Love in Bloom's

by Judith Arnold

  “Why are you asking her?” Sondra blurted out. “Why don’t you ask me? I was his wife.”

  Julia seemed momentarily rattled. “I asked Deirdre because it’s a business matter, and she was the person he discussed business with.”

  “He discussed business with me,” Sondra asserted.

  “Okay. So did he ever mention a hundred brunches a week to you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “He mentioned lots of things to me,” Deirdre said archly.

  Jesus. Things were getting weird. Jay couldn’t believe he’d been dragged off the golf course for this—except that if he hadn’t come it would have been worse. They would have assumed he’d failed to show because he was busy hosting some weekly Bloom’s buffet at Emerald View Country Club.

  “What, you think I don’t know you and he were close?” Sondra leaned over Myron’s lap to address Deirdre. Myron shrank back into the sofa cushions, looking as if he wished he could disappear like a hundred and fifty bagels. “You think I’m an idiot? You think I don’t know you and Ben worked very closely?”

  “I’d kill for a cup of coffee,” Jay said, partly because he wanted to cut Sondra off before she flipped and partly because killing someone suddenly seemed like an appealing idea. He wasn’t sure who the victim ought to be, but given the tension level in the room, a murder wouldn’t be out of place. Even the lovebirds on the desk didn’t look so loving anymore. Susie had propped her feet on the desk and bent her legs so she could hug her arms around her shins and rest her chin on her knees. She was all tied up into a little ball. And Loverboy looked as if he had a mouth full of sawdust. Julia was paler than usual—which was pretty damn pale—and the reporter was taking it all in. God help them if he was going to put any of this in his Gotham article.

  “Mom,” Julia said in an ameliorating voice. “Let’s not go there.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Sondra said, settling back into her side of the sofa. Myron looked measurably relieved. “All I want to say is, I was Ben’s wife. The only wife he ever had, and the mother of his children. And he never mentioned anything about missing bagels to me.”

  “Nor to me,” Deirdre muttered through clenched lips.

  “Okay,” Julia said with all the enthusiasm of a cheerleader whose team was down by a thousand points. “Is it possible someone downstairs might be filching three hundred dollars’ worth of brunch every week? One of the cooks or clerks?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Myron offered. A big help he was.

  “You know,” Susie said, her head bobbing with each word because she kept her chin pressed to her knees, “I can’t believe the bagel department hasn’t noticed anything strange. I mean, Casey, you and Morty run that department. I know you told me you didn’t know anything about missing bagels, but how could you not notice? You keep track of what’s being baked and what’s being sold, don’t you?”

  Loverboy shifted, putting another inch between him and Susie. “We keep track,” he confirmed. “But I don’t know anything.”

  “Casey.” Susie lifted her head so she could peer into his eyes. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

  He glanced away. “Look,” he said quietly. “Okay? I’ve been sworn to secrecy.”

  “You do know?” Susie appeared shocked.

  Julia moved in front of her chair. “You know, Casey? You see? I’m not a crackpot! I’m not crazy!”

  “Who says you’re not?” Myron retorted. “This guy’s your character witness, and he’s not talking.”

  “Please tell us, Casey,” Julia implored.

  Susie took another tack; she socked him in the arm, nearly knocking him over. “You lied to me! I asked you about this weeks ago, and you said you had no idea.”

  “Because I was sworn to secrecy.”

  Julia stepped forward. “I’m the president of Bloom’s, Casey. We’re all family here—even Deirdre and Myron, in a way.”

  “He’s not family,” Jay observed, pointing to Joffe.

  “He’s my character witness,” Julia declared, shooting the reporter a quick smile that raised the air’s temperature again.

  What was with Sondra’s daughters? Both of them were in heat all of a sudden?

  Julia turned back to Susie’s boyfriend. “Do you want me to empty the room out? Do you want to tell just me?”

  “That sounds like a plan,” Jay said, starting to rise. Sondra sent him a scathing stare, and he sank back into his seat.

  “I made a promise,” Casey said. “Someone’s taking the brunch food every week, and that person doesn’t want anyone to know about it, so Morty and I have been covering.”

  “But we all do know about it,” Julia argued. “Whoever this person is, he’s stealing from Bloom’s.”

  “No.”

  “He is. He’s taking three hundred dollars’ worth of food and not paying for it. That’s theft.”

  “It’s your grandmother,” Casey said, then looked stricken. He leaped from the desk and stalked to the door. “Excuse me,” he muttered, then stormed out, shutting the door behind him with a quiet click.

  The silence he left in his wake was broken by Susie’s springing down from the desk and racing after him, slamming the door on her way out.

  More silence. “She’s sleeping with him,” Jay commented to Sondra. Saying that was a poor substitute for killing someone, and it wouldn’t result in his getting a cup of coffee. But he was tired, it had been a long morning, he’d had a lousy, rainy eleven holes, and now this: his mother was stealing bagels. He decided he was no longer responsible for anything he said.

  “What am I, an idiot?” Sondra grimaced. “What am I, blind? You think I don’t know what’s going on in my family?” She gave the reporter an accusatory look. “It would have broken your heart to ask her out so she’d stop throwing herself away on a bagel man?”

  “He’s sleeping with me,” Julia announced.

  More silence. Jay gazed upon his niece with newfound respect. She had guts. He’d never realized that before. Maybe she’d never had them before. But now, after this whole farkakteh meeting, she was showing what she had, and he was impressed.

  Sondra was obviously too stunned to speak, but Deirdre didn’t have that problem. “Does this mean,” she asked Joffe, “that you’ll write a nice article about the store for your magazine?”

  “I’ll write a good article,” he promised. “I don’t do ‘nice.’”

  “Why do you suppose Grandma Ida has been stealing bagels from the store?” Julia wondered aloud.

  “You’d better ask her,” Joffe said.

  They gazed at each other long enough for the room’s temperature to fluctuate like a woman in the throes of menopause. Jay had been through that with Martha, and he hoped he never had to go through it again—although he supposed that if he stayed married to Wendy long enough, he would have to.

  “I’ve got to go talk to Grandma Ida,” Julia said. “This meeting is adjourned.”

  Joffe came upstairs with her, for which she was grateful. He’d already met Grandma Ida, he knew her, she trusted him for some reason, and anyway, Julia didn’t think she could get through the experience of accusing her grandmother of stealing from the store without having someone by her side. Preferably someone smart, someone strong and someone who wasn’t a Bloom.

  Lyndon answered the door. “I’m sorry she missed your meeting,” he said, exchanging an air kiss with Julia and then offering one of his patented sunbeam smiles. “Hello, Mr. Joffe!” He turned back to Julia. “She slept late today. She’s only just finishing her breakfast now.” He checked his watch and winced. “Lunch, I guess.”

  “Do you have any leftovers?” Julia asked, knowing the answer. She could smell the velvety aroma of coffee, the mellow fragrance of toasted breakfast pastries.

  “A couple of bialys and a little herring in cream sauce. Are you hungry?”

  Julia was tempted, but she had to take care of business first. She was the president of Bloom’s, and she had to
get through this confrontation. “Maybe we’ll have a snack later. Let me talk to my grandmother.”

  “Lyndon, who is it?” Grandma Ida’s voice drifted in from the dining room. “Not those people with the Chinese-restaurant menus again, is it?”

  “It’s your granddaughter,” Lyndon shouted back, waving Julia and Joffe inside. Joffe brushed his hand against the small of Julia’s back, a tiny touch, just enough to remind her that he was with her, supporting her.

  Drawing in a breath, Julia headed for the dining room, Joffe and Lyndon behind her. Her grandmother sat at the head of the long table, her hair arranged in inky waves around her face, her eyes dark but clear.

  “Julia,” she said, as Julia circled the table and kissed her cheek. “Lyndon was just telling me you were having one of your meetings today. I slept terribly last night, though—I stayed up to watch an old Alfred Hitchcock movie. Hello, Mr. Joffe,” she added. “Do you like Alfred Hitchcock?”

  “Some of his movies. I thought Psycho was silly.”

  “Very silly, that dead lady in the rocking chair. With Anthony Perkins’s voice, no less. A dead lady wouldn’t have a man’s voice, even if he talked all squeaky. What I saw last night was Vertigo, and it kept me up half the night. So Lyndon let me sleep until noon.” She lifted her cup of coffee to her lips, then paused. “You’re not hungry, are you? If you had one of your meetings, you must have had food.”

  “We didn’t have time for food,” Julia said. “But that’s all right. Joffe and I had a nice breakfast.”

  “I’ll get you some coffee,” Lyndon offered.

  Julia declined with a wave of her hand. “No, that’s all right. Grandma, we need to talk.”

  “Nu? Sit down.” She pointed to a chair.

  Julia sat. Joffe sat next to her. His nearness helped. His nearness and her own sense of—not power but rightness. She was the president of Bloom’s. The store was no longer just the legacy she’d inherited; it was the legacy she would leave to her heirs. It was hers to lead, to nurture, to build into something even more wonderful than it already was.

  “Grandma. Tell me about the bagels you’re stealing.”

  “Bagels? Stealing?”

  “Your secret is out, Grandma. You’ve been stealing bagels, coffee and cream cheese from the store every week, to the tune of three hundred dollars.”

  “Who told you such a thing?”

  “Someone from the bagel department—and he’s very upset that I made him reveal your secret. Don’t be angry with him, Grandma. You were the one who was stealing.”

  “Oy, what are you talking? I don’t steal. I own the store. How can I steal what I own?”

  “You’ve taken things without accounting for them. You do this every week, and all we have are numbers that don’t add up. Why?”

  “Why? You want to know why? I’ll tell you why.” Her eyes tightened as if they were screwing themselves deeper into her face. “It’s none of your business, that’s why.”

  “It is my business, Grandma. You made me the president of Bloom’s. That makes it my business.”

  “What are you talking? I’m still the chairman.”

  “So what are you doing with all this stuff you’re stealing every week?”

  “Lyndon!” Grandma Ida hollered, the strength of her voice belying her age. “Lyndon, bring them some coffee. They need to eat. They need to fill their mouths with food.”

  “So we won’t be able to talk?” Julia laughed. As recently as a couple of months ago, she would have been cowed by her grandmother’s indignation, but now she wasn’t. Nor was she angry. She was amused. Grandma Ida was actually pretty funny. “Grandma, tell me. I’m not going to get mad. I’m not going to fire you. I’m so glad we’re not getting ripped off by some outsider, or by my mother or Uncle Jay—”

  “You don’t mind getting ripped off by your grandmother? Not that I’m doing that. Ripping off. I don’t even know what it means.”

  “Tell me about the bagels, Grandma.”

  She sighed. She tapped her fingertips together. Her bracelets clattered. “There are people in this city,” she said. “Old people. They aren’t sick, they don’t live in homes, in—what’s the word, facilities? They live by themselves, they get by, they don’t like to complain. But it’s hard for them. Day to day, they get the pension check, the Social Security, but there’s no money for anything special.” Her grandmother tapped her fingers together again.

  “I’m sure the city is filled with people like that,” Julia murmured, since Grandmother Ida seemed to want her to say something.

  “So, this agency comes to me and says, ‘These people could enjoy a brunch from Bloom’s once a week. You supply, we’ll deliver.’”

  “Grandma, that’s lovely! Why on earth would you keep it a secret?”

  “Why? You think I want every schnorrer in town looking to me for a handout? First it’s the old people, then it’s the new people. Then it’s this group, it’s that group, and the next thing, we’re giving the whole store away.”

  “But why would you hide it from us? We’re your family. Why keep it a secret from us?”

  “You think there aren’t any schnorrers in the family? Every time I see your cousin Ricky, he’s asking me to invest in his film. What film? When he starts making films like Alfred Hitchcock I’ll think about it. And your mother, wheedling her way into a job on your father’s coattails. And Adam, your brother—he doesn’t dare to come right out and ask for money, but he writes me letters from college, telling me about the great concerts on campus, the Cornell jacket he wants to buy—too bad he hasn’t got any money for these things. They’re all schnorrers, Julia. The world is full of schnorrers, and the Bloom family is part of the world.”

  “But these people you provide a weekly brunch for, they’re not schnorrers?”

  “They’re old,” Grandma Ida said. “Not like me—they’re old.”

  Maybe giving old people free brunches made Grandma Ida feel superior to them. Maybe it made her feel younger. Or maybe she just felt a kinship with them, as strong as any kinship she felt toward her own flesh and blood.

  “Grandma, I think it’s beautiful that you’re doing this. I only wish you had told me, so I wouldn’t have spent the past few weeks having my family believe I’m insane because I kept insisting that bagels were disappearing from the store.” She reached across the table to cover her grandmother’s hand with her own. She couldn’t remember ever squeezing Grandma Ida’s hand that way before, but it was either squeeze her hand or burst into tears, and Grandma Ida had no patience for tears. “Tell me more. What’s the name of the organization you work with? Where do the people who get the brunches live?”

  Grandma Ida told her. The people lived all over the city, many of them alone. Some of them were shut-ins, others had nurses and companions during the week but were on their own during the weekends—which meant they didn’t always eat right. The organization checked up on them, delivered Bloom’s brunches to them, helped them out. Grandma Ida had been donating bagels for four years. Julia’s father never knew about it. Neither did Deirdre. The only people who knew were the managers of the bagel and coffee departments. They were discreet. Nobody had caught on.

  Until now. Until Julia had paid attention to the numbers, the inventory, the details. “Everyone thinks you fuss too much over the little things,” Grandma Ida informed her. “Your mother, your uncle, Myron, everyone. What do you think?”

  “I think the little things are important. What do you think? Do you regret having named me president?”

  “Sometimes,” Grandma Ida admitted somberly. “There are always regrets. You live to my age, you learn to put them aside and move on.” She stared disapprovingly at Julia’s hand covering hers, and Julia pulled it back. Then Grandma Ida peered past her at Joffe. “So, you’re not going to get together with my granddaughter Susie, are you.”

  “I’m afraid not,” he said, giving Julia’s shoulder a caress.

  “She’s got a tattoo, that Susie
. On her ankle.” Grandma Ida clicked her tongue in disgust.

  “Then, I guess I’ll stick with the sister I have.”

  “You don’t have me,” Julia remarked sharply. “What do you think, I’m something you can have? Like—like a bagel? Or indigestion?”

  “More like indigestion,” he said. “Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ve got to do some more revisions on that damn article. My editor expects it on her desk first thing Monday.”

  “You’re not going to write about this, are you?” Julia whispered, indicating Grandma Ida with a roll of her eyes.

  “I’m a reporter, Julia. Trust me—the article is going to be great.”

  “She doesn’t want anyone to know.”

  “She just told the whole story in front of a reporter. Isn’t that right, Ida?” He gave her a suspiciously charming smile.

  “I haven’t decided if I like you yet,” Grandma Ida warned him.

  “You haven’t decided if you like me yet,” Julia commented.

  Grandma Ida dismissed Joffe with a flutter of her hand. “You want to write an article? Go. Write. No one’s going to read it, anyway.”

  “That’s probably true,” Joffe said, pushing himself to his feet. “I really should leave. Julia?”

  “I think I’ll stay a while.” She glanced at Grandma Ida, half expecting the woman to suggest that she depart with Joffe. But Grandma Ida said nothing.

  Joffe seemed to understand. “Will I see you later?” he asked.

  “Maybe. If you’re suitably contrite and you bring me stuffed cabbage.”

  He planted a kiss on her lips, light but full of promise.

  Julia heard his muffled exchange of farewells with Lyndon and then the front door closing after him. She turned back to her grandmother, wanting to laugh, wanting to weep, wanting to squeeze her hand again. “I don’t know why you think I’m anything like you,” she murmured.

  “It’s the nose. Whatever you do, don’t ever change your nose the way your mother did.”

  “Okay.”

  “You love that boy?” She gestured at Joffe’s empty chair.

  “I’m afraid so.”