AS Marj rounded the corner toward home, she saw Cora watering the lawn and the neighbor waved her over for a coffee. Cora said her son Stein bought her a machine that made “perfect cappuccinos.” She stage-whispered that it cost $3,000 and Marj literally gasped when she heard the figure.
One of the pipes did the foam part and the old woman let Cora enjoy herself. Cora loved talking about money. She knew Hamilton had left Marj “comfortable” and was always fishing for a number. Marj knew Stein was richer than Croesus and showered his mother with gifts the way wealthy children do to substitute for quality time. Then she chastised herself, remembering she had neither gifts nor visits from those she had brought into the world. She treasured her daughter’s drop-ins, few and far between as they were; at least Joan was honest, and didn’t try to buy her off. Joan had a life. She’d have hated if her daughter sent costly care packages as a charade. Marj’s lips pursed again in quiet reprimand, cringing at her judgments. Pahrump, the King Charles, limped into the kitchen, and Cora scooped him up in her arms. Pahrump cried out.
“Why is he limping?”
“They think it’s something degenerative — don’t they, Pahrump?”
She planted kisses on the foppish dog’s snout.
“Poor, poor thing.”
“Well,” said Cora, fussing over him. “Not too poor. You have a 3,000 dollar cappuccino machine, don’t you, sweetheart? That’s a limited edition, did you know that, Rump? You can make Mama a cappuccino, can’t you. We can teach you how to make Mama a cappuccino, wouldn’t that be fun?”
Cora asked if she’d thought about traveling.
The old woman blinked and said, “Yes.” She hadn’t planned on confiding to anyone just yet but it seemed as if Cora had been doing a little mind reading.
“We should take a cruise, Marjorie — once Pahrump gets a teeny bit better. 2 lonely gals. We could get lucky!”
They laughed. Cora pursued the topic and Marj realized she was serious. The neighbor began talking about cruises to Mexico or the Caribbean. She’d read an article. Men were employed by ships to dance with the widows — that was a comfort because Cora said she didn’t like the idea of being a wallflower.
“If youz gwannah pays your moneh,” said Cora, in a creaky imitation of Marj knew not what, “youz gottuh gets yo moneh’s worth.”
Marj surprised herself by suddenly saying, “I’ve been thinking of going to India.”
“India! But why?”
“I was there as a girl.”
“But it’s so dirty!”
“Oh, I don’t remember that. I just remember how beautiful it was.”
“Well, I know Stein does lots of business with them. The Indians. They outsource. Very good at that. But it is not the United States! He’s been there a few times and, Marjorie, you cannot imagine what he describes. The filth. The homeless. The smells. Did you know the hospitals charge the mothers to see their babies?”
“What do you mean?”
“The mothers have their babies, then the nurses or whatever they are, snatch them away — and the new moms have to pay rupees to have them brought back. You have to bribe someone to hold your newborn!”
“I cannot believe…”
“Oh, I assure you, I read it in the Times! In Bangalore. It’s extortion! $12 for a boy, 7 for a girl! One of the mothers-in-law had to pawn her earrings! And they throw acid on the Untouchables. If you’re not of a certain caste, you either have to clean waste from the toilets without gloves—the toilets, if you can call them that — and if the elite think you’re not doing your job correctly, they throw acid on you! I saw pictures of a horribly disfigured man in the National Geographic when I went for my epidural. And the elephants! The elephants come out of the jungle and snatch the peasants, and tear them to pieces! Oh no no no, Marjorie, I do not think India would be a suitable place for Pahrump. You don’t want to be snatched by some big ol elephant, do you, Rumpelstilskin?”
Marj felt slightly uncomfortable having shared her dream only to be called a fool. She knew she was being oversensitive, and Cora didn’t mean anything by it. The 2 women spoke of their husbands awhile, then agreed to see a movie later in the week at the Westside Pavilion. Cora walked her out and Pahrump limped after but paused inside the doorway as if before an invisible gate. (Usually he bounded into the frontyard.)
The car Stein bought his mother gleamed in the driveway. He’d traded in the Mercedes when his father died and leased a new Audi through his company. Cora put an eye on Marjorie’s Imperial and said, “When you gonna get rid of that old thing?”
Marj shrugged.
“Sweetheart, get an Audi. I know you’ve got a pile of money sitting there — Ham would have wanted you to be safe. You need side airbags. The Audi drives like a dream. It warns you if anything gets near the rear bumper. Parallel parking is a dream. And there’s a camera—I don’t know how to use it yet! — so you can actually see a small child behind you. Do you know how many people back over small children each year? Stein calls it ‘auto versus small child.’ ”
Pahrump barked.
“All right, baby,” she said, turning toward him. “Mama’s coming. I guess you want another cappuccino, huh?”
Cora went back in without saying goodbye.
MARJ reclined on the La-Z-Boy. She thought about what she’d do if she won the Super Lotto Plus. She would provide for her children of course and maybe buy a place on some land — no 2nd floor so she wouldn’t have to climb stairs. She’d had it with stairs. She started to think she would pay off the house before realizing she had paid it off, with term life, that in fact she had a nice savings, and no worries. She’d already won the lottery, so to speak, and was grateful. She’d had a good life, and a good husband, and her children were healthy and seemed happy, as far as she knew. She was footloose and debt-free and in reasonably good physical shape herself. A bit lonely but who knew? Might be something to that cruise idea afterall. (The thought made her blush.) Then she pushed all that nonsense from her head, supplanting it with her dream of India. There was a train she’d read about called the Deccan Odyssey that was supposed to rival the Orient Express. You could go on it for a week — its starting point was Bombay. There was an onboard spa and hot showers and dining cars and manservants and all day long you could visit temples or wade in the Arabian Sea. The other night she had been watching A Passage to India on television, when there it was, a sign in the train station: THE DECCAN QUEEN. It nearly made her neck hairs stand on end.