Aaron sits beside her and puts his arm around her.
Weeping into his shoulder, she tells us what it was like.
At first, she thinks Annie is realty okay.
Really.
Before her “incarceration in Sicily,” as Annie refers to it, she acquired a deep tan and is now in remarkable physical condition from walking and swimming...
“And falling down mountains,” my mother adds jokingly, and Annie even finds this funny.
It would appear that whatever medication they prescribed for her in Italy has had a calming effect. She is truly a joy to be with. Truly. For the first time in a very long time, my mother feels as if she actually has a grown daughter with whom she can go shopping at Bloomie’s or Bendel’s, with whom she can visit the Met or the Modern, a daughter she can take to lunch at the Russian Tea Room or the Café des Artistes. Annie seems to have become once again the bright, articulate, inventive, charming individual Mama knew before she sold our band equipment and went to Sweden on her own.
It is Annie who helps her hang new drapes in the guest room, where she will now be sleeping and working. Together, chatting and reminiscing, they clear a corner of the room so that she can set up a work table. At first, because she is still feeling the effects of the drug they injected in Sicily, Annie sleeps a lot. But as the days go by, she spends more and more time on her jewelry, and my mother believes she truly has the makings of a good sculptor. When she’s not at her table molding silver or copper or gold into these truly remarkable... well... works of art, she is either pacing the apartment thinking up new designs, or else sketching them onto a pad for later realization in metal.
My mother still doesn’t quite know what happened in Sicily, but she doesn’t believe that Annie experienced any sort of psychotic episode, and she certainly doesn’t believe the diagnosis Bertuzzi made. She knows that except for a little marijuana as part of the Tantric ceremony, Annie is not a drug-user, so she feels positive that narcotics were not responsible for the altercation in the bar. But she’s beginning to realize that Annie can become aggravated at the slightest provocation. As an example, just the other night, she got into an argument with a waiter in a Spanish restaurant because he was unable to tell her what ingredients were in several dishes on the menu. But was a similar lack of communication responsible for what happened in Sicily? Was the bar episode due to a language barrier? Similarly, were those toughs on the road really trying to rob her and rape her? Or were they just trying to frighten her? My mother has by now heard so many versions of the story, she just doesn’t know.
Aside from that one outburst in the Spanish restaurant, however, Annie’s been fine ever since she got home, helping with household chores, leaving her work space tidy and neat, and being a truly pleasant companion. My mother sometimes becomes dejected about Annie’s misspent life and wasted prospects, but she honestly believes Annie’s essentially a contented person with great talent and sincere convictions, and that’s what my mother feels is important. In fact, she is delighted when Annie tells her she’s managed to find a part-time job in a jewelry store in Brooklyn, and will begin work there on the Saturday after the Fourth.
My mother really thinks Annie is okay now.
Really.
But suddenly, all of that changes.
As best I can figure it, Shirley’s birthday party took place on the Saturday my sister started work in Brooklyn. This would have been the day after my mother and I had our summit meeting in the park. Shirley was my mother’s best friend, and so the ladies were taking her to lunch at Le Cirque, an extravagance to be sure, but, hey, how often do you celebrate your sixty-fifth?
When my mother gets back to the apartment at around three that afternoon, Annie is watching television in the living room. My mother is surprised.
“Hi,” she says. “What are you doing home so early?”
“Short day today,” Annie says. “How was your party?”
“Oh, it was such fun,” my mother says. “How’s the job?”
“Fine. Too bad I wasn’t invited.”
“Well, it was just the girls,” my mother says. “Tell me about it.”
“Nothing to tell. It’s a job.”
“Can I turn this off, honey?”
“Sure.”
My mother turns off the television set, and comes to sit beside Annie.
“Is he a nice man?”
“He’s fine. Were any of the other daughters invited?”
“No. I told you. It was just...”
“Just the ladies who lunch, I know. Sondheim, Mom. Remember Sondheim? You were in West Side Story, remember, Mom? You ought to know Sondheim. You ought to know ‘The Ladies Who Lunch.’ ”
“That wasn’t in West Side Story.”
“Wherever it was.”
“But yes, I do know Sondheim,” my mother says. “Personally, in fact.”
“The way I know Sheng-yen Lu personally,” Annie says. “How’d Sondheim like your tiny feet?”
“I do have tiny feet.”
“Yes, I know. I thought maybe some of the other daughters were invited.”
“No.”
“I thought maybe some of your friends invited daughters they aren’t ashamed of.”
“Annie!” my mother says. “Whatever gave you such an idea? I adore you, why would I be ashamed of you?”
“Maybe none of your friends have daughters who were locked up in Sicily.”
“I wouldn’t trade a dozen of them for you, darling,” my mother says and pats her hand.
“I’ll bet,” Annie says. “How’d Shirley like that scarf you bought her?”
“Oh, she loved it. Well, anything Hermes, you know.”
“I guess she doesn’t wear jewelry, right?”
“Jewelry, too. Hermes jewelry, yes. She adores anything...”
“Any Gullivers in her collection?”
“Gulli...?”
“Her vast collection of jewelry? Any pieces by the talented young Annie Gulliver?”
My mother looks at her.
“Oh, darling, I’m so sorry,” she says, “forgive me. I never thought of it. Of course, I should have given her a piece of your work. How stupid of me. You should have suggested it, Annie. I’m sure she’d have loved it.”
“Oh, I’ll bet. The way you love it.”
“I do love it. I think you’re very talented, darling.”
“Oh, yes, and your friends all have such wonderful taste, too, I know. How could Shirley not love a cunt pinned to her left breast?”
“Annie, please! I hate that kind of language.”
“But you love my work, right? I can’t say cunt, but it’s perfectly all right for me to sculpt cunts!”
“Are you deliberately trying to offend me?”
“Far be it,” Annie says, and puts her hands together as if in prayer, and bows her head to Mama. “But you just might have thought about giving Shirley a genuine work of art instead of something frivolous you picked up at Barney’s or Saks...”
“Berg...”
“Wherever the fuck you bought it! The point is...”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” Annie says, and the room goes silent.
“Can we get off this now?” my mother asks. “Please?”