Pam of Babylon (10 page)
“Oh no, not more fattening stuff! Doesn’t anyone believe in fruit trays anymore?” Marie exclaimed. Pam laughed out loud.
“You can afford it,” she said. Taking a big bite, she moaned. “It is gooood!” Marie opened the other two boxes; the second held at least three-dozen fresh bagels, and the third a quiche. She took the quiche out and got out a knife, cutting a huge piece of it for her breakfast. Popping it into the microwave, she poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Those old ladies wake you up?” she asked, shaking her head toward the veranda. Pam shook her head no with a mouthful of danish. “They did me,” Marie said. “Is Mom moving in?”
“Marie!” Pam laughed. “What is going on? Relax!”
“I guess I have had enough. I can’t imagine what it is like for you. I’m tempted to go back to Hell’s Kitchen later and come back in the morning.”
“You could do that. We can manage here just fine. The only problem would be braving the traffic in the morning. Sure you want to do that?” Pam felt a little conflicted about Marie not being there, needing her to run interference, but was also glad for the downtime in her own house.
“If you needed me, I would never forgive myself for not being here,” Marie said. She took her cup of coffee and her giant piece of quiche and sat across from her big sister. She took a bite of the quiche. They sat in peace, not talking for few minutes, and then something came over Marie, and she had to purge herself, had to be honest with Pam. The wedge between them all weekend had been the secret Marie was keeping from her. She had to tell her but needed to be careful not to divulge what she had read into it and just stick to the facts.
“Pam, I have to tell you something. It is bugging the crap out of me.”
Pam looked at her, curious. “Okay, go ahead,” she said.
Hesitating, but needing to get it off her chest, Marie said, “I saw Jack with Sandra Benson on Saturday morning.” She looked at Pam.
“And?” Pam asked.
“And…I saw them is all. If this hadn’t all happened, I don’t know that I would have ever told you. But since…well, everything, I needed to let you know, to be honest with you.”
Pam took a sip of coffee. She wondered if there wasn’t an ulterior motive here.
“I’m not sure what I am supposed to say. It’s over, so don’t worry about it anymore.” Pam didn’t know where this was going, but she wanted to give Marie a chance to express herself. She wanted her to hurry though, to get it over with before her children or their mother came into the room.
“I’m not worried about it, Pam. It was bothering me because I saw them together; I knew what they looked like together. You seem to find something disarming about Sandra Benson, and I think she is a snake.” Marie was going where she didn’t want to go, but it was too late.
“This is really about Sandra, then. Am I correct?” Pam fought the urge to get up and refill her coffee cup. She knew that would appear to be an aggressive move. The last thing she needed was to make Marie feel like she was being challenged. She knew what her sister was getting at, but wanted to let her have the last word. Thinking about what Sandra and Jack ‘looked like together’ was not something Pam was willing to waste a second at. It could only lead to devastation.
“Are you more concerned about my befriending her or what she meant to Jack?” Pam knew that if she weren’t careful, she would get swept up into a passionate confrontation with her sister. It had been building over the past three days, and she recognized it, yet continued to ignore it.
“Are you befriending her? Did you go into the city to see her? Or did you go to the apartment?” Marie’s voice was starting to shake.
“Both. I think it is understandable that I wanted to talk to the woman who was in love with my husband by myself.” She stood up. “Jack was my husband. It was my marriage. It is my business. If that seems harsh, so be it. This is not exactly the easiest situation to be in.” She turned her back for a minute to refill her cup. When she turned around, Marie was obviously fighting back tears. Pam was tired of her interloping. She would do what she wanted as far as Sandra Benson was concerned. Marie could go back to the city if need be. “Look, Marie, you might as well accept the fact that Sandra will be here tomorrow. Even if I had never found out about the two of them, she would still be here because she worked with him. Now, what I would be interested in knowing is if I hadn’t found any of this out, would you have been able to keep your secret? Or would you have found it irresistible to hurt me?” Pam knew she was testing her sister, but she wanted it out there.
What was this all about?
She began to think that perhaps this idyllic relationship Marie had with Pam’s family was really a smoke screen.
Could Marie have been jealous of her all along?
Marie sat at the table open mouthed. She
was
jealous of her sister. She wanted to react, to lash out, but was able to control herself for the sake of the day, her mother and Bernice just outside, the kids in their rooms and the other family members at the beach, probably preparing to barge in any moment for lunch. She decided not to take the defense.
“I guess we had to have this conversation. It was inevitable. I am not going to start the ‘I did this for you’ conversation. Our relationship is what it is. I hardly know what to do now.” She sat there spent, regretful of having brought up the subject of Sandra fucking Benson. It was amazing what Jack stooped to for a piece of ass.
“Let’s just get through the next two days, okay? Life will return to normal on Wednesday. You’ll go back to work, the kids will go back to their summery pursuits, Mom will hopefully go home and Bernice back to Columbus Avenue. Right now, I need things to stay peaceful for just another day. I can get through the funeral if everyone will just stay calm and not expect too much. Can we do that?” She looked directly at Marie.
Marie nodded yes. At that moment, Pam had the realization that something deeper was going on, something that she didn’t have the strength to deal with yet, but that it would have to be dealt with after the funeral, after they had gotten back to normal. Suddenly, she had an idea. It would mean throwing her original conviction of keeping to herself that day to the wind.
“Let’s go shopping, okay? Everyone else is going to the beach. I hate the idea of the beach on a holiday. Let’s wake Lisa up and go to South Shore.” Pam started scurrying around as she always did when she was going about her day. Marie tried to pull it together, tried to move past the last half hour. She would go through the motions instead of being so self-seeking, so selfish, and let her sister have her way. That was the adult thing to do.
T
uesday morning finally arrived. It was overcast, but dry. Pam stood in her black silk suit wanting to fade into the wall, knowing she was about to be on display for the hundreds of people who would come from all over, from Massachusetts to Washington, D.C., to pay their respects to Jack.
Poor Jack, he would have loved this! He loved people
. She could hear him now,
For Christ’s sake, where the hell were all these people when I needed a loan?
The focus had not been on Jack these last three days, but on his behavior, his final deed. Of course, no one knew about it but Marie and Pam. Pam believed the kids thought their father was a sainted knight who just had a lapse in stamina.
She had not heard from Sandra Benson and didn’t attempt to contact her. She would be there that morning, or not. Pam would stay back and let Sandra make the decision about how much involvement she wanted in the festivities. If she wanted to be up front with the family, she would be. If she wanted to stay back out of sight, that was okay, too. Pam wouldn’t look for the reactions of Jack’s colleagues. Surely, they knew of the liaison between Jack and Sandra and would be watching for any interaction between the wife and the mistress.
Marie, on the other hand, was on edge and would be looking for the slightest reaction. She had tossed and turned in her bed until just after almost dawn and trying to get up now was difficult, her eyelids were gritty sandpaper. She had a headache, too. She was worried the slightest provocation would make her lose control.. For the kids’ sake, especially Lisa’s, she had to maintain calm.
She dragged herself to the closet. She was wearing pants and a shirt. It was supposed to go up to eighty degrees; no way was she layering a suit. She put lipstick on and brushed her hair straight back, securing it with a barrette. This was the way Jack liked her hair. “No nonsense,” he called it. “You are my no-nonsense girl, and Pam is my high-maintenance girl,” he would say. “Don’t wear makeup,” he’d tell her. “I like seeing how clear your skin is. You don’t have one blemish!” Pam would say, “She’s a teenager, too! It’s because she knows how to take care of herself!” She walked to the bed and sat on the side of it, shoulders slumped, and put her head in her hands.
Oh Jack, what I am going to do now?
By eight everyone was up and dressed. They were eating the last of the gifted food, fruit salad, homemade muffins, and bakery sweet rolls. Pam hadn’t come out of her room yet, so Brent went to see if she was up and ready. Knocking, he whispered to the crack in the door, “Mom, you up?” She opened the door, remembering her purse and then turning to get it. He followed her in, closing the door behind him.
“Mom, Aunt Marie is being really strange. I’m not sure how to handle her.” Pam looked over at him, at her grown son, and saw for the first time that he was a man. Overnight, he’d changed.
“Give her some time, okay, Son? She is sad, too. Dad was her one and only for a long, long time. Not sure what she’s going to do.” She turned around and looked at him. “Is she bothering
you
now?”
“Sort of. She came into my room last night and got into my bed. She was crying and mumbling something. Gran came and got her and took her back to bed.” Looking down at his petite mother, he noticed the fine lines around her eyes and mouth for the first time and wondered when his parents had gotten old.
“Okay, well lock your door tonight,” Pam said, not really thinking her son was in any danger. “She’ll be going back to the city soon and then we won’t have to worry. Let’s just get through today. I feel like that is all I keep asking people—let’s get through today. What will my excuse be tomorrow?”
“Jesus, Mom, give yourself a break, okay?” He went up to her and put his arm around her shoulder, steering her toward the door. “Come on, I want to leave. We should be there to see him before anyone else gets there.”
They walked out of her room together, a unified force, looking for Bernice and Lisa. Pam wanted the four of them to go together, his family and his mother. Everyone else could figure out whom they would go with.
Brent drove the Lexus with Bernice in the front seat and his mother and sister in the back. He was the man of the family now.
B
ernice was despondent. She looked lovely in a dark-blue silk shirtwaist dress, her silver hair swept up in a chignon. She wore the pearls that Harold had given her the day she had Bill. She couldn’t speak without weeping, so she kept her mouth shut. She had grasped the hands of her grandchildren before they got into the car, just shaking her head back and forth. She clasped an ironed cotton handkerchief in her hand, but had a whole box of Kleenex in her purse, just in case. They waited in the parked Lexus on the street while everyone else got into their cars. When the last door shut, the procession began, traveling slowly down the streets of Babylon. The neighbors who were home that week were either preparing to go to the funeral or if not, standing solemnly, waving at the family as they passed.
The same men who waited on Saturday afternoon were there waiting again. They opened the doors of the car, offering their arms to the ladies to assist them out of the car. Brent hurried around and took his grandmother’s elbow, while Lisa stood by her mother. The next car to pull in belonged to Bill and Anne. Pam wanted to wait for Jack’s brother to join them as they viewed the body for the first time. They walked into the funeral home, Pam averting her eyes from the bust of George Washington. When they entered the room set aside especially for Jack, Pam gasped at the abundance of floral arrangements.
“Oh my goodness! All of this for Jack?” Everyone exclaimed in agreement, “All for Jack!” There were at least twenty-five huge arrangements, reaching from one end of the room, lining up behind the casket, to the other end. There was also an overflow of arrangements in the hallway, which Pam failed to notice, thanks to George Washington.
“All but these three bouquets here have cards,” the director said. “We’re attempting to find out who they are from.” Pam thought of all the thank-you cards they would have to write.
“Make sure they go to the nursing home when this is over,” Pam stated. The smell was heady, intoxicating. When Marie walked in, it made her headache worse. They should have put a no-flower request in the obituary, but it was too late now. She remembered her grandmother’s perfume, Cashmere Bouquet. The smell of it was so dry it brought tears to her eyes. The funeral flowers were doing the same thing to her.
Pam and Bernice, flanked by Lisa and Brent, walked up to the casket and looked in. Bernice brought her hankie to her face. The children began to weep. Pam grew stony.
He looked fabulous. How could that be possible? How does someone who looks so good, so healthy, so lifelike, be dead?
“He doesn’t even look dead,” she said out loud. Everyone turned to look at her, but said nothing at first. Then the comments began. “Wow, look at how good he looks! They did a great job! Jack was always so handsome.” Pam muttered under her breath to those immediately around her, “He wouldn’t dare look bad on his funeral day.” They all agreed that it was so Jack.
So far, so good.
But it was inevitable that it was bound to get more difficult.
When Marie came in, she took one look at the casket and began to wail, “Oh Jack! Oh Jack!” Pam looked around the room for her mother. “Come on, Sis, sit over here.” She dragged Marie over to the chairs. “I have to greet people,” Pam said. She walked back to the casket and stood between her mother-in-law and her kids. Guests began to line up to view Jack’s body.