The Next Best Thing (10 page)

“R
EADY TO GO IN
?” I ask as I stand in the parking lot.

Standing in the parking lot is a time-honored ritual whenever I go anywhere with the Black Widows. There’s an order, you see, a hierarchy of who gets out first and how. First, tradition dictates that the youngest among us drives. That’s me, and I’m grateful, as Iris and Rose’s method is to point the vehicle in the desired direction and step on the gas. Getting out of the way is the responsibility of other drivers, pedestrians, deer, trees and buildings.

Upon arriving at our destination, tradition dictates that I hop out of the car and stand in attendance as Iris reapplies her Coral Glow, which was discontinued in 1978 but which she had the foresight to stockpile. She doesn’t need a mirror to put on lipstick, a skill they must’ve taught back when Eisenhower was president, since I’ve never seen a woman under the age of sixty pull this off.

The next tradition, which we’re living right now, is for Rose to gasp in horror, realizing she’s lost her wallet, then rifle through her vast black purse, her lips moving in silent prayer. A moment later, St. Anthony, patron saint of lost things, miraculously restores the wallet, placing it right there next to the rubber-banded envelope containing Rose’s medical insurance card, list of medications, several dozen coupons and her burial instructions.

After this bit of divine intervention, my mother must retie her scarf. She never goes anywhere without a scarf, winter or summer. Today’s choice is a beautiful little orange and pink number, and despite the fact that we only left the bakery ten minutes ago, tradition must be honored.

“Does my neck look crepey to you?” Mom asks as I watch, my arms beginning to ache from holding the tray of apricot brioche I baked in class last night. My students, who range in age from seventeen to eighty-four, had raved about them.

“Not at all,” I answer. “You’re gorgeous, Mom.”

“Oh, I am not,” she says fondly. Another tradition—reject compliments. Then her gaze drops down to my faded jeans with the fraying hem, my utterly unremarkable brown wool sweater. “Is that what you’re wearing?” she asks.

“No. I’m wearing a ball gown, but it’s invisible.” I twirl around, taking care not to spill the goodies. “Do you like it?”

“It wouldn’t kill you to dress up a little,” she says, adjusting her own skirt, a pretty, silky little number. She’s right, of course—yesterday, I bought yet another cashmere sweater, my seventeenth (but really, this one could not be denied—it was a gorgeous peachy color with a wide neckline and the prettiest buttons). My closet appears in my mind, its doors opening in supplication.
Come on, Lucy,
the unworn clothes beg.
We’re here for you.

“Are we ready?” Iris asks, then, without waiting for an answer, strides ahead, leading the little parade of Hungarian widows inside.

High Hopes Convalescent Center is a poorly named nursing home, since most of its residents are dying. One of them is my Great-Aunt Boggy (her name is actually Boglarka, which means “Buttercup” in Hungarian). Visiting is a regular gig for the Black Widows and me…we
honor our elders, even those who don’t know we’re around. Such is the case with Great-Aunt Boggy, age one hundred and four, nonverbal since my sophomore year in high school, a person who rouses only to eat, then slips back to the foggy place where she’s been for so long.

“What’s that?” Iris asks suspiciously, holding the door for me.

“Apricot brioche,” I say, lifting the cloth napkin that covers my tray. Boggy will eat one or two, and the grateful staff will eat the rest.

She squints, then pokes one in the side, where the flaky dough shatters obligingly. “How’d you get them so light?”

“That’s my secret, dear Iris,” I say sweetly. “However, should you let me sell them at Bunny’s, I’d be happy to share.”

“Unsalted butter?” she guesses.

“Well, of course, but that’s hardly the secret,” I answer.

“Let me try one,” Rose says, breaking off a piece. Her palate is legendary. “You used vinegar in the dough, didn’t you, smart girl?”

“I absolutely did not,” I lie. Darn that palate.

“Come on, girls, we’ll be late,” Mom calls from the second set of doors. She’s armed with food, too…pureed chicken
paprikas
, which is basically chicken, butter, sour cream and paprika. Mom has also brought another Hungarian delicacy—
galuska
…salted, shredded cabbage fried in salted butter, mixed with salted, buttered noodles, topped with salted butter and then heavily salted. Horrifyingly delicious, nearly fatal in its fat content. It’s amazing that the women in my family live to be so old. You’d think our blood would’ve thickened to a lardlike sludge long ago.

“Oh, Boggy, don’t you look pretty today!” Rose coos as we arrive in our shriveled relative’s room. Iris agrees in
her thunderous voice that Boggy does indeed look well, and the two of them adjust Boggy, who, as usual, stares into the distance, unresisting. Mom zips down the hall to heat up the food. I set my tray of baked goods down and sit on the little sofa in Boggy’s room and listen to Iris and Rose argue over whether it’s good or bad for Boggy’s window to be opened.

I remember the glamour of Boggy coming to visit when I was a kid. She married a car dealer and was fairly wealthy. Great-Uncle Tony was rumored to be
connected
, though just about everyone in Rhode Island could claim some cousin or neighbor who was a made man. Boggy and Tony didn’t have kids of their own and spoiled my mother and her older sisters when they were children, taking the girls on trips into Providence or down to the Connecticut shore for brunch, once even taking my mother to Paris for a week, which still causes flares of jealousy in Iris and Rose when mentioned. Long after she was widowed at age forty-eight (Tony was rumored to have been hit by a rival family, but the autopsy only showed that he had drowned), Boggy continued the tradition of never marrying, never dating. She didn’t lose her joie de vivre, however, and continued to dote on the Black Widows and her grand-nieces and-nephews. Once she took me to the Indian casino down Interstate 395, handed me five crisp Ben Franklins and told me to get busy. I was ten at the time.

But Boggy had a stroke when I was sixteen, and she’s been at High Hopes ever since. Only her nieces (and I) visit, which we do with great devotion, mind you. But still. No grandchildren’s loving pats, no great-grandchildren…just the four of us.

Will that happen to me? I suddenly wonder in a seize of panic. Will Emma be the only one to remember poor
Aunt Lucy? Lord, I hope Corinne would have more babies if that’s the case. Maybe she could have seven, and each one could take a day on my deathwatch…not that I would know, if I ended up like Boggy there.

I find that I’m sweating. My breathing is a little shallow. No. I won’t end up alone. I’m going to get married again. I’ll have a hubby soon, that nice, solid, slightly dull guy who will take really good care of me. I’ll have funny, sweet little kids who will adore me. I won’t have to borrow Emma or Nicky in order to have a child to love.

“How’s the search for a husband going?” my mother asks, reading my mind. She sits gracefully next to me, a bowl of fragrant
paprikas
puree in her manicured hands, and takes on her Barbara Walters
Aren’t we fascinating?
look.

“Oh, it’s okay,” I answer, fiddling with the cuff of my sweater. “Fine.”

“Have you gone out with Charley again?” she asks, stirring the sludge to cool it a little. Over by Boggy, Iris and Rose are still bickering over the health benefits/death threats of opening the window.

“Um, no. I don’t think he’s what I’m looking for,” I answer, breaking off a piece of brioche to test its texture. So flaky, the glaze gleaming sweetly. I bet it tastes great. My throat closes at the thought of actually eating it, and I swallow. Dang pebble.

“So what are you looking for? Another Jimmy?” Mom asks. “Because you won’t find one, sweetheart.”

“I know that, Mom.” I pause. “Ethan and Parker might be going out,” I add. I wait, hoping she’ll have something insightful and maternal to say about that.

“Oh, nice,” she murmurs, blowing on the
paprikas
.

“Ethan and Parker
should
go out,” Rose chirrups from
Boggy’s bedside. “They should get married. Poor Nicky shouldn’t have to grow up a bastard.”

“Rose!” I exclaim. “Don’t call him that! Half the kids in this country don’t have parents who are married to each other.”

“Which is why I wonder about you looking for another husband,” my mother says, meeting my eyes.

“I never wanted to remarry,” Iris states. “My Pete was the Love of My Life. And what’s this I hear about the Mirabellis moving? What do they have in Arizona that we don’t have right here in Rhode Island?”

“Well, the desert, for one,” I say. “And Jimmy was the love of my life, too, but I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my life. I want kids.”

“So adopt,” Mom says.

“We got invited to Mirabellis’ going-away party,” Rose says. “I do love a party.”

“Boggy, lunch is ready!” Mom announces loudly. “Chicken
paprikas
, extra sour cream, just the way you like it! And
galuska
, too!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, you really shouldn’t give her that,” says a nurse, poking her head inside the door. “The doctor just put her on a low-salt, low-fat diet.”

My mother and aunts recoil as if slapped. “What doctor?” Iris demands. “My daughter, she didn’t say anything about low salt. And she’s a lesbian doctor.”

“Poor Boggy!” Rose cries. “Isn’t it bad enough that she’s—” Rose’s voice drops to a melodramatic whisper “—in the coma?”

“She’s not in a coma,” the nurse says. “Not technically. Anyway, she needs to stick to her diet.”

“Oh, gosh,” I say. “Aunt Boggy’s a hundred and four. She should get to eat a little
paprikas
, don’t you think?” I
smile, appealing to the nurse’s sense of humanity. Depriving an ancient old lady of salty, butter-soaked food is the moral equivalent of water-boarding in the eyes of this family. A call to Amnesty International will be next.

“That’s right,” Iris says. “Lucy, you’re right. So nuts to you, nurse!” She grabs the bowl from my mother’s hands and marches over to Aunt Boggy, pushes the button on her bed to raise the old lady to a sitting position and begins spooning the chicken sludge into her mouth. The nurse sighs and walks away. I’m not sure, but I think Boggy smiles. And while it’s a little disgusting to watch Boggy’s droopy mouth open and close like a baby bird’s, I have to say, it smells fantastic in here. Rose wipes Boggy’s mouth, and Iris shovels in some more high-fat, salty, delicious food.

“Mom,” I say, turning back to my mother in the hope of resuming our earlier conversation, “do you miss being married?”

She gives me a look of thinly veiled patience. “Why? Did you see Joe Torre on TV?” Apparently Mom hasn’t forgotten my timid suggestions way back when that she try to find someone like “that nice Mr. Torre.”

“No,” I say. “But—”

“Lucy, promise me you’ll never wear that sweater out in public again, okay, honey?” She gets up and spreads an afghan over the bottom of Boggy’s bed, leaving me in the void where maternal advice is supposed to be.

Later that day and much to my surprise, my mother comes over as I’m packing up the afternoon bread. “I just got off the phone with Gertie Myers,” she says, naming her hairdresser, who was also my Girl Scout troop leader. “Her nephew Fred’s divorced, and I told her you were looking.”

“Oh,” I say, my stomach clenching. “Um. Okay. Thanks.” I pause. “Is he nice? Have you met him?”

“Does he have his own teeth?” Rose adds with complete sincerity, coming out of the freezer, where she was stowing a tray of unwanted, unpurchased, unappetizing cookies for another day.

“I have no idea,” my mother says. “But he’s coming to your baseball game tonight. Good luck.”

“H
I
, I’
M
F
RED
B
USEY
.”

Gah! My mouth opens, but no sound emerges.

While Fred Busey may have his own teeth, the rest of the picture is not so pretty. He’s roughly five feet three inches and somewhere around two hundred and fifty pounds. From my lofty three-inch height difference, I am privy to a distressing view of his scalp. You know those infomercials where they’re pitching what’s basically a can of spray paint to cover some guy’s bald spot? Yes. That. And the result is, sadly, quite, er…noticeable.

Granted, Number Four on my color-coded list is
Not Too Attractive
so as to discourage lust, which is part of chemistry of course, and can lead to infatuation and even love…but Fred is pushing the envelope here.

“Hi,” I say, remembering my manners. “I’m Lucy Mirabelli. My mother gets her hair cut by your aunt.”

He grins. “Nice to meet you, Lucy,” he says, shaking my hand. Oh, dang. He seems nice.

“Hello, all,” says my sister. Baby Emma is clutched to her chest, and I lean in to take a look. “Not so close, Lucy, you’re dirty,” my sister says, then sticks out an elbow to Fred. “Hello, I’m Corinne, Lucy’s sister, and I’d shake your hand, but as you can see, I’m holding my baby. She’s eighteen and a half days old.”

“Congratulations,” Fred says, taking a peek at the baby. “She’s just beautiful. Looks like you.” He smiles at my
sister, scoring thousands of points with Corinne. Charming, this guy, despite his outward resemblance to Jabba the Hutt. “Does your husband play softball, too?” he asks my sister.

“Oh, God, no! Softball’s way too dangerous,” Corinne says, her eyes wide with horror. “No, no. He’s an umpire. Second base.” There’s Christopher indeed, wearing the usual protective gear worn by umpires. And a Kevlar vest underneath. I’m not kidding. Corinne’s certain a line drive could cause his death.

“Luce!” Charley Spirito galumphs over. “Luce, you wanna get a beer after the game?” he says. At the sight of Fred Busey, Charley’s dopey grin falls off his face. “Who’s dis?” he says, immediately adopting a Mobbed-up accent.

“Charley, meet Fred Busey. Fred, this is Charley, one of my teammates and an old friend.”