With Friends Like These

by Sally Koslow

  “It’s Quincy Blue,” she said. “For the doctor.” The nurse-receptionist put her on hold and the ghost-woman didn’t protest. She was frozen, with all the time in the world. When the nurse-receptionist returned the woman found the words. “I might be having a miscarriage,” she said with utter calm; again, with even higher stakes.

  “Dr. Frumkes will call you back,” the nurse said, her voice now buttered with concern. “Please try to stay calm, Mrs. Blue.”

  I knew that whether Dr. Frumkes called in five minutes or five hours, what was meant to happen could not be stopped. I hung up and looped between the couch and the bathroom, all the while trying to reconnect with the memory of my mom in the hope that she’d offer consolation and sapient wisdom. “The days are long, but the years are short,” she used to say—that is, before she lost the ability to speak at all—whenever I complained of restlessness. The phrase refused to calm me. “Don’t assume you always know what will happen next,” Mom said, as she often had. But that insight felt tired. I was certain I did.

  What would Alice Peterson do? I leaned back on the couch and saw her across from me in the easy chair, her bare feet crossed at her slender ankles. She was about the age I am now, with long blond hair streaming down her back. My mother put down a Dorothy Sayers mystery, marking her place with a grosgrain ribbon, walked to the kitchen, and put water up for tea. When she returned to the living room, she bent low to flip through her albums and pulled one out. Sweet baby James filled the room. Even as a young girl, I instinctively knew that James Taylor reminded her of my father, another James I’d never met but whom I’m told I resemble, the same craggy cheekbones and rangy limbs. Certainly I didn’t inherit my mother’s curvy but slender softness.

  I, little orphan Quincy, wanted my mother. I wanted a child—children—so I could become my mother, raising her from the dead with every caress, every loving gesture, and every firm but tender reprimand. When I was pregnant the first time, I’d decided that if one of my daughters was a girl, she’d be Alice Jane, after Mom. I hadn’t changed my mind.

  Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon was playing when Jake returned. “Missing Mommy, huh?” he said.

  I nodded, though Mom was never Mother or Ma, Mama or Mommy.

  “Takeout okay?” he asked, a large plastic bag swinging in his left hand. Let other people keep their lumpy mashed potatoes, their chicken soup. I have lived in New York a long time. Comfort food means shrimp pad thai turbocharged with tamarind and chili pepper. “Feeling better?” he asked.

  Before I could answer, my phone rang. “Quincy, what is it?” Dr. Frumkes asked.

  I gave her my report, ending with, “I’m pretty sure, well, not entirely, but worried I’m losing these babies, though nothing much has happened in the last hour.” Bitter experience had taught me this wasn’t necessarily good news.

  Jake was waving his arms for attention, his face disconsolate.

  “I need to see you,” she said.

  “But everything’s quieted down. Honestly. What difference is it going to make?”

  There was a long pause. “Then you absolutely must check in with me every hour and, if it comes to that, anytime during the night—if it’s eventful—and of course, first thing in the morning,” she clucked. I love my ob-gyn despite this tic. “You have my cell and home number, correct?”

  I told her I did. Both were committed to memory. Jake’s hands flapped with the time-out sign as I spoke. “Shouldn’t we go to the ER?” he mouthed.

  “Jake’s wondering if I should go to the emergency room,” I, the obedient wife, asked. “You don’t think it’s necessary, yet?” I repeated for his benefit. “Yes, I can be patient.” Jake looked anything but. “Of course I’ll lie low.”

  “When did this start, Q?” he asked as I hung up.

  What did it matter? “Maybe an hour ago, or a little before.”

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t go right now to see the doctor?”

  “I know the drill. I’ll see her the instant I really have to, I promise.”

  There was nothing more to say. I settled back on the couch. Jake brought me dinner on a tray. We ate in silence. I made another short but dramatic trip to the bathroom, and then the action stopped. I read, choosing The Murder at the Vicarage, and eventually Miss Marple and I went to bed, fingering the delicate necklace—three tiny diamonds on a thread of gold chain—that Jake had given me the week before. One stone for each baby, Peanut, Speck, and Jubilee.

  To my surprise, I slept through the night and woke to the whir of a coffee grinder. Towels beneath me were dry. I moved at a glacial pace, sitting, standing. Jake heard me and rushed to my side, clasping my elbow as if I were ninety-five.

  “Honey,” I said. I tried to smile but failed. His solicitude, well-intentioned as it might be, rankled. “I’m not going to break,” I said, perhaps because I already had in every way that counted. Jake left the room.

  I washed my face and stared in the mirror. Dark circles, a pallor. I ran a comb through my hair, brushed my teeth, and wrapped myself in a ratty navy velour robe. When I came out, the table had been set. Raspberry jam glistened in a small white crock. Jake had scrambled eggs. Tucked into a linen napkin, monogrammed AP, were pieces of golden toast nestled like babies in a bunting.

  He poured my coffee. Decaf, of course, but surprisingly good. “Do you want to call the doctor before you eat?” he asked.

  It was not quite seven. “I’ll wait a few minutes,” I said, and we ate leisurely, exchanging sections of The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Jake looked up twice as if to say, Now—call now.

  I dragged out the meal so long that Dr. Frumkes called me. “What’s happening?” she asked.

  I described my unexceptional night, listened, and hung up the phone. “She wants to see me before her regular patients,” I said. Jake started to speak, but I interrupted. “You don’t have to come along,” I said. “I know you have depositions today.”

  “An associate can handle it.” He sagged with disappointment. “I want to be with you.”

  Having Jake by my side would make it harder. Without him, I’d be more able to impersonate a woman possessing the brute force of courage. “I won’t disintegrate. I can do it alone.”

  Jake is a proud man, a strong man, a tender man. “Those are my babies, too,” he almost whispered.

  “You’re not going to change my mind.” I tried to speak with love. I believe I succeeded.

  “I want to come.”

  “Not this time.”

  A half hour later I was sitting, alone, in one of my doctor’s examination rooms. As soon as she walked into the room, my determination washed away. “Why does this keep happening to me?” I asked in a gush of tears. “It’s not as if I’m sniffing formaldehyde.”

  She put her hand on my shoulder. “Let’s have a look. Feet in the stirrups.” The internal exam was brief, followed by the usual.

  “Pain?”

  “No.”

  “Bleeding?”

  “Off and on. But it stopped.”

  “Dizziness?”

  “No.”

  “Fever?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t take my temperature.” I should have.

  “Weakness?” Dr. Frumkes asked. I nodded. “I feel all wobbly.”

  “Excuse me,” she said. She walked out of the room, leaving me to flip through a two-month-old copy of a magazine featuring shots of unbearably adorable infants and toddlers of every race held by their diverse and frequently famous parents. Every family had a dog as photogenic as they were. I was debating checking out the “Picky Eater Tool Kit” when Dr. Frumkes returned.

  She stuck an instant-read thermometer into my mouth. “Normal,” she said. “That’s good. Now here’s the deal.” She clucked as she placed her hand on my shoulder. I took stock of her gel nail tips and tried not to hold them against her. “I’ll be straight. I don’t like what I’m seeing here, Quincy.” I held my breath. “But until we do a sono, I won’t have a definitive a
nswer.”

  She’d strayed off script. Past speeches had always pivoted around miscarriage. Her face was calm as a cake. Then again, it had been aided and abetted by every wrinkle filler that’s known a hypodermic needle. I thought about how Jules and I used to laugh about this at Dr. Frumkes’ expense, and it infuriated me that even now, Jules had barged into the examining room, though it was I who’d invited her. Damn Jules—why had she given me reason to despise her? Jules is made of tough stuff. If she’d been here, it might have been better. I shut down that thought in one blink.

  “I know this is very worrisome and painful,” Dr. F. went on to say, “but it is what it is. I’ve arranged for your test.” She handed me a piece of paper with the address. “Right away.”

  When I reached the reception room, there was Jake.

  CHAPTER 30

  Talia

  “Sure you don’t want to take the car, bubbele?” my mother said as I left her house. I was raised in that green clapboard bungalow and half my heart still lives here. It’s not in the arm of Santa Monica that looks amputated from some ritzy suburb, on the Brentwood side, near Montana Avenue’s requisite Waterworks and Williams-Sonoma. My parents’ house is closer to Venice, to scruffiness, to residents who’d sooner pry off a fingernail than vote Republican. I adore its shelves sagging with Great Books and National Geographics, though the gnarly sycamores out front tilt the sidewalks like a giant’s hands. I especially love that I can walk to the Pacific, blocks away. I love that I can walk, period, and pretend Santa Monica isn’t Los Angeles. This may explain why I was able to fit easily into Brooklyn, which I refuse to see as New York City.

  “Mommy, it takes twenty minutes to walk to the farmers’ market—why drive?” I’d announced that I would cook dinner and was off to buy peppers for vegetarian chili, the only recipe I have committed to memory, since Tom prepares most of our meals. He is the more accomplished cook, with time free in the afternoon, and in our unspoken contract, this helps keep things even. But I didn’t care to expose this infrastructure to my mother, who, despite her liberal leanings, can rarely be found at home without an apron.

  “Suit yourself, Talia sweetie,” she said. Each s jingled like a charm. “Henry and Bubbe and I have a lot of catching up to do.”

  Tom had sat out this trip, never his favorite destination, no matter how much he adores my parents. Henry and I were here for an escape that conveniently coincided with my father’s seventy-first birthday, which was the next day. I’d booked a flight at the last minute, eager to flee as much as to celebrate. I felt sticky with guilt, so much so I hesitated to ask Chloe to take on two more days in the office. But e-mail is a beautiful thing, allowing the writer to fake an attitude as well as an expensive call girl. I’d made the request, doubting that Chloe would refuse—she should have felt guilty herself. She had to know she belonged in the office the day of the school interview.

  Self-reproach must have been emanating from me like the scent of garlic, and my mother read me as if I were a billboard. “What’s wrong?” she’d asked twice. When Henry and Bubbe both went down for their nap, my mother brought us glasses of tea and a plate of her almond mandelbrot and sat across from me on the screened porch, waiting for the big spill. “Trouble with your marriage, my darlink?” she asked, stroking the top of my hand.

  “Everything’s fine,” I said as evenly as possible. To criticize Tom would diminish my father, who, as a chemistry teacher, never produced a major income. Worthy men, worthy occupations. I was trapped in a saga of consequences I could discuss with no one, especially since I’d stopped seeing a therapist. Even certified social workers cost plenty. So I chased my own tail. If Tom earned more, I wouldn’t have tried to filch a job meant for a friend, wouldn’t be sweating the cost of private school tuition, which, despite the generous stipend Tom seemed convinced Henry would receive, wasn’t going to cover uniforms, trips, and the tennis and guitar lessons Henry would inevitably want in order to be like every other boy. I wouldn’t have been sweating, period, racking up a ticker tape of grievances against myself. Did I mention that I was feeling guilty?

  “Problems at work?” my mother asked.

  “Only that we’ve lost a major account,” I answered. This was not untrue. Gas prices were crazy high over the summer and people shopped less, hence a downward spiral in advertising. My boss, Eliot, droned on about it so much I’d stopped listening.

  “Are you worried that you’ll lose your job?”

  I wasn’t until my mother said it.

  “Don’t look so shocked. You read the papers.” I don’t, much. I’m one of those traitors who skims online, less often than I should. “The economy isn’t what it was.”

  I was even less in the mood for political discourse than maternal dissection. Hence, the stroll to southern California’s souk, the farmers’ market, bursting with Persian lemons and scolding signs. No preservatives! No pesticides! No smoking! No bikes! No kidding!

  I was fondling a handful of watermelon radishes when a voice said, “If it isn’t Talia Fisher-Wells.” Standing in front of the Santa Rosa plums was a tall man in sunglasses and a black baseball cap worn backward. I squinted at his face, obscured by the sun, and when I didn’t greet him, he said, “You have no idea who I am, do you?” He could have been my debate partner from tenth grade, a boy from Hebrew school, my senior prom date. “Admit it, Talia Fisher-Wells,” he said, stretching out my last name. He chuckled again, and I was certain it was at my expense. “You don’t have a clue.”

  The voice, tinged with New York, echoed in my memory. I delivered my most luminous smile. “Great to see you. What are you up to these days?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” With one hand he hoisted a bag of apricots. With the other, he removed his sunglasses.

  “Oh my God, Jonas!” The man for whom I’d been leaving daily messages. I’d gotten the feeling that he would make a fast decision—unless he’d made it and didn’t have the chutzpah or manners to tell me.

  “Actually, I prefer my first name,” he said, extending his hand as if we’d never met. “Winters.” His tone was warmer than I’d expected. “Don’t tell me you came all this way to ask about the job.”

  “My parents. They live on Ashland.”

  “You? A California girl?” The Beach Boys never sang ballads about frizzy brunette bookworms who crocheted yarmulkes for their high school boyfriends. “Did they move recently?”

  “You’d think, to listen to them, but it was thirty-eight years ago.” The job—that’s what I want to talk about. Is he going to make me ask? “What brings you here?”

  “A visit to my brother,” he said, “and to take a meeting and dodge your calls.”

  “Well?” I smiled again. You schmuck. Spit it out. I’m a big girl.

  “I’ll be honest,” he said. How refreshing. “We lost a few accounts.” Anxiety and deception, wasted. “But yesterday I signed a client, so the job’s definitely on again.”

  I brightened, picturing myself taking free business trips that included visits to my parents.

  “I owe you an apology,” he had the grace to say, “for keeping you waiting. You and one other candidate are finalists. I promised myself I’d make up my mind when I got back next week.”

  I turned to make sure none of my mother’s friends was crouching between the dates and the tomatoes and moved a little closer to Winters. “For what it’s worth,” I jumped in, “I’m very interested.”

  “I gathered that.” He grinned back, and I felt his shoulder brush mine, barely. “Want to talk about it over coffee?”

  Henry would be waking up soon, but I didn’t see this as a choice. “Why not?” I said, and let him steer us toward a small table beneath a white market umbrella. He placed his hand on my arm and I felt an extra stab of guilt as Mean Maxine registered, again, that while he was not handsome, Winters had an appeal that was in his eyes and his arrogance. He’d swaggered into this century from the 1950s. Winters was bald, where Tom had a thick head of hair, and why was
I comparing?

  I regretted that I was wearing a skimpy halter unearthed from the back of the closet, jeans that failed to meet any definition of fashionable, and old sandals exposing toenails I hadn’t polished in months. The highest praise I could offer myself was that my hair was clean.

  Since this was Santa Monica, a posse of dogs was tied to the legs of several tables. Winters crouched to meet an especially eager specimen. “Goldendoodle?” I asked. There had to be a law. Every dog was some version of doodle.

  “Labradoodle.” He turned in my direction and said, “Talk to me,” three of the most seductive words in the English language. I tried to take a stab at answering the question on one level while avoiding what was going on sub rosa, but that got harder when Winters Jonas added, “Why should I hire you for this job, besides that you’re gorgeous?”

  “I doubt you can find a better copywriter,” I started, not believing or acknowledging the compliment, though I was glad that in the shade of an umbrella, this man might not have been able to see the color rising in my face. “I’m fast, I’m sharp, I’m—”

  “Tell me about Talia,” he said as he slowly stroked the dog. Obediently, she rolled over for a belly rub, spreading her legs. “The woman.”

  I tried not to stare at the triangle of dark curly black hair where Winters Jonas’ shirt was open at his neck, but I didn’t know where to look. “I grew up here.”

  “I got that.” He let go of the dog and rested his chin on both hands. They were crossed in a steeple. The gesture said, I have all the time in the world.

  “I transferred east for college,” I added, and reeled off a few résumé items—editor of the literary magazine, resident adviser—while a server, flame-haired, slender, finely featured, took our orders for iced chai latte.