Happy Any Day Now (19 page)

There was no way I was going to accept that bogus apology, so I just nodded “received and acknowledged” and thought the moment was over. But no. Chloe had another grenade up her short shorts. She stood there brazenly, hand on her hip, and announced, “I spoke to my grandmother a few minutes ago.” On what? Her confiscated cell phone? “When I described you, she knew exactly who you were. She said she never liked you.” She watched me for a reaction. I’m proud to say I gave her not even a twitch, not a sign she’d drawn blood. “It’s funny. Everyone thinks Grammy’s lost it due to strokes or whatever. She hasn’t. She’s sharp as ever.” She tossed her head like an unbroken colt before trotting off, calling behind her, “I just thought you’d like to know.”

• • •

Charlie and I never did wind up making love on the deck of the
My Mayflower
—on Sunday, the bay was crowded with beer-swilling three-day-weekend sailors who might have hooted. Besides, within twenty minutes of casting off, the sky turned gray, the water began to churn, and I got a touch of mal de mer. Blame it on my landlocked childhood. The closest beach to Bed-Stuy was Coney Island, where the only objects that sailed were used condoms and Nathan’s hot dog wrappers. Still, despite the queasiness, I held my own on the boat, winching and tying and being seaworthy. So much so that I earned the kind of respect that translates into passion for men who equate sheeting the mainsail with foreplay.

Back at the empty house, we raced each other to the master bedroom. I was ready to dive onto the bed, but he made me wait, folded back the spread, arranged the pillows, and only then drew me to him. He kissed me deep, nipped my bottom lip in farewell, then moved on to my right palm, flicking his tongue against flesh. I heard an animal growl. Surprise—it was coming from me.

He moved on to suck my middle finger rhythmically, sending the message he’d like some of the same at a different location. “Yes,” he moaned when I complied. I made him gasp again and again, finally with a plea to stop. “No more. I’m too close. Not this way.”

As I came up for air, I licked his thighs tasting of salt, his shoulders sweet with coconut sunscreen. “You,” he murmured, “taste of . . .” Something I didn’t hear because I was already too far gone.

This time there was no sign of the Australian intruder. The only distraction was a nagging phone, probably the Cove Haven crowd hunting us down. Forced to guard Chloe, we’d missed the Saturday night gathering—thank you, Buddha. Charlie, for once, passed on the calls and stuck with me, inside me, until he had me whimpering with pleasure. Twice.

It was a nice memory to take back with me to Baltimore. Charlie had never worked well for me as a memory. Now he had a second chance.

S
traight from the airport, I drove to Blumen House to make up with my mother. Those long, boring hours passively guarding Charlie’s daughter from hell had given me time to think about my own parent-child relationship. My conclusion was that whatever Gracie had done, whatever decisions she’d made, be they good or bad in hindsight, they had been motivated by the best intentions. I had always—
would
always—come first with her.

One Father’s Day in my early adolescence, I’d had the bright idea of giving her a card: “To a Wonderful Dad.” Above my signature I’d written, “Because you are a father and mother to me, Mommy. And I love you.”

“So crazy, Judith. What this mean?” she’d said, making a cuckoo sign, finger twirling at her ear. But she knew. She was all I had. And I was all she had. Back then.

Even now, when we both had more, I couldn’t bear to lose her.

I found her in the garden. Tended by the residents, it was the brainchild of the facility’s occupational therapist, who contended that all the planting and weeding would strengthen muscles, improve balance, and, most important, connect old folks to the earth and the cycles of life.

Miriam Botansky’s response had been, “I’ll be close to the earth soon enough when
my
life cycle is over. Don’t rush me.” But my mother loved to get her hands in dirt.

When she squinted me into focus, she cried out, “I can’t believe. Look who’s back from Maine. Ay, so surprise.” And she broke out her best smile.

Gracie made her way toward my outstretched arms. I’d passed her height when I was twelve, but she was thicker boned than I and heavier. Fully grown, I still thought of her as bigger. But now she seemed—with the weight loss and under the large-brimmed straw hat—tiny, more fragile. Inches away from my hug, she nearly lost her balance and my heart jolted as my hand shot out to steady her.

“I’m fine,” she reassured me, peeling my fingers from her elbow. “Wrong. I lie. Not fine. I miss you. Not just in Maine. Since we fight.”

“I missed you too.” Realizing how much, I removed her hat and pulled her into a hug.

“You not still mad with me?” Her whisper carried the scent of mint. My mother liked to chew the herbs she planted.

“Did I ever say I was mad at you?” I backed her away so she could see the reassurance in my eyes.

“Don’t have to say. Show. Beside, I know in my bones. You hate me over Daddy. Now and before. You think mean mother like in fairy tale.”

“I could never hate you and you’re a wonderful mother.”

“So all I told you that day, you forgive?”

I patted her layered hair. “Nothing to forgive,
Uhm-mah.
”
Not exactly true, but the love and the need were strong enough to overcome the disappointment.

She exhaled a relieved breath and smacked her chest, unseating Grandma Roz’s diamond pendant. “Ahh, feel better. Friends again. Very happy, Judith. Come, we sit. I need to catch breath. Hot out here, but the porch have shade.”

There were no rocking chairs on the verandah—too symbolic—but we settled on a cushioned bench and ordered lemonade—“good for digestion”—and cookies.

“So now we can talk like old times. I want to hear what happened on weekend. You and Charlie hot item, yes? Tell me everything.” Her dark eyes glittered.

Did I mention my mother liked to play in dirt?

• • •

I gave her the censored version of my weekend. But enquiring minds wanted to know more. She interrupted my description of the lobster dinner at the Cove Haven club. “Who care about lobster? How romance go?” Her eyebrow hitched salaciously. “You sleep in same room?”

Totally inappropriate, but close questioning went way back with my mother and me. In fact, interrogations had comprised most of our conversations during my childhood.

Talk about sex? That was another story. When it came time for the Big Reveal, Mrs. Beckersham had taken over. It was she, not my mother, who bought me my first box of sanitary pads. She who handed down her own copy of the Kotex puberty bible, “As One Girl to Another,” a slim booklet written in the slightly stilted language of the forties.

No, Grace had claimed no part of that discussion when it really counted. Now, though, she was a fountain of sexual advice.

“It all right you sleep together,” she assured me. “You big girl now and this twenty-one century, Judith. Sex not much shame. Nothing much shame anymore.” Then she came up with something that was either a plug for her eighty-year-old boy toy . . .
ugh 
. . . or more tabloid philosophy. “Sex no big deal, though best if you love him.”

“I appreciate your stamp of approval,
Uhm-mah
. But I don’t know if I love him.”

She shook her head impatiently. “
Make
love all right anyway.”

Would she understand that this thing with Charlie wasn’t all about sex? It wasn’t even about love the way the poets wrote it. What rhymed with do-over? (Except screw over, but why go there?) My best bet was that it had something to do with closing circles, righting wrongs, seizing opportunities. The universe, having pulled the rug out from under me twenty-five years before, had shown up at my door with a once-in-a-lifetime deal on wall-to-wall carpeting. I ask you, do you turn the universe down when it decides it might have shortchanged you? Or do you hang around to see what it has in store this time? You hang. One way or another.

Sitting on the verandah as an errant breeze ruffled the leaves of a nearby birch tree, I was ambushed by a hot flash. My lemonade floated ice cubes. I rolled the chill glass over my forehead.

“So have good time, but don’t marry him. That daughter, nasty girl, ruin your life. Fresh mouth. Don’t care age. Need smack on tookass.”

“You never smacked me on my touchas or anywhere else. Not once—and I’d remember.”

“You good girl. No need. She spoil brat. You want such rude stepdaughter? And her father let her insult you? Watch out. Charlie is wimp, like with Kiki.”

That was close to what Marti had shouted into my cell phone when I’d phoned her from the airport. “Why, that little shit! I would have spun Miss Chloe’s ass around and kicked it into the next county.”

“Charlie said it was the shock of her finding me there. That’s why she was so rude, but that we’d grow to like each other, given time.”

“Right, I’d give it time. How about till hell freezes over?”

“You never know. He promised to get the two of them into counseling as soon as he can find a shrink who’ll fit his schedule.”

Going back into therapy had been my suggestion, but he’d bought into it. Maybe. This breathless transaction had been made during foreplay, so I wasn’t sure the deal would stick.

Marti wasn’t buying it. “Oh, honeybunch, you’re falling for someone who has more baggage than Lady Gaga on tour. Lace up your Nikes and run for your life.”

Now my mother held out the plate of Mint Milanos, her version of Xanax. “More cookie? Or maybe stay for dinner? Tonight lamb chop on menu. You like lamb chop.”

“Oh my God—I’m glad you reminded me. I brought you something from my trip.”

Charlie and I had toured one of Cove Haven’s sheep farms, where the gift shop sold sweaters knit from their wool. I’d bought my mother a heather purple V-neck, very stylish. It was in the car’s trunk with my suitcase.

“You think of Mommy all way up there.” She stroked my cheek. “Very nice. Come on, I want to see what you get me.”

Presents had been rare in Grace’s impoverished childhood. As an adult, she greeted them with childlike wonder and delight. She walked with me to the car and stood watching as I popped the trunk.

“Ay,
aigoo
.” In her eagerness, she edged me aside, poked her head into its recesses, and shifted its contents. “Your car so messy, Judith.” She clucked with disgust. “You always so neat. Now so slob. What happen to you? Oh no, this still here?” She’d caught a brash flash of silver wrapping paper and snapped around to look at me, eyes wide. “Gift from your father? You not open yet?”

I hadn’t. I’d forgotten it was there and hadn’t missed it. Or I’d buried it in my brain, camouflaged and shoved as far back as I’d stashed it in the trunk.

I blinked against the insistent silver.

“Very rude, Judith. Your father give you special gift. You
must
open.”

“Later, at home,” I promised.

“No, I don’t trust. We open now.”

She reached in and snagged the box. And so we marched— with me first, Grace behind me carrying both boxes, to prevent me from bolting, I suppose. Back on the verandah, we took new seats, away from the parking lot and the potential of prying eyes.

Still in command, she tore through the metallic paper, opened the box, and removed a large leatherette book with
ALBUM
stamped in gold on its cover. She placed it on my lap. I reared back as if it were an infant—something live and demanding.

“Read note.” She plucked an envelope from the box and handed it over. What was the use? The damage had been done. My father was brilliant at insinuating himself where he wasn’t wanted. An intrusion maven. Even if I stopped the process now, he’d already gotten to me.

I read. Aloud, because I refused to go through the pain on my own and Grace had pushed me into it. Irwin’s handwriting was fluid and elegant for an old man with a limited education.

Dear Judith~

Been collecting these pix and articles for a while. Here they are along with some pix of your mom and I. Now that I’ve seen you and her, I don’t need them as much to remind me. I kept a few doubles, so this album is all yours.

I know you don’t think so, but

Love,

Your father AKA Irwin

I’d never seen a photo of my parents’ wedding. I hadn’t known one existed. It turned out to be a Polaroid, its colors faded to washed-out orange, its edges curled with age.

Irwin Jerome Raphael and Ryang Yun Mi, who’d taken the American name Grace, had eloped to Elkton, Maryland, and were married by a justice of the peace while my grandmother remained blissfully unaware—okay, maybe not blissfully; Grandma Roz didn’t know from bliss—back in Brooklyn.

The wedding photo. My mother had been pretty, but to get to that essential prettiness, you had to dig through all that Happy Day bar girl makeup: lips iridescent with pink frost, eyes raccooned with heavy pencil, the liner extended perilously close to her hairline. A long ponytail pulled tight and unflattering bangs made her round face even more moon shaped. Of the two primary participants, she appeared the more composed. Sly even, with those Cleopatra eyes, this on-the-cusp-of-hooker Korean girl who’d won the heart of the rich American GI.

I had no doubt Irwin had wowed her with invisible assets and daydreamed prospects. He was four months out of the army with a freshly grown mustache and a sheen of applied confidence, as if he’d spent the ten minutes prior to the ceremony giving himself a pep talk in the men’s room mirror. He held my mother’s hand.

When they returned home as Mr. and Mrs., Grandma Roz literally rent her garment with grief (high drama, but it was an old sweater, already unraveling) and in her most memorable quote said to my father, “You were a schmuck in the crib. You couldn’t find your own thumb. Once a schmuck, always a schmuck.”

On page two—its dog-eared corners crumpled on my fingertips—we entered the Judith era. There was the card from Caledonia Hospital, which said, “Hi, Dad. You have a . . .” In the blank someone had filled in “girl” next to my tiny inked footprint. There was a photo from my first and only birthday party, the
tol
celebration with me in my
hanbok
and cake in my hair. I faced the lineup of symbols. A toy stethoscope had been placed front and center, but I’d had to reach to my right for the miniature violin. So that story wasn’t apocryphal.

My father had written corny captions for these photos.
Anchors away!
for the one of me in a sailor dress handed down from my cousin Staci.
Quite a cutie!
for a junior high school shot of me, definitely not a cutie, playing the cello at a recital organized by Mrs. Beckersham. He even had my high school graduation photo, the one with the well-developed wariness in my eyes and the disastrous overdeveloped perm. Where the hell had these pictures come from?

And the clippings. From every concert starting with college, reviews from the
Baltimore
Sun
and the
Washington Post
with my name underlined. Also my engagement announcement to Todd from the
Atlanta Jewish Times.
A few of the articles had scrawled dates in the margins. And the mystery was solved. Of course Aunt Phyllis’s hand was all over the artifacts and Operation Never Forget. Uncle Arnold had snapped the photos and she’d sent them to Arizona. Newspaper pieces had been clipped and forwarded. Had Irwin asked her to do this or had it been her idea to keep her brother connected to the family he’d abandoned? Even if the child wouldn’t see her father, the father must see his child. And who knows—I could hear that masters-in-social-work mind percolating—possibly one day?

“Maybe, yes, Aunt Phyllis send,” my mother said. “She don’t tell me. But it was your daddy who put together. He hold on to album all these years.” She did not look up as she unwrapped the sweater. “Oh yes, very soft. Like very much. I think it fit perfect since my diet. Need to try on right now.”