“How can I spontaneously pass up a job I applied for on impulse?”
“Knowing you, you'd find a way.” She put up her hand as Jeanie opened her mouth to argue. “Please, can we talk about this in the morning? I'm too tired to think.”
Jeanie choked back her words in frustration, but as she studied Eleanor's face, she could feel the fatigue. “Let's go to bed.” She held out her hand, but Eleanor shook her head.
“You go ahead. I'll sleep here. If I follow you in there, either one of us might agree to anything by the end of the night. This is too important to settle with sex. We'll talk more in the morning.”
Jeanie retreated to the bedroom in dismay. Eleanor claimed they would talk about it more, but Jeanie knew her mind was already made up. There was no chance for them now. Whether she took the job in Vienna or not, the result would be the same. They might agree in the morning to still be friends, but Jeanie knew that Eleanor was stubborn. Once they renegotiated the terms of their relationship to the status of friends-only, there would be no going back again.
The certainty of this outcome set Jeanie tossing and turning until dawn. She dreaded the finality that morning would bring. She could see it all as if it had already happened. Her final attempt at persuasion, which Eleanor would rebuff. Agreeing to remain friends. Knowing it would be impossible. An awkward goodbye kiss, or worse yet, a cordial handshake. She couldn't do it. Jeanie tossed off the covers and threw on her clothes. If she wasn't there when morning came, she wouldn't have to live through the experience of watching the one thing she'd wished for slip away.
Jeanie grabbed her two new suitcases, the ones Eleanor had bought for her to replace her broken bag, and rolled them behind her to the door. Their smaller size made them easy to handle, with sturdy wheels that allowed them to glide effortlessly along. Jeanie offered a prayer of thanks that Eleanor continued to sleep even as her quiet new bags rolled past. Her heart was as shredded as her old, discarded bag, but she'd managed to leave with some small measure of her dignity intact. That was a generous gift.
Chapter 25
It was well after six on a Friday evening at the end of September, but Eleanor remained at her desk, her office light the only one still burning on her department's floor. There was no reason for her to be there. All the pressing work for the week was done and the nearest deadlines were distant on the horizon. She certainly wasn't there for her own enjoyment. In the two months since she'd returned home from the cruise, she'd finally come to realize what people had been hinting at for years. Her job was painfully dull. It served a vital business function and earned her an impressive yearly salary, but that was all.
Yet I chose it over her. In some alternate universe, Eleanor would have left the office hours ago to meet Jeanie at Penn Station. They might have gone from there to a club, or back to Eleanor's apartment with a bag of Chinese take-out. She would have gotten more satisfaction out of a few hours with Jeanie than a week at work. Or they could have moved together to Vienna, where, in addition to being with Jeanie, Eleanor could have taken on a leadership role with a promising new company. Instead, she'd stuck with a job where she no longer felt challenged, and where the opportunity to be promoted to a role she'd find more fulfilling was decades away. She'd been too afraid to take a risk, and now she was paying the price in every possible way.
With a heavy heart, Eleanor switched off her computer and gathered her things. She was just preparing to walk out the door when her phone buzzed with a text from Miriam. Eleanor's breath caught when she saw it. Miriam had used their code word. A million terrible possibilities presented themselves to her brain for inspection. Don't let it be the baby!
Of all the awful choices, that one scared her the most. Miriam had broken the news of her pregnancy almost as soon as Eleanor had arrived home from Prague. The prospect of being an auntie was one of the few things that had gotten her through the worst of her heartbreak over Jeanie. Miriam had just finished her first trimester, by far the riskiest time in a pregnancy, but it didn't mean she was in the clear. Eleanor held her breath as she waited for her sister to pick up the phone.
“Mimi! What's the matter? What's wrong?” she demanded breathlessly as soon as she heard her sister's voice.
“Elle?” Miriam's voice became muffled, as if she held a hand over the phone. “Mark! Never mind about calling the police. False alarm!”
“The police?” Eleanor's heart raced. “Mimi, what's going on?”
“Funny, that's what I was hoping you would tell me. I've left you three messages this week, Elle. Three! I told Mark if you didn't get back to me within fifteen minutes of my text, I wanted him to call the police and report a missing person.”
Eleanor thought back to the messages she had ignored and felt a stab of guilt at how she'd repeatedly pushed them aside. “I'm sorry, Mimi. I should have called sooner. But you're sure everything's okay with you, Mark, and the baby?”
“Okay is a relative term. We're fine, but Mark's mother is driving me up a wall with all this baby stuff. I had lunch with her a few weeks ago and she made the server take the lunch meat off my sandwich and microwave it because she'd read somewhere it could be bad for the baby.”
Eleanor had read a similar article recently and couldn't see the harm in being cautious. “Well…”
“Don't you dare! That was completely beyond normal risk management, Elle. You've gotta save me from her.”
“Save you? What, do you want me to pull together a pregnancy risk analysis for her?”
“God, no! She'd find a way to use it against me. I'd never be allowed to leave my house. No, what I need is for you to run interference for me on Rosh Hashanah. We've been invited to their house to celebrate, and I need you to come, too.”
“You want me to go all the way to the Upper West Side on Sunday to protect you from your mother-in-law?” She could only assume this was her sister's pregnancy hormones talking.
“And stay overnight. If you don't mind. They have an extra room.”
“Fine, you win. If it's really that important to you.” Her first instinct had been to say no, but a visit with Miriam would be nice, and it's not like she had anything better to do.
“Really? You're serious? You haven't accepted a single holiday invitation from me, or mom, in years! You'll really come?”
“Yes, I said I'd come, didn't I? What time's dinner?”
“Well, services start at six o'clock, so if you could get here by four.”
Eleanor cringed at the mention of services. That's where she drew the line. “Hold on, Mimi. You're on your own for that. I'll come for dinner and even stay over, but that's it.”
“But Elle, that's when I need you most! The only thing worse than Mark's mother is his mother plus all of her old lady friends. They'll eat me alive!”
“Even if I were inclined to go, which I'm not, it's only two days away. You know it's all reserved seating for the High Holidays. There's no way I could get a ticket at this point.”
“You can have mom's. She and dad are still members. Even though they're in Florida now she hated to give it up.”
Eleanor groaned. “You and mom are in on this together, aren't you.” There was no doubt in her mind. For all she knew, her mother had convinced Mark's mother to drive Miriam crazy as part of the plot.
“You shouldn't be alone for the holidays, Elle. Not the way you've been feeling since you got home from Prague.”
The concern in her sister's voice touched her, and for a moment when she closed her eyes, she could feel the peacefulness inside her that she'd experienced on her visit to the Old-New Synagogue. It was the first time she's been inside a synagogue in years, and the last place she'd truly felt happy. Before her panic attack on Charles Bridge, and arguing with Jeanie, then waking to find she'd disappeared in the night. Before all the joy was sucked out my existence. Recapturing some of that peace might not be the worst thing.
“You're shameless meddlers, both of you. I'll see you at four.” She chuckled as her sister's
delighted squeal reverberated in her ear. “You might as well hang up now and call mom so she knows the plan worked. Tell her I love her, while you're at it.”
As Eleanor slid her phone into her purse, her fingers brushed across a rough lump of hardened clay. Jeanie's Golem. By now it had become as familiar an item in her bag as her wallet or keys. She'd taken it for safekeeping on their last walk together, and she'd never had the chance to give it back. It went with her everywhere. Given how things had played out, she held the tiny statue's protective abilities in serious doubt, but she carried it with her just the same. After over two months without contact, it was her only tangible link to Jeanie and the life that she wished could have been.
The sun was setting on a Friday evening in late September as Jeanie sat at the kitchen table in her apartment and graded the quizzes from that afternoon's freshman history class. The scores were abysmal. If she hadn't already decided it would be her last year teaching before the semester began, this probably would have pushed her to quit. It's not that her students were a bad bunch, but teaching had never been her first choice, and any remaining passion she'd had for it had withered away in the weeks since she'd returned home.
Perhaps the biggest surprise was that she was back in New York at all. On the morning she'd departed Prague, and left what remained of her heart in that hotel room overlooking Charles Bridge, she'd been certain her future was in Vienna. As it turned out, even though Eleanor had rejected her, the woman's analytical personality had influenced Jeanie in ways she'd never guessed. That was why, instead of accepting it on the spot when the job in Vienna had been offered to her, she'd surprised herself by insisting on taking time to think it over. And then, as if channeling Eleanor's essence, she'd gone a step further and conducted her own research.
Once she'd returned to the states, she'd taken the train to meet with one of her former professors at City University in New York. She'd doubted that he would even remember her after ten years, but that had been far from the case. He'd recalled with great enthusiasm the preliminary work she'd done on her thesis, and she was shocked to discover that if she wished to return, since it had been just under ten years since she'd left, the department would welcome her back to complete her degree. With her graduate degree and her classroom teaching experience, her professor had been confident that half a dozen opportunities would arise that were even better than what Vienna had to offer.
If only I'd realized that in July, things might have been so different. The thought made her insides ache. She closed her eyes, but all she could see was Eleanor standing on the bridge in Prague, just a fraction of a second before Jeanie blurted out her half-baked idea about Vienna and kicked off the downward spiral toward their end. If only she'd kept quiet and thought things through!
There'd been at least a thousand times since returning home that Jeanie had nearly picked up the phone and called, but each time she'd hesitated. Just the idea of it now made Jeanie's stomach tighten in a way that gave her some small insight into how Eleanor felt when her anxiety started to take hold. She couldn't do it, couldn't bring herself to take the risk. Now that she'd started thinking about the risks and consequences, she was too afraid to make the move and have to live through the pain of Eleanor rejecting her again.
There was a knock at the door and, pushing her grading aside, Jeanie rose and looked out the window above the kitchen sink. She smiled when she saw her mother standing outside, Since her return home, her mother had been a constant source of companionship and strength. As she opened the door, she smiled wider. She knew her mother worried about her melancholy moods, and she didn't want her to be concerned.
“Hi, baby girl,” her mother said, greeting her with an energetic squeeze. “You ready for a three day weekend?”
“Sure.” Like many districts in the state, Jeanie's school would be closed on Monday for Rosh Hashanah. She'd given little thought as to how she would spend the time. She wondered if Eleanor would be celebrating with family, and sighed heavily, despite her resolve not to worry her mother.
“Jeanie, you need to get out of the house more. All you do is work and study for those art classes of yours.” Her mother clicked her tongue, disapproving.
“It's art history, Mama.” Jeanie spoke in measured tones, explaining once more what she'd explained before. “And I told you, if I finally finish my degree, I'll have a real shot at doing what I've always wanted to do. The offer I got in Vienna should be enough to convince you that I'm not wasting my time.”
“Well, I still think you need to get out, which is why I brought you this.”
“What's this?” Jeanie frowned at the sheet of colored paper her mother had handed her, printed with pictures of dancing couples.
“A big swing dancing festival in Central Park on Monday. One of the organizers came by to see if they could post this in the window at the store, so I asked for an extra one for you.”
“Thanks, Mama. But I'm not sure if I'll have the time.”
“Just think about it. You never know, maybe you'll meet someone there.” Her mother enveloped her in another bear hug and then went on her way.
Jeanie studied the poster, biting her lip. Perhaps her mom was right. Not about meeting someone new, as Jeanie felt certain she wouldn't be ready for that again for quite some time. But she had been cooped up inside for far too long with grading and studying. Resolved not to make one of her typical knee jerk decisions without gathering more information first, she sat down at her computer and pulled up the social media page for the swing dancing festival. It looked promising, so she even went so far as to add the event to her calendar and set a reminder, in case she felt up to it when the day came.
Chapter 26
After a raucous dinner with Miriam's in-laws and at least a dozen invited guests crowded around the table, Eleanor sought out the privacy of the tiny study that was set up as a guest room for the night. Her whole body buzzed from the evening's steady onslaught of over stimulation. Attending services had turned out to be more pleasant than she'd anticipated, but at least three elderly women who remembered her as a teenager had honest-to-God pinched her cheeks when they saw her. Eleanor hadn't realized that could happen when you were thirty-eight years old.
Then had come the pressure of socializing at dinner, with the added concern of steering Mark's mother's conversation away from Miriam's pregnancy when her interest threatened to become too intense. Eleanor found it all exhausting, a reminder of why she was better off on her own. She stretched out on the couch that had been prepared that had been made up with blankets and pillows, and shut her eyes. The only thing she could see against her closed lids was Jeanie. She felt a tear roll down her cheek. There was a fine line between alone and lonely.
“Elle, are you okay?”
Eleanor sat up and tried to wipe her eyes, but it was too late. She'd been caught. “Mimi. I didn't know you were there.”
Her sister shot her a sardonic look. “Clearly.” Miriam sat down beside Eleanor and draped her arm around her shoulder. “You can't go on like this, Elle. It's been over two months.”
Eleanor nodded. “But what am I supposed to do?”
“You could call her.”
The suggestion filled her with dread. “I can't. Not after the way things ended between us. She was so eager to get away from me that she didn't even stick around to talk it through.”
“You keep saying that, Elle, but it doesn't make sense to me. Are you positive that's why she left the way she did? Tell me exactly what happened that day.”
Eleanor shut her eyes, the last day in Prague vivid in her mind. “We were on the bridge and it was so crowded. Jeanie told me she'd gotten a job offer in Vienna. I was upset, and then the crowd felt like it was pressing in on me and I had to get away. I wandered the city for hours, trying to calm down. Then I came back to the room,” Eleanor swallowed roughly, remembering how Jeanie had run to her and kissed her so passionately. It had been their last kiss. “I said we'd talk about it more in the morning, bu
t when I woke up on the couch the next day, she was gone. I think my anxiety finally just got to be too much for her, like usual. If I hadn't panicked and bolted the way I did, maybe she wouldn't have left.”
“Your anxiety, huh? You stayed out late, and then you slept on the couch?” She ticked them off on her fingers as she went. “I bet you said something like 'we need to talk,' too, didn't you?”
Eleanor bristled. “We did need to talk.”
“You really don't have the first clue about women sometimes, Elle.”
Eleanor rolled her eyes. “I am a woman, Mimi.”
“Which is why it's so puzzling when you fail to see the obvious.” Miriam paused until Eleanor was paying complete attention. “Did it ever occur to you that Jeanie thought you were breaking up with her? That maybe she left to avoid being crushed by the inevitable 'we can still be friends' talk?”
Eleanor's brow wrinkled. “I don't think that was it.”
Miriam gave her the look reserved for adorable children who are not very bright. “You should call her.”
Eleanor shook her head vehemently. “It's too late for that now.”
“Fine, Elle.” Her scolding tone warned that Miriam's patience was running thin. “If it's really too late, then you need to get over it. Start fresh. If you're not willing to try to fix this, then I'm not going to let you wallow in misery forever.”
“I'd really like to know how you propose I get this fresh start.”
“I thought you'd never ask!” Miriam grinned. “Remember when we were kids and we'd walk to the river on Rosh Hashanah and throw breadcrumbs into the water?”
Eleanor nodded, a vague recollection in her head, though why it was important she couldn't begin to guess. “I'm not sure what feeding the birds has to do with anything.”
“Feeding the—is that what you thought we were doing?” Miriam cocked her head and stared at her sister in bewilderment. “What kind of Jew are you?”
Waltzing on the Danube Page 21