Marrying Mom Read online

  “Oh, the bed is enormous. I wouldn’t even know she was there, if it wasn’t for her snoring.”

  “She’s sleeping in the same bed with you?” Sig asked, her voice betraying the horror of it all. All that old female flesh, the fallen rumps, the veined and knobbied legs, the arthritic hands. Sig shuddered. Someday she would … “Mom, tell her to get her own hotel room. If you’re going to sleep with anyone here it should be a man. This is a love nest, not an old age home.”

  “Oh, excuse me, Miss Schprintz. Just because you’re paying the bill you’ll decide who can come and who can go? Sylvia may not set the world on fire, but she’s the only friend I had who doesn’t get offended by my jokes. She always included me in everything, even though nobody wanted me and I didn’t want to go. She’s a good friend. You have no right …”

  Sigourney was doing a quick mental calculation. If she didn’t have to give her mother much walking-around money, she might be able to float this thing until the new year. She’d go back to the Sylvia Katz issue later.

  “How’s Monty?” she asked, her voice as casual as she could manage. How do you question your mother about the seriousness of her intentions? Did he get to first base? Second? Sig shuddered again. The idea of the two physical ruins uniting was more nightmarish than Sylvia Katz beside her mother in bed. Perhaps, Sig thought, it would be better if people just expired at fifty—no muss, no fuss, no bother. The bottom line was Monty certainly wasn’t going to get too far with Sylvia Katz snoring in the bedroom.

  “Look,” Sig said, “this isn’t Mrs. Katz’s home. It’s not even your home. For God’s sake, it’s not my home. This is a place that we’re using to …”

  “Oh, Susan, Susan, Susan. What am I going to do with you? Life needs a little embellishment sometimes. Think of Mrs. Katz as that. How could I tell Sylvia to go stay in some motel on West Fifty-fifth Street? She’s my friend, Susan. And she’s not messing up my chances with Monty, believe me.” Phyllis stood up, went to the dresser, and consulted the mirror above it. “He knew what I looked like before my makeover. He likes me as I am, warts, perm, friends, and all.

  “Anyway, I’m doing my part: I’ve seen Monty twice since the ball. We had brunch and we’ve gone Christmas shopping.” Phyllis looked at Sig. “We got something for you,” she said. Phyllis needed to show that Monty was going to be a good father to Sig.

  “I don’t need a present, except a proposal for you from Monty,” Sig snapped.

  “Look, I don’t see men asking you to marry them,” Phyllis said sharply. “I’m doing the best I can. I’m always the one who has to do everything.” Phyllis sat down and crossed her legs. For a moment Sig had a feeling that Mendel may have been right: Phyllis sounded exactly like her and she could hear it.

  “I’ll go out with Monty because I like him, not just for you. But he’d be a good influence. He knows his business and responsibility.” She stood up. “I need to get my bag,” she said and turned and walked into the bedroom.

  The buzzer rang and Sig closed the door on her brother. “I’ll get it,” Sig said. Phyllis nodded and moved toward the couch.

  “Don’t sit down!” yelled Bruce from the bedroom. “You’ll wrinkle the pants!”

  “Such a nag,” Phyllis said.

  “Look who’s talking!” Bruce yelled.

  “Stop it, both of you,” Sig told them, feeling, as usual, like the only adult in the room. Sig glanced at herself in the mirror and straightened the back of her hair where the cowlick pushed it up. Then she opened the door.

  Montague Dunleathe stood before her, rising on the balls of his feet. He put out his hand and shook hers heartily. “Hello, hello,” he said, his accent thick but charming.

  Sig invited him in and hoped he noticed the room and all the trouble she’d gone to. But it seemed that Montague Dunleathe only had eyes for her mother. “Phyllis, you look good enough to eat.”

  “Please. Let’s not get into that kind of talk so early,” Phyllis told him. Sig wondered if she was going to faint or, alternatively, strangle her mother. She could hear a smothered whoop from Bruce in the bedroom. She’d strangle him too while she was at it. But Monty seemed delighted by Phyllis’s ridiculous humor. He sat down and chuckled.

  “That reminds me,” he said, “what’s old and wrinkled and smells like ginger?” He waited, and when neither of the women answered, he laughed. “Fred Astaire’s face,” he told them, and he literally slapped his own knee.

  Sig heard another smothered whoop from the bedroom and thought again of fratricide. She was grateful when the buzzer rang again. She ushered Phillip into the room. He was a tall, thin man with a sharp suit and a dull sense of humor. “This is Phillip Norman,” she said, introducing him to Monty.

  “My name’s not Norman,” Monty said.

  Phillip didn’t smile at the lame joke. “No,” he began to explain. “Norman is my surname.”

  “So, you’ve been knighted. It’s Sir Norman?” Monty asked.

  “No,” Phillip began, “it’s just Phillip Norman.”

  “My name’s not Norman,” Monty repeated, and this time Phyllis cackled. So did Bruce in the bedroom.

  Phillip looked toward the door. “That’s just Mrs. Rochester,” said Sig. “We keep her in the other wing with Jane Eyre. Pay no attention.” Sig looked at her watch. “We’re going to be late if we don’t leave now. And this being the holiday season and the city is jammed, we’ll lose it if we don’t show up on time,” she told them and led her party out into the night.

  “Why would you bury all the lawyers a thousand feet underground?” Monty was asking.

  Phyllis leaned closer to him. “Why?” she asked.

  “Because underneath it all, they’re nice guys.”

  Phillip Norman, who was a corporate lawyer at AT&T, attempted a smile. “Who are you with again?” Monty asked, grinning wickedly. “Wasn’t it Dewey, Cheetem, and Howe?”

  Phyllis barked a laugh. “No, I think it was Pipedown & Beenice.”

  Monty roared. “How about some more champagne?” he asked.

  They were on the West Side, at Cafe Luxembourg, which was a little bit noisier and a little more raucous than Sig was used to. But she had to admit, it had its advantages. The first was that she wasn’t totally embarrassed by the conversation of her mother and Monty, and the second was that if Phillip decided to talk, no one could hear him. Lastly, no one she knew would see her here with him, and that was salving to her pride. Dinner was almost done, coffee had been served, and Sig was getting to feel as if the whole charade might be worth it.

  “No more for me,” Sig said as Monty tried to pour the last of the champagne. “Some of as have to work in the morning.” She could hardly believe it, but her mother and Monty seemed to be getting on like an asylum on fire. In a way it made sense. They were equally bizarre.

  “None for me,” Phyllis agreed. “I’ll have a terrible headache in the morning.”

  “It’s not the champagne that’ll give you the headache. It’s the lack of sexual release,” Monty told her.

  “Somehow I don’t think that’s one of my problems,” Phyllis said, but she had a gleam in her eye that made Sig nervous and Monty bold.

  “Not to put too fine a point on it, the solution to your problems is in my pants,” he told Phyllis.

  “Listen, honey, I may need love, but I don’t need a laugh,” Phyllis replied with restraint. “Why do men think anyone cares about their pernises besides then-urologist?”

  “I rest my confidence on public opinion,” Monty leered. “Do you know what a rattlesnake and a two-inch willy have in common?”

  Phyllis shrugged.

  “Nobody wants to fuck with them,” Monty said and laughed uproariously again.

  Phyllis couldn’t help laughing back, but then she composed herself and compressed her lips. “Personally, I have no further interest in ever seeing any man’s three-piece set again.”

  But the rejection only seemed to incite Monty. “No one has said no to me in alm
ost thirty years,” he admitted.

  “Get used to it,” Phyllis told him, but Sig could tell that Phyllis was actually rather charmed by this crass, wild Scot.

  Sig wondered how long their luck would hold.

  The first night of Hanukkah had come and gone. Since they were young, the Sibs hadn’t paid much attention to the holiday, but now that Travis and Jessie were around they’d gone back to buying gifts. It was too bad, Sig thought, that Hanukkah, which came on different dates each year, never came after Christmas—when Sig could take advantage of the marked-down prices. Tonight, she’d decided she was going to show her apartment to Cornelia Warren, a broker, then do. some shopping for modest gifts, check in on her mother, and finally wind up at her firm’s despised-but-necessary-to-attend Christmas dinner party. It was always an endurance test, but this year guaranteed to be a trial by fire. As usual, it was held downtown at one of those wood-lined, steak-serving, Dewar’s-scotch kind of places—the places that Sig detested.

  She left work early, rushed home, showered, dressed, and blow-dried her hair. Then she got three hundred dollars from the cash machine near her corner and went out into the December twilight with the determination to get things done.

  Forty minutes later Sig weaved out of FAO Schwarz, empty-handed and more than a little bit queasy. She’d seen a basket filled with a momma cat and three kittens and very nearly bought it for Travis, until she looked at the price tag and realized it was two hundred and seventy dollars! Jessie was into Barbies, but she already had so many of them that the only one Sig was sure might fill the bill was the special edition Holiday Barbie. Sig wasn’t spending a hundred and twenty-five dollars on a plastic doll. Who had this kind of money? Who were these people? The store was full and Sig, a delicate tinge of green highlighting her complexion, left with her three hundred dollars intact but her pride in tatters.

  Somehow it seemed natural to walk the two blocks to the Pierre. Just to check on her mother, she told herself. But she knew she herself needed comfort and reassurance as much as she needed to suss out the situation. Her mother wasn’t a warm, cuddling type, but she was rock solid, and right now Sig needed something solid. She had calmed herself down by the time she got up to the suite. It was just as well, because Phyllis—as usual—was too self-absorbed to notice much.

  “What are you doing tonight?” Sig asked, perhaps a little wistfully.

  “Oh, Monty’s coming over. Maybe we’ll go out to dinner, or maybe we’ll call down for something.”

  Sig hoped they went out; room-service dinners at the Pierre could easily hit three hundred bucks, and that was without wine. “So what are you doing?” Sig asked Mrs. Katz pointedly.

  “Oh, I guess I’ll just stay in, too. I have some reading to do.” The old woman pulled a rolled-up copy of Modern Maturity from out of her sweater pocket. For the second time in less than a minute, Sig seriously considered the option of strangling a postmenopausal woman to death.

  Christ, she should have invited Mrs. Katz to her firm’s dinner as her escort, just to get her out of the way! How on earth was Monty supposed to get close to Mom with Sylvia Katz always underfoot? Didn’t Sylvia have any tact at all? “Perhaps we could meet downstairs for drinks later?” Sig hinted to her mother. If she could get Monty and her mother into the bar, things might happen. And in the meantime maybe Mrs. Katz would go to bed and leave the coast clear.

  “I don’t usually drink that late,” Mrs. Katz told Sig. She lowered her voice, “If I do I have to get up in the middle of the night. Or you know.”

  Sig didn’t want to know. Sig didn’t even want to think about it. When would she hit the adult-diaper phase of life? God, she was getting morbid. It was the holidays; they always did this to her. She glanced at her watch. Now she was almost late for the damned dinner. “I won’t be out late. Enjoy your evening with Monty,” she said pointedly to her mom.

  “We will,” Mrs. Katz sang out.

  Sig had tried, successfully, to avoid her boss all night, but that was only half of her challenge. If she gave Bill a chance, he’d give her another talk about how she wasn’t pitching, how she hadn’t ACATed an account in four months, and how, in the end, there would be no Christmas bonus this year. Sig couldn’t bear to hear it. But now, alternatively, she was having to sit and listen to the braggadocio of the other brokers at her table. Brokers were a lot like fishermen: they always had to tell how big their catch was. And they all had a tendency to lie. The lie served two purposes: it made these guys feel better about themselves in this bad year and it made the other guy feel worse.

  Sig knew for a fact most of them were lying. The wire operators posted all new accounts and Sig checked them weekly. Sig knew she wasn’t the only one not pulling her weight, but for her—older than many of the others, the only woman, and one who had always been a real rainmaker—there seemed to be a lot more at stake.

  She managed to get through most of the meal by talking animatedly to some sales assistant from Staten Island and smiling widely around the table from time to time. She hoped to give the impression that she was just too happy to pay any attention to anyone else. She sighed with relief when dessert was served and she made an immediate exit.

  In the taxi she could relax and drop the act. She couldn’t help but wonder what her mother was doing right at that moment. It had to be better than her evening.

  Sig arrived at the Pierre after fighting the post-theater traffic. She walked through the beautiful rotunda and proceeded into the Café bar. She looked at her watch. With the long cab ride uptown it was already half past eleven. Probably too late to call upstairs, but Sig thought perhaps she’d try. It was ridiculous, but Sig wanted, longed for, the comfort of …

  “Hello. What are you doing here?” Sig looked up into the very blue eyes of an older man. It took her only a moment to recognize him—it was Mr. Cushing from the Winter Wonderland Ball.

  “What are you doing here?” Sig asked.

  “Chaperoning Wendy,” Paul said. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

  Sig laughed. “Well, I’m sort of chaperoning my mother. I think she told you she’s staying here,” she explained. She thought of the flowers he had sent. “But I guess you knew that.” Somehow, looking at Paul Cushing she thought, for a moment, she could tell at least a small part of the truth. “I’m a little concerned about that character she met at the party the other night.”

  Paul smiled again. “You can’t be too careful nowadays,” he agreed. “Mothers and granddaughters need to be protected.” He lowered his voice. “Would you like me to check him out for you? I have a service that does that.”

  “Really?” Sig asked. “Is that a bit paranoid of you?”

  Paul shrugged. “Perhaps,” he said. “But when my son and daughter-in-law died, I was left with no one but Wendy. I’m probably overprotective, but she is an heiress, and it isn’t easy for anyone raising a teenager nowadays.”

  Sig nodded. “I don’t think it was ever easy. Not that that’s a comfort to you.” She paused. “I’m sorry to hear about your son and daughter-in-law.”

  Paul shrugged. “He drank and drove. I’ll always feel guilty that I couldn’t ever stop him.” He shrugged again. “I’m grateful Wendy survived.” They both fell silent. “Hey, how about a drink?” he asked.

  He was a nice man, Sig thought. If he wasn’t so old she’d even … but actually he was a perfect father figure. “Would you like to come upstairs for that drink?” Sig asked on the spur of the moment. If Phyllis had antagonized him, he seemed to like that—or be amused by it. Maybe he was bored—or a masochist. Hey, you never know.

  “I’d like that,” he said. “I have to admit I really admire the closeness of your family. It’s rare to see people who enjoy being together the way you all do.”

  Sig just smiled. “Oh yes,” she said, and reminded herself that discretion was the better part of valor. Then inspiration hit. “How would you like to come to my mother’s birthday party the day after tomorrow?”


  “Certainly. Can I bring Wendy? I like her to see families together.”

  “Of course.”

  He handed her his card. Sig and Paul Cushing strode over to the elevator and Sig pressed the button. The doors immediately rolled open and they went up to the suite. She had taken out her key and was as quiet as she could be in opening the door. She didn’t need to disturb her mother if Monty had already gone home. But from the foyer she saw a light on. Sig could hear voices coming from the living room. As she came closer to the doorway she heard her mother’s voice. “Oh, nice meld. It’s a natural.”

  “You said it was possible with a hand and foot,” added a husky voice.

  “Yeah, but you could get minimum points if it’s concealed,” she heard Mrs. Katz say.

  Sig tiptoed into the living room, Paul Cushing following. Then she froze. “You can’t do that. The frozen discard pile has a wild card,” a voice rebuked Mrs. Katz. There, at the table where room service usually lay its tray, sat her mother, Monty, Bernard Krinz, and Mrs. Katz. The scary part was that in the middle of the table lay a pile of garments and shoes, while Monty was naked from the waist up. It took Sig another moment to realize that Mrs. Katz was worse than naked: she had taken off her own shoes and stockings, which lay on the table, along with her lumpy sweater, her glasses, and her dress. She sat there in a voluminous nylon slip and you could see that she was buckled into some kind of frightening foundation garment under that. Sig averted her eyes from the straps and zippers and screamed. “It isn’t just the cards that are wild in this room,” she yelled.

  “Oh my God!” Mrs. Katz said, her hand fluttering to her huge and sagging chest. “You scared me.”

  “What in the world are you doing?” Sig demanded of the four miscreants.

  “We’re playing strip canasta,” Monty explained pleasantly. “I’ve lost my shirt to your mother.”