The Best Laid Plans (18 page)

“Tru,” he says, “I’m at Mount Sinai. You’ve got to get over here right away. Naomi had a heart attack.”

“H
EART ATTACK, MOTHER,”
I repeat numbly as Sienna and I practically knock over a woman with two young children to elbow our way into a taxi. “Emergency,” Sienna says, and the cabbie puts his pedal to the metal to get us to the hospital stat.

Having watched every hospital TV show from
Doogie Howser
to
House
, I thought I knew what the inside of an emergency room looked like—but I was wrong. Instead of the fast-paced drama that it takes to keep viewers glued to their TVs, in real life an air of torpid resignation hovers over the hospital waiting area, and there’s not a George Clooney or a Hugh Laurie in sight. Vacant-eyed patients are slumped down in thinly padded metal chairs that are bolted in place to the floor. (Not that anyone seems even remotely as if they’d have the energy, never mind the inclination, to steal one.) Children are wheezing, people are clutching their heads and stomachs, and there are enough runny noses to make Kleenex seem like, if anything can be these days, a good investment.

I’m the only person on line to talk to the nurse at the information desk, but she refuses to look up from her paperwork. “It’s an emergency. Naomi, F-I-N-K-L-E …” I start spelling my mother’s name after having said it—and gotten no response—twice.

“Yes ma’am, they’re all emergencies, that’s why this is the
emergency
room,” she says curtly, still declining to make eye contact and talking to her desk full of reports.

I’m just about to threaten to call the head nurse, the head of
the hospital, or the head of CNN when Paige and Molly come rushing over. And with them is Brandon Marsh.

“Mrs. Newman, your mother’s all right,” says Brandon. His take-charge tone is meant to be calming, but frankly, coming from Brandon, I can’t help but hear an edge of imperiousness.

Molly leans in and gives me a kiss. “She’s okay, Mommy, really. The doctor says Naomi’s heart attack was mild, more like a warning.” Paige gives my hand a little tug and the three of them guide me and Sienna through a short maze of corridors so I can see for myself.

My mother, God bless her—and he or she obviously has—is lying on a narrow cot. She’s hooked up to an IV, and draped over her ears is a thin plastic blue oxygen tube that leads to a prong fastened around her nostrils and a series of saucerlike electrodes wired from her chest to a bleeping EKG machine. Naomi looks like a weird science experiment, albeit one with a good manicure. She lifts her head slightly and motions us toward her bedside—where she’s already holding court with Peter, Dr. Barasch, and Tiffany Glass.

“The Dalai Lama couldn’t make it.” Naomi smiles weakly, straining to speak above a whisper. “But all of my other loved ones did. They came like lemmings.”

“Not lemmings, dear,” Dr. Barasch says nervously. “Family.”

“Lemmings, family, everyone came. Except you, Tru. You are a little late,” Naomi says reproachfully.

“She’s here now,” says Peter, taking my hand and placing it in Naomi’s.

I’m not sure when Tiffany or Brandon became “family.” But it’s no time to quibble about bloodlines. Naomi looks exhausted. Her naturally high color is washed out and I’m not
used to seeing my mother, who’s usually a whir of motion, lying quietly in a bed. But she’s lucid (not to mention complaining), and I can tell by everyone’s face and the tone in the room that she’s going to be all right. Still, I feel my eyes well up with tears.

“Mom, what happened? Are you sure you’re okay?” Peter steps behind me and anchors his hands on my shoulders.

“We were at the bodybuilding class,” Dr. Barasch says, and then, overcome with tears himself, he pauses to wipe his eyes.

“Your mother was bench pressing,” says Tiffany, “
symmetrical
bench pressing, right, Naomi? So one side of your body doesn’t look more developed than the other.”

“Yes, biceps,” Naomi murmurs, as she makes a fist with her left hand to show us her muscle.

“Naomi got a little chest pain, then it got bigger. She was having trouble catching her breath. I called 911,” says Dr. Barasch. “In the ambulance, they put that little nitroglycerin pill under her tongue.”

“She’s had aspirin and a beta blocker and the doctor says that according to her EKG, there was no significant heart damage,” Brandon reports as efficiently as any bright-eyed TV intern. Any moment, I expect him to grow a stethoscope.

Molly comes over and strokes Naomi’s brow. “That’s good news, Grandma.”

Naomi had been drifting off to sleep, but suddenly her eyes are wide open. “What did you call me?”

“ ‘
Glam-ma
,’ Molly called you ‘Glam-ma,’ ” says Brandon, barely missing a beat and making an impressive save. “Like Goldie Hawn. Only prettier.” He’s standing squarely between Paige and Molly and he reaches over to take each of their hands.

“Prettier than Goldie Hawn, I can live with that.” Naomi
smiles, turning toward her granddaughters. “This Brandon, I like him.” Then, provocatively, she adds, “Which one of you two is going to be his girlfriend?”

That’s my mother—you can slow down her heart but you can’t stop her tongue. I suppose I should find it reassuring that even a brush with mortality can’t tame Naomi’s pot-stirring ways. But frankly, nothing at the moment feels reassuring.

A stern nurse comes in to check Naomi’s monitors and chases us out of the room. “This is a heart attack, people, not a party. I don’t know who in the blazes let all of you in, but you have to get out of here, now! We’re keeping Mrs. Finklestein overnight for observation, and if everything goes the way it’s supposed to, you can pick her up after morning rounds. That is,
one
of you can pick her up.” I tentatively raise my hand. “Come back tomorrow. You better plan on having your mother stay with you at least for several days.”

We say our goodbyes and troop out of the room. As she’s leaving, Tiffany, who was with Peter when he got the phone call and insisted on driving him to the hospital, tells Naomi she’ll visit her at our apartment later in the week. “I’m there all the time, anyway. I’ll bring all my samples and we’ll give you a complete makeover.”

As we make our way back down the corridor, the enormity of everything catches up with me and I feel the blood rushing to my head. I stop to lean against the wall and start sobbing uncontrollably. Sienna and Peter rush over to comfort me.

“Your mother’s a tough old bird, she’s going to be fine, sweetie,” says Sienna, rubbing my arm.

“Sienna’s right,” says Peter. My husband must be the last man in America to still carry a hankie. He pulls a linen square out of his inside coat pocket and reaches over to gently dab my swollen eyes. “Naomi’s indomitable. By next week she’ll be back in weight-lifting class, bench pressing seventy pounds.”

“I know, I just never imagined, I mean, it’s true, Naomi’s going to come out of this better than new. She’ll probably convince the cardiologist to get her health insurance to pay for a tummy tuck,” I say, trying to be brave.

After a few moments I pull myself together and turn around to look for Dr. Barasch. He loves Naomi. He was with her when this happened. I can only begin to imagine how horrible today’s been for him, too. I see him standing by himself off in a corner, and I go over and give him a hug.

“I’m sorry, it must have been so scary. How can I ever thank you?” I say wrapping my arms around him. “I’m just so grateful that you were with her.”

“Good job, Dr. Barasch,” Brandon says, perhaps the only eighth grader on the planet confident—or cocky—enough to plant a hearty slap on his headmaster’s back.

Dr. Barasch’s shoulders are hunched, and his normally imposing frame seems crumpled, as if his bones have collapsed, made weary by the weight of the world. He pulls away from my embrace, covers his face with his hands, and starts to cry.

“The Chinese say that if you save someone’s life you have to take care of them forever.” Dr. Barasch stuffs his hands in his suit jacket pockets and looks down at his shoes. “I can’t, I can’t do it, I watched my wife.” Then he stumbles down the corridor, and makes his way toward the brightly lit red
EXIT
sign. “Tell Naomi I’m sorry. I can’t go through it again.”

N
OT EVEN JAY LENO
can put me to sleep. I flip through ten minutes of a
Frasier
rerun and wonder at a commercial for an incontinence pill featuring a group of guys in a rowboat who all need to pee. (You’re on a boat, guys, why can’t you just take a piss in the lake?) Peter, as usual, is so deep in Slumberland that he doesn’t notice that I’ve been thrashing around our queen-sized bed like a lightning bug caught in a jelly jar, or that, in an attempt to get some company for my misery, I’ve “accidentally” jabbed him in the rib cage several times. At about two
A.M.
I resign myself to a sleepless night. I give Peter a peck on the cheek, pull on my robe, and shuffle toward the kitchen. Not that I could eat anything. But I can’t keep lying in bed worrying about Naomi’s heart, which in less than twenty-four hours—and I can’t even imagine how I’m going to find the words to tell her about Dr. Barasch—has taken a double hit.

I nab a box of tea bags from the pantry and see Molly sitting at our round oak kitchen table, mechanically turning the pages
of some fashion magazine without actually looking at them. She raises her arms toward me and I lean in for a cuddle.

“Why do things like this happen, Mom?” Molly asks glumly. I look down at her magazine, which happens to be open to a page of “Fashion Don’ts.” But I know that Molly’s question is about Naomi and not a badly chosen pair of sequined culottes.

“I don’t know, honey, maybe it’s sort of a warning.”

“You mean that Grandma has to take better care of herself?” Before I can answer, Molly shakes her head. “I mean look at her, she does everything right. Who takes better care of herself than Naomi? She exercises, she doesn’t eat garbage, if she can get sick …” Molly says, and her voice trails off.

“… then Daddy and I could, too?”

“Something like that, I guess.”

I brush away a curly lock of hair from in front of Molly’s eyes. “Daddy and I are going to live for a very long, long time. Long enough to watch you girls graduate college and get married and to spoil our grandchildren.”

Molly gives me a sideways look and scrunches her mouth. “Mom, you can’t know, you can’t know you’re going to get to do any of those things. How can any of us know anything?”

I pull Molly closer. When the girls were little they were convinced that I possessed a sort of telepathic magical Mommy Power that told me when they’d misbehaved in nursery school and, more important, guaranteed their safety when we were apart. But my babies aren’t babies anymore. Now they realize that I’m a mere mortal who can’t see into the future and doesn’t even have eyes in the back of her head. But I hope they know, too, that I’d throw myself under a bus to protect them. And I’ll always do my best to try to calm their fears.

“You’re right, sweetheart, you can’t
know
. None of us can
know anything, that’s part of what makes life so mysterious—and wonderful, and so scary sometimes. But you can play the odds. And the odds for me and Daddy, and for Grandma, are very good. In a weird sort of way what happened today was a good thing. Now that Naomi knows her heart is vulnerable she can take two aspirin every day and make sure she always carries a nitroglycerin pill. Daddy and I protect ourselves, too. I go for checkups, I take my vitamins. And I promise to never ever leave the house in a white velour Baby Phat tracksuit—which means I’ll never die of embarrassment.”

“Oh Mom, you’re such a dork.” Molly grins. She picks up the box of tea bags, walks over to the stove, and fills the kettle with water.

“I want to take care of myself, too, Mom. I’m going to get serious about trying out for the swim team. You always say that I spend too much time inside studying. Besides, it’ll look good on my college application. And I’ve made another decision,” Molly says thoughtfully. “I’m going to stop competing with Paige for that stupid Brandon Marsh. Yech, did you hear him today, calling Naomi ‘Glam-ma’? He’s such a phony, holding both of our hands. Paige can have him. I don’t want any boy who isn’t sure that he wants me.”