It was fifteen weeks after my Granny Elaine’s funeral that Mr. Compton kept his promise and came to see us. He brought along Tooie, the famous Tooie. They were sitting in the foyer of our apartment building when I came in from school. At first I didn’t know who they were and I was walking by them when the man on the bench called out my name.
"Max," he called. "Max, over here."
I turned to see who it was and recognized him at once. He rose and held out his hand, ready to shake mine, I guess, but I walked right by him to the woman sitting quite still on the upholstered leather bench against the wall. I picked her hand up off her lap and held on to it, tight, and said, "you must be Tooie." After a second or two she nodded but didn’t speak.
"I’m glad to to meet you," I said. "I’m Max, Elaine’s grandson."
She nodded again, but still said nothing.
"Cat got your tongue?" I asked her. She laughed, shook her head then nodded.
"I can talk," she said. "Don’t worry about that, kiddo."
She sounded so much like my Granny that I instantly burst into tears on hearing her. She reached around and pulled me to her and held me while I sobbed. I liked the very familiar scent of her. Here, too, she reminded me of my loss. I cried there in the strong circle of her embrace, then pulled myself together and stood back up, alone and unsupported.
"Let me see you, kid," Tooie said. "let me see how you look."
I took a big step backward and stood up straight and tall, my shoulders thrown back and my chest out. I heard her laugh. It was a warm, enthralling sort of laughter and it made me smile just to hear it.
"You’re a cute kid," she said, that laughter ringing through the words. "A darn cute kid. You’re right Vin," she said, "he does look like Lainie."
"Everybody says I do," I told her.
"Everybody’s right, then," she answered.
"My sister Brianna doesn’t look like her at all."
"Is that so? Well, we’ll have to see about that."
"It’s so, Tooie," Mr. Compton told her.
"I can fix that," Tooie said. "I can fix that right up."
"No, don’t," I said. "That look is mine."
"She won’t then, Max," Mr. Compton said to me.
"Yeah, okay," Tooie said grudgingly.
I heard the elevator door opening, and I took Tooie’s hand and pulled her up off the bench and over toward the elevator. Mr. Compton followed us and in silence we rode up to my floor. There was something so very right about their being here with me and I couldn’t explain that rationally to myself, but it felt right. I hoped my mother would feel the same when we got to the apartment.
I didn’t have to worry. She was gracious and welcoming. She was wearing a peach colored slip and high heels when we came in. I called out to her, to warn her that I had company with me. Sometimes when I came home she would only be wearing a girdle and a bra, no panties or anything else. But today she had on the slip and she looked almost fashionably dressed.
She came around the corner from the living room and I could feel the rush of fresh air she brought with her which meant that she had been sitting by the open terrace door. Before I could say anything more, Mr. Compton said hello and introduced his wife.
"Lana, this is Tooie. You’ve heard about Tooie, I’m sure."
"Of course I have, from my mother." Tooie was holding out her hand, but Lana reached out and hugged her, kissing her lightly on the cheek.
"Ooh, pert breasts," Tooie said, "hard nipples."
"Oh, forgive me, not being dressed, but it’s so hot today," Lana said quickly. "Excuse me for just a minute while I throw something on."
"Don’t do it for me," Tooie called out after her but Lana was out of the room already.
"Behave youself, now," Mr. Compton said to her, a bit harsh but not too harsh.
"Oh, all right. I was just kidding around anyway. I mean, that’s Lainie’s daughter, for God’s sake."
"I know who she is, Tooie, and I’m glad to hear you do too."
"All right, already."
Mother was back in a flash, dressed and wearing her pearl earrings that had been her mother’s favorites. Tooie recognized them immediately.
"I gave those to Elaine," she said.
"They are so beautiful," Mother said.
"They were a gift from me, a loan of a gift, actually."
Mother instinctively put one hand up to touch an earring. Instantly embarrassed by the gesture she moved her hand away and into the air near her head.
"Such a beautiful day, too," she said as she moved her hand and her arm around. "Can I get you anything, a drink perhaps?"
"Sure," Tooie replied. "A martini, please? Gin, not Vodka, and with olives and up," she added shaking her hand to indicate a tall glass.
"Like Mama’s then," Mother said. She made the drink and there was a long, uncomfortable silence while she did it. I thought Mr. Compton would say something but he didn’t, at least not until Mother was finished making Tooie’s martini.
"You don’t have to entertain us, Lana," he said. "We just came so Tooie could meet you both. I promised I’d do that, so I have."
"Why did you wait so long?" I asked him.
"Excuse me?"
"Why did you wait so long to come?" I repeated my question.
"I didn’t want to intrude on your...sorrow," he said.
"You didn’t think then," I told him. "Sorrow gets help from friends."
"You’re a wise child," Tooie added.
"He is," Mother said, hugging me. "Both my children have brains."
"Brianna has brains?" I asked. Mother swatted me with the back of her hand across my shoulder. "Sorry."
"Brianna is my daughter," Mother explained. "She’s gone into the family business."
Tooie and Mr. Compton gave each other a sidelong glance, then they both smiled and turned back to us.
"I’m sure Lainie would be proud," Tooie said sweetly, her smile plastered across her face.
"Oh, she was, she was," Mother told her. "She just wanted Brianna to be certain that she understood what she was getting into. My mother would never have guessed about Brianna’s instant success and her meteoric climb up the ladder of prostitution."
"I didn’t know there was a ladder," Mr. Compton said.
"Oh, my, yes. I made it half way up before I met my husband and got out of the business to raise a family."
"What’s the halfway point, darling?" Tooie asked her.
"Well, the call girl slash escort is about half way. That’s where I was working when we met. It’s fairly clean because half the time there’s no sex but you can get paid big bucks anyway."
"That must have been nice for you," Tooie said, smiling, "to get paid for only half the work."
"It was."
"Lainie was never a paid escort," Mr. Compton added.
"No, not Mama. She was pretty single-minded about what she would do for dough."
"We loved her, you know. Vinnie hoped to keep in touch with her through me, but after we wed that just wasn’t possible."
"I know."
"It’s sad, really. He always loved her best, but he couldn’t stand the deception."
"I know. She told me. I was sorry that I was the cause of your splitting."
"Thank you, Lana. It wasn’t you, exactly. It was the knowledge of you. I was the weak one, the one who couldn’t handle it. Lainie was almost blameless when you get right down to it."
At that moment, when Mr. Compton said those words, I knew that I could like him very much. He was being nice, and being honest too, about a situation that he just couldn’t handle when he was younger.
"You really loved her," I said to him.
"I did, Max, I did."
"And I loved her too, don’t forget. She was my best friend. She was the first person I ever told about myself and she was there for me. She wouldn’t just let me go with anyone, it had to be someone nice enough for me."
"Tooie’s made a name for herself, you know, in the retail business."
"So you sell at a markup now?" Mother asked her.
"No! It’s not that sort of thing at all." Tooie proceeded to tell us about her work at Sachs and her gift wrapping inventions. While she was talking about it, she opened her bag and took out some beautiful dark red ribbon, the color of blood, and began to fold and twist the ribbon into a sensational form that resembled a bird on a nest. I was really impressed that she could just do that, right there in the apartment, without even watching her fingers. I knew I loved her right then and there. I just knew it.
Mother was impressed also. I could see that in her face and in her body as she leaned forward to look at the finished art work. She picked it up carefully, keeping what she assumed to be delicate and easily destroyed cupped in her long fingers and her deep palm.
"Oh, honey, you can just toss that birdie around," Tooie told her. "You can’t hurt it."
Mother grinned, an expression I had rarely seen on her face, and tossed the whole thing up into the air. She caught it coming down with both hands and clasped it tightly for a moment, then released it. The form of the bird in the nest immediately reappeared from the jumble of ribbons I was looking at. That was thrilling. I jumped up from my chair and hugged Tooie around the neck."I knew I was going to like you. I knew it."
"Now you be careful young one," she said. "I’m liable to fall for you."
"Hey, hey there," Mr. Compton added.
"May we come again?" Tooie asked Mother as she stood up. Mother nodded and they hugged one another. Mr. Compton shook Mother’s hand and then he shook mine as well.
"I’m sorry we have to go, but we were unexpected and we promised one another that we wouldn’t stay and be a burden," he said.
"Oh, you’re not," Mother said hastily. "And of course we’ll see you again, soon."
"As for you youngster," he began, but Tooie corrected him "Kiddo, Vin, not youngster." He nodded to her and continued: "As for you, we’ll be seeing a lot of you, I hope." I said something like "definitely!" with emphasis and we all began to walk to the door.
"You’ve got to promise me one thing, though," Mr. Compton said, and I agreed without knowing what he might ask. "If I don’t come back sometime, you won’t sue me for breach of promise." Then he laughed.
If I had only known what he meant by that, I wouldn’t have laughed along with him. But that little secret would take years to discover.