He finally opened the door, and his eyes took in the room. A nurse sat by the side of the bed, watching a heart monitor.
What he saw next took his breath away. His hand went up to his mouth, but a gasp escaped anyway.
He wasn’t expecting this, not at all. But it made sense to him; it made sense of everything that had happened. There had been a plan after all.
Seventy-four
SOMEBODY ELSE was in the hospital bed.
Not Jane. Not what he’d been expecting, and dreading.
It was Vivienne.
At first, Michael didn’t understand, but then he did, and some of the puzzle pieces seemed to fall into place for him. It was Vivienne who was dying. Vivienne who he was supposed to help.
She lay there motionless. He’d never seen her like that. Her face was unnaturally pale beneath her tan, and she wore no makeup. Her hair was loose and her white roots were showing. But in a way, she looked serene and beautiful. She looked a lot like Jane, and his heart went out to her. He wanted to help, if he could. He wanted to help them both.
“Vivienne,” he said. Then, to the nurse, “I’m family. Can we have a minute?”
The nurse smiled at him and stood up. “I’ll be right outside. You know she had a stroke.”
Vivienne opened her eyes and looked at him. Then her eyes closed again for a second or two, as if she were trying to figure something out. He spoke gently. “Vivienne, I’m here to help you. I’m Michael.”
Her eyes opened, their deep blue unfaded. “Michael?” she asked in the softest voice he’d ever heard from her. “Jane’s Michael?”
“Yes, Jane’s Michael.” He took her hand. “I wish you could see how wonderful you look,” he said. “You look the way you always want to look. Beautiful.”
“There’s a mirror in my purse,” she said.
Michael went and got it and showed Vivienne how she looked. He’d never seen her like this, so vulnerable, the child in her allowed to show.
“I’ve been better. And worse, I suppose. Doesn’t really matter now, does it?”
“Of course it does,” said Michael. “Looking well is the best revenge.”
She smiled then and put a hand on top of his. “Where is my daughter? Is Jane here?” she asked. “I can’t go until I see my Jane-Sweetie.”
Seventy-five
WHAT IF I HADN’T MANAGED to answer the phone finally, and heard a sobbing, nearly incoherent MaryLouise tell me to get over to New York Hospital as fast as I could? After I hung up, it was almost as if I were outside my own body. I still felt awful, but I was less nauseated. Only a bit shaky and weak. I put on fresh clothes, and then it was as if I were watching someone who looked like me hurry to the lobby of her building and tell Martin the doorman to “please get me a cab.”
But it was me who bolted from the cab in front of New York Hospital and who ran to the information desk and was told that Vivienne Margaux was in room 703.
MaryLouise was waiting by the closed door. She kissed my cheek and shook her head back and forth. Karl Friedkin was down the hall. His head was bowed, but I could see that his eyes were full of pain. “Karl was with her when it happened,” said MaryLouise.
The door to my mother’s room opened just then, and a woman in a white coat asked me if I was Jane. She introduced herself as my mother’s neurologist. “Your mother had a stroke,” she explained gently. “It happened last night at the theater. She’s been asking for you.”
I nodded and tried not to cry, tried to be brave, the way Vivienne would want me to be. But as I walked into the hospital room, I was suddenly shaking all over.
There was Mother, looking very pale, and very small, and not anything like herself.
And next to her, holding her hand, was Michael.
Seventy-six
MICHAEL LOOKED AT ME and gave the slightest nod and then an understanding half smile. “Hi,” he whispered. “Trade places with me.” He stood, and I took over the bedside chair beside Vivienne.
“Hi, Mother. It’s Jane. I’m here.”
My mother’s head turned and her eyes met mine. She was breathing heavily. I thought she was trying to talk but couldn’t, which had never happened to her before. She had no makeup on, no perfect hairstyle. She wore a regular hospital gown, and that was when I knew how bad it was. If she’d been even a fraction of her usual self, she would have fought them over wearing that gown.
Also, she seemed glad to see me.
I moved closer. “What, Mother? What is it?”
She spoke finally, and her voice was soft and gentle. “I was tough on you, Jane-Sweetie. I know that,” she said. Then my mother started to cry. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s all okay,” I told her.
“But I did it so you’d be strong. I did it so you wouldn’t have to be like me. So cold and hard and conniving. So Vivienne Margaux. What a terrible thing that would have been.”
“Please don’t talk. Just hold my hand, Mom.”
She smiled. “I like it when you call me Mom.”
She’d always told me that she hated it.
She took my hand, squeezed it. “Thank God, Jane-Sweetie, you’re not the least bit like me. You’re just as smart. So you’ll be even more successful. But you’ll always be kind. You’ll be Jane. You’ll do things in your own way.”
And hearing this admission brought me tears, the ones I had been holding back for years. “I thought I was such a disappointment, because I wasn’t like you.”
“Oh, Jane-Sweetie. No, no, no. Never. You want to know something?”
“What?”
“You’re the only person I ever loved, the only one. You’re the love of my life.”
The love of her life.
My eyes hurt from the tears, my throat and chest ached, but my mother looked the picture of peace. And then I thought: So this is it? After so many years of yelling at stagehands, screaming at secretaries, fighting with investors. After the decades of ordering around maids and chauffeurs and caterers and decorators. After the acres of designer dresses and thousand-dollar shoes. After all the trips to Paris and London and Bangkok and Cairo. This is how it ends, a frail woman on a hospital bed. My mother, and me. Together at last.
“Come closer, Jane-Sweetie,” she said. “I won’t bite. Probably not,” she added with a weak grin.
I moved so close that our faces were almost touching.
“I have a favor to ask.”
“Of course, Moth——Mom. What do you want?”
“For God’s sake, make sure they bury me… in that new Galliano brocade dress. Nothing black. I look terrible in black.”
I couldn’t help smiling. She was Vivienne to the end, so true to herself. “The Galliano,” I said. “Check.”
“And one more thing, Jane.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t you wear black to the funeral either. Black makes most people look thinner. But for some reason it makes you look a little top-heavy.”
My smile broadened. “Okay, Mom. I’ll wear pink. I have just the dress.”
“You’re funny,” my mother said. “You always were. Pink at a funeral. Please do.”
I looked over at Michael. He was smiling now too.
My mother closed her eyes, and her body shivered. I hated the idea of losing her. My mom. Finally, she was my mom.
Michael stood and walked to the other side of the bed. I held one hand. Michael held the other. This was it, wasn’t it? It was all happening too fast and so suddenly.
I leaned in and kissed Vivienne on her soft, smooth cheek. She smiled and opened her eyes again. A slight nod of her head told me she wanted me closer again.
“Jane, the only thing I hate about dying is saying good-bye to you. I love you so much. Good-bye, Jane-Sweetie.”
“Good-bye, Mom. I love you so much too.”
And then my mother gave me one last kiss to remember her by always.
Seventy-seven
AS SHE WISHED, Vivienne was bu
ried in the Galliano dress. She looked beautiful. In fact, the entire funeral was stunning, and also touching. Why not? Vivienne had planned it down to the tiniest detail.
I wore pink. Yves Saint Laurent pink.
The service was held on Park Avenue, at St. Bart’s, of course.
Two pianists played Brahms flawlessly, as if Vivienne were standing over them. Then a soloist performed show tunes from several of the musicals my mother had produced. A couple of times, the audience burst into song.
Finally, as the service ended, on a very warm spring day, we all stood and sang my mother’s favorite song, “Jingle Bells.” Which was so incredibly not Vivienne that it was perfect too. Just as she knew it would be. And I was happy for her. My mother had produced one last hit.
As we walked out of St. Bart’s to the waiting limos, Michael said to me, “If they had served cocktails, this could have been a Vivienne Margaux reunion party. As it should be.”
“I loved it,” I said, and hugged him. “Because she would have.”
Everyone who was anybody, or pretended to be, was there. Not just Elsie and MaryLouise and the people from the office. But very famous actors, directors, stagehands and choreographers, propmen and makeup artists. All there to honor my mother and her accomplishments, which were many, including raising me to be me.
My father was there with his wife, Ellie, and at age forty-eight Ellie was finally beginning to look older than thirty. Or maybe she just dressed down in honor of Vivienne.
Howard, my stepfather, was there. Sober, too. He told me that he’d never stopped loving Vivienne. “Me too, Howard. Me too,” I said, and gave him a hug.
My mother’s old hairdresser, One-Name Jason, was on hand. Like Vivienne, Jason was a testimony to perfect plastic surgery. And he had done my mother one final favor. He’d flown to New York from Palm Springs just to do her hair.
Even Hugh McGrath showed up. He shook my hand, hugged me as if I were an ex-wife, told me he was sorry for everything. I almost believed him, until I remembered, Hugh is an actor. And Hugh is a sonofabitch.
The graveside service at a cemetery in Westchester County was touching and brief, also according to Vivienne’s explicit direction. The minister reminded us that life was much too short, that we were destined for another world beyond this one, and that no doubt Vivienne would be producing shows in heaven. Well said, but enough said.
I placed a single rose on my mother’s coffin. My style. I prayed that my mom was at peace and, if she were looking down now, that everything had gone as she wanted. I wore pink, Mom!
Then Michael took my hand, and we began to walk.
“We have to talk,” he said, and a chill went through me.
Seventy-eight
THE SUN WAS WARM AND BRIGHT, and it lit the cemetery as though it were a stage set. The greens of the trees, the vibrant colors of the flowers, everything seemed so crisp and light and right. So why was I shivering?
“Gorgeous day,” I said.
“Even God wouldn’t mess with Vivienne.” Michael smiled. He had loosened his tie and removed his jacket. The jacket was hooked on his index finger and slung over his shoulder. Very Michael, who was always true to himself.
“So we know why I was sent back to New York,” he said. “And why I had those feelings about New York Hospital, and all the rest of it.”
I nodded but didn’t say anything. “I was here to help your mother. I’m almost sure of it, Jane.”
I stopped walking and looked at him.
“But you’re still here.”
He smiled. “Yes, I seem to be. Unless I really am your imaginary friend. It’s possible.”
I poked him in the stomach. “Did you feel that?”
“Oof. Yes, I did. And I cut myself shaving, quite regularly now.”
There was a pause. Michael’s green eyes squinted against the bright sun.
“I think I’m here because I want to be. And I’m here because you’re the only person I’ve ever loved too. I’m here because I couldn’t stand to leave you, Jane.”
I turned to him again, my heart full, and we came together and kissed gently. It was perfect.
“I have questions,” I said when we separated, “that must be answered.”
“I don’t know if I have answers. But I’ll try, Jane.”
“All righty, then. Let me begin with a toughie. Have you… ever talked to, you know, God?”
Michael nodded. “Yes. Of course I have. Many, many times. Unfortunately, He’s never talked back. He. She. Whatever. Next question?”
“So you believe in—?”
Michael looked around. “Well, how else to explain… all of this? Or me, of course? Or us? Snocones, Pokémon, the Simpsons, the justice system in America, iPods.”
“I get it. So are you an angel?”
“Sometimes. But occasionally I’m kind of devil-may-care.” He grinned, and his eyes twinkled at me. “I’m just trying to be honest.”
I stomped my foot. I needed to know about this. “Are you an angel, Michael?
He looked deeply into my eyes. “I honestly don’t know, Jane. Guess I’m like everybody else. I don’t have a clue.” He took me in his arms again. “See me, feel me,” he whispered. “We’ve made it this far.”
We continued to walk.
“Michael, I have to ask you something else. This has been really bothering me. Are you always going to look the way you look right now?”
“Exceptionally handsome, wildly debonair, unkempt?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
“You mean, am I ever going to grow old, Jane?”
“Yes.”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Well, you have to promise me that we’re not just going to grow old together. I want us to actually look like we’re growing old together. That would mean a lot to me.”
“I’ll do my best to get wrinkled and stooped, and I’ll drive a big black Buick.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll do the same. And how about money?” I asked. “How do you get money?”
“That’s an easy one.” Michael snapped his fingers.
Nothing happened. He snapped again, frowning.
“That’s weird,” he muttered. He snapped again, and again nothing happened. “That’s scary, actually. That’s usually how I get spending cash. And cabs when it’s raining.”
He tried one more time.
“Nothing,” he said. “Hmm. Cutting myself shaving is one thing. Oh well, I’ll have to find work. Maybe I could be a boxer.”
I poked his stomach again.
“Maybe not.”
Finally, I asked the toughest question, and the one that scared me the most. “Are you going to stay with me, Michael? Or will you leave me again? Just tell me. Let me know once and for all. Is that what’s going to happen?”
Seventy-nine
MICHAEL ROLLED his eyes, which made me feel slightly—only slightly—better. Then a grimace crossed his face, and he put his hand to his chest. “Jane?” he said, sounding confused. “Jane?” And then he crumpled onto the stone pathway where we had been walking.
“Michael!” I dropped to my knees beside him. “Michael, what’s happening?! What is it?! Michael!”
“Pain… my chest,” he managed.
I began to yell for help, and fortunately a few people from my mother’s funeral were still there. They came running. “Call nine-one-one!” I shouted, unable to believe this was happening. “I think he’s had a heart attack. Please call nine-one-one!”
I looked back at Michael and saw that he had lost color and was perspiring heavily. I loosened his tie and opened his shirt’s top button, which popped off and fell onto the path. How could this be happening, how could it happen now? I thought I was going to lose it, get hysterical, and be completely useless. I wouldn’t let that happen.
“Michael, help is coming. An ambulance. Hang on, okay?”
“Jane,” he repeated in a whisper.
“Please don’t talk.”
br /> Michael looked so pale, so incredibly sick all of a sudden, out of nowhere.
“We got nine-one-one,” said a man in a black suit, who I recognized as someone from the funeral parlor. “They’re on their way. Try to relax, sir. It’s better not to talk.”
“Jane,” Michael said again, sounding kind of dreamy. “You have kind eyes.”
I leaned in close to him. “Please, Michael. Shh.”
Michael shook his head, and I thought he was going to try to push himself up, but he didn’t. “Don’t tell me that. I have to talk now. There are things you need to know.”
I took Michael’s hand and leaned in even closer. There was a crowd around us now, but it was just the two of us down there. Just us, just like always.
Michael said in a raspy whisper, “For years, I prayed that I would see you again… as a grown-up. I prayed for this to happen, Jane. I thought about it a lot, I wished it would happen. And then it did. Somebody was listening. That’s amazing, isn’t it?”
“Shhhh,” I whispered, feeling hot tears start in my eyes. But Michael wouldn’t hush.
“You are so special, Jane. Do you understand that? Do you? I have to know you do.”
“Yes.” I nodded and said what he wanted to hear. “I hear you. I’m special.”
Michael smiled then, and for a second he looked like himself again. He had the most incredible smile, warm and gentle and loving. It was a smile that touched my heart, had touched it when I was a child.
“I had no idea how much I was going to love you… and how good it would be,” he said.
He squeezed my hand tightly. “I love you, Jane. I love you. I know I said that, but I wanted to say it again. I love you.” Then tears came into his eyes.
“This isn’t so bad,” he said with an odd little smile. Then Michael’s eyes closed.