Smart Women (21 page)

“I’ll never understand why you had to move so far away.”

“You know it’s not that far. Did you study the map I sent? Did you see that Colorado and Arizona, where Aunt Luba lives, come together? And that Colorado’s not nearly as far as California?” Her mother shared Steinberg’s view of the world.

“You couldn’t have just gone to New Jersey?” her mother asked.

Margo laughed. “No. I had to make a clean break, had to start a new life . . . you know that. But never mind me . . . tell me about you.”

“What’s to tell?” her mother asked. “If it’s malignant they’ll operate. I told them,
Go ahead, take it off. Abe will love me with one breast as much as with two.
And if they have to take them both off, that’s all right too.”

And they had. A double mastectomy. And even then they hadn’t been sure they’d gotten it all. But they’d hoped that with radiation followed by chemotherapy . . .

It was Margo’s father who needed the comforting. “Without Belle, I don’t want to live.”

“She’s going to be all right,” Margo said, trying to reassure him.

“But suppose she’s not? Suppose they didn’t get it all?”

“We can’t plan ahead, Dad,” Margo said. “We’re just going to have to wait and see.”

“She’s my life,” he whispered, tears in his eyes. “I love you girls, I love my grandchildren, but she’s my life.”

Oh, to be loved that way, Margo had thought. To be loved so completely. Would she ever know such love, such devotion? She doubted it. Maybe people just didn’t love as intensely anymore. Maybe they were afraid.

“Look at this,” her mother said, two days after surgery. “Flat as a pancake . . . just like a boy . . .”

And a few days, after that, “This morning I had a visit from a beautiful young woman, Margo. She reminded me of you. She had a double herself, not that you’d ever know it, and she told me all about the possibilities. So what do you think . . . falsies at my age and maybe reconstructive surgery?”

“Why not?” Margo said.

“You know something, darling . . . even when they tell you it’s cancer, you don’t give up . . . you keep making plans. I keep telling myself I’m going to beat it. I suppose it’s because I’m an optimist.”

“You are going to beat it,” Margo said. “And at a time like this an optimist isn’t such a bad thing to be.”

“Of all my children, Margo, you’re the one who’s most like me. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

“I think it’s good.”

Her mother smiled. “Deep down I think so too.”

M
ARGO HAD CALLED
F
REDDY.
“I’m in New York,” she’d told him. “My mother’s in the hospital.”

“Nothing serious, I hope,” Freddy said.

“A double mastectomy.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll send flowers.”

“You don’t have to send anything . . . I just thought you’d want to know.”

“I said I’ll send flowers.” There was a long pause. Then Freddy said, “So how are you doing out there, in the middle of nowhere?”

“I think it’s going to work out very well.”

“I could go to court, Margo. I could go to court and get an injunction against you for taking the kids so far away. You’re going to ruin my relationship with them. Some day, they’ll blame you.”

“I thought you agreed that if it was necessary for my work . . .”

“I made a mistake. I never should have agreed to let you take them.”

“I couldn’t concentrate on solar design in New York, Freddy . . .”

“Don’t feed me any of your crap, Margo.”

“Let’s not get started,” Margo said. “This is a hard time for me.”

“When isn’t it a hard time for you? You thrive on hard times.”

“Okay. If you say so. How’s Aliza?”

“Aliza’s fine.”

“Good.”

“Who’s with the children?” he had asked.

“Michelle’s English teacher.”

“Is she a responsible person?”

“Would I have left her with the kids if she wasn’t?”

“Probably.”

“Goodbye, Freddy.”

“Goodbye, Margo. And I am sorry about your mother.”

She had hung up the phone feeling all the old anger, all the old resentments. She had not been the wife that Freddy had expected. He still blamed her for having had her own needs and he was still able to make her feel guilty. Freddy had wanted a Stepford Wife. Margo had once told him so in the heat of a bitter argument over the menu for a dinner party. She had hurled a copy of the novel across the room, catching him on his left shoulder. “A plastic princess who doesn’t think!” Margo had yelled. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? A plastic princess who’ll give elegant little dinner parties and fuck whenever you feel like it!”

“Right,” Freddy had said, rubbing his shoulder. “That’s exactly what I want.”

A
T HOME
S
TUART AND
M
ICHELLE
were full of questions about Grandma Belle. Margo tried to be honest, but at the same time, not to worry them, assuring them that the doctors would do everything possible and telling them that Grandma Belle was in very good spirits.

“Is she tap dancing yet?” Michelle asked.

“No, not yet. But I’m sure she will be soon.”

Margo’s mother had taken up tap dancing at the age of sixty-two. She took three lessons a week, inspired by Ruby Keeler’s performance in a revival of
No, No, Nanette.
And she was good. She used to love to dance for the grandchildren, before Bethany moved to the West Coast and Margo moved to Boulder. Margo did not tell Michelle that she was afraid Grandma Belle would never put her tap shoes on again.

M
ARGO WAS NOT SURE
that she should bring Andrew to the anniversary party. Too much too soon, she feared. But when Bethany offered them the use of her condominium on the peninsula at Marina del Rey, how could she refuse? A week alone with Andrew. A week of making love with no one else around.

It had been Andrew’s idea to drive to L.A. They would drop Stuart and Michelle at the airport in Denver and hit the road by themselves. It had sounded romantic at the time. No kids, no responsibilities, no phone calls from B.B., accusing Andrew of ruining her life and of filling Sara’s head with his fucked-up values. Margo urged Andrew to hang up when B.B. became hysterical, but he would not. He believed it was better to let her vent her feelings. Sometimes when Margo answered the phone, B.B. would lay it on her. “He has no sense. Can’t you see that? All he’s after is a quick fuck and a place to live. He doesn’t give a shit about you or anyone else.”

T
HE EVENING
A
NDREW HAD RETURNED
from B.B.’s house in mid-November, after telling her that he was moving in with Margo, Margo had asked, “How did it go? How did she take it?”

And Andrew had answered. “I don’t know. She seemed hyper at first, almost flirtatious, and then she became hysterical.”

“She’ll get used to the idea. Don’t worry.”

“You’re such an optimist,” he said. “You always think everything will work out.”

“It will.”

“That’s not realistic, Margo. Some things don’t work out. Some things get screwed up and stay screwed up.”

“I know,” she said. “I’ve had my share of disappointments.”

“I’m not talking about disappointments.” He lay down on the bed, covering his eyes with his hand. “I don’t know if this is going to work.”

“What?”

“Me, living here. I might be making it harder on Sara instead of easier. Maybe I should leave, go back to Miami.”

“I thought we made a deal,” Margo said, her throat tightening.

“You’d come with me.”

“I can’t come with you . . . not now . . . you know that. I have responsibilities here.”

“Fuck responsibilities.”

“I can’t and neither can you. What would Sara think if you walked out on her?”
Don’t do this. Don’t leave now when it’s just beginning. I don’t know if I’ll ever allow myself to try again if you do.
But she could not say her thoughts out loud.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have come here in the first place.”

“Maybe not, but you did . . . and I’d like to think . . .” Her voice trailed off.
I would like to think you love me,
she thought, turning away.

He got off the bed and put his arms around her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not you. I’m glad I found you. You know that.”

“It’ll be okay,” she said into his shoulder. “There’s a lot to get used to, that’s all.”

M
ARGO FOUND HERSELF AVOIDING
B
.
B
.
She stayed away from The James at lunch, meeting Andrew at the library instead or eating alone at her desk. She no longer browsed in the Boulder Bookstore at noon or met friends at the Boulderado for a drink after work. Anyway, she was too busy for friends. But surely after the holidays, after the mad rush to get everything in order, both at work and at home, so that she and Andrew could enjoy their trip, she would have more time. Unless what Clare had said about having a steady man was true. That it was hard to keep that kind of intimacy going with more than one person at a time. And in the past two months Andrew had become everything—friend, lover, confidant.

Margo had been disappointed to hear that B.B. had put the land for the cluster housing project back on the market. Clare had told her.

“She feels that she can’t work with you,” Clare had said. “Not anymore. And she doesn’t want to start in with another architect.”

“But to put the land back on the market . . .”

“This is very hard on her,” Clare said. “It’s not just knowing that Andrew has moved in with you . . . it’s the way you flaunt your happiness.”

“I don’t mean to flaunt it,” Margo said.

“I know that, but it’s there. You shine . . . you sparkle . . .”

“I try to think of her feelings . . . to put myself in her place . . . really. But she’s making it so hard. She’s so hateful, so off the wall. Does she want him back, is that it?”

“I think it’s more that she doesn’t want anyone else to have him. Look, Margo . . . you’re both my friends. I can’t take sides. I can’t choose between you.”

“I don’t want you to,” Margo said.

Margo kept reminding herself that B.B. had lost a child. She almost said something to Clare one day, but caught herself in time. If B.B. wanted Clare to know she would tell her herself. She tried to imagine how she would feel if she had lost a child, but the idea was so horrible she could not. Once, when Stuart was small, he had been very sick, running a fever of 105, and the doctors could not find out what was wrong with him. He lay in his bed for days while they awaited test results and Margo had slept on the floor next to him, rubbing his small body with alcohol every hour. She had known she might lose him and had felt utterly helpless. Well, B.B. had lost a healthy ten-year-old son. Margo tried to remember that, tried to sympathize, not allowing herself to hate.

But when they ran into B.B. and Lewis at the airport at the start of the holidays and B.B., cool as could be, introduced Andrew to Lewis, ignoring Margo and her children, Margo was pissed. And she was still feeling hostile when she and Andrew got back into the car to begin their drive to L.A.

If only B.B. hadn’t been at the airport, Margo thought, there wouldn’t be this tension in the car now. Andrew tried, singing along with country-western music on the car radio, but it was forced gaiety and they both knew it. After “Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” Andrew said, “Back in Hackensack, New Jersey, when I was about nine, I wanted to be a cowboy more than anything.”

“Did you ride a horse?” Margo asked.

“Nope . . . a bicycle.”

“It’s hard to be a cowboy without a horse,” Margo said, forcing a laugh, “although you certainly drive like one.”

Andrew turned pale and slowed down. “I didn’t mean to go over sixty.”

“I didn’t . . .” Margo began, “that is, I wasn’t . . . oh, shit . . . I’m sorry . . .”

“It’s okay,” Andrew said.

But it wasn’t okay. None of it was okay. She had reminded him of Bobby and the way he’d died. Bobby’s death was always there, always with Andrew, and she was going to have to learn to accept it, along with his occasional bouts of melancholy. At first she had assumed his moodiness had to do with something she’d done or said, but now she knew that wasn’t the case. Any reminder of Bobby brought on a sadness, a withdrawal. She had tried to talk to him about it, but he hadn’t responded. The few times she had pressed he had become even more withdrawn. She remembered the night he had told her about Bobby.
I don’t feel sorry for myself anymore and I don’t want anyone else feeling sorry for me either.
Okay, she would not feel sorry for him.

During the rest of the trip to L.A. they were quiet, taking turns driving and dozing, twenty-four hours, straight through. Not exactly the romantic interlude they had planned.

22

A
T FIRST
M
ICHELLE HAD NOT WANTED
to go to the anniversary party. She’d wanted to fly straight to New York instead of spending five days in Beverly Hills at Aunt Bethany’s house. If it hadn’t been for hurting Grandma’s and Grandpa’s feelings that’s exactly what she would have done. She always got headaches when she was around Aunt Bethany. Aunt Bethany never shut up. Michelle tried to follow her endless stories, but the harder she tried the more her head hurt. Little Lauren, who was Aunt Bethany’s
mistake,
said that her mother was lonely living in Beverly Hills and that’s why she talked so much. Maybe Little Lauren was right.