would inevitably be disappointing, and she truly preferred to think well of you. But you couldn’t pigeonhole Vanessa: not at all the brash glad-hander you’d expect running an employment agency mini-empire. Her reticence not only caused her to stand out, but made TV viewers who saw her in the Panache commercials on local cable believe in her. She set a tone, and people would simply assume that the housemaids from Panache Home, the bookkeepers from Panache Office, and the pharmacists from Panache Professional would all be endowed with Vanessa’s cool effectiveness.
Admittedly, at her funeral, the minister had called her “caring” because not even the most charitable Christian soul could go so far as “warm.” However, for some reason, Vanessa was always at her most cordial—so if not actually warm, she was at least tepid in the nicest possible way, like the way she’d walk toward me with both hands outstretched. “Judith Singer.” Then she’d grip my shoulders and stick out her head to bestow a kiss on the cheek. All right, so not an actual kiss. As her satiny, alpha-hydroxied cheek grazed mine she merely made a high, cheeping sound, like a sparrow. Then she would draw back and regard me with … well, not with affection, but definitely not condescension either. She’d inquire: “And how is my friend Judith doing?”
I hadn’t the foggiest notion of why I rated her friendship. Outside of Long Island Heritage Council meetings, we never saw each other except in casual situations—coming out of Alper’s Hardware on Main Street, or down at the harbor band-shell at the Friday night concerts each summer. Perhaps it was because we both lived in Shorehaven, a Long Island suburb, which—despite being twenty-six miles from mid-Manhattan and filled with a fair number of urbane business types and cutting-edge professionals—clung to the aggressive neighborliness of those old Andy Hardy movies.
To be honest, Vanessa’s special treatment might have been some form of pity: I was—am—a widow. For the past two years—since my husband, Bob, died half a day after finishing the New York Marathon in four hours and twelve minutes—I’d noticed that the same people who would treat a middle-aged divorcée with the same tendresse as they would a rabid raccoon could be surprisingly compassionate toward a woman who had lost her husband—as opposed to one who somehow sloppily allowed her man to slip through her fingers.
Or perhaps Vanessa was merely grateful to me. I am a historian who works two jobs. Half the time, I’m adjunct professor of history at the formerly all-female, formerly nun-run, formerly first-rate Saint Elizabeth’s College across the county border in the borough of Queens. The other half of my time, I head my town’s oral history project at the Shorehaven Public Library. A few years earlier, Vanessa had come to me for help: She had a potential client, Kluckers, a kosher chicken distributor. Its CEO wasn’t sure if Long Island had the right “vibes” for his new corporate headquarters. Sure, there were Jews on Long Island, so kosher wasn’t an alien notion, but what about the chicken angle? I’d worked with Vanessa to compose a précis of the thrilling and eventful history of poultry farming on Long Island. Apparently, our effort wowed the guy. Naturally, I wouldn’t take the money she offered for my work. So she’d sent the library a generous contribution and sent a gorgeously bound copy of Leaves of Grass to me at home, somehow having learned I was a fool for Long Island–born Walt Whitman. Now she was dead.
“This Vanessa business has really gotten to me,” I declared to my best friend, Nancy Miller, two nights later when we were out to dinner. “Not that I was actually her friend, even if that’s what she called me but …” Nancy was eagle-eying the waiter as he opened a bottle of Rosso di Montalcino so I demanded: “Are you listening to me?”
“How can I avoid it?”
We were in
Admittedly, at her funeral, the minister had called her “caring” because not even the most charitable Christian soul could go so far as “warm.” However, for some reason, Vanessa was always at her most cordial—so if not actually warm, she was at least tepid in the nicest possible way, like the way she’d walk toward me with both hands outstretched. “Judith Singer.” Then she’d grip my shoulders and stick out her head to bestow a kiss on the cheek. All right, so not an actual kiss. As her satiny, alpha-hydroxied cheek grazed mine she merely made a high, cheeping sound, like a sparrow. Then she would draw back and regard me with … well, not with affection, but definitely not condescension either. She’d inquire: “And how is my friend Judith doing?”
I hadn’t the foggiest notion of why I rated her friendship. Outside of Long Island Heritage Council meetings, we never saw each other except in casual situations—coming out of Alper’s Hardware on Main Street, or down at the harbor band-shell at the Friday night concerts each summer. Perhaps it was because we both lived in Shorehaven, a Long Island suburb, which—despite being twenty-six miles from mid-Manhattan and filled with a fair number of urbane business types and cutting-edge professionals—clung to the aggressive neighborliness of those old Andy Hardy movies.
To be honest, Vanessa’s special treatment might have been some form of pity: I was—am—a widow. For the past two years—since my husband, Bob, died half a day after finishing the New York Marathon in four hours and twelve minutes—I’d noticed that the same people who would treat a middle-aged divorcée with the same tendresse as they would a rabid raccoon could be surprisingly compassionate toward a woman who had lost her husband—as opposed to one who somehow sloppily allowed her man to slip through her fingers.
Or perhaps Vanessa was merely grateful to me. I am a historian who works two jobs. Half the time, I’m adjunct professor of history at the formerly all-female, formerly nun-run, formerly first-rate Saint Elizabeth’s College across the county border in the borough of Queens. The other half of my time, I head my town’s oral history project at the Shorehaven Public Library. A few years earlier, Vanessa had come to me for help: She had a potential client, Kluckers, a kosher chicken distributor. Its CEO wasn’t sure if Long Island had the right “vibes” for his new corporate headquarters. Sure, there were Jews on Long Island, so kosher wasn’t an alien notion, but what about the chicken angle? I’d worked with Vanessa to compose a précis of the thrilling and eventful history of poultry farming on Long Island. Apparently, our effort wowed the guy. Naturally, I wouldn’t take the money she offered for my work. So she’d sent the library a generous contribution and sent a gorgeously bound copy of Leaves of Grass to me at home, somehow having learned I was a fool for Long Island–born Walt Whitman. Now she was dead.
“This Vanessa business has really gotten to me,” I declared to my best friend, Nancy Miller, two nights later when we were out to dinner. “Not that I was actually her friend, even if that’s what she called me but …” Nancy was eagle-eying the waiter as he opened a bottle of Rosso di Montalcino so I demanded: “Are you listening to me?”
“How can I avoid it?”
We were in
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