March 16, 2012
If Sandy had been pressed to put a description to the Gelmans’ house in Garrison Forest, he might have said “fancy” or “interesting.” He readied those precise words because the lady of the house, who was leading him to the living room, struck him as someone who might solicit compliments, even from a stranger. The house wasn’t really to his taste, but he thought it was probably in good taste, although maybe not. Mainly, it had a decorated quality to it, a ruthless perfection that felt cold and off-putting. Even the one overtly personal touch, an enormous oil painting of a family that hung over the fireplace, seemed a little generic to him.
“Nice portrait,” he guessed.
“Thank you,” Lorraine Gelman said. “It makes me smile, every day. A lovely time in our lives. The boys were turning thirteen, Sydney was fifteen. I hate to say it because it sounds so proud-motherish, but I don’t think my sons ever had an awkward age.”
Awkward age. Sandy noticed that Lorraine did not say the same of her daughter, who was plump and not quite pretty, even as rendered by brush-for-hire.
“How long ago was that?” Making conversation, trying to put her at ease. And maybe himself. Although Lorraine had agreed to talk to him alone, he was unclear if she had asked her husband’s advice about this meeting. And she kept stressing that she had never met Julie Saxony. Not even one time, she said, and she said it more than once, often the sign of a big whopping lie.
“Almost twenty-five years ago. My daughter is a lawyer in New York now, and the boys are in Chicago. All settled with children—well, Sydney has a partner, but we adore her. Adriana is the best daughter-in-law in the bunch.”
Sandy couldn’t help thinking, as he often did, about the things this woman took for granted—her home, her healthy children, now grandchildren. If Bobby had been normal, could Sandy have accepted a partner with this woman’s easy grace? He yearned to think so.
“Well,” he said, taking out his pad, signaling the beginning of the interview. “Julie Saxony.”
“As I told you, I never met her.”
“No, but you knew Felix.”
“Of course. He was my husband’s closest friend; I am Bambi’s best friend to this day. We were sort of forced on each other, through our husbands, but we’ve ended up being as close as the men, maybe closer. You know how that goes.”
Sandy didn’t, but he nodded. He and Mary hadn’t done that couple-dating-couple thing. They had socialized with people from his work and hers, but they hadn’t created that dynamic where the men talk about sports and the women talk about kids. That was Mary’s decision as much as his, another legacy from Bobby. Mary could deal with a lot, but she learned quickly that people didn’t want her to contribute to their happy chatter about their sons and daughters. When she talked about Bobby, it was almost as if she was one of those people who offered pet stories as a counterpoint to kid stories. Other people thought Bobby was a tragedy, that it was in bad taste to mention him in a discussion about normal kids. Mary, so naturally sociable, had pulled away from the world when she realized no one wanted her to talk about Bobby. Not even Sandy.
“Felix’s relationship with Julie was a pretty open secret, though?”
“I think it appears that way in hindsight.” Okay, that answer was as prepared as precut lumber. But then, she had known why he was coming to talk to her. “Felix was circumspect, all things considered. He always had girlfriends, from the first. I asked Bert never to speak of it to me because I didn’t want to feel as if I were keeping secrets from Bambi. And Felix managed to keep his worlds very separate—until he disappeared. Only then was he so uncharacteristically inconsiderate.”
“How so?”
“He put his coffee shop in Julie’s name. That made it public, created a record, something for the newspapers to chew on. And there was Bambi, left with nothing.”
“I know that’s the official story.”
“It’s the true story. Bambi has been living by hook or crook ever since Felix left. We all thought he would provide for her. But no arrangements were made. Or, if they were, the person he trusted was unscrupulous.”
“Who was that? The person he trusted, I mean.”
A flicker of the lawyer’s wife in her eyes, a pause to consider the words that followed. “I didn’t mean to imply that there was anyone. I can only tell you that if Felix did make plans for Bambi, he didn’t do a very good job of it. Bert and I have done what we can. Bambi and her girls are like family to us. There was a time when I hoped Michelle might even marry one of my boys, but she’s almost four years older than they are and that is an insurmountable gap when one is young.”
“You say Felix didn’t make any arrangements for his wife, but he made sure his bail bondsman wasn’t hurting.”
“Do you know that for a fact?” she countered. “Or is it more gossip, like the gossip that Felix found a way to provide for Bambi?”
He gave her his best grin. “You got me there. But, come on, Tubman’s awfully good-natured for someone who ate a one-hundred-thousand-dollar bond.”
“Good-natured now. Time heals even financial wounds. Did you enjoy your visit with him?”
“Ah, so you guys still talk?”
“He and Bert do. Tubman was not someone to whom I was close.” She appeared to suppress a shudder, which seemed a little melodramatic to Sandy. The guy had seemed nice enough to him. He sensed some snobbery at work. Funny to him because he wouldn’t wipe his ass with a defense attorney, but bail bondsmen were doing honest work, by and large, just cogs in the system.
“So he told your husband that I came by?”
“Yes, and Bert tells me everything.” There was an odd emphasis in that sentence, a stress on “me.” “They were so close, once. The three men. Felix’s disappearance—that was the beginning of the end. Then Tubman got married, and his wife made him drop all his old friends. She was never comfortable with our crowd. Churchy. Maybe a little anti-Semitic, to tell the truth, although I suppose I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead. Anyway, I know when Julie Saxony disappeared, Bert and Tubman couldn’t help thinking she had gone to Felix. Then, when her body was found—I don’t know how to explain this, but it made them terribly sad.”
“Sad?”
“They had this fantasy, see, Felix was with his lady friend, enjoying life. They thought that would be a happy ending.”
“For Felix.”
She favored him with a smile. “Whereas—I won’t say I was glad that Julie was dead, but I felt better for Bambi when the body was found. Because it was really hurtful to her, having people think that Felix had chosen Julie over her. Hard enough to have no money, but if Felix had sent for Julie—that would have been a betrayal.”
“Not the affair, during the marriage?”
She nodded as if to concede a point. “A different kind of betrayal, then. Look, lots of men do what Felix did.”
“Including your husband?”
“Oh, no. Not Bert. Do you know Bert doesn’t even really understand how good-looking he is? Women are forever throwing themselves at him and he doesn’t even realize it.”
I bet, Sandy thought. Although, come to think of it, there had never been a lot of gossip about Bert Gelman, and that courthouse crowd gossiped like old biddies.
“What about Tubby?”
“What about him?”
“Was he, well, envious of Felix? For the relationship with Julie? I can’t help thinking he might have had a little thing for her.”
“Tubman. Tubman.” Lorraine Gelman had clearly never considered this idea before. But she was willing to consider it now, which was part of the reason that Sandy had wanted to talk to a woman. Women were natural-born murder police in some ways, at least if a case turned on love shit.
“I mean, he found her, right? Spotted her in a drugstore, took her to his friend’s place.”
“I guess so. But Tubman had a girl at the time.”
“I thought you said that was later?”
“No, he married later. After Felix disappeared.” Disappeared. She kept using that word. As if it weren’t quite Felix’s fault that he ran away while appealing his conviction. “Before, he dated a girl. A friend of Julie Saxony’s. Susie something.”
“A friend. You mean another stripper?”
“Yes. We did not socialize—I’m sorry if that sounds snobbish.” Why was she apologizing to him? Did she equate strippers with cops? “But even if I had been comfortable, Felix would never have stood for Bert and me to spend time with one of Julie’s friends. No overlap between the two worlds. Someone who knew Julie could never be around Bambi.”
“But Tubby knew her. And probably your husband, Bert. Right?”
“Men are different. It was the women who had to be kept separate. The worlds. Felix’s daughters, to this day—they don’t really understand that he actually owned the Variety. They think he had an office there, nothing more. It’s a selective bit of revisionism, and I think Bambi’s entitled to it.”
“So how did you know about the girlfriend? If you never socialized, I mean.”
Lorraine’s smile was polite and practiced, social but not exactly fake. Not exactly. “Tubman threw a party, sort of a holiday open house, and she presided over it, playing the part of hostess. Felix refused to go, even alone—Felix was smart that way. Whereas Bert is na?ve in some things. He didn’t realize the girlfriend would be there. She was so tiny—I don’t think she was five feet tall. The two of them together—I’m sorry, but everyone wondered how he didn’t crush her. Anyway, I was trapped talking to her for what seemed like hours. She wore a green velvet floor-length gown. I’ll never forget that. She looked like a teeny-tiny Christmas tree. She even wore red ornament earrings.”
Lorraine shook her head at the memory, clearly still appalled by Tubman’s girlfriend.
“But just because he had a girl—does that mean he didn’t have a thing for Julie? He discovered her, right?”
“Discovered. You make her sound like a starlet. He saw a pretty girl in a drugstore and told her that she could make more money. You know, most women wouldn’t have done that. That tells you a lot about Julie Saxony’s character right there. She wasn’t going to work at a drugstore if she could make more money dancing naked. And she wasn’t going to settle for dancing naked if she could get the boss.”
Sandy couldn’t help thinking about the chef, who had defended Julie for dancing in an outfit not much different from a modern bathing suit. Men and women saw some stuff differently.
“Are you saying she expected Felix to marry her?”
“Expected? I don’t know if she was that stupid, but it was what she wanted.”
“How can you say that with such certitude if you didn’t know her?”
“Because Tubman’s little girl, the one in the hostess gown, told me so. She told me that Julie was so determined to marry Felix that she had converted. Can you imagine? I almost felt sorry for her when I heard that. She was really very na?ve.”
“Na?ve.” Lorraine had used that word before. Yes, about her husband. Sandy always paid attention to the words people repeated. Lorraine Gelman thought being na?ve was one of the worst things a person could be.
“When was this?”
“Let’s see—Felix hadn’t left yet, so . . . ’74? ’75? I remember I wore a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress.”
Big help that.
“Do you remember her name?”
“Oh, dear—well, Tubman would, you should really ask him. I mean, we spoke for only a little bit.”
“You said it was hours.”
“I said it seemed like hours. In terms of the toll it took, the boredom. But it was just the one time. Susie—Susie—I can’t summon a last name. I’m sorry, I don’t feel I’ve been any help at all.”
“Oh, no, you have.” At least she hadn’t shot his idea down. Tubman had dated another stripper, a friend of Julie’s. Tubby had married a woman who took him away from the old gang—but not until after Felix disappeared. Had he made a play for Julie? Had he been entrusted to take care of Bambi, then given the money to Julie in hopes that she would reward him by loving him back? Going from the manager of the Coffee Pot Shoppe to an upscale B and B seemed like an unlikely journey, even over a decade.
He thanked Lorraine for her time, searched for a compliment for her house, feeling himself somewhat lacking in this department. “Your home is really impressive,” he said at last. Not a lie, it definitely made an impression.
If you knew Susie—the line stuck in his head on the drive home, like a hamster going around and around in a wheel. Sandy was pretty sure he did know Susie. He walked through the door of his house, not even bothering to hang up his coat and hat, niceties that he observed as a tribute to Mary, who cared so about niceties, who argued every day that the little things mattered. Hanging up coats, making beds, cleaning the kitchen at night. Everything had to be perfect, because of their son who could never be perfect, not even close.
He looked back through the original file. Yes, there it was: Susan Borden had been the housekeeper at Julie’s B and B, but she had been on vacation the week that Julie disappeared. The Havre de Grace police had interviewed her, but it was a pretty say-nothing witness sheet, and the Baltimore detectives hadn’t even bothered with her fifteen years later.
Could be a coincidence, this Susan Borden and Lorraine Gelman’s Susie. Common as a name could be and it wasn’t even the same name, not precisely. But Sandy knew they were one and the same. Not a hunch. Not a feeling. Knowledge, honed by practice. Sandy had failed as a restaurateur. He had failed as a father. He had failed his wife when he failed as a father, although she had never called him on it, to her dying day. Literally, to her dying day. Not a word of reproach, not a hint of resentment, but he was less in her eyes for his weakness. The man who had swept her off her feet on their first date, carried her home, promised in word and deed to take care of her always, had failed. He wanted to be larger than life to her, wanted her to look at him as she had that day, eyes shining with excitement. That man died when Bobby was diagnosed. He just didn’t know how to be a father to a kid like that. Truth is, maybe he wouldn’t have known how to be a father to any kid.
But this, this job? This he could do, better than almost anyone.
January 5, 1996
Shabbat dinner, although a relatively new ritual in the Brewer-Sutton household, was already a smooth-running routine, a testament to Linda’s organizational skills and her determination to see a thing through once her mind was made up. Linda had decided last fall, when Noah entered fourth grade, that Judaism was due for a comeback in her household. True, the winter sunset was long past by the time she got home from work, but her timing was otherwise impeccable. The tenderloin was resting on a cutting board, the r?sti potatoes were minutes away from crisp hot perfection. Two loaves of challah waited in the center of the table, wrapped in a green linen napkin. The candlesticks and kiddush cup had been polished to a high shine, thanks to the cleaning woman who now came twice a week. She also baked the challah, but Linda made and braided the loaves in the morning, before leaving for work.
The only thing missing were Linda’s sisters and her mother, who had promised to make it tonight for the first time in weeks. Not that Linda cared—she had started observing the Sabbath for her kids, determined to ground them in something, anything—but Rachel had been unusually adamant that the entire family should gather. Strange, because they had seen one another only three weeks ago, for a perfunctory Hanukkah at Bambi’s house. It had been a lackluster affair, not so much Hanukkah as Christmas Eve with potato pancakes to Linda’s now critical eye. Too much emphasis on the gifts, almost no ritual. Bambi hadn’t even bothered to dig out the dreidel, much less buy gelt for the children, and they couldn’t light the menorah properly because it turned out the shamas had broken off and never been resoldered.
But Rachel said she was feeling stir-crazy in advance. A blizzard was predicted for Sunday, a big one, and Linda would be on-call once the storm hit, giving interviews about outages and power lines. Linda thought this part of her job a bizarre custom. The people without power couldn’t hear or see her confident predictions about the crews working to restore electricity, and those with power didn’t really care about those without. They just wanted to know when their streets would be plowed.
Her boss had already told her to pack a bag and check into a centrally located hotel tomorrow and to be prepared to work around the clock through Monday morning. Linda never minded long days or hard work; she was the family breadwinner. And her being on-call didn’t upset the family’s various child-care arrangements because Henry had left his public defender’s job a few years ago and was now teaching science at City College, one of Baltimore’s best high schools. His newfound professional contentment was like the little woodstove in the corner of their great room—it didn’t really contribute much to the bottom line, but it made everyone feel a little cozier.
And, oh, how Linda envied him at times. I never get snow days, she thought self-pityingly, removing the string from the tenderloin and starting to slice. The warm meat almost sighed at the knife’s touch. Linda was the only decent cook among the Brewer women, and she recognized her own smugness on this topic. Linda knew all her faults. The more honest you were with yourself, the less you had to worry about the world’s opinion. She was always trying to persuade her bosses of this approach. Tell the truth, whenever possible, and start with yourself.
“Hey, sis.” Rachel came in the side door, hung her coat and scarf in the alcove of cubbyholes and hooks that Linda’s family used as a de facto mudroom. Seeing the ready platter of tenderloin, she took it from Linda and placed it on the table. “Are you making a béarnaise? Go ahead, and I’ll do whatever else needs to be done.” She waved her arms around theatrically.
Her boyfriend, Joshua, waited in his coat until Rachel pointed him to an empty hook. He then stood in the center of the kitchen, pretty much in Linda’s path, until Rachel indicated that he could take a seat in the corner of the large space off the kitchen that served as a family room. Linda liked Joshua. He was a mensch, a word no one would ever use in connection with Rachel’s ex-husband, Marc. But he was so passive, one of those people who never take the initiative in anything.
“The good silver?” Rachel asked, still making those weird gestures.
“Sure. Oh, f*ck—my carrots,” Linda said, rushing to the stove before the steamer went dry.
“The carrots are fine,” Rachel said.
“The carrots are fine.”
Still nothing. Rachel had thought it a good bit of wordplay, but no one else noticed, not even Joshua, who was in on the joke, or should have been. She began collecting crystal stemware, continuing to flutter her fingers. She wasn’t crazy about religion, but she approved of Linda’s dinners. She was going to do something similar when she had children. Maybe not a Shabbat dinner, but something regular, ritualistic.
With Joshua parked on the sofa by himself—Henry was upstairs, doing something with the kids, no doubt—Rachel continued to set the table, wiggling her fingers at Linda every chance she got, but her sister remained distracted, probably by the weather news. What a horrible job Linda had. She was important only when things went wrong and then she became the face of the public utility, the messenger that everyone wanted to kill.
“Everyone is coming tonight, right?” Rachel asked, putting out the silverware. The good stuff, which had belonged to their great-grandmother. She was surprised Bambi hadn’t pawned it at some point and wondered at her decision to give it to Linda. Had she despaired of Rachel ever having a family? Rachel and Marc had owned nice china and silver, but it had come from his family and gone back to them. She wondered if he and his second wife, a pretty, pliable girl whom he had married in an insultingly short time—and most definitely not the woman he had cheated with—were putting out the silver tonight. No, she would be forced, as Rachel had been forced, to eat in the Singers’ claustrophobic dining room, the cold and formal antithesis to this lively hodgepodge.
Bambi and Michelle arrived. Somehow, it was still a surprise to Rachel how much Michelle resembled their mother now that she was in her twenties. And yet Bambi retained some indefinable edge, even at fifty-five going on fifty-six. Her beauty was more profound, while Michelle’s felt flashy and fleshy, a little too carnal.
The meal ready, the prayers recited, Rachel took the seat to her mother’s right and plopped her hand between their plates. Still, no awareness. Was she going to have to send up a flare? It was Michelle, down the table, who finally noticed. Magpie Michelle never missed anything shiny.
“Is that a yellow diamond?”
“It was my grandmother’s,” Joshua said quickly, more or less as they had planned. “We got married this week.”
Rachel and Joshua had not planned on the long silence that fell. A grave, judging silence.
“Congratulations,” Henry said when it became clear that the other three women were not going to speak. “It takes a tough man to marry a Brewer woman.”
“Oh, hush,” Linda said. “That’s hardly the right thing to say.”
“And I’ve never thought of you as particularly tough, Henry,” Michelle said.
“I’m the only son-in-law,” Henry said, unperturbed by Linda’s corrections or Michelle’s insults. “I’m thrilled to have the company.”
“You weren’t always the—” Michelle began. It was hard to say if she stopped speaking of her own accord or because of the look that Linda shot her.
“When?” Bambi asked, slicing her tenderloin into very tiny pieces.
“Two days ago,” Rachel said. “At the courthouse.”
“Smart,” Henry said. “No tax implications for 1995.”
“I mean, we’re very happy for you—we all love Joshua,” Bambi said. “Only—why that way? You could have had a small wedding.”
“I don’t like weddings,” Rachel said. “I never have.”
“Yes, we all remember your Vegas elopement,” Michelle put in, earning another glare from Linda. It didn’t intimidate her. “You could have had a judge just come to a party and marry you.”
She was enjoying this, Rachel realized. Michelle was usually the one who disappointed the others. Taking an extra semester to get her degree, then moving back home because she had done absolutely nothing about finding a job, threatening to answer those “live model” ads in the back of the City Paper if her mother and sisters didn’t get off her back. She would, too. Michelle was never lazy when it came to vindictiveness.
“No, you can’t,” Joshua put in. “If you get married anywhere but the courthouse, it has to be someone religious.”
“Okay, so a rabbi, then.”
“I don’t like rabbis.” True. Very true.
“Then a Unitarian minister or a Wiccan priestess or whatever,” Michelle continued. “It’s only a ceremony. What’s the big deal?”
“I just—I was embarrassed,” Rachel said. “It is a second marriage for me.”
“But it’s Joshua’s first,” Bambi said. “At least—I think it is.” A gentle yet pointed barb. Joshua had been accompanying Rachel to family gatherings for more than a year now, but he never offered much information about himself.
“It is,” Joshua assured Bambi. “And although it was hard to let go of that vision I’ve carried of my wedding day, I found I didn’t mind.”
Joshua’s joke fell flat. Even Rachel found it wanting, and Joshua’s sense of humor was a large part of his appeal. But she wouldn’t glare at him or correct him. She didn’t want a Henry, who loved to be nagged so he could play the henpecked spouse, straight out of a sitcom. Linda and Henry’s marriage worked for them, but it wasn’t right for her. And Bambi’s way hadn’t worked for her, either. Rachel was going to find her own way of being married this time.
“May I throw you a party?” Bambi asked. “A small one, for family and friends?”
“No,” Rachel said quickly, too quickly, but she had to shut that down. Why did Bambi always want to spend money she didn’t have? Good Lord, couldn’t she remember what parties had cost her? But, no, she never remembered because she had been bailed out time and time again. And whose fault was that? Mostly Rachel’s.
Linda’s oldest, Noah, bored by talk of weddings, begged to be excused and allowed to eat his food in front of the television. The three younger girls—“Linda breeds like an Orthodox,” Bambi had once noted in an unguarded moment, exhibiting that weird anti-Semitism that only Jews could carry—understood enough to realize they had been gypped out of being flower girls. Their voices rose, cascading over one another’s until Linda silenced them with a few well-chosen threats, softened by a promise of dessert if they behaved. Rachel looked forward to the day when her children would join them, hoped the cousins would be close.
“So,” Henry said, “Linda tells me this blizzard is going to be the real deal. The big one. Is everyone prepared?”
Rachel smiled at Henry, grateful that he had managed to divert everyone from the topic of her marriage—although Michelle left her place for a better look at the ring, which even she couldn’t help admiring. The talk ebbed and flowed away from Rachel. Henry had a gift for public relations, too, Rachel realized. Or maybe he just had a lot of experience at soothing angry Brewer women.
Linda brought out the dessert, Berger cookies and ice cream. Linda was very canny about knowing when to do things herself and when to delegate, Rachel thought, where effort made a difference and where it didn’t. Rachel sipped her coffee. The evening hadn’t been as she had hoped, but it was behind her now. The announcement had been made.
Then Bambi asked out of the blue: “Have you told Joshua’s parents?”
“We had dinner with them last night,” Rachel said.
“That’s not a yes or no,” Michelle said. Jesus, Michelle, go to law school already.
“We did the same thing,” Rachel said. “As I did with you. I waved my hand around a lot, trying to catch the light. His mother noticed—but it’s her mother’s ring; she gave it to Joshua.”
“So you told them last night,” Bambi said.
“They happened to guess,” Rachel said. “When they saw the ring.”
“But they knew first.”
“We had to reschedule our Sunday night dinner with them because of the blizzard, just in case.” She had known this would be a sensitive point, but there was no way to tell Joshua that Bambi must be first. She would sulk for days now.
“We could have had a wedding party in conjunction with my birthday,” her mother said. “That’s only three weeks away.”
“But that wouldn’t have been fair to you, stealing your thunder that way.”
“I don’t care about my birthday,” her mother said. “I’m going to be fifty-six. It’s a nothing age.”
“We’ll have a huge blowout when you’re sixty,” Linda said.
“Please—I’ll want to celebrate that even less.” A pause. “I got pregnant on my twentieth birthday. January 30, 1960.”
The sisters looked at one another.
“Mother,” Linda said. “Don’t be silly. I was born September first, and I weighed nine pounds. That would make me the world’s largest preemie.”
Rachel assumed—and assumed her sisters were assuming—that her mother had tripped up on the oft-told lie about Linda being conceived on her parents’ wedding night. December 31, 1959. The girls had long ago figured out that their parents had sex before their wedding night. They rather liked them for it. They also liked their mother for her polite fictions about it, her old-fashioned decorum. But now she was taking it too far, telling such an obvious lie. Even Noah could see through it, if his attention weren’t consumed by the weird soup he was making from his ice cream and cookies.
Her mother stood. “Michelle, we really should go. I have to get home before the blizzard.”
“It won’t even start snowing until Sunday,” Linda said.
“I want to make sure I have what I need. Maybe I’ll drive to the Giant and buy all the clichéd things. Milk, toilet paper, bread. You know our driveway: If it’s as bad as they say it’s going to be, I won’t get out for days.”
“I’m not ready to go,” Michelle protested.
“I’ll take her home,” Rachel promised. “It’s not that far out of my way.”
“Or I could spend the night at your apartment,” Michelle said. Rachel could see the wheels turning. Michelle would get to her place—now hers and Joshua’s—in Fells Point and propose going out. She assumed Rachel would beg off—she always did—and Michelle could then head out on her own. She would show up late the next morning, clutching a huge coffee from the Daily Grind. It would never occur to her to bring one to Rachel or to divulge anything about how she had spent the evening. She might not even come back for days, blithely lying to her mother via phone that she was stranded at Rachel’s because of the blizzard. Michelle, ma belle, their father had sung to her when she was a baby. I love you, I love you, I love you. Had any other man told Michelle that he loved her? Admired her, wanted her, made love to her, yes. But had she been loved?
Bambi left, clearly affronted. Rachel wanted to believe it was because Michelle was staying behind, or even that all three daughters had ganged up on her over the lie about Linda’s conception.
But Rachel knew the real slight was her secret marriage to Joshua. Bambi had to know things first. Rachel had disappointed her mother. It was unfair. She could—she had—gone to such lengths to protect her mother, and now she would get the Frigidaire treatment, as her father had called it, Bambi’s patented deep freeze, all because Joshua’s parents knew first.
“She didn’t even say ‘mazel tov,’” she said to Linda later, cleaning up, trying to make a joke of it.
“Why did you get married in such a rush?” Michelle asked. “Are you knocked up?”
“Michelle!” Spoken in unison, as Linda and Rachel often did.
“Are you knocked up?”
“Michelle!” the terrible twosome gasped, always in each other’s pockets.
Michelle was curled into an armchair, watching her sisters clean up. It wouldn’t be accurate to say it didn’t occur to her to help. It occurred to her and she decided not to. Even in Linda’s big kitchen, there was only so much counter space. A third person would just get in the way.
Henry had decided, after Bambi’s departure, to make a late-night run to the Giant as well, and the kids had clamored to go with him. Rachel had sent Joshua with them and now it was just the three sisters. Three Sisters. Michelle was supposed to have read that for some course at College Park, but she got by with the CliffsNotes. She doubted Chekhov could tell her anything about three sisters that she didn’t already know. She sat in the chair, remote in hand, flicking, flicking, flicking through the channels. She hated Linda’s decor, the whole Martha Stewart, country-cozy thing. Michelle liked modern things, sleek and minimalist.
“That was weird,” Linda said.
“What?” Rachel sounded guilty to Michelle’s ears. Oh, this was rich, Rachel being in the doghouse for once. Michelle must remember to stoke her mother’s hurt, try to keep this going for a while. Plus, it would take Bambi’s mind off the fact that Michelle didn’t have a job.
“Mom trying to persuade us I was conceived on her birthday. We’ve all lived quite happily with the falsehood of the wedding-night conception all these years. Do you think she’s getting addled?”
“Fifty-five is young for that,” Rachel said, but she sounded worried. Rachel already had a dent between her eyes from her incessant worrying.
“Trust me, she’s fine,” Michelle said, settling on MTV. It was a rerun of The Real World, which she wouldn’t mind auditioning for, although she couldn’t imagine a Real World: Baltimore. Baltimore was way too real for the Real World. Still, with her looks and her story, she would easily make it through the preliminary selection rounds.
The problem was, she found the people on the show a little pathetic. She wanted the free rent in a gorgeous apartment, but not if the price was a bunch of petty squabbles and, worse, those terribly earnest conversations. Could be good exposure for an actress, but did she really want to be an actress anyway? It seemed like a monstrous amount of work, and there was seldom any money in it.
“Mom’s just upset that you didn’t tell her about your wedding before Joshua’s folks knew,” Linda said.
“She likes Joshua—”
“We all like Joshua,” Michelle said. “Although I always thought he was gay. Are you sure he’s not gay?”
She thought she’d get another double Michelle! But they held their tongues.
“Okay, okay, he’s not gay. But I’m sorry, he seems like such a lightweight compared to—”
“You were thirteen,” Rachel said, cutting her off. Man, she couldn’t even bear to hear Marc’s name. Weird. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know he was rich. And you let him screw you over. Not a penny.” She put on an English accent. “Not a penny farthing for you, Rachel.” She thought it would make her sister laugh. She was wrong.
“We were married for only two years. It was a mistake. A very young, foolish mistake.”
“It will be sixteen years next fall that I met Henry,” Linda said, obviously trying to steer them away from a fight. “Together for fifteen years, married for thirteen. Four kids.”
“And Mom was nineteen when she met Dad,” Rachel put in.
“So stop acting like I’m a baby at twenty-two. The way I see it, I’m not the one in this room with the blemished record.”
That hurt Rachel, and Michelle instantly regretted it. She didn’t want to hurt Rachel. She looked up to her, truly. Looked up to both her sisters. But she resented them, too. Those photos in their oh-so-proper riding outfits. The years, however brief, of having their father and money. But she resented their closeness, most of all. They told each other things that they didn’t tell her. So it was only right that she didn’t tell them everything. Not that she had any significant secrets. But she was working on a few.
“When are you going to have kids?” Linda asked Rachel.
“Soon,” Rachel said. “Really soon.”
“I repeat,” Michelle said. “Are you knocked up?”
“Who knows?” Rachel said. “But, no, that’s not why we got married.”
“Don’t expect me to babysit,” Michelle said. It was surprising how easy it was to watch The Real World without sound. She had no problem following it whatsoever. It was basically fight-fight-fight montage fight-fight-fight montage.
“I wouldn’t,” Rachel said. “But what if you decide you want to? What if you get married young, like all the Brewer women?”
“Oh, I might get married young. But I’m never having kids. Never.” Michelle hadn’t had her childhood yet. She wanted to find a job or a man that would allow her to live very well. She wasn’t na?ve. She realized that both required effort. Different kinds of effort, but effort. And while it would probably surprise her sisters, she had decided that a job was better than a man. For one thing, you could move from job to job with much greater ease than you could move from husband to husband. She was going to find whatever job paid the best for the least amount of work, even if it was boring as hell.
She rode down to Fells Point with Rachel and Joshua. She had forgotten that Joshua was part of the equation now, even though he and Rachel had been sharing her apartment for more than six months. Joshua was just that kind of guy, easy to forget. Once in the apartment, he seemed comically out of place in the feminine environment that Rachel had created in the little one-bedroom under the eaves of an eighteenth-century rowhouse. Michelle realized they would probably be moving before long. She wondered if she could take over Rachel’s lease. Again, that would require a job.
Rachel and Joshua did not go to bed right away. Michelle had the sense they were waiting her out, trying to keep her entertained so she wouldn’t go out, after all. Good luck, she thought. Toward midnight, as Rachel struggled to keep her eyes open, Michelle said sweetly, as if conferring a kindness: “I’ll let you two go to bed. But I’m restless. I think I’ll go get a nightcap over at John Steven’s.”
“So late?” Joshua said. Already trained to do Rachel’s dirty work. Oh, won’t you be a good little Brewer man, following your wife around like a dog.
“It’s not late at all for someone my age. And if that storm comes through as promised, there will be plenty of time to sit indoors.”
“It’s just not safe,” Rachel said. “For someone alone, I mean. I worry.”
Michelle laughed as she adjusted her coat and scarf. Their grandmother had given Bambi an old mink and Michelle had taken it over, even had it tailored and repaired at great expense. A boyfriend’s expense. She loved it when someone—always a girl, and almost always an unattractive one—said: “Fur is murder.” Michelle would say blithely: “No, it’s the consequence of murder. As is most of human history, all the way back to Cain and Abel, so get over it.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t go out,” Rachel said. “We have bourbon here, a bottle of Romanian wine, from the cheap barrels at Trinacria—”
“Oh, what’s the big deal, Rach? Do you think I’m going to go out the door and never come back?”
“Well,” Rachel said, “it wouldn’t be unprecedented in our family history.”
Michelle wavered for a moment, but she had too much pride not to follow through on her plans. She went out into the night, snug in her coat, giddy with her prospects. Attention, sex, money, love. The first two were almost always available to her and she was after the third now. Love could wait. The sky was clear, and even in the city one could see the stars. It was impossible to imagine a blizzard was coming.
When Rachel and Joshua woke up the next morning, Michelle was sitting in the little kitchen with a cup of coffee from the Daily Grind, reading a Beacon-Light she had found on their neighbor’s doorstep. Neither Rachel nor Joshua asked her about her evening, and she didn’t volunteer any details. She was her father’s daughter. Free as the breeze, accountable to no one, hardwired to understand probability, if not possibility.