In the Unlikely Event

  Miri hugs her. “Don’t worry.”

  But that’s a phrase that’s always worried her, even coming from Miri, her dearest friend.

  —

  CHRISTINA IS RETRIEVING her coat from the cloakroom when an attractive silver-haired man says, “Hello.”

  “Hello,” she answers.

  “I went to school with your sister…”

  He doesn’t have to finish. It’s the Sewing Machine Man’s son, Zak Galanos. He seems nice enough, still teaching, though not in Elizabeth. His wife is an elementary school principal. They have two children. This was the life her mother wanted for her. A decent Greek husband, a couple of kids, a house in Cranford or Westfield. She never dreamed her life would turn out so different. A life of such wealth it embarrasses her. It’s laughable how her family’s attitude toward her changed as her fortunes grew. She’s heard her nephews refer to her as their rich aunt Christina from Vegas—and sure, she helped put them through college, helped Athena open a new store at the Short Hills mall. She made sure her parents were comfortable at their retirement home, and when it was needed, she paid for round-the-clock care.

  She came for her mother’s funeral three years ago, and her father’s, a year later. Even her parents accepted having an Irish son-in-law. They couldn’t resist their four beautiful granddaughters, the oldest, Nia, named for her mother, born when Christina was just nineteen, the bundle of joy who kept Jack out of Korea. It wasn’t until five years later that they were ready for more children, three more girls in a row. She convinced Mama and Baba to come to Las Vegas for Nia’s eighteenth birthday. Sent the plane for them, with IRISH JACK painted on the side. They were impressed. She took them to see their favorite entertainers—Dean Martin, Liberace and the Greek chanteuse Nana Mouskouri—made sure they had ringside tables, everyone making a fuss over Irish Jack’s in-laws. And when her mother needed an emergency root canal, Dr. O was there to hold her hand as the young, gifted Dr. Kyros, a Greek dentist, Mama, performed the procedure. Dr. Kyros was married to a former chorus girl and together they made tall, beautiful children with perfect teeth.

  Okay, she’ll fly back with Jack today but that won’t stop her from worrying about Miri.

  —

  MASON IS HOSTING a small reception for Gaby and her family in his hotel suite, at 5 p.m. He invites Miri. She’s the first to arrive and is embarrassed. She’s changed into pants and a sweater, western boots, the cashmere shawl draped over her shoulders. She feels more like herself. She’s flossed, brushed her teeth and gargled with mouthwash. Ever the dentist’s wife. She checks out the room, looks out the window. Anything to avoid sitting down facing him.

  He can tell she’s uncomfortable and says, “I’m sure the others will be here any minute.”

  He smiles at her, looking into her eyes. But she quickly looks away. “Do you come to Elizabeth often?” she asks.

  “Almost never. It’s changed, and not for the better.”

  “I heard Janet closed.”

  “In ’62, when the state eliminated orphanages. End of an era. It’s been condemned since the seventies. Kids break in at night to party. Makes me sad.”

  He offers her a glass of wine.

  “Just water,” she says.

  “I read your piece on Longy,” he says, handing her the water glass.

  She laughs. “I was a senior at college. Sold it to the Las Vegas Sun. A heady experience. They hired me based on that story.”

  “I like your theory that he never would have hanged himself, that it was a gangland slaying disguised as suicide.”

  “I still believe that.”

  “Jack sent other stories, too. The one about the fire at the MGM Grand.”

  “I don’t really specialize in disaster, but when there’s a disaster, like my uncle Henry, I’m there.” That was the disaster that led Andy into forensic dentistry, but she doesn’t tell that to Mason.

  “Vegas must be a good place for stories,” Mason says.

  “If you like weird stories, it’s great.”

  “Well, I’m proud of you.” Again, he looks into her eyes. Again, she looks away. Gulps down the whole glass of water. She’s saved by a knock on the door. Gaby and her family, and a few minutes later, the boys from Janet. And Phil Stein.

  “Oh my god,” she says. “You’re Phil Stein, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “I loved your mother.”

  “And she loved you. Never stopped talking about you, even after you moved away.”

  “Is she…” It’s awkward, asking if a parent is still living.

  He shakes his head. “She died years ago. Complications of diabetes and a stroke.”

  “I’m sorry. She was so kind to me.”

  “She was a good person. I’m still trying to convince my sister of that.”

  “Mother-daughter relationships can be difficult,” Miri says.

  “Tell me about it. I gave Mom a dog for her sixtieth birthday. My sister almost killed me. The dog reminded Mom of Fred. Remember Fred?”

  “We have a dog named Fred,” Miri tells him, “and another called Goldie.”

  “Goldie. My mother would have loved knowing that.”

  They both laugh. “Do you have a family?” she asks.

  “Divorced,” he says. “Like half our generation.”

  “Sorry.”

  “But I have two kids. You?”

  “Still married,” she tells him. Then adds, “Happily.”

  “One of the lucky ones.”

  She nods.

  “I was at your stepbrother’s funeral. Steve Osner. He was your stepbrother, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. The family was devastated.”

  “A military hero. He was my best friend all through school. The way Corinne threw herself over his coffin…I’ll never forget that moment.”

  No one had told Miri about this. Rusty had been asked not to attend the funeral. She’d understood. She was pregnant again, anyway, and as sick as the last time. Daisy went with Dr. O to the funeral, as much to look after Dr. O as to mourn Steve.

  “If only I’d been able to convince him to go to Lehigh with me,” Phil said. “Neither of us could stand the idea of Syracuse after my cousin’s death. You remember Kathy?”

  “I do, and her green velvet New Year’s Eve dress.”

  “It was an awful time.”

  “Yes.”

  “But Steve went and enlisted the second he graduated.” He shakes his head. “Maybe to prove something to his parents. Who knows? He was enraged by the divorce. Shipped out to Korea after basic training.”

  “He walked into enemy fire, didn’t he?” They didn’t talk a lot about Steve’s death but Miri knows Dr. O blamed himself.

  “Tossed a grenade into a bunker on Pork Chop Hill,” Phil said, “blew himself up along with the enemy. And you know, the war was basically over by then. But they kept fighting over that stupid hill, as if it mattered, as if it would make a difference. Such a fucking waste, excuse my language.”

  “Dr. O’s never gotten over it. I doubt you ever get over a child’s death. He and Rusty named my second brother Stuart. It would have been too hard to have another son named Steven.”

  It’s bittersweet, chatting with Phil, then Gaby, who takes Miri aside and asks if it’s true about Longy. “Was he really a mobster?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Miri says.

  “He sent me a basket of flowers after the crash. He was such a gentleman.”

  “Yes,” Miri says, then adds, with a straight face, “and he was good to his mother.”

  She doesn’t mean to be the last to leave. Or does she? Before she reaches the door, Mason says, “Sit awhile, Miri. Talk to me.”

  He brings her a glass of wine. She sinks into the sofa, tucks her feet under her. She’s more relaxed now.

  “Hungry?” Mason asks.

  She shakes her head. Looks right at him for the first time. “Do you ever think about how young we were? My kids are older than we were.”
>
  “Miri…” Hearing him say her name like that in a soft, slightly hoarse voice takes her back to the basement in Irene’s house, to the night they played Trust. He rests his hand on her arm, and just that is enough to make her tingle.

  “I didn’t know how to hear your side of the story,” she says. “I didn’t believe there could be another side to the story.”

  “My side of the story is easy,” he says. “I was an idiot.”

  “I didn’t know how to forgive you.”

  “I never blamed you for not forgiving me. No girl in her right mind would have forgiven me.”

  “I couldn’t compete with her.”

  “If it matters, I was never with her again. A few months later she married a guy who owned a bar, had another kid and died at thirty-nine of ovarian cancer.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “Yes.”

  As she sips her wine, she can feel the pull. But she’s not going to do anything stupid. Never mind the devil on her shoulder whispering, Life is short and then you die.

  He leans in, kisses her gently, waits to see if she responds. She does, then changes her mind. “I can’t do this.”

  “I know,” he says. “Neither can I.”

  It’s all about remembering, it’s all about being fifteen and in love for the first time. She can almost smell the winter air outside the Y, feel the oil burner’s warmth in Irene’s basement, see the kaleidoscope, the colors, the patterns—which reminds her—she jumps up, walks across the room and pulls a tissue-paper-wrapped package tied in red and white bakery string from her bag. She hands it to him. “I thought your daughter might like to have this.”

  He rips off the paper, holds the kaleidoscope up to his eye, then hands it back to her. “Remember what I said when I gave it to you.”

  She remembers.

  He pulls her to her feet, hits the switch on his tape player and Nat King Cole sings, “Unforgettable, that’s what you are…” He’s thought of everything. They dance, holding each other, swaying, the way they did at the Y. Is this what she wants? Is this why she came here? She loves the idea of the kids they were, the sweetness between them.

  She sometimes thinks of Mason when she and Andy are making love. When she’s not sure she can get there—something new, something perimenopausal—as soon as she puts herself back—ohmygod—as soon as she’s there, she calls out, Yes, yes, yes! And Andy is happy he’s satisfied her so well. Does Mason imagine her when he’s with Rebecca? Does he imagine Polina?

  “Do you ever wonder about what might have been?” Mason asks.

  “Who doesn’t?” She collects her shawl, her bag, the kaleidoscope. When they say goodnight at the hotel room door he touches her face.

  She goes back to her room, kicks off her boots, falls back on the bed and calls Andy. She needs to hear his voice.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “Yes…but I miss you.”

  “Miss you, too.”

  “See you tomorrow,” she tells him.

  “I’ll meet you at the airport.”

  “But I left my car there.”

  “So what?”

  She tears up.

  “Ask me about the snow on the mountain,” he says.

  “How was the snow?”

  “Perfect.”

  —

  SHE MEETS Mason for breakfast the next morning, then he drives her to the cemetery to visit Irene and Ben. The cemetery is close to Newark Airport, not exactly a peaceful site, but it’s where they wanted to be, with their families and old friends. She places a stone on top of each headstone. Ben Sapphire, the stepgrandfather she came to admire, and Irene Ammerman Sapphire. She misses Irene, her nana, who loved her unconditionally, who taught her, by example, to take another chance on love. Miri wipes the tears from her eyes, then blows her nose.

  “She gave me her recipe for brisket,” Mason says.

  “No.”

  “Yeah, she did. And I passed it on to Rebecca. Every Friday night we have Irene’s brisket. It’s not exactly the same, not quite as good as I remember, but it’s good. I look forward to it.”

  “Irene would love knowing that.”

  “She knew.”

  “You kept in touch with her?”

  “Holiday cards, the occasional note.”

  “She never told me.”

  “She didn’t want to upset the cart. One summer, when she and Ben were vacationing down the shore, she invited me and Rebecca and our kids to lunch.”

  “I can’t believe she kept you a secret from me!”

  “She wanted to see for herself that I was happy. She already knew you were.”

  “She never stopped trying to rescue people, to fix what wasn’t right.”

  “Rebecca fell in love with her.”

  “Who didn’t?” She stops, then asks, “You and Rebecca?”

  “Up and down. But I think we’re going to make it.”

  “I hope you do.”

  He checks his watch. “I have to get you to the airport…if you’re really going.”

  She gives him a you must be kidding look.

  He shrugs and smiles. They walk back to his car. “I’m glad we got to spend time together.”

  “I’m glad, too.” She feels satisfied, happy.

  At the airport he kisses her goodbye in the car. “If someday…” he begins.

  “Yes, if…But for now…”

  “I get it,” he says, kissing her one last time.

  —

  SHE’S MADE A PLAN to meet Natalie for coffee in the first-class lounge at the airport before their flights. How long has it been since Natalie visited them in Las Vegas? She gave a lecture at the library on “channeling your past lives” during one of her book tours, but that was years ago, and she flew in and out of town quickly, with no time for family. Fern, who’d come in from Shiprock with her girlfriend, Ora, also a doctor on the Navajo reservation, had been disappointed. Now the two of them run a family clinic outside of Las Vegas.

  Natalie spies her first. “Hey, Brenda Starr…how’s it going?”

  “Not so bad.”

  “You look better today. Yesterday, you looked like a corporate executive in that suit.”

  If Miri thought Natalie would be different now that she’d achieved fame, she was wrong.

  “How was it seeing Mason again?” she asks.

  “Like seeing a long-lost friend,” Miri tells her. “Like seeing you.”

  “I saw your goodbye kiss. I doubt if that’s how you’d say goodbye to me.”

  Miri feels her face flush. “It didn’t mean anything.”

  “If you say so.”

  Change the subject before this escalates, Miri tells herself. “So, Warren Beatty?”

  “You like that story?”

  “It grabbed my attention.”

  “He was great.”

  “So, it’s true?”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no.”

  “We’re back to that?”

  “Ask me another one, Girl Reporter.”

  “How did you know Kathy Stein was on that plane?”

  Natalie pauses for just a moment. “Ruby told me.”

  “No, really…how did you know?”

  “Sorry if you don’t like my answer but it’s the truth. Next…”

  Miri reminds herself not to push it. “Corinne?”

  “She and her hubby spend winters in Palm Beach, summers on Nantucket. They play golf. I don’t know how they can stand it. But, then, I never understood my mother. I suppose you see a lot of Fern.”

  “I do. It’s nice for Dr. O.”

  “You still call him that, after all these years?”

  “I tried Arthur but it never felt right.”

  They get their coffees, carry them to a quiet corner, where Miri says, “He’s sick.”

  “I heard.”

  “We’re hoping you’ll come to see him.”

  “I was waiting for his eightieth birthday.”

  “You probably shouldn’t wa
it that long.”

  “August? Are you saying August is too long to wait?”

  Miri nods.

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah.”

  —

  ON THE PLANE Miri is seated next to a young girl. “I’m Lily,” she says. “I’m nine. My dad is a pilot.”

  “Is he flying this plane?” Miri asks, sure that if he is he’ll be extra careful with his daughter on board.

  “No. He flies to Europe,” she says, kicking the seat in front of her. “I just came back from Portugal. Have you been there?” She doesn’t wait for Miri to tell her she hasn’t been to Portugal. “You should go. They have a lot of tiles there. Do you like tiles?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everything is tiled except your toothbrush.”

  Miri laughs.

  “You think I’m joking but I’m not,” Lily says. “Are you going to Vegas to gamble?”

  “No,” Miri tells her. “I live there.”

  “Me, too. With my mother. My dad lives all over the place. Do you think it’s weird?”

  Does she mean weird that her parents live in different places? “Vegas,” she says. “Do you think it’s a weird place to live?”

  “I’ve lived there since I was fifteen. My children grew up there.”

  “And they turned out okay? Because my dad thinks it’s not a good place to grow up.”

  “They’re fine.” Well, she thinks, two of them are anyway, but she’s not getting into that.

  “What were you doing in New Jersey?” Lily asks.

  “Visiting old friends.”

  “Was it fun?”

  Miri thinks before answering. “In a way it was. Yes.”

  The flight attendant stands at the front of the cabin. “May I have your attention?” She demonstrates the proper way to fasten your seat belt. Then she says, “In the unlikely event…”

  Lily leans close and says, “This is the part I don’t like. Why do they have to say that?”

  “It’s just a safety rule,” Miri tells her, trying to sound as if she means it.

  “Are you scared?” Lily asks.

  “No. Why would I be scared?”

  “You’re digging your fingernails into your armrests.”

  Miri tries to laugh. “Just an old habit,” she tells Lily.

  But Lily can see right through her. She reaches for Miri’s hand. “Will you hold my hand until we’re up?”

  “Sure,” she says. Lily reminds her of Fern on their first flight to Las Vegas. But she doesn’t tell her that. Instead, she says, “I have a daughter. She’s fifteen. Her name is Eliza.”