Farewell, Dorothy Parker (4 page)

Violet took the chair opposite her guest. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t drink.”

“I understand that’s very fashionable now. Reformed drunks.”

“Oh, I’m not a…an alcoholic. I just don’t, that’s all.”

“Suit yourself,” Mrs. Parker said, and took a dainty sip of her drink. “God, that’s good. It’s been so long.”

“Is this the first time you’ve had a drink since…” She nodded toward the book.

“Since I died? Heavens, no. I’ve helped myself to more than a few cocktails behind the bar at the Algonquin, though I’ve learned to do it during the wee hours when no one’s around.” She took another sip. “I once made the mistake of materializing in front of a Guatemalan bellhop and the poor thing collapsed.”

Violet nodded. She imagined that over the years there were times the guest book had been left open for days or even weeks, enabling Dorothy Parker to become a free spirit in the truest sense.

“Tell me about your young man,” her guest said. “He seems like a faun’s behind.”

“Carl,” Violet said. “He’s not so bad, really. He’s just…childish. And needy. And maybe a little lazy.”

“I know the type. You’d probably wind up supporting him. What does he do?”

“He’s an artist.”

“God help us. I hope you’re not in love with him.”

“I was. Or at least I thought I was. But no. And I have to end it.”

“Why don’t you, then?”

She makes it sound so easy, Violet thought. “It’s hard. I…I’m not very good with confrontations.”

“So I noticed,” Mrs. Parker said. “You seem to need a good deal of help.”

“Is that why you came to me in the Algonquin?”

She took a few sips of her drink. “I knew I had to do something. And I couldn’t very well crack you over the head with a bottle of whisky. So I took over. It would have worked, too, if you hadn’t backed down.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m so ashamed.”

Mrs. Parker waved away the remark. “People have done far worse, trust me.”

“It’s not just Carl, it’s…” Violet paused and thought about the nervous meltdown in court that had cost her custody of her niece. And poor Delaney. She deserved better. “I’ve really made a mess of things.”

“Join the club,” Mrs. Parker said, and finished the last few drops in her glass. “Would you be a dear and fetch me another? And this time get one for yourself, as well. I insist.”

“But—”

“I did you a favor, didn’t I? At least I tried. Now, don’t make a poor dead woman drink alone. One little cocktail never hurt anyone.”

Violet took her guest’s glass and went back to the bar. She did as she’d asked and poured herself a drink, too, despite the silent promise she had made at her sister’s funeral. At the time it seemed like the best way to honor Ivy’s memory. Now, though, she had to wonder. After all, it wasn’t as if she was getting behind the wheel of a car. And anyway, maybe it would even do her some good. Maybe it would give her the courage to call Carl and end it once and for all. “Forgive me, Ivy,” she whispered, as she took a small sip. “It’s just this once.”

“That’s more like it,” Mrs. Parker said when Violet come back with two drinks. “Now, have a seat and tell me more about how you’ve made a mess of things.”

“I’d rather hear about you,” Violet said. “I have so much to ask. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Let’s take turns, then,” her guest said. “First me, then you.”

Violet shrugged her assent.

Dorothy Parker scanned the room and peered out into the foyer. “Nice place. Is it yours?”

“It is now. My parents bought it figuring it would be a fun project. It needed a lot of work, and they were going to renovate. But…it didn’t
work out that way. Then after my mother died, my sister and her family moved in.”

“When did your mother pass?”

“About ten years ago.” It felt like yesterday. It felt like forever.

“So you were…”

“Twenty-seven,” she said. Too young, she thought.

“Lucky girl.”

“Lucky?”

“You had a mother, dear,” Mrs. Parker said.

“Right, of course. You lost yours when you were very small.”

“Yes, but she was quickly replaced by Lucrezia Borgia. Did your father remarry?”

“He’s gone, too—about three years before my mother. That’s why they never moved into this house. It was sudden. Dad was doing so well with his business, and this was where they were going to spend their golden years after he retired.”

“You’re from money, then?”

“Oh, no,” Violet said, thinking about the wealthy people Dorothy Parker had known—old-money types with sprawling estates and servants’ quarters. “At least not in the sense you’re imagining. My dad was in manufacturing and did pretty well, but wasn’t rich. Not
Gatsby
rich, anyway.”

Mrs. Parker stroked her little poodle. “So you’ve read Scott.”

“Scott,” Violet repeated, smiling. “Of course. I mean, everyone has. You knew him, right? What was he like?”

“Handsome, bright. Charming when he wanted to be. I was never crazy about the wife.”

“Zelda,” Violet offered. “They say she was beautiful.”

“In a vapid and petulant way, I suppose.”

“What about Hemingway?”

“What about him?” Mrs. Parker asked.

“One of your biographers implied that you might have had a crush on him.”

“Everyone had a crush on Hemingway,” Mrs. Parker said. “He was a brute, but he had magnetism. And he could
write.
”

“One of the truly great American novelists,” Violet added.

“His novels were fine. But he could write the fucking bejeezus out of a short story.”

Goose bumps. Her idol was talking about Ernest Hemingway…and cursing like a sailor, as she was known to do. People of every generation seemed to think their contemporaries practically invented swear words, but Dorothy Parker and her friends were dropping the f-bomb way back in the 1920s.

“What about the other members of the Algonquin Round Table?” Violet said. “Robert Benchley and George S. Kaufman and—”

“I believe it’s my turn,” Mrs. Parker said.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Parker sighed. “Your apologies are starting to give me a headache.”

“I’m—” Violet said, and caught herself. She remembered a conversation she had with Ivy a number of years ago. Her sister had suggested she try channeling a strong female movie character when she was feeling timid, but Violet had just reviewed
Kill Bill,
and all she could picture was Uma Thurman ripping out Daryl Hannah’s eyeball with her fingers. That was a bit stronger than what she aspired to.

“You’re right,” she said to Dorothy Parker. “I have to work on that.”

“Never mind,” her guest said. “Tell me what you’ve made such a big mess of.”

“That’s a long story.”

“All I’ve got is time. I’m rich with it. I’m the goddamn J. Paul Getty of time.”

“Okay,” Violet said, and took a deep breath, knowing it might feel
good to talk to someone besides Carl and her lawyer about this. “A little over a year ago, my sister and her family were driving to visit friends of theirs upstate. But some loser with a pickup truck had decided that the best way to get through his impending dentist visit was to get plastered first. Only he never made it to his appointment. At eleven o’clock in the morning he got onto the Taconic Parkway headed in the wrong direction and had a head-on collision with a little family from Long Island. My brother-in-law was killed instantly.”

Violet paused, remembering the call she got from the hospital. They didn’t tell her over the phone that her sister was dead, but the coldest, darkest chill swept through her and she knew. In the months since, she could never remember the drive to the hospital or even the words the doctor used. But she could still feel his clammy hand on her shoulder. At the time, it was incomprehensible. How could this man be alive if the world had just ended?

Violet swallowed hard and continued. “My sister bled to death on the way to the hospital. Delaney, my niece, was in the backseat and survived with a broken arm and a chest contusion that did enough damage to her young heart to put her on medication for the rest of her life.”

“And the drunk?”

“Dead. Shot through his windshield like a missile.”

“That’s one way to avoid a dentist appointment,” Mrs. Parker said, and then shook her head and looked into her lap. “I’m rotten to the core.”

“No, it’s okay.”

Mrs. Parker looked up. She was crying. “I’m so sorry,” she said. She kissed Cliché on the top of the head. “Truly. Were you close with your sister?”

Violet took a sip of her drink. She didn’t want to start crying. Not now. She wanted to get through this story and move on. “Very,” she
whispered, and drew a long, jagged breath. “They had been living here, in this house. So after the accident, I gave up my apartment and moved in to take care of my niece.”

“So where is she?”

“That’s the part I screwed up so badly. When the people at her school district told me I needed to be her legal guardian, I figured it was just a matter of paperwork and that a judge would rubber-stamp it. But Neil’s parents—Delaney’s grandparents—showed up at court with a lawyer. And not just any lawyer—a mountain of a guy with a shaved head and a European suit. He got right in my face and said, ‘My clients just want what’s best for the child,
Miss Epps
…or should I say
Ms.
?’ He was so derisive, as if I could only be one of the two lowest forms of life—an unmarried woman or worse, a feminist. I realized later it was all theater meant to intimidate me, but at the time it worked like a charm. I freaked. I was so blindsided I couldn’t talk. Not a word. I could barely even stand upright. So the judge set a date for a formal hearing to determine guardianship, and in the meantime…in the meantime he granted temporary custody to her grandparents.” Violet paused to push at her cuticles. “It should have been me,” she said softly. “She had stability here—her room, her house, her friends, her dog. If I had been able to utter a single word—”

“But you’ll get her back, right?”

“Not if I have another meltdown in front of the judge.”

“You have a lawyer now, yes?”

“I do, and she’s good. But since Delaney’s been living with her grandparents for a few months, it’s not a slam dunk.”

Mrs. Parker looked puzzled.

“A sure thing,” Violet explained.

“I see,” Mrs. Parker said. She petted Cliché as she considered this. “So you appear before the judge and go mute in terror and he decides
you’re too irrational to take care of a child and he grants permanent custody to the grandparents.”

“That’s right.”

“Are you?”

“Irrational? No, I’m good with her. Maybe not perfect, but I’m learning. And Neil’s parents are ghastly. Not that they don’t mean well, but she’s miserable there. Sandra, the grandmother, is a hypochondriac and a neurotic mess. And her husband, Malcolm, is in his own world. He used to be okay, but now that he’s retired he devotes his spare time to a worthy cause—himself.”

“What does the girl want?”

“She wants to move back here.”

“Won’t the judge honor her wishes?”

“The way I understand it,” Violet said, “he’ll take that into account, but it’s not the deciding factor. So I’m going to need to do a hell of a lot better at the next hearing, or poor Delaney will be stuck.”

“Well, then,” Mrs. Parker said.

“Well, then what?”

“Well, then, we will just have to teach you to speak up for yourself.” She held up her empty glass. “Let’s have another drink.”

Chapter 4

Teach her to speak up for herself? Yes, Violet thought. That was just what she needed. Of course, it wouldn’t be easy. Violet had been suppressing her voice for decades.

She hadn’t always been so timid. As a small child, Violet was so outspoken that her verbal brass became family legend. It was blown out of proportion, of course. To hear her relatives tell it, you would think she was the love child of Oscar Wilde and Fran Lebowitz—a neat trick in more ways than one. But in truth, she really
had
been a verbal prodigy, speaking in clear sentences at eighteen months, to the delight of her loving parents and any other adults who might be within earshot.

Unfortunately, the more praise she received, the angrier her older sister became. It was a perfect storm of sibling rivalry. By the time she turned five, Violet was running verbal rings around seven-year-old Ivy. Naturally, this infuriated the older sibling, who found every possible excuse to cut her little sister down. Still, Violet worshipped Ivy with an almost fanatical devotion.

Back then, she was too young to understand the reason for Ivy’s animosity. In fact, Violet was so awed by her sister’s talents that it never occurred to her that Ivy could be jealous. She just assumed everyone recognized that Ivy was the true genius. After all, making clever remarks was easy. But the ability to draw realistic horses and build intricate Lego structures and know right away where the jigsaw puzzle pieces went seemed like a miracle. Violet thought Ivy was a star.

And so the little sister continued to perform her verbal parlor tricks for the adults while dogging her sister for attention.

Until the day she went too far.