Helen Yglesias - The Girls

Jealous, Flora cut in during the pause between dance numbers, dismissing Eva’s granddaughter and steering the momentarily bewildered old man into a fast step.

“You’re leading me,” he hollered, trying to escape Flora’s grip. She was holding him by both arms, moving him around expertly. Flora was still a terrific dancer. “Stop it, stop it. I’m the leader. The man is the leader. Let go of me. I want my partner, my real partner.”

He broke free, located his Botticelli, and without touching her lured her back to the floor. Once again youth and age danced. Flora, outraged by a public rejection, began circling the couple in a frenzy of rapid steps and high kicks, slapping her hand to the inside of her elbow and raising her arm in alternation with fluttering hand-to-nose signals accompanied by crooning cries of “Fuck you, old man” in tune with the music. Her silk dress had fallen over one shoulder, exposing her bra strap, her hair was a soot-black mess, her slip showed its lacy edge, and her gilt thigh-highs were sliding into her gilded shoes.

“She’s wonderful!” Jenny heard a woman exclaim. “She’s as good as Twyla Tharp.”

Even those in the residence who wanted to hate it loved it: the family of correct, sedate Eva Resnick making a show of themselves. Scandale. Entrancing. Better than a show, better than a musical. “If you paid sixty-five dollars a ticket like on Broadway, it couldn’t be better,” one woman said. Jenny heard others take up the refrain like a mantra and repeat it again and again.

“I’m very tired,” Naomi said. “This is exhausting.”

It was Eva who broke the spell. “Enough is enough. Fini la comédie. Naomi’s tired. So am I. Time for bed. Let’s say these festivities are at an end. Definitively.” And gestured for someone to move her wheelchair in the right direction. Out of that ballroom. Out.

“I don’t want her money,” Flora said. “But why should a nursing home get it? You secure it, I don’t care, I just don’t want the nursing home to get it. You know what they charge? Five, six, seven thousand a month, depending on the billing, depending on what they can stick you with, aspirin, X-rays, the nurses’ gloves, for God’s sake. Seventeen dollars a box and they bill you for gloves every few days. I know the ropes. I have plenty of friends in nursing homes.”

“We can’t secure the money if you mean hide it,” Jenny said. “You mean Medicaid, putting her on Medicaid? They do a three-year back search. Through all holdings, all accounts, all financial transactions. It’s too late to hide her money.”

“I know all about the three-year back search. You get around it. Everybody does. You think people are paying those terrible amounts of money? Nobody’s paying. They all go on Medicaid.”

“I don’t see how,” Jenny said. “Naomi told me that she doesn’t even want to go to a convalescent home after the operation next week. I had a long talk with her. She says she’ll only stay in the hospital overnight, and then back to the residence. I think she’d die in five minutes in a Medicaid space in an old age home.”

“A nursing home,” Flora corrected. “It’s not a question of what Naomi wants, it’s a question of the right thing to do. How does she expect to go back to the residence? She can’t go down to meals. They’ve been carrying her meals up to her room. Five dollars a clip, she insists on giving them five dollars a clip. She can’t manage by herself now, how is she going to manage after the operation? She’s not going to get better, you know. She’s dying, Jenny. The doctor said six months, if that. And she’s making a mess of it. She spent seventy-five hundred on her funeral expenses. Okay, so everything’s arranged, casket, shipment to New York, the whole bit, but she didn’t have to spend more than four thousand. I gave her the best information, no, she had to go to the place she wanted, she knew better, she had to go to the place she wanted just so she could be overcharged.”

“Oh,” Jenny said, at a loss. And went back to the beginning. “Putting your name on her accounts doesn’t make them yours, Flora. You understand? They’ll still come after Naomi to pay her bills, or they’ll come after you if your name is on the accounts. If the money’s there, you have to pay.”

“They can’t make a sister responsible.” Flora, triumphant. “I checked that. It’s the law.”

“But it’s her money. They’re her accounts, Naomi’s accounts. They can’t make you use your money, but they can make us use hers.”

“You don’t know a thing about money, Jenny. You never did and you never will. All I was trying to do was save Naomi some money, which God knows is hard enough. You know what she did last week? Ordered an eighty-dollar nightgown from Lord and Taylor. Ever hear of such a thing? And promptly had a hemorrhage from that wound on her leg from the last operation that never healed. That nightgown’s ruined. Eighty-five dollars thrown in the garbage.”

“You said eighty,” Jenny interrupted before she could stop herself.

“Eighty, eighty-five. I’m just trying to save that foolish woman some money.”

“What for, if she’s dying?”

“Are you crazy? Why should her money go down the drain? Why should it go to the nursing home if she could stay there free? Everybody else does it that way. Give away the money to children, sisters, whatever, and go in for free.”

“But it’s too late. It would be a hassle now. They’d search her accounts. They’d go after the money she has.”

“You don’t know a thing about money, Jenny, but if you don’t want to listen to someone who does, that’s fine. I don’t care. I don’t care what you do. You and Naomi between you do whatever you like. You want to do everything wrong, go ahead, you don’t have to listen to me. Make all the mistakes you want to, throw her money in the garbage if that’s what you want.”

“All I want is to do things the way Naomi wants them done. And to have the money to do them with. Which Naomi has if we just leave her money alone.”

“Whatever, whatever, whatever,” Flora said. “You want to throw good money after bad, go right ahead, be my guest. Now do you mind, I’m exhausted, I have to take a nap.”

It was two in the afternoon. Flora had been undressing during the sisters’ conversation. She had always slept naked, Jenny remembered. Flesh-pink naked now, she walked from bureau to closet, dressing again, in a long nightshirt, socks, a scarf at her throat, and a little crocheted hat for her head. “I get very cold sleeping lately.” She pulled down the dark purple blinds against the sun blazing off the sea and opened one of the windows slightly, letting in a warm whistling wind.

“Isn’t that breeze delicious?” she said.

Actually, it was smelly, but Jenny couldn’t tell of what. A faintly garbagy odor, mixed with barbecuing meat and sea mist.

Flora said, pulling back the bedcover, “Could you turn off the air conditioning on your way out? I put it on just for you. I know you like it cold. And slam the door, it locks automatically Thanks.” She closed her eyes and turned her back, snuggling under the fluffy lilac blanket.

At the apartment door Jenny stopped when Flora called out, “Listen, I forgot. I have a date tonight. Fascinating man. Used to own a very smart jewelry store on Lincoln Road, when Lincoln Road was Lincoln Road. Picked me up there, actually, a couple of days ago. He’s desperately in love with me. I only hope he can get it up. Anyway, I’m busy tonight, and I figured you’d have supper with Naomi. Okay?”

“Okay,” Jenny said. “Have fun. And be careful.”

“I won’t, I won’t, I won’t be careful,” Flora yelled as Jenny closed the door. “I’ll be damned if I’ll be careful. Be careful, be careful, be careful. The hell with that. That’s all I ever hear from you. Be careful, be good, be careful. The hell with it.”