another, and she, Brenda Morrelli Cushman, wound up with bubkes. Nice work, Morty, you cheap fuck.
So she bought a bag of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies at the overpriced Korean on Eightyfourth, then turned east on Eighty-sixth Street.
She’d have lunch at Summerhouse, if they were open yet. Ladies who lunch and all that crap, but good curried chicken with grapes and creme brulee to die for. Then she’d see.
Maybe she’d pick up something for Angela, her daughter. If her cards weren’t declined.
When she got to the restaurant, she was thrilled by signs of life.
They were just opening, and when she asked for a table, the skinny bitch at the desk lifted her eyebrows. “Are you only one?” she asked.
“Yes, but I’m eating for two,” Brenda snapped. Out of spite the bitch seated her in the back at a table beside the waiters’ station when the place was completely empty. Of course, because she was a middle aged woman alone. A fat middleaged woman alone. But Brenda all at once was too tired to make a big stink. Sometimes she just lost all her spirit.
Like over the divorce. She should have hung in there. Christ, it wasn’t that she loved Morty. She couldn’t even remember when she had.
But she should have hung in there and made a better deal. That fuck lawyer Leo Gilman had been too much for her, playing the family friend and all. And she was represented by little Barry Marlowe because Morty paid for it all. They were in collusion.
They had to be. More bullshit. What was the difference between a laboratory rat and a lawyer? You could get attached to a laboratory rat.
It wasn’t that she cared about money. She didn’t really, she never had. She was Vinny Morrelli’s daughter and she grew up with everything she needed. But because she was Vinny Morrelli’s daughter, she didn’t like it that she’d been made a fool of, and she especially hated that Morty still had power over her.
If he was slow with his alimony or support, she and Tony and Angela sweated it. And Morty was so goddamn cheap, or at least he had been to her and the kids.
It was hard now to think of Morty with that socialite bitch. Shelby Symington.
A little blond Southern shiksa. Jesus. And now she was opening an art gallery.
She was written up in the magazines. A Southern Mary Boone. Dragging Morty up from the depths of social anonymity. Brenda couldn’t pick up a copy of the Post or the News without seeing their pictures on the gossip pages. She shook her head. Christ, what was he paying his publicist? A hell of a lot more than he was sending her every month.
Bet those checks didn’t bounce.
Yes, she admitted, Morty should be punished. But by who? My father is dead. My brother is a failed stand-up comic out in L.A. What could I do? Sue Morty? Big deal. Maybe I should see my cousin Nunzio.
Christ, she hadn’t seen him in years. Was he still in the shoe business? Cement ones, that is. The thought of Morty planted inside one of the Bruckner Expressway support columns made her smile. Her father had once told her the Expressway construction was never finished because there was always more “planting” to be done. Maybe we could have a Morty Cushman Memorial Off-Ramp. She smiled to herself again.
The thing about Morty was that he only liked to spend money on things that showed, fancy boats and jazzy cars and suits from Bijan, where they were so snotty you needed an appointment to get into the store.
But his underwear he got from some close-out place like Job Lot. That was how she knew when he started cheating on her, he bought silk boxers from Sulka. When they’d moved into the duplex, he’d called in that faygeleh Duarto to do the living room, library, dining room, and guest room, but their bedrooms were left alone. “After all,” he said, “nobody sees them but us.” Not that she gave a shit. She couldn’t stand all those goddamn cabbage roses and fakola English crap. After all, who were they kidding? Certainly not Duarto, who
So she bought a bag of Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies at the overpriced Korean on Eightyfourth, then turned east on Eighty-sixth Street.
She’d have lunch at Summerhouse, if they were open yet. Ladies who lunch and all that crap, but good curried chicken with grapes and creme brulee to die for. Then she’d see.
Maybe she’d pick up something for Angela, her daughter. If her cards weren’t declined.
When she got to the restaurant, she was thrilled by signs of life.
They were just opening, and when she asked for a table, the skinny bitch at the desk lifted her eyebrows. “Are you only one?” she asked.
“Yes, but I’m eating for two,” Brenda snapped. Out of spite the bitch seated her in the back at a table beside the waiters’ station when the place was completely empty. Of course, because she was a middle aged woman alone. A fat middleaged woman alone. But Brenda all at once was too tired to make a big stink. Sometimes she just lost all her spirit.
Like over the divorce. She should have hung in there. Christ, it wasn’t that she loved Morty. She couldn’t even remember when she had.
But she should have hung in there and made a better deal. That fuck lawyer Leo Gilman had been too much for her, playing the family friend and all. And she was represented by little Barry Marlowe because Morty paid for it all. They were in collusion.
They had to be. More bullshit. What was the difference between a laboratory rat and a lawyer? You could get attached to a laboratory rat.
It wasn’t that she cared about money. She didn’t really, she never had. She was Vinny Morrelli’s daughter and she grew up with everything she needed. But because she was Vinny Morrelli’s daughter, she didn’t like it that she’d been made a fool of, and she especially hated that Morty still had power over her.
If he was slow with his alimony or support, she and Tony and Angela sweated it. And Morty was so goddamn cheap, or at least he had been to her and the kids.
It was hard now to think of Morty with that socialite bitch. Shelby Symington.
A little blond Southern shiksa. Jesus. And now she was opening an art gallery.
She was written up in the magazines. A Southern Mary Boone. Dragging Morty up from the depths of social anonymity. Brenda couldn’t pick up a copy of the Post or the News without seeing their pictures on the gossip pages. She shook her head. Christ, what was he paying his publicist? A hell of a lot more than he was sending her every month.
Bet those checks didn’t bounce.
Yes, she admitted, Morty should be punished. But by who? My father is dead. My brother is a failed stand-up comic out in L.A. What could I do? Sue Morty? Big deal. Maybe I should see my cousin Nunzio.
Christ, she hadn’t seen him in years. Was he still in the shoe business? Cement ones, that is. The thought of Morty planted inside one of the Bruckner Expressway support columns made her smile. Her father had once told her the Expressway construction was never finished because there was always more “planting” to be done. Maybe we could have a Morty Cushman Memorial Off-Ramp. She smiled to herself again.
The thing about Morty was that he only liked to spend money on things that showed, fancy boats and jazzy cars and suits from Bijan, where they were so snotty you needed an appointment to get into the store.
But his underwear he got from some close-out place like Job Lot. That was how she knew when he started cheating on her, he bought silk boxers from Sulka. When they’d moved into the duplex, he’d called in that faygeleh Duarto to do the living room, library, dining room, and guest room, but their bedrooms were left alone. “After all,” he said, “nobody sees them but us.” Not that she gave a shit. She couldn’t stand all those goddamn cabbage roses and fakola English crap. After all, who were they kidding? Certainly not Duarto, who
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