Nobody Will Tell You This But Me

by Bess Kalb

  You work too hard. The job is too much for you. Your mother says you fall asleep working with your laptop on your chest.

  I’m fine. I can handle it.

  Where’s Charlie?

  He’s at his coworking space downtown.

  And your mother said his remote job doesn’t pay the rent on that office.

  It’s a human rights organization and their budget goes toward crisis response software—

  It doesn’t matter. They have plenty of funding. He should insist the company pays the rent for his office.

  Maybe he should have you call them.

  Very funny. What are you cooking anyway?

  Salmon from a New York Times recipe.

  Oh, I love to make salmon.

  You make salmon?

  Of course I make salmon. I just put it in the microwave on high.

  And that works?

  Sure.

  I don’t think I’m going to do that.

  Bessie, can I say something?

  What?

  Throw out the fish and order some decent food. Nobody wants to come home to salmon.

  NURSERY SCHOOL

  Have I ever told you what happened on your first day of nursery school? It was two buildings down from your parents’ apartment. Your mother had just gone back to work. Oh, how you’d cry when the babysitter tried to take you out of the house! And I was in Florida—your grandfather and I had bought the apartment in Palm Beach a few years before, and we were spending half the year there. So I got the call: “Mom? Can you take Bessie to school?” I hung up and got on a plane. She didn’t even finish her next sentence.

  We walked into the school, took the elevator up, and when the doors opened you squeezed my hand so hard it almost fell off. You looked straight ahead like I was marching you off the plank. I crouched down to hug you goodbye. You started breathing fast, and your little heart was beating right through your coat and tears started streaming down your cheeks at full force. Big, round tears. I thought someone would call the police. So I took your red face in my hands and looked you in the eye, and I said, “Angel, I’ll be right here. Right outside this door. I’m not going anywhere.” You stopped crying. You knew I wouldn’t lie to you. You didn’t even ask me to promise, you just wiped your eyes with your two hands and walked right in.

  Thank God I had The New York Times in my handbag.

  Two minutes later—maybe one minute—I heard a little knock on the door. That was our code. So I popped my head up so you could see me through the window on the door and gave you a big, wide smile. “Everything’s okay! You’re all right! Grandma’s here.” You nodded and headed back to the circle of kids. Then five minutes later—knock-knock-knock-knock-knock!—and I popped up through the window and smiled. Then ten minutes, twenty, thirty, and so on. But all day, unless you were napping, you’d give a knock and there I’d be, smiling like a showgirl, letting you know it would be all right. I’m here. You’re safe.

  I didn’t get through a single article.

  It happened all week. By Friday, you didn’t knock. That’s when I cried.

  MY PET

  You said your first words to me and you also stood up for the first time when I was there.

  I would fly to New York every week when your mother was finishing her residency, and I’d sit with you in the apartment and hold you in my arms and talk to you until you said something back. Waiting for you to mirror my words.

  When you were seven or eight months old, I was pacing around on the cordless phone in the living room in the house on Martha’s Vineyard, ranting and raving and waving my free arm around in the air. You yelped out for me so I’d pay attention, then pulled yourself up by the edge of the low wooden coffee table and gave me a big wave and a smile. I stopped in my tracks. I turned off the phone and I waved back. “Oh, hi, angel!” You let go of the table and teetered around for a second or two and fell smack down on your tush, as astonished as I was. Thank God you didn’t fall forward.

  Two years later you would put on my red high-heeled pumps and parade around the house yelling, “Hank! Robin! Bessie!” A riot. You would open my jewelry drawers and carefully examine each piece in its individual felt square. You’d pick up the rings and marvel at them sparkling in the light. You’d try on the enamel bangles and shake them around, and you’d run the strands of pearls between your fingers. All of them your treasures. I’d always say the same thing: “You want it? One day it’ll be yours.” “What day?” “When you’re a little older.” And I’d give you a junky pin or an amber beaded necklace, and you’d be ecstatic and we’d leave it at that.

  You’d sit on one of the cushioned stools in my powder room and watch me apply my lipstick. My mouth stretched open in a wide circle as I coated my lips in a bright shade of coral. Then I’d whip out a tissue from its silver box, fold it in half, rest it in my mouth, and smack my lips together on it. You must always blot or it’ll clump up and settle around the edges and you’ll look like an old fortune teller.

  You begged your mother for a lipstick when you were in the third grade. I got a call from your mother.

  “She said you let her wear your makeup.”

  “Oh, please. We have fun.”

  “Mom. She’s a kid. She plays kickball.”

  “All little girls want to wear lipstick.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “No kidding.”

  Click.

  When you were twelve years old, you came down to Palm Beach for winter break all by yourself for the first time. I waited for you at the gate, and as you stepped into the terminal we charged for each other like bulls.

  Every morning we brought our books to the pool and sat out under big hats with zinc on our noses. We ate cantaloupe slices at the kitchen table and talked about whatever there was to say. We went to Neiman’s and Saks, and I bought you a lavender linen scarf you wore every single day for a year.

  One afternoon I took you along to my beauty parlor appointment on Worth Avenue, and I asked the girl to blow-dry your hair straight. You sat in the chair reading your book, and I looked at you and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was.

  My pet.

  Your mother never let me hear the end of it.

  It was almost as bad as the time I cut off a lock of your hair when you were a very little girl. She made a federal case out of it. You’d think I shot you in the head. You had the most beautiful hair when you were three or four—a very light reddish brown with streaks of gold through it. We were alone in the apartment after nursery school, and I took a pair of kitchen shears and chopped off a curl. You didn’t mind. Besides, I asked you!

  “Can Grandma have a piece of your hair?”

  I’ll never forget what you said.

  “Can I have it back?”

  I laughed. “Sure!”

  I cut it off, put it in a Ziploc, and it stayed in my handbag for a year. I took it to every appointment at every beauty salon. “Match this.”

  WEDDING DAY, JUNE 2013

  [IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LAST SPEECH]

  GRANDMOTHER: Bessie.

  GRANDDAUGHTER: What’s wrong?

  Nothing! Absolutely nothing.

  Why have you been pacing around for the past twenty minutes?

  You shouldn’t have sat the rabbi next to Charlie’s father.

  Why not?

  Because this rabbi you found happens to be the most boring man on earth.

  Excuse me?

  You heard the ceremony.

  Yes. I was there.

  All he did was talk about the Torah and the Talmud and recite Hebrew.

  That’s his job. Grandma, that’s literally his one job. And we had like two prayers maximum. Per your request.

 
The rabbi is boring Charlie’s father.

  No, he’s not. Look at them! He’s laughing.

  He’s not laughing. He’s just being polite. He has good manners because they all went to boarding school. And now he’s going to think Jews are boring.

  He’s met you. He’s not going to think Jews are boring.

  You laugh, but this is terrible. I’m moving them.

  Grandma, please, no. Don’t rearrange everything. Don’t.

  Why wouldn’t I?

  Because none of that matters anymore. His dad can think Jews are the worst people on earth and it wouldn’t change anything. You know why?

  Why?

  Because I won. Charlie has no clean escape.

  Ha!

  THE MODEL

  When you were seven years old, I took you to lunch on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach. In those days the boutiques had models parade by in the clothes and jewelry and talk to the ladies having lunch at the café tables along the sidewalks. Smart idea.

  One of the women was walking past our table just dripping in costume jewelry—very practical for when you’re traveling—and she stopped to smile at you. She thought you were cute, eating a plate of fries as big as your head. And she said, “Maybe your grandma would like to buy you one of these lovely bracelets?” You looked her dead in the eye: “They’re a little clunky for me,” you said. Clunky. You must have heard me say it about something or other. Oh, how I laughed. The look on her face! They were terrible bracelets. You didn’t have a bad eye.

  I never treated you like a child. We didn’t go to “children’s” activities where I’d sit around while you painted this or that or ice-skated. I wasn’t the grandmother who waited on a bench while you swung around on monkey bars. There’s no equality in that. I never baked you a thing. What do I know about baking? I didn’t read you books. You could read your own books! We’d read on the couch together from the time you were five. We’d go on outings to the museum and talk only about the art. We’d have quiche Lorraine in the cafeteria and you’d finish yours in three bites. Yes, we’d go to the beauty parlor, and while my color set you’d get your hair cut and blow-dried. But we also would talk about our friends and who was disloyal or a bore or going with the wrong boy. I’d take you to Neiman’s to buy myself a suit for a party, and you’d give your opinion on the colors.

  I raised you as my equal so I’d have a friend. Birds of a feather.

  THE SLEEPOVER

  Neither of us has ever been any good at falling asleep. We’re wired the same. Always something to do. Something to read. To eat. To worry about. The two of us, lying awake at midnight, staring up at our ceilings, two minds whirring in the dark.

  Do you remember Eleanor Porter? You adored her—she was a kind, polite child. You both read those historical fiction books about colonial dolls who came to life. Do you know whatever happened to her? You mustn’t lose touch with your friends, honey. Look her up online.

  Anyhow. When you were about eight years old you were over at Eleanor’s house for a sleepover and you couldn’t sleep. You had tossed and turned in your sleeping bag on the floor, and you had worked yourself into a cold sweat. You got in your own head. What could you possibly be so stressed about at eight years old? Whether your dollhouse was up to code?

  This had happened before. At that girl Rebecca’s. At Claire’s on her birthday. At Stephanie’s just a few weeks before. Your mother had warned you it would happen again. She told you to leave after dinner. That she wouldn’t pick you up later than ten. That you needed to “know yourself.”

  But you wouldn’t accept defeat. Not on her terms. So dinner came and went and you felt fine. And you changed into your pajamas and you watched the movie with the other girls with your teeth grinding in your skull, and you felt the adrenaline rise in your chest and you readied yourself for lights out. You got into your sleeping bag and you were immediately in hell. The clock on the wall was ticking too loudly. The carpet beneath you had a staple in it you could feel through all your layers. The tag in your pajama pants was stabbing at you. You were doomed.

  And there was no way you could call your mother. You refused to hand her this victory, no matter how desperately you needed to get into your own bed. But there was another way. Grandma.

  It was eleven p.m. and you wriggled out of your sleeping bag and tiptoed down into the kitchen, picked up the phone, and dialed my number in Ardsley. It was one of the three numbers you knew by heart.

  I was at the front door in my cream-colored Acura in thirty minutes. I insisted you tell the girl’s parents—I didn’t want everyone waking up and calling the police. You had to walk into their bedroom with your tail between your legs and tell them you were leaving. They didn’t mind the late hour, they were sympathetic; Eleanor’s mother was a kind woman.

  You gathered up your things, handed me the sleeping bag, and I piled you into the backseat and drove you straight to your parents’ house. It was only fifteen minutes away, but you were sound asleep by the time we pulled into your driveway.

  I sat with the news on the radio and let you sleep like that for half an hour before I scooped you up and carried you inside like a rag doll.

  You were eight, not some toddler. My back hurt for a week.

  Your mother was in the living room wide-awake, of course. She’d been expecting your call.

  PHONE CALL, 2015

  GRANDMOTHER: I saw the most wonderful exhibit.

  GRANDDAUGHTER: What was it?

  Klimts at the Neue Galerie. Bessie, you must go.

  Oh, I will. Next time I’m home.

  You’ll love them. It’s extraordinary seeing them all together, room after room. As it should be.

  They have a Klimt at LACMA, I think.

  Probably not a very good one.

  THE MET

  Do you remember what we always did when I took you to the Metropolitan Museum of Art?

  I’d bring a yellow legal pad and pencils, and we’d sit in front of the paintings and you’d sketch.

  “Bessarabia, what do you see?”

  “Haystacks.”

  “I didn’t realize I was accompanied by the chief art critic of The New York Times.”

  “What am I supposed to see?”

  “You tell me.”

  And you’d get very close to the painting, your nose just a breath away from the varnish—the guards would bark at you and you’d jump back with an electric jolt and straighten your back, and we’d both wince and shrug at each other. And you’d collect yourself and clear your throat and stand there with your arms crossed, solemnly squinting at the painting, rocking from foot to foot like a grand appraiser. Thirty seconds. A minute. Five minutes. You’d occasionally stroke your chin with two fingers like you’d seen Bugs Bunny do in a cartoon. You might as well have wiped your monocle on a handkerchief.

  Finally, when there was practically steam coming out of your ears, you’d have your fully prepared remarks: “I think he loved hay and he probably loved painting.”

  And I’d turn to the guard and say, “She charges fifty cents for a tour.”

  After the art was the main event: the cheese plate. We’d go to the grand old cafeteria where it used to be in the back of the museum in the columned atrium. We’d line up, pick out two plastic containers full of cheese, find a quiet table away from the tourists and talk, and eat our snack very methodically. First the brie, scooping it out from the rind with the water crackers, and then we’d press a sliced strawberry into the soft cheese and eat it just like that. We were very French, you and I.

  We’d eat the cheddar, throw away the blue; then on the way out the main entrance you’d buy a postcard of your favorite painting. Always something with flowers.

  * * *

  · · ·

  METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF A
RT,

  PERMANENT COLLECTION, 1994

  GRANDMOTHER: Bessie, I want you to go around these rooms and take this notepad and tell me how many paintings were done by a woman.

  GRANDDAUGHTER: And then we can look at the ballerinas?

  A building full of all the greatest masterpieces, and all you want is to see how an old man kept wandering into dance practice. I’d have had him arrested.

  I like the ballerinas.

  After this we can see as many damned ballerinas as you can stand.

  [THIRTY MINUTES LATER]

  OK! Eight women.

  Eight!

  Yep.

  Did you write them down?

  [STUMBLING THROUGH PRONUNCIATIONS]

  Simone Martini, Andrea del Sarto, Camille Corot, Annibale Carracci, Andrea Mantegna, Jules Bastien-Lepage, Camille Pissarro, and Jan Steen.

  Oh, honey. Give that here.

  [EXTRACTS GLASSES FROM GIANT HANDBAG, LOOKS AT THE PAPER]

  Did I miss any? I saw them all.

  All of those are men.

  They have girls’ names.

  They’re just European names.

  Did I miss the women?

  There aren’t any women.

  It was a trick?

  It was a lesson.

  What’s the lesson?

  If you’re born a man and halfway decent at something, everyone will tell you you’re great. There’s only one woman nearby. Right through here in the American wing.

  [TAKES HAND AND WALKS ME INTO THE NEXT GALLERY]

  Here she is. Lady at the Tea Table. Mary Cassatt.

  I like it.

  Yes, you do. You know how you can tell a Mary Cassatt?