Fate and Ms. Fortune (15 page)

Gretchen just stared at me like I’d said no thanks to a winning lottery ticket. But what I hadn’t forgotten from our last
trip to Rome was that I might as well be in Rome, New York, for as much free time as I’d get to explore.

“Oh, I get it.” Gretchen eyed me. “You want the few days off so you can go to Phoenix with your mother and that awful Sienna.”

“Sierra…And no one is going to Phoenix,” I insisted. “How do you know about that?”

“Because Simon is doing the happy dance that she’s leaving town…I heard he’s even paying for your mom’s ticket too.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“But why does he care where Sierra is? He’ll be in Rome.”

“Yes, but he’s coming back. If it all goes down according to plan, she’s not.”

W
HAT DID
G
RETCHEN MEAN
, if it all went down according to plan? Had Simple Simon talked my mother into becoming a paid assassin? What a lovely exclusive that would make.
Daybreak
’s executive producer hires makeup artist’s mother to kill new wife’s daughter.

Damn right we would be discussing this when I got home. Except that the future convict was busy when I walked in, as she had converted my apartment into the Sheila Holtz Center for Mah-Jongg Mavens.

“Okay. Listen up, kiddies.” My mother tapped a tiny baton on the card table as if she were still conducting a string quartet. “There are three suits that go from one to nine and a fourth suit called Winds. Are you listening, Sierra?…No, each player starts with three double stacks of four, plus one tile unless you’re east, and then you get two extras.”

“Oh good. You’re in time.” She clapped when she spotted me standing at my front door. “Grab a chair from the kitchen and join the fun.”

“Who are these people?” I yelled over the familiar din of tiles clicking.

“Well, Sierrapaigemather you know of course…Say hello to her,” she whispered as she stuck my bag in the closet. “She thinks you don’t like her. And the rest of these nice folks are your neighbors…No Kaneesha, the bird tile is one bam…remember. Four suits. Dots, bams, cracks, and winds.”

“I don’t believe you. I haven’t slept, I haven’t eaten…”

“Go wash up and make a sandwich. You look like you could use some fun.”

“I don’t want to have fun.” I dragged her to a quiet corner. “I want to open a bottle of wine and put a straw in it.”

“What’s gotten into you, Toots? You used to be a lotta laughs…I think maybe you’ve come down with a case of psy-chosclerosis.”

“What?”

“Hardening of the attitudes…Correcto, Mrs. Schnecken-berg. If you don’t like the tile thrown, then pick from the wall. Maybe you’ll be lucky and get a joker.”

“Mom. I’m talking to you. This was a crappy idea. Tell everyone to leave.”

“But they’re having such a good time. And I was trying to figure out. Which night do you think is better for a standing game? I like Mondays but if it’s a three-day holiday, then—”

“Stop, stop, stop…Is that the weird guy from downstairs with the six cats?”

“Who? Jack Greenberg? Yeah. Nice man. Lost his wife last year. A massive stroke and boom, adios Evelyn…He brought up a fruit platter with kiwis. Love those…I’ll introduce you.”

“No. I’m begging you. Just move the party someplace else.”

“But I bought coffee cake. Can’t play mahj without it, although I shouldn’t have bought all those low-fat ones. Is it me, or do the boxes taste better…”

“I don’t care what you give them,” I said.

Imagine walking into your home to find strangers playing a game whose main requirement was that you sat for hours while talking, snacking, and exchanging ivory tiles with their three opponents who, like you, had no life.

“You know what I think?” My mother gave me the maternal eye. “I think you’re all worked up because it reminds you of when your idiot husband had his buddies over to gamble.”

If not for the company of strangers, I would have strangled her. The unmitigated nerve to invade my home, insult my marriage, and once again, possibly be right.

Still, I was tempted to hurl the next grenade. If she was such an expert on marriage, why was she living with me instead of her husband, why was she plotting to find an old lover, and did she really think teaching strangers to play mah-jongg was the sign of a happy life?

Instead, I ran past her, slamming my bedroom door for good measure. Then with one hard-hitting swipe, the pile of dirty clothes on my bed fell to the floor and I collapsed. Just as one of my old
Mad
magazines mysteriously dropped from the bookshelf.

Whoa! Third time this week that that had happened. Was it a sign that I should stop slamming my door until I got new, less warped shelves? Or was there some mystical phenomenon at work?

Ever since getting those cell phone messages from the spirit world, it wasn’t that much of a stretch to think I could receive other supernatural communications. Maybe I was hearing from my faithful childhood companion Alfred E. Neuman, who wanted to remind me that my being angry with my overbearing, meddlesome, clean-obsessed mother was nothing new. Maybe he was venting his own anger with her for throwing out my cherished collection of
Mad
magazines while I was away at camp. Only to defend her indefensible act by accusing me of being a slob who should have been thrilled to have a
mother willing to clean her ungrateful daughter’s room so it was spotless and organized.

Thrilled? Are you kidding? I was so devastated I didn’t speak to her for weeks, not even to accept her offer to renew my subscription. In fact, the only reason I forgave her was because Julia found a stack of back issues I’d lent her that she’d never gotten around to returning.

If not for those few issues being spared, I might never have talked to my mother again.

Oh fine. I was being over dramatic. Which made me laugh, for lying there reminded me of the many times my mother stood over my bed playing Vivaldi’s Concerto in A minor, her surefire method for cajoling me to wash my face and make a sandwich (the cure for whatever ailed you).

Ah. Time for the old Robyn Holtz self-pity pie.

Actually what scared me more than feeling sorry for myself was realizing how much I was starting to sound like the people for whom I held the least respect. Those who, through their own words and actions, created chaos and dissension, then bitched that life was so hard.

My ex:
Lived for illegal activities, then wondered why the cops showed up.

My dad:
Ignored his wife for thirty years, then wondered why she left him.

My mom:
Insisted she was always right, then wondered why her relationships went wrong.

Phillip:
Overindulged his family, then wondered why they wouldn’t let him rest.

Gretchen:
Stepped on toes all the way up the ladder, then wondered why she was alone.

So just how many mirrors did one have to hold up in order to see one’s own reflection?

Me:
Married David in spite of all the trouble signs, then wondered why the marriage never had a chance.

Oh for those innocent days when Julia Volkman and I could attribute everything bad that happened to us to something we called sucky luck.

Sucky luck was when you had to walk around school all day with your jacket tied around your waist because your period surprised you. Or when you had to go to the prom with a boy six inches shorter than you because his father was your father’s client.

But real sucky luck was having your locker next to Josh Vogel’s for four years of high school because they were assigned alphabetically. Poor Julia could only open hers when Josh wasn’t there. “No room for the three of us,” she’d groan. “He’s so fat, his ass is in front.”

It was an unfortunate pairing, but at least Julia’s sucky luck ended in high school, while mine seemed to be just warming up.

“Where are you going?” my mother asked when I flew past her without saying a word.

“For pizza.”

“Get me a few pepperoni slices, wouldya?” Sierra, she of supersonic hearing when it came to free delivery, said. “Anyone else want?”

“And when I get back, everyone had better be gone.”

“No,” Sheila replied.

“No?”

“Who invites friends over and then tells them to leave?”

“See, and I thought, who invites strangers into a home that isn’t theirs?”

I rushed down three flights of stairs, colliding with a man who was just buzzed in. “Excuse me. Sorry.”

“Robyn?”

“Yes?” I turned around, steam still pouring out of my eyes.

“Hi.” He hugged me. “It’s me…Josh.”

I blinked. “Josh who?”

“Vogel…From Hebrew school? Fair Lawn High? Go Cutters?”

“Oh my God!” Fellini films my ass. This was
Twilight Zone
right down to the Rod Serling shiver. Until twenty seconds ago, I hadn’t seen or thought of this kid in decades, and now he was standing in my vestibule? It had to be the punishment for cruelty to fat boys. The six-letter word for premonition. Doomed!

“Are you okay?” He steadied me. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“I’m sorry. This is so bizarre. Not two seconds ago I was thinking about you, and now here you are.”

“I guess your mom told you I called.”

“Huh?”

“She didn’t tell you I called before? I was leaving a message and she picked up…Then she invited me over for your big mah-jongg party. How could I miss that?”

“You like mah-jongg?”

“Are you kidding? I grew up on it. My grandmother used to drag me down to her beach club every summer and make me her fourth…Where do you think I learned to pig out on cake?”

“And for this you shlepped all the way from Fair Lawn?”

“Actually I live a few blocks from here. Over on Garfield Street…I just moved back to New York.”

“What happened to the rest of you?” I blurted. “Oh my God! I’m sorry. You look great.”

“You too.” He laughed. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by people’s reaction. I did grow six inches since high school and dropped a hundred and fourteen pounds.”

“Amazing…And I love your glasses. You look—”

“Like someone you wouldn’t want to pull a chair out from under in chem lab?”

“Hey. That wasn’t me, I swear. It was Craig what’s-his-name with the twitchy eye.”

Josh smiled. “Yeah right.”

“So wait. How did you know I lived in Brooklyn?”

“Mom talk. What else? I think they ran into each other at Shop Rite and it came out we both were in Park Slope.”

I still couldn’t get over the eerie fact that a name had popped into my head, and thirty seconds later I was talking to the very person, let alone that this was the same Josh Vogel who was so overweight, he needed two seats in the lunchroom.

I half listened to his tale as I sized up the new and improved packaging. He wasn’t quite in the handsome, ripped, Ken Danziger category. But he was tall and husky like David, and he had that whole Clint Eastwood, I’m-not-your-victim-anymore look. The gelled hair. Sexy black glasses. The leather jacket and Rolex watch.

“…After I graduated from Colorado State, I worked for a bunch of different guys in Silicon Valley. Then I opened my own consulting firm in Seattle. But after six years I got burned out and realized I missed my family. So this January I moved back and found a place down here.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Shocking, right? That I might become a not half bad-looking, successful guy?”

“No. That you missed your family so much you came home.”

“Well, it’s not the whole story.” He laughed. “I had a pretty bad breakup too.”

“Hey. That line forms to the left…Care to order the team jacket?”

“Sure…See, I was living with this woman, Rebecca…I really thought she was it. Then this friend of hers from work turned her on to Orthodox Judaism, and all of a sudden I wasn’t kosher enough. Which really pissed me off because I had gotten so good at davening.”

“That happened to a cousin of mine,” I said. “It’s not a religion, it’s a cult.”

“Exactly. And call me a sloth, but I still like bacon cheeseburgers. And I’ll drive all day Saturday to find a good one.”

“Me too! By any chance do you gamble?”

“Gamble? Not really. I think it’s a stupid hobby. I work too hard for my money…”

“Good answer! I know the place for the perfect burger. Do you want to go have dinner?”

“Sure.”

“And then spend the rest of the night holding me naked in bed?”

His eyes popped.

Wait until I called Julia. She was not going to believe I not only slept with Josh Vogel but tried to have sex, and
he
turned
me
down!

What guy said he’d rather just talk? Although his brain might have been saying no, I could see beneath the Jockey boxers that his boys were pacing like prisoners, waiting to be released on their own recognizance.

Still, it was nice to be lying naked in a man’s arms, talking the night away as he stroked my back. Occasionally he’d kiss
my forehead, but I swear, his Orthodox ex must have brainwashed him into thinking he had to save himself for marriage.

Finally, after a night of drinking and filling each other in on the past fifteen years, up to and including these past few days, I couldn’t hold out. I needed to get laid, Ken was a lost cause, and if Josh felt as sorry for me as he said, then he would do right by me.

Can you believe it? In spite of the beer buzz, he still said no. He liked me too much to do this on impulse; every time he’d given in, the girl lost interest in him; he’d had a crush on me since seventh grade and now that I had become this beautiful, funny, and interesting woman, he wasn’t going to screw up a possible relationship due to quick sex.

“I don’t want quick sex. I want the kind that takes a long time.”

“If we do this, one of us will be sorry, and it’s probably going to be me,” he said.

“Who turns down a freebie? I’ll do anything you ask.”

“Believe me, I can think of six things I’m going to do to you when the time is right.”

“Oh come on. Do them now. Please? I might get hit by the D train tomorrow and miss out…What’s so funny?”

“Who could I call who would believe me? Robyn Holtz is begging me for sex.”

“I swear I’ll let you be the one to tell Julia if you just do it already.” I stroked him.

“You’re not playing fair.”

“No, you aren’t. You can’t wave that thing at me at full staff and say, Sorry, it’s off duty…Do you have condoms?”

“Somewhere.”

“Somewhere? Do you even like sex?”