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Authors: Susan Isaacs
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thought, No, my in-laws would help us out, if only for the boys’ sakes, because without them, Babs probably wouldn’t care if I had to cut up The New York Times into four-by-four squares to keep beside the toilet, though without insurance, I wouldn’t be able to afford home delivery anymore.
“Oh my God!” The words burst out of me.
“What? What is it?”
“My in-laws don’t know!” I must have looked both pleading and stricken. I guessed I hoped that Andrea would respond: “Listen,your mother-in-law is not a piece of cake, and I know you work yourself up into a froth over dealing with her. So let me call her and explain what’s going on.”
She exclaimed, “‘Oh my God’ is right! Here you are, calling up everybody who knows Jonah! One of them—shit, so many doctors!—one of them could call Clive. You better call this instant . Which one? Him or her?”
Him, my father-in-law, was infinitely preferable. Clive wasn’t nice, but on the other hand, he wasn’t not nice. I’d never gotten beyond his blah-ness, but maybe that was because there was no beyond. So while no one, including his children and his wife, ever went to Clive looking for love, you could take being with him. You’d never have to fear getting worn down by high-pressure charm. Nor would you have to worry about getting hit with a Babs zinger. With my father-in-law, you never had to be on the lookout for hostility so gracefully disguised it sounded amazingly like flattery.
But with Babs, I never once said goodbye to her without feeling that some small but significant number had been deducted from the sum of my soul during the encounter. “Her,” I said to Andrea. “If I don’t call her, she’ll think I was afraid.”
Which of course I was.
Chapter Six
Babs sat on the dark red leather couch in our den, her elbows resting just above her knees, her hands veiling her eyes and cheeks. Her nails, coated with Gigi de Lavallade’s Crème Caramel, precisely matched the hue of some new liver spots her dermatologist hadn’t gotten to. She uncovered her face and said, “Of course you’re doing everything that can be done, Susie . . .” I nodded, except she wasn’t finished with the sentence. “But we’re always here for you if you have any doubts. Never, ever hesitate to call on us.”
Clive sat beside her looking at me, though I wasn’t sure he was seeing me. He was swaying slowly from side to side, like Ray Charles keeping time to a ballad. I waited for him to add something, but he was silent. Then Babs took a deep breath that looked like preparation for a long sentence. But she didn’t speak.
So I did. “Right before you got here, I called back Detective Sergeant Coleman, the Nassau County cop who came this morning. I hadn’t heard from him again, not even to say they hadn’t gotten any leads. Maybe they don’t do that—call to say they don’t have anything to tell you. But since he’d said he—a detective—had been sent here instead of a regular cop because of Jonah’s ‘position in the community,’ I figured I could push it a little.” Clive stopped his swaying when he was at a 100-degree angle away from Babs. I waited for him to right himself. He didn’t, so I continued. “I told Coleman that since Jonah spent so much time in Manhattan, there was a good chance that if, God forbid, something bad happened to him, it could have happened there. I asked if he’d been in touch with the New York police. He said yes. So then I asked him for a name.”
“Good,” Babs said. I couldn’t tell if she was approving or thinking, How come you didn’t think of this five hours ago, asshole? Not that she would use a word like “asshole.” In a confrontation, I imagined that, since she’d graduated from Vassar, she would more likely say “unmitigated fool.” She cocked her head at the same weird angle as Clive’s upper body, as if they shared a choreographer. “And he gave you the name?”
“He said it might be in
“Oh my God!” The words burst out of me.
“What? What is it?”
“My in-laws don’t know!” I must have looked both pleading and stricken. I guessed I hoped that Andrea would respond: “Listen,your mother-in-law is not a piece of cake, and I know you work yourself up into a froth over dealing with her. So let me call her and explain what’s going on.”
She exclaimed, “‘Oh my God’ is right! Here you are, calling up everybody who knows Jonah! One of them—shit, so many doctors!—one of them could call Clive. You better call this instant . Which one? Him or her?”
Him, my father-in-law, was infinitely preferable. Clive wasn’t nice, but on the other hand, he wasn’t not nice. I’d never gotten beyond his blah-ness, but maybe that was because there was no beyond. So while no one, including his children and his wife, ever went to Clive looking for love, you could take being with him. You’d never have to fear getting worn down by high-pressure charm. Nor would you have to worry about getting hit with a Babs zinger. With my father-in-law, you never had to be on the lookout for hostility so gracefully disguised it sounded amazingly like flattery.
But with Babs, I never once said goodbye to her without feeling that some small but significant number had been deducted from the sum of my soul during the encounter. “Her,” I said to Andrea. “If I don’t call her, she’ll think I was afraid.”
Which of course I was.
Chapter Six
Babs sat on the dark red leather couch in our den, her elbows resting just above her knees, her hands veiling her eyes and cheeks. Her nails, coated with Gigi de Lavallade’s Crème Caramel, precisely matched the hue of some new liver spots her dermatologist hadn’t gotten to. She uncovered her face and said, “Of course you’re doing everything that can be done, Susie . . .” I nodded, except she wasn’t finished with the sentence. “But we’re always here for you if you have any doubts. Never, ever hesitate to call on us.”
Clive sat beside her looking at me, though I wasn’t sure he was seeing me. He was swaying slowly from side to side, like Ray Charles keeping time to a ballad. I waited for him to add something, but he was silent. Then Babs took a deep breath that looked like preparation for a long sentence. But she didn’t speak.
So I did. “Right before you got here, I called back Detective Sergeant Coleman, the Nassau County cop who came this morning. I hadn’t heard from him again, not even to say they hadn’t gotten any leads. Maybe they don’t do that—call to say they don’t have anything to tell you. But since he’d said he—a detective—had been sent here instead of a regular cop because of Jonah’s ‘position in the community,’ I figured I could push it a little.” Clive stopped his swaying when he was at a 100-degree angle away from Babs. I waited for him to right himself. He didn’t, so I continued. “I told Coleman that since Jonah spent so much time in Manhattan, there was a good chance that if, God forbid, something bad happened to him, it could have happened there. I asked if he’d been in touch with the New York police. He said yes. So then I asked him for a name.”
“Good,” Babs said. I couldn’t tell if she was approving or thinking, How come you didn’t think of this five hours ago, asshole? Not that she would use a word like “asshole.” In a confrontation, I imagined that, since she’d graduated from Vassar, she would more likely say “unmitigated fool.” She cocked her head at the same weird angle as Clive’s upper body, as if they shared a choreographer. “And he gave you the name?”
“He said it might be in
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