The Bookseller's Sonnets

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The Bookseller's Sonnets Page 16

by Andi Rosenthal


  “Oh, my God, is she okay? Is she in the hospital?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Robert’s look of concern and the top of Aviva’s head as she peered over the cubicle wall.

  “She’s fine, and she’s home now,” Mitzi said. “She got checked over last night. They didn’t need to admit her or anything. We got home at about two this morning. I was with her the whole time.”

  “That was good of you to look after her,” I said. “I wish I had known. I would have come right to the hospital. She should have called me.”

  “I knew she wouldn’t call you,” Mitzi said, and I was grateful that there wasn’t any accusation or blame in her voice. “She wouldn’t want you to worry about her. And actually, the doctor said it’s just a stress fracture, thank God. You know, at our age, a fall can be a disaster.”

  “I know. What happened exactly?”

  “Well,” she said, “we were coming back from the chamber music series at Lincoln Center last night. She got out of the cab first, and I guess she slipped on some ice. You know with this crazy weather we’re having, raining one minute and freezing the next. In the dark you can’t even tell which is the ice and which is the concrete. She lost her balance and, well, down she went.”

  “Oh, God,” I said, running a hand through my hair.

  “But the cab driver was very nice. He got out and helped her right back in and took us to the emergency room at Columbia. And he didn’t even charge us.” Mitzi said, sounding pleased.

  “So she had X-rays and everything?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course. I knew that as soon as she went right over on that ankle, that she had fractured it. But thankfully, it was just a little fracture, nothing too serious. But the doctor said she should stay off her feet for a week or two, because with our old bones it’s easier to make it worse if you keep walking around on it. They put her in an air-cast, you know, the kind you can take off at night. And she has a cane, but she doesn’t want to use it, of course.”

  “Did he give her anything for pain?”

  “Oh, sure. The pharmacy brought it over first thing this morning. Thank God they still deliver.”

  “Good,” I said. “I don’t want her to be in pain.”

  “She’s going to be fine. You know her. And listen,” Mitzi’s voice was philosophical, “she was lucky it wasn’t a hip.”

  “I guess,” I said absently, as I watched Robert and Aviva exchange glances.

  “I thought you would want to know,” Mitzi said. “You know how independent she is. I knew she wouldn’t call you. But I did remember that she said you worked at the museum, so I looked up the phone number. I think maybe,” and Mitzi sounded hesitant, “you might want to pay her a visit. A fall is a shock to the system, and I know it would make her feel better if she could see you.”

  “Oh, of course. Of course I will,” I said hastily.

  “Especially since your mother is out of the country,” she reminded me.

  “That’s right,” I said. “They’re on a cruise.”

  “Well,” she sighed, “my son and daughter-in-law are right up in Scarsdale. But from the amount of visiting they do, they may as well be on a boat in the middle of the ocean.”

  “I’ll come up tonight, Mitzi, right after work.”

  “Good. When you come, just knock on my door first. I have a key. And I don’t want her to have to get up to answer the door.”

  “What does she need? What should I bring?”

  “Oh, nothing, nothing. You know, there’s a whole bunch of us in the building, we order from FreshDirect. Both me and Sadie Goldenstein in 5B have computers. We all get together, at her place or mine, to do an online order once a week, and then we split the delivery charge and the tip when it comes.”

  I couldn’t help laughing a little, since Michael and I also ordered our groceries from FreshDirect, and we considered ourselves at the forefront of technology.

  “I’ll come after work, around six.”

  “All right, darling. Just ring my bell and I’ll let you in.”

  “I will. And thank you for letting me know, Mitzi.”

  I hung up the phone.

  “What happened?” Aviva asked immediately.

  “My grandmother fell and fractured her ankle,” I said simply. “She’s all right, but I’m going up to see her later.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Robert said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But maybe we’d better finish this up tomorrow,” I indicated the plans on my desk. “I have to get up there. And before I go, I have a couple of calls to make.”

  “Not a problem,” he said. “Let me get these out of your way.” He folded up the papers and tucked them into a folder, and gave me a quick wave and a smile as he left the office.

  Aviva came around to my side of the wall. “Are you calling your parents?”

  “They’re somewhere in the Aegean right now. But maybe I can send them an e-mail,” I said absently. “It would be easier than trying to track them down on the ship, and probably having to leave a message with a ship-to-shore operator. And I’m pretty sure that their cell phone won’t work overseas.” I paused. “Maybe I should wait until after I see her. I don’t want to alarm them.”

  “But you’re calling Michael, right”

  I nodded.

  “What do you think he’ll say?”

  “He’ll want to go with me. But I don’t know if that’s a good idea, especially if she’s hurt.” I sighed. “I just don’t know.”

  “Oh, dear God,” I heard the immediate concern in Michael’s voice. “What happened?”

  “She fell,” I said. “Fractured her ankle.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “Her neighbor Mitzi says she is.” I rubbed my eyes. “But she also asked me to come up to see her tonight after work.”

  “Of course,” I could hear the click of his computer mouse in the background. “Let me see. I’ve got a six o’clock conference call – the L.A. office again, but I can move that…oh, no, I can’t. But I can get Daphne to cover for me.” I heard more clicks. “Oh, crap. Except that she’s out of the office.”

  I found myself feeling almost moved to tears by his concern. I swallowed a lump in my throat, and thought, for just a moment, that I really wanted him to find a way to go with me. And then my concern was replaced with a sudden sense of panic. There was no way he could go with me. It wasn’t fair, I thought, for him to use this as a way to finally meet her face to face.

  “Look, it’s OK,” I heard myself say. “I can go on my own. Really, I know that you’d go with me if you could.”

  I held my breath, waiting for his response. And the more I thought about the possibility of them finally meeting, the more scared I became.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  I hated, hated myself for feeling relieved that there might be a way out of this. Heaven knew that my grandmother would probably be feeling pretty ornery about having to be off her feet, and I didn’t want to give her anything else to be upset about.

  “Because it doesn’t look good here,” he continued. “It’s a crazy day. I’m so sorry. I don’t think I can get away.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll be fine on my own,” I said. “But I’ll let you know how she is, okay?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I’m just so sorry I can’t go with you.” His voice sounded disappointed.

  “I know. But listen, it’s only a stress fracture. She’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

  “Just call me if you need anything.”

  “I will,” I said. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too,” he said, and I hung up the phone.

  After a discreet moment or two of silence, I heard Aviva’s voice from behind the wall. “Are you leaving?”

  “I probably should,” I sighed. “It’s already five-thirty.”

  I opened the drawer of my desk and took out my purse. Then I gathered up my coat and scarf from the rack on the back of the office do
or. I carried everything with me to the elevator and pressed the button for the second floor, because I wanted to stop at the café to pick up some treats to bring with me.

  Mentally calculating my walk to the subway, I also figured I should stop at a bodega and pick up some roses for her. And, I thought, I should also pick up some for Mitzi, since she was nice enough to call.

  I put on my coat and waited for the elevator to arrive. I was worried about my grandmother, worried that Mitzi had kept something from me, and worried that Michael had thought everything was all right, that had he not had the convenient excuse of his meeting, tonight would have been the night when he would have insisted on meeting her. As moved as I was by his concern for her – a woman he had never met - I knew in my heart that I hadn’t wanted him to go, not really, and that my grandmother, already vulnerable, would not necessarily have appreciated his presence, or have even seen the genuine kindness and concern for her in his intentions.

  Except, I thought, she would have appreciated his presence if Michael were Jewish. The elevator doors opened and I stepped inside, and felt the slow heavy push of the car’s downward weight as it lowered me closer to the ground.

  15

  Mitzi knocked lightly on my grandmother’s door just before she turned the key in the lock. I stood behind her. “It’s me, Anna,” she said, as she opened up the door. “And look who I brought with me.”

  I watched as my grandmother turned her head toward the door, and saw her face light up with pleasure as I walked in.

  “Omi,” I said, putting my bag down on the floor in her hallway, “what happened to you?”

  She was reclining on the couch, wearing a dark blue velour outfit that appeared more comfortable than the clothes I usually saw her wear; yet her hair looked perfectly styled. The television at the far end of the room, which was rarely on when I came to visit, was tuned to the nightly news.

  From a distance, she did not look like a woman who had been in the emergency room until 2AM. But as I anxiously searched her face for any sign of discomfort, I saw that she looked pleased to see me, but that her eyes looked tired. Her left foot was bound in a plastic cast, and she sat with it propped up on pillows.

  She laid her paperback on the coffee table as I approached with the bouquet of pink roses nestled in the crook of my arm.

  “My darling, what a wonderful surprise!” she said, extending her arms in a wide embrace. I stooped to gently kiss her cheek, inhaling her familiar scent of hairspray and L’Heure Bleue. I smiled as I handed her the bouquet.

  “These are for you,” I said.

  “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” she said, as she took them in her arms. “They’re beautiful. And I have the perfect vase for them on the kitchen shelf. You’ll go put them in water, right? Because,” and she raised an eyebrow as she handed the bouquet back to me, “I have to have words with my friend Mitzi here, who had no business bothering my granddaughter with this.” There was a twinkle in her eyes as she spoke that softened the harshness of her words.

  Mitzi shook her head and raised her hand as if to stop her from talking. “Just doing what I can to make you feel better.”

  “And I’m glad you did,” she said, as she reached out to touch Mitzi’s hand. “It was good of you to call her.”

  I smiled at the two women, thinking that it was a wonderful thing that they had one another to rely on. They were both widows, and both on their own, and I loved how they had filled their lives and activities with each other’s company, and the company of other neighbors in their building and their community. And I was also certain that it was no accident that Mitzi knew I worked at the museum. I figured they shared information with one another about their children and grandchildren’s lives specifically because they knew what was inevitable at their age.

  It occurred to me that it must be a terrible, and yet courageous job to choose the person who you’d want to tell your family if something suddenly went wrong in your life. I tried to imagine whom I’d want to tell my family if something happened to me, and realized that I hadn’t been lying to my mother when I said it was Michael.

  I tried to put the thought out of my mind as I touched my grandmother’s shoulder. “Are you all right, Omi? I wish you had called to let me know this happened.”

  “Oh, this,” she said, waving a hand towards the air cast. “Just a little fracture, nothing too bad. I’m still planning to go to my book group on Friday, as long as there’s no ice on the ground.”

  “Mitzi said that the doctor told you to stay off it,” I said, a little sternly.

  “Listen, I’ll see how I feel,” she said dismissively. “I can’t stay in the house all day every day.”

  “Just be careful,” I warned her. “I don’t want to have to call Mom.”

  “Listen,” she said, “at least she can’t blame this on butter and sugar the way she blamed them for my gall bladder attacks.”

  I laughed in spite of myself. “Speaking of butter and sugar, I brought you some cookies from the museum café.”

  She turned to Mitzi. “What do you say? Should we have some?”

  Mitzi nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

  “I’ll be right back, then,” I told them. As I retrieved the bags from the front hallway, Mitzi sat down in the chair across from my grandmother. I walked into the kitchen with the bags and the flowers. I could hear their lively voices trading information, gossip, criticism of the chamber music group they had seen the night before and the incredible youth of the doctor whom they had met in the emergency room.

  I found the vase on the shelf in the kitchen, filled it with water, cut the stems, and arranged the roses. I unpacked the bags I had brought with me; placed two containers of soup, a platter of Asian chicken salad, and some knishes in the refrigerator. Then I cut the string on the box of café cookies and laid out some plastic forks and spoons on the counter, along with some napkins and paper plates, so that she wouldn’t have to worry about washing dishes for a couple of days.

  I took some cookies out of the box, arranged them on a blue china plate I found in the dish rack. With the vase in one hand and the plate and some napkins in the other, I walked back out into the living room.

  “Just set those beautiful flowers down right there,” my grandmother said, pointing to the center of the coffee table. “I want to be able to enjoy them.” She smiled up at me from the couch. “Thank you again, my darling.”

  “You know, your good girl brought roses for me, too.” Mitzi said. “You’re blessed with your family, Anna.”

  My grandmother patted me proudly on the arm as I passed by her to set the vase and the plate of cookies on the table.

  “These cookies aren’t as good as yours, Omi,” I said, “but they’re pretty good. Now,” I stood and straightened my back, “do either of you need anything? Some tea? Juice? Ice water?”

  Mitzi laughed. “Such a little hostess, just like your grandmother.”

  “I’m fine,” my grandmother said. “How about you, Mitzi?”

  “Nothing for me,” she said. “Come sit down.”

  I took a cookie from the plate and a napkin and sat down in the chair across from Mitzi. “There are lots of goodies in the fridge, Omi, so you don’t have to worry about cooking for a couple of days. I brought you some things from the café. And it’s all kosher,” I said, as I bit into the cookie.

  “You didn’t need to do that,” my grandmother protested. “I have plenty of food in the house.”

  “I wanted to,” I told her. “You’re always feeding me.”

  “Well, I’m a Jewish grandmother,” she said wryly. “That’s my job.”

  We all laughed. “Anyway,” I said, “there’s broccoli and mushroom knishes, and a really delicious chicken salad with Asian noodles, and some chicken soup with asparagus and wild rice.”

  “Sounds delicious,” my grandmother said.

  “In my day,” Mitzi said, “no one thought of that as Jewish food. It was brisket, potatoes, and anything made with a
ton of eggs and oil. Thank God for Lipitor.” She reached out to take a cookie from the plate and then settled back in her chair. “So,” she said, nodding at me, “your grandmother tells me that you don’t have a boyfriend.”

  I shot a look at my grandmother, who shrugged her shoulders with nonchalant grace. “Oh, does she?” I replied.

  “We tried to get the phone number of that young doctor - Dr. Nathanson - in the emergency room. Anna here told him that she has a very pretty, single granddaughter. But it turned out that he was already married.”

  “He was very nice,” my grandmother said, shaking her head sadly.

  “So I was thinking,” Mitzi continued, “maybe you’d like to meet my sister’s grandson. He’s such a nice boy. Just about your age. His name is Sam; well, his name was Sam, but now he calls himself by his Hebrew name, Shmuel. Lives in Brooklyn. He’s one of those – what do you call it – those young people who have become religious again.”

  “Ba’al teshuvah,” I supplied easily.

  “That’s right,” Mitzi said. “He’s a very nice boy, and very smart, just like you, for all that I don’t understand why he’s living the way he does. Grew up in New Jersey, hated going to Hebrew school like every other kid on the block. At one point my sister didn’t even think he was going to become bar mitzvah. At thirteen he had some notions about Marxism and how organized religion was the opium of the masses.” She sighed. “But Sam – Shmuel, I mean – always has notions of one kind or another.”

  Choking back a laugh, I imagined the first date - a bearded, badly dressed guy going on and on about Kabbalah and Talmud, or worse, disapproving of my failure to keep the laws of kashrut, not to mention the laws regarding female modesty.

  My grandmother nodded her encouragement. “What do you say, Jill? Do you want to meet him?”

  I stared at her in disbelief. Was this really the kind of guy my grandmother wanted to set me up with? I could understand her wanting me to marry someone Jewish, I thought, but the idea of being set up with a person who sounded so patently wrong for me made me resent, even more than usual, the religious blinders that apparently shielded my grandmother from seeing me for who I was.

 

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