25
It took me two evenings to locate Margot’s grandson. Josh was busy with work and Margot went to bed most nights by nine so one evening I sat on the floor by the front door – the one place where I could pick up the Gopniks’ WiFi – and I started googling her son, testing the name Frank De Witt, and when nothing of that name came up, Frank Aldridge Junior. There was nobody who could have been him, unless he’d moved to a different part of the country, but even then the dates and nationalities of all the men who came up under that name were wrong.
On the second night, on a whim, I looked up Margot’s married name in some old papers that were in the chest of drawers in my room. I found a card for a funeral service for Terrence Weber, so I tried Frank Weber and discovered, with some wistfulness, that she had named her son after her beloved husband, who had died years before he was even born. And that some time further down the line she had changed her name back to her maiden name – De Witt – and reinvented herself completely.
Frank Weber Junior was a dentist who lived somewhere called Tuckahoe in Westchester. I found a couple of references to him on LinkedIn and on Facebook through his wife, Laynie. The big news was that they had a son, Vincent, who was a little younger than me. He worked in Yonkers at a not-for-profit educational centre for underprivileged children and it was he who decided it for me. Frank Weber Junior might be too angry with his mother to rebuild a relationship, but what harm would there be in trying Vincent? I found his profile, took a breath, sent him a message, and waited.
Josh took a break from his never-ending round of corporate jockeying and had lunch with me at the noodle bar, announcing there was a corporate ‘family day’ the following Saturday at the Loeb Boathouse and that he’d like me to come as his plus-one.
‘I was planning on going to the library protest.’
‘You don’t want to keep doing that, Louisa. You’re not going to change anything standing around with a bunch of people shouting at passing cars.’
‘And I’m not really family,’ I said, bristling slightly.
‘Close enough. C’mon! It’ll be a great day. Have you ever been to the boathouse? It’s gorgeous. My firm really knows how to lay on a party. You’re still doing your “say yes” thing, right? So you have to say yes.’ He did puppy eyes at me. ‘Say yes, Louisa, please. Go on.’
He had me and he knew it. I smiled resignedly. ‘Okay. Yes.’
‘Great! Last year apparently they had all these inflatable sumo suits and people wrestled on the grass and there were family races and organized games. You’re going to love it.’
‘Sounds amazing,’ I said. The words ‘organized games’ held the same appeal to me as the words ‘compulsory smear test’. But it was Josh and he looked so pleased at the thought of my accompanying him that I didn’t have the heart to say no.
‘I promise you won’t have to wrestle my workmates. You might have to wrestle me afterwards, though,’ he said, kissed me, and left.
I checked my inbox all week, but there was nothing, other than an email from Lily asking if I knew the best place to get an underage tattoo, a friendly hello from someone who was supposedly at school with me but whom I didn’t remember at all, and one from my mother sending me a GIF of an overweight cat apparently talking to a two-year-old and a link to a game called Farm Fun Fandango.
‘Are you sure you’ll be okay by yourself, Margot?’ I said, as I gathered my keys and purse into my handbag. I was wearing a white jumpsuit with gold lamé epaulettes and trim that she’d given me from her early eighties period and she clasped her hands together. ‘Oh, that looks magnificent on you. You must have almost exactly the measurements that I had at the same age. I used to have a bust, you know! Terribly unfashionable in the sixties and seventies but there you go.’
I didn’t like to tell her that it was taking everything I had not to burst the seams but she was right – I had lost a few pounds since I’d moved in with her, mostly because of my efforts to cook her things that were nutritionally useful. I felt lovely in the jumpsuit and gave her a twirl. ‘Have you taken your pills?’
‘Of course I have. Don’t fuss, dear. Does that mean you won’t be back later?’
‘I’m not sure. I’ll take Dean Martin for a quick walk before I go, though. Just in case.’ I paused, as I reached for the dog’s lead. ‘Margot? Why did you call him Dean Martin? I never asked.’
The tone of her response told me it was an idiotic question. ‘Because Dean Martin was the most terrifically handsome man, and he’s the most terrifically handsome dog, of course.’
The little dog sat obediently, his bulging, mismatched eyes rolling above his flapping tongue.
‘Silly of me to ask,’ I said, and let myself out of the front door.
‘Well, look at you!’ Ashok whistled as Dean Martin and I ran down the last flight of stairs to the ground floor. ‘Disco diva!’
‘You like it?’ I said, throwing a shape in front of him. ‘It was Margot’s.’
‘Seriously? That woman is full of surprises.’
‘Watch out for her, will you? She’s pretty wobbly today.’
‘Kept back a piece of mail just so I have an excuse to knock on her door at six o’clock.’
‘You’re a star.’
We jogged outside to the park and Dean Martin did what dogs do and I did what you do with a little bag and a certain amount of shuddering and various passers-by stared in the way you do if you see a girl in a lamé-trimmed jumpsuit running around with an excitable dog and a small bag of poo. It was as we sprinted back in, Dean Martin yapping delightedly at my heels, that we bumped into Josh in the lobby. ‘Oh, hey!’ I said, kissing him. ‘I’ll be two minutes, okay? Just have to wash my hands and grab my handbag.’
‘Grab your handbag?’
‘Yes!’ I gazed at him. ‘Oh. Purse. You call it a purse.’
‘I just meant – you’re not getting changed?’
I looked down at my jumpsuit. ‘I am changed.’
‘Sweetheart, if you wear that to our office day out they’re going to wonder if you’re the entertainment.’
It took me a moment to realize he wasn’t joking. ‘You don’t like it?’
‘Oh. No. You look great. It’s just it’s kind of a bit … drag queeny? We’re an office full of suits. Like, the other wives and girlfriends will be in shift dresses or white pants. It’s just … smart casual?’
‘Oh.’ I tried not to feel disappointed. ‘Sorry. I don’t really get US dress codes. Okay. Okay. Wait there. I’ll be right back.’
I took the stairs two at a time and burst into Margot’s apartment, throwing Dean Martin’s lead towards Margot, who had got up out of her chair for something and now followed me down the hallway, one thin arm braced against the wall.
‘Why are you in such a tearing hurry? You sound like a herd of elephants charging around the apartment.’
‘I have to change.’
‘Change? Why?’
‘I’m not suitable, apparently.’ I rattled my way through my wardrobe. Shift dresses? The only clean shift dress I had was the psychedelic one Sam had given me and it felt somehow disloyal to wear that.