150 Pounds Part 13

"Okay, see you then. I guess just ring the doorbell?" In Hoboken, she was used to buzzer systems. The doorbell was so quaint. So suburban. She now owned something that had a doorbell. Far out.

"Love you."

"Love you, too, Mom."

"Lovely broad, yer ma," Joe said when she disconnected. He'd wandered back over to her, and now used the stick as a walking prop as they set forth again. "Never seen two people more in love than yer folks."

"They were married here, right?" Shoshana asked.

"That's right, summer of '76," he said. "Your mother was radiant as a dove, she was."

Shoshana smiled. Pam had been too heavy to fit into any traditional wedding gowns, so Mimi had hand-sewn her a white silk dress. A dove was the last thing Pam had looked like, but it was kind of Joe to say so.

They came to the rise of a small hill, when suddenly Joe's mansion rose like a mirage in the desert. A Tudor-style home, it showcased twelve bedrooms, six porches, and a horseshoe-shaped driveway with white pebble rocks. In front sat a blue Ford pickup truck that had left a little s.h.i.+ny brown oil stain in front of its left tire. It was an odd juxtaposition to the grandness of the house and she wondered if the truck was Joe's or maybe belonged to someone working on the property. Her first hunch was confirmed when he leaned into the glove compartment as they approached to grab a ziplock baggie full of tobacco. She was becoming used to its smell, like a wood-burning fireplace on an autumn night. In back of the mansion was a large red barn, leaning a little to the left.

"I remember this place," Shoshana said. She was whispering, a little in awe. "It still looks just as huge to me now as ever. When I was a kid Emily and I used to call it the Princess House. Your wife Georgina was always so nice to us. She let us come over and play with those antique dolls she collected. Do you still have them?"

"They're up in the attic, sure," he said. "Didn't want ta bother you with 'em when you were coming ta Mimi's as teenagers, though you're welcome to take them now. Thought you'd think I was a silly old man. And Emily had the spikes then. I was right scared."

Shoshana laughed. "That's right, I forgot about that. She did have a Mohawk for a while. One side was purple, the other blond."

"It's amazing to me what young people get up ta these days. How does Emily not set off metal detectors with all those piercings?"

"Sometimes she does!" Shoshana said as he leaned his bony shoulder on the front door and it swayed open.

She gasped. Potted palms the size of Christmas trees swayed in their colorful planters along the orange-tiled hallway, the kind that must feel cool under one's feet on a summer day. Their fronds turned up toward the sun streaming in from the end of the hallway. The room opened onto a s.p.a.cious courtyard. Someone had strung white lights in boxwood bushes. The walls of the entryway were periwinkle, a blue so deep it touched purple.

She was distracted by a series of high-pitched barks she knew well, and she turned to find the source of Sinatra's anxiety. She heard a rush of feathers and an image swam into her vision that seemed impossible; a large peac.o.c.k, its blue body waddling somehow with precision, its rainbow tail trailing behind it like a train, came strutting toward Joe, who immediately reached into his suit pocket and held out a box of raisins. The peac.o.c.k walked in circles, emitting a loud screech, until Joe got the top open and scattered the snack onto the ground. Sinatra ran in circles, barking excitedly. The bird promptly ignored the dog, like an older sibling choosing maturity over bopping the younger one in the nose.

Its face was black and blue, with a yellow beard along the bottom. Shoshana swore it looked triumphant as its long neck stretched to gobble up the raisins. When it turned, Joe softly ran his hand down the feathers in back as they gathered and bunched, spread open and closed.

"This is P-Hen," Joe said, giving her one final affectionate pat. "Georgina and I used to keep a henhouse 'ere on the estate for fresh eggs. A man was transporting peac.o.c.k eggs illegally-you're not allowed to cross state lines to sell exotic animals. Anyway, his truck broke down off ta highway and he walked 'ere. I always keep some gas in the toolshed, so I walked back with him to fill his tank. As a thank-you, he gave me P-Hen's egg. The old girl lived with our hens, when we still had a whole loud bunch of 'em."

"And P-Hen?" Shoshana reached down to scoop up Sinatra, who continued to bark like mad.

"A peahen 'tis a female peac.o.c.k," he said by way of explanation, over the noise.

"Oh!"

"I wasn't very original in naming you, old girl," he said to the bird, who gathered up her feathers like a gown and strutted off down another long hallway, the walls lined with gold frames. A long green, yellow, and red Oriental carpet partially covered the tiles. Ceramic plates in a myriad of colors hung high gave the s.p.a.ce a Mediterranean vibe.

An old woman so short she was almost dwarflike, with fluffy white hair and huge, luminous brown eyes, came bustling in, wearing a blue dress covered in little yellow poppy flowers. She had soft, pudgy skin that was very light, and tiny hands, which she wiped on the b.u.t.tercup-yellow ap.r.o.n tied around her small waist and extended her arms, surprising Shoshana with a hug. Shoshana caught the sweet scent of vanilla.

"I remember you!" the woman exclaimed. "Shoshana, the older sister. I remember Emily, too, the naughty one." When she smiled, small wrinkles appeared all over her face, from the corners of her eyes to around her mouth. She had small gold earrings with green gla.s.s in them, causing her earlobes to droop slightly.

Shoshana laughed. "She's not so bad anymore." Emily had gone through a phase around p.u.b.erty when she had a perpetual scowl on her face. She'd sit in her room listening to Nirvana for hours. Their father used to joke he was afraid she'd run off with a sword swallower and join the circus one day, with her multicolored tights, piercings, and rainbow hair.

"h.e.l.lo, my dear." The woman reached out and held her arms wide for Sinatra, who leaped from the floor into her arms and immediately ceased barking. He laid across her bosom like it was his dog bed and licked the side of her face enthusiastically.

She closed her eyes and could almost feel soft hands guiding her small, plump ones as she mixed cake batter in an expansive white porcelain kitchen, somewhere in the depths of this house. A woman's pleasant voice telling her, "Now add the b.u.t.ter."

There are certain adults children innately love; they have patience with short, slow-walking legs, with dirt underneath fingernails. Shoshana remembered Greta's kindness toward her as a child and felt an invisible wave of warmth flow over her body when she hugged her.

"I remember you were very kind to us. And I remember saying your name in a funny way as a kid, I think I called you Get." P-Hen let out an ear-piercing shriek down the hallway, the sound filling the s.p.a.ce around them, the afternoon sunlight streaming in from the open door.

Greta threw back her head with laughter. She had a wonderfully silly laugh, like someone being tickled. "Yes, you certainly did. My mother, she had high hopes. Named me for Greta Garbo. Then her daughter is born with a big nose and a mole on her chin. Go figure!" She made a gesture like pus.h.i.+ng the thought away. She had an impish look in her eye that Shoshana liked. She bent down to gently stand Sinatra on the floor, and he sat with his legs crossed in front of him, looking up at Greta adoringly.

"Don't let her fool ya into thinking she's a nice old lady," Joe said. His pipe dangled from the corner of his mouth and his blue eyes sparkled. "Thirty years ago Greta had a man who was deeply in love with her. She near broke his 'art."

"Really?" Shoshana asked. She adored love stories. She was naturally curious when it came to stories of the heart. Maybe it had to do with the closeness she shared with her mother and sister. Or living with four drama queens.

"Don't listen to that old geezer," Greta said. "He's starting to lose his marbles."

"No more than you are, la.s.s," Joe said. "Anyway, we once had a bloke named Guy who worked 'round here. We used to take in racehorses after they retired, let 'em graze on the gra.s.s on our estate, run through the woods if they wanted to." He took out his silver flask and raised it to his lips, his Adam's apple bobbing as he took a drink. Shoshana caught Greta glaring at him. She deduced Greta did not approve of Joe's drinking habit. "Guy fell in love with Greta over here, and when he decided to go back to Holland, where he was from, she wouldn't budge. Said she was a Jersey girl through and through, even though she's Ecuadorian, and the man left, broken."

"Look, you old goat, you would have been dead a long time ago from the drink if I hadn't stayed on," she said, gesturing to his flask. "Besides, there was no way I was leaving Ms. Georgina. Nicest woman on this green earth, G.o.d rest her soul. Now, would either of you like to join me? I was just about to say my afternoon prayers."

Shoshana looked over at Joe, who was rolling his eyes at her. She tried not to laugh. "Um ... I'm Jewish," she said.

"Of course, sweetheart. But Jesus loves all his children."

Joe gestured with his flask. "Mother Teresa over 'ere decided she wanted ta get ordained as a minister, so she's been taking some online course this past year. Though if you ask me, I don't see how G.o.d transitions onto the Internet."

Greta swatted at his sleeve. "You are lucky I'm a minister, I'll be saving you from h.e.l.l. And you forgot to take your vitamins this morning, I had them right next to your cereal bowl and you forgot. Getting senile, you are."

"Oh, go s.h.i.+t in your hat," Joe said.

Shoshana smiled. She could see it was an old routine, and she liked Joe more for being the kind of man who enjoyed being berated by his housekeeper, someone he employed.

There was a small gold-edged photograph on the wall, of an attractive middle-aged woman from the nineteenth century, sitting in a blue velvet chair with gold piping. Shoshana walked over to it. The subject had black curly hair piled on top of her head and held with a gold seash.e.l.l clip. Her clothing was humble, a plain cotton dress with a high-collared s.h.i.+rt beneath.

A breeze from outside picked up and the palm fronds swayed in the hall.

"Beautiful, wasn't she?" Greta came and stood next to Shoshana.

Joe was again packing his pipe, his fingers working dexterously. "My ma," he said. "Back in Ireland. Been dead now fifty years, I can hardly believe it." Her cornflower-blue eyes, identical to Joe's, were forever fixed to stare at her own reflection in a large gold mirror across the hallway.

Shoshana remembered what the lawyer, Mr. Berkowitz, had told her: "Your new house is just a few acres down the road from Joe Murphy, whose family worked in the oil business. Huge tyc.o.o.n, very old money." She looked at his mother's simple dress and wondered how he'd gone from immigrant to rich mogul.

"Come, my dear, let's get you fed," said Greta, holding her elbow. "I want to hear all about Ms. Mimi's house, and what you've been up to since I saw you as a little girl."

So Shoshana followed this tiny sparkplug of a woman down the hallway, in the direction from which P-Hen had waddled. Joe shuffled along behind them, walking slowly. Sinatra and Patrick O'Leary stayed in the entry hall, sniffing enthusiastically after some scent that led them to the windows. The rubber soles on Joe's dress shoes squeaked. Lining the hallway were black-and-white photographs of apple trees. There was one of Georgina and Mimi from sometime in the fifties, Georgina's arm slung casually around Mimi's round waist. Both women had their hair in tight curls, and they had matching dark lipstick on. Mimi was holding a wooden basket full of apples on her hip. They both squinted against the sun.

"That was taken in Mimi's orchard," Joe said. "It was such a beauty; I wish you could have seen it. She and Georgina grew Red Delicious, Cortland, Rome Winesaps, and Granny Smiths. People used to come from all around the Garden State ta buy Georgina and Mimi's special apple pies. It was quite a sight, all them trees. I'd get up on one and climb it right now, I wasn't so G.o.dd.a.m.n old."

"What did I tell you about cussing in this house?" Greta asked. "That'll be one dollar." She held out her hand. Shoshana noticed how pink her palms were. Perhaps from her years of labor in this house, the meals she'd cooked, the clothes she'd washed, and the apples she'd picked. Shoshana didn't think there'd been children. She wondered at the big house with no children in it, the loneliness of that. Joe, grumbling, reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled dollar bill.

"Thank you. This goes right to the needy children's fund for St. Jude's Children's Hospital."

"I told you, woman, I'll donate a million dollars ta them. You just name yer price!"

She made a tsk sound between her teeth. "It's much more fun to torture you."

He turned to Shoshana. "Do you see this abuse I put up with? One of these days she is going to poison my soup."

Shoshana giggled. "Seems to me she takes really good care of you."

"Like a pet," he said. "A dog she kicks." He had an impish way of talking out of the corner of his mouth, and his accent was so thick she had to strain her ears to decipher his language.

"A dog, I wis.h.!.+ A dog would be much easier to look after than you. A dog doesn't fall asleep in his armchair fully dressed with a lit pipe in his mouth."

"Hmph," Joe grumbled.

Shoshana realized Joe was getting somewhat cranky, and changed the subject. "So Mimi and you and your wife would harvest the apples?" she asked. "As a business?"

Joe smiled at her. "It was mainly your aunt Mimi, when she wasn't on a set, and Georgina. And Greta here, too. The Three Amigas, I'd call them. Unfortunately, I was always traveling ta the Middle East fer work. I thought I had to work in oil, be a big success. But looking back on all those years spent on airplanes and in boardrooms and carrying my briefcase ... the happiest times were when I was right 'ere, picking apples with Georgina. I miss that woman so d.a.m.n much."

A look of despair crossed his face, but it was gone almost instantly.

"One dollar, sir," Greta said, stretching out her hand again. Her smile was feisty. Shoshana realized she was trying to cheer him up.

"Oh, here, wretched woman. Take it. And don't dare hide my flask from me anymore." He dug around his pockets until he found a crumpled dollar bill and grumpily set it down on Greta's palm.

On the walk to the kitchen, they pa.s.sed gold-edged mirrors that took up entire walls. She recognized a Lichtenstein, having taken Art History 101 at Princeton as a freshman. Was it real? She supposed it must be. Other smaller paintings were of rugged hillsides, bales of hay, and apple trees by the hundreds. They were all signed BW in a crooked script in the corners.

BW, BW. Bob Weiner?

"Did my father paint these?" she asked breathlessly, turning to Joe and Greta.

"Yes, dear, of course," Greta said. "He was very talented. Mimi had a local artist come and give him lessons when he was a boy."

"But he was a gardener," she said, feeling immediately foolish. "I never knew he painted." Tears filled her eyes unexpectedly.

"Oh, honey," Greta said, putting a soft arm around her. "Everyone has dreams when they're young. I'm sure providing a steady income for your family, supporting two beautiful girls, well, that was just more important to him."

Shoshana ran her finger over the b.u.mps her father's brush had made. "He had some canvases and brushes up in the attic. I asked him about them once and he just said he tried painting but wasn't any good at it. But that's not true." She waved her arm around, gesturing to the paintings. "He was talented." A tear spilled onto her cheek and she brushed it away, willing the emotions of the day to stop was.h.i.+ng over her.

"Can I bring Emily here to show her?" she asked, turning toward Joe. Greta squeezed her shoulder.

"Of course," Joe said. "Better yet..." He strode over to her and began lifting the canvases off the wall. "'Ere."

"Oh, no, that's not-"

"Don't be silly," Greta said. "He owns half the art they have on display at the MoMA and hundreds more in a warehouse in Chelsea. He can afford it."

"They all belong to you anyway, you should inherit 'em," Joe said gruffly.

"Oh, you just don't like to see a woman cry, you big sap," Greta said, jabbing him in the ribs with her elbow.

"Clam it, old broad. Now, where the h.e.l.l's dinner?"

"Joe Murphy, that'll be another dollar. Anyway, you're older than me by ten years. I'll be burying you with these two hands under the tree out back, so you'd better be nice to me."

Did everyone who died around here get buried in the backyard?

Shoshana counted three more living rooms with fireplaces by the time they entered the bright white kitchen that Shoshana remembered. A farmer's sink was stained a dark copper, and the ceiling was tin. Pots and pans hung from hooks, and the last sip of the day's light poured in from two large spotlessly clean windows. A ruffle of white curtain brushed the bottom of the window. "You babysat us!" she exclaimed to Greta, who was setting out an array of meats and cheeses on a wooden platter with silver handles. She had a simmering pot of soup on the stove, and she used a long-handled ladle to spoon out the broth into small blue bowls. "I remember this kitchen, we used to bake cookies."

"You betcha," Greta said. "You two girls were cute as pie." She slapped Joe's hand as he reached for his flask.

Shoshana set the paintings down carefully on the counter. "After we eat I think I'll get started cleaning Mimi's house," she said. She corrected herself, the words feeling strange on her tongue. "I mean, my house. Greta, do you have paper towels and a mop?"

"Honey, I got everything. We'll do it as a team. Joe will probably take a nap-"

"I'm sitting right 'ere, woman, don't talk about me like I'm a child-"

"-so we can just head over there and get to work," she finished.

The food was delicious, and fresh. They sat in the dining room, along a table that was as long as a football field. Six giant candelabras lined the middle, along with baskets of wildflowers in brilliant blues and purples picked from the nearby fields. Joe Murphy sat at the head of the table in a red velvet armchair, mainly smoking and drinking from his flask and reluctantly sipping the delicious chicken soup with dill picked from the backyard.

And then it was time to leave. Shoshana longed to see the rest of the mansion but was eager to get the farmhouse in decent shape for her mother and Emily to visit tomorrow. The days were getting longer but it was still dark out by six, perhaps even more so here in the country.

After leaning over to give a sleeping Joe Murphy a kiss on the cheek (he had indeed fallen asleep in his armchair), Shoshana bade good-bye to P-Hen and Patrick O'Leary, and walked back over the hills with Greta and Sinatra. She turned around at one point and saw Patrick O'Leary watching them from the front window, his breath fogging up the gla.s.s.

Darkness fell over the rolling hills, like bluffs in an ocean of green, and she took in the rich smell of soil as the moon's light shone off a nearby field of wheat, the sounds of the crickets buzzing ... she breathed deeply and Greta smiled at her, as if to say she understood the wonder of it all, and was glad someone else was there to appreciate it as well. Greta walked quietly at her side, observing the landscape as if seeing it for the first time. Shoshana had so many questions for her-this woman had watched Mimi raise her father, after all-but she wanted to get inside and put down the paintings first, as they were heavy.

"Your trees still produce apples, you know," Greta told her, her face open and friendly in the smudged navy blue dark.

"No, I didn't know." She felt a little out of breath from all the walking she'd done today. It was strange-in Hoboken with all its flat concrete she never tired in her walks with Nancy. It must be the fresh air out here. Her lungs were used to the pollution drifting over into Hoboken from all the factories and power plants near Newark Airport.

"You see?" Greta asked, pointing as they came over a hill and saw the lights Shoshana had left on spilling onto the orchard. "Right now there are apple buds on the trees the size of marbles. They are sleeping. Like a caterpillar, snug in its coc.o.o.n. Safe. Come summer, these trees are going to wake up. Depending on the variety, you'll start to have thousands of apples. I used to help Mimi pick them, so I remember. The McIntoshes will be ready in September, the Winesaps and Red Delicious making their debut in October."

Shoshana smiled. "It sounds like it's their debutante ball."

"Oh, honey, harvest season is so exciting. But this is tr.i.m.m.i.n.g time. I did it for Mimi for years, until these hands got too arthritic." She held them up to Shoshana to observe, but Shoshana thought they looked just fine, with a few brown spots on them darker than her natural tawny skin color. They'd stopped walking and a b.u.t.terfly flitted around their heads, its purple and black wings moving against the dark, expansive sky. She realized she never looked up in Hoboken; there was always a building blocking the moon, or the clouds.

"You mean tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the trees? Like with pruners?"

"Exactly. You need to use shears for the little branches, I call 'em suckers. Then a small saw for the thicker ones. Mimi's trees are over fifteen feet high right now. You want to grow good apples, you got to s.p.a.ce out the branches so they get an equal amount of sun. Around ten feet tall is perfect. Dwarf trees are the wave of the future, or so I hear when I go into town. You want a bright red Red Delicious? You got to give those babies some sun."

Shoshana felt overwhelmed. First the house would need cleaning, the leaves swept off the floor, cobwebs wiped from the windows and doorway frames, and the moth-eaten couch replaced. The idea of clearing the tangled Where the Wild Things Are forest in the back of the house was a whole different ball game, as her father used to say.

Back at her house, Shoshana struggled with the heavy bra.s.s key once more. When they entered, she was struck by how low the ceilings were, compared to Joe's mansion. What year was the farmhouse built? She made a mental note to look it up. A time when people were shorter than now. Certainly Mimi had been only about five feet, if that. The floor sloped, too.

"I'll tackle the second floor, you okay working down here?" Greta asked.

"Sure," Shoshana said. She swept her long, thick hair back into a ponytail; the brown rubber band she used had been around her wrist and left a red mark. She kicked off her shoes and found a bucket and a bottle of Murphy Oil Soap under the sink in the kitchen.

For the next two hours, Shoshana and Greta scrubbed, polished, swept, and wiped down the house. It was too late to make a train back to Hoboken. Her arms ached.