Happy Any Day Now

by Toby Devens

  That line uttered by any other man would have sounded like sexual innuendo. To my raised eyebrow he said, “Come on, Ju-ju, you know me better than that.”

  Funny, for the last twenty-five years I’d been thinking I hadn’t known him at all.

  Charlie’s hotel room at the Mandarin was actually a suite. While I took in the breathtaking view of the Tidal Basin, he went to the safe and extracted a large manila envelope. He’d brought it from his Manhattan apartment, he told me as he sat next to me on the sofa, and could trace its provenance over decades. It had been with him in his rooms at Oxford, where he’d gone as a Rhodes Scholar after ditching me, then shelved in a brownstone at his bachelor digs in Brooklyn Heights, and even tucked away in the Pound Ridge megamansion he’d shared with the shrink wife and the daughter.

  “Memories. All I had of you, of us.” He swallowed hard, then gave it over. “You open it,” he said, watching my fingertips. “But take care handling the contents. Some of this stuff is fragile.”

  As I sorted through, I felt my throat tighten. The cache contained photos, notes, and letters we’d exchanged, programs from concerts I’d played as a student, a matchbook from the Union Oyster House, a scorecard from a Red Sox game. Incredible. Who knew Charlie Pruitt was a romantic pack rat, a nostalgic squirrel?

  I’d kept no souvenirs of our time together. Correction: I did for a while and tortured myself sifting through them when the compulsion overcame me, typically when I was premenstrual. But just back from my honeymoon with Todd, I’d schlepped a plastic bag to the front of our apartment complex and finally and literally kicked what was left of Charlie Pruitt to the curb. After which I got drunk on cheap chardonnay and slept on the living room sofa for the night so my new husband couldn’t touch me.

  Charlie plucked a photo from the heap. “This one’s my favorite. See if you know why.”

  “Good God.” I held it at arm’s length and squinted. “The Cambridge house. Wendell Street. Is that me? I don’t even remember you taking this.”

  “Here, use my reading glasses,” Charlie said. Ah, the gallantry of middle age. I still squinted. The hotel room was lit with a gentle, flattering light, but there was a desk with a reading lamp. I carried the photo into its brightness.

  Now it was clear, and what struck me was how happy I looked. What was the phrase Marti used? Happy as if this was the day the world was created. In many ways, for me it had been. Two hours after the picture was taken, I lost the virginity I’d held on to way past its pull date.

  “Now that was a party,” Charlie said. “In every way.” He’d come up behind and was peering over my shoulder. “Look at all those ashtrays. Everybody smoked in those days except you. You used to lecture me on the perils of tobacco. A woman ahead of her time.” In the background, the huge back porch was a shambles of smeared dishes, dropped napkins, overloaded ashtrays.

  “And there’s Alan behind you, the last one to leave, remember? He wanted to talk Middle East politics all night and I wanted to get you into my arms.”

  As president of the Harvard Law School Forum, Charlie had been in charge of handling its programs. That night’s speaker, Alan Dershowitz, had been Charlie’s criminal law professor the year before, and despite their polar opposite political views, they’d liked and respected each other. Charlie had decided to host a postevent reception for Dershowitz at the house.

  We’d brought in a maid service and the place shone. There was turkey and Caesar salad from a caterer, and I’d filled in with my own recipes. Dershowitz complimented me on Aunt Phyllis’s chopped liver. As the evening wound down, he and Charlie drank scotch together in a corner. Heady stuff for two kids, even overachievers like us. After we’d cleaned up, riding the high of our success, we fell onto the bed covered with fresh sheets for a change and made love for the first time. Not Charlie’s first—there’d been a summer girl in Maine—but mine and ours.

  “You remember the song that played as we washed dishes together? And I tossed the towel and swept you off your feet. ‘Endless Love.’ Diana Ross.” Charlie stroked my hair.

  “And Lionel Richie. His voice was so hot.”

  “We were so hot. What got to me was that up till then you’d been such a good little girl. Five dates and you only wanted to argue about Iran-Contra and busing, but no sex, not even serious fooling around. And then it was as if someone had struck a match to you.”

  “You did. I thought I was in love with you,” I said.

  “I thought you were in love with me. You weren’t?” he murmured close to my neck.

  “Before we made love I thought I was. Right after I wasn’t so sure. You have to admit, that first time was a disaster. But then you brought me tea, remember, and the steamy towel because I could hardly walk. And that’s when I knew. Really knew.”

  He was nuzzling me now. “I almost set fire to the microwave heating up that towel. But I would have done anything, I was so crazy about you. More in love than I’d ever been before or—” There was a God-forgive-me pause. “Since.”

  I have a pretty good ear and that note sounded like a clinker to me. Then again, it was possible he really believed it. And I wasn’t angry. So much time had passed. Still, for the record, I had to say, “Before and since, but not enough.”

  That’s when Charlie did what Charlie always used to do to shut me up. He turned me around into his arms and kissed me quiet. Nice. Oh yes, wonderful. “My sweet Judith,” he whispered as we came up for air and the whiff of oxygen cleared my head. Suddenly I knew I wasn’t going to be shut up by one of Charlie’s kisses, no matter how thrilling. What had worked at twenty didn’t work with me pushing fifty.

  I disengaged and stepped back.

  “I’ve been wondering,” Charlie said, blue eyes catching, then searching my dark ones, “how many times a man can fall in love with the same woman in a single lifetime.”

  Okay, so that worked.

  For about two minutes we kissed with all the old passion. He pressed his lips to the hollow of my neck. My knees went rubbery. I traced the outline of his jaw with my finger. He pulled me tight against him and I felt the hardness behind his zipper. Then his BlackBerry chimed.

  He hadn’t bothered to turn it off and he reached for it. Though he gave it only a glance before slipping it back into his pocket, the spell was broken, thank God.

  I had an early rehearsal the next morning. I was home and in bed by eleven. Alone.

  Chapter 19

  “Girl, if common sense were lard, you wouldn’t have enough to grease a skillet,” my closest friend and neighbor chided me the next day. My revelation that I’d pulled a premature evacuation of the Mandarin suite had stopped Marti dead in her tracks. She was back from her Caribbean cruise, tan, fit, and ready to smack me upside my head.

  “Honestly, Judith, I can’t believe you went to Charlie Pruitt’s hotel room unsupervised after downing two vodkas. You think that’s the smartest move, considering you weren’t sure you wanted to sleep with him? Huh? Do you?”

  I shrugged.

  “And then, when he makes the expected pass, you take off like a scared jackrabbit. What were you thinking?”

  “Nothing profound—believe me. His BlackBerry went off and after that, the moment had passed.”

  “Moments come and go; you can make a new moment. Next.”

  “I don’t know. The setting? We’re going to make love for the first time in twenty-five years and it’s in a hotel room? Somehow that seemed so tawdry.”

  “The Mandarin Oriental,” she sneered. “A suite. At least a thousand dollars a night. So, bullshit. Try again.”

  “How about having just slept with Geoff, I would have felt like a slut jumping in the sack with Charlie.”

  “Jumping in the sack? I haven’t heard that hip turn of phrase since 1970. And may I remind you, ‘just’ was two weeks ago. You told me, remember? So, nah. Reach down deep, kiddo.”
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  I thought for a long moment. “Because I don’t know what the hell I want?”

  “Excellent. Very insightful. I just wanted you to hear yourself say it so you don’t jump into anything too fast. If Charlie is all he’s cracked up to be, he’ll let you take your time. And if he’s really into you enough to want more than just to be into you, if you get my drift, he’ll call.”

  “He already did, last night, to make sure I got home safely.”

  “Okay, a good beginning, but only a beginning. So is there another date with the judge on the horizon?”

  I nodded. “He’s coming in next week with his daughter to look at colleges. The rite-of-passage campus tour. She wants to major in international relations.”

  “Georgetown,” Marti said.

  “And Hopkins has a great program. But the lure of D.C. is stronger. So one night Chloe’s going to test out the Georgetown dorm and Charlie and I get to see each other.”

  “Very neat. And not to add to the mass confusion, but how’s Geoff taking all this? Does he know about Charlie?”

  “He gets the basics. I don’t think he’s hurting that much.” I didn’t mention the harpist who might have been kissing his boo-boos. “He’ll be fine. Men always are.”

  “Are they really?” She faked a reproachful finger. “I might expect such a comment from one of my feminist terrorist lesbian comrades, but from a certified heterosexual of the lacy panties variety—why, I’m shocked by your insensitivity, missy.”

  “Go screw yourself,” I said.

  “Trust me, screwing yourself is highly overrated and I’m an expert.” She caught a breath. “All right, enough of this. I’m reviewing a new Asian fusion place down at the harbor and I’ve got to hustle if I’m going to drop off your mama’s check at the Belvedere first. If we pay the remainder of the fee by the end of the month, which is today, we’ll get a fifteen percent discount.”

  “May I see the check?”

  Not what I’d feared. The signature in a loopy hand was Grace Raphael’s. But as I stared at the inked numbers—$3,000—I felt a wave of queasiness wash over me. My mother’s underwriting of my birthday party was incredibly generous, but she’d never in her life had three thousand dollars in her checking account. And if she was supposed to have dipped into her jackpot winnings from the Atlantic City craps tables, why hadn’t I heard about the windfall when it happened? The woman called me to brag when she pulled off a ten-dollar to-show bet at Pimlico.

  “Grace didn’t happen to mention my erstwhile father in connection with this largesse, did she?”

  Marti reached out and nipped the check back. “She didn’t. And he didn’t. In fact, when she dropped off the check he muttered something about not understanding why people would want to spend all that money to celebrate growing older.”

  My heart took an express elevator to my stomach. “Irwin was with her? At your place?”

  “Yes, sugarpie. In madras Bermudas and a pink Ralph Lauren polo shirt. Very senior fashion forward. She was wearing jeans. I don’t think I’ve ever seen your mom in jeans. And a kerchief, so the wind wouldn’t ruin the new hairdo on the drive over. He had the top down on the Jag.”

  That stalled me out. “My father drove her over. In a Jaguar. What idiot would lend him a Jaguar? Mrs. Chang drives a Mercedes and she doesn’t lend it out. Oh God, don’t tell me he rented a Jaguar.” That would be so like Irwin Raphael. The quintessential salesman. Keep the image top of the line and all shined up.

  Marti was watching me warily, as if I were wired with explosives. When she spoke it was barely above a whisper, afraid, I suppose, that her voice could set me off. “You didn’t know about the XJ8? He bought it over the weekend. Used. It was advertised on Craigslist and he got a helluva deal. His words.”

  It took me a moment to process the implications. “Do you realize what this means, Marti?”

  Eyes bugging, she shook her head.

  “He’s not going back to Arizona. He’s staying in Baltimore. Settling in.” I had begun to pace in circles.

  Marti had backed off. “Wow. You know this from his buying a car?”

  “He’s eighty years old. You think he’s going to drive cross-country in a secondhand Jaguar? No, he’s not going home. Why should he when my mother is laying out the welcome mat?” I wiped a bubble of spittle from my lip. I was actually foaming at the mouth, but I couldn’t seem to control my fury. “He’s so sharp. He becomes her wheels, and suddenly they’re off to Atlantic City or the racetrack, and he’s got her under his thumb, that bastard. Wait till I get my hands on him. On her. What is she thinking? I know what she’s thinking. But it’s not going to work, not after all these years. He shows up out of nowhere and shoves himself back into our lives as if the past never happened. Well, it did and I’ve got the therapy bills to prove it. And God is my witness, it’s not going to happen again.”

  Marti rolled her eyes heavenward. “Good grief, Scarlett. Get a grip.”

  • • •

  I didn’t, couldn’t. Backstage later that morning, my colleagues steered clear of me. Musicians’ senses are fine-tuned to pick up the smallest variation in tempo and pitch, and my back-off vibes were not exactly subtle. Geoff waved me a hi from afar, though his smile was skewed into more of a question mark than a greeting. Angela drove us through a galloping no-holds-barred rendition of “Ride of the Valkyries,” which couldn’t have been a more appropriate piece for my mood. I played as if spurred, not wanting to lose my pissed off, wanting to save it to unleash on my mother and her boy toy at Blumen House. Buying a Jaguar at his age! Con man. Jerk.

  At break, Geoff approached. “What’s up, Jude? Everything okay?”

  “Fine.”

  “You look tapped out. Long night?”

  It sounded harmless and politely casual enough, but I heard all kinds of questions behind the question. As in: Was my foul mood due to lack of sleep because I’d been writhing on sweaty sheets with Charlie? Or maybe: Had I realized my date with Charlie had been a mistake? Had we ended the resurrected relationship before it got serious and now it was all clear for former lovers to reenter the picture?

  I looked up and snapped, “What? What does that mean?”

  He raised his hands shoulder high, palms exposed in a gesture of surrender. “Nothing,” he said. “Not a damn thing, Judith, if that’s who you are these days. Bugger! Forget it.”

  I did. Promptly. Okay, not promptly; I spent a moment watching his retreating back, realizing I’d probably just burned that bridge down to the waterline. Chalk the destruction up to a classic Raphael overreaction. I’d apologize, of course. But not now. Now I had more important things on my slightly cracked plate to deal with—my mother and you know who.

  Chapter 20

  Blumen House was considered the finest assisted living facility in the Baltimore area, a place my mother wouldn’t have been able to afford on her income. But I was determined that the last phase of her life would be free of roaches and sour smells in dim hallways. In a convenient coincidence, just as I decided to move her out of Brooklyn, I got promoted to associate principal cellist, so there was a little extra money to contribute to her care. Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Arnold generously came up with the rest, and we managed Blumen House’s smallest one bedroom. Gracie was happy there, happier than I’d ever seen her. This naturally gregarious woman now had enough time, energy, and English to make friends. The other women, especially the Jewish ones, got a kick out of her. True to Blumen House’s brochure, she bloomed in her golden years.

  “What not to like?” she’d reassured me, picking up her closest friends’ inflection. It was a relief not having to cook every day. My mother developed a taste for the chef’s blueberry blintzes. The recreation staff worked overtime to keep the residents on their feet and clot free. There were field trips, lectures, classes. Arts and crafts, sing-alongs, bingo. And on the last day of every month, a part
y for all the residents whose birthdays had fallen in the previous one.

  On this April 30, four celebrants sat at the birthday table: three women and one man, which was less depressing than the real residential ratio of about eight to one.

  Grace, at a far table, spotted my entrance, rose, and headed me off midstride. Her party hat, a polka-dotted paper cone, was perched jauntily on the new hairdo. “Why you here, Judith? Not your day to visit.”

  “Well, that’s a warm welcome. Happy to see you too. We need to talk.” I pecked her cheek.

  “About time kiss.” She hadn’t forgotten the scene at the elevator. She thrust her lower jaw pugnaciously. “So talk.”

  I scanned the room for signs of Irwin. “He’s not here?”

  “Very disrespect how you call father. He. He. Always he. Very bad manner. I brought you up to respect. Where that all go?”

  “It followed your ex-husband to Arizona. Where is he?”

  “Aigoo! You so mean. He want us all taste special ice cream. Ben & Jerry. So he go to buy for everyone and pay for all.”

  “He took the Jaguar?”

  Miriam Botansky, a little gray bird of a woman, had flown to my mother’s side. No doubt the subject of my reaction to Irwin’s reappearance was a hot topic at the mah-jongg table. Mrs. Botansky slid me an appraising look. “Beautiful car. He’s going to buy a GPS next week, but in the meantime Sonia Applebaum went along for the ride to show him the way to the supermarket.” She stroked my mother’s shoulder consolingly.

  Sonia Applebaum was Blumen House’s brazen hussy. A stiffly coiffed platinum blonde, she lip-lined, wore two-inch heels in a one-inch society, had outlived two very wealthy husbands, and the scuttlebutt was that more than one Viagra-infused male resident had taken liberties. My so-called father was alone with her, only a stick shift separating them. Oy! Or maybe, just maybe, Mrs. Applebaum was the answer to a daughter’s prayers, and Irwin and the blondie would skip town together and live happily ever after in Boynton Beach.