Pam of Babylon (15 page)
“You seem to have been really close to Jack,” she said. She was not beyond baiting someone to get the information she wanted, not beyond lying, if need be. And then she added, almost whispering, “He spoke of you often.” Marie straightened up and turned in her chair to face Sandra.
“He did?” she asked in a small voice.
Sandra was thinking fast. The point here was to get Marie to spill her guts, not to fabricate a bunch of lies that might make her life more difficult.
“He didn’t go into much detail about you, but I got the feeling that he was dependent on you, that he relied on you.” She thought that could probably be said about anyone in his family. Marie was silent. Sandra thought she would take it a step further.
“Jack did say that he would be lost without you.” That seemed to do the trick. Marie smiled a large, toothy smile, but it transformed her plain face into one that was almost beautiful.
“He did need me, that much I know. Pam didn’t like a lot of the things Jack and I liked. Going to the theater, golf, swimming. Jack loved to put his suit on, grab a towel, and run down to the water. We played together in the surf like a couple of kids.” She hugged herself, eyes closed, smiling. “Last year we took boogie boards so far out that the guards whistled for us to come back in. It is so shallow way out there—shallow and warm.” She thought for a while, staring out the window. She wouldn’t be able to go into detail about they did out there, but she closed her eyes for a minute and a chill went through her body, remembering.
“Pam saw us and got angry at Jack, telling him that he was acting like an ass. She didn’t get jealous of the time we spent together. But she didn’t like to see us having fun, either. ‘You should be doing those things with your children,’ she said to him.” Marie picked up her teacup and took a sip. It had gotten cold, but she drank it anyway. “My favorite time was late at night, after Pam went to bed. Jack and I would stay up all night playing Scrabble, with the dictionary, or poker. The kids were with us during the summer, but eventually they went away to school. The weekends were so wonderful.” Marie was becoming totally animated now, almost bouncing up and down in her seat.
“Pam looked forward to Jack coming home all week, and then when he did, she would take a book out on the veranda and read all weekend. Don’t get me wrong, my sister loved Jack. She made his home peaceful, comfortable, and relaxing. She is a superb chef. He used to say that he ate like a king. When the doctor told him to lose weight last year, she was so relieved. She worried about his health. She is in excellent shape for a middle-aged woman. She would go to the farmers’ market for fresh vegetables every day when he was home, get her eggs from the guy on the corner, and all local, organic meats. She was picky about everything. And then when he went back to the city, she would eat a lettuce leaf and a can of tuna. God only knows what he ate when he wasn’t home.” Sandra thought of the cheese omelet and bacon he had for his last breakfast.
“No, it wasn’t that she didn’t take good care of him. It was just that Pam is boring. She doesn’t like to do anything but go to the gym, walk on the beach, and putter around her house—a total dud. After they moved out there, out to Long Island, she hated coming back into the city. So I started going to the theater with Jack. If he had any social obligations that required a companion, he would call me and say, ‘Do you have an appropriate dress for such and such?’ We went out at least once, usually twice, a week. Until a few months ago, we had lunch together almost every day. Now I know it was because of you that he stopped calling me midday. I was out there, out at the beach house, every weekend.” Her voice had gotten progressively higher and higher, faster and faster.
“I knew what I would do both Saturday and Sunday, every weekend, month after month. When the kids needed to go to visit colleges, I went with either Jack or Pam. If Pam wanted to go antiquing or to a craft show and Jack couldn’t bear the thought, I would go with her. Now, nothing! There is nothing! I have to start all over again!” She lowered her head for the third time that afternoon and started crying. Sandra understood more about Marie’s relationship with the Smiths, but not about the specific intimate relationship between Jack and Marie alone. She was almost certain there was something more than met the eye. But, for now, she had had enough. She had to find a way to get Marie out of her apartment.
She got up out of her chair and came around to Marie’s, yet again. Placing a reluctant hand on her shaking shoulder, Sandra said in a soft voice, “You’ve had a lot today, Marie. Maybe you would benefit from a nice nap. Let me get you a cab, okay? You can be home in no time and get some rest.” Marie didn’t resist, didn’t argue. She stood up and straightened her shirt, then bent over to pick up her purse off the floor. Sandra walked toward the door, willing her guest to follow. They left the apartment together and walked out to the sidewalk.
“Let’s walk toward Broadway, okay? It won’t take long on a Sunday afternoon.” They didn’t need to walk far. A cab rounded the corner, Sandra stuck her hand out, and it zoomed to the curb. She opened the door, and Marie slid in, looking straight ahead. Sandra said goodbye and shut the door for her, Marie seemingly in a trance. The cab took off. Sandra stood there for a moment, relieved.
What the hell was that all about?
Now she most definitely was not going to Pam Smith’s next weekend. She would call her and tell her tomorrow. She turned around and walked back to her apartment. Feeling drained and, if possible, worse than before, she decided she was going to take a couple of sick days. She had weeks of them available, and although she needed to save as many as possible for future use, right now she knew she couldn’t go on like this much longer.
Back at her apartment, she took all the evidence of Marie to the kitchen sink and squirted dish soap and hot water all over it. She thought of what Marie had said, that she pictured Jack and Sandra having sex. She hoped Marie wouldn’t share those thoughts with Pam. She allowed anxiety to come in. She tried to remember what she was going to do that day, and nothing presented itself.
Maybe taking days off from work wasn’t a good idea after all.
Remembering she hadn’t eaten anything but cupcakes for two days, she decided to walk to Big Nick’s and get a burger. She would get fries, too. She went to her closet and took a long-sleeved blue denim shirt, which had belonged to a long forgotten date and left behind, and pulled it on over her sleeveless shirt and spandex. She felt disheveled. It was evidence of her being at the end of herself that she would go out in public with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, no makeup, spandex and denim. She went to her jewelry box and pulled a wide, colorful enameled bracelet out and shoved it above her elbow. Low-heeled mules wouldn’t be too hard to walk in and as she checked herself out in the mirrored closet door, confirmed she looked good. Putting on a small brimmed straw hat and dark glasses, she grabbed her wallet and keys, and went out the door.
The sun was just starting to bend over the river. She walked up 82
nd
toward Broadway, looking at the houses along the block, the bright sun, the blue sky, the beautiful brownstones, and the old church on the corner.
God, I love this neighborhood
. She thought for a moment what raising a child would be like here in the Upper West Side. It was fate that she moved there four years ago, just out of college. It was fate that she lived on a street that had the best day care in the city at the local Methodist church. It was fate that she had a two-bedroom apartment. She slowed her walk, humbled at these facts that her life seemed to have been preparing for just this moment in time. For the first time, she realized how absolutely lucky she had been to be transferred from the Bronx to Wall Street. Without that, she would have never met Jack. Suddenly, she realized that she loved her baby. She loved the little tadpole, or whatever it was, the two cells that had joined and were rapidly dividing and expanding and were now big enough to have caused her body to respond to its presence. She stopped and looked up at the sky.
Without hesitating, she said, “Thank you, God.”
B
ernice Smith was riding in a car, having spent the week at her son Bill’s house in the Village. She never got tired of looking at the buildings as they passed. The montage of the buildings, the people, and the angle of the sun was never the same. She especially loved driving through the Village. The old storefronts in the summer some with planters overflowing with colorful annuals were so cheerful. In the winter, Christmas lights decorated the windows, and you could see people sitting at tables, drinking wine, talking, and laughing in the restaurants.
As the cab approached Columbus Avenue and her neighborhood in the Upper West Side, she no longer looked out the window. It was where she had lived for the past sixty years, where she had raised her boys. Now her only surviving son, Bill, had done what he could this past week from hell to keep her sane. He insisted that she stay with him and his wife, Anne, and their two boys for as long as she was comfortable. She knew when she got up that morning that she wanted to try going home. Monday was a new day. Like Pam, she enjoyed starting out the week on Monday—a clean slate, ready to be filled with activities and with friends and family.
Since Harold died the year before, she no longer took the same comfort in being in her home, in her beloved neighborhood. Places that she had loved previously now caused her pain. She couldn’t look at the buildings on Broadway near her house on 89
th
. She no longer went into her favorite coffee shop since Harold died, less that he was not there to go with her, but because it was a place that she and Jack had loved together, had dined at weekly, until that horrible, painful discovery. And now, even he was gone. There was no chance for restitution, for penance. She would go to her grave soon (she hoped) with an unresolved heartache, the knowledge that she had hurt her son and destroyed what had been a full and enviable relationship by an omission. Its purpose was open to examination if only he would have. The opportunity never presented itself because he refused to hear her out.
Her objective this week, one that she was determined to complete, was to gather what items she had of her son’s and make a shrine for him. She was not a particularly religious person, but she was spiritual, and she must have some method of being close to him. She would do what she could to garner his forgiveness, albeit late. If only she had known she would have tried harder to engage him, shown up at his office, or hounded his wife for more invitations to the beach. Whatever it would have taken, she should have done it. She should have forced it.
She was at the light at Broadway and 82
nd
Street when she saw a young, glamorous woman rounding the corner, walking south. She looked so familiar; she had just seen her. And then she remembered—at Jack’s funeral. Although she was dressed in a suit that day, her hair and dark glasses gave her away. She suddenly felt she must speak to the young woman right that minute. She must have been a colleague of his. She could tell her about Jack at work. What he must have been like around the office. She knocked on the glass, and the driver reached over and pressed a button to open it.
“Let me out here, please.” He pulled over while Bernice kept her eye on the young woman. She opened the door herself, getting out on the street side and leaving the door open for the driver to get. Traffic was light, and she didn’t have to wait long until she could safely cross the street. She walked quickly; she was in good shape for a seventy-seven-year-old woman. When she reached the other side, she continued south on Broadway, keeping her eye on the girl who stopped and turned into a storefront. Bernice could smell onions frying the closer she got, and looking up, she saw the sign, Big Nick’s.
Oh well, my clothes can be cleaned
, she thought.
She entered the restaurant, noticing right away that she was out of place but she didn’t care. They wouldn’t refuse her service because she was overdressed. The grill was right at the front of the place. She saw the young woman seated at a table in the back. Bernice slowly walked toward her; she’d taken her dark glasses off, but left her straw hat on. She was reading the menu, not seeing who was around her. Bernice approached her slowly and paused at the table, waiting until she looked up from her menu. Looking slightly frightened, there was recognition on her face. Bernice smiled warmly at her.
“Forgive me, please, for interrupting you. My name is Bernice Smith. I believe we met on Tuesday.” She waited smiling, patient. Sandra, shocked beyond speech, tried to stand up, but Bernice touched her shoulder. “Please, don’t get up. I saw you from the car window and needed to talk to you, if that is okay. I hoped we could talk about Jack, what he was like at work.” She continued to smile down at Sandra, who finally found her voice.
“Please sit down. Are you going to eat?” Losing all poise, she realized that a burger at Big Nick’s might not be Mrs. Smith’s idea of a meal. “We don’t have to stay here,” she said, embarrassed.
“Nonsense,” Bernice said. “I feel like eating something different from my usual Sunday-night can of soup.” She picked up the menu and saw that salads were abundant on it. When the waitress arrived, Sandra ordered a burger, fries, and a chocolate milk shake, and Bernice got a garden salad.
“What can I tell you about Jack?” Sandra couldn’t help staring at Bernice Smith. She was stunning, at least five feet ten inches. She was straight as an arrow, not hunched over at all.
Must be from doing exercise
, Sandra thought. She had her hair cut since the funeral; it was very short, no more than an inch at the most, and stood out like feathers on top and combed smooth on the sides. Her makeup was perfect. Her skin was taut and smooth, and Sandra didn’t see evidence of any plastic surgery, but she must have had some.