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  Then, just as she was about to serve Heidi, SueEllen snapped: “No, Conchi. No cobbler for Heidi. She’s too fat.”

  Heidi sat rigidly in her chair, flushed with humiliation. She looked to her father for help, but he kept his eyes on his cobbler.

  “Then may I be excused?” she said, voice wavery with impending tears.

  “No, you may not,” SueEllen said, scooping up a spoonful of her cobbler. “You’re going to have to learn to resist temptation, young lady.”

  And with that she put her spoonful of cobbler to her lips and ate it with gusto.

  “Mmm, delicious,” she said, licking her lips.

  Good heavens, the woman really was a sadist.

  “What do you think, Jaine? Isn’t it delicious?”

  “Actually,” I said, “I’m not hungry.”

  And it was true. For the first time all day, I’d lost my appetite.

  “Just taste it,” SueEllen cooed. “It’s divine.”

  “No, if Heidi can’t have any, I don’t think I want any, either.”

  Her smile froze. If her boobs hadn’t been silicone, they would’ve been quivering in indignation. This is it, I thought. This is where she sends me packing.

  But, no. I guess she decided she didn’t want to go through the bother of finding another writer willing to sit on her toilet bowl.

  “Oh, well, she said with a shrug. “Chacun à son goût.”

  That’s French for “I’ll get you later, bitch.”

  I drove home from the Kingsleys, unable to stop replaying the scene I’d witnessed at dinner. I’d seen SueEllen in full bitch mode, and it was not a pretty picture. Poor Heidi. My heart went out to her.

  I let myself in my apartment, filled with gratitude that I wasn’t a part of that dysfunctional family. Okay, so maybe my father bought used toupees, and maybe my cat occasionally peed on my pillow, but we loved each other, and that was all that counted. I scooped up Prozac from where she was napping on a pile of freshly laundered towels, and hugged her to my chest, feeling her purr. I carried her to the bedroom, still holding her to my chest like a furry vibrator.

  “Oh, Prozac. How nice. You didn’t pee on my pillow, after all.”

  No, as I was to find out very shortly, she peed in my slippers instead.

  Chapter Four

  The next day I was back on toilet bowl patrol. This time I knew enough to eat lunch before coming over, so I didn’t mind when Conchi served us a few radiccio leaves masquerading as a salad.

  I was more convinced than ever that SueEllen’s book didn’t stand a chance of getting published. The recipes were either too elaborate (…marinate your pheasant for two days in a clay pot…) or too expensive (…Take three pounds of beluga caviar….)And those endless anecdotes. All that mushy goo about her Aunt Melanie and life among the magnolia blossoms. Did she really think people wanted to read about a woman whose biggest accomplishment in life was pointing out prizes on national TV?

  No, the book was bound to be a bust. And frankly, my dear, I didn’t give a damn. I couldn’t stop thinking about how cruelly SueEllen had treated Heidi at dinner. Maybe that’s why all her other writers quit. Maybe they, too, got a glimpse of life behind the scenes At Home With SueEllen.

  A part of me (the noble sensitive part) felt like quitting, but another part of me (the part who likes being able to pay the rent) couldn’t pass up three thousand dollars a week. So I stayed put on the toilet, taking notes and counting the minutes until it was over.

  At last, SueEllen set me free. I practically flew downstairs and out to my car. I wondered if I’d run into Heidi, but she was nowhere in sight.

  After a cozy dinner at home (Progresso minestrone for me and Fancy Fish Entrails for Prozac), I headed off to the Shalom Retirement Home, where I teach a class in memoir writing. It’s a small class, only about a half dozen students. Most of them women in their eighties. All of them with a lot to say, and not much time left to say it. Sometimes they drive me nuts, but all in all, teaching that class is one of the most gratifying things I’ve ever done in my life.

  When I showed up at the Shalom conference room that night, a rose was waiting for me at my place at the head of the table. It was a gift from Mr. Goldman, the lone man in my class. A short man with an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Magoo, Abe Goldman has a flaming crush on me, a fact that he doesn’t bother to hide. He’s always bringing me little tokens of his affection—an apple, a stick of sugarless gum, a free sample of cereal that came with his morning paper. Tonight, it was a rose.

  “For you, cookie,” he said with a wink. At least I thought it was a wink. Mr. Goldman has a chronic tic so I can never quite tell when he’s winking or blinking.

  “How nice, Mr. Goldman. Thank you.”

  Mrs. Pechter, a powdery woman with bosoms the size of throw pillows, shot him a look of utter disdain.

  “He picked it off a funeral wreath,” she said.

  “Oh?” I quickly put the rose back down on the table.

  “Poor Esther Sobol died,” Mrs. Rubin said. “We went to the funeral today.”

  Mrs. Rubin was a tiny birdlike woman. Although they had their share of quarrels, she and Mrs. Pechter were best friends. I always thought of Mrs. Rubin as Laurel to Mrs. Pechter’s Hardy.

  “Can you believe it?” Mrs. Pechter shot a look at Mr. Goldman. “He picked a flower from a funeral wreath.”

  “So what?” Mr. Goldman shrugged. “You think Esther’s gonna notice?”

  “Maybe Esther won’t, but God will.”

  “Oh, please,” Mr. Goldman snorted. “With all the crazy things going on in the world, you think God cares whether or not I picked a rose from Esther Sobol’s funeral wreath?”

  He had a point there.

  “Well, class,” I said quickly, eager to avert a verbal slugfest, “who wants to read first?”

  Every week, my students bring something they’ve written to be read aloud to the rest of the class. Most of the time it’s fairly pedestrian. My Grandson’s Bar Mitzvah. My Trip to Disney World. My Grandson’s Bar Mitzvah in Disney World. Every once in a while I get a gem of a memory that makes the whole thing worthwhile. And even on the nights when all I hear about was My Son, The Orthodontist, I get a kick out of these people. After eighty years on the planet, they still have the energy to put their lives down on paper. Not an easy feat, at any age.

  “So who wants to read?”

  Mr. Goldman’s hand shot up like a piston. A retired carpet salesman, Mr. Goldman was always ready to share the latest chapter of his life’s adventures. Tonight’s was a stirring saga called My Dinner with Jerry Lewis, about the time he wound up sitting next to the comic at a Beverly Hills coffee shop. (Jerry is a big tipper, in case you were wondering.)

  He finished to a round of polite applause, and then Mrs. Pechter raised her hand.

  “Mrs. Pechter,” I nodded. “What’ve you got?”

  She cleared her throat, and read the title of her piece:

  “Once Around the Lake, Morris.”

  It was one of the gems. A touching story about her husband Morris, and their summer vacations in the Catskill Mountains. Every night after dinner in the hotel dining room, Mrs. Pechter would turn to her husband and ask, “Once around the lake, Morris?” “My pleasure, Rose,” Mr. Pechter would reply. And the two of them would walk around the lake. Holding hands under the stars, they’d talk. About their day. About their kids. About their lives. “I never felt closer to him than on those walks,” she read. “They were the best part of my marriage.” Then one night after just such a walk, they went back to their cabin where Mr. Pechter sat down in an Adirondack chair and died.

  “I thought I’d never get over it,” she read, her voice wavering with emotion, “but eventually, I did. Maybe not completely, but enough to keep going.” Two months later, her daughter gave birth to a little boy. And they named him Morris. He grew up, Mrs. Pechter confided, to be her favorite grandson. “A wonderful boy,” she said, “who takes me out for dinner every week. And
after dinner, I turn to him and say, ‘Once around the lake, Morris?’ And he says, ‘My pleasure, Grandma.’ Of course, there’s never a lake outside the restaurant. But we walk around the block, holding hands. And wherever my Morris is, I know he’s smiling.”

  When she was through, I had tears in my eyes. It was just so damn touching. What a contrast to SueEllen’s blather. Would I ever, I wondered, meet a Morris of my own?

  As if in answer to my question, Mrs. Pechter took me aside after class and said, “You know my grandson Morris? The one I wrote about? He’s an accountant. Very comfortable.”

  She smiled proudly.

  “That’s wonderful,” I said.

  “And single.”

  “Oh?”

  “I thought maybe he could call you up for a date.”

  My smile froze. Whoa, Nelly. Yes, I know I said I wanted to meet a Morris of my own, but I didn’t mean an actual guy named Morris. Call me shallow, but my dream man is not an accountant named Morris. He’s an artist named Zane, or a chef named Sergio.

  “Gee, that’s awfully sweet of you, Mrs. Pechter, but—”

  But what? What the heck was I going to say to her? I don’t date accountants named Morris?

  “—but I’m seeing someone.”

  “You have a boyfriend?” She seemed surprised, a fact which I found vaguely insulting.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What does he do, this boyfriend of yours?”

  “Uh, he’s an actor.”

  It was the first thing that popped into my mind. I remembered the termite impersonator Kandi wanted to fix me up with, so I used him as my phantom boyfriend.

  “An actor? Have I seen him in anything?”

  “Actually, he plays a termite on a cartoon show.”

  “Oy,” was her eloquent response. “You’re dating a termite?”

  What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I have said I was dating a doctor?

  “Hey, you forgot your flower.”

  Mr. Goldman was at my side, holding out the rose from Mrs. Sobol’s funeral wreath.

  “Oh, right,” I said, taking it gingerly.

  “So how about it, cookie?” he winked/blinked. “You want to come to the movies with me on Saturday?”

  Saturday night was movie night at Shalom.

  “They’re playing Sleeping in Seattle.”

  “Sleepless in Seattle, Abe,” Mrs. Pechter corrected. “Not sleeping.”

  “Sleepless, sleeping. Who cares? You wanna come with me, cookie?”

  “She can’t, Abe. She’s already got a boyfriend.”

  “She does?”

  Why was everybody so damned surprised?

  “In that case,” he said, “I want my flower back.”

  He took his rose and stomped off. Mr. Goldman always gets angry at me when I turn him down for dates. But sooner or later, much to my regret, he cools off and starts hitting on me again.

  I bid the other ladies goodnight, and headed out the door. The last thing I heard was Mrs. Rubin saying, “She’s dating a termite?”

  As it turns out, I was about to date a termite. When I let myself into my apartment that night, the phone was ringing.

  “Hi,” a deep male voice said, “This is Ted Lawson.”

  At first, I had no idea who he was.

  “Ted Lawson?”

  “Kandi’s friend.”

  “Oh. Tommy the Termite.”

  He laughed. “Four years studying at the Actors’ Studio, and I wind up playing a termite. Which wouldn’t be so bad, except that I get second billing to a cockroach.”

  At least he had a sense of humor about himself.

  “Anyhow, I was wondering if you wanted to get together for dinner Saturday night.”

  This was it. The moment of truth. Was I going to stay holed up with my cat for the rest of my life? Or was I going to take a chance on love?

  “Sure, I’d love to,” I said, taking the leap.

  And it really wasn’t such a big leap. Ted seemed like a perfectly nice guy. And it was only one measly dinner. After all, I figured, how bad could it be?

  Stick around for a few chapters, and you’ll find out.

  YOU’VE GOT MAIL!

  To: Jausten

  From: Shoptillyoudrop

  Subject: Who’s Charleton MacAfee?

  Last night when your father was sleeping, I gave the toupee to the cat, hoping she’d claw it to shreds. But Taffy wouldn’t go near it. She took one look at it, and hid under the sofa. I think she thought it was a possum. Of course, Taffy is scared of her own shadow. Not at all like your darling kitty Zoloft.

  So this morning the dead squirrel is back on your father’s head, a walking eyesore.

  What with all this to-do over Daddy’s dreadful hairpiece, I forgot all about your Cousin Cindy’s wedding in Ohio next week. I can’t believe she’s getting married and you’re still single. Oh, honey, wouldn’t it be nice if you tied the knot one of these days, and gave Daddy and me a little grandbaby? Sometimes I think you made a mistake divorcing The Glob. True, he hardly got off the sofa, but he had a nice smile. Oh, well. I’m sure you know best, dear.

  As for the wedding, I simply don’t know how I’m going to face the relatives. With that toupee on your father’s head, we’ll be the laughing stock of the family. I don’t suppose you could possibly break away from your work and meet me there for moral support?

  Love,

  Mom

  PS. The strangest thing about the wedding invitation. It says, “Fred and Earlene Austen, and Charleton MacAfee, request the pleasure of your company at the wedding of their daughter Cindy…” Do you have any idea who Charleton MacAfee is? For the life of me, I can’t think who it could possibly be.

  To: Shoptillyoudrop

  From: Jausten

  Subject: Stiff competition

  Sorry, Mom, I have no idea who Charleton MacAfee is. Maybe a relative of Earlene’s?

  And I’m afraid I can’t make it to the wedding. First, I’m starting a new job. And second, I haven’t been invited.

  Don’t worry about being the laughing stock of the family. I think you’ve got some stiff competition in that department. As I recall, isn’t Uncle Fred the guy who sits at the dinner table with his shotgun in his lap to protect his family from alien invaders? And isn’t Aunt Earlene the one who knits booties for their dog? Compared to them, Daddy will look like Cary Grant.

  To: Jausten

  From: Shoptillyoudrop

  Subject: Cary Grant

  I suppose you’re right, darling, but I doubt Cary Grant ever wore a dead squirrel on his head.

  To: Shoptillyoudrop

  From: Jausten

  Any chance of it blowing away in a stiff wind?

  To: Jausten

  From: Shoptillyoudrop

  Subject: I knew I could count on you!

  What a good idea. I’ll take Daddy for a walk on the beach. It’s always windy there. Thank you, darling! I knew I could count on you.

  To: Shoptillyoudrop

  From: Jausten

  My pleasure, Mom. And by the way, my cat’s name is Prozac, not Zoloft, and my ex-husband is The Blob, not The Glob—although that has a nice ring to it, too.

  To: Jausten

  From: DaddyO

  Subject: Positive Feedback

  Hi, Pumpkin!

  Hope everything is fine in sunny L.A.

  I’m happy to report that I’m getting lots of positive feedback on my new toupee. Why, just this morning at the bank, the teller said she’d never in all her life seen hair quite like mine. I can’t wait to show it off at cousin Cindy’s wedding next week.

  Your mother, however, is still making fun of it. She says it’s made from squirrel hair. Which is ridiculous. Because it says on the label that it’s made in Guam. And I don’t think they have squirrels in Guam, do they?

  Got to run. Mom wants to go for a walk on the beach.

  Your loving,

  Daddy

  To: Jausten

  From:
Shoptillyoudrop

  Subject: Like a Dog with a Frisbee

  Just back from the beach. It was very windy, and at first I thought everything was going to work out just fine. We hadn’t gone two steps, when the toupee flew off Daddy’s head. But he ran after it and caught it. The damn thing kept flying off, and he kept running after it and catching it. Like a dog with a frisbee. After a while, he gave up and put it in his pocket.

  Of course, it got full of sand, and even though he’s shaken it out a million times, sand still keeps falling out of it. So now your father has the only toupee in the world with built-in dandruff.

  To: Justen

  From: DaddyO

  Subject: Here’s a Cute One

  Here’s a cute one for you, lambchop: What happens when you take Viagra and ExLax? You can’t tell which way you’re going!

  To: DaddyO

  From: Jausten

  Daddy I think the punchline is supposed to be: You can’t tell if you’re coming or going.

  To: Jausten

  From: DaddyO

  Are you sure? I thought it was funnier my way. I told it to the guys down at the clubhouse, and they couldn’t stop laughing. It’s amazing. Ever since I got my toupee, people find me so much more amusing than they used to. Sometimes they start laughing before I even finish my jokes.

  To: Jausten

  From: Shoptillyoudrop

  Subject: The Most Marvelous Idea

  I’ve just had the most marvelous idea. I know how to get rid of Daddy’s toupee. It’s all so simple, really.

  Chapter Five