Happy Any Day Now (13 page)

B
lumen House was considered the finest assisted living facility in the Baltimore area, a place my mother wouldn’t have been able to afford on her income. But I was determined that the last phase of her life would be free of roaches and sour smells in dim hallways. In a convenient coincidence, just as I decided to move her out of Brooklyn, I got promoted to associate principal cellist, so there was a little extra money to contribute to her care. Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Arnold generously came up with the rest, and we managed Blumen House’s smallest one bedroom. Gracie was happy there, happier than I’d ever seen her. This naturally gregarious woman now had enough time, energy, and English to make friends. The other women, especially the Jewish ones, got a kick out of her. True to Blumen House’s brochure, she bloomed in her golden years.

“What not to like?” she’d reassured me, picking up her closest friends’ inflection. It was a relief not having to cook every day. My mother developed a taste for the chef’s blueberry blintzes. The recreation staff worked overtime to keep the residents on their feet and clot free. There were field trips, lectures, classes. Arts and crafts, sing-alongs, bingo. And on the last day of every month, a party for all the residents whose birthdays had fallen in the previous one.

On this April 30, four celebrants sat at the birthday table: three women and one man, which was less depressing than the real residential ratio of about eight to one.

Grace, at a far table, spotted my entrance, rose, and headed me off midstride. Her party hat, a polka-dotted paper cone, was perched jauntily on the new hairdo. “Why you here, Judith? Not your day to visit.”

“Well, that’s a warm welcome. Happy to see you too. We need to talk.” I pecked her cheek.

“About time kiss.” She hadn’t forgotten the scene at the elevator. She thrust her lower jaw pugnaciously. “So talk.”

I scanned the room for signs of Irwin. “He’s not here?”

“Very disrespect how you call father. He. He. Always he. Very bad manner. I brought you up to respect. Where that all go?”

“It followed your ex-husband to Arizona. Where is he?”

“
Aigoo!
You so mean. He want us all taste special ice cream. Ben & Jerry. So he go to buy for everyone and pay for all.”

“He took the Jaguar?”

Miriam Botansky, a little gray bird of a woman, had flown to my mother’s side. No doubt the subject of my reaction to Irwin’s reappearance was a hot topic at the mah-jongg table. Mrs. Botansky slid me an appraising look. “Beautiful car. He’s going to buy a GPS next week, but in the meantime Sonia Applebaum went along for the ride to show him the way to the supermarket.” She stroked my mother’s shoulder consolingly.

Sonia Applebaum was Blumen House’s brazen hussy. A stiffly coiffed platinum blonde, she lip-lined, wore two-inch heels in a one-inch society, had outlived two very wealthy husbands, and the scuttlebutt was that more than one Viagra-infused male resident had taken liberties. My so-called father was alone with her, only a stick shift separating them.
Oy!
Or maybe, just maybe, Mrs. Applebaum was the answer to a daughter’s prayers, and Irwin and the blondie would skip town together and live happily ever after in Boynton Beach.

“They’re taking a long time to buy ice cream.” Mrs. Botansky’s eyes were overbright. “But I’m sure everything is all right. Gracie can hold her own. Can’t you, darling?”

My mother shook off the old lady’s bejeweled claw and dragged me by two fingers to a corner. “Private here.” She folded her arms and waited.

I folded mine and tried to keep my voice steady. “Is there something you’re not telling me,
Uhm-mah
? Something to do with the family? Maybe from long ago? A secret I’m not supposed to know?”

She looked innocent. A little less so when she backed up two steps. “Like what?”

The problem was Aunt Phyllis hadn’t given me a clue. Since our conversation, I’d been sifting through all kinds of possibilities. I laid out the one I liked the best. “I was thinking Irwin isn’t my real father.”

“What!” My mother clapped her thick peasant’s hand against her chest. “Not your father!” She almost lost her balance as she rocked with the hilarity of it. “Of course Irwin your father.” She couldn’t contain her whoops of laughter. “This what you want to be true, different daddy. Ay, so funny. We do paternity test?”
That
phrase she knew, thanks to
Jerry Springer
. “Fine. Can prove with paternity test.”

The response was too spontaneous to be a bluff. And she’d called mine. My last, best hope for a disconnect with that loser had just gone down the tube.

“Then you’re hiding something else from me,” I said. “What is it?”

That shut her down as if a plug had been pulled. “What else? Secret about your father? Why you think that?”

Answering a question with a question. Three, actually. The cross-cultural contamination was getting serious. Also, it was a clever evasive move. She didn’t look at me. Her stare was fixed on her bright red fingernails. Her lips, which had been parted a moment before, pursed as if she’d been sucking a lemon. She made a half turn away. Gave me a cold shoulder. Oh yes, she was hiding something, and she wasn’t about to give it up.

I had no more to go on. I said, “Okay,” meaning for now, and switched to a more pressing issue. “Marti showed me your check for the party.”

“You’re welcome,” my mother said. Koreans are not big on sarcasm, but living among the Jews and Italians, she seemed to be picking up the knack.

“Yes, thank you. However, before the check is handed over to the Belvedere, I really need to know if that money was from you or him.”

She flared. “First Irwin not your father. Then Irwin-not-father pay for party.” She shook her head in wonderment.

“Come on,
Uhm-mah
. If you’d won three thousand dollars at the craps table, you would have been on the phone to me in a heartbeat. But not a peep. You never mentioned it.”

“You want me call you every time I pee. This so stupid. So stupid and crazy, Judith. I be nice and give money. You be . . . what word?”

“Ungrateful?”

“Ungrateful. So stop ungrateful. Enjoy party. No more questions.
Chungbun!
”

When my mother said “Enough!” she meant it. At fourteen I’d obeyed. Not so much at forty-nine. “One more, an easy one, and then I’m finished. Is he planning on moving in?”

“Here? Apartment too small. He don’t know where he live. Free as bird now. Thinking maybe move to near Aunt Phyllis. Great Neck.”

No subways on Long Island. That might explain the Jaguar, which would be perfect for Great Neck.

I was finished with my mother, but she wasn’t finished with me. “Why where he live your business? Maybe you move to New York with judge. That my business? No. Don’t insult. So many insult today.”

• • •

I was still basking in the Great Neck moment when Irwin walked through the door carrying a Wegmans shopping bag. Sonia Applebaum followed, arms empty, eyes clouded with maybe cataracts, maybe adulation.

He searched the room for my mother. When he found her, he lit up.

I looked at her when she found him. Radiant.

Irwin handed off the ice cream to the activities director and made his way toward us. He walked briskly for an eighty-year-old man. With the entire room now watching, I found myself stuck facing him.

He shifted his gaze from my mother to me and assumed a salesman’s eager expression, as if he had a pound of the finest kippered herring up his sleeve. With my name on it. Half price. Today only.

“Hiya, Jude. Long time no see. You look good. I hope you’re staying for the party because I just bought this gang some Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey. You ever tried that? The best. It’s bananas and nuts and these big hunks of chocolate. I know how you love chocolate. I remember once, when you were a kid around two, I brought you Hanukkah gelt. You know what that is? The gold-wrapped chocolate money.” His mouth never stopped working. “What a thing you had for chocolate. Didn’t she, Gracie? You went through that chocolate money like Grant took Richmond.”

From the doting-father routine, you’d think he’d never left.

It was too much. My mother must have known I was ready to tell that old bastard where to shove his Chunky Monkey, because she slung a restraining arm around my waist and drew me close.

“Go away, Irwin. Now. Help serve ice cream. Not for me. Tea for me. No sugar.”

“I know no sugar, Grace. For fifty years I’ve known no sugar.”

“Go.” She shooed him off with her free hand.

And the amazing thing was, he actually listened to her. “Sure,” he said, “glad to be of assistance.” To me he said, “We’re at table four. I’ll put an extra chair out for you,” and took off.

She loosened her grip on my waist. “I’m boss now. Big difference. Feel good.”

I had only a few foggy memories of the time before he left, but even
I
knew that back then the balance of power had weighed heavily on his side. He ran the show.
Big
difference.

We both watched him strut to the front table, where Sonia Applebaum was waiting with the scoop.

“Ha. Look at how she push herself on him. Such slut.
Shibal nyon
.”

“Mother . . .” Shocked, I laughed at the language. “But what if she and he—?”

“What if, what if, you always what if. No matter what if, I be fine. You think so hard, Judith. Not healthy. Bad for more aneurysm. Go home, take hot bath. Drink ginseng tea.
Kok-tchong ma-se-yo—
don’t worry. Everything be okey-dokey, you see.”

Everything wasn’t okey. It didn’t even approach dokey. I called Marti on my drive home. “Listen, I want you to cancel the contract. Get in touch with the Belvedere. Back us out.”

“Calm down, sugarpuss, you’re going to burst another blood vessel.”

“Fine, I’m calm. Very calm. I’ll say this slowly and distinctly: the money is from a tainted source. Probably from the dead chippie via Irwin. Now cancel the damn party.”

There was a brief pause before Marti said, “No can do. Sorry, honeychile. I signed a contract. I pull out now and we lose everything. Including the down payment, which was my contribution.”

“
You
made the down payment?”

“A thousand bucks. My gift to you. And don’t give me any shit about it. The party’s a go. You think your father’s the moneyman? Well, hurrah to that. I say it’s time he paid up. Dance on his dime, have a ball.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t deal with the—”

“Sure you can. You can deal with anything you decide to deal with. Problem is, you need an attitude adjustment. Judith, I have to tell you, your mental state lately has been worrisome. You’re way overdue for a tune-up with what’s her name, Gottlieb, your therapist.”

“I don’t need therapy. I need Irwin Raphael to vacate the premises and slink back to the other slimy, belly-crawling sidewinders in Arizona.”

“Oh boy. Hang up now and call Gottlieb. Do not pass go. And have her send the bill to Irwin.” Marti gave a throaty laugh. “Now wouldn’t that be a nice touch.”

• • •

At home there was a message waiting. Geoff had called me before I got to him with my apology for snapping at him at rehearsal.

In our history, I’d heard him angry only a few times, furious once or twice, which churned his voice into a thunderous rumble. But I’d never heard this flat chill, like a glacial plain, as he informed me he wasn’t going to be able to make our Monday morning practice session; something had come up. Yeah, his hackles over my treatment of him. So I figured unless I did something fast, that was pretty much the end of our friendship, which had lasted about two weeks after I called time on the sex part of it.

Oh God, everything was coming apart on nearly every front. But there was a Korean proverb I kept in mind: “Even when the sky is falling, there’s a sunny hole to climb through.”

On Monday, only six days away, with Chloe at her sleepover in the Georgetown dorm, Charlie and I would have an extended evening together. Alone. No Kiki doing her diversionary routines, no Jiminy Cricket conscience on my shoulder. I’d called Charlie Pruitt many names in my lifetime, but never a “sunny hole.” I guess there’s a first for everything.

• • •

My plan was to get to Berenson Hall early, ambush Geoff before rehearsal, and make a short, dignified apology for my unseemly behavior the day before. Unfortunately, he was otherwise occupied with Deena Marquis, the stunning blond harpist with turquoise eyes only for him.

There didn’t seem to be any hanky-panky or what Aunt Phyllis called mufky-pufky going on between them, but Deena, who’d been literally waiting in the wings through our relationship, was now center stage.

Her fingers cruised Geoff’s sleeve between his elbow and wrist. His profile was handsome, stoic. I moved in close enough to cast a shadow and maybe the scent of my Chanel because I thought I saw him flinch. But there was no follow-up with eye contact, so I backed off.

We didn’t connect onstage or at the break, but after rehearsal, when I came out of the locker room, there was Geoff packing up his trumpet. I waited until he turned to say, “Geoff, hi.”