Of Pugs and Viking Funerals and Roses
“You can shoot the first flaming arrow.” Suzanne wasn’t looking directly at me; she was looking at her reflection in the tiny mirror perched opposite the cash register.
“Why me?” I asked. I wasn’t sure if I’d even want to shoot a flaming arrow at a dead body, and especially not one bound to wooden planks and set out to sea.
“Because I asked you to do it and I know you’d do it if I asked you.” Her gaze never met mine, she was somewhere else, maybe lost in her own eyes.
“Well yeah. I mean, if you asked me and it was that important. But it’s weird to talk about it that’s all. You know? I mean, very romantic and all that, but I just. Never mind. I mean, I’d probably miss or something or catch my own arm on fire.” I was all jumbled up inside. I guess that’s the way you feel sometimes when someone tells you how much you mean to them. Sorta like if someone asked you to raise their children if they died because you know what a huge thing that is even if the words seem small.
“It’s my break. I’m going to go get Jessie and see if he can go for a walk.” She applied her lipstick and squeezed around me to the swinging half door at the end of the display cabinets.
She headed over to the Listen counter and smiled at Jessie. Pretty soon they walked by together and she was beaming. Jessie was my age and he was beautiful. He worked for Herb Albert’s signature fragrance Listen. Every time I spoke to him I’d precede it by singing, “Listen. . . ooooo wah wah do you want to hear a secret, oooo wah wah. . .” It was stupid, but it made him laugh and I’d laugh and Suzanne would laugh and it would all be good.
Jessie was a student at NYU and the thing I loved most about him was that he could tap dance and he was tall and we could tap dance together. When it wasn’t the holiday season at Macy’s Herald Square, we’d sneak up the employee elevators to the 9th floor and dance around the empty Santa’s Workshop. I’d teach him combinations and he’d pick them up so easily. He floated like Fred Astaire and had a strong beautiful singing voice to match. “You’re gonna make it big someday, kid” I’d say with a wink. But I really meant it. He was special and made you feel special when you were with him.
Suzanne was nine years older than us and we trusted her word on everything. We clung to her words. She was beautiful and cool and was the first one of us to own a pair of Doc Marten’s with yellow top stitching. She had purchased them on her last trip to London and wore them every day. They had a nice rounded toe and she kept them polished, though you could tell that they were broken in. She was finally fulfilling her dream to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology and loved every day of class. Because she still lived on Long Island with her parents, she was able to commute every day into the city for class, and then work at Macy’s at night before heading to Penn Station to catch the train back to Lynbrook.
I always felt like the illegitimate cousin in the education world. All the other kids that worked at Macy’s attended FIT or NYU or at least PACE and I was just paying my way through the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. I would have done like Jessie: attended NYU Tisch School of the Arts and then as part of that training I would go to Lee Strasberg. But that was way more expensive and I was doing this on my own, so I had to go directly through the Institute.
I had only been in the city for 5 months or so, but Suzanne and I had worked together since September and we had become fast friends. She said she liked that I was so trusting and open, and in return she was trusting and open to me. I had been invited to her house for Thanksgiving dinner and it was great. I marched in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and then taken a train out to Long Island to be with her family. It was the first time I had ever been away from my home on a holiday and her family accepted me with open arms. I’m sure I was sort of an oddity, being the only person they had met who was from the Midwest.
I loved everything about her family. They were Irish Catholics and were everything I had ever expected. Her father Vinnie was a police officer, her brother Vinnie Jr. a college student, and her sister Bernice was married and lived in Upstate New York, which I had been assured was quite nice. Her sister had married a Jewish man, and that seemed to be the only point of contention in the family. How would they raise their daughter: Jewish or Catholic? It didn’t seem to mesh at all with Suzanne’s mother, but Bernice and her husband were not concerned about it and said they’d figure it out when it was time.
In any case they welcomed me with open arms and invited me out whenever I wanted to come. My mother back home in Kansas was so thankful that I didn’t have to eat a holiday dinner by myself that she found herself loving Suzanne and her family from afar, even though she had never met them.
When Suzanne returned from her break, Jessie glided back into his counter area and Suzanne was all smiles. “Did I show you the new picture?”
“No. You got a new letter?” I was excited. I had been let in on a very secret fact about Suzanne. When she was eighteen she had gotten pregnant and instead of having an abortion, she moved to California for a couple of months and gave the baby up for adoption. It was the kind of deal where they would send her a letter and a picture every year, and she had just received her update.
“Here she is. She’s nine years old now.”
“I see so much of you in her.” Her daughter’s eyes were the same glassy blue, with pale skin and dirty blonde hair -- even the same rosy colored lips. I knew what a huge thing it must be for her to share this picture with me. Even her life long friend didn’t know about the baby. She had kept it secret from everybody and had explained her trip to California as just a little time away. “Do you want to meet her?”
“I don’t know. If she wants to meet me someday . . . I guess then I’d want to meet her. She has a wonderful family. Do you want to read the letter?”
I don’t remember much of the letter except that it was pretty basic. Her daughter did the same sorts of things every nine year old girl would do and was happy and beautiful and what a blessing she was to her family. That sort of letter; nothing surprising or disturbing in it: just the facts.
“You can take your break now, Paula.” Suzanne was back to the mirror, gazing into it as she fiddled with her hair.
“Yeah. I don’t really want to take a break. I’ll just stay here with you.” I sprayed the glass display cases of the Giorgio Beverly Hills counter with glass spray and started polishing them. Our number one seller at the time was Red, the newest fragrance at Macy’s, but we occasionally sold a bottle of the classic yellow perfume, Giorgio.
“Look, we get paid tomorrow, do you want me to loan you a couple of dollars so you can go buy a burger downstairs?” Suzanne was now being her older sister self, the one who had to take care of me and made sure I actually ate something every day. But I wasn’t that hungry. I turned her down and said I just wanted to keep her company.
Flash forward three years. I’m sitting in the living room of the home I grew up in and all I can really see is directly ahead of me. Everything else is dark, as if I’m looking through a telescope or binoculars or something. There is a little light around the people I’m talking to, but just enough to see their faces and upper torsos. I can hear them, but they are talking in slow motion. I look from one face to the other. They are concerned, they have a look of pity and concern in their eyes and they are rather condescending toward me.
A week before that I had answered the phone in the kitchen to hear Suzanne’s voice on the other end. I had recently called her to tell her my father had passed away, wasted away to cancer, but she hadn’t been home. “Oh Paula,” Her mother said. “We’re so sorry. I’m so sorry. Suzanne is in Ireland and won’t be back until the end of the summer. I’ll tell her next time we talk. I know you loved your father very much and I’m so sorry.”
But when Suzanne called it was oddly quiet on the phone. “Paula. I have to talk to you.” I was sure she knew about my father. That’s why she was calling. “I’m sorry about your father.”
“Are you in Ireland?” I was touched that she had called me from overseas. It was the first time I had ever been called from overseas.
“No, I’m calling you from Long Island. I had to come home. I got very sick in Ireland and had to fly home on a medivac plane. Nobody thought I’d make it home because I went code blue and everything.”
I was mystified. “What? Huh?” The room was spinning around me. I remember looking at my mother’s wall-mount oven and I remember seeing my reflection in the brown enamel of the door.
“Paula. They couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me and then I was diagnosed with Pneumosis.” That didn’t mean a thing to me. The phone was silent. I could hear the familiar background noises of a hospital.
“Are you home? Are you okay?” I was sinking down to the ground. Why was she calling from a hospital?
“No, I’m in a special hospital. I’m feeling much better right now, but they tested my blood and I’m HIV Positive. The pneumosis means I have full blown AIDS.”
I started crying. I couldn’t do anything else. I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t think; all I could do was sob. “Suzanne. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” This was surreal. Like a really bad dream and I wasn’t waking up, or a trite novel that had every tragedy heaped into one simple plot line.
“Don’t cry.” Suzanne was really irritated with me. “Stop it. Stop it. I don’t want you to cry. I didn’t call you to upset you. I’m okay for now. I’m okay.”
“I’m sorry.” I panicked. “I’m sorry.” I sobbed. I tried to suck it up, but it was too much for me. I hadn’t really cried since my dad died because everything had been such a relief. Watching his body waste away into death was what I thought would be the most difficult thing of my life. I couldn’t imagine anything worse. And here was Suzanne, a best friend calling to tell me she was dying of the only thing I knew that was worse than cancer: AIDS.
And then I’m sitting in the living room with my mother and my boyfriend James and the pastor from my college all condescendingly nodding at me in their little tunnels of light. I was full of self pity and anger but I couldn’t really feel it, I could only sense a vague awareness that occasionally I could look up from my deep pit and see a familiar face.
They were telling me it was okay to feel depressed, because I was dealing with a lot of things and maybe it would be best if I talked to someone. The pastor knew a woman who was a counselor who could listen to me. Were they suggesting I see a psychiatrist? Why? I was so angry.
“It isn’t normal for someone to sleep as much as you do. You aren’t acting like Paula.” The pastor was looking past me. I looked behind me to see who he was talking to. I wanted to know what normal was for someone who had just watched her father die and who had just been told that her best friend had AIDS.
A month later I was sitting on Suzanne’s parent’s couch and we were looking at her scrap book. I was happy to be with her. She had just made me some baked Ziti but couldn’t eat it herself because the sores in her throat were too bad. “I’m going to take you to the ocean. It isn’t right that you lived here for a year and never saw the beach or the ocean and I’m taking you. We’ll go tomorrow morning. Bernice is bringing my niece and we’ll take her to the park to ride the rides.” She headed up to bed slowly. Frail and wobbly, she turned back around to me and added “Don’t tell anyone else we’re going to the beach. Just that we’re going to the park.” She headed back upstairs.
“Suzanne. Suzanne I have to ask you something. Have you told your mother or your sister?” The weight of her daughter was on my conscience like a heavy sack of potatoes and I had to know.
“Shhhhh.” She looked cautiously around. “No.” She was irritated with me. She was so tired and more than that, she was empty.
“I know it’s not my business but you have to tell them. I can’t stand it – they have to know because it will mean so much to them and it’s only fair. I can’t stop thinking about it.” I was still sitting on the couch with her scrapbook on my lap.
Suzanne looked straight at me with disbelief. “You can’t stand it? You can’t stop thinking about it? I don’t even know how long I’ve had this fucking virus and you can’t stop thinking about it? You’re so selfish. It isn’t exactly the best news in the world to give to your mother and father. I’ll do it if the time is right and if I think they will handle it okay. But I’m not telling them so that I’ll feel better about it.” She turned around and headed up the stairs, “And neither are you.”
I sat in silence for another couple of minutes. I was sorry I had made her so angry but I was glad I had spoken my mind. I wanted a happy ending and I didn’t think this was going to have one but at least I was absolutely certain how she felt about it.
We did go to the beach the next day. It was ugly and cold and I couldn’t see how anyone would want to spend time there. The seagulls were swooping and Suzanne told me the reason she wasn’t supposed to be there was because the gull droppings could be fatal to her because of her weakened immune system. We only stayed for a short while and then headed down the boardwalk to the park area. There was a little dragon type of roller coaster and she asked me to ride it with her niece.
“I hate roller coasters,” I said.
“Well I’ll throw up if I ride it because I’m feeling really sick. Don’t be selfish.” Suzanne looked at me with disbelief.
I rode the roller coaster with her niece and I remember Suzanne smiling at us from a bench and waving each time the dragon passed her by. From what I remember the day was completely overcast and a salty stench hung in the air.
The next summer I was married. Suzanne was too sick to be a bridesmaid or to even attend the wedding, but I sent her pictures and she sent her love long distance. Her mother and father were kind and sent gifts for each shower and for the wedding. I missed her and felt guilty that I was experiencing every good thing about life that she might never experience. She had been on the brink of death several times, but kept managing to pull through.
We talked each month or more often. She was very sick and didn’t especially enjoy talking. She was in a battle with Macy’s over insurance. She had to quit her job and everything was a mess. She wanted to finish school so badly but had missed too many classes. The train ride into the City was too much for her, so she had to drop out.
James and I had a baby and I called her to tell her how I had almost died. I had hemorrhaged after the birth and lost so much blood that I had been hospitalized for a week. I had a daughter. She was beautiful and tiny and now Suzanne was “Auntie Sue.” I asked her if she would tell her mother about her daughter and she quietly told me she might do it. When the time was right she might do it.
I talked to her again in the fall. She had finally graduated from a community college just weeks before, but she had lost most of her eyesight and couldn't drive anymore. I asked her if there was anything I could do for her and she said, “Yeah. Would you find Jessie? I want to talk to Jessie. He was so beautiful and he could always make me laugh. I would love to see him and I’ve lost touch. Would you find him?”
“Yeah. I’ll do my best.” I spent several weeks calling around. Jessie had finished school and quit his job at Macy’s. The last anyone had heard from him he was working on some new show in D.C. or some other place. Maybe he had a national tour or something. I called and wrote letters but no one knew exactly where he was. I remembered him being from the DC area or maybe someplace in NY State, but couldn’t remember the name of the city. Buffalo, yeah, Buffalo because I would laugh and “Shuffle off to Buffalo” when I’d pass him in the store. But I couldn’t track him down. Why was everything so muddy? I wished I could think clearer. I wished I had kept in better touch.
That Thanksgiving I called Sue’s house to wish her a happy birthday. It was easy for me to remember her birthday because the holiday I spent with her family was not only Thanksgiving it was also her birthday.
“Oh Paula. I’m so glad you called. Did you get my letter?” Suzanne’s mother sounded just the same on the phone. Her voice was so sweet and nurturing and I smiled at hearing it.
“No. I just called to wish Suzanne a happy birthday.”
“Oh. Oh Paula. I’m so sorry. You must not have gotten my letter. I’m so sorry. Suzanne passed away last week here at home. It was so peaceful. It was really beautiful and I was with her and we said very special things to each other. We had no regrets. She went very peacefully into death. Her funeral was quite large and beautiful and we thought about you later and I wrote you a letter to tell you all about it and Suzanne loved you so much, Paula. She had a special scrapbook with you and your family in it and you know how special you were to her, don’t you?”
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t get the letter. I just called to wish her a happy birthday. I just called to say Happy Birthday.” I started crying and hung up the phone. I wish I could have been supportive towards her mother but all I felt at the time was self pity. I was angry at myself for not being able to find Jessie for her and I was angry that I hadn’t found out about her death in time to go mourn her loss with her family. I felt myself falling into the tunnel again and the only light this time was coming from my own little family. There had been no Viking funeral for Suzanne.
The next day in the mail I received a letter from Sue’s mother. She gently broke the news to me and the letter was filled with the details of her death and regrets that I hadn’t been informed sooner.
Maybe a month or two later I received the 1995 Newsweek Tony Award Edition in the mail. The cover had an enthusiastic picture of the young cast of a new musical, RENT. In the middle of the picture a familiar face smiled out at me. Excitedly, I flipped through the pages to the section on RENT and there, listed in the cast, was Jessie L. Martin, playing Tom Collins. He was a smash hit. He was amazingly amazing. Everyone loved him and the musical was the modern version of La Boheme and ironically, dealt with AIDS. As years passed I watched him on television and now he has a starring role on Law and Order.
That isn’t where the story ends. Because for years I’ve carried around the thought that somewhere out there Suzanne had a daughter who was the spitting image of her and I was one of the only people who knew about it. I would wake myself up at night with the thought of telling her family and then remember that Suzanne told me as a secret, as something to be between me and her.
One day last year, in the Spring, I was mulling about the house. We had just adopted our second dog, a pug whom I had named Eloise. My husband and my son had started calling her Rose and I couldn’t figure out why. They both just said the name was on their mind and they wanted to call her Rose. Soon we were all calling her Rose, or “Rosie” most of the time.
I had fixed dinner and my friend Julie and I were having a glass of wine at the kitchen table. I told her about Suzanne and about how I felt the weight of the secret was too much for me. I still missed her and I thought what a gift it would be to tell her family that she had at one time had a baby. Another glass of wine and I was compelled to pick up the phone. I didn’t know what I would say to her mother, but I knew that if I was feeling this compelled I needed to act on it. I dialed the number from memory.
“Hello? Oh, Paula. Hello!” Her mother’s voice was exactly as I remembered it. “Thank you so much for the flowers you sent for Thanksgiving. We put them in the center of our table and remembered you and the wonderful times we had with you. And I have the most wonderful thing to tell you Paula.”
She told me she had received a phone call from a young woman looking for Suzanne. This was just around the time of Thanksgiving of that year. When she explained that Suzanne had died, the girl was quite distraught. The girl fumbled around with words and finally admitted that she had hoped to meet her because Suzanne was her mother.
In an emotive mess of tears, Suzanne’s mother and I poured out our stories to each other. She wasn’t angry that I hadn’t told her, she understood that it was between me and Suzanne, but she also wanted me to know that Suzanne had told her shortly before she died about the baby. Sue’s mom had nicknamed the baby “Rose” in her mind and had wondered for years about Rose and how to track her down.
And that Thanksgiving, in front of the flowers that I had sent as a remembrance of Suzanne, “Rose” had her picture taken with her maternal grandmother for the first time. She ate dinner with them and explained that her adoptive mother and father had gotten divorced, and she had moved to Long Island with her mother. On her 18th birthday, her mother allowed her to open her birth certificate, and so she had tracked down her birth mother with the information from it. And Sue’s mother told me that she had shown her the page in the scrapbook with me and my family on it and told her new found granddaughter, her angel, all about the friendship we had shared.
It never ceases to amaze me how we are all connected by little threads of the Spirit. The love that connected me to Suzanne was the same love that enabled me to pick up the phone and find out the happy ending. I’ll never know why my son wanted to name our pug Rose and how my flowers happened to get into the story of the reunion between “Rose” and her grandmother.
The story is finished: with the happy ending that I never thought would come. Jessie made it big, Suzanne’s mother got her beautiful angel, and I have my own family and some peace.
8:35:10 AM 
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