(Op's note: This is an excerpt from "The C Word." What you need to know: Adam and Liza have taken Adam's mother, Estelle, in to live with them during her chemotherapy. Charlie works for a TV program that's like "The View." That should be it, I think)
Adam’s brother, Charlie, is coming from Manhattan for the weekend, and the mood in Adam and Liza’s house suddenly seems to sparkle as if touched by a magic wand. Liza buys the coffee he likes and changes the sheets on the foldout. Estelle spends hours in the bathroom putting on makeup and doing her hair. When Adam returns from the train station with Charlie, the prodigal son has a sack full of goodies from Zabar’s. He’s got a Lindy’s cheesecake, and stories about the four famous ladies and who is fighting with whom.
And before the coffee can finish brewing, Charlie also has Cara from down the street. She’d stopped by after dropping the kids at football practice. As Charlie talks, she leans forward, eyes bright, eating up his celebrity gossip with a spoon. “So that’s your job?” she says. “Keeping the divas from each other’s throats?”
“That. And occasionally producing a television show.” He sniffs. “It’s a living.”
“I read in the Star that Jessica What’s-Her-Name has had so much Botox she can’t even blink.”
“Close to it. It’s pretty freakish.” Charlie puts down his coffee and glances at Estelle. “Mom? You’re looking kind of green. You OK?”
“It’s probably the nausea,” Cara says. “From the chemo.”
Estelle nods.
“Can I get your compozine?” Liza says.
“Doesn’t work,” Estelle says in a gasp. “I took three.”
“You’re not supposed to take that much, Estelle.” Cara turns to Liza. “Does anything else work?”
Liza shrugs. “We tried ginger tea. She threw it up.”
Cara smiles gently at Estelle and pats her knee. “I got something for you, hon. I’ll bring it by later.”
-----
Liza cleans up from dinner, a simple Saturday evening neighborhood affair consisting of several pizzas and whatever she and Cara had around the house. Adam comes in with a fistful of paper plates, and stuffs them into the trash.
He doesn’t look pleased. “She gave my mother pot.”
“It was just a little,” Liza says.
“Cara gave my mother pot. You know she’s not supposed to be smoking.”
“It’s not like she whipped out a bong. We made tea. She’s a nurse, so she knows what to do. And it helped.”
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t care that your mother is no longer puking her guts out?”
“It’s against the law.”
Rolling her eyes into the kitchen window, Liza squeezes out the sponge. “I hardly think they’re going to bust our door down for a tiny little bit used for medicinal purposes.”
“Cara’s got kids,” Adam says. “What’s she doing with pot in the house?”
“Where do you think she got it?” Liza says.
“Oh. That’s nice. Real nice message she’s sending.”
“And the Valium you and Charlie have been pushing on her for years?” Liza says. “That’s OK?”
“That’s different.”
Cara sidles into the kitchen for another beer. She smiles at Adam. For a second his gaze drops to her breasts. But Liza, when she’s sober, can hardly fault him. They’re like a total eclipse of the sun. Sometimes Liza finds herself staring. Adam’s voice is much softer than the tone he’d used with Liza. “Don’t be giving my mother any more pot, OK?”
“But she’s feeling better.” Cara squeezes Adam’s shoulder. “Maybe you could use some, hon. You’re wrapped a little tight. Have a beer.”
He takes it from her. If she’d offered him hemlock he would have probably taken it.
“And that’s different.” Liza flicks a finger against the bottle. “That high can be legal, but a tiny little bit of pot...”
“It’s not the same, Liza.”
“People don’t smoke pot and get into cars and kill other people.”
Charlie wanders in. “So the party’s in here. Mom’s starting to wonder if it’s something she said.”
Adam grabs his brother’s arm. “Charlie. Save me. Talk some sense into my libertarian wife.”
Charlie winks at Liza. “You married her.”
------
Adam follows Cara’s beer with several more. Shortly after the neighbors leave, he’s sleeping like a bear in January, but Liza is still wide awake. Estelle has been out for hours. Charlie’s got an old black and white movie on the television. A fast-talking dame with dark lipstick is holding a gun on a guy trying to be smooth as Bogie. Charlie’s cell phone is propped on the arm of the sofa. He’s watching it like he’s willing it to ring. Liza makes a show of scraping her slippered feet along the carpet, to alert him.
He turns and smiles. “Come, sit. The bad guy’s about to buy it for being a Nazi informant. Or a bootlegger. I’m not sure which.”
He stretches out a corner of his afghan. Liza curls up beside him as three shots ring out. The Bogart wanna-be winces and drops to his knees, and then the floor.
“I miss the days when people in movies died in tidy, choreographed heaps,” Liza says. “No blood splattered everywhere to prove it happened.”
“I miss hats.” Charlie picks up one of Liza’s long, curly locks, examines it thoughtfully, then lets it go. “I bet you’d look good in a hat.”
“Hardly.” She smiles. She missed this. Late nights with Charlie. Talking through the movie, making fun of the cheesy dialogue and bad acting. Talking about the movie they would write one day. But things change. She wonders if he ever thinks about what he gave up to work in television.
“So Sleeping Beauty turned you out into the cold, dark night?” Charlie asks.
“Snoring like a buzz saw. It’s not pretty.”
“So stay up. Dark Victory’s on next. I love watching Bette Davis die. She’s the best.”
Charlie’s phone rings. He looks at the ID. Then looks away.
“Waiting on someone?” Liza says.
“I’m playing hard to get.” He looks tired. “Actually I’m playing, ‘there’s very few people I want to talk to right now when I’m not being paid to.’”
“But there’s someone you do want to talk to.”
Charlie doesn’t answer.
“Is this classified information?” Liza says.
“It’s a problem.”
“Closeted?”
“Worse.” He lets out his breath. “Politician.”
“Important?”
“Could be. He’s on everyone’s short list to run for Congress.”
“So what’s the big deal? You live in New York. Who would care if he came out? It might even enhance his cache.”
“His wife and kids might have something to say about that.”
“Charlie...”
He sighs. “I know. I’m the poster child for Gay Men, Stupid Choices. But we met when he came to do a segment on the show, and we just clicked. On so many levels. Ah, but who am I talking to? Liza the Practical. You always made sure they were attainable before you fell for them.”
Not always, she thinks. But she’s over Charlie. Mostly. “Maybe he’ll get divorced.”
“I doubt it. She’s Catholic.”
“Too bad,” Liza says. “You’d have made a great First Lady.”
He squares his shoulders and adopts a serene, inscrutable air, a la Jackie Kennedy. “You think?”
It makes him look ridiculous. And completely adorable. “Absolutely,” Liza says.
“Liar.” Charlie’s face sags. “Is there any of that cheesecake left?”
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