The only thing standing in her way was the strong pull she had toward Robbie. She was annoyed with herself because she kept hanging on to this feeling of connection with him, yet she did not even know where he was or what he was up to. Something inside told her that he was the one she was intended to be with. Her soul felt at peace when they were together. The nights she had lain in his arms, it felt as though her whole being breathed a sigh of relief. She had never felt that way before or since.
Why could she not get him out of her head, or, as Donna said, out of her heart? When she’d been with Robbie, she’d felt almost as though they were connected by fate.
She sighed and jumped off the window seat. Any relationship with Robbie was out of her power since: (a) he had left her; and (b) she had no idea where he was. So that was that. She needed to stop thinking about the past and start concentrating on the present and the future.
The intercom connected to the lobby rang. It was Mario, informing her that the girls were on the way up.
The energy in the room kicked up ten notches as soon as Kristin, Jodee, and Jessica burst into the apartment. They came bearing gifts: three shopping bags of Chinese food and two bottles of wine.
The women began talking at once, laughing, pouring wine, and then clinking their full glasses. Jessica and Jodee opened the bags and unpacked the containers of food.
When they finally settled down, Lily and Jodee sat on the couch while Kristin and Jessica sat across from them on the floor. They used the coffee table as a tabletop.
“Just how many people were you planning to feed?” Lily said and counted twelve different carry-out cartons.
“You know what I say: variety is the spice of life. And I make sure to live a very spicy life,” Jodee said and waved her chopsticks a around for added emphasis. They all laughed.
“You, honey, make living spicy an art form, that’s for damn sure.” Jessica said. Okay now, girls, I think we need to discuss the rules of the tribunal.
“Wait, wait. Don’t start yet, I have to pee.” Jodee looked at Jessica. “Promise you won’t start until I get back.”
“I don’t know if we can make that commitment.” Kristin teased “How long does it usually take you to tinkle?”
“No worries. If you can’t wait for me, I’ll just go to the bathroom right here—so start talking.” Jodee stood up in the middle of the living room and pantomimed like she was going to pull her jeans down.
Lily tossed a pillow at her friend. “Hurry up and go to the bathroom in the bathroom and I promise we’ll wait for you.” Jodee raced out of the room.
“I’m warning you, you three better cut me a break during this tribunal, remember I’m in a delicate condition, being postpartum and all.” Lily took a bite of her spring roll.
Kristin reached over the table to grab a packet of duck sauce. “I so hate to be the one to burst your maternal bubble, but you cannot play the postpartum card when your daughter is days away from her first birthday. Better think of something else.”
Jodee came back into the room and plopped down on the floor. Lily took a spare rib and contemplated her next “pull at their heartstrings” move. She used all her abilities as an award- winning actress to conjure up tears. “Please be kind to me, I am a poor motherless child who has no one to defend me.”
Jodee turned to Lily “Gonna have to do much better than that, girlfriend.”
Once they had finished most of the food, Jessica stood up on the couch and proclaimed
“Here Ye, Here Ye, the tribunal will now commence in the case of the Whole World VS. Jamie Fleming—”
Lily stood and turned to the group? “The whole world?”
“Sit down, you will have your day in court, Miss Lockwood.” Jessica took off her boot and used it as a gavel “The court calls upon Miss Lockwood to come forward.”
“Wait one minute.” Jodee ran into the kitchen and fetched a backless stool and set it down in the middle of the living room. “Let the records show the witness for the defense will now be seated.”
Lily climbed up and sat on the stool. Jodee took the shade off a nearby gooseneck floor lamp and bent it so it was directly over Lily’s head. The glare of the lamp made it impossible for Lily to see her interrogators.
Kristin stood and announced. “Before the witness is asked to state her name, everyone in this high court must take the obligatory shot of Tequila. Jessica, since you are the judge, won’t you please do the “honors.”
Jessica handed each one a shot of Patron and on the count of three, they all downed it. There were talking so loud and laughing so hard, they didn’t notice that Jamie had walked into the room. “Hey Babe whatcha got here?”
Lily swiveled around so fast that the momentum of the stool, in concert with the wine and tequila she imbibed, sent her flying to the floor. Laughing so hard Lily ended up rolling around. Every time she attempted to stand she’d fall right back down on the floor. Finally Jamie chuckled, extended his hand, pulled her up and kissed her. The girls whooped and hollered like a bunch of twelve year olds. Lily put her arm around Jamie’s waist, turned to her three friends, and introduced him to Jessica and Kristin, who still had never met him.
It was an unspoken understanding that due to the untimely appearance of the defendant, the tribunal had to be adjourned for another night.
Jamie ended up having drinks, talking and laughing with the girls for the next few hours. Lily sat back and watched Jamie turn on the charisma, full force. Sometimes when they were in a social setting—a party or industry event—she would hold her breath to see which Jamie would emerge. He could be outgoing and captivating, as he was tonight or he could be moody and withdrawn. At times, she felt like Jamie’s personality was like an expensive Armani suit that he kept in the back of his closet and only took out for special occasions.
From the way her friends were hanging on to her boyfriend’s every charming word, and laughing at all his jokes, Lily was quite certain a second tribunal would not be necessary.
Chapter 7
Lily bolted straight up in bed, her heart pounding, her hair drenched in sweat, with tears streaming down her face. She looked at the clock and saw it was only 3:30 a.m. She thought of the dream she’d just had—more of a terrifying nightmare, actually.
Robbie was living in this big house on a hill, surrounded by water. He opened the window and waved to her.
“Come on up,” Robbie called down to her. She remembered how elated she had felt in the dream—that after all the years apart, they would finally be together again soon. She stood outside the house, by the front gate, waiting for someone to open it for her. The guard at the gate looked a Lily, shook his head, and refused to grant her entrance. She felt annoyed and then angry. She looked at the cement wall that surrounded the home, much like the privacy walls her friends in Beverly Hills have encompassing their mansions. She tried but was unable to climb the barrier.
Robbie, still at the window, kept calling down to her, urging her to hurry. Lily heard a clap of thunder and looked up at the sky. A large white-blue lightning bolt zigzagged and hit the top of the roof, right above Robbie’s window. Within seconds there was an explosion and the house caught fire. The fire spread rapidly until it consumed the whole structure. She heard Robbie calling her name. Then everything went still and Lily fell to the ground crying.
That was all Lily could remember of the dream. She took a deep breath and quietly swung her legs around the side of the bed, looked over her shoulder to make sure she had not disturbed Jamie, and stood up.
She walked into the kitchen and took out a small saucepan from under the sink. Lily remembered the times growing up when she had had horrible nightmares and her mother would pick her up from her bed, bring her into the kitchen, and lift her up onto one of the kitchen stools. Daisy would keep a stream of conversation going to distract Lily from the memory of the nightmare that had woken her.
Daisy poured milk into the same saucepan Lily now held in her hand, and waited until it w
as heated to just the right temperature. She would lower the heat and very slowly stir in the chocolate until the powder completely dissolved. She would present it to Lily with a dollop of whipped cream on top. While Lily drank her hot cocoa, she and her mother would chat and laugh together. By the time she’d finished the last drop, she had forgotten the nightmare and she would be ready to go back to sleep.
Lily poured the milk into the saucepan and put it on the stove. Because her mother was not there to distract her, she thought of the heart-pounding nightmare that had caused her to awaken in such distress and in a pool of sweat. It seemed as if she had been thinking and dreaming about Robbie more often than she had in the past. She felt a bond—a connection— that she had never felt with any other man.
Was it because Jamie was in her life again and the comparison she found herself making between the two men, always had Jamie coming up on the short end of the stick?
Lily lowered the heat, poured the chocolate into the warm milk, took a wooden spoon, and slowly stirred. Lately she felt that the connection she had with Robbie was becoming stronger instead of weaker, with the passage of time. Lily poured the chocolate into one of Daisy’s favorite mugs and sat on the stool in front of the breakfast bar.
She recalled a story Robbie had told her when they were out at the farm. It was an autumn day and they made plans early in the morning to take the sailboat out in the afternoon and spend the day on the water. By the time they had finished breakfast, made love and spent hours talking in bed, black clouds covered the sky, the wind picked up, and the waves became angry and choppy. They decided to forego the sail, stay indoors, light a fire, and cook a hearty dinner. Robbie actually did all the cooking and Lily’s job was to pour the wine, sit on the counter beside him, and watch Robbie perform his culinary magic. That afternoon, he decided to make a dish called Glazed Brisket that his grandmother used to cook for him and David when they were growing up.
Robbie opened the refrigerator and pulled out an onion and garlic from the vegetable bin. He placed them on the wooden cutting board he had prepared on the counter. Suddenly a look Lily did not recognize came over his face and he smiled.
“What are you smiling about? Lily asked.
“I was just thinking about my Grandmother and about a story she told me a long time ago when I was sitting and watching her prepare this dish. Wow, I haven’t thought of that story in years.” Robbie began cutting the onion into very thin slices.
“Tell me, I’d love to hear.”
“Well, when I was growing up my grandmother, my father’s mother, we called her Bubby, lived in a small house on my family’s property, very close to us. My grandfather had died long before David was adopted and I was born. As a matter of fact David is named after him.
“As you know, my Dad is a doctor and his office is actually attached to our house. All day long patients would come and go using the side entrance that led to the waiting room.” Robbie took out three cloves of garlic and crushed them.
“When David and I got older, my mother, who had been a nurse when she met my father, started helping out in the office. You know my mother, she has this great personality and the patients love her.”
Lily nodded, imagining Hannah, with her big heart and soft voice, talking to the patients and making them feel comfortable and safe.
David put the brisket into a large ovenproof casserole dish, added water, sliced onions and crushed garlic, and placed it on the stove. “It needs to simmer for an hour and a half, then I’ll add the apricots and brown sugar and get it into the oven. So I’ll put the timer on and we can go in and sit by the fire.”
Robbie picked Lily up off the counter and carried her into the living room and gently placed her on the couch. He picked up the afghan that her Grams had crocheted and handed it to her. He went back into the kitchen to retrieve the wine. He brought the bottle and glasses back into the living room and sat down on the couch next to her. She covered herself with the afghan, put her legs over his lap and wiggled her toes. As was their routine, he started rubbing her feet.
“So where was I?”
“Your Mom helping your Dad in the office.” Lily took a sip of wine.
“My Dad is an excellent doctor, but is not a people-person. So my mother, even now, is a big asset to his practice. On the days my mother worked with him, the bus would pull up in front of our house and Bubby would be standing there waiting to envelop her boys with a hug. She took us to her house and fixed us snacks before we went back out to play.
One day, I must have been ten or eleven years old and the school was closed because it was teacher’s conference day. David had slept over at a friend’s house so I was by myself and bored. I walked over to Bubby’s house to see if she happened to be baking cookies.
When I got there, she had just begun to prepare the meal for dinner later on. As was our family tradition every Friday night my parents, brother, and I would walk down the hill, to my Grandmother’s house for Sabbath dinner. On those nights, when we were halfway down the hill, we could already smell the aroma of the food she had prepared and our mouths would begin to water before we even got to her front door. And when we walked into her house, the old wooden table that I did my homework on every afternoon was transformed. There would always be a white, lace tablecloth covering the worn table. She once told us it was the first thing she purchased when she married my grandfather. Her best china would magically appear on the table, and the bronze candlesticks that she polished earlier in the day found a proud place of honor in the middle of the table.”
Lily shivered and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. Robbie stopped talking and walked over to the fireplace and threw in a large chunk of wood and sat back down.
“So go on—Sabbath dinner,” Lily urged.
“Anyway, the day I went over there, the day I was off from school, she had just started the brisket. She gave me milk and cookies and told me stories about how she used to sit and watch her Mama cook in the ‘Old Country.’ I asked her if her husband, my Grandpa, was also from the ‘Old Country.’ She smiled and wiped her eyes that always filled with tears whenever she spoke of him.
“‘Yes Tatela. I knew him since we were children, but then we were separated, lost from each other for many years.’
“I asked, ‘Bubby, why were you lost from each other?’ I saw a look of sadness come over her face and I felt bad, as if I’d said something wrong to make her look like that. After she put the brisket on the stove, she sat at the table next to me and told me the story.
“‘Your grandfather and I lived in a city in Poland, not far from Warsaw, called Lodz. I lived in a building where each apartment was as big as a house. David, your Grandfather, lived a few streets away, in a part of the city that was not as grand. One morning, when I was a little older than you, your Grandfather knocked on my front door. I was in my bedroom curling my long hair. I heard him say to my Father, ‘Sir, may I walk Chaya Ruchel to school?’ My Papa, who was a big-shot banker and one of the wealthiest men in the city, could at times be somewhat arrogant. He wanted us to play only with children whose parents were in the same social stratus as our family. What he didn’t know is how very much I liked David Rosen from the moment I had met him on the playground. There was something about his eyes. . .’
Then Bubby moved closer to me and peered into my eyes over her bifocals.
“‘They were as blue as yours, Tatela!’
Robbie smiled at Lily. “ Bubby, stood up, put her hands on her hips and Lily, in that moment, I could see in her face, the strong little girl that she must have been. She continued telling me her story:
“‘I finally walked into the living room where Papa was talking to David and said, ‘Papa, please let David walk me to school.’ My Papa finally gave in. From that day on, every morning at 7:30 a.m. sharp, David would walk me to school. Every day, after school, he carried my books and walked me back home.’
Robbie leaned back and closed his eyes. “I remember Bubby’s face started
to glow, as though she was that young girl in love again.
“‘Tatela, Lodz was a city that had many rivers and woods. One day after school, David and I sat by one of the rivers and skipped stones. He turned to me, looked into my eyes, and said, ‘Chaya Ruchel, one day I am going to make so much money and put it all in your father’s bank. Then he will know I am good enough to marry his only daughter.’ I smiled and kissed him on the cheek. I remember his face turned as red as the borscht that my Mama always made for Shabbat dinner. Then he took my hand and kissed it and said ‘Chaya Ruchel, you are my bashert!’”.
“I interrupted Bubby to ask her what a bashert is,” Robbie said.
‘Tatela, your bashert is your intended—someone who you are intended to be with and love forever. They say the match is made in heaven. Many people nowadays call it soul mates. And when you meet the one, the bond is so strong that even if you are apart, you will always find your way back to one another.
Then David said something I would never forget: ‘There is a silver cord tied from my heart to yours that can never be severed. Chaya Ruchel you are the love of my life.’
“Before she continued her story, my Bubby put her hand to her heart and closed her eyes, as if she was again hearing those words of love and commitment that my Grandfather had spoken so many years ago.
“‘Later on that year, there were terrible things happening in Poland. And, Tatela, do you remember when you read all about that little girl Anne Frank? German men, called Nazis, with guns, burst into our home early one morning and took my Mama and Papa and me. They pointed to the Stars of David that we had been forced to sew on all our clothes, grabbed us, and pushed us out on to the street. Our neighbors were all gathered together and the Nazis forced us to walk all the way to the railroad train. I remember looking up and down the street to see if my David was close-by. But I never saw him.
The Silver Cord: The Lily Lockwood Series: Book Two Page 7