Eleven

Death and Sex

NOT EVEN JAY LENO can put me to sleep. I flip through ten minutes of a Frasier rerun and wonder at a commercial for an incontinence pill featuring a group of guys in a rowboat who all need to pee. (You’re on a boat, guys, why can’t you just take a piss in the lake?) Peter, as usual, is so deep in Slumberland that he doesn’t notice that I’ve been thrashing around our queen-sized bed like a lightning bug caught in a jelly jar, or that, in an attempt to get some company for my misery, I’ve “accidentally” jabbed him in the rib cage several times. At about two A.M. I resign myself to a sleepless night. I give Peter a peck on the cheek, pull on my robe, and shuffle toward the kitchen. Not that I could eat anything. But I can’t keep lying in bed worrying about Naomi’s heart, which in less than twenty-four hours—and I can’t even imagine how I’m going to find the words to tell her about Dr. Barasch—has taken a double hit.

I nab a box of tea bags from the pantry and see Molly sitting at our round oak kitchen table, mechanically turning the pages of some fashion magazine without actually looking at them. She raises her arms toward me and I lean in for a cuddle.

“Why do things like this happen, Mom?” Molly asks glumly. I look down at her magazine, which happens to be open to a page of “Fashion Don’ts.” But I know that Molly’s question is about Naomi and not a badly chosen pair of sequined culottes.

“I don’t know, honey, maybe it’s sort of a warning.”

“You mean that Grandma has to take better care of herself?” Before I can answer, Molly shakes her head. “I mean look at her, she does everything right. Who takes better care of herself than Naomi? She exercises, she doesn’t eat garbage, if she can get sick …” Molly says, and her voice trails off.

“… then Daddy and I could, too?”

“Something like that, I guess.”

I brush away a curly lock of hair from in front of Molly’s eyes. “Daddy and I are going to live for a very long, long time. Long enough to watch you girls graduate college and get married and to spoil our grandchildren.”

Molly gives me a sideways look and scrunches her mouth. “Mom, you can’t know, you can’t know you’re going to get to do any of those things. How can any of us know anything?”

I pull Molly closer. When the girls were little they were convinced that I possessed a sort of telepathic magical Mommy Power that told me when they’d misbehaved in nursery school and, more important, guaranteed their safety when we were apart. But my babies aren’t babies anymore. Now they realize that I’m a mere mortal who can’t see into the future and doesn’t even have eyes in the back of her head. But I hope they know, too, that I’d throw myself under a bus to protect them. And I’ll always do my best to try to calm their fears.

“You’re right, sweetheart, you can’t know. None of us can know anything, that’s part of what makes life so mysterious—and wonderful, and so scary sometimes. But you can play the odds. And the odds for me and Daddy, and for Grandma, are very good. In a weird sort of way what happened today was a good thing. Now that Naomi knows her heart is vulnerable she can take two aspirin every day and make sure she always carries a nitroglycerin pill. Daddy and I protect ourselves, too. I go for checkups, I take my vitamins. And I promise to never ever leave the house in a white velour Baby Phat tracksuit—which means I’ll never die of embarrassment.”

“Oh Mom, you’re such a dork.” Molly grins. She picks up the box of tea bags, walks over to the stove, and fills the kettle with water.

“I want to take care of myself, too, Mom. I’m going to get serious about trying out for the swim team. You always say that I spend too much time inside studying. Besides, it’ll look good on my college application. And I’ve made another decision,” Molly says thoughtfully. “I’m going to stop competing with Paige for that stupid Brandon Marsh. Yech, did you hear him today, calling Naomi ‘Glam-ma’? He’s such a phony, holding both of our hands. Paige can have him. I don’t want any boy who isn’t sure that he wants me.”

“Good for you. That’s a pretty grown-up decision,” I say, thinking that I have forty-year-old friends who don’t have as much sense about men.

The kettle whistles and Molly carefully pours water into each of our mugs. Then she leaves the tea bags to steep and walks over to the chalkboard.

“Brandon is bad news,” she says, pointing to the collection of hearts, arrows, numbers, and exclamation points surrounding Brandon’s name, cluttering the board. “I deserve a boy who’s mine, not somebody like Brandon or Dr. Barasch, who’ll leave when the going gets tough. I want to find a guy like Daddy, a guy who’ll be there for me the way Daddy was there today for you, Mom.” And just like that Molly takes one last look at the chalkboard, lifts the eraser, and wipes the slate clean.

I WAS TERRIFIED that when I gave Naomi the news about Dr. Barasch she’d have another heart attack. Instead, she’s eerily calm. “That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” she says indifferently.

“Mom, I’m sorry. It sounds like he went through a long illness with his wife.”

Naomi shoots me a withering glance.

“Not that you’re ill, Mom, I mean, it sounds like he’s scared.”

“Scared, who isn’t scared?” Naomi straightens herself up and smoothes her right hand against her head. “But just in case you were planning on throwing one, I would not appreciate a pity party. The one thing I want in the whole entire world right now is just to get the hell out of the hospital.” It’s only when I realize that my mother’s left hand is balled up into a fist and that she’s dug her fingernails into her palm that I know for sure that Naomi understands what I’ve just said. Dr. Barasch isn’t coming to pick her up at the hospital. Dr. Barasch won’t be visiting her later at our apartment. Dr. Barasch, Naomi’s salsa-dancing, weight-lifting, up-until-now totally adoring boyfriend, is never coming back.

The discharge nurse comes in with some release papers for Naomi to sign and insists that my mother can’t leave the hospital unless she’s in a wheelchair. “Policy,” the nurse says humorlessly, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“Fine.” Naomi sighs. She climbs onto the cold metal seat and primly settles her purse onto her lap. “Let’s get a move on, I’m a busy woman.”

Back at the apartment, Peter and Tiffany are waiting for us with a tray of fruit, fat-free crackers, and four tall glasses garnished with lemon slices.

As Tiffany walks across the room to welcome her, Naomi shackles my arm. “Does she live here now?” my mother hisses under her breath as she tightens her grip. “Tiffany’s much too pretty, you shouldn’t let her live here.”

“Oh no, no, no, no, no, I have my own apartment,” says Tiffany, who’s overheard. “But thank you for saying I’m pretty.” Then Tiffany turns toward me. “I’m sorry to be camped out in your living room, Tru. But you do realize that it was because the contractor had to work on your bathroom that he got just a teeny-weeny bit behind on our office and our warehouse space?”

“It won’t be long, honey,” Peter says. “The construction manager says that both the new places are coming along nicely. And when did a construction manager ever fib about a schedule?” Peter sighs. Then he turns to Naomi. “We’re glad to have you here, Mom. We hope you’ll stay as long as you want.”

“That’s right,” I say, and I mean it. I was scared out of my mind when I thought something had happened to Naomi. She might not have been Mother of the Year, but she’s the only one I’ve got. And maybe this will be a chance to repair our relationship, for each of us to appreciate what’s good about the other, instead of always finding fault.

Naomi sinks into the couch, takes off her shoes and curls her feet under her tush. For a sixty-eight-year-old woman, never mind a sixty-eight-year-old woman who’s just had a heart attack, she’s amazingly agile. “What, suddenly I was in the hospital for a few hours and everyone calls me ‘Mom’?” she bristles.

“Sorry, Naomi,” says Peter.

“And I’m sorry about Dr. Barasch,” says Tiffany, leaning in to give Naomi’s arm a pat.

Naomi pushes Tiffany’s hand away and stares straight out into space as if she didn’t hear her lover’s name. Then slowly, she turns around to face the three of us.

“We shall never speak of that, do you understand me?” she says coolly. “That man is dead to me!” Then she reaches across the table for one of the frosty glasses. “This better be gin and tonic, not lemonade,” she says, taking a generous gulp.

THE NEXT THREE days passed in a blur. Naomi’s bravado lasted about as long as a Wall Street stock rally. Between her crying jags and feedings, my mother needed more attention than a newborn baby. She burst into tears without any warning and had an insatiable appetite. “Bring me something yellow or white,” she’d say, meaning scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes, a pint of ice cream, or any of the other typical comfort foods that spurned lovers crave. For one whole day she ate nothing but pasta.

And then there were her attempts to plan her own funeral. Apparently these days, it’s not enough to own your own luxury condo—the ante’s been upped on where you spend eternity.

“I’d like a mausoleum, with a chandelier,” Naomi said yesterday, out of the blue. “Something modest, maybe twelve hundred square feet.”

I was tempted to ask her about real estate—dollar for dollar, can you get a better price in heaven or hell? But I saved my smartass remarks on the subject for Sienna. Naomi was in no mood to be teased, not about dying or real estate or the computer chip tributes that she hoped we’d all record to go along with the pictures and voice-over she was planning on installing in her new crypt. And why should she be? Naomi’s heart attack was no laughing matter. It’s terrifying to see my usual bulldog of a mother acting like a wounded pup. I haven’t been out of Naomi’s sight for more than ten minutes. I’ve been trying to do everything for her that I possibly can. Still, today’s the day that the Veronica Agency’s employees are hooking up with—I mean meeting—their very first clients, and I just have to get to the office.

“It’s all right, you can leave,” Naomi says listlessly as I set a bowl of oatmeal down between her and the television that she’s been staring at blankly for days and explain that I have to go out for a few hours. “Everybody leaves.”

“I’m coming back, Mom,” I say, and when she doesn’t object to me not calling her Naomi, I know she’s sinking deeper into a funk. The doctor had warned me that after a heart attack, even a small one, people get depressed. As if Dr. Barasch’s breaking up with her wasn’t reason enough for Naomi to be miserable.

“Mom, aren’t you going to tell me not to call you ‘Mom’?” I chide.

“Call me ‘Mom,’ ‘Grandma,’ ‘the Old Lady of Park Avenue.’ The heart attack, it was the start of a whole new chapter,” Naomi says with a whimper. “What does it matter? What does anything matter?”

I’m way behind schedule, but I can’t bear to go. I’m settling on the sofa next to Naomi when, mercifully, the twins traipse into the den. Molly clicks off the TV and nosily unloads an armload of samples onto the table.

“We got them from Tiffany. New lipstick, blush, and an incredible anti-aging cream that she swears will make your skin look twenty years younger,” Molly announces perkily.

Paige pulls at her cheekbones. “If my skin looked twenty years younger it would disappear. I’d be minus-six years old.”

Naomi picks up the remote and turns the TV back on. “What I wouldn’t give to be young again,” she says distractedly. “Minus six, that’s a good age.”

“But Grandm—I mean, Naomi. Then you wouldn’t be alive.”

Naomi grimaces and pulls the comforter that she’s holding on to like a security blanket more tightly around her shoulders. Just a few days ago Naomi didn’t want a pity party; now she’s the Perle Mesta of depression. I ask Molly to turn on some music.

“Maybe the Rolling Stones. ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ always gets my mojo going. Why don’t we play that?” I lift my arms in the air and wiggle my hips as I sing out the lyrics. “You can’t always get what you wa-ant. You can’t always get what you wa-ant. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you ne—”

Paige comes over and fixes her hands on my hips. “Mom, please. Don’t dance. And don’t ever say the word ‘mojo’ ever again, okay?”

Naomi picks up the remote—lifting it seems to have become her main form of exercise—and turns off the flickering screen. “I think I would like to hear some music,” she says, uttering the first positive statement that I’ve heard cross her lips in days.

I flash my smug I-told-you-so look at the girls. “You just have to keep trying,” I whisper, trying to teach them that if you work hard enough at something you can go from rags to riches—or drag your Grandma from melancholia toward merriment.

“Why don’t you play that Elton John song?” Naomi suggests. “ ‘Candle in the Wind’? You know, the one they played at Princess Diana’s funeral?”

MOLLY PROMISES THAT she and Paige will get Naomi to listen to something uplifting. But as the girls scroll through their playlists, it’s harder than they thought to find an appropriate song. After nixing Carrie Underwood singing about slashing the truck tires of the guy who cheated on her and Kelly Clarkson’s “Cry” just based on the title, they settle on a medley of peppy tunes from the Jonas Brothers.

Molly hands me my coat and points me toward the door. “Go, Mom. We know you and Sienna are working on some secret project.”

“What?” I ask, flustered that she doesn’t buy my cover story about doing some grocery shopping and having an emergency facial. “I just need to get out of the house for a little while, I …”

“We’re not blind, we know something’s up,” Paige says. “I mean, you’re covering your mouth and walking out of the room to talk on the phone all the time and you’re not here during the day like you used to be. It took Daddy two hours to even find you when Naomi got sick.”

“I know, I’m sorry.… My—my cellphone went dead,” I stammer, not used to being in the position of explaining to my children where I’ve been, instead of the other way around.

“We figure it’s some sort of business, right? Sienna’s out of work, and we need money, so it makes sense. Paige and I think it’s great,” Molly, my irrepressible optimist says supportively.

Paige shrugs. “Yeah, sure, whatever. But we just can’t figure out why you’re keeping it a deep dark secret.”

“It’s just that we want to make sure it works out, not get anyone’s hopes up, when it’s further along …” Then I take a deep breath. “Sienna and I are opening a temporary help agency, but I’d like to keep it just between us right now, okay? Let’s see if anything comes of it before we make a big deal. Does Daddy know?” I wince.

“Nah, Daddy’s so involved with Tiffany and BUBB he’d barely notice if we got a new puppy,” says Molly, who’s been angling for one, slyly.

“No puppy. The last thing we need around here is another mouth to feed or someone else to clean up after!” I say, just a little too sharply. “I’m sorry, honey, I’m just distracted. But you know this isn’t a good time to add a new member to the family?”

Molly nods. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t keep lobbying, right? I just have to pick a better moment.”

“Right,” I concede. A moment when my mother’s not sprawled across the sofa like a bedridden Violetta in La Traviata. And my husband’s not so involved with his new business and his new boss that, unlike his daughters, he can’t see what’s going on under his own nose.

Molly tells me to get going, pledging to look after Naomi and hold down the fort.

“I’d stay to help with Grandma, but I’m going out with Brandon,” Paige taunts.

“And yay, I’m not,” Molly counters.

“Yeah, did you hear, Mom? Molly conceded. She knew she’d lose so she dropped out of the race.”

“No, I decided that Brandon’s no prize. He’s not worth competing for. But I could have won if I’d wanted to.” And then I think I hear her mutter, “Believe me, I still could win.” Although I’m sure I must be wrong. Because wasn’t it only three days ago that Molly, the most mature fourteen-year-old on the planet washed her hands of Brandon? Wiped him off her blackboard? Said she didn’t want any guy who didn’t want her?

“Girls, please, as far as Daddy and I are concerned no one’s ever going to be good enough for either of you,” I say, giving them each a kiss on the cheek or in Paige’s case—because she swivels her head away from my motherly affection—a kiss on the air near her head. As I walk toward the elevator, music is blaring so loudly from Peter’s beloved Bose sound system that I can hear it all the way down the hall. It’s not the Rolling Stones or the Jonas Brothers, but it’s not that drippy Elton John dirge, either. Still, I can’t say it’s much cheerier.

“Yesterday,” the usually chipper Paul McCartney drones, “all my troubles seemed so far away …”

I don’t have to guess who picked out the song.

DESPITE THE MIDTOWN traffic I manage to get to the Veronica Agency’s office building in less than twenty minutes. Navigating what should be the last sixty seconds of my trip, however, proves more daunting.

“It’s those people on the fourth floor. Their workmen have been holding up the elevator for hours,” the super apologizes, telling me it’ll be faster to take the stairs. We’re only three floors up, but the hallways are filled with construction dust and when I arrive at the agency, the din of jackhammers, drilling, and the whiny annoying sounds of screw guns whirring echo throughout the office.

“At least it’s not ‘Candle in the Wind,’ ” I say, pointing toward the ceiling. I pour a cup of coffee and snag one of the Dunkin’ Donuts that Lucy has generously brought in to celebrate our opening. I can’t help remembering that Sienna quit her job over that very donut company—and Lucy’s buying these today of all days, seems like a good omen. We never would have started our business if Sienna hadn’t gotten so riled up over product placement and I’m more than happy now to give the company a plug. “Here’s to the Veronica Agency and Dunkin’ Donuts,” I say, passing around the sugary treats.

“To the Veronica Agency and Dunkin’ Donuts,” our little group sings back in unison, although most of them take a pass on the carbs.

“I’m not having anything at all,” says Georgy, the rangy blonde who was searching for cellulite-eating pantyhose. “I’m starving myself to get into this hot little black number for tonight.”

“Not too hot, right?” I ask, reminding our employees that we want them to look glamorous, not cheap. “Like Carla Bruni after she married the president of France—not before, when she was dating Mick Jagger.”

“That’s right. A man who’s paying this kind of money for a date wants a woman who looks sophisticated outside the bedroom and sexy inside it,” says Bill, pulling up a chair and telling everyone to do the same. “We’ve tried to think of everything, but let’s go through some of the rules again. Why don’t we consider this a dry run?”

Lucy, as always, is the first to crack a joke. “A dry run? That’s not the kind of thing you want to have happen to a gang of forty-year-old hookers.” Bill shoots her a reprimanding look. “I mean courtesans,” Lucy says, using our insisted-upon description. “You don’t want any courtesans having a dry run.”

“I stand corrected,” Bill chuckles. “So, let’s do a run-through, okay? You’ll meet your dates for dinner, and then a client may invite you back to his apartment or to one of the three hotels around the city in which we’ve discreetly booked rooms.”

“And don’t forget to call us. Archie and I want to hear from you,” I pipe in, proud at myself for having remembered Bill’s alias. “Let us know when the date is over so we can know how it went and how much to charge. And if you need our help anytime during the evening, you can reach us here at the office or on Archie’s cellphone.”

“I know some of you have done this before and for others, it’s your first time,” Bill continues. “But there’s nothing to be nervous about and if you decide you don’t want the evening to go any further, it’s your call. If there’s something a man wants to do and you don’t want to …”

“… like using pop-it beads?” Georgy asks.

“Like using pop-it beads—” I chuckle “—or anything. If you feel a client is pressuring you, tell him ‘Anna won’t let me do that.’ And if that doesn’t work, say you’re sorry this isn’t working out between you and that you’ll check with Anna to see if the agency can find someone who’d be more to their liking.

“Our clients will be charging your services to their credit cards so you don’t have to worry about asking them for money or carrying around large amounts of cash. You’ll get a weekly check, based on the number of times you see a client and the services you perform. Blow jobs are a thousand dollars extra.”

“And swallowing?” asks Lucy.

“An additional thousand.”

“And about four hundred fifty calories.” Georgy giggles.

“Bring condoms,” I say.

“And your vibrators, and Rocket Balm cream, and your edible panties,” says Lucy.

“And we expect you to be good dining companions,” I remind them. “I hope everybody has boned up on current events.”

“Boned up?” Georgy giggles again.

“Ooh ladies, this is worse than a sixth grade sex-ed class.” I laugh.

“I think it’s fourth grade sex-ed now,” says Patricia, the former money manager. “And by the way, no man, no matter how young he is, wants to think about erectile dysfunction. Which is why when we’re talking about current events I want to suggest that nobody bring up the fact that Mexico’s answer to a flagging economy is to give away free Viagra.”

“At least the out-of-work Mexicans won’t have flagging you-know-whats,” Lucy wisecracks. “Mucho better than the American stimulus package. And while we’re talking about packages, don’t let your date eat artichokes.”

“Right,” I agree. “They’re messy and hard to pull apart, you don’t want a guy to be embarrassed about his eating habits.”

Lucy laughs and puts her arm around me. “Anna, honey, I was thinking about our eating habits. Artichokes are smelly and funny-tasting, you know, after they’ve been through a guy’s digestive system.…”

“I think she means when you’re giving them a blow job,” Georgy says helpfully. “You know, the taste of the—”

“Well, yes, of course, I just took it for granted that everyone knew that,” I say, as the girls just giggle.

“And remember,” says Patricia. “A man likes to hear that his penis is big.”

“What does a woman like to hear?” asks Bill.

“That her hips are small!” Lucy laughs.

On their way out, Bill hands each of the women an assignment sheet with their client’s name, where and what time they’ll be meeting, and a few pertinent facts.

“My guy likes baseball,” says Rochelle, our divorced sports fan, happily. “Yankees or Mets?”

Bill presses a few keys on his Palm Pilot. “The Sox; Gary’s from Boston. Is that a problem?”

“No, I’ll be diplomatic,” Rochelle says, referring to the long-standing feud between our hometown team and Boston’s. “I can’t let politics get in the way of work.”

“Good,” says Bill. “Any other questions?”

“Yes,” says Georgy. “Who’s Salman Rushdie and how am I supposed to dress for a Literacy Partners benefit at the Mandarin Oriental?”

“Oops,” says Bill, taking the slip out of Georgy’s hand and exchanging it with Patricia’s. “I gave you each other’s assignments. Patricia, you’re going to the Literacy Partners benefit where they’re honoring Salman Rushdie, with my buddy Matt. And Georgy, you’re going to the Hudson Cafeteria tonight with Gabe.”

“A cafeteria?” Georgy asks, sounding disappointed.

“Don’t worry, it’s nothing like the Automat. It’s a very hip, happening place. And it’s conveniently located in a hotel.”

After everyone’s sure they’ve got their dates straight, the women start to leave and I stop them one last time. I can’t believe we’re really, truly, finally opening for business. I’m so nervous that the butterflies in my stomach are the size of beach balls. And I can’t stop playing mother hen to my forty-something chicks.

“Don’t forget—” I begin, welling up with emotion. But before I can finish my sentence, the women of the Veronica Agency finish it for me.

“We want to hear from you!” They all laugh. Then with hugs and waves they head out to prepare for the evening.