On Turpentine Lane(73)

After a few miles in silence, I said, “I should write him, don’t you think?”

“As long as it’s not asking his forgiveness for finding his girlfriend’s company unbearable.”

“I wasn’t going to apologize. I was going to offer him sanctuary.”

“Now don’t take this the wrong way, but consider this angle. Here’s a guy who’s getting on—How old is he? Sixty-five?—and suddenly this rather attractive, some might say hot, woman throws herself at you. Do you walk away because she’s obnoxious and bossy?”

“Do you think she’s hot?” I asked, careful to sound as if it were merely intellectual curiosity.

“I think most people would say—Tracy included—that she is quite attractive.”

Was it snowing again or was it just the latest powder acting like a squall? I turned on the radio, which for weeks had been tuned to the local station that was our best bet for a forecast. We heard that snow was indeed expected in the early morning hours.

Nick said, “Go, Joel.”

I said, “On one hand, I’m happy for him. But next winter, who knows? It could be a drought.”

Nick said, “One of the things I love about you is your doomsday outlook based on affection for whoever’s at risk.”

Was that a declaration of love or a figure of speech? I could hardly ask for clarification, especially because Nick had returned to the topic of plowing. Why was I worried? “If he collects all the money he’s owed, he’ll be fine,” he said.

I told him Joel was getting extra money from the city to move snow around. “There’s no place to put it! He’s cleaning up, figuratively and literally. And he seems to have a girlfriend.” I might have made a more convincing case for my brother’s professional and personal prospects if my voice hadn’t gone shaky.

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s just the night. That horrible woman. My mother alone. Joel’s livelihood depending on precipitation.”

“Just overall Frankel anxiety? Not anything else?”

I knew what he meant by “anything else.” Us, Nick and Faith. For a second I thought of asking if he’d like to marry me, but, really, who does that in a car?

There was still a catch in my voice when I said, “I’ve never been happier.”

Nick laughed. “I can tell.”



How to package the Tracy debacle to my mother? I texted her, I’m beat. We’ll speak in the a.m. Long story. PS: did not like the woman.

I called Joel, prepared to tell all . . . dying to tell all. I knew from the way he answered—brightly, with a never-used “Hi, sis”—that he was signaling to a guest that the female caller was a relative, not a ladylove.

“I’m guessing Leslie’s there?”

“Correct.”

“Do you want to call me back?”

“No. What’s up?”

“I had dinner with Dad tonight, well, a partial dinner. And I met Tracy.”

I feared he was going to say, You traitor, but he asked, “Was I supposed to go to that?”

“No! I didn’t even ask you. When would you have been able to get away? Like, April.”

“So how was it? Are we one big happily fractured family?”

“No! It’s worse than before. He’ll probably never speak to me again after I pretty much stormed out.”

“Of where?”

“Tracy’s big house.”

I could hear Leslie in the background, obviously up-to-date on our father’s adultery, asking, “What was she like?”

I said, “If she means Tracy—she was stunning and inappropriate. She regaled me with the details on how she seduced Dad.”

“Are you kidding me?”—at which point he repeated my words to Leslie.

“I think it was supposed to make me feel better that she was the aggressor and he resisted.”

“And Dad? Is he catching on?”

“Nick thinks he might stick it out because . . . you know.”

“The sex?”

“Pretty much. A guy, sixty-five . . . in his wildest dreams . . . along those lines. But Nick also thinks he’s miserable and filled with regret. So which thing wins?”

“You probably don’t want me to answer that.”

“Maybe you could visit? Scope it out man to man?”

“Leslie’s been saying the same thing.”

I told him there was another reason for my call because there was more snow in the forecast. “Nick and I want to pay you for the plowing and shoveling. No more comps.”

He laughed. “You mean could you please plow my driveway?”

“Bye,” I said. “Love you.”

Nick told me over breakfast that the last thing I mumbled before drifting off to sleep that night was “I think I’m going to like Leslie.”



I tried to be circumspect with my mother. After all, if my father married Tracy, she’d be my stepmother, and if there were future family occasions, especially of the joyous kind, wouldn’t I want the atmosphere not to be poisonous? I might have let slip some of the adjectives I meant to stifle, such as “domineering,” “insensitive,” and “hypersexual,” but I was careful to balance those with compliments about her decor.