The next day, I took them to Barneys, where the movie stars shopped. Just inside the door, before we could decide on a place or time to meet, Betty disappeared into the crowds, as she always did when the three of us went shopping together at someplace nice. “Wham,” my father said, “and she’s off.”
He looked around a bit but quickly stationed himself near what for him was the highlight of the store: a large tank of large tropical fish shimmering magically under a special light in brilliant colors—red and black, blue and yellow. They were exquisite, these fish, and my father’s eyes followed them as they darted and undulated. I had read somewhere that the collection had cost more than seventy thousand dollars. It was a stunning assortment, and I stood with him in front of the tank, looking at our reflections in the glass tank as he tapped occasionally to draw the attention of the extraordinary creatures. He was transfixed; they would not let him turn away, but moments later as he surveyed the rest of the floor, he looked sour, put off by most of what surrounded him. He looked at me and said, “Except for these fish, this place is all bullshit. Strictly swindle. I hope you won’t fall in with a lot of phonies.”
After an hour or more, my mother suddenly appeared, looking upset, like someone had slapped her or hurt her feelings badly.
“I’ve looked and looked for you,” she said. “I couldn’t find you. I was standing there by the scarves and someone took my purse. A woman next to me tried to help and I talked to someone in security who let the police know, but the man behind the counter was rude. He made me feel like an idiot.” She was broken, so crestfallen. She took us back to the counter where it had all happened, and the clerk—a sexy Puerto Rican queen in eye makeup—kept saying over and over that it was all her fault, that she should have watched her bag. “We have women with ten-thousand-dollar purses here. This place is crawling with thieves. You can’t just set something down.”
My father did not seem at all surprised or taken aback by what had happened. It was just the sort of thing he expected to occur in New York.
“That son of a bitch looked like a fool in that getup,” my father said of the salesman.
“God, he was good-looking,” I said. “They’ll probably fire him when he gets older and doesn’t look so good.” What I actually was wondering was if he could keep working in this fancy store if he got sick and could not put on his eye makeup, or go to the gym, or mousse his hair to perfection.
My mother’s face was red, a shade it rarely showed, redder than when she was moved or furious. Embarrassment brings its own regretful shade. My father looked uncomfortable too, especially after hearing me refer to the haughty man’s handsomeness, but said nothing. As I stood with Betty, who was shaking Big George returned for a last look at the fish. We were eager to go, but he was bound and determined to get another look at those fish. They were the only thing on the trip he really enjoyed, and he wasn’t going to let anything spoil it. He returned to say that some had come from as far away as Brazil. Someone had told him. Those fish had come all the way from South America and Japan. My father appreciated genuine beauty. I think one of the things he loved most about my mother was that she was never anyone but who she was.
Betty said nothing on the walk back to the hotel; the store windows she had assessed so eagerly no longer seemed to hold much appeal. Her black coat hangs now in the front hall closet, next to Charlotte Hickey’s old mink, in a clear plastic garment bag, like a museum piece, a reminder of the injunction she was raised with: “Don’t ever think you are anything special.”
That was never her message to me. She was prepared to lose me if my success took me away from her. She would have gladly taken any hurt if it could put me forward.
“Go on,” she always said. “Get out of here. Live your life. Don’t worry about us.”