Cosmo's Deli

“I know I had eyes when I got into bed last night,” Renny says, facing her fuzzy reflection in the bathroom mirror. You shouldn't have had that fourth glass of wine, her swollen eyelids declare.

Renny Shuler shuffles into the bedroom, hating that Monday morning has once again arisen from the ashes of a perfectly enjoyable Sunday. She peeks out the window to check the weather. It's only six-thirty in the morning but she already spots the early birds heading toward the subway to beat their co-workers to the office. As two joggers wait for the light on West End Avenue with their legs pumping in place, Renny swears she can feel the pint of Ben & Jerry's she devoured at midnight congealing on her thighs. She yawns, “What the hell are those people doing out exercising this early?

Turning from the window, she knocks into the nightstand, rattling the empty wineglass perched near the edge. Last night was the three-week anniversary of her break-up with Michael and the official end to her mourning period. To commemorate the occasion, she spent the night in good company with Chinese take-out and a bottle of Merlot. Granted her relationship with Michael only lasted five weeks, but she figures a break-up anniversary is better than none at all.

Stripping off her pajamas while waiting for the shower water to warm-up, Renny glances in the bathroom mirror and thankfully notices that her eyelids have lifted a centimeter or two. The phone rings and Renny dashes across the apartment to answer. “Hello.”

“Good morning, daughter.”

Renny smiles. “Hi, Ma.”

“Wait, I have to get your father.” Her mother drops the phone and Renny hears muffled complaining as her mother pulls her father away from his newspaper.

“How's my birthday girl?” he asks.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Ready?” her parents say.

“Yeah, I'm ready.”

Renny listens as her parents sing “Happy Birthday,” their off-key voices jarring her ear. “That was great. Listen, I have to get in the shower or I'll be late for work.”

“You're going to work on your birthday?” her mother asks. “They couldn't give you the day off?”

“Shirley, leave her alone,” her father says in the background.

“What's wrong with giving someone the day off on their birthday?” her mother retorts, clearing her throat.

“Ma, millions of people have to work on their birthday.”

“If you wereâ” her mother begins.

“Don't start, not today, âkay?” Renny says.

“But you're thirty now.”

Did she think I didn't know that, Renny thinks, gripping her patience by the edge of her bitten down nails. “I know I'm thirty. Listen, I have to go or I'll be late for work.”

“By thirty your brother was already married.”

“Well, I bet Ira still went to work on his birthday.”

“You can't compare yourself to your brother,” her mother admonishes. “He's a man and you're a woman. It's different.”

Shoot me now, Renny thinks.

“Don't forget, you're coming out for dinner tomorrow night. Are you sure you can't come tonight?”

“No, Ma. I told you. I'm having dinner with Gaby and Sara.”

“Your friends are more important than your family?” her mother says, not bothering to conceal her annoyance.

“I don't have time to schlep out to Jersey tonight. Work is really busy.”

“Your employer doesn't understandâ” her words transform into a phlegm filled cough. The hacking pierces through Renny, automatically giving rise to her ire.

“I have to go, Ma.”

“One minute.”

Renny hears her mother drop the phone; her cough resonating in the distance. It is a harsh noise that for the last decade has played in the background of Renny's life. The sound of crinkling paper causes Renny to hold the phone away. Her mother comes back on, “I needed a cough drop.”

No, Renny thinks, you needed to give up the five pack a day habit ten years sooner than you did.

“Don't they understand you have a family?” Her mother's words are punctuated by a sucking sound.

“Ma, I can't be late for work.”

“Fine, just a minute.” Her mother yells away from the phone, “Herb, come on already.” Renny hears the rustling of her father's newspaper dropping again. “Come on Herb, she hasn't got all day. Hurry, pick up the phone.” Then in unison, “We love you!”

“Love you, too,” Renny parrots.

Heading back to the bathroom, her temples throb after talking to her mother. Why do I let her make me crazy, Renny wonders?

Because that's my maternal right, her mother's voice echoes as if from a microchip implanted in Renny's head.

Hot and toasty in the shower, she drowns out the echo of her mother's carping by singing a torchy version of âHappy Birthday.'

***

Soon Renny is in the kitchen swathed in her nubby blue Nick and Nora bathrobe. Her hair is wrapped in a towel turban as she sips a cup of coffee while waiting for her laptop to power up on the kitchen table. Michael's recorded voice singing “Good morning to you” greets her as she signs on.

“Mourning is over,” she declares and ceremoniously hits her delete key. “Buh-bye.”

While reading her e-mail, Renny recalls the last time she actually had a boyfriend on her birthday. That would be Peter Walley, her steady in the fourth grade, but he probably doesn't count since they never kissed. Renny's first real kiss came when she was twelve.

It was an April morning in 1985 that started like every other Saturday morning that year. Renny's mother drove her to Ranwell's Dance Studio, where she and forty other seventh graders would spend an hour learning how to dance through the upcoming year's Bar and Bat Mitzvah circuit. Ranwell's was located in the center of Springfield, the suburban New Jersey town where Renny grew up.

“I'll pick you up in an hour,” her mother said, when they pulled up in front.

“No, don't,” Renny said. “Last week a bunch of kids went to the diner for lunch. I think I'll go with them.” At least she hoped to be included, especially if Doug was going. Doug Nagel was the reigning king of cool at Springfield Junior High, whereas Renny hung on at the edge of cool, like the fringe of a poncho.

“With what money?” Her mother reached for the lit cigarette in the ashtray below the radio. Ribbons of smoke streamed from her mouth, tangoing in the air. She was clad in her usual floral housecoat and a trashy hat of kerchief and rollers. Renny prayed her mother wouldn't get out of the car.

“I have my babysitting money,” Renny said. Outside several girls walked past the car, their blue suede clogs making a clop-clop sound on the cement sidewalk. Renny begged her mother for a pair last month, but with her father still out of work, there was no way. “If we can't afford the diner, then how come we can afford these stupid dance lessons?”

“It's important for a girl to know how to dance. You have to dance at your wedding someday.”

“What if I never get married?”

Her mother waved her hand dismissively. “
Narishkeit
.” Her mother loved to pepper her language with the few Yiddish words she knew. That one meant “nonsense.” She thought it lent her an old world air, but Renny knew it just made her seem old.

During dance class, Renny found herself doing the Locomotion next to Lisa Wexler, Doug's good friend.

“A bunch of us are going to my house to hang out after lessons. Do you want to come?” Lisa asked.

“Sure!” Renny said.

Mrs. Wexler greeted the group of five boys and six girls at the front door, her brown hair in a pageboy that kissed her chin on both sides. She wore a fitted shirt with a geometric design and a chocolate-brown, suede skirt. Renny watched with envy as Lisa and her mother easily bantered back and forth about dance class. Figures, Renny thought, behind every cool girl there stands a cool mom.

Downstairs in the Wexler's dark paneled basement, Lisa announced, “Let's play Seven Minutes in Heaven.” After two couples and fourteen minutes, Doug chose Renny as his closet partner.

A pungent smell of mothballs stung Renny's nostrils as she stood in the dark closet waiting for her never-been-kissed lips to be christened.

“There you are,” Doug murmured just before pressing his lips against hers. Broom bristles poked her right ankle as old winter coats pushed the two of them together like matchmakers.

Dreamily, Renny still remembers the strange and rubbery texture of his lips and how she'd slurped, trying to keep saliva from dripping down her chin as their tongues commuted back and forth. Then someone from outside pulled the closet door open, bathing them in white fluorescent light. Stumbling from the closet, Renny took a seat on the cream shag carpeting next to Lisa. Dreams of parading through school in couplehood filled her mind. She longed to try that hand in each other's back pocket thing, like she saw her older brother Ira doing with his girlfriend Carla.

“I think Doug likes you,” Lisa mouthed.

Renny giggled in response.

“My turn,” Mary Huxley said, with a flip of her honey-colored hair. She strode over to Doug, who was lying on the floor with his feet propped up on a bean bag chair. When Doug stood, Renny's heart fell.

Watching them go into the closet, she tried to quiet the voices casting doubt in her head. So what if Mary Huxley sprouted boobs in fourth grade and at twelve was better endowed than most girls' mothers? After all, Renny told herself, Doug shared seven
very
special minutes with me.

She kept her eyes crazy-glued to the clock, blurting out, “It's seven minutes,” as the big hand ticked for the seventh time.

“I'll knock,” Theresa Wimbasa said, crawling over to the closet and rapping on the door. “Come out! Times up!”

Doug and Mary stepped out, their mouths puffed into matching grins. There was a bright red hue to their lips, as if they just finished sucking cherry lollipops.

Suddenly Renny was painfully aware of the scuffmarks on her same old brown loafers. Tears poked at the back of her eyes as she struggled to ignore the scrape on her heart. She stared at Doug, willing him to look at her. When he did, she met his gaze, keeping her tears in check. For a moment he opened his mouth as if about to speak, but then Mary sidled up next to him. She watched with a lump in her throat as Doug rubbed a hand across his mouth, and without a word he turned away and back into the boy she could look at, but not touch. That's when Renny glanced down and saw it. Mary and Doug had their hands in each other's back pockets.

Eighteen years and many kisses later, her adult relationships have been just as disappointing.

Renny pours another cup of coffee, thinking that all the men in her life come with a short expiration date, turning sour after two months. The most recent was Michael. After only five weeks of dating they got together at Grapes, a wine bar on the Upper West Side. Two sips into her glass of Cabernet, he told her, “I think we should see other people.”

“Oh.” Renny had hoped they would be moving toward exclusivity, not open house. “Wellâ¦huh?” She swirled her wine to stave off a response. “I guessâ¦yeah, I see. I mean, we don't have to get serious just yet. But let's save Saturday nights for us. After all, that's date night.”

“You don't understand,” he said. “When I said other people, I meant as in not us.”

She gulped her wine hoping it would help digest his words. “But my birthday's in three weeks. I'm going to be thirty.”

“I know. That's why I'm doing it now. I didn't want to ruin your birthday.” Then he threw down a twenty to cover their round and pushed back his chair. “I'll see you,” he said and left.

Renny immediately downed the rest of her wine and then drank his. She didn't cry. After all, it's not like she thought he was it. It's just that she hoped to enter her fourth decade holding hands, instead of wringing them.

Shaking off the ghosts of relationships past, Renny clicks on her calendar and focuses on her schedule for that day. She has a meeting scheduled this morning with her boss, Val. Her insides churn. When Renny was hired seven months ago by the marketing firm of Heffner, Wilde and Cooke, she hoped Val would become her mentor.

She got part of that right.

Val is her tormentor, the quintessential bitch boss from hell. Renny is positive Val would whip her like a horse if she could. Instead, she inflicts her pain more subtly by stifling all of Renny's creative ideas and belittling her frequently throughout the day.

Taking a sip of coffee, Renny surfs the web in search of job listings. Having been employed at six companies in the last eight years, Renny has managed to job hop laterally from one corporate ladder to the next. Her income has edged up a fraction with each job change but the rent on her small studio apartment keeps going up by whole numbers, making her paycheck-to-paycheck living hard to manage. When she moved into this apartment, Renny saw it as a great stepping stone to the spacious one bedroom shimmering in her future. Now she often wonders if the only thing ahead is a closet in Hoboken, furnished with a swinging light bulb and a beanbag chair.

“Well, at least this is a doorman building,” Renny mumbles. She's always taken great pride in the doorman thing.

Uninspired by any of the job listings, Renny goes to get dressed. Living with a random five- to fifteen-pound weight fluctuation has led to a closet that ranges from size six to size ten with a few twelves hidden deep in the back, strictly for fat period days. This morning the scale announces that Renny is at her low of 124 pounds, despite scarfing down high sodium food and alcohol the night before and having put her second foot on the scale quicker than usual.

Happily scanning the skinny section of her closet, Renny pulls out her new black dress and slips it on. What it would be like to have a closet without a fat section, she wonders.

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