The Job (29 page)

“I
won’t,” she says. “Look, I’m not even in the mood anymore, anyway, but can we
just sit here and
not
talk about
anything?”

“Sure,”
I tell her. “Can I get you something to eat, drink?”

“No,”
she answers.

“All
right,” I say, “what would you like to do?”

“Nothing,”
she says. “I really don’t think there’s anything in the world that’s going to
make me happy right now.”

“I
know,” I tell her. “Is there anything that might make you at least feel less of
what you’re feeling now?”

“Other
than sex?” she asks.

“Yeah,”
I answer.

“Nothing’s
coming to mind,” she says and puts her feet up on the couch.

“All
right,” I tell her. “Why don’t we just sit back and watch a movie? I’ll even
give you a massage.”

“How
romantic,” she says blankly.

“You’d
be surprised the difference that comes with the release of tension,” I respond,
but when I’ve said the words, a glimmer of my own hypocrisy becomes clear and
she picks up on it.

“A
release of tension is kind of what I was hoping for in the first place,” she
says.

“Why
don’t we start with a massage and see where it goes from there?” I ask. “Are
you sure I can’t get you anything to drink or eat? I think I have microwave
popcorn around here somewhere.”

“I’m
fine,” she says. “Would you mind if I take off my shirt? You know, for the
massage.”

At
this point, I’m not entirely sure whether standing my ground is going to be a
helpful or a harmful tactic. Denying her what she came here for seems like a
good idea in theory, but I can’t help thinking back to what it was like when my
mom got sick.

I
would have done just about anything to try to get away with what was going on,
and I
did
do just about everything.

I
was nineteen when it happened, when she was diagnosed anyway. After that,
everything just happened so fast.

She
was diagnosed. She was in the hospital. She was gone. I know there was a lot
more to it than that, but it’s the way that I remember it. There was no time to
adjust, to make peace with the fact that she was sick, only after she died.

Then,
there was nothing left
but
time.

Dad
dove headfirst into the business and I was just left there alone. I’d just
gotten my first apartment not long before, but when the diagnosis came in, I
spent most of my time at either my parents’ house or the hospital.

Even
though I worked for my dad and I was almost always surrounded by my brothers,
none of us ever really talked about it.

Before
long, my brothers started moving away from the city, one by one, until I was
the only one left at the company and, although my dad was always there before I
showed up and he was always there after I left, we never said more than four
words to each other at a time, and it was never about anything but work.

I
don’t like beer anymore because I lived off it for almost a solid year after my
mom died. In the end, though, it didn’t even help anymore.

“That’s
fine,” I tell her. “Just make yourself comfortable.”

She
removes her shirt, but quickly takes the blanket from the back of the couch.

“Could
you turn your heater on?” she asks.

I’ve
gotten so used to having to cut back on utilities that I don’t even notice
anymore how cold it’s gotten in the apartment.

I
walk over to the radiator and turn it up; feeling that permeating warmth that
always makes me feel two times as tired as I was before the heat was on.

“Would
you mind if we wait on the massage until the room heats up?” she asks.

“That’s
fine,” I answer.

I
sit down on the couch and she rests her legs on me. It’s nice having this kind
of closeness, but there’s still some pretty thick tension in the air.

Not
wanting the entire afternoon to be just one big awkward silence, I ask her to
tell me a little bit more about herself.

“What
do you want to know?” she asks. “I’m pretty boring.”

“I
doubt that,” I tell her. “Where did you grow up?”

“Not
far from the city,” she says, “although I never really believed that I’d live
here. You?”

“I
grew up in the Bronx,” I tell her. “I came to Manhattan after I took over the
company.”

“How’d
that happen anyway?” she asks.

“My
dad retired,” I answer. “It was either I take the business or someone else did
or we just close the whole thing down altogether.”

“You
know,” she says, “for giving your whole life to it, it doesn’t really seem like
something you’re all that interested in.”

“I
don’t know about that,” I smile. “I love what I do, or at least it pays the
bills. To tell you the truth, I think I’m just doing it because there’s really
nothing else
for
me to do.”

“I’m
kind of the same way,” she says. “I started Lady Bits because I wanted to make
some kind of statement, but it seems like a lot of other people wanted to make
the same kind of statement around the same time, so I don’t know if I’m a
trailblazer or just someone who jumped on the bandwagon.”

“I
think what you do is important,” I tell her. “Granted, I haven’t seen a lot of
action in the plus department because we were always working through there, but
the racks and shelves you had set up for the interim seemed like they were
filled with stuff you don’t normally see.”

“That
was the goal,” she says. “For some reason, people always think that if you’re a
bit bigger than the average, you’ve got to end up in some frumpy crap or else
it’s muumuus until the end of time. I think one of the reasons that women don’t
feel beautiful is that they’re forced into choosing only one kind of clothing that’s
deemed appropriate for their body style, but you give someone the freedom to
choose the same things that are available to all other types of women and you
just see her eyes light up. It’s a pretty wonderful thing.”

“Having
a purpose is a hell of a thing, isn’t it?” I ask.

“Yeah,”
she says, “I guess. After all that bullshit with Burbank, though, I’m not sure
how much longer I’m going to be able to keep the place open. Once the
construction was done, we started getting a lot of our customers back, but once
they got a look at the new prices, I don’t know. We haven’t bounced back yet.”

“Give
it time,” I tell her. “Things have a way of working out, and until then, I’d
say start looking for other suppliers.”

“I
just don’t have the time for that,” she says. “I’ve made a couple of calls, but
Burbank’s got agreements with a lot of the people in town not to undercut his
prices. He really fucked me there.”

I
rub her leg, saying, “I’m sorry about that. I know I’m partially responsible
for it.”

“No,”
she says. “I wanted to blame you—I
did
blame you for a while, but what it really came down to was the fact that I was
already so on edge that the slightest thing would have sent me over just as
much as you did.”

She
leans toward the coffee table and grabs the remote. Flipping on the television,
she surfs through the channels for a while before turning the TV back off
again.

“You
know what’s funny?” she asks.

“What’s
that?”

“Well,
I have these boxes at my parents’ house, boxes full of all the medals and
certificates and shit that I won over the years. I used to go home almost every
night and think about those boxes at least once. When I was stressed, I used to
go through my apartment and figure out where to put everything,” she says. “I
haven’t done that since the last time I stayed at my mom’s, just after she got
sick.”

“What’s
stopping you from picking the boxes up?” I ask.

“I
don’t know,” she says. “The same thing that’s always stopped me, I guess.”

“And
that would be…?”

“Most
people look at stuff like that from when they were a child or a teenager and
they get all misty-eyed and revel in how proud they are that they accomplished
blah, blah or blah, but every time I try to talk myself into opening up that
closet, I just shut down,” she explains. “I guess I don’t want to be reminded
of all the disappointment each of those trinkets ended up being.”

“Let’s
go get them,” I tell her.

“No,”
she says, shaking her head, “I really think I’d be much more comfortable, you
know,
not
doing that.”

“Why
not?” I ask. “I’ll even help you unpack them and set them up. While we’re doing
that, you can tell me about them.”

“They’re
really not that interesting,” she says. “It would end up being like forcing you
to look through a photo album for hours, and I just really don’t feel like it.”

“Come
on,” I say in an intentionally petulant voice.

“Oh
yeah,” she mocks. “
That’s
sexy.”

“I
just want to know more about you,” I tell her, “and I think it might help you
think of better times.”

“I
don’t know that they were better times,” she says. “They were just a little
less bad.”

“Well,”
I tell her, standing up, “let’s change all that. The best way I’ve found to
feel better is to get up and do something. So, grab your shirt and I’ll help
you load up the car.”

She
sits up, the blanket falling from her breasts.

“Or,
you know, we can just go now and leave the shirt here,” I smile.

Finally,
she laughs.

It’s
soft and it’s short, but the sound is sweet in my ears, her smile invigorating.

“Would
you mind if we stop by the hospital first?” she asks. “I’d kind of like you to
meet my mother. I know that’s the sort of thing that usually happens after the
fifth date or something like that, but you know, I think it would be better if
it happened now when we know that…” she trails off.

The
end of the sentence, as far as I can tell, would have been something to the
effect of, “she’s going to be alive when we get there.”

I
bend down and pick up her shirt from the floor.

Handing
it to her, I say, “Yeah, let’s go see your mom.”

Chapter
Seventeen

Bring
Your Daughter to the Cancer Ward Day

Jessica

The
closer we get to the hospital, the less confident I am in my suggestion to have
Eric meet my mother. He’s a perfectly nice guy. Why would I want to throw him
into the lion’s den?

When
we come around the corner and the hospital comes into view, I’m ready to just
turn around. Apparently sensing my growing unease, Eric puts his hand on mine.

“How
do I introduce you?” I ask.

“What
do you mean?” Eric responds.

“Well,”
I start, “I can’t really call you my employee, and I don’t think the nature of
our relationship would make than an accurate explanation anyway. I could call
you my friend, which is true, but it doesn’t seem to quite capture things. At
the same time, we’ve never really had the boyfriend/girlfriend talk either, so
when we walk into the room and I say, ‘Hey Mom, this is Eric,’ what do you
think comes after that?”

“I
don’t know,” he says. “I guess we’ve never really defined the relationship,
have we?”

“No,
we have not,” I answer. “Thoughts?”

“Well,
I certainly wouldn’t
mind
being your
boyfriend,” he says, “if that’s at or around where you are.”

He
grabs my hand and rubs my knuckles with his thumb.

“You
and your honeyed words…” I titter as we pull into the parking lot.

“I
don’t think it really matters,” he says. “I think it’d be enough if you just
said, ‘Hey Mom, this is Eric.’ Why overthink it?”

“Well,
maybe I’d like to know for my own reasons,” I slip.

This
is about the worst time possible to define the relationship, but I do like to
be prepared whenever I know I’m going to have any kind of interaction with my
mother.

“I’m
assuming something along the lines of ‘the sexy guy that gives you mind-blowing
orgasms’ wouldn’t work, huh?” he asks and, if nothing else, at least I’m
laughing as I pull into the parking spot and turn off the car.

We
just sit here for a minute, though.

“Everything
okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,”
I tell him. “Not really. I don’t know. Usually, I’m nervous to be around my mom
because of the way she is—you know, as far as her personality. Now, I’m still
worried about that, but I haven’t seen her since the surgery, either. Kristin
says that she’s recovering pretty well and everything, but she can’t really
move that much right now. They removed not only the tumors, but a fair amount
of cartilage as well. I guess I’m just hoping that you’ll somehow come up with
a reason for us not to go in there right now.”