Marrying Mom

“My God! You sounded exactly like Mother then.”

“I did not.”

“You did.”

“It’s started,” Bruce sang out.

Sig paused, biting back the need to tell him it was his fault. “You’re right,” she admitted. “Okay. It’s Saturday at three and now I’ll call Sharon.”

“See ya. Wouldn’t wanna be ya!” Bruce yodeled. Sig merely shook her head and hung up the phone.

Sig stood silently for a few moments in the center of her immaculate living room. She knew she shouldn’t do it, but she was drawn irresistibly to the vanity in her bedroom. She looked around at the room and its beautiful decor. She’d have to sell the co-op, no doubt about it. She was behind in her maintenance payments and starting to get nasty looks from the coop board president when she ran into him in the lobby.

Her client list had dropped, her commissions were down, and her own portfolio had taken a beating. Welcome to the nineties. Sig had done her best to downsize her expenses—she hadn’t used her credit cards for months, had paid her phone bill and Con Ed on time, and had spent money only on the necessities. But it wasn’t enough. Business had slowed to a trickle and even if she sold her stock now, she’d take a loss and have no possibility for the future. She’d just have to sell her apartment.

But this apartment was more than just equity: it was her haven. Maybe that was because she felt her mother had never made a home for her. As Phyllis had often said, “I’d be happy living out of a suitcase in a clean motel.” The very thought made Sig shudder. Besides, the apartment was her visible sign of success, her security, and a place she could come after a long hard day of gambling with other people’s money to lick her wounds. It was beautiful. It was perfect, and she’d have to face the fact that it was empty and she would have to sell it. The money would evaporate faster than good perfume out of an open flask and she would wind up destitute. Or worse: she’d wind up in an apartment in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

Sig looked into the mirror as she knew, irrevocably, what she would have to do. She didn’t like what she saw. Was Bruce right? She wasn’t just getting older, but also bitter? Were those new lines forming at the corner of her mouth? She stared more deeply into the mirror. And then her eyes flitted to the reflection in one pane of the three-sided glass. For a second something about the softness in the line of her jaw reminded her of … what? She was puckering, decaying, and withering. She was going the way of all flesh. Sig shuddered. But it wasn’t just the age thing that gave her the shivers; she had looked like … her mother.

Sig moved her head but the trick of light, or the angle, was gone. Jesus, she would wind up alone. She wouldn’t even have the comfort of three children to annoy and be annoyed by. Tears of self-pity and something else—a deeper sorrow—rose to her eyes. She was getting older, but she was also getting bitter. The thought of Phillip Norman made her sad. Sig had known he was no genius, but he was presentable, fairly successful—if a corporate lawyer could be considered that—and his warmth for her made up for some of her coolness. It was nice to be wanted, and Phillip seemed to want marriage and a child. She would have to at least compromise—she’d give up the idea of a soulmate for a friend, a partner, and a family. But she was starting to believe that Phillip was even less than a friend: he was an empty suit. He and all of the other empty suits and bad boys who had preceded him made her mouth tremble. She looked like shit and she felt worse.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been trying to find somebody, someone to settle down with, to marry. Even to have a family with, if it wasn’t too late. Her mother acted as if it was Sig who was stopping it from happening. But the truth was there were no men who were interested. Despite her good haircut, her visible success, her careful makeup, her Armani suits—or maybe because of them—Sig couldn’t remember the last time a new man had expressed any interest in her. The truth was, it wasn’t like she had a choice except Phillip. Oh, she could have affairs with any of the more interesting but very married men she worked with, but she wasn’t a Glenn Close/Fatal Attraction kind of girl. She didn’t steal other women’s husbands. And other than other women’s husbands, who had looked at her lately? The Gristede’s delivery boy? Her elevator operator? Women over thirty-five started to become invisible. She was losing it, and she was losing it fast.

She picked up a lipstick, about to paint a little color onto her lips when her hand froze in midair. Why bother, she thought. Why bother to paint it on. She was losing it—she had lost it. The bloom of youth, the promise of fecundity that attracted men, that even on some unconscious level promised them a breeder, was disappearing. Perhaps men her age wanted younger women not only for their looks but because of the hormonal message a young girl sent: that she could still carry their child. That she could demonstrate their virility to the world with her upright breasts and a bulging belly. Sig’s periods were still regular. But how long would it last? She wasn’t a breeder. The bloom of youth was gone, and she’d grow old alone.

She looked deeper into the mirror. Under her mother’s brittle veneer, wasn’t there a desperation? Wasn’t there a gallantry that seemed to say to Sig that it was better to go down fighting, to be feisty and annoying, than to ever be perceived as pathetic and lonely?

Sig looked around once more at the bedroom and rose and wandered through all her perfect rooms. She wound up, as usual, in her kitchen. Her eyes immediately focused on the one flaw—the tiny crack in the lacquer finish. Had it grown? Perhaps she should have spent the money on smoothing her own wrinkles, in lacquering her own finish. Perhaps if she lost a few pounds more, did a little more time on the treadmill, and had her eyes done, she could attract someone more acceptable, more interesting, more human than Phillip Norman. Then again, maybe not. Sig reached for the door of her Subzero refrigerator, pulled open the freezer, and grabbed a pint container of Edy’s low-fat double Dutch chocolate ice milk. She sat on the floor and, using a tablespoon, began to eat it all. She rarely gave herself over to this behavior, but the sweetness in her mouth was comforting. She understood how her sister had ballooned to over two hundred pounds. Thinking of Sharon, she realized she hadn’t yet called her. Well, she’d call her later. After the Edy’s was gone.

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Phyllis Geronomous. A ticket to New York,” she announced. “One way. For a December fourth arrival.”

“Do you have reservations?”

“Plenty of them, but I’m going anyway.” The agent didn’t look up from her keyboard or even respond to Phyllis’s little joke. Phyllis shrugged. She knew this type. Old women were usually invisible to them.

They were in a tiny, tacky office, desks lined up facing each other, and in the center was a small white Dynel Christmas tree with tiny pink Christmas bulbs hanging down. The travel agent had been recommended by her son-in-law—she was the young woman who owned the agency. Barney had said, “She’ll get you a deal. She owes me.” Phyllis didn’t like to think of what this annoying Floridian with the big hair could possibly owe Barney for, but she had to get a ticket somewhere. The clerk looked at her for the first time, as if she now knew something was expected but wasn’t sure what. “So … you’re going to The Big Apple?” she asked.

“It looks that way.” She smiled sweetly. The only advantage to being an old dame was that if she smiled she could get away with murder.

The agent consulted her screen, then made a baby mouth. “You should have planned ahead. Do you know that a one-way ticket costs as much as a round trip?” She spoke in a condescending, louder voice, as if Phyllis were both stupid and hard of hearing.

“We’re in peak season for the holidays. You can’t meet the fourteen- or twenty-one-day advance ticket purchase deadline.”

Tell me something I don’t know, Phyllis thought, while the agent continued. Where was the help or break in price Barney had implied? Typical. Barney Big Mouth. Phyllis certainly wasn’t going to ask this woman for any favors. “Anyway,” the agent continued, “don’t you want a round trip, for when you’re coming back?”

“I’m never coming back!” Phyllis said vehemently. “I only moved down in the first place because Ira wanted to. But he’s dead, so why stay?” Phyllis immediately realized she’d said too much. God, next she’d be telling strangers on buses her entire life story. The potential humiliation of loneliness was like a direct kick to her pride. She took a breath. She’d fight back with the only weapon she’d ever used—her tongue. “Who needs to live in a place where everybody talks, but they’re so deaf they can’t listen? No one was born here, they just die here. Feh! Nothing has roots here, except the mangrove trees. I hate Florida!”

“I was born in Gainesville,” the younger woman said. “I like Florida. Especially Miami.”

Phyllis crossed her arms. “How can you like a city where the local rock band is called Dead German Tourists?” she asked.

The condescending younger woman recoiled. “Well, the violence is bad for my business …” she began.

“Not too good for the German tourists, either,” Phyllis added. “But the survivors are enough to make you homicidal. And the retirees!” Phyllis rolled her eyes. “I didn’t like any of these people when they lived up in New York and were important and pushy. Why the hell I should like them now, when they’re just hanging around all day and still being pushy, is beyond me.”

“Florida is a nice place for retirement. The weather’s good and—”

“You call ninety-nine percent humidity good weather?” Phyllis asked. “Compared to what? Djakarta? You should see the fungus garden growing on my winter coat! And another thing: Who says that everyone the same age should hang out together? I don’t want to be anywhere near these people. It’s an age ghetto. This place isn’t God’s Waiting Room; it’s Hell’s Foyer. It’s an elephant graveyard.” Phyllis straightened herself up to her full height. “Well, I’m no elephant. I’m a New Yorker.”

Coldly, the agent looked at her. “New York is a dangerous place, especially for an older lady alone.” She was acting now as if Phyllis were incompetent, a doddering old wreck.

“You mean you think I’m incapacitated?”

“Uhh—no.” The witch raised her brows. “Certainly not,” she said, with the sincerity of a surgical nurse saying the procedure wouldn’t hurt at all.

Why did every person under the age of fifty feel they could talk to an older woman as if she’d lost her marbles? Phyllis wondered. It made Phyllis feel more ornery than usual. “Look, just book me a seat. In first class. I’ll get all the bad advice I need from my children.”

Phyllis waited while the ticket printed out and took comfort in the idea that this girl would some day also be postmenopausal. In forty-five years she’d be plucking whiskers out of that recessive chin—if she could still see her chin, and had enough eye-hand coordination to hold a tweezers.

“Oh,” the young woman cooed as she handed Phyllis the ticket. “Your children are up there. That’s different. Well, I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you.”

“My eldest is a very successful stockbroker. She’s got a gorgeous apartment on Central Park. And my youngest, my son, is an entrepreneur.” Phyllis paused for a moment. She couldn’t leave out Sharon. “My middle daughter has two adorable children.”

“Which one will you be staying with?” the agent asked.

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll all be fighting over that,” Phyllis told the agent. “As soon as they know I’m coming.”

“Don’t they know?”

Phyllis shook her head. “Surprise is an essential part of the art of war.” Mrs. Katz choked a little behind her. Phyllis turned her head. “Sylvia. Did you—”

“Do you want this?” the agent said, interrupting in a rude way.

Phyllis snatched the ticket from the agent and shook her head again. “Certainly. Just take the time from now on to show a little respect to your elders. Osteoporosis is in your future, too, you know.” Phyllis got up from the chair, turned, and walked away.

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Who’s going to pick Mom up at the airport on Wednesday?” Sharon asked. The three siblings were together at their elder sister’s, but Sharon was doing most of the talking. She was a big woman, though her hands and feet were dainty—almost abnormally tiny. Her eyes, buried in her pudgy cheeks, were the same dark brown as the unfrosted parts of her hair and darted nervously from side to side. She’d already obsessed about the airport for two and a half hours.

Sig sighed. Between now and Wednesday she had a lot to cram into four days. She had to prepare for the marketing meeting, complete a newsletter, start her Christmas shopping on a nonexistent budget, and prepare Christmas cards for her clients, as well as coping now with the arrival of her mother. She always had to do everything, she thought, including making all the arrangements, dealing with their mother’s minimal finances, and regularly lending money to both her siblings. Sometimes you just had to draw the line. She waited. She knew that Sharon, like nature itself, abhorred a vacuum. She’d break the silence, and once she did …

“I’m not going to do it,” Sharon responded, filling the gap. Her voice sounded firm, though her chin wobbled. “I’m not,” she repeated. The sureness was already gone, a whine beginning. Sharon was an expert in fine whines. Sig continued to wait. When she closed a large order she used this technique. “Don’t you have to go over the Triborough Bridge?” Sharon asked anxiously, waiting for a response. There was none, except a groan from Bruce as he exhaled cigarette smoke. “I don’t think I could do a three-borough bridge,” Sharon said in a little-girl voice. Sig began to feel sorry for her. “Let Bruce get her.”

Bruce snorted. He was a greenish color, but it didn’t stop him from smoking, Sig thought, annoyed. One sibling ate. One smoked. Oh well.

Before Bruce could react further, Sig intervened. “Bruce says he can’t. He’s meeting with some new potential partner.” He always was, and nothing ever came of it, but…. “I’ll just send a car,” Sig said wearily.