Cosmo's Deli

by Sharon Kurtzman

  “I think the medicine is almost done,” her mother says.

  Renny checks the IV bag. “Almost.”

  She turns back to her magazine. “This is an interesting article.”

  “How to marry off your daughter in 10 easy steps?”

  “Wisenheimer, that’s not it. It’s about working women who want to be stay at home mothers and stay at home mothers who want to go back to work.”

  “You know what they say, the grass is always greener,” Renny theorizes.

  “The grass only grows because it is rooted in shit.”

  “Manure, Ma.”

  “A fancy name for shit. All they covet is somebody else’s shit.”

  “I suppose,” Renny says.

  “Just be happy with your own.”

  “I always have been.” Renny can’t keep the accusatory tone from her voice.

  “I should have been happy for you, too,” she admits, hugging the magazine to her chest as if it were a bible with divine guidance. She meets Renny’s gaze. “I’m happy for you now.”

  “That’s because I’m living at home under your watchful eye. What if I move back into the city—alone, unmarried. It’s going to happen, Ma. I plan on moving back when your treatment is done.”

  “I’ll be happy for you then too. I will.”

  “Even if I don’t live up to your expectations?”

  “Just live up to yours.”

  Renny’s smile rises up from the depths of her heart.

  ***

  Friday just after two o’clock, Renny descends from the upstairs of her parent’s house. Nearing the bottom step, she hears voices trailing out from the living room. She told her mother to answer the door, opting to make an entrance.

  “Hello everyone,” Renny says, entering the living room and finding her mother and Mrs. Meyerson on the couch together.

  “There you are,” her mother says.

  “Hello Renny,” Mrs. Meyerson waves.

  “Where’s…” Renny starts.

  Her mother answers before the question is formed. “He’s putting the chocolate babka in the kitchen for me.” Babka is Renny’s favorite coffee cake, especially chocolate flavored.

  “All done,” his familiar voice precedes him into the room. When he steps into the living room, Renny’s breathe catches in her throat.

  “Hi,” he says.

  “Hi.” Her eyes are glued to Marty Toezoff’s face, which happens to be the same face she said goodbye to that night at Port Authority.

  “It’s you,” she says.

  “It’s me,” he answers.

  Renny shakes her head. “You don’t look surprised to see me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You’re he and you’re she. Now come and sit,” her mother instructs, waving at two empty chairs.

  Renny can tell by her mother’s nervousness that she knew who Marty was well before today. Only, how could she know about the man at Port Authority if I didn’t tell her? Renny glances at Mrs. Meyerson, who is compulsively smoothing her skirt in her lap. That’s how, Renny thinks. She and Marty sit, but a moment later Renny shoots back up, telling him, “I need to talk to you.”

  “Now?” her mother asks.

  “Now,” Renny says.

  She opens her mouth to protest, but then closes it when Renny shoots her a “you should have told me” look. Renny waves for Marty to follow her outside to the front porch.

  When they are both outside, Renny pulls the door partly closed and turns to him, “How long have you known that I was the girl on the street?”

  He looks down for moment and then meets her gaze straight on. “I knew who you were that night when I picked your stuff up off the street. You see, I peaked at your driver’s license and saw your name.”

  “And my mother and your aunt?”

  “I told my aunt…she must have told your mother.”

  “All these months, why didn’t you say something to me?”

  “I can’t even count how many times I started to. But if you remember, when we met that night, you called me your ‘blind date from hell.’ I wanted time to change that perception.”

  “I need to sit.” Renny drops onto the top stair. “You should have told me.”

  “Really?” He asks sitting beside her.

  She hates herself for knowing that if he had told her his identity back then, she would have rebuffed him. She never would have given him the chance to show her how great a guy he is. After all, she’d decided he was a loser, sight unseen.

  He scrutinizes her face, as if searching for a keyhole to the gears spinning in her head. “When you were a kid did you have a bicycle?”

  “What?” she asks.

  “Did you have a bicycle?”

  “Of course.”

  “What did it look like?”

  She doesn’t understand what this has to do with anything, but she answers anyway. “I had one of those banana seat bicycles.” Her hands gesture as she talks. “You know, with the handlebars that are u-shaped. It was purple, with a flowered seat, and a basket, with big plastic daisies on it.”

  “I had one of those too, but in black, with a tiger seat. Did you ever just sit back on the bike and let go of the handlebars? Let the bike take you where it did, no control, no steering, just riding.” He draws near, his face just a few inches from hers.

  “Yeah.” Renny envisions herself doing just that, with him riding next to her, their arms outstretched, flying. And with that vision fresh in her mind, Renny leans in to his kiss. Everything fades away—the house, the street, even the step they sit on. Only their lips—hers on his, his on hers—exist suspended in time.

  They part.

  “Huh!” She says.

  “Just huh?” He holds his breath, his face still close.

  “I’m not surprised that you kissed me,” she says.

  “You’re not?”

  “No. I’m just surprised I enjoyed it so much.”

  And without the slightest analysis or hesitation, Renny kisses him again. It is the kiss she should have given him before getting on that bus months ago. It’s the kiss she should have given him at the end of every phone conversation. It is the kiss that takes the two men in her mind and melts them into one.

  “Okay, everything is settled, now come inside,” her mother says.

  Marty and Renny look up and find her in the doorway. Mrs. Meyerson hovers behind her.

  “Ma, privacy would be nice.”

  She waves a dismissive hand. “It’s time for babka.” Her mother walks away, leaving the door open for them to follow.

  ***

  After their pleasant afternoon with Marty and Mrs. Meyerson ends, Renny stacks the coffee cups and cake plates that litter the coffee table. Her mother lays sprawled out on the couch, clearly exhausted from the visit.

  “Thanks for cleaning up,” she says.

  “No problem.” Renny crumples up the used napkins.

  “So, Marty’s nice, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he’s very nice.” Renny turns to her, “Just say it.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

  “Fine, I’ll say it. You were right. He’s a good guy. And, yes, I like him.”

  “Is it so terrible having your mother be right?”

  Renny chews on this question like a cow with fresh cud. “No.”

  Her mother smiles. “Are you going to go out with him?”

  “Yes,” Renny wags a finger at her, “but that doesn’t mean I’m getting married tomorrow.”

  “But, you might get married someday.” She turns over on her side, settling in for a nap.

  “Anything is possible,” Renny concedes.

  “Anything is,” her mother calls out as her daughter carries the dishes to the kitchen.

  After depositing the plates in the sink, Renny comes back and finds her mother lightly snoring. Gently, she pulls a throw blanket over her mother before tiptoeing out of the room.

  Epilogue

  One year la
ter …

  “The truck is empty,” Renny’s father says, poking his head into the kitchen of his daughter’s new apartment. “Should I tell the movers they can leave?”

  “Sure.” Renny opens the carton marked Kitchen Stuff.

  “Don’t forget to tip them,” her mother says, pulling a wad of newspaper out of the box.

  “I’m not an idiot,” he says walking out.

  “I know that,” her mother says waving a hand at him.

  Renny walks into the living room of the apartment and over to the mountain of boxes that fill the small room. Not that it took much to fill it, since by all standards her new one bedroom apartment is tiny. A cool breeze blows from the open living room window. It is autumn and the warm day is giving way to a late afternoon chill. Renny shuts the window before carrying another box to the kitchen.

  Four month ago the doctors declared her mother cancer free, giving her a clean bill of health. Renny opted for a clean slate too, allowing Lucy to take over the lease on her old place. She spent a month out with a realtor trying to find the right apartment, within her budget. When the realtor first brought her to this third floor walk-up in a brownstone on 19th Street between Second and Third Avenue, Renny was disappointed. She wanted a doorman. The apartment had an exposed brick wall in the living room and a pass through kitchen with granite counters. But it was more than brick and rock that sold her. Renny knew this was home when she entered the bedroom and closed the door behind her. An hour later she wrote the check for first and last months rent, bidding adieu to the paycheck to paycheck living in her previous studio apartment. Being with her parents for the past fifteen months had allowed Renny to sock away cash for the first time in her life. And thanks to a few referrals from her friend Jeff, she’s added five web clients to the ever expanding Cedar Foods business. Two months ago she was confident enough to name her company and order letter head. That’s when Groys Madel Marketing was born. Her mother came up with the name. In Yiddish groys madel means “big girl.”

  “Thanks for helping me move,” Renny tells her mother as she puts the box on the counter.

  “It’s what a mother does,” she says, peeling away newspaper and revealing a blue drinking glass. Her parents bought them for the new apartment at Crate and Barrel. Renny wanted eight, but her mother insisted she needed twelve. “I don’t have cupboard space for twelve. My kitchen is really small,” Renny said.

  “It is better to have too many. If I buy eight and you break one, then you’ll only be left with seven,” she warned.

  True to form, a heated debate ensued until they compromised on ten. Renny had to promise to handle them carefully.

  The door slams and a moment later her father walks in the kitchen. “We should go before we get stuck in rush hour.”

  “I hate to leave you with this mess.” Her mother waves a hand toward the box.

  “I’ll get it done, don’t worry.”

  “If I don’t worry about you what else am I going to do?”

  “Enjoy life.”

  “Who’s not enjoying?” she says with a shrug.

  “I’ll walk you down,” Renny tells her.

  ***

  Out on the street she and her father hug. “Take care of yourself,” he says.

  “I will, Dad,” Renny says.

  He gets into the driver’s side of the car as Renny turns to say goodbye to her mother. “Are you seeing Marty tonight?” she asks.

  “Tomorrow night. We’re going to order in Chinese.” They’d been a couple since that day he visited with his aunt.

  “Maybe soon…” Her mother raises an eyebrow and twirls her hand to punctuate her meaning.

  “I don’t know, Ma. We’re happy, okay. And, we’ll probably live together before we do anything else.” When Renny began looking at apartments, Marty suggested she move into his place. She liked the idea, but didn’t want to go right from living with her parents to living with him. She felt like a sailor who had finally found her sea legs and was enjoying the horizon for the first time. However, as a promise toward their future, she signed a one year lease. “Will you ever stop pushing?” Renny asks.

  “Never,” her mother says, stretching out her arms. Renny welcomes her mother’s embrace. “Just because you live in the city again, don’t become a stranger.”

  “I won’t.”

  She keeps Renny in her arms. “You’re a good girl.”

  Renny squeezes her mother tight. After letting go, she notices a rogue strand of gray hair dancing in her mother’s eyes and moves the straggler back in place. “You’re still a piece of work, you know?”

  Her mother cracks a smile, and Renny knows it is because she wouldn’t have it any other way.

  After a final hug, Renny watches her parents’ car move up the street until it rounds the corner and disappears from sight. Then she mounts the steps of the brownstone two at time, at home with her city and herself.

  END