Helen Yglesias - The Girls

She found Naomi in the formerly elegant, dreary lobby, dressed in another silk ensemble, blue with white dots, full skirt, loose jacket, the ornate gold watch she had bought at Nieman Marcus heavy on its braided chain against her poor mutilated chest, her pretty face framed in another brimmed cotton hat pulled low over her hazel eyes.

“Jenny,” she called out. “Here, I’m here, I’m here,” and fussed with the lock of her wheelchair. “Where’s Flora? She called me at seven-thirty this morning and told me you’d moved out. You have to understand, Jenny, I can’t, I’m too old, who’s right, who’s wrong, I can’t anymore. Are you mad at me?”

Jenny laughed and kissed her.

Naomi’s eyes filled with tears. “You’re not mad at me?”

“I’m the little sister,” Jenny said. “I just do as I’m told.”

“You’re mad at me.” Naomi let the tears overflow a little. “Flora said she’d come right after her exercise class.”

“When would that be?” Jenny asked.

“About an hour. How is Eva? How did you find her?”

“You know,” Jenny said. “That medication—”

“I know. Like a balloon. And the hair all over her face. My poor sister.”

“Let’s go out on the terrace.”

Jenny wheeled Naomi through a series of hallways into the sea air, having first fetched a woolen shawl and a fine blanket to protect Naomi from the breeze. They sat under the shade of the palm trees because the sun also bothered Naomi. The boardwalk and the beach below were gay with vacationers. Little boats bobbed, the great boats claimed the horizon, the horizon yielded to the clear blue sky, the sky arched to fill the whole happy scene.

Naomi had turned sullen. “I called my bank. I needed to know my checking account balance. They told me you were there, that my sister had been there asking questions.”

“I wanted to make sure everything was in order,” Jenny said.

“You weren’t here. What was I supposed to do? I didn’t even know if you were coming. You’re always so busy, running around, lecturing, that stuff that’s so important to you. I couldn’t be sure you’d come. What was I supposed to do, with this operation next week? I just wish I could die before next week, I wish I could just go off in my sleep, smiling. I always meant to go out smiling.”

She wasn’t smiling now. She was if anything black with anger.

“I don’t care what you think of me, Jenny. I know you don’t think much of me, but that’s okay. That’s perfectly okay. It’s no more than I expect.”

“I love you,” Jenny said. “I think the world of you.”

There was a fuss going on at the other end of the terrace near the unused bar. Something about a chair. “You know that’s my chair, that’s the chair I always use,” a frail old woman was shouting in a surprisingly strong voice. “So why do you take it? Why do you deliberately take my chair when you know I’m coming any minute to use it.” Another voice kept repeating in tones of wonder, “Did you ever see such a nerve? Did you ever experience such a nerve in your life? Such a nerve?”

“Stop listening to those idiots,” Naomi yelled at Jenny. “We’re trying to have a talk here.” She cried a few more tears, dabbing at her eyes. The blackness was fading. She looked into Jenny’s face with an expression more like fear. “Am I going to lose you now? Will you go back right away now?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because of the money. Because I changed all the accounts.”

Jenny felt a stab of apprehension but forced herself to speak calmly. “Naomi, your money is your money to do what you think best with. I just think you might have told me. I made a fool of myself at your bank this morning.” And fresh bitterness flowed through her. It had been worse than that. She had felt like a moneygrubber. As if she were after Naomi’s money.

Am I after Naomi’s money? The thought stopped Jenny cold. And then, Better me than the residence.

“Listen, Jenny,” Naomi said in a rush. “Here, I made out a check to you this morning for twenty thousand dollars. I arranged it all over the phone. I moved some money from my investment account to my checking account. It’s absolutely sound. A sound check. I want you to have it. I don’t need it, I don’t need any more money. Take it, take it. If you can’t use it, give it to your children. I always loved them, you know that. Take it, please, you can’t refuse me, you have to take it.” And was again in tears.

“Naomi, I was just trying to make sure your accounts were safe. I don’t want any money. I just wanted to know what’s available so that you can have everything you need, so there’s money enough for whatever you need.”

“I don’t need anything. I wish I was dead.”

“You don’t mean that,” Jenny said.

“Oh God, you’re angry with me. I know you’re angry with me. Are you going to leave me? I can’t do this alone, Jenny, I can’t. I don’t know why I listened to her in the first place. Sometimes I don’t even know what she’s talking about. I’m so tired, I just give in. You know how she is with her advice advice advice. I want you to have it, if not you, then your children. She doesn’t have to know.”

“Who? Whose advice? Who doesn’t have to know?”

“Flora, Flora, of course — who else? Please take the check, take it, take, I want you to have it.”

Flora. Flora after all. Jenny reached out and took the check. She folded it in half and put it in the zipper compartment of her small Coach bag.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Use it in good health,” Naomi mumbled.

“Thank you,” Jenny said again, and amazed herself by busily figuring what proportion of Naomi’s money she had just received and how much was still controlled by Flora. Forty thousand? At the most. Naomi didn’t have much.

She amazed herself by her resolution, too. If there was going to be a tug of war for Naomi’s money, she wasn’t going to let Flora win. Flora had plenty of money. Flora didn’t need any more money. Jenny had a lot less money than Flora. Oh, she had enough, but enough for what? What if she lived as long as Eva? Or as long as Naomi? Ten years, fifteen years more? Wouldn’t she need more money?

She didn’t give a damn about comparative need. She was determined to win. She didn’t care how awful she was being. She would win this family fight no matter what. She wasn’t going to let Flora win this one.

A FAMILY PARTY TOOK place for Eva’s ninety-fifth birthday, which had actually gone by two weeks earlier without celebration. Jenny, in the midst of the business of settling Naomi’s accounts so that they were firmly under her thumb, found herself oddly looking forward to it.

Eva’s daughter was in charge, a generally loved and admired relative in the family. A large, handsome woman in her early seventies, she was a gifted diplomat, so that even the four sisters felt equally stroked and comforted, and with her good managerial skills she directed the details of the dinner unobtrusively. It was held at Eva’s retirement residence in a private dining room just beyond the ornate main one. The guest list was small, considering the size of the family. There were eighteen people at a long table, nicely laid with flower baskets and candles, everybody dressed up, celebratory. Even Flora was almost appropriate in a silk shift of sedate banded colors, though glittered up with gold shoes and thigh-high gilt stockings that tended to slip down her legs. She wore a long string of fake oversize pearls that bounced about when she moved, and she moved constantly. The black blackness of her hair was startling.

There was a minimum of wheelchairs at the table — Eva’s, Naomi’s, and one for a friend of Eva’s from the residence — and only two walkers, also for the use of Eva’s friends, and a couple of canes. But the seating of Eva became a hassle. She refused the head of the table, where she had first been wheeled.