The Widow Waltz (27 page)

“Dial back. You’re suggesting I live here, too?”

“Why not, for a while? Everyone in town knows your house is on the market. You can stay til you figure things out.”

I wonder what it would take for me to see this crackpot offer not as a deal with the devil but as one of two women united by need, pragmatism, and conjoined history, each solving their own problems and possibly building something new, something together.

Naomi McCann is crazy. But in the role of crazier, I, Georgia Waltz, am not saying no.

“F
inish up, Theo honey,” Naomi says. “We’re leaving in five minutes.”

She and Clementine have loaded the van with plants to surround Ben’s grave before the rest of us arrive. They will pay their respects, then leave Theo with me and his sisters.

Naomi’s sea of sunflowers has come and gone. I accepted her olive branch and the two of us are partners, with me living in the back of a store. Most of what Adam and Eve clears we invest in the business—we’re far from being in the black—but when I fall asleep, it’s with no regrets. I’m taking care of the people I love, and one of them is me. As for my old house, with its vast new garage, dark blue paint, and a second-story renovation that’s made history of the widow’s walk, the place no longer feels like home. I’ve stopped circling past it when I travel into town. I have paid my taxes, even those strictly emotional.

To call Naomi a friend would be as disingenuous as a Best Actress contender breathlessly declaring that she slept through the announcement of Oscar nominees. I see us as a team, women who have declared a truce and are too busy to strip-search their souls and indulge in acid flashbacks. I’ve stopped looking for answers and try to live in the present, sinking myself into running the shop, cultivating hothouse hydrangeas, and scouting hither and yon for garden ornaments. No gnomes need apply. I fix Theo’s eggs exactly as he wants them, as yellow as the man in the moon, just as Naomi is an ace at slaying slugs, planning major jobs, and calming Luey’s baby by singing “Too Ra, Loo Ra, Luey.”

Once, I thought a family was a mother, a father, and their biological progeny. Foolish me. A family is whatever you make it, and mine is a supple infrastructure whose roots grow stronger by the day, as do Theo and my newborn granddaughter, who makes him grin, exactly like his father made all of us grin. She is round with spiky, white-blond hair, a coconut macaroon we pass from arm to welcoming arm. The baby sees her mother on weekends along with her aunt Cola. Clementine is here every day, often with Caleb, the tree EMT. He has that timeless hard-hat-plaid-shirt-Levi’s-work-boot-stubble-chainsaw thing going. If I were twenty-three, I wouldn’t be able to resist him either.

Stephan and Daniel do drive-bys. For my brother, two tiny children may as well be a pair of barking dingoes. It’s Nat who is the secret sauce that makes my life complete. Some weekends he mans the griddle—pancakes for all!—and on others, I escape to his place in Manhattan for cultural pig-outs: MoMA, eel-avocado rolls, arthouse movies, and conversation with envoys from the smooth-talking, fast-walking,
New Yorker
–quoting universe who think that eight hundred dollars is what you spend on shoes, not rent. As never before, I notice the city’s clamor and grime. By Sunday night I am happy to return to my grassy sanctuary filled with seedlings and secondhand baby gear, grill bluefish freshly caught from Peconic Bay, and settle down with a library book. I’m not sure if I’ve grown or shrunk and I don’t give a damn.

Peter makes his presence known mostly in bank deposits, toys—a stuffed alpaca the size of a collie arrived last week—and, his most generous gift of all, Luey’s NYU tuition. He shows up less often than she might like, though that is conjecture. My daughter guards her heart and I try to respect her privacy. Like learning to share, this is a lifelong lesson, because whenever I look at Peter’s daughter, I ache for what he and she are missing.

Every day I see more of Ben in Theo—his mojo and, occasionally, his mulishness. Naomi’s mother keeps her distance, but from ten to five each day she looks after Theo as well as Luey’s baby, whom she appears to like far more than she does me. The woman has her loyalties to her own daughter. This I understand.

Ben is a ghost that Naomi and I do not mention, though some days I feel him hovering, a breeze that could turn to a gale if I allowed it. Then the baby cries or Theo laughs or the bell announces a customer and Ben fades into celestial oblivion.

I look at the clock. “Time to leave, toots,” I say as I lift my granddaughter. She is wearing a lavender velvet dress and a striped sweater of which her great-grandmother would approve. I am sure Camille Waltz would ratify little else in my life and—rah, rah, dementia—I haven’t had to explain my armistice with Naomi. I am only sorry that my mother is now so far gone, she doesn’t realize she has a namesake: Camille Silver-Waltz. Camille
Prairie-Rose
Silver-Waltz.

Since taking care of one small baby is the hardest job on earth, I am constantly late, as I am today. By the time I arrive at Westchester Hills, Nicola and Luey are standing by a handful of Ben’s cousins. Stephan and Daniel are holding Theo’s hands. I didn’t invite Nat. This isn’t a plus-one occasion, though I know he’ll expect a full accounting. He calls himself my forever-boyfriend.

“Camy!” Luey rushes to her child and holds her close. “Did you miss Mommy? Where’s my kiss? I missed you, baby girl.” Luey and her daughter are in love with the force of ten thousand suns.

“Mother,” Cola says, and crushes me in a hug. “Did you see what Naomi and Clementine did?”

Until I feel Nicola’s tears, I was keeping it together. When I reach Ben’s grave, I, too, cry. Naomi and Clementine have surrounded it with boxwood and myrtle and have planted a maple sapling. In years to come, I imagine its scarlet leaves shading his headstone, a final resting place fit for a Broadway supernova. A passerby might say,
Remind me, please—did Ben Silver once co-star with Tony Randall? I don’t recall. Who
was
he?

Good question. Father, husband, lawyer, friend, lover. For Ben’s inscription, I considered each honorific, even Stephan’s suggestion, “Deceiving others—that is
what the world calls a romance.” With all due respect to Oscar Wilde, however, I went with,
Benjamin Theodore Silver, an enigma loved by many
. Let generations stand by his grave and think,
Hmmm, interesting
. Ben would like that, my last gift to him.

We make short work of the ceremony. Theo clutches my hand, spellbound by Ben’s bearded cousin from Philadelphia chanting kaddish. Nicola recites the twenty-third psalm, and lest this occasion become too macabre, Luey plays “What a Wonderful World” on her iPod while Camille grooves to Louis Armstrong in her arms.

I cannot stop looking at my daughters, whose long girlhoods are ending. Luey is earning A’s in both motherhood and economics. Nicola has found a vocation and love, possibly; I hear a lot of Michael this and Michael that—he’s been promoted and outgrown his T—and as for the chef in Paris, I’ve forgotten his name and hope Cola has, too. Michael is hoping for an internship in New York, because my daughter insists she’s here to stay. She, too, has a business to grow.

Benjy, where did we go right?

We let Theo pull the netting off the headstone, and one by one we each put a pebble on the grave and whisper private good-byes. I don’t forgive Ben. Perhaps I never will. But a woman is fortunate if her dreams overlap even slightly with her reality. I thank my husband for the many years mine did.

I have taught myself how to transplant a new branch onto an old one. I am that branch and I am thriving. The last year has begun to turn into rich compost that nourishes new dreams. Autumn’s first leaves are falling, golden priority mail reminding us of beauty, even in death. Mother Nature and Father Time have such a bag of tricks.

I link arms with my daughters. Luey and Camille are on one side, Cola is on the other. I am in the middle, walking into the future, away from anger, from disappointment, and from regret. I refused to be scared, or to believe that my future is a well of endless lament. I am galvanized by possibility.

I am choosing happiness.

E
veryday pluck has always fascinated me.
The Widow Waltz
grew from my desire to write about a woman with no history of bravery—in other words, a woman like most of us—who is forced by life to weave a magic carpet of resilience to carry her forward. In writing this book and shepherding it into print, I have received help from many people.

I could not ask for a better publisher than Clare Ferraro of Viking. Thank you for believing in me as a novelist as well as a journalist, and for allowing me to work with Carolyn Carlson, an exceptional editor thanks to her way with words, her guidance in finessing plot points and her bottomless encouragement. I have hit the jackpot to have such wise women in my corner. To Roseanne Serra, great cover! You captured the ultimate optimism of this book while demonstrating that fifty-year-old women can still have great legs. Alissa Amell, your interior design is elegant and timeless. Patricia Nicolescu, you copyedit like an artist. Nancy Sheppard, this book would literally be nowhere without your stellar marketing team. Deep thanks, too, to all of you and to Carolyn Coleburn, a whiz at promotion, and her protegée Langan Kingsley, who keeps thinking of ways to get the word out on this novel. Last, much appreciation to Ramona Demme for her constant kind attention.

For all five of my books, I offer boundless recognition to Christy Fletcher, whose critical eye and excellent taste are matched only by her warm championing. Everyone on her team is top-of-the-line, but I must offer special shout-outs to Melissa Chinchilla, Mink Choi, Kevin Cotter and Rebecca Gradinger.

Special gratitude goes to Paul Hundt, Esq. for his generous research about forensic accounting, a subject with which—happily—I had zero familiarity before I wrote this book. Charles Salzberg, thanks for your friendship and literary gossip and for leading many rollicking workshops where I was able to present the beginning of this book. Vivian Conan, Chaya Deitch, Sally Hoskins and Craig Irvine: you are all exceptional writers; I am grateful for the time you took to offer fastidious feedback on
The
Widow
Waltz
as it continued to evolve. Thanks, too, to the support of the New York Writers’ Workshop; to my book club, whose selections stretch my mind—Salman Rushdie, really?—and to my cyber village on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You keep me inspired on those long days as I try to charm my laptop into coughing up words.

To the many special book-lovers in my life—especially Anne, Barbsie, Betsy, Dale, Janey, Kimberly, Michele, Rochelle and Vicki—I am truly fortunate to have such warm, funny women in my corner. Thanks, ladies!

To my sons, Jed and Rory, you make me proud in ways that I can never stop counting. I hope you are glad that in
The Widow Waltz
this is your only mention.

Last but always first, thanks to Robert, my husband, who has believed in me since way back when. Your infectious smile and laugh blaze my way.