OLIVIA GOLDSMITH

MARRYING MOM

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This edition 1998

Special overseas edition 1997

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1997

First published in the USA by HarperCollinsPublishers 1997

Copyright © Olivia Goldsmith 1997.

Olivia Goldsmith asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Source ISBN: 9780006499886

Ebook Edition © MAY 2015 ISBN: 9780062424082

Version: 2015-10-28

Praise for Olivia Goldsmith:

Marrying Mom

‘What a great feeling to fall into the capable hands of Olivia Goldsmith. The author of The First Wives Club and Bestseller always serves up believable characters in slightly outlandish situations in a mixture that makes highly entertaining reading … The resulting romantic twists and turns are funny, but better still is Goldsmith’s sharp portrait of the maddening but lovable Phyllis … All pop novels ought to be as hard to put down as Marrying Mom.’

People

‘Witty … full of funny New York moments and read-for-the-big-screen charm … Perfect comic relief.’

New York Daily News

Bestseller

‘Extremely satisfying.’ The New York Times Book Review

‘Like Jane Austen dealing blackjack … you keep licking your fingers and reaching for the next page as if it were another potato chip.’

Newsweek

Dedication

To Nan, with abiding affection.

We’ll always have Paris.

Epigraph

“Old age is woman’s hell.”

—Ninon de Lenclos

Thanks to:

Paul Smith for putting up with an insane schedule, and for giving me the house of my dreams.

Jim and Christopher Robinson for their understanding and sacrifice on behalf of this book.

Linda Grady, as fine a reader as she is a friend and writer.

Barbara Turner for her love, humor, and for giving me this plot in the first place. (Don’t sue, sis.)

Paul Mahon because of all those trips to Montana, Ireland, Michigan, and the rest. Lucky I don’t depend on you.

Jerry Young for never putting me on hold. What are you wearing, Jerry?

Sherry Lansing for sharing my vision, telling me jokes, and turning this book into a film.

Aida Mora for keeping me supplied with endless Diet Cokes and making things homey.

Allen Kirstein for encouragement when I needed it the most.

John Yunis for tempting me to look better than I ever have.

Flex (a.k.a. Angelo) for the streaks and blow job.

Gail Parent, whom I can’t live without.

Chris Patusky, who tried to pick me up at a book signing. (Hope that trouble with the bar association clears up soon, Chris.)

Amy Bobrow for help with Wall Street lingo and with Matilda.

Harold Wise, the best, most caring internist in Manhattan. You were right about everything, Harold.

Diana Hellinger, the only girlfriend I have who will sing with me over the telephone.

Lorraine Kreahling for putting aside our project while this book consumed me; thanks for being my friend.

Amy Fine Collins for helping me with my ABCs. You know I’d always do it for you, girlfriend.

Mike Snyder for being one giant earlobe. You were so slow you hurt my whole family, but I love you.

John Botteri (a.k.a. Moe) for knowing exactly how many BTUs a girl writer needs.

Barry LaPoint for your artistic talent, integrity, and for knowing which of the hallway doors to change.

Laura Ziskin for kindly understanding and for giving this book up.

David Madden, even though you wouldn’t marry me.

Robert Cort for giving me the really key advice about Mom’s character. Wish this were an award, big guy.

Arlene Sorkin, girl screenwriter extraordinaire.

Andrew Fisher for his unmatchable expertise in dealing with the true professionals of the building trade.

Kelly Lange, because being Queen ain’t easy.

Anthea Disney, a real woman, a real CEO, and a real pal.

Ruth Nathan, my inspiration in so many ways.

Lynn Goldberg, because I still worship you, Lynn. And by the way, when are you going to put me up on your wall?

Dwight Currie, superb book reader, bookseller, book writer, and bookkeeper (except for that last one).

Michael Kohlmann, still “the nice one” and still my friend.

Steve Rubin and Ed Town of Gallery North Star, Grafton, Vermont, for keeping me well fed and well hung.

Edgar Fabro at Copy Quest, because no one can duplicate his amazing talents.

Jody Post, because I miss you and I missed you.

Norman Currie at the Bettmann Archives for his inspirational help in filling the album.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Epigraph

Thanks to

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Keep Reading

The Switch

About the Author

Other Books By

About the Publisher

Ira, I’m leaving you.” It wasn’t easy for Phyllis to give her husband of forty-seven years the news, but she was doing it. She had always told the truth. All her life people had called her “difficult” or “tough” or “insensitive,” but actually she was just honest.

“I can’t take it, Ira,” she told him. “You know I never liked Florida. I came down here for you, because you wanted to.” She paused. She didn’t want to blame. It was a free country and Ira hadn’t forced her. “Well, you’d always supported me,” Phyllis admitted. “Let’s face it: you earned the money, so I owed it to you. But it was your retirement, Ira, not mine. I wasn’t ready to retire. But did you give me a choice?” Ira said nothing. Of course, she didn’t expect him to. The fact was that in their forty-seven years of married life he’d rarely said much. Still, by some marital osmosis, she always knew what his position was on any given subject. Now she realized that the wave of disapproval that she expected to feel had not materialized. This meant that either Ira was sulking or that he wasn’t there at all. She paused. Even for her, considered a loud mouth by everyone all her life, even for her it was hard to say this. But it had to be said. “You didn’t pay enough attention to them, Ira. You needed me at the company, and I did what I had to do. But the children needed us. And I don’t think they got enough of us, Ira. Things have gone wrong for them. Sharon with Barney … Susan unmarried … and Bruce!” Phyllis paused and bit her lip. There were some things best left unsaid. “I don’t want to criticize you, but I don’t think you were there for them, Ira. You paid for the best schools, but they didn’t learn how to live. They don’t know what’s important. And I think they need their mother. I’m going up to take care of the children, Ira. I wasn’t a good enough mother to them then, but I can try and make up for it now.”

Phyllis sighed deeply. The sun was merciless, and she thought of the skin cancer that Ira had developed on his bald head. She should wear a hat, but she couldn’t stand hats or sunglasses or any of the extra chazerai that most people schlepped around in Florida: sunscreen, lip balm, eye shades, visors. Who had the time? Florida was the place that looked like paradise but wound up deadly. “Ira, Thanksgiving was unbearable. Eating a turkey in the Rascal House yesterday and having the kids calling only out of a sense of obligation? What kind of holiday was that? It wasn’t good for them and it wasn’t good for me. It was depressing, Ira.” She lowered her voice. Phyllis wasn’t vain, but she lied about her age. “My seventieth birthday is on the twelfth, Ira. It scares me. Then there’s Hanukkah, Christmas, and New Year’s coming, I won’t survive if I try to do it down here. Do you understand?”

Nothing. No response. Phyllis told herself she shouldn’t be surprised. Always she talked, he listened. But at least at one time he had listened. In Florida, in the last several years, he seemed to have collapsed in on himself. His world was only as large as his chest cavity and the illness that resided in it. Phyllis had made sure he took his pills, watched his diet, and that he’d exercised. But conversation? A luxury. Phyllis sighed again. What did she expect?

Phyllis turned her back on Ira and wiped moisture out of her eyes. She wasn’t a crier. It was ridiculous to get all emotional. She knew that and fiercely told herself to stop it. She turned back. “You won’t be alone here,” she said. “Iris Blumberg is just over there by the willow tree, and Max Feiglebaum isn’t far away.” She paused. “I know you don’t have patience for Sylvia, but she’ll visit every week to tidy up.”

There wasn’t anything more to say. They had had a good marriage, she and Ira. There were those who saw her as pushy, as too outgoing, as egocentric. Not Ira. And he’d been wrong because she was all those things. You couldn’t reach the age of sixty-nine, she mused, without knowing a little bit about yourself. Unless you were very pigheaded, or a man. Ira, a man, had never really understood her or learned a thing about himself. But then with men, how much was there to know?

With men, either they had a job or they didn’t, they cheated or they didn’t, they charmed you or they didn’t. Ira had been an accountant before he retired, almost a decade ago. Ira was a good man. He worked and brought home his pay, didn’t cheat, and didn’t charm. But he had liked her. If he hadn’t understood her, he had at least enjoyed her. And he’d given her three beautiful babies.

Phyllis thought of Susan, Bruce, and Sharon. Each had been so perfect, so gorgeous. Funny how babies grew up and became just as imperfect as any other adults.

She shook her head, dislodging the tangential thought. As she’d aged she hadn’t, thank God, lost her memory. Instead, if anything, she remembered too much too often. “So anyway, Ira, I hope this doesn’t come as a shock. You always knew I hated this place. Nobody down here but tourists, old Jews, and rednecks. I’ve got to leave you. It’s for my mental health,” she said, though she knew that Ira would hardly accept that as a legitimate excuse. “When did you become sane?” was one of the questions he’d frequently asked her. Despite his mild joke they both knew she was the voice of reason.

“I haven’t told the children. I know they’ll be upset. But I can’t live only for them or you, Ira.” Phyllis stooped down and picked up a stone from the ground beside the grave. She walked up to his headstone and laid the pebble beside the others that still remained from previous visits she or the children had made. Who would visit the grave now? Just her friend, Sylvia Katz? The goyishe groundskeeper she always gave five dollars to when she came in? Whoever it was, she knew Ira wouldn’t like it. “Ira, I have to,” she said as she picked up her purse and prepared to go. “It’ll kill me if I stay here much longer.”

Virtually every morning for nine years and three months, Ira and Phyllis Geronomous had walked the strip of macadamized beachfront that was known throughout Dania, Florida, as “The Broadwalk.” Now, since his death almost two years ago, Phyllis continued to walk it, more out of habit than desire. Today, Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, the beautiful weather did not match her mood, though she felt better after her talk with Ira. The sea, a Caribbean azure, winked at her as she made the turn from the shaded section of the path to the straightaway that led past the band shell, the cheap bathing suit and T-shirt boutiques, the snack shops, and greasy restaurants. In stark contrast, on the other side of the tarmac was a swath of flat pristine beach that met the aqua water. No one, not even the meshuga suntanners, was on the beach side yet. The Broadwalk was already peppered with pedestrians—dozens of people over sixty-five who found sleep impossible beyond 5 a.m. and did their morning constitutionals before the heat became too oppressive.

Phyllis didn’t know why she was walking now. She had walked with Ira because he had to: with congestive heart failure you had to keep the circulation moving, the weight down, and the fluids out of your lungs. Ira wouldn’t walk without her, so every morning they’d both gotten up and she’d done the three miles down to the parking lot and the three miles back, past the Howard Johnson’s, past the palm trees and cheap motels, all the way to the California Dream Inn before quitting for the day.

Now she passed the Pinehearst and, as usual, Sylvia Katz was sitting out in front on her webbed aluminum lawn chair, waiting, with her ubiquitous huge black patent leather purse perched on her lap. Sylvia Katz was in her mid-seventies, maybe more, though she wouldn’t admit it. She was zaftig, short, and her hair had thinned. She wore it teased and colored red—the unnatural red of those poisonous maraschino cherries that they put on top of the Chinese food in the bad restaurants down here. She was from Queens—Kew Gardens—and had spent the last fifteen years of her married life living here. She was neither smart nor witty, but she was loyal and patient and the best that Phyllis could do in the friendship department right now. Here, friends had died or dispersed in the diaspora of the aging. “Can I walk with you?” Sylvia asked, as she always did.

“It’s a free country,” Phyllis answered with a shrug, completing the morning ritual in their usual way.

Sylvia Katz pushed herself up from the chair and stepped past the concrete balustrade that separated Pinehearst Gardens from The Broadwalk hoi polloi. They walked in near silence for a moment, the only sound being the noise of Sylvia’s sandals shuffling, and the swishing of her purse rubbing against her shorts. Over and over again Phyllis had begged Sylvia both to leave the purse behind and to get a pair of Reeboks just like everybody else. But Sylvia wouldn’t do it. You couldn’t tell with Sylvia whether it was that she hated change or that she couldn’t spend the money. Phyllis shrugged. What did it matter if Sylvia schlepped the purse or dragged her feet? So it made her walk more slowly. Big deal. They weren’t going anywhere.

“I told Ira,” Phyllis announced.

“Do you think he was upset?” Sylvia asked.

“How could I know?” Phyllis heard her own voice betraying the irritation that Sylvia so often made her feel. “Even when he was alive, you couldn’t tell if Ira was feeling anything. In the hospital, with his lungs filled with fluid, he didn’t complain.”

They were past the band shell, empty except for the sign that announced the swing-band concert that night. Once a week The Broadwalk was thronged with couples joined together by the lindy. Sylvia, whose husband had deserted her a few years earlier after over twenty-one years of marriage, came regularly and sat watching, her patent leather purse firmly held on her lap. But no matter how often she invited Phyllis, Phyllis abstained. Sylvia never noticed and kept asking.

It wasn’t that Phyllis didn’t like the music, except maybe this Friday evening, when the sign said “The Mistletoes,” the season’s opening band, were playing a holiday medley. She needed chestnuts roasting like she needed a melanoma. Usually she loved music. Now, though, it made her too restless and sad. Somehow Sylvia could feel comfortable sitting on the sidelines, but for Phyllis, it was too painful knowing that she’d never dance again. People did dance on The Broadwalk, and then, in a blink of time, they were dead and gone. They might as well be under The Broadwalk, buried in the sand. Phyllis repressed a sigh. Ira had never been much of a dancer. Long ago, somehow, Phyllis had given it up. It was ridiculous at her age to care, but there was something about the music that got under her skin and didn’t allow her to sit, blank and regretless, along with Sylvia.

“You comin’ tonight?” Sylvia asked, as predictable as Republican bank scandals.

“I can’t,” Phyllis told her. “I’m having dinner in Buckingham Palace.”

“Don’t kid me,” Sylvia said, but there was enough doubt in her voice that Phyllis knew she could.

“Betty is very unhappy,” Phyllis continued. “All of her children have disappointed her. I said ‘Betty, that’s what they’re for.’ We’re talking it over tonight. You know, they say that Edward is like my Bruce. ‘Gay, schmay,’ I said to her. ‘Just help him find a nice faigela and settle down.’”

“Prince Edward is like your Bruce?” Sylvia asked, her voice lowering.

“Wake up and smell the nitroglycerin,” Phyllis told her friend, who also had a heart condition.

“What a tragedy,” Sylvia tsked. “And in such a family.”

“It’s in my family, too,” Phyllis snapped. “What are we, belly lox? Nothing wrong with it.” Plenty was wrong with it, in Phyllis’s opinion, and with Susan and Sharon, too, but it was no one’s job but hers to point it out.

If Phyllis ever took Sylvia seriously she’d be offended. But, luckily, she knew how ridiculous it would be to be offended by anything Sylvia said. The woman had a strong constitution, a good heart, and a weak mind.

“I heard the Queen Mother had a colostomy,” Sylvia said in a lowered voice. “Like my Sid.” For the decade before Sid left her, Sylvia had coped with not only her own heart condition but also Sid’s colon cancer. “Can you imagine? All those garden parties.” Phyllis ignored the non sequitur. Who knew how Sylvia’s mind worked?

They had reached the end of The Broadwalk and, as always, Sylvia had to touch the post implanted in the macadam to stop vehicular traffic.

“What would happen if, just once, we walked to the end and you didn’t hit the barrier?” Phyllis asked.

“Everybody touches the post,” Sylvia said. “You have to touch the post.”

“No you don’t. I don’t.”

“You. You’re different.”

“Nu? Tell me something I don’t know.”

Phyllis sighed. Different was fine. It was lonely that was the problem. She didn’t know how long she’d been lonely. Certainly way before Ira died. After a while, it became a fact of life and you just didn’t notice it any more. That was the danger. It was like smelling gas: if you didn’t pay attention to it, it could kill you. In Florida, Phyllis hadn’t had a really good friend, one who understood her and got her jokes. Even Ira, long before he died, had stopped responding much. But nobody talked to their husbands. What was there to say after forty-seven years? “Do you still like my brisket?” “Do you think that I ought to shorten this skirt?” “Should we pull our troops out of Bosnia?”

Phyllis still had a lot to say, but who wanted to listen? And who had anything interesting to say back? Which was why she was now walking down The Broadwalk with Sylvia Katz. Sylvia was no Madame Curie, didn’t understand half of what Phyllis was talking about, but at least she wasn’t offended by Phyllis’s wisecracks.

Most of the women that Phyllis knew were offended by her. She had to face it, she had a big mouth. She always had. And if she offended most of the women she met down here, they in turn bored her. They’d talk about recipes, grandchildren, shopping, and more recipes. They bored her stiff. Sylvia was a relief. No kids, no recipes, no aggravation.

Phyllis’s own children interested her, but not just to brag about. They interested her because they were interesting, not because they were hers. Susan was brilliant, Bruce was remarkably witty, and Sharon … well, Sharon, she had to admit, favored her father’s side of the family. Still, she loved them. Like Queen Betty must love her brood. It didn’t mean she approved of their behavior, or that they approved of hers.

“This means you’ll be with the kids for the holidays. Nice for you.” She sounded wistful. “Nice for them.” Sylvia paused. “Do they know you’re going up?” she asked.

Phyllis was silent.

“You haven’t told them, have you?” Sylvia asked accusingly.

“Not yet,” Phyllis admitted.

“You have to. You have to,” Sylvia said. Her own son had both refused a Thanksgiving invitation and not extended one to her. “If you don’t tell them, I will.”

“Don’t you dare,” Phyllis warned.

“When are you going to tell them?”

“Next Purim,” Phyllis said, and opened the gate to Pinehearst for her friend.

You’re joking.”

“You wish.”

“Come on,” Sig Geronomous said cavalierly. “It’s just one of those empty threats. One of those nutty things she says that get us all jerked around for nothing. Like the time she corresponded with the Asian bride and wanted to import her for you.”

“She means this,” Sig’s brother, Bruce, told her. “Todd, get over here and tell her that it’s true.” Bruce didn’t live with Todd, but they had been spending a lot of time together. Whenever Sig asked if it was serious Bruce evaded the question.

“Bruce has the proof,” Todd shouted into the receiver.

“How do you know?”

“Because she gave Mrs. Katz the rattan magazine rack,” Bruce responded.

“The magazine rack? Oh my God!” Susan Geronomous—now known to her friends and business associates as Sigourney—accidentally dropped the telephone receiver. It crashed so hard against her granite countertop that her brother Bruce, at the other end of the phone, winced.

“What was that? Did you hurt yourself?”

“I wish.” Sigourney had gotten control of the phone; now she just had to control herself. This couldn’t really be happening … nothing was ever as bad as it seemed … absence made the heart grow fonder … too many cooks—she stopped. She was going crazy. This couldn’t be true. Christmas and her mother both coming? She might as well pull out the razor blades now. Sig looked down appraisingly at her elegant wrist. “She just casually mentioned that she gave away the rattan magazine rack?”

“I’m way ahead of you,” Bruce sang. “Mom didn’t tell me. It’s not a setup. It was Mrs. Katz who called.”

“When?”

“Twenty minutes ago.”

“Mom could have put her up to it.”

“I already called the building manager. Confirmation. And there’s a garage sale this week.”

“A garage sale? She doesn’t even have a garage, for God’s sake.”

“Yard sale, lawn sale, tag sale. Sigourney, don’t play your word games now. It’s happening. So, what are we going to do?”

Sigourney tried to regain some control. “What did Mrs. Katz say when you talked to her? Exactly. Word for word.”

“That Mom was leaving Florida for good. That she’s packing up and moving to New York. She’s getting a ticket today. She wants to arrive on Wednesday.”

“Wednesday! That’s only six days from now.”

“Mmm. Good counting, Sig. That’s why you earn the big bucks. Actually, it’s five, since you don’t officially count—”

“Don’t be so anal, Bruce. And sarcasm is not necessary at this moment. We’ll have more than we can handle starting Wednesday.” Sigourney tapped the countertop. Her mother, living here in New York again. Calling her. Looking in her closets. Commenting. Criticizing. Oh God! Fear gripped Sig’s chest like a Wonderbra. “This is the end of life as we know it, Bruce. How can we stop her?”

“Hmmm.” He paused, ruminating. Bruce was smart. Maybe he’d have a solution. “How about plastic explosives in the cargo bay? We’d take down a lot of innocent lives, but we would know it was a small price to pay.”

“Bruce!”

“Come on, Sig. It would be an act of kindness. People love tragedies at holiday time. It gives them something to watch on TV. Makes them feel better about the tragedy unfolding under their own Christmas trees.”

“Amen, brother!” Todd yelled in the background. Todd had been raised a Southern Baptist in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before he ran off to New York City to become an agnostic photographer.

“Bruce!” Sigourney forced herself to exhale while simultaneously staring up at the immaculate blue ceiling of her seventy-thousand-dollar kitchen. Her home, her beautifully designed, luxurious, and comfortable home, was her haven, her safe place where perfection reigned. It comforted her as nothing else did. She breathed deeply. Then her eyes focused on a tiny line. Was that a crack right in the corner? Was the glaze going already, despite Duarto’s assurances that the fourteen hand-lacquered layers would last ten lifetimes? She had picked up the pen and jotted a note to herself to call him before she realized what she was doing. This news, this shattering news had come, and she was writing notes to her decorator? Where were her values, her priorities? It could only be denial kicking in. She’d better focus. “Did you speak to Sharon yet?” she asked her brother.

“You are losing it. I don’t bother to call her with good news—not that I’ve had any of that lately.” Bruce, at his end of the phone, eyed his shabby brownstone apartment. The two rooms, though neat and cozy, were cluttered not only with all his worldly goods but also with what remained of his entire business stock—the gay greeting card line he’d created and marketed until his partner had absconded with most of the money last year. And the season wasn’t going as well as he’d hoped. It had really only just begun, but already stock had started being returned by Village shops. Queer Santa wasn’t selling as he’d expected. Bruce sighed. Sig was buzzing in his ear. He adored his older sister, but she was sometimes so controlling, especially when she was frightened. He interrupted her chatter. “Sig, if I called Sharon, which I wouldn’t, she’d just tell me how it was going to be even worse for her than for us, that it was always worse for her.” Bruce sighed again, this time explosively. “I know it’s the middle-child syndrome, but you’d think at thirty-seven she’d get over it.”

Sharon was their disappointed and disappointing sister—four years younger than Sig, and only a year older than Bruce. But she looked twice his age. She had let herself go—it wasn’t just her weight, it was her frosted hair that looked ten years out of date, the Talbots clothes in size sixteen that even a skinny Connecticut WASP couldn’t get away with, and more than anything else it was the way her eyes and her mouth and her shoulders drooped in parallel, descending bell curves.

“We have to call Sharon,” Sigourney said, ignoring her brother. “This is too big to handle on our own.”

“Well, she’s bigger than both of us,” Bruce laughed. “Not that she’ll be any use.”

Sigourney knew all about it. Bruce had almost no patience for Sharon, but Sigourney felt sorry for her fat, whiny, frustrated, younger sister. Maybe it was because Sharri made her feel guilty. Maybe it was because Sig herself was so successful. Whatever the reason, she had no time now to listen to Bruce’s usual sniping. “I’ll call her,” Sigourney said. “Can you meet here Saturday? I’m giving a pre-Christmas brunch at eleven for my A-list clients. Sunday I’m doing the B-list with the leftovers. But three on Saturday would be good for me.”

“Well, don’t put yourself out,” Bruce said nastily. “What does that make us? C-list?”

Sig knew he was probably hurt because she hadn’t invited him and Todd to either brunch. Bruce didn’t realize how badly her own business had fallen off and she was too proud to tell him. She was also embarrassed about her necessary small economies, like using the catering firm for one party and making it do for two. But this wasn’t the eighties anymore. And she couldn’t afford to have Todd and Bruce acting up and alienating prospects and clients.

“I’ll come,” Bruce finally agreed, “but there’s nothing we can do.” He began to recite aloud in a singsong: “Roses are red / Chickens are white / If you think you can stop her / You’re not very bright.”

“No wonder your greeting card business is in trouble,” was all Sig answered. “I’m hanging up and calling Sharon.”

“Well, don’t let Barney come,” Bruce begged, defeated. Barney was not just Sharon’s loser husband; he was also a blowhard. He was big and barrel-chested and balding. But what Sig and Bruce found intolerable was that he managed to lose every job he’d ever had while making Sharon feel like a failure. Barney was the kind of person who explained to heart surgeons at cocktail parties some new technique he’d read about in Reader’s Digest. In short, he was an asshole.

Now it was Sig’s turn to sigh. “I’ll try to make it just us, but lately Sharon hasn’t been driving. She gets those panic attacks when she has to cross a bridge.”

“Oh, come on. She’s a victim of faux agoraphobia. She’s just too lazy to drive into the city. She’s probably just trying to get a handicapped parking permit. Totally faux.”

“Bruce! That’s not true.”

“Oh, Sig, Sig, Sig, Sig! Sometimes life could do with a little embellishment.”

“My God! You sounded exactly like Mother then.”

“I did not.”

“You did.”

“It’s started,” Bruce sang out.

Sig paused, biting back the need to tell him it was his fault. “You’re right,” she admitted. “Okay. It’s Saturday at three and now I’ll call Sharon.”

“See ya. Wouldn’t wanna be ya!” Bruce yodeled. Sig merely shook her head and hung up the phone.

Sig stood silently for a few moments in the center of her immaculate living room. She knew she shouldn’t do it, but she was drawn irresistibly to the vanity in her bedroom. She looked around at the room and its beautiful decor. She’d have to sell the co-op, no doubt about it. She was behind in her maintenance payments and starting to get nasty looks from the coop board president when she ran into him in the lobby.

Her client list had dropped, her commissions were down, and her own portfolio had taken a beating. Welcome to the nineties. Sig had done her best to downsize her expenses—she hadn’t used her credit cards for months, had paid her phone bill and Con Ed on time, and had spent money only on the necessities. But it wasn’t enough. Business had slowed to a trickle and even if she sold her stock now, she’d take a loss and have no possibility for the future. She’d just have to sell her apartment.

But this apartment was more than just equity: it was her haven. Maybe that was because she felt her mother had never made a home for her. As Phyllis had often said, “I’d be happy living out of a suitcase in a clean motel.” The very thought made Sig shudder. Besides, the apartment was her visible sign of success, her security, and a place she could come after a long hard day of gambling with other people’s money to lick her wounds. It was beautiful. It was perfect, and she’d have to face the fact that it was empty and she would have to sell it. The money would evaporate faster than good perfume out of an open flask and she would wind up destitute. Or worse: she’d wind up in an apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Sig looked into the mirror as she knew, irrevocably, what she would have to do. She didn’t like what she saw. Was Bruce right? She wasn’t just getting older, but also bitter? Were those new lines forming at the corner of her mouth? She stared more deeply into the mirror. And then her eyes flitted to the reflection in one pane of the three-sided glass. For a second something about the softness in the line of her jaw reminded her of … what? She was puckering, decaying, and withering. She was going the way of all flesh. Sig shuddered. But it wasn’t just the age thing that gave her the shivers; she had looked like … her mother.

Sig moved her head but the trick of light, or the angle, was gone. Jesus, she would wind up alone. She wouldn’t even have the comfort of three children to annoy and be annoyed by. Tears of self-pity and something else—a deeper sorrow—rose to her eyes. She was getting older, but she was also getting bitter. The thought of Phillip Norman made her sad. Sig had known he was no genius, but he was presentable, fairly successful—if a corporate lawyer could be considered that—and his warmth for her made up for some of her coolness. It was nice to be wanted, and Phillip seemed to want marriage and a child. She would have to at least compromise—she’d give up the idea of a soulmate for a friend, a partner, and a family. But she was starting to believe that Phillip was even less than a friend: he was an empty suit. He and all of the other empty suits and bad boys who had preceded him made her mouth tremble. She looked like shit and she felt worse.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been trying to find somebody, someone to settle down with, to marry. Even to have a family with, if it wasn’t too late. Her mother acted as if it was Sig who was stopping it from happening. But the truth was there were no men who were interested. Despite her good haircut, her visible success, her careful makeup, her Armani suits—or maybe because of them—Sig couldn’t remember the last time a new man had expressed any interest in her. The truth was, it wasn’t like she had a choice except Phillip. Oh, she could have affairs with any of the more interesting but very married men she worked with, but she wasn’t a Glenn Close/Fatal Attraction kind of girl. She didn’t steal other women’s husbands. And other than other women’s husbands, who had looked at her lately? The Gristede’s delivery boy? Her elevator operator? Women over thirty-five started to become invisible. She was losing it, and she was losing it fast.

She picked up a lipstick, about to paint a little color onto her lips when her hand froze in midair. Why bother, she thought. Why bother to paint it on. She was losing it—she had lost it. The bloom of youth, the promise of fecundity that attracted men, that even on some unconscious level promised them a breeder, was disappearing. Perhaps men her age wanted younger women not only for their looks but because of the hormonal message a young girl sent: that she could still carry their child. That she could demonstrate their virility to the world with her upright breasts and a bulging belly. Sig’s periods were still regular. But how long would it last? She wasn’t a breeder. The bloom of youth was gone, and she’d grow old alone.

She looked deeper into the mirror. Under her mother’s brittle veneer, wasn’t there a desperation? Wasn’t there a gallantry that seemed to say to Sig that it was better to go down fighting, to be feisty and annoying, than to ever be perceived as pathetic and lonely?

Sig looked around once more at the bedroom and rose and wandered through all her perfect rooms. She wound up, as usual, in her kitchen. Her eyes immediately focused on the one flaw—the tiny crack in the lacquer finish. Had it grown? Perhaps she should have spent the money on smoothing her own wrinkles, in lacquering her own finish. Perhaps if she lost a few pounds more, did a little more time on the treadmill, and had her eyes done, she could attract someone more acceptable, more interesting, more human than Phillip Norman. Then again, maybe not. Sig reached for the door of her Subzero refrigerator, pulled open the freezer, and grabbed a pint container of Edy’s low-fat double Dutch chocolate ice milk. She sat on the floor and, using a tablespoon, began to eat it all. She rarely gave herself over to this behavior, but the sweetness in her mouth was comforting. She understood how her sister had ballooned to over two hundred pounds. Thinking of Sharon, she realized she hadn’t yet called her. Well, she’d call her later. After the Edy’s was gone.

Phyllis Geronomous. A ticket to New York,” she announced. “One way. For a December fourth arrival.”

“Do you have reservations?”

“Plenty of them, but I’m going anyway.” The agent didn’t look up from her keyboard or even respond to Phyllis’s little joke. Phyllis shrugged. She knew this type. Old women were usually invisible to them.

They were in a tiny, tacky office, desks lined up facing each other, and in the center was a small white Dynel Christmas tree with tiny pink Christmas bulbs hanging down. The travel agent had been recommended by her son-in-law—she was the young woman who owned the agency. Barney had said, “She’ll get you a deal. She owes me.” Phyllis didn’t like to think of what this annoying Floridian with the big hair could possibly owe Barney for, but she had to get a ticket somewhere. The clerk looked at her for the first time, as if she now knew something was expected but wasn’t sure what. “So … you’re going to The Big Apple?” she asked.

“It looks that way.” She smiled sweetly. The only advantage to being an old dame was that if she smiled she could get away with murder.

The agent consulted her screen, then made a baby mouth. “You should have planned ahead. Do you know that a one-way ticket costs as much as a round trip?” She spoke in a condescending, louder voice, as if Phyllis were both stupid and hard of hearing.

“We’re in peak season for the holidays. You can’t meet the fourteen- or twenty-one-day advance ticket purchase deadline.”

Tell me something I don’t know, Phyllis thought, while the agent continued. Where was the help or break in price Barney had implied? Typical. Barney Big Mouth. Phyllis certainly wasn’t going to ask this woman for any favors. “Anyway,” the agent continued, “don’t you want a round trip, for when you’re coming back?”

“I’m never coming back!” Phyllis said vehemently. “I only moved down in the first place because Ira wanted to. But he’s dead, so why stay?” Phyllis immediately realized she’d said too much. God, next she’d be telling strangers on buses her entire life story. The potential humiliation of loneliness was like a direct kick to her pride. She took a breath. She’d fight back with the only weapon she’d ever used—her tongue. “Who needs to live in a place where everybody talks, but they’re so deaf they can’t listen? No one was born here, they just die here. Feh! Nothing has roots here, except the mangrove trees. I hate Florida!”

“I was born in Gainesville,” the younger woman said. “I like Florida. Especially Miami.”

Phyllis crossed her arms. “How can you like a city where the local rock band is called Dead German Tourists?” she asked.

The condescending younger woman recoiled. “Well, the violence is bad for my business …” she began.

“Not too good for the German tourists, either,” Phyllis added. “But the survivors are enough to make you homicidal. And the retirees!” Phyllis rolled her eyes. “I didn’t like any of these people when they lived up in New York and were important and pushy. Why the hell I should like them now, when they’re just hanging around all day and still being pushy, is beyond me.”

“Florida is a nice place for retirement. The weather’s good and—”

“You call ninety-nine percent humidity good weather?” Phyllis asked. “Compared to what? Djakarta? You should see the fungus garden growing on my winter coat! And another thing: Who says that everyone the same age should hang out together? I don’t want to be anywhere near these people. It’s an age ghetto. This place isn’t God’s Waiting Room; it’s Hell’s Foyer. It’s an elephant graveyard.” Phyllis straightened herself up to her full height. “Well, I’m no elephant. I’m a New Yorker.”

Coldly, the agent looked at her. “New York is a dangerous place, especially for an older lady alone.” She was acting now as if Phyllis were incompetent, a doddering old wreck.

“You mean you think I’m incapacitated?”

“Uhh—no.” The witch raised her brows. “Certainly not,” she said, with the sincerity of a surgical nurse saying the procedure wouldn’t hurt at all.

Why did every person under the age of fifty feel they could talk to an older woman as if she’d lost her marbles? Phyllis wondered. It made Phyllis feel more ornery than usual. “Look, just book me a seat. In first class. I’ll get all the bad advice I need from my children.”

Phyllis waited while the ticket printed out and took comfort in the idea that this girl would some day also be postmenopausal. In forty-five years she’d be plucking whiskers out of that recessive chin—if she could still see her chin, and had enough eye-hand coordination to hold a tweezers.

“Oh,” the young woman cooed as she handed Phyllis the ticket. “Your children are up there. That’s different. Well, I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you.”

“My eldest is a very successful stockbroker. She’s got a gorgeous apartment on Central Park. And my youngest, my son, is an entrepreneur.” Phyllis paused for a moment. She couldn’t leave out Sharon. “My middle daughter has two adorable children.”

“Which one will you be staying with?” the agent asked.

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll all be fighting over that,” Phyllis told the agent. “As soon as they know I’m coming.”

“Don’t they know?”

Phyllis shook her head. “Surprise is an essential part of the art of war.” Mrs. Katz choked a little behind her. Phyllis turned her head. “Sylvia. Did you—”

“Do you want this?” the agent said, interrupting in a rude way.

Phyllis snatched the ticket from the agent and shook her head again. “Certainly. Just take the time from now on to show a little respect to your elders. Osteoporosis is in your future, too, you know.” Phyllis got up from the chair, turned, and walked away.

Who’s going to pick Mom up at the airport on Wednesday?” Sharon asked. The three siblings were together at their elder sister’s, but Sharon was doing most of the talking. She was a big woman, though her hands and feet were dainty—almost abnormally tiny. Her eyes, buried in her pudgy cheeks, were the same dark brown as the unfrosted parts of her hair and darted nervously from side to side. She’d already obsessed about the airport for two and a half hours.

Sig sighed. Between now and Wednesday she had a lot to cram into four days. She had to prepare for the marketing meeting, complete a newsletter, start her Christmas shopping on a nonexistent budget, and prepare Christmas cards for her clients, as well as coping now with the arrival of her mother. She always had to do everything, she thought, including making all the arrangements, dealing with their mother’s minimal finances, and regularly lending money to both her siblings. Sometimes you just had to draw the line. She waited. She knew that Sharon, like nature itself, abhorred a vacuum. She’d break the silence, and once she did …

“I’m not going to do it,” Sharon responded, filling the gap. Her voice sounded firm, though her chin wobbled. “I’m not,” she repeated. The sureness was already gone, a whine beginning. Sharon was an expert in fine whines. Sig continued to wait. When she closed a large order she used this technique. “Don’t you have to go over the Triborough Bridge?” Sharon asked anxiously, waiting for a response. There was none, except a groan from Bruce as he exhaled cigarette smoke. “I don’t think I could do a three-borough bridge,” Sharon said in a little-girl voice. Sig began to feel sorry for her. “Let Bruce get her.”

Bruce snorted. He was a greenish color, but it didn’t stop him from smoking, Sig thought, annoyed. One sibling ate. One smoked. Oh well.

Before Bruce could react further, Sig intervened. “Bruce says he can’t. He’s meeting with some new potential partner.” He always was, and nothing ever came of it, but…. “I’ll just send a car,” Sig said wearily.

“You can’t do that! Mom will talk about it for the next ten years.”

“Look, Sharon, I can’t go, Sig can’t go, and you can’t go. What do you suggest?” Bruce asked nastily.

Sharon ignored her brother. “Sig, she’ll never step into a limo. You know how she is about money. She’ll try to get all of her luggage onto a Fugazy bus. And she’ll have a stroke doing it. Then we’ll all have to nurse her.”

There was a long pause as all three siblings graphically imagined it.

“You’re right. We’ll all have to go,” Sig said. She was feeling queasy. The brunch had not gone well and then Phillip had shocked her by—

“That’s settled. Now what do we do with her once she’s here?” Bruce asked, crushing out his cigarette in Sig’s pristine Steuben crystal ashtray and lighting another.

“I have an idea.” Sharon looked up from the sofa, which she was weighing down with her bulk. Despite her frightened eyes, she smiled hopefully at her two siblings. Bruce, sunk in his chair, was still recovering from a big Friday night. The upcoming holidays, the low reorders, and the news about his mother’s imminent arrival had pushed him to overdo it.

Sig, overwhelmed by it all, stood up and began fussily picking up tiny specks off the rug, moving the holly-decorated candles and napkins around and wiping microscopic smears from the cleared-up remains of her client brunch. She had to keep things in order for her B-list brunch tomorrow. Neither Sig nor Bruce even looked over at Sharon, but Sig—in a voice that sounded less than interested—at last asked, “So?”

“Mommy, can I have some juice?” Jessie interrupted as she rubbed Sig’s white cashmere throw compulsively against her cheek. Despite Sig’s request to the contrary, Sharon had brought Barney and her daughter, though the former wasn’t minding the latter as Sharon had promised.

“Here’s my idea,” Sharon said, ignoring her relentless daughter. “We put Mom in a home.”

“Yeah. Right,” Bruce said with disgust.

“Sharon, no home would take her. She’s not physically incapacitated,” Sigourney pointed out. “She isn’t sick or crippled …”

“… Except emotionally,” Bruce agreed. “Anyway, there’s not a pen that could hold her. She’d start food riots. The Big House. Mom’s Wallace Beery in drag. She’d tunnel her way out with her dentures.”

There was a pause. “We could tell them she’s mentally unstable,” Sharon suggested.

“Hey. It just might work,” Bruce said, opening his eyes to narrow slits. “We take her to some high-security retirement home and say she has senile dementia.”

“She’s always been demented, Bruce. It has nothing to do with her age,” Sigourney reminded him. “Anyway, she knows what day of the week it is. And who the president is.” Sigourney laughed bitterly. “When they ask her that one, they’ll get a fifteen-minute tirade!”

“Mommy, can I have some juice?” Jessie asked again.

“Barney, would you give Jessie a drink?” Sharon nearly shrieked. Both Sig and Bruce recoiled and winced. Barney had planted his own bulk in the kitchen and was simultaneously scarfing down every bit of the leftovers and watching the Rams game. Bruce clutched at his head. Sharon didn’t notice, nor did she move off the sofa. She certainly didn’t lower the volume. “Jessie, be patient or you’ll have to go sit in the thinking chair in the corner,” she warned in a little-girl voice. Jessie hung her head, then went to hide behind Sig’s eighty-dollar-a-yard Scalamandre silk curtains, taking the throw with her. “What if we say she’s delusional?” Sharon continued desperately. “We could say she’s not our mother—she only thinks she is.”

For the first time Bruce sat up straight and fully opened his eyes. “Why Sharon, I’m proud of you. That’s a truly devious idea. I like that in a person.” He paused. “Gaslight. Mom as a small, Jewish Ingrid Bergman. We all play Charles Boyer. ‘But Auntie Phyllis, you know you have no children!’ Then we start hiding her hat in the closet.”

“I hope you’re having a good time with this nonsense,” Sig said. “But Mom doesn’t have a hat, you’re out of the closet, and this nightmare begins in three days. Don’t encourage Sharon, Bruce.” Sig turned to her younger sister. “Sharri, no home would take Mom, and even if they did, she can’t afford it. I can’t afford it. Do you know what the DeWitt charges? Twenty thousand a month.”

“Well, she doesn’t have to be on East Seventy-ninth Street,” Barney said, finally entering with the juice. His bare belly hung out under his Rams T-shirt. Despite his own girth he still criticized Sharon’s weight. “She doesn’t need anything that fancy. She’s no friggin’ duchess.”

“Shut up, Barney,” Sig and Bruce told him simultaneously.

“Just put her in a mental institution,” Barney said as he was about to hand the brimming glass to Jessie. “A place for the criminally insane. That’s where she belongs anyway. She’s crazy.”

“She’s not crazy, Barney,” Sig began in a voice calibrated to be understood even by four-year-olds. “She’s not crazy: she’s hostile. To you. There is a difference.”

“Well, I say she’s crazy.”

Bruce raised his brows at his brother-in-law and looked over at Sharon. “Maybe it’s time for Barney to go sit in the thinking chair in the corner?” he said in a little-girl voice. Without a word, Barney turned and walked toward the kitchen. “Ah, that’s better,” Bruce said, closing his eyes. “Now I can die in peace.”

“Bruce, stop it. Have you got any ideas?” Sig asked, watching Jessie and the juice nervously. Was her niece wearing a hole in the cashmere? And why did she worry herself about material things when her whole life was coming apart?

“Well, I’ve been thinking. Mom is a kind of negative Auntie Mame.” He paused. “Eureka! That’s it: she’s the Anti-Mame. Not to be confused with the Antichrist, although in the South I understand she has been.” He paused. “What to do, what to do? Maybe we could spray her gold and sell her as a standing lamp at the Twenty-sixth Street flea market. She’s very fifties.”

“Would you get serious?” Sig snapped. Bruce wasn’t stupid. It was just that he was always joking, right until he went bankrupt. She thought of a way to focus him. “Mrs. Katz called me, too. Apparently Mom told her she was planning to be at the Chelsea.”

“Oh my God!” Bruce cried and nearly dropped his cigarette. “That’s only three blocks from my apartment!”

“Isn’t that where Sid Vicious and all those rock stars died of overdoses?” Sharon asked.

Bruce nodded, starting to feel well and truly panicked. “We should be so lucky. What would she die of? An overdose of Provera? The only way that stuff could kill you is if a carton of it fell on your head.”

Sigourney ignored the two of them. She would have to handle her mother and the holidays and the end of her relationship with Phillip all at once. “Would both of you stop with the jokes and hysteria and try, for just a minute, to get a grip?”

Bruce looked up at his older sister through bloodshot eyes. “Only if you’ll stop being so superior!” He clutched at bis aching head. “You know, the minute Mom gets here she’s going to start calling you ‘Susan’ again and you’re going to lose it. She’ll call you ‘Susan’ in front of all your brunch-eating, bond-dealing friends. And she’ll follow you to the bathroom after you eat to make sure you don’t vomit. You’ll balloon back up to a hundred and seventy pounds in no time.”

“Pthew. Phtew.” Jessie said as she sprayed juice all over the carpet and drapes. “Pthew! This has stuff in it!”

“Yes, sweetie. It’s called ‘pulp.’ It’s part of the orange,” Sharon explained serenely.

“It’s fresh-squeezed,” Sig said through clenched teeth, attempting to avoid a cerebral hemorrhage. “Barney, would you bring some paper towels and club soda in here?” she called, managing not to scream. “I’ll wipe off your face and take away the juice,” she said to her niece.

Jessie began to wail. Then, to Sig’s astonishment, so did Jessie’s mother. Sig and her brother looked at Sharon and then at one another in astonishment. Sig raised her brows in the international gesture for ‘what gives?’ Bruce shrugged in die answering symbol, ‘who knows?’ Even Jessie stopped crying and looked at her mother. Sig forgot about the stains and gingerly perched beside Sharon on the sofa. “What is it, Sharri?”

“I know you want Mom to come live with us. That’s what this is about. I know it. But she can’t. She just can’t!” Sharon sobbed. “We don’t have a place to put her. We don’t have a car for her to drive. Barney is using the spare room as his office until he gets a new job and, anyway, it would just be too much for me.”

Sharon continued sobbing, and picked up the corner of the cashmere throw to wipe her eyes. “I know you’re going to try and make me, but I won’t. I just can’t. I can’t let her live with Jessie and Travis,” she whimpered. She fumbled in her voluminous purse for her inhaler. When she was upset she reached for her asthma medicine. “Last time she did we had to have six double sessions with the family therapist. Do you know what that costs?” Sharon wiped her nose on the throw, and Sig winced. “Travis was having nightmares every night. He thinks ‘Nana’ is a curse word. And Jessie went mute.”

“Well, that would be a relief,” Bruce muttered. “Worth every penny.”

Barney reentered the living room. It was too late. Jessie had cleaned her mouth and tongue with the other end of the white cashmere throw. Sharon’s sobs grew louder and uncontrollable. Sig now divided her concern equally between her sister and her afghan. She patted Sharon’s bloated shoulder, and gently handed her a paper towel.

“Sharri, we don’t expect that. We know it would ruin your life.”

“Not that it isn’t already ruined …” Bruce added. Sharon’s wails increased.

Sig threw a now-look-what-you’ve-done look at Bruce. “We’re not trying to trick you into taking Mom home with you. First of all, it wouldn’t be fair. Secondly, Mom wouldn’t go. She doesn’t like Westchester.” Sig figured it wasn’t necessary to add that Phyllis also didn’t like Barney. “Thirdly, it wouldn’t really solve our problem. When she wasn’t nagging and interfering in your life, she’d come into town and ruin ours.” Sharri looked up. Slowly, her tears abated. “Listen,” Sig continued, “we have to find a permanent solution. A way to really neutralize her and separate her from us once and for all. And I think I have the way to do it. It’s got to be done right away. It’s a fill or kill.”

“Oh my God! You want us to murder her,” Sharon gasped. She clapped her hands over Jessie’s ears to protect her. “You’re going to make us help you do it, aren’t you? We’ll all go to prison.”

“Nope. Murder’s out,” Bruce said. “Not on moral grounds, mind you. It’s just that the woman wrecked the first thirty years of my life. I’m not going to spend the second thirty in jail for her.” He shuddered. “Can you imagine me in prison? God, every night would be prom night. I’ll bet Todd wouldn’t even visit.” He looked seriously at Sigourney. “With all of those shady clients of yours, don’t you know someone who will bump her off and keep us out of it?”

Sigourney rolled her eyes. Couldn’t Bruce ever be serious and couldn’t Sharon ever make sense? “We can’t kill her,” Sigourney explained through clenched and beautifully bonded teeth. Sometimes Sharon was a complete ditz. “First of all, she’s our mother and, more importantly, I have no intention of taking up residence in the Menendez Brothers’ Wing at the nearest correctional facility. Fill or kill is just market talk for completing an order right away or dropping it. You have to help me with this. This is an immediate fill.” She looked at her younger siblings sternly, the way she used to do when they were kids and she forced them to play Monopoly until she landed on Boardwalk and Park Place and had hotels on both. “We need a plan, a strategy, and I’ve got one. But we’ll have to work together to get it to happen.” Finally, for the first time, silence reigned and Sig had everyone’s complete attention. That was just the way she liked it.

Her mind had been working at lightning speed, doing what she did best, when she was trading: pulling together a wide and diverse bunch of information and coming up with a cohesive, realistic program. She could deal with their weaknesses and play to their strengths. She knew she could motivate them, and maybe, for once, they could all work together. She saw, as the Iron Duke must have seen the Waterloo battle plan, the roles that each of them could play in not just winning this battle but ending the war. As it always happened when she was trading, she grew calm and it felt as if time stopped. She knew she could cover the short.

“Sharon, aside from more money coming in, you need something to do. You’re bright, and you used to be a great librarian. We can use your skills.” Sharon opened her small eyes as wide as she could. “Bruce, you need an investor for your rapidly failing business. And you also have a sense of style second to none. I need some new clients. And we all need Mom distracted so that she won’t be driving us totally nuts.” She paused again for the drama of it. “I have a way to accomplish it all.”

Bruce cocked his head. “How?”

“We marry her off.”

“We what?” Sharon, Bruce, and Barney asked simultaneously.

“We marry her off. Preferably to a wealthy guy with bad health and no heirs.”

“Ahh,” Bruce said, light dawning. “The old Anna Nicole Smith ploy.”

“I prefer to call it ‘Operation Geezer Quest,’” Sig announced with dignity. “If we work together, it could happen.” She warmed to the sale, just the way she did when she was pushing OTC equity or TFI bonds. “We set Mom up like a jewel in a velvet box. We dress her right. Bruce, that’s your job. We put her in a good hotel—no, not just good, but the best. I’ll take care of that. And then we present her to the prospects. Finding them is your job, Sharon. If we work it right it’s a short sell—we get someone to go for it before Mom’s price goes down.”

“But what if it doesn’t work?” Bruce asked.

“Then we got a street-side buy-in,” Sig said, rolling her eyes. “I lose a lot of money covering the short.”

“But what about Daddy?” Sharon asked. They all turned to look at her.

“Sharon, Dad’s dead,” Bruce reminded her.

“I know that! But that doesn’t mean he would like it. And what does she want with an old guy? She never even took care of us. Why would she want to take care of some old geezer?” Sharon’s eyes filled. “They’re sick and they usually don’t smell very good.”

“Not for her to take care of him. For him to take care of her,” Sig explained. “We want ’em sick. We have to marry off Mom to somebody really old and really wealthy. Somebody who likes us—likes us a lot. He can introduce me to some rich, powerful clients. He can give Barney a job, and pay for Jessie’s and Travis’s private school. He could even bail out Bruce’s semibankrupt business.”

“He’d have to be deaf, dumb, and blind,” Bruce said.

Sigourney nodded. “That would be good,” she agreed. She began counting off on her fingers. “Deaf, dumb, blind, old, and rich.”

“Oh, come off it, Sig,” Sharon almost sneered. “You’re only forty-one. You’re thin, you’re successful. You have a weird first name, you’re beautiful, and you can’t get a decent date. Phillip Norman is a jerk. He doesn’t even appreciate you. Men want young, beautiful, fresh girls. How in the world are we supposed to find a rich man for Mom?”

Sig recoiled. Phillip Norman had come to her A-list brunch and afterwards, as she cleaned up the mess and waited for Bruce and Sharon, he had told Sig that though he truly liked her he thought it was important for her to know that he didn’t believe there was a future in their relationship. Sig hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry. Phillip was such a compromise for her, such a corporate drone. She’d been with him mainly because of his enthusiasm for her. To find that he wasn’t avid was almost a joke, but one that had an unpleasant irony to it. How low would she sink? Could she find another man anywhere? Next she’d be sleeping with Eldin the painter.

“Right,” Bruce agreed. “If I haven’t found one, why should she get one? And even if we could get ahold of such a commodity, how could we possibly get Mom to date him? You know what she’s like.” He shrugged. “To know her is to be permanently irritated.”

Sigourney pulled herself together. It was now or never. She tried to do her best Andy Hardy imitation. “Oh, come on, kids. I’m not saying it’s easy, but we’re not licked yet. You haven’t lost all your librarian skills, Sharri. You can do the research, finding the geezers. And Brucie, you still have all those dresses in your closet.” He grimaced at her. “Okay. We’ll buy costumes! But we can use your makeup. I’ll write the script and direct the rehearsals. And Barney …” She paused, momentarily losing her enthusiasm. “Well, we’ll find something you can handle. So, come on, kids. Let’s put on a show!”

She dropped the fake energy and her tone became cold and as frightening as she could manage. “Because if we don’t, let’s face it: our lives will become even worse than they are now.”

although it was seventy-eight degrees and sunny, the Miami airport was incongruously decked out in fake firs and Christmas tinsel. Sylvia Katz, forlornly schlepping her oversized purse, looked at Phyllis and shook her head. “First class? It’s such a bad idea. And a waste of money,” she said.

“What the hell.” Phyllis shrugged. “I’ve never flown first class in my life. And that travel agent of my son-in-law’s looked at me with respect.”

“For wasting money, she respects you?”

“Oh, life can always use some embellishment. If I play my cards right, I’ll never fly again. Might as well go out with a bang, right, Sylvia?”

“God forbid. Don’t even joke.” Sylvia paused. “You sure you won’t change your mind? I’ll give you back the magazine rack.”

“Tempting, but no cigar.”

“Cigars?” Sylvia said. “What do cigars have to do with this?”

Phyllis leaned forward and kissed Sylvia on the cheek. She’d never known anyone as literal as Sylvia. Nine-tenths of what Phyllis said went right over Sylvia’s overpermed head. “You’re in a world of your own, Sylvia,” Phyllis told her friend. “That’s probably why you can stand me. I don’t get on your nerves because you don’t have any.”

“Nerves? Who cares about nerves? I won’t have any friends now.” A tear began to run down Sylvia’s very wrinkled cheek.

Phyllis fished into her jacket pocket and pulled out a key chain. “Keys to the Buick,” she said. “Stay off I-95 and don’t get carjacked, if you can help it.”

“You’re giving me your car? Your car?”

“I won’t need it in New York. No one has cars in New York. It’s a civilized place. We have taxis.”

“Your car?”

“Sylvia, stop repeating yourself. You sound like a demented toucan.” Phyllis reached out, took Mrs. Katz’s plump and wrinkled hand and put the keys in them. “A little Christmas present. From me to you.”

“But you already gave me so much. The magazine rack, the plants …” Sylvia took out a crumpled handkerchief and noisily blew her nose.

“Sylvia, who uses handkerchiefs anymore?” Phyllis asked and looked at the wet cloth distastefully. “What are you going to do with it now?”

“Put it in my purse.”

“Feh! You’ll get mucus all over your wallet. Get with the times and get yourself some Kleenex.”

“Don’t you think you should call the children?” Sylvia asked. “Tell them.”

“You mean warn them. No. Why should I? So they’ll argue with me?” She paused. “Sylvia, did you interfere?”

Sylvia cast down her eyes guiltily. Phyllis didn’t need to ask any further and let her friend off the hook.

“You still giving me your car?” Sylvia asked.

“Yes. And I won’t put any of them out, Sylvia. I’ll stay at a hotel. I’ll get my own place. It will make a nice surprise.” Phyllis wasn’t altogether sure that “nice” was the word any of her three children would use, but it was a free country.

“I’m going to miss you, Phyllis.”

“I know.”

“If it doesn’t work out, you can come back down and stay with me any time.”

“I know.”

The fat woman fumbled in her purse. “I only got you a little something. A token.” She handed Phyllis a small box.

“I know. A woman who hasn’t picked up a check for more than seven years is not going to suddenly begin handing out Harry Winston.” Phyllis took the little package and opened it. “Oh. Handkerchiefs. What have I done without them?”

“What will I do without you?” Sylvia sighed, the sarcasm lost on her.

“Play a lot of canasta. The girls will let you back into the game now that I’m not around to insult them.”

“They never should have banned you,” Mrs. Katz said with fresh indignation.

“Sylvia. It was four years ago. Forget about it. Play canasta. Meld. May you draw many red threes. Go to Loehmann’s, schlep around the Saw Grass Mall. You’ll be fine.” Phyllis had never been good with emotions. What was the point? Most things she deflected with a wisecrack. The rest she ignored.

Mrs. Katz mopped at her eyes. “I’m going to miss you.”

“You’re repeating yourself, Sylvia. I have to go.” The two women hugged one another briefly, and then Phyllis turned and walked with the crowd, moving toward the security checkpoint and the waiting flights.

Phyllis passed under a big sign that said: “Come Back to Miami Soon. We’ll Miss You.” “Fat chance,” she answered out loud to herself, her voice caustic. “I’m getting out alive.”

Sig sat at her dining room table, a tumbler of Chianti beside her. She was secretively filling in the real estate broker’s form to put her apartment up for sale. She didn’t know if she could renegotiate her home equity loan or if she could get a hiatus on her mortgage. But while she was trying both of those strategies it was best to take this frightening step. She was not in a good mood. She’d actually considered calling Phillip last night before she’d regained her dignity and sanity.

“This isn’t easy,” Sharon said from her seat at the other end of the table. She had spread its lacquered surface with dozens of files as well as her laptop and printer. “I don’t know why I always get the hardest job.” Before Sig had a chance to launch into just how difficult it was for her to conceive of and finance Operation Geezer Quest, the doorbell chimed. Before Sig could even rise, Bruce had turned the lock with his key and had come in and collapsed onto the love seat under the dining room window.

“I’m busy doing the research.” They both looked at Sig.

“Yeah, and I’m busy working to pay for this entire sting operation,” she reminded them. Each of them looked resentfully at their siblings. There was a pause that could have gone either way: they could all disintegrate into endless childish bickering or move on. Bruce decided to make a heroic effort.

“So, how is the research coming?”

Sharon, with some difficulty because of her bulk, got up, found her huge canvas sack, and pulled out even more armfuls of files, magazines, and clippings. Sig thought she might go mad.

“Okay. Operation Geezer Quest. Cross-referenced in different categories.” Sharon began to sort colored folders, laying them in various piles on the coffee table. “What I have here are all unmarried men in the tristate metropolitan area, seventy or older, with a net worth of more than fifty million.” She looked up at Bruce and Sig with a worried expression. “I didn’t know if I should make the cutoff fifty million or a hundred million. But there weren’t many at a hundred, so I arbitrarily picked fifty. I did keep an initial reference list so I can go back if you want me to.”

“I think you made the right decision, Sharon,” Bruce told her.

Sharon merely nodded into her categorized stack. “I sorted them by geographical location, religious affiliation, previous marriages …” She looked up. “I separated the widowed from the divorced. I wasn’t sure, but I thought it might make a difference down the road. Among the divorced I listed the settlements, if any. I also categorized them by whether or not they require a prenuptial. Lastly, I listed their philanthropic histories. I figured we wanted to find the generous ones.”

Sig poured the last of the coffee into the bone china service. She might order takeout, but she ate off porcelain. Sharon pulled out a list and handed it to Bruce and Sig as a justification. “Okay, here’s my initial analysis. Bernard Krinz’s on the list. So is John Glendon Stanford and Robert Himmelfarb. I thought those three would make a good first cut. They’re all here in New York.” She paused. “Well, Himmelfarb is out in Sands Point, but he socializes in Manhattan.”

Sig looked over Sharon’s findings. “Good targets,” she agreed.

“This is where having an anal compulsive as a sister finally pays off,” Bruce said.

Sharon’s face crumpled like an empty beer can against a jock’s forehead. “I worked very hard on this. You don’t have to be so critical.”

“Sharri, he’s not being critical,” Sig assured her. “It’s Bruce’s way of saying he thinks this is good.”

Sharri looked at her brother. “You do? You think it’s good?”

“I think it’s superb! Sharri, it’s wonderful.”

“Honestly?”

Bruce put up a hand in a crossing-guard stop sign. “Sharon, shut up. You always go too far. No more praise. It’s good, so now let’s get to work.”

Sig called out for more coffee—she never made her own but ordered it instead from the Greek joint at the corner. Mostly in silence, together the Sibs pored through Sharon’s findings. They devoured the dish, whistling or exclaiming every now and then at the numbers of homes, numbers of ex-wives, and numerous offshore accounts.

“Sharri, this is really outstanding,” Sig finally said. “You’ve done an excellent job.” Sharon glowed from the praise.

Bruce looked at her appraisingly. “You know, Sharon, I need market research like this for my company.”

“Sharon, why don’t you get a job? Forget Barney’s downsized career,” Sig said. “You certainly need the money.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that. Libraries aren’t hiring.” Sharon shrugged. “Anyway, Barney is the one who needs to boost his self-esteem.”

“Just call her Cleopatra, Queen of Denial.” Bruce shrugged.

“You don’t need a librarian’s job, Sharri. You could do this.” Sig waved a sheaf of paper. “This is great market research. Really thorough.”

Sharon just shook her head. “Who’d hire me?”

“You know what I’ve got here?” Bruce asked. The two others shook their heads. “I’ve got Mr. Right.”

“I don’t remember that name,” Sharon said.

“Du-uuh! I’m not using it literally, Sharon.” Bruce opened the file. “This guy lives right here in New York, he’s loaded, he’s a widower, and he gives a lot of money to charity.”

“Who is he?” Sig wanted to know.

“Bernard E. Krinz.”

“The architect?” Sig asked.

“Yeah.” Bruce rolled his eyes upward and got what Sharon called his “movie look.” “Hey, it could be just like Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper in The Fountainhead. Except for the sex scene,” Bruce shuddered. “Boy, look at this.” Bruce held up a page from the file. “Well, maybe not exactly. The ‘E’ stands for Egbert. His mother really hated him.”

“Phyllis Krinz. Eeuw!” Sig said.

“You won’t say that when you look at his P&L.” Bruce handed the folder to his sisters. Bom of them raised their eyebrows, deeply impressed.

“Well, what’s in a name?” Sharon shrugged.

“Plenty,” Bruce said. “Rothschild is good. Rockefeller is good. Gates is very good.”

“Names! Don’t talk to me about names! ‘Susan!’ Does it get any less original than that?” Sig asked angrily. “Is there any name more dated, more boring, more stereotypically dull than Susan?”

“Well, actually, ‘Bruce’ does seem rather like a self-fulfilling prophecy. She made me a faigela, wouldn’t you say?” he asked.

Sharon looked up. “Oh, what do you two have to complain about? I was named for a woman who stuck her hand up Lamb Chop’s ass to make a living.”

Chastened, Sharri’s sister and brother looked at one another and nodded. “She’s got a point,” Sig admitted.

“Let me see,” Bruce ruminated. He waved the file. “If we pick our mark, how do we get Mom to meet him?” Bruce asked.

“Let’s figure out what events he’s planning to be at. These people all have public lives. They attend openings, theater, they go to dinners. Especially the charitable ones,” Sig said. “I know all the events my firm helps underwrite and I think I can get access to seating arrangements. We have our target and we get next to it. Then we get a ticket for Mom to go, and make sure she meets him and he likes her.”

“Yeah. How do we manage that last part?” Bruce asked. “You can bring a horse to water, but—”

“Obviously, one of us has to take her to the event, be sure we’ve got her near the mark, and make it happen.”

“Not me,” Bruce said. “It will be bad enough getting humiliated in a department store, let alone some—”

“Oh, I’d like to go to a party,” Sharon volunteered.

“Not you,” Bruce added. “Sig, you go with Phillip Norman.”

Sig nearly blushed. She didn’t have the strength to admit she’d been dissed by Phillip. “I don’t think so,” she said as casually as she could. “Look, this is going to be an expensive proposition,” Sig told them. “The clothes, the tickets, a limo. Bruce, I think you and I should both go and make sure that we at least get Mom in front of the target.” Sig turned to Sharon. “Sharon, we need you as the secret weapon. This was great work so far. But now you have to research the next phase.”

“What’s the next phase? I can’t do anything else.”

“Yes you can. Just find out the next big charity events in New York. I’ll see which one my firm helps to sponsor and if any of these three clowns is going to attend. Then you dig out everything extra you can on our first target.”

She handed the three folders back to Sharon. “Needless to say, Mr. Phelps, if anything goes wrong with this mission we will disavow all knowledge of—”

Bruce interrupted her. “You’re right. This is Mission Impossible.”

Sig put down the folder she held. “Well, one thing I know for sure: you can’t catch fish without bait. Sharon’s done her job and I’m doing mine. We’ll see what you can do with Mom when she gets here.”

at La Guardia airport all three Sibs waited nervously. A group of people was coming out of the jetway entrance like nothing so much as cattle moving down the slaughter chute. Then, behind them, strode Phyllis. “It’s amazing,” Bruce said sotto voce. “She’s like Keyser Söze in Usual Suspects. She limps among them without revealing her lethal talents.”

“Shut up,” Sig warned. “Here she comes. She’ll hear you.”

“Try to look happy to see her,” Sharon said, but neither Sig nor Bruce were listening. “Hi, Mom,” Sharon sang out in a falsely cheerful voice.

Phyllis walked up to the three of them. “How did you know I was coming?”

“Mrs. Katz called.”

“Figures. She can’t keep anything to herself.” Phyllis nodded. “So? No flowers?” she asked. Then she looked directly at Sharon and said, “You must have gained another twenty pounds, Sharri.” She looked her daughter over while Sharon shrank from her gaze. “I always gained weight when I was sexually frustrated. Has Barney become completely impotent?” she asked. Then she kissed her fat daughter, who recoiled.

“Let the games begin!” Bruce declared.

Phyllis turned to her son. “So, how’s the gay greeting card business? Have you gone mahula yet?” She pecked Bruce on the cheek. Then she waved her hand in the air. “My God! You’re wearing more perfume than I am!”

“At least it’s good perfume.”

Lastly Phyllis turned appraisingly to Sig. “A lot of people think red and black go together, Susan.” She shrugged. “Don’t ask me why.”

“Maybe because they’re a classic.” Sig smiled.

“Or maybe because they’re a cliché?” Phyllis responded and shrugged again. “But hey, if you want to look like a drum majorette … burr-rump-a-bum-bum.” Phyllis winked at Sig, then glanced around at the cosmopolitan bustle of the airport. Here the Christmas chazerei looked good: tinsel, wreaths, red ribbons, and white snow—well, gray snow—out the window. “Let’s get over to baggage claim before some jerk walks away with my luggage.”

Numbly, the three shell-shocked Sibs began to walk beside her. She smiled expansively. “It’s great to be in New York again! Talking to Floridians was like chewing on avocado: everyone down there is soft. Up here people are like bagels: when you chew on them your jaw gets some exercise. I had a lovely conversation on the plane.”

“Can you imagine being stuck next to Mom?”

“Oh my God,” Sharon breathed. “I’m getting claustrophobic just thinking of it. Where’s my inhaler?”

“He asked for my phone number,” Phyllis added in a self-satisfied tone.

“What was he selling?” Bruce asked, puffing on his Marlboro despite the No Smoking signs.

“What difference does it make? She doesn’t have any money,” Sig reminded him.

“Be like that,” Phyllis sniffed. “He was very nice.”

Bruce sighed deeply. “It’s started,” he said in a singsong. “Sharri is fat / Mom is no fun / Sig is unmarried / And I’m a bad son.”

Phyllis turned and looked at him and his cigarette disapprovingly. She waved her liver-spotted hand in front of his face. “You know, you’re killing both of us with that smoke.”

“Not fast enough,” Bruce muttered.

Phyllis pretended not to hear and speeded up, heading toward baggage claim, looking ready to chew out everyone. Her three stunned children followed.

“Unbelievable. No matter how often I’m with her, in between sightings I forget what it’s like,” said Bruce.

“That’s what they say about UFOs,” Sig reminded him. “Yet doubters still persist.”

“No wonder I’m fat,” Sharon mumbled resentfully.

“No wonder I’m unmarried,” Sig added.

“No wonder I’m gay.”

“Bruce, you’re gay?” Sig asked, pretending shock. Bruce looked at her murderously.

“Forget Operation Geezer Quest. Let’s just kill her,” Sharon suggested, blood in her eye. “And I didn’t gain twenty pounds. Fifteen, tops.”

“Twenty,” their mother called back from way ahead of them.

“God, she still has her faculties,” Bruce commented.

“Not for long,” Sig threatened. “Come on. Let’s get her to your place and brief her.”

“My place? Why my place?” Bruce almost squeaked. “We’re closer to your neighborhood,” he told Sig.

“Yeah, but there’s no room for her to stay over at your apartment. Plus there’s Todd. He’ll move her right along.”

Despite the crowds, Phyllis had spotted her bags right away and dived for them. She was still fast, for an old woman. In minutes they were standing in the cold outside of baggage claim, waiting for Todd to pick them up in his van. Even in her winter coat, Phyllis shivered. Sig tapped her foot, irritated and impatient. They had to indoctrinate their mother ASAP, get her to cooperate, and get her into the Pierre Hotel suite Sig had already reserved. But it wouldn’t be an easy sell.

“Can’t we do something else?” Bruce asked.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I say so, that’s why,” Sig told Bruce.

Phyllis laughed. “You sound just like me,” she said to her daughter.

“I do not,” Sig retorted.

“Do too.” Bruce and Sharon confirmed with a nod. Just then, thank God, Todd drove up with his van. It took them almost fifteen precious minutes to load all the assorted crap into the battered vehicle that Bruce used for card deliveries.

“Do we need anything else?” Todd asked cheerfully when they were all settled in at last.

“Just Valium and a baseball bat,” Sig said through her teeth.

Forget it. I’m not even considering it,” Phyllis told her children. They were sitting in Bruce’s apartment, crowded into the front room of his tiny brownstone flat. Boxes of greeting cards towered above them, threatening to collapse, just as Bruce’s business was. Phyllis paid no attention to either the disorder or her children’s arguments.

“Mom, you don’t understand. It’s not that we don’t want you here or staying with us,” Sig lied, “it’s just that you don’t understand the realities in New York anymore. It’s not as safe as it used to be. And it’s not as cheap.”

“Since when is a hotel cheap?” Phyllis asked.

“Not cheap, but safe. New York has changed,” Bruce said. He was desperate to have her out of his already crowded space.

“Don’t worry about me,” Phyllis said. “I can take care of myself. I always have. I don’t plan to be a burden on any of you.” She paused. It was hard for her to admit her mistakes to anyone, much less her children. “Listen,” she said, “I haven’t come for a visit. And I haven’t come for myself. I’ve come for you. I know that your father and I were so busy with the business that I didn’t give you all the attention that you needed. If I had …” She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, things might be different.”

“Mom, you—”

Phyllis held up her hand. “I couldn’t stand those women at the PTA. I wasn’t a Brownie leader or a den mother. I didn’t help you with your homework. And I’d like to make up for that now. I’m here for the duration,” she said as bravely as she knew how.

“The duration of what?” Sig asked. Her mother had been in Manhattan for only two hours and it already felt like a month to Sig.

Sharon let out a whimper, while Sig thought she heard her brother groan. “You mean you’re serious about living up here permanently?” Sig asked.

“Well, at least until you straighten out your lives. I’m your mother. I’m here to help. And I’m not staying at some expensive hotel.” She patted her purse. “You don’t have to worry about anything. I have a little put away, and my Social Security check. And I still get some of Ira’s pension money. I’ll be fine.”

Sig smacked her forehead. Despite how often she’d begged her mother, she’d never gotten into TFIs or any other bonds. “Your Social Security check is six hundred and sixty-three dollars monthly,” Sig said. “Daddy’s pension is … what? Three hundred? Four hundred more?”

“Three eighty, but it’s all tax-free.”

Bruce covered his eyes with his hands. Sharon looked away. It was only Sig, as always, who had to continue relentlessly. “Great. So you have less than a thousand a month to live on here in Manhattan, the most expensive city in the world.”

“No, Sig, I think Hong Kong and Tokyo now rank as slightly more expensive,” Sharon corrected.

“Yes, Sharon, but Mom isn’t thinking of living in Hong Kong or Tokyo,” Sig said through gritted teeth.

“In my dreams,” Bruce said under his breath.

“I heard that, Bruce,” his mother snapped. “Susan, a thousand dollars is still a lot of money. And I do have a little something put aside,” she repeated.

Sig shook her head bitterly. If her mother had only let her put some money into Paine Webber’s Select Ten Portfolio, her yield could be twice as high. But no. “Mom, you just don’t get it. Do you know what the rental on a small studio apartment is here? A very small studio apartment?”

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