Good Riddance(41)

Just like that, unexpected and hugely welcome news delivered as if I had only a glancing interest in whether it was dead or alive. Trying to match her bloodless delivery, I said, “What a pity. Can I have the yearbook back now?”

“No! I need it more than ever.”

“For what?”

“Phase two.”

I waited. She busied herself rifling through several issues of someone’s discarded New Yorkers. “A whole new project?” I prompted.

“A whole new medium. Do you know what a podcast is?”

“Of course, but—”

“Maybe eight episodes. Maybe six.”

“About the yearbook, still? And my mother?”

“Most definitely. From all angles. Do you subscribe to any?”

“I do—”

“Everyone does! They’re hot. I’ll need a sponsor or two, but I have some leads. Would you be willing to be interviewed for the first episode where we talk about how I came into possession of the yearbook?”

“No.”

“Just a few minutes: You’ll say, ‘My mother left it to me. Even though I threw it away, I wanted it back. I fought it. Intellectual property blah blah blah’ so the listener immediately gets what I was up against.”

“You were up against my wanting what was rightfully mine.”

“So you say. I want the push-pull that you brought to the project. Every story needs tension.”

“Did you get questionnaires back from any of my mother’s students?”

“A few.”

“And?”

“Off-the-record, as you would say.”

“‘Off-the-record’ is then followed by the goods, which is whatever you don’t want to be made public.”

She smiled in a way I didn’t like. “Stay tuned. I hope to have the first episode up and running by March first.”

“Episode one being me saying, ‘I wanted it back. I still do. You stole it.”

“Along those lines, for sure. It’s not only backstory but the why of the whole thing. Why it meant so much to her that she left it to a daughter in her will.” Hugging the preowned New Yorkers, she smiled proudly. “I already have a name for the podcast, and I think it will grab everyone who ever graduated from high school and had one signed.”

“Let me guess: The Yearbook?”

“Wow,” she said. “Exactly.”



A Google alert I’d set up to monitor the fortunes and possible wedding vows of my ex-husband led me to a fine-print paid obit in the New York Times. His mother, the disagreeable Bibi, had died suddenly, no cause stated. The funeral was in two days at the Episcopal church where her husband’s affairs had taken root. Only a masochist would attend, I told myself. But wouldn’t an appearance attest to the evolution of my self-esteem?

I texted my dad. “Don’t suppose you want to go to my ex-mother-in-law’s funeral. It’s Tuesday, 11 a.m.”

He phoned, out of breath, which was how he sounded when managing multiple leashes. “Hell, no,” he said. “As if she’d ever come to mine. And why are you going?”

“Because you raised me right.”

“Still—above and beyond. You’re up to seeing your ex-husband?”

“From afar, sure.”

Throughout our short conversation, he was exhorting the dogs to keep up, or stay, or stop doing whatever they weren’t supposed to be doing. I asked if Sammi was among today’s clients.

“Sammi I do alone.”

“Do you charge extra for private walks?”

“No. New Leash is good that way. If you tell them she has issues with other dogs, then a solo walk is fine.”

“Does she have issues?”

“You met her! None. It’s my personal preference.”

“She’s very nice.”

“She’s nine years old, but she has the enthusiasm of a puppy, don’t you think?”

“I meant Kathi.”

“Oh. Of course. She is, indeed, very nice. Sometimes I can’t believe what this job has led to.”

I told him I was happy for him.

“Good to know,” he answered, but I could hear in his tone a reprimand; I’d missed some boat in reporting my favorable impressions.

“You could tell I really liked her, right?”

“She liked you, too.”

“If I had a real table, I’d reciprocate.”

“You can’t afford a real table?”

Now I could. I had a few thousand unexpected dollars in my checking account, and the next installment from Sponsor Armstrong due in March. I said, “I just might do that.”



Between my hat, bought just that morning, an unseasonable black organza with a floppy Kentucky Derby brim, and the oversize tortoiseshell sunglasses, I hoped to achieve a look between incognito and conspicuous-attractive.

I took a seat midchurch on the aisle to facilitate a fast escape. I could see Holden in the front row along with, presumably, relatives. Bibi’s gleaming coffin was decorated with nonfloral cascading greenery that someone whispered was copied from Jackie Onassis’s casket embellishments.

A female priest read from the Book of Common Prayer and gave the eulogy. Bibi, she told us, was philanthropic. She loved her dogs, who were her second children. She had a way with orchids and African violets, and was famous for her porcelain vegetable forms—that eighteenth-century cauliflower! The nineteenth-century asparagus server! I looked around to see if this was registering with any other visitors as oddly impersonal. I saw nods: Ah, yes. The cabbage tureen! Those wily salt and pepper shakers shaped like artichokes!