but you didnât want to go away from home after the ceremony. You were hysterical.â
âRidiculous.â
âHe thought maybe I could arrange it so you and he could spend the first night alone at our house, then you wouldnât be so scared. What I had to go through!â
âWhat did you have to go through?â Anna asked. She couldnât remember a single thing about her wedding except the violent odor of her corsage of gardenias, curling brown at the edges almost as soon as she got them.
âFirst I had to get Mama farmed out. The Bronx relatives finally agreed to take her home with them and bring her back the next day. Then I had to find a place for myself. Do you know where I had to sleep on your wedding night?â
âNo,â Anna said coldly. âThe way you adored Abram, maybe it was with him. How should I know what else youâre making up in this crazy story?â
âHe really should have married me,â Gert said. âI have a sweeter nature than you. He would have had a better life with me. The fact is, Rosie Dubin and her husband had just taken an apartment on Ocean Parkway, and they agreed to let me come and sleep there after the ceremony. But they had only one double bed. So I had to sleep in it with them. They made me get in the middle, between them, to prove there wouldnât be any hanky-panky to embarrass me.â
âIt must have been a big night for you, the famous virgin, sleeping in a bed with a man.â
âWe laughed all night,â Gert said, smiling. A big bus blasted past them, and her hair blew back in the wind. She looked almost young and pretty.
âLate as I married, I always enjoyed sex, Anna. Did you?â
âWhen Donahue has me on as his guest, Iâll discuss it in public, not before.â
The taxi theyâd ordered pulled up, and Gert held the door open as Anna got in. As hard as Anna tried, she could not remember her wedding, her wedding night, her honeymoon. Had she ever enjoyed sex? What a question. She could hardly remember sex. When it happened, it was in the dark, late at night, she was always tired, she kept her eyes closed. Abram never stayed there long, he didnât bother her too often. What was to enjoy? Did Gert know something she didnât know? Did her granddaughters? All her life she had considered herself so advanced, but could it be she was the one still in the Dark Ages?
The taxi driver, a handsome Armenian, drove them toward home. He had some music playing on the radio with a low, hard beat. He seemed to be in another world. On Santa Monica Boulevard they passed a porno movie. They passed young girls strutting about in short shorts. They saw two gay men looking in the window of an underwear store, their arms around each otherâs waists. They passed a billboard with a half-naked woman in a bikini, advertising an airline. Gert had a satisfied expression on her face. Anna suddenly grabbed her arm. âI slept in the same bed with Abram thirty-one years, Gert. I had two babies. Doesnât that prove something to you?â
âWhat does it prove? Who knows which way you were facing?â She took a red lipstick out of her purse and rolled it around her lips without looking in a mirror. She squeezed her lips together. âYou know, I had two husbands already,â Gert said. âIf this one doesnât hold out, Iâll find another one. If necessary, Iâll have three, maybe four.â
âYouâre seventy-six years old,â Anna said. âYou must be crazy.â
âSo Iâm crazy,â Gert said. âYou should be so crazy. Here, put on some nice bright lipstick and enjoy your life a little, Anna.
THE NEXT MEAL IS LUNCH
One of the gay boys across the alley was hucking and hocking in his bathroom, which looked directly into Annaâs kitchen window. She pushed away her dish of cottage cheeseâhow could a person be expected to eat when these poor
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