Spin Doctor (29 page)

“Aaaaaaaaaaccghhh!” I jumped up from my chair to embrace her, knocking over my red wine in the process.

“Don't worry,” Faith said, catching my look of horror. “Believe it or not, the tablecloth is machine-washable.”

“Molly, I am so proud of you! Congratulations, sweetheart!”

Molly grinned. “Thought I might not be able to pull it off, didn't you?”

“I always knew you could do it, once you applied yourself.”

“And I owe a big debt of thanks to Faith,” Molly said, breaking our embrace to give Faith a hug as well. “You and Sylvia Plath. She'll never know she saved my life.”

“That's a bit of hyperbole, don't you think?” Faith asked jovially.

“I'm going to become a creative writer; I'm allowed to indulge in hyperbole.”

Molly received her props from the table and insisted it was now
my
turn.

“My daughter got accepted to college today. That's enough to make this night different from all other nights of the year. And I am surrounded by an amazing group of women who, particularly over the past several weeks, have supported me and been patient with me and have absolutely changed my life for the better. Knowing each one of you is a gift to my soul.”

“Awwwwwwwwwwwwhhhhh,” they chorused.

“Now! People always complain that the seders drag on forever, so I think we should get back to the Haggadah.”

Molly finished the Four Questions and I hid the afikomen, the portion of the matzoh that would be ransomed after the meal by the children at the table—meaning Molly again, as she was the only one who could walk. I didn't want to hide the afikomen anywhere else in the basement, so we played a bit fast and loose with tradition and the women covered their eyes while I concealed the contents of the turquoise linen napkin.

I called upon each of the women to take turns reading from the Haggadah, embodying the different personalities of the story's four sons who are taught the meaning of Passover. Faith was the wise son; Molly the belligerent, “wicked” one; Talia the doubter; and Izzy the utterly clueless one—a part I probably should have reserved for myself. “Thanks a whole lot!” Izzy said when I assigned her role.

“Don't worry; that's why it's called ‘acting,'” Alice assured her with a chuckle.

When we got to the retelling of the Book of Exodus and the tyrannical Pharaoh who kicked Moses and company out of Egypt, Molly glanced at her watch. “They usually lock the laundry room at eight o'clock. Do you think that new super they hired will come in here like Pharaoh and kick us out of Egypt?”

“We're not making any noise,” said Naomi. “Well—not
much
noise.”

Claude nodded her head. “The door's already closed; I'm sure we're not disturbing anyone.”

“Oh my God,” Alice gasped. Nine adult heads turned to stare at her. “I just remembered something! Susan, you're my witness. Remember when Mala Sonia gave me that reading all those months ago? She told me in chapter and verse all these horrible things that were going to happen with my acting career. And everything she said came true. Stuff fell apart almost exactly the way she predicted it would. But this is the kicker, get this: Mala Sonia did foretell that everything would turn out all right for me, but it was going to take time. She said I would finally find success—specifically in my acting career—during a holiday time when there would be joy and feasting.” Alice opened her arms. “Well, I just got the call today to be the Snatch Girl and they're
paying
me to travel to England! And look!” she continued excitedly. “Here we are! If a seder isn't about feasting and celebration, what is?”

Amy winced. “Everything Mala Sonia said about my domestic situation panned out too. But she told me that the outcome would involve much pain and cruelty.”

“Perhaps it was wishful thinking,” Alice quipped. “By the way, I don't hate you. I wanted to, though. I did hate Eric. But I'm long over that. And I envied you for a while—before I looked at the bigger picture from a lot of angles. Falling in love with Dan sure helped me get past it fast,” she chuckled. “Good luck with Eric. I want to say ‘you deserve him,' but you'll probably take it the wrong way.”

“Or not,” Amy shot back. “I wanted to hate you too. Sometimes I wondered whether Eric was ever thinking about you as ‘the one that got away.' But in the long run, it really isn't helpful—or healthy—to live your life with your head in a negative place that might have nothing to do with the truth of the situation—anyone's situation. Am I right, Susan?”

I laughed. “Not bad; but don't quit your day job, Amy.”

“Thanks. Thanks a whole hell of a lot!”

“Everything Mala Sonia told
me
came true too,” I said, admitting this for the first time in front of all of them. “The bad and the good. She ‘predicted' that I would be able to transcend and triumph over my personal adversity with the love and support of my women friends.”

“Yeah, Mom, but you told me that you thought Mala Sonia was palming cards and manipulated your reading so she could confess her own crime in the only way she knew how. You've had the love and support of your women friends all along. Always. You just didn't think about it until now.”

“Bingo, Molly!” Alice agreed. “You had the power to get back to Kansas all along,” she lilted, in a dead-on imitation of Glinda the Good Witch.

“Now can we
puh-lease
get through the next twenty pages and the ten plagues so we can eat? I'm starving over here.”
Molly grabbed her Haggadah and, picking up where we had left off, began to read aloud.

The meal itself was a huge hit. Of course there was a bit of running around involved, because there was no way to keep everything warm down in the laundry room, though Naomi joked that we could have locked the food in Tupperware and sent it to spin on the dryers' “low” cycle. So Alice had to dash back to her apartment to fetch the soup and
tsimmes,
and Molly and I had to head up to our place to fetch the turkey and its fixings. “It's all right; we're working off the calories as we eat. A very effective exercise regimen,” I posited.

After dinner, Molly had to find the hidden afikomen or by tradition the seder couldn't continue and—nontraditionally—no one would get dessert. It took her all of about five seconds to locate it.

“You are so predictable, Ma,” she said, as she carefully lifted the turquoise napkin out of the well of the only working washing machine. By tradition she also got to ransom it from the seder leader, and was angling for big-ticket items, like her own car while she was up at college.

“Dream on.
I
don't even have a car, Molly. How 'bout a bookstore gift certificate? You can buy more Sylvia Plath.”

The offer was accepted and the meal resumed, with much happy munching of Claude and Naomi's homemade macaroons. We took up our Haggadahs once again and read on. When it came time to welcome the visit of the prophet Elijah, Talia seated herself at her synthesizer and began to sight-read the song that accompanies his welcome. We gathered around her and tried to sing along. It was a simple melody; we had it down in no time. Proud of our accomplishment, we began to get a bit carried away—as in
loud
—and were so vocal that we barely heard a knocking at the door.

“I'll get it,” Molly volunteered. She opened the door and stood there, somewhere between shocked and bemused. “Ma?! Elijah's here.”

“Of course he is, honey. It says right here in the text, ‘A participant opens the door for Elijah.'” As a sidebar, seder participants are supposed to drink four cups of wine over the course of the ritual, so suffice it to say, now that the evening was winding down, I was more than somewhat loopy.

“No, Mom, I mean
really
Elijah.
Faith's
Elijah.”

The entire room went silent. I had to admit, the timely appearance of Elijah was pretty eerie. When was the last time a prophet showed up on cue at
your
house?

“There's a man in our midst,” Claude whispered.

“I'm interrupting. I'm so sorry,” Elijah apologized. “Faith told me to come over at nine o'clock. She thought the festivities would be over by now. If you give me the key, sweetheart, I can wait upstairs.”

“Sweetheart,”
Izzy murmured, as though the word was a juicy secret.

“If it's all right with Susan, I'd like to invite you in, Elijah,” Faith said.

I waved him over to the table. “C'mon. Have a macaroon. And some wine. I guess…” I said, handing him the silver Elijah's Cup, “I guess this goblet has your name on it.”

Faith linked her arm through Elijah's. “This is my ‘why is this night different' news. I didn't want to say anything during the meal because I was afraid I'd depress people. After all, I've lived in this building a long time. I'm even older than those washing machines,” she added, to much laughter. “Elijah asked me today if I would do him the honor of moving in with him. Now, I'm an old-fashioned girl, and at first I thought I deserved a ring with that proposal, but I can't see myself getting married again
at this stage in my life. And besides, Susan is always encouraging us to take risks and try something new. I'm sure the landlord will be delirious when he learns that a rent-controlled apartment will be up for grabs, but I am looking forward to pottering around my new garden in Brooklyn Heights.”

“You're moving to Brooklyn!” Meriel exclaimed. “We'll be neighbors almost.”

“Yes…next year I'll almost be able to
walk
to the West Indian Day parade.”

“Oh my goodness,” I said, beginning to cry. “You really
are
moving on.”

Faith handed me her handkerchief. “I'll visit often,” she promised. I still have my opera subscription and I don't think the Met will be moving to Brooklyn anytime soon.”

“I'm so happy for you,” I sniffled. “But sad for me. It's always hard when a therapist has to say good-bye to a client. But it's even harder when she has to say good-bye to a treasured friend.”

“You're making
me
cry,” Elijah gently kidded. “I'm sure you'll agree, Susan, that I've got me one unusual lady.”

“Unusual? Is that a compliment?” Faith wanted to know. “Elijah was planning to take me out for some champagne. Dashing out in the middle of a dinner party goes against everything I was raised to do, but I don't want to keep him waiting much longer…”

“We're staying to help clear the table, Faith,” said Elijah decisively. “The champagne'll chill.”

Everyone pitched in. But after such a joyous meal, the mood in the laundry room had turned bittersweet.

“This is going to be my hardest Passover ever,” Molly said, going over to congratulate Faith. “Mom, you thought it would be hard to give up pizza and pasta for a week, but now we've got to give up Faith too.”

Faith draped her violet-clad arm over my daughter's shoulder. “Molly, in this life, you'll learn that things change—sometimes for the better, and sometimes not—and people you care about come and go and grow and move away. Life is as mutable as the water that comprises the lion's share of our bodies.”

“Okay, yeah, I get that,” Molly nodded, “but it still doesn't change what we're talking about.”

“Oh, yes it does,” said the older woman, eager for the last word on the subject. “Just because things will be a bit different from now on, it doesn't mean you have to lose Faith!”

Progress Notes

Me:
Well, I waved good-bye to the moving van and to Faith in her yellow taxi this morning. Alice is off to England to talk dirty in a series of electromagnetic dust-rag commercials. In a couple of months I'll rent a car to drive Molly up to college, and when I return home, it will just be me and Ian, my Broadway baby. Over the past several months, I've lost a few clients and a husband. I finally found a more honest and solid relationship with my daughter, only to “lose” her to a four-year (I hope!) educational sojourn in Vermont. Believe me, I can see the irony in it; but this “loss” is everyone's gain.

And even though I may no longer be seeing a couple of my laundry room clients, they have all become my friends.

What about Eli? I still lose sleep at night worrying over whether I had given everything I could have to our marriage. I second-guess myself constantly. Our separation, and possible divorce, has not been easy on me. In my mind I try to revisit as many days as I can of our twenty-plus years as a couple, looking for clues to see if there's something I might have done better. Or differently. Or all over again. There are plenty of times when I look to blame Eli.

But if I were my own client, I would remind myself rather pointedly that agonizing over what I coulda-shoulda-mighta done so that my marriage didn't end up in the glass-half-empty column is an exercise that is not only futile, but self-destructive. There's a vast difference between emotional self-flagellation and how I would counsel myself to healthily explore the situation: through rational analysis, assessment, and awareness of what happened, why it happened, and whether it could have been avoided. And if Eli decides that he wants to come back, or not—and at this point it's looking more like “not”—I will be able to handle the situation with strength and self-confidence.

After all, isn't that exactly what Mala Sonia said I'd do?

It's one of my credos, both personally and professionally, that you have to be willing to take risks if you want to get close to someone. To risk love of any kind is to risk the pain that comes of loss. And it's the experience of both that makes us truly human.

But here's an interesting question: if you've lost someone close to you, but you've given them your all—showed them and shared with them the most vulnerable parts of yourself as well as your more resilient and tenacious sides, and they've been just as open with you—haven't you also
won
as well?