"I miss him," Annie said. "And I hate him. Hate. Hate. Hate. Loathe. And hate."
"Life," Miranda replied, rather triumphantly, "is wracked by tragic contradictions."
This was one of Miranda's core beliefs: Life was wracked by tragic contradictions . . . that would all come out right in the end. At this moment, however, with regard to Josie's treatment of her mother, she could not bring herself to pronounce the second half of her sentence.
Annie noticed the omission and was about to comment on it when Miranda's cell phone rang. In the past, Miranda would have answered and carried on, with great gusto, a conversation full of personal details from the sordid stories Miranda's authors specialized in. But this time Miranda said, "I guess that will have to do," in a tired voice.
"Business?" Annie said when she hung up.
"What's left of it." Miranda took a deep breath. Failure: it was like having a fatal disease. People pretended it didn't exist, turned away quickly with an embarrassed look of pity, stopped talking when you came up to them unexpectedly. People pretended it didn't exist, and so did she; yet it was always there, the air she breathed.
Annie, apparently sensing some of this, said, "Sorry," looking embarrassed in a way that proved Miranda's point.
"Not your fault."
"Still, sorry."
Miranda took her sister's arm, walked a few steps that way; then, hoping that was enough reassurance for Annie, dropped it.
In the contested apartment, Betty Weissmann took some satisfaction in finishing a bottle of Joseph's favorite single malt. Some satisfaction, though not much, for Betty did not like single malt whiskey.
And where was Joseph now? Off with some woman, no doubt. Some other woman. She had his horrid whiskey that tasted like damp and dirt. This other woman, whoever she was, had him. It was enough to make you cry. Betty did not have the energy to cry. She had already cried far too much. She would tie up her belongings in a handkerchief, hang it from a stick, put the stick over her shoulder like one of the three little pigs, and go on the train to the cottage in Westport to seek her fortune. Her fortune did not include a wolf to blow her house down, for that had already been done. But she knew the fortune of an elderly divorcee; she knew her fortune, and it was dark.
I have an idea.
Annie heard Miranda announce that she had an idea the way she heard the sound of traffic. It was ceaseless, and so it barely existed. Annie heard her sister, and she did not hear. She continued mentally adding up the retirement funds that Joseph had long ago put in her mother's name for tax purposes. Betty could take out enough of a distribution to pay for some of her food and gas. Even the new Josie with his brain tumor--there really could be no other explanation for his ugly behavior--would continue to pay for the AARP supplement to Betty's Medicare. And the car insurance was all paid up for the year. She had checked with Josie's secretary, who, though loyal to her employer, was not unsympathetic to Betty's plight. If Annie and Miranda helped out, Betty might be able to just scrape by.
"Mmmhmm," Annie said to Miranda.
She would pay for the movers with her tax rebate. A shame to dismantle her mother's beautiful apartment. She wondered how much of Betty's furniture would fit in the little house.
"We'll all move to Westport," Miranda said.
The chairs from the living room would probably work. The image of those chairs in a new setting suddenly made her angry.
"That's my idea," Miranda was saying.
Annie said, "Oh, Miranda," as she so often did.
But Miranda had it all worked out by the time they reached their mother's apartment building, and when Betty heard the plan, she was ecstatic.
"I know you're not serious," Annie said.
"It's so practical, dear," Betty said. "You girls sublet your places and make lots of money on them."
Miranda's cell phone was ringing. She looked at it but did not answer. One of the publishers who were suing her. That seemed to be the reason she had no money, or so her lawyer had tried to explain. Everything was tied up until the lawsuits were settled. She was living on credit cards. She had always lived on credit cards, though in the past she had employed a business manager to pay off the credit cards. Now there was no money to pay the business manager to pay off the credit cards. "Lots of money," she said, echoing her mother's words hopefully.
"Mom," Annie was saying, "you just called us girls. We're women in our fifties. You guys are having one of your fantasies."
"I'm forty-nine," Miranda said. "And I'm not a guy."
"It will be like the Great Depression, when everyone lived together," Betty said. "Oh, I can't wait."
Annie knew that voice. It was the picnic voice. "This is not a picnic," she said desperately.