Joyce, she of the champion bullshit meter, studied her son, who seemed unnaturally focused on his dinner plate. “I hear she’s a widow,” Joyce said.
Jeremy didn’t look up, partly because he didn’t want to get into this—at all—and partly because he was so enjoying Joyce’s roast chicken. He was swept back to his childhood when the garlicky bird made its weekly, highly anticipated appearance at the Lerner dinner table. Jeremy’s dad was never more complimentary to Joyce than at those tasty times: “I’m giving you fair warning, my love, this is what I want for my last meal,” he’d say.
“Great chicken, Mom, as always,” said Jeremy between mouthfuls, bounding back to neutral territory.
“Oh. My. God,” Matty emphasized in agreement as he refilled his plate.
Joyce soaked in the praise and returned to the business at hand: Jeremy’s future. “All I’m saying, dear, is that maybe you need to start thinking about moving on with your life. It sounds like Cassie got way out in front of you there.”
Jeremy shot his tell-all son another look.
“Sorry, I didn’t know there was a cone of silence,” said Matty, working through his seconds.
Jeremy gave in, clearly outnumbered. “I appreciate both of your concern and advice. I really do. Thank you,” he said, sounding a bit like a hostage reading from his captor’s script.
“How did her husband die?” asked Joyce, who was going to piece together this puzzle if it killed her.
“Cancer,” Jeremy said with finality, and then turned to Matty. “What’s happening at work? Any interesting new events?” He didn’t mean to sound dismissive about Annabelle’s late husband but he thought it best to shift focus.
“I don’t know how interesting it is, but I’m helping coordinate a ‘bark mitzvah,’” Matty answered, wielding a forkful of string beans. Jeremy and Joyce looked at him blankly. “Some TV executive’s dachshund is turning thirteen,” he explained, “and, well, I guess it’s a thing. She’s spending a ton.”
“Oh, ‘bark’ mitzvah. For a dog! I get it!” Joyce exclaimed. “That’s adorable!”
“Is a rabbi involved or does a schnauzer in a yarmulke preside?” Jeremy was thrilled for a new topic.
“It’s not a real ceremony, it’s … it’s basically just a birthday party for old dogs,” Matty answered, impatient, as if realizing how trivial his career choice must seem.
“What do you serve at a bark mitzvah?” Joyce asked like she was setting up a joke.
“Hot dogs?” Jeremy said with a smile, though a pet lover might have found it rude. From the sour looks on Matty and Joyce’s faces, they did.
“All I know is there’s going to be a grain-free cake shaped like a giant bone with ‘Muzzle Tov’ spelled out in kibble,” Matty reported. He trained his fork over the uneaten chicken leg on Jeremy’s plate. “You gonna eat that?”
“Knock yourself out,” Jeremy said, though Matty had already speared the spare drumstick.
“Your work sounds so fun, Matty!” said Joyce, who may have known better but always erred on the side of support.
Matty chewed his chicken and considered. “There are worse jobs,” he finally answered, sounding as if there were, in fact, no worse jobs. Jeremy sensed the boy wasn’t long for the event-planning world.
“What about you, darling?” Joyce asked Jeremy as she got up to clear the table. “Any decent job prospects?”
“None, decent or indecent.” He rose to help her with the dishes, but she shook her head and motioned for him to sit. He obeyed. “But Annabelle just showed me how to type with, like, one-and-a-half hands, so I should be able to start getting more done.” Just saying that felt awfully proactive. A hint of optimism coursed through his veins.
“Your Annabelle sounds like a guardian angel,” Joyce said, balancing plates in each hand.
My Annabelle? thought Jeremy. Strangely, he didn’t hate the sound of that. Still: “What say we break out that babka?”
Shortly after Joyce and Matty left (babka: decimated, Matty: off to do an hour on the Peloton), Jeremy, wind in his sails, made an executive decision. Sick of hearing news about Cassie secondhand, he decided to just fucking call her. Her silence had been deafening, selfish, and, frankly, rude. There was much to discuss, and if Jeremy was going to move on with his life, as his mother and son so unequivocally kept urging him to do, several ducks needed to be put in their proverbial order.
Jeremy fortified himself with a slug of scotch (he was beginning to like the stuff), sat at the edge of the bed, and dialed her number. Amazingly, she answered after one ring.
“Hello,” Cassie said without emotion, as if she were as resigned as he was to have to talk.
“Cassie.” The scotch provided a nice buzz that made him dislike his estranged wife a bit less than he might have—or should have.
“How’s your shoulder and the sling and all that?” She sounded a tad nervous, not her usual style.
“It sucks, if you really want to know. But Matty and my mom have been an incredible help.”
Which was to say: You haven’t been, so feel free to feel guilty for the historically bad timing of your removal from my life, though you probably don’t feel anything, so go fuck yourself.
“Good, I’m glad.” Silence, and then: “Matty said you’re working with an occupational therapist?”
“I am,” Jeremy said, followed by another swig of Dewar’s. “She’s pretty terrific, actually.” That sounded far more enthusiastic than it needed to but what the hell. Let Cassie think what she wanted. He got up, started pacing. “Where are you, anyway?”
“Does it matter?”
He thought for a second. Did it matter? She wasn’t here with him; in the end, that’s all that really mattered. “Apparently not,” Jeremy mumbled.
Wait, was that a TV on in the background? Sounded like the theme from The Big Bang Theory. Cassie never watched sitcoms, rarely watched TV at all except for cable news. Yep, Big Bang. Canned laughter swelled over the phone line. Who was she with? Maybe someone younger who liked that show? Maybe … ice cream guy? Jeremy went for it: “I heard you ran into Lucien. On Larchmont?”
Cassie went silent, which only increased the sound of the sitcom chatter. “Wow, news travels,” she finally said.
Jeremy stopped pacing and gazed into the walk-in closet. So many of Cassie’s things still hung from the racks and filled the shelves. When did she plan on collecting it all? Wouldn’t it be funny if he donated all of Cassie’s clothes to charity without telling her? A wicked grin crossed Jeremy’s face, imagining the look on her face when she realized her stuff was gone. How weird. He’d never wished any ill on his beloved Cassie. If anything he’d wanted to protect her the way she’d protected him, defended him, supported him—at least for so much of their marriage. How does all that just disappear?
Jeremy put one foot into the quicksand: “Lucien said it looked like you were on a date. With a guy.” No, with a giraffe.
More silence; Jim Parsons and Johnny Galecki traded barbs in the background.
“Well, isn’t Lucien the little detective.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” said Jeremy, turning away from the closet.
“You can take it any way you want,” Cassie said. “And you can do anything you want. You have my permission.”
“Uh, one: I don’t need your permission. And two: I can barely take a shower, I don’t think I’ll be hanging out on Tinder—or whatever people are meeting each other on.”
“Matty meets people on Grindr. Says it’s very effective.”
“If you’re gay,” Jeremy reminded her.
“Or bi,” she quibbled.
Was she getting at something or just being annoying? “I’m not that either.”
“Well, maybe you should be. Double your chances.”
“Okay, this conversation is going nowhere.”
“For fuck’s sake, Cassie, don’t you think we have a few important things to discuss?”
Jeremy heard the TV channel change on Cassie’s end: the familiar CNN “breaking news” music. She paused, clearly diverted by the news flash.
“Yes,” Cassie finally answered, “there are a few items, while I have you.”
Jeremy took a seat on the bed, his right arm and shoulder throbbing as they did when he stood for too long. For the hundredth time that day, he pulled the brace strap away from the spot on his neck where it dug in like a mofo. There had to be some permanent adjustment; he’d have to ask Annabelle.
Speaking of permanent adjustments, Cassie relayed her list of “items” with businesslike velocity. “I’ll be by in the next few days to pick up the rest of my things; I’d appreciate it if you weren’t there. I have a lawyer. I suggest you find one; I can recommend a few if you’d like. I also know a few good realtors so I’d be happy to pick one and get them started on listing the house.”
Jeremy felt like he was on the losing end of a game of dodgeball: thwack, thwack, thwack! And that last thwack almost knocked him to the ground. Lucky he was already seated. He gathered his thoughts—and cojones.
“Come by any time you’d like, but I’ll be here, because not only do I have nowhere to go in this stupid fucking sling, but I couldn’t drive there even if I did.” He continued in Cassie’s rat-tat-tat style: “Second, I was hoping we could avoid lawyers and work this out ourselves like adults and maybe just use a mediator if it came to that.”
This was something that just occurred to Jeremy, and he wasn’t sure he knew what he was talking about, especially to someone who was a lawyer herself. Still, this tack, at least in theory, appealed to his sense of fairness and lifelong disdain for drama and confrontation.
As for their house, no way was he moving—he’d just made that decision—so he’d have to figure out how to keep the place. Maybe he’d need a lawyer after all, or at least have to talk to one, but it sure wouldn’t be one she recommended.
“What if I don’t want to sell the house?” Jeremy asked, immediately realizing he should have more proactively said: “I don’t want to sell the house.” Too late.
“That’s your choice,” Cassie answered. “But just know it’ll totally complicate matters. And more for you than me.”
Jeremy didn’t know what that meant per se, though assumed it had something to do with the fact that Cassie currently made more money than he did.
“We can think about a mediator but, in my experience, they’re not all that effective,” she continued.
Jeremy could still hear CNN droning on behind her; a door slammed on Cassie’s end of the line. She was not alone.
“And can’t you just go hang out with Katie and Crash for an hour when I stop by?”
“And do what?”
“I don’t know! Sit and talk to them, watch TV, take a nap. I’m sure they’d understand.”
“I don’t even understand, why should they?”
“God, you’re impossible,” Cassie concluded. “I’m hanging up now.” And she did.
Jeremy stared at his silent phone. Here was some real breaking news: the beguiling woman he first met that night in front of the old movie house was gone for good.
CHAPTER
17
By the time Annabelle returned two days later, Jeremy was coasting forward on a new head of steam. A shrink, if Jeremy had one (something he’d been thinking wouldn’t be the world’s worst idea, and had even made a note to check his health coverage), might say that his last conversation with Cassie was a defining moment in their relationship—or the end thereof.
It’s not as if he’d been thinking this might just be a phase she was going through, some kind of middle-age crazy thing in which, instead of buying a sports car, getting lipo, or tattooing a snake on her thigh, she would take a little vacay from her longtime hubby, only to return when she “got over it.” No, far from it.
Learning that Cassie was dating again had surely added to the finality of things in Jeremy’s mind. But hearing Cassie over the phone with her detached tone and premeditated checklist of divorce chores not only reconfirmed the stark reality of the situation but also made Jeremy realize, maybe for the first time, that he wanted her out of his life.
God knows he wasn’t the greatest prize, and certainly hadn’t been the best partner these last years. But he would have been willing to work on himself, on the relationship, if she had asked, or had given him some kind of rational heads-up. Cassie would later say, If she’d had to tell him, then what was the point? It was like reminding someone to wish you a happy birthday or thank you for a job well done: They either got it or they didn’t; you shouldn’t have to beg for it.
But Cassie, with her sharp wits and cool self-possession, knew how to walk away and let folks hang themselves with their own rope—rather than be left hanging herself. That may have served her well in legal circles and when bartering a car lease (she was excellent at that; Jeremy would just stand back and let her do her thing), but it wasn’t always the most effective way to attack a relationship issue. It was a trait that had slowly made its presence known over their marriage, most acutely, of course, when she cut bait on Jeremy. This time, however, sad as he felt about it all, he would not be the one left hanging.
Although sleep was a nightly crucible (Annabelle suggested he buy a recliner to sleep in; he was stubbornly resisting) and pain was pretty much a constant, Jeremy had started to feel more optimistic and motivated than he had in a long while.
The marathon backyard chat with Annabelle had been invigorating and transporting. It was healing to get an all-new perspective on another person’s life and, in turn, his own, from someone as engaging and compassionate as his new therapist. Jeremy could be himself with her. Maybe it was because she’d gotten him at his most defenseless and reflective. Or maybe it was because Annabelle just seemed so genuine that she brought out his most authentic side.
It didn’t hurt that he was attracted to her. There, he said it. Whew. It felt good to acknowledge it, to embrace it and not be defensive about whatever he was feeling for her (okay, Matty had nailed that; credit where credit was due). And, even though Jeremy told Cassie he didn’t need her permission to do whatever he wanted, that she gave it to him in such carte blanche fashion freed him up somehow. Whether she knew it or not, she’d unlocked the door and handed him the key.
Was there something there with Annabelle? Was he actually interested in her that way? Or was he just happy to have another kind and generous person around to help him navigate this strange and difficult time? Who was he kidding? He was way into her, thinking about her more than he was comfortable with, yet comforted by those thoughts just the same.
It might also help if Annabelle was feeling something for him. But Jeremy, pulling his pie out of the sky, wasn’t counting on it. For now, anyway.
All that said, he had to figure out how in the world he could stay in the house. That one threw him for a giant loop, one that fell under the heading of: What the fuck had he been thinking? The house was his and Cassie’s most valuable asset; she plainly expected them to sell and split the profits. Unless she had another financial plan up her lawyerly sleeve, which was altogether possible. Jeremy could offer to buy her out and stay there, though buy her out with what? Their money? It was all in one big pot, so how would that work? Yes, hiring a lawyer seemed inescapable.
Jeremy decided to put it all out of his mind for now and focus on today. This included the grand revival—thanks to a jump start of creative ambition, the urging of others, and the indisputable need to start making bigger money—of his screenwriting non-career.
The night before, unable to sleep, Jeremy had turned on TCM just as one of those famed paranoid conspiracy thrillers from the 1970s, Three Days of the Condor, was starting. He’
d only seen it in pieces over the years, never in one sitting, and the film, which starred a sturdy Robert Redford in his movie-star prime, sucked Jeremy in from the minute Redford, as a CIA researcher, returned to his Manhattan office from a lunch run only to find all his coworkers mysteriously slaughtered. It was tense and twisty, a little sexy and a little silly, and it reminded Jeremy a bit of his own screenplay thriller—which had been variously titled Star Witness, Human Error, and He Acted Alone—only better. But honestly, not that much better (or maybe time hadn’t been kind to the film, which, in retrospect, played fast and loose with much of the plot).
Condor reminded Jeremy of why he started writing his tri-titled movie to begin with, and why he stuck to it for as long as he did—as well as what was wrong with his script that maybe he was finally capable of fixing. He got out his six-years-in-the-making screenplay, read it for the first time in a while and had an epiphany: It was better than he thought. Yeah, it needed work—streamlining of the second act, more vivid supporting characters, a few more ingenious set pieces, sharpened dialogue—but after all this time, he might really have something. Jeremy had let insecurity and ennui get in the way of its success, but not anymore.
He retitled the Final Draft file Offensive Measures and got ready to rewrite it for hopefully the last time. He made a vow: on or before the day he removed the mega-sling for good, he would have a polished script ready, willing, and able to show. The thought was so exciting, it gave him a boner. Even his dick agreed he was on the right track.
As promised, Annabelle showed Jeremy how to better navigate kitchen chores in the brace (cooking was doable but had its limits, mostly due to the hurdles of cutting and chopping—and flames), use his left hand to maximum effect and his tethered right to more minimal effect, clean up as needed, and even wrangle the trash, all while protecting his healing arm and shoulder.
“Believe me, the more independent you can be, the better you’ll feel,” said Annabelle as she surveyed the Luna Pearl (sales speak for speckled gray) granite counters and stainless steel appliances for any danger zones she may have missed.
The Last Birthday Party Page 11