"Shelley, what the hell is that on your face? What are those spots?"
"M-m-measles," Andrea started laughing all over again, hugging Shelley. "Thank God, oh thank you dear God!" she said with laughter tears wetting Shelley's sherry-sticky hair.
"Jesus Christ, are the two of you drunk or something?"
In angry strides, Myra crossed to the bathroom, grabbed up her garter belt, snatched the pancake makeup from Andrea's dressing table shouting, "Stay there all goddamn day for all I care. I'm going up to twelve and I am going to see Frank Sinatra! I'm going to have some real fun and real adventure and some excitement this afternoon and nothing and nobody is stopping me!"
++++++++++
Chapter 25
T
he airmail postcard was the Tower of London.
Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.
Love, Andrea and Myra.
Marian's key ring was still in the open mailbox. Her letters fell to the ground.
.
..So that's why there haven't been any telephone calls...
"You left your mail box open," a voice said.
Marian wasn't aware that she was being addressed. ...
Blue ink, a ball point pen, flowing capitals. The handwriting was very precise, school-girlish neat...
"You dropped some of your letters, Mrs. Cooper," said a friendly neighbor.
"What?" Marian looked up from the card, saw only the floral house-dress and house-slippers. The face was in no way distinguishable from the other middle age, middle income housewives that Marian had greeted over the years in the elevator and the lobby.
"Can I help?" the neighbor asked, but as she bent over, letters from her pile fell, then a package. Then they were both down, scooting around on the marble lobby floor like two kids playing marbles, both laughing.
Marian's laughter turned into coughing, then tears.
"Are you O.K. Mrs. Cooper?"
"It's been one of those mornings," Marian wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Her face felt stiff, as if laughter was something the muscles had forgotten.
"For me too — the vacuum blew a fuse, dishwasher conked out. You know I've lived across the hall from you for nine years and I don't even know your first name..."
"Marian." Marian got up quickly. She wanted to get away from the sunny neighbor before the domestic discussion took root, but all of a sudden, the lobby was spinning.
"I'm Jeanna Dawson. You don't look too good." Jeanna Dawson put an arm around Marian and helped her into the elevator.
"Really I'm fine," Marian protested, "I didn't have breakfast, that's all."
"I've got a pot of fresh coffee and homemade yummy rolls."
"No really, I have to get home..." The last thing she wanted was the ministrations of a neighbor who made yummy rolls. "I have a lot to do, an important phone call I'm supposed to make exactly at eleven."
"Well, one of these days we've got to have coffee together," Jeanna said when they arrived at their doorways, across from each other.
"We must," Marian said, certain they would not. She was twisting her key in the lock somewhat frantically because the lock was sticking and she was feeling dizzy again.
Next thing she knew, her neighbor was escorting her across the hallway into apartment 14-B.
Although the spaces were identical, it was as if the two apartments were the two sides of a reversible garment.
From the moment Marian entered and saw the red lacquered Chinese table in the foyer, the his and her pegs for coats, she was ready to hate it all, but Jeanna didn't give her a chance.
"You're not pregnant are you?"
"No, my goodness — "
"I didn't really think so, George says I ask too many personal questions but how can you get to know somebody if you don't know the basics about them." They had arrived in the kitchen. Jeanna was taking out plates and mugs. "You're a career lady, Jimmy told me. I'm a grandmother. I'll be forty-seven next month. My kids are twenty-six, twenty-two and nineteen — " She indicated the package she'd brought up from the mail box. "That's from my youngest — Jannine's trying to educate me." She handed Marian a mug of wonderful smelling coffee, a plate of truly delicious looking rolls.
"Really, I'm not hungry," Marian said, but suddenly she was starving.
"If you want to read your mail while you eat, Marian, go right ahead."
"My mail..." Marian was suddenly aware that she was still clutching the letters and the postcard.
"I hope it wasn't bad news?"
"Bad news?" She hadn't had a chance to think about the postcard, figure out what it meant. "I'm not sure."
"Sometimes things seem bad, but then you take a look around. Your bad stuff is
nothing
when you see what other folks are putting up with." Jeanna was opening her package. "Good God, it's a good thing Jannine mailed this one in a brown wrapper."
Jeanna passed the paperback to Marian. It was a sex manual. The cover was emblazoned with quotes attesting to its value as handbook of the decade, a comprehensive guide for the modern couple.
"I'm still trying to get through the last one, '
Eat Better, Look Younger
.' All that self improvement, it makes me feel like I'm putting on someone else's girdle."
Jeanna passed the sugar and cream, when Marian declined, Jeanna greedily helped herself to two lumps of sugar and a lot of cream. "You're lucky, you can go off to work, walk away from all this." She indicated the food. "I'd trade places with you anytime."
"A lot of my work is dull routine, Jeanna."
"That tall handsome man with the dark wavy hair, is that your fella?"
"The handsome man is my husband."
"These days you never know. George is sweet but ugly, thank God!"
Suddenly Marian noticed that the card was addressed "Mr.
and
Mrs. Ferris Cooper." There was the elevator descending thud in her stomach.
...
Andrea wants me to know where she is. She must have gone to London right after the party, practically the next day — that awful day Mamma had her stroke.
..
The black thought was unbearable.
"Jeanna, what time is it?" Marian almost knocked over the mug as she looked around for a clock. "Oh God, it's already a quarter after!"
"Take it easy," Jeanna immediately brought over the kitchen phone. "You want me to go to the other room?"
Marian was already dialing.
For almost ten days, she'd been a telephone operator, plugging into Mamma in Intensive Care and Ralph in the ward, ringing up Doctors, contacting relatives, cross-connecting those lines with Ferris' schedule and her own — just barely managing to cope with her appointments and commitments at the office while waiting for the Doctor's verdict.
"Well my dear, we just got the results of the scan," The Doctor said. "The brain stem is intact. It's a cerebral hemorrhage but fortunately, not what we call massive. There's hope. I think we can safely say, we are out of the immediate crisis period. In all probability, with therapy, the paralysis will reduce.
There was no movement on Mamma's left side. Her left hand, arm and leg had no apparent reflexes. The left side of her face was twisted. She could make sounds — sometimes even seemed to be trying to communicate — but the utterances were garbled and meaningless.
"But what about Mamma not being able to talk?"
"We call that 'secondary Aphasia' and with therapy, we can definitely hope for rehabilitation and a fair degree of improvement."
"Then it's not as bad as we thought?"
"No indeed. In a matter of weeks, we'll be able to move Mrs. Melnik out of here, into a good nursing home."
"A home? Oh Doctor, my Mamma will hate that!"
"Your mother is in no condition to hate anything, my dear."
"But I have plenty of space, couldn't I bring her here?"
"My dear, your mother is going to need private nursing, she's probably going to be an invalid for the rest of her life!"
"I can't put her in a nursing home!"
"Why don't you talk it over with your husband, and let me know."
"Yes, I'll talk it over with my husband..."
"Marian, why don't you take a sip of your coffee," Jeanna moved the coffee mug over and turned the handle.
Marian shook her head numbly.
"I know I'm not minding my own business, but Marian — you can't bring your mother here — you'll be a wreck, it'll wreck you and your husband, believe me!"
"I just don't know what to do." All at once, Marian felt a tremendous pressure — Mamma, Ralph, Ferris, office — do this, do that, go here, go there, try this, try that, phone him, phone her — it was too much, too many things on her at her, demanding that she pay attention, that she do something.
Jeanna didn't say anything right away. She put away a few things. Then said, "Marian, don't do anything for a while. It's like cooking. You let it cook. No recipe, you'll know what to do. Some instinct tells you."
"Some instinct better tell me something pretty soon." Marian stood up, gathered up her mail and purse. Her neighbor had said 'I'd trade places with you anytime.' At that moment, despite the floral house-dress and all that it implied, Marian wouldn't have minded trading places with Jeanna.
At the front door, Jeanna got an idea. "Marian, wait a second!"
She hurried back to her kitchen, returned with the paperback. "Marian, do me a favor — God, this one scares me half to death — I can tell Jannine I lent it to a friend and one of these days, you can give me a book report. But
very
condensed
, O.K.?"
++++++++++
Chapter 26
"Take the hotel towels Shelley!"
"They won't fit into the suitcase, Mommy."
"They'll fit, just shove them in. Don't forget the hotel soap. Jesus, Andrea, put down the mascara! I'm sick as a dog and she's doing her eyelashes!" Myra put a hand to her head, moaned and braced herself on the bed post.
"Why do we have to go today? We could wait at least till your measles fade. You're going to give it to all the passengers."
"Gawd, I'd love to give the measles to the hotel manager. Those fucking guards! I better lie down for a minute, I'm really sick."
"Shell, you better get your Mother some water and the bottle of aspirin." Andrea moved quickly to help Myra who looked as if she was going to faint.
"Get the bottle of sherry, honey, Mother needs a drink," said Myra weakly.
Andrea poured an inch of sherry into the glass and gave it to Myra. "When you're better, we could do some sightseeing. Why are we rushing to get back to the U.S.?"
"I love you Andrea, you are the most important person in the world to me," Myra said.
"I haven't told you about Shelley."
"Sick as I am, I am deeply concerned about your future."
"You never told me what happened on the twelfth floor. You didn't get in to see Sinatra did you?"
"To Hell with Sinatra. I can't think about myself now, Andrea. Saturn is ascending in your chart and Scorpio's in the Tenth House. If you go back to New York and start seeing Ferris, even if you're not screwing him, Lady Marian is going to walk right out of his life."
"Myra, I don't want to date Ferris!"
"Angel girl, there is nothing worse for a wife than an ex girl friend who gets to be not an ex."
"You're delirious, Myra. I don't give a damn about Ferris and Marian! I'm worried about Shelley."
"Dearest girl, we have to pick up the reins of our lives and control our destinies. Pluto is bringing you heavy Karma darling. I've got to help you."
"I think you've got help Shelley."
"Jesus, she doesn't have the measles does she?"
"No, that was lipstick, but she — "
"Thank the lord for little favors. We're almost out of your pancake makeup. Maybe you and Shell can finish the packing and I can take a little nap?"
"Myra, pay attention to me for a second." Andrea sat down on the edge of the bed. "Please listen! I want to talk to you about the bottle of sherry."
"I'll have another sip, angel girl."
Andrea held up the bottle which was half empty. "Didn't we have a full bottle of sherry?"
"You've got to get a job that helps your career, you've got to get a good man before you lose your looks — for Gods-sake, why are you bothering me about a bottle of sherry!" Myra squinted at it. "Jesus Christ, it's half empty!"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you "
"Fuck the sherry! Shelley, don't forget the towels — we gotta bring back something from this stupid fucking vacation. Jesus Andrea, who cares about the sherry, " Myra was drifting off. "Give it to the maid, throw it out the window!"
Shelley took Aunt Andrea's hand, looking up at her with big-eyed innocent child's concern "Is my Mommy going to be O.K. Aunt Andrea?"