didn’t notice the trash piling up.
The next morning, I couldn’t picture going to work. Lucy and the rest would take care of themselves. Why else did we have lab managers? The news announcer on the radio said it was the president’s birthday, which reminded me I needed to send Russell a thank-you note for the case of wine. No matter that I’d see him over the weekend. While running for office as greatest American housewife, my mother never let a thank-you note go unwritten.
I was reminded of one of Sara’s jokes about WASPs:
Why don’t WASPs attend orgies?
Too many thank-you notes to write.
My mother never liked Russell. He reminded her of my cousins, the ones who played dice during school. Except Russell was a good math student, a lettered varsity athlete, and a boy scout. Plus, I didn’t have many friends, so she didn’t do more than scold him when he was digging through her refrigerator, or banish him for a week the time he brought over a nudie book. But we’d been joined at the hip. Both the sons of proud and insufferable immigrant tribes, we shared the same dreams: to bat for the Yankees, sleep with Lana Turner, go to Harvard, or at least run away from Long Island, speed as far away as possible in miles and ambition from our thousand respective short-sighted relatives. For college, I went to Chicago, and Russell attended Yale on a wrestling scholarship. But I eventually got to Harvard as a young Ph.D. doing research, and Russell dated a girl who’d once given Don Mattingly a blow job in the Yankees’ parking lot. We decided that we’d done okay.
Russell had been married eight years to a woman named Suzanne until he discovered her sleeping with a Christmas tree farmer, the man who’d sold them the family Christmas tree that year. Now Russell was single in Manhattan, housing Cornelia, his and Suzanne’s daughter, fresh out of college. Cornelia, whom Russell had raised on the Upper West Side, after she refused to live with her stepfather, the tree farmer—“Fucknut,” according to both Cornelia and Russell. Russell adored his daughter, so did everyone. Cornelia was curious, kind-hearted, and vain, a vegan waif spoiled rotten by her father. Sara used to say she was a lot like herself at that age, and she’d said it when Cornelia was five, ten, and fifteen.
I sat at my desk and scribbled a quick note, sealed the envelope, and went looking for my address book, but came up empty. I looked around my office, in the kitchen drawers. It was gone. I must have left it at work. Then I remembered Sara’s Rolodex, that it would have Russell’s address, too.
Only a few times since the accident had I gone into her office. The cleaning lady swept through once a week, but with instructions not to disturb anything. The process had been never-ending, bagging up Sara’s things after she died. I still found old parkas in the attic, moisturizers in baskets in the living room. Small pots of hand cream rolling around the bottom of the sea.
But here were the framed movie posters above her desk. Sara’s lucky black cowboy boots, like two chimneys by the garden door. Walls covered in corkboards and mementos: posters from her performance-art days and theater years, stills from the set of The Hook-Up and group pictures with the crew. Opposite the door was a green velvet daybed, a set piece from the movie . The director had shipped it to Sara with a matching throw pillow, embroidered, “Write me another.”
I found the Rolodex sitting on her desk. I scribbled down Russell’s address, and closed the door behind me. A moment later, something pulled me back. The book the Rolodex had been sitting on had a few dozen index cards sticking out, covered with Sara’s handwriting. I read the card on top.
Well, I scrambled to think of something. “I hit my mother one time. I punched her in the mouth.” After a beat, Victor said, “You might have something there,” and then both of us started laughing, just crazy
The next morning, I couldn’t picture going to work. Lucy and the rest would take care of themselves. Why else did we have lab managers? The news announcer on the radio said it was the president’s birthday, which reminded me I needed to send Russell a thank-you note for the case of wine. No matter that I’d see him over the weekend. While running for office as greatest American housewife, my mother never let a thank-you note go unwritten.
I was reminded of one of Sara’s jokes about WASPs:
Why don’t WASPs attend orgies?
Too many thank-you notes to write.
My mother never liked Russell. He reminded her of my cousins, the ones who played dice during school. Except Russell was a good math student, a lettered varsity athlete, and a boy scout. Plus, I didn’t have many friends, so she didn’t do more than scold him when he was digging through her refrigerator, or banish him for a week the time he brought over a nudie book. But we’d been joined at the hip. Both the sons of proud and insufferable immigrant tribes, we shared the same dreams: to bat for the Yankees, sleep with Lana Turner, go to Harvard, or at least run away from Long Island, speed as far away as possible in miles and ambition from our thousand respective short-sighted relatives. For college, I went to Chicago, and Russell attended Yale on a wrestling scholarship. But I eventually got to Harvard as a young Ph.D. doing research, and Russell dated a girl who’d once given Don Mattingly a blow job in the Yankees’ parking lot. We decided that we’d done okay.
Russell had been married eight years to a woman named Suzanne until he discovered her sleeping with a Christmas tree farmer, the man who’d sold them the family Christmas tree that year. Now Russell was single in Manhattan, housing Cornelia, his and Suzanne’s daughter, fresh out of college. Cornelia, whom Russell had raised on the Upper West Side, after she refused to live with her stepfather, the tree farmer—“Fucknut,” according to both Cornelia and Russell. Russell adored his daughter, so did everyone. Cornelia was curious, kind-hearted, and vain, a vegan waif spoiled rotten by her father. Sara used to say she was a lot like herself at that age, and she’d said it when Cornelia was five, ten, and fifteen.
I sat at my desk and scribbled a quick note, sealed the envelope, and went looking for my address book, but came up empty. I looked around my office, in the kitchen drawers. It was gone. I must have left it at work. Then I remembered Sara’s Rolodex, that it would have Russell’s address, too.
Only a few times since the accident had I gone into her office. The cleaning lady swept through once a week, but with instructions not to disturb anything. The process had been never-ending, bagging up Sara’s things after she died. I still found old parkas in the attic, moisturizers in baskets in the living room. Small pots of hand cream rolling around the bottom of the sea.
But here were the framed movie posters above her desk. Sara’s lucky black cowboy boots, like two chimneys by the garden door. Walls covered in corkboards and mementos: posters from her performance-art days and theater years, stills from the set of The Hook-Up and group pictures with the crew. Opposite the door was a green velvet daybed, a set piece from the movie . The director had shipped it to Sara with a matching throw pillow, embroidered, “Write me another.”
I found the Rolodex sitting on her desk. I scribbled down Russell’s address, and closed the door behind me. A moment later, something pulled me back. The book the Rolodex had been sitting on had a few dozen index cards sticking out, covered with Sara’s handwriting. I read the card on top.
Well, I scrambled to think of something. “I hit my mother one time. I punched her in the mouth.” After a beat, Victor said, “You might have something there,” and then both of us started laughing, just crazy
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