The Friends We Keep (6 page)

15

 

God, what a beautiful man.

These were the words that came to my mind when John walked into the restaurant that evening. The thought was dispassionate. There was no sexual chemistry like there'd been with Jake earlier that afternoon. My appreciation of John was of a different sort. Nevertheless, I skillfully squashed it.

John had suggested Marino's for dinner, a mom-and-pop Italian place in the North End, a little downscale for my taste. Sophie, however, loved it, proclaiming it so “warm and friendly.” John said he ate there once a week, as he loved the puttanesca sauce.

Sophie leapt to her feet and embraced John. He hugged her back with enthusiasm. I remained seated and offered my hand. He took it and we shook briefly and firmly.

“It's so good to see you!” Sophie gushed. “You look wonderful!”

They took their seats and engaged in a meeting of the mutual admiration society while I waited. Finally, John turned to me.

“You look well, Eve,” he said.

“Eva.”

“Of course. You haven't changed a bit since I ran into you at that event a few years back.”

I had a vague memory of that night. Ben. I remembered going on about Ben. I stifled a shudder. “Yes,” I said, hoping John wouldn't ask about my ex-boyfriend. “I take care of myself.”

John gave me a half-smile and asked nothing more.

When the wine arrived, a bold red that John had selected, he proposed a toast. “To us,” he said. “The old crowd.”

Sophie raised her glass and beamed. “It'll be great being friends again. It'll be just like old times!”

How could I be expected not to betray my native skepticism? “It's been said that you can't go home again.”

John frowned at me. “Whatever happens,” he said soothingly, “I'm glad that Sophie got us all together.”

I took a sip of the wine (which was really very good) so that I wouldn't speak my thought: that I still wasn't sure I was glad Sophie had hunted us down.

Before the first course, talk turned to our professional lives. Sophie asked me if I enjoyed working at Caldwell and Company.

“My career is everything to me,” I said, and then I wondered: What, exactly, do I mean by that? My career is everything because there is nothing else? There is nothing else because my career is everything? I took another few sips of wine and thought, so what if I get drunk? There's no one at home to yell at me.

“I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing,” John was saying when I tuned back in. “I can't imagine not working in the law. But who knows? Maybe five, ten years from now I'll feel the need for some sort of change. Burnout happens. So does boredom. If I don't feel challenged, I'll move on, expand, something.”

Sophie smiled. “You're lucky. I mean, how many people can say they like their jobs?”

“Not many,” I said abruptly—not if you listened to my staff.

“I'm not saying that my job can't be stressful,” John added. “Some nights I'm so wiped I can hardly muster the energy to get on the T for home. And pretty much on a daily basis I have to contend with a variety of idiots, creeps, and bureaucrats. Still, on the whole, I'm happy.”

“At least you're not digging ditches,” I said, for no reason at all.

John looked at me curiously. “How did you know about that?”

“About what?”

“The summer I did a volunteer gig in Africa. Mostly we dug trenches for irrigation.”

“Really?” I asked. “How socially conscious of you.”

Sophie laughed. “John,” she said, “I can't believe you're not married! You're perfect!”

I thought I saw John wince but I probably imagined it. John never did have any real modesty. He just pretended to be humble. It got him more adoring, empty-headed girls.

“Hardly,” he said, lightly. “But thanks, Sophie. It's nice to have fans.”

“You never did make a big deal of your accomplishments,” Sophie went on. “I remember when you were elected into Phi Beta Kappa in our junior year you just shrugged and said something like, ‘Oh, it was just luck.'”

Ah, now John pretended to blush! Really, I thought, why didn't he take up acting or politics instead of the law? His considerable talent was being wasted.

I made a bit of a choking sound. John looked at me. I smiled and said, “It's a bit thick in here, don't you think? The air, I mean.”

“I'm surprised you don't have kids, Eva,” John said abruptly.

“Why are you surprised?” I replied with a casual lift of my shoulder. “Lots of people don't have kids. You, for example. Unless you've got an illegitimate son or daughter stashed away somewhere.”

“No children that I know of,” he said evenly. “And do people really use the term ‘illegitimate' anymore?”

“I'm surprised, too, Eva,” Sophie said, turning to me. “Back in college you used to talk about having two or three children. You were sure you'd marry an artist, maybe a sculptor, and live in a big loft with all handmade furniture and a big dog. Remember?”

A dog? Did I drop acid in college? “No,” I stated firmly. “I don't remember.”

“Do you think about having kids someday?” Sophie asked John. “I think you'd make a wonderful father.”

“I'm not opposed to the idea,” he said carefully.

“Ah, I can see it now,” I said. “He'll play around until he's sixty, then marry some thirty-year-old to bear the children he won't live long enough to see graduate college. I suppose you think that teenagers will be a comfort to you in your old age?”

Sophie looked uncomfortable. She took too big a sip of her wine, reached for her napkin, and coughed politely into it.

“Where is your sister these days, Eve?” John asked, pointedly ignoring my comment.

“Eva.”

“Eva,” he said, and I thought I detected a bit of amusement at my expense in his tone.

“Maura lives in Michigan. She's on husband number two. She has four kids, a tiny house, a lousy job as a cashier, and yet she's happy. At least, she claims to be.”

Sophie, recovered, looked puzzled. “Why would you doubt her?”

Because it's hardly the kind of life I would want for myself, I thought. Call it supreme self-centeredness but it was hard for me to imagine my own sister being content with what I considered to be such a crabbed life. It made me angry somehow that she didn't want more, that she was so entirely different from me. But I wasn't sure why I needed her to be someone she was not.

I shrugged in reply to Sophie's last question.

“Do you see her much?” she asked.

“No,” I said, wondering suddenly when it was I had last ventured to Michigan. Three years ago? Four? It had only been for a night, anyway; I'd gone to Ann Arbor to visit a potential client. I'd stayed at a Hampton Suites. Maura, who'd come into town to meet me for dinner, saw the little kitchenette and pronounced it paradise. “In fact, I've never met her youngest. I think she's about two now.”

“Oh,” Sophie said. “That's too bad.”

“There's nothing to do out there in the sticks,” I said by way of explanation, “so visiting has no appeal. And they can't afford to come here unless I put them up in a hotel, and Maura's husband won't allow that, something about his manly pride, so . . .” I shrugged. “It doesn't matter. We were never close. Probably due to the age difference.”

“Age matters less when you're an adult,” Sophie said. “I mean, I don't have siblings of my own but I can imagine.”

“I'm surprised you're not more involved with your sister's kids,” John remarked then. “I can't get enough of my nieces and nephews. I do my best to visit every week. I don't want to just be the guy who shows up at graduations with a check.”

“Well,” I stated flatly, “I'm not you.”

Sophie put her hand on John's arm. “John, Eva doesn't remember wanting to write children's books. Can you believe that?”

“I can believe most things,” John replied with a grin. To me, he said: “I remember you kept notebooks of story ideas. And sketches, which, by the way, were really lousy.”

“You read my private notebooks?” I demanded. Suddenly, I had a vision of the ratty, paisley-print satchel in which I'd carried my school stuff. I wouldn't be caught dead with that satchel now.

“I looked over your shoulder from time to time,” John said, with absolutely no shame. “Now that I think about it, I remember one story idea. Something about a sculptor, a woman, sort of a twist on the Pygmalion thing.”

I had absolutely no memory of that story, or of any others. Where, I wondered, were those notebooks? I imagined I'd thrown them out at some point. Without my parents' basement for storage—of course, I'd had to sell the house immediately after their deaths—I'd had little room for childhood memorabilia. Dolls, games, most had gone out in the trash. Anything of any value, like a small desk painted white with yellow daisies, had gone to a resale shop. But the notebooks?

“You would have made a good writer,” Sophie said.

Would I have? “Things change,” I said, dismissively. “We were kids then, young and naive.”

“Young, maybe,” John replied, “but not naive. At least, when it came to a career path. I knew I wanted to be a lawyer ever since high school and I've never regretted that decision.”

“And I knew I wanted to have a family,” Sophie said. “I've never regretted having my son.”

“What about having married Brad?” I asked. “Do you ever regret that?” It seemed a reasonable question but John raised an eyebrow at me.

Sophie didn't answer immediately. “No,” she said finally. “I don't regret marrying Brad. He's the father of my child and he's basically a good person. Things just didn't . . . last. Besides, I don't understand how any woman could regret marrying the father of her child!”

John took a slow sip of his wine before he said: “If you'd met the number of abused women I have, you might understand. Especially when your jaw has been broken and the child support is late because your ex-husband has spent all his money on drugs. You might very well regret ever having met the father of your child.”

“You've been lucky, Sophie,” I said.

“I'm sure Sophie earned what good things she has in her life,” John said with a pointed look in my direction.

“Oh, I know what Eva means,” Sophie said. “But I'd say blessed rather than lucky.”

I laughed. “Then I suppose I could say I've been damned. My parents dying suddenly, my having to give up the graduate program to support my sister—that is, until she took off with some idiot twenty-five years her senior. Of course, after the divorce she was destitute so I supported her again until she met her current husband, who works in a gas station.”

“I've had my share of hardships, too,” Sophie said, defensively. “My life hasn't been a bed of roses. I'm divorced. I'm living alone for the first time ever. I'm studying for my real estate license and it's not easy, there's a lot to learn.”

“Of course,” John said soothingly. “I'm sure Eve didn't mean to imply that you've had a free ride. Did you, Eve? I mean, Eva.”

I looked at my old friends, teamed up against me. “Is anyone having coffee?” I asked, suddenly eager to get the hell out of there.

16

 

In the kitchen, Jake perched on a stool at the counter while I made a salad. I'd bought the raspberry dressing he liked.

Jake claimed to be eating well but I know my son. He can barely boil an egg without it resulting in disaster. Maybe his lack of culinary skills is my fault. After all, he never even had to make a sandwich for himself. I was always there. Anyway, I'd asked him over to my apartment on the pretext of giving him a packet of new socks. I knew that once he smelled my famous roast chicken and mashies, he'd stay on for dinner.

“I talked to Dad yesterday,” Jake said, as if he'd just remembered.

I looked up from chopping a Vidalia onion. “Oh? How is he?” I wondered if I really wanted to know. It was hard to say.

“He's good,” Jake said.

Why do women have to drag information out of men? “Is he still seeing that bimbo, what's her name, Kara?” I asked.

“Carly. Yeah, he's still seeing her.” Jake looked at me curiously. “Mom, when was the last time you talked to Dad?”

“Oh, maybe about two weeks ago. Why? Is everything all right?”

Jake grabbed a tomato from the counter and began to toss it from hand to hand. “Everything's fine.”

“Then, what?” I asked, grabbing the tomato midtoss. Hadn't I taught Jake not to play with his food? “There's something you're not telling me, Jake. What is it?”

“Nothing!”

“Jacob Michael. I'm your mother, I know when you're lying.”

Jake sighed. “Mom,” he said, “I'm not sure it's my place to tell you, okay? I don't want to get involved any more than I already am.”

“Involved with what?” I asked, somewhat disingenuously. “I'm not trying to play you off your father, Jake. And if there's something you promised not to tell me, fine. But—”

“Dad's thinking of asking Carly to marry him,” Jake blurted. “Okay? That's the big secret although he didn't actually tell me not to say anything.”

I laid the knife on the counter; my hand shook ever so slightly. “Oh,” I said. “But he's only known her for, well, for less than a year.”

“I know. Like six months, tops. Look, it's not a done deal, he's not a hundred percent sure he's going to ask her. He's just thinking about it. I shouldn't have said anything.”

“No, that's okay,” I said. “I kind of forced you to tell me.” I brought the finished salad to the table before saying: “Are you okay with this?”

Jake half-laughed. “With the idea of having a stepmother only four years older than me? It's a bit unusual but it's not the end of the world. I guess I don't really care. Dad can do what he wants.”

“He always has.” My tone was bitter; it surprised me.

“Well, it is his life.”

I'm sure I looked a bit stricken. Jake and I rarely argued, about anything.

“Sorry, Mom,” Jake said. “I just really don't want to hear anything bad about Dad from you or anything bad about you from Dad.”

“I didn't mean to sound like I was criticizing your father,” I said, contrite. “But I know I did. I'm sorry, Jake.”

Jake smiled. “It's okay, Mom. I'm just looking out for myself, you know. Setting boundaries.”

“Change the subject?”

“Gladly. I'll be right back.”

Jake loped off to the bathroom and I finished setting the table.

As I laid out forks, knives, and spoons, the shock Jake's news had induced began to wear off and in its place was embarrassment, as if Brad's choice of a much younger, much more beautiful woman (She had to be more beautiful, I was sure of it.) somehow devalued me in my son's eyes. It certainly devalued me in my own.

But it's not in my nature to wallow in self-pity. Before the plates were in their places I felt a flash of that “I'll show him!” spirit burning inside me. The same spirit that helped me to fight back when I lost the presidency of the PTA to a particularly obnoxious woman, the mother of a boy who'd bullied Jake for an entire school year. Let's just say that a little voting fraud was uncovered (I can be very tenacious when on a mission.) and within weeks, I was the newly elected president of that fine organization.

I'll get back out there, I swore, bringing the salt and pepper to the table, and I'll find a guy so much better than Brad could ever be and I'll marry him and we'll live happily ever after!

So what that I was a single woman approaching middle age? There was a man out there for me. There just had to be.

Jake loped back into the kitchen. “So,” he said abruptly, “your friend, what was her name, Eva?”

“You mean the woman you met at the game?”

“Yeah, her.”

“Oh. Well, actually, her name used to be Eve but somewhere along the line she changed it. I don't know why. I think Eve is such a pretty name and—”

“Does she work here in town?”

“Oh,” I said. “Yes, in fact, she's senior vice president of Caldwell and Company. It's the biggest ad firm in New England. Well, that's what Eva tells me.”

“So, you guys were pretty tight back in college? You, Eva, and what's that guy's name?”

“John,” I said. “Yes, we were. There was a kind of loose group of friends in the scholarship program, but for whatever reason John, Eve, and I became close. Close in the way of students, I mean. Close in the way young people are. I used to think we'd be friends forever. It never even occurred to me that we might lose track of each other.”

“But you're glad you got back in touch with Eva?” Jake asked. “And John?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, pouring a glass of a nice Sauvignon Blanc. “I mean, things are different now, we're different. At least, Eva seems to be. I'm not so sure I've changed all that much since college and John, well—he just seems more of himself, if that makes sense.”

“So, you guys weren't exactly wild and crazy?”

I laughed. “Hardly! We were all on academic scholarships. Our parents couldn't afford to send us to college without financial help. If our grades slipped, then the money slipped away, too. Some kids were tossed out of the program—and maybe they had to leave school, I don't know—but not us.”

“But you must have had some fun, Mom,” Jake prodded. “Spring break? Summer vacation?”

“Oh, sure,” I said automatically. But then I thought about it. “Well, during spring break I'd usually go and visit my grandparents. I loved them and I always had a nice time but Grandpa was getting sick so it wasn't exactly what I'd describe as fun.”

“But what about the summer?”

“I worked every summer to help pay for expenses during the school year. All of us did. But Eve—Eva—and I did manage a few trips to the Cape. I remember one year we stayed in this horrible little motel. The shower floor was covered in ants and the sheets were full of teeny holes, like something had been chewing on them.”

Jake made a face. “I have a hard time imagining you, my scrupulously clean mother, staying in such a place.”

“It was horrible. Eva didn't seem to mind it, though. She was very laid-back in those days.”

“What about when you guys were in Boston?” Jake asked. “Did you hang out at clubs, dance to all that insipid New Wave stuff?”

What had brought on this sudden interest in my past? I wondered. “It was not insipid,” I protested, though I remembered Eva calling it much worse, which is one of the reasons we never went out to clubs. “Saturday nights,” I said, “Eva and I would sometimes go to see a movie. John was usually out on a date. We didn't see much of him during the summers, come to think of it. I remember one year he went to Italy with his sisters. They visited family, I think.”

“Uh-huh. What about Eva? Did she date a lot?”

“Oh, no!” I laughed at the memories. “She thought the whole idea of formal ‘dating' was ridiculous. When she did get involved with someone it was usually more . . . organic, I guess. You know, first she'd be friends with a guy and then they'd get romantically involved. But honestly, I only remember her having two boyfriends through all of four years of college, though Eva never considered them ‘boyfriends' in the usual sense.”

“What do you mean?” Jake asked, leaning forward on the island between us.

“I don't know how to explain it,” I said. “You'd have to ask Eva. She always was very much her own person.”

“A character?” Jake suggested.

“I wouldn't use that term, no. Maybe . . . strong-willed. Definite in her opinions. But never flamboyant or eccentric. Not a character.”

Jake went to the fridge and got himself a beer. He's into something called boutique breweries and weekly gives me a list of favorites for when I go shopping. I've never been a beer drinker and Brad was always a vodka man. Who, I wondered, introduced Jake to good beer? I hated not knowing every little thing about my son's life.

“So, before you met Dad,” Jake said, as he poured the beer into a special glass (I bought it for him; it's supposed to help the beer taste good or something.), “did you have a serious boyfriend?”

“No, no one serious. Well, maybe except for . . . Never mind.”

“No, what were you going to say?”

“It's nothing,” I protested.

“Do you know how annoying it is when someone starts to say something and then changes her mind?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“So, spill.”

Really, what could be the harm of Jake knowing? “Well,” I said, “if you must know, John and I were involved. Very briefly,” I added, as if that changed the fact of the relationship.

Jake smirked. “Details, details.”

I swatted him with a dish towel. “You're not getting details. Frankly, I don't remember much about our little—whatever it was.”

But I did remember that when I was with Eva the other night I'd almost let slip the fact that John and I had been briefly involved. I don't know why I thought it important she not know about it. But I'd—well, I hadn't lied, I'd just omitted to tell the truth.

“Please don't say anything to anyone, Jake, okay? Promise me.”

“Who would I tell?” Jake asked. “Anyway, I know I asked about boyfriends, but, well, I have to say I'm not really comfortable with the idea of you being with anyone other than Dad.”

“But Dad's being with another woman doesn't bother you?” I asked.

Jake laughed. “Well, that's a lot easier for me to take.”

“Jake, that's so old-fashioned!”

“I know,” he said. “It's stupid, but hey, it's how I feel. And feelings can't be judged. Only actions.”

“How smart you are!” I teased. “Jealous of the men in my life, but smart enough to admit it.”

“Jealous! I'm not jealous. Mom, that's . . . weird.”

“Oh, I don't mean anything weird by it, you know that. Just that—you know you've always come before your father with me, but how can you be sure another man might not take your place someday?”

“Have you been reading Freud in your free time?”

“Not since college, no. Anyway, I'm proud to say that I've never been jealous of your girlfriends.”

Jake raised an eyebrow at me. “Uh-huh.”

“No, really,” I protested, “I haven't.”

“Maybe not jealous, but, Mom, you never liked anyone I brought home. Ever. And you weren't exactly nice to a few of them.”

“That's because no woman is ever going to be good enough for my son.”

“Oh, boy, here we go. Can we change the subject, please?”

“Oh, okay,” I said. “If you insist. Anyway, it's time to eat.”

“Good, I'm starved. I missed lunch.”

“See!” I said. “I knew you weren't eating right!”