Cosmo's Deli

by Sharon Kurtzman

  He ceremoniously shifts his face from side to side as if posing for a mug shot, but his high wattage smile and boyish face make him more of a poster boy for the take me home and love me foundation.

  “Suit yourself,” she finally concedes. And just like that an agreement is reached, she will walk and he will follow. Through the sleeping city they tread, him about six feet behind her block after block. Only at a red traffic light does he walk up next to her, still keeping a wide distance between them. With the sidewalks empty of other pedestrians, the only thing separating them is the cool night air. Waiting for the light to turn, Renny becomes aware of his height. He must be at least six feet tall. Normally this disparity in their heights would feel imposing. But she finds his stature comforting and when the light turns green she steps off the curb feeling safeguarded from the phantom bogeymen that lurk in the city alleys. After she is a few steps out, he follows, ensuring her the same generous lead she had before.

  A few blocks later, he suddenly runs up beside her and grabs her arm by the elbow. Startled, she yelps and tries to pull away, but he gently jerks her left. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He glances down.

  Renny follows his eyes to the shards of glass littering the patch of sidewalk she was about to step on had he not guided her unprotected feet out of the way. With danger past, he removes his protective touch and retreats to his now familiar post behind her. Renny’s arm feels naked.

  She glances back and tries to read his face, searching for the braggadocios that would surely follow this act. Only there is no swagger in his walk, no pretention in his eyes. His same shy smile tells her he is sure she would do the same for him. Turning back she can’t help wondering if he isn’t a figment of her overexhausted imagination. If she brought her hand to his face, would it glide through and erase him like a mirage in an urban desert? Renny turns away, finding reassurance in the clop-clop of his feet landing on the pavement behind her.

  When they land at a red light on 39th Street, Renny sees the Port Authority to her right. Stealing a glance in his direction, she notices his soft features and brown rumpled hair. He turns toward her allowing her to glimpse the kindness that colors his eyes. Renny stares at the light waiting for it to turn, sensing that he is studying her too, their gazes having woven over the same path in the air as though part of a larger fabric binding them together.

  Crossing the street, he remains at her side. “Is that where you’re heading?” He nods toward the transportation building.

  “Yeah.” She expects him to ask what part of Jersey she lives in, or better yet, what exit. He doesn’t. Instead when they reach the door to the building, he pulls it open for her. “Chivalry?” she asks.

  “You could call it that,” he says.

  Entering the building, she realizes that they’ve barely spoken, yet are familiar, as if their walk was a romantic slow dance and their music was the sounds of the city. They travel up the escalator, the bus tickets that began this nocturnal journey still in her hand.

  She is going home to be with her mother. Over the past few years she has been worn down by the demands of city life. And though she hates to admit, it is time to leave it behind, at least for a while. She steps off the escalator and rounds the corner, finding the number 41 Lakeland bus waiting behind the glass partition. The idling engine signals to her that it is time for goodbye.

  “You have to go,” he says, in statement rather than a question.

  “I do,” she answers.

  “Okay then,” he says, as if intuitively aware that wherevever she is going it is place he can’t follow. He holds up his hand in a stationary wave, one that seems to say see you rather than goodbye.

  Renny mimics the jesture, sure that any one passing would assume they were acting out some sort of Trekkie farewell ritual. She smiles, a lightness washing over her.

  On the bus, Renny attends to the business of handing over a ticket to the driver. Before making her way through the rows of empy seats she looks out the front window. He is gone.

  She nods to no one in particular and than walks and takes a seat.

  ***

  On the journey home, Renny’s thoughts leap between a swirling tempest and calm sea. Restless, she tucks her feet beneath her and sits perched on them, noticing the black soles acquired from her barefoot march across Manhattan with him. Just then she realizes that they never even exchanged names.

  She shifts her feet and they dangle in circles below the seat, like a small impatient child. Her thoughts shift to Georgie and the hand print she left on his cheek.

  Staring out at the passing warehouses, Renny wonders if her mother will be glad to see her. The images flick by, as if she were quickly leafing through a photography book. The halogen headlights of passing cars sporadically hit her window illuminating her reflection in the glass. The face is that of a stranger, ghost-pale and weary, only her eyes seem alive, possessing determination that has long been missing.

  As the only passenger on the bus, the driver calls out to her after exiting the highway. “What stop?” he asks

  “Millburn Avenue,” she calls back.

  They roll through the quiet surburban streets. “Do you have the time?” Renny asks as they near her stop.

  “Five-ten,” he tells her.

  The bus door swing open with a metallic clank and Renny climbs down the steep bus stairs. Her legs ache and she grips the handrail for support. Her lack of sleep over the last two days is starting to catch up.

  Out on the sidewalk, Renny looks up and down the street. It is still, as if the whole town rolled up the night before at bed time. Walking along the road, Renny takes in the variety of chi-chi boutiques that have opened in recent years. When she was a kid the stores were simple, a dry cleaner, a pharmacy a small grocery store. Not anymore. Now everything is upscale and gourmet, catering to the suburban wealth that surrounds the area. In a few hours, this street will be bustling with commerce, Renny thinks. Aware of the rough ground beneath her feet, she is glad that at least that feels familiar. In her early teens, before a driver’s license ushered in the car as the preferred mode of transportation, she and her friends walked everywhere. Countless times they made their way to the center of town to shop for new lip gloss, grab a sub at the local deli or just hang out. Renny’s memories flood her as though the sidewalk were a time machine. Years of adult stress melt into the cement pavement.

  She recalls how it used to drive her mother crazy when she walked outside barefoot. “You’ll catch something,” she warned, disgusted when she saw Renny’s blackened soles.

  “Like what, sidewalk disease?” Renny asked.

  “Don’t be a smart ass. No one wants to marry a smart ass.”

  “Dad married you.”

  Her mother brandished a fake “ha-ha” smile and tossed out the standard edict, “Before you come in my house you better wash the shmutz off those feet. Or else, you’ll find yourself mopping my floors, missy.”

  Turning left on Sinclair Drive, Renny spots her parents’ house. Her heart races in her chest. Her parents are probably sound asleep. She hates the idea of waking them up and for a moment Renny wonders if this journey home is a mistake.

  She climbs the porch steps feeling like a lost child seeking refuge from the big bad world, wanting nothing more than to be welcomed into her mother’s arms. She rings the doorbell and she waits, resolving that even if her mother slams the door in her face, she’s not leaving. The sound of footsteps inside draws near and is followed by the upper portion of her mother’s face peaking through the Venetian blinds that cover the half window on the front door. Locks click open. The door is pulled wide. Her mother stands in front of her silent. She is wearing a floral housecoat, over a pair of pastel yellow pajamas. Her shoulders are stooped, and her eyes are rimmed with black circles. Renny is immediately struck by how much her mother has aged since they were together last. That was only a week ago.

  Renny steps forward, hoping to be swept up in her mother’s welcoming embra
ce. That doesn’t happen.

  Instead, her mother falls into Renny’s arms like a broken ragdoll. Without a word Renny steps over the threshold of her childhood home and into adulthood, dirty feet and all.

  Chapter Forty

  “According to this,” Renny’s mother flashes a magazine article, “I’m the type of person that is only happy when I take control.”

  “No kidding, Ma.” Renny scans the title of the magazine personality test, Are You Born to Lead or Follow?

  “I scored a 46 out of a possible 50.”

  Renny and her mother are at the Oncology Treatment Center in Short Hills, where she is receiving her fourth round of chemotherapy. Sitting beside her, Renny’s eyes trace the plastic tubing from the IV bag to her mother’s arm, where a venus system port has been placed. Renny resumes typing on her laptop. Yesterday, Cedar Foods e-mailed her the proposed media buy for Cosmo’s Chips. She needs to have suggestions to their advertising agency by the end of the week.

  It’s been three months since the Sunday morning Renny arrived at her parents’ house; three months since she decided to stay. One week later she sublet her apartment to Lucy, who was tired of commuting from Brooklyn and wanted to give Manhattan a try. That same week her mother had surgery to remove the cancerous tumor that had formed in her right lung. The six hour operation to remove one lobe went well, that is if you consider “well” being the removal of half of your right lung. They diagnosed it as squamous cell carcinoma and called it good. Renny found it hard to find any good in a sentence that started with cancer, but she kept the negativity to herself.

  After the operation, her mother was scheduled for two weeks of hospital recuperation. Instead she was discharged after only eight days. Her doctors marveled at her progress and called her “a fighter.” To Renny, who has been doing battle with her since birth, this was not exactly front page news. However, for the first time it was welcome news and she was thankful for it.

  The chemo began four weeks later. They wanted her mother to regain some strength before they took it away again. Her treatment was to last for four months and be followed by a few months of radiation. After that, they hoped that she would be cancer free.

  “Where do you think that damn boat is going?” her mother asks, staring at the painting in front of them. The room where her treatment is administered is a soothing buttery yellow, with an accompanying beach motif. The painting depicts a small sail boat at sea on a clear day. There are three women on board, one at the tiller and one seated, while the third adjusts the sail. Renny has accompanied her to all of her chemotherapy sessions. Always administered in this room, she never considered whether the threesome had a destination or not. “Maybe they’re just enjoying the moment at sea,” Renny suggests.

  “That’s boring.” Her mother waves a dismissive hand and picks up an issue of Family Circle. “Dad said Gaby called this morning. How is she doing?”

  “Good,” Renny says, while scanning through her computer files.

  “Is she planning to stay in North Carolina?”

  “I think so.” After Gaby’s fling with Todd burned out, she moved back home with her father. “She’s trying to land a job as a reporter at one of the local television stations.”

  “That would be a good job for her. Where did you tell me she’s working, Starbucks?”

  “She’s just doing that to earn some cash. Her shrink said she needs to keep busy.”

  Gaby’s Manhattan doctor referred her to a local colleague. The new shrink’s office is green instead of beige. “I always preferred green,” Gaby told her, sounding quite cheery this morning. Renny figures she must have gotten some recently. She only hopes it wasn’t with the new shrink.

  Her mother picks up an issue of Newsweek. “Is Sara going to bring the kids with her next week?”

  “I think so. Is that all right?”

  “Sure. Has she heard from him?”

  “She and Bart only speak when he picks up Megan on his weekends.”

  “He doesn’t take the baby?” her mother asks horrified.

  “He says it’s too hard.”

  Her mother snorts in disgust.

  After Sara gave birth to Ethan, Bart moved back home and they spent two months in couples counseling. It didn’t do much good. Even with the therapist’s prodding, Bart couldn’t see the toll his actions had taken on their relationship. Sara equated it to, “A murderer who gets caught and asks his arresting officer if they can still be friends.” Then one day Sara showed up unexpectedly at Bart’s office to take him to lunch. He wasn’t there and according to his secretary he was out at a meeting and wouldn’t be back for the rest of the day. Sara went immediately to the apartment building on West End Avenue, only this time she didn’t wait outside. When she knocked on the other woman’s apartment door, Bart answered, confirming what her heart had suspected—he was made of pure shit.

  Before walking away for good, Sara hauled off and hit him in the face. Two days later she had him served with divorce papers at the plastic surgeon’s office. She had broken his nose.

  “What are you working on?” Her mother peers at the laptop screen.

  “Time tables for the Cosmo’s Chips media buy.

  “You seem to be getting busier,” her words come with a dose of worry that her daughter will become to busy to help her. Since moving home, Renny has assumed the task of keeping the Shuler house running. She does the grocery shopping and the laundry. With her father at work, Renny chauffeurs her mother to all her treatments and doctors appointments. When her mother is weak from a treatment it is Renny who helps her into bed. When she is overcome by nausea it is Renny who empties the waist basket kept near the bed. And after the clean up, it is Renny who lays a cool damp washcloth on her mother’s forehead. When she began losing her hair, Renny went hat and scarf shopping, bringing home a vast array for her mother to choose from. Even with the responsibility of caring for her, Renny has found that the respite from city life has been the perfect prescription for her own chipped soul.

  Not that everything is perfect.

  Renny and her mother still have their run-ins. If Renny brings home the wrong brand of detergent, she hears about it. If she overpays on the cut of meat she bought for dinner, her mother is sure to point it out. Sometimes Renny lets the barbs go, sometimes not. They are after all, still a mother and a daughter. Yet, as her mother grows stronger, their fights grow weaker, as if the cancer has sucked away the energy it takes to be disagreeable.

  “I can handle the work, Ma,” Renny says, to assuage her mother’s worry. “Trey Cedar knows my time is limited right now.” However, with her mother making strides toward recovery, Renny has taken on some more work. Last week Trey asked if she would be able to help with Cedar Foods’ introduction of a new line of gourmet frozen pizza. Renny’s fledgling marketing company looks like it would have legs to stand on after all. Last week, Ira spent the day with their mother, so she could go into the city to sit in on Trey’s meeting with the advertising agency. Walking the city streets for the first time in months, Renny couldn’t help thinking about the guy she met on the street that night. She superimposed his face on every man that passed her and for an instant she’d see him. Only then he’d be gone again like a snapshot whisked out of sight. It was crazy, because she didn’t even know his name.

  “Who were you on the phone with so late last night?” Her mother keeps her eyes on her open magazine.

  “You answered the phone first, Ma. You know who it was.” Renny elbows her lightly. Like Mendelbaum, who Renny thinks of often and fondly, she has forged a new phone friendship. This one is with Marty Toezoff, her blind date that never happened. His aunt, Mrs. Meyerson, has been one of her mother’s habitual visitors. She arrives every Friday at two o’clock toting pastries from Lutz’s bakery.

  “My nephew wants to know if he can call you again?” Mrs Meyerson asked at the first visit.

  “Of course,” her mother answered before Renny could even open her mouth.

 
The first time Marty called, Renny apologized profusely for blowing off their brunch. The call was awkward and short. Renny figured he wouldn’t call back. But he did and soon they were questioning and answering through their lives, voices touching though bodies remained apart. She found talking to him easy, the details of her life spilling out, including the ones about Georgie. After all, Marty wasn’t a boyfriend there was no reason to hold back—no pressure to impress.

  In turn, he told her about his failed engagement, “My fiance ran off two weeks before the wedding.”

  “That’s awful,” Renny said.

  “It gets worse. The guy was one of my partners.” Marty was a partner in the esteemed Manhattan Foot and Ankle clinic, the practice that was chosen last year as the podiatrists for several New York sports teams. Renny hated to admit that being in sports medicine gave Marty a certain cache of cool.

  Renny maintains visual contact with her computer screen when she tells her mother, “Marty’s going to come over with his Aunt this Friday.”

  “Really?” she excitedly slaps her magazine closed.

  “It’s not a big deal.” Renny taps on her computer.

  “Pfsh.” She shakes her head at Renny and then turns back to her magazine. Only now her mother has a shit eating grin on her face.

  “What?” Renny says.

  “I didn’t say anything.” She turns a page.

  “It’s not a big deal, Ma. He’s just a friend.”

  “Did I say it was a big deal? Do your work. I’m in the middle of an article.” Her nose is in the magazine, smile intact.

  Renny reads the same line of text seven times before silently admitting that yes, it is a big deal. Friday will be the first time she and Marty meet face to face. But Renny doesn’t want to talk about it. She just wants to let it happen.

  Yet, she can’t help wondering what he looks like. Marty grew up on Long Island with his mother, a now retired elementary school teacher and his dad who owned a shoe store. He told her, his voice full of pride, about how his father would close early on Sunday in summer so the two of them could catch the Mets playing at Shea Stadium. A typical boy story, yet listening to him, it seemed to Renny as though he is the first boy ever taught by his Dad to love the game of baseball. She tried to picture what he looked like at nine, debating whether her prepubescent self would have had a crush on him. At times the Marty in her mind had blond hair, at other times brown or black. She never asked, preferring to let her imagination draw his picture.