and landed beside me.
“Harriet, tell me. Let me help you. I see you’re suffering.”
“Please, Maxine, get the hell out of here.”
“He wants to throw you out,” she announced with hideous precision. “You’re going to be back in the same mess as when he picked you up. Harriet, Harriet,” she moaned, and it passed through my mind that of all the countless treacheries my mother had perpetrated, naming me Harriet was the most infamous.
“I can’t stand by and let you ruin your life like this. You can’t waste any more years on these affairs. You’re almost thirty. What’s going to happen to you?”
It came then, the fleeting nightmare of me, old and gray, dispensing paper towels in Bloomingdale’s rest room.
“It’s not as if you were me, born to be a wife and mother, or even Regina. She’s an artist, a teacher. She can take care of herself. But you? What can you do? What do you want? You have to want something in this life.”
“I want you to stop torturing me, Maxine, and go home.”
“I’m your friend, Harriet. I beg of you.” She clasped her hands together, and if not for her Jewish knockers protruding at me, I might have mistaken her for Deborah Kerr.
“Please, go to an analyst, a clinic, a group, get help before it’s too late, before you’ve ruined your chances for having something permanent, something real. A woman needs security. A home, a place. I don’t say you have to get married, though I know you’d marry Claude in a second if he asked, but it has to come from somewhere or you’re ruined.”
“Me marry Claude? Are you insane?” I shrieked. “Marriage is all you and Claude think about.”
“Don’t try to tell me he’s asked you to marry him, my dear. He knows your story. He knows you’ve been passed around from man to man, and he’ll just pass you along. Why should he worry about you when you don’t worry about yourself? Claude will get married one day, but not to you. He’ll find a respectable girl and have a respectable home. Believe me, I know what Claude wants.”
I for one had had enough of her disgusting jealousy.
“Maxine, I’m sick and tired of you hanging around here drooling over Claude. I didn’t force you to marry that nauseating piece of blubber you keep complaining about. If you’re unhappy, divorce him, but I advise you not to do so on Claude’s account. If I was not so pathologically incapable of hurting people, I’d tell you exactly what Claude thinks of you, the artificial respiration I’ve had to apply after you’ve smothered him in your mountainous boobs. Many’s the time I’ve had to remind him that you’re my friend and I expect him to be courteous to you. Now I see I was wrong, because your fantasies are eating away at the little sense you were born with.”
It was rewarding to see the demented vivacity go out of Maxine’s fat face. It reminded me of Joan Fontaine when Rochester takes her up to the tower to meet his, maniac wife. Maxine pulled herself upright on her rhinestone platforms, but she refused to be offended. She persisted in forgiving me. I suspected that if I commenced to hammer a nail into her head, that look of toleration would stay smeared all over her understanding face.
“I only hope you find out what you’re missing before it’s too late.”
“Thanks. I only hope you don’t, or you’ll go up on your roof and become the first topless mass murderer of Central Park West.”
She then made me a fabulous promise. “I’ll call you as soon as I get back from Lenny’s yacht and tell you all about it.”
“Who the hell is this Lenny you keep harping about?”
Before closing the door on her bursting hip-huggers, I spotted the bright-pink package of moisturizer that the jealous harridan had left on the coffee table. I scooped it up, ran into the hall, and heaved the vial of venom after the descending pygmy.
5
A FTER THAT stimulating invasion of privacy, you can imagine how eager I was to join Claude and
“Harriet, tell me. Let me help you. I see you’re suffering.”
“Please, Maxine, get the hell out of here.”
“He wants to throw you out,” she announced with hideous precision. “You’re going to be back in the same mess as when he picked you up. Harriet, Harriet,” she moaned, and it passed through my mind that of all the countless treacheries my mother had perpetrated, naming me Harriet was the most infamous.
“I can’t stand by and let you ruin your life like this. You can’t waste any more years on these affairs. You’re almost thirty. What’s going to happen to you?”
It came then, the fleeting nightmare of me, old and gray, dispensing paper towels in Bloomingdale’s rest room.
“It’s not as if you were me, born to be a wife and mother, or even Regina. She’s an artist, a teacher. She can take care of herself. But you? What can you do? What do you want? You have to want something in this life.”
“I want you to stop torturing me, Maxine, and go home.”
“I’m your friend, Harriet. I beg of you.” She clasped her hands together, and if not for her Jewish knockers protruding at me, I might have mistaken her for Deborah Kerr.
“Please, go to an analyst, a clinic, a group, get help before it’s too late, before you’ve ruined your chances for having something permanent, something real. A woman needs security. A home, a place. I don’t say you have to get married, though I know you’d marry Claude in a second if he asked, but it has to come from somewhere or you’re ruined.”
“Me marry Claude? Are you insane?” I shrieked. “Marriage is all you and Claude think about.”
“Don’t try to tell me he’s asked you to marry him, my dear. He knows your story. He knows you’ve been passed around from man to man, and he’ll just pass you along. Why should he worry about you when you don’t worry about yourself? Claude will get married one day, but not to you. He’ll find a respectable girl and have a respectable home. Believe me, I know what Claude wants.”
I for one had had enough of her disgusting jealousy.
“Maxine, I’m sick and tired of you hanging around here drooling over Claude. I didn’t force you to marry that nauseating piece of blubber you keep complaining about. If you’re unhappy, divorce him, but I advise you not to do so on Claude’s account. If I was not so pathologically incapable of hurting people, I’d tell you exactly what Claude thinks of you, the artificial respiration I’ve had to apply after you’ve smothered him in your mountainous boobs. Many’s the time I’ve had to remind him that you’re my friend and I expect him to be courteous to you. Now I see I was wrong, because your fantasies are eating away at the little sense you were born with.”
It was rewarding to see the demented vivacity go out of Maxine’s fat face. It reminded me of Joan Fontaine when Rochester takes her up to the tower to meet his, maniac wife. Maxine pulled herself upright on her rhinestone platforms, but she refused to be offended. She persisted in forgiving me. I suspected that if I commenced to hammer a nail into her head, that look of toleration would stay smeared all over her understanding face.
“I only hope you find out what you’re missing before it’s too late.”
“Thanks. I only hope you don’t, or you’ll go up on your roof and become the first topless mass murderer of Central Park West.”
She then made me a fabulous promise. “I’ll call you as soon as I get back from Lenny’s yacht and tell you all about it.”
“Who the hell is this Lenny you keep harping about?”
Before closing the door on her bursting hip-huggers, I spotted the bright-pink package of moisturizer that the jealous harridan had left on the coffee table. I scooped it up, ran into the hall, and heaved the vial of venom after the descending pygmy.
5
A FTER THAT stimulating invasion of privacy, you can imagine how eager I was to join Claude and
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