Lily White by Susan Isaacs Page A

know this sounds incredible, Mary, my angel, but it is the truth, and (he’d offer her a sad little shrug here) that’s what I’m stuck with. “He holds them and gives them back rubs. Sometimes he’ll kiss them, but a cheek kiss or a forehead kiss. Not a kiss kiss.”
    The drizzle turned to downpour. Raindrops smacked against the windowpane and were driven down diagonal paths by a sharp wind. At the same moment, Mary and I peered down at her feet, naked except for the flimsy gold shoes. They were not just big feet, but spread out, like a hod carrier’s—if the hod carrier had given himself a pedicure with coral polish.
    “How did Norman meet Bobette?” I asked.
    “The usual way.”
    “You agreed to help me help Norman, Ms. Dean.”
    “Mary.”
    “Mary, I want to know everything you know.”
    “Okay. But I forgot what you just asked me.”
    “Where did he and Bobette meet?”
    “Right! Um, through the personals. In
Newsday.
”
    “His ad or hers?”
    “Oh, his. We use the same ad in every city, except with a different beginning. Like, we used ‘Heart of my Heart’ in Louisville and ‘True Love is Precious Gift’ in Scranton.”
    “On Long Island?”
    “‘Looking for Love.’ Norm says if any cops or private detectives are tracking him, they’re not going to read the whole ad, but … You know what his motto is?”
    “What?”
    “You can’t be too careful!” She proclaimed it with pride, throwing back her shoulders, holding her head high, the way a titan of industry’s wife would reveal the slogan for a multi-million dollar advertising campaign for her husband’s corporation.
    “What else did the ad say? The part that was always the same.”
    “‘DWM’—that’s divorced white man … Maybe the M is for male. Anyhow, ‘DWM, thirty-five, handsome, tall Yale graduate, business executive, wants the real thing.’” Mary burst into a rich laugh. “Norman says: ‘They don’t know
my
real thing is their money’ Let’s see … the real thing. Oh, ‘You must enjoy Shakespeare’s sonnets, beautiful music, travel, and long, romantic walks. Don’t want dates. Want a relationship. Please respond with long letter and picture. Help me. I have a hole in my heart.’”
    She waited expectantly, so I said: “I bet it worked like a charm.”
    My acknowledgment of Norman’s literary gift seemed to please her. She smiled benevolently. “So then we, like, hang out and wait for the mail.”
    “Do you get a lot of it?”
    “A ton! You wouldn’t believe it. Then he makes a pitcher of martinis and I cut up teensy little cheese cubes and we read them and put them into piles.”
    “Such as.”
    “Garbage: Too young, living with family, student, low-pay job like waitressing. Or if she has kids or any family she has to take care of—unless it’s a total vegetable relative. Then there’s Too Pretty. We don’t want someone who’s using the personals just because she’s bored with the guys she already has; she wouldn’t be desperate enough. Too Smart: like doctors, lawyers. We watch out for real good vocabulary. Norm says: ‘If
I
have to look up the words she uses in a dictionary, she’s too smart for me.’ Or a couple of times: women cops! We put the letters from Yale grads on the Too Smart pile too, because Norm could slip up and they’d know it. But you wouldn’t believe their letters! They really oughta give a course there: How to Get a Guy. Then there are the Iffys: medium-paying jobs, but there’s maybe a pension, or she might have put a lot in the bank. You know, like nurses, teachers. And then”—she paused to run the tip of her tongue across her upper lip; her voice grew husky—“there’s Pay Dirt.”
    I wanted to take a hot bath, scrub off what I was hearing with a loofah and anti-bacterial soap. It wasn’t so much the sordidness of what Mary was saying but the sheer pleasure with which she rolled around in the dirt. The mockery, the cruelty, the exultation. I buzzed Sandi and