Oct 11, 2018 | Blog - Mary Marcus
“I’m a little early, hope you don’t mind! It’s weird, I’m usually late!”
“Come in, Tommy! You don’t mind if I call you Tommy, it’s how your mom always spoke of you. My boy Tommy, she’d say.”
Inez got up on her tip toes and kissed him on both cheeks and then strangely, on the mouth, mitigating somewhat his hatred of being called Tommy. His mother knew since he was four his hatred of Tommy and had honored his wish from then on, though obviously once he left home, she had reverted back to his toddler-hood.
“Sit down! Sit down!”
Photo: Joel Goodman
Inez’s living room in West LA was small and cramped with furniture. A lattice child’s gate separated the living room from the kitchen. She was little, like a Barbie doll with big real boobs and perfect little legs and feet. She was, he supposed, around his mother’s age.
“Water? A glass of wine? I know it’s early.”
“Sure. Wine would be great!”
Now she was sitting next to him on the vaguely uncomfortable sofa that had two pillows embossed with Disney characters.
The wine, white and chilled was surprisingly good.
“This is delicious, thank you!”
Inez took a sip. Then another. Tears fell from her eyes, down her cheeks. She had a long sleeve T-shirt on, and she pulled a cloth handkerchief from the cuff. This she used to mop her face.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t want to cry!”
“I’m glad you’re crying. I wish I could! Poppy always told me I better cry at her funeral.”
He watched her sniff. “Your mom told me the story of why you called her Poppy. So sweet!” She sobbed.
His father had left, practically as soon as he was born. And as soon as he was old enough to ask for one, a Daddy, a Pop, she had told him not to get his hopes up.
“But I want a pop!” he had cried. “Lots of the boys and girls have pops!” A lot of them didn’t he remembered now, but he had not wanted to be like them.
“So call me Poppy,” she had suggested. And so he had. Everyone else called her Caro, which was her real name.
“What did you call her?”
“Mostly we just called each other hon!”
Tom took a swig of his wine. His glass was almost empty now.
“Poppy left you some money to take care of the dog. Funds are supposed to clear in a few days.”
Inez started crying again. He noticed her breasts quivered when she sobbed. “I miss her so much!”
His mother had left the dog thirty grand. Or this Barbie neighbor here thirty grand. He supposed he missed her too. But he was still in shock. How could he not be? He’s been off on a diving trip. And he hadn’t told her where. Odd, because one of his underwater thoughts had been about being a fetus swimming around in amniotic fluid. When he returned to the mainland, and turned on his phone, Poppy was dead in a four-car crash on the 405. During the time in which they couldn’t find him, approximately eight days, she had died, been cremated, and her beloved dog, had come to live with Inez who had sometimes been his pet sitter.
Did he miss her? Yes, he supposed he did miss her. But now that he had his first million in cash, (thanks to the unexpected life insurance policy) plus the condo, plus the 401 K, the CDs, a surprising amount of them, he knew he’d miss his new unknown, unexplored riches more than his well-known mother.
“How long will you be in town? Are you staying at the house?”
“No. It freaked me out there. I’m staying in Hollywood.”
Inez nodded.
“She left you thirty grand to take care of the dog.”
Inez looked up: her eyes were wide and amazed.
“Really?”
“Really!”
“That’s so nice,” she sighed. “I loved your mom and that’s just like her to think of me that way. She knew I would do it for free. She asked me when she was making her will. But she didn’t tell me about the money.”
“Poppy was great!” he said.
Inez wasn’t crying anymore. She seemed a little stunned.
“Would you like to see Tommy? He’s sleeping in his crate. I didn’t want him rushing at you the second you came in the door.”
“Sure!”
He got to his feet and followed her as she unlatched the lattice door. They were both standing in the small kitchen now. And he was recalling the first time he had met his namesake, six or seven years ago and the unexpected rush of hatred he felt for the animal. “Why did you name the dog after me?” He had wanted to know. “You’re Tom, he’s Tommy!” Poppy had replied, and they had left it at that.
He had wanted a dog when he was growing up. Just as he had wanted a father: passionately and in vain. She worked. He went to school, there was no one to take care of a dog, so they had a cat—he had a cat now too at home, probably, he’d never have a dog.
The dog was standing up in his cage. He was a sharp-faced, handsome terrier with velvety eyes, a coat as white as milk with one prominent spot. Why did people call it a crate? Did it make them feel better about caging an animal?
The dog was wagging his tail so furiously the whole crate was shaking.
Inez was crooning like his mom used to, in that stupid voice people use to talk to dogs and babies.
“Tommy, Tommy…. your brother Tom is here!” She slid the door of the cage open.
Tommy burst out of the cage. He jumped up and began wagging his tail furiously.
“He’s not my fucking brother!” Tom cried out. And the tears he had not shed before, came rushing from his eyes. Inez drew him to her, whispering, “There, there….good boy….”
by 
Sep 27, 2018 | Blog - Mary Marcus
“Ever do it with one of your patients?” This, she asked him a few minutes after one of the best orgasms of her life. She was still underneath, he was pressed against her, covering the back of her on the examining table where he’d thoughtfully laid a long cushion and placed a pillow for her face. Both smelled faintly of the antiseptic they used here at the vet hospital.
“Depends on what you mean by done it?”
“You know what I mean!”
“Are you calling me a dog fucker?” He laughed and she liked his deep hearty laugh, which was cheery, and sort of bark-y.
Photo: Joel Goodman
He rolled off her now. She in turn rolled over. Her skirt was hiked up. She pulled her underwear up. And he smoothed her skirt down. She sat up, and he hoisted himself up and sat down right next to her on the examining table.
“What do you weigh? Should we go weigh you before I tell you about it?”
She followed him out of the examining room and into a larger office where there was a great big metal scale, the kind suitable for four legged creatures.
“Step on!” he told her and patted her backside again.” That’s a good girl.”
“One forty one.” And patted her behind again. “Too many treats!”
Why weigh her? It seemed kinky at best. But maybe there was a deeper, darker reason, like how much would it take to put her out?
A chill shuddered down her spine. A minute before, she’d been elated, now she was terrified. She glanced over at him furtively.
He, Dr. T., though many years older than she, unlike her husband, or herself or her stepchildren for that matter, was in nearly perfect trim. No excess gut, lovely muscled arms, and what had felt like equally muscled thighs, not that she really saw that much. She wished she were still in therapy. She’d walk in and announce, “I did it with the vet doggy style!” But maybe she’d never see any shrink again. Could it be he lured her here to fuck her then kill her?
“Go sit on the couch in the waiting room and I’ll join you in a sec,” Dr. T smiled. She did as she was told in so far as going back to the waiting room. But she stood staring at the bulletin board, the one that had started this whole ball rolling, so to speak.
It had been last week when she brought in Freddie, their long haired dachshund who had erupted with hot spots, following a very intense week long Santa Ana at the end of September. The hot dry winds were over now, thank God, and so were Freddie’s hot spots. But she, her husband and her step-children were still going at it. Freddie was her only comfort. Her husband defended his children, they knew it and wouldn’t listen to anything she had to say, even if it was she who was home cooking for them after work, checking on their homework, scheduling their appointments, while he stayed as long he wanted to and needed to at the office. Sometimes until 9 at night. God she hated teenagers, especially teenagers who still needed to be driven places. The nerve of them, just sitting there with sullen faces, thinking they deserved this and more.
She’d been standing in front of the bulletin board staring at the adoption notices. A five-year-old yellow mix breed looking for his forever home. Same thing with a white cat, a teacup poodle. All God’s children want their forever home.
At that moment, the thought entered her mind: I’m in my forever home and I’ll never have fun again.
One thing led to another, and here she was after sex with a sex maniac vet or a serial killer or both. She thought of running out the door, but she was desperate to hear his story.
He entered the waiting room carrying two large plastic cups full of wine. He sat down quietly next to her. He was as quiet as a cat she thought. She took a sip. Delicious expensive wine. Drugged?
“I did have an affair with the most beautiful German Sheppard I’d ever laid eyes on. She was golden with black marks, and the minute our eyes met it was love at first sight. For both of us.”
“Oh my God!”
“Her owner had left her to be spayed, but I couldn’t. She weighed more than you. She, how can I forget, weighed one forty five!”
“Like me, too many treats! What was her name?”
“Renata!”
“What happened how did it end?”
Dr. T. stared straight into her eyes. He had deep dark velvety eyes that looked right through her.
“I’m a vet. I don’t fuck animals. That was a shaggy dog story.”
“Shaggy dog?”
“Jesus,” he declared. “You come from a whole different generation. How old are you?”
“Forty three!”
“And how old are you?” she ventured.
“Never mind! Finish your wine and I’ll walk you to the car.”
It was very dark in the parking lot. Off toward the ocean a sliver of a moon with a star shined and twinkled near by. They stood together and he turned to kiss her. It was a beautiful kiss that she was almost sure meant goodbye.
“May I ask you something?”
“Go right ahead.”
“If I came to you, with some horrible disease, and I was suffering terribly, would you put me down?”
“Probably not.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“Where are you going?” she asked presently. “Home, to your wife?”
“I’m divorced,” he stated matter of factly.
“You?”
“I’m going back to my forever home. You know how it is.”
He shut her door, she started the engine and the last time she saw Dr. T. his chin was raised to the sky. It pleased her to imagine he was howling at the moon.
by
Sep 20, 2018 | Blog - Mary Marcus
“Over there!” she called out cheerily. “There are towels in the bathroom. Take your time, forget the drought. While you’re in the shower, I’ll leave you some fresh clothes outside the door. You’re a little taller than my husband, but I think the stuff will work.”
“Thanks,” he replied. “You’re great!” And then he pulled out one of his brother’s old phrases, “This will be life-changing!”
Her laugh was relieved, she was glad to be helpful, this good hearted woman who knew how lucky she was, why else take a bum in off the street, let him use her shower, give him some clothes, even if she was dead wrong about who he really was…
She lived in a fancy townhouse in West LA. And this was the first floor, an office, it looked like, hers? And this was probably the guest bathroom. In former times, on his once a month dinner with his twin brother, they used to go eat noodles near here at one of those noodle joints on Sawtelle where you could eat for ten bucks. Probably those restaurants were gone now too. After the shower, he might walk over and see.
Photo: Joel Goodman
On the ride here, it was obvious, the neighborhood had changed. Santa Monica had changed radically in the past ten years or so. And now it was happening here. Down with the little bungalows, up with the three-story town homes with plate-glass windows and the BMW’s parked in front. He was currently living in an old van, pan handling, and so far, so good. No one suspected who he really was, why should they?
Like his twin, he was tall, he was thin, he was still handsome. His straight hair was silver and he wore it in a ponytail at the base of his neck. His shirt, one of his brother’s, was pretty dirty today. But it was obvious it had once been respectable. The half glasses on the end of his nose, the soft voice, all copied from his brother and all good. Unlike his brother, who had always held a respectable job, he’d always been a druggie, a bad ass, a cheat: the list went on and on. Though they looked almost exactly alike, they were as different as night is from day, good from evil, or jail was from this fancy joint with the thick towels, and the tile floor with its nice soft mat.
He stepped out of his clothes, and even to himself who was used to his stench, they smelled bad. How could she have let him in her car? He took the plastic bag out of the trashcan, and stuffed everything in. Even his thongs fit in. This trash bin was large for all the stuff they had to throw away. The king size of everything. He had to steal sample sizes because they fit in a pocket or stuffed easily down his jeans.
When the big bookstore where his brother had worked for years, closed a few months ago, he had gotten the idea. His brother moved to San Francisco to live with some chick he knew, and got another job. That’s when he started standing in front of the big empty bookstore panhandling. People would come up to him, people who knew his brother, “My God!” they’d say. “It’s the end of the world!” “Fucking Amazon!” –and hand him a twenty. Once a fifty. They didn’t stay too long. It worried them enough to make them far more generous than they’d normally be with just a bum. She, the angel today, he figured out right away, must once have had a thing with the bro. Her stricken face, her hand on his shoulder… the soft way she said his brother’s name.
Yes, he could hold it together long enough to look humble, to look grateful, to look like his brother always was, gentle, a bookworm, always working on some book himself, he’d never finish, but never behind on his rent, or his card with its modest credit line. The nearest his bro had ever gotten to jail was visiting him!
The hot water rushing down felt great; he could see the grime leaving his arms and legs, swirling down the drain, the skin becoming an all-new color. How kind this woman was to let him have the gift of hot water and soap. He didn’t want to hurt her, he wanted to thank her. To tell her how good she was. She was Jesus. She was Mary. She was Joseph and all the Saints. Clean clothes. Soft towels. People were good, people were kind, people knew on some level, they were just a few steps away from where he was, naked in a strange shower in a house he’d never see again; at the mercy of strangers completely alone in the world.
When he quit the shower stall, the mirror was fogged; he opened the small window above the toilet, to let the steam out. Then he cracked open the door and grabbed the new pile of clothes, put them on. Dressed, holding the bag of dirty, he called out to her.
She came down the stairs smiling, holding a brown paper bag, no doubt, filled with good things to eat.
She beamed at him.
“Ready? Great! Here, I’ll let you out.” And she turned.
He had his eyes on her back, a nice back, narrow in the shoulders, her shoulder blades just discernible under the thin athletic shirt she wore.
He stepped forward softly, not breathing and sprung on her, hands on her neck. She was one of the ones when surprised, do not cry out. But he could imagine her face, the terror on it. He liked the terror but felt sorry for both of them. He always felt sorry for a bit before it passed.
He left her in the front hall in a heap. He was mad at himself for killing her, so he kicked her.
He called his brother that night. There were still a few pay phones left.
“I bumped into someone the other day who thought I was you.”
by
Aug 27, 2018 | Blog - Mary Marcus
Photo: Joel Goodman
Flash Fiction
“I want you to touch my______” Tatiana cried out, the second they had their clothes off. He had never heard that particular word said out loud before, he scarcely knew what the word meant. His wife didn’t call it anything and neither did he.
She said it now again, and reached for his hand, in case there was any question of him not hearing. Though one ear was kind of whacked, he wasn’t deaf. Not yet anyway.
He wondered if it was true what they said, if you didn’t have one sense, it made the others stronger?
Presently, she declared, “Ah,” in her faintly accented English. Her brother, who had arranged this whole unreal situation, had a much more pronounced accent than she did.
It was two on a Wednesday afternoon in Westwood in September.
Outside the windows of the high rise, the mountains were rust colored and looked like any moment they would burst into flames. He wondered what it would be like to live with such a view: such expanse, such space? And of course he wondered what it would be like not to be able to enjoy it, or at least in the way most sighted people could.
Maybe if they decided to go through with all ten sessions, he’d been paid for five, he’d find out what it was like to be so smart, so successful in the world, did she know how beautiful she was, was she always blind?
II
Today Tatiana had on a bright silk caftan and, artfully applied make up. Her black hair was shiny and smooth around her face, and she wore a different pair of dark glasses, ones that turned up at the ends and were edged with bright stones. They couldn’t be diamonds, or could they?
Fifteen hundred dollars a session for what they were about to do again. He decided then, she must not know how beautiful she is, she didn’t have to pay for it. If he weren’t married and loved his wife, he’d go out with her, she was actually funny. Smart as a whip too.
“Next time you’ll meet Lancelot.”
“Who?”
“You’ll find out,” Tatiana laughed.
III
Lancelot turned out to be the biggest, blackest poodle he had ever seen. He was as beautiful as Tatiana.
“Now I’m going to _____,” she cried out sometime later, when the black caftan was on the floor, and the black dog reclined on the foot of the bed.
“Don’t worry, lie back, I’ll find my way to you.”
IV
The text read: “I knew you were the right person, five minutes into your class I could tell you were perfect for Tatiana. She’s very pleased. And so am I. I’d like to send you a check for the next five.”
They needed the money. Fifteen grand at this particular time in their lives was exactly what the doctor ordered. It would free them from their immediate worries, and enable them to put away a bit in case of an emergency. Who knew he would get this for making love with a rich blind linguistics professor who wanted to make herself more desirable in the dating market? Would she list him on her resume?
V
He started to notice, when he’d go home after the session, things looked drab: their small apartment, the neat row of shoes at the door, the living room that needed paint, the small bathroom with the shower curtain he had never liked, and now was beginning to mold at the hem.
His wife would look up from her computer—she worked from home—and as always her smile was both sad and sweet. She, and he hated to think this, was beginning to look sort of drab too.
VI
“I was married once,” Tatiana told him. “I never had pleasure, not once. I did not even know what pleasure was! Until you. Now, when I am married again, I will be knowledgeable.”
“I’m glad your brother approached me,” he told her. “I thought it was weird, it’s a first for me too. ” He added playfully, “Do you have any candidates?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
They were lying naked on her bed and Lancelot was between them. Both of them were stroking the magnificent black dog, which had taken a liking to him, licking his toes while he made love to his mistress.
“I’ll miss you!” she confided.
“I’ll miss you too!” he replied and it was true.
VII
On the last session she asked,
“Would you like to see my eyes?”
“You always cover them.”
“I’m told they are harsh.”
He stroked the dog.
“Lancelot’s seen them he doesn’t mind.”
“Amanda who puts on my make up and helps me to dress, she has seen them too!”
“How about your brother?”
“Of course! “
“I’m ready!”
She was wearing a bright, colorful, silk mask today, securely wound around her shiny black hair.
With one tiny pull, it was off.
Her head was very still, her chin lifted proudly. Her new confidence, he liked to think had something to do with him. Staring, he thought of nuclear war, Guantanamo, and of a horror movie he had seen at a neighborhood revival house.
Tatiana told him, “When I was little, just after the accident, I was informed I could have glass eyes, like the doll’s eyes, or just have what I have now. Sometimes I dream about doll’s eyes. Are they my eyes?”
“That’s why you keep that doll with glass eyes on the shelf over there?”
“Yes!”
“I understand.”
“I’d like to know what you think: My former husband would not have them seen.”
He was staring at the dark holes in her head.
“Am I pretty without my mask on?”
“Yes,” he lied. “You’re a beautiful woman. Everything about you is beautiful!”
“Should I keep the mask on?”
“It’s up to you.”
“But I want to know what you think.”
He closed his own eyes then, and kissed her for the last time.
by
Aug 6, 2018 | Blog - Mary Marcus
Gentle Readers: Instead of a blog, this is a flash fiction offering… My first! While the female in the flash fiction does yoga, that’s about where the resemblance to the Blogger you know (and hopefully love) begins and ends…
“I think it’s a terrible idea, really I do.” And she did. He was 34 and she, though she didn’t like to say it, or allude to it, and could pass in some circles for ten years younger, was 60. In four years she’d be the song. “Do you really want to do it with someone my age?”
He did. He really did, so eventually, she succumbed. One afternoon, they met at one of the big hotels on the beach where his company had rooms. She had wondered when the idea came up if she would pay for it. She had cash, she had miles, and she had everything a proper 60-year-old could want–to a degree. She even had a husband and grown up children, one a year older than her new boyfriend. She had everything, except her seamless legs back, or her old face, not the one with the injectables at discreet creases. She didn’t even want to think about hair. Every three weeks on top. And if she wasn’t exactly grey down there, she didn’t do any of the stuff the girls did. That wasn’t her generation, or if it was, she had not participated, other than what they called the “Alaskan” at the waxing parlor where she paid a visit a few days before the first tryst.
A la recherché de la temp perdu.
She remembered all right. She longed for her old face and body. Remembered, especially, the easy slide without lube, she and her husband didn’t even try anymore. He could get it up, but couldn’t get it in, and felt insulted by the lube suggestion. She supposed he watched porno. And that’s how he got off. She decided he did it before coming to bed several times a week. His bathroom was downstairs, their bedroom up the stairs. She could sail through her rituals: shower or bath, the steps of her face wash, her teeth cleaning, the moisturizing of face and body in less than twelve. His, whatever he did down there could take up to an hour. Surely he was doing porn down there–nobody, not even her sedulous husband of several decades, could floss for forty minutes. Didn’t they all watch porno? She supposed her new boyfriend watched porno. Maybe she would ask him; he was remarkably easy to talk to. Isn’t that how they’d gotten into it, into it, and out of it and now it was over…
A la recherché de la temp perdu.
Proust, of course was gay. She thought her new lover was gay when they first met. He had the easy gay way with women, the excellent bantering skills, the genuine interest in her. What straight man had that?
She had thought it was a shipboard romance, or to be more specific, a yoga retreat romance, though nothing but a hug had happened, and a hug at a yoga retreat is nothing out of the ordinary, though maybe the squeeze had been longer than necessary. Even if her lip hit his soft neck during the hug. So what?
He started it by texting her three days later.
Then the next week, she found herself in a parking structure several blocks from the hotel. Ahead of time, she decided, if she ran into anyone she could say, “I’m on my way to such and such.” There were literally dozens of such and such places by the beach in Santa Monica where the tryst took place.
She took the stairs, because no one takes the stairs, and when she knocked at the door, he answered it with a smile.
She had never seen him dressed before, just in yoga clothes; and the wide black pants, the bright white shirt, the psychedelic bow tie startled her. With his young unlined face and the shock of blond hair that stuck up like straw, the head looked like it was sitting on a mountain painted white black and red.
He’s enormous, she thought, he’s Moby the Dick.
They didn’t kiss, they went straight to the big king, and she took off the germy looking bedspread, which is what she always did when entering a hotel room. They smoked a joint.
And then room service knocked with a bottle of wine and some snacks.
“How’s Lloyd?” he asked presently. By now they were stoned. Lloyd was her Bernese, she had shown him pictures at the yoga retreat. None of them asked for pictures of the children or the husband. But they all wanted to see Lloyd who was a minor hit on Instagram.
I was having love affairs before the invention of Instagram, she also felt like saying. In fact I was married with children before social media.
“What do you weigh?”
“I don’t know, one fifteen, something like that.”
“We’d never be able to borrow each other’s clothes!” he laughed and finally kissed her. And she kissed him back, and they rolled around on the king giggling for what seemed like a long time.
“For obvious reasons, you better get on top,” he smiled, a little later.
And with her own crepe and his rolls of fat and all the dope, it was a surprisingly sweet coming together, one that happened a few more times, and then never happened again.
She carried the memory of it lightly, the deep pleasure of those hours, the strange rooms, because the room changed every time, a different bottle of wine, a different strength of dope.
Some years later, the year she was 64, like the song, she bumped into her former lover on the Third Street promenade holding hands with a man. Their eyes met and simultaneously they blew one another a kiss. She was instantly elated. And stayed that way for some time.
She was with her husband, and daughter who asked, “Who was that?”
“Yoga?” replied her husband and she smiled.
Illustration by the fabulous Aimee Levy
by
Jul 11, 2018 | Blog - Mary Marcus
I don’t know why Claude Lanzmann dying the other day has made me think almost non-stop about Irene, my son’s Polish nanny from so long ago. Lanzmann wasn’t Polish; he was a French Jew, very different from being a Polish Jew.
And very different from what Irene certainly was: a Catholic child who came of age in the aftermath of the Shoah, in a Warsaw where there weren’t any Jews. We were in fact, the first Jews she had ever met. Soon after, Irene met more Jews: Mrs. Greenberg and her family who had a huge place on the East Side, and whose apartment she cleaned in the mornings, and to whom I gave a phony reference.
“Irene has worked for my family for ten years. And I trust her with my life!” In fact I only knew Irene then for a month or two, when she asked me to speak to Mrs. G. Somehow she sensed that I implicitly understood the rules one follows under dictatorships be they in America or Warsaw. One lied for one’s friends to the authorities. One shared one’s treasures, and one never ratted each other out.
Irene arrived in New York before the solidarity movement briefly flowered. She was escaping the cruel arm of communist repression. And come to think of it, she treasured above all things, the black Lancôme tote I gave her (perhaps because of the solidarity rose) filled with goodies from the Lancôme company store. On the days I worked at Lancôme and other cosmetic firms, Irene would pick my son up from nursery school and then kindergarten. And stay with him until I got home. If this all were now, of course, I would have Irene’s contact in my phone and I’d be able to reach her. All I know is that she is back in Warsaw. But like so many of the good people I know and revere above all others, Irene was a pre cell phone friendship. I have no idea how to find her.
I met Irene when she came to clean the half of the apartment where my son and I were living, which included the kitchen, the laundry area, the bathroom I used–and that my little son learned to use–and the back bedroom with the terrible bed my mother-in-law refused to let me replace. It didn’t seem odd to my mother-in-law that I hired someone to clean the half of the apartment we were occupying. My mother-in law was an odd bird. Very generous in her way, and very tolerant too. As far as I know the only thing she deplored was the state of Israel.
Our arrangement was peculiar, but seemed very familiar. My husband was off in LA most of the time doing movies and TV shows. I was in New York writing advertising copy, we needed a family, and my in-laws welcomed us. I thought the least I could do was keep my side of the apartment clean.
Around this time, my son’s other nanny went back to Haiti. I hired someone else and he and my father-in-law fired her on her first day.
“Irene should be my nanny!” my son declared.
“Irene doesn’t speak English,” I said to my one-and-a-half-year-old.
“I’ll teach her,” he assured me. And he did and he didn’t.
Irene promptly took over the title of “other mother,” she and my son adored each other. She stayed with us from the time my son was one-and-a-half, until he passed his sixth birthday and we moved to LA. She broke every one of my rules about sugar, never listened to a word I said, but she kept us together, and when my husband got a movie to do in New York and we moved from my in-laws’ enormous four bedroom apartment overlooking the Museum of Natural History, to our small two bedroom overlooking the back of a building, she took over there too. When I got home from work, the three of us sat down. Irene and I with vodka and (I’m embarrassed to say, cigarettes) and my son with his orange juice and sips of vodka.
Once on a cold winter afternoon when son and I had arrived home from Kennedy after visiting the coast and not seeing very much of my husband, feeling lonely and out of sorts, we opened the door and there was the familiar smell of Magic Noire perfume and cigarettes and Irene, in her housecoat, smoking and doing the floors so they’d be nice when we got home.
I owe her so many things: her great cheerfulness, back when we needed cheerfulness. And for a morning when she told Mrs. Greenberg she had to go to the doctor, but it was really to my son’s doctor. He was three and very ill as only small children get ill. He was red and throwing up and his little head was on fire. She skipped her morning job, and came over with me to take him to the pediatrician.
In her broken English she told me how many sick children she had seen on the subway ride over from Greenpoint. And how glad she was, that my son could take a cab to the doctor’s office.
It was a definitive moment for me. Never again that long winter did I feel sorry for myself for being a more or less single mom. I had the money to take my son in a cab to a doctor’s office where we didn’t have to wait in line.
When we left New York, I gave her the prettiest thing I possessed then—she was borrowing them all the time anyway, since she went to the opera: my long string of pearls.
Sometimes I miss those pearls. And sometimes I miss Irene.
“You are the best boss,” she used to tell me. “You are my only boss!”
I felt the same about her and more so.
Illustration by the fabulous Aimee Levy
by
