public and start dealing with the two harsh realities of my new life—poverty and singlehood. What a choice. If I stayed in the house, I’d probably end up watching hours and hours of Phil, Oprah, Sally, Joan, and Geraldo, and learning more than I ever wanted to know about cross-dressers, mud wrestlers, and women who were born without clitorises. If I went out in public, I’d probably end up bumping into someone I knew and hav
ing to respond to questions like, “So, Alison. Where will you live after the bank forecloses on your house? How will you support yourself? How will you ever find another man to love you?”

  The thought of staying home and becoming an agoraphobe didn’t appeal to me. I was supposed to hand in my feature article about June Allyson anyway, so I changed my clothes and went over to the newspaper.

  As I drove into the parking lot, I narrowly missed rear-ending the gleaming white Rolls-Royce Corniche driven by Layton’s most illustrious citizen (and my boss) Alistair P. Downs, owner of The Layton Community Times. He was backing his car out as I was pulling mine in, and we would surely have collided had I not slammed on my brakes and sent my neck whiplashing all over the place. Just what I needed.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, Senator Downs. Please forgive me,” I called out through my open window. The mishap was clearly Alistair’s fault, but a little groveling was in order.

  “Don’t you worry, little lady,” Alistair chuckled. “My chauffeur’s off today, and I haven’t driven in a while. Guess I’m a little rusty. Ho ho.”

  “Are you okay?” I asked. The man was seventy-five, after all. He looked robust, but once you hit seventy, you could go at any time. At least that’s the bit my mother used when she wanted me to feel guilty that I didn’t call her every day.

  “I’m splendid. Just splendid, dear,” said Alistair as he maneuvered his Corniche around my Porsche and sailed out of the parking lot, giving me a little wave in his rearview mirror.

  “Yeah, I’m splendid too. Thanks for asking,” I muttered. What an egomaniac, I thought, as I parked my car and climbed the steps to the brick building that housed The Layton Community Times offices. Alistair Downs didn’t seem to give two shits about my well-being, although he was always very cordial in social settings. Whenever he’d throw an office party at the Sachem Point Yacht Club, the 100-year-old sailing club where he was the commodore, he’d glide right over to me, smooth as you please, look me straight in the eye, shake both my hands, and say, “Lovely to see you again, dear. You’re doing a splendid job at the paper. Splendid.” Then he’d vanish, leaving me in a cloud of Old Spice.

  What a character, I thought, as I considered Alistair Downs’s stature, not just in Layton but nationwide. Larger than life. That’s what he was. Here was a man who had parlayed his way with the latest dance steps, first into a Hollywood movie career, later into the United States Senate. Never mind that he came into the world as Al Downey, a handsome Irish kid from Queens. Never mind that he began his professional life as a dance instructor in an Arthur Murray Studio. Never mind that if a talent scout hadn’t stopped by the studio that fateful day and seen what a favorite of the ladies Al Downey was, there might not have been an Alistair Downs at all.

  But then the story of how Al Downey reinvented himself wasn’t a story Alistair Downs liked to tell. Unlike Kirk Douglas, who wrote a book about his humble beginnings as Issur Danielovitch, the ragman’s son, Alistair Downs preferred to deny his past. No one ever pressed him about it—until Melanie Moloney, the queen of the sleaze celebrity bio, came to town. The author of bestselling exposés of the lives of Dean Martin, Ann-Margret and other well-known entertainers, Melanie Moloney had received a reported $5.5 million to write a book about Alistair Downs, who told the media, “I plan to pay no attention to Miss Moloney or her so-called biography.” Personally, I couldn’t wait to read Melanie Moloney’s book, which, according to USA Today, was due to be delivered to her publisher in just a few short months.

  The first person I ran into at the newspaper was the last person I wanted to run into: Bethany Downs, Alistair’s daughter and the paper’s managing editor. Former cheerleader, debutante, and homecoming queen, Bethany was arrogant and dumb, a lethal combination. The popular rumor was that her father had bought the Community Times as a toy for his only child, to keep her out of trouble. Forty-two years old, Bethany had never been married. She preferred sleeping with other women’s husbands, coaxing them just to the point of leaving their wives and then dumping them and moving on to some other chump. Blonde and pretty, if you like the type (she had the face of a horse if you ask me), she was that dangerous sort of girl who had the notion that anything and anybody was hers for the taking.

  “You don’t look well, Alison,” were Bethany’s first words to me. We were standing in the third-floor lounge. Hoping to steady my nerves after nearly putting a dent in Alistair Downs’s high-priced fender, I had gone there for a cup of coffee. Bethany had gone there to grab a few jelly donuts. Bethany had an addiction to sweets, but never seemed to gain weight, which, in addition to being a husband stealer, was another reason why most women hated her.

  “I’ve had a tough twenty-four hours,” I replied.

  “Domestic problems?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. My husband and I are splitting up.”

  I waited for a response, but Bethany just chomped on her jelly donut. Then she said, “See? That’s what I keep telling people. There’s no point in getting married. Marriage only leads to divorce.”

  “That’s pretty defeatist, Bethany. Don’t you ever yearn for the company of one man, a man who’ll be there to love and protect you always?”

  “I already have that man. His name is spelled D-A-D-D-Y.”

  “Right. How could I forget?”

  “Speaking of Dad,” Bethany continued, “there’s a meeting in my office in ten minutes. It’s about that bitch who’s writing a book about him. I suggest you be there.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I said.

  Ten or twelve of us gathered in Bethany’s corner office. I waved to my best friend at the paper, Julia Applebaum, and motioned for her to sit next to me on the sofa.

  “How’re you doin’, Koff?” she whispered. She always called me by my last name. “You don’t look so great.”

  “I don’t feel so great but I’ll tell you about it later,” I said, wondering if I should have come to work with a paper bag over my head.

  Ever since we’d met at the paper, where I covered celebrities and she covered civic news like Planning and Zoning Commission meetings and school budget proposals, Julia and I had been close pals. Sandy had never liked Julia, maybe because she refused to take shit from men. She’d been married briefly, to Layton’s current mayor, but divorced him when she realized that his idea of partnership was letting her drive his Lexus. Maybe Sandy didn’t like Julia because she spoke passionately about saving the environment and reducing the deficit—issues that made Sandy extremely nervous. Or maybe he didn’t like her because she was a Democrat. Who knows. I admired Julia tremendously, even though she often ridiculed my lifestyle and made me feel about as shallow as the water in my Jacuzzi.

  “Everybody here?” Bethany said, calling the meeting to order. “My father asked me to talk to you today about Melanie Moloney. As you’ve heard, she’s writing a book about him.” Julia and I stole a look at each other. “As you may also have heard, this woman has bought a house right here in Layton.” I had heard that, all right. Liz Smith had written about it in her column. She’d said Moloney had moved from Chicago to Layton to be closer to her latest subject and that she and her research assistant would be interviewing dozens of Alistair’s friends and confidantes in our quaint little village. “My father is requesting that those of you who are approached by Melanie Moloney tell her in no uncertain terms that you will have no comment. My father would also like you to know,” Alistair’s Stepford Daughter continued, “that while he has a high regard for people who remain loyal to him, he has little use for those who don’t. In other words, if you speak to Melanie Moloney, you do so at your own risk.”

  “What’s the Senator going to do if we talk to this Melanie Moloney?” I asked Julia as the meeting broke up. “Fire us? Break our kneecaps?”

  She shrugged. “Let’s go eat,” she said. “Melanie Moloney is Alistair’s problem, not yours.”

  Chapter 3

  “So the bastard went back to his first wife
,” Julia mused as we ate grilled tuna with sun-dried tomatoes at Belinda’s Grille, a trendy local restaurant owned by an ex-Victoria’s Secret model. “Don’t you dare pine for him, Koff,” she warned, shaking her finger at me.

  “You never cared much for Sandy, did you?”

  “You got that right. The guy’s an ass and a fraud and a fool, and you’re better off without him.”

  “Oh come on, Julia. Tell me how you really feel about him,” I laughed.

  “I’m serious, Koff. He’s all show, no substance.”

  “Well, he had plenty of substance when I married him—a huge bank account, a money-making department store, a gigantic stock portfolio…”

  “Yeah, but what about a soul? Did he have one of those?” Julia scowled. A tall, big-boned woman of forty with dark hair worn in a long braid, dark eyes, and an appearance that could best be described as “handsome,” she was a no-nonsense type who could spot a phony a mile away. “As much of a toad as he was, he wasn’t your biggest problem.”

  “Oh? What was my biggest problem?”

  “You. You never thought you could depend on yourself. You thought you needed Sandy to support you. Now you’ll see you were wrong.”

  “What are you talking about? I do need Sandy to support me. I can’t pay for Maplebark Manor on my own.”

  “Sandy can’t pay for it either. Isn’t that what you told me? And he shouldn’t pay for a place like that. It’s an obscenely big house for two people. Obscene. Just unload it and find something more modest.”

  “I’m trying. I put it on the market this morning. But how will I keep the place going in the meantime? The pittance I make from the newspaper won’t even pay the electricity, oil, cable TV, and garbage pickup bills every month. I’m in deep shit, Julia. I really am.”

  “So quit living like a princess.”

  “I have,” I said, trying not to be defensive. “I’ve stopped having my groceries delivered.”