So Much for My Happy Ending (33 page)

I
walked into the gallery office in my William B blouse and Hermès scarf and forty-five minutes of small talk later I was hired.
I got the job!
He hadn't even bothered to check my references. It seemed that of all his brother's love interests Allie had been his favorite, and so as far as he was concerned, Allie's recommendation was golden.

I had sat across from him in his small but fashionably appointed office and smiled and nodded and tried my damnedest not to jump out of my seat and kiss him. Not just because he was giving me the opportunity of a lifetime, but because he was kind of cute.

He had salt-and-pepper hair, and broad shoulders. His skin was kind of blotchy and he was about twenty pounds overweight. Okay, maybe he wasn't cute. But lately I had found myself attracted to every man who wasn't my husband. I had even started flirting with the pimple-faced kid who sold me Slurpees at the 7-Eleven—he was kind of scrawny but he had a certain nonsuicidal quality that I found very sexy.

After the interview I skipped to my car. I was dying to tell someone about my good fortune. Allie had gone to San Louis Obispo for her cousin's wedding and I knew Caleb was in meetings all day. I plugged Bobe's number into my cell, but she didn't pick up. Okay, who was left…? Tad. I obviously needed to tell my husband about my new job.

The thought of talking to Tad immediately took the wind out of my sails. How had Tad become the person that I most sought to avoid? I closed my eyes and tried to conjure up images from our wedding. There had been a man standing under the chuppah. He had been strong, although his strength hadn't been enough to keep the tears of joy from moistening his eyes. I had loved him and I know he loved me. Could that possibly have been the same man I was married to now?

I opened my eyes again. Enough with the morbidity. I had just landed a job in an art gallery and that was something that needed celebrating. I pushed the car into gear. I knew where I was going and I knew I shouldn't go there. But I didn't care.

I was able to park right outside the Tenderloin apartment. I would just walk up to his door and knock. If God didn't want me to see him he wouldn't be home.

I carefully climbed the stairs. It was silly of me to feel guilty; I mean, it wasn't like I was going to make out with him or anything. I just wanted to tell him about my new job, that's all. I knocked three times.

Jeremiah answered the door wearing jeans and a black shirt that he was still in the middle of buttoning. My eyes immediately went to the hairs that were splattered over his very defined pecs. I flushed and forced myself to look at his face.

He was grinning from ear to ear. “Hey, April, what's up?” He ushered me into the apartment as if my presence there was the most natural thing in the world.

“Hey, I was just in the neighborhood and I thought I'd stop by.”

“Glad you did.” He threw the newspapers that were covering the couch onto the floor and made a gesture indicating that I should make myself comfortable. “Can I get you anything?” he asked.

“No, I'm good.” I carefully treaded over the newspapers and sat in the center of the sofa. “I got a job.”

“Oh, yeah?” He sat down next to me and I felt this wave of desire wash over me.
Be good, April,
warned my little voice. That voice was such a killjoy.

“What's the gig?” Jeremiah asked. His tone was casual but I knew he was feeling something, too. Something in his eyes told me so.

“I got a sales job at an art gallery.”

“No shit.” He pulled me into an enthusiastic embrace. “April, this is fucking huge!”

I laughed nervously. “Yeah, I'm pretty happy about it. I mean, the pay is purely commission, but when I'm excited about a product I can usually sell it.”

Jeremiah pulled back enough so that he could look me in the eye. Oh, if only he would button his shirt! “You're gonna rock. I was there at the Legion of Honor, remember? You got this way of making other people appreciate paintings even when they don't know shit about art. Besides, look at you. What guy is gonna say no to you?”

I reluctantly disentangled myself. “Yeah, well, the only thing I'm selling is art.”

“Don't matter.” Jeremiah's eyes didn't leave mine. “Guys are simple. When a beautiful woman tries to sell us something we buy. And when that woman also happens to be smart, funny and—”

“You know, I should get going.” I stood up abruptly. “Tad will be home soon and I want to tell him about the job.” I had been there for approximately half a minute but if I listened to Jeremiah sweet talk me for another thirty seconds I might conveniently forget that adultery is wrong.

“Yeah, okay.” Jeremiah got to his feet. “How're things going with you two?”

I looked away. “Fine, I guess. Where's the cat?”

Jeremiah was quiet for a moment. I knew he wanted to ask more questions about Tad, but he didn't. “The cat's in the bedroom. Hey, before you go I got something for you.”

“You did?” I tried not to look as shocked as I was. Jeremiah should not be buying me presents. And I should not be so thrilled that he had.

“Yeah, hold up for a sec.” He disappeared into the bedroom and came out with a box the size of an encyclopedia wrapped in the comics section of the newspaper.

I giggled and took it from him. “Nice wrapping paper.”

“I'm not a ribbons-and-bows kind of guy.”

I hesitated for a mere second before sitting back down and ripping into the paper. I lifted the lid of the box and stared at its contents.

“They're catalogs and applications,” he stated needlessly, “to all the universities with the best Ph.D. programs in the country. At least the best in art history. I did some research on the Internet.”

“I can't believe you did this.”

He shrugged sheepishly. “Hey, it's not like it cost me anything.”

“It's the nicest thing that anyone's ever given me.” My mind went to the painting Tad had commissioned for me—the one I had paid for and recently given to Bobe. “The nicest thing,” I said again.

“Yeah, well, you still gotta fill 'em out and everything, but I figured I'd make it easy for you.”

I looked up at him and there it was. That tingling feeling that went right from my heart down to my nether regions. Clutching my applications, I got up again. “I'm going now.”

Jeremiah nodded but he didn't immediately move to get out of my way.

I took a deep breath, scooted around him and ran out the door.

When I got home Tad wasn't there. I sighed in relief and put my applications on the bed. I walked over to the answering machine to check the messages. Eight. Usually we were lucky to get three messages in an afternoon. I pressed the play button.

“April? April, it's Mom. Where are you? Damn it, why didn't I bring your cell number with me? You need to get down to Monterey. Bobe's had a stroke.”

 

In a ten-second span of time my entire life had been re-prioritized. When I left Jeremiah's everything had seemed so complicated. Now it was very, very simple. Bobe was in the emergency room struggling to stay alive and that was the only thing that mattered.

For once I was glad to have the Z3. That and a lead foot got me to Monterey in two hours. Since Carmel was too small a town for its own hospital I knew without asking that Bobe would be taken to the nearby community hospital of Monterey Peninsula. Now as I stood at her bedside it was all I could do not to collapse onto the floor sobbing. She was asleep. Maybe that was better since my mother said that she couldn't speak. Nor did she have the use of her left side. Seeing her lying there wearing the standard-issue hospital gown, I couldn't help thinking that she looked unnaturally small. I reached forward and gently touched her hair. It was the only part of her body that looked as if it wouldn't break the minute my fingers made contact. How could this frail thing be my bobe? She had survived the Nazis, traveled halfway around the world by herself, moved to a new country, raised a child, survived the death of a husband, cared for a grandchild and now she couldn't even hold a pencil? That wasn't the way it was supposed to be. I walked in a daze out into the lobby connected to the emergency room. My mother sat slumped in a chair. Her hair hid her rosy-tipped nose and bloodshot eyes. I sat next to her without speaking and stared into space.

“They say we might not know for a few days,” I heard her mutter.

I didn't respond. There was nothing to say.

We sat in silence for a few more minutes. I was aware of my mother straightening her posture next to me. I still did not turn my head.

“As a child,” she said, “I never felt like I was able to breathe.”

I felt myself stiffen. Although my mother had never said the words before, I knew what was coming and I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it.

“She had me sleeping in the same bed as Dad and her until I was five. Then I remember…I remember being in kindergarten and asking to have my own room. She didn't want to give in but Dad made her. I was so excited.”

“Mom…”

“But then sometimes I would wake up in the night and she would be sitting at my bedside, like she was standing guard or something.”

I finally looked at my mother. She didn't look like herself. She lacked her standard air of vivacious rebellion.

“She wouldn't let me go to friends' houses unless she was a close friend of the parents, which was rare since she was so reclusive. She didn't let me date, she didn't let me drive. I…I think I hated her.”

“Shut up.”

My mother winced but she shook her head obstinately. “Please, let me share this. I know how you feel about me. I know you hate me, too.”

“I don't hate you.” It was all I could give her right then. This was Bobe's moment. I needed to focus on her, not my mother. Why did my mother try to make every crisis about her?

“Well, maybe you don't, but you're angry, and I don't blame you. I was…I was a terrible mother.”

Now she had my attention. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat but I didn't interrupt.

“I was so anxious to break all the rules that had been placed on me during childhood. I just wanted to live. Really, really live. And when I found out I was pregnant it just seemed so perfect. I was a single woman who was carrying a love child. I wanted to give you all the freedom that I'd missed as a girl. But you didn't want freedom. Instead, you wanted to take my freedom away.”

I snapped my head in her direction. “Are you fucking kidding me? I was a child, Mother. Children need supervision. I'm sorry if that cramped your style, and I'm sorry if you felt suffocated as a kid, but in case you've forgotten, Bobe's a Holocaust survivor. If she has issues she has a pretty damn good excuse, and yet she worked through a lot of them. You, on the other hand, were just a little overprotected as a kid, and yet you don't seem to have been able to work through any of your issues.”

My mother blinked her eyes rapidly and then quickly looked away. I wanted to feel sorry for her but I was just so drained. I closed my eyes and pressed the base of my palms into my forehead. “What is it you want from me, Mom?”

“I want your forgiveness. I messed up, April. I really messed up with both you and Mom and now I may not have a chance to fix things with her. And I want to.”

I put my hand on her knee. “Okay, I got it.” My mother leaned over and put her head on my shoulder and we fell silent again. I watched the tired and frantic people come in and out of the glass door that led to the parking lot.

“Look at these people,” I whispered. “Everyone here is facing something that they don't want to face.” I shook my head in amazement. “I bet every single one of them is at a turning point, and for some of them the whole outcome of their lives could depend on what happens in the next few hours.”

My mother sat up and looked around the room before turning to me. “
We're
at a turning point. What's going to happen to us?”

I thought about it for a moment. What choices would I make? It would be so easy to hold on to my resentments against my mother, but in the end where would it leave me?

“I don't know if I can forgive you,” I said slowly. “I can't just pretend that our history is different than what it is, but I think I can let go and move forward.”

“What does that mean?”

Good question. I thought about it a little more. “If we can't have a normal mother-and-daughter relationship maybe we could kind of pave our own way. You know, we could be like friends who are related to each other.”

“Like sisters?”

“Sort of…but different. I don't know, we'll have to figure it out as we go along.” I paused as we both thought about that. “It won't be normal,” I added, “but I'm beginning to think that normal isn't all it's cracked up to be.”

My mother smiled. “I've been telling you that for years.”