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Chapter 31. Lucy the Elephant
August 1970
As soon as I stepped onto the bone-white sand, I knew it was the right place. The beach was
clean and wide, flanked by a jetty that thrust a rocky tail into the ocean. I turned my back to the
waves and saw the body of Lucy the Elephant towering over her surroundings like a wooden
Colossus. I’d had a thing for Lucy since as long as I can remember.
“Perfect spot for the wedding,” I told Michael when I got back to Philly. “It would’ve been
nice to get married in Ventnor, but they don’t issue beach permits for weddings. Crazy, huh.
Anyway, Margate’s right next door.”
“Sounds great. Honestly, I’d marry you in a laundromat if that’s what you wanted.”
We’d put off the wedding until after I finished law school and he got his PhD. It had been my
idea to wait until we were self-supporting, but he’d gone along. “What’s the difference,” he said,
“since we’re already living in sin.” We laughed at the quaint expression that had gone out of
style for most people our age.
He kissed me as we looked out over the skyline of Philadelphia that filled our dining room
window. “So about this beach wedding. Will your mom approve?”
“Not right away. It’s way too Woodstocky for her taste. But she’ll probably come around
once she gets into decorating with all those shells and sea glass. Mom could transform a kiddy
pool into the lost kingdom of Atlantis.”
“We can fit Michael’s relatives at a single table. It’s just the two aunts, two uncles and four
cousins,” Mom said, placing eight tiny name tags around one of the circles on the seating plan
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spread out between us on a card table, and wrote “Markowitz” in the center. “I won’t tape these
down until we finalize the seating arrangements.” She straightened one of the tags. “Eight people
at a table for ten. I hear Jeffrey Markowitz moved to Canada with his third wife.”
Michael hadn’t spoken to his father in years. He acted like none of this bothered him. When
we were doing the invitations, he said, “Think of all the money we’re saving on seats since I’m
an orphan,” but his laugh lacked any trace of humor. Thank God he had his mother when he was
young so he knew how it felt to be loved. Before me, of course.
“It must have been hard for Michael growing up with that father of his,” Mom said, “always
putting him down. It’s a wonder Michael grew up to be such a...mensch.” The Yiddish surprised
me. Mom had always played down her Jewish roots so she’d blend in with the Main Line crowd.
But roots have a way of poking though the soil at the most unexpected times, and I can’t imagine
Mom was fooling any of the Bryn Mawr ladies.
“You’re right, Mom. It’s a wonder he came out whole. Some people are just built that way, I
guess. Anyway, Michael is a mensch, which is why I’m marrying him.” I traced the two empty
seats at the Markowitz table with my finger; it was like rubbing a space in your mouth where two
baby teeth used to be. I expected a motherly response—like how it was beschert that two people
as wonderful as Michael and me were getting married. But a second Jewish word would most
likely exceed her lifetime Yiddish quota. It’s a wonder she agreed to have a rabbi officiate at the
ceremony.
Instead of answering, Mom stared at the floor, her mouth tight as the line where the molding
met hardwood. She made a guttural “mmm” sound.
“Mom, are you all right?”
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She seemed not to hear my question. “Sometimes it’s hard to know if you’re doing right by
your children…or your husband.”
Mom was not one for confessions or for admitting to mistakes. If she’d felt any responsibility
or guilt for the way things had turned out, she hadn’t expressed it until that moment.
“Things don’t always end up the way you expect,” she said so softly I had to lean forward to
hear her. “So you just try to do your best.”
She looked at me, cocking her head and squinting. I thought maybe she’d say something
positive about her expectations of me, but she reached out with two fingers to straighten one of
my stray curls as if she were picking nits. “We really need to do something about that hair. And
you should definitely wear a darker lipstick for the ceremony. Orange just isn’t your color, is it?”
The moment had passed. I wanted to tell her Dad would have found me beautiful regardless, but
what was the point.
Her fingers fluttered around the remaining name tags, eager to get them arranged, so she
could move onto the more creative tasks of table and room decorations. She placed the last of the
name tags around the numbered circles. “Look at all the holes.” She pointed to the empty places.
“I’ll have to move some people around so I can fill them.” Her fingers rested on the spot where
Dad would have sat. Mom was dating a guy who always looked like he just stepped off a yacht
with his perma-tan, blazers, and white pants. She could have brought him, but she said she
wouldn’t be comfortable with him as her date, which was just as well, since he was as unlike
Dad as left was from right. So she kept the seat empty in his honor, like the cup of wine we set
out for Elijah at Passover seder, a cup that stood alone until the end of the meal when we poured
the untouched wine back in the bottle.
I looked at the gap-toothed seating arrangements. “Some holes just can’t be filled, Mom.”
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The plan was for Michael and me to pose for pictures on the beach at three o’clock, followed by
family photographs at four, which would give us plenty of time before the five o’clock
ceremony. But I was too excited to stay cooped up in the guest house until then, so I walked the
half block barefoot to the beach. A length of white fabric, anchored by decorative stones formed
a pathway to the wedding canopy. Mom had lined the path with pink flowers and created a
chuppah out of bamboo, sea glass, and flowers. Lines of white chairs hugged by pink satin
ribbons faced the ocean. Michael’s photographer friend Donovan was setting up his equipment
off to the left, so I headed in the other direction, lifting my dress and sinking my feet into warm
deep sand. I saw myself as if from a distance. “She was wearing a Victorian wedding dress,
pinched in at the waist. Makes it look like she has a chest. Too bad it’s not more of a beach
dress. But all things considered she looks good.” Then I shut down my annoying observer self,
the part that sometimes intruded in moments of stress or emotion, and planted my feet in the
warm sand that had anchored our childhood summers. As I burrowed deeper, my heel hit the
edge of something sharp and I felt a sting. I remember a kid on the beach almost bleeding to
death when he jumped from the ledge behind the boardwalk onto a broken bottle buried in the
sand. Another reason not to have kids. You can’t protect them from dangers that lie just below
the surface.
Donovan heard my yelp of pain and ran over.
“I didn’t mean to be over-dramatic, but I don’t want to get blood on my wedding dress. Not a
good omen.”
He laughed and steadied me as I hopped over to a chair. “That doesn’t look too bad. I have a
piece of cloth you can hold against the cut to stop the bleeding.” He turned the chair in front to
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face me. “Just a sec and I’ll get a towel to cover the seat so you can put your foot up.” Turned
out the cut was superficial, and once the bleeding had stopped, all it needed was a Band-Aid.
Donovan handed me a pink parasol that felt kind of hokey when I posed with it.
“Your mom said it would contrast nicely with the blue water and white sand.”
“Well, you’re the artist. Just tell me what to do.” And he did.
“Tilt your head a little to the left. Smile. More, more. Yes, that’s it, yes.”
“You make me feel like a fashion model.” I vamped and twirled and struck exaggerated
poses. When I looked up, the sky was the color of joy.
“Okay. Time for the artsy shots.” He took close-ups of my hands holding the bouquet, my
sand-splattered feet, Dad’s antique watch chain I wore as a necklace. When Michael came to the
beach, he’d bring our personal prop: a bottle of Pepsi. Everyone knew the Pepsi story and would
get a kick out of that picture.
“You have lipstick on your cheek, Michael,” I heard Mom say. I’ll get it.” I hadn’t noticed my
mother and Michael standing off to the side. I turned around to see Mom reach into the tote bag
that held scissors, tape, and anything else she needed to secure the wedding decorations, and
pulled out a tissue.
“Thanks, Mrs. Coleman.”
“Please Michael, call me Mom. In a couple of hours that’s who I’ll be.
Michael smiled and saluted her with the Pepsi bottle he was holding as they waited for
Donovan to finish photographing me. I heard Mom say to Michael, “The canopy needs
something. Shells, maybe, or driftwood. I’ll just take some of the peonies alongside the runner
and tuck them into the corners.”
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I was facing the camera, so I couldn’t see how Michael responded, but I imagined him
shrugging his shoulders, giving a boyish grin, and thinking so this is what it’s like to have a real
family.
Donovan had a quick conference with his assistant, a local art student with stringy hair and wirerimmed glasses. Then the two of them took shots of us holding balloons, hands, each other,
pausing periodically to reload their cameras. The beach was quiet except for the steady click of
the shutters, the slap of waves breaking close to shore, the punctuation of raucous seagull
laughter, and the occasional hum of a small plane pulling a banner advertising Steel’s Fudge,
Coppertone, or Resorts International Casino, newly opened in May.
A flash of light blue silk announced Cookie’s arrival with Evan, her fiancé. He was a lawyer in
his father’s hot shot law firm. Mom was ecstatic. Then Olivia and her two daughters stepped out
into the sand. The three of them were wearing identical white lace dresses with pink sashes.
“Aunt Peejee does that elephant eat sand?” asked little Jessica.
“What elephant, honey?”
She turned and pointed to Lucy. “The one with the red basket on its back.”
"Oh. No, honey. She just stands there and…sees everything.” Jessica opened her eyes wide
and looked around.
I was about to say something about the elephant in the room, but that wouldn’t make any
sense to a little girl, just as it hadn’t made sense to me when I was a kid. “And Jessie, she won’t
forget anything. An elephant never forgets.”
“What doesn’t an elephant forget?
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“Her elephant mommy and daddy, I guess. Her home in the jungle. Other elephant business.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What if Lucy gets lonely for her home in the jungle and goes out
looking for it late at night? She’d stomp on all the houses.”
“That won’t happen.”
“Why?”
“Cause she’d never forget that she’s made of wood.”
“We can visit her tomorrow afternoon,” Olivia said. “Maybe we’ll have a picnic next to her
trunk.” She sang Today’s the day the elephants have their picnic.
“Silly Mommy, it’s teddy bears.”
Jessica threw her arms around my waist. I reached down and gave her a big, noisy hug, after
which I brushed the sand off her arms and legs. It took longer to get the sand off my body “I hate
this damn suntan lotion. I end up wearing the beach. On my own wedding day.”
“You said, damn, Aunt Peejee,” said her older sister Jennifer.
“It’s her wedding day, she can say whatever she wants,” said Olivia.
“But you told us never…”
“Why don’t you girls practice walking down the aisle,” Olivia said, “but remember not to
throw the petals.”
“I won’t forget,” Jessica said, taking her big sister’s hand. “I’m an elephant,” she added
before lumbering off.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” shouted Donovan. “It’s getting late.”
The wedding party had assembled on the beach, and Donovan proceeded to move us around
like chips on a craps table. Every possible family arrangement. Finally he lined us all up to get a
group shot, but he couldn’t get the composition right, or our expressions were off. He pulled off
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his wire-rims and glared at us. “Smile. This is a wedding, not a funeral.” I leaned against my
Uncle Bill, the man standing in for my father who would never get to see his youngest daughter
married. Dad had died four years ago, but his death was still raw, a wound that wouldn’t
completely knit.
Donovan waited for me to compose myself before he told us to say “cheese,” his voice
tentative, rising at the end like a question. In our efforts to disperse the cloud that had darkened
our day, we made our faces brighter, as if gaiety could fill the big hole left by the one who was
missing. Soon, those pictures would hang on our walls and sit framed on our shelves. Visitors to
our homes would look at those smiling sun-kissed people and think, “How beautiful. This is
what happiness looks like.”
The music had started. Bach and Vivaldi played on the flute. We stood in a bunch behind the
rows of guests who murmured and shushed each other. Mom was arranging us and issuing lastminute instructions. “You’ll go first, then you. Don’t rush. Smile.” Her movements were
awkward, choppy, as if her mind were somewhere else. Once or twice she took a deep breath to
return herself to the moment.
When it was time for the ceremony to begin, Mom told Jessica and Jennifer to step onto the
runner, and patted their backsides to get them going. Everyone in the wedding party was
barefoot, but Jessica and Jennifer had insisted on wearing the pink shoes that had been dyed to
match their sashes. Jessica ran down the aisle, dropping clumps of petals as the guests chuckled,
while her older sister marched like a little princess, regally scattering her petals.
As Olivia and her husband walked down the aisle, Cookie gave me a kiss and whispered
“best friends forever, Mrs. M.” before taking Evan’s hand and stepping onto the runner.
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When it was Mom’s turn to go, she turned to look at me. I was afraid she was going to tell me to
fix my hair or change the color of my lipstick. Instead, she gave me a quick hug, said, “You look
lovely, dear.” I didn’t remember her saying anything like that to me before, and my face flushed.
Then she turned and walked down the aisle alone. Sad, I thought. Now she doesn’t have a man to
hug her except Yacht Guy, and I don’t think he’s going to last. Oh well, there’s always another
one to take his place. Mom always lands feet up.
I watched Michael walk with the aunt he told me he wished was his mother. And then it was
my turn. I took my Uncle Bill’s arm. He was Dad’s older brother, the person who handled all the
arrangements after Dad’s death. I told Mom I didn’t need a man to “give me away” but she said
it would make her feel bad if I walked alone. So I leaned on the arm that was not my father’s—
the one that had guided me up the Lucy steps when I was a kid—but it would do.
We walked to the music of Pachelbel’s Canon—overdone, I know, but to me the soundtrack
of perfect union. Once I had imagined Alma singing Love Me Tender as I marched, but that was
long ago.
“How beautiful,” I heard someone say as I passed. “It’s a shame he couldn’t be here.” I felt
his absence as I walked barefoot toward the ocean and Michael and my new life.
As we faced the rabbi for the short service, the sun was low in the sky, casting long shadows on
Michael and me and all the people who had come to celebrate with us: the ones who had
survived intact and the ones with broken families and missing partners; the ones with roots and
the ones with holes; the ones who had said things better left unsaid and the ones who still
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harbored secrets at that moment. I wanted to believe all of them had done the best they could,
even Mom.
When the rabbi addressed me as Paula Jean, Jessica cried out, “That’s not her name. It’s
Peejee.” Everyone laughed as Olivia explained how someone can be given one name but use
another.
The rabbi talked about the power and spirituality of the setting. He said the waves breaking
on the shore were symbols of freedom and continuity—the freedom of summers without
responsibility and the continuity of the two decades Michael and I had known each other. “The
landscape of the seashore changes,” he said, “but the relationship of ocean to shore remains
constant, like partners in a long-standing marriage. As the sea hugs the shore, the two of you
should always hold each other close.”
Michael read his wedding vows, but I didn’t need a paper for mine.
Right after I wrote my vows, I read them to Cookie. “I promise I’ll keep no secrets. I promise
I’ll never stop laughing. And no matter what threatens to come between us, I promise to
remember the love that brought me to this place and to you.” Cookie had made a face and told
me it sounded like sappy Hallmark. “Everyone says things like that at weddings,” she said. “I’m
sure Mom and Dad said stuff like that.” She shook her head. “And look what happened: fighting,
boredom, affairs. Almost fifty percent of marriages that start with picture book weddings end in
divorce. So why do we bother getting married in the first place?”
She had a point—but there we were, Hallmark words and all. It was the best I could do.
We were all all smiles and kisses. All dancing and toasting. And after the party at the reception
hall, we went back to the house and had yet another round of champagne. I toasted everyone,
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including the Big House, which I considered a member of the family. It was the same feeling I
had after shopping for Olivia’s wedding dress that maybe we were a real family after all. Back
before the illusion was shattered. And would be shattered again.
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Chapter 32: Cookie
August 1973
Readers: This is a placeholder for a chapter to be written that will (hopefully) bridge the gap
between the previous chapter and the one that follows. I will touch on Cookie’s marriage and
one-year-old daughter, her relationship with P.J., and the current relationship between mother
and daughters. I’m thinking of structuring this chapter around a confrontation with Andrea,
around which all the backstory will revolve.
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Chapter 33. Broken
July 1976
Cookie’s daughter sat cross-legged on the pavement and slipped her fingers into the handprint
I’d made when I wasn’t much older than she was. Kimmie was four, smart, and crazy about me,
which made her even smarter in my eyes. And so beautiful with her long dark hair and enormous
eyes, that strangers would stop her on the street and ask, “Do you know how gorgeous you are?”
When I warned Cookie, there was trouble ahead, she rolled her eyes.
“Look, Aunt P.J. My fingers fit.” I bent down to watch her perform one of the annual rituals
Cookie and I had established in the early days. When Dad unlocked the door at the beginning of
the summer, we make a mad dash from room to room checking to be sure everything was in
place from the summer before. When we told Kimmie what we used to do, she ran through the
house in imitation of us, pointing at random objects, squealing, “Ooo, it’s still here, it’s still
here,” because that’s what we used to do.
Cookie and I had come down a day early to enjoy some quality sister time before Olivia and
Mom joined us. Mom said there was something she needed to talk to us about, but wouldn’t say
what.
As we climbed the steps to the third floor, I stopped to look out the hall window at the
ramshackle Victorian across the street where our babysitter Rosalie had lived until she got
married. It was a huge house with back staircases and winding hallways that Cookie and I
explored whenever we stayed with her. Our favorite room was the one we never saw. “It’s called
the broken crockery room,” Rosalie told us, “but we only open it under special circumstances.
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When I pitch a fit, my mother says, ‘I’d call that a three-dish tantrum,’ and hands me the key to
the room along with three five-and-dime plates. By the time I’ve smashed them against the wall,
I’m calm as a lake.” When I asked if her mother swept up afterward or left the pieces there to
crunch under her feet like egg shells, she just smiled. Cookie said she wished we had an
enormous mansion with a broken crockery room, but I said I didn’t like the idea of broken stuff.
We ended up in the guest room, the only room I persuaded Mom not to change after we
moved in. The original flowered wallpaper still clung to the walls, though not as tightly as
before, and the white background had turned the color of parchment. At the far end of the room
was the antique bureau we’d found in the cellar, dark oak with flowers carved so deep into the
top drawer your fingers could get stuck in the cracks.
Kimmie went straight for the bottom drawer and pulled out a zippered plastic case.
“Look, Aunt P.J., your undies are still there. Yuck.”
“They’re not mine, sweetie, and they’re not undies. Negligees. Peignoirs. Lingerie. They
don’t make stuff like that anymore.” I was hoping to instill the same reverence in her that I felt
for old things, something the rest of the family seemed to lack. “These things are over fifty years
old, so they’re antiques.” She opened her eyes wide and made an ‘O’ with her mouth, so maybe
the message was getting through. “They’re probably worth some money, but I wouldn’t sell them
for anything,” I said, unzipping a corner of the bag, releasing a scent of lavender and old lady. I
ran a finger over the lace lining of a silky nightgown aged to a color that could not be named.
“Beautiful, huh?”
“Yucky old undies.” Kimmie made a face. Damn. I thought I was making progress.
“Not yucky. They’ve been to the Laundromat at least twice. Anyway, you promised to keep
it a secret from Grandma and Aunt Olivia.” I zipped up the bag and pushed it to the back of the
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drawer. “You, me, and your mom are the only people in the world who know about this.” I
crossed my index fingers over my mouth, and Kimmie nodded her head with the wide-eyed
earnestness of a five year old entrusted with grownup secrets.
Later that day, the three of us took a walk on the beach. Though it was usually crowded on
Saturday, the hour was late and the beach was deserted except for a few striped umbrellas and
flowered beach towels. I was a fast walker and Cookie had a hard time keeping up with me even
though her legs were longer. She once described my legs as pumping pistons when I got going. I
think she meant it as a compliment, but I answered as if it weren’t: “Not pretty, but they get me
where I want to go.” I liked to make light of what I called my “shortcomings” when I said short
people were more energy efficient. I also had one-liners about my skin involving constellations,
connecting the dots, and boys eager to discover where the dots ended. If I got them laughing,
they’d never know how I really felt.
Cookie called out to Kimmie who was running up ahead gathering shells. “Kimberly Faye,
stay away from the water, you hear? The tide’s rough today.”
“I have a funny feeling about tomorrow, Cookie. Do you think Mom’s selling?”
“Nah. Why would she do that? She doesn’t need the money, that’s for sure. There was a good
chunk from Dad’s life insurance, and her boyfriend has some bucks.”
“You know Mom and money. Never has enough.”
“Never had enough. But I think she’s feeling secure now.”
Cookie stopped to pick up a rubbery brown strip of seaweed, running her fingers along its
bumpy surface.
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“Maybe so,” I said. “But Mom isn’t that interested in the house anymore. She and the
boyfriend are always on some cruise or another.”
“She’s not selling, P.J. That’s what she said, and I believe her. Maybe she’s transferring
ownership to the three of us.”
“You think? It would be exciting to own a piece of our childhood.”
“Doesn’t everyone own all the pieces of their childhood?”
The ocean was raucous, spitting water onto the beach and sucking it back. We sidestepped as
the incoming tide claimed a few more inches of beach and erased a few more footprints.
“Andrea told me I should be careful,” I said.
“Andrea,” she said, punctuating the name with the snap of a seaweed bubble. “With all due
respect, P.J., I don’t understand why you listen to her.” She set off a series of seaweed explosions
with her thumb.
“Because she knows what she’s talking about.”
I knew I’d never convince my sister that Andrea had my best interests at heart. Cookie told
me on numerous occasions that I’d be better served getting advice from Kimmie. So I didn’t tell
her Andrea was staying somewhere nearby, just in case I needed to talk to her after our meeting
with Mom.
I dislodged a pile of seaweed with my foot and uncovered a conch shell the color of caramel.
I picked it up and ran my finger along its enameled surface, tracing its perfect spiral tip before
turning it over to reveal a hollow underside where the rest of the shell—the part that had held a
life inside—was gone. “Damn,” I said, heaving the broken shell into the water with surprising
force. We watched as the ocean reclaimed its own.
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****
Olivia was wringing out her long blond hair, wet from the outdoor shower when we gathered at
the dining room table. Thirty-three, but she looked like a teenager sitting across from Cookie and
me at the table in her red tank top and cutoff jeans. Mom sat next to Olivia, staring into her
coffee cup. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet as we ate our traditional Sunday breakfast of
lox, bagels, and pastries, fluttering birdlike between kitchen and dining room, pecking at her
food.
Mom smoothed her sleek black hair and tucked a rebellious strand behind her ear. Until
recently her hair had been curly like Cookie’s and she’d worn it loose, but now it was straight,
and she’d added red highlights. I always thought her hair looked fine the old way, but apparently
the new man in her life thought otherwise; or maybe she figured a new do would make her look
younger, though no one would have guessed she was in her fifties, curly hair or not.
Mom smoothed and tucked again. I took a sip of coffee to wash down the remains of the
dessert Kimmie had picked out for us—cupcakes topped with tooth-numbing red dye number
two icing. Kimmie had laughed at the smudge left on my nose after I took the first bite. “P.J. the
Red-nosed Reindeer,” she sang. I told Cookie I’d have kids if they could all be like Kimmie; but
since kids were breakable and didn’t come with a money-back guarantee, I’d sworn off them.
After breakfast, Cookie took Kimmie over to a neighbor’s house so the four of us could take
care of the business at hand.
“So.” Mom slid her opal pendant back and forth on its chain with a sawing motion, a nervous
habit of hers. “So,” she repeated, stretching the word so it echoed the ratchety sound of pendant
against chain. The dining room window was open, and the zip of a motorcycle sliced the quiet
Ventnor morning.
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“You know how I feel about this house,” Mom said.
Someone started a power mower nearby. I reached around to close the window, but the sash
was stuck. After a couple of tugs and a muffled damn, I gave up. “Can we just cut to the chase?”
I said. “Are you selling, Mom? If it’s about the money, we’ll pool our savings and buy it. Right,
Cookie?” She nodded. “Right, Olivia?” Olivia’s eyes were focused on her hands, clearly
fascinated by their crumb-brushing and silverware-straightening.
“No, I’m not selling.”
Mom picked up the black and white creamer with the cow-head spout. Get to the point
already.
“Remember where we bought this? Irene’s Souvenir Shop on the boardwalk. You girls
wanted a whole set of cow dishes, but—”
“You didn’t call us together to talk cows or dishes.”
“No, I didn’t.” Mom put down the pitcher, and picked up the carafe. “More coffee?”
Mom’s nervousness fed my own. “Please, Mom.”
“Okay, “she said with an air of resignation, followed by, “I’ve decided to transfer ownership
of the house to Olivia.”
Mom’s words sucked the air out of the room. The vacuum filled with the distant sound of
waves flailing at the shore a block away.
“So I asked myself,” Mom continued with the singsong cadence of a teenager talking to
girlfriends, “who would make the best use of the house? Who needs it most for entertaining?
Olivia.” She barreled on, picking up speed. “You know how important it is for doctors’ wives to
entertain colleagues and attract patients. And she’s the only decorator in the family besides me,
so she’s the obvious…”
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“This is crazy talk,” I cut in. “A joke, right?” I turned to Olivia, who bit her lip. “This has to
be a joke.”
“No, P.J.,” Mom answered. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I considered joint
ownership, but that never works out well. Remember how your cousins Fred and Marvin fought
over the pharmacy? The two haven’t spoken since Fred walked out.”
“Screw Cousin Fred. Who cares what those two idiots did years ago. We’re big girls now,
Mom, perfectly capable of splitting the tab three ways.” I’m sure my face flushed. During my
years at the law firm, I’d gotten better at controlling my facial expression and body language
under stress. I wasn’t always successful, but I did learn how to stare down the opposition and
make witnesses squirm, which I was now doing. Blasting my secret message: Guilty. Guilty.
Guilty.
“I know, I know. It’s just that so much can go wrong when family members go into business
together.
“This isn’t business, Mom,” Cookie said. “This is life.”
“I know this is life, and when I die, everything will be split equally.”
“Equally. Yeah, right,” I said, resisting the temptation to roll my eyes “As if anything in this
family was ever equal.”
“Hey,” Olivia spoke up at last, “you two can come down and stay whenever you want.” She
chuckled nervously. “I mean it.”
“La dee dah,” Cookie whispered under her breath.
“I told Olivia I’d only give her the house if she kept it open to the two of you.”
“How generous, Mom.” I turned to Olivia. “So you were in on this, too. Andrea told me to
watch out for conspiracy.”
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“Screw Andrea,” Olivia and Cookie spat out in unison. I pressed my lips tight to keep from
lashing out at my sister. She might hate Andrea, but this crisis wasn’t herThis crisis wasn’t my
friend’s fault.
“Sorry,” Cookie whispered.
“You’ve got to admit that Olivia spends more time here than either of you. That’s because
she needs the house more.” Mom pressed her case, directing her comments to Cookie and me.
Like I said, there’s the entertaining. And Olivia has three kids, and…”
I knocked against the table as I stood up, toppling the pitcher.
“Does Cookie get less time because she only has one kid?” Why wasn’t Cookie as mad as I
was? Why wasn’t she speaking up? Oh yeah, she called Andrea a bitch. How’s that for being
supportive? “Hell, Mom, I don’t have any kids. Maybe I shouldn’t even be allowed inside the
house. And guess why I don’t spend more time here, Mom. I work is why. And you reward her
for not working.”
“That’s not fair. I have a decorating business,” Olivia shot back. “And it’s hard raising three
kids.”
“With a maid and a mother’s helper. Boo hoo. Some of us working women can’t afford those
things.
“Some of us women could have thought about that before they married teachers,” Olivia shot
back.
“Girls.” Mom, scolded us, as if she wasn’t the one who’d set this whole thing in motion.
I righted the cow pitcher and tightened my grip on its cool surface, wet with milk fresh from
its ceramic udder. The pitcher split in my hand, drops of blood tattooing the white tablecloth. “I
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need to wrap this.” I started toward the kitchen and Cookie followed me. The phone rang in the
kitchen. “It’s for me,” I said.
“How do you know,” she asked, but I didn’t answer.
I picked up the phone with my left hand. It was Andrea. I’d told her not to call until later, but
she couldn’t wait. “Not yet,” I told her. “I’ll call you when we’re done.”
Cookie grabbed a dishtowel hanging by the sink and wrapped it around my bleeding hand.
“Thanks,” I whispered to Cookie as I put down the phone. “That was Michael.” I don’t think she
believed me because she turned and walked back into the dining room without saying a word.
Mom and Olivia were sitting silently when I walked in, back straight, chin up, as I did when I
took my place in the courtroom. I stood at the head of the table, Cookie sitting next to me, Mom
and Olivia opposite. Between us stretched a rubble field strewn with ceramic shards and blood.
“Okay, Mom. I’m going to tell you what this is really about.” My closing arguments. “I’ve
never been the person you wanted me to be.” I ticked off on my fingers, “I’m too intellectual,
I’m not domestic enough, and—oh yes—I’m not as pretty as the rest of you.”
“That’s ridiculous. All my girls are beautiful.”
“Bullshit. We all know who’s the Miss America.” I flicked a glance at Olivia, then turned
back to Mom. “And Cookie lucked out, too. She looks like you.”
Mom’s head moved slowly side to side. “P.J., honey, where is all this coming from?”
I ignored the question. “And worst of all, I didn’t choose the right man, did I, Mom? Olivia
married a doctor. Cookie got herself a hot shot corporate lawyer.”
“That’s not fair,” Cookie cut in.
“Let me finish.” I turned back to Mom. “My sisters married well, but I married an artist. At
least that’s what he was when he graduated college and worked as a photographer. What kind of
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living is photography, you asked when we got engaged. Even now he’s just an entry-level
professor.”
I. planted my hands on the table and leaned forward—trying for the in-your-face body
language of a prosecutor. “No Mom. All you ever wanted was for me to be like you. Well, I’m
not you.” I tried to tame my voice, but it came out hiccup-y, like a child about to have a tantrum.
“Why are you punishing me for not being you?”
Mom could have reached out, hugged me, her wounded daughter, changed her mind about
the house. Instead, she sat shell-shocked. “Where did all this come from?” she whispered. She
was like those parents who had no idea their kids were doing drugs right under their noses. Her
attitude toward me was so deeply imbedded, it was invisible to her.
I couldn’t stop. “Dad saw it.”
“P.J., stop,” Cookie yelled.
“Yeah, Dad saw it. Saw he couldn’t measure up either.” Mom stood, supporting herself
against the table. Mouth open. Speechless.
“P.J. stop!” Cookie had grabbed my arm, trying to pull me down into my seat, but I jabbed
her with my elbow.
“Stop what? Stop telling her the truth? That Dad was so sick of it he had an affair?”
“We don’t know that,” Cookie said.
“I do. I worked in that office with Dad. I saw how he looked at Alma.” I would have gone on.
Talked about the letter from Chaz she kept tucked away in her closet. Told her how she’d
probably never stopped loving him. But Cookie leaned over and whispered, “You’re not going to
change anything. Can’t you see that? She’s reached her verdict.” My mother the judge. Always
judging.
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“It’s just a house.” Cookie said softly
“Just a house? Maybe it’s just a house to you. But to me it’s… everything. Anyone who
can’t see that is blind, deaf, and dumb.” I turned to Cookie. “Anyone who can’t see that doesn’t
know me.”
“P.J. Please. Why don’t you just give it up. It’s done.”
“Give it up? Give it up? I thought you were my friend. My best friend.”
“I am. I think this whole thing stinks, too. But what can we do?”
“You’re not going to fight for me? You’re just going to let them take everything? Well fuck
you. Fuck you all.”
I threw my coffee cup on the floor, shattering it into a thousand pieces, and walked out the
door. Everything was broken. Everything had always been broken.
I had kicked my sandals off under the table, and the concrete pavement felt like Brillo under my
bare soles. I started running toward the boardwalk when I heard, “Wait up.” It was Cookie. I felt
a hand on my shoulder and turned around. Cookie was bent over, trying to catch her breath.
“Take a walk with me, Please P.J. Let’s talk sister to sister.”
“Whatever you want to say, you can say it here. Now.” The crack in the pavement stretched
between us to infinity.
Cookie reached out to put her arms around me, but I backed away. I grazed her with my
palm, leaving a spot of red on shirt.
“Let me back in, P.J. I’ll fight this with you. You’re a lawyer. You can get her to write up
new papers.”
“You already told me to give it up, so you’re not much of a fighter.”
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“I didn’t mean it that way. All I wanted was to stop her from hurting you. All these years.
Best friends. Sharing everything. In the long run isn’t that more important than a stupid house?
Doesn’t that count for anything?”
“You just don’t know me, Cookie. What about my handprint? Doesn’t that count for
anything?”
“Yes. Of course it counts,” she said.
A better sister would have crossed the border, and re-annexed her sister. But I wasn’t a better
sister. I was done being a sister.
“Why don’t you just give it up, Cookie?”
I turned and walked toward the boardwalk. My sister didn’t follow me.
There was a vacancy at the Sun and Surf Motel. Of course there were vacancies, lots of
vacancies. The place was a fading relic from the fifties. The lobby floor was green linoleum
posing as Italian marble with a mural of pink flamingos covering one wall. On the other walls
hung autographed photographs of people who had stayed there: women with fifties hair, sixties
hair, men in leisure suits, children carrying buckets and shovels. Dear Sid, Thanks for a
wonderful time. The Feinsteins.
I’d check in for the night. Call Andrea, Michael. The man behind the desk made a great show
of looking through the room list. Ocean view? Let me check. A sign hung in the coffee shop
window. Closed. For now or for good, it was hard to tell. The cute soda fountain guy I flirted
with the summer of my junior year probably had a pot belly now and a couple of kids. The
jukeboxes were gone from the walls, and the scratched Formica table tops were heavy with
memories of grilled cheese sandwiches and cherry cokes.
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Like the lobby, my room was well past its prime. Air freshener couldn’t cover the stale tobacco
smell. It was a generic room in a generic motel where people spent vacations, swam in the pool,
had sex. That was then. Now the enamel tub was chipped, and there was no soap. It didn’t
matter, since I’d only be there overnight. I’d have to rent a car to drive back to Philly since
Cookie and I had come down together. I wouldn’t go back for the suitcase full of stuff I’d left at
the house. Let them deal with it. Let them throw it out, like they threw everything out eventually.
A minibar hummed in the corner. I poured a tiny bottle of Stoli into a juice glass and took a
sip. It tasted like medicine. I swallowed the rest and poured a bottle of Seagrams into the glass,
forcing that down as well. A fully-stocked minibar, but no soap. I giggled. “Don’t need no
stinkin’ soap. Washing is overrated.” I pulled back the green and red plaid curtains, and looked
out at the waves that were savaging the beach. They were predicting a hurricane possibly worse
than the one last year that had left a thick carpet of broken shells on the beach and a dead clam
stink in the air that took months to dissipate.
The chair looked a little rickety, so I sat down on the bed and pulled a bulging manila folder
out of my tote bag, upending it to empty my photo collection onto the bedspread. Shaking the
envelope sent the few remaining photographs fluttering onto the floor. I’d brought the photos to
make an album with Kimmie. She was going to help me sort, and I was going to tell her stories
about her mother and me and her Aunt Olivia and the house and the high heels that stuck in the
cracks of the boardwalk and the horse that dove off Steel Pier. Then we’d paste our pictures into
a scrapbook that would sit on the coffee table so visitors would know who we were.
Now they were painful to look at. I was going to tear them up, but that wouldn’t be fair to
Kimmie. I’d mail the packet to her. I picked up the picture on top of the pile—a snapshot of my
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mother dressed up for a night out. What was it about me that was so threatening to her that she’d
take away the one thing I loved more than anything? Had my choice of husband and career
somehow diminished the choices she herself made? When she looked at me, did she ask herself,
What have I done with my life? When she looked at Olivia did she see her mirror image looking
back?
I riffled through the photos. They were mostly beach scenes. Little Mikey. Sad Mrs.
Markowitz. The handsome doctor. Crowds of kids. Lots of photos of Cookie and me. “Damn.” I
hit the bed with my fist, knocking more photos to the floor. “Fuck, fuck.” Deep breath. “Fuck, I
can handle this.”
I called Andrea, but she didn’t answer. I called Michael and told him what happened. Tried
to sound detached, to keep my voice even. But every once in a while my jaw locked up.
“Let it out, P.J. That’s what you tell me.”
“And do you let it out?”
“No. I guess we’re both alike that way.”
“I can handle this.”
“No doubt. But I still think it would be better if you didn’t drive back by yourself. Let me
pick you up in the morning. Better still, I’ll drive down tonight. You don’t have to spend the
night alone.”
“No, Michael. Being alone right now is just what I need.
I looked at the picture of Cookie and me. Already I was beginning to feel nothing. An iron
curtain of anger had descended around my heart, drawn so tight no emotion could penetrate it.