Smart Women (25 page)

Suppose the van careened off the highway and plunged into the canyon? Suppose she and Stuart were both killed? Margo would fall apart. Andrew had had a kid who was killed in a car crash. Michelle had just found out about that. She had asked Margo if she could read Andrew’s book. She was curious. She’d read some of his magazine pieces, but they were just bullshit articles about prison reform and politics. The book was different. After she’d read it she couldn’t stop thinking about the characters. And when Margo had told her about Andrew’s kid, Bobby, Michelle had locked herself in her room, bawling her eyes out for hours.

Michelle closed her eyes and tried to think pleasant thoughts, tried to erase the picture in her mind of the van turned upside down, their bodies splattered across the highway, their blood turning to red ice.

She tried instead to remember the good, warm feeling she’d had at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s anniversary party. The feeling that if only everything could stay this way forever, life would be perfect.

O
N
M
ONDAY MORNING
Margo took Michelle to the doctor. “Frostbite,” he said, examining her toes, “but I don’t think you’re going to lose them. You’re lucky it’s not your big toe. Big toes are the most useful, you know.”

“Do I have to quit the ski team?” Michelle asked. She was hoping he’d say yes. She had never been so scared as when she’d been whizzing down the mountain full speed, totally out of control, and then, near the end of the run, catching her ski on the tip of a rock and falling. Falling and falling, head over heels, sure she would never stop, or that when she did both her legs would be broken, or even worse, her neck, paralyzing her for the rest of her life.

“I know you don’t want to quit,” the doctor was saying, “especially in January, when the season is just beginning, but if I were you I’d stay off the slopes and give those toes a chance to heal. They’ll never be the same. You’ll probably always experience pain in cold weather, but . . .” He paused for a minute and looked at Margo, then back at Michelle. “How did this happen anyway? Weren’t you wearing thermal socks?”

“I forgot to loosen my boots after the race,” Michelle said. “I rode all the way from Wolf Creek to Boulder without loosening them.”

“That was not good thinking,” the doctor said. “I’m surprised at you, Michelle . . . you’ve always struck me as a good thinker.”

“These things happen,” Michelle said seriously.

S
O, SHE HAD FROSTBITE
on two toes. Well, that was certainly more interesting than a sore throat, which was what Stuart had.

“I’ve got to get to the office now,” Margo said, dropping Michelle off at school. “You think you’ll be okay?”

Michelle did not answer her mother. She got out of the car and slammed the door shut. She was so pissed at Margo! While she had been at Wolf Creek, close to killing herself, Margo had let the Brat sleep in
her
room, in
her
bed, and Margo had not even asked
her
permission. Had not even told her, probably would never have told her. But Michelle had known instantly. Those little flowered cotton underpants at the side of her bed. The kind Michelle had worn in junior high. And her room had smelled differently too. The Brat never took baths and even when she did you could still smell her feet a mile away because she never bothered to wash them.

“You let Sara sleep in here, didn’t you!” Michelle had yelled at her mother, the minute she’d surveyed her room. “How could you? How could you have done such a thing?”

“I changed the sheets for you,” Margo said, sounding guilty as hell.

“Changed the sheets! You think changing the sheets makes it all right?” Michelle ripped the quilt off her bed and sprayed her sheets with Lysol. Then she checked every one of her drawers and her closet to make sure that nothing was missing, that nothing was out of place. She would never forgive her mother for this. Never! Suppose the Brat had read her diary? Suppose she’d seen some of the books Michelle kept buried under her sweaters or the letters she had written but never mailed?

Margo was always yapping about respecting privacy. Well, this showed how much she respected Michelle’s privacy. But Michelle had made it very clear that the Brat was never to go near her room again.

29

B
.B
. HAD NOT BEEN TO
M
IAMI
in almost seven years, but in the midst of a late February snowstorm she was on her way. The drive from Boulder to Denver had taken more than two hours and the plane had been an hour and a half late taking off from Stapleton.

She did not know why her mother had had to have a stroke in the middle of winter.

Clare had driven her to the airport. At least she was able to get an aisle seat on the plane. Dinner was served an hour after takeoff. Chicken Kiev. The flight attendant smiled sweetly as she served it. The man squeezed into the seat next to B.B., a jowly, heavyset man in a three-piece polyester suit, ate everything on his tray. He sopped up the Kiev juices with his roll, smacking his lips together as he did. Afterwards he picked his teeth with his fingers.

B.B. nibbled on a cracker.

The phone call from Uncle Morris had come at five in the morning. Her mother couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.

“Not hungry today?” the flight attendant asked, eyeing B.B.’s untouched dinner tray.

“Not especially,” B.B. said. “But I would like some coffee.”

The flight attendant, who wore too much green eyeshadow, poured the coffee sloppily, spilling some on B.B.’s lap. “Oh, no . . . I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “Here, let me help you.” She tried to wipe up the coffee that was seeping into B.B.’s beige pants, burning her thighs. “If you’d stand up,” she said, “I think it would be easier.”

“Here . . .” the man next to B.B. said, passing his napkin.

“Club soda,” the woman in the window seat said. “It works every time.”

“If you’d just stand up . . .” the flight attendant said again, sounding annoyed, as if this had been B.B.’s fault instead of hers.

“I don’t
want
to stand up,” B.B. said.

“Well, I can’t help you unless you do.”

“Club soda,” the woman in the window seat repeated. “Believe me, I know.”

B.B. was trying very hard to hang on, to keep from crying out or screaming.

Her mother had gotten up to use the toilet at one a.m. and had passed out on the bathroom floor. Uncle Morris had been awakened by the thud. Thank God the bathroom floor was carpeted, he’d said on the phone.

The man next to B.B. leaned over and said, “You pay three, four hundred bucks and this is what you get. That’s why they’re all going out of business . . . know what I mean?”

B.B. nodded.

She had begged Andrew to stay at her house with Sara and not to take her to Margo’s.

Now two flight attendants approached her, the one who had spilled the coffee and another. “When you reach your final destination and have your trousers cleaned, please send the bill to the airline,” the older one told her.

“Yes . . . all right,” B.B. said.

She had phoned Andrew at six that morning. Margo had answered the phone sounding sleepy. “Honey . . . it’s for you,” she had heard her say. “It’s B.B.”

Tears came to B.B.’s eyes and spilled over, running down her cheeks.

“Please accept our apologies,” the senior flight attendant was saying.

“Yes, all right . . .” B.B. answered. “Just leave me alone, please.”

“Of course.” One looked at the other, then both flight attendants walked down the aisle, away from her.

“My mother is just sixty-one,” B.B. said quietly.

“Mine’s eighty-four,” the man next to her said, as if she’d been talking to him, “and senile . . . don’t know a thing . . . don’t recognize us . . . it’s no good . . . who wants to live that long? When my turn comes I hope it’s quick.”

She did not answer him. She closed her eyes and kept them closed until they landed in Miami.

At the airport B.B. rented a car, a Dodge Dart, green, smelling of newness. She had not been to Miami since the accident. Bobby had been ten. He’d be seventeen now, tall and handsome, with a deep voice. Almost a man. Her mother should have died instead of having a stroke. Death was clear. The ones who were left knew what to do. Arrange for the funeral. Go through the motions of mourning. The other feelings, the ones that lived deep inside, the gnawing empty feelings of loss, of unbearable sadness, you kept to yourself.

B
.
B
. HAD BEEN PACKED AND READY TO GO
by the time Sara was up that morning. They’d had a quick breakfast together and B.B. had told Sara what had happened.

“Is Grandma Goldy going to die?” Sara had asked.

“I don’t know. She’s very sick.”

“What’s it like to have a stroke?”

“I don’t know that either. I imagine it’s like being inside a tunnel but you can’t get out, no matter how hard you try.”

Sara began to cry.

“Don’t, Sweetie . . . it will be all right . . . come on now . . .”

Sara had come to her then, had let her hug her for the first time in a long time. “I don’t want her to die.”

“Neither do I, but it’s not up to us to decide. You better get ready for school now.”

Sara had looked out the window. “Do you think school will be open with all this snow?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you put on your radio and find out.”

“If it’s closed I’ll go over to Jennifer’s . . . okay?”

“Okay.”

“How long will you be gone, Mom?”

“I’m not sure . . . probably four or five days.”

“And Daddy’s coming here to stay with me?”

“Yes.”

“Will you send Grandma Goldy my love?”

“Yes.”

B
.
B
. DROVE DIRECTLY TO THE HOSPITAL.
Uncle Morris was slumped in a chair outside the intensive care unit. He looked exhausted. He was seventy-eight, an old man, seventeen years older than her mother. She had a vision of Lewis at seventy-eight—seventeen years older than her. This is how he would look. Uncle Morris should have been the one to have had the stroke, not her mother. Then his children, her cousins, could have come running, eager to get their hands on his money at last. All but her mother’s share, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars or half the estate, whichever amount was greater at the time of his death. Her cousins had hated the prenuptial agreement, had believed that their father’s entire estate belonged to them.

“Francie . . .” Uncle Morris stood up when he saw her and they embraced.

“How is she?” B.B. asked.

“No change . . . still nothing . . . we don’t know what’s going to be. I only wish it had been me instead. She’s still so young.”

“Can I see her?”

Uncle Morris checked his watch. “Every hour, for ten minutes. That’s the rule. But it’s been more than an hour so go ahead.”

B.B. entered the intensive care unit, whispered her mother’s name to the nurse in charge, and was escorted to her mother’s bedside.

“Hello, Mother . . . I’m here . . .”

Her mother did not respond. Her eyes were closed, as if she were asleep. B.B. stayed for a few minutes, then went back outside. She told Uncle Morris that he should go home, should get some rest, that she would stay and if there was any change she would call him.

“You’re sure, Francine . . . you’re not tired yourself, after your trip?”

“No, I’m fine. I want to stay here.”

“All right then. I’ll go have a nap, take a shower, maybe heat up some soup.”

“Yes.”

Uncle Morris kissed her cheek and walked slowly down the hallway. His bald head was tanned. B.B. had always liked the way bald men tanned on their heads.

In an hour she went back inside to see her mother. Her mother seemed so small, and although her skin was suntanned, a grayish color had seeped through. Her bleached hair, stiff with spray, stuck out like porcupine quills. B.B. took her hairbrush from her purse and gently brushed it back, away from her mother’s face.

Her mother opened her eyes and looked at her.

“Mother . . . it’s me . . . Francine . . .”

Her mother made a small noise, like a cat mewing, then her eyes closed again. Had she recognized her? B.B. couldn’t be sure. She sat at her mother’s side holding her hand until a nurse asked her to leave. It was eleven o’clock.

She walked down the hall to a pay phone and dialed her home phone number. It would be just nine o’clock there. The phone rang twice and then her answering machine clicked on with Andrew’s voice saying,
You have reached 555-4240. If this is an emergency please phone 555-6263. Otherwise, please leave a message and someone will get back to you. Thank you.

Damn him! She hung up and dialed the other number, Margo’s number. Michelle picked up on the third ring.

“Hello . . .”

“Is Sara there?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Her mother.”

“Just a minute . . .” B.B. heard Michelle calling, “Hey, Sara . . . it’s for you . . . it’s your mother.”

“Hello, Mom . . .” Sara said, coming on the line. “Where are you? How’s Grandma?”

“I’m at the hospital. She’s asleep. What are you doing at Margo’s?”