comin’ tonight?” Sylvia asked, as predictable as Republican bank scandals.
“I can’t,” Phyllis told her. “I’m having dinner in Buckingham Palace.”
“Don’t kid me,” Sylvia said, but there was enough doubt in her voice that Phyllis knew she could.
“Betty is very unhappy,” Phyllis continued. “All of her children have disappointed her. I said ‘Betty, that’s what they’re for.’ We’re talking it over tonight. You know, they say that Edward is like my Bruce. ‘Gay, schmay,’ I said to her. ‘Just help him find a nice faigela and settle down.’”
“Prince Edward is like your Bruce?” Sylvia asked, her voice lowering.
“Wake up and smell the nitroglycerin,” Phyllis told her friend, who also had a heart condition.
“What a tragedy,” Sylvia tsked. “And in such a family.”
“It’s in my family, too,” Phyllis snapped. “What are we, belly lox? Nothing wrong with it.” Plenty was wrong with it, in Phyllis’s opinion, and with Susan and Sharon, too, but it was no one’s job but hers to point it out.
If Phyllis ever took Sylvia seriously she’d be offended. But, luckily, she knew how ridiculous it would be to be offended by anything Sylvia said. The woman had a strong constitution, a good heart, and a weak mind.
“I heard the Queen Mother had a colostomy,” Sylvia said in a lowered voice. “Like my Sid.” For the decade before Sid left her, Sylvia had coped with not only her own heart condition but also Sid’s colon cancer. “Can you imagine? All those garden parties.” Phyllis ignored the non sequitur. Who knew how Sylvia’s mind worked?
They had reached the end of The Broadwalk and, as always, Sylvia had to touch the post implanted in the macadam to stop vehicular traffic.
“What would happen if, just once, we walked to the end and you didn’t hit the barrier?” Phyllis asked.
“Everybody touches the post,” Sylvia said. “You have to touch the post.”
“No you don’t. I don’t.”
“You. You’re different.”
“Nu? Tell me something I don’t know.”
Phyllis sighed. Different was fine. It was lonely that was the problem. She didn’t know how long she’d been lonely. Certainly way before Ira died. After a while, it became a fact of life and you just didn’t notice it any more. That was the danger. It was like smelling gas: if you didn’t pay attention to it, it could kill you. In Florida, Phyllis hadn’t had a really good friend, one who understood her and got her jokes. Even Ira, long before he died, had stopped responding much. But nobody talked to their husbands. What was there to say after forty-seven years? “Do you still like my brisket?” “Do you think that I ought to shorten this skirt?” “Should we pull our troops out of Bosnia?”
Phyllis still had a lot to say, but who wanted to listen? And who had anything interesting to say back? Which was why she was now walking down The Broadwalk with Sylvia Katz. Sylvia was no Madame Curie, didn’t understand half of what Phyllis was talking about, but at least she wasn’t offended by Phyllis’s wisecracks.
Most of the women that Phyllis knew were offended by her. She had to face it, she had a big mouth. She always had. And if she offended most of the women she met down here, they in turn bored her. They’d talk about recipes, grandchildren, shopping, and more recipes. They bored her stiff. Sylvia was a relief. No kids, no recipes, no aggravation.
Phyllis’s own children interested her, but not just to brag about. They interested her because they were interesting, not because they were hers. Susan was brilliant, Bruce was remarkably witty, and Sharon … well, Sharon, she had to admit, favored her father’s side of the family. Still, she loved them. Like Queen Betty must love her brood. It didn’t mean she approved of their behavior, or that they approved of hers.
“This means you’ll be with the kids for the holidays. Nice for you.” She sounded wistful. “Nice for them.” Sylvia paused. “Do they know you’re going up?” she asked.
Phyllis was silent.
“You haven’t told them, have you?” Sylvia asked accusingly.
“Not yet,” Phyllis admitted.
“You have to. You have to,” Sylvia said. Her own son had both refused a Thanksgiving invitation and not extended one to her. “If you don’t tell them, I will.”
“Don’t you dare,” Phyllis warned.
“When are you going to tell them?”
“Next Purim,” Phyllis said, and opened the gate to Pinehearst for her friend.
You’re joking.”
“You wish.”
“Come on,” Sig Geronomous said cavalierly. “It’s just one of those empty threats. One of those nutty things she says that get us all jerked around for nothing. Like the time she corresponded with the Asian bride and wanted to import her for you.”
“She means this,” Sig’s brother, Bruce, told her. “Todd, get over here and tell her that it’s true.” Bruce didn’t live with Todd, but they had been spending a lot of time together. Whenever Sig asked if it was serious Bruce evaded the question.
“Bruce has the proof,” Todd shouted into the receiver.
“How do you know?”
“Because she gave Mrs. Katz the rattan magazine rack,” Bruce responded.
“The magazine rack? Oh my God!” Susan Geronomous—now known to her friends and business associates as Sigourney—accidentally dropped the telephone receiver. It crashed so hard against her granite countertop that her brother Bruce, at the other end of the phone, winced.
“What was that? Did you hurt yourself?”
“I wish.” Sigourney had gotten control of the phone; now she just had to control herself. This couldn’t really be happening … nothing was ever as bad as it seemed … absence made the heart grow fonder … too many cooks—she stopped. She was going crazy. This couldn’t be true. Christmas and her mother both coming? She might as well pull out the razor blades now. Sig looked down appraisingly at her elegant wrist. “She just casually mentioned that she gave away the rattan magazine rack?”
“I’m way ahead of you,” Bruce sang. “Mom didn’t tell me. It’s not a setup. It was Mrs. Katz who called.”
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“Mom could have put her up to it.”
“I already called the building manager. Confirmation. And there’s a garage sale this
