Save Me the Plums - Ruth Reichl Page 0,9

long time, leaning into the wind, unaware that I had a destination, until the Washington Square arch rose up before me.

I’d come home to Greenwich Village. To the large, solid building on the corner of 10th Street and Fifth Avenue that my parents had occupied for fifty years. They were both long gone, but I looked up at our old apartment on the eleventh floor, wondering what they would advise me to do.

Long ago, on a winter day like this, I’d come home from school to find Mom watching workmen hoist a large dead birch tree up to the eleventh floor. “It didn’t fit in the elevator,” she explained, “but isn’t it wonderful? And such a bargain! I bought it on sale.” She began to enumerate the many ways this improbable object was going to improve our lives.

Later, Dad and I came back down to this little patch of sidewalk to figure out how to deal with the huge object now occupying our living room. We always came outside to strategize over Mom’s more exotic purchases. We’d stood here for hours, in warmer weather, the day she announced she’d just bought a house in the country.

“You’re going to love it!” she’d enthused. Mom was tall, with short iron-gray hair and a penchant for flamboyant clothes; I remember she was wearing a bright red shirtdress. “It’s right on the water. And I bought a boat to go with it.”

“A boat?” Dad ran his hands through his hair over and over, until the thatch covering his bald spot was standing straight up.

“A thirty-five-foot Chris-Craft cruiser we can park in front of our new house.” Dad and I stared at each other in shock and terror; we knew from experience that there would be more. But all I could think to say was, “Mom, you don’t park a boat. You anchor it.”

Mom ignored this as she shifted into the aggressive tone she used at her most manic. By then we’d learned to read Mom’s moods; after years on a psychiatrist’s couch she’d finally been diagnosed as bipolar, and we’d come to expect the extreme swings that moved through her like weather, altering every aspect of her being. The doctors had yet to discover the drugs that could help her; one day she’d be a whimpering blob of self-doubt, the next a dictatorial titan determined to rule the world.

“Why shouldn’t we have a nice home? I’ve also invested in a painting. It’s a large abstract canvas—all blue and turquoise—that will look beautiful on the wall facing the water.”

“Where did you buy this painting?” Dad’s voice was unnaturally low, as soothing as one you’d use on a dangerous animal. I recognized this tactic; he was beginning to collect the information he’d need to undo the damage. We could not afford a single one of these things on a book designer’s salary; together they were a financial disaster. Everything would have to go back.

Mom proffered a benign smile. “I met the nicest man on the bus the other day. He has a gallery on Fifty-seventh Street, and he suggested I stop in. When I saw my painting it felt like fate; it’s just perfect for my house. Then, as I was leaving…” Mom stopped and for the first time faltered. Dad and I exchanged frightened glances; this was not a good sign. Something worse was coming.

“As you were leaving…” he prompted in that quiet voice. His face had taken on a papery, ashen hue. I felt sick.

“Well, it was Fifty-seventh Street, and there’s that furrier right next door. What harm can there be, I thought, in stopping in? You know I’ve always wanted a mink coat.”

“Oh, no!” The words escaped before I could stop them. I quickly covered my mouth; arguing with Mom when she was like this was a very bad idea.

She turned on me, furious, her voice rising in righteous indignation. “And why shouldn’t I have a mink coat?” She stood up, then slammed her chair into the table. It reverberated, on and on, like the rumble of a drum.

“I wonder if there’s anything else?” Dad whispered.

Haunted by the life she imagined for herself, Mom was constantly humiliated by the pedestrian reality of our existence. Dad worked hard but he never made much money, and our rent-controlled apartment was small. Mom liked to remind us that Bertrand Russell had once asked her to marry him, and although I thought she was exaggerating, she took me to meet him on his ninetieth birthday