Uh, I mean, to clear my head.
Anyway, here are my mother and Carmine, I’ve got this date with Dave and his mother, and the kids and I all want to know where Grandpa is but we can’t exactly ask with Carmine standing in the front hall, can we?
Well, Alyssa can, and she does. My mother claims she doesn’t know and doesn’t care. Carmine pats her hand and says he was just giving her a lift, a statement that I doubt could be true, since Mom seems to be floating above her orthopedic pumps with the high toe box I had to drive her into Manhattan to get.
“You don’t know where Dad is?” I say. The last time one of my parents went missing it was my mother’s faux kidnapping, which almost ended in both of them being lost at sea.
My mother shrugs off my question, but Carmine gives me a reassuring nod, a sort of all-is-well.
Yeah, but for whom?
“Go ahead, dear,” my mother says, all but shoving me out the door.
“ABD?” I ask her as I fight with my coat sleeve and my sharp green pashmina scarf.
“Yes, darling,” she says and she does this magical thing that makes the scarf fall exactly as it should. “Anyone but Drew.”
“SO YOU WORK AT THE ALLEY,” Dave’s mother asks me. I’ve been sitting in her straight-out-of-the-discount-furniture-showroom living room for twenty minutes, hearing Dave puttering upstairs while his mother interrogates me. I will never, never do this to one of Dana’s dates.
Should I ever let her date.
I tell Mrs. Blumstein that I’m actually an interior designer and that I’m working on the grand opening.
“Oh,” she says, and I can hear the disapproval in her voice. Before I can defend my profession she looks at my legs—thankfully ensconced in navy blue wool pants, and says, “you’re that woman.”
And I think I might as well get up and leave now.
Only another thought strikes me. Just as my mother is trying to get me interested in someone else to prevent a match, so might Mrs. Blumstein.
“The other men Dave bowls with,” I say somewhat vaguely. “They seem very nice.”
She jumps on this like a misprint from Macy’s omitting a zero or two from their sale price. “The salt of the earth,” she says. Then she turns toward the stairs and yells up to Dave. “Come on and get down here, David. You got company.”
Dave comes down the steps. He’s wearing a white shirt with a brown stripe, a red tie and a brown crew neck sweater over both. They look new and like they came together as a set in one box; I think Mrs. Blumstein probably bought the outfit special for tonight. I feel terrible about what I’m doing here.
“Dave, hi,” I say, jumping up like I’m here to take him to the prom. All I’m missing is his corsage. “How handsome you look.”
Mama doesn’t want me setting my cap for him, but she can’t help but preen.
We sit and chat, drinking surprisingly nice Chablis and munching on Tam Tam crackers and gefilte fish. I talk about my work. He had no idea there were so many different white wall paints. He talks about his work. I had no idea there were so many different kinds of ham.
“And none of it kosher,” Mrs. Blumstein adds.
Eventually, we mosey to the dining room, after I’ve been asked my opinion of the living room and I’ve told her that gray and brown is just about my favorite color combination. And I say it with a smile, too. “Restful,” I offer, while deadly, deadly dull rattles around in my head trying to sneak out my lips if I’m not careful.
In the green and yellow dining room, where Mrs. B explains she wanted a livelier look, we take our seats and I finally get down to work, asking about the lottery tickets and whether all The Spare Slices went in on them.
I am assured by Mrs. B. that Davey doesn’t waste his money on such things. Of course, I know better, but I’m thrilled that Dave will owe me one, somewhere down the line, because, as they say about the lottery, hey, you never know.
During the course of dinner I learn that with the wink, wink, exception of Dave, all The Slices have gone in on the tickets together for more than three years. That all of them have plans for what they’d buy if they won and that all the men are either single, divorced or widowed.
I can see I have my work cut out for me.
CHAPTER 8
A great way to choose a color palette for your room is to pull the colors from a favorite painting, oriental screen, needlepoint pillow, etc. Pull out three colors—a dominant color, a secondary color and an accent color. The dominant color should be the easiest on the eye, the secondary color should complement it, set it off, make it seem special, and the accent color should pop out at you. Use the accent sparingly, as a…
—TipsFromTeddi.com
A couple of days later, I’m entering something new on TipsFromTeddi when the phone rings. Dana doesn’t answer the house phone anymore, since Rio’s gotten her a brand-new cell phone. I’ve made her agree to pay the monthly fees herself which apparently exempts her from answering the house phone. Half an hour after she got it, all her friends were trained to call her private line.
Jesse is out walking Maggie and Lys has been forbidden to answer since she told someone I was having trouble with my Tampax and I’d have to call them back.
Because I think it may be Diane with some news on The Slices, I unwind myself and get up from the floor where I’m working out a furniture arrangement for a spec room. I check the caller ID before answering because I’m getting sick of private caller hanging up. Gerald Kroll appears on my screen.
“Yes, hello Teddi, dear,” he says after I professionally answer the phone with “Teddi Bayer Interior Designs, Teddi Bayer speaking.”
“You remember me? Mr. Kroll? I used to live around the corner from your mother and father. My wife, Rita, used to be so fond of you. Remember that? She talked to you about doing our place,” he says.
I assure him I’m acquainted with the project and again express my sympathy for their loss.
“You’re a sweet girl,” he says, bringing me back twenty-five years to a Halloween where I’m standing on their porch wearing chains and studs and this dreadful dagger hanging from my ear and hearing him ask me why a sweet girl would want to look like that. He’d forgotten it was Halloween, I think. “So, dahlink, we’re ready to go ahead now.”
“So soon?” I say, not able to keep the surprise out of my voice. Maybe a little disapproval slips out, too, but a cough breaks the silence and I add some stuff about how throwing yourself into a project can be so therapeutic.
“Ritzala’s a mess,” Jerry says, using his pet name for her. “You shouldn’t know from it. Her baby brother. But a good project is just what she needs, don’t you think? You and I can get the ball rolling and soon enough she’ll be rolling right along with us.”
Of course, I say. Not a problem, I say. Blah, blah, blah.
But I’m not as happy as I pretend. For one thing, men are rarely up to the task. For a second, whatever he picks she’s likely to hate. Now you could guess the reverse would be true as well, but, in general, men don’t really care all that much about their surroundings. As long as the bottom line doesn’t change, I come in under budget and I deliver on a plasma TV, they’re usually satisfied.
I make an appointment and as soon as I’m off the phone, I dial up my mother to get the real skinny on old Gerald Kroll.
“A marshmallow,” my mother says. “She wants it, he gives it to her.”
“So then he’s like Dad.”
I don’t know what makes me say that. Maybe, in the time of Carmine, I want to remind my mother that it’s my father who loves her and wants her to be happy. Or maybe I just like poking the dragon with a sharp stick. I know it’s going to breathe fire and I’ll be the one to get scorched, but I can’t seem to help myself.
There is silence on the other end of the line.
“Mom?”
“Your father and Jerry Kroll couldn’t be more different,” she finally says.
“Dad doesn’t give you everything you want
?”
“Of course he does,” my mother says. I can hear the exasperation in her voice. “But it’s because he loves me and wants me to be happy. He sees that as his job in life and he wants to do his job well. He takes pride in it.”
I ask why Jerry gives Rita whatever she wants. Doesn’t he love her?
“He gives her what she wants in the hope that she’ll stop asking, that she’ll finally be satisfied.”
I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But I say, “And since Dad knows you’ll never be satisfied…”
I hear her exhale her cigarette smoke. Slowly. We may not have television phones, but believe me, I can see her face and those lifted eyes are blazing.
She tells me maybe if her life had turned out differently, if she hadn’t lost a child, if her oldest son didn’t live thousands of miles away, if her husband didn’t keep going AWOL. If her daughter…
“If your daughter what?” I ask, daring her to bring up my lousy marriage, my fledgling career, the fact that I haven’t remarried. I’m ready.
“If my daughter loved me even a little, she wouldn’t wound me this way.”
She’s good, isn’t she? I say what I have to: “I love you Mom. I really do. Now tell me about Jerry and Rita Kroll.”
She spends some time on how it is I could say I love her and still hurt her the way I do, and I have to twice remind her that I need to know about the Krolls.
“Don’t get me wrong,” she says. “I like them. I mean, poor Rita is one of my best friends, after all. But she’s a little…I don’t know…delicate? Jerry’s got to do everything for her. Run her errands, do the grocery shopping, pick up her pills. She’d give him her head to take to the salon if she could.
“If she’d had to live through what I’ve lived through, she wouldn’t just visit South Winds occasionally, if you know what I mean.”
I wonder what constitutes occasionally. Once a year? Twice? Must be more than that, since there have been years that my mother divided her time pretty equally between South Winds and our house in Cedarhurst. “She does have Robert,” I say. “That’s got to be a cross to bear.”
“Is he dead?” my mother demands, playing my brother like a trump card.
“You didn’t get to see Markie grown up,” I say. “And Rita will never see Robert grow up, will she? Not really. He’s always going to be…what did they say? Eight? Nine?”
My mother assures me that it’s not the same. I suppose not, but you’d think there’d be some sympathy for a fellow traveler on the misery train.
“That Jerry. You know he’s an accountant, right? You remember he used to do our taxes. He did everyone’s in the neighborhood. He probably moved poor Rita up to Woodbury to get some new clients. I can’t imagine why else he would have moved them there. I mean, really, what’s Woodbury got that we don’t have better on the South Shore?”
Well, it doesn’t have my mother, for one thing. But whether that’s a plus or a minus depends on who’s filling in the columns.
Of course, I don’t say that aloud. I don’t remind her that Woodbury is snug up against Syosset and the two share a fabulous school system, nice shops, good roads…and that while the kids from Woodbury expect BMWs and Jeeps when they get their licenses whereas the kids from Syosset expect Toyotas, in my eyes we’re all lucky to be here and I could have done—could be doing—a whole lot worse, because I don’t want to hear her tell me how being in walking distance of Woodbury doesn’t qualify me for anything except an inferiority complex.
Instead I ask about the Kroll’s taste, which my mother describes as strictly Fortunoff. For those of you who don’t live on Long Island, Fortunoff is a store known for its fabulous jewelry department, but it also carries bedding, some furniture and lots of gold-tone accessories for the bath. What my mother means is that Rita’s house has ornate chandeliers and custom plastic slipcovers over the couches—implying you aren’t the company worth taking them off for.
“You’ll like working with them, Teddi dear,” my mother says. “They like cheap things.”
“I do love you, Mom,” I repeat like a mantra. “I do.”
“Of course you do,” my mother says. “What’s not to love?”
BACK AT THE ALLEY, where things are moving along faster than I’d hoped and I’ve praised Mark until he’s put up his hands to stop me, I’m happy to see The Slices there for league night.
The only problem is that I honestly think Dave told his buddies that I put out. I mean, what else would explain their sudden interest in me? Mark thinks it’s hilarious and keeps sending me across the alley for one thing or another—just to watch their heads follow me as though they were watching a tennis match.
One pushes the other toward me until, after five or six trips, Milt collides with me and goes all red in the face. “I was wondering,” he says after he apologizes, “if you might consider having a drink with me sometime. I mean like coffee or something.”
“Sure,” I say. “That would be nice.” I wonder if it’s this easy for Drew. And then I think about how good-looking he is and his easy manner, and I think that if the suspect is a woman, then yeah, it’s this easy.
Hell, I was this easy.
“I just bought a new boat,” Milt says, and man does that make my ears perk up. “Maybe you’d like to see it.”
“Would I!” I say, since there’s no reason to hide my enthusiasm. “When?”
We make a date for Saturday and I go back to the billiards area like I’ve won a Grammy, which is only slightly less self-satisfied than Milt, who seems to think he’s Stud of the Year.
Back at the billiards section, Rio shows Mark and me how his security system works.
“And see,” he says. “Motion activated. Anybody walks by and—”
We all stare at the blank screen.
Okay, back at the billiards section, Rio shows Mark and me how his security system doesn’t work.
“Must be a loose wire,” he says, looking at me like I went around last night undoing the work he did.
Had I thought of it, it would have been tempting. Of course, had the idea of bollixing up his job occurred to me, the next thing that would have occurred to me is that Rio would somehow do that on his own.
And voila!
“Maybe the batteries are dead,” he says, slapping at the remote that controls the playback.
I put out my hand for the remote and he turns it over to me. Noticing how light it is, I flip open the battery case and, of course, there are no batteries in it.
“How was I supposed to know it didn’t come with ’em,” he asks me, carefully avoiding any eye contact with Mark.
“Aren’t you supposed to be the expert?” I ask, handing back the remote and shaking my head sadly. “And shouldn’t this system be digital? I mean, isn’t that what they’re using these days?”
Rio gives me the stare. “Some people are using them,” he says, “but I prefer the VCR style. They’re much more reliable.”
“They fall off someone’s truck?” I ask. I’m wondering how in the world he got Steve to go for a system that’s been outmoded for several years before I remember that Rio was the best salesman my father ever had.
“Computer systems crash all the time,” he tells me. “Tapes are reliable. Been around long enough to prove themselves. They’re what you call tangible. You can hold ’em in your hand and play them at home or at the police station, if need be. You got a broken DVR, you got nothing. No way to take the information out and run it someplace else.”
“I bet you got a great deal on them, too,” I say. Rio thinks I’m praising him and tells me that he got the systems for a song.
He leans in and talks in a voice so quiet even I can barely hear him. “Charging six times what they cost me,” he says.
Loudly, he says how he’s passed on the savings to Steve and how these systems aren’t easy to come by anymore.
“I’m sure they’re not,” is all I can manage to say before shifting my attention to the work Mark got done
before I got to the alley.
All the brushed-steel tiles are up and the carpets have been laid. How he managed to get all that done by himself is a mystery, but I just tell him that should I manage to get paid, it’ll be thanks to him. He’s so cute about it, going all red in the face.
He tries to be all business as we discuss the faux-marble Formica that is going on the lower half of the walls and what kind of molding we will use, and I can see that all the praise made him uncomfortable.
And finally, one of the new tables is set up and it is stunning. Mark and I admire our handiwork while Rio rummages behind the counter, looking, I suppose, for spare batteries. Unless there are electronic bowling shoes back there, it’s not likely he’ll find any.
Meanwhile, wires are everywhere. Mark picks up the end of a cable that runs under the molding. It’s not connected to anything on his end.
Over the summer, when Rio was working at the job Carmine got him, he did a pretty fair imitation of someone who knew what he was doing. My guess is that someone back at the shop handed him the parts and told him where they went.
Now that he is on his own, I get the sense that he’s not exactly up to the task. Dana tells me that the alarm in Rio’s apartment goes off every hour. Something about how it’s wired into the clock, she tells me.
She seems to think it’s adorable, but then, she thinks her dad is adorable, and that I’m the Wicked Witch of the West. She’s said, “You don’t understand, Mom,” so many times that even I’m beginning to believe it’s true.
IT WOULD BE NICE if once in a while someone in the family didn’t storm from the dinner table. Especially when that table is in a restaurant. When I casually mention that, Bobbie laughs.
“Dream on,” she says as Dana exits loudly stage left. Teenage girls can be so theatrical.
“Something wrong?” Sammy, the waiter at Szechuan Gourmet, asks me as he lowers his tray onto the stand beside the table.
Whose Number Is Up, Anyway? Page 7