Oh, I’m ready. A little afraid, sure, but who isn’t? I don’t expect it to hurt. I’ve been near the end three times before, and it’s always the same. Always calm, the same calm. Anxiety is for the well. When death is truly close, it feels like a blanket. A good sleep. I’m sure, in your line of work, you hear that sort of thing all the time, but it’s true. Sometimes I think it’s the only time in my life I’ve ever been able to relax.
The first time was a fall on a family ski trip when I was fourteen. I was a good skier, good at nearly every kind of athletics, though they didn’t let girls do too much then. I skied and played some tennis, but you had to do that in a dress, of course; I didn’t last long. Anyway, I hit a patch of ice and went head-first into the dark side of a tree. Snapped my collarbone, shattered my wrist. Took an entire pincushion to sew me back together. If you held me upside down right now, I bet I’d still jingle like a wind chime. My poor mother had to read me my homework for a month afterwards, that’s how dizzy I was. Nobody knew what concussions were. ‘Give her a little medicinal vodka,’ I swear the surgeon said. When they peeled me off that mountain and carted me off to some ambulance, I was all alone, but I wasn’t scared or even cold. All I thought was ‘gee, I’d like to take a nap.’ And somehow, I knew that if I closed my eyes, it would be forever, but I didn’t care. I was smiling, I remember that.
And then, years later, I had my car accident. That was in ’80 or ’81, I was already working at Kloster & Peabody by then. Do you remember their awful commercials? With all the screeching tires and that angry bald guy banging the gavel in the red tie? No, I suppose you’re too young. What a sad time that was. When I got out of the hospital, they wanted me to testify at the other driver’s trial. I said no, absolutely not, no thank you. I took that check and ran. Ran all the way to my chiropractor. Hah! What a scam that was. Don’t ever give your money to those scumbags. Sorry! I’m getting off track. Right after the impact—I was still buckled at this point, dangling there, can you imagine, the other guy’s car still kissing mine, they had to cut open my Honda—God, I loved that car—but I didn’t panic. Nope. No fear. There was so much smoke I was weeping, and there was something wet spilling on the ground. I could see blood on me but hadn’t figured out yet if it was mine, and I know you’re thinking ‘Oh, you were just in shock’ but listen. The silence was beautiful. No one in this city has ever shut up in their goddamn life. I hadn’t heard silence like that in years. It was like music. I just sat there, not hearing a thing, thinking about how great it was that I’d never have to go to the office again. If they couldn’t rescue me, that wasn’t my problem. I closed my eyes and let myself drift.
The third time was when I fell in love. Forgive me, this one’s more complicated. I’ll need to start all the way back at the beginning. How long do we have? Thank you for being here, by the way. When my niece told me about you people, I was skeptical. More specifically I told her she was full of shit. ‘Like a Make-A-Wish Foundation for dinosaurs,’ she said, and I laughed in her face. My sweet niece. I’m not proud. But she knows how to handle me: she gave me your brochure and showed me something on YouTube and microwaved a couple Chips Ahoy for me and I thought okay, well, if there’s a foundation that gives regular dying folks one last hurrah, who am I not to accept their generosity?
Anyway, love. I used to have a school friend, Judi-Anne. Yes, grade school, bear with me. She lived on my block, her father was a psychologist. I don’t remember what he looked like. I’d put my money on glasses and a mustache, though; have you ever met a psychologist who didn’t have glasses and a mustache? I didn’t think so.
He had his own office in their home. I was so impressed by that. I’d never seen that—a whole extra room for just one person! My mother barely gave my father half of their closet. He got one shelf and three drawers, that was it. And between me and all my sisters and my mother and the cat—who was also a girl, obviously—I don’t know how he had enough room in that house to turn around.
But Judi-Anne’s father. Well. He had an office bigger than our kitchen. A desk in the very center, one of those rich green banker’s lamps with a little gold pull chain on top. And do you know, I never saw him working at it, not once? I’m sure he must’ve seen his patients somewhere in town, but back then I just thought Judi-Anne’s mother kicked her husband out the door every morning, office or not, same as mine.
We used to sneak in there and read. Not that we were bookworms, I wasn’t good at school at all, I was just all for Judi-Anne. Followed her around like sauce on sausage. She was so smart, and she liked reading all her father’s textbooks aloud to me—I think it made her feel like she was a psychologist, too. She read to me about all kinds of people: maniacs and epileptics, schizoids, the ones with Oedipal complexes. I learned the word ‘barbiturates’ in that office.
Freaks in every book, on every page. On shelves up to the ceiling. It was uncanny. I didn’t even know there were so many ways for you to be crazy. It was funny. Made me think Judi-Anne’s father was a little crazy, too, for studying them all so hard. Goes without saying that we didn’t have anything like a health class, or I don’t know, a psychology class at school. Mental health education, no. People were just wackos and loonies and freaks.
There was a book we found one day, sorry, the exact title escapes me. Sometimes I remember things better when I’m not trying. My brain’s fine, it’s more like just like— oops—that’s where the tape’s cut together, try again later.
I know we couldn’t have been more than ten. And I’m sure of that because I had a scorcher of a headache that afternoon, the kind I only had when my mother was still getting up in the morning to braid my hair before school. When I was a little little girl, I’d get up, wash my face and dress, then go give my mother a nudge and wait in the bathroom. I’d sit on top of the toilet seat and she would come in and do my braids. Even though she was pretty much still asleep, she did them so tight, I thought my scalp would split in two. Have you ever seen anyone rip a whole magazine in half, straight down the middle? I rode the bus home with my forehead pressed to the window glass, trying to get the cold into my bones. But the whole point is that the day we found that book had to be before junior high, because the day I started junior high, I went to nudge my mother and she opened one eye and said ‘honey, when are you going to learn to do all of that yourself?’
She went right back to sleep. Later, I realized other girls had been doing their own hair for years. She must’ve realized, too. What ten-year-old couldn’t braid her own hair? But I was the oldest, so I guess she didn’t realize what girls were supposed to be like and when. Anyway, the title of the book we found. It was something awful. Like Female Sex Perverts, or Sex Perversion in the Female Species. I’ve looked for it since but never was able to find it again. It had a blue cover, I’m sure of that, though I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. Dark blue, like sapphires. My niece’s birthstone.
Unnatural deviation of the sexual instinct is a manifestation of a disturbed mentality. That was the first line, I’m certain. Some things you just remember. They tunnel in your heart like worms and never let go. A disturbed mentality; can you imagine?
Judi-Anne and I were sitting like we always did, scuttled up together. Backs flush against the bookcase, shelves poking into our little razorback spines. I’m sure we were hidden behind the desk, that was our usual spot. And I bet we were extra hidden that day—we weren’t supposed to be in the office at all—but somehow, we both knew, of all the books in the office, this was the one we were least allowed to read.
Judi-Anne held the pages so tight, the tips of her fingers lost their color. You know what was great about Judi-Anne, besides her hands? She thought I was funny. She was always saying ‘you’re so funny, Devorah. How’d you get so funny?’ Always laughing around me. I honestly don’t think I was very funny. No one else ever said so, and I don’t remember making jokes. My baby sister, Lisa, was the funny one. I think Judi-Anne just liked me and couldn’t come up with any other good reason why. All that laughing made me feel smarter and prettier too. I was pretty average in both those departments.
I stared at her hands while she read to me about the female sex perverts. I wanted to stamp those hands on my brain. I thought ‘if some day everyone takes a test on who knows Judi-Anne the best, I’m gonna win. I’m gonna beat everyone.’ I wanted someone to blindfold me and point an arrow at my head, say ‘tell us about Judi-Anne’s hands or we’ll shoot.’ Get this: I used to act the whole thing out in the shower, with a washcloth wrapped around my head, over my eyes. ‘Well sir, you’ll notice she’s got a little scar on her left thumb from the time she spilled a cup of her mother’s coffee when she was six, and there’s a hangnail on her second finger, that’s the one she chews on when she’s nervous even though she says she’s never nervous, and her littlest pinkie nail is the exact size of a pencil eraser, and if you get up real close she smells like her nana’s Ponds vanishing crème because she steals it because she’s secretly a dirty, little thief.’
Can you believe—wait, sorry. Don’t let me get ahead of myself. Judi-Anne had on red barrettes that day. Red and white socks to match, of course. She was so good at that. I hated barrettes. I was always losing them, and they never matched. Judi-Anne’s socks were pulled up to her knees. Mine never stayed. Both our mothers gave us pennies to put in our penny loafers. I asked her to read it again.
Unnatural deviation of the sexual instinct is a manifestation of a disturbed mentality.
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“It means there are ladies who do funny sex stuff.”
“Funny…like how?”
“Like, they take off all their clothes and crawl around with each other in dirt and…eat grubs. That’s what my father says. They rub up against one other until they scream. They don’t go steady with anyone, ever. Or get married, they eat grass. Like cows.”
“Like cows? With each other? In mud?”
“Yes, dummy, that’s what’s unnatural about it. My father says there are tons of them. They’re filthy,” she added.
Well. I didn’t know what to do with that. Women who turned into cows instead of having boyfriends? Stop my heart and sign me up! Doesn’t that sound like the wave of the future? But then I had this thought: Judi-Anne was incorrect. Unnatural deviation had to be something different. I don’t know how I knew it by then, but I did. Judi-Anne was the smartest girl in our class, she was going to be the first woman president, but she was wrong, and I was sure. And then I had another thought: don’t tell her. Don’t say anything. Instead of saying ‘tell me more, Judi-Anne Schalansky, let’s keep reading and find out exactly what kind of grass those sickos like to eat,’ I thought: drop it. I wandered out of her father’s office and into the kitchen, helped myself to a snack.
Of course, my curiosity got me later. That night I must’ve told one of my sisters what Judi-Anne had told me about the cow-women, because someone told my mother, and she and I had a talk that night about how perverts are men who try to steal little children and none of it had anything to do with cows and no one eats grass. And a phone call must’ve been made to Judi-Anne’s mother because soon after I wasn’t allowed over there to play anymore. It was never dictated to me straight like that, my mother just said she needed me at home more in the afternoons to help with my sisters and kept inventing chores. I knew I’d been caught, even if I didn’t exactly know what for, so I didn’t put up much of a fight. Or maybe I knew what I’d been caught out for, so I played dumb. It was a long time ago. It was nice, actually. I got a lot closer with my sisters. The youngest one, Lisa, she was like my baby. And I learned a lot from my mother. All the cooking, how to sew. I’m the only one of all of us who can make her stuffed cabbage. And Judi-Anne’s family ended up moving away a year or two later. By the time I got to college, I sometimes thought I made her up.
Ooh, I got a chill just thinking about it. Sweetie dear, turn the heat up? I know it’s a sauna for everyone else, but I had an awful time keeping warm even before I got sick, and you won’t have to put up with me much longer. I’m sure you hear this all the time, but you’re very beautiful. I know, I know, it’s not polite to say, but I don’t have to worry about any of that anymore, and you really are a knockout. Do you know that? Can you see that when you look in the mirror? I’ll stop. I will. Just—I bet your people love you. I bet they love just looking at you, up and down and up again. Whoever’s waiting for you when you get home, I bet they’re just flat out like a dog on floor tiles, wagging and panting and waiting for you to walk in your front door. Sorry, I know I’m not supposed to say it. What I mean is, I would very much like it to be someone who looks like you. Can you do that? I hope that’s not terribly creepy. Am I allowed to be that specific?
I always thought women were at their most beautiful when they were walking away from me. That sounds so morose, but I don’t mean it like that. It’s not moody for moody’s sake, I’m not talking about being left or wanting to be. I’ve just always been in love with women’s hips, and it’s easier to look when they’re walking away. You can’t get caught out for staring if you’re looking at someone’s behind.
Anyway, enough about women’s behinds. Where were we? Ah, the third time I almost died. Right. We’re getting there, I promise. Let’s skip the middle. Don’t bother asking if there were any other little Judi-Annes along the way, or if and when I started having normal boyfriends. The short version is: it doesn’t matter. Nothing exciting happened for a long time, I can tell you that. Long Island, Nassau County; we go whole decades without a single thing happening.
I was engaged by the time I was twenty-two. It was a relief for everyone. His name was Joel. Everyone besides me and his mother called him Minky, because his name was Joel Minkowitz. I don’t think there’s a way any mother could call her son ‘Minky’. And I just thought it was a ridiculous nickname. Minky sounded like a kitten or a child’s stuffed bear. My high school tennis coach called me Diamond Dev. Now that was a nickname. I was sharp; indestructible. That’s what he told everyone.
Joel was training to be a dentist. I’d taken a year off, then gone right to law school. Neither one of us dated much in college, which was easier for him, of course. People just thought he was studious. I never knew if he had a Judi-Anne. If he did, he never told me. We talked about plenty of things, especially later, but never that. I couldn’t have, even if I’d wanted to. I never even thought about her until a few years ago.
By the time I met Joel, I’d had a couple boyfriends and gotten maybe a little too friendly with a college roommate but nothing crazy. I was a good girl. I was very careful. I’m not sure when I knew that I knew, but you have to understand. There’s a difference between knowing and knowing. And you can know something without ever letting yourself think it. I wanted a good life. I wanted a career, a big one. I wanted to be in my sisters’ lives. I wanted to be an aunt when they got around to having kids, and be able to talk to my mother on the phone every day without hiding anything. I wanted to sit next to them all in temple a few times a year. I didn’t want to be Big Homosexual Devorah, didn’t want anyone whispering about me, not like that. I just wanted to be Dev. None of us knew anyone like that. And you couldn’t just turn on a computer then and go in one of those apps and press a button on a stranger’s face and boom, you’re on a date. Your niece couldn’t just get on Facebook and show up at your home with some not-for-profit fairy godmother person, or whoever you people are. I lived in New York through the late 80’s and it was a scary time. I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but I’m serious. You can’t know what it was like, you weren’t there.
When I was young, you met boys at school or temple or college. If you were lucky, an aunt with good taste and a big mouth hooked you up with someone. If your parents had money, maybe someone in the Poconos. Those were your options. Everyone was married by twenty-five.
Joel was everything anyone could hope for me. A good Jewish boy, top of his class, very gentle, kind, loved his mother but not too much, didn’t drink. Very laid back, for a Jew. He thought Joni Mitchell was alright. And he had great teeth, of course. And he was tall. Taller than me. Dark eyes, with these obscenely feminine eyelashes, and long hair. It was brave of him. I didn’t know any other men with hair that long; my generation wasn’t quite the right age to be hippies, we got there too early. They didn’t make many hippies on Long Island, either. Joel was always his own duck. His hair was gorgeous, it was the one thing he was vain about. He wore it tied back—no one likes a dentist whose hair gets in your mouth—but when we were alone, he liked taking it down. Most days I brushed it for him. When he was sad or upset, he’d let me brush it for hours. My parents had gotten me a doll when I was young, and I never could figure out how to play with it—never gave a damn about the doll—and taking care of Joel did something for me too, like ‘see? I can do it.’
He loved me. We got along. We played tennis together. Mixed doubles. We went to shows. We were both a little odd. We had a lot of fun, especially in those first years. He cooked. My parents loved that; they loved him. My sisters all loved him. When I took my glasses off and squinted, he looked a little like Marlo Thomas in That Girl, though I never told him that. You won’t know who Marlo Thomas is, I’m sure, but look her up when you get a chance.
It was very simple for him. Only trouble was, it was too simple. It was normal for boys to take a little more time, so he didn’t feel the same pressure, and it turned him into a waffler. Every time someone asked, ‘Joely, when are you making an honest woman outta Dev?’ he’d waffle. I just wanted to get it over with. Nail it down, move on. But he wouldn’t pick a date. Maybe he thought he could do better. Maybe he thought he could get away without having to get married, I don’t know. I do know that I got sick of waiting. One night, right after his graduation, Joel got wishy-washy with me, and I lost it. We never fought, and I’d certainly never screamed at him. I think I may have thrown a plate. And I may have made a comment about his hair. Two days later, he decides to fly to Club Med. He calls me from a pay phone, says he needs to ‘find himself.’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘At an all-inclusive in Florida?’ I said.
I cried every night he was gone. My whole life was over. I cried on the way to class and again on my way home in the evening. I opened my law books and would just sob. I couldn’t eat. I walked around in sunglasses, like Sophia Loren. It wasn’t just the rejection or the not knowing. I felt relieved and that made me feel horribly guilty. Like, if you can imagine a baby letting go of a balloon. That balloon is gone in two seconds. That’s how light I felt, like I could’ve floated to China. And I hated myself for that. I didn’t want to feel free. It was such a terrible surprise. He was my best friend by then. No boy had given me so much as his milk money before. I was sure none ever would again, but when he left I realized I didn’t even want them to. I was so mad at myself. What was my problem? Joel was supposed to be my ticket out. The next best thing. I had no idea what I would even do. God, I was a mess. Not Diamond Dev at all. Small and weak and miserable, breakable Dev.
My roommate snapped after, oh I don’t know, ten days? I know, I’m telling it like it was this long, drawn-out episode, but I’m sure someone like you has been in and out of love a dozen times and you know how long or short an hour can be. How long have we been here?
Anyway, ten days felt like forever. Then my roommate, Sylvie, God bless her, put it to bed. She pitied me. I didn’t care. I still don’t know if it was just because she wanted me to shut up or if she knew what I was or what. We didn’t even know each other very well, we only lived together just the one year.
Sylvie threw together a party for me: Devorah’s Meat Market, she called it. She planned this whole smorgasbord in less than a day, Swedish meatballs in cream sauce, hot dogs on sticks, a big meatloaf slathered in fried onions and ketchup. She bought some water crackers and this pâté that stank like the old country, like my grandparents’ apartment in the Bronx, and she spent a fortune of her parents’ money on sparkling wine. I mean, cases of it. All her old Cornell girlfriends with jobs in the city showed up, and every single one of them had to bring at least one date for me. Put it out on the wire, she’d said, my roommate Devorah is a genius 1L with legs to the ceiling and a rack the size of east Texas. Boy, did she know how to sell. And let me tell you, they came out for that.
She also invited the girl who was her roommate before me. Magnolia. That sounds made-up, doesn’t it? Can you believe that was her name? Like a flower child or a stripper. Everyone else was Linda or Barbara or Debbie or Susan, but in walked Magnolia, cocked in our threshold, this little Jewish Irish mutt from Bayside, in dungarees, named after a tree. Girls were just not supposed to stand like that. And I knew. I know I said I knew before, that I knew without knowing, but in that moment I really knew. I knew it all over again. In a different way entirely. My body—I will never forget. It burned. I went red until I felt it in my feet. In my ankles. Between my toes. I had to take my shoes off just looking at her. I can’t remember a thing she said, but I can tell you I never experienced anything like that in my life. My skin—everywhere, not just between my legs—scorching. In all the time I’d been with Joel, you know how many times he changed my temperature? Not once. All those lovely girls at that party carrying their lovely hostess meat-themed gifts, foisting all those lovely, eligible boys on me, Andy and Eddie and Michael and Barry and Larry. I didn’t go out with a single one of them.
Magnolia took me bowling. I thought that was so funny. Isn’t that the least sexual thing you can think of? Has anyone ever wanted to take you bowling? Right, I didn’t think so. No one goes bowling anymore. They didn’t then, either. She must’ve known I wouldn’t want to be seen out at a bar with her.
Everything was just so different. I keep saying that, I know. You think I’m demented, I’m sure, but I promise you, my brain’s fine. No lesions there yet. That’s how it’ll end, though, if I go the treatment route. The foundation said I could have my wish granted now, before it gets worse. I guess you already know that, my niece had to connect you with my oncologist for you to even be here, right? Right. They did say I had a shot, technically. I’m not so old. But what for? Another six months? A year? I saw what happened to Patrick Swayze.
For a long time, I played this game—what if I’d been born later? My youngest sister is twelve years younger than me. It’s like she was born on a different planet, to completely different parents. It’s taken me forever to get over that. Sometimes I’m still not totally sure I have. What if I’d been born even just five years later? Five years after that? Things might’ve turned out different. I know that’s probably not true, I would’ve made the same choices, even if I was born yesterday, but I still think about it sometimes. Do you know how much bravery it takes to be a—Verity—that’s my niece, did I say that already—the one I live with, the one you spoke to on the phone, who arranged all this—she told everyone when she was seventeen. I don’t know how she did it. Whatever she was born with, I don’t have that. Never had that. My mother told me no more Judi-Ann and I didn’t say boo. I said nothing. It’s not like it was easy for my niece—my sister’s husband, he was so terrible to her. I don’t think my sister was much better about it, either. And that wasn’t so long ago at all. My niece gave me a framed photo of her and that first girlfriend to put on my mantle. She was so proud. I don’t know if she was hoping it would be this special thing we could share, or what. Did she think I’d never seen a picture of two women together? For years I only put it out when she came over. I know. I love her. I love her so much. But the girl’s arms are wrapped around my Vee’s waist, and for a long time I just didn’t want to have to look at it. When I was young, people used to tell me I was so brave for taking care of my sisters, for taking all those hard classes and finishing college, getting my J.D. and sitting for the bar, not being afraid to take a case to trial. But they really didn’t mean brave; they meant good. All that time, I was just being good. Do you know, my niece is hoping I’ll tell you that I want to go to the beach? That my last wish is to go to someplace like the Hamptons, just the two of us? The Hamptons! No one’s going to the Hamptons.
Where was I? We went bowling. Who knows how many girls Magnolia took bowling in her life, I can guarantee I was neither the first nor the last. She was a beautiful bowler, had her own ball and shoes in a pink and white leather bag, just like her namesake. Everyone at the lanes knew her. She was like a princess there. And when the pinsetter jammed, she ran down the lane to fix it herself. Hips swinging. I was already done for, but that—I was beyond cooked. I’ll say it again: there’s nothing better than watching a woman walk away from you.
I hadn’t bowled much, so it made sense for her to go up the approach with me every turn and coach. To help me, of course. Hah! She put her hands all over me right in front of everyone. How else could she teach me to square my hips, keep my elbow long and smooth, rotate my wrist? She got right up close behind, ‘helped’ me relax my shoulders, and no one batted an eye. She smelled like my father, if he’d rolled in a meadow. Like this terrible cologne they don’t make anymore, Aqua Velva. Just this weight. Oak and musk, dropped in lavender. Dropped on my head, more like. My hands were sweaty, I kept losing the bowling ball. She pressed her crotch into my back and the ball slipped right off my hand. It went flying backwards, crashed into the seats behind us. But no one noticed or said a damn thing. I used to think that all those people must’ve thought ‘wow, that gal’s clumsy!’ but later I realized—they’d probably seen her ‘coach’ a hundred other girls.
I’ve had my whole life to think about her. Why she was so much more attractive to me than everyone else. Some of it I get. To everyone else in my life at that time, I was a charity case. It was such a shame that I didn’t know how to fix my face or do my hair, that I was so tall. I knew what they said about me. It was a relief, for everyone who knew me, that Joel agreed to be my boyfriend, and eventually my fiancé. It didn’t matter that I was good or smart or hard-working or making my own way. Joel was taking one for the team. My parents, my sisters, everyone thought that Joel was doing me a favor. Joel probably thought that too, which was partly why he went to Club Med.
Magnolia wasn’t like that. She was not sorry. She was not taking anything for anyone’s team. Her head barely came up to my chest and I can tell you she was not shy. She said I had great hair. No one had ever complimented my hair before. She said based on what she knew, she thought I’d make a great lawyer. ‘What do you even know about me?’ I asked. ‘You have a righteous spirit,’ she said. ‘It’s in your eyes.’
I was raised Reform. Are you Jewish? No? Well, we went to synagogue most Friday nights when I was young, but I’d never given it much thought. Passover in spring, Sukkot in fall, bagels and lox on the weekends. My parents participated because it would’ve been abominable not to, and us girls followed, and it was just a cultural thing we did. No one was really religious anymore. They were afraid to be. And not to be. But Magnolia did something a lifetime of all those rituals never managed: she got me believing in God.
It was nothing like my relationship with Joel. Joel and I had interests in common. We were friends. Our families knew each other. We were from the same place. I was a tomboy, he was a little…well, you know. It was strategic and it was comfortable. I saw our future, as much as any twenty-two-year old thinks they can. There was none of that with Magnolia. My body moved towards her. The way a planet moves. That was it. I knew nothing about her. I wanted her. The exact same way I wanted Judi-Anne’s hands—known and memorized and in my mouth. There was no good reason, I didn’t understand. But giving into that not-understanding—that was God. I didn’t like it or feel good about it, but that’s what it was.
Magnolia hadn’t moved that far from mine and Sylvie’s place. Our apartment was on west 80th and Amsterdam; she’d moved just down the way, to 76th and Broadway. She had a little sister who had just graduated—Dahlia—I know, it’s ridiculous—and the two of them were living together. I went over to their place that weekend to check it out. We’d gone bowling every night for five nights. I hadn’t gone home with her yet. I was too scared. And her sister was there, don’t forget. Meggie—she told me to call her that—said ‘come by on Sunday if you want, you can help us paint.’ By then I was getting itchy with all the bowling. I knew what would happen if I went over, and I wanted it to happen, more than anything I’d wanted in my whole life, though it made me feel sick to think about. When I imagined what it would be like to touch her, I just couldn’t do it. I went completely blank. Just curtains.
Have you ever been with a woman? Sorry, don’t listen to me, I’m an old lady. Don’t answer that, I mean it. Your life is your life. We’re talking about me. I hope they pay you a lot to set these things up. You’re not a volunteer, are you? God, I’m nervous. I didn’t think I would be. You’d think I’d be able to get over myself by now.
Women my age love telling people they don’t give a hoot. They all say ‘oh, it’s so freeing, I wish I’d stopped caring about what people think years ago, did I tell you how free I am?’ But it’s not true. Older women are just as catty as the young and I’ll tell you something—they’re even worse, because they’re retired. They have money and time and nothing to do except play mahjong and wait for their cancers to spread to their brains. All their bones hurt and half of them have diabetes or heart trouble so they can’t eat or drink what they want, and they’re bored and angry and they’re crabby bitches, all of them.
We ran out of paint after about an hour. That was good because my arms were sore anyway. Don’t ever paint your own walls. Meggie sent her sister out to buy more paint and some new brushes because she was the older one and very bossy, it turned out. New brushes would make the paint stick faster, she said. I think she must’ve planned it that way. She told Dahlia to go to this hardware store where she could get a good deal all the way down on the Lower East Side, which was crazy, but Dahlia was a good baby sister who could take a hint, so Meggie handed her some change and off she went.
Then we were alone. It was the middle of the afternoon. We were so sweaty, loopy from all the fumes and listening to the radio, covered in primer and the baby blue paint they’d picked out for Dahlia’s bedroom.
We had the window wide open for the breeze. There was no air-conditioning in the building, it was too old—if you put in a window unit, you’d blow the fuses. You could barely get away with a hairdryer, Meggie told me. We sat in the window in our undershirts, drinking lemonade, listening to Paul Simon sing about not giving false hope, watching the seagulls fly over the traffic. It was a wonderful summer for radio, I remember that.
Our legs dangled against the bricks outside. We kept knocking our knees together, banging into each other like it was a game, like I was ten years old again. Meggie wanted me to look at her, pay attention to her body: the freckles on her chest; the sweat in her eyebrows, the star of David necklace falling down her shirt. It just felt so good, having her body right there. She was practically on top of me, didn’t give a damn if the whole neighborhood was watching. I knew what was going to happen. And when it did, my life would end.
I watched her put a hand on my knee and then another. Then she looked right at me, like it was a dare. She got so close, but she hovered there, to make me lean in the rest of the way. I’m convinced she did that on purpose, she knew what she was doing. And I thought yes. Yes, I am going to lean in and let my life end. Let it all go to hell, take it away. This is love. This is God. Take me away.
And then the phone rang. Meggie ran to get it. She figured it was Dahlia, that she got bored and wanted to come back up, or she was in trouble, and calling from a pay phone. But it wasn’t Dahlia. She handed the phone to me—it was Sylvie.
“Joel Minkowitz is standing in our living room,” she said, calm as anything. “He has a tan, he’s wearing Bermuda shorts, and he says he wants to marry you as soon as possible.”
And I went. I left. I don’t know why, though I do. What is a Jew but one who refuses his burdens? In a way, Judi-Anne was good practice. Do I need to tell you what it was like, hanging up the phone, turning away from her, saying goodbye? Like turning my back on the sun. You know that when the sun explodes, it’ll take seven minutes for everyone on Earth to figure it out? That’s how long it takes for the light to travel.
She just stood there. Didn’t hug me or ask what happened. She didn’t even say don’t go.
Now that I’m saying it, though, it probably wasn’t the first time a girl did that to her. I never thought about that until just now. I knew I wasn’t her first, that she’d always been like that and lived like that, but all these years I always assumed I must’ve ruined her life. I’ve always thought that. I used to imagine her rotting in that doorway like spoiled deli meat. But I’m realizing as I’m telling you this that actually the only life I ended up ruining was mine.
I didn’t come to until I was halfway back to my apartment. The first thing I remember is standing on the corner of 80th and Broadway. I stopped in front of a fruit and vegetable stand with a big flashing Pepsi sign next to a hotel. People came and went. I watched a couple of kids try to open a Coke bottle on a fire hydrant, and a couple my parents’ age struggling to fit their suitcases into the trunk of a taxicab. The driver was yelling something, barking at them, double-parked. My feet burned and I looked down and guess what? It took me four whole city blocks to notice I’d walked out of Magnolia’s house barefoot. One of my toes was bleeding. I stood on the sidewalk with my bloody toe, watched the people while the Pepsi sign flashed and thought well, either I can go home, go back for my shoes, or step into traffic. All three will kill me. I thought about it for a long time. Long enough that the heat of the sidewalk blistered the skin on the bottom of my feet. For a while you could still see the scars, if you look for them. What kind of death do I want? I asked myself. I thought about beautiful Judi-Anne and her red barrettes. I wanted to call her up and ask her to stab me with them. Unnatural deviation of the sexual instinct is a manifestation of a disturbed mentality. Joel. Sylvie. Meggie. I’d left God alone on a fire escape with an empty can of blue paint.
Joel and I got married six weeks later. We did it over Labor Day Weekend. I wore a lace dress my mother’s aunt sewed. I finished law school and started working. Joely joined a practice in Riverdale. It wasn’t the world’s greatest marriage, but it wasn’t the worst. We did our best. We had a lot of fun, for a while. Season tickets to the opera. Everyone in my family got their teeth cleaned twice a year. We went camping in the summer. My sister had my niece. Everyone thinks she’s my own daughter, that’s how close we are. We got wonderful nieces and nephews from Joel’s side, too.
Whatever Joel asked for, I gave him. It was part of my penance, I decided. Do Jews do penance? I don’t know. Never looked that up. Joel didn’t ask for much, if you get my drift, but I was committed. I thought I owed him that. I told myself that if I couldn’t be brave, if I had to be a coward, at least I could be faithful and hold up my end of the bargain. And, you know, it’s not like he was a bucket of water and I was the Wicked Witch of the West. We screwed as much as everyone else. Probably more because we had something to prove. I’ve met plenty of women, especially since Joel passed, who can tell right away that I am…you know, and many of them feel sorry for me. They wonder why I haven’t “explored.” God, what an awful word. He’s been gone almost twenty years, they say. You’re seventy-seven, they tell me. Like I don’t know how old I am. I see how those women look at me. They think oh, that poor woman. What they don’t understand is: I died the day I walked out of Magnolia’s apartment. Right there, when I burned all that skin off my feet. Committing to my marriage was never a question. I knew what I was and wasn’t capable of. It was the easiest thing in the world.
And now you’re here. My niece said I could have anything I wanted, though she did tell me that if I picked the beach, you could drive right onto the sand and help me get in the water, float around, maybe have a cocktail, that’s what she said. She’s very sweet. She came to stay for a while last year after she and her fiancée broke things off. That was terrible. Just terrible. “Women will ruin your life the same as men,” she likes to say. “Men are assholes, but women are crazy bitches,” that’s another one. And “you’re so lucky you never had to do this,” that too. She keeps asking how long until it doesn’t feel this bad, but I don’t know what to tell her. We’ve never talked about any of this. And after all that, I got diagnosed. She’s the one who found out about your foundation. She told me that you bring people to zoos? Is that true? And on boat cruises? And to the Swiss Alps? She told me you once took a very old man who worked on Wall Street back to the Stock Exchange for a day on a gurney. I couldn’t believe it. Can you imagine knowing that you’re dying, and only wanting to go back to work for a day? That’s the saddest thing I ever heard.
I want to go to The Plaza. Are you writing this down? The Plaza Hotel. That’s what I want. I want to be in the biggest, fanciest hotel in New York. I want a view of the park. I want to be in the middle of everything, on one of the high floors. It doesn’t have to be the penthouse, though I certainly wouldn’t say no to that. I just want a view of the park. I want to look out on my city and see the park and the streets where I lived and died, one last time. I’d like to be wearing nice pajamas. Silk, preferably, with a robe like Hugh Hefner’s. Can you arrange for that? I don’t need you to monogram them. I would like bourbon, though. And strawberries. I know they’re out of season.
And then I’ll ask you to send up a woman to make love to me. A beautiful one, if possible, though they’re all beautiful, aren’t they? I really do mean that. It really would be nice if she looked a little like you, but if that’s not something your organization can do, that’s fine. Just a professional, please. I wouldn’t mind a redhead. But I’d like a homosexual one. Can you arrange for that? And someone very strong. I may have four or five months left, but I don’t want them. Please don’t tell my niece. Is that clear? Tell whoever you hire that I want it to hurt. I don’t want it done gently. No comfortable slipping into that good night. No grace, not for me, God forbid. I’m not sure how you’ll work that out with the police, but I suppose that’s your problem, not mine. I want there to be blood, and I want it to be mine, the last thing I see. I’d like to feel it drain out of me while she whispers my name, calls me what I am. I’m happy to put that in writing, if it helps.