The Girls (11 page)

It was Mama who called up the image of woman as soldier, before she died. Jenny had been putting frantic questions, hurrying to understand before it was too late. How did you do it, Mama, seven pregnancies, breast feeding, no money, no help, cleaning, cooking, working in the store, taking over when Papa napped, sewing, knitting, crocheting fine cotton tablecloths, cooking, cleaning, birthing, rearing, breathing love love love day after hard day, night after hard night?

“What could I do? That’s what women did. They went on. Like a soldier in battle, fighting to stay alive for your children, hoping for the best, hoping for better to come, doing what has to be done. You think I didn’t want to lie down and sleep forever? Plenty of times I wanted to lie down and sleep forever. I said to myself in those days and nights, you’re a soldier in a war. If you drop you’re dead. You have to keep going. For yourself and for your husband and for the children you brought into the world, because that’s your job here in this life. That’s your job. To keep going. And that’s what I did, I kept going.”

They were talking on the porch of the nice little house Mama’s rich successful son Max had bought for her and Papa in Miami Beach. Jenny was a young woman. Mama was dying: any moment her heart would stop. She had closed her eyes as if even to speak of those hard times was exhausting. When she opened them, they were refreshed, amazingly young, laughing.

“There were good times. We had our good times, me and Papa. We paid for them, but we had them. I was a fool, an ignoramus. I had no education, nothing, not like you young women of today. Who knows what I could have done in the world? I accomplished nothing. A whole life of
gornisht mit gornisht.
But I stayed alive. I didn’t let the battle kill me.”

“You had us,” Jenny said. “You should have been covered with medals like those stupid generals. You did a lot in the world.”

Mama laughed, which turned into uncontrollable coughing, then choking so severe that an ambulance had to be called and there was no more chance to talk before she died a week later, in the hospital, tied to an oxygen tank that could not save her.

The phone rang, waking Jenny from a dream of Naomi that turned nightmare in that instant, though it had seemed oddly natural as a dream. Naomi lying in a hospital bed. Jenny apparently visiting. Naomi covered up to her shoulders in a white sheet, her face composed, and yes, smiling, her greeny hazel eyes peaceful and glowing, her dark hair combed back off her forehead from its innocent part. But when Jenny tried to smooth the sheet over the body, there was no body. Only Naomi’s head—beautiful, simple, composed, smiling—cut off like a classic marble bust.

Her heart skittering in her chest, Jenny picked up the phone. It was Flora, in a conspiratorial voice.

“Jenny, I can’t get him out. I’m scared. He has a gun. Can you come over?”

She heard herself asking stupidly, “What time is it?” And then, “Why don’t you call the police?”

“No, no.” Louder now, more natural. “I can’t do that. You don’t understand.”

She saw on her bedside clock that it was only ten. “Okay,” she said. “I have to dress first, then I’ll be right there.”

“I’m sorry I woke you.” Flora was back to her hushed drama voice. “Please hurry, please. I’ll leave the door open.”

Jenny dressed and descended into the balmy night and the liveliness of the terrace, swimmers in the pool, diners in the cafe, people sitting around talking and laughing, kids running and yelling. Unreal. She seemed unable to plan how to get to Flora’s condominium. Luckily a cab delivered a group of foreign tourists. The driver insisted he was on call farther north, but Jenny pleaded emergency and that her destination was very near. She fingered a five-dollar bill, hinting at a big tip, though when it came to paying she gave him only seventy-five cents. He had driven wildly, mumbling angrily throughout the short drive. The hell with him. She was sick of surly cab drivers.

The Indian security guard at Flora’s condominium wanted to ring the apartment, but Jenny persuaded him to let her go up unannounced. He recognized her as Flora’s sister. The door was open, as Flora had promised. She pushed into the apartment with her heart banging. It was quiet and very hot. There was light coming from the bedroom, but no sound. In the dimness the softened purples were a stage effect. The sound of the sea was another.

Jenny didn’t know what to do. She was a character in some dumb movie, without a script, without a clue. If she charged in, would this Lincoln Road pickup of Flora’s shoot her dead? Or shoot Flora dead? Should she lock the door behind her? Call out? Tiptoe into the bedroom? Should she have brought the cops?

Flora appeared in the little hallway from the bedroom, naked, carrying a white terrycloth robe.

“God,” she said in her loud normal voice. “You scared me to death. How’d you get past security? Some security. You can’t depend on anything or anybody these days. How’d you get in? Did I give you a key to the apartment? I don’t remember giving you a key to the apartment. I’ll have to have that back if you have one.”

Flora was carrying a glass of colorless liquid. Water? Vodka? There was no suggestion of the hushed woman on the phone.

“Are you alone?” Jenny said. “I don’t have a key. Don’t you remember calling me?”

“Are you crazy? Of course I remember calling you.”

“Well, where is he? Is he still here?”

“Of course not,” Flora said. “Do you think I’d be so calm?”

Jenny sat down, her legs trembling, her heart shaking wildly.

“What’s the matter with you? Are you all right? Do you need some water?”

“Yes,” Jenny said. “A glass of cold water. It’s very hot in here.”

“I know. You like the cold. The air, the water. Ice water. Air conditioning. Shall I turn on the air? I don’t like it too cold myself.”

“He left? Quietly? What about the gun?”

“Here’s your water. Shall I turn on the air? Answer me about the air, because I can do without it. What about the gun? What about it?”

Jenny sipped the water, slowing her heart, cooling her head. She pressed the icy glass against her hot cheek, first one side, then the other, and when she turned her attention again to Flora she found her sister slumped against a wall, sobbing.

“I don’t care, I don’t care what you think of me. I know very well what you think of me, and I don’t give a damn.”

Shorter and slighter than Flora, Jenny nevertheless rose to the occasion, getting out of her chair with difficulty and gathering the fleshy terry-wrapped bundle into her arms, rocking and soothing, shushing and smoothing away the sisters’ common anguish that none of them really valued the others.

“What happened, darling? He didn’t hurt you, did he? That’s all that matters. You’re safe now, you’re okay—unless you’re hurt. Are you hurt?”

“My soul is hurt,” Flora moaned. “My soul, my woman’s soul.” And asked for a tissue.

Fetching the tissues was an excuse for Jenny to check out the bedroom and the two bathrooms. They were empty of a man with a gun. Had he ever existed? She heard Flora emoting from the living room.

“What am I going to do? What can I do? I must have love, I must. But men are nothing but trouble. He went crazy when he couldn’t get it up. He went out of his mind, stamping around the apartment waving the gun. I think we had too much to drink. And how would I know that liquor didn’t go with his medication?”

Flora was sobbing again. In between gasps Jenny heard, “He wanted me to take it in my mouth, but I don’t do that. There are some things I don’t do, and that one’s at the top of the list. I don’t care how much he said he loved me.”

“How’d you get him out?”

“He’s crazy. He just went. Picked himself up, got dressed, and went. Right after I called you. Maybe he heard me calling. He said, ‘Goodbye, Flora, you’ll never see me again. You humiliated me, and I am not a man who puts up with humiliation.’ Poor thing, he’s mad about me.”

Flora burst out laughing. In a second Jenny joined her.

“You should have heard him,” Flora said, mimicking the stance and voice of an outraged male. “‘I am not a man who puts up with humiliation,’” and went off into another peal of laughter.

“But why the gun? Why did he have a gun?” Jenny said.

“What a funny question. Lots of people in Miami carry guns. Mostly men, but women too. For safety. It’s common practice. He had a jewelry store on Lincoln Road. You need a gun in that case. Would you like some frozen yogurt?” Flora was suddenly in a new mode. “I’m dying for real ice cream, aren’t you, Jenny? But I’ve got some very good fat-free stuff.”

They ate the smooth, cool cream with two chocolate Mallomars each.

“To hell with arteries and waistlines,” Flora said. “I love Mallomars ever since I was a kid. Remember how poor we were, how hard Mama and Papa had to work in the little grocery store? No joke raising seven kids.”

Jenny bit into a cookie and lost herself in her own memories of Mama and Papa. How distant and forbidding their disciplinary father had seemed when they were little, and how powerless and pitiful when he was old, how tender their mother always, scrubbing, cooking, bathing, and feeding with no thought for herself, wrapping every service to each of them in a packet of love.

“No joke raising me, for sure,” Flora said, and reminded Jenny of a scary night when they were fourteen and nineteen years old and had picked up two grown men at a movie house. Or Flora had picked them up, with Jenny standing by, too frightened to get into their car on the offer of a ride home. Flora flounced in, calling Jenny a big baby. Jenny went home alone, so afraid that she cried all the way and sat on the apartment stoop waiting, numb with despair, sure that her sister was dead, or worse, as good as dead. When she had given up on ever seeing Flora again, the car came to a stop at the curb and Flora was ejected, sobbing. They had pawed her, torn buttons off her blouse, ripped off a stocking, and slapped her face when she bit them (Flora was a biter), but her shoes came flying out the door after her, and the stocking, and once they were safely upstairs it was clear that she wasn’t badly hurt.

“It’s your soul, your womanly soul they attack,” Flora said, wrapping the Mallomar box in a plastic bag. “That’s why we weep. That’s why I wept then and why I weep now. They’ll never understand. Never. They think we have no right to a sex life, not even when we’re young. If you want sex then you’re bad, and now if you still want sex you’re still bad, just because in their eyes you’re old, and out of your mind as well.”

“Who?” Jenny said.

“Men,” said Flora vigorously, almost cheerful. “Men. Any man. Doctors especially. Men psychiatrists. The worst. Don’t let a doctor know you’re still passionate. At age eighty-five? Sex is a sin. It’s proof that you’re mad. If I called the cops, like you said, they’d put
me
away, not that crazy man I got rid of by the skin of my teeth.” She began to cry again.

“Want more ice cream?” Jenny said.

“Would you have done it? Would you have done what he wanted me to do?”

“If I loved him,” Jenny said.

“You mean you have?” Flora was astounded.

“When I loved them, or believed I did. If they asked.”

“Did you like it?”

“I don’t know. Who remembers the things you do in bed.”

“In bed. You can’t even talk sex. Fucking,” Flora said. “Call it fucking. And who is this ‘they’? You always said you only loved one man.”

“Well, I had two husbands, remember, and I thought I loved them both. I
did
love them both. Differently.”

Flora laughed harshly. “You’re hopeless. You have to make everything nice, smooth, beautiful, romantic. True love shit. You can’t stand the idea of straight sex—lust, plain old lust. That’s all it is, there ain’t no true love.” And after a pause, “Did both those bastards make you do that for them?”

“Hey,” Jenny said lightly, “you’re behind the times. Lots of people like oral sex. Nobody thinks anything of it anymore. Anything goes. And they weren’t bastards.”

“It’s not a question of
think.
It’s disgusting. Don’t tell me that women enjoy that. You’re lying. I bet you never did anything but lie under your man and let him come in you. You’re just showing off, posing as a look-how-liberated-I-am female. And they
were
bastards if they made you do it, but I bet anything you’re lying. Next thing you’ll be claiming you’ve had abortions, just to be in with the times. I know you think that it’s perfectly okay to kill.”

“I never had an abortion. I had three births, deliberate, planned.”

“Neither did I. I’m very proud of never having an abortion. Life is sacred. I hold life sacred. That’s one thing. I never had an abortion.”

“Come off it, Flora,” Jenny said. She felt better, almost normal, and was answering Flora’s arguments as she would anybody’s. “Abortion is a lot better than an unwanted child. Talk about ‘true love shit.’ ‘Life is sacred’ is the real shit. How about war? How about the death penalty? Starvation and poverty?”

“No real woman with love in her heart could ever have an abortion. Don’t argue oranges and lemons.”

“How about Eva and Naomi? Eva had one abortion and Naomi had two. They’re not real women with love in their hearts? They should have had seven children like Mama?”

“They never did,” Flora shouted. “You’re lying. You’d lie about anything to win an argument. And you dare to say Naomi had two abortions. Maybe, maybe,
maybe
she had one when she was having that affair with that insufferable shoe salesman. After all, she was only nineteen and didn’t know any better. And then when she got pregnant he wouldn’t marry her. But she never had two. Never.”

“She did. She had two. After my first marriage, before I had kids, she came to stay with me after her second abortion, and I gave her a bacon and tomato sandwich and some good pea soup I had cooked up. Though I could hardly cook at all then. She told Mama she had caught a bad cold and would spend the weekend with me getting over it. It was between her two marriages, when she was screwing around with that painter she met at Lewisohn Stadium. He was very dark, and she suspected he was part black. So even though he wanted to marry her, she didn’t want to, and who knows whether he really would have.”