“Not Santino,” I said. “You rearranged the feathers. I went out there in the morning, they spelled out the word ‘boo.’ ”
“I did no such thing,” Jay said. “I mean, I was high as a schoolgirl at a Justin Bieber concert, but I would remember.”
“Are you sure?”
Jay just gave me a look. “I don’t know who’s rearranging your feathers, sweetheart, but it ain’t me. Although it does sound like something you could use, if you know what I mean.”
13
Thanks but No Thanks
Thanksgiving hit with the fury of a thousand dried-out turkey breasts. Jay was bringing yams and Hidalgo; Aimee was bringing green beans and three bottles of wine—two for her, one for us; Chloe was bringing a Tofurky, her children, her dogs, and a very limber Billy. Brandon was spending Thanksgiving with Stephanie and her attorney fiancé. I had been assigned the turkey, stuffing, and pies.
I took out a bank loan and purchased an organic, free-range turkey and all the fixings from Whole Foods. I walked the aisles with purpose and direction. I no longer questioned every item, comparing it to what John would have purchased. Whole pecans or crushed? Cornmeal or mix? I was on my way to mastering groceries.
In my kitchen, I handled the turkey like a baby, buttering the skin gently, cooing to it as I slipped it onto the rack. Five hours later, my turkey was done. Casa Sugar smelled like the start of a perfect Thanksgiving.
Even Ellie was impressed. “You made Daddy’s turkey?” she asked.
“I sure tried,” I said, admiring the golden, roasted skin of my bird. I got dressed and ran my fingers through my hair, put on a coat of mascara. I was ready to pull this off.
My guests, however, hadn’t gotten the memo.
Jay was first to arrive, without the yams and without his date.
“Where’s Hidalgo?” I asked.
“Don’t ask,” he said. “I need a drink.”
“Where are my yams?”
“On the floor of my car,” Jay said. “I’ll get you a spoon. This entire day is killing me softly.”
Chloe came up behind Jay, with her brood. Her face was red and puffy.
“What’s wrong?” I said. Her kids ran past me, in search of Ellie.
“Nothing, why?” she sniffed. “Here,” she handed me a Tofurky, still in its plastic wrapping. As though I, in a million years, would know what to do with a Tofurky. Except laugh at it.
“You sure everything’s okay?” I asked.
“Couldn’t be better,” she said, her chipper meter spinning. “Billy’s joining the Israeli Army. He won’t be able to make it for dinner.”
We were seated around my dining room table, covered in an orange and brown paper tablecloth from Target.
“Is this something the pilgrims ordered? The only time orange and brown works is never,” Jay grumbled.
“Shut up and count your blessings,” I said.
“Mommy,” Ellie said. She was wearing leopard tights, a tutu, and a purple velvet T-shirt. “We have to say grace. Like at school.”
She grabbed my hand, then Jay’s, closed her eyes, and bowed her head. Jay and I smiled at each other. Chloe’s kids quieted down and followed suit.
“Hi, God,” Ellie said. “How are you? Thank you for our food. Thank you for Thanksgiving. Thank you for Uncle Jay and Brandon and Auntie Chloe and all my friends and mostly thank you for Mommy. And please, God, take care of all the rescue dogs, and tell Daddy we love him very much and wish he could be here and we will never forget him, especially on Thanksgiving. And that’s why we like Thanksgiving. Thank you. Amen.”
“Amen,” I said. Ellie remembered that this was John’s holiday. How? She was so little.
I heard murmurs of “Amens” around the table. Among the adults, there was not a dry eye in Casa Sugar.
“I’m really sorry about the yams, God,” Jay said.
“Does everyone want to say what they’re grateful about?” Chloe asked.
“Ask me in a couple years,” I said.
Aimee never showed up, with or without the green beans, but my turkey and cornbread stuffing were a smash hit. John would have been proud. Halfway through the meal, we finally got to the topic of Billy’s enlistment.
“Not to be insensitive, Chloe, but Billy’s not Jewish,” I said. “He is aware it’s the Israeli Army?”
“I know, I told him,” Chloe said.
“So … the handstand career didn’t work out for him?” Jay asked. “I’m sorry … but where did this come from?”
“He’s looking for a purpose,” Chloe said.
“Like everyone else running down San Vicente?” Jay asked.
“At least Billy’s still breathing.” I sighed. “Tonight I feel like I keep looking over my shoulder, for John to open up another bottle of wine.” Seeing the kids’ attention diverted, I said quietly, “I keep listening for his laugh. Or his swearing, if he burned his finger on the pie. Every year, he did that.”
“Well, if my love life were any more tragic, I’d be Vivien Leigh,” said Jay. “It’s not easy being the Sugar Daddy to a married Catholic Latino model who’s hung like a paint can.”
“He has a wife,” Chloe and I said, at once.
“He doesn’t love her. He loves me. She knows it. I know it. Manfinders.com knows it.”
“Love doesn’t conquer all, Jay,” I said, putting my hand on his. “I wish it did.”
Jay gave me a small smile. “I don’t believe that, Hannah,” he said, “and neither do you.”
* * *
Chloe left with her kids and dogs after maniacally cleaning up the kitchen. Every pot and pan had been scrubbed, the dishes had been properly placed inside the dishwasher. (Note to self: Never have a falling-out with Chloe during the holidays.)
“I can’t believe Aimee didn’t show,” I said. “Is she avoiding me? Lately, I call her, she doesn’t call back. She’s barely even responding to my texts.”
“Honey, maybe she just needs a break from all the emotional stuff,” he said. “She’s not strong like me.”
“Strong? Muffin tops on chubby girls make you sob,” I said. “Wait. You don’t think something’s happened to her? Do you think she’s … dead?”
“Hannah, no,” Jay said. “She’s not dead, just selfish.”
“Ever since John …,” I said. “I assume people are dead if they don’t call me back. Jay, Aimee could be hurt, lying in that apartment, and we would never know it. She’s never given me the key.”
“Wait,” Jay said, “I know I’m in a tryptophan-and-alcohol haze, but remember when Aimee went missing two years ago? She was holed up in a post-op in Brentwood.” Jay grabbed the phone. “She’s not dead—she’s hiding out somewhere and watching Sandra Bullock movies on Starz.” Jay made all of three calls before tracking her down at the Beverly West Recovery Retreat on Rodeo Drive. Brandon had just walked in my front door.
“We’ll be back,” I told him, as I grabbed my jacket. “Aimee’s gone post-op.”
Twenty minutes later, we were at the Beverly West reception. Jay held a bouquet of peonies that he insisted we buy at the flower shop on Doheny, where the clerks look like boy band meat. The receptionist stared impassively. Impassive was the new shock, disgust, sadness, anger, glee, and mirth. L.A.’s west side was expressionfree.
“Room Twenty-three,” she said. “Three doors down, on your left.” Her voice was also impassive. Perhaps there was personality Botox? If there were, I could use some.
* * *
Aimee was on a huge bed, propped up on pillows, her eyes and cheeks swollen, and a (yes, indeed!) Sandra Bullock movie playing on HDTV.
“It’s like Ash Wednesday,” Jay whispered.
“I heard that,” Aimee said.
“Aimee,” I said, “you are not allowed to have surgery without us. We thought you were dead.”
“Is Chloe here?” Aimee looked around. “I don’t want to be blog-bushed.”
“Ambushed? No. Boob job, mid-face-lift?” Jay squinted,
trying to assess the damage.
“No,” Aimee said, wincing as she moved to her side.
“Lipo and a side of pinned ears?” Jay asked.
“Jay,” I said, “this is serious.”
Stone Cold Aimee started to cry.
“Aimee, please, please don’t cry,” Jay said. “If you cry, I cry and I look like Carol Channing when I cry.”
“I had something … in my breast,” Aimee said. “I had to have it removed.”
“Dear God, don’t take the hair,” Jay said, clasping his hands together.
“Jay, you handled death better than this,” I said.
“Hair is what’s important,” Jay said.
“The hair stays,” Aimee said. “I’m just doing radiation treatment.”
“Oh,” Jay said, “so it’s the fun cancer.”
Aimee managed to smile.
“What’s with the puffiness?” I asked. Aimee touched her cheek.
“Sweet Jesus, it looks like you swallowed a cat,” Jay said, peering even closer.
“Just a little filler,” Aimee said. “The doctor put it in after my breast procedure.”
“They can do that?” I said. “They can put filler in and take cancer out?”
“You can have a heart transplant and lipo,” Jay said.
“This is L.A.,” Aimee said. “Anything is possible.”
“Except a normal life,” I said.
* * *
It was midnight by the time I got home, but I actually had the energy to clean my house. Don’t get crazy, I don’t mean dust or vacuum. I mean, throw out old copies of O. You have your standards, I have mine.
But first, I tucked in Ellie, who’d surprised me by lying awake when I went in to check on her.
“Can you read I Love You Forever?” she asked.
I’d read that book to her when she was two. It had taken me hundreds of butterscotch chips to help me recover.
“Are you sure? It’s sort of pathologically sad, you know,” I said.
“It’s funny.”
“Funny?”
“The baby’s so cute!” she said. “And the kitty. And Daddy knows all the words.” Ellie looked at me with wide eyes.
“You know you can tell Mommy anything, right?” I said.
Ellie nodded. Her lips sealed shut. I hugged her to my chest, sank my face into her hair, and inhaled. I had given her a bath earlier. In my world, bathing my child was victory. The clean watermelon scent in her hair was my Olympic Gold Medal.
Later, after tossing out grapes that had been in the refrigerator so long they were turning into Chianti, I went into the backyard and lit up a cigarette. Aimee had left a pack of old Marlboros in a kitchen drawer with a lighter that looked like a stack of poker chips. I wondered when she had been in Vegas.
No one smokes in California. Maybe there are a few loggers up north, or the desert people on the Arizona border, living in trailers. But no one smokes in Santa Monica. Months ago, Ellie burst into tears upon seeing a woman lighting up in front of Fromin’s Deli on Wilshire.
“She’s going to die!” Ellie wailed from her car seat.
I slammed on the brakes. “Who, Ellie, who?” I asked, whipping my head around.
“That lady!” Ellie continued to wail. “She’s smoking!”
She was pointing at a waitress with hair dyed blond ages ago, casually smoking a cigarette. Here in Santa Monica, the woman would die of loneliness or ostracism long before she died of lung cancer.
“Did Daddy smoke cigarettes?” Ellie had asked me, one damp morning, as I watched her dress for school. It was like watching Kate Moss getting ready to go clubbing. They probably wore the same size.
“No, honey, why?” I asked.
“Because he died, Mommy,” Ellie said.
I wasn’t even sure it was legal to smoke in my own backyard. Santa Monica loves its city ordinances. They have more city ordinances than homeless people, and we adore our homeless. Spice sat next to me on the cement steps. I lit up, drew in. And coughed.
“Who am I trying to be, Spice?” I asked. “Anouk Aimée?”
I tossed the cigarette. Screw it. Stick to what you’re good at. Me, I’m good at wine. My nightly glass of wine had become a goblet. I still had my Dead Husband Card. There are some things money can’t buy, and for those, there’s widowhood. The breeze picked up. Spice started barking.
“Hannah …,” the wind said. “Hannah …”
I jumped up, knocking over my wineglass on the step. The moon lit up the night. Clouds moved across the sky. I took a deep breath.
“John?” I asked. “John, is that you? Where are you?” Leaves swirled around me. The clouds dispersed.
“I’m at Trader Joe’s, picking up those spicy Spanish olives,” the wind said. “Can you open the Montepulciano for me? I’m in a Mediterranean frame of mind.”
The wind was very lucid tonight. I sat down, hand on my pounding heart.
“Not funny, John,” I said. “Dead people shouldn’t be cracking jokes.”
“I thought it would be a nice icebreaker,” John said. I still couldn’t see him. “You used to like my sense of humor.”
“When you were alive!” I was trying to find him. “Where are you? I want to see you.”
“Happy Thanksgiving, baby,” he said. “I wish I could have made the turkey for my little family.”
I wanted to kiss him, to have him hold me and say that we would grow old together. That we would make love again. That he would never leave. Just like he promised. Lovers make many promises in the heat of passion. I will love you forever. You’re the only one. I’ve never tried anal before. Our promises were more like: (Breathless) I promise I will clean up after the dog. (Gasping) I promise to make you fat. (Panting) I promise my parents won’t visit for more than six days.
I had loved our life. I ached for him to still be my messy John. I’m still picking up his notes, his papers, but they’re dwindling. Soon there will be no detritus at all. Soon I won’t be picking up after him at all.
I couldn’t take it anymore. “I didn’t want to be this Oya person. I just wanted to be Hannah!” I said. I got up and went toward the screen door.
“Who? Hello?” John the Dead said. “Where’re you going?”
“I can’t do this. I feel like I’m having a nervous breakdown. We had a nice Thanksgiving and I don’t want to ruin it by being crazy.”
“Well, that’s pretty cold. After what I’ve been through.”
“After what you’ve been through?” I found myself staring at the avocado tree. “How about after what we’ve been through? How about Ellie? What about Jay and Chloe and Aimee? The UPS guy? I’ve had to comfort the entire city of Santa Monica—I don’t dare set foot in Venice. Were you at your memorial service? Your ex-girlfriends were all there, thank you very much!”
“Of course, I was there,” John said. “It was kind of thrilling, actually.”
“You left us,” I said.
“I’m sorry I died,” John said. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to be not dead. I want you to be breathing. I want to hold your hand and kiss your cheek. I want to hear you sing R. Kelly off-key. I want to trip over your tennis shoes that procreate every ten days. Damn it, I want you to be alive so I can kill you with my bare hands for dying on us!”
“I made a mistake,” John said. “Anyone can make a mistake.”
“A mistake?” I said. If we were going to argue like this, I needed a marriage counselor.
“I’m only human—I was only human. Now, I’m more like a floating particle … You won’t be able to see me until everything’s been formalized. Talk about bureaucracy. These people make the DMV look like they’re NASA.”
“You weren’t wearing a bike helmet. You weren’t thinking.”
“I’m so sorry, baby,” John said. “It was a beautiful morning—the light filtering through the sweet gum trees and tall pines on Carlyle—it’s, well, it’s like up here, actually. You see that light h
ere all the time.”
“That gardening truck …” In my mind, I suddenly had a vision of his black Nikes on someone’s manicured hedges. Who had picked them up? The paramedics? The cops? I saw his watch. I had given him that watch. He’d loved that watch.
“Gardening truck?”
“Yes, the gardening truck,” I said. “The one that hit you? Come on, you were there.”
“I wasn’t hit by a truck.”
“Yes, you were,” I said. “Look, I don’t want to argue with you. The police report said it was a gardening truck. The guy driving was an illegal—he took off.”
“Hannah, listen to me. I am telling you, it wasn’t a truck. I was there. I’m kind of a key witness. The person who hit me was driving a Range Rover.”
“What the hell?” I said. “You know how I feel about those monsters. I knew that one of those things would kill someone on these streets. I just didn’t think it’d be you—”
“The driver was one of those ‘crazy, busy’ mom-types, looking down at her phone. I remember thinking—wow, texting while driving, not smart—”
“Texting,” I said. “I didn’t think this could get worse.”
“I was on the side, but she swerved, hit me, and took off. It was so quick. The guy in the gardener’s truck actually stopped to help. He held my head, Hannah. He said the most beautiful prayer in Spanish … ‘Dios te salve Maria …’ ” John paused. “I forget the rest, I was kind of busy dying at the time.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“Hannah?” John asked. “Baby, what is it?”
Some things shouldn’t be known, I thought. Some things we cannot live with.
“Please, John, tell me there wasn’t any pain.” Tears ran down my face.
“No, honey,” John said, “there wasn’t any pain. I was in shock.”
“Thank God, thank God,” I sobbed, holding my sides, rocking.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice getting weaker. “Hannah, find the gardener. You need to help him out. He was an angel.”
“I love you so much. I wish you were alive.”
“I love you, too. I wish I were alive,” John said. “Help out that gardener. That’ll give me some peace. And then you can find the Range Rover.”
The After Wife Page 13
