Farewell, Dorothy Parker (5 page)

The girls were sitting at the kitchen table, doing homework. Ivy was struggling with her spelling, and their mother was trying to help her. Words like “dense” and “fence” were giving her trouble.

“Spell fence,” their mother said.

“F-E-N-S-E?” asked Ivy.

“F-E-N-
C
-E,” their mother corrected. “Now try to use it in a sentence with one of your other words.”

“She’s too
dense
to spell
fence,
” Violet said, grinning. She expected her mother to roar with laughter, but she just looked at her crossly.

The next thing Violet knew, she was on the floor. Ivy had tipped over her chair and was standing over her, seething.

“Why’d you do that?” Violet said, rubbing the spot where the back of her head had hit the hard tile.

“I hate you!” Ivy said.

For a moment, Violet couldn’t speak. She just lay there, her eyes filling with tears as she stared into her sister’s angry face.

“I was just kidding,” she said, but it was too late. Ivy had stormed out of the room. When Violet pounded on her bedroom door to try to apologize, she wouldn’t answer. And the next morning at breakfast, Ivy acted as if Violet were invisible.

“I’m sorry!” Violet said. “Please talk to me.
Please!
”

But Ivy was stone-faced, staring at the back of her cereal box as if it were the only thing that mattered. She acted the same way that afternoon and evening. The next day was more of the same. And the next and the next. Ivy had completely stopped talking to her sister, and Violet was in agony. She cried. She pleaded. She apologized. Night after night she lay prostrate outside her sister’s door, wailing and begging. But Ivy was resolute.

Their parents tried to intervene, but nothing they said or did would get Ivy to talk to her sister, or get Violet to stop her hysterics. She was no longer performing for her parents or even talking to her friends in school. Her existence had become pure misery, as nothing mattered but getting Ivy to speak to her again.

It was torture, pure torture. And little Violet knew that she had only herself to blame. The misery of self-loathing took root in her tender psyche and began to flourish. She was a horrible girl who had said a horrible thing, and now she was suffering horrible consequences.

One night, about three months later, as Violet lay in bed, her mother stroked her forehead and told her that if she left Ivy alone, she would come around.

“She will?” Violet said.

“I promise.”

And so that’s what she did. For the next two days, Violet didn’t say a word to Ivy, and barely spoke at all to her parents.

Then, on the following day, a miracle happened. Violet was rummaging through the kitchen drawers, trying to find the Scotch tape she needed to complete a school project, when she heard a single word: “Here.”

She looked up and saw her sister holding out her hand, the roll of Scotch tape resting on her palm like a peace offering.

And that was it. Within days, their relationship was back to normal, except for one thing—Violet promised herself she would never make a wisecrack again.

It was hard only for the first year or so. But every time she slipped, Ivy punished her with icy silence, and so Violet learned to keep it all locked inside a cold vault of shame. For a while, she missed the attention she used to get from the grown-ups. But even that paled in comparison to the joy of being back in Ivy’s good graces.

Of course, as she matured and Ivy’s flaws, shortcomings, and
human frailties became clear to her, Violet stopped worshipping her sister as a goddess and they became friends on the equal, if sometimes rocky, footing of adulthood. Still, the fear of her own verbal power never diminished. And although a grown-up Violet was well aware that this single childhood trauma had been the cause of her social anxiety, her fears persisted.

Today, though, she wasn’t going to think about that. She was simply going to bond with her Dorothy Parker in the one way she knew would do the trick. Violet took the bottle of gin from the liquor cabinet and poured two more drinks. And then, instead of putting it back on the shelf, carried it with her into the study, where her thirsty friend awaited her.

Chapter 5

The first thing Violet noticed was the grittiness beneath her lids. Then the pounding in her head. And finally the impossible stiffness in her neck. What the hell kind of position had she slept in? She opened her eyes and realized she’d spent the night passed out on the settee in the study. Only she couldn’t quite put her finger on the reason.

Then she remembered. Or remembered most of it, anyway.

Woollcott was curled up on her chest, asleep, legs twitching in the happy frolics of doggy dreamland. She waited until his muscles settled and gently put him aside. Then she sat up and looked around. The wingback chair was empty, and the guest book was on the coffee table, closed.

Dorothy Parker had vanished.

Violet considered opening the book, just to be sure what happened yesterday wasn’t her imagination. But she needed coffee first. She wasn’t learning anything until she quieted the pounding in her head.

She shuffled into the kitchen and brewed enough for two, which might have felt silly if she wasn’t so groggy. But she really
had
spent the night drinking with Dorothy Parker, hadn’t she?

Violet leaned against the counter drinking her coffee, waiting for the caffeine to kick in and dissolve her cobwebs. The phone rang—too loudly—and she checked the caller ID: Carl. Damn. Tomorrow was move-in day, and she hadn’t yet told him he wasn’t welcome. Or, more
precisely, she had, but not emphatically enough to get through his granite skull. She let the machine pick up, as she was still too foggy to deal with him.

Hey, babe, it’s me. Where are you? Oh, maybe you left to get Delaney. Call you later.

Delaney. Right, it was Saturday. Violet looked at the clock. She didn’t have much time.

She finished her coffee, poured two more, and carried them back into the study, still barely awake. Her plan was to set the cups down on the coffee table, then place the book on the chair, gently open it, and stand back. But when she reached the room she nearly dropped the cups.

“Good morning, dear.” Mrs. Parker sat in the wingback chair, stroking Cliché and looking not the least bit hungover.

Surprised and confused, Violet tried to focus. Was Dorothy Parker able to materialize at will? Hadn’t she explained that she couldn’t appear unless the book was open? Then Violet realized a certain furry companion had nosed open the book the day before, and must have done it again.

“Woollcott?” Violet asked, indicating the open book on the coffee table.

“It seems I have a fan.”

Violet handed her guest a cup of coffee and lowered herself into the other chair. Woollcott jumped onto her lap, and the two women sat facing each other, drinking their coffee and stroking their little dogs.

“What happened last night?” Violet said. “Who shut the book? It’s all a blur.”

“It was you, my dear.”

“Me?” Violet closed her eyes, trying to remember. “God, I’m sorry,” she finally said. “I guess that was rude.”

“Not at all,” Mrs. Parker said. “It was at my request. I finally found the perfect remedy for a hangover. I disappear, and when I return, I’m new again.”

“Neat trick.”

“Nevertheless, I don’t recommend it. Death can be so”—she paused to blow across her hot coffee—“
inconvenient.
And yet it still beats living in Hollywood.”

Violet laughed, remembering that Dorothy Parker had spent a number of years on the West Coast, writing movie scripts and fighting with studio heads. Once, in a snide reference to the power wielded by one of the most imperious moviemakers, Dorothy Parker had quipped that the streets in Hollywood were paved with Goldwyn.

Still later, she referred to another studio as “Twentieth Century Fucks.”

Violet asked Dorothy Parker if she wanted something to eat.

“No need,” she said. “That’s another thing about death. Digestion becomes a mere nuisance.” She looked hard at Violet. “Forgive me for not inquiring sooner, but were you ever married?”

“I’m divorced. Why do you ask?”

“Trying to figure out if I should call you
Miss
or
Mrs.
”

“I prefer
Ms.,
which doesn’t signify either married or single. But you can just call me Violet.”

“I shall call you Ms. Epps. And you may call me Mrs. Parker.”

Violet bit her lip to hide her disappointment. She thought they would be friends.

“Oh, don’t look so glum,” Mrs. Parker said. “Some of my closest friends called me Mrs. Parker their whole lives. It’s one of those customs that keeps the world a civilized place. And when you’re as beastly inside as I am, you need all the civilization you can get.”

The explanation appeased Violet, who related to the notion of feeling beastly inside. Perhaps it was one of the reasons she had always felt
connected to this great lady. “Mrs. Parker,” she said, trying it out, and decided it did indeed feel civilized.

Later, when Violet told her new houseguest that she had to leave to pick up her niece, Mrs. Parker insisted that the guest book remain open.

“So many books in this room,” she said, “and it’s been a long time since I’ve read.” Violet couldn’t see what harm it would do, especially since Mrs. Parker was confined to the study, so she agreed.

Now Violet sat in her parked car in front of the Webers’ house, where her niece, Delaney, was currently living. She tapped twice on her horn, hoping Delaney would rush out so they could make a quick getaway. Any time Violet could pull away from the curb without having to face Sandra, she felt like throwing confetti.

Otherwise, she felt like throwing up.

The front door opened and Delaney ran out, backpack hooked over one shoulder, hair flying around her face. It was the same dark brown as her Aunt Violet’s, but thick and wavy like her mother’s. Violet’s shiny hair hung straight and thin. And while she knew many people envied the silkiness of her long tresses—or at least said they did—Violet always coveted the full-bodied mane her sister had passed on to beautiful Delaney.

“Hurry up,” Delaney said, lowering herself into the passenger seat and slamming the door, “before Lady Munchausen and Lord Sunkist come out.”

The girl came up with new nicknames for her grandparents every few weeks. The current pair referred to her grandmother’s neurotic hovering and her grandfather’s newly acquired orange complexion—the result of an apparent addiction to self-tanning products.

The nickname habit had materialized after the accident. Delaney simply stopped using real names. For anyone. Her cardiologist,
Dr. Nichimov, became
Dr. Knock ’Em Off.
Her impulsive friend Ashley became
Rashly.
Others were less clever but just as steadfast. A close pal named Cynthia Chu became
C.C.,
and her Aunt Violet was simply
V.

The only people she called by their real first names were her parents, Neil and Ivy. But, of course, that was to avoid referring to them as Mom and Dad.

Her therapist had explained that it was Delaney’s way of distancing herself from emotional attachments. There was simply too much pain for the child to deal with. Violet was instructed not to press the issue—the girl would eventually come around on her own. So when Delaney started calling her
Aunt
V, instead of simply V, Violet was thrilled. Even an inch of progress felt like cause for celebration.

“You okay?” Violet asked.

“Better than you,” Delaney said. “You look like crap, Aunt V.”

“Good to see you, too. Buckle, please.”

Before Violet could put the car in gear and go, Sandra scurried out the door, yelling, “Wait! Wait!” Violet gritted her teeth and watched as the short, bosomy woman ran toward them. The wind, Violet noticed, was no match for Sandra’s Aqua Net, as her brittle, wheat-colored hair remained stationary.

“Just go,” Delaney said.

“I can’t.”

“Shit,” the girl whispered.

Sandra tapped on Delaney’s window and pantomimed rolling it down.

Delaney pressed the button to open her window. “Are you lassoing something?” she asked her grandmother.

“What?”

Violet jabbed her niece with her elbow. “How are you, Sandra?” she said.

Sandra ignored her question. “I’ve had enough of your sass today, young lady,” she said to Delaney.

“Let me move back home with Aunt V and I’ll take my sass with me.”

Sandra folded her arms. “She has a piano lesson at eleven tomorrow.”

“Her piano lessons are on Thursday,” Violet said.

“We changed her schedule.”

“Why?” Violet asked, irritated. A Sunday-morning lesson would cut into their time together.

Sandra tsked. “Just make sure she’s there on time.”

Violet rolled her eyes. When had she ever been irresponsible about getting Delaney anyplace on time? “Of course,” she said.

“The piano teacher hates when she’s late.”

“Don’t worry,” Violet said, her jaw tensing. “She won’t be late.”

“I’m not supposed to worry!” the older woman said to the heavens, and then addressed her granddaughter. “Did you pack your digoxin?”