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Don Bloch
Sweet Sixty
‘Fix your glasses, Grace.’
‘What's wrong with them?’
‘I can't see your eyes.’
Grace shrugged. Then she pulled out a shirt tail and spit polished her lenses.
‘Satisfied?’
‘If you'll tuck your shirt in, yes.’ Mara laughed.
Grace hooked both thumbs inside the waistband of her jeans and ran them back and forth. Then she struck a pose, one hand on her hip, one behind her head. ‘So, let me hear you say it.’
‘Hi ya, gorgeous.’
As the girls kissed, Mara stuck out a finger and stabbed her mother's doorbell. They were twenty-three floors up, in Lincoln Towers.
‘Here she comes,’ Mara said at the sound of her mother's high heels.
Three inches in and the door caught on a chair. A flash of Rae Spiegelman appeared in the opening. As always she wore so much make-up it was like the features of her face rode out to meet them on a pogo stick. ‘Hold on,’ Rae called, fumbling. The door closed in their faces. Grace winked and Mara pinched her, hard, where her mother, as the door swung wide, couldn't see.
‘Right on time,’ Rae crooned. ‘Hi ya, gorgeous,’ she hugged Mara. ‘Manny,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Honey, the girls are here.’ Grace and Mrs. Spiegelman nodded and smiled at each other.
‘'lo, girls.’ A moment later, scuffling in slippers, blinking, Manny emerged from the bedroom. He stood there running his hands, puffy and splotched, back over his sparsely-haired, bumpy crown. In the family this was known as Manny's yawn.
‘Feeling okay, Manny?’ Mara asked airily.
‘Not bad.’
‘You look great.’
‘Anything in particular, or are we talking Gestalt?’
‘Manny loves to josh,’ Rae explained to Grace.
Manny fumbled a kiss for Mara who closed her eyes. ‘How you doing, Grace?’ Then he stuck out his hand to take the hand Grace was offering.
‘Congratulations, sir. And many happy returns of the day.’
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Somehow at Mara's folks, Grace's southern accent, muted elsewhere, came out strong.
‘Thank you, Grace.’
‘Here's how’ - Grace, blushing perhaps for the first time since Mara had known her, which set Mara off on a trill of delighted giggling, held out a present for Manny. It was unmistakably a book. Small white tears on the gift wrapping betrayed where tape had been affixed the last time the paper was used.
Manny sank back in an easy chair to open the gift. He started by turning it over and over on his lap. He didn't want to make himself look foolish by any premature, false approach to the problem.
‘Don't worry, sir, it's not a letter bomb.’ Grace bounced onto the sofa close to Manny, managing to clutch a full hand of peanuts from a crystal bowl on the coffee table as she did so. The first few nuts she tossed high and tried to catch in her open mouth but they bounced off her nose and chin and dribbled away between the white cushions. Grace didn't go looking for them.
‘Rae,’ Manny called out to the kitchen, holding Grace's gift up at eye level and arm's length, ‘have you seen my glasses.’
‘In your pocket, Manny.’ Rae bustled into the room with a frilly French maid's apron over her tight pink angora sweater.
‘Girls Will Be Girls,’ Manny read out slowly.
‘Grace, your book’ - Rae swept down saving the moment. ‘How lovely.’ She gave Grace a warm hug and kiss - one, Rae knew, Manny would never manage, and one which, moreover, made Mara acutely ill at ease.
‘I'm going to start it first thing tomorrow,’ Manny thumped the book with his knuckles. Grace smiled at Mara and Mara looked away. When Grace had announced that she was planning to give Manny her book, the girls had quarreled.
‘He never reads anything!’ Mara had said hotly.
‘More's the reason.’
‘Not every moment of life has to be a confrontation.’
‘Oh?’ Grace was very political. ‘Maybe I'm wrong but I thought you liked the book?’
‘I do. You know I do.’ Grace's first novel had appeared to a general wave of critical silence broken only by an occasional squeal of near hysterical pleasure in more or less obscure feminist journals. Grace had piles of copies. ‘Your book's fine. It's you I don't like.’
But the dogs, sleek and rangy Afghans, had started whining and shaking during their shouting match and they had made peace. When Grace actually handed the book over to Manny, Mara had forgotten all about it.
‘There,’ Rae took the book and stood it among the vases and gee-gaws, birthday cards and photos on top of the upright piano. Mara wasn't sure whether her mother was trying to show it off, or hide it.
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The Spiegelman apartment in point of fact was like the insides of a smashed kaleidoscope. Rae was partial to gold and silver, or their imitations - as if all that glittered and was bright could shelter and protect her. If it shined, like a magpie, she went after it. All the fabrics were lavish of pattern and plush. The bathroom had an entire wall of smoked glass. The view of the fountain at Lincoln Center was partially obscured by a glass shelf hung from the ceiling and full of potted plants, unruly hanging greens, all plastic on a second look. Trophies, too, were strategically placed around the room, Manny's for sales achievements and duck pin bowling, Rae's for canasta and braille. An unholy number of family photographs smiled back at you, too, wherever you turned - most of Rae, some of Rae and Manny, a few of Mara as a child and her wedding picture.
‘Thank you, Grace,’ Manny said. ‘That was very thoughtful.’
‘I sure hope you can get through it, sir,’ Grace said.
‘If not, it won't be because I didn't try.’ Manny folded his glasses and poked them back down into his shirt pocket.
‘We had a card from Phillip, Mara.’ In recent years Rae's voice had acquired a distressing rasping quality. ‘Show them, Manny.’ Phillip was Mara's first husband but in truth nobody, not even Mara, remembered him very well. Grace was so much more vivid.
‘Sweet Sixty,’ Mara read. ‘Perfect Phillip,’ she said and left it at that.
The waning hours of the afternoon, to the mutual amazement of them all, went amiably. Even when Grace turned the kitchen radio to pop music - ‘the only way I can chop onions, sorry’ - Rae acceded smoothly. Manny's birthday celebration was for close friends of the family only. About twenty guests were expected. Rae, Mara and Grace set up five folding card tables in the wide sunken livingroom, the kind with legs that snap out from underneath. ‘Looks real pretty,’ Grace said when they'd finished setting the tables.
‘Sure does,’ Rae beamed. She clearly had made up her mind that nothing, but nothing, was going to tarnish the harmony of the occasion.
While the women worked Manny sat glued to the television, flicking from channel to channel and back again. Every half hour or so, when the airwaves were clogged with commercials, he came out to the kitchen, his belt buckle and the top button of his trousers open, to josh. ‘Anything I can do? If I can help, just say the word.’ Finally he was allowed to open the wine. Rae had put the bottles under the radiator near the balcony windows to warm them. On the second bottle Manny managed to break the corkscrew. The prong detached from the handle sticking out of the cork like a pig's tail.
Rae had married Manny when Mara was only three. Mara hardly remembered her own father. Everything she heard
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about him was best and, uncharacteristically, she accepted it as true. Manny's ‘selling point’, as she remembered her mother's putting it, was how crazy Manny was about Rae. ‘Ga-ga’ was one of the words Rae used to describe Manny's feelings. Rae had married him to make sure she could give Mara everything. For the rest no one paid much attention to Manny while Mara grew up. He was there. He came and went and paid the bills. His sweetness had a soothing effect on them all.
While they put the finishing touches on the hors-d'oeuvres, that is while Rae and Mara did and Grace sat at the kitchen counter wolfing more peanuts - the women talked. They really talked. Mara came dangerously close to believing that Rae wasn't just keeping it up but genuinely had accepted Grace as necessary to Mara's happiness.
Encouraged, Grace talked about herself freely, charmingly. About growing up in a small coal-mining town in West Virginia. ‘Back home people treat their dogs better than blacks and blacks better than women.’ Grace's father died in a mine accident. Her mother drank herself silly and drove off a mountain. Grace didn't milk the story for sympathy, nor did she take the easy way out of presenting the dismal facts in a flip, uncaring way. Mara knew the one thing Grace didn't dare write about yet was her family.
Grace described wandering the hollows as a girl. How the only time the feeling of loneliness was bearable was when she was completely alone. Her favorite hideaway, perfectly secluded, was an old mine shaft, abandoned and boarded up but with a gap in the planks a girl could slip through. Inside she would walk back along the tracks until the shaft turned sharply and snuffed out every trace of daylight. The walls were cold to touch, covered with a fine velvety powder. Grace confessed how she would take off her clothes and dance in the darkness. She would run her hands over her body while she danced. ‘One time I got home and my Uncle Ned nearly killed me on the spot. I must have touched the walls or something and my whole face and body were streaked with soot.’ Years later Grace went back to the mine shaft with a flashlight. ‘It was harder to get in but I managed. Just about what, ten feet, back from my dance floor there was this great big gaping hole. I'm lucky I didn't fall in and disappear for good.’
Grace told her stories vividly and without rancour. It was a pleasure to listen. ‘I was chosen Most Likely to Succeed in my high school class. In the yearbook there's this picture of me throwing my books into the school furnace. When people back home heard I was having a novel published I got a letter inviting me to come give a reading at our local library.’
‘How wonderful, Grace,’ Rae said.
‘Yes, ma'am, I was thrilled, too. Only then I got a letter after the librarian had read it. She said I should be ashamed of myself. It was obscene. And I was uninvited.’
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‘As soon as Manny's through with it,’ Rae rasped, ‘I'm going to read it.’
The first guests, Aunt Joan and Uncle Bob, as always, rang the bell at six-thirty. They were dressed to the teeth. They brought Manny chocolate covered cherries and initialed handkerchiefs. Manny had changed into a loud Hawaiian rayon sportshirt, one Mara had picked up at a jumble sale as a gag but which he was genuinely fond of. Rae hid herself away for twenty minutes and came back in a slinky set of lounging pajamas, white sequins, made in Hong Kong. She wore twisted braids of gold around her neck, and half a dozen rings. With her red hair brushed up and back, swirling, Rae's outfit made her look like a candle.
Before they ventured out to mingle with the arriving company, Mara and Grace snatched a hug and kiss in the kitchen.
‘All right?’ Mara asked. Grace nodded, and then as if realizing herself that she was all right, nodded with more vigour and smiled.
‘This is Grace Pinkham, Mara's friend.’ Rae introduced Grace to everyone very easily and naturally. Inside Mara wanted to cry, knowing how far her mother had travelled to arrive where she was at. How many days in the past year and a half had Mara come to visit Rae and found her alone, sitting and staring out over the city, disconsolate, desolate, not even proud enough to try to hide it.
‘Think of Grace as the person I like to talk to more than anyone else in the world,’ Mara said. ‘You've always respected my friends.’
‘I know.’
With Grace, Mara had known love at first sight. In Stowe, Vermont, at a writer's conference, Mara saw Grace coming down stairs (going up, Grace insisted). Grace had smiled at her, seductively, and all at once Mara wasn't lonely or afraid anymore, or any of the half dozen other things she never knew she was until she wasn't. They became inseparable.
‘What do you do, Grace?’ Aunt Leah asked. She was up from Miami and had even sacrificed her weekly square-dancing to be with Manny on his birthday.
‘Mostly I watch television, ma'am, and walk the dogs.’
‘Grace writes,’ Rae cut in, ‘don't you, honey.’
‘I sure try.’
The meal went without a hitch. Only one bottle of wine was tipped. Henry, Manny's old buddy, did the tipping. Rae emptied the salt shaker in a mount over the stain. Rae was glad Henry had been the one. At Henry and Deborah's twentieth anniversary, light-years ago, she had broken a crystal glass. She had stood and proposed a toast and then made a mock gesture of tossing the glass into the fireplace. To her horror she saw the top of the glass snap free and crash in the fireplace in a thousand bright pieces. Deborah had died since and with her,
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surely, all memory of the incident. But still.
Grace and Mara chose to sit at different tables. Rae often caught them looking at each other though, and smiling.
‘Hey, Mara,’ Manny called out during the main course, ‘Max wants to know what you're giving me for my birthday.’ Silence fell quickly.
‘Regina's going to whelp any day now and Manny's going to have the pick of the litter.’
‘Don't forget the scooper,’ Max cried, and pinched Mara's cheek. ‘You were such a beautiful little girl.’
Once Grace had the whole room listening while she told a story, ‘Last Thursday I was at the new Museum of Modern Art. It was the first time for me. Like some big supermarket with escalators. I was going to the basement anyhow, to see the Tribute to Looney Tunes. After four hours of Bugs Bunny, I needed some air - and food. At the cafeteria I selected a bowl of spaghetti bolognaise - which was the only hot dish I could come even close to affording. Luckily I found a table at the window looking out onto the sculpture garden they've got there. Nice, I liked it. Only when I sat down I found out I forgot to take silverware so I had to go back for a knife and fork.’
Grace, Mara knew, hadn't been anywhere near the Museum of Modern Art last Thursday. Good god - she only hoped Grace would keep it short, and clean.
‘When I got back to my table there was this big black bonzo sitting there, cement poured into silk, and he was eating my spaghetti.’
As one the room gasped.
‘I sat down in the chair across from him. I mean I wasn't going to let him get away with it. I stared him right in the eye, took out my knife and fork and started to eat the spaghetti, too.’
‘From the same plate?’ Clara asked.
‘From the same plate,’ Grace nodded. ‘And when we finished the bolognaise, you know what this guy does? He pushes his chair back and heads for the food counter. He comes back with two cups of coffee. He asks me if I take milk or sugar and I tell him, no, thank you, black. He sits down and we drink our coffee. Then he gets up and starts to walk out.’
‘- which is when I go looking for my handbag, and of course it's gone.’
‘No,’ Manny protested.
‘Yes,’ said Grace. ‘That was the last straw, I can tell you. I was so mad I could've killed that son-of-a-b. I wasn't going to take it lying down either.’ Grace caught Mara's eye and winked. O why did she always think her wink was invisible? And that oldest of all chestnuts - how did she dare? Mara held her breath, hardly in control of her anger and admiration. Would Grace get away with it?
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‘He was moving fast but he wasn't out of sight yet. I started after him and just when I was about to shout something unladylike, I passed right by this other table next to the window. It's an empty table, nobody's there except there's a bowl of spaghetti bolognaise in the middle - and hanging over the back of the chair -’
‘No,’ cried Aunt Joan and lifted a hand to tug at her throat.
‘- there was my handbag.’
At eight-thirty sharp Rae collected the salad plates. She piled them high and made her way out to the kitchen, refusing all offers of help. The air was heavy with smoke. The windows were all fogged. How happy everyone seemed.
Rae had her one really bad moment of the whole evening when she opened the back door which led from the kitchen to the emergency stairs and service elevator. The party was a smash so far, but what if Beatrice didn't make it? Ah, Rae's heart beat easier when she saw Beatrice slouched against the wall beside the garbage pail.
‘Raining?’ Rae whispered.
‘You said it,’ Beatrice shook her head so Rae had to step back out of the spray. Beatrice looked wan and dumpy in her overcoat. Her eyes glittered though with golden shadow. And there was her suitcase, too. All was well.
‘Sorry about the kitchen,’ Rae apologised. Every square inch was filled with greasy plates, bowls, platters, the remains of dips and gravies.
‘Big it ain't,’ said Beatrice stolidly. They had, however, been over the logistics of the apartment together before. And Beatrice was not new to the game. No, she was a trooper and set about her preparations without complaint. Meanwhile Rae concentrated on lighting the sixty wax candles planted in Manny's enormous chocolate cake. It was almost impossible to do without burning her hand.
‘If that's as good as it looks,’ Beatrice said. Then she, too, picked up a pack of matches and helped finish lighting the candles. Rae flicked on the switch of her twenty-four cup electric coffee percolator. Uninterrupted waves of laughter from the other room made her feel younger than she'd felt in years.
‘All set?’ Rae asked Beatrice, sending her a single approving look, top to toe.
‘I am if you are,’ Beatrice smiled.
Rae kneed the swinging door into the livingroom open slightly and turned out the lights. In no time the room grew still.
‘Shh! Shh! Shh!’ Clara's urgent whisper carried.
Then Rae, blazing cake high in the air in front of her, entered the room. She sounded the first note and everyone began to sing.
After ‘Happy Birthday’ subsided, Rae leaned low over Manny's shoulder. There were tears in his eyes. ‘Now make a wish
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and blow them out,’ she said. She looked up and caught Mara's eye. Mara blew a kiss to her mother from the open palm of one hand.
‘But I already have everything I want,’ Manny said. The crowd oohed. He reached up and patted Rae's cheek.
Manny closed his eyes and appeared to think deeply. When his head began to nod, his eyes opened and he breathed in mightily. Head low he huffed and puffed and blew out all the candles - except for a few that Rae helped him with. Cheers and whistles were still ringing when a taut and chill burst of tambourine music from the landing leading down into the livingroom turned everyone's head.
‘Oh Jesus,’ Mara blurted out. Her cry was all but drowned by the chorus of shouts and clapping that Beatrice provoked as she lifted one ankle and set bells ringing.
All the cloth Beatrice had on her body wouldn't have been enough to patch a cigarette burn on the sofa. What she lacked in fabric she made up for with baubles and chains and tassles, bracelets and anklets and earrings and something that shone tucked in her navel. Her black hair, split down the middle, was tied back with a jeweled headband.
Beatrice danced for them all, but for the birthday boy more than the rest. Hips, belly, breasts - she shimmied and cranked. One muscle at a time, all together. She was all softness and curves, alluring, vulgar, athletic, shy.
Manny was entranced. His mouth fell open with astonishment and pleasure. Uncle Bob was the first to take out his wallet and tuck a bill inside the waist of Beatrice's briefs. Aunt Joan wanted to know if it was all right for her to drop in a coin.
‘She's not a parking meter, Joan,’ Henry said, ‘anyone can see that.’
Beatrice began to glow, her body moist from the effort. Ripe, overripe - eyes rolled back in their sockets of gold, arms weaving in the air.
‘Happy birthday, sugar,’ Rae leaned down from behind Manny, crossed her arms across his chest and hugged him. Her red hair tumbled down in front of his eyes. He pushed it aside to unblock his view of the dancing. ‘You're only as old as you feel.’
Then amid the general festive gladness Rae's eyes fell on Mara. An unnatural smile had frozen on her daughter's face. at Mara's elbow sat Grace. She looked like death. Slowly, deliberately Grace took off her glasses and folded them into her shirt pocket.
‘Oh well,’ Rae sighed and gave Manny another hug. ‘There was too much sadness in the world. Everywhere there was sadness and she just wasn't the person to do anything about it.’
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