I give Ruth’s arm a nudge and incline my head in the direction of the rocking horses. “Come on, Carlos loves those. Let’s go over and—”
“No!”
“Don’t you want a chance to talk to him?” When I look over, Neil is looking at us. “Don’t look now, but he’s looking this way. Come on, let’s just go over and—”
“NO!” Ruth says, grabbing my arm, panic in her eyes.
“Okay, okay. Never mind. It’s almost time for ‘The Bubble Song’ anyway.” Ruth, the kids, and I make our way over to where the instructors are setting up the parachute and filling the bubble trays.
Ruth is quiet during the rest of class and, for some reason I can’t fathom, still seems annoyed with me. In the coatroom after class, I tell her I was just trying to help. “You spent the better part of the week talking about the guy; I figured you might want a chance to get to know him, that’s all.”
“I know. It’s not your fault, really. I’ve always been this way. I get nervous and tongue-tied, and you’re all ‘Hi, I’m Mira,’ and then I feel like even more of a yutz,” Ruth says miserably. “And p.s., I think he was looking at you, not me, anyway. And why wouldn’t he? You didn’t get your fat ass stuck in—”
We’re on our way out the door of the coatroom and into the JCC lobby when I catch sight of Rona Silverman standing smack in the middle of the lobby, talking with an older woman with platinum hair. I groan.
“What’s the matter?” Ruth asks.
At the last minute I try to steer Ruth out of the way, but it’s too late. Rona’s already spotted me. “Why, Mira dear,” she calls to me, waving me over. “What are you doing still in town? I thought you’d left ages ago!”
“No, still here,” I tell her.
Rona pats her frosted bob and smiles at Chloe. “How is that restaurant of yours surviving without you?” And then, turning to her companion, Rona says, “Leah, Mira’s the one I was telling you about. She’s a cook in New York. You ate at her restaurant when you were there a couple of months ago, remember?”
“Did I?” asks Leah. “Oh, yes, of course, delicious,” she says absently, which makes me flinch. I feel like I’ve been punched. Ruth looks at me with concern.
“Forgive me, girls, this is my friend, Leah Hollander,” Rona says, introducing her companion. “We’re playing mah-jongg at eleven.” She looks at her watch and clucks. “Supposed to anyway. Your class got out late,” she says, frowning.
“I love mah-jongg,” Ruth says. All three of us turn to look at her.
“Really, dear? Not many people your age know the game,” Rona says, sizing Ruth up and exchanging a look with her friend. “And you are?” Rona says, turning to look from Ruth to me for the introduction.
“Oh, this is my friend, Ruth Bernstein,” I tell the women.
“How lovely to meet you, Ruth,” Leah says, taking Ruth’s hand in hers. “We don’t usually play here,” she continues. “We usually play at one of our houses on Thursday afternoons, but our fourth recently broke her ankle and can’t negotiate the steps, so until she’s better, we’re relegated to playing here. Have you girls just come from the baby exercise class? I was hoping to catch a glimpse of my grandson, but we must have missed him,” says Leah, looking beyond us into the gym.
Just then, Rona Silverman begins waving. “Look, Leah, there they are.” Ruth, Leah, and I all turn around, just as Neil and Eli make their way out of the men’s room and head toward us.
“Neil dear, we thought we’d missed you,” Leah calls to her son. “There’s my darling boy,” she says, reaching to take Eli from Neil.
“Mother, Mrs. Silverman,” Neil says, smiling. “There’s no changing table in the men’s room. Posed a bit of a challenge, I’m afraid.”
“Neil, come meet Mira and her friend Ruth Bernstein,” Rona Silverman says.
“We’ve already met. Ladies, nice to see you again,” Neil says, pausing to pull his BlackBerry from his pocket.
Leah Hollander frowns at her son. “Put that thing away, Neil. It’s rude, and besides you shouldn’t be keeping it in your pocket. You could get testicular cancer, you know.”
“Mother!” Neil exclaims, horrified. I can’t help laughing. Ruth, Rona, and Leah all look at me askance while Neil shakes his head. “Apparently, nothing is sacred,” he says, turning to me and smiling before slipping his BlackBerry back into his pocket and taking Eli from his mother’s arms.
“Oh, don’t be such a prude, Neil,” his mother says, even though she’s looking at me like she knows I’m the kid who laughed in fifth grade health class at the first mention of the word “penis,” which, for the record, I was. “These are both married women. They know what testicles are. They’ve got babies for goodness—”
“We’re not married,” Ruth interrupts, breathlessly.
“Look, they’re going to start without you,” Neil says, gesturing beyond us into the gym, where a dozen women are now taking their places at the folding tables just set up by the custodian. “Don’t you think you’d better start racking your tiles?”
“Yes, come on, Leah, let’s go. I don’t want to be stuck sitting with Heddy Markowicz again. She’s too slow,” Rona says.
“Don’t forget you’re coming for dinner tonight. Six thirty, sharp,” Leah says, reaching up to kiss her son’s cheek.
“Yes, Mother,” Neil says, bending low to receive her kiss. “Mrs. Silverman, ladies,” and with a nod he’s gone.
We’re almost to the door when Leah flags us down again. “Ruth dear, so glad I caught you. Rona and I were just talking. Perhaps you’d like to join us for mahj sometime? I don’t suppose you have a card, do you?”
“Sure, I do,” Ruth says, rummaging in her purse for a moment before handing Leah her card. “It’s been ages since I’ve played, so I’m sure I’m rusty, but I’d love to, if you can tolerate me,” she says, smiling like she’s just won the lottery.
“What are you smiling at?” I ask her, as soon as Leah is out of sight.
“The game is afoot,” Ruth says softly.
Enid Maxwell, the food editor at the Post-Gazette, has sent me a form letter, thanking me for my interest. There are no openings at this time, she writes, but my interest is appreciated. The letter looks odd, as if she is trying to fill up the expanse of white letterhead with three lousy lines. Enid even signed her name with a big, bold flourish, probably trying to take up more space. It seems as if a letter from a journalist should be more eloquent.
My first reaction is to rip it to shreds and burn the evidence. If I rip it up, I can deny its existence, and when asked by Dr. D-P for a status report on my “irons in the fire,” as she calls them, I can tell her I haven’t heard anything. She’s lately begun to intimate that I should have a few more irons in the fire and that I shouldn’t be putting all my eggs in one basket. She’s a woman who likes to communicate in short bursts of energy and often uses clichés because they get the point across with a minimum of explanation. But every once in a while, when she suspects she’s lost my attention, she’ll drop a little bomb and then sit back and examine her nails. Like last week, we were talking about the fact that in the last three weeks I’ve only managed to send out one résumé, and Dr. D-P suggested that this might be construed as not making enough of an effort. To which I challenged that I was waiting to see what happened with the Post-Gazette before I planned my assault on the restaurants of Pittsburgh. To which she added that putting all my eggs in one basket seemed to be an issue with me. I’d done it before, hadn’t I? I’d put everything into Grappa and into my relationship with Jake and look where it had gotten me. I’d spent all of my emotional capital, when what I’d really needed to do was keep something back, just for me. It may be why, she hinted, I feel so lost and empty all the time.
I told Dr. D-P that a marriage is like a soufflé, a labor of love, requiring the taming of plenty of temperamental eggs, under precise conditions and under the direction of a skilled and talented chef. It seems to me that if you can’t put all you
r eggs in the marriage basket, then you ought to just forget it and order takeout. Actually, I hadn’t told her that, I just thought of it, but now I wish I’d said it.
Today, still stinging from the Post-Gazette rejection, I decide that my homework assignment will have to wait. I’m supposed to be putting together a list of restaurants where I’d be interested in working and researching the Pittsburgh catering scene, neither of which, I’ve decided, I have any interest in doing.
Later, when I tell this to Dr. D-P, she nods and asks why.
“Look,” I tell her, my tone defiant. “I managed and owned a successful New York restaurant. I’m way past the point in my career where I’m interested in working for someone else. And in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t play particularly well with others.”
She laughs. “So open a new restaurant, Mira. It doesn’t have to be a four-star ‘serious’ restaurant. It can be a tearoom, a deli, a breakfast joint, you decide. That is, after all, the point. You get to decide.”
I thump my fists into the cushions of the couch, exasperated. We have had this conversation before. “I-I just can’t get excited about something new.”
She tilts her head and gives me a quizzical look. “That isn’t really true, is it? You’ve been very excited about the possibility of doing some food writing, some restaurant reviewing. That would be a new venture for you.”
Something about my body language must have alerted her to the possibility that this is no longer an option, because she’s all over me in seconds. “So, have you heard anything from the Post-Gazette ?”
I don’t answer her right away. I fidget and look up at the ceiling. “They are not interested at this time.” My voice is tight and formal, just like the letter, and I feel a sudden heat behind my eyes.
“I see,” she says quietly. She doesn’t say anything else, but moves forward in her chair. “I know that’s a real blow, Mira. I’m sorry.” And I think for a second she’s going to say something about eggs in baskets, but she doesn’t.
I’m crying, ridiculous as it seems, sitting with my fists clenched in my lap crying real tears because I’ve received a three-sentence form rejection letter for a job I knew I had no real chance of getting.
She considers me a moment, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip before handing me a Kleenex.
“What was the biggest obstacle you encountered in running Grappa?”
I blow my nose. The biggest obstacle? Who knows, there were so many. “There were obstacles every day. Running a restaurant isn’t easy. Starting up was nightmarish—there were weeks on end, before we opened and then right after, when I don’t think I slept more than a couple of hours a night.”
“But you succeeded, against improbable odds, didn’t you?”
“Yes, we did, but there were two of us. We were in it together. I can’t do this alone.” A deep, guttural choking sound escapes me, and I look up self-consciously. I can’t believe I’ve become someone who cries in her therapist’s office.
“Mira, don’t let Jake take this from you, too.” She says this softly and, reaching over, puts both her hands on top of my own clenched fists. Her voice is low and soft, but there’s an urgency there and an undercurrent of something that sounds like anger.
chapter 19
In the lobby of the Highland Towers there is a little deli called the Brown Bag. I had planned on treating myself to a nice lunch at Casbah, and had even briefly entertained the possibility of calling Richard and asking him to join me, but I’m emotionally spent from my life coaching appointment and can barely make it down to the deli on the first floor. I order a grilled Reuben sandwich and some steak fries the instant I’m seated, without even looking at the menu.
The waitress shouts my order to the line cook and fills my water glass, slopping some onto the chipped Formica table. When the cook grumbles that it’s almost two o’clock, she fixes him with a withering look.
“After two, it’s only pie, coffee, and fountain drinks, but don’t worry, hon,” she says to me. “It’s only five till.”
She’s wearing a brown polyester uniform with a white collar and cuffs. Her nails are long, artificial talons, painted a frosted pink, and her fingers, all ten of them, are crusted with cheap silver rings. I try to imagine myself in a greasy white apron and a hairnet, grumpily manning the grill, taking orders from a waitress old enough to be my grandmother.
“Thanks,” is all I can manage.
“Coffee?”
I nod, too exhausted to speak.
Dr. D-P has earned double her fee this afternoon in a marathon cheerleading session. The latter half of the therapy hour was devoted to something she calls “Leapfrog Theory.” According to Leapfrog Theory, it apparently doesn’t matter that I have no experience writing restaurant reviews; if it’s what I decide I want to do, then I should just go for it and not let a little thing like Enid Maxwell’s rejection put a damper on my plans. The initial rejection is best viewed as merely an obstacle, she tells me, one that may or may not be easily leapt over. The point is that I won’t know unless I try. And so I’ve agreed to telephone Enid Maxwell and extract some sort of commitment to meet with me so that I might share with her my expansive knowledge of the New York restaurant world. Like I’m doing her some kind of favor.
When I balked at this suggestion, Dr. D-P told me that she wouldn’t have suggested it had she not known that I had it in me. “Whether you recognize it or not, Mira, one doesn’t get to the top of one’s profession without the liberal application of Leapfrog principles.” When I tried to tell her that there’s also a hefty element of luck involved, she reminded me of my iron-willed resolve in trying to hold onto Jake and Grappa. Sure, it hadn’t worked out, but it hadn’t been because I gave up too easily.
I devour the sandwich, a mountain of corned beef between two greasy slabs of marble rye, leaking cheese and Russian dressing all down the front of my sweater. It’s delicious, and I don’t stop eating until I’ve finished the last thick fry, which I use to mop up the remains of the sandwich. I need all the sustenance I can get for what I’m about to do.
I leave the waitress a hefty tip, which she tucks into the breast pocket of her uniform. “Thanks, doll,” she calls, smiling at me and waving, her silver rings glinting in the afternoon sun.
An hour later, I’m sitting cross-legged on my bed, clutching the rejection letter, on which Enid Maxwell’s phone number is prominently displayed, making it all too easy for me to call her. I’ve spent the last thirty minutes online on my laptop reading past Food section excerpts. At a minimum, it has given me second thoughts about having any association with the Post-Gazette. The recipes are uninteresting (cream of cauliflower soup made with frozen cauliflower, Velveeta Light, and canned tomatoes). In addition, they review a different fast-food freezer item each week. This week’s offering, Amy’s Vegan Black Bean Burritos, has been given two thumbs-up by the reviewers. Doesn’t anyone in Pittsburgh cook?
I’m looking for excuses not to call, but the alternative—having to fess up to Dr. D-P next week that I hadn’t been able to do it—is by far the more frightening prospect. Dr. D-P has made it seem as if my psychological well-being, not to mention my entire future, is riding on this one phone call. If I’m ever going to be able to move on with my life, I have to get over my fear of rejection, she said. It’s as if Jake’s rejection has seeped into every area of my life, polluting my sense of self worth so that now I live in constant fear of being spurned again, even by a newspaper that lauds the use of processed cheese products.
So, I’m stuck. Finally, I arrive at the psychologically comfortable compromise of calling after five and leaving a message. I’m counting on what I can remember from episodes of The Wire, that newspaper editors are seldom at their desks and rarely answer their land-line phones. So I prepare and rehearse a confident-sounding message, gently challenging Enid’s provincial sensibilities and offering to meet with her to discuss the rise of the Pittsburgh restaurant.
I dial the phone.
“Pressroom.” The voice that answers is gruff and masculine.
“Yes, hi. I just wanted to leave a message for Enid Maxwell.” There is a deafening noise in the background.
“Who? I can barely hear you.”
“Enid Maxwell,” I yell.
“This is the pressroom. She must have forwarded her phone. Hang on, I’ll find her.”
“No!” I practically scream into the phone. “I mean, that’s okay, don’t disturb her, I’ll just leave a mess—”
“Oh, wait a sec, she just walked in.” The background sounds suddenly become muffled as the man puts his hand over the receiver and yells, “Yo, Enid, phone.”
I’m seized by a sudden urge to hang up—and I’m about to—when an irrepressible, irrational thought suddenly flashes through my wearied brain, as irrational thoughts have a habit of doing when you are tired, stressed, and genetically predisposed to paranoia. Newspapers probably have caller ID on their phones—making it easier to identify informants calling in with anonymous tips. Enid could easily identify me as the caller, and I would be busted for hanging up on her.
“Yeah, Enid Maxwell,” she barks.
“Enid, this is Mira Rinaldi. I—”
“Who? Listen, you’re going to have to speak up. We’re running a test sheet in the pressroom, and I can’t hear you.”
I try again, feeling ridiculous. “It’s Mira Rinaldi,” I yell into the phone.
Suddenly, whatever had been causing the deafening noise in the background stops dead, leaving the echo of my shouted name reverberating in the empty air.
“Oh, Mira, the aspiring food critic.” Her voice has returned to its presumably normal tones.
I’m shocked that she remembers me from the three-sentence rejection letter, which I’d assumed was just a form letter, prepared and signed by some underling. “Yes, that’s me.”
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