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By Root 6822 0

apparently autumn hayrides in an apple orchard. According to Joyce, she was currently employed as an administrative assistant at a dance company. She lived in a sparsely furnished one-bedroom on Ludlow Street where Patty, despite having phoned in advance, seemed to have interrupted her in some deep meditative exercise. She buzzed Patty in and left her front door ajar, leaving it to Patty to find her in her bedroom, on a yoga mat, wearing faded Sarah Lawrence gym clothes; her youthful dancer’s limberness had developed into a quite astonishing yogic flexibility. She obviously wished that Patty hadn’t come, and Patty had to sit on her bed for half an hour, waiting eons for responses to her basic pleasantries, before Veronica finally reconciled herself to her sister’s presence. “Those are great boots,” she said.

“Oh, thank you.”

“I don’t wear leather anymore, but sometimes, when I see a good boot, I still miss it.”

“Uh huh,” Patty said encouragingly.

“Do you mind if I smell them?”

“My boots?”

Veronica nodded and crawled over to inhale the smell of the uppers. “I’m very sensitive to smell,” she said, her eyes closed blissfully. “It’s the same with bacon—I still love the smell, even though I don’t eat it. It’s so intense for me, it’s almost like eating it.”

“Uh huh,” Patty encouraged.

“In terms of my practice, it’s literally like not having my cake and not eating it, too.”

“Right. I can see that. That’s interesting. Although presumably you never ate leather.”

Veronica laughed hard at this and for a while became quite sisterly. Unlike anyone else in the family, except Ray, she had a lot of questions about Patty’s life and the turns that it had lately taken. She found cosmically funny precisely the most painful parts of Patty’s story, and once Patty got used to her laughing at the wreck of her marriage, she could see that it did Veronica good to hear of her troubles. It seemed to confirm some family truth for her and put her at ease. But then, over green tea, which Veronica averred she drank at least a gallon of per day, Patty brought up the matter of the estate, and her sister’s laughter became vaguer and more slippery.

“Seriously,” Patty said. “Why are you bothering Joyce about the money? If it was just Abigail bothering her, I think she could deal with it, but coming from you, too, it’s making her really uncomfortable.”

“I don’t think Mommy needs my help to make her uncomfortable,” Veronica said, amused. “She does pretty well with that on her own.”

“Well, you’re making her more uncomfortable.”

“I don’t think so. I think we make our own heaven and hell. If she wants to be less uncomfortable, she can sell the estate. All I’m asking for is enough money so I don’t have to work.”

“What’s wrong with working?” Patty said, hearing an echo of a similar question that Walter had once asked her. “It’s good for the self-esteem to work.”

“I can work,” Veronica said. “I’m working now. I’d just rather not. It’s boring, and they treat me like a secretary.”

“You are a secretary. You’re probably the highest-IQ secretary in New York City.”

“I just look forward to quitting, that’s all.”

“I’m sure Joyce would pay for you to go back to school and get some job more suitable for your talents.”

Veronica laughed. “My talents don’t seem to be the kind the world’s interested in. That’s why it’s better if I can exercise them by myself. I really just want to be left alone, Patty. That’s all I’m asking at this point. To be left alone. Abigail’s the one who doesn’t want Uncle Jim and Uncle Dudley to get anything. I don’t really care as long as I can pay my rent.”

“That’s not what Joyce says. She says you don’t want them getting anything, either.”

“I’m only trying to help Abigail get what she wants. She wants to start her own female comedy troupe and take it to Europe, where people will appreciate her. She wants to live in Rome and be revered.” Again the laugh. “And I’d actually be fine with that. I don’t need to see her that much. She’s nice to me, but you know the way she talks. I always end up feeling, at the end of an evening with her,