We're Over It

“I could have saved her if she hadn’t dropped me for Dan. And only because he’s cute. Then he killed her. That’s probably too strong. Endless. This service is fucking endless. Rachael looks pissed off. Or maybe that’s her being sad. Hard to tell. She never liked Clara but still…her cousin. Bound to feel a little sad. I need to get the basil and cilantro in today. I’ll have to be late for the reception. That’s ok. I’ll help Rachael clean up after. Could I have saved her, though? If Clara came to me with a bad headache would I have guessed a bleed or told her to go home and take a couple ibuprofen? I don’t know. Anyway, I’m glad it was Phil and not me. I wonder if he’s here. No..I don’t see him. No surprise. When is that woman going to stop talking? And what is that noise?”

“When is that woman man going to stop talking? Christ, she was Clara’s neighbor not her mother. I have eight thousand things to do. I’m a lousy cousin. I wish I could miss her. I’m going to have to wing this eulogy. Not good. When did I talk to her last? Oh that awful party last month where Ralph got drunk and obnoxious and Clara screamed at him and everyone went home. God, that’s the last thing I heard her say. Ralph, you asshole. We agree on that anyway. Agreed. Maybe I can say that in the eulogy…We didn’t agree on a lot but we both knew that Ralph is a jerk, even when he was a kid. Should I say that I always thought it was a mistake to marry for money? I need to ask Diana if Phil missed the diagnosis. Might be worth a suit. I can’t cry. Is it evil to like your friends better than your cousin. If Diana dropped dead, I would cry. If Lena died..well, I’d cry, I think. Of course I’d cry. What is that noise?”

“What is that noise? Oh god, it’s coming from my pocketbook. It’s that horrible new phone. Everyone is staring at me. Rachael will hate me. How do you turn it off? It has no buttons. How the hell do I turn it off? Stop, stop, stop."

“Auuga. Auuuga”

The sound arose from one of three women, standing together at the front of a large gathering, who had joined together in a large dark industrial building to mourn Clara Dobert, a wealthy local who had died suddenly of a stroke.

“Lena,” One the women, Diana Elliot, leaned over, grabbed her friend’s phone, pressed somewhere on the glass and the noise stopped.

“Thanks!” Lena Czarnetsky whispered back, then turned to the third woman. Rachael O’Mara, whose dead cousin was the focus of the event, “So sorry, Rache.”

“It’s ok. Maybe Lettie will shut up now.”

Lettie Gallo, a neighbor of the deceased woman was currently speaking. She had stopped, blinked, and like a barn owl seeking prey, scanned the mourners, listening for the honking source. Her stern gaze stopped at the three women sitting side by side. She gave them an admonitory blink, flapped the pages of her speech and continued.

Lena leaned over and whispered to Diana, “Is she the last one?”

“No, Rachael and Ralph are going to say something.”

Rachael had overheard them. “Don’t worry. I am going to be very, very brief. You might even sense time moving backwards.”

“Oh, god. Why aren’t there any chairs?”

“Because Ralph is cheap as nails.”

The memorial service for Clara Dobert, Rachael’s only cousin on her father’s side and Ralph’s wife, had been set in this place, because the rent hadn’t been as high as that charged by the local Dutch Reform Church, where Clara and Ralph had faithfully attended every Christmas Eve

Ralph rationalized the less expensive venue to Rachael with the excuse that it would hold more people and the minister didn’t know Clara anyway. Indeed there was a large crowd. A number of the mourners had also never met Clara, but each knew someone who did, and Port Clinton locals enjoyed a funeral, particularly when the dead person was prominent and rich. The building had been a truck deport, built in the early 1920s, and was currently being refitted by a couple from Manhattan as an event space. It wasn’t quite finished (thus the lower rent). Bare dim light bulbs and large humming ineffectual fans hung twenty-feet above them between massive wooden beams, black from ancient fuel oil. Swallows flitted back and forth above the cavernous space and a slight scent of gasoline, sweetened umpleasantly by dried rodents, echoed from its lubricated past. As a taste of things to come, a new concrete floor had been poured, sanded, and painted a gleamy burnt sienna, promising a more upbeat future.

But there was no furniture and the mourners had to stand and sway in front of a jerry-rigged podium, where Clara’s neighbor was speaking next to the urn, sprightly painted with blue and yellow flowers circling its base.

“Only 60,” Lettie droned with hyped-down sadness. “And what a wonderful neighbor she was. One winter when my electricity went out and hers didn’t because they have this amazing generator, I drove over and she let me wait in her home, made me coffee, and we chatted, I don’t know, for hours until our half of the road came back on the grid. Her home was so beautiful. I think we all saw the article on it in Architecture Illustrated. And gosh, her garden. A flower fiesta she used to call it on Open Garden Day. And always generous with the zucchini, the cucumbers, the green beans, and sometimes with her tomatoes! I will so miss her.” Lettie stopped abruptly, possibly overwhelmed by the loss of Clara’s vegetable largess, folded her papers carefully, and walked back into the crowd.

Rachael was next and after a brief opening, thanking everyone for coming and inviting them back to her home for the reception afterward, she recalled their childhood when Clara always insisted on being the princess when they acted out various fair tales, leaving Rachael to play either villain, prince, or both. “And she remained a princess after she grew up, living in her palace on Mt. Shaker, and I became a lawyer, which some people would consider still playing the villain.” This provoked a surprised guffaw from some of the listeners, who quickly covered their mouth. “Seriously, although we differed on most issues when we grew up, and while she was tall, blonde, and thin and I was short, dark, and, I like to believe, pleasantly plump, we shared a grandmother who taught us that having a big mouth and speaking out for what you believed in was an asset. Clara,” Rachael turned to the urn, “We had a lot of fights left between us, and I will so miss winning them. And I will miss you.” She stepped away from the podium to relieved applause and returned to her friends, giving them a somewhat sheepish smile.

Ralph’s speech was also short. “She was a wonderful wife. Wonderful mother. Very tidy. She was always yelling at me and the boys to take our shoes off when we came home, even though none of us ever did. And she loved shopping. I’d come home and there’d always be some bag in the hallway and I’d yell. “Sweetie, what did you buy today, and she’d say ‘Oh just this and that.’ So that became a joke between us. Like when she bought the Beamer, I asked her if that was a this or a that.” He gave a little chuckle and then realizing it might not be entirely appropriate, coughed it aside. “But boy will I miss her. Although not the monthly bills.” He gave another unwise chuckle and hauled himself off the podium step, shooting the three women a major wink as he passed.

Rachael leaned over to her friends, “He just can’t help being an asshole. It’s a gene.”

The crowd began to shuffle out, but, unfortunately their departure was thwarted by three young teenagers, who were tottering on unaccustomedly high heels up to the podium, their heads bowed solemnly. The first one, a tall gangly girl wearing a shiny teal dress that folded randomly across her undeveloped breasts, leaned into the microphone. “Hi everyone. I’m Marcia Clayton,” and the mic shrieked. She leaped back. “Oh, sorry!” Cautiously bending toward it again, Marcia continued carefully, “My two best friends and I belong to “Making Good” which is a group that helps young girls like ourselves build self-esteem and learn to cook and do crafts and do our homework after school. Its location is in the library where as everyone knows Mrs. Dobert was on the Board of Trustees. None of us ever met her, but we wanted to pay tribute to her because she is one of the people who have helped us reach our impossible dreams. So as tribute we wanted to sing The Impossible Dream from Man of La Mancha.” At that, a small pudgy girl next to Marcia blew into a tiny harmonica and each of the girls, at different unsteady intervals began singing. It was a song with several verses, and the girls valiantly aimed for but felt short at hitting the many high notes punctuating each of them. As the trio wrung out the final ” I’ll reach the unreachable staarrrrr”, the microphone joined them in a terrible final scream and the service was over. The girls were greeted with wild applause and everyone moved quickly toward the exits.

“Thank god,” Diana whispered as three women headed out the front entrance into a weedy cracked parking lot.

Lena turned to Rachael. “I am sooo sorry.”

Rachael looked at her with surprise. “About what?”

“My phone. It’s new,” Lena added. “I haven’t learned how to turn it off.”

“Everyone knows this by now,” Diana commented.

“That’s ok. Best part of the service,” Rachael turned suddenly. “Oh shit. I have to get Clara.” She headed back inside and returned a minute later with the urn, which she stuffed into the large brief case that she was swinging against her hip.

“What are you going to do with her?” Diana asked as they moved toward their cars.

“She told me once that she wanted Ralph, me, and her two boys to get a baggie and spread her wherever they think is special. She didn’t have a will, so it’s the closest we had to final wishes. I’ll throw her into the quarry. We liked to go swimming there when we were in high school and watch the boys leap off the rocks. I truly believe it’s the last time Clara had any real fun.”

“I understand she was a knock out when she was young,” Lena said.

“No, just blonde, tall, and nasty. And then she married Ralph and got rich, blonde, tall, and nastier.” Rachael paused. “I never heard her laugh again as hard as she did at Jeremy Bucholtz’ penis dangling out of his swimming trunks when he jumped into the quarry. Sad.”

“Where’s Ralph putting her?” Diana asked.

“In one of their houseplants. I think the Chinese Ivy. Ralph said he wanted a place to talk to her without having to go outside, especially in the winter.“ Rachael produced a puff of scorn. “Like he had a conversation with her when she was alive. She once told me that the only time he communicated with her was in bed when he’d snort awake from his apnea and start talking to himself.”

“I’m getting cremated too,” Lena announced heroically, as if she were advancing with Clara against an enemy gun emplacement.

“I’m donating any viable parts that are left.” Diana countered.

Rachael shook her head, “Of course you are. The good family doctor. I plan on being shot into space. My ashes anyway. If I can’t get anyone to do that, you guys and my kids can have Baggies of my ashes. Toss them anywhere you want except for the court house.”

Lena clapped her hands. “I’ll throw you into the Hudson at the end of the Port Clinton pier.”

“That’s good, but I’d like have some of me on solid ground.”

“I’ll spread you out on the dog run.” Diana offered.

“Perfect.”

“You can put me inside the wall of my gallery, like Edgar Allen Poe’s heart.’” Lena said.

“So you can still scare potential buyers away?”

“Mean, Rache.”

They reached Rachael’s car first, and a few people stopped to pay their respects and tell her they’d see her at the reception. Rachael glowered at the last one, a large man with droopy Bassett eyes, who asked as he was walking away. “What are you making, Rache? Hope it isn’t ziti. I get so damn sick of ziti. Sorry for your loss.”

“Look how many of these parasites I have to feed. I don’t’ even know half of them. Clara wouldn’t have done this for me.” She checked the time on her phone, “God, the caterers are going to be there. Look how late it is. And why did Ralph call?”

Diane turned to Rachael as she opened the door, “I have to drop some plants off at home. They need to get out of the sun. I’ll meet you back at your house and help you out.”

“Don’t rush. The caterer is good. I’ve used her before. She sets everything up.“

“Can you give me a ride?” Lena asked Diana, “I walked to church.”

“Sure. You can help me weed out the herbs.”

“Oh! I can’t. I just had my nails done.”

Diana laughed, “Joke. Do you think I actually believe you’d touch dirt?” The two women waved Rachael off and they both headed toward Diana’s pick-up, a white Ford, whose bed was filled with flats of small hopeful green plants. Lena was only 5′3" and struggled up onto the seat with unaccustomed gracelessness, taking off her navy silk jacket, folding it carefully, and setting it across her knees before she buckled in.

“So what did you think?” Diana asked as they pulled out of the parking lot and she turned left, heading out of town.

“About what?

“Ralph.”

“What about him,”

“Did you see him wink at us when they walked by with the casket?”

“Nooo. His wife just died. He wouldn’t wink.”

“He did. This guy won’t go a week without a woman. You’ll see.”

Lena shivered. ” He’s so repulsive. Who would want him? I only met Clara a few times, but it’s hard to see why anyone that attractive would stay with him all those years.”

“Money.”

“I was at their house once for a fund raiser for the Coleman Estate. Their stuff is incredibly expensive but in horrible, horrible taste,” Lena held her nose for emphasis.

“Probably runs in the family. Rachael’s taste is pretty awful too, but fortunately she’s too broke to buy anything.”

“Oh, I don’t’ think her taste is awful. It’s eccentric and very adventurist. And she has a handle on the market She bought a folk art carving a couple of years ago for $200, which she just sold on ebay for $500.

“The raccoon bull-fighter?”

“It wasn’t a raccoon and it wasn’t a bullfighter. You know it was Teddy Roosevelt holding up something he had killed. Crude. But it was fabulous in its innocence and simplicity. Stop making fun of the things I sell..”

“I’m sorry. I don’t really pay much attention to art. I trust your eye and I always get a kick out of your gallery. And I also agree that Clara’s taste was horrible. There wasn’t a tropical color she didn’t like.”

She came into my gallery once and stared for a moment and walked out. And we knew each other! Or anyway she knew I was a friend of Rachael’s. She didn’t say anything, even to be polite. Super bitch. Funny, how different she and Rache were from each other, even the way they looked.”

“Well, neither of them are -- or were -- warm and fuzzy. They were alike that way.”

“But Rachael has soul and is incredibly generous.”

Diana gunned the truck up to sixty as they passed out of the speed trap on the south end of town and headed immediately into the countryside. “Living with Ralph would not improve one’s soul.”

“Rachael said Clara was much nicer when they were kids. She got snobbish when she got rich.”

They were immediately in the country, driving past a wetland, recently a pond and now weighed down with crowds of invasive phragmites, their fringes waving triumphantly along the side of the highway. After another half a mile, Diana turned off on Center Road. She was laughing over the final song, “So glad I’m not a teenager anymore. All that earnestness and narcissm.”

And Lena shrieked, ” Watch out for the squirrel”

Diana jammed on the brakes and they lurched forward. The animal shot forward leaving a vapor trail as it safely dove into the bushes. “What an asshole.” Diana exclaimed. “And I thought they were so cute when I moved up here.” She started up again, “Too many squirrels this year. Someone told me that the coyotes have eaten all the rabbits, and that’s why there are so many squirrels…Not sure what the connection is. You know, you never see a road-kill rabbit. Why does a rabbit not cross the road?”

“Because it’s in the country and the other side is as boring as the side it’s on.”

Diana shot Lena a look, “You should have gone to the city when you were young and I should have practiced right away up here.”

“I know,” Lena sighed, staring out the window. They passed sparsely scattered farm houses, a few still fronting working fruit orchards as they had for over a century but most restored by weekenders or the descendants of the original farmers, now working locally in offices and stores. A number of the farmers’ children had subdivided the land they inherited and sold it to owners of factory built colonials or ranch houses.

“I got married before I could get out...Not that I regret it.” She added quickly. “And Port Clinton is becoming a real destination for city people..”

“Exactly the people I ran away from. ” Diana proceeded cautiously along, scanning the shoulders for suicidal rodents until they arrived at a large gray barn, where Diane both lived and practiced as a family physician. She turned into the gravel driveway leading up to her apartment, which occupied the south end of the building, and stopped. The two women got out and Diana pulled the first flat of baby plants out of the bed, as Lena stood by and said, predictably. “I’d help but I’d ruin my suit.” She was wearing a navy silk collarless blazer over a simple scoop neck white blouse and slim tight-fitting black ankle pants that were almost, but not quite, inappropriate for a funeral.

Diana self-checked her own outfit, jeans – but expensive, she added to herself -- and a coarse navy cotton tunic, which was now brushed with dirt from the flat she held in her arms. “Damn, I’m going to have to change. Why don’t you make some coffee,” Diana suggested, “while I bring my plants over to the garden.”

“Oh great.” Relieved from the possibility of engaging in earth, Lena walked across a short path of flat stones to the steps that led up to Diana’s apartment. At the top she looked down at her friend, who was balancing the baby vegetable trays as she headed across a wide swath of yard toward a large plate of fenced-in brown earth about 100 feet from the barn. “You don’t think it’s too early to plant? Don’t you need to wait till Memorial Day?” Lena called out. “I read that somewhere.”

“Not these days.”

Lena watched Diana set the first flat under a tree next to the garden and then went inside, passing through a mudroom, stacked with garden tools ready for action. She opened the door, recklessly unlocked, she observed, and walked into the kitchen, a simple bright room strung with herbs and copper pots and pans. Lena knew Diana’s kitchen as well as she knew her own -- probably better, since she rarely cooked. Nor did her husband Rodney, a professor of environmental science at Albany State University. When he wasn’t traveling or working late in Albany, which was more often than not, they ordered take out or ate at one of the local restaurants. And when he was away either Rachael or Diana usually fed Lena. She reciprocated by buying wine and beautiful cheeses and desert from a local gourmet shop. She also brewed excellent -- if she said so herself, which she did -- coffee. It was her one culinary skill. She sniffed the inside of Diana’s pot and wrinkled her nose. “God! So stale!” She rewashed it, and, after an unsuccessful search in the refrigerator for filtered water, used the tap to filled the carafe, sighing in rebuke. She found the bag of beans in the cupboard and was gratified to see that it was one she had bought for Diana after Googling “most exotic best reviewed coffee beans”. She spilled them into a bowl and poked around for duds (“Even one can ruin a brew.“) She poured them into the grinder and listened to the mini jack hammer until it softened to a growl, about 14 seconds. (’Too long and the grinds heat up and the coffee get bitter; too short and the coffee is weak.“) She tapped the coffee into the filter and positioned the pot underneath it. She clicked the start button and sat down at the table, happily anticipating the gurgle and aroma of a spectacualr brew. “I’m a perfectionist,” she told her friends, “It’s why I don’t cook.”

“She doesn’t cook, ” Rachael remarked to Diana when Lena wasn’t there, “Because she’s a princess and expects everyone else to cook for her.”

“And we all do.”

The kitchen table, where Lena was now ensconced, fit inside a three window nook, embraced outside by the leafy branches of a huge Norwegian maple. Diana said it was like eating in a tree house. Lena pulled her phone from her jacket pocket and began texting, first to her husband Rodney reprimanding him in a jokey way for the ringtone, then her son Rodney junior asking why he hadn’t called in two weeks and was he ok, and finally a series of relative strangers whom she hoped would become clients of her struggling gallery. Coincidentally, all three friends had businesses or practices in the same buildings where they lived. Lena’s art gallery was on the street level of a three-story brick Greek Revival townhouse along Melville, which Rodney had wisely bought for almost nothing years before and was now worth ten times what he paid for it. They lived in the top two floors, or rather, Lena mostly lived there.

Rodney had also bought a condominium in Albany, where he lived during the week when he was teaching. He was a short, pearish-shaped man who compensated for these physical liabilities with a lively cynicism that amused his students and made him a popular lecturer, not only in his classes on environmental science but on the speaker circuit as well, where he was able to boost his income substantially. (“Once the idiots who run business and government manage to do the math “… Scrawling huge dramatic mathematical formulas on white board or clicking through to next powerpoint slide with mathematical formulas in huge red type… “They’ll figure out the next-to-nothing wages a worker will need to live on if their homes cost next-to-nothing in heat and electricity. Then we’ll get our major subsidies and investments in solar, wind, and geo thermal. Of course, the rich will get richer and the poor poorer, but maybe we won’t all drown in the process.“) Right at the moment, he was enjoying a three-month boondoggle in Madrid as a visiting professor.

“Coffee ready?” Diane stood in the doorway taking off her shoes.

Lena looked up from the phone. “Sounds like it. Would you pour me a cup?”

“Only if you put down the damn phone.”

“Sorry,” Lena set it down but not too far from her hand. “I needed to text Sam Wilder. He told me before the funeral that some friends of his are coming up from the city who like folk art. They might like my Darrells.”

Diana pulled out a simple white mug and one printed with Obama/Biden 2008 from the cupboard. She poured the coffee and handed the plain one to Lena. “How’s Rodney doing?” She asked while getting a carton of milk out of the refrigerator, then sniffed it and splashed some into both their mugs.

“I guess fine. I haven’t heard from him in a couple days. But… that’s typical. He gets so busy.” She picked up the phone again. “Sorry, I just need to finish checking some email. This darn thing. Rodney gave it to me before he went to Madrid and I’m having a terrible time with it. It’s in the clouds or something. Whatever that means.” She continued to punch away at it. “And it has no buttons so I can’t use my thumbs to text. How does anyone write on this?” Lena was almost sixty but had retained a youthful prettiness by using a military regimen of daily yoga, spinning, and troops of frighteningly expensive skin care and hair products. She avoided anything that might bulk her up, giving her a misleading fragility that she bolstered with frequent protestations of helplessness for tasks that required any strength, and, as an added charming weakness, technological skill. Her refusal to make any attempt to learn the simplest electronic device was particularly annoying to her friends.

“How long is he going to be gone?” Diana set Lena’s cup in front of her and sat down opposite her. “About another month. He was just teaching a semester. He was hoping they might hire him for next year but Spain’s financial disaster has affected their solar program, which was funding his grant.”

“So how’s he liking Madrid?”

“He liked Barcelona better, but who wouldn’t? On the other hand, they gave him a fabulous apartment.”

Lena had gone over with him at the beginning of the term and stayed for about two weeks, but her work at the gallery prevented her from living there for the whole semester. “Hmmm. I think my mail is coming in now. Oh, I want to show you some pictures I shot of my new artist. Now how do I do that?” She poked at it again.

Diana’s cat Jack came loping in only to swing around and head back when he spotted a guest.

Lena was muttering, “This is odd. What in the world is this?”

“What?”

“Look at these pictures. Some porno site has spammed me or something.” Lena handed the phone over. Diana held it up. Someone was holding his or her own phone so the camera was angled up and pointing at a young naked woman stradling two hairy pale thighs and grinning down at whatever lurked between them.

“Or I got someone else’s photos. ” Lena complained. ” Someone may have my photos then. This is creepy. It’s like identify theft.”

Diana thumbed to the next photo in which the camera now focused down, this time on a man, also naked, leering up through shiny white teeth at whoever was taking the picture. Rodney. She grunted. “Ummm.”

“What?”

Diana’s clutched the phone and wondered if she could drop and crush it without causing suspicious. “Ummm. These are really horrible pictures. Very pornographic. I think someone has infected your phone. I’ll keep it and get it scraped.”

“But my mail is in there and I haven’t even read it.” Lena reached over and Diana shifted her whole body away, hugging the phone as if she were protecting an infant from a drone attack.

“What, what, what?” Lena lunged forward, grabbed the phone away from her. “Gees Diana, I can pornography. It’s not going to infect my brain.” She gave Diana a do-you-think-I’m naïve look, chuckled, and looked down. Diana sat frozen, waiting.

Lena would later remember the smell of coffee and Jack’s jolly tail swinging back and forth in the doorway right before the tiny images on the tiny phone came to life in her mind and shattered her marriage and her life into pieces. She shrieked. Jack shot into the next room Then. she shrieked again. And again. The fourth shriek sounded a bit forced.

Diana held her hands over her ears “Stop screaming.” Diana shouted. “Just cry for God’s sake.”

On cue, Lena began weeping, gasping and wracked. Diana opened the refrigerator reached for a half-filled bottle of wine. As she poured out two glasses, Lena’s sobs chugged down into sharp intakes of breath. They finally stopped and she swigged down the wine. Diana reached for the phone but Lena stopped her.

“No. I want to see all of them.” Diana walked over and looked over her shoulder as Lena, moaning and squeaking, thumbed through what seemed to be dozens of pictures, each one alternating between the pink happy girl and a grinning Rodney, his fat member poking cheerfully up like a hungry baby chick from a black hairy nest. The last image sported a video arrow. Lena pressed it and saw the camera aiming unsteadily at Rodney’s crotch. She heard a girly voice, with a charming Spanish accent.

“Oh…Rodney. We must shave the hair.”

“Hahaha! Real men don’t do that.” Male voice, sounding a bit apprehensive.

“Then your chest hair.” The camera moved up to a square of curly hair, thatched across Rodney’s breast like black mold.

Hahaha “I’d look ridiculous. I’m not a kid, Marta.” Camera moves to a gently chiding smile, smugly implying, “I’m a mature grown-up. Almost a full professor. How lucky you are, you little foreign grad student, to be here fucking me.”

Accented voice, “No. You look fabulous and smooth. I can lick your chest then, but now it would taste like an animal bear.”

“Ok. For you, Marta. But I won’t shave the family jewels.” Hahaha. [“Don’t scream, Lena!“]

“Oh no. That is ok. Keep them as is.”

“Heeheehee.”

“Those taste like oysters, even with the fat hair.”

“Hahaha heeeheee hahaha.”

End of video.

Lena stared at Diana, the phone frozen in her hand. After many moments, she spoke. “They will die.”

Diana patted her friend’s shoulder ineffectually, and pretended to laugh. “That’s harsh…although maybe not.”

Lena broke down again, “My life is over… I’m nearly 60… Why did he do this? 35 years of marriage. 35 years. Not a great marriage. Sometimes terrible…I knew he was unfaithful sometimes, but…God..to see him..and that.. that..blonde thing…”

Diana wanted to comfort her friend by telling that Rodney had always been a puffed up ass, delighted in his own voice, constantly seeking center stage at any gathering not matter how small, putting Lena down by dismissing things she said or criticizing minor flaws in her appearance. And he was always ridiculing her gallery and its art, calling Darrell a second rate outsider and her nudes “moon faced”. Diana wanted to tell her friend all of these things, but there was a very real possibility that Lena would forgive him, take him back for the sake of a steady access to his bank account. Then any nasty words about Rodney would be recalled and would clutter up their friendship, if not damage it irretrievably.

Leah, her face gothic with mascara tears, pushed a second glass of wine away and stood up dramatically, “No. I don’t want wine. I want to go to the funeral and get drunk on many of Rachael’s terrible martinis.” She sobbed again, “I don’t want to be alone. I want people. Let’s go.”

“You look terrible. Repair your face. You want to look great. And I need to change my clothes.”

Thirty minutes later they were back in town, parking in the alley behind Lena’s building, which was almost directly across Melville from Rachael’s brick three-story Federal building, where she had her law practice on the ground floor and living quarters above it. (Lena also lived upstairs from her gallery. It was a common situation among the small business owners on Melville street.) Diana tucked a supportive arm inside Lena’s as they walked across the street. Lena stared grimly ahead, making Diana nervous and chatty. “You look great. You always look great. Get through this thing. Remember, this is Clara’s funeral and death is final. What you saw is horrible but nobody died.”

“I feel like I died.”

“You didn’t. Now, don’t do anything crazy. ”

“I never do anything crazy,” Lena sounded like a serial killer.

Rachaels’ building had two doors opening on to the street. The left one led to her law office, which was dark and closed. The right one had a sheet of copy paper taped to it. “Unlocked. Come in. Reception on second floor.” Diana pushed it open, and they climbed the steep flight of stairs immediately behind it the second floor, where mourners were already livening up, having been handed a large water glass filled with Rachael’s deadly punch as soon as they walked in.

Diana pushed open the door and was greeted by Marvin, Rachael’s golden lab, juicy with affection. After jumping briefly on Diana, he bounced toward Lena, and sensing something off, performed dog therapy by leaping up and down and licking at her face, threatening both Lena’s constructed mask of fierce solemnity and her reconstructed make-up.

Rachael headed toward them, calling, “Get the fuck down, Marvin.” She patted the top of his head rhythmically, dribbling it down to a small nod. Lena stared passed them, and, pausing to restore her dazed oblivious despair, straightened herself up and walked steadily to the bar. She ignored a couple who greeted her cheerfully. The woman, feeling insulted, hissed to her husband that Lena was weirdly overwrought, considering that it wasn’t clear that she even knew Clara very well.

After watching Lean cross the room, Rachael and turned to Diana, “What’s the matter with Lena? She can’t be crying over Clara. She didn’t know her and she didn’t like her.”

" You’ll have to ask, but as a heads up, it’s about Rodney.”

“Cheated on her.”

“Of course.”

“What a surprise,” Rachael said drily. “And she just found out now? The man has never been faithful.”

“Yeah, he hit on me a couple of times. I never told Lena of course.”

“And Clara told me he propositioned her. I’m not actually sure she didn’t reciprocate. She acted all shocked when she was complaining to me about it, it but I saw her fawning all over him at one of her dreary parties, with her blouse unbuttoned half way to her navel…” She paused and her mouth pulled a twist, “Man, I have to get out of the habit of saying terrible things about my cousin. And considering who she was married to…”

“You’re forgiven.” Diana looked over Rachael’s shoulder to see Lena pulling out her phone and showing it to Sam Boccetti, a local politician. Not good.

“What?”

“Lena is about to enliven your party with some home movies.”


“Don’t tell me. They share a mobile account and that idiot loaded nasty pictures from his phone.”

“Yup.”

Rachael shook her head. “Not only faithless, but stupid. Well, I’ll make her one of my fabulous martinis, which I have been using myself to self-medicate.” Diana realized that Rachael was already half loaded as she tottered a bit on her way toward Lena waving an empty glass. Near the food table, Ralph, who was also slightly oiled by a third whiskey, stopped her, leaning his large head mawkishly on her shoulder. Rachael shrugged it off.

He threw one beefy arm around her. “It was damn nice of you to do this, Rache. You always were a great hostess, just like your big cousin. Both of you throw great parties.” Ralph was clutching a plate containing a landfill of shrimp, meatballs, ziti, and a small plug of lettuce cramped to the side of the plate. There were two long food tables, supplied by the local caterer. The first two held the meatballs floating in a pond of tomato sauce and the cheese-coated ziti. Ralph stared at the parade of steamers following: beef tips drowning in thick brown gravy, chunks of curried chicken, mashed potatoes, and rice. He checked his plate to see if he could squeeze anything else on it. The other table held the pile of shrimp, plus plates of lox and bagels and sandwiches of multiple meats, cheeses, and Portobello mushrooms. For the health conscious Rachael had supplied untouched salads of tough husky grains and various dark sharp-leafed greens, grimly accompanied by low calorie acrid vinaigrettes. Fortunately, the deserts -- chocolate cake, custard and apple pie, and a mountain of mixed cookies, blondies, and brownies -- wallowed at a third table near by.

“This isn’t a party, Ralph.”

“Oh right.” He blinked a couple times, pushing out a limp tear, while staring down at Rachael’s cleavage, “Gosh, you remind me so much of Clara. Except you’re much younger, of course, and you’re a lawyer and Clara stayed at home.”

“Yeah,” Rachael said, folding her arms across her chest and forcing him to release his arm look upward, “and Clara was blonde, tall, and thin and I have brown hair and I’m square and short.” Rachael had the appearance and attitude that evoked an aging Joan of Arc. She did indeed have a short boxy body and her slate-gray hair was cut severely into rectangular planes that included a set of bangs and slabs of hair that fell sharply to the level of her chin. She had never been a beauty, but at 60 years, she still had a strong physical presence, dark Irish eyes full of humor and intelligence and a quick engaging smile that could suddenly make her attractive.

“Rache. You’re not square.” His voice became concerned and sympathetic, “You have a fine sturdy body. Strong. I always thought Clara could use some meat on her. And see? She was too skinny. It probably gave her the aneurysm. I never knew why you didn’t get married again after John died…” He paused, chewing awkwardly through Rachael’s stern silence. “I particularly like the shrimp,” he finally said with prep school politesse and pushed one into his mouth, using it to leverage some ziti down his throat.

“Yeah, they’re great.” She started to move around him, “I have to make up some more martinis,” but he hung there in front of her, a huge grouper impressing the air around her with his large round face, protruding belly, and heavily flavored breath.

Munching steadily, he squinted an approximation of sadness, “I will miss her so bad, Rache. I already miss her. The bed is empty. This is a terrible loss. All these years.”

Rachael patted his shoulder and hoped this would stand in for a hug, but Ralph looped his large arms around her, balancing his plate of food with one hand suspended behind her back, “We’ll miss her so much, won’t we Rache.”

“Hmmmh. Hummmph.” She tried not to fall backward from his sudden weighty lunge and so had to prop herself forward until her throat jammed up against his shoulder and her chest was compressed against his. Gasping for breath, “Ralph, back off!”

He released her and picked the last shrimp off his plate, sucking the flesh out of the tail. When he finished, he paused, and his little blue eyes contracted. “So, do you think I should sue?”

“What?”

“The hospital. The doctor. Do you think we should sue?”

“Are you asking me as Clara’s cousin or a lawyer?”

“I a little of both, I would think.” And he distorted his wide pink lips up into a smile.

Rachael shook her head. “Ralph. This stinks, even for you. She had a stroke. Went to the hospital and then died. Today is her funeral. I’m sad. I think you’re a creep. That’s me as her cousin. As a lawyer, if you want to bring a suit against the hospital or, god forbid, doctor Phil, call my office in a week or and I’ll give you a referral.”

“Sure, sure. As always you know what’ s appropriate.” He paused in unaccustomed self-reflection, “That was totally not appropriate.” The moment passed, “And of course, I’d pay you if you want to take the case. I know that you know when family ends and business starts.” He patted her shoulder again and she could feel the sweat leaking through his hand into her skin. Past his head, Rachael spotted her two friends, who were waving at her. “Gotta go.”

Lena and Diana had taken over Rachael’s only couch and she walked over to them, “Thank god,” she said, eager to complain about Ralph.

Lena, however, thrust her hand out, silencing her. “You have to see these,”

“Ah, looking forward to it.” Rachael took Lena’s phone and swiping through the pictures, occasionally enlarging one with her thumb and index finger, “Not as endowed as I thought he’d be.”

“Keep going.”

Rachael stopped at the video, pushed the arrow and clucked sympathetically. She started to hand the phone back to Lena.

“No, you have to listen to it for the full effect.”

“I can’t. It’s too noisy in here and I’m already too drunk. I’ll look at it later.”

“I wish you could hear it now, because then you’ll understand why we need to kill him.

And the slut as well.”

“I can’t actually murder anyone, honey, but I’m so sorry about this. He’s done this shit before, and you guys always get back together.”

“But I never saw him doing it! This makes it so real and humiliating and…seeing him so…smug and cheerful. He’s not feeling at all guilty. He’s not thinking of me at all! I want a divorce tomorrow and I want everything he owns down to his shoelaces.”

“Well, of course I’ll represent you and when I’m sober, we can try and get at much as we can out of him. “ She shook her head, glancing first at Diana, who rolled her eyes a bit, and then at Lena, “What was he thinking when he took those pictures? Didn’t he know they’d be on the cloud and you could see them? You’re on his account.”

“I think he was blinded with love,” Lena said bitterly. “And he’s also a moron with anything technical that doesn’t have the word photovoltaic in it. I’m so angry. I’m so angry.”

“Heeyyyyy. Diana!” A shriek lasered through their conversation. “There you are!” A tiny blonde woman in a bright blue suit headed toward them, large white teeth gleaming in a wide grin. “I have such news. You have to hear.” As she approached them, she slapped her hand against her mouth, “Oh Rachael, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you standing there. I’m such an idiot. I totally forgot to say how sorry I am about Clara. I really am an idiot. ” Phyllis Venderwegen lived across the road from Diana, who often commented that her neighbor was the only person she knew who could simultaneously be unrelentingly cheerful and guilt ridden. “I’m sure…” she searched for the right cliché, “Clara is in a good place now. Such a lovely looking woman...And at least she went fast…It must be so hard now, but think of all the good things you have…your son…your practice.” Her eyes darted back and forth in desperate confusion.

To stop her, Rachael gave her hug, “Thanks Phyllis. That’s very kind of you,” She released her and gave brief wave, “Have to make more pigs in the blankets for all these pigs in the blankets.” She noticed Lena’s hand, reaching into her pocket book for the instrument of revenge.

“Lena, come with me. I need your help.”

“But Phyllis hasn’t seen my pictures.”

“It’s ok. She will. I’m sure everyone will.” and propelled her toward the kitchen door ” We can drink more and we’ll plot revenge.”

Lena turned back to Phyllis and gave a brief wave, “We’ll be back. Rachael needs to cook something,”

Phyllis turned to Diana, the fine thin wrinkles on her face collaborating in worry. “I feel so awful. I didn’t see her when I came up and I know I looked so…not sympathetic. I hope she doesn’t think I’m…you know, cold.”

“No one thinks you’re cold, Phyllis. What’s up?”

“Well, the news is really for you anyway. It is so incredible. You will never guess. You will never guess. I sold the Shook house! “ Her voice began to gather into enthusiastic billows, “I never thought that anyone would buy that monster. And guess who bought it? Someone famous! Guess who?” The happy thoughts now victorious, Phyllis could barely speak with excitement.

" A Biggest Loser? Dick Cheney? The Dalai Lama? Please god, George Clooney?”

Phyllis waved a hand at her, “You’re soooo hysterical. No, it’s Peter Macy!”

“The author? On our road?” Diana was indeed impressed, which made Phyllis even happier.

“Yes, isn’t that amazing.”

“Wow. I really like his Martin Quinn series. Great detective. Great mysteries. I buy them as soon as they’re out. Full time or weekender?”

“I don’t know. He says he’s going to fix up the house, so maybe full time. I’m so excited. This will soooo improve Center Road. ”

Phyllis Venderwegen and her husband Bradley were the previous owners of the barn where Diana now lived and worked. Bradley had been a successful broker in the city and when the bubble broke in 2001, he decided to take what remained of his wealth, which was still very comfortable, settle upstate, and, as he said every day “smell the roses.” They had bought the old Dutch farmhouse associated with Diana’s barn only a couple of years before she moved up. They had had no children and Phyllis had never worked in her life. Her job, she always told her friends with a gay self-deprecating laugh, was to spend her husband’s money, but country shopping was limited, so she got her real estate license. Selling her own barn to Diana was her first big sale. About ten years later, selling the Shook House about a quarter of a mile away on the same road was probably her second big deal.

“I’ve been trying to sell that white elephant for years. Nina Shook just wouldn’t budge on the price. She’s such a nut case.”

“I only met her once. She came to me right before she left for Florida for a check up. What was that, five years ago? She was in very good shape for her age – must be 80 now. Was quite pleasant, actually. She talked about going south and how much she was looking forward to it and getting away from Port Clinton.”

“She was very nasty to me at first. But we got on after awhile, especially when I found a buyer. That cheered her up.”

“I gathered she had a sad childhood and had always been miserable here. Mother died when she was young. Father an alcoholic. Last of the Shooks.”

“I guess you’d have to feel sorry for her. She never married. But that’s no surprise. She was mean as a snake. Lots of people have bad childhoods and manage to be happy,” A speck of a cloud passed across Phyllis face. Diana caught it and thought, not for the first time, that Phyllis may be hiding depression. Interspersed with her unflagging optimism, were attacks of vague aches and pain that migrated into various joints and muscles, headaches, and the occasional bout of exhaustion. The symptoms sent Phyllis, full of apologies, across the road to Diana’s office once or twice a month. (“I hate to bother you, Diana. I know you’re busy with real patients, but I was just a little worried about this shooting pain that I had this morning. It seemed to radiate up my arm. I’m sure it’s nothing. I looked on WebMD, though and I thought you should check it out.“) Throughout and between these attacks, whose causes remained unsolved in spite of numerous tests, Phyllis maintained an unwavering cheeriness that at times made Diane think of a tree screaming.

Phyllis brief gray moment had passed, “Anyhow, Macy paid the full price. Crazy. That house is a wreck and it’s going to take a lot of work and a lot of money.”

“Well, it’s great to have someone new on the Road, particularly an author whose books I can honestly say that I like. It would be awful to have an author like that woman who does all that unreadable sadistic soft porn stuff.”

Phyllis leaned forward conspiratorially and whispered, as if anyone could hear anyway, “I know what you’re talking about. I have to confess I read the first one of those books. And,” she blushed, “They made me feel a little...turned on. I didn’t want Bradley to notice.”

Diana smiled, “Wouldn’t you want him to notice?”

Phyllis gave a little squeal of delight, “You are funny! No, he’d think I was an idiot.” And gave Diana’s arm a gentle slap.

Diana ducked away from the mystery of Phyllis’ personal life and turned to their gardens, what they would be planting and when. They promised each other not to plant the same vegetables so they could share. Then Diana caught sight of Lena, who had escaped the kitchen, and was heading toward Clara’s boys, phone in hand and stretched toward them like an offering. Diana grabbed Phyllis and urged her toward them, “Oh, look. There’s Lena. You need to tell her this news. She’d love to hear it. And I know she wants to share hers.”

She waved frantically at Lena, who was about to open up the naughty pictures for the grieving young men, “Lena! Phyllis hasn’t seen your pictures. And I’m sure Clara’s boys wouldn’t be interested in them right now.” Lena looked over and her outstretched arm turned like a like a spotlight on this new market for her misery. “And she has some exciting news herself.”

“Ok” and Lena, now quite drunk, lurched toward Phyllis, who caught her cheerfully and led her to the couch, leaving Diana to comfort Rachael’s nephews. Dirk was heavyset with a wide moon face that resembled Ralph’s and Boyd was a thin blonde male version of his mother. They didn’t get along very well but today they huddled together, dazed with grief and mildly irritated by the amount of kindness being shown them by people they didn’t know. After tormenting them with additional sympathy, Diana headed to the kitchen, nodding pleasantly without stopping through a gauntlet of her patients, who insisted as she passed “Dr. Elliot, I hear eating green coffee beans can make me lose weight faster than just not eating”.. “That fiber drink is doing nothing about my constipation, Dr. Elliot. What about prunes?“… “My brother in law read on the Internet that the drug companies could cure cancer in a minute, but they’d lose all their money. So they’re hiding all the good drugs.” Bobbing her head and smiling, she finally reached the kitchen door and pushed through it, finding Rachael sitting at the table sobbing, surrounded by party wreckage and dirty dishes.

“Hey,” Diana said, “Let me help you out.”

Rachael looked up at her, her eyes red and face blotch, “I really miss my cousin.” She said, “And now she’s left me with Ralph.”