by Nina Solomon
Grace sang out as if she’d gone to parochial school instead of a progressive independent school on the Upper West Side. After the final refrain of Silent Night, her mother-in-law approached her.
“I hope you’re not going to waste your time pining away for that husband of yours. You can’t expect a Brookman to make good, you know. Hopeless dilettantes, all of them. At least his father had the sense to leave before he scandalized the rest of the family,” she said, stopping to adjust the velvet collar on her jet black suit. “Thank God, I had the presence of mind to readjust Lazarus’s credit card before it was too late.” She followed the carolers up the stairs from the courtyard into the building, teetering on her slender heels. “He may be my son, but it’s my family’s money he’s been squandering. And I hope you don’t expect me to support you, either.”
Grace felt emotions swelling inside her as they had that day in Dr. Gaylin’s office, but this time the right words came. “I can’t believe you would think that about me,” she said. “But if that had been my intention, I would have been entitled to the money.”
“That’s what Merrin said, too, and look where it got her.”
“Merrin?”
“She can write all the letters she wants, but Griffin is not my grandson, no matter what she says.” Laz’s mother stood in the door -way as if blocking Grace’s entrance. Grace thought about the child she might have had with Laz, and that this selfish woman would have been its grandmother.
“Excuse me,” she said, gathering her courage, “Nancy.” The name stuck in her throat as she uttered it for the first and last time. “I’ve met him. He definitely is Laz’s son. And you don’t deserve him.”
“You’ve never spoken to me like this before,” Nancy replied, raising her eyebrows.
“I’m just sorry it wasn’t sooner,” Grace said as she turned to leave.
AFTER HEARING THE news of Laz’s departure, Marisol, in what could almost be described as post-traumatic stress syndrome, became obsessed with cleaning out Laz’s closet. It was not in an effort to purge the apartment of his presence, rather it was with the express purpose of preparing for what she believed would be his inevitable return.
“Señor Lazarus will be with us soon. I know he will. Mi lindo, lindo,” Marisol would mumble periodically to herself throughout the day.
Grace allowed the proceedings to continue, partly out of sympathy for Marisol and partly because the closet had become so overrun with dust, plastic wrapping, and wire hangers from the dry cleaners that it had become impossible to find anything inside. Not that she really needed anything from it. Other than stationery supplies and tax returns, there was little of use at all to Grace and apparently to Laz, as well.
Everything in the closet was covered with opalescent white dust, as if the asbestos that had been removed from Laz’s old apartment had migrated through the pipes and underneath the floorboards. Laz’s shoes looked like they’d just returned from a walk in the snow. Marisol carefully took each pair out of the closet as if she were holding Cinderella’s precious glass slippers, and lined them up on newspapers in the pantry, where she waxed and buffed them to a high-glossed sheen.
Marisol hand-washed each of Laz’s Brooks Brothers shirts, pain -stakingly pressing them, replacing cracked buttons, and blowing into the sleeves to prevent creases, which made them eerily appear to be inhabited by an invisible body. Then she hung them on wooden hangers that had been covered with tissue paper. The shirts looked like new. Although Grace kept the thought from Marisol, the thrift store wouldn’t know what had hit them when they eventually received the donation. Grace gathered up the pile she had made of plastic wrap, compressed it, and brought it to the back door, where she stuffed it into the garbage can. It took up less room than a bag of daily trash—all air and no substance.
The reorganizing and cleaning took several days to complete. Nothing was left undone, unturned, or unpolished. Once the closet was all finished, Grace had trouble closing the door. As hard as she tried to get the door to stay shut, it kept springing back open. The hinges had just given out. Laz’s possessions were now on twenty-four-hour display. Each time Grace passed the closet, she was brought to tears. To her, it was akin to looking at an open casket. It bothered her so much that she put a large stack of books in front of the door, but after a while, the books were pushed out and the door would once again open. After several days, as with most unpleasant things, she learned to live with it.
Marisol and Grace continued for days as if possessed, until the entire apartment was not only organized, it was also alphabetized. Even the piano bench and utility closet were now showcases of organization, and Grace had found the missing extension cord inside an empty thermal bag, where it had been all along. Nothing was out of place or missing—except for Laz. And although his presence had shrunk considerably (now measurable in cubic feet), Grace still wasn’t ready to fill the space with anything else.
One thing that Grace made sure that she salvaged was the block of clay she had found with Griffin, which Marisol had put out by the back elevator along with the trash. Marisol, having recently seen an episode of Martha Stewart Living concerning the proper way to fold towels, was busy attacking the linen closet, as Grace smuggled the clay back inside.
LATE THAT NIGHT, Grace sat at the dining room table with the block of clay in front of her. She unwrapped it, touching the cool surface. Its blankness beckoned to her. She looked at her hands, her only tool, and began to work the clay.
Her fingers felt clumsy at first, and she wasn’t sure what she wanted to make. She pounded the clay with the heel of her hand. The more she tried to force it into a shape, though, the more resistant the clay became. She added some water with a sponge. After a while, she simply allowed the clay to move in her hands, rolling and pressing it, following its contours. As she did, she found it became more malleable, until she began to see an emerging form. In a flash, she could envision what it would be.
The sheer texture and possibility of the clay became intoxicating. Like her first crochet stitches, this piece began to take on a life of its own. She looked at the form before her. It was rough, but its dimensions, curves, and lines were clear. It was a woman sitting in a chair, her back straight, her chin lifted. But the more Grace looked at it, the more ambiguous it appeared. She couldn’t tell if the woman was in the process of sitting down or getting up, as if the figure were caught midway between the two. Grace rested her hands on the table, then wrapped the sculpture in wet towels. There was plenty of time to decide.
TWO DAYS BEFORE New Year’s Eve, Kane called to see if Grace wanted to take a quick ride up to his lake house. The pipes had frozen and burst, and he needed to oversee the plumber. Gregg was off on a photo shoot in Europe.
“It will be good for you to get away,” he told her. “You can’t stay in that apartment forever.”
“Why not?” she asked, only half-joking. Truthfully, Grace had had enough of watching Marisol organize the closets. “But only if you promise not to talk about anything of substance.”
“No problem. I won’t say a word. We won’t even look at each other if that makes you feel better.”
“It does.”
“Great. I’ll bring the sandwiches. You bring your skates.” Kane had already hung up before Grace could protest.
During the two-hour drive up to the cabin, Kane, true to his word, did not initiate any conversation other than innocuous subjects, such as rising gas prices or random icicle sightings. They arrived at the house around two. Kane carried Grace’s skates as he walked up the slate steps and held the door open for her. The house smelled of pine and wet wool, just as she had remembered. She couldn’t recall whether the last time she had been there it had been winter or summer, if they’d skinny-dipped or if Laz had ventured out onto the ice. It was as if a crucial file had been erased.
Kane dropped off the bag of sandwiches in the kitchen and headed out the back door, beckoning for Grace to follow him. They walked down the narrow wooden doc
k to the lake and Kane sat on a makeshift bench at the end of it. He put on his hockey skates and laced them up. Looking out at the lake, which was covered with a thick layer of ice, he handed Grace her skate bag and waited. She stood motionless, pondering how to get out of doing this. She gazed out over the tundralike vista, then sat down on the bench next to Kane and unzipped her bag. Once on, her skates were tight. Her ankles wobbled as she walked back down the dock and stepped carefully onto the edge of the frozen lake.
“I think I’ll just watch for a while,” she said. “You go on.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, pushing off onto the ice and skating away as if chasing a puck in a championship game. He looked so untethered. Grace tried to talk herself through her fear. What was there to fear, after all, besides falling into the depths of an icy black abyss?
She scuttled to the side and was about to get off the ice when she remembered what Chloe’s friend Jeff had said over those huge omelets: Leap and the net will appear. She certainly hadn’t been doing any leaping as of late. That would require actually leaving the apartment.
She admired the expanse of white before her, pure and unadulterated like the untouched clay. She imagined her feet making interlocking loops, a pattern she could not only follow, but could direct. She closed her eyes, pushed off, and found herself gliding out across the ice. She did a figure eight and an arabesque. When she opened her eyes, she saw Kane skating toward her.
“Can I talk now?” Kane asked.
“Will it do any good if I say no?”
“Probably not,” he said, skating backward. “That was great. I just wanted to tell you that I knew you could do it. And your skating’s improved, too.”
“Thanks. I didn’t.” She felt herself inhaling deeply as if for the first time.
“Kane?”
“Yes, Grace?”
“How long did you know about Laz?”
“The day we went to get the Christmas tree,” he answered. Grace remembered how he’d lingered at the apartment when he was setting up the tree. “I didn’t know whether I should shake you or the tree. Maybe I should have tried harder, but I was feeling the loss, too. Laz is my best friend, and you and I have this weird relationship. Before Gregg, it was like we were this threesome. Now I have no idea where any of this is going.”
“Come on,” Grace said. Then she took his hand, and together they skated off to the far side of the lake.
30
LIGHTS OUT
The Scrabble-game-cum-Mexican Fiesta Night at the Sugarmans on New Year’s Eve was less than festive. Even though the Bali room had been transformed into a millennium Mayan temple, complete with ceremonial statues and traditional painted bark decorations hanging from the windows, the evening was noticeably muted. While the whole city was divided between gearing up for a no-holds-barred last night of the century or stocking up on bottled water, videos, and Y2K restoration kits, Grace’s parents and the Sugarmans were just laying low, hoping not to cause any more unnecessary rifts.
The Mayan temple theme, Grace thought, was quite apt—a bulwark against encroaching enemies and evil spirits. She just wondered who would be offered up as the sacrifice.
It was cold in the Bali room, so Grace’s father and Bert had hooked up a space heater, which glowed orange like the mouth of a volcano. The combination of the heater and Bunsen burner for the blue corn quesadillas made the glassed-in room fog up. With the mirrors covered by swaths of fabric, it was as if, in a way, they were all sitting shiva for the dead in a Mayan temple.
Francine was dressed in a long, white authentic Mexican wedding dress, which she’d bought for twelve dollars on a cruise that she and Bert had taken to Acapulco last March. She was still very much on a high from her culinary excursion, the evidence of which was laid out in Aztec crockery and woven baskets, a veritable feast of authentic delicacies. Grace’s father looked tired, but he didn’t complain, participating with his usual gracious enthusiasm.
“Francine, you’ve outdone yourself,” Bert said, taking a bite of grilled octopus with mole sauce. “You always cease to amaze me.”
Francine rolled her eyes. “I think you have that backward,” she said.
“You mean I always cease to amaze you?” he asked. “Why, thank you.”
“Something like that,” Francine answered, kissing him on the cheek.
“Looks like the honeymoon isn’t over yet after all,” Bert said, winking at Francine.
“Don’t press your luck,” she said, before walking briskly into the kitchen to attend to the black-bean soufflé.
AFTER DINNER, THE Scrabble board was set up. Between bites of warm sopaipillas dripping with honey, the game proceeded as usual, except with an eerie lack of spirit. Bert, uncharacteristically, did not challenge a single word. He brought out his O.E.D., but only for inspection by Grace’s father’s trained eye.
“Could definitely use a new binding,” Milton pronounced. “I guess you dropped it one too many times. I’ll take it home with me and have it back to you good as new in a jiffy.”
“Much appreciated,” Bert said. “I owe you one.”
“I can cover it with an antimold laminate cover, if you like.”
“Only if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Not at all,” Milton replied, more animated than Grace had seen him in weeks. “Glad to do it.”
Words slipped by like minnows through a net—slang, proper names, egregious misspellings. At one point, even Grace found herself moved to challenge, but as she watched her father add up her mother’s triple-letter score on the word twizzler, she could not bring herself to go through with it.
“Well done, my dear,” her father said, bursting with pride. “This is quite a contentious match. Hats off to you all.”
A little before eleven, Grace began to prepare her parents and the Sugarmans for her ensuing departure, which she knew might be a lengthy affair. Because of the fear of some millennium bug striking at midnight, the elevators in her building were going to be shut off for an hour. She thought it was a good excuse to leave early.
“You can’t ring in the New Year alone. It’s unheard of,” Francine objected.
“Have a quick glass of eggnog with us. I made it with Egg Beaters for your father,” her mother said.
“And I have my usual to-die-for chocolate mousse,” Francine added.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Bert said. “And I’m not even allowed to eat it.”
“Bert will drive you home right after,” Francine offered, as if that would entice her to stay.
“Thanks, but I really can’t,” Grace answered. “I have some things to do in the morning.”
“You’ll be here for dim sum tomorrow, won’t you?” Francine inquired.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” she answered.
ON HER WAY to get her coat, Grace saw Bert’s plastic butterfly garden on a small drop-leaf table in the front hall. Hanging from the top circular window were three grayish chrysalises, each one engaged in its own process. Their outer wrappings were beginning to take on the formation of wings. It would not be long before they molted. Grace buttoned her coat and felt a chill run up her spine as thoughts went unregistered. Her coat seemed tighter under the arms than it had before.
She walked home through the park. If she walked quickly, she would make it home before eleven-forty-five. It was a windless, cloudless night—a night when weather prediction would have been superfluous. The park was populated with midnight runners, couples carrying bottles of champagne arm-in-arm on their way to the Great Lawn to watch the fireworks, many likely to become engaged in a few minutes. A man wearing a glittery top hat ran by. Someone dressed as Baby New Year rode by on a bicycle. It was beginning to feel a little too much like Halloween.
As Grace continued along Park Drive, she felt as if she were wearing someone else’s shoes that were both too large and too heavy for her. The motorcycle boots felt like a burden and her ankles ached. Each step was overly labored, and she walked w
ith a self-consciousness she was unused to, as if she had to think about where to place each foot. She felt like a newly hatched duckling.
In the distance, she saw a crowd of runners beginning to congregate near Tavern on the Green. Just as she was about to head out of the park, she was startled by a hand on her shoulder. In the glare of the streetlight behind her, Grace had trouble making out anything more than silhouettes and obscured features.
A couple stood before her. The woman was sausaged into a shiny pink warm-up suit, matching rabbit-fur headband, and running shoes. She had reflector stripes on her jacket. The man wore a nondescript, black running outfit and ski hat. The only thing that registered about the man was his blindingly white socks. Grace couldn’t process anything familiar about them until she heard the woman’s voice and realized that it was, of all people, Penelope.
“Grace, what a wonderful coincidence,” Penelope said, wrapping her fuchsia arms around her. “We were just talking about you.”
“You were?” Grace supposed that this was the man that Penelope had met online. The man, still in the glare of the streetlight, seemed about to step forward.
“We’re on our way to do the Midnight Run and then to celebrate our engagement. Adrian has just popped the question. It’s a real shiddach.” Penelope took the man’s arm and brought him out of the glaring light. “You must join us.”
The man’s features came into view, and Grace saw the same flyaway hair underneath the black hat that she’d first glimpsed at the Pink Tea Cup, and she knew without a doubt that the person arm-in-arm with Penelope was none other than Mr. Dubrovsky, Private Investigator. Grace wasn’t sure whether it was wiser to act nonchalant, wish them a Happy New Year, and make a quick exit, or to warn her friend that this guy was a nutcase. She was mulling over her options when Mr. Dubrovsky reached out his hand. Grace flinched reflexively.
