The First Wives Club (11 page)

”Hi, Sylvie.”

“Hi, Pangor.” The cat gave another stretch and rolled onto its side.

Annie gently stroked its soft, soft belly.

“Time to get up, both of you.” Annie sat down at the side of the bed.

“You remember what we do today, don’t you?”

“Go to school,” Sylvie whispered. There was a fear deep in her eyes, one that all of Annie’s talks had not dispelled. “But I will like it, after a while.” She parroted what Annie had told her, over and over.

Annie nodded. ‘And Pangor can come, too, right, Mom-Pom?”

“Absolutely .”

“Good.” Sylvie threw off the blankets and got to her feet. She was awkward in her movements, a little clumsy. And so very, very trusting.

”Get washed up and dressed. Hudson will be here right after breakfast.”’ Sylvie smiled. She liked Hudson, and he liked Sylvie.

Annie watched her daughter as she struggled out of her pink pajamas.

Then she turned and walked back to the kitchen. She felt tears sting her eyes.

The school wasn’t far away, she reminded herself, only one hundred and seventeen miles north in a quiet part of New York State. Annie sighed.

She looked at the boxes and the trunk packed and waiting in the hall.

She remembered when she had gone off, younger than Sylvie was now, to Miss Porter’s School. Like Sylvie, she’d been confused and upset. But unlike Sylvie, she’d had no mother to take her. Her mother had run away. Run away and never come back. She never said good-bye to either Annie or Annie’s father.

And he, bewildered, had sent his only child off to school.

It seemed that she had always fought loneliness. Did other people feel it? she wondered. Did others spend their lives outrunning the loneliness? She had suffered it, but decided she would never let her children twist in its grip, if she could help it.

Well, Sylvan Glades was her insurance against loneliness for Sylvie.

Despite what Aaron said, Sylvan Glades was actually a residential community where Sylvie would be happy to be with other retarded people.

She would have a job, eventually, and friends, and help with all the things she needed help with in daily life. And she wouldn’t be the slightest bit different. She’d be just the same.

It was costly, very costly, but they had planned for long-term care eventually, and Annie had added most of her trust fund to the money that Aaron had put aside. It was more than enough. All that was necessary then had been for Annie to let go, to free her child of the loneliness, and then to wait for the same loneliness to come hunting her.

And now, it was here.

She got the travel box for Pangor and slipped a tranquilizer wrapped in a ball of cream cheese down the cat’s throat. Without it, he’d yowl the whole way.

She wished she had one for herself.

At eight, exactly, Hudson rang up. Sylvie, dressed in a white linen blouse and a pretty blue jumper from Saks, danced with excitement.

‘We’re going to school. School. School,” she sang, and Annie tried to smile.

“Sleep-away school,” she reminded her.

”Sleep-away school.”’ Sylvie nodded. “Like Chris. Like Alex.” And she reached out and held Annie’s hand. ‘Let’s go. Let’s go.”

Sylvie was too excited to sleep in the car, so they played I Spy and colored.

Sylvie ate a roll and butter and half a banana. To Annie, the ride seemed endless, but it also ended too soon.

“Is this your new school?” Hudson asked as they pulled into the drive that led to the elegant converted mansion. He whistled. “Some place.

” Sylvie, squirming on the seat, giggled. ‘Some place!” she echoed, her eyes widening. Annie loved her daughter’s eyes. To outsiders, they were one of the marks of Down’s syndrome, but to Annie, Sylvie’s slightly tipped, Asian-looking eyes were mysterious and poignantly sweet. Cat’s eyes. Now frightened eyes. Sylvie had once surprised Annie when she had pointed at a picture of a geisha in one of Annie’s books on Japan and said, ‘Like my eyes, Mommie.”

As they pulled up to the main building, the big front door opened, and Dr. Gancher stepped out. A big woman. No-nonsense, but warm. Hudson opened the limo door for Sylvie and Annie and began to unpack the car while they were greeted by the doctor.

”Hello, Sylvie. Nice to see you again.” Though Dr. Gancher was large, she was not intimidating. Still, Sylvie hung back.

”Hello, Mrs. Paradise.” Annie took Dr. Gancher’s hand.

“Say hello, Sylvie,” Annie coaxed, and Sylvie mumbled a greeting. Then she looked up.

”I have a cat,” she said. ‘It has eyes like mine.”

Annie looked at Sylvie, startled. Sylvie had never compared herself to Pangor before. Once again, Annie was struck by how often the child seemed to know some of what she, Annie, had been thinking.

Now Dr. Gancher smiled. “And I understand your cat is going to stay here with you.” Sylvie nodded.

Hudson turned to them. He had already lined up Sylvie’s boxes and trunk neatly beside the car. ‘All here and ready to go. Where should I put them?”

”I think it’s best to just leave them for the present.” Dr. Gancher looked at Sylvie. ‘Are you ready to see your new school?”

“Yes.”

They toured the main building, the cafeteria, and the group house where Sylvie would have her own room. All of the “students” that Annie saw seemed well cared for and occupied. After more than an hour, they ended the tour on the front steps where they had begun.

“And are you ready to say good-bye to your mother?”

Sylvie nodded. “Bye, Mom-Pom,” she said casually.

”Then I think it’s time for you to go, Mrs. Paradise. May I call you this evening?”

Annie was startled. “Now?” she asked, and then realized that, of course, this would be easiest on Sylvie. “Yes, certainly.”

She turned to her daughter. “Goodbye for now, darling. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Sylvie kept smiling. “Don’t go, Mom-Pom. Don’t go.” But she seemed calm.

“I have to go now, darling. That’s the rule at sleep-away school.

Remember?”’ The smile started to dissolve. Sylvie’s broad face distorted, one side of her mouth crumpling. ‘Don’t go!” she repeated, her voice beginning to rise.

“But you’re here at your new school. Here with Pangor and Dr. Gancher.

Just as we said.”

Sylvie jerked her hand out of Dr. Gancher’s.

”No. No,” she screamed, and ran to Annie. She flung her arms around her neck.

‘No,” she shrieked, and buried her head under Annie’s arm.

“It’s best to get in the car,” Dr. Gancher said calmly, taking Sylvie’s hand again. Sylvie shrieked as the doctor pulled her gently but firmly away. Annie stood rooted. Dr. Gancher gave her the gentlest push.

Annie backed to the car. Her daughter tried to pull out of the stranger’s grasp. “Mommy, no. No, Mommy, no!” she cried again.

Annie struggled to keep her own tears back, to hide her pain from Sylvie. Hudson, behind her, opened the door for her. She got in.

“Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go.”’ Hysterical, screaming, her face red, tear-streaked, Sylvie fell to her knees. ‘Please, Mommy, don’t go. ” Hudson rounded the car, got into the driver’s seat, and started the engine. On the steps, two attendants came out and stood beside Dr. Gancher, who was now crouched beside Sylvie, holding her firmly by her shoulders. But Sylvie’s arms, pleading, reached out to Annie.

“Is it time to go?” Hudson asked in a low voice.

“Yes,” Annie managed to gasp, and they drove down the alley beneath the maples. Annie could hear Sylvie’s screams until they got to the gates.

Mor, You Fuck!

Annie is right, Brenda thought. Her own life might be totally fucked, but when it comes to advice for me, she’s right on. Brenda entered her apartment and walked down the narrow, dark hallway that led to the living room. She began searching through the drawer of the credenza.

Somewhere in there she had stuffed her divorce papers, check stubs, and withdrawal slips. She scrabbled through the empty wrappers, unmailed warranty cards, and crumpled Kleenex. At last she found the business card that Duarto had given her, Diana La Gravenesse, Esq. Practice limited to women’s issues and matrimonial law. Annie was right. ‘Get a good lawyer,” she had said. Very good advice, Brenda thought. She’d thought about it a lot since their conversation after the exercise class Monday, and now she was going to act on it. She crossed the room to the phone and dialed the number.

It wasn’t easy to get an appointment. La Gravenesse’s male secretary had tried to stick her with one three weeks later, but Brenda had stood firm. ‘It’s an emergency, and it has to be today,” she told the little lisper. She had bullied him. Usually she liked gays, and her buddy Duarto was a riot, but this guy raised her hackles. Too prissy.

Okay, she had her appointment. So now what? She couldn’t go alone.

And she couldn’t ask Annie. Annie was already a total wreck.

Duarto was the answer. He was always supportive, and better than that, he was funny. She’d ask him to go with her. Because, to be honest, she was scared.

She’d been stupid, and now, if it was too late to fix the stupid, she’d be very unhappy for a very long time. And that scared her. She couldn’t do this alone, she realized. So maybe Duarto would go with her. She dialed his number.

”Principessa, cara!” Duarto sounded so alive over the phone.” Va bene?

“I feel like dog meat, if you wanna know. What’s with this principessa shit?”

“Eet eempresses the peasants, eef you want to know,” Duarto explained sotto voce. ‘De happy hooker ees een. I’m sitten’ here, up to my teets in samples, and dees beetch keeps looken’ for more. Two hundred an’ twenty deeferent turquoise ees not enough. Che joost got up to take a whizz, but che heard me call you princess,’ and now che’ll suck up for another hour.” He sighed.

Brenda knew he was working for Gayfrieda Schiff, a slut who got lucky and married her john. And now John Schiff was spending more than ten million bucks on their new forty-three-room Park Avenue co-op. “Happy hooker” was the code name Duarto invented for Gayfrieda. “When I theenk of how my light ees spent.

What a way to earn a liveen’. So what ees wit’ chou?”

Brenda’s chest tightened. She couldn’t ask him to come. He was busy.

She’d have to go alone. “Morty went public. I thought I’d go see that lawyer that you recommended.”

“Fabulous! Choost what chou should do. But of course I’ll come wit’ chou.”

“You can’t. You have the happy hooker there.”

”Ees notheen. I’ll tell her I have my period.” Duarto’s voice changed. “Dees ees dreadful news, principessa. Eef dey are all seek, how weell chou feel de table at chour dinner?” He paused, and Brenda knew Gayfrieda had returned to the room and he was performing for her.

“Oh, of course I weel. Certainly, principessa.”

“If Gayfrieda Schiff thinks that you can get her invited to some princess’s soiree, she’s on drugs.”

“But ees worth a try, cara. I weel be over een half an hour.”

Brenda’s eyes filled with tears. She wouldn’t have to go alone.

‘Duarto, you’re a prince.”

“No, cara. Buatta ees de prince. I’m de sultan. Ciao.”

Then she had no choice but to stuff her divorce decree, the contract, the transcripts from the partial examination before trial, all of it, into a D’Agostino shopping bag. And she added the clippings from the Times and the Journal. Next came dressing. It was always difficult and she avoided the mirror. She put on black slacks that she couldn’t manage to button at the waist, but she covered that up with an Issey Miyake cashmere sweater set in black and gray, which covered a multitude of sins. She’d bought it on sale, long before the divorce.

”Oh, cara, chou look like Elizabeth Taylor. Maybe to loose a few pounds, but steel, ees not bad, eh?” Duarto said when he arrived.

Later, in the taxi, after Duarto had tsked over the clippings, Brenda still felt frightened. It was a long ride, all the way downtown, and the taxi smelled almost unbearably of body odor. Duarto rolled his eyes, then rolled down the windows.

”Duarto, I don’t know how I’m going to pay this lawyer.” Brenda sighed.

‘Morty is three months behind in his payments to me, and I owe everyone and his brother.”

Duarto began to rummage in his attache case. “That reminds me,” he said. “Chou now got a job.”’ He pulled out a check made out to Brenda and added, ‘Thees ees chour first paycheck.”’ Brenda looked at the check in Duarto’s outstretched hand, then raised her eyes to meet his.

”Take eet, cara,” he said, pushing the check forward.

“But Duarto, I don’t work for you.”

”You do now, cara. I need an asseestant. Eet’s getteen harder and harder to keep the business end going while doeen the decorating work.

I’m goeen nuts weethout Richard’s help. And I have to hustle more now that those two reech beetches are een the business.” Brenda knew he meant Melanie Kemp and Susan Carstairs.

”So,” he continued, “chou are my asseestant.” renda took the check, folded it, and put it in her purse. With her head down so Duarto couldn’t see the tears brimming in her eyes, she said, ‘Thank you, Duarto. You’ve been very good to me.”

“No, no, cara. Chou have been very good to me. And to Richard. He say to me at the hospital, Duarto, make that woman go out and get a job and get her out of the kitchen, for everyone’s sake.”

” Brenda leaned across the seat and kissed Duarto on the cheek. “Thank you, Duarto, and thank you for coming with me.”

”Ees nothing. Eet make me happy.”’ Brenda sighed. “I wish I didn’t have to go do this. And I hate that part of town. I hate it.”’ “Chou have to do dees ting,” Duarto told her. “Ees deesgusting, what he do.

How come chou take so leetle, anyway? Chou aren’t so stupid like dat.”

“I know, but I hate courts and lawyers and all of it. I just wanted it over with.” Even to Duarto, Brenda wouldn’t talk about why, wouldn’t talk about her father’s “business.” Though he’d been dead for years, the legacy her father left her was a terror of the courts. Morty knew that, and he had used it against her. They’d settled out of court.

“Money just isn’t that important to me,” she added, as though trying to convince herself.

“Chure, not eef chou always had eet. But getteen old ees no fun, and getteen old when you aren’t rich ees deesgusteen. Look at ths cab.