Cosmo's Deli (6 page)

Chapter Six

The Tuesday Q92.7 Morning Jungle show is doing the eight o'clock weather and traffic update. Georgie sips his fourth cup of coffee of the morning, waiting to be back on air. Rockin' Ron, his morning partner, bites one of his nails while leaning back in his chair.

Rhonda, the traffic reporter, gives her final analysis. “The turnpike and tunnels have mild delays. But if you're on the LIE, give up and go home. Due to a jack-knifed tractor-trailer, it's a parking lot. Now back to the Jungle with Georgie and Rockin' Ron.”

Rockin' whistles, “I am so glad I don't live on Long Island. No offense people, but I don't know how you fight that traffic every day. And if you don't drive, you're packed into one of those trains.”

“They have no choice, people need to get to work,” Georgie chastises.

“You know what I'd do?”

“I can't wait to hear.”

“I'd get myself a big truck and hum along the road.”

“I thought you're always looking for a hummer.”

“That's true.”

“Your own little truck?” Georgie asks.

“Hey, there's nothing little about my truck. Anyway, in my truck, traffic would be no problem. I'd just drive that baby up and over everyone.”

“You might hurt somebody that way.”

“Who cares, just as long I get to where I'm going.” Rockin' pushes his mangy hair out of his face. The difference in their appearance is a battle of ying and yikes, Georgie's good looks against Rockin's Heavy Metal garb, multiple piercings and long hair.

“You are the Me generation. Okay; let's hear five in row, starting with Pumpkin Rush on Q92.7.” Georgie starts the song and the on-air light goes off.

“I'll see you guys in a half hour.” Rhonda waves and leaves them alone in the booth.

Rockin' turns to Georgie, “So I guess you and Tawney never hooked up last night.”

“How'd you know that?”

“Cause I saw her at Margin's for the
London Style
party.” He pokes Georgie like a schoolyard bully, “And I didn't see you.”

“So that's where she was.” Georgie and Tawney have been playing this emotional cha-cha for the last two years—break-up, meet a few weeks later for ‘the dinner,' fall into bed and back together again. They were supposed to meet for dinner last night before Tawney left for a photo shoot in Paris the next evening, only she blew Georgie off.

“She was so hot. She had on this hot pink dress that was slit on the sides. It was so tight you could actually make out the outline of a nipple. You could make out the bumps on the nipple. I'm pullin' wood just thinking about it.” When it comes to women, Rockin' has the mentality of a twelve year-old in a locker room with a dog-eared copy of Hustler.

Georgie knows Rockin' is enjoying jabbing at him, displaying his jealousy of everything Georgie is and has like an extra piercing. He tries not to let the comments get under his skin, but Tawney promised not to wear that dress unless they were together. “Damn her!”

“She was with some director. You know the douchebag with the goatee?” Rockin' adds.

Georgie nods. “He's been sniffing around her all year, going on and on about how he should coach her. Then Hollywood would take her seriously. The only thing that guy is serious about is getting into her twenty thousand dollar a day body.”

“He was covering more of her skin than the dress. He told me he was flying out to Paris this morning for some play he's directing over there. Isn't Tawney supposed to leave tonight?”

Georgie's head snaps up. He'd waited around for her for over an hour at Volume, finally calling her service to track her down. That's when he noticed Renny. She looked fun. And he was right, as their nocturnal acrobatics confirmed. That'll teach Tawney. He'll dump her for good this time. Renny was into him and maybe a relationship with a regular chick will be good for a change. Someone to put him first, the way Tawney used to. Granted Renny is no supermodel, but she's above average in the sack.

Rockin' is clearly pissed that his report has failed to produce the usual Georgie explosion. “What's with you?”

“Nothing.”

“You blew it with Tawney,” Rockin' needles. “And what I wouldn't give for one night with her. I've got an idea. If you guys get back together, how about you throw me a bone. You blindfold her one night and I slip in. That would be awesome.”

Georgie looks over their morning outline, ignoring him.

“Okay, if you won't do that, how about when you have your make-up fuck, you let me watch. I betcha she'd like it. Give it some zip.”

“Fuck off.” Georgie would like nothing more than to dump Rockin', but unfortunately they are good for each other's careers. The station and the public like them together. The same could be said for Georgie and Tawney. They hooked up four years ago when she was starting out as a catalog model and he was the hot new deejay in town, fresh from DC. The tables of fame turned two years ago when she did the swimsuit cover of SI. The hotter she became, the more his star grew, too. Then things got hinky. He couldn't remember who cheated on who first, because by now they were both to blame.

Rockin' yanks Georgie back into the conversation, “Without her, you're just another schmuck on the radio. Hey maybe if I sleep with a supermodel the station will put my name first. We can call the show The Rockin' Ron and whats-his-fucking-name show. No one's gonna remember you without her.”

Georgie hears the echo of Tawney's parting shot. “You'll be back,” she screamed. “I'm a supermodel and you're just a goddamn loser. You'd never have gotten mornings without me and you know it.”

Screw them both, he thinks. And then Georgie comes up with just the way to do that. “I don't give a damn about Tawney,” he brags, “I hooked up last night.”

“Really?” Rockin' asks.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Was she any good?”

“Shit yeah! I'm wrecked today. This chick was hot in and out of the sack. After the show, I'm going home to crash.”

“Man, you are the luckiest son of a bitch. Why couldn't I have been born with your looks instead of my wit? Chicks don't want to fuck wit.” Rockin' checks the clock. “Hey we're back on in fifteen. Start with a mention of the bachelor's auction.”

Perfect. Georgie adjusts his microphone, ready to resume their on-air repartee.

Rockin' announces, “One lucky lady will get the honor of escorting yours truly, Rockin' Ron, to the Q92.7 holiday bash at Meltdown. Pablum will be opening for Mourning Breath. So ladies if you don't want to talk to me, you can listen to the bands. And remember to ignore my roving hands; they have a mind of their own.”

Georgie jeers, “We're all waiting to see what kind of man, woman or beast would actually pay for a date with my buddy Rockin'.”

“Ouch, that hurts my feelings.”

“You know we have a pool going. My money's on beast.”

“Come on ladies, someone's got to defend my honor.”

“You must feel so cheap being sold up there like a piece of meat.”

Rockin' throws Georgie a menacing glance and pushes their outline aside. “Not as cheap as the baby doll you went home with last night.”

Just as planned, Georgie thinks. “That's not nice. The girl I was with last night is not cheap.”

“Oh ‘that' kind of girl! How expensive is she, and does she charge by the night, the hour or in your case, the milli-second?”

“That's not what I meant.”

“Okay, okay, just tell me this.” Rockin' leans close to the mike. “Does she have big breasts? Or better yet, are they bigger than you know whose?” Rockin' hits a sound effect of Tawney whining.

“I'm not going to answer that.”

Rockin' pushes another button sounding a warning signal and alters his voice, “This is a station advisory. If there are any small children in the room, get them the hell out! The show is getting good. Now, let's get to it. Did she touch your manhood, your cucumber of love, your high-speed stick shift? Small dirty minds want to know.”

“The FCC is gonna kick us off the air,” Georgie warns.

“Let ‘em try, those pussies. Now speaking of pussy.”

“How about a song?” Georgie kicks the show to music and the on-air light goes dark.

Rockin' throws down his headset. “You cut me off!”

“You were taking it too far.” Georgie pushes back lazily in his chair. He knows Tawney always listens in the morning and she'd be sure to listen today, wanting to hear how pissed he must have been at being blown off. The stuff about Renny would make her nuts.

It takes a moment for Rockin's slow gears to catch up to Georgie's trap. “Damn you! You set me up didn't you? You wanted me to do that?”

“You're such an easy target.”

“You and Tawney with your mind whacks. They should ship you both off to the land of fuckin' misfit toys.” He storms out.

An assistant sticks her head in. “Georgie, Tawney's on the phone. She sounds awful, I could barely tell who it was. All the screaming and crying. You better talk to her. And Rockin' is screaming that he's going to quit again.”

“Let him, I'll throw a party. How long ‘til we're back?”

“Four minutes.”

He nods. His mind wanders to Renny, as he waits for Tawney's call to be transferred. When he grabs the phone, Georgie isn't sure whether he wants the call or the girl that comes with it.

Chapter Seven

Renny sweeps into the office with her laundry bag slung over her shoulder and a wide smile stretched across her face. She sips her coffee and stops at Lucy's desk, where the assistant sits perusing the
Post
. “Good morning, Lucy. Any messages for me?”

Lucy doesn't bother looking up from her reading. “It's ten to nine. I don't start until nine. This is my time, come back in ten minutes.”

“Lucy, if there's one thing you are, it's funny,” Renny says as she walks away.

“Wait a minute!” Lucy calls. “What are you doing here early?”

“I have a lot of work. Big pitch. Besides, you know what they say about the early bird catching the worm.” Renny giggles at her hidden entendre and goes in her office. She drops the laundry bag in a corner and slips out of her sneakers. Pulling a pair of Nine West micro fiber black pumps from the bottom drawer of her file cabinet, she slips off her Adidas sneakers and deposits them in its place. Renny can't help noticing that the drawer smells like feet as she slams it shut. At her desk, she powers up her laptop, unwraps her breakfast and takes a hungry bite, savoring the creamy butter as it melts deeper into the warm Kaiser roll with each chew. Taking a big swig of coffee firmly plants Renny in breakfast heaven and she wonders how Elsay can call this boring. The thought of heaven triggers her hand on the speed dial to home, in the hope that Georgie left a message during a break in his show.

“You have no new messages,” her machine announces over the speaker.

Renny disconnects. “You don't have to rub it in.” She giggles and turns her attention to her e-mail.

Six deletes and four replies later Lucy walks in. “Okay, enough,” she announces. “What gives and who is he?”

Renny doesn't take her eyes off the computer screen. “He who?”

“Yeah, okay, you think I was born under a dump truck? You're in early, already checking for messages and, not to mention the little giggles I hear coming from in here. I can always tell the freshly-laid look, so I'll be specific. ‘He' is who you slept with last night. That is, assuming it was a he.”

She rolls her eyes. “Very funny.”

“So give it up. Oops, I forgot you already did.” Lucy plops in a chair.

Renny is busting to dish with someone about her night. She called Sara, but Megan was throwing her cereal on the floor, so she couldn't talk. Gaby was still sleeping off last night and told Renny to call back later. She eyes Lucy's eager expression. What the hell, she thinks, ignoring the consequences of blabbing her sexcapade to the office yenta, “I met a guy last night.”

“Okay, that's the headline. Get to the story. Where'd ya' meet him?”

“Volume,” Renny says.

“What does he do?”

“He's a disc jockey.”

“Where? At one the clubs?”

“No. He does the morning show on Q92.7.”

“Georgie?” Lucy says, her jaw bouncing off her lap.

“Yeah,” Renny nods. “How'd you know that?”

“That was you?” Lucy asks.

“What was me?”

“You didn't hear?”

“Hear what?” Renny leans toward Lucy wishing she could reach into the woman's mouth and pull the story out.

Lucy's flickering hands punctuate her words. “He was talking about you on the radio this morning. I heard it as I was waiting for the bus, right around eight. Well you could knock me over with a bialy right now, because when he said he slept with a hottie last night, the last person on this planet that came to mind was not even you. So, is he as sexy as he sounds?”

“Oh yeah! Did he say anything else?”

“Sure, it was filthy. You know, their show is so raunchy. I listen all the time. I love it.” Lucy laughs. “You and Georgie, now that's a riot!”

“Hey!” Renny says, offended.

“Sorry, but come on. The guy's practically married to a supermodel. You didn't think you'd hear from him again, did you?” Lucy asks.

Renny shrugs off the question.

“Oh my God, you think he's going to call.” Lucy pats Renny's hand. “Sweetie, I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but last night was, you know, wham-bam, thank you ma'am. You shoulda' heard him this morning. Guys like that, they never call. I'd bet my next paycheck on it, and you know I'm as tight as they come. But look on the bright side. You got your fifteen seconds with fame, right?” She gets up to leave. “Don't worry, your secret is safe with me. Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“You just crossed your appendix,” Renny says, pointing to her chest.

Lucy gestures toward the laundry bag. “What's all that? Doesn't your building have washing machines?”

“I'm going to my parents tonight. My mother's going to do it.”

“You're thirty years old and your mother still does your laundry?”

“She likes to,” Renny adds in defense.

“The last time my mother did my laundry, she made me go to confession every Sunday for a month.”

“How come?”

“I had a pair of that underwear your friend used to make. My mother took them out of the dryer and read the password.”

“What did it say?”

“The other white meat,” Lucy deadpans.

***

Renny stares out the passenger side window of her father's green Taurus at the warehouses and billboards that dot the landscape along the New Jersey Turnpike. Her father hums along to his favorite CD, a show tune collection sung alternately in Hebrew and English by an Israeli singer. It is a soothing accompaniment for her Georgie saturated daydream.

“When your mother and I saw him in Florida last year, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Some voice, huh?” Her father asks, breaking into his daughter's reverie.

“Great.” Renny reaches in her bag to check that the volume on her cell phone is on high. It is and so far Lucy is right—Georgie hasn't called. “What's with the yarmulke?” Renny casts an eye at the navy blue religious cap perched on her father's gray hair like a doily on a coffee table.

“I wear it when I go to Brooklyn. My customers there are Lubovitch. They're more comfortable dealing with someone who they think is as religious as they are.” He takes the yarmulke off his head and passes it to Renny. “Put it in the glove box.”

She opens the compartment door slowly and shoves the yarmulke in, slamming the latch shut before anything can fall out of the overpacked space. For the last seventeen years, Renny's father has worked for a food distributor selling kosher foods to supermarkets and grocery stores all over the tri-state area. “We'll never go hungry,” her mother would say inspecting the cans of tuna or sardines her father brought home on a regular basis. She never forgot the Spartan year and a half they had weathered when her father was out of work. Her mother viewed each freebie case of Matzos or soup mix that found its way to her kitchen as if they were an insurance policy against hunger. She'd stack them in the pantry, aligned in neat rows of equal height, as though she were building a brick wall and mortaring out any future hardship.

“I almost forgot; go back in. There are bus tickets in there,” he says.

“For what?” Renny opens the glove compartment and a flashlight and various papers fall on the floor.

“There they are,” her father points. “By your foot.”

Renny is strangled by the seat belt as she bends and picks up the ten-pack of round-trip bus tickets.

“Your mother thought you might need them. Maybe you'll come home a little more often.”

The tickets ignite Renny's temper. “I come out as often as I can, Dad. Why can't she understand that I'm busy?”

“She knows you're busy. Just tell her thank you, okay? For me.”

“Fine.” Renny tosses the tickets in her bag and turns her sights back out the window. She spots the back of the old Two Guys department store in Hillside. As a child, she and her mother used to go shopping there at least once a week. When she was six, Renny witnessed a little boy getting lost in the store. The store manager announced the lost boy's name over the Two Guys PA system. His name was Brian. Renny's mother was trying on silver metallic sandals in the shoe department, while Brian waited nearby with the store manager. Renny remembers the little boy's mother running into the shoe department with tears streaming down her face. She scooped Brian up in her arms and showered him with kisses. Renny overheard his mother say, “Don't ever scare me like that again.” The warning was drowned out by more kisses.

Renny thought that having your name called out across the store made you famous and she thought that was very cool. The next time she and her mother went to Two Guys, Renny purposely wandered away. Hiding in a circular display of men's trousers while her mother picked out boxer shorts for her father was all it took to become lost.

After they announced her name over the PA system, Renny waited with the store manager in the shoe department just as Brian had done the week before. Her mother flew past the rows of summer sandals, just as Brian's mother had. Only the twisted expression on her face let Renny know that she was not about to be scooped into her mother's arms. In the parking lot moments later, the hard slap of her mother's hand across Renny's face made it clear that she didn't share her daughter's vision of cool or fame. The red mark left on her cheek for the rest of the day made sure she didn't forget.

After being smacked, Renny climbed into the family's maroon Impala and stared up at the series of pointy peaks that lined the roof of the building. Her eyes stung with unshed tears. She imagined the peaks were ocean waves and wished that she could climb up to them. She wanted to float on them, staring up at the sky, allowing nothing between her and the soothing blue ceiling.

“Not a dry eye in the house I tell ya.” Her father hits the replay on the CD, calling Renny back to the present.

“That's what I heard,” Renny says, watching the Two Guys' roof line dissolve in the evening sky.

***

“You should try a piece of this apple strudel,” her mother says while chewing. She is standing over the sink, crumbs raining down with each carnivorous bite.

“No thanks, Ma. I'm full from dinner.”

“It's delicious. Are you dieting again?”

“No, I'm just not hungry.”

“Who says you have to be hungry to taste something?” The faint smell of hairspray wafts past Renny from her mother's beauty parlor blond hair, which is religiously washed and set every week. She chuckles to herself, remembering how every night as a child she would watch her mother put curlers in the front pieces and wrap ‘the do' in a hairnet to keep ‘the set'.

It's been twelve years since Renny first left home for college and transformed from an insecure coed to a neurotic city girl. In that time fashionistas declared navy, grey, brown and even white as the new black. The Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall collapsed.

Her parents' central New Jersey split-level, however, remains rooted in a mauve time warp. The blue and white Corning tea-kettle from Renny's childhood and the collection of miniature ceramic pitchers still decorate the kitchen counters. Renny ate dinner in the same spot she held as a child, across from her father and to the right of her mother. Even the furniture, though faded, sits in the exact same places, verified by the immutable carpet depressions throughout the house.

As always, her father retreats behind the newspaper as soon as dinner finishes, while her mother moves between the sink and the table clearing dishes, wearing one of a lifetime supply of floral housecoats.

Renny feels her mother's scrutinizing gaze behind her. “What?”

“You look tired.” Her mother comes over and rubs Renny's back. “Maybe you need iron. You should give Doctor Friedman a call. He can prescribe some iron pills.”

Her mother believes a pill exists for all of life's ailments. “I don't need iron pills; I'm just a little rundown. I'm working on a big project right now and I'm under a lot of pressure.”

Her mother walks away and turns on the water at the sink. “Pressure, schmessure. Try raising two kids, you'll know pressure. You're thirty years old now. You have to take care of yourself. If you don't, how are you ever going to—”

“Don't say it, Ma.”

“I don't have to.”

“That's because you've said it so many times it keeps reverberating over and over again in the air.”

“Don't be fresh. You may be thirty, but I'm still your mother. So tell me, what do you have against it?”

“Nothing. I have nothing against it.”

“Look at your father and me. It's been thirty-seven years, and we're still happy.” Her mother waves a sudsy yellow-plastic-gloved hand in the air.

Her father sits silently engrossed with his newspaper. Over the banner of the Sports section, Renny can make out her father's side part. As always, he wears a plaid button down shirt with a pair of dark trousers, laid out the night before by her mother like a set of adult Garanimals.

Her mother prattles on. “It's already been five years for Ira.”

“Here we go.” Renny rolls her eyes.

“Shirley, for god's sake leave her alone already,” her father says from behind the newspaper.

“What?” She waves a dismissive hand at him.

“Why do you always have to compare us?” Renny grabs a dishtowel and starts drying the dishes her mother hands her. “I love my brother, but he's my brother, not my Siamese twin. I don't have to do what he does. By the way he forgot my birthday.”

“He's very busy. You could take a lesson from him. He's a good boy. At least I have two grandchildren. You know your father and I aren't going to be around forever. A mother needs to go into the here after knowing that her children are taken care of. Who's going to take care of you if something happens to me?” Her mother's voice trembles.