canned the previous fall.
“Hi,” I began, “I just wanted to check to see how you were. You had quite a day yesterday.”
“Well, today was no pleasure either. The police were here twice. The first time they wanted to know if I had my supermarket check.”
“What?”
“My supermarket check. I stopped off at the A&P after I went to Dr. Fleckstein’s office.”
“My God, Marilyn. Who the hell saves supermarket checks?”
“I do. I showed it to them.”
“Oh.” Someday I’ll learn that my habits are not the standards by which to judge the rest of humanity. “What did they want the second time?”
“Well, this awful detective with eyebrows about a foot thick came and started asking a lot of silly questions.” That must have been Ramirez. “Then he sort of sneered and asked if my husband had any famous relatives. I couldn’t figure out what he meant, so I told him no, but that Mike’s Uncle John was chief of neurosurgery at St. Vincent’s. Then all of a sudden I realized what this, this person, was asking me.”
“What?” I asked eagerly.
“He was asking me if Mike was connected with the Mafia. Just because we have an Italian name.”
“Wow.” I was reduced to monosyllables, not by the detective’s stupidity, but by the force of Marilyn’s anger.
“So I told him that I was nauseated by his filthy smears and to go to hell. I said ‘hell,’ Judith, and told him to get out of my house and fast.”
“Gee,” I said. “By the way, did you speak with a lawyer?”
“Well, after that little scene I certainly did. Helen Fields. The Assemblywoman. She has a practice over in Mineola. She said if the police want to talk to me, they’ll do it in her presence.” Helen Fields was a tough old politician, a Republican who made William Howard Taft look like a knee-jerk liberal.
“Did you mention anything to her about seeing Fleckstein and his nurse at the motel?”
“Yes. And she told me to tell it to the police.”
“And did you?”
“Not yet. But maybe I will.”
“Marilyn, I think you should.”
“This whole thing is ridiculous,” she said. “It’s not even worth thinking about.”
“Yes, it is,” I insisted, reaching over and opening a window. The air had become damp and frigid, a foreshadowing of snow to come. I took a deep breath and tried again. “Marilyn, if the police have it in their heads that you’re some sort of avenging angel or that all those doctors in Mike’s family are suddenly taking out contracts on Jewish dentists, you ought to realize they’re serious. Stupid, maybe, but serious.”
“I’ll think about it. But the whole thing is so ugly.”
“I know.”
It started snowing that night and continued into Friday. Five inches of fat, puffy snowflakes, and we spent Saturday making snowpeople with the children on the front lawn. A great, rotund snowman, looking like a Victorian father, a somewhat smaller snowwoman, equipped with a kerchief, sunglasses, and two healthy snowbreasts, and two small snowchildren with eternally vigilant raisin eyes. Sunday, my in-laws visited, my mother-in-law catering dinner, walking into the house with two Bergdorf’s shopping bags filled with foil-covered dishes, saying, “Judith, dear, today is your day to relax.”
And all weekend long, I reviewed the Fleckstein play, envisioning the characters—Bruce, Norma, Mary Alice, Dicky, Brenda, Scotty, Fay, et al.—parading before me, the director. All they needed was a script to give coherence to their existences, lines and gestures to illuminate their inner lives.
“Judith,” cooed Bob. “Judith. Come here.” It was Sunday night and he hadn’t put on his pajamas.
“What?” I asked.
“You were a thousand miles away,” he observed.
“Oh,” I said, realizing that having dimmed the bedroom lights, he was indeed serious. “I thought you were tired.”
“Not any more,” he whispered, his breath hot and damp in my ear. He grabbed my hand and placed it on his
“Hi,” I began, “I just wanted to check to see how you were. You had quite a day yesterday.”
“Well, today was no pleasure either. The police were here twice. The first time they wanted to know if I had my supermarket check.”
“What?”
“My supermarket check. I stopped off at the A&P after I went to Dr. Fleckstein’s office.”
“My God, Marilyn. Who the hell saves supermarket checks?”
“I do. I showed it to them.”
“Oh.” Someday I’ll learn that my habits are not the standards by which to judge the rest of humanity. “What did they want the second time?”
“Well, this awful detective with eyebrows about a foot thick came and started asking a lot of silly questions.” That must have been Ramirez. “Then he sort of sneered and asked if my husband had any famous relatives. I couldn’t figure out what he meant, so I told him no, but that Mike’s Uncle John was chief of neurosurgery at St. Vincent’s. Then all of a sudden I realized what this, this person, was asking me.”
“What?” I asked eagerly.
“He was asking me if Mike was connected with the Mafia. Just because we have an Italian name.”
“Wow.” I was reduced to monosyllables, not by the detective’s stupidity, but by the force of Marilyn’s anger.
“So I told him that I was nauseated by his filthy smears and to go to hell. I said ‘hell,’ Judith, and told him to get out of my house and fast.”
“Gee,” I said. “By the way, did you speak with a lawyer?”
“Well, after that little scene I certainly did. Helen Fields. The Assemblywoman. She has a practice over in Mineola. She said if the police want to talk to me, they’ll do it in her presence.” Helen Fields was a tough old politician, a Republican who made William Howard Taft look like a knee-jerk liberal.
“Did you mention anything to her about seeing Fleckstein and his nurse at the motel?”
“Yes. And she told me to tell it to the police.”
“And did you?”
“Not yet. But maybe I will.”
“Marilyn, I think you should.”
“This whole thing is ridiculous,” she said. “It’s not even worth thinking about.”
“Yes, it is,” I insisted, reaching over and opening a window. The air had become damp and frigid, a foreshadowing of snow to come. I took a deep breath and tried again. “Marilyn, if the police have it in their heads that you’re some sort of avenging angel or that all those doctors in Mike’s family are suddenly taking out contracts on Jewish dentists, you ought to realize they’re serious. Stupid, maybe, but serious.”
“I’ll think about it. But the whole thing is so ugly.”
“I know.”
It started snowing that night and continued into Friday. Five inches of fat, puffy snowflakes, and we spent Saturday making snowpeople with the children on the front lawn. A great, rotund snowman, looking like a Victorian father, a somewhat smaller snowwoman, equipped with a kerchief, sunglasses, and two healthy snowbreasts, and two small snowchildren with eternally vigilant raisin eyes. Sunday, my in-laws visited, my mother-in-law catering dinner, walking into the house with two Bergdorf’s shopping bags filled with foil-covered dishes, saying, “Judith, dear, today is your day to relax.”
And all weekend long, I reviewed the Fleckstein play, envisioning the characters—Bruce, Norma, Mary Alice, Dicky, Brenda, Scotty, Fay, et al.—parading before me, the director. All they needed was a script to give coherence to their existences, lines and gestures to illuminate their inner lives.
“Judith,” cooed Bob. “Judith. Come here.” It was Sunday night and he hadn’t put on his pajamas.
“What?” I asked.
“You were a thousand miles away,” he observed.
“Oh,” I said, realizing that having dimmed the bedroom lights, he was indeed serious. “I thought you were tired.”
“Not any more,” he whispered, his breath hot and damp in my ear. He grabbed my hand and placed it on his
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