The Boss and Miss Baxter

by Warren, Wendy

  “The news is this,” she said, glaring daggers at her granddaughter. “There ain't enough room in this apartment for the kids, me, you and your pity party. You want to sit around looking bored and depressed, go sit in the apartment lobby. It's all Prozac and checkers down there—you'll fit right in.”

  “I'm not bored and I'm not depressed,” Nina argued, though she'd been both for nearly a week. “I'm just tired from job hunting, and you're making me miss Fear Factor.”

  She had trouble meeting Bubby's gaze.

  My family's welfare has to come first. The words she'd thrown at David almost seven days ago returned to clang through her head once every half hour, as reliable as clockwork. She was getting quite a headache.

  She'd felt so smug, so righteous when she'd uttered the nobler-than-God statement. No one could argue with such a priority.

  She hadn't heard from David since that day, and she realized now she wasn't going to. Probably not ever. And that wasn't what she'd intended. She hadn't meant to end their relationship completely; only to manage it a little because he was getting way ahead of himself and didn't even realize it. She'd been right not to leap into a decision about the rest of their lives. Maybe that worked on TV reality shows…no, not even there.

  She shoveled a handful of popcorn into her mouth. She'd been the voice of reason that day, and she wasn't going to let Bubby or anyone else make her doubt herself.

  So why did she feel so lousy?

  When she'd crunched the kernels enough to allow herself to speak, she said, “I'm sorry we're taking up so much room here, Bubby. I know this place isn't big enough for three extra people. As soon as Janet Daitch gets back from visiting her family in Des Moines, I'll ask if we can move in with her.”

  “Psshhh!” Bubby waved Nina's comment away. “Since when is room for family a problem? Room, I got plenty of. What I don't got is a granddaughter with an ounce of good sense when it comes to men!”

  Nina swung her legs off the arm of the chair so quickly, popcorn spilled onto her lap. “What?”

  “You heard.” Bubby glanced to the bedroom where Izzy and Zach were spread out, doing their homework. Crossing to the sofa, she sat and pointed to her own temple. “My memory is the only part of me that never ages. Details stand out in my mind, and when I put them together I have a clear picture.”

  Nina longed for an excuse to get up, to sidestep the sharp blue gaze and whatever point Bubby was about to make, but she knew her grandmother's it's got-to-be-said look; leaving now would only postpone the inevitable. Working a piece of popcorn from between her front teeth, Nina hunched her shoulders and hoped Bubby would be quick.

  “I remember one detail in particular from the summer you turned thirteen,” the seventy-seven-year-old began, traveling farther back in time than Nina had anticipated. “There was a boy who moved in next door to your parents' house. Two years older than you and thinking more about his first car than his first girl, I think. But you—” Bubby rolled her head. “Such devotion! You wrote his name on napkins, your father's newspaper, even on a pancake once in boysenberry syrup. Always with little hearts and sometimes a poem. Except on the pancake. You remember?”

  Nina was stunned. She hadn't thought about that in years. “I remember I had a crush on a boy named Ben.”

  Bubby nodded, smoothing her housecoat over her knees. “You were going to ask him to the fall dance when school started. Then your parents flew back east….”

  Bubby didn't have to finish that thought. Nina would never forget the phone call to the airline, the official who had come to the door, the feeling of wanting to scream and never stop.

  “You cried for two days,” Bubby remembered, “then, 'Bubby, don't worry,' you told me, 'I'll take care of you.'” For the first time in a long, long time, Bubby's eyes looked older, worn. “It was supposed to be the other way around,” she said. “After that, no more school dance. No more hearts over anyone's name.”

  Nina stirred uncomfortably, wishing she could keep memories of that time stored in a dark corner of her mind. “I suppose even a thirteen-year-old can have a sense of priorities.”

  “I suppose.” Bubby smoothed her housecoat over her knees. “I got one more story.”

  Nina was absolutely certain she didn't have the strength to hear it. She pointed to the muted TV. “Miss South Carolina just swallowed a maggot. I'm going to turn the sound up.”

  Bubby managed to beat her to the remote. “One more, then you can watch Miss Silicone Injections eat treyf.” She sat back down. “You were too young to remember your grandfather, my Max, may his memory be a blessing. I was eighteen when I met him, and within a week I knew I wanted to get married. A real love affair, and we wanted kids right away, even though we were so young we could barely afford to pay rent on one room. 'There's always a way,' Max said. And so I got pregnant, and a happier girl you never saw. But the baby, a daughter, came too early, and the doctors couldn't save her. Back then was different. Today—” she shrugged “—who knows?”

  This was one story Nina had never heard, and as she watched her grandmother, she saw the moistness in her aged eyes. Here was a story Bubby had found too painful to retell.

  “I had prayed and prayed for my daughter to be saved. I named her Liba, 'my heart.' When she died, my heart went with her. No one could talk to me, not even Max. 'We'll try again,' he said, but I didn't want to.” She shook her head, closing her eyes briefly. “Such a thing, so unthinkable, had happened once. God forbid it should happen again.” She shook her head. “'It would kill me,' I told Max, and I said if he wanted to marry someone else, someone who still wanted children, I would understand.”

  “He loved you too much to let you go,” Nina said, wanting to smooth the pain from Bubby's face.

  Bubby opened her eyes. They held all the sadness and all the sweetness of seven decades when she said, “He loved life too much to let me stop living. He would have stuck with me no matter what, but then he said, 'If we give up, Rayzel, we won't know what comes next. 'He always looked forward, and I loved him too much to ask him to stop looking.”

  She reached out, ran a finger softly along Nina's cheek. “What came next was your father. And so much joy.” Watching Nina closely, she clucked her tongue softly. “I know what you're thinking, and it's true. I've buried a daughter, and I've buried a son, so where's the happy ending to this story, hmm?” She touched her finger to Nina's nose. “You. And Zach and Izzy. Now you're what comes next, and I'm so grateful I didn't miss you.

  “What can we do but love anyway, Nina? We accept how painful life can be and love anyway. It's the most faithful thing a person can do.”

  “I love my kids,” Nina said in a hoarse whisper.

  “I know that.” Bubby reached for her necklace, gold with a quarter-sized medallion. Working the clasp free, she let the gold puddle in her hand, then held it out to her granddaughter. “My father bought me this on a trip to Israel.”

  Nina knew what it was without looking: a Torah scroll with the engraved words Be Guarded and Protected.

  Gently but with firm intention, Bubby closed Nina's fingers around the gift. “To remind you that you're always safe. And that no risk is too big when it's made for love.”

  Bubby leaned back, obviously tired. “Draw pretty hearts around some special boy's name again, my Ninele. And draw a few of the hearts a little broken, a little worse for the wear.” She nodded her grayed head. “It's okay. They'll be as pretty as the others.”

  Rising with a soft groan, she headed toward the kitchen. “I'm going to get hot cocoa and raspberry rugelach for the kids. So the studying will be sweet.”

  Nina sat on the chair, the Torah pendant in her closed fist. As she felt the rim of the gold circle press into her palm, she realized Bubby hadn't offered her answers, really. Only courage to live with the questions.

  Eleven days after Nina and the kids had moved out, David felt sure he wanted to sell the condo.

  Izzy had left a pair of pink sunglasses in the TV room.
A corner of Zach's The Ocean World of Jacques Cousteau poked out from beneath the desk in the library.

  David figured he'd find things for the next few weeks. He considered selling the place lock, stock and barrel. Let someone else find pieces of Nina's family.

  Maybe he would start over somewhere outside of Chicago. He began to wonder why he stayed here anyway, why he made himself crazy trying to save Hanson Media Group. None of George's kids were interested in the business. Even Jack would love to get out. So why hold on? For whom?

  In the days since Nina's unqualified rejection of his proposal, he'd decided she was right: He'd jumped the gun in telling her he wanted to get married right away and had probably come across like a stalker in the process.

  He'd put them all in an impossible situation, the kind from which there was no going back. Now Nina and the kids were gone, and he was left to pick up the pieces of a life he no longer liked.

  When the doorbell rang at seven-fifteen on Friday evening, he'd been about to carry his heated Healthy Choice Tenderloin Strips in Gravy to the kitchen counter, where he would doubtlessly stare at it a few minutes then throw it down the garbage disposal. That had been his dinner routine for the past week. He had no appetite to eat alone and no desire to ask anyone to join him.

  It was not a hardship, therefore, to leave the TV dinner on the kitchen counter and plod to the door. Maybe Jack had decided to drop in. Uncharacteristically, his nephew had shown up twice in the past week to discuss the reading of his father's will and how to ensure the presence of his two younger brothers.

  As David reached for the knob, he decided that if it was Jack, he'd make his nephew go out for pizza and beers. The thought of throwing his frozen dinner out before he wasted time staring at it perked him up a bit.

  When he opened the door, however, no one was on his threshold or in the hall. Mystified, and disappointed, David was about to succumb to solitude when he noticed a large ivory envelope lying at his feet. The words Private Invitation were printed across the front in red felt-tip marker.

  Bringing the envelope inside, he stared at it until it felt heavy on his palm. Withdrawing a hand-printed card, he read, Please join us on the rooftop at 7:30 p.m. Dress casual. The invitation was unsigned. If this was some impromptu get-to-know-the-neighbors party, he really wanted to pass. Even gelatinous brown gravy would be better than small talk.

  When he reread the card, however, David noticed that the lettering was very round and very careful—a child's printing.

  His heart pounded, leaving a pain with every beat.

  Could be some other kids, he told himself, maybe kids in the building. Could even be a practical joke. But he glanced at his watch and headed for his bedroom, where he changed his shirt, brushed his hair and teeth, and told himself not to be an idiot. Even if Zach and Izzy were on his roof—and why would they be?—Nina could be miles away.

  He took the elevator, then a short flight of stairs, making himself walk in measured, deliberate paces. When he reached the door that lead to the rooftop, he stopped and read a sign, again hand-lettered, and that's when his body tripped into high gear.

  Family Shabbat. Please Enter.

  He reached for the door, jerked it open and crossed the threshold onto a rooftop that had been decorated with flowers, a folding table covered by a blue cotton cloth with painted handprints, and a string of twinkle lights that glowed softly against an evening sky streaky with orange and lavender.

  Zach ran and Izzy skipped over to him.

  “Did you get your invitation?”

  “We dropped it off!”

  “We had to run to the elevator so you wouldn't see us!”

  “We wanted you to be surprised.”

  Excited, they tumbled over each other's sentences. They didn't hug him, though, and it shocked David to realize how much he wanted them to. He'd become so accustomed in his life to handshakes—starting with his own father—that when Zach and Izzy had first started hugging him hello, he hadn't known quite how to respond. Then he'd realized the only response necessary was to fill his arms with them, and he'd looked forward to coming home in the evenings.

  Tonight, they maintained a tentative distance, despite their excitement. There had already been too much time and space between them all; the affection wasn't easy now. He knew he could open his arms first, that they might close the distance if he did. But he was scared to do it; scared they might not respond and even more scared that he would hold on too tight if they did. The realization shamed him.

  He glanced up, over their heads. Bubby stood at the cloth-covered table. Only Bubby. A cauldron of disappointment bubbled hotly in his stomach. Nina wasn't here. This wasn't reconciliation. She hadn't decided they should begin again as friends…perhaps go on a couple of dates, see if they could make something fit.

  Idiot, he castigated himself even as he dredged up a smile for Bubby. He looked again at the kids, realizing that staying here would be painful for him, but that he owed it to them to try. When Izzy tentatively took his hand to lead him to the table, he concentrated on how good the simple gesture felt, rather than on how much he would miss it in the days to come.

  Bubby smiled as he approached. Several short candles in mismatched holders huddled together atop the decorative tablecloth. He was going to have a difficult time not picturing Nina, how she had glowed in the candlelight the evening he'd first witnessed this simple, haunting ceremony. He was about to ask Bubby if the rooftop Shabbat had been her idea, when he heard a sound behind him.

  Her hair, as blond as yarn an angel had spun and covered by the same lace she'd worn last time, was the first thing David noticed. And then her smile.

  Small, aching in its hopefulness, Nina's pink lips curved to match the question in her eyes.

  “Thank you for coming,” she murmured. Will you stay? She didn't voice that part, but he understood and nodded around the catch in his throat.

  There was no more talking then. Nina started by striking a match and lighting a candle, like last time. And like last time, David felt the edges of his body blur until he was part of the light and song, part of Bubby and Izzy and Zach. He tried to let his mind and body soften until he became part of Nina, too, but that was more difficult, more effortful. When she waved her hands over the candles, drawing the light to her, and sang the prayers and touched her children's heads to bless them, she was the hub of the family wheel, and David knew she belonged to the others.

  He wondered why she'd brought him here. If this was an apology for ending abruptly, a way to say, “We can still be friends,” he wasn't sure he could muster gratitude. Hanging onto the edge of their family circle was too painful.

  The time to light the remainder of the candles—one for each of them—came, and Nina told her family what tonight's theme was. “Courage. When you light your candle tonight, tell one thing you were afraid to do this past week, and one thing you're going to try in the week ahead.”

  Bubby went first and said, “I'm going to tell Flo Melcher she needs new dentures. A friend don't let another friend wear teeth from 1962.”

  Zach talked about standing up for a kid who was being ostracized at school, and Izzy said she wasn't going to let Beth Knox cheat off her spelling test anymore even if Beth did tell Danny Hafner that Izzy thought he was cute. Nina's eyes widened over that one, and David figured there was going to be a talk between mother and daughter later tonight.

  There were two candles left—his and Nina's. By tacit agreement, Bubby and the children headed for the rooftop door.

  Surprised, David watched them go then looked back to Nina, whose chest rose and fell on a nervous breath. “My turn,” she said, holding the candle in front of herself. “I'm not sure I'll be able to top Bubby and the Flo Melcher commitment, but here goes….”

  Her gaze held his as she explained, “Last week I was afraid to tell you the truth when you asked me to marry you. I panicked and said the first thing that came to mind—that it was too soon to talk about marriage. But that i
sn't why I said no.”

  Even as blood rushed through David's veins, his heart felt as if it skidded to a stop. Did he want to hear this?

  “I should have told you that I care about you. That I like being with you. That I like it so much, I could hardly breathe this past week when I thought I might never see you again.”

  David would have taken her in his arms at that moment, he would have let the single admission be enough, but courage was not a job to be left half-done, and Nina had more to say.

  “I dreamed of you, you know. For years I imagined someone strong and steady, someone whose love would make the world feel small and safe.” She smiled with awareness. “It wasn't a good dream. It wasn't life. Life's the thing I'm most afraid of.

  “I thought I was being smart, loving just a few people—Bubby and Izzy and Zach. Damage control, you know? Fewer people, less pain. But now you're here.”

  In the glow of the candlelight, she wore all her feelings—uncertainty, fear, hope—in her eyes. “I don't want to love and have it not work out between us, David. But I'm even more afraid of losing you without a fight.”

  “You're not going to lose me.” David did reach for her then, pulling her close, holding her with a fierce protectiveness. He'd never felt such blessed relief. “I promise you that.”

  Nina put her arms around him, reached up to caress his neck. “You can't promise that. But that's okay.” She pushed back to meet his gaze. “I can't promise you, either. But I can promise to remember how I feel in this moment and to remember always why I love you.”

  Taking a step away, she tilted her candle to one of the dancing flames. The unlit wick crackled to life. “I promise that whenever letting go seems easier, I'll dig for the courage to hang on.”

  Placing her candle next to the others, she sealed the vow.

  “Letting go is never going to be an issue, not for us,” David claimed with all the brash male assurance her love brought to life.

  Nina laid her palm, cool and smooth and calming, against his cheek, and he felt his heart sink a little, felt his assuredness waver.