“I am motherly. And wiferly. I’m a planner.” She thought. “I am well-dressed.”
He nodded. “One more. But make it a good one.”
Larissa was still thinking. She was still thinking. It wasn’t fair. It was hard to describe yourself in five phrases.
“But you just said you knew yourself better than you know anything,” Ezra said. “Why should it be hard at all? Just think of the five most important things about you. You can name five things about a lion, can’t you? Or a chimp?”
Spending her days swirling red paint around on the sets of school plays. Larissa, the Jackson Pollock of high school productions of
Guys and Dolls
. Theater hadn’t even made the cut. How could
that
be? The children hadn’t made it. Love. Yearning. Contentment. None of it.
“Get rid of one of the neat freak traits,” Ezra said, “and you’ll have more room for painting.”
But Larissa felt it still wouldn’t get to the bottom of things. The bottom of who she was.
Ezra clapped in delight. “It’s easier after ten minutes of nominal research to talk for an hour about anabolic metabolism than it is to talk with any degree of authority about yourself, even though you’ve been stuck with yourself your whole damn life. Clearly you’re not thinking enough about yourself, Larissa,” he concluded, stretching out his hand with the emptied Margarita glass. “See, you think you’re bored because your glass is overflowing,” he said, “but what if it had tipped over and is empty and you don’t even know it?”
8
A Birthday Gift
A
nd then one night, Jared said to Larissa after dinner, with a big smile, “Whose birthday is coming up?”
“What are you smiling about? I’m cancelling all birthdays this year.”
“Just the opposite. We need to celebrate like we’re twenty.”
“We’ll have to start early.” Larissa stabbed at her empty plate. “You’re asleep by ten. Did you always fall asleep by ten when you were twenty?”
“Actually, yes. I don’t know if you’ve noticed after knowing me for twenty years, but I’m a morning person. But seriously, you want to hear what I’m thinking of for a present for one very good wife?”
“Which part of cancelling the birthday didn’t we understand?”
The kids had just dispersed, though loudly and not far, and husband and wife had a few precious minutes to themselves.
Jared stared at her with his “are you finished” stare. She smiled. “I don’t need anything. I already have everything.”
“And Ezra told us what he thinks of that,” Jared exclaimed happily. “He would prefer we had nothing—like in college. So what do you get a woman who has everything but who’s turning a very young 4-0?”
“Diamonds?”
“Nah, you have those. I was thinking more along the lines of,” said Jared, with a dramatic tone and expression, “a new car.”
She stared at him dumbstruck. “A new
what
?”
“A new car! Something snazzy. A sports thing. A two-seater. Not a mom car. A Larissa car.” He beamed. “A Beamer? A Merc?”
“A Jaguar…?” she intoned dully.
“Well…I was thinking more of something sturdy and German-made.”
“Like a VW?”
“No! Sturdy but snazzy. But sure, a Jag if you want.”
“I thought the British built Jags.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Not anymore; long ago sold to a Ford division in Michigan. Pricey. But a good idea.” He nodded agreeably. “They have some fine-looking sports cars. And they keep almost half their value. There’s a new dealership that opened on Main Street in Madison. Why don’t you go there next week, see if there’s anything you like, and then I can come in, swoop in at the end, check it out with the checkbook?” Jared’s straight light hair was in a shaggy mop, he looked healthy, happy, still in a dark gray suit, pleased with himself. Leaning over, he kissed her. “But pick yourself something nice. Something babelicious.”
“Yes, except at twenty we were riding rusted bicycles, not Jags,” Larissa said, getting up from the table, the dirty plate in her hands, the silverware, the cup, the soiled napkin. “That’s the irony. When you’re young and want to ride a flash motorcycle, you can hardly afford it, and by the time you can afford it, you look ridiculous on it.”
The kids were playing pool in the den, even the six-year-old. Larissa hoped he wouldn’t stab his older brother with a pool cue.
“I’m quite happy with my Escalade, Jared,” she went on. “It’d be a waste of money. Honest. I don’t need a new car.”
“Yes, you do. And don’t be a spoilsport. What else am I going to get you?”
“A vacation? Hawaii, maybe?”
“Hmm. Hawaii’s a good idea. But you know, with the kids…we’ll need a vacation after that vacation. Besides,” he added glibly, “a vacation is over in seven days. But a Jag you have forever.”
So this became Larissa’s life internal: talking herself
out
of going to the Jag dealership. She didn’t want a new car. She’d be satisfied with a BMW. Except Jared told her that Doug Grant thought a Jag would be finer than any other car except maybe a Porsche.
“What, Doug is now a car expert?” She brightened. “But a Porsche might be nice.”
“Off the table. Too expensive.”
“I’m not sure about Doug’s opinion,” she said. “I’m going to ask Ezra.”
“Ezra!” Jared loosened his tie. “You’re going to ask a man who drives a twelve-year-old Subaru wagon with a hatchback that doesn’t open what kind of luxury car he thinks
you
should get?”
“Ezra is very smart. Do you deny that?”
“He’s an idiot about cars!” Just to prove his point, Jared got Ezra on the phone despite Larissa’s protestations that dinner was about to achieve room temperature. “Ez, it’s me. My wife wants to know what kind of sports car
you
think
I
should buy her for her birthday.”
Larissa was violently rolling her eyes while Jared was nodding into the phone. “Exactly. My point entirely. Thanks, man. See you Saturday.” He hung up. “Do you want to know what Ezra said?”
“I can’t tell you how much I don’t care.”
Jared laughed. “But you wanted to ask him! He told me. Would you like to hear?”
“Suddenly, no.”
On Friday, Larissa asked Fran’s opinion, her twentysome-thing friend with whom she did only one thing—sit at the nail salon. Finklestein liked the beautiful things in life, though she was a receptionist at a Midtown-based news agency and had no actual money. The girl was single, young, hip and didn’t fit in with Larissa’s other friends. Her singlehood and youth dazzled Larissa; Finklestein was what a Republican looked like to a Democrat: unfathomable. This time over a latte, flash Fran denounced Larissa’s false dilemma by administering a brutal piece of advice. Any sports car would do, Fran said dismissively. Pick the one that will please you the most.
The ever-practical Maggie tried to talk her out of the car entirely. She didn’t share Ezra’s risible indifference to the question. Always thrifty, Maggie thought such a purchase an unnecessary extravagance.
Larissa couldn’t talk to Bo about something so trivial as buying a car when Bo was living in a two-bedroom apartment with her unhinged mother and freelance Jonny, who’d been looking for a long-term gig for
three
years. Bo spent her days on the sixth floor of the Met during lunchtime, ambling through neo-Impressionist floral displays from South America and dreaming of a different life. Talking to Bo about Jaguars was as absurd as talking to Michelangelo about it, who saw a brochure his father had brought home and said, “Ooh, nice blue car without a top, Mommy, but how you gonna fit your whole family in there?”
Che didn’t come to school, one day, two. She didn’t pick up the phone either. Larissa walked to her house after school. She was on half-days; soon she would graduate, summer, then college! But
Larissa’s daydreams of impending adulthood had faded recently in the face of Che’s trauma
.
Che’s mother let her in, curt, impersonal. It wasn’t like her. Che’s mother loved Larissa. She’s upstairs, was all she said
.
Che was on her bed, face down
.
Why is your mother mad at me?
She’s not mad
.
Why did she give me the evil eye? Larissa thought about it. Oh, no. Did you tell her I wanted you not to have it?
Che nodded
.
Thanks a lot, girlfriend
.
She asked me. What is Larissa advising you to do? So I told her
.
But what’s happened? Larissa perched on the edge of the bed, touching Che’s heaving back. What else could’ve happened?
I’m not pregnant anymore, said Che in a dead voice
.
Larissa’s heart jumped, flew up into the summer sky. Oh, Che! That’s the greatest thing I ever heard
.
Che didn’t seem to think so
.
How do you know?
I’m bleeding
.
So you were never pregnant? I told you, you should’ve taken that test
.
Che rose from the bed, her face red, her eyes swollen. Don’t you see? she said. I know my body. I was ten weeks late. You think that’s normal? Now I’m bleeding out like my jugular’s been cut. She put her face in her hands
.
Larissa patted her friend, tried to soothe her. No, it’s good. It’s so much better this way. The impossible decision was taken out of your hands. It’s the greatest day
.
Almost like God intervening, said Che
.
I guess, said Larissa. You were lucky. You were given a reprieve, a second chance. Now you can live your life right, learn from this, do things differently in the future. I don’t understand why you’re so upset
.
What if God, like my mom, was disappointed in me? That’s what it feels like. He said, you’re not ready to be a mother. You’re not ready for this child
.
That’s absolutely true
.
In my free-falling blood I feel His disappointment
.
That’s silly. He helped you out. Took matters into his own hands. Oh, if only every time it were so easy! How sweet life would be
.
But Che was inconsolable. I did this to myself, she said. I should have had to live with the consequences
.
You narrowly escaped a harrowing future. How can you be upset?
A baby is not harrowing
.
At sixteen? Come on, clean yourself up. Let’s go to town, hang out. I told some people I’d meet them at Jerry’s Ices
.
Larissa lay down on the twin bed, next to Che. Come on, girlfriend, she whispered, putting her arm around Che’s sobbing body. No worries now. We’re golden. Every little thing’s gonna be all right
.
Larissa wrote to Che, mentioning the Jag as a postscript omitting the real reason for her agonizing.
Che wrote back.
Larissa, why so much commotion over a small matter? I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me. To bring up a
car
in an occasional letter? It’s a car. You didn’t finish telling me why Bo doesn’t throw Jonny out or move out herself. Since when do you care so much about what you drive? Buy or not buy. I’m forty next year too, you know. You’re worried about a car, and my mother couldn’t live long enough for me to have a baby. Soon
I’m
not going to live long enough for me to have a baby. I’m
sending you a recent picture of Lorenzo. Tell me if you think he’s worth it. Send me a recent picture of the Jag. I’ll tell you if the car is worth it.
Larissa read newspapers, magazines, to keep ahead of the times, but being versed in current events made her
more
anxious, not less. The only news out there was that everything was going to hell, spinning out of control.
She wrote to Che about this. There was mental illness, homelessness, robberies, random shootings, sometimes all related, Larissa wrote. Shark attacks, poison oak epidemics, rabies. Seventy-year-old women giving birth, severed heads abandoned outside newsrooms. There were bombings and threats to peace. Is peace just an illusion? she asked Che. Will the Jaguar bring me an illusion of peace?
“That’s a philosophical question, Larissa,” replied Ezra, while she was still waiting on Che’s reply. “The question is, will the Jaguar bring you something tangible? Is it a desire for something you don’t have? If so, what is it? And after you get it, will that be it, or will there be something else you want that you don’t have? Is it the quest you’re after, not the object?”
“How about,” said Jared, “the car is gorgeous—she’ll turn all heads while driving it?”
“She turns all heads anyway,” said Maggie, looking admiringly at Larissa, in jeans and a red silky top, with a bit of decolletage and red lipstick.
“Hardly,” Larissa said, embellishing her embarrassment and turning to Ezra.
“I know, Larissa, that you read Ecclesiastes only because you had to, to get a pass/fail in your philosophy course in college,” said Ezra, “which is not the same thing as
understanding
Ecclesiastes, but nonetheless, it will do you well right about now to remember what he said.”
Larissa stared at him vacantly.
“All is vanity,” said Ezra. “To buy, not to buy. To eat, to shop, to hire women to clean your house, to not clean it.
All
is vexation of spirit, except union with God.
All
is vanity.”
“So buy the Jag then?” said Jared.
Che wrote back.
Larissa,
Here is your real answer, the one Father Emilio gave me when I asked him. You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that ye not be troubled. For all these things must come to pass but the end is not yet.
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in diverse places.
All these are just the
beginnings
of sorrows. Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.