Ask Again Later Read online

  “Right. Because the next thing you know you’re spending your Saturday picking up their dry cleaning; you’re buying last-minute intimate garments for Valentine’s Day, taking the subway to three different stores in search of a pink satin push-up bra in 34C,” Esther says.

  My heart sinks on this one. “Esther, did someone really send you out to buy bras for a…lady friend? That’s really not appropriate,” I say. “I think you should file a complaint.”

  “No! Of course no one sends me out for bras! Because I never let things get out of hand. I stay professional. I read my books, I make my phone calls, do my nails. I keep to myself,” Esther says. “I’m just imagining what could happen to a people pleaser such as yourself.”

  “Oh, I see,” I say. She hates me for taking her job. I hate me for taking her job.

  “Okay, you’re on your own,” Esther says. “Should someone ask, I’m in personnel, taking care of some paperwork.”

  “What if someone from personnel asks?” I say.

  “Always keep the lie simple,” Esther says.

  “I thought you were going to train me all day,” I say. Keep the lie simple? I could actually learn things from this woman.

  “You’re a natural; I can tell,” Esther says, fishing for a pack of cigarettes in her enormous leather bag. A gaggle of key chains dangle from her other hand, hypnotizing me. Must answer phones. Must answer phones.

  Wrapping Paper

  I SIT ON the floor looking through some of the photo albums Mom has assembled during the past few days. I haven’t seen a single photo of me yet. Mostly they are beauty shots of her near other beautiful things. The Great Pyramid. The Eiffel Tower. Various beaches. Red hibiscus in hair posing somewhere in Los Angeles. She traveled with “friends,” who I suspect she was kissing and keeping at arm’s length. Close enough, but never too close. I was rarely introduced to them.

  “Dad thought I should go to Italy,” I say. He seems like a safe topic to bring up, now, since she’s the one who brought him back into the fold. Does the mention of him flood her with memories, both good and bad?

  “He should go to Italy,” Mom says.

  “He was probably hoping I’d suggest that,” I say. “Or offer him some miles. But—just guessing here—was that what it was like to be married to him?”

  “In a way,” Mom says. “It wasn’t all bad. But his head was somewhere else, in the clouds. Things are different now. They treat people like him.”

  “People like him?” I ask.

  “Depression. They treat it now,” Mom says.

  I didn’t know he was depressed. The family details are given on a need-to-know basis. The everyday events of their lives are such close-held secrets that a stranger might think their dealings had the commonly recognized value of gold and must be guarded. Instead, each detail is held in reserve for when my mother is ready to share what she considers to be ancient history and insignificant.

  “You never mentioned that before,” I say.

  “You never asked,” Mom says.

  “How can you say that with a straight face?” I ask, annoyed. “I was young when he left. There are hundreds of details I don’t remember. I don’t remember what it was like to have him around. I don’t remember if we ate breakfast together every morning. I don’t remember celebrating birthdays. I don’t remember any of it. Shall I start firing off random questions and hope some land near the mark? ‘You never asked’? You’re infuriating!”

  “That’s sad,” Mom says. “Really—it’s sad. I’m sorry you don’t remember him. But I was focused on raising my two children. There wasn’t time for me to offer color commentary.”

  I reject the urge to slap her. I’m stronger than I would have guessed.

  “Stop making it sound like I’m being unreasonable. We had a father one day, and poof, the next day he was gone,” I say. “You didn’t seem to miss him for a second. Marjorie and I were devastated. That’s a bizarre disconnect for an adult to understand. We were only children!”

  “I cried at night in my room,” Mom says, “so you girls wouldn’t see.”

  “Maybe that was a mistake,” I say. “All I thought was that if Dad disappeared, you could too.”

  “I’d never disappear!” Mom says. “Besides, Marjorie seems fine, now.”

  I know she believes that, I’m just shocked she actually said what she believes.

  “I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right,” Mom says. “You seem fine, too. You wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  My sister Marjorie does seem fine, if your definition of fine is someone who can’t balance a checkbook and has a serious obsession with shopping for things she does not need. She also has no interest in having a relationship with her partial clone, our mother. My mother thinks that’s normal because she has no interest in having a relationship with her mother.

  Mom walks into one of the guest rooms and opens the closet doors. I hear digging. She returns with a box that is beautifully wrapped.

  “I have a present for you,” Mom says.

  The week my father left we shopped. That I remember. We got new clothing. Marjorie and I got matching plaid spring jackets and new white sneakers. We got new toys: Shrinky Dinks; Sea-Monkeys; an art case filled with markers, paints, and pastels. We were full of things and preoccupations, and empty of emotion.

  Mom thrusts the gift toward me and smiles. She’s taken to giving me gifts on a regular basis now. She is working on the assumption that she could miss many Christmases and birthdays. Valentine’s Days. Easters. Is it a feeling that will fade with time like Nana described?

  I hate this gift idea for so many reasons. I hate her fear of being deprived of future holidays. And here’s where my great selfishness simply cannot hide itself: I’m hoping one of the gifts she gives me might indicate that she really knows me, and knows what I might like to receive.

  The wrapping paper is beautiful.

  “I bought the paper at the Met,” Mom says. “Years ago. No point in saving it, right? You should use the nice things in life.”

  She wears all of her jewelry now, too. She doesn’t “save the good stuff” for special occasions. Sometimes she wears too much of it at once. Still, it seems like a giant step forward for her. Not waiting, just doing.

  She’s apparently stockpiled gift wrap from a host of museums up and down the eastern seaboard, because each time I open a gift, it’s wrapped in “special” paper she’s been saving. The paper is always more wonderful and elaborate than the gifts, which range from unusual, to bizarre, to insulting.

  I open the box and inside is a misshapen top. Large and bright blue.

  “I know you love blue,” Mom says, a huge smile on her face.

  Actually I don’t love blue. Not royal blue, anyway. I like periwinkle, and I’m a small-medium, not a shapeless-large.

  “Are these walruses?” I ask, even though they are clearly walruses.

  “Cute, don’t you think?” Mom says.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Thank you for the gift, Mom.”

  “You are so very welcome!” Mom says. “The kids will love it!”

  Long silent pause while I figure out what to do with this comment.

  “Kids?” I ask.

  “Your children,” Mom says, pretending to be bewildered.

  I sit in silence. This time I can’t quite take it.

  “I don’t understand why you say things like that. ‘The kids will love it!’ I don’t have children,” I say. “You know I don’t have children, I’m not married; I don’t have a boyfriend—”

  “Oh, but you will!” Mom says. “I may not be around for it, but you will. They’ll be lovely children.”

  More silence.

  I slip the walruses over my head. The shirt swims on me. But I need to put it on to punctuate the insanity of this “gift.” Her smile fades a bit. The walruses have iridescent glitter on their tusks. There are surprises around every corner. Someone designed this. But it didn’t feel “finished” until the glitter
was added to the tusks. And then, ah, perfection.

  “Couldn’t you just once buy me a gift for who I am now?” I say. “One time?”

  She looks at me, and I know what she’s thinking. How ungrateful. I have a mother who survived, and all I can do is complain about this shirt. This fun shirt she bought for me. Sure it needs to be tailored, but still, it’s fun.

  What she fails to take into account is that she herself would never wear walruses—regardless whether her child would have “loved” this shirt. She wouldn’t risk being ridiculous for anyone.

  Her feelings are hurt. She goes off to take a nap. She runs away.

  Coping Skills

  THERE IS A KNOCK at our front door, and then it opens. Perry walks in. He’s wearing jeans. Sunglasses and a linen shirt.

  “Hey, my gay bowling league ran late. Sorry,” Perry says.

  Perry and I went to high school together. After school, we’d drink beer, and he’d try on my mother’s jewelry and tummy-control undergarments.

  I lived with my mother. He lived with his father. We brought unique perspectives into our relationship. It did occur to me that he was using me to get to my mother’s girdles, but I liked him too much to care.

  He drops a box of wine to the floor, hands my mother some daffodils, and gives her a big hug.

  “Oh, Perry, thanks for the flowers. Careful, that’s a linen shirt I’m wearing,” Mom says.

  Perry was about to break the hug until my mom made the comment about the shirt. Then he decided to hug longer. Wrinkle her shirt more.

  “Enough hugging,” Mom says, trying to pull away.

  “Oh, come on,” Perry says. “I know you have a steamer in this place somewhere.”

  Mom breaks away and carries the flowers into the kitchen.

  “Cute shirt,” Perry says. “A Nana hand-me-down?”

  “Should we take the wine into my bedroom?” I ask.

  “Sure,” Perry says.

  As a teenager, Perry was the only boy allowed in my bedroom.

  I sit on the floor. Perry stretches out on the bed.

  “I’m starting to think that what you need are some coping skills,” Perry says with authority. “You have no model to follow. No instructions on how to get through the shit end of things.”

  The way he says it makes it sound so attainable. Like I can walk into a store, pick up a bag of coping skills, go home, and slip them on. One size fits all. Bing-bang. And we’re on to the next problem.

  I’ll just leap over these hurdles of illness, relationships, and unemployment and land on the other side happy and complete.

  If you’d told me a month ago that I’d be drinking wine out of a box and sharing my problems with Perry, I’d have thought that sounded too good to be true. If you’d told me that two years ago, it would have depressed me to no end.

  We met in drama club. I worked on scenery and wanted to be respected. He directed the school plays and wanted to be loved. I was on the shy side, so I latched onto people who talked a lot. If I chose well, very little was required of me.

  After an hour of catching up and drinking, the wine is starting to make me woozy. My mind is drifting.

  “What are you thinking about?” Perry says.

  “Ask again later,” I say.

  “Ah, your favorite answer,” Perry says.

  That first day at my mother’s, when she was asleep on the davenport and I was in her bedroom trying on her lipstick, some part of me wanted her to die. Her death would be over, and I could stop imagining where I’d be when I get the news; or worse, that I’d watch her die. I can’t say that even to Perry. It’s so horrible to want to fast-forward through anyone’s life—or death. Skip the grief and jump to the next scene. Skipping the grief is an eerie U-turn back to childhood.

  My grief is so old it’s a habit. It is so much a part of me that I’m afraid to give it up. My father left, and, until tonight, no one spoke about it. His return mainly leaves me curious about his departure and his attempt at a reunion. My mother’s cancer reminds me only of what I didn’t experience while it was happening. I wasn’t allowed to.

  I have this unrealistic view of things. I believe life should be a series of seamless transitions. When it’s not, I’m shocked and disappointed. My mother cried in her room, alone, hiding all of those transitions.

  “Do you ever feel like you’ll never be ready for a healthy relationship until you resolve your relationship with your parents?” I say.

  “I had a healthy relationship. I’m not sure I want another one,” Perry says.

  It’s been nearly a year since Perry’s boyfriend Roger died. He never talks about him.

  “Sometimes you just need to plow forward,” I say.

  “Listen to you,” Perry says.

  Who needs a map when there’s only one passable road to the future? When you’re headed in the only direction that makes any sense at all to you? You don’t need a map to find your home.

  Life is a selfish pursuit. You tend to your own little corner of the world and hope your conscience keeps you in check. The first week after my mother was diagnosed, I felt guilty for reading the newspaper. Shouldn’t that thirty minutes have been invested in a cure for cancer?

  Vogue

  NOT UNLIKE MANY WOMEN my age, I have begun praying as a result of an article in Vogue. Among the shoes and frocks of the fall season was a not-so-short article about the healing effects of prayer. Prayer is good—that was the gist of it—whether the person being prayed for knows he is being prayed for or not.

  Now I pray for my mother while I’m on the treadmill at the gym. I pray for my mother while I’m at the bank machine, waiting for cash and a receipt. I changed my PIN to H-E-A-L. Empty seconds and minutes are now replaced with praying, and some begging, too. I pray for my mother before I go to bed. I pray whenever I think of it, which is often. And because I was raised with so little faith, I give God my address when I pray. It’s a big world. A zip code, at the very least, has to be appreciated by the One in charge. The organized get rewarded.

  After so much hard work, my heart races when I read a follow-up study that finds that praying for people may actually add undue pressure to them during recovery. They may heal more slowly and have more complications, perhaps out of the awesome responsibility to get well soon.

  I continue to pray in my quiet, covert way.

  Amnesty

  I HAVEN’T BEEN back to my apartment in a week. Or maybe longer. Nothing inside has changed, which is a relief.

  I sift through the mail. Con Ed bill. Cable bill. Reminder from the dentist. Two party invitations. One birth announcement. One letter. I love letters. Return address is East Sixty-second Street. The color of the paper is ecru, heavy bond. All male. I know what it says. The sentiment of it. He’s disappointed in me. I’ve disappointed him. I’m a disappointment.

  Dear Emily,

  Did it really happen the way I remember it happening? You ran out of my office in midsentence? I also remember that you really like me. You like me way too much to end things like this.

  I hope your mother is doing well. Let’s talk when the time is right.

  Regards, Sam

  P.S. We’re offering you amnesty regarding that stapler you “borrowed.”

  Okay, it turns out that’s not what I thought it would say….

  Green

  AT LEAST I’VE CAUGHT up on my magazine reading at these doctor appointments. You never know what you’re missing until you have eight to ten hours to devote to magazines. You stumble across facts that surprise you, and you promise yourself you’ll remember them. But there are gems on every page! It’s not possible to retain all of this unnecessary information.

  I’ve just read an article on interior design and choosing a paint color not to match your current mood, but to match the mood you want to adopt.

  The walls of the hospital are painted pale green on purpose. It’s supposed to soothe people. Calm them. Regulate their blood pressure.

  Purple ener
gizes. It’s a good color for a gym, or a dance club. Orange is the color favored by the criminally insane.

  My mother is in a pale green room changing into her hospital gown. And the doctor is in his pale green gown. His body fading into the pale green walls creates this bizarre effect of a disembodied head chatting me up. It’s so distracting, it’s impossible for me to listen carefully to what he’s saying.

  Yet he has the nicest voice in the whole world. People must fall in love with him all the time. Not hero worship, either. He deals with cancer every day, and he knows that the people who are diagnosed do not. He’s not tired of questions. He’s not tired of explaining.

  The Passionate & the Youthful is really making a mistake by not toning down Dr. Cleft Palate and modeling that character after Dr. Kealy instead. He’s the kind of guy who would easily inspire fan clubs and major merchandising agreements.

  More than anything, though, I finally feel that my mother is in good caring hands. A part of me realizes I need this fantasy. I need to believe that someone is stronger than the cancer and knows how to get rid of it.

  “I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening,” I say.

  “To which part,” Dr. Kealy says.

  “All of it, or, none of it,” I say. “I was just thinking you’ve really been so nice, and that’s made all the difference to me and to my mom. Really. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Dr. Kealy says. “Your mother is feisty. That’s good. It will serve her well. I’m very optimistic. But this is serious surgery. We shouldn’t be in there too long, maybe an hour or less. You can go sit with her until we’re ready.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  It’s so well organized. They do this every day, I tell myself. If you’re going to get cancer, this is where you want to be.

  I walk in the room. She’s lying in the bed.

  “HEY, DR. KEALY SAYS it won’t take too long, and you can probably go home tonight,” I say.