by Sheri Langer
“Mom, what would you say if I wanted pink hair?” Whitty asked, primping in the visor mirror.
“Cotton candy or hot magenta?” Fordham asked flatly.
“Would it matter?”
“No. I just wanted a visual for when I asked if you were out of your mind.”
“That’s not funny, Mom.”
Fordham dropped Whitty off as the last bus was pulling away. Pink hair, of all things. Whitty was only ten and already bent on driving Fordham crazy. There had to be some kind of natural law that stated she was supposed to be menstruating before demonstrating her rebellious streak and being confrontational. If only Dorie could put off her marriage for another decade or so, just until Fordham could get the hang of being the kind of mother Whitty needed her to be. On the plus side, despite the world not always affording Whitty the sensitivity she deserved, she seemed happier and more confident since the poetry awards. Somehow, the recognition and honor for her talent had given her a boost and added a lilt to her cumbersome steps.
The ride into the city wasn’t bad, leaving Fordham enough time to pick up a light latte and a fat-free corn muffin at the new organic takeout place around the corner from her office. It was her ritual to eat the top and around the outside then pitch the gritty leftover guts to the pigeons hanging out on the High Line. She agreed with Dylan: carbs were for the birds. After a few bites, the muffin’s flaws outweighed its merits, and remembering her intake at the wedding, Fordham ditched the whole thing, offering the birds a cocktail hour of their own. Just then, a lone sparrow came, gave a few pecks, and before flying off, issued an angry squawk. Criticism seemed in abundant supply from everywhere. Fordham rushed to the office, certain a Hitchcockian flock would soon be assembling to assault her.
Fordham was on the elevator, heading up to her office, when her phone rang. It was Aaron speaking a mile a minute, asking if she’d be around. He needed to see her with news he couldn’t wait to discuss. When she said she’d be in and didn’t have any meetings scheduled until the next day, he sounded relieved. She wasn’t sure where he thought she was going to go.
All Fordham did these days besides obsess about one thing or another was work. Work was the panacea that could take her away from pink hair, Dorie’s future, gritty muffins, and her perfectly executed self-pity parties. Even if the book kept her imbued with the lunacy and wonder of love, at least it wasn’t about her, and she could distance herself from any direct challenges.
The only expectation was that she made each story sound remarkable yet attainable and placed it strategically to ensure its impact. Fortunately, her touch of OCD had enabled her to finish the first round of edits in her Definite pile. While there was still plenty to do, the light at the end of the tunnel no longer warranted her throwing Margo onto the train tracks. With the exception of David’s submission, which she reread and still didn’t know what do with, she was comfortable with her choices. If she were smart, she would omit his, especially since she had no idea why it originated from the Pacific Northwest. It would be a reasonable cut to make, and David would get a standard rejection letter and never be the wiser. Of course, then she’d have to live with the knowledge that she’d betrayed him and his past and cheated her readers out of an inspiring story.
A knock at the door let her temporarily drop the dilemma. Myra was holding a pile of cover designs Fordham needed to check out, a responsibility Fordham hadn’t anticipated. Myra very matter-of-factly added that Abe would check in with her later, after his breakfast date with Dorie. That was it, although she did want Fordham to know that Abe had picked the engagement ring out on his own and that her only part in it was sending him to her brother, a jeweler in midtown. Myra left the office, grinning with satisfaction.
Fordham riffled through the designs for what seemed like an eternity. Some had artwork and some didn’t. She wasn’t sure which route to take. She was leaning toward one that had the title set in a kitschy old-style font inside a computer screen. It was light and playful but tasteful, which was just the feeling Fordham believed would draw readers.
A sudden clamor outside her office was making it difficult for Fordham to concentrate. People can be so inconsiderate. She’d opened the door to quiet the offenders when she spotted Jeff, the same guitarist who had come to the office before. This time, he was dressed in a tux T-shirt and was once again being dutifully followed by a throng of bored coworkers anxiously awaiting his next move. He recognized Fordham and asked her to step back into her office, where he leaned his guitar off to the side and began to set up an iPod and speakers.
Fordham couldn’t determine what Aaron was thinking this time and surmised that it was either an apology for being incessantly busy or some version of “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” Either way, this was an annoying interruption, and she wanted to go back to work.
Abe pushed his way through the crowd and into Fordham’s office. “You again?” he said to Jeff, bewildered. “Is this really your day job?”
“Yeah man.” Jeff nodded. “Like, I used to can sardines, but my old lady kept accusing me of cheating on her. She’s a wrestler, and I’m walking a lot straighter doing these gigs.”
“Charming,” Fordham commented.
Jeff picked up his guitar and played “Colour My World” by Chicago along with the recording. When the song was over, he pulled a long-stemmed red rose from a bag and handed it to Fordham. There was a high school ring attached to the ribbon. Aaron’s name was inscribed inside the band. It was the ring she used to wear around her neck when they were kids. She hadn’t seen it in years, and the memory of how important their love used to be brought tears to her eyes.
Jeff strummed a few warm-up chords and prefaced the next song. “Fraudman, this is for you.” He sang “Follow You, Follow Me,” by Genesis. When he was done, he went back into his bag to retrieve a satiny black box. Just then, Aaron flew into the office, grabbed the box from Jeff, and got down on one knee.
Fordham held her breath. This was the moment she had wished for all those years ago, yet all that came to mind was that David hadn’t gotten down on his knee to propose to Pam. It was not exactly the reaction she had anticipated, but many things had her confused these days.
“Fordham, you are my love and my life. You are my inspiration,” Aaron said, reminiscent of his younger lyric-quoting days. “My divorce is final—‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours.’ Baby, marry me.”
He put the ring on her finger so fast she wasn’t sure what hit her. There were a lot of oohs and aahs and then a round of applause. She just stood there, frozen, as if time had taken a holiday.
“Okay, this is an office, not the Wedding Channel. Everyone back to work and let these two have some privacy,” Abe said, giving Fordham a supportive nod while closing her office door.
With everyone but Aaron gone, Fordham was left staring down at her sparkling finger. The ring was everything she never wanted. The center stone was round and probably a little over a carat, and the band was thick, chunky, and sporting a clunky, curvy cluster of pavé diamonds that looked almost as overwhelmed as she was.
“What is this?” she asked, stalling for time.
“A proposal. I love you, baby. You know that. The deal I’ve been working on—it finally came through!”
“That’s great news! I’m so happy for you, Aaron.”
“Not just for me—for us. It’s our time now. We’re breaking ground in LA. I have to leave tomorrow morning, and I want you to come with me. We’ll get a place, set up—two weeks tops—and then we’ll get Whitty and bring her back with us.”
“What? Get a place? Move? What about my job?”
“I’m sure you could work from home if you wanted to, but with the kind of money I’m expecting, you wouldn’t have to work at all. Listen, baby, forget all that. Let’s just make this happen. Everything in our lives has brought us to this moment. Don’t you feel it?”
All she felt was queasy and an incredible urge to fart. Aaron got up from his knee and took her hand.
“I don’t know what to say,” she admitted uncomfortably.
“The word you’re looking for is... yes!” he said with puppy-dog eyes and an air of certainty.
She searched his eyes. It was her Aaron, the kid who had made her heart melt before Spain, separate paths, and scruffy facial hair had come between them. She had a quick flash of the future and pictured Dorie packing her things and moving to Abe’s house. She envisioned days of rushing Whitty out to the bus or car with a Special K bar in one hand and a box of Mott’s in the other. Fordham gazed at her gleaming hand. The ring wasn’t her style, but it was beautiful, and Margo would have been proud that her nails were manicured for the occasion. It was not her place to tamper with the will of the universe. Everything so far, including David’s engagement, had been leading up to this moment. Maybe the timing was right and she had been too caught up in work and a myriad of distractions to realize it.
She looked up at Aaron and said a barely audible, “Yes.”
He kissed her and went to the door. “I’ve got to run. I have a lot of loose ends to tie up. The limo is all set for the morning. I love you, baby.”
Abe found her sitting on her desk dumbstruck. “So what’s the word?”
“Yes... I think.”
“Do you think you meant it?”
“I think I might have.”
“Fordham, go home,” Abe ordered softly, “and when you think you know what you might have meant, you can explain it to me.”
SHE NEEDED TO THINK, and that meant going anywhere but home, where her news was sure to be met by a whining chorus of scorn and derision that would have her heading out the door anyway. Her head was spinning, and she had to digest the logic of her decision before she could even think of selling it to Whitty and Dorie. It had all happened so quickly and unexpectedly. Even her coworkers were taken aback and had jumped up to surround her during the experience. Then again, they had left their desks the previous week to watch new paint dry in the lounge area. Regardless, engagements were supposed to be exciting, and this one felt rushed.
Fordham checked her phone. There was no one to call. Evie and Marv were on a monthlong second honeymoon, exploring tantra with a private instructor in Koh Pha-ngan, and Margo was self-sequestered until her delivery. Relatively certain of her support, Fordham toyed with the idea of calling Gloria, but that would be dirty pool, and she didn’t want Dorie to feel slighted. She could talk to Abe, but he was marrying her mother, and she didn’t want to saddle him with any confusing deterrents.
She just needed some time... plus a box of Junior Mints, a glass or three of pinot noir, and Laura Nyro. Fordham stared at her ring and wanted to be happy, but something was holding her back. She had dreamed of this moment from the time she and Aaron had first met. There had to be a reason why wasn’t she jumping up and down like a contestant on The Price Is Right. Once she sorted things out and her mind was in a better place, she would pop open the champagne.
With a full tank of gas and no plans, all she needed was a destination. She stared at the stack of book-cover designs piled in the back seat. She could go to Barnes & Noble and have a cup of better-than-mediocre six-dollar coffee and review the covers, or she could head to Bridges Bar in midtown, have a glass of wine, some of their sweet-and-salty nut mix, and try to forget why she was there. Neither sounded appealing, but there had to be somewhere she could go to find her own celebration. And in a moment of sudden clarity, she knew exactly where she needed to be.
“SWEET TEMPTATION, TO win,” Fordham said, handing two singles to a slight Asian woman with short gray hair and a chronic frown.
“Long shot. Risky. Bet on next race—good money,” the woman said in a thick Chinese accent, handing her a ticket. “You have husband?” She raised her chin.
Fordham looked around to see if the woman had assigned her anyone specific. The men nearby looked as if the last time they’d consulted a mirror was during the Reagan years. She also noticed there was no one else in her line.
“No. Not anymore,” she said, not sure why the woman had asked or why she had chosen to answer. Then she eyed her ring and understood.
She kept her bet despite the ticket lady’s disapproval, figuring it was a reasonable place to draw the line. With almost an hour before the first race, she decided to walk around. Yonkers Raceway was not a place Fordham imagined she would go to share her life story. Situated somewhat randomly off the Cross County Parkway in the middle of the area’s best places to shop, it presented more like a big off-black department store than a gambling mecca. Although it was only a short car ride from the grandeur of many of Manhattan’s buildings and establishments, there was nothing aesthetically pleasing about the exterior that would beckon tourists to visit, making it feel more like a community center than a destination on a must-do list. As far as she was concerned, its biggest perk was the boundless parking, which seemed to cover as much ground as a small city.
No, this was not a place she’d call home. She was so far out of her element that she could have created her own periodic table. Right in front of the block of Wheel of Fortune slot machines was a large woman in a tight bright-orange tube top with a denim overshirt and yellow spandex leggings, sporting a camel toe and a head full of curlers covered by a kerchief. Margo would have fainted.
The woman was arguing with a nearby ATM machine that didn’t want to give her any more money. A uniformed security guard, who looked like an Anthony but was in fact named Melissa, told the woman emphatically to quiet down or she would be escorted out the door. The woman gave the guard the finger and grabbed the hand of a short man in a dirty white undershirt and ripped jeans, who looked as if he hadn’t eaten in a month. She stomped away, complaining in a language Fordham didn’t recognize.
Most of the couples looked like mismatched socks. There was no unifying factor that offered a clue about the unions, but one had to assume there was some basis that extended beyond their being strikingly unattractive together. Fordham felt sad and perplexed that people dressed as if they’d forgotten to do laundry. If Officer Melissa could hand out citations for fashion infractions, there would be ample funds to reduce the state deficit. But alas, spandex, Lycra, denim, and polyester were being heinously abused, and there was no recourse.
Fordham knew she wasn’t one of them, and the people knew that she knew. In her brown suede heels, matching shoulder bag, and beige tailored suit with round gold buttons, along with her perfectly coiffed hair, she looked like some kind of alien interloper who’d wandered away from her planet and gotten stuck on theirs. But she didn’t care. She had a lot riding on this visit. She just wasn’t quite sure what it was yet.
The whole place was unfamiliar. She hadn’t expected to remember it well, since the only time she’d been there was when she was five, the first and only time she and her father went to the track together. Still, she hoped to feel some sense of connectedness. Another security guard explained that the casino was where the betting windows used to be. That sort of fit into her scant recollections. All she could really remember was watching the horses and kicking the losing tickets lying on the ground.
These days, there were slot machines, roulette wheels, craps tables, and a variety of ways to slowly or quickly clean out one’s wallet and bank account. She wondered if that was what had happened to Arnie. Maybe he’d been seduced by the hum and glow of the moment and robbed of his keener senses. It could have been like that. Over and over again.
She read her ticket. The long shot. To win. It figured. Fordham hadn’t even checked the odds. She never did. She believed the magic was in the name. She’d rarely gone to the track, but anytime she’d ever placed a bet, the horses always seemed to know if they’d been saddled with an inferior moniker. In keeping with a study known as the Rosenthal Effect, a horse with a good name such as Studley Do-Right or Mr. Lucky was expected to outperform a horse with a bad name such as Limp Biskit or Charlie Horse. It wasn’t exactly a science, but somehow, it worked.
The race
was about to begin, and Fordham wanted to see if she could locate where she and her father had sat. She found a spot that seemed familiar and opened up her program. In an instant, she could smell the Aqua Velva and see Arnie popping a couple of Sen-Sens in his mouth. He offered her some, but when he said they weren’t Chiclets, five-year-old Fordham lost interest.
It had been a hot June day. They’d walked close to the track to look at the horses, and the smell of manure was pungent.
“Daddy, it smells like a toilet,” Fordham said, holding her nose.
“You’re right,” Arnie said, chuckling. “The horses go potty before they race, but we’re going to sit where it doesn’t smell.”
“Good,” she said, still pinching her nose shut.
“The horses have to go around the track really fast to get to the finish line, and whichever horse gets there first wins. They poop so they don’t have a bellyache while they gallop.”
“But, Daddy, what do we do?”
“We watch them, sweetheart,” he said.
“Why?”
“To see who wins.”
Fordham still wasn’t sure of her role. “But I want all of them to win.”
“Our job is to pick the horse we think will win.”
“Do we win the horse?” she asked hopefully.
“No. We win money.”
Arnie stared at the program for a while then read Fordham the names of all the horses. She giggled at some of them and decided on KaptnKangaroo. Arnie laughed, saying hers was the long shot, but he indulged her and even let her hold the ticket. He picked Foolforlove, who he said had a good steady gait and decent odds. He led her to the ticket window to place their bets. It was fun, but she had no idea that this little world was slowly ruining his life.