Going Out in Style (9 page)

“You take it,” Albert said, handing her the jewelry box. “It’s yours, Susan.”

“I don’t want it. I said I don’t
want
it, Albert.”

“Well, I can’t wear it. You take it.”

“No. You keep it. Your wife can wear it someday.”

“My wife?” Albert looked thoroughly startled. He shook his head, dropped his glasses, retrieved them from the
floor and polished them carefully on the doily which lay on his mother’s dressing table. “Don’t be silly. They’re yours, Susie. I don’t want to hear any more arguments.”

“Oh, Albert.” Susan opened the jewelry box and stared at the contents. The fiery stones glittered harshly, even in the subdued pink light of the bedroom. She lifted up the diamond-and-sapphire necklace that Bella had been wearing the night she died, and let it slip through her hand. She put the jewelry box down with a shudder.

“Horrible,” she said. “Really horrible. Look, Albert, I’ll take one or two little things, things I can wear, and I’ll pick out some pieces for Aunt Etta. I know she’s had her eye on one of Mother’s bracelets for a while. I guess I could give this tiara to Dora, with her fixation on royalty, but it’s really too valuable to give away. Maybe she could wear some of Mother’s clothes instead. Is that too gruesome?”

She chose two necklaces and two bracelets, and they agreed to put the rest of the jewelry into a safe-deposit box. “I don’t know why in the world Mother kept it around here anyway,” Susan said. “Silly of her. Now, what else?”

Albert was gazing in mild despair at one of the closets. “How many clothes did she have, anyway? I don’t remember her having so much.”

“That’s because you never notice clothes, Albert. Mother had a magnificent wardrobe.”

“Do you want any of these?”

“Oh, yes, Albert. I’d love that sequined red silk evening gown. I can wear it to work at the
Ridgewood Star
. That should pop George’s eyes right out of his head.”

“Is that a no?”

“That’s a no, Albert. I can’t wear that stuff. Only Mother could pull it off.”

Albert chewed thoughtfully on his lip. “How about Aunt Etta? Could she use any of this?”

“That just shows you how little you know about the important things in life, Albert. Etta wouldn’t have a prayer of fitting into any of these clothes. She’s too short and, well, fat.”

“She’s not fat. She’s square. She’s symmetrical: a perfect cube.”

“All right, then, she’s too short and cubical. I’ll pack all these gowns up and give them away to some charity. There must be a charity for socialites who need evening gowns, don’t you think? Is that finally it, then?”

“I think so. I’ll have another look around.” He left the room.

Susan was pulling dresses and skirts off their hangers and muttering furiously to herself when Albert returned,
holding something long, black and furry in his arms. He held it out to her with distaste.

“Mother’s mink coat. Disgusting thing. I hate these things. Do you know how many animals had to die to make this coat? Do you want it, Susie?”

“Not after that introduction.” She went over and examined it. “It’s still in perfect condition. I guess I’ll just give it away with everything else. It’s really a shame Aunt Etta can’t wear this. Maybe I could have it altered to fit her. It could be a birthday present. Or even better, you know, I could give it to Mrs. MacGregor. I bet she’d
love
it, and she’s just the right build: tall and thin, like Mother.”

“Whatever you want, Susie.”

Susan went back to the closet and ripped several gowns off their hangers. “Look at these clothes. What a waste,” she said. “I could have bought ten outfits for the price she spent on one of these gowns. Twenty, maybe.”

“Mother never counted the money she spent.”

“Not on herself.” Susan sounded bitter. She folded the clothes and stuffed them into an already overloaded box. “By the way, Albert, talking about birthday presents reminded me. We have to send out invitations to Aunt Etta’s birthday party. You know she’d literally die of disappointment if we didn’t do something for her eightieth. She’s been talking about nothing else since last year.”

“I know. I know. It’s just such a
bad
time, Sue.”

“Yes. Poor Aunt Etta. It couldn’t have come at a worse time.” She straightened up and put her hands on her hips. Her hair was escaping from the rubber band and curling madly around her face. She pushed it back with an impatient gesture. “Do you think Mrs. MacGregor would mind helping us out with the party? Would you mind asking her?”

“No, no, of course not. I’ll ask her the next time she comes in.”

“Good. Listen, Albert, I have to get home soon. Even Dora has a time limit with Harold. Last time she babysat, he tried to hit Pumpkin over the head with one of his toys.”

“Which one?”

Susan regarded him with irritation. “What do you mean, which one? What difference does it make?”

“A lot of difference, Susie,” he said vaguely. “If it was a pillow, for instance, that would be fine, but if it was a baseball bat, say, or that club he carries around sometimes—”

“Oh, Albert, you drive me crazy. Harold is a difficult child—I’m the first to admit that, aren’t I?—but there’s nothing really wrong with him. He’s not a killer. Nobody in this family is a killer.
Nobody!
”

Albert stared at her, surprised by the vehemence in her tone. “Of course not, Susan. Don’t be silly.”

“
Nobody
,” she repeated to herself, and tore one of her mother’s gowns angrily off its hanger.

The next day, Susan and Dora were sitting in Susan’s tiny dining room after dinner. Susan was addressing the party invitations, and Dora was breastfeeding Pooh. Dora was gazing beatifically at some drawings that Harold had recently brought home and which Susan had taped up on the dining room wall. They showed a house, robin’s-egg blue, and a buttercup yellow sun. There were trees around the house and a stick figure in a rust-colored outfit (“This is
you
, Mommy”) in the yard.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the boy at all,” Dora said dreamily. Breastfeeding always made her
feel warm and sleepy. “Look at those drawings. He’s perfectly happy.”

“He tried to kick a little girl in school today,” said Susan, savagely addressing the envelopes.

“You wait and see. Harold is going to grow up into those fabulous looks of his. By the time he’s a teenager he’ll be an angel, a perfect angel.”

“Dreamer,” said Susan, and cocked her head toward her son’s bedroom. “Did you hear anything? Is he asleep?”

“He’s asleep. I went in there a while ago and he was out cold.”

“Okay.”

“You should have seen that handsome detective when I started feeding Pooh,” Dora said. “He didn’t know where to look. Men are so … so
priggish
about things like that.”

“You love to make people uncomfortable that way, Dora. You know you do.”

“It’s true, Susie. I’m a devil, what can I say. The man thinks I’m an idiot, anyway. I talked to him about
Gilligan’s Island
and he looked at me like I was scum.”

“That’s your act, Dora. Your stupid act. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I guess not.” Dora sighed and detached Pooh, who squalled briefly and then fell asleep, drooling. “I wish I could come to Aunt Etta’s party, dear. I would give anything not to be going away that weekend.”

“It’s not going to be anything special. Just Albert and me and a few other people. We can’t do anything big right now, not that Albert and I would have the faintest idea what we were doing if we tried to plan a big party. Where are you going away to?”

“Oh, we have to visit Phil’s parents in Boston. You know how I feel about that. Phil’s father always has a cold
and he gives it to Pooh, and Phil’s mother takes me aside and asks me if Phil’s eating properly, he looks so thin and peaked. The last time I got so fed up I told her we were on a macrobiotic diet, just rice and seaweed and sometimes a little fish, and she believed me. She
believed
me, Susan.”

“That’s sad. You shouldn’t tease her.”

“And then she gives me her special recipe for pound cake. We’ve been to their house exactly twenty-four times in the six years that we’ve been married, and every single time she gives me her special recipe for pound cake. I wouldn’t mind, but it isn’t even a good recipe. Now Boston cream pie,
that
I could get excited about.” She shifted the baby to her other arm. “So, when are you and George getting married?”

Susan made a face. “Please, Dora. Not for a while. Albert and I can’t even plan a birthday party for Aunt Etta properly. How can we put together a wedding? George understands. He’s not in any rush.”

“What about Albert and that woman he’s been seeing for a hundred years—Gretchen? What’s going on with them?”

“I don’t know. Albert never talks about her. I told him to keep some of Mother’s jewels in case he ever got married, and he just looked at me like he didn’t know who I was. It’s a shame, because I like her. I think she’d be a good influence on him. By the way, Dora, you wouldn’t have any use for a sequined red silk evening gown, would you? I have to get rid of all of Mother’s clothes, and some of them are really stunning.”

“Well, you know nobody loves dressing up more than I do, dear, but since Pooh here was born I’m lucky if I can stuff myself into a muumuu. Maybe in a year or two, if we decide not to have any more kids. Oh my God, what a
thought. If I don’t lose this weight before the next baby, they’ll have to forklift me into the hospital.”

“Well, maybe I’ll hold onto some clothes for you. You’re a little shorter than Mother, but you could have them altered. Unless you think it’s too ghastly.”

“Nothing’s too ghastly that costs over two thousand dollars, dear. Which I presume this gown you’re talking about did. Your mother always had great taste.”

“I could give it to Gretchen, but it doesn’t seem right somehow, not unless she and Albert make some definite plans.”

“Oh, no, no, don’t you
dare
give it to her, save it for me. In about five years, give or take a few, I’ll have my figure back again, I promise. And all this talk of clothes reminds me. Did I tell you the latest about Princess Di? It seems she was out at this charity ball and …”

Susan listened patiently for a while. Finally she said, “Dora, dear, have I mentioned to you recently that I think this whole Princess Di thing is getting a little out of hand? I mean, in my opinion, it’s not really
normal
anymore, if you don’t mind my saying so?”

Dora airily waved a hand. “I know, Susie, I know. That’s what Phil tells me too. But what
I
say is, why should I listen to somebody like Phil who lives and dies for
The Brady Bunch
? Anyhow, where was I? She was out at this fabulous all-star gala and …”

Mrs. MacGregor readily agreed to come in and “lend a hand,” as she put it, for several days before the birthday party. She was, if the truth be known, genuinely fond of Aunt Etta. “I’d be glad to help,” she told Albert. “Anything for you and Etta Pinsky.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. MacGregor.”

A little while later he came into the kitchen with the black coat bunched awkwardly in his arms. He held it out.

“Mother’s mink coat,” he said hesitantly, his face flushed. “Susan and I discussed it, and, well, she thought you might like it. If you don’t mind. As kind of a thank-you for helping out. Susan thought—well, anyway … here it is.” He thrust it toward her helplessly, reflecting how really
bad
he was at this kind of thing.

Mrs. MacGregor took the coat and held it reverently in her arms. Her old eyes filled with tears. Her wrinkled face seemed to pinch together and tremble.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, her voice shaking. “Beautiful. I never thought—I never thought that—” She wavered and threatened to break down completely. Albert wished fervently that he was dead. “Thank you,” she managed at last. “It’s lovely—just
lovely
!”

“You’re very welcome,” said Albert, and shambled hastily from the room.

That night Mrs. MacGregor went home to her little apartment on the edge of town with her heart full.