Being Esther (22 page)

“Happy death,” Esther snaps. “Sounds like an oxymoron to me.”

“Oxymoron?” Amos cocks an eyebrow.

“It means . . .” Esther starts.

“I know what it means, Esther.”

For the second time this evening, she bristles at the sound of her name.

“But why,” Amos continues, “can't the two be used in conjunction?” Then he launches into another spiel, this time about his plans to die at home. “In my own bed.” He speaks of his grandmother, who was tethered to tubes in a noisy hospital room
before she died. “She had the roommate from hell. All day long, ringing for pillows, juice, cookies, blankets, ice cream.” Amos tells them that each time the roommate hollered for something else, he recited, under his breath, a Buddhist loving-kindness meditation. “But by late afternoon I was at the nurses' station threatening to put a pillow over the old bat's head.”

Esther recalls sitting at Marty's bedside, holding his hot, dry hand. Leaning closer, she whispered in his ear. “Let's go to Mexico. Just the two of us. I'll drive. You'll sit back and enjoy the ride.” Marty opened his eyes. “It's a long drive, Essie.” When he closed his eyes and fell asleep she thought of putting a pillow over his head. Sometimes she imagined putting one over her own head. She had no stomach for guns, not like Peppy Grossman, that fellow who'd worked at her brother's shop. Harry got to work one morning, found Peppy slumped over a desk with a note apologizing for the mess. No. Esther could never use a gun. Or a rope, like that sweet Mia Kelly, from down the block. At the memorial service, when Mia's psychiatrist got up and explained that she'd had an illness as real as leukemia or a deformed heart, Esther thought she couldn't have done that, stand there and face down a gathering of mourners who were probably blaming him for dereliction of duty. It took a lot of nerve standing up there, but not half as much as standing on a chair in the basement with a rope around your neck. No, a pillow sounded just right. Almost like dying in your sleep.

“In my own bed,” Amos is saying, as if he'd read Esther's mind. “That's the only way to go.”

Esther looks at the couple, so young, so sure of themselves, so full of answers. She wishes for Amos a peaceful ending, but first, a long life, though not, she realizes, eyeing the tire propped against the wall, the yellow helmet on the counter, a life with Sophie.

E
very January, Sophie and Esther drive to Waldheim to visit Marty on the anniversary of his death. They bundle up in long silk underwear, wool mufflers, heavy coats, and sheepskin boots. Esther fills a thermos with hot tea. She packs a Ziploc bag with Marty's favorite cookies, two of which she leaves on his grave, in lieu of stones. Afterward, Esther takes Sophie to lunch.

But on this brilliant October day, Fanny Pearlman, Helen's daughter, will drive Esther for an unscheduled visit.

Esther waits for Fanny on the living room sofa, her hands folded in her lap, as if she were in an airport lounge listening for her flight to be called. The living room is crowded with the few familiar furnishings she and Marty moved from the house on Shady Hill Road. She has lived among her things for so long that she's become blind to them. Now she takes them in with the wonder of a stranger happening upon the new and unexpected. She's glad that she's hung on to her mother's pink cut-glass bowl, the ceramic water jug from the market in San Miguel, the bone china teacups that she collected one at a time. Photographs in ornamental frames jockey for space on the tabletops.

A sadness akin to grief overcomes Esther at the thought that Ceely and Sophie might not want any of it, not even the red leather chair that she fell in love with at an estate sale in Winnetka. Her daughter-in-law, who can't buy a flower vase without her decorator, won't want a thing. “I suppose it will all have to go,” Esther says to the bird, who chirps agreeably.

When the time comes, when Ceely finally gets her way and hustles her off to Bingoville, Esther supposes she can rescue a few pieces, take with her the Persian carpet, the pink bowl, a few pictures. Helen's room at Cedar Shores has just enough space for a bed and an easy chair. She stores a few knickknacks in the pressed-wood bookcase, along with the boxes of Jell-O she buys on weekly outings to the supermarket. Had Helen once sat like this taking inventory, deciding what to take, what to leave behind? Perhaps somebody decided for her.

Esther's eye falls on a photo of five young women sitting on a stone wall in front of an ivy-covered brick building. She picks it up, absentmindedly polishing the silver frame with the hem of her sweater. There they are, five girls from Albany Park (Esther is the one in the middle), sitting on a stone wall outside a college dorm. All of them are dressed in white T-shirts, rolled-up jeans, shiny penny loafers. They were the Starrlites (the name, a silly conceit). Perhaps the casual attire was a uniform. She can't remember, though she remembers that Brenda Starr never would have been caught wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Brenda favored décolletage and high-heeled shoes. Once, all the Starrlites dyed their hair red, like Brenda's, but unlike their heroine they preferred dressing up in ballet slippers, flowing skirts, and peasant blouses. They flirted with bohemianism, smoked cigarettes, signed petitions. Then one by one they married and had children. Their rebellion erupted, if at all, in mildly quotidian ways, by breaking rank with their mothers. Esther cooked pork; she served meat with dairy. Like the other Starrlites, who'd grown up in homes where the only wine served was sweet and reserved for ceremonial occasions—the Sabbath Kiddush, the yearly seder—Esther served cocktails at dinner parties. She went to French films, traveled to Mexico. One year, she took up the guitar and
learned to play “We Shall Overcome.” For a while, she smoked a pipe, albeit one with a thimble-sized bowl.

Once, years ago, Esther found Ceely curled up on her bed, sucking on a rope of red licorice as she flipped through old photo albums. “Who's this?” she asked, pointing to the picture of Esther seated among her friends on the stone wall. Esther was about to say, “Why it's me, silly!” But then she glimpsed her reflection in the mirror. Glancing back at the picture, she said, “Humpty Dumpty.”

Ceely screwed up her face. “What?”

“Humpty Dumpty. You know. He fell off the wall.”

“You're weird,” Ceely said.

Esther held out a pile of folded laundry. “Get up,” she said. “Take these and put them away in your drawer.”

She sets the picture back on the end table and consults Marty's old Timex. The watch is too big and the way it flops on her wrist is mildly annoying. But it's easy to put on and it keeps good time. “Like Marty,” she says to the bird. “Annoying, yet dependable.”

The bird chirps and Esther checks the time. A few more minutes and the Pearlman girl will ring the bell.

When Esther is buckled up (Fanny refuses to start the car until her passenger is securely fastened), she starts talking about her old friend Sonia Markel. “Your mother knew her.” Fanny nods, and Esther continues. “I'd been meaning to call, but something always got in the way, though now I can't tell you what. Then one day, I started calling all the names in my address book. A to Z. When I got to the M's, I couldn't wait to speak to Sonia. But I got Buddy instead. For some reason he thought I was in San Diego. When I told him I was in Chicago, he said, ‘Ah, Chicago. I hear it's wonderful,' as if he'd always longed to visit.”

Speaking to the back of Fanny's head is getting on Esther's nerves, but Fanny refuses to let her passengers ride up front. “The suicide seat's off limits,” she said the first time she steered Esther to the backseat. Esther has known Fanny from day one. She was an easy baby who became a large-boned girl with sturdy hands and a strong laugh. She played field hockey in high school and became a serious golfer in college, which Esther remembers because she used to wish that Ceely, who had been so morose in those days, would take up a sport. Fanny never gave Helen any trouble, though she never married, which caused her mother some distress. In the old days, Fanny would have been labeled a spinster or old maid, but Esther knows that such phrases have gone out of style. For some reason, they no longer apply, perhaps because girls like Fanny (would she ever get over thinking of them as girls?) were no longer the exception. Many of Esther's friends had daughters—bright, pretty, capable young women, with successful careers as teachers, doctors, lawyers—who for one reason or another appear to have forgotten to marry.

Fanny bounces from job to job. She cobbles together a life. On weekends, she plays piano with a band that gets gigs at weddings and bar mitzvahs. Recently, she began a driving service that involves transporting older women with disposable income and lapsed drivers' licenses to the hairdresser, airport, doctor's office.

“What kind of job is that for a Jewish girl?” Esther had said when Clara first recommended Fanny's services.

But Fanny is cheerful and conscientious and surprisingly good company. She maneuvers through traffic with a kind of skill and determination she might have honed on the hockey field.

“You've got to understand,” Esther continues. “Buddy's no stranger to this city. His father owned the old Rialto on the West
Side. Buddy worked the concession stand, even on school nights. While the movie ran, his parents played chess in the lobby and he sat on a stool behind the candy counter doing his homework. The next day, he'd come to school smelling of popcorn. Now he pretends not to know Chicago. That's what people do. They forget where they came from.”

Fanny nods and a sprig of her unruly mane escapes the grip of a thick plastic barrette. Before Helen went gaga (recently she hit a woman who remarked that she liked the rain), she had a standing appointment at a hair salon in Evanston. Esther considers saying something to Fanny about her mother's hairdresser. Or perhaps she can drop the name of the fellow who cuts Ceely's hair.

“Where was I?” Esther says, as she opens her purse and fishes out a box of Tic Tacs.

“They forget where they came from,” Fanny says.

“That's right.” Esther leans as far forward as the seat belt allows. She wants to rip it off, park herself up front beside Fanny and say that when her time is up, it's up. But she stays put as she tells Fanny, “Sonia wouldn't forget her origins. Sonia is Buddy's wife. Or was. I suppose that's more accurate. We met in high school, around the same time I met your mother.”

Esther leans forward again and taps Fanny on the shoulder. “Stick out your hand.”

“I'm driving, Mrs. L.,” Fanny protests.

“You can drive with one hand. For a second. Now do as I say.”

Reluctantly, Fanny obeys, letting Esther shake a few of the tiny mints into her sturdy palm. “There!” Esther chirps. “Isn't that better?” She clasps her purse shut and settles back for the ride. “Now where was I?”

“Sonia's origins.”

“Sonia. Yes. I missed her by six months. All those times I'd thought to call, and I missed her by six months. I know you're
wondering how the news could have escaped me. I wondered the same thing, until I realized, who would tell me? There's hardly anyone left.”

“People lose touch,” Fanny offers.

“But we'd been so close.” Esther pauses. “She taught me to smoke. I talked her into bleaching her hair one summer. Sonia served me my first drink, not counting the kiddush wine my father set out on Friday nights.” Esther laughs. “We got our periods on the same day.”

“Like nuns!”

“Nuns?”

“Go on, Mrs. L.”

“Anyway, when Buddy told me about Sonia, I was so rattled, I blurted, ‘I'm so glad you're alive!'”

Fanny nods, unleashing another tangle of curls, and again Esther wonders again if there's a way to work a good hairdresser into the conversation. Maybe she'll even suggest a little color to brighten things up. Fanny's not too old to find someone. For years, she had a boyfriend who managed a restaurant on Rush Street. Helen once confided that she suspected Ned sold drugs on the side. Helen never approved of Ned, especially after he'd been in the picture for too many years without proposing marriage. Then one day Ned was married to a yoga instructor from the East Bank Club.

Esther continues, “I was mortified.”

“Oh, Mrs. Lustig.”

“Oh, is right. It was an odd thing to say. But I am glad that Buddy is alive. And I'm glad that he's coming to Chicago. He called back the next day and said he'd like to come for a visit. He hasn't been here in years. He'd like to go to the cemetery to visit his parents. His sister's there, too.”

“You're meeting Buddy at the cemetery?”

Esther glares at the back of Fanny's frizzly head. “No! What an idea. Buddy invited me to lunch. But first, I need to speak to Marty. I need him to understand that I want to be out in the world. For a while longer. Then Ceely can stash me away in that mauve-colored joint.”