Love in Bloom's

by Judith Arnold

  But the elevator kept going, the light changed to “25” and the doors opened. Releasing a pent-up breath, he strode down the hall to Ida’s apartment. Lyndon let him in. “You really don’t know what this is about?” Jay whispered.

  “I really don’t,” Lyndon answered in a normal voice, “except that she’s having tea and she’d like for you to join her in a cup. I’m brewing it now.”

  Jay hated tea. “I’d prefer coffee, if she’s offering.”

  “She’s not,” Lyndon said, his voice so silky Jay wanted to slug him. Instead, he resigned himself to the prospect of forcing down a few sips of tea. Hell, he’d drink piss-water if that was what it took to get his mother to give him more power in running the store. Most tea tasted like piss-water, anyway.

  “She’s in the living room,” Lyndon directed him, turning back toward the kitchen. “I’ll be right in with the tea.”

  “Take your time,” Jay muttered, ambling down the hall to the living room. Ida sat in one of the wingback chairs, her posture straight, her hair settled on the top of her head like an unusually dark storm cloud, her wrists circled in clinking gold bracelets. “Hello, Mom,” he said, dutifully leaning over to kiss her cheek before he lowered himself onto the sofa across from her.

  “Jay.” She eyed him up and down. “For a man who spends his life shut up in an office, you look not so bad.”

  Was that her way of saying she knew he didn’t spend his life shut up in an office? So what if it was? He was getting his job done; golf, squash and his other activities didn’t keep him from meeting his responsibilities.

  “How are you feeling, Mom?” he asked. “Everything okay?”

  “At my age, how should I feel?”

  Eighty-eight. In two years she’d be ninety, if she didn’t die. One good look at her made it clear she was nowhere close to dying.

  Lyndon appeared in the doorway carrying a tray laden with a teapot and two cups. There was no escape. Jay would have to drink some.

  He pretended patience while Lyndon set the tray on the coffee table, filled a cup with the steaming brew and placed it on the side table near Ida’s elbow, then filled the other cup and handed it to Jay, who had to thank Lyndon even though he wasn’t the least bit grateful. When Lyndon left the room, Jay glanced at his mother and found her watching him. Trying not to grimace, he took a sip.

  That seemed to satisfy her. Without drinking any of her own tea—she probably knew how wretched it tasted—she folded her hands in her lap and said, “What’s with the reporter?”

  “Who? The guy from Gotham?”

  “Lyndon bought this week’s copy of the magazine. There’s no article in it. He bought last week’s copy, too. Same thing, no article. So? It’s not being written? What?”

  “It’s being written,” Jay assured her. “The reporter was just in today. He wanted to interview me one more time.” A slight exaggeration; Joffe hadn’t come to the office to interview Jay. Although maybe he had. Jay wasn’t exactly sure why he’d come.

  “Sondra tells me it’s going to be nice and schmaltzy, all about how wonderful Bloom’s is,” Ida said.

  “Sondra has no idea what she’s talking about.” He adjusted his tone to imply that it pained him greatly to admit this.

  “It’s not going to be schmaltzy?”

  “I think he’s digging a little deeper, getting into the nitty-gritty. He asked me about how the store is run, how responsibilities are divvied up. And of course, how Bloom’s has remained synonymous with the best delicatessen food in New York all these years. I’ve explained to him how I’ve spread the Bloom’s brand far and wide through mail order and the Internet. It’s that kind of fame that brings the crowds in, and I wanted to make sure he included that in his article.”

  “What about Julia? What does she think of this article?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?” Jay retorted, then sipped some more of the vile tea to atone for having spoken sharply to his mother about her favorite grandchild. Why she preferred Julia to the others he couldn’t guess. But if he drank enough tea, maybe his mother would stop shoving Julia in his face. “If you want to know the truth,” he said in a gentler voice, “Julia gets tripped up on trivia, on mishegaas that’s not worth the effort she puts into it. I love Julia, you know I do—but she’s shortsighted.” He’d said as much to the reporter, carefully couching his opinions in euphemism. He might as well express his opinions to his mother, too. She needed to know what was going on at her beloved store.

  “What mishegaas?”

  “Well…for instance, the inventory. She reviews the numbers again and again. She shvitzes when a single knish is unaccounted for. And her meetings—they waste everybody’s time. We can talk to one another without meetings.”

  “I liked that one meeting I went to,” his mother said. “Having everybody all together in one place—it was like a party.”

  His mother obviously didn’t go to too many good parties. “Look, Mom—I know Julia is trying hard, and she’s smart. Maybe in time she’ll get the hang of it. But right now she’s struggling. She doesn’t do things the way we’ve always done things at Bloom’s.”

  “And is that such a bad thing?” At last his mother drank some tea. “I want you to tell me when this magazine story comes out. I want to see if it has things I don’t like in it. Who’s writing it?”

  “A guy named Ronald Joffe. He writes the magazine’s weekly business column, and he seems smart. He listens very closely to what people tell him. I think he’s going to portray Bloom’s fairly.” And he’s going to report that I’m the brains of the outfit, the one with vision.

  “Maybe I should talk to him.”

  “No,” Jay said quickly. “He’s only talking to the people actively involved in the store.” In fact, Joffe had asked Jay if it would be possible to interview Ida, and Jay had thought it best to keep Joffe away from her. God only knew what she might say in an interview. Given the opportunity, she might go off on a tangent about her beloved hairdresser, Bella, or she might declare that her dear husband, Isaac, may he rest, didn’t know bupkes about running a store. Ida often said things that made her sound unhinged or unpleasant. Bloom’s didn’t need that kind of exposure. Jay was sure the rest of the folks on the third floor would agree.

  “So, Julia is concerned with the inventory?” Ida asked.

  “Petty stuff, Mom. Nothing you should worry about.”

  “I’ll decide what I want to worry about.”

  She pursed her lips in that forbidding way of hers and searched his face with her hard, clear eyes. Why couldn’t she get cataracts like a typical woman her age? Why couldn’t she require trifocals as thick as thermopanes? What magic elixir did Lyndon feed her to keep her from falling apart like a normal person? Something he brewed into the tea, maybe?

  Jay had his own magic elixir to keep him young: a wife like Wendy, sexy and compliant and never too much of a strain, combined with adequate amounts of recreation to keep him physically fit and mentally relaxed. Jay didn’t think his mother viewed Lyndon as sexy or compliant—the idea was so outrageous Jay had to stifle a laugh.

  He sipped some tea and concluded it didn’t taste too ghastly. If it really contained anti-aging properties, they ought to be selling it at Bloom’s.

  “All right, then,” his mother said, dismissing him. “You want to leave, I can tell. You’ve got that bouncy wife waiting for you at home.”

  “She’s not bouncy,” Jay argued, although in truth she was.

  “Go home. But promise me you’ll let me know when that magazine article comes out.”

  “I promise.”

  “And if Julia’s having problems, help her. That’s part of your job, Jay. It’s important, for the store.”

  If she thought his job was to help Julia reap all the glory, he obviously hadn’t been as successful at presenting himself as the mastermind of Bloom’s with his mother as he’d been with Joffe. “Listen, Mom,” he said, “the thing about Julia getting caught up in mishegaas…Sh
e’s a great kid, but she’s coming at the job from a lawyer’s perspective. I think she’s terrific, but I wonder if she has retailing in her blood.”

  “She’s got Bloom blood, no? That’s all the blood she needs,” Ida declared.

  “I’m just saying, a little guidance, maybe a little power sharing—”

  Ida peered up at him, her eyes as clear and sharp as crystal shards. “You think you could do a better job?”

  He hadn’t expected her to be so direct, but what the hell. She’d asked; he would answer. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  Ida sniffed. She didn’t laugh, didn’t shake her head, didn’t call him a fool—but she also didn’t say he could take over the store. Just that single sniff, like someone with hay fever, too lazy to get a tissue and blow her nose.

  He would win her over. He’d get the edition of Gotham Magazine with the Bloom’s article in it as soon as it hit the stands, and he’d bring her a copy. Two copies, one for reading and one for safekeeping. He’d have Lyndon prepare her a cup of tea to drink while she read the article. In it she would read that Jay was the de facto leader of the company, the visionary, the genius who could accomplish more in a six-hour day than Julia could in a twelve-hour day, because she was so busy fussing over the number of bagels the store sold in a given week.

  His mother would see that she’d made a mistake in naming Julia the president. She’d see her error, and she’d correct it—and Jay would get what he deserved.

  “This pizza isn’t so good,” Joffe grumbled.

  Nico’s wasn’t packed, but it was bustling enough to deny Susie the chance to sit for a minute and talk. Julia didn’t know why she’d thought to come downtown tonight, except that sisters needed each other in times of trauma. And while Julia was managing to maintain a calm facade about her father’s infidelity, inside she felt traumatized.

  She picked at her own pizza, a slice of Sicilian with mushrooms. Joffe had ordered two slices with meatballs for himself, along with a beer, and although he was complaining about the food’s quality, he was close to polishing off the first slice. She’d witnessed this male idiosyncrasy before: a woman tried something, didn’t like it and set it aside, while a man tried something, didn’t like it and proceeded to wolf it down.

  “We should have picked up some takeout from Bloom’s,” he said after popping the last of the crust from his first slice into his mouth.

  She shrugged. “I wanted to see my sister.”

  “We could have eaten in the cab on the ride down.” He’d insisted on taking a cab. No way was he going to dangle from a subway strap all the way down to SoHo at rush hour. “What’s it called? Heat-n-eat. Those hot meals are great. You ever have the stuffed cabbage? It’s fantastic. Of course you’ve had it,” he corrected himself before lifting his other slice and catching a wad of melted cheese that threatened to slide off the crust.

  Actually, she’d never had Bloom’s stuffed cabbage. She made a mental note to try all the heat-n-eat entrées.

  Susie hustled past them, carrying a tray laden with plates of manicotti. She flashed them a smile but didn’t break her stride. “It must be tough for her, doing your store windows all day and then waiting on tables here at night.”

  “The windows are just a temporary job,” Julia explained. Speaking the words deflated a mood that hadn’t had much air in it to begin with. She wished Susie would leave Nico’s—as she herself had left Griffin, McDougal—and devote herself full-time to Bloom’s. Julia could use her there for moral support and aesthetic perspective. “Susie’s so smart,” she said, surprising herself by giving voice to her thoughts.

  Joffe followed Susie around the room with his gaze while he sipped some beer. “If she’s so smart, what’s she doing waiting on tables in a pizzeria?”

  “She’s a poet,” Julia answered.

  He nodded as if that explained everything. “So—assuming she can spare five minutes sometime before midnight, what are you going to tell her?”

  Before Julia could answer, the door swung open and in walked Rick. She cursed under her breath.

  “What?” Joffe twisted in his chair to see what had caught her attention. Rick was heading straight for their table, his face breaking into a smile. Joffe turned back to her. “Who’s that?”

  “My cousin.” Her lips strained at the effort to return Rick’s smile. Encouraged, he dragged a chair over to their table and flopped down into it. “Hey, Rick,” she said. “Should I ask you to join us?”

  He laughed. “What brings you down here to the netherworld?”

  “I was dying for some pizza.” She glanced at her scarcely touched slice and forced another feeble smile. “Rick, this is a friend of mine, Ron Joffe. Ron, my cousin Rick.”

  “You must be one of Jay Bloom’s sons,” Joffe guessed.

  Rick’s eyebrows vanished behind the hank of hair that fell across his forehead. “How’d you know that?”

  “I’ve told him a little about the family,” Julia said quickly. She didn’t want Rick to learn that Joffe was a reporter. If he did, he’d start badgering Joffe in the hope of gaining connections or money for his filmmaking ventures. And Joffe would interview Rick to learn more about the Bloom family for his article.

  She had the rough draft in her briefcase, which was wedged between her feet under the table. She ought to have skipped this trip downtown, gone home and read the damn thing. She was never going to have a chance to talk to Susie, especially not now that Rick was present, and she was stuck eating pizza when she should have been eating Bloom’s stuffed cabbage, and her father was a two-timing bastard—a dead one, but still—and her head hurt.

  She brought her attention back to the two men at her table and realized that her caution in introducing Joffe had been for naught. Rick was describing the plot of his movie—not so much a plot, actually, as a string of concepts: “There’s a car chase, of course—gotta have a car chase—and sex and anomie. You know what anomie is? I think any flick that’s going to be taken seriously these days has to have some anomie in it.”

  “Who’s producing it?” Joffe asked.

  Bad move, but it was too late. Rick happily launched into a soliloquy concerning his financing woes. Julia nudged her plate toward Rick, figuring he must have come to Nico’s because he was hungry, and excused herself to use the ladies’ room.

  On her way to the back hall where the rest rooms were located, she spotted Susie behind the counter, handing an order to one of the chefs on the kitchen side of the pass-through window. When Susie turned away, Julia grabbed her hand and dragged her down the hall.

  “I’m working,” Susie reminded her, although she didn’t put up much resistance.

  Julia nudged her into the one-seater ladies’ room, followed her in and locked the door. “We have to talk.”

  Susie crossed to the mirror above the sink and fussed with her hair. “About what? You like the bagel showcase? I’m not done with it yet, but—”

  “Susie. Listen to me. Dad was having an affair with Deirdre Morrissey.”

  Susie spun around so fast she banged the paper towel dispenser with her elbow. “Ow! My funny bone,” she wailed, rubbing her arm.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Daddy and Deirdre Morrissey.” Susie twisted her arm in an attempt to view her wound.

  “Doesn’t that shock you?”

  Susie regarded Julia enigmatically, then shrugged. “You want to know the truth? I always figured he was screwing around with someone. He was never home, for God’s sake. If the only thing keeping him from us was Bloom’s, I mean, that would be pretty pitiful.” She rubbed her elbow and ruminated. “Deirdre? I don’t know. She’s not exactly hot stuff.”

  “Damn it, Susie! You’re supposed to be shocked. I was shocked.” In truth, Julia wasn’t sure about that. At least she was conscious of the fact that she should have been shocked.

  “I mean, Deirdre.” Susie shook her head. “She’s so skinny, and those teeth of hers. I figured, if Dad was screwing ar
ound, it would have been with someone like The Bimbette.”

  “The Bimbette?” Julia wasn’t sure which image nauseated her more: her father with Deirdre or her father with a woman like Uncle Jay’s Wendy, all twinkly and buxom. “I thought he was having an affair with the store.”

  “The store was his one true love,” Susie agreed. “The rest was just getting his rocks off.”

  “Why aren’t you upset? You should be. I’m upset.” Merely saying the words forced Julia to acknowledge that she wasn’t as upset as she wanted to be. “Don’t you even feel bad for Mom?”

  Susie hoisted herself to sit on the sink counter. She swung her feet and twisted her arm again, searching her elbow for a bruise. “I feel bad for Mom that Dad was never around, and the only way she could spend time with him was when they were both at the store together. I feel bad that she thought she could get his attention by pretending to love the store as much as he did.”

  “You don’t think she loves the store?”

  “Are you kidding? She loves the money, she loves the power, she loves getting in Uncle Jay’s face. But she doesn’t even love the food. She’s always on a diet.” Susie gave up on her elbow and propped her chin in her cupped hands. “A woman who wears a two-carat tennis bracelet doesn’t belong on the payroll of a delicatessen.”

  “It’s not just a delicatessen. It’s Bloom’s.”

  “You’re a Bloom. So am I. Mom’s a Feldman. It’s not the same thing.”

  “Susie.” Julia felt drained, and stupid. How could her sister have psyched out their father while she herself had been clueless all these years? “If you knew Dad was having an affair, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I didn’t know. I just sort of sensed it. And I didn’t tell you because I figured you’d be shocked.”

  Julia sighed. “What do you think I should do?”

  “Keep it out of Gotham Magazine,” Susie suggested, then smiled gently. “Leave it alone, Julia. What can you do? It’s history. He’s dead.”

  “But—but he betrayed Mom. He broke his wedding vows. He had sex with his assistant. In his office. I found a box of condoms.”