by Cathy Holton
Lavonne pushed open the door and went in, the little bell above her head tinkling merrily. Mrs. Shapiro came from the back, wiping her hands on a clean white apron. “Oh, hey, Miz Zibolsky,” she said. She was a small round woman with red cheeks and wisps of gray hair that escaped from her hairnet and fell in wild profusion around her face. She had a lazy left eye, the result of a childhood accident involving her brother, June Bug Rubin, and a shovel. “You doing all right?” Mrs. Shapiro’s bad eye shifted slightly to the left of where Lavonne stood contemplating the glass case of baked goods.
“I’m fixing to get a whole lot better,” Lavonne said. She could talk Southern when she wanted to. Everything in the display looked wonderful. The Texas sheet cake looked especially good. “You got any of those cream cheese brownies in the back?”
“I sure don’t. If I’d known you were coming in, I’d have made up a batch this morning,” Mona Shapiro said, patting her hair. “The Texas sheet cake is real good.” She moved the cake closer to the glass front so Lavonne could get a good look at it. She’d been selling baked goods to Lavonne Zibolsky for a long time and she knew what she liked.
While she waited for Lavonne to decide, Mona said, “Did you hear about Velma Boggs?” Her bad eye skittered and careened off the walls like the headlamp of a runaway train. Lavonne hadn’t heard, so while she tried to decide between the Texas sheet cake and the kugel, Mona told her all about Velma, how Velma had a swelling in her stomach the size of a Texas grapefruit, how she went up to Emory and they opened her and she had what you call a benign tumor, meaning it won’t kill you but it’ll suck the nutrients out of you so’s you wind up skinny as a bed slat.
Lavonne listened and clucked her tongue in the right places. After eighteen years of patronage she was used to Mona’s tales of woe and mayhem. Mona collected bad news the way some women collect spoons. “How’s the Peach Paradise?” Lavonne said finally, pointing at the display.
“Oh, honey, it’s delicious. Those peaches are frozen fresh from Mr. Skidmore’s orchard,” Mona said, bending over to move the Peach Paradise a little closer to the glass window.
“Okay,” Lavonne said. “Wrap it up.”
Mrs. Shapiro went in the back to get a box, then came back out to wrap up the Peach Paradise. Lavonne stared at the dessert and tried to cheer herself up, imagining the anticipation, the excitement, the sweet taste filling her mouth, but no matter how hard she tried, all she could think about was Leonard’s face when she told him she would have to use Piggly Wiggly deli trays for the party. She felt sure the unsettling dreams and visions of her mother, the constant sense of impending disaster, were somehow tied to the stress she was feeling trying to handle last-minute details for the party. She tried to remember a time when her life had been about more than worrying whether she could find a caterer, but those days were a distant memory. She wondered if what she was feeling now might stretch back farther than her marriage to Leonard. She wondered if the spreading roots of her discontent might be imbedded somewhere deep in her childhood.
An only child, she had spent her lonely childhood fantasizing about belonging to a family like the ones she saw on TV. Her father, Raymond, was a clerk down at the local hardware store where he had worked since high school. He was a quiet, morose man accustomed to a degree of sameness in his life. He liked the same beer, ate the same food, sat in the same plaid easy chair, and drove the same sad Buick he had driven for twenty years. Lavonne and her mother, Margaret, spent most of their time moving carefully around their own home so as not to disturb Raymond Schwagel’s rigid and meticulous routine. Margaret Schwagel worked as a clerk typist at Bieder & Assoc., an accounting firm located only four blocks from the little house on Hennipen Street where the Schwagels lived. Lavonne would go with her mother to the office on the occasional Saturday mornings when she had to work, and noting Mr. Bieder’s plush office and the deference her mother showed him, it was here Lavonne first decided she would be an accountant when she grew up.
“Is there anything else I can get you?” Mona Shapiro asked, beginning to tape up the box.
“Not today,” Lavonne said, thinking But probably tomorrow.
Maybe she wouldn’t tell Leonard anything. Maybe she would call Eadie and Nita and go to the beach instead. She imagined the three of them loading their suitcases into the back of her car and turning off their cell phones. She imagined driving three and a half hours with the windows down and Jimmy Buffet singing on the CD player. She imagined them lying on the beach in the bright sunlight drinking margaritas while Trevor, Charles, and Leonard, forced to organize the party themselves, plundered Ithaca like marauding Huns, seizing take-out tubs from Jimmy’s Chicken Shack, snatching deli trays from the Piggly Wiggly, and commandeering massive quantities of alcohol from Merv’s Shake Rattle & Roll Liquor Store. Actually, Jimmy’s Chicken Shack wasn’t such a bad idea. Lavonne made a mental note to call them later.
There was a bookkeeping ledger open on the counter, one of those heavy old-fashioned books Lavonne hadn’t seen in years. Mona saw her looking at it and she groaned. “I can handle the baking but the ledger book gives me fits. Marvin always kept the books. Since he’s been gone things are kind of sliding downhill fast. I never could tolerate numbers. All those long columns staring me in the face night after night. I just can’t seem to concentrate. I’m hoping Little Moses can move back and take over that part of the business for me.” Little Moses was Mona’s only child, a good-looking, clean-cut boy who used to help her in the shop. Lavonne hadn’t seen him since he graduated from high school and went out to California to cut a demo tape with his Jewish reggae band, Burning Bush.
Mona put the last piece of tape on the box. “You probably want to keep this in the refrigerator,” she said. “That way it’ll stay fresh until you have a chance to eat it all.”
Lavonne was pretty sure that wouldn’t be a problem. The last time she bought a pie from Shapiro’s she’d eaten it in one sitting. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She thought about Mrs. Shapiro entering long columns in a ledger book. Hadn’t she heard of personal computers? Hadn’t she heard of accounting software?
Lavonne checked her watch again. Louise had an after-school fencing class. Ashley had cheerleading practice. They would most likely eat dinner at school. Lavonne hoped they would make better food choices than their mother. Like all reformed career women Lavonne took her parenting seriously, volunteering for play groups, turning her kitchen into a craft center, driving her daughters to preschool, and soccer, and horseback riding, and, later, to school, to slumber parties, and to school sporting events. But now the girls were seventeen and sixteen and no longer seemed to need her to drive them around or make dinner for them. Lavonne was left with large blocks of time to sit around eating Peach Paradise and Rocky Road ice cream out of the carton and spy on her neighbors. There were moments in the middle of the afternoon when she thought, Maybe I should adopt a child. She thought, Maybe I should join the Peace Corps. Lately, she had begun thinking, Maybe I should get a job.
Mona pushed the box toward Lavonne. She sighed and pulled her hairnet into place. A bus rumbled by in the street outside. “If I can’t talk Little Moses into helping me with the business, I might as well go on and sell to Mr. Redmon.”
“Mr. Redmon?”
“You know Mr. Redmon, don’t you?” Mrs. Shapiro said, shaking the flour off her apron and turning to ring up the purchase on the cash register.
“Yes,” Lavonne said. “I know him.” Redmon was Leonard’s biggest client. Around the office he was known as the Strip Mall King. He was single-handedly responsible for buying up family farms along the interstate that ran through Ithaca and turning the pastoral landscape into a garish jungle of fast-food restaurants, truck stops, and strip joints. In the process, he’d made himself fabulously wealthy. Leonard worshipped him. When Redmon said “Jump,” Leonard said, “How high, Mr. Redmon, sir.”
“He’s been after me for years to sell. You know I own this building,”
Mona said, lifting her hand to indicate the shop around them. “And the building next door, too. Marvin bought them back in sixty-seven, right after his daddy died and left us a little money. Back then it was nothing more than a dusty storefront and I couldn’t see the point of buying something downtown—all the businesses seemed to be moving out to the interstate back then. But Marvin’s daddy had a dream right before he died. He dreamed they’d find gold buried beneath the streets of downtown Ithaca, and Marvin was a big believer in dreams. The ink wasn’t even dry on the probate documents before he plunked down the money to buy this place.” She chuckled and shook her head, remembering. She looked fondly around the room. Her bad eye rolled and bounced in its socket like a bobber on a fishing line. “Still, I don’t know why Mr. Redmon would want it. I don’t know what he would want with a bakery anyway.”
Lavonne looked through the plate-glass window at the steady stream of tourists moving along the sidewalks. Across the street a crowd gathered on the porch of the Pink House Restaurant. Five years ago, a big Atlanta developer had discovered the charm of Ithaca’s old downtown and had begun a steady renovation. Now, Mrs. Shapiro’s crumbling building must be worth at least a half million dollars. Redmon would no doubt buy it and turn it into an upscale restaurant or women’s clothing store.
“Mrs. Shapiro, do you have an attorney?” Lavonne took her wallet out of her purse and counted out the bills.
“An attorney?” Mona frowned. Her eye took off like a rocket, flaring off the walls, the ceiling, and coming to rest finally on a spot just to the left of Lavonne. “Well.” She shook her head. “Marvin always took care of all that. He used his second cousin, Solomon, over in Valdosta.”
“No, I mean an attorney to look over any contract Redmon might want you to sign.”
“Actually, Miz Zibolsky, Mr. Redmon said your husband might be able to help me.” She closed the old-fashioned cash register with her hip, and counted out Lavonne’s change.
Lavonne had a sudden image of Leonard and Redmon bent over a contract in Leonard’s office, laughing and rubbing their hands together like villains in a vaudevillian play. The thought that Leonard might make his living by taking advantage of trusting widows, that the big house they lived in, the grand private school her daughters attended, the everyday luxuries she herself enjoyed might be built upon the backs of sweet, gentle women like Mona Shapiro occurred to Lavonne like a blow to the head. Staring into Mona Shapiro’s kindly face, Lavonne felt an odd swelling sensation that started low in her abdomen and traveled up through her chest cavity into her throat. Her breathing quickened. She wondered if she might be hyperventilating. The effect was fleeting but alarming. She took a deep breath and put one hand on the counter to steady herself.
Seeing her discomfort, Mona hurried around the corner and put her arm around her. “Sugar, are you all right?” There was something comforting and familiar about the little woman, something motherly. Lavonne wondered why she had not noticed it before. “I’m okay,” she said. “Just a little short of breath.”
“Do you want to sit down?”
“No, I’m okay.” She took another deep breath. There was a sound in her head, loud and insistent as rain drumming on a tin roof. After awhile she said, “Have you ever heard of conflict of interest?”
Mona Shapiro stood looking up into Lavonne’s face with her good eye, trying to read her expression, trying to figure out if she was all right. “You sure you don’t want to sit down?” she said.
Lavonne took another deep breath. “I’ll be okay. But listen, Mrs. Shapiro, don’t sign anything with Redmon or my husband before you get your cousin Solomon to look it over.”
Mrs. Shapiro let go of her. She seemed puzzled by Lavonne’s request, but she nodded her head in agreement. “Okay,” she said.
Lavonne was breathing normally now. She picked up the Peach Paradise in her arms, cradling it like she would a baby. A thought occurred to her suddenly, and she shook herself and said, “Mrs. Shapiro, have you ever done any catering?”
Mona went back behind the counter. Her bad eye shot off like a steel ball in a pinball machine, and rolled slowly back to rest on Lavonne. “Well, I do a lot of bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs,” she said hesitantly.
Lavonne was a little surprised. She hadn’t realized there was such a thriving community of Dixie Jews in Ithaca. “I need a caterer for next Saturday.”
Mona’s face turned pink. She smiled and shook her head. “I’ve never cooked anything but kosher food for big groups,” she said. “I wouldn’t know how to cook anything else.”
“Cook whatever you like,” Lavonne said quickly. She was afraid Mona would refuse and now that she’d stumbled on the idea, she didn’t want to give it up. “I’m sure it’ll all taste great. I’ll make a few things myself, maybe some crab and artichoke dip, cheese straws, things like that. Finger food.” Using Mona Shapiro was the perfect solution to the problem of the firm party, and Lavonne wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before. Her pulse stopped drumming in her head like the voice of doom. Her stomach settled down. The feeling of anxiety lifted, and for the first time in a long time she began to feel almost optimistic. “Could you do it? We’ll probably have about one hundred people.”
“Well.” Mona thought about it a moment. She seemed to be warming to the idea. “I suppose I could.”
“Do you know anyone who could help you serve?”
“Usually I hire some of the girls from the temple to help me out, but Little Moses is coming in tomorrow. I can ask him and some of his friends. His record deal fell through so he and the boys are coming home to work and save some money and maybe move up to Atlanta to get something going. They could probably use the money. And my cousin Mordecai has a tux shop out at the mall. He could probably get the boys some uniforms to wear.”
“Great. I can tell you right now my husband’s law firm will pay whatever price you decide is fair.”
This seemed to make Mrs. Shapiro happy, which in turn made Lavonne happy. The only ones who would not be happy were Charles and Virginia Broadwell and, possibly, Leonard. Virginia had always used the same tired list of caterers every other hostess in Ithaca had used. By using Mona Shapiro, Lavonne was breaking with tradition and reminding Ithaca that she, an outsider, and a Yankee outsider at that, could do things her own way and not be bound by the same narrow-minded constraints that bound them. It wasn’t as good as telling Virginia Broadwell to fuck off, but it was close.
“I’ll call you tomorrow with the details,” Lavonne said, looking down into Mona’s sweet, kindly face. Using Mrs. Shapiro was a small blow struck for social freedom, but it was a blow nevertheless. And it was a blow struck for something else, too, although Lavonne could not quite put her finger on what it was exactly. “We can do this, Mona, I know we can.”
Mona grinned and tugged at her hairnet. “Well, all right then,” she said.
COMING HOME FROM the Shapiro Bakery, Lavonne thought she saw her mother standing in a queue at the bus stop. The experience left her light-headed and short of breath, again, and it was not until she was almost to the stop that she realized the woman, a small, stoop-shouldered black woman wearing a maid’s uniform, looked nothing like her mother. Lavonne blinked her eyes, wondering if she might be on the edge of psychosis, and drove on. The feeling of optimism she had carried with her since leaving the bakery began to dissipate and something else took its place, fluttering in her abdomen like a persistent moth. The feeling intensified as she pulled into the driveway and saw her husband’s car. She checked her watch and realized it was only two-thirty. She pulled slowly into the garage and turned off the engine, pondering this development. Leonard never came home early from the office. She and the girls were accustomed to eating dinner alone. She and the girls were accustomed to doing everything alone. Leonard was not a big part of their everyday lives and to find his car parked in the garage at two-thirty in the afternoon was troubling. She wondered if there had been a catastrophe at work. She wondered if there had been
an emergency involving one of the girls.
Lavonne grabbed the pastry box from the front seat and hurried into the house. She could hear the TV blaring in the family room. Leonard was sitting on the sofa with his hunting trunk opened at his feet, carefully going through his gear.
“Are the girls okay?” Lavonne said breathlessly, standing in the doorway.
“What’s for dinner?” Leonard said, without looking up. “I know it’s early but I didn’t have lunch and I’m starving.” He was whistling cheerfully, running his freckled hands over neatly stacked camouflage gear and rain ponchos and boots and wool socks. Every year Charles, Trevor, and Leonard went to Montana to sleep in feather beds, eat gourmet food off good china, and hunt anesthetized wildlife at a game ranch called, incongruously, the Ah! Wilderness Game Ranch. Lavonne could not remember the last time Leonard had gone on vacation with her and the girls, but he never missed the annual hunting trip.
“Are the girls okay?” she repeated loudly.
He put his hands on his knees and swiveled his head around so he could see her clearly. “What do you mean, are the girls okay? I don’t know where the girls are. You’re supposed to know where the girls are.”
“So there’s no emergency?” Lavonne came into the room and slid down on the big overstuffed chair facing him. She stretched her legs along the ottoman, her arms collapsed at her sides, letting the Peach Paradise box balance precariously on her stomach. “Jesus, Leonard, you about gave me a heart attack.”
“How’d I do that?”
“Coming home early on a Friday afternoon. I figured something was wrong. I figured one of the girls had been hurt or something.”