“Why thank you, Mrs. Keschl, that’s so sweet of you and I love that it’s recycled.”
“Recycled?” Mr. McNally fumed, passing over four tins of canned tuna and a jar of mayonnaise as he badgered Mrs. Keschl. “You’re recycling something Maura gave you forty-nine years ago?”
“Maura never liked me, you know that,” said Mrs. Keschl.
“Maura never liked anyone,” answered Mr. McNally.
“Hold on there a minute,” Sugar said as the pair sat at opposite ends of the table with George, Nate and Ruby in between them. She looked at Mr. McNally. “You know Mrs. Keschl’s sister-in-law?”
“Maura? Of course I know her. She ruined the first eighteen years of my life.”
“May I ask in what capacity?”
“In the capacity of being the screaming banshee that is my mother’s firstborn while I had the misfortune to be the fourth.”
George was the first to work out what this meant. “Maura’s your sister, Mr. McNally?”
“Unfortunately for me, yes.”
“And your sister-in-law?” George asked Mrs. Keschl.
“Also unfortunately for me, yes.”
“Does that mean,” continued George, “that you two used to be married?”
Mr. McNally and Mrs. Keschl raised eyebrows and shoulders in identical shrugs.
“To each other?” Sugar was incredulous.
“At the same time?” Nate was agog.
“No shit!” Ruby added. “Sorry, Sugar.”
“He used to be much taller,” Mrs. Keschl said, by way of an explanation.
“She used to be much nicer,” said Mr. McNally.
Into the ensuing stunned silence stepped Lola and Ethan. The little boy held out his chubby arms and wiggled his fingers first in the direction of Mrs. Keschl and then at Mr. McNally, who changed seats to sit next to his ex-wife so they could both play with him.
“Did someone just fart?” Lola asked. “There’s a very strange vibe out here. I made cupcakes but they didn’t turn out the way I thought.”
Purple cupcakes rarely did, was what everyone around the table thought, but Sugar was so touched that she had even attempted them that she knew she personally would find them delicious. “Mr. McNally was just telling us how he used to be married to Mrs. Keschl,” she said.
“Yeah, right,” said Lola, helping Sugar unload the uneven cupcakes from her plastic container and put them on a polka-dot platter, which improved their presentation enormously. “That certainly explains why they hate each other’s guts.”
“I’m not entirely sure what it explains,” Sugar said. “Do you mind if I ask why you two still live so close to each other?”
The two old people looked at each other across Ethan’s feathery blond head.
“I like it here. Why should I move?” Mr. McNally answered.
“Moving was never his strong point,” Mrs. Keschl added. “And besides, why should I move? I own the building just as much as he does.”
Little surprised George at his advanced stage in life but his jaw dropped perceptibly at this revelation.
“You two?” Lola laughed. “And I’m the Queen of Sheba.”
“Why do you think the rents are so cheap?” Mrs. Keschl asked. “This is Manhattan.”
“She’ll only rent to people whose names she likes,” Mr. McNally said. “In a song.”
“Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl,” Mrs. Keschl demonstrated tunelessly.
“Goodbye Ruby Tuesday,” Mr. McNally added, not entirely the way the Rolling Stones might have imagined it.
“Sugar pie, honey bunch,” Mrs. Keschl continued, looking at George. “What? You don’t think I can pull off a little Motown?”
George said nothing, but returned his jaw to its rightful position.
“What about Nate?” Ruby asked.
“I thought it was Nat,” Mrs. Keschl explained. “As in King Cole. But then when I saw he had red hair . . .”
“She’s always had a thing for the red hair,” said Mr. McNally.
“It’s true,” she said to Nate. “You have a beautiful head of hair. And looks to me like you’ve lost a few pounds. Now, how about we eat some of that big white hat?”
“First, please, if I could have your attention,” George said, standing and addressing the astonished group. “I would like to thank our hostess, Miss Sugar Wallace, for her generosity and hospitality on this, the occasion of her special celebration.”
“Hear, hear,” said Mr. McNally.
“Miss Sugar,” George continued, “I can only assume that it has been as much a pleasure for everyone else as it has been for me to have you enter into our lives. You have improved my health, increased my happiness and added to my good fortune, so I wish you all the very best for the next year and hope it brings all these things to you too.”
Her friends stood and raised their glasses to toast her and, despite her embarrassment at having them there on what amounted to false pretenses, Sugar realized that she felt better than she had in a long time. But no sooner had she thought that than happiness moved further out of her grasp—along with her bees, who chose that very moment to again rise in a thick menacing plume from out the front of their hive. From there they formed a neat round cloud above the brunchers’ heads, where they hovered, as if to make a point, before stretching out and moving slowly but surely back to Theo’s rooftop sculpture.
Sugar’s guests watched, speechless, as Theo himself appeared on the rooftop just as the bees settled on the plump left breast of his Fernando Botero.
Princess went berserk, running in excitable circles, barking at the bees and at Theo, who looked up and saw them all staring at him.
“Is that Theo?” Ruby asked, leaning over the railing and waving.
“The guy who flipped out at your last party?” Lola asked.
“The cute one?” asked Mrs. Keschl.
“Cute is for chimpanzees,” said Mr. McNally. “Although to be fair I don’t have the right glasses on.”
“Are the bees running away from home?” asked Lola. “Because that would be weird.”
“They’re not running away from home,” Nate said. “They’re absconding.”
Even George forgot his fear of heights long enough to move over to the railing and watch the spectacle. But it was he who first noticed that Sugar was not among them; rather she was sitting all alone at her table laden with lopsided cupcakes, cans of tuna, jars of honey and Nate’s beret-like meringue.
Tears streamed silently down her face.
“Hey there, Miss Sugar,” he said, coming to stand behind her, placing both large, strong hands on her shoulders.
“What are you crying for?” Lola asked. “At least your business isn’t going down the drain.”
“You think this birthday is bad?” said Mrs. Keschl. “Try turning sixty-eight.”
“It’s not that,” Ruby said, slipping in next to Sugar and resting her small pale hand next to George’s. “She doesn’t care about that.”
“Shush now, Miss Sugar,” George said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“She’s crying because the bees absconded?” Lola asked.
“No,” said Nate, standing on the other side of George, wanting to help but not knowing how.
“It’s where they absconded to,” said Ruby. “It’s Theo.”
Sugar’s face was in her hands, her shoulders shaking.
“Ah, well, now,” said Mr. McNally. “That’s a different state of affairs all together.”
“Always with the comforting phrase,” Mrs. Keschl said, elbowing him so that he moved closer to Sugar, she moving closer with him.
“Cwying,” said Ethan, putting on his own sad face and reaching his wriggling fingers out toward Sugar. “Cwying.”
Sugar kept her face in her hands, the tears still falling.
“Please,” she said. “I don’t mean to be rude but I think I’m indisposed. You should all come back another time.”
Ruby and Nate lo
oked at each other, the arguing elderlies shrugged, Lola rolled her eyes and Ethan patted her leg.
“Miss Sugar,” said George. “We don’t think you’re rude, but I’m not sure that we’re going anywhere either.”
Ruby leaned a little closer, and Nate awkwardly rubbed her back, just below her neck.
“I’m fine,” she wept. “Just fine. I need to be alone for a bit is all.” She took out her handkerchief and wiped at her face, although the tears would just not stop falling.
“You know helping other people is all very well,” George said tenderly, “but comes a point in life when you have to accept a little help for yourself.”
“I don’t need help,” Sugar said. “There’s nothing wrong. I’m good. Truly. Please, eat some of Nate’s pavlova.”
Her friends looked from one to the other, at a loss, but George was unfazed.
“I would hate more than anything to risk embarrassing you when you have shown me nothing but kindness and respect,” he said. “But for that same reason I am going to tell you, right here in front of all these fine people who care about you so much, that you are not fine, Sugar. You’re hurting, and you’re hurting because you’re closing yourself off from one of life’s richest and most basic human experiences and you cannot do that and expect to be fine. It just doesn’t work that way.”
“I have not closed myself off from anything,” Sugar said. “I know what you’re talking about. And I have not closed myself off from that. I absolutely have not.”
“He’s talking about love,” whispered Ruby.
“Oh boy,” said Lola.
“He’s talking about Theo,” Ruby said directly to Sugar. “Theo loves you. He really loves you, Sugar.”
The torrent of longing that she had been trying so hard to keep dammed up inside her finally unleashed itself. “But he’s allergic to bees,” she cried. “And I can’t live with that. My bees have stuck with me through thick and thin and I can’t knowingly risk them doing something terrible to someone I may or may not care about.”
“You have to admit she throws good parties,” Mrs. Keschl said to Mr. McNally. “More interesting than most.”
“Miss Sugar,” George said, “your bees keep going to Theo’s house and not stinging him. Isn’t that telling you something? It’s not how he feels about the bees; it’s how the bees feel about him. It’s time, Miss Sugar, to put the past behind you. You’re not scared of knowingly risking his life, it’s your own life you’re afraid of.”
“I can’t do it,” Sugar wept. “I just can’t.”
“Isn’t that called a defeatist attitude where you come from?” Nate asked, loud and brave for him. “That’s what you told me when I didn’t go for the job at Citroen.”
This slowed Sugar’s tears as she hiccuped, gaining a few extra breaths. “I was just upset because I thought it was the right thing for you, honey. You’d make such a great pastry chef.”
“It’s the same thing,” said Ruby. “It’s the same thing as us thinking Theo would be the right thing for you.”
“I’ll do it then,” Nate said boldly. “I’ll find a job there if you go for Theo.”
George smiled at him, and Nate stood a little straighter and smiled back.
“What’s it to y’all if I do or if I don’t?” Sugar asked, looking around them, her eyes filling with tears again. “I don’t see why it has to be such a major referendum.”
“Here we are with the democracy again,” said Mrs. Keschl. “Just get off your tush and go get the guy.”
“But you said yourself boyfriends just squash the joy of living out of you. You said you wouldn’t do it again.”
“What do I know?” Mrs. Keschl argued. “I live down the stairs from my nincompoop of an ex-husband! If I truly didn’t want to see his ugly mug at least once a day I’d move to one of our other buildings.”
“You have other buildings?” Lola’s mind was set to blow.
“You want to see my ugly mug?” asked Mr. McNally.
“But you don’t get along with each other,” said Sugar. “You’re always hollering.”
“Me and Hannah, we have our differences,” said Mr. McNally.
“But that doesn’t mean there’s no spark,” agreed Mrs. Keschl.
“Hannah?” Lola repeated. “Wow. I never thought about you having a first name let alone a spark.”
“Could you stop hollering at me?” Mr. McNally asked his ex-wife.
She shrugged. “Could you take me dancing?”
“Name the day and give me time to get new lifts.”
“Then yes, Jimmy. I’ll stop hollering at you.”
“This is like the weirdest brunch,” said Lola. “Especially since no one is even drinking anything.”
“There’s a bottle of Maker’s on top of the refrigerator,” Sugar said. “I think I could use some, on the rocks, half a teaspoon of my California gold, a squeeze of lime and some fresh mint, if you don’t mind making it.”
“I’ll do it,” said Nate, scuttling to the kitchen.
“Count me in,” said Mrs. Keschl.
Lola, too, raised her hand for a drink. “I think romance is highly overrated,” she said, “but if you do end up getting married, I think Ethan would make an awesome page boy.”
“If I end up getting married?” Sugar blew her nose. “Listen, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, honestly, it’s real touching, but it’s not as easy as—”
“I’ll do something,” Ruby said quietly. “If you let Theo love you, I’ll talk to the shrinks. For you. I’ll do it. For you and Theo. So I can be the one in the story to say I knew it, that we all knew it, that we were in the room with you and we all knew that one day you would be together forever even though Theo was allergic to bees and bees were what you cared about most in the world.”
“Oh, honey,” Sugar said. “The bees are what I’ve cared about the longest. Y’all are what I care about the most.”
“So let’s eat some of this big white hat,” said Mr. McNally.
“And then we’ll go and get the bees,” said Nate.
“And put poor Mr. Theo out of his misery,” added George.
Sugar rose slowly from the table. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Just say you’ll do it,” suggested Lola.
Sugar fixed her with a long, thoughtful look. “I will not promise anything about Ethan being a page boy because there is not going to be a wedding,” she said, “but if I go over there would you at least consider opening your balloon shop in the morning and keeping it that way till nighttime at least for four or five days of the week?”
“Like that would ever work,” said Lola. “But OK. Whatever.”
36TH
Has it ever occurred to you that your bees are trying to tell you something?” Theo asked without preamble after opening his apartment door to Sugar, with Nate and Ruby standing shyly behind her.
“It hadn’t,” said Sugar.
“Until now,” said Ruby, placing her bony hands on the small of Sugar’s back and pushing her into the room. Nate reached in behind her and pulled shut the door, leaving Sugar standing inches away from Theo inside.
“I am so sorry for such rudeness,” Sugar said. “You must think I—” But before she could even work out exactly what it was that he must think, the last fifteen years of trying so hard not to have quite such a broken heart got the better of her. She felt frightened and cornered and in her confusion all she could do was stand there flapping her hands, gasping for air like a fish on a sun-scorched dockside.
“I have tea,” Theo said, and led her gently to his big leather couch, Princess at his heel. “And I have honey—I got it from the Union Square greenmarket. It’s rooftop honey, like yours. I would have come to Tompkins Square and got some from you but I thought you might throw it at me. I’ve been trying all different sorts and I think I’m developing quite a taste.”
She sat, still gasping and near dying of humiliation, as Princess rested his chin on her knee and gazed up
at her while Theo rustled around in the kitchen.
“Did you know there’s a drink in Africa called a dawa, which is just gin, fresh lime and honey? Dawa means ‘magic potion’ in Swahili, which I think would probably be a fairly honest interpretation of something involving just gin and honey. Not that I’m suggesting you should have one now. Now is tea time. I know that. Here, try this.” He sat down beside her on the sofa and watched her as she tried to calm her breathing and sip her drink.
“I’m so sorry for all this carrying on,” she finally said. “My mama taught me never to cry in front of men because it reduces their testosterone and I’ve just cried in front of three of them, four if you count Ethan.”
“Well, my mother taught me that men have too much testosterone,” Theo answered. “So we’re probably even.”
“I just feel so embarrassed that my bees are causing such a commotion up there on your Fernando Botero.”
“Anything that brings you here is not a commotion,” Theo said.
“You talk like you know me but you don’t,” said Sugar. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know and trust me, you won’t like it.”
“Have you killed anyone?”
“Of course not!”
“Are you on a no-carb diet?”
“There is no such thing as no-carb. Truly, Theo, I’m from the South. It’s like oysters. Be serious. I don’t mean those sort of things. I mean other things. Real bad things.”
“Sugar Wallace, do you have ugly toes?”
“As a matter of fact, they are not my best feature but the thing about toes is that they are very easy to keep covered if you’re having a bad foot day.”
“I have nearly a full-time job containing my nasal hair,” admitted Theo. “And that’s bad because it’s on my face, and the front of my face at that.”
It’s such a nice face, Sugar thought, putting her drink down and taking a long hard look at it. In fact it suddenly seemed very familiar to her, given how little she had actually been around it and how hard she had tried to avoid looking at it.
But now there it was, just waiting for her eyes to rest on it.