The Late, Lamented Molly Marx (12 page)

“Barry criticized Molly, but I always read it as affectionate teasing, and assumed Molly did, too,” Brie added. “He’d never hurt Molly, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Because he loved her?” Hicks asks.

“Well, that,” Brie says, “yes, of course—that’s a given—and …” Brie hesitates.

“Go on,” Hicks say.

“Because I imagine that any kind of brutality would effectively terminate his career.” She makes an odd noise. It’s her nervous laugh, a dry, low gurgle.

“How so?”

“Detective, women are pretty damn scared to go under the knife-can you imagine using a cosmetic surgeon rumored to be a butcher?”
A goddamn butcher
is what Brie thinks.

“Interesting,” Hicks says. He gets up from the Eames chair and moves to the far end of the low burnt orange sofa across from its twin, where Brie is sitting. From this spot, the view of her legs is even better.
“And Mrs. Marx—did she love her husband?” he says, picking up a book, a biography of Maxwell Perkins, which he absentmindedly pages through and puts down while he waits for Brie’s answer. “Didn’t that guy always wear a hat to work? Maybe I should start that.”

“Without a doubt, yes,” Brie shoots back, and I’m not sure if she means the hat or is answering Hicks’ question. “Barry could get to her, but he was also her flotation device.”
Where in the hell did I come up with that term?
Brie is asking herself. And why is she so sure about this? I wonder.

“Her what?” the detective asks. Now he’s interested.

“I always thought Molly pretended her marriage was worse than it was. Some sort of self-deprecating shtick.”

But Brie has it wrong. I think she wanted my marriage to be better than I presented it. Brie was the kind of friend sure enough about herself that she didn’t need my happiness to be less so she could convince herself that hers was more.

“Can you elaborate?” Hicks asks.

I wish I could
, Brie thinks.
I wish I had evidence
. “Just a sense I had.”

Did Brie take me for a big, empty complainer?

“Tell us about the last time you saw Mrs. Marx,” Hicks says.

“It was a bike ride. Remember when we had that string of sixty-degree days in February?”

Global warming. I wonder if I’ll be around to see how that plays out.

Hicks removes a black leather notebook from his jacket pocket and scribbles in it. “You mention that the husband’s family was … what was your word, ‘difficult’?”

“Molly got along with them fine,” she says, although she knows that Kitty only tolerated me, sometimes politely. “The same with her parents and sister.”

“The sister,” Hicks says. “What’s up with her?”

“Excuse me?” Brie asks.

“At the service … you don’t think she was a little intense?”

“It was her twin sister’s funeral,” Brie says, icy. “How was she supposed to act?”

“Okay,” he says. “Sorry if I’m outta line. But what about the sisters? Were they close?”

“Do you have a brother or sister, Detective?” Brie asks. “You know how it goes. Sometimes you love them, and sometimes you wish your mother had drowned them at birth.” As soon as the words fly out of her mouth, Brie regrets them. “The thing with Molly and Lucy is they knew how to press each other’s buttons, but they were very tight.”
They loved each other
, Brie thinks.
Lucy worshipped Molly. Molly was in awe of Lucy
.

“Were you and Lucy tight, too?” he asks.

Brie pauses. She always found Lucy smug and provincial, probably because she knew Lucy found her smug and pretentious. “Mutually respectful,” she says.

Hicks chuckles ever so slightly.

Isadora walks out of the bedroom carrying a large handbag. I can’t take my eyes off it—black leather embossed with swirling flowers, possibly even a canary. She walks to Brie, puts her arm around her shoulder, and grazes her lips with a kiss.

Hicks seems to be enjoying the show. He grins. “Well, we’ll be winding things up soon here, Ms. Lawson,” he says. “Just a few more questions. Where were you the night that your friend died?”

Brie squeezes her eyes shut, trying to stop the onset of tears. “I was working,” she said. “In Brazil.”

When I was bowling in the Bronx
, Hicks thinks. “Anything else you’d like to tell me?”

Brie looks pale and tired. A lock of dark hair falls out of her chignon, and she brushes it away from her face. “Nothing I can think of.”

“Okay, then,” Hicks says. “Just one more thing. Do you know a Luke?” He pulls out the notebook again. “Luke Delaney?”

“Luke Delaney,” she says. “Yes—yes, I do. We met years ago, when I was a model.”

A model
, Hicks thinks, not surprised. “And what was Mr. Delaney’s relationship to Mrs. Marx?” he asks.

“Work associates. He’s a photographer.”

“That’s all you want to tell me?” he asks.

Brie finds her courtroom game face. “That’s all I know.”

Hicks gets up and shakes Brie’s hand. I am fairly certain he holds her palm for a moment longer than necessary, but I can’t be held accountable for my observations, because the mention of Luke, whom I have refused to think about, has my mind in orbit.

“If there’s anything else that you remember, here’s my card,” the detective says. He’s switched his tone to neutral pointing toward cordial, presses the card into Brie’s hand, and walks out the door. His rear view is possibly his best angle.

After he leaves, she steps to a desk and puts the card in the skinny, empty drawer on the right.
Hiawatha Hicks
, it reads. She says the name out loud. “Hiawatha?” The laugh that fills the loft is the laugh I remember, and from where I am, we laugh together.

arry?” Lucy said. “I hope I didn’t wake you.” The truth is that Lucy wishes she could haunt his dreams as a blood-sucking, scythe-wielding vampire. Furthermore, it’s Sunday morning, and if he’s not up now, at nine o’clock, my sister will surely mark it in the ledger she keeps of Dr. Barry Marx’s scurviest sins.

“Who’s calling, please?” Barry says. He sounds winded, which doesn’t surprise me, because although it’s raining heavily, he has just come in from a run. Standing in a baseball cap and poncho, he drips water on our kitchen floor. Barry knows the caller is Lucy: our voices were the only thing about us that was virtually identical, and I doubt he thinks I’ve rung him up from the grave to tell him he forgot to buy the right kind of milk (organic, 2 percent)—something he’s done.

“Your favorite sister-in-law,” Lucy announces.

Barry takes a moment to think,
Big-tit bitch
. “Good morning, Lucy,” he says. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” He sounds even, pleasant, as behooves a well-paid surgeon. Shortly after we were married, he worked for a few months with a speech consultant in order to soften the New York in his vowels. My idea.

You don’t like me and I don’t like you—let’s not pretend
, Lucy thinks. “I
want to make arrangements for Passover,” she spits out. “I’ll fly into New York, pick up Annabel, and bring her to Chicago for the beginning of her vacation. I’m off myself, so it’s easy for me to swing, and I can spend the whole week with her.”

“Continue.”

“My parents will fly her back,” Lucy says, encouraged. “We have a lot of plans—the Field Museum, American Girl Place, the two seders, of course. And matzo brei on the first morning of Passover—Divine tradition.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do I take that as a yes?” She is working to keep the exchange breezy but on a pad of paper is drawing circles, heavy and black with her worry.

“Lucy, it’s not going to happen,” Barry says. “Your dad mentioned something about this, but Annabel’s therapist thinks it’s too much for her to travel so soon.”

Lucy says, “Annabel’s therapist?” at the same time as I think it. She has a pediatrician and a dentist. Since when does my daughter have a therapist?

“I’ve had several consultations with a highly credentialed colleague who specializes in childhood grief,” Barry says.

“Oh, really?” Lucy says. “Who might that be?”

“Joseph,” Barry says.

“Joseph who?” Lucy asks. She is sitting in front of the computer that my parents keep on the kitchen counter and has already called up Google.

“Joseph is the last name.”

“What’s his first name?” Lucy asks briskly.

“Why is this important?”

“I asked you a fair question.”

“Okay,” he says. “Stephanie.”

Unfortunately, Lucy can’t hear me snort.

“Well, the Divine family has consulted a therapist as well,” Lucy lies. “And our highly credentialed expert from the University of Chicago who specializes in early-childhood trauma says that to deprive Annabel of contact with her maternal family right now will be …” Lucy
takes a second to think. “Would have long-term, reverberating negative consequences.”

“Reverberating, huh?” Barry says. “So, Luce, should we have our therapists meet in Central Park for a duel? Plenty of room to reverberate there.”

Annabel walks into the kitchen in her nightgown. Her toenails sparkle, the handiwork of Delfina, who left for church this morning as soon as Barry walked through the door after his run. He’s been paying her extra to sleep in the apartment every night.

My daughter puts her half-empty bowl of Cheerios in the sink and wanders over to her father. “Daddy?” she says. “Daddy?” The word flutters from her mouth. “I can’t find my Dora DVD.
Fairy Tale Adventure
. I need it. Where is it?”

Barry would have a better chance of finding God. “Lucy,” he says, “Annabel’s here. Gotta go.”

“Is that Aunt Moosey?” Annabel asks. When she smiles, her dimple shows. “Can I talk to her?”

“Barry, put Annabel on,” Lucy says. The breezy tone has blown away; she’s defaulted to shrill with a
70
percent chance of shit storm. The circles she’s doodling have grown as thick as snakes and fill a page of legal pad.

“Not a good time,” Barry says. “Annabel and I are heading out in five minutes.” His eyes settle on a wall calendar decorated with a lioness and her cubs. “We’re going to the zoo.”

“I didn’t know we were going to the zoo.” Annabel examines the rain pounding the windows in almost horizontal freefall. Even a three-year-old can look dubious. “And I want to talk to Aunt Moosey.”

“Just put her on for a minute,” Lucy says. Google has coughed up a few Stephanie Josephs—two attorneys, a hipper-than-thou teenage blogger, and an Atlanta podiatrist.

“Hang on,” he tells her. “There’s a call.” Barry puts Lucy on hold. “Are your ears burning?” Barry asks.

“Not my ears,” Stephanie says. She sounds sultrier on a rumpled Sunday morning than I ever did on my most torrid Saturday night.

“You’re a therapist, right?” he asks.

“Was,” she says. “Two careers ago. Social worker at a geriatric center.
Dentures, Depends—not my thing,” she laughs. “May I ask where this conversation is going?”

“Not important,” he says. “You were saying?”

“I took one look at this storm and had a vision for this afternoon,” she says. “Jordan and Annabel could watch cartoons, and we could do … whatever.”

“Whatever, huh?” he says, talking quietly. “I lettered in whatever in college. How did you know?”

Annabel tugs his hand. “The zoo, Daddy?” she says. “When are we going?”

“Honey, can’t you see it’s raining?” he says. “And that I’m on the phone?”

“I want to talk to Aunt Moosey! I want to find Dora!” Her face is getting red.

My eyes dart back and forth between Chicago and New York. Left on hold, Lucy sticks out her lower lip and glowers.

My father walks into the kitchen just as she slams down the phone. “Take it easy, partner,” he says. “What’s wrong?”

Lucy runs upstairs and when she gets to the hallway outside our former bedroom door shouts, “That sleazoid thinks he can have things any way he fucking wants. Well, he better think again.” My father stares at his grown daughter with the look men get when they’re stuck in an estrogen choke hold.

“Boyfriend trouble again, sweetie?” he shouts back.

My sister slams the bedroom door.

In my New York kitchen, Barry is savoring every detail of the description Stephanie offers up of the afternoon’s prix fixe. “Think about it, Dr. Marx,” she says, her mind bouncing between the equal appeals of Barry’s big dick and big bucks. “Raindrops on the windowpanes, jazz or opera—your pick—and a side trip to the bedroom for as long as you want. Should I go on?”

“Oh yeah, baby—do,” Barry says while he idly plays with the curls on Annabel’s head. She tugs on his sleeve. He bends over to give her a kiss.

“Daddy,” she says loudly, “the zoo! When are we going? And you need to find my Dora DVD, ’member?”

“You’re not seriously thinking of going to the zoo, are you?” Stephanie asks.

“
Fairy Tale Adventure’s
my best favorite.” Annabel is hanging on Barry’s leg. “I want to watch it before we go.”

“No, not now,” Barry says.

“Are you talking to me, Bear?” Stephanie says. Kitty calls Barry “Bear.” Which is why I never did.

“Daddy! I want to see the part where the mean witch puts Boots to sleep.”