by Toby Devens
Irwin was snapping his right thumb and third finger noiselessly. It was obvious I made him nervous and he was jonesing for a cigarette. I lobbed my final shot. “For your information, it’s against the rules to smoke in the Blumen House units. They find out, they’ll evict her.”
“I smoke on the balcony,” he said. But he stood his ground.
My mother held a jar of my soup in each hand. “You wait one minute, Judith. I have stuff for you too.”
“Next time.”
“No room in freezer. You take now. Don’t insult. One more minute only. I have japchae in kitchen for you.” I couldn’t resist her sweet potato noodles with veggies.
“I’ll wait outside in the hall,” I said, which was juvenile of me, but the brat I never had a chance to be as a child exploded every once in a while from my adult self.
“See ya, Judy,” Irwin said as I closed the door behind me.
“You don’t give kiss?” my mother asked at the elevator a few minutes later as she handed over a shopping bag.
I never left my mother without pecking her on the cheek. But I couldn’t. I stood there, a block of ice, thinking I’d probably be visited by a plague of locusts and boils for this fifth-commandment transgression. But I just couldn’t.
“I know you so angry. But he be gone soon. Sad man. Pity. Wife dead. He need family now.”
I snapped, “I’m not his family and neither are you. He made sure of that long ago.”
No one could sigh like my mother. She pulled it up from her feet and as it passed her heart it picked up a quaver. At her voice box it added a thread of soprano sorrow.
“Okay. I call you later. Or I send you e-mail address and you write after you calm down.”
I was nearly hyperventilating when I reached the parking lot. As I clicked my remote, a huge cheer surged from the Blumen House activity room. I checked my watch. It was the last race of the afternoon and someone had just won the trifecta, the big jackpot. My mother had pulled that off twice the year before and had taken home expensive prizes: a juicer and a certificate for a massage at a local spa. A gambling woman, she bet long shots. Not me.
I popped the Toyota’s trunk and, maneuvering the jars of japchae to stand upright in the shopping bag, caught a flash of silver paper at the bottom. My sly mother had tucked Irwin’s gift in the bag. Or maybe he had. I removed the box and shoved it to the back of the trunk, next to the emergency kit and an old blanket. Out of sight, out of mind.
Chapter 15
Maybe if Marti had been around to hammer some sense into me, I would have kept my family drama contained. But she was somewhere in the Caribbean doing research for a Herald article about food service on cruise ships departing from Baltimore Harbor. And she swore she was going incommunicado on her assignment cum windfall vacation.
On my own, I phoned my aunt Phyllis. After her unsolicited report on the current state of her bladder, I brought up my most recent surprise.
“It was entirely Irwin’s idea to see your mother,” she explained. “I didn’t recommend it, but now that he’s there, maybe it isn’t altogether off the wall. I know you’re in shock, Judith. So take a deep breath and don’t make any rash decisions.”
“I’ve had forty-three years to come up with my decision, Aunt Phyllis.”
“Very clever. Look, I’m not saying my brother is a perfect person, but who is? Not you, Judith. Though you’ve done well for yourself in your career, you’re not an expert in the romance department to say the least. Which says to me you’re not well equipped to give relationship advice to Grace, especially considering your last move.”
My mother, with her big mouth, had told her about my split with Geoff.
“Frankly, your track record stinks.” Unlike that of my cousin Staci, divorced from a two-timing orthodontist, now married to a proctologist who was a walking, talking advertisement for his medical specialty. Seth Cohen-Shenker, MD, was a certified asshole.
“Also, where your father is concerned, you don’t know the whole story. Believe me. And I’m in no position to tell you. But take it on my say-so—he’s not the terrible, awful man you think he is.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning ask your mother. My lips are sealed.”
I would, but before Aunt Phyllis hung up, we had one more of Irwin’s lies to confirm.
“He gave her a necklace. With a diamond. He told my mother it was from Grandma Roz, but I’m sure it was the chippie’s.”
“You’re sure? See how you jump to conclusions. It is from your grandmother. She left me her engagement ring and my brother got the diamond drop. I was executor of the will and I held off handing it over to him until the chippie . . . until Lorna died, because I was afraid he’d give it to her.”
Okay, he’d told the truth about that. But there was a Korean proverb: “Even into a mouse hole, light shines.” I didn’t quote it, but I was certain it applied.
“Grandma Roz had diamonds?” Not much money in that household, and I strained to recall if I’d ever seen her wear anything around her neck other than her reading glasses on a lariat. Her knuckles, swollen with arthritis, had been bare. Of that much I was sure.
“Only two pieces and they were in and out of hock during the Depression. When she got them back for good, she kept them in a bank vault. Well, well, so Irwin gave the jewelry to Grace. This is what I mean about a basically good human being.” I heard the muffled click of call waiting, but my aunt ignored it. This was serious business. She wouldn’t be interrupted.
“If you’re smart—and no one can deny you’re book smart—but if you have seykhl, common sense, you’ll let your mother make her own decision as to how to deal with my brother. What you decide for yourself is your business, but I hope you make your judgment based on facts, not speculation. I can’t say more than that.”
Again with the sealed lips? It must have been one hell of a secret she was hiding. On the other hand, I could make a case for her inflating some minor Hebraic drama into Greek tragedy. “And my last word is, you ought to rethink getting rid of the Australian. His quality doesn’t come along every day and you’re not getting any younger, Judith, if you know what I mean.”
I knew what she meant.
“Which reminds me, we got your party invitation and we’re a yes, your uncle Arnold and I. I’m not sure about Staci and Seth. They may be in Israel that week.”
I’d included my aunt and uncle on the guest list. But Staci and Seth? Was this Marti’s idea of a joke?
“And one very last word, my dear niece—whom I love in spite of her hardheadedness, and I wonder where you get that from. Irwin Raphael is your father. Whatever else he may be, he’s your father. And when he dies, and he’s not so young, you don’t want to be left with regrets.”
“The regrets will be all on his side,” I said. “I promise you.”
• • •
I’d told my mother to phone me when Irwin was gone. No word on Saturday. And tightening the screws, digging in my heels, I didn’t call her. In the last five years, we’d rarely missed a day talking either in person or by phone, but it was fine. She was fine. She had him.
I had no one—not to think through the new situation with anyway. Charlie’s message on my answering machine Friday night was thirty seconds of firming up plans for meeting in D.C. Besides, even if he had the time or the interest, there was no way I was going to discuss my family problems with Charlie Pruitt. I’d learned my lesson the first time around.
Geoff, who really was skillful at analyzing relationships as long as they weren’t his own, did a good job of keeping his distance. In the musicians’ lounge pre-performance, he stood off to one side sipping coffee and conversing with Deena Marquis, our on-call harpist, whom I’d always suspected of having the hots for him. Now she had a clear path, which she’d scurried up as fast as her long legs could carry her.
W
ell, good for her. And him. This was a couple made in magazine-cover heaven—he tall, buff, and handsome; she model slim and glossily attractive, if you liked the perfectly made-up, surgically refined, breast-enhanced type. Geoff must have. He seemed captivated by whatever she was telling him, though I did catch the flick of his gaze toward my general vicinity.
As I drained the last of my Diet Dr. Pepper, he pretended to be seeing me for the first time and waved. Deena swept me with a blank, uncomprehending stare as if I were a stranger, which at this juncture I pretty much was. When the five-minute warning buzzed, I left them still chattering away.
The performance that evening was less than brilliant. Brass held up, but strings seemed listless to me, and my stand partner gave me a roll of her eyes at the lackluster violins in the first half. Only the harp was in top form. Deena’s glissandos were positively ecstatic.
On my way out, Geoff caught up with me. “Shit performance, wasn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Just a reminder,” he said. “I’ll be at your place Monday morning. You’ve forgotten, haven’t you? We need to get cracking. Your audition will be here before we know it. Schedule two hours this time. We’ll go over the selections and then, well, we’ll see.”
So Marti had been wrong. Me too. I knew him better than she did and I hadn’t figured he’d hang in after I’d strung him up. Amazing. He was going to make good on his coaching offer. Which was beyond even Geoff’s everyday Aussie generosity. Or maybe, just maybe, he’d decided that keeping a hand in and an eye on me was his best chance of a) getting the inside scoop on my revised love life or b) being around to pick up the pieces when it collapsed.
I scanned his expression. Open, genuine, pure Geoff. No trace of a self-serving motive. More likely, I was the cynic here. Suddenly my life seemed infinitely, depressingly complicated.
I tried to uncomplicate it. Match him noble gesture for noble gesture. “I’m really very grateful, Geoff. But under the circumstances, I’d understand if—”
“Ten. Promptly. All I ask is coffee on the boil and a melody in your heart. Ah, the infamous Raphael lip curl. Very well, just the coffee will do. Joining the gang for dinner? No? See you Monday, then. Cheers.”
And he was off. To where and with whom, I didn’t know or care. All that much.
• • •
My mother sent me an e-mail on Sunday night. A first. It had been posted by [email protected] at seven p.m. I didn’t get on my computer until nine.
Why yu not call. Mean chile. No matter what I luv yu. Who yu think I luv more. Father. No. Yu always. But yu need grow up. Judith. Yu be like kid. So stupid. Grow up. Call.
I luv yu.
Momi
I called her home phone and got my own voice, the incoming message I’d recorded on her answering machine. She must have been out with Irwin. I phoned her cell. She didn’t pick up. Maybe she was in the apartment but otherwise occupied. Aigoo!
I left a message. “Call me, please.” I didn’t include the “after he’s gone” this time. Aunt Phyllis’s hint about some deep, dark family secret had been nibbling at me, so I added, “You’re right, time for a chat.” Then, quickly, “Love you too.” Because I really wasn’t a mean chile.
Chapter 16
After my divorce from Todd, I’d landed a job with the Maryland Philharmonic and relocated to Baltimore, where I bought a 1920s colonial in a leafy Mt. Washington neighborhood. The house was probably too big for me, with four bedrooms and a dining room big enough to swing a cougar in, but back then, having fled an increasingly cramped marriage—when God moved in with all the prayers and the koshering and the other baggage, it got really tight—I craved space.
Friends used phrases like “rattle around” when they visited, but I loved the place. The kitchen was flooded with sunlight in the morning, and I’d made a high-ceilinged hexagonal area on the ground floor into my music room. It had incredible acoustics.
So there was no excuse Monday morning for the sounds I produced as I mangled two solos required for my audition. After an hour of this torture, punctuated by Geoff’s increasingly impatient commentary, he tossed down the sheet music in disgust.
“What the hell’s going on with the Bach, Judith? You were rushing that last passage. And the intonation was sharp. I know it’s technically a killer, but you’ve done it well before. Worst of all, the feeling’s missing. You’re playing cello, but you’re not playing music.”
I leaned my cheek against the fingerboard, the cello’s neck. Beautiful instrument. Smooth, cool body. Sensuous curves. Warm response. Great love of my life, it never caused me the heartache my men did. All I had to do was give it my best and it gave me its best.
I exhaled a groan. “It was that bad, huh?”
“Try to slide through on that crap and I guarantee you’ll crash and burn in front of the committee. You’ve got serious competition for this post. We’re talking heavy hitters here. So you can’t cut even a single corner.”
He was right. An opening for principal in a major city brings out the top candidates from around the world. The good news was I had an initial advantage. As associate principal with the home orchestra, I automatically leapfrogged the preliminary trials. The bad was that from then on everyone was on an equal footing because the semis, as well as the prelims, were performed behind a screen, the musicians identified only by numbers.
Numbers that fell like pins. The first round cut maybe sixty contestants to around twenty; the next produced a final three, who played in full view of the audition committee. If I didn’t step up my game, I wouldn’t make it past the second round—a colossal embarrassment when you played for the home team.
“My best guess is you’re not concentrating.” Geoff slumped back in the chair. “Is it me? Am I throwing you off? If so, get over it. Or get someone else to work with you.”
“It’s not you.” The truth was, it probably was partly him, though I wasn’t going to risk losing his sharp critical judgment by confessing that, now that we’d split, his closeness—a few feet away observing intently—made me edgy.
“Not me is good. Is it your dad, then?”
I felt like I’d been sucker punched. It took me a moment to regain my breath. “My . . .” My tongue locked on the d-word.
“Irwin. His sudden surfacing knock you for a loop?”
If I’d gripped the bow any tighter it would have fused to my fingers. “How did you know? Wait. My mother told you, right?”
Geoff played with a loose thread on the arm of the club chair. “Actually, I kind of ran into him yesterday.”
“You ran into Irwin. Kind of.”
“At your mum’s.” He looked up then, brow furrowed. “It was all very accidental, Jude. I’d bought a box of Passover truffles as a gift for your aunt Phyllis. With the Seder canceled— Well, I know how much your mother loves chocolate, so I thought to drop it off at Blumen House. I figured Mum would be playing cards in the activity room. But she was in the apartment. And so was dear old Dad. A real character, Irwin. Fancies himself the charmer.”
“Yeah, your average sociopathic charmer.” A gong of pain rang behind my temples. “Really, Geoff, when were you planning on telling me this?”
He checked his watch. “About now, actually. I didn’t want to rattle you before you began playing. I thought we’d break halfway through and over coffee we’d talk. So let’s. Come on.” He rose and extended his hand. “Coffee break. You’re no good anyway until we have this out.”
For the next fifteen minutes we sipped coffee and talked. Actually, I mostly listened while Geoff provided insights I probably could have dug up on my own had I been able to summon the courage to crawl solo into dim places.
“I don’t know if your father-in-name-only”—his mouth went wry—“has changed. Maybe, maybe not. Some people never do. But from everything you’ve told me about your childhood, your mother
has. She’s a different person now, right?”
“Very.”
My childhood coincided with Grace’s early years in America. She’d been much more introverted back then, made shy by the bewilderingly foreign environment and her lack of English. Turned cautious by the shock of Irwin’s leaving. Depressed by poverty, responsibility, loneliness.
I knew even back then that she’d once had a zest for life. I saw it in the few photos she’d brought with her from Seoul. One, especially, captivated me preadolescence when I was fumbling for my own identity. Grace leaning against Private Irwin Raphael in the Lucky Time Bar. He wearing his uniform and an uncommonly tentative grin. She, tarted up in a slinky dress slit to the thigh, hoisting a shot glass filled with what the GIs thought was whiskey but really was tea. Her smile seemed pure, unforced. The camera exaggerated her wink.
She’d never been a prostitute, she’d sworn, and I believed her. “Never ch’ang-yo.” But she’d come close. “Lot of fun even with war on. I pretty girl. Many GI want marry me. I pick your daddy. Not so good choice.”
I took a pensive bite of bagel. “Back in Brooklyn, she was always working to keep us afloat. When she wasn’t working, she was tired. But once I was grown and on my own, she blossomed.”
“You need to respect that, Jude. Stop treating her the way you did as a child. As if she’s a child. Or some doomed creature tumbling off a fourth-floor fire escape.”
I’d told him about my terror of the Triangle fire. I’d told him so many things, trusting he’d never betray me or my nightmares. And so far he hadn’t.
“She’s upset that you’re angry with her. ‘Judith throw tantrum because of father. Won’t call me.’” He had Grace’s shorthand English down pat. “Come on. That’s a three-year-old’s response.”
I nodded. “I admit it. But I left a message, and when she didn’t get back to me I called again first thing this morning. I had maybe two minutes with my mother before he was bellowing for her in the background.”