Russell was watching her face eagerly. “I know you like pumps,” he said. “So I thought I’d get you a pair to wear with those pants I picked out. They’ll go fine with your work clothes—they’re pretty sedate. But also fashionable.” He nudged her arm briefly. “I thought about getting you a pair of leopard-print stilettos, but I didn’t want to push you too far too fast.”
“They’re very pretty,” she said, staring at the shoes.
“I asked the saleswoman for help. I described you.”
“Yeah? What’d you say?”
“That you were a lawyer, a little on the conservative side but ready to branch out.”
She wasn’t sure he was right about that last bit, but let it pass. “How did you know my size?”
“Oh, I can tell a girl’s shoe size with one glance,” he said airily.
“Really?”
He winked. “Nah. I asked Lauren.”
Realization dawned on her. And with it, the knowledge that she was a complete idiot. “Was that why you called her on Tuesday?”
“You knew?” he said. “I
told
her not to tell you. I wanted it to be a surprise.” He scowled. “Trust Lauren to mess it up.”
“She didn’t. I just saw your name on the caller ID. She tried to keep it a secret and—” She stopped, realizing how stupid she’d look if she told him that she thought he and Lauren had been planning some kind of secret tryst. “She didn’t tell me about the shoes,” she said. “They’re a complete surprise.”
“Oh, good.” He hesitated, watching her, but when she didn’t speak again, he said, “So . . . do you like them?”
“I do,” she said slowly.
“You need new shoes,” he said. “To go with your whole new look.” He tapped on the shoebox. “You’re a diamond in the rough, Ava. I’m going to mold you into something beautiful.”
“You don’t mold diamonds.” She struggled to keep her tone light despite the hurt his casual comment had just inflicted: he didn’t think she was beautiful already; he thought she needed to be changed. “They’re like the hardest substance on earth.”
“Yeah, but you can grind them down with other diamonds.”
“Is that what this is?” She let the shoe dangle from her fingertip. “Are you grinding me down?”
He laughed. “I guess so.”
“To what end?” She wondered if he could hear the genuine pleading in her voice.
He didn’t appear to. “It will make our married life so much more pleasant,” he said jovially. He leaned down to kiss her.
Ava jerked her head away from his. “We should go back.”
He peered at her. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” She moved away, out of the circle of his arm, and busied herself packing the shoes back up. “Just worried about my mother. She looked exhausted.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, immediately contrite. “I’m sorry—I should get my mother out of here.”
As they walked back up to the house, she could feel him watching her and knew that somehow she had disappointed him, that her reaction to his gift wasn’t what he expected or wanted.
Fine
, she thought.
Being told I need to be ground down and altered to be at all appealing to you isn’t what I expected or wanted, so we’re even.
“By the way,” he said with an edge to his voice, when he was opening the door for her, “you’re welcome. For the shoes.”
She muttered a toneless “Sorry—thanks,” and they walked in the front door just as Nancy and Lana emerged from the dining room. Ava quickly dropped the shoebox on the floor and pushed it to the side with her foot.
“I hope I didn’t stay too long,” Lana was saying. “It’s just so hard to tear myself away now that we’ve reconnected.”
“It was a treat to have such a nice long visit,” Nancy said, but her smile looked effortful. “Jimmy?” she called, looking around for him. “Come say good-bye to our guests.”
Jimmy emerged from the family room with a newspaper section tucked under his arm, closely followed by Lauren.
“Coffee brewed yet?” Nancy asked her husband sweetly as he joined them.
“Almost,” he said with only a trace of a smile.
“You have to tell me who your decorator is.” Lana tilted her head back to look up at the hanging light fixture in the foyer. “Your house is so pretty. I’ve been wanting Russell to do more with his little cottage—warm it up a bit. He did all the decorating himself, you know, and it’s such a bachelor’s pad. Or I guess I should say a divorced man’s pad. Oh, look at those beautiful curtains!” She stepped toward the living room, but Ava quickly interposed her body and said firmly, “It was so nice of you to come.”
“Our pleasure.” Russell tugged on Lana’s arm. “Come on, Mom. Let’s go.”
“It was lovely seeing you all,” Lana said, clasping her hands as she batted her eyelashes at each of them in turn. “Really lovely. Your girls are absolutely beautiful, Nancy. What a wonderful family you have! You’re very, very lucky.”
“I am,” Nancy said. “I really am.”
Lana made kissing noises near everyone’s cheek. “I feel like the past has been exorcised,” she said. “Not ‘exercised,’ but ‘exorcised.’ You hear the difference, right?”
“Actually,” Russell said, steering her toward the front door, “I feel like my past has gotten a real workout today. Which is good because it was getting flabby. You know how pasts get when they sit around watching TV all day.” He opened the front door. “Good-bye, Nickersons, one and all. You haven’t seen the last of us. Ava, I’ll call you. Say good-bye, Mom.”
“Good-bye,” she said obediently. “Thank you all so much for your wonderful hospitality and the delicious food and for letting me spend a morning in your delightful home—” Even as she was talking, her son was propelling her firmly forward and down the front steps and onto the front walk, and she finally had to give up and just blow a final kiss in their general direction.
Jimmy followed after them, holding the door open as they went down the walk and calling out a cheery “Good to see you both!” Social Daddy gave one last wave and a shouted good-bye and then slammed the door and returned to being their father. “Never again,” he said morosely and stalked off back to the family room with his newspaper, leaving the women to clean up.
T
he next morning, Lauren examined the turquoise top she had stained. The water spot had dried, leaving behind a small dark wrinkled smudge. Staring miserably at it, she remembered how she used to stain her lips with berries when she was little and still forbidden cosmetics.
She decided to try removing the spot one last time on her own before sending it to the dry cleaners, where a top she had never even worn out of the apartment would cost her yet another five to ten dollars.
She had just squirted a dot of Woolite on a white rag when the apartment phone rang.
“Hi, Lulu,” her mother said. “Just checking to see if you’re still taking me tomorrow.”
“I’m planning on it,” Lauren said and realized she was, even though the hospital no longer held the allure of flirting with Daniel—in fact, she was desperately hoping to avoid running into him. But being Nancy’s chauffeur and support had become a source of pleasure for her in and of itself.
A source of pleasure and of pride. For years she had been the prodigal daughter, and now she had remade herself into the responsible one. She liked that.
“When I’m done with all this, will you still come visit me once in a while, even if I’m the healthiest mother in town? Or will I have to go back to being grateful for one phone call every few months?” Nancy’s tone was light, but Lauren got the sense there was a real question behind the joke.
“Don’t worry,” Lauren said. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I’ll even take you to the hospital now and then for old times’ sake.”
“I know why you want to keep going to the hospital. But you can find cute young men in other places too, you know. Have you ever, for example, tried going to a disco?”
“Very funny,” Lauren said. “You’re real funny, Mom. A little outdated, but funny. I’ll see you tomorrow at one-thirty.”
“Don’t be late.”
“I won’t be.”
“You always say that and then you’re always late.”
“That’s not true,” Lauren said. “I don’t always
say
it.”
“You’re funny, too.”
“It’s the genes. I got your funny genes.”
“We should take this show on the road,” Nancy said. “Once I’m all better, let’s put together a mother-daughter act.”
“We could invite Lana Markowitz to join us,” Lauren said. “I hear her stand-up routine kills.”
Her mother laughed so hard at that she couldn’t talk for a moment, but when she had regained her voice, she said, “So what’s the story with Russell and Ava? I saw them slip out the door together and he said he was going to call her—”
“The guy obviously likes her,” Lauren said. “And I think she likes him. But your oldest daughter’s a psychotic mess when it comes to men. No offense.”
“What makes you say that?”
“She was in a foul mood when we came back from brunch. You know why?”
“Why?”
“Russell gave her a pair of four-hundred-dollar shoes.”
A pause. “She was mad about that?”
“Yeah,” Lauren said. “Nothing pisses off a girl like an expensive gift.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. She’s just weird.”
“If you find out anything—”
“You’ll be the first person I run and tell.”
She had just finished her work on the top and was arranging it on a hanger, dubiously fingering the damp spot her ministrations had left, when her phone rang again. She didn’t recognize the number, but as soon as she heard the voice, she knew who it was.
“Lauren?” he said.
She paused before letting out a wary “Hi.” She hadn’t expected to hear from him again. Run into him at the hospital by accident, maybe, but not get a phone call from him.
“I was wondering if I could see you,” he said. “Just for a few minutes. I need someone to talk to.” His voice had a strange quality—like something was flickering behind it, altering its rhythms in ways you couldn’t put your finger on but that made him not sound like himself.
“Why don’t you call Elizabeth?” She knew it was a snarky thing to say but didn’t see any reason not to be snarky.
“She’s a schoolteacher and can’t take phone calls during the day.” The blunt honesty of his response was so unexpected, Lauren didn’t know how to respond. “Can I see you?”
Lauren tried to feel out her own emotions. Anger and hurt . . . and curiosity. Why would Daniel call her after things had ended so badly? It wasn’t like he could get her in bed again. He had to know that. You could only be betrayed once that way, unless you were a royal idiot.
“We can talk,” she said finally, “but don’t expect me to be particularly warm or sympathetic.”
“I’ll take my chances. Where do you want to meet?”
“Come here. My sister won’t be home until late.”
“Twenty minutes okay?”
She assented and Daniel hung up.
She didn’t bother changing her clothes. She was done dressing for Daniel. She greeted him at the door in what she had thrown on that morning to do chores: red Juicy Couture sweatpants and a pink baby-doll tee that was frayed at the neck and bottom and said “Daddy’s Little Princesse” in Olde English script. Lauren had bought one for Ava and one for herself as an ironic statement about their actual relationship with their father. Neither of them had yet dared to wear it in front of him.
Daniel was also in sweats—gray bottoms and a green Dartmouth sweatshirt. His pale feet were jammed into flip-flops and he still had on his sunglasses even though the hallway was windowless and fairly dark.
“Hi,” he said. He didn’t make a move to touch her.
Lauren stepped back. “Come in.” She led him into the living room. “Do you want to sit down?”
He was turning his head from side to side, staring around the room, like he had lost something there the last time he had come in. Which, now that she thought about it, was eminently possible, given how they had flung their clothing around that night. But he hadn’t said anything about that on the phone.
Now he just said, “Yeah, okay,” and sat down hard on the armchair. After a moment, he seemed to realize he still had his sunglasses on and took them off, dropping them carelessly on the coffee table even though they were expensive Oliver Peoples aviators that Lauren had silently admired in the past.
Lauren balanced on the arm of the sofa, catty-corner to him, one leg crossed over the other so that foot swung freely about a foot off the ground. They were both silent for a moment. Daniel clasped his hands between his knees and stared down at them.
“You all right?” she said.
He hunched his shoulders forward. “I’m fine,” he said with his old brusqueness. Then he shook his head. Then he put his hands on his knees and rubbed the tops of both legs in unison. Then he said, “We had an appointment with the doctor this morning. We’re stopping chemo. I won’t be seeing you at the hospital anymore.”
“Is that—” She was about to ask whether it was a good or bad thing, but it was too obvious what the answer was, so she stopped herself. “What else did the doctor say?”
His voice was flat. “He said that it’s time for hospice care. We’ve been making calls, filing paperwork . . . She’s home for good. She won’t be leaving again. My brother’s with her now. But she’s been sleeping so much. I’m not sure it even matters who’s there.”
“I’m sorry,” Lauren said.
His face screwed up like something was hurting him, but then it went slack again. “The doctor said there was no point to continuing the chemo. That it was just making her weaker.”
“I’m sorry,” Lauren said again, because she didn’t know what else to say. She was trying to hold on to her anger at him, but it was hard when he was so pitiful.
His eyes darted around, not meeting hers or alighting on anything. There was a blindness behind them for all their motion. “He said we should just make her comfortable. Not worry about how much pain medication we give her. The important thing is that she not feel any pain.”
“That makes sense.”
She could have said anything: he wasn’t listening. “But all the meds—they keep her from being awake. She doesn’t even talk to us anymore. She can’t. She can’t stay awake long enough to finish a thought.” His face screwed up again, his mouth drawing up toward his nose, his eyes squinching half shut. Then his features fell back into place. It looked almost comical. “I thought when we got a time frame, we’d say, Okay, that’s it, but at least now we know how much time we have together so we’ll make the most of it. I didn’t think she’d be barely conscious.” He stared at Lauren’s bare and slightly dirty foot that was dangling a few inches above his own pale toes. “When she finally stops sleeping, she’ll be dead.”