Julia's Child (9781101559741) (18 page)

He said, “I was out with—”

“Ricky,” I said miserably. “I remember now. You were taking him out for dinner, to thank him for the legal help.”

“Yes, and you were supposed to be here.”

“I . . .” My reason sounded so lame now. “I was touring a copacking plant in New Jersey. It was supposed to be tomorrow, but they called to reschedule. I just wasn't thinking . . .”

I couldn't finish the sentence. I wasn't thinking
about my family
. About Luke or Bonnie or the children. My crusade to succeed had finally reached a point of total self-involvement. And now I would pay for the oversight.

Luke took off his overcoat without looking at me. He draped it over the chair where Bonnie's had just sat. Then he disappeared into the kitchen.

Still not sure if I would be grounded for the crime of raising the family stress level to a record high, I held my position on the rug. From my pocket, the phone bleated with some sort of notification. With dread, I drew it out.

The screen read “Eight missed calls.” Each of them, I noted, was from Bonnie. And all I could do about it now was feel guilty.

Luke appeared a minute later, with a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses in the other. The corkscrew he carried in his teeth. He set everything down on the coffee table. Then he went over to the mantelpiece, where the remote control sat. Aiming it at the fireplace, he pressed a button. The flames lit with a
whump.
The previous owners had done the gas conversion, to our amusement. It seemed so phony.

But now it filled the room with instant warmth, the orange flames licking the air.

Luke replaced the remote and sat down on the couch. He busied himself with opening the wine. “Come on, then,” he said. “Sit.”

I obeyed, taking the glass of wine he offered. Then Luke looked me in the eyes, for a long moment. His face was still. I had no idea what he was thinking. Eventually, I saw a familiar crinkle at the edge of his lips and then all at once he laughed. “Oh, Julia.” He grinned. “The look on your face when you walked in here.”

I reddened. “I thought . . . I thought she . . .” I couldn't even finish the sentence.

“I know what you thought. But
come on
, don't you think it's even a little bit funny? Like a bad movie? Man embraces sobbing nanny just as wife returns?” He laughed so hard that he couldn't take another sip of wine. Then he made a visible effort toward assuming a serious expression. “I'm so
offended
that you'd think that.” But his lip quivered in a way that hinted he might begin laughing again at any moment.

The shame that had gripped me only moments before began to ease up. I smacked him playfully on the knee. “You're so offended? Because I thought a nubile young woman wanted you?”

Luke took a thoughtful sip of wine. Then he smiled again. “I see your point, but I could never stoop to such a cliché. If I'm ever to let you down, I promise to do it much more unconventionally. Say, with a troupe of circus contortionists or—”

I put up a hand to stop him. “Really, Luke, I know lately I've cramped your style, and you have a right to be mad about it. You're on duty at home every night. You've missed every card game with your college buddies.”

Luke shook his head. “Julia, come on. Do you seriously think there's this much tension here tonight because I've missed a few poker games?”

I took a gulp of my wine. Somehow we were back to having a serious conversation.

“No,” I said quietly. “And I know it's all my fault.”

Luke put his glass down on the coffee table. He stared at me for a minute. “I love you so much, Julia. And you're a good person—you started your business for all the right reasons. But I don't think you see how dangerous this has become.”

So now, finally, we were going to have a conversation about the money. It was overdue. Even so, the blood rushed to my face. “You don't think I know it? Of course I know it's dangerous. Every morning when my alarm goes off, the first thought in my head is always ‘Dear God! I may be flushing'”—the number was so large that saying it out loud brought the taste of bile into my throat—“‘forty thousand of our dollars down the toilet.' That's why I've been killing myself every day and night at work. Our savings are on the line, and I feel terrible about it.”

Luke stared into our faux fire for a minute. He swirled the wine around in his glass. Then he brought his gaze almost back to mine but didn't look me quite in the eye. “No, Julia. That's not the problem. It isn't the money.”

“What, then? Because I think the money is a pretty big goddamned problem!”

“I think you're stuck, Julia, between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, you're terrified to fail. I understand that, because you've never failed at anything before. Everything you've ever done has been a raging success. Summa cum laude in college, good job on Wall Street, two healthy kids. So I'm sure you're filled with horror at the idea that Julia's Child could fail, and I'm sympathetic about that.”

He looked me in the eye then, and I managed to keep my mouth shut, to let him finish.

“On the other hand, I don't think you
will
fail. In spite of the recession, Julia's Child, like all your other ventures, will probably succeed. But the problem is that you've got no endgame. Each new level of success will demand even more of your time and energy. It will take years until you achieve world domination and muffets are available even on NASA missions to Mars. In the meantime you're exhausted, and you don't spend enough time with the rest of us. We miss you, Julia. And I just can't figure out how that's going to change.”

“But . . .” It was finally my turn to speak. “But it will! As soon as I get a decent order from a major . . .” I stopped. Because Luke was right. I had to admit that a successful launch at the trade show was no guarantee of familial bliss. Even if my money woes eased, I would still need to triple my production, potentially the most time-consuming project so far.

I gulped air. “Okay, I see your point. But once the business is solvent, I can really take a breath. I promise. I'm just so worried about losing our savings. It's all I think about.”

But Luke had planted a tiny seed in the back of my mind, about my own experience with failure. Even as I spoke the words, I realized it wasn't really the money I craved.

“If that's the case,” Luke mused, “then you need real funding. You need investors. It's the only way not to be a one-man band anymore.”

“If I have investors, I can worry about losing someone else's savings too,” I said darkly.

Luke threw his hands up in the air. “Goddamn it, Julia! That's just what I mean! The risk will always be there. You can
never
eliminate it. That's called running a business. And, at the end of the day, it's only money. The fact that you can't say that anymore—”

“The only people who say that are people who have plenty.”

“Look around you! Even if your business falls flat on its butt, and even if I lose my job in the merger, nobody who lives here will starve.”

I looked up at him with alarm. “Are you going to lose your job?”

He shrugged. “I don't have a crystal ball. But I'm trying to tell you something important. I care more about our family than I do about our jobs. Maybe . . . maybe the right thing to do is to quit my job.”

“What?” It was just about the scariest idea I'd ever heard from Luke.

“Just hear me out for a minute. When Wylie was born, you quit because the boys were only little once, you know? I still think that's important. But I don't want you to feel like you have to be the little wife and give up your dream. So maybe it's my turn. Bonnie has been very helpful, but I think we have too much babysitting and too little time together.”

“Luke!” I couldn't stand to hear it for even one more second. “It just defies logic to talk like that. Because this is the worst possible timing! You're the only one who's keeping us afloat right now. And I've got to dig our finances out of this hole.”

Luke just shook his head. “But there's no end
,
Julia. If you open a factory, even if you get ten orders from the trade show, where does it stop? Then you'll just have to work seven days a week. How does this end? That's what I need to know. I can put up with almost anything if you figure that out for me.”

It was the longest speech Luke had ever given on the topic of Julia's Child. I hated the way it sounded. As if I was a prima donna who lived for each mounting crisis. But his words had a ring of truth to them, and I had trouble answering. I had been counting on a big order to make my life easier, and I found I could not say how it would.

“Luke, if I don't get a big order at this show, I'm going to pack it in.”

He nodded, without surprise. “Okay. And if you do get one, then what?”

I shook my head. I hated being on the defensive. I'd always imagined Luke and I were on the same page—worried about my failure. I never dreamed he was more afraid of my success. “I don't know!” I said, losing my battle with tears. “But don't make it sound like I don't care, okay? I lie awake every night worrying about every member of this family—if everybody is getting what they need.”

Luke studied me. There was a peace in his expression that I'd always loved. I saw it now, as he moved closer to me on the sofa. “We'll figure it out.” He sighed, pulling me to his chest. His shirt smelled of laundry starch and also of him. “Just get through the trade show, I guess. When is it?”

“Ten days.”

“We can all manage another ten days without you. But then you'll have a better idea of your chances, right?”

“Probably.”

“Fine. I guess there's no use making tough decisions beforehand. We'll talk about it again then. Just get to that point, do your best, and the result will announce itself. The family will wait a little longer.”

I leaned on him, not answering. He seemed to feel better about everything, but I only felt worse. Until tonight I'd thought that failure was my biggest enemy. But now I had to add success to my list of worries. How could I possibly go on like this?

Chapter 15

“T
wickatweet!” Wylie pounded on the door of apartment 515.

Standing nearby, Batman giggled. “Mama, he caught on quick.”

“He's a prodigy,” I agreed. It was only the second conquest of our Halloween, but Wylie was already exhibiting a lot of enthusiasm for the project.

Marta and I had taken a rare evening off from muffet production and trade-show prep. I'd walked in the door at five o'clock—my earliest arrival in weeks. While the boys mugged in their costumes for Luke's camera, I'd performed a secret ritual.

In a shoebox on a high shelf, I placed a small quantity of individually wrapped dried fruit and yogurt-covered pretzels. Wylie was still young enough that I could swap out some of the scarier contributions to his treat bag with my less-toxic offerings. With my surreptitious healthy treats waiting in the wings, we'd set off down the hall of our apartment building.

Wylie banged again on the door to apartment 515.

Then, it swung slowly open to reveal a dimly lit interior. Mrs. Weinstein shuffled into view, sporting a startlingly effective witch costume, complete with tall pointy hat, shapeless black dress, and greenish face powder.

Jasper took a big step backward, bumping into me. He drew his Batman cape around himself, as if for protection.

I reached for Wylie, readying myself for his shriek. But none was forthcoming.

“Twickatweet!” he said again.

“Hello, my pretty,” our neighbor cackled. “Would you like a piece of candy? Or an eye of newt, perhaps?”

Wylie squinted up at her. “Candy?”

“Good choice,” Luke called from our own apartment doorway across the hall.

She dropped a lollipop into Wylie's plastic pumpkin.

“You too, dearie?” She reached slowly toward Jasper with another lollipop. The witchy hat tilted creepily. Mrs. Weinstein was really laying it on thick.

Jasper swallowed hard and then extended his pumpkin as far as his short arm would go without stepping closer to her.

“Boys, can I get a thank-you?” I prompted.

“Tank you!” Wylie yelled, and then he headed down the hallway without giving another thought to Mrs. Weinstein or her getup.

Luckily, ours was not a very big apartment building. That meant my children would not have more than two dozen doors to knock on—and fewer if I could somehow manage to skip a floor.

I blew a kiss at Luke as we paraded down the hall. He stayed behind to hand out treats.

“Have fun!” Luke called to the boys. But they didn't even respond, the quest for sugar burning too brightly inside them.

It goes without saying that Halloween is a fraught holiday for nutrition nazis like me. The deluge of high-fructose corn syrup and artificial colorings makes my skin crawl. The bitter truth is that I didn't want my boys to know how the other half lived.

But on the plus side, Halloween generated a rare moment of shared community in our creaky old building. I could hear children's voices echoing off the ancient plaster walls a floor below us. Even if it was for only one night, neighbors opened their doors—at least the ones who had signed up at the front desk. Participants found a pumpkin-shaped paper plate taped to their door by 5:30 on Halloween.

“Twickatweet!”

“Wylie, you're knocking on the elevator, sweetie. Look for the pumpkin plates, okay? Let's try downstairs.”