The Late, Lamented Molly Marx (36 page)

Should I have stayed away from Luke? Not my finest hour. But God, You know better than anyone that I never intended to hurt Barry. Can
we both at least agree that while he wasn’t the best husband, my point wasn’t to be cruel? I know You know that what I felt for Luke was authentic. My passion for him was the most glittering emotion You ever let me experience, second only to the love I felt for my child and my parents. It was the rarest rainbow of sentiment: capital-Hove. Can that be bad?

God, let’s talk. What was I supposed to do when You threw us together? Luke drew me to Luke. I didn’t run in his direction because he was the Other Guy. Why did You do that? Not that I’m blaming anyone but myself. You knew I could never resist a man who listened to me the way Luke did, who manipulated my body as if it were a PlayStation 3, and who happened to look and smell and smile like, well, Luke. Did You put him on earth and let him trip me up just to tease?

Ah, but the moment for silent meditation is over. Rabbi S.S. is at it again.

“On Rosh Hashanah it will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur it will be sealed … how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created. Who will live and who will die at his predestined time and who before his time?”

My heart’s more than confused—it’s riddled with questions that I have the rest of eternity to sort out. Top of the list is why I, Molly Divine Marx, stood in this very synagogue twelve months ago, prayed as ardently as the women next to me and behind me to be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life for one more year, but wasn’t among the chosen. Yes, I’m as hideously culpable as any other commandment violator in this room. I am an emotional felon. But I can’t believe that Your thinking is so simplistic in the cause-and-effect department that infidelity is what has landed me in the Duration, especially when Barry and Luke got to stick around. You can’t possibly have a double standard, that cheating is worse for women than for men.

“Who by water … fire … sword … beast … famine … thirst … storm … plague … strangulation … stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried … who will enjoy tranquillity and who will suffer … who will be impoverished and who will be enriched … who will be degraded and who will be exalted?”

That elegant, mustached gentleman with the ebony cane who always sits in front of us—he looks as delicate as the white lilies on the altar. Will he be here next year, or six feet under? That enormous mom from Annabel’s school—will it make a rat’s ass of difference if she deep-sixes the Häagen-Dazs, joins Curves, and hitches her star to Jenny Craig? Will Kitty make the cut? My mother? Does being sealed in the Book of Life truly depend on how many merits and demerits a person has in her account and whether her atonement is heartfelt, or do You have a short list created by celestial lottery?

Barry is counting on the former. I know this much from listening to him. He’s fretting more about the future than the past.

“Do you think he’s really sorry?” I ask.

“I do,” Bob says. I would like to believe him. I’m working on it. Bob’s not a cynic. I am.

“He wishes everything were different,” Bob says. “Listen to him.”

Diffuse early afternoon light floods through stained glass, highlighting congregants in gilded pools of sun as they offer up silent entreaties. I tune back in to Barry, waiting for him to make a wish on Stephanie’s behalf, but his head is wrapped around Annabel, his mother, and “poor sweet Molly.” It’s a pitiful appeal, and I am relieved when he moves on to a lengthy entreaty on his own behalf. He augments his case with anecdotes.
God, remember the time I waived my surgery fee because a child had a cleft palate and the parents couldn’t pay? See what a good father I am to Annabel? Take note of all my charitable contributions—thousands and thousands of dollars. Please recall the unsolicited raise I gave Delfina and the way I forgave Lucy Don’t forget I’m a good son. The best. I call my mother every day
.

“In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter, we remember them,” the rabbi says.

Do they remember me, really? Can they hear my giggle and picture my eyes? Know which eyebrow was higher than the other? Remember the taste of my chocolate chip cookies? Listen to Chris Botti or Chris Rock and recall,
Molly thought those guys rocked
.

I’ve had enough. All this remembering can bring a girl down when there’s no promise of blintzes smothered in sour cream, stuffed with cottage cheese or syrupy blueberries, to reward her at the end of the
day’s fast, especially when the whole point is bargaining with God for one more year of blood, sweat, and tears of joy, for one more dizzying year of life. “In the blueness of the skies and in the warmth of summer, we remember them,” Rabbi S.S. intones as Bob and I take off. Before I leave, I glance back once more.

Barry’s been here all day long, prayer oozing from every pore, but damn, he still looks guilty.

ucy lays a trio of my most beloved garments on the bed. “Did my sister think she was a prima ballerina?” she says out loud to herself. “Why would anyone ever need three lace skirts?”

The answer is obvious, if only to me. One skirt is layers of tulle that looked fetching with flats and a boatneck top whenever I tried to channel Audrey Hepburn. Another grazed my ankles. It’s the color of iced cappuccino, matches a filmy camisole that Lucy has yet to discover, and makes me feel tall, like an Italian heiress. The third is a gold pouf that barely hits my knees. I wore it once, to an Academy Awards party where I, Oscar the cross-dresser, won for Best Costume.

I don’t expect Lucy to appreciate my finery. To Lucy, clothes are a necessity, end of story.

I watch Lucy and not only do I miss my critical, irascible sister, but I’ll admit it, I also miss clothes—buying them, fondling them, and pretending that I’m someone else when I wear them. I miss my clothes, strangers’, and even mistakes-in-the-making I scoffed at in magazines. Maybe I am a scoffer after all.

Every few hours, Lucy phones my mother. “What should I do with the outfit Molly wore to Annabel’s naming?” Another nursing mommy
might have chosen a flowing tunic and stretchy-waist pants that coordinated with projectile vomit, but I’d honored the occasion in a winter-white bouclé sheath and coat.

“I’d like it,” my mother says. “Ship it here.” She’ll hang it next to my wedding gown and hope it still smells of my perfume. Which makes me wonder, would my fortunes have been different if my scent had been, say, Paris by Yves Saint-Laurent and not Eternity by Calvin Klein?

“The sheared beaver coat you gave her senior year? It’s molting.”

“Maybe a charity wants it.”

“Her cheerleading uniform?”

“Home.”

Not the Smithsonian? I’m crushed.

“A boatload of black pants?” Lucy asks, wondering why ten pairs were necessary. I wore them all, cheap, expensive, gabardines, silk, wools, low-rise, cropped, cords, and especially the ones designed by Karl Lagerfeld for H&M. Fifty-nine dollars’ worth of unadulterated pleasure.

“Honestly,” my mother says, moving along to cranky. “Use your own judgment.” She catches herself for snapping.

This is the second day of the purge. Lucy already showered Delfina with piles of handbags and sweaters. Today she came to work with a gaily branded satchel—Coach! Coach! Coach!—instead of her reliable vinyl tote. I hope she looks inside the hidden zippered compartment, where she’ll find a twenty-dollar bill.

For Lucy this is a triathlon that requires focus and stamina. She doesn’t want Annabel to see her mother’s worldly possessions exhibited as if a yard sale were in progress, so she’s limiting her efforts to when my daughter’s away. My sister hasn’t even laid eyes on Barry. She’s checked into a small hotel on Madison, where she passed last night watching an American League playoff game along with a Kirin beer and a chaser of unagi rolls. This morning she charged through Central Park, timing her power walk to arrive after Annabel left for school.

But now, even though Annabel won’t be home for hours, Lucy’s heading out, shifting a duffel from hand to hand. The subway pulls into the station as she races down the steps. Good sign. Whenever the mass transit gods smiled on me, I considered the event to have profound cosmic significance. Unfortunately, I also read meaning into reverse
karma, such as picking the seat next to the guy who’d forsworn deodorant or the teenage girl who shrieked “Motherfucka!” because my leg brushed hers.

Lucy gets off at Columbus Circle. Brie suggested lunch spots all over town—the Little Owl, Pastis, Le Cirque—but Lucy vetoed every one: too far, too French, too phony. She is not impressed by forty-dollar entrées, steaks with a resumé, gawking taxidermy, pickle juice cocktails, or snowy white truffles. The last food trend Lucy got on board with was frozen yogurt. What’s really going on is, of course, pride and prejudice. Lucy wants to be on an equal footing with Brie, not faced with her air-kissing a maître d’ or whipping out a black Amex card, insisting that Lucy be her guest. She’d rather eat toads than let Brie pay.

Brie and Lucy finally agreed to meet in a small café within a vertical mall that overlooks the park. Lucy arrives early and waits. And waits. She’s standing at the café’s entrance. Bouchon Bakery is first come, first served, not a place where she’d be graciously seated and offered a drink. I wish I could tell her that she may as well read the first two chapters of a book at the Borders on the floor below: it’s going to be a while.

Predictably, Brie is twenty minutes late. By the time she waves from the escalator, my sister’s face has crimped into a grimace.

“Sorry,” Brie says, airy and smiley. “Couldn’t get a taxi.” Liar. She found one instantly, eight minutes ago, after she left her office on Madison and Sixty-first. I learned to work around Brie time, but Lucy considers tardiness an offense right up there with coveting your neighbor’s ox. Brie hesitates about whether to kiss Lucy’s cheek. The opportunity passes. “Good to see you!” Brie says, grinning too brightly.

“You too,” Lucy answers as they walk to a long communal table. They hop on the tall chairs, facing each other. Brie and Lucy are nearly the same height, although Brie is a champagne flute, Lucy a sturdy highball. Aside from my funeral and shiva, I can’t recall them being alone together. Certainly, they’ve never shared a meal without me as referee.

Lucy decides to get to the point. “I thought you’d like these things,” she says, and slides the bag to Brie’s side.

Brie eyes the duffel uncomfortably, as if it might contain my head.

“C’mon, Brie,” Lucy says. “Look inside.”

Brie opens the bag and carefully unfolds the gold skirt; a pair of kiwi-green silk pajamas; a hand-crocheted gray sweater, delicate as
Charlotte’s web; and a scarlet jacket elaborately embroidered with silver flowers and butterflies. I’ll say this for Lucy—our tastes may have harmonized like olives and ice cream, but in picking these treasures, she’s aced it.

Brie keeps her tears locked up inside. After she wordlessly refolds every piece of clothing, remembering how I looked in each one and adored these particular things, she wonders, should she put her hand on Lucy’s arm? Get up, walk around, and hug her? My sister exists in a sentimental no-fly zone that Brie knows better than to try to invade. Instead she says simply, “Lucy, thank you. I’m touched—beyond words—and very grateful for all these ways to remember Molly.” The formality of the statement does nothing to mitigate the tension that fortifies the air like humidity.

“You’re welcome,” Lucy says.

“Are you sure you don’t want all of this?”

“Could you honestly see me in a gold skirt that wouldn’t cover my ass?” Lucy says.
Doesn’t Brie know me at all?
she wonders. “I’m sure Molly would’ve wanted you to have them. In fact, if there’s anything else you’d like, let me know.”

There is. Brie would like to get Lucy talking—about Barry, about Annabel, and mostly about why exactly she thinks I am not able to be at the table right now, making sure that the two of them don’t end in a hammerlock. But Brie doesn’t have the combination to Lucy. While she thinks about what to say next, Lucy selects a new topic. “What’s good here?” she asks as she glances at the menu. “I’m thinking about tomato soup with the grilled cheese.”

“Never had it,” says Brie, who, despite her name, isn’t the sort to gobble an inch of cheese oozing between thick slabs of white bread. “I always order the endive and watercress salad.”

Which is why you have no thighs
, Lucy realizes.
What the fuck am I going to talk to this woman about?
Lucy is losing sight not only of the most obvious theme—how I died, ladies—but also of how smart Brie is, how kind, and how much I got out of having a friend twice as resolute as I would ever be. As if I ever would have gone hang-gliding on my own.

“How does Annabel seem to you?” Brie asks. Letting Lucy clean out closets is one thing, but has Barry actually allowed Lucy to be alone with Annabel, given the kidnapping that almost was?

“I haven’t spent enough time with her to tell,” Lucy says. “We hung out a little yesterday afternoon”—chaperoned by Delfina, who rode shotgun—“but then I had to head out.”
To avoid Barry
.