Happy Any Day Now (24 page)

“Upstairs,” I whispered, taking off, trying to outpace the doubts, screw them out of my head the way sex and only sex could do. Charlie was still sweaty from his run and wanted to shower. I allowed him a pee. Then we made love. At the beginning, the action was frenzied, but the pace slowed due to a wilting problem on his part
—in
his part—and we probably had what was the longest foreplay in the history of arousal. In the end, though, it was as good as the best we’d had back in Cambridge.

• • •

I had a pops concert that night. “An Evening with Rodgers and Hammerstein.”

“You don’t mind if I skip that, do you, Ju-ju?” Charlie asked.

Mind? I was relieved. Who needed Geoff scanning the audience to find Charlie, possibly smirking at his victory?

The night before, as Geoff had played the “Suite for My Seoulmate,” I’d felt a deep stirring. But it was only nostalgia, I’d told myself. Only Judith doing her romantic dithering routine. More work for Theodora . . . eventually.

The cello didn’t have a solo in this performance, but the trumpet did. Geoff played “If I Loved You” without his usual passion. Or maybe it was me,
my
passion that was off.

When I arrived home near midnight, Charlie was sprawled on my bed, his laptop beside him. His head lolled against the pillow and he was in full snore and dribble. What my husband might have looked like after two and a half decades, I thought. And felt old.

In the bathroom, brushing my teeth, I saw his pills lined up like toy soldiers in the battle against the fifties. Something for high cholesterol, something for high blood pressure, something for stress-induced asthma, and one more, not in the lineup but half buried in his toiletry kit, its white plastic cap calling to me to step over yet another boundary as I took a peek: Viagra. Which, I supposed, I should be thanking for the afternoon’s revival meeting. I felt really old.

All my qualms came flooding back in with the morning sunlight. Charlie took three calls during breakfast, including one from Kiki, who must have been going deaf, because I could clearly hear her fortissimo fury about her latest nurse, someone named Rosalita who was a simpleton and was, Kiki was adamant, stealing money from her purse. The other calls were business related and long.

The last one halted Charlie’s fork midair. Lots of legalese, and when it was over he stared into his coffee, then at me, his forehead wrinkled. It seemed that the “jurisdictional problem” was rearing its ugly head again. He apologized for having to cut out earlier than planned, but he really needed to address this in person.

Ten minutes later he was at my front door, juggling his suitcase, briefcase, and laptop case. He read my face. “Oh jeez. You’re pissed again, right? Repissed?”

Repissed, depressed, angry at him, angry at myself, and freakin’ confused. “I don’t know about us, Charlie.”

His sigh was tinged with impatience. “Well, then hang around and find out. And don’t make any hasty decisions. I know you, Ju-ju. You’re prone to overreact in the moment. Remember back in school when you were ready to sign that communist petition until I read you the fine print?”

“Dammit, that is the most patronizing—”

He overrode me. “All I’m asking is you give this—us—your studied consideration.”

Studied consideration
. Not
I love you madly. Don’t break my heart, my darling
. Okay, over the top. But studied consideration? Dry as a mother superior’s snatch, as Marti would have said.

He checked his precious Patek Philippe watch. “Sorry. Have to go. I’ll call you in a few days.”

“It’s going to be a jammed week,” I responded frostily. “I have the audition for principal on Tuesday.”

He treated me to a blank stare. He’d forgotten already. But he was quick to recover.

“No heavy discussion. Just to wish you success with the audition. To tell you I’m cheering for you.”

He kissed my cheek. His breath was sour cherries from the breakfast Danish, but his voice was syrup. And the words? The Barrister aka His Honor surprised me once again. “Don’t give up on us yet, please. Now that I’ve found you, I don’t want to lose you again.”

Not bad for an exit line.

M
y mother and Irwin, the gypsy gamblers, weren’t supposed to be back at Blumen House until early Monday evening, but I’d picked up a ready-made lasagna at Whole Foods to drop off for their dinner. A welcome-home gift so Gracie wouldn’t have to cook.

In the lobby, I got tackled by my least favorite resident.

“Not in service. Only one elevator is working, thanks to your mother.” Miriam Botansky, as in buttinsky, seized my wrist as I pushed the “up” button. “Very inconvenient and I told her so.”

It took me a moment to process before I said, voice spiraling, “Told her? What, my mother is home? They’re back this morning? Is she all right?”

“Depends on your definition of ‘all right.’”

I didn’t have time to debate semantics with Mrs. Botansky. Swept by a wave of panic—the ambulance crew had frozen the elevator in the Pikesville building when Grace fell in the bathroom there—I shook her off and raced up four floors and down the hall to 4C. The door was ominously open. Wide. I skidded to a halt at the threshold, surveyed the interior, and muttered, “Dear God.”

The living room was empty. No furniture. No knickknacks. I walked through to the kitchen, which had been cleaned out except for two cartons stacked near the refrigerator. The bedroom—stripped.

As I stood considering the implications, I heard the sound of a toilet flushing and a shaky baritone launch into “Strangers in the Night,” the Sinatra version with the scooby-dooby-dos.

“Irwin!”

The music stopped and the old man emerged from the bathroom wiping his hands on his trousers. He was wearing a pair of ratty chinos and a striped pajama top tucked haphazardly into the waistband. His hair was overdue for a session with Grecian Formula—a half inch of silver gave way to a fading beaver color. No Dapper Dan this morning.

His eyes bugged at the sight of me, but he recovered fast, pulling composure from his salesman’s sample case. “Judy—” His voice was as silky as top-of-the-line nova salmon. “How ya doing?” The smile was bold, but I caught a nervous twitch in the lower lip. “We weren’t expecting you.”

“No, I’ll bet you weren’t. All I want to hear is that my mother’s not moving out of Baltimore.”

“Never. Would we leave you?” The “we” didn’t get by me. “Not a chance. Just upstairs two flights. Before you blow your stack, talk to her. She’ll give you the details. Sixth floor, across from the elevator. Door’s open, 6E. Beautiful place. Cross ventilation.”

• • •

Apartment 6E was the largest, poshest unit in Blumen House. The oak-floored living room was flooded with light from wraparound windows. The kitchen was eat-in, the powder room had a soft toilet seat for seniors’ bony bottoms, and the built-ins lining the den had mini spotlights to showcase Irwin’s kachina collection.

I found Grace in the bedroom, wearing jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned “Poker Diva ~ Atlantic City.” She was getting to be quite a chippie herself, my mother. Arranging throw pillows on the bedspread of a California king, she startled when I barreled in and she covered her mouth like a kid caught in the cookie jar.

“Huh? You scare me, Judith! What you doing here? I told you not home till tonight.”

“I thought after the ride you might be too tired to cook, so I brought dinner. I left it in your fridge. Your new one that’s the size of a walk-in closet.”

“Nice, yes? Sub-Zero. I make lots of
yukgaejang
to freeze for you. You can have all time now.”

Oh no—she wasn’t going to suck up, up, and away this betrayal. Moving her whole apartment, her entire life, without telling me, her only child.

“You lied to me,
Uhm-mah.
And we’re not talking a little white lie here to avoid hurting my
kibun
.” Out of politeness, to keep harmony, Koreans will sometimes stretch the truth to avoid having someone lose
kibun
—face, or pride.
Kibun
was my mother’s favorite excuse for keeping me mis- or disinformed. “But let’s work our way up the line to the big lie. Let’s start with your telling me you weren’t coming home until tonight. So when did you really get back?”

“Yesterday morning. But I have good reason to not say when.”

I looked around the room. The bed was either new or—I bought the next thought an express ticket through my brain—the chippie’s hand-me-down. Either way, it had to have been delivered. There was a chest of drawers in Southwestern style draped with a Native American blanket. A butt-ugly rustic mirror, its frame fashioned of twigs, already hung on the near wall. Both were from Irwin’s Tucson house, probably. On my mother’s old dresser—so old, she’d once shared it with him back in Flatbush—sat a television with a screen sized for cataract patients, the Best Buy tag still on. Sixteen hundred bucks. One could assume Bonnie and Clyde had been on a shipping/shopping spree. So this plan had been brewing for a while. Behind my back.

“Your reason better be very good,” I said.

“Best good.” By the set of her jaw, I knew she’d been training for this big reveal. “I don’t tell you about move because you tell me no don’t move. Hundred reasons no.” Grace counted off on her fingers. “Irwin bad man, bad father. Leave once, leave again. His money pay for apartment. I take his money mean I forgive everything. You say I be his maid. I work too hard.
Aigoo!
” She smacked her forehead. “I know what you do next. You throw fit. Try to stop us. Speak to Emma, try to call it off.”

Emma Lewis was the recently hired, exceedingly young residence manager. And why
hadn’t
she notified me? She’d thought I approved, of course. I’ll bet that’s what they told her, the two-faced twosome, and since they were above the age of consent, with a hefty check of Irwin’s to back up the contract, there was no apparent problem.

“And always, if I do what
I
want, not what
you
want, you walk around like . . .” My mother made the face of a gargoyle. “You act like brat. Make me crazy.”

I couldn’t deny it. I would have thrown myself in the path of a runaway train to stop the Irwin juggernaut.

“You need to change tune. Yes, Daddy do bad things. But I do too. He try to see you when you were little girl. I say no, no. You forgive me. But you don’t forgive him. Why?”

“It’s different. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Not understand because you”—she waggled her head and singsonged—“are only one so smart. My daughter always so right about everything.” I couldn’t believe she was scolding me as if I were ten. Using sarcasm yet. With finger pointing. “Even if what you say true, I ask big question: you rather be right or be happy, Judith?”

“What?”

“Dr. Phil ask on TV show. ‘You rather be right or be happy?’ Irwin make me happy. I love him. He love me. Now together. No marriage. Your father want to, but I say who need marriage? Better to shack up.”

In the silence that followed my groan, we avoided each other’s gaze. We both fixed on my mother’s shoes. Strappy red sandals. With sexy heels just high enough to twist an ankle on a seventy-eight-year-old woman. I banked that worry for later as a male voice, with an accent as far from Irwin’s Brooklynese as you could get without falling off the planet, called out, “Grace, I got the hammer, darlin’. Now I need you in here to tell me where you want these pictures hung.”

Geoff Birdsall poked his head in the bedroom, did a subtle double take, and said, “Ah. It’s you, Jude.” His greeting didn’t quite make it to lukewarm. “What are you doing here?”

“What am
I
doing here? What are
you
doing here?”

He presented himself full length in his grungiest jeans and a ratty Maryland Phil sweatshirt, hammer in hand. “Obviously I’m helping move your parents into their new digs.” Geoff had always been quick to read my moods, a trait I used to treasure. I was brewing up a storm. He studied me for a few seconds before turning to my mother. “Grace, darlin’, why don’t you trot down to the maintenance office and see if anyone there has a tape measure?”

She scurried off, sending me an alarmed look in transit. I couldn’t blame her for wanting to be out of the suddenly frigid environment.

When we heard her heels click against hardwood, he said, “Is there a problem, Jude? Because I know we’ve discussed that although you and I are, shall we say, divorced, I claim visitation rights with your mum. And now with your dad, since they seem to be a package.” He had the unmitigated chutzpah to attempt an innocent smile, Aussie skunk. In the mirror behind him, though, I saw tension arching his back. Dead giveaway.

Why is it when you least want tears to spring, they trickle out to remind you of how little control you have over your emotions?

I struck first this time. “I can’t believe you. It’s one thing for them to pull off a stunt like this. Keeping me in the dark because they don’t want to deal with me and face the truth. But you— Okay, we’re over, but I’ve always trusted you. And believe me, I appreciate all you’ve done for me professionally. But intruding on my personal life here . . .” Geoff stared at me as if I’d escaped from a locked ward on a psych unit. “I never made it a secret how I felt about my self-styled father oozing himself back into Gracie’s life, trying to seep into mine. And for you to be an accomplice in this total disregard of my feelings, this nose-thumbing of my status as a daughter . . .”

“Whoa. What are you saying?”

“You know exactly what I’m saying. They never mentioned a word to me about the move. How long have they been up to this? How long have you known? Is this some kind of revenge for Charlie? Because if so, you’ve stooped to a level that’s so beneath—” As soon as I heard myself say it, I knew I was wrong. As soon as I saw the pain in his face, I knew I’d made the biggest blunder since stammering “I do” to Rebound Todd. I knew I’d do almost anything to take it back. But it was too late.

The reference to Charlie had pulled the pin in Geoff’s grenade. In a flash, his face flamed, his brow lowered to Neanderthal, he gripped the hammer and swung. From my angle, it looked as if he were aiming to fling it on the bed and get the hell out of Dodge fast. But halfway through the rotation, the hammer head separated from the wooden handle and hurled itself into the ugly mirror.
Crash!
The silvered rectangle exploded. Shards rained down like ice crystals; twigs cracked and flew in a terrifying blizzard. I ducked, covered my eyes, and only looked up when I heard him gasp, though where he found air in that vacuum I had no idea. I was holding my breath.

Geoff’s horrified triple take swerved from the headless handle he was still gripping to the shattered mirror to me. When he spoke, it was a blast to the ceiling. “God
damn
you, Judith!” Shouting my name, his voice broke.

I backed away as he stormed from the room. I heard the apartment door slam behind him. It sounded like the bang at the end of the world.

• • •

“Oh, crap. Look at my beautiful mirror, all in smithereens. That piece is irreplaceable. It’s an heirloom, in Lorna’s family for years.”

Irwin stared balefully at a twig that had come off in his hands.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’ll have it fixed.”

It was fifteen minutes later and I was still trying to pull myself together after Geoff’s meltdown.

Irwin was saying, “Here, let me take a look at you. You didn’t get cut, did you? Sometimes these little bits of glass get stuck . . .” He adjusted his reading glasses, peered at my face with magnified frog eyes, and rotated my jaw to inspect my skin.

He’d never before laid a finger on me and I was about to shake him off when I noticed the row of dimples lined up in the flesh above his top knuckles. Just like mine.

For the first time, I realized I bore some resemblance to the Raphael side of my family. With my mother’s people, I could see it vividly even as a kid, when I’d compared my round chin and chubby cheeks to the faded black-and-white photo that was all she had left of the Ryang grandparents. With the Jewish clan, I’d never felt that visceral connection that comes with recognizing yourself in someone else. Which of these big-boned, light-eyed white devils did I resemble? Certainly not Grandma Roz, who looked like she was descended from a long line of walnuts. Or my aunt Phyllis, with the blond bouffant and the size ten feet. Or my cousin Staci, who had her auburn hair chemically straightened at an upscale African-American salon in Far Rockaway. But now, as he moved in to inspect me, I could see that I had my father’s high-bridged noise, a schnoz perfectly suited to a Talmudic scholar, and his ears, C-shaped shells with the lobe deficiency—genetic anomalies handed down from Moses.

Incredible. I looked like Irwin. A little. And because of that millimeter of tissue and bone bumped up here or shaved down there, something inside me shifted a millimeter.

“Nah, you’re fine.” He picked up the hammer. “But that Geoff went off his rocker, didn’t he? I took him for an even-tempered guy. Go know. You have to wonder what could have set him off like that.”

“It was an accident,” I said, sure of it. “Though he was furious with me.”

“What did you do?”

“I thought he was in on the scheme you and Mom cooked up to hide your move. I couldn’t believe he’d keep a secret like that from me. We used to be close.”