Claudia Silver to the Rescue (9780547985602) (12 page)

“Love it,” said Claudia, meaning it. “At this rate, I may never have to think again.”

Paul frowned at the cracker in his hand. “This thing is like a licorice crouton,” he said. “Absurd.” He dropped it with disdain. “Let's get down to business. First of all, remind me of your sister's name.”

“Phoebe.”

“That's right. Phoebe Silver.”

“Goldberg. We have different fathers.”

Paul glanced up sharply. The different-father thing seemed to be least of it, but always got a reaction. “Silver and Goldberg,” he mused.

“Yup.” Claudia wanted to try an anise cracker as a warm-up to eating in front of Paul, but struggled to make a move.

“And she's how old?”

“Sixteen. She'll be seventeen in August.”

Paul instructed his signature concern to overtake his utter starvation, dug for his Montblanc, and flipped his menu to its blank side. At the top he wrote
Emancipation,
and underlined it. “So,” he began. “Emancipation applies to kids between the ages of sixteen and eighteen who are not living with their folks; who don't receive financial support from their folks except by court order or benefits that they're entitled to, like Social Security; who live beyond their parents' custody control, and who aren't in foster care.” There was an expected thrust to the shape of Paul's letters as he jotted bullet points on the menu:

• 16–18
  
• no live mom
  
• no money mom
  
• no custody control mom
  
• no foster care
  

The waiter arrived, and Paul placed the order with similar pith. “We'll do the herring fritters, the mixed greens, the lingonberry meatballs, the lamb special, and the compote,” he rattled off from memory. “Bottle of bubbly water, no ice.” Paul turned to Claudia. “Unless you want to start with the peanut soup? Ruth Reichl says you'll see Jesus.”

God no,
Claudia thought. The peanut soup had become the enemy. “It's a lot of food,” she said, instantly regretting her queasy observation.

“She sees right through me,” Paul said to the waiter, handing him the menu. “I'm an over-orderer.” He leaned across the table. “It's a socially acceptable panic attack,” he confided amusedly as the waiter strode off. Claudia was trying hard not to be distracted by Paul's mouth and hands. He clicked his pen and returned to the task at hand. “Do you know what emancipation means?”

“Freedom.”

Paul hesitated. “With a price,” he warned. “A big one. It means mom renounces her legal obligations as a parent. She surrenders her parental rights to your sister. She is unwilling or unable to meet her obligations to Phoebe, or Phoebe officially refuses to comply with the terms of her household and officially leaves home.” He continued to draft his list:

• parental obligations renounced
  
• parental rights surrendered
  
• can't fulfill obligations
  
• Ph. no comply, leave
  

“And what are parental obligations, exactly?” Claudia asked, heartened, as ever, to learn the rules.

“Very good question. Are you sure you don't want to go to law school?”

“Maybe after lunch.”

Paul smiled. “The primary parental obligation is to protect the health and welfare of the child.”

“That's how the court defines it?” Claudia asked.

“And that,” said Paul, impressed, “is a perfect segue. And here's where I owe you an apology.” He paused to scan the dining room. “For Christmas Eve. I blame my ego, which requires me to fix everything, and the fact that I practice real estate law and haven't thought a lot about this stuff since I was studying for the bar. Plus I was drunk as a skunk.”

“Okay,” Claudia replied, wondering if he remembered being alone with her in his bedroom.

“I made it seem that emancipation is something you simply
apply
for and Bob's your uncle. But I totally forgot a key point. In New York State, while the courts recognize the status of emancipation and the rights of emancipated minors, there's no emancipation statute
per se.
In other words, there's no court proceeding in which you actually
obtain
emancipation. It all depends on the facts on a case-by-case basis.”

“So that's good news if you're me,” Claudia decided, “which I am.” She had been unable to imagine the scene in the courtroom,
Silver and Goldberg v. Mendelssohn,
without forcing Edith into a rolled hairstyle and restrictive tweed skirt suit in the vein of Mildred Pierce, which, of course, would never happen, as most of Edith's waistbands were elastic. “What are the facts?”

“These puppies here.” Paul indicated the first set of bullets with the tip of his pen. “Over the age of sixteen, not living with mom, not in foster care, beyond custody control, and one more.”

SELF-SUPPORTING,
Paul now wrote in caps. “But d'you want to hear the rub?”

“With a dream scenario like this one,” Claudia replied, “there's got to be a catch.”

“The State of New York still requires emancipated minors to obtain parental consent to get working papers,” Paul explained.

Claudia scowled. “You mean have to get permission from the same person you're trying to get free from to acquire the key credential you need to get free of them?” Paul nodded. “That's some fucked-up Joseph Heller bullshit,” she concluded.

“But it's within the realm of possibility, and kids do it all the time, or, at least, when circumstances demand it,” Paul continued. “So once Phoebe handles things with Mom, and I'm not saying it's easy, she has the legal right to retain all her own wages and establish her own independent legal residence. Of course, since minors in the State of New York can disavow a lease, most landlords won't rent to them.”

“So is emancipation going to help my sister,” Claudia asked, “or hurt her?”

Paul shrugged. “She could tough it out until she turns seventeen, at which point it will be a whole other ball game. And I assume that the two of you are experts in toughing it out.”

A movement across the dining room caught Claudia's eye. She glanced its way and froze, recognized the gleeful wave, the bobbing mop of dark curls.

Garth Kahn, grinning in his cardigan.

Raising his lingonberry spritzer high, to toast the happy couple.

“Dang,” said Claudia.

“Who the hell
is
that?” Fretting, Paul propped his reading glasses high on his forehead. “Is he one of my summer associates we didn't hire?” Paul squinted, taking in Garth's big head of hair. “Is he, you know,
light skinned?
” Garth consulted with his gray-haired luncheon companion, who glanced over his shoulder at Paul and Claudia and quickly returned to his
mitmita
pastejköket.
Now Garth was bouncing toward them on his Wallabees. “You
know
this guy?” Paul asked.

“Sort of.”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“I just said I only sort of
know
him,” said Claudia.

“The last time one of my daughters said
sort of,
she was calling from the Edgartown jail.”

“He's not my boyfriend.”

“Hey, sweetie,” Garth said as he arrived. “Small world.” He bent to peck Claudia's cheek with a light, ritual affection, instantly clocked her palpable anxiety, then aimed a meaty hand at Paul's chest. “Garth Kahn at your service.” With easy authority, Paul half rose from his seat to shake it.

“Paul Tate.”

Garth wedged himself next to Paul with a quick nudge. “I won't be long,” he said, folding his hands in preparation for an extended interview. Quizzical and dogged, Garth sniffed back and forth between the older man and the younger woman. “You're Bronwyn's dad?”

“You know my daughter?” Paul raised an eyebrow at Claudia, who shrugged.

“Choate summer school,” Garth explained, shoving an anise cracker into his mouth and crunching messily. “I bought my first string bracelet because of her. Plus Live Aid in Philly. And who could forget college.” He turned to address Claudia, the crumb flurry continuing. “Which makes you and me practically related.” With a sweep of his forearm, he transferred the crumbs to the floor. “So what do you guys make of this place? Stockholm and Addis Ababa—two great tastes that taste great together, or dangerous miscegenation we must put a stop to? Personally, I'm agnostic. Although my pop's having a religious experience.” He attempted to bore his eyes into Claudia's, then nodded to the busy gray head across the dining room.

“Paul thought he might know you from work,” Claudia offered, smiling weakly as she looked between the two men.

“Oh, so we're not unpacking the restaurant? That's cool. And where does Paul work?” Claudia noticed the clench of Paul's jaw.

“I'm an attorney,” said Paul, considering heavier weaponry as he drained his champagne.

“At Golden Fenwick,” Claudia added.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Garth. “I was selling pot for about three minutes after graduation. Is it possible we know each other from hemp circles?”

“I don't think so,” said Paul.

“Because you get all of your hooch on the Vineyard and bring it home in a coffee can, then promise yourself you'll make it last till Memorial Day?”

“Excuse me,” Claudia announced, lurching from the teacup ride that her perfect lunch had become. Somehow, Garth's smitten antics left her miserably exposed. Her cheeks burning with shame, she fled for the ladies' room.

A postcard rack was mounted to the wall between the restaurant's bathroom doors. Furiously, Claudia scanned the images for a card she could send to Phoebe, despite the fact that Phoebe lived with her now. As recently as last month, Claudia spent her evenings writing and pasting collages in a notebook, swinging into her sister's life on an imaginary chandelier to whisk her out of the circus. But that was then.

Or maybe it was their circumstances that had been imaginary.

These days there were burritos to order. There was angel hair pasta to overcook into a mash. There was homework to talk about double-checking, and then blow off. There were Monie Love lyrics to memorize and recite while dancing around the living room, and there was the futon sofa bed to make up with Bronwyn's extra linens.

“Hey.” Garth had padded up behind her, wearing his smile sideways.

“Jesus fuck,” Claudia snapped, quickly swiping at her eyes. “What is your
deal?
”

“I was about to ask you the same question.”

“Except that it's none of your fucking business.”

“He's thirty years older than you and he's your best friend's
father.
”

“What are you
thinking?
”

“Hey, baby. I'm picking up exactly what you're laying down.” Garth paused. “You should be dating a loose cannon with youthful joie de vivre and everything to live for, like myself.”

“Paul is my
attorney,
” Claudia declared, suddenly overcome with wanting out. She pointlessly rattled the doorknob of the locked ladies' room.

“There is somebody in here,” somebody's nasal grandmother proclaimed determinedly from inside. Claudia stepped to the men's-room door.

Garth gaped. “You're not actually going to—”

“What? Like pee has a gender?” Claudia pushed open the door and scanned the empty row of urinals for pederasts. “It's how they do it in Paris.” She didn't actually need to pee.

“When's the last time you were in Paris?” Garth asked.

“Never,” Claudia snapped. Garth wedged his foot into the doorjamb, blocking her escape.

“Claudia.”

“What?!”
She was caught and frantic.

“Somebody else's husband is no way for you to have your first orgas—”

—
CRACK
!

Claudia's palm shot from her shoulder on a taut fulcrum to strike Garth's face, hard.

The slap rang in Garth's ears.

Having learned long ago to put her weight behind a punch, and sporting a giant flea-market ring in the shape of an eagle, Claudia deposited a notable splotch across Garth's cheek. He made no move to touch his burning cheek, which deepened in color as the seconds froze.

“Really?” was all he said.

But he was alone in the hallway, addressing the bathroom door, as by now Claudia was gone.

 

In the time it had taken Phoebe Goldberg to recalibrate everything she thought she knew about Claudia Silver, wander southeast from the Flower District, and eventually emerge from the F train at Bergen Street to face her old neighborhood, the afternoon had begun to fade and the pothole puddles of Smith Street were growing dark and glassy. At the top of the subway stairs Phoebe stopped to survey the busy corner and review the facts. Her sister, whom she'd been living with for the last month, who'd been buying her stuff and telling her not just
what
to do in the day to day, but
how
to do life in general, was a liar. A weird one. It was one thing to fake going to school—that was a
classic.
It was what you were
supposed
to do when you were sixteen and clearly not cut out for a life of letters. But to pretend to go to
work?
When you were out of a
job?
While declaring yourself the boss of the situation? That made Claudia Silver a pretty fucked-up choice for a fake mother. Unpredictable Edith Mendelssohn, on the other hand, was a fucked-up choice for a
real
mother, along with the motherfucker who'd come up with the idea that somehow you choose your parents. At least Claudia had never let anything bad actually
happen
to Phoebe, whereas Edith had Robbie Burns. And while the things that Robbie had done to Phoebe maybe weren't as bad as they
could
have been, as bad as the shit you read about in the papers, walking out of Edith's house hadn't been the solution to getting rid of Robbie. At night, Phoebe churned on the futon sofa in Claudia's living room. The scent of Robbie's filterless cigarettes and English Leather tirelessly pursued her dreams, with an impish torment scurrying after: Did Edith sort of know and turn her back? Or could she not see even the most fucked-up shit on earth when it was happening in her own house? Was she a laser beam or a blind bat?