Paullina Simons - The Girl in Times Square

Lily shook her head. “Oh, no. Absolutely not.”

“Yes, Lily. Don’t you want to see Hawaii?”

“No! I mean, yes, but I can’t.”

“I got you an open-ended ticket. Go whenever you want for as long as you want. Probably best to go soon though, before you get a real job. It’ll be good for you.”

“No, it won’t.”

“It will. You’re looking worn around the gills lately. Like you haven’t slept. Go get a tan.”

“Don’t want sleep, don’t want a tan, don’t want to go.”

“It’ll be good for your mother.”

“No, it won’t. And what about my job?”

“What, the Noho Star is the only diner in Manhattan?”

“I don’t want to get another waitressing job.”

Claudia squeezed Lily’s hands. “You need to be thinking beyond waitressing, Liliput. You’re graduating college . After six years, finally! But right now your mother could use you in Hawaii.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Let’s just say,” Grandma said evasively, “I think she’s feeling lonely. Amanda is busy with her family, Anne is busy, I don’t even know with what. Oh, I know she pretends she works, but then why is she always broke? Your brother, he’s busy, too, but since he’s actually running our country, I’ll give him a break for not calling his own mother more often. Your mother is feeling very isolated.”

“But Papi is with her. He retired to be with her!”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know how that whole retirement thing is working out. Besides you know your father. Even when he’s there, he’s not there.”

“We told them not to move to Hawaii. We told them about rock fever, we told them about isolation. We told them.”

“So? They’re sixty. You’re twenty-four and you don’t listen. Why should they listen?”

“Because we were right.”

“Oh, Liliput, if everyone listened to the people who were right there would be no grief in the world, and yet—do you want me to go through last week with you again?”

“No, no.”

“Was there grief?”

“Some, yes.”

“Go to your mother. Or mark my words—there will be grief there, too.”

Lily struggled up off the 1940s saran-wrap-covered yellow and yellowing couch that someday would be hers. “There’s grief there aplenty, Grandma.”

She was vacillating on Hawaii as she vacillated on everything—painstakingly. Amy was insistent that Lily should definitely go. Paul thought she should go. Rachel thought she probably should go. Rick at Noho Star said he would give her a month off if she went now before all the kids came back from college and it got busy for the summer.

She called her brother over the weekend to see what he thought, and his wife picked up the phone and said, “Oh, it’s you.” And then Lily heard into the phone, “ANDREW! It’s your sister!” and when her brother said something, Miera answered, “The one who always needs money.” And Andrew came on the phone laughing, and said, “Miera, you have to be more specific than that.”

Lily laughed herself. “Andrew, I need no money. I need advice.”

“I’m rich on that. I’ll even throw you a couple of bucks if you want.”

His voice always made her smile. Her whole life it made her smile. “Can you see me for lunch this week?”

“Can’t, Congress is in session. What’s up? I was going to call you myself. You won’t believe who’s staying with me.”

“Where?”

“In D.C.”

“Who?”

“Our father, Lil.”

“What?”

“Yup.”

“He’s in D.C.? Why?”

“Aren’t you the journalist’s daughter with the questions. Why, I don’t know. He left Maui with two big suitcases. I think he is thinking of un-retiring. His exact words? ‘No big deal, son. I’m just here to smooth out the transition for Greenberger who’s taking over for me.’”

“Meaning …”

“Meaning, I can’t take another day with your mother.”

“Oh, Andrew, oh, dear.” Lily dug her nails into the palms of her hands. “No wonder Grandma bought me a ticket to go to Maui. She’s so cagey, that Grandma. She never comes out and tells me exactly what she wants. She is always busy manipulating.”

“Yes, she wants you to do what she wants you to do but out of your own accord.”

“Fat chance of that. When is Papi going back? I don’t want to go unless he’s there.”

“You’ll be waiting your whole life. I don’t think he’s going back.”

“Stop it.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m home, why?”

“Are you … alone?”

“Yes.” Lily lowered her voice. “What do you want to tell me?”

“Are you sitting … listening?”

“Yes.”

“Go to Maui now, Liliput. I can’t believe I’m saying this. But you should go. Really. Get out of the city for a while.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying this. I don’t see you going.”

“I’d go if I weren’t swamped. Quartered first, but I’d go.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Did I mention … gladly quartered?”

After having a good chuckle, Andrew and Lily made a deal—he would work on their father in D.C. in between chairing the appropriations committee and filibustering bill 2740 on farm subsidies, and she would go and soothe their mother in between sunbathing and tearing her hair out.

“Andrew, is it true what I heard from Amanda, are you running for the U.S. Senate seat in the fall?”

“I’m thinking about it. I’m exploring my options, putting together a commission. Don’t want to do it if I can’t win.”

“Oh, Andrew. What can I do? I’ll campaign for you again. Me and Amy.”

“Oh, you girls will be too busy with your new lives to help me in the fall, leaving school, getting real jobs. But thanks anyway. I gotta go. I’ll call you in Maui. You want me to wire you some money?”

“Yes, please. A thousand? I’ll pay you back.”

“I’m sure. Is that why you keep buying lottery tickets every week? To pay me back?”

“You know,” said Lily, “I’ve stopped buying those lottery tickets. I love you.”

“Love you, too, kid.”

Hawaii was not Poland. It was not the wetlands of northern Danzig, rainy, cold, swampy, mosquito-infested Danzig whence Allison had sprung during war. Hawaii was the anti-Poland. Two years ago Lily’s mother and father had gone on an investigative trip to Maui and came back at the end of a brief visit with a $200,000 condo. Apparently they learned everything they could about Maui in two weeks—how much they loved it, how beautiful it was, how clean, how quiet, how fresh the mangoes, how delicious the raw tuna, how warm the water, and how much they would enjoy their retirement there.

Lily knew how her father was taking to his retirement, enjoying it now in his only son’s congressional apartment in the nation’s capital.

How her mother was taking to Hawaii Lily also could not tell right away because her mother was not there to pick her up from Kahului airport. After she had waited a suitable amount of time—which was not a second over ninety minutes—she called her mother, who had come on the phone and sounded as if she had been sleeping. Lily took a taxi. The narrow road between the mountain pass leading to the Kihei and Wailea side of Maui where her parents lived was pretty but was somehow made less attractive by Lily’s crankiness at her mother’s non-appearance. She rang the doorbell for several minutes and then ended up having to pay the cab driver herself ($35!!!—the equivalent of all tips for a four-hour morning shift). After ringing the bell, Lily tried the door and found it open. Her mother was in the bedroom asleep on top of the bed and would not be awakened.