A Widow for One Year

Before she continued on her way backstage, Allan stood and turned again. Ruth didn’t have to watch him; she already knew that Allan would give her tormentor the finger. Allan was extraordinarily fond of giving people the finger.

I really do like him—and he really will take care of me, she thought. Yet Ruth couldn’t deny that Allan also irritated her.

Back in the greenroom, Allan irritated her again. The first thing he said to her was: “You never mentioned the title of the book!”

“I just forgot,” Ruth said. What was he— always an editor?

“I didn’t think you were going to read the first chapter,” Allan added. “You told me you thought it was too comic, and that it didn’t represent the novel as a whole.”

“I changed my mind,” Ruth told him. “I decided I wanted to be comic.”

“You were no barrel of laughs in the Q and A,” he reminded her.

“At least I didn’t call anyone an ‘asshole,’ ” Ruth said.

“I gave the guy his two times,” Allan replied.

An elderly lady with a shopping bag of books had negotiated her way backstage. She’d lied to someone who had tried to stop her—she’d said she was Ruth’s mother. She tried to lie to Eddie, too. She found Eddie standing in the doorway of the greenroom; indecisive as always, Eddie was half in, half out. The old woman with the shopping bag mistook him for someone in charge.

“I’ve got to see Ruth Cole,” the elderly lady told Eddie. Eddie saw the books in the shopping bag.

“Ruth Cole doesn’t autograph books,” Eddie warned the old woman. “She never signs.”

“Let me in. I’m her mother,” the old lady lied.

Eddie, of all people, didn’t need to look very closely at the elderly woman—only enough to realize that she was about the same age as Marion would be now. (Marion would be seventy-one.)

“Madam,” Eddie said to the old woman, “you are not Ruth Cole’s mother.”

But Ruth had heard someone say she was her mother. She pushed past Allan to the doorway of the greenroom, where the elderly lady seized her hand.

“I brought these books all the way from Litchfield for you to sign,” the old woman said. “That’s in Connecticut.”

“You shouldn’t lie about being someone’s mother,” Ruth told her.

“There’s one for each of my grandchildren,” the old lady said. There were a half-dozen copies of Ruth’s novels in the shopping bag, but before the elderly woman could begin removing the books from the bag, Allan was there—his big hand on the old lady’s shoulder. He was gently pushing her out the door.

“It was announced: Ruth Cole doesn’t autograph books—she simply does not do it,” Allan said. “I’m sorry, but if she signed your books, it wouldn’t be fair to all the other people who also want her signature, would it?”

The old woman ignored him. She had not let go of Ruth’s hand. “My grandchildren adore everything you’ve written,” she told Ruth. “It will take you just two minutes.”

Ruth stood as if frozen.

“Please,” Allan said to the lady with the shopping bag, but the old lady, with surprising quickness, put down her bag of books and knocked Allan’s hand off her shoulder.

“Don’t you dare push me,” the old woman said.

“She’s not my mother, is she?” Ruth asked Eddie.

“No, of course not,” Eddie told her.

“Look—I’m asking you to sign these books formy grandchildren ! Your own books!” the elderly lady said to Ruth. “I bought these books . . .”

“Madam, please . . .” Allan said to the old woman.

“What on earth is the matter with you, anyway?” the old woman asked Ruth.

“Fuck you and your grandchildren,” Ruth said to her. The old lady looked as if she’d been slapped.