“Is that what they want? Is that what they told you?”
“No, they want to live. They actually want to live. Can you imagine?” Flora said again.
“To live? Yes, everybody wants to live forever. You too.”
“I knew you’d give me a hard time on this,” Flora said bitterly. “I knew it. And spare me your philosophy, please. You only bring philosophy in to hurt me anyway.”
Jenny muttered, “I’m sorry. I just meant that there’s a will to live. In everybody. In our genes.”
“What for?” Flora shouted. “Our sisters don’t do anything. They eat, they sleep, they complain. That’s no life. Naomi’s still as vain as ever, worrying about her clothes, running to the dry cleaners every montag und donshtik. She’s got this thing on her lip, it spouts blood like a faucet, does she do anything about it? No, all she does is run with the bloodstained clothes to the cleaners. All she thinks about is her looks.”
“Run?” Jenny said, more or less pulled together in the silk outfit. She claimed the mirror from Flora to comb her hair and put on a little more lipstick.
Flora moved away, struck a pose, clearly impatient. “Hurry up, Jenny, I’m starving. Aren’t you starving?” She placed the peaked orange cap at a jaunty angle on her moist jet-black hair.
“Run?” Jenny repeated. She hadn’t seen Naomi for a year. “Is she beautiful as ever?”
Jenny wanted Naomi beautiful as ever.
“I don’t know about beautiful. What can I tell you, Naomi’s Naomi. She’s got her own way of doing things, nobody can tell her anything. She doesn’t eat right, she’s too heavy, her own fault, she can’t walk, she won’t exercise, she ruined her feet with the wrong shoes. Looks were always what mattered, the pointy shoes, the pointy-toed boots, she ruined her feet, her own fault, nobody to blame but herself. She can’t see, she never took proper care of her eyes, she insists she has something called macular degeneration, deterioration of the brain if you ask me, the wrong glasses is all it is, too busy having her hair and her nails done to take care of her health. All she talks about are her bowel movements, she just won’t listen about bran, roughage, you have to be constipated the way she eats, never eats a salad which is a crime on their part, the residence, they only serve salad if you ask for it, now is that a crime or not? What kind of a retirement residence doesn’t automatically serve salad, and how about their cottage cheese and fruit plate, not a piece of fresh fruit on it, only canned, what does canned fruit do for the digestive system? Nothing, nothing. But you can’t talk sense to Naomi. Naomi just won’t listen to sensible advice.”
They were in the gilded, padded hallway, waiting for the elevator. This flood could only be dammed by a compliment.
“That outfit’s terrific, Flora, absolutely terrific,” Jenny said.
At last Flora was pleased. “Hey, thanks.”
Protocol to be fulfilled, Flora added, “You look pretty good yourself, Jenny.” But could not leave it at that. “Though I don’t know why you insist on keeping gray hair. It makes you look much older. Of course, I have to think about appearance more than you because of my performances. You’ve never seen me, have you? I do a terrific one-woman show, little theaters, senior centers. It’s gotten raves. This one’s at the Hebrew Home for the Aged, right in the heart of South Beach. Where the action is.”
They entered the glitzy elevator. A boring, grimpling music muttered. Jenny smiled. Grimpling had been Mama’s word for undistinguished performance. Jenny hadn’t thought of it for ages.
“Remember what Mama called that kind of playing—grimpling?” she said.
What Flora had no memory of, Flora insisted had never happened. She eyed Jenny blankly. “What kind of playing? You mean the Muzak? I never pay any attention to the Muzak, and anyway Mama never said that. Now, what were we talking about? Oh yes,” and continued with her earlier thought, “but hey, you like gray, gray’s fine. To each his own, that’s my motto, live and let live. I don’t tell anyone how to live, what to do. You like gray, gray it is, but you could look a lot younger, Jenny, believe me, but that’s up to you, your choice, your choice, gray’s fine if that’s what you want.”
In the lobby a gathering of the infirm in wheelchairs and the mobile in leisure dress waited for the mailman to finish the distribution. Flora pushed Jenny out the lobby door into the intense heat of the Miami afternoon.
“I’ll introduce you later,” she said. “Plenty of time later to meet this old crowd,” as if she and Jenny were immune to age, were still young.
“What about Naomi and Eva?” Jenny said, driving her body against the hot wind, the gritty air, the debris on the uneven sidewalk under the unrelenting sun. “When will we see them?”
“All in good time,” Flora said, taking Jenny’s arm and half dragging, half pushing her along. “That’s tonight. We haven’t gotten up to tonight yet. First we have a date with my adviser.”
Flora’s description of her adviser had led Jenny to expect a charming charlatan.
“He’s wonderful, so calm, so understanding, so gentle, so knowledgeable. You’ll love him on sight. He’s a world-famous surgeon, brain, I think, or maybe heart or lungs, retired now and entirely dedicated to easing death for the terminally ill. You’ll love him.” Flora, between bites of the not so awful Wendy’s chicken sandwich after all.
But Dr. Maypole proved to be quite solid, the perfect Wasp — Brooks Brothers jacket, striped dress shirt, striped tie, chinos, topsiders — in his early eighties, she had been told, but smooth-faced, younger-seeming, tall, slim, with an inward-leaning manner of listening that was endearing and inspired trust. The creepy part was that he was set up in a Best Western motel room for his consultations. He was businesslike, and when Flora became loquacious and embarrassingly emotional about the doctor’s services, he was adept at turning her off.
“Your sister has filled me in on the situation of your two older relatives, their illnesses and impending deaths.” He leaned forward reassuringly. “Let me repeat what I told her. Because your dying sisters are still free of hospital supervision, you’re in a good position to ease their suffering. I’ve already explained the procedure to your sister, but perhaps it would be in order to go over it once again. This is what you must do.”
A faint, commiserating grimace accompanied the consoling manner that worked so well.
“Set them up in your home as comfortably as possible. Hospital beds can be rented if needed, or wheelchairs. Hire a nurse by all means, and any other help that will ease things for you. The entire procedure should not take much more than a week, ten days at most.”
His manner became more brisk, matter-of-fact.
“Essentially what you will be doing is withholding food and water while administering medication to ease the discomfort. There will be, at most, one to two days of discomfort, particularly during liquid deprivation, but bathing the lips with a washcloth or paper napkin dipped in cold water eases that.”
Was Dr. Maypole aware of the fiery horror he was kindling?
Flora was crying noisily. The doctor lowered the lids of his pleasant blue eyes for the space of a blink, waved a hand in the slightest gesture of irritation, then leaned toward Jenny.
“You must keep foremost the intent to ease suffering, which is what your sisters are requesting.”
Jenny was desperately attempting to maintain one of her public faces, a book-jacket face, perhaps her lecturing face — dinner-party face? Incongruous, inappropriate. What face, then?