Being Esther Read online

  Now she’s arguing with Lorraine in favor of a proper burial, though perhaps her friend has a point. Had Marty yielded to Esther’s wild suggestion, he wouldn’t have needed his hat and gloves on that cold winter day.

  Esther has always struggled with an extra five or ten pounds, which she has managed to lose for special occasions, such as an impending wedding or bar mitzvah. Once, she lost an entire dress size before a Caribbean cruise. The term yo-yo dieting might have been invented for Esther, who has been on every diet from Atkins to South Beach to a particularly malodorous regimen in which she ate nothing but cabbage soup for eleven days.

  Now, casting a critical eye upon her reflection in the bedroom mirror, she is pleased to see that the blue dress still fits. There’s even room to spare at the waist and hips, though the hemline falls farther below her knees than it did years ago. Esther is shrinking and there isn’t a diet in the world to remedy that.

  She grabs hold of some fabric and hikes the dress up. “Much better,” she says, nodding at her image.

  This she won’t say aloud, not even to Lorraine, who knows her plans, that she shudders at the thought of a stranger, probably a man, possibly someone who can barely read, straining to squeeze her lifeless body into the dress, the way she once struggled to put silver lamé capri pants on Ceely’s Barbie doll. To avoid such indignity, Esther tries the dress on twice a year to be sure that, when the time comes, it slips on like a glove.

  If Marty were here, she’d ask his opinion. But then, tilting her head to one side, studying her image, she recalls how Marty clammed up when she asked his advice. When she pressed, he’d reply, “If I tell you it looks good, you won’t believe me.” She’d glare at him and say, “You have an opinion on everything, until I ask for one,” to which he’d say, “Just tell me what you want me to say. Should I tell you it’s too long? Too short? You tell me, Esther.” That’s how it went with the two of them. Still, if he were here, she would say, “What do you think?” It’s so lonely arguing with herself.

  Again, she raises the hem. The shorter length is so pleasing that she considers taking the dress to Alberta, whose flawless French seams and painstaking stitches rivaled those of the city’s top plastic surgeons. Then, remembering that Alberta is gone, she lets the fabric fall. Alberta, in her knitted slippers, her stockings rolled below her knees, seated at the sewing machine in the back of Ziegler’s Cleaners, or settled in her tufted easy chair, hands flying over fabric like a pair of doves released from silk scarves, had been as reassuring to Esther as the cat curled up between the geranium pots, sunning itself in the store’s front window. Alberta, old Mr. Ziegler, the cat, had been part of the fabric of Esther’s life. Then one day, Alberta was gone, and the kid who started filling in more and more for old Mr. Ziegler couldn’t say why. In time, Mr. Ziegler told Esther, “Alberta’s got that macular degeneration.”

  Once more, Esther hikes the dress up and agrees with herself that the shorter length is more becoming. If her hands weren’t so warped, so bent out of shape, she could stitch a hem, the way Mrs. Rothstein, the seamstress in her father’s shop, had instructed her all those years ago. Perhaps Mrs. Singh wouldn’t mind. After all, she and her husband used to run that dress shop on Devon. Yes, she’ll ask her neighbor. But then she’d have to explain her plans. Once more, she lets the hem drop, sighs, and thinks that next time she wears the dress, she’ll be laid out in a pine box. “Nobody will know the difference,” she tells her reflection.

  She bought the dress during one of her svelte phases to wear on the high holidays. This was the time of year when the women of Congregation Emanuel behaved more like Hollywood starlets on Oscar night than penitents appealing for another year of life to a judgmental and potentially wrathful God. The rest of the year the sanctuary was as empty as a Broadway theater during a blizzard. On the high holidays it was standing room only.

  The sanctuary was cavernous and severe. Leaded windows depicting the Exodus from Egypt, blocked the light. A gilded Star of David emblazoned on the ceiling loomed over the congregation like the omniscient eye of God. Yet on the holiest days of the year, a time for reflection and reverence and awe, a carnival atmosphere prevailed. The sanctuary became charged with the rustle of silk, the intoxicating mélange of perfume, the glitter of gemstones and gold. Charm bracelets jingled like wind chimes when the pages of prayer books were turned.

  Esther, who’d disdained the yearly fashion parade, who scorned the women for tossing mink stoles over empty seats to save them for tardy friends, who loathed the hypocrisy of “once a year” Jews, got swept up in the fervor that svelte year. It was as if she were possessed by the thinner woman who’d taken over her soft, round body. Zaftig, Marty called her. He preferred her that way.

  It was during that svelte year that Hank Stammler started sniffing around. Esther fell so hard for her neighbor’s attention that she could hardly eat. And when she was as thin as she’d ever be, she bypassed her father’s dress shop for Saks Fifth Avenue and paid full price for an Italian silk knit dress—a simple, blue sleeveless sheath with a matching bolero jacket. She loved the shimmering satin lining and the rhinestone button, fat as a golf ball, that fastened at the neck.

  The Stammlers and Lustigs had always been cordial neighbors, sharing cups of sugar and accepting each other’s packages from the mailman. Suddenly, Hank was hanging around, engaging Esther in long conversations. He’d cross over into their yard, stand there in his Bermuda shorts and huaraches, jingling the change in his pockets and shooting the breeze, while Esther, who had only ever plunked a few six-packs of petunias and sweet alyssum into a patch of dirt outside the back door, planted delphinium and salvia, cleome and stock. That summer, she put in rose bushes, upon which, Marty said, she lavished more care than she’d ever shown to her own two children. She started gardening in halter-tops and wore sunglasses that made her feel like Jackie Kennedy. On the days Hank didn’t show up, she was cross with the children; on the days when he did, she acceded to Ceely and Barry’s every demand, while fantasizing a life with the man next door—the sex, the scintillating conversations, the laughter. They’d be soul mates, a concept Marty failed to understand. “Are we soul mates, Marty?” she’d once asked. Without looking up from the crossword, he said, “Why not? Whatever you say, Essie.”

  Well, she could hardly blame him for that listless response. She’d only just run across the idea while reading a magazine under the hair dryer at the beauty parlor. Still. Together, they could have pondered its meaning and perhaps discovered some way in which it applied to them. Or she might laugh. “Soul mates! That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.” And Marty might say, “Perhaps, but we are something Esther. We’ll just have to figure out what it is.”

  The next week, she asked Marty, “Am I fun to be with?” The question was part of a relationship IQ test she’d found in a magazine in the dentist’s waiting room. Marty caught her off guard when he said, “Actually, Esther, I’ve been thinking that lately you’ve lost some of your zip.” Being a pharmacist, he was in the habit of recommending tonics for people, so she tried not to take it too hard.

  But then she thought of her friend, Ruthie Sherman, who, one week after her fortieth birthday, left a tuna noodle casserole and a note for her husband while he was playing tennis at his club. Ruthie hopped in her car and drove to Santa Fe, where she rented a casita, took painting classes, and grew her hair long. She returned one year later with her hair swept up in a silver barrette and a carload of paintings—lurid pictures of desert sunsets. Once Esther got as far as preparing a tuna casserole for Marty. But by the time dinner rolled around she was seated across the table from him, and all during the meal she tried to imagine him eating alone. She wondered if he would bother to chew with his mouth shut? Would he reach for second helpings, or would he be so distraught by her absence that he’d pick at his food until it turned cold? The image of Marty picking at his food kept her grounded.

  But that svelte summer she thought often of Ruthie’s
casserole. Hank would stroll over, like the time she was digging around the rose bushes, and stand there, hands deep in the pockets of his Bermuda shorts, describing the plot of an Italian movie he’d just seen or a new restaurant that served great burritos. On one such occasion, Esther grabbed a worm that was burrowing back into the ground and dangled it in the air. She smiled up at Hank, who had already shared with her his love of fishing, and in a smoky voice said, “Here, a present for you.”

  Hank, who charmed Esther with little Spanish phrases he’d picked up on a one-week, all expenses paid trip to Acapulco, said she was muy funny. “Muy, mucho funny, Esther.” Frightened that the flirtation was getting out of hand, she said that she really wasn’t all that funny and that she had to get Barry to his guitar lesson.

  In the car, with her son slouched in the seat beside her, his baseball cap covering his eyes, she imagined driving to Lake Geneva with Hank. She’d already bought a copy of Rod and Reel, so they’d have plenty to discuss. (When Marty cast a quizzical eye at the magazine, she lied and said the mailman delivered it to the wrong house.) Hank’s van would be loaded with fishing rods and tackle boxes and a coffee can full of worms from Esther’s garden.

  By the time Esther dropped Barry off for his lesson, her fantasy had bloomed like her prize American Beauty roses. She was asking Hank to bait her hooks, and he was saying, No problema, Esther. And when something caught on the line, he reeled it in for her and pulled the hook out of its puckering mouth. Hank was at her service. Rub my feet, Hank. Fetch me that book, will you? Be a love, Hank, and scratch my back. Oooh. That’s good. A little higher. No, higher. Lower. Stop! There. Ahh. No matter what she said, his response was always the same. No problema, Esther.

  At dinner that evening, Esther looked across the table and saw Hank’s face superimposed on her husband’s. In bed, after Marty pecked her on the cheek and said good night, she imagined sex in Hank’s van, arms and legs flailing among the fishing gear. She could smell the leather seats and the loamy dirt in the coffee can full of worms. At breakfast the next morning, the littlest things annoyed her. The way Marty creased the newspaper after folding it in thirds. The way he shook his vitamin from the bottle. She wanted her thoughts to go away. She wanted to be nothing more than Esther Lustig, wife of Martin, mother of Barry and Ceely. She wanted her obsession to run its course, like a bout of the flu or a mysterious virus. But she also wanted it to go on forever.

  Then one day, Sylvia Stammler let herself into Esther’s kitchen and between sobs managed to convey that Hank had run out for a pack of cigarettes the previous night and never returned. Sometime after midnight he called to say she shouldn’t wait up for him. When Sylvia snapped her fingers and said, “He left. Just like that,” Esther came to, as if Sylvia were a hypnotist releasing her from a spell. That could have been me. Saddled with a no-goodnik who takes off. Just like that. Suddenly, she saw Hank cringe and step back that time she dangled the worm. And she saw Marty, relaxing in the evening after a hard day at work, pencil poised over the crossword, brow furrowed, waiting patiently for the right word. And then she started to cry. Sylvia must have assumed the tears were for her, but every last drop was for Esther, grateful to be released to her familiar, comfortable zaftig body.

  On Sundays, Lenny picks up Esther on his way home from the lab. As they drive to Wing Yee’s, she scolds him for working weekends and he patiently explains that nematodes haven’t yet grasped the notion of a day of rest. At Wing Yee’s, Lenny leaves the motor running so Esther can listen to the radio while he runs in to pick up their order. Then he drives home, kamikaze style, racing through yellow lights, lurching through stop signs, until Esther feels nearly overcome by the sudden stops and starts and the pervading smell of Chinese food.

  Their arrival precipitates near-hysteria as everyone rushes to get the food to the table before it turns cold. Coats get flung over chairs, bodies collide in the rush from kitchen to dining room. Everyone talks at once. “We need another spoon.” “Did you remember the fortune cookies?” “Josh, turn off that computer!” “Where’s the soy sauce?” “Ma, do you want chopsticks?” though Esther hasn’t been able to manage chopsticks for years. Then comes the frantic inspection of cartons, the sorting out of kung pao chicken from Buddha’s delight, and sometimes the assignment of blame for a missing order. At last, they are seated and cartons are passed, along with comparisons of this week’s order to last. Saltier. Blander. Too many bean sprouts and not enough shrimp. Too hot. “As in picante,” Lenny might say.

  Then the meal is over. Ceely, Sophie, and Josh clear their plates, abandoning Lenny and Esther, who knows that the minute she gets up somebody will drive her home. Sometimes it feels as if all the rushing had been set in place to hurry the evening along to the moment when someone reaches for the car keys and hustles her out the door. Another Sunday meal completed, a race to the finish from the moment Ceely phoned in the order and asked, “How soon will it be ready?”

  But for a while, it is just Esther and Lenny.

  This evening, Lenny is telling Esther that if his latest grant application is rejected, he’ll have to fire two research assistants. Esther issues some consoling remarks, glad that for once she has something to offer. Rejection, she understands. But beyond that, Lenny might as well be speaking Milo’s language, one that employs the Cyrillic alphabet. Hard as she tries, she can’t quite grasp her son-in-law’s work, which entails the search for extending life. Turn off the aging switch. That’s what Lenny wants to do. When he tells her his grant application proposes to build on earlier successes with yeast and a particular kind of worm, Esther considers telling him about the pack of expired Red Star yeast in her refrigerator. But then Lenny, who has been waving his chopsticks for emphasis, bursts forth, “The question is, why can’t we do the same with people?” With a gesture of finality, he plunks down his chopsticks on the clean white cloth.

  At times like this Esther finds herself scrutinizing Lenny’s face, as if after all these years, something new might present itself. He has a strong nose and a fringe of graying hair, the texture of Brillo. In his frenzied, professorial state, he reminds her of the fuzzy New Yorker cartoon characters she so enjoys. The first time Ceely brought Lenny home, Esther could barely contain her disappointment. She’d been expecting someone with a bit more dash, a more even temper, the kind of person you could count on when your car conked out or the toilet wouldn’t stop running. Yet for all his brilliance, Lenny Frankel was the last person you’d call on in a pinch. She’s long suspected that his incompetence was willful, a deliberate strategy to insulate himself from the everyday tasks of life. Yet her son-in-law has grown on her. And when he talks about his work, his features, normally inscrutable, rearrange themselves into something open and appealing.

  Now, trying to sound like one of those clever radio hosts, Terry Gross, or that smarty-pants, Ira Flatow, someone with the ability to appear informed while knowing nothing really about the matter at hand, she says, “You mean to tell me that if I were a worm, you could do something to make me live longer?”

  Lenny removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. Their color—one blue, one brown—have the power to disconcert her. They are like Lenny, Esther thinks, one part brilliant scientist, the other, haimish son-in-law. The problem is, she never knows which Lenny she is talking to. “If you were a worm?” he says. He blows on the lenses, then polishes them with a napkin, slowly picking his words, as if the deliberate spacing of each utterance will make everything clear. That is something else she likes about Lenny. Even her simplest questions earn his utmost consideration.

  He puts his glasses back and gazes at her from behind thick lenses. “Not a worm, Esther.” He pauses. “C. elegans.” He draws the word out, pronouncing it as if he were ordering something off a French menu. “The little nematode. It’s brilliant, really.” Then he plunges his chopsticks into a cold carton of sesame noodles, which earlier had been the subject of considerable debate over whether Mr. Yee had skimped on the peanuts.

 
All this talk of worms, Esther thinks. But Lenny wouldn’t appreciate the irony, wouldn’t stop to consider that one might not want to hear about worms while eating noodles. Nor would it occur to him that despite all his journal articles, the chapters in textbooks, the invitations to lecture in faraway places, despite the hobnobbing with other experts, and the endowed chair (he is the Morris and Sylvia Fischbach Professor of Molecular Biology) that Esther once famously asked to sit on, despite all that, she can tell Lenny Frankel a thing or two about getting old. And not once will she have to talk about worms at the dinner table.

  “Brilliant. Yes,” she agrees, her voice trailing off. She fingers her chopsticks, still encased in their paper wrapper, and considers the infinite frustrations of living in an aging body.

  She might remind Lenny that once she’d wielded these sticks with the same precision as he. In fact, it was she who introduced the family to chopsticks the year she took Mrs. Chen’s cooking class in Old Town, bought a wok and five-spice powder. She wonders whether older Chinese share her problem: at a certain age, hobbled by arthritis, do they switch to forks? Or perhaps no accommodations are made for this particular infirmity and eventually they starve to death. Perhaps this was how the Chinese dispensed with their elders, the way Eskimos are said to set their aging parents adrift on ice floes. She is just about to say, “What’s the point of living longer, when daily our bodies defeat us?” when Ceely appears, already buttoning her coat. “Lenny?” The uptick she delivers at the end of his name sounds like a prearranged signal, which Lenny misses. Frowning, Ceely repeats his name. Then, with deliberation, says, “It’s too late for lectures. My mother is tired.”