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CHAPTER 064

Not again!

Ellis Levine found his mother on the second floor of the Polo Ralph Lauren store on Madison and Seventy-second. She was standing in front of the mirror, wearing a cream-colored linen suit with a green scarf. She was turning this way and that.

“Hello, dear,” she said, when she saw him. “Are you going to make another scene?”

“Mom,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Buying a few things for summer, dear.”

“We talked about that,” Ellis said.

“Just a few things,” his mother said. “For summer. Do you like the cuffs on these pants?”

“Mom, we’ve been here before.”

She frowned, and fluffed her white hair absently. “Do you like the scarf?” she said. “I think it’s a bit much.”

“We have to talk,” Ellis said.

“Are we having lunch?”

“The spray didn’t work,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know.” She brushed her cheek. “I felt a little moisturization. For about a week afterward. But not a great deal, no.”

“And you kept shopping.”

“I hardly shop at all anymore.”

“Three thousand dollars last week.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I took a lot of those things back.” She tugged at the scarf. “I think, that green does a funny thing to my complexion. Makes me look sick. But a pink scarf might be nice. I wonder if they have this in pink.”

Ellis was watching her intently, with a growing sense of foreboding. Something was wrong with his mother, he decided. She was standing at the mirror, in exactly the same place she had been weeks before, when she showed a total indifference to him, to his message, to her family situation, to her financial situation. Her attitude was completely inappropriate.

As an accountant, Ellis had a horror of people who were inappropriate about money. Money was real, it was tangible, it was hard facts and spreadsheet figures. Those facts and figures were not a matter of opinion. It didn’t depend on how you looked at it. His mother was not recognizing the cold reality of her financial situation.

He watched her smile, asking the salesgirl if the scarf came in pink. No, the salesgirl said, he didn’t make pink this year. They only had green, or white. His mother asked to try the white. The salesgirl walked away. His mother smiled at him.

Very inappropriate. Almost as if…

It might be early dementia,he thought.It might be the first sign.

“Why are you looking at me that way?”

“What way, Mom?”

“I’m not crazy. You’re not putting me in a home.”

“Why would you even say that?”

“I know you boys want the money. That’s why you’re selling the condos in Vail and the Virgin Islands. For the money. You’re greedy, the bunch of you. You are like vultures waiting for your parents to die. And if we won’t die, you’ll hurry it up. Put us in a home. Get us out of the way. Get us declared insane. That’s your plan, isn’t it?”

The salesgirl came back with a white scarf. His mother draped it around her neck, flung it over her shoulder with a flamboyant gesture. “Well, Mr. Smartypants, you’re not putting me in any home. You get that through your head right now.” She turned to the salesgirl. “I’ll take it,” she said. Still smiling.

The brothers met that evening. Jeff, who was handsome, and had connections in every restaurant in town, got them a table near the waterfall at Sushi Hana. Even early, the place was packed with models and actresses, and Jeff was making plenty of eye contact. Annoyed, Ellis said, “How’re things at home?”

Jeff shrugged. “Fine. Sometimes I have to work late. You know.”

“No, I don’t. Because I’m not a big investment banker and the girls don’t wink at me like they wink at you.”

Aaron, the youngest brother, the lawyer, was talking on his cell phone. He finished, flipped it shut. “Knock it off, you two. It’s the same conversation you’ve been having since high school. What about Mom?”

Ellis said, “It’s what I told you on the phone. It’s spooky. She’s smiling and happy. She doesn’t care.”

“Three grand last week.”

“She doesn’t care. She’s buying more than ever.”

“So much for that gene spray,” Aaron said. “Where’d you get that, anyway?”

“Some guy works at some company in California. BioGen.”

Jeff had been looking over his shoulder. Now he turned back to the table. “Hey, I heard something about BioGen. They’ve got some problems.”

“What do you mean, problems?” Aaron said.

“Some product of theirs is contaminated, earnings are down. Did something sloppy, made a mistake. I can’t remember. They got an IPO coming up, but it’ll tank for sure.”

Aaron turned to Ellis. “You think that spray you got is affecting Mom?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think the damn stuff just didn’t work.”

“But if they had contamination…” Aaron said.

“Stop being a lawyer. Some cousin of Mom’s, her son sent it as a favor to us.”

“But gene therapy is dangerous,” Aaron said. “There have been deaths from gene therapy. Lots of them.”

Ellis sighed. “Aaron,” he said, “we’re not suing anybody. I think we’re looking at the start of, you know, mental deterioration. Alzheimer’s or something.”

“She’s only sixty-two.”

“It can start that early.”

Aaron shook his head. “Come on, Ellie. She was in perfect health. She was sharp. Now you’re telling me she’s losing it. It could be the spray.”

“Contamination,” Jeff reminded them. He was smiling at a girl.

“Jeff, will you fucking pay attention?”

“I am. Look at the rack on her.”

“They’re fake.”

“You just like to ruin everything.”

“And she has a nose job.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“She’s paranoid,” Ellis said.

“You don’t know that.”

“I’m talking about Mom,” Ellis said. “She thinks we’re going to put her in a home.”

“And we may have to,” Aaron said. “Which will be very expensive. But if we do, it’s because of that genetics company. You know the public has no sympathy for these biotech companies. Public opinion polls run ninety-two percent against them. They’re perceived as unscrupulous scumbags indifferent to human life. GM crops, trashing the environment. Patenting genes, grabbing up our common heritage while no one is looking. Charging thousands of dollars for drugs that cost pennies. Pretending they do research when they really don’t; they just buy other people’s work. Pretending they have high research costs when they spend most of their money on advertising. And then lying in the advertising. Sneaky, scummy, sloppy, money-grabbing schmucks. It’d be a slam-dunk case.”

“We’re not talking about a lawsuit,” Ellis said. “We’re talking about Mom.”

Jeff said, “Dad’s fine. Let him deal with her.” He got up and left the table, going over to sit with three long-legged girls in short skirts.

“They can’t be more than fifteen,” Ellis said, wrinkling his nose.

“They’ve got drinks on the table,” Aaron said.

“He has two kids in school.”

“How’re things at home?” Aaron said.

“Fuck you.”

“Let’s stay on the topic,” Aaron said. “Maybe Mom’s losing it and maybe she’s not. But we’re going to need a lot of money if she goes into a home. I’m not sure we can afford it.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I want to know more about BioGen and that gene spray they sent us. A lot more.”

“You sound like you’re already planning the lawsuit.”

“Just thinking ahead,” Aaron said.