One by one her five brothers had married and left the family prison with nary a backward glance. Bette, being a female and an old maid to boot, was automatically elected warden. Her job was to run the family business and remain on bedpan duty until their parents croaked.
She couldn't remember being asked if she wanted the job.
Her mother rolled behind her in her wheelchair. “Where are you going at this time of night?”
Bette turned and looked at her watch. “Ma, it's ten to seven.”
“It's April. It gets dark in a hurry. You shouldn't drive after dark. What if your father has a heart attack while you're out in your precious car?”
A voice yelled from the living room over the blare of the television news. “Why am I the
schlemiel
who gets the heart attack? Do me a favor, Ida. You have the heart attack.”
Mother and daughter ignored him.
“Look, Ma, Linda's having problems. I said I'd go see her.”
Bette's elderly wrinkled mother, jet-black hair notwithstanding, made a face and dismissed Bette with a wave of her hand. “Problems.
That woman's got no problems. She lives in her fancy house, in her fancy neighborhood, married to her fancy doctor husband. What problems does she have?” Her mother pointed a finger at her. “Don't forget, she grew up in this neighborhood too. She ain't so fancy schmancy under her expensive suits. Her shit stinks too.”
“Oy Ma, you've got a mouth like a stevedore.”
“She got a body like one too,” yelled her father. He broke into laughter at his own joke, before he coughed up a lung.
Her mother rolled herself backwards and parked in the living room doorway. “At least my big mouth works, Izzy, unlike that tiny thing you got between your legs.”
Bette turned on her heel. “I'm outta here.” She slammed the door, stormed down the stairs, and hopped into her very clean, black 1994 Chev Impala. She bought it as a gift for herself ten years before, to celebrate her fortieth birthday. Well, not so much to celebrate, but to keep from jumping off the Mercier Bridge.
She was careful to back gingerly out of the narrow stretch of pavement that served as a driveway. It was really the lane between two rundown buildings: Weinberg's Bakery on the left, Weinberg's Laundromat on the right. Bette's life was caught in the middle.
It took five minutes for her to hop over to Draper Avenue and collect Gemma. Gemma lived in the downstairs flat of her duplex. Her husband, Angelo, a devoted son, installed his sainted mother upstairs. Bette and Gemma had a favorite pastime called “A hundred new and improved ways to kill an elderly relative and make it look like an accident.”
Gemma was waiting by her front door when Bette pulled up. She reminded Bette of a round tomato, firm and soft all at the same time. Bette once told her if she gained any more weight she was in danger of looking like the original Mrs. Rossi. Gemma went on a diet for a month after that. It was just the motivation she needed. But it wouldn't matter how much Gemma weighed. Her olive skin, big brown eyes, and dark shiny hair always deserved a second look.
Her two youngest were with her. She kissed them goodbye and then cuffed the backs of their heads when they clung to her coat. They moped back indoors.
Gemma hurried down the steps, yanked the door open, and did what she always didâslammed the car door shut with a resounding thunk.
“Must you do that?”
“Sorry. I forget this car is alive and has feelings.” Gemma grabbed her seatbelt as Bette looked in the rearview mirror and then over her shoulder. She pulled out and her marvellous car purred down the street.
Gemma gave a great sigh and sank into the velvet upholstery. “Thank you, God, for getting me out of the house.”
“Tell me about it. Not that I want Linda to suffer.”
“I wonder what the schmuck did now?”
“He's still breathing.”
The two old friends laughed as they drove to Westmount to collect Augusta. Westmount was the crème-de-la-crème neighbourhood in Montreal. The mansions built on the mountain were nothing short of spectacular, with iron gates and huge trees that hid the thick stone facades just enough to buffer the families who lived in them from the great unwashed in the streets.
But Augusta's address was deceptive. She was perilously close to the edge, in more ways than one. She didn't live with the rich; she taught their privately schooled children how to paint.
She and her husband, Tom, had a very nice brick house on a street with other very nice brick houses. Their flower beds and bushes were straight from the garden centre that sprung out of the pavement at their grocery store parking lot every spring, all middle-class hopes and dreams. A solid, forever kind of place.
Until Tom died of a heart attack on his front yard at the age of forty-seven while mowing his weed-free bluegrass lawn.
Bette found a parking spot relatively close to Augusta's house. Unlike Gemma, Augusta wasn't waiting by her front door.
“I'll go,” Gemma said. “She's probably forgotten, knowing her.”
“Or those brats are making her life miserable,” Bette yelled after her friend.
Gemma marched up the walk and grabbed the wrought-iron railing to help her up the front steps. She thought how attractive Augusta's front door was, with its lovely seasonal greenery arranged in a huge wreath. The soft light that shone from above made it look like a work of art. Gemma wished she could create something like that, but knew it was a lost cause. It would be torn from the door in a matter of minutes, with the hubbub of five children and their many friends galloping in and out all day.
Or her mother-in-law would set fire to it.
She rang the doorbell and walked in. “Only me.” Gemma looked at the mess on the floor in the front porch. There were thirty shoes at least, not one of them with a mate. She rolled her eyes and ventured into the kitchen. “Gussie, let's get a move on.”
Augusta looked up from the table. Her lovely face looked tired and that glorious mop of butterscotch hair was in its usual mess, held up with whatever comb she picked out of the wicker basket by the phone. Gemma still found it hard to look into Augusta's big green eyes. The sadness and aching loneliness were still evident, even three years after the day she cradled Tom's head in her lap for the very last time.
“Sorry, Gemma. I have to figure out how to get the girls to swim class.”
Augusta's teenage daughters sat at the table with their arms folded. They threw resentful glances in Gemma's direction.
“If you let me get my driver's licence, Mother, we wouldn't have this problem. Everyone I know is driving,” Augusta's eldest cried.
Gemma heard Bette blow the horn. “We'll drop them off on the way.”
“But how will they get back? The mom who usually does it is in Florida this week.”
Gemma wanted to shake her. “Gee, then I guess they'll have to miss it.”
The girls whined immediately. Gemma walked over to her friend, hauled her out of the chair, grabbed her coat, and escorted her like a prisoner to the front door.
“We'll be at Linda's,” Gemma told the girls. “You know the number. Your mama will be home around eleven. Have those dishes done by the time she gets back. And clean the cat's litter box. I can smell it from here.”
She shut the door in their astonished, sulky faces.
Gemma didn't let go until she pushed Augusta into the car. They were finally on their way.
They sat in their usual positions around Linda's gorgeously decorated family room, with its perfect blend of casual, modern, and vintage furniture. Glorious colours in the carpet, sofa pillows, and drapes were purposely made to look as if Linda was so secure in her own style that she could afford to be a little daring. Trouble was, it cost a lot of money to get it that way. But she never bragged about it. She was Lin the Pin, not Lin the Pin Cushion.
They each held a large glass of wine. Bette only ever had the one when she drove. Gemma and Augusta usually downed four or five glasses between them. It was obvious from Linda's state when she opened the door that she'd had a whole bottle to herself before they got there.
Her usual chic blonde bob was dishevelled and the skin on her face was blotchy. She hadn't even bothered to repair the damage, which meant Linda was in a bad way. She never went anywhere without a perfectly made-up face. When she got up and started to pace, her wine sloshed on the fabulous Indian carpet beneath her feet.
“Look at me. I'm fifty next month. Fifty. And here I am in my big house in the West Island surrounded by what? My husband and my son? Take a look around. They're missing in action.”
She paused to take another huge gulp of wine. “Where are they, you ask? Hubby is now living on Lakeshore Boulevard in a condo with a nurse bimbo named Ryan. That's right.
Ryan.
She was the freshest of the new crop that just graduated. She's so young, she's got a guy's name. She belongs to that new generation of females who have stupid boy names like Mackenzie and Dylan and Taylor. No doubt she spells it with an
i
. Rian. With her perky tits and cement ass.”
She drained her Chardonnay. “And where's my darling Wes? He's so angry and mortified he doesn't even like to come home. So where does that leave me? Alone.”
Linda finally sat down like a rag doll and let her wine glass fall to the floor. “Wes blames me, you know. He thinks it's my fault his father ran off with a girl young enough to be his sister.”
Augusta leaned over and put an arm around Linda's shoulder. “No, he doesn't, sweetheart. He's angry right now and it's easier for him to be angry with you. Believe me, I can tell. I've had a lot of practice.”
Linda gave Augusta a grateful glance.
Bette spoke up. “This is ridiculous. I say we go over to that condo and face the little bitch. We can pick her up and throw her out the window into Lake Saint-Louis. And while we're at it, we can scoot back to my place and do the same thing to Izzy and Ida.”
“And ruin their perfect marriage?” Linda said.
Gemma twirled her glass around. “We'll do Mama Rossi after that.
Trouble is, I'd be next, since my husband loves me so much. Apparently, no one on the planet has a great marriage anymore.”
“I had one,” Augusta said.
Gemma gave her a sad smile. “Yes, you did.”
Bette leaned over to grab a handful of cashews from a crystal dish on the ottoman in front of her. “What's Angelo done now, Gem?”
Gemma poured herself another glass of wine. “He hasn't done anything, that's the problem. I ask him to fix a leaky sink and he does, at his mama's. He finally tells me that we're going out to dinner, so I get all dressed up. Guess where we go on my big night out?”
Her friends shrugged.
“We go out the door, turn left, ring the doorbell, and get buzzed upstairs to Mama's. He's angry that I'm upset and his mother tells him I'm a
desgratiata
.”
“Translation, please?”
“A big bitch.”
Bette shook her head. “I had it backwards. We'll do Mama Rossi first and then the Ryan slut. Thank God I never married. What a nightmare.”
“It's not always like that,” Augusta reassured her. “Sometimes it's wonderful.”
Linda touched the wedding band around her finger. “That's why I don't believe there's a God. Why did Tom die? What did he ever do but love you madly?”
“I don't want to talk about it.”
Linda took her wedding band and threw it across the room and out the door. They heard it clink on the ceramic kitchen floor. She wiped her hands together as if she were dusting them off. “There. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“I say we do something for ourselves,” Bette said. “Let's forget miserable parents and in-laws and ungrateful kids and two-timing husbands. When's the last time we did anything for us? Other than fire the latest Oprah Book Club Selection out the window.”
“You're right,” Gemma nodded. “We're almost fifty. Life is passing us by.”
Linda leapt up off her overstuffed couch. “We're all fifty this year. That's worth celebrating. Sort of. We should take a trip together.”
“Where?” Augusta asked.
“Where have you always wanted to go?”
“New York.”
Now Bette hopped out of her seat. “New York for a long weekend. We could go to Broadway.”
“I've always wanted to see a show on Broadway,” Gemma said. “I'd love to see
Mamma Mia
, wouldn't you?”
Augusta joined into the spirit of things. “I want to see the MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What could be better?”
“Macy's and Bloomingdale's,” Linda answered. “Not to mention Saks Fifth Avenue.”
Bette hopped up and down. “Let's do it. What are we waiting for?”
The four friends reached out for each other and did a little dance around the ottoman. Linda's cat ran under the couch.
“Wait,” Gemma said.
They stopped dancing.
“I can't go. I hate to fly.”
“You've never flown,” Bette said.
“Exactly. Because I hate to fly.”
Augusta's face fell. “And what about the girls?”
Gemma turned to her. “What about the girls? Your mother will be around. She can stay with them for a few days.”
“I'm not sure. She's sort of frightened of them.”
They let themselves go and looked at each other, their excitement draining away.
“I can't go,” Bette said. “I can't afford it.”
“Neither can I,” Gemma admitted. “My secret cache in the fridge only has two hundred dollars in it.”
“Your secret cache is in the fridge?” Linda asked.
“It's in a yogurt container, and since they all hate yogurt they never open it.” Gemma was quiet for a moment. “But I'll try and get the money somehow if you promise me you'll go, Augusta. You and Linda need this. The girls can live without you for seventy-two hours.”