She slipped her hand in Jake’s as they left the movie theater after seeing a sneak preview of On Golden Pond. “Think that will ever be us?” After speaking she considered how abnormal it was to ache for a relationship of a couple nearing the end of their lives, even one played by Katharine Hepburn and Henry Fonda.
His odd chuckle sent shivers through her. “Sure. I can be a bastard right to the end. But if we’re living nice and quiet at that age, then miracles actually do come true.”
“Why would a quiet life be a miracle? I don’t need a mansion overlooking the Riviera.”
His laugh sounded strange. “Wish for the mansion.”
She pulled away her hand and crossed her arms. “Did you go to the doctor? Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“Take it down a notch. I’m gonna be forty, not eighty.”
“Do they know what’s causing the pains in your chest? The rest?” Phoebe wasn’t a fool. Men could die before they turned forty. Twice this month, Jake woke with chills, panting, and with his heart racing. She’d begged him to go to the doctor, calling him at work every day to drive home her point.
“It’s nothing. Come on.” He pulled her close and nuzzled her neck. “You smell good. I like this new perfume. Let’s go for a walk. Doctor’s prescription. Then we’ll go home and screw. My prescription.”
She pushed him away. “Waking up at midnight clutching your chest is not nothing.”
“So you’ll miss me when I’m gone?”
“Seriously. Did you go?”
“Okay, okay!” He raised his palms. “Enough. Yes. I went.”
“And?”
“And I didn’t want to tell you. I have maybe a year to live. Two, if I’m lucky. Two months if you’re lucky.”
Phoebe closed her eyes and shook her head. “Tell me what she said.”
He brought her close for a hug. “You care.”
“You have doubt?”
“Trust, but verify,” he said.
“Spill.” They reached the quiet road leading to Greenwich’s Bruce Museum, where they often walked after seeing a movie. Though they’d only been inside the building once, they felt a certain ownership. Films were Jake’s escape—the stroll afterward, hers.
“She was baffled how a man nearing forty could be so extraordinarily vital, so exceedingly handsome. So sexy.”
“If you keep this up, you might die before we get home.”
“Okay, no big deal. Apparently I have the disease of the day.”
“Diabetes?” It ran in his family. His mother and all her sisters were on insulin.
“Honestly, do I seem five hundred years old?” He tried to give her a theatrical kiss, but she pulled away.
“Do we need to play twenty questions before I get an answer?”
“Heebie-jeebies. Sleeplessness, sweat, the pounding heart, the pain in my arm—all symptoms of panic or anxiety attacks.”
“Did she test your heart?” For heart disease, she could lower his salt, cook low fat, and force Jake to adopt whatever measures the doctor suggested. “What do you do for these attacks? Does she think you should go to a shrink?”
“I’m sure she does,” he said.
“And? What are you going to do?” Just last night, Jake had woken drenched in sweat and shaking. When she asked what she could do, he shook his head, looking so stricken she thought he might cry. Finally, still silent, he left and turned the shower on full blast. When she’d tried the bathroom door—worried his heart would give out while she did nothing—it was locked. He’d answered her knocks with only a muffled “Go away.”
“Good question,” he said. “I’m gonna walk it off like an athlete.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not making a joke. Play in the big leagues, pay the price.”
“She can’t give you anything?”
“What? Valium? Taking drugs are your first reaction?”
“It’s not my only thought, but it’s an answer.”
They made a second pass around the wooded museum property and then headed back down toward Steamboat Road. She knew the chance of his taking a mind-altering drug was slim. These days, Jake not only didn’t drink, he worshipped sobriety the way others genuflected before God. Phoebe tried to trace his path from the usual teenage beer and pot binges, to social cocktails, to becoming the King of Temperance, but like so much in marriage, Jake’s drinking changes were incremental. She imagined that his odd Calvinism extended to prescription drugs.
“I have two choices, Pheebs. Live with it or drive it out with exercise. We’ll install a gym, okay? Hell, we can both use it.” He reached over and pinched her midsection. “Is that a chocolate cupcake I feel?”
“Screw you.” Now Phoebe lusted for Breyers cherry vanilla. Not scooping out a big bowl for him and one anemic spoonful for her, but eating the entire gallon.
“Sorry,” he said. “You’re still the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”
“Is that why you feel such a need to shoot me down?”
He put an arm around her waist. “I don’t know why I do half the things I do.”
• • •
Phoebe, Eva, Linh, and Zoya sat in silence, stunned by the reality of being in the actual store of the Cupcake Project, waiting to open the doors for the first time. This, their opening party, was timed for an after-school launch. Based on Jake’s advice, invitations containing a golden ticket for a dozen free cupcakes a month had been sent all over the community: the wealthy wanted something for nothing as much as the needy. Maybe more, as so many of them got rich by being cheap bastards.
Noah and Katie, already excited at being allowed to miss a day of school, investigated every inch of the place, narrating as they explored.
“I adore this!” Katie held up a pearly-white notebook with a stylized triptych of blue-glittered cupcakes on a lemony background—their logo. “Can I have one? Please, please, please!”
Phoebe offered her a ten-dollar bill. “Here. You’ll be our lucky first sale.”
“I’ll write notes during the opening.” Katie skipped to the register for Linh to ring her up. “We’ll have a permanent memory of the first of the countrywide chain of Cupcake Projects.”
“Since you’ll be our historian, we should throw in a pen.” Linh plucked a sparkly blue marker from a pottery jug on the counter.
Impulse buys were scattered around the shop. Business had initially brought friendship to the four of them; then they had fallen into the frenzied first stages of friend love. Phoebe took care not to show how much she preferred their company to anyone else’s, including that of her husband. In her proudest moment of wrangling Jake, she had convinced him to support a fund-raiser for Mira House—with the proceeds earmarked for giving women internships at the Cupcake Factory—flattering him until he threw his full business weight behind the event. They had raised over $500,000. Better yet, he had invested the money for Mira House, along with its capital fund. Now Mira House was a member of the Club.
Zoya polished the bakery’s antique golden oak floors until sunlight glinted off the wood. After trying out wrought iron stools, they decided comfort should reign. They wanted a place that parents and children would seek out. White paper on rollers covered square tables with mason jars of crayons plunked in the middle. The padded chairs, with oilcloth seats the color of lemon ices, had rungs where short legs could rest.
Their coffee machine was so massive it required two men for delivery and set up. Airy low-fat angel food cupcakes, along with “Skinny Kisses”—chocolate chip meringues with a whisper of sugar overdosed on vanilla—would draw in the thin sweet-desperate women of Greenwich.
Blue ribbon with yellow polka dots waited to be curled around gift boxes. Smaller orders would go into Provence blue bags with yellow circles.
An old-fashioned jukebox anticipated sugary fingers holding quarters. Songs from Frank Sinatra, Blondie, Pat Benatar, Michael Jackson, and Devo were chosen to satisfy all tastes and ages.
Jake h
ad promised to leave work early to be there for the opening. Deb would bring their parents from Brooklyn.
“Mom?” Noah stood in front of her, solemnity shading his eyes.
“What, baby?”
“You really love this store, right?”
She didn’t think Noah would ask if she loved the store more than him; her sensitive boy skewed in other directions. At ten, he fretted over small beach creatures. Last weekend, he spent the afternoon guiding crabs back to the surf until Jake went to see why Noah had been crouching on the sand for hours.
“What the hell are you doing scavenging there all day?” Jake had yelled down from the deck, causing Noah to lie and say he was searching for coins.
Jake worried that Noah’s soft side would lead to poetry or painting. “Who cares?” she’d finally asked when his sputtering about their son’s time helping her bake became unbearable. “He can spend his life throwing pots on a wheel if that’s his passion.”
Jake had puffed up like a bullfrog until she’d thought he might actually physically explode at the idea of his son becoming a ceramicist.
“He’s coming into the business,” Jake had declared.
“You need to get over yourself, my darling.” Phoebe turned to leave, but his determination to have the last word was stronger and faster than her stride.
“He needs to learn to be a man.”
“He’s ten.”
“He’s my son.”
“And mine.” She’d lowered her voice. “Let him be himself. Come on, honey. Let’s see you relax for a few minutes. Why don’t we join him and see what’s so interesting.”
She’d managed to jolly Jake into an old Brooklyn College sweatshirt and onto the beach, where Noah went from stiffening up to showing off, once he saw that Jake was interested in his rescue operation.
“You see,” Jake had said, as though coming down to the sand had been his idea. “This is what it’s all about. Being able to walk down the stairs and be right here on the beach as a family.”
Phoebe leaned against him, his wide shoulders protecting her from the wind behind them. “When we were kids, Noah, a trip to the beach was a huge deal,” she explained. “Packing sandwiches. Packing up the car. Walking for miles over hot sand to get a space to put our blanket. See what Daddy has given us?”
Katie snuck up behind them. “Am I invited?” She and Noah skipped down to the shoreline. Soon the two of them were working together to build a rescue-the-crabs roadway.
Brilliant sun warmed them enough to combat the March wind. Phoebe left the comfort of Jake’s protective arms long enough to run upstairs and make egg salad sandwiches—harkening back to the ones her mother used to bring to Coney Island. When she returned, Jake lay back on two elbows, looking more relaxed than she’d seen him in too many years.
Remembering that day, Phoebe planted another seed for her Noah. “Yes. I do love the Cupcake Project. Remember, as an adult, you’ll spend almost as much time working as with your family. Maybe more. Make sure you choose work that makes you happy, my darling boy.”
• • •
By six o’clock, women, children, and a sprinkling of men packed the bakery. Phoebe’s parents kept squeezing her hand and grinning. “See, this is what I always wanted,” her mother said. “For you to use your head. Where’s Jake?”
“Lola, he runs a huge business,” her father said. “Anything could happen.”
“Stop apologizing for him, Red.”
Phoebe held up her hands. “He’ll get here when he gets here. Drink some champagne and have fun.”
Deb steered Phoebe from their parents, throwing back an apology as she did. “Sorry, guys. Eva is looking for her.” As they walked away, she whispered, “I’ll run interference with them. Don’t worry.”
“Have I appreciated you enough all these years?” Phoebe asked her sister.
Eva circulated with glasses of champagne for the adults and cherry-studded ginger ale for the kids. Phoebe grabbed an overfilled glass and drank it fast. Jake’s absence felt deliberate. She turned when the bell tinkled over the door, opening for another guest. Ira Henriquez smiled, looking thrilled to see the crowd. She knew that as the Mira House director, he’d be happy—but his joy emanated from their growing closeness.
“Phoebe!” Ira grabbed her in a bear hug. He gestured around the room. “Damn. You’re a miracle.”
She pointed to Eva, Zoya, and Linh in succession. “If there’s miracle status to hand out, it belongs to all of us.”
The previous night, she’d put up the three of them in the swank local inn, despite their protests, wanting a good-luck dinner together. Linh’s husband would never have let her out for the entire night—his suspicions were always at red alert level—so Eva and Zoya had cooked up a story of Phoebe screeching that she needed all of them working through the night to ready the bakery.
By the second glass of wine, they’d become almost hysterical laughing as Linh imitated her husband swearing. She’d risen to her full five feet, making her eyes angry threads as she spat a mix of Vietnamese and English through her lips. “Who is supposed to watch kids and cook? My mother? That white witch thinks she owns you. An Cu Cua Toi.” Linh dropped character and lowered her voice. “That’s what he said. Which means you should eat his cock.”
“Would that be worthwhile?” Zoya asked.
“Ptui!” Linh imitated gagging. “Like licking a wriggling worm.”
Now Phoebe grinned, remembering the night. Ira smiled back, seeming to mistake her mirth as happiness at seeing him.
“I brought the entire board of directors,” he said. “We rented a van.” Ira bit into a cherry chocolate cupcake. “Jesus Christ. Heaven on earth.”
Zoya popped up between them, opening her arms wide and leaping on Ira, who protected his cupcake by holding it above his head. Jealousy flashed through Phoebe—her infatuation, she prayed, remained well hidden from the world. Hell, every woman in Mira House was half in love with Ira. Combine his cowboy aura with his seeming ability to rescue an entire town and—abracadabra—the perfect man.
A buzz went up.
Jake walked in.
Ira turned. “Seems like someone important just came in.”
“My husband.” Phoebe remembered they’d never met, Ira and Jake, and she wasn’t looking forward to the encounter. They knew her from such different angles.
“The man behind the woman?”
“The man who financed most of this operation.”
“Introduce us so I can thank him.”
Together they walked toward Jake. Her husband’s hug reminded her how men read each other like jungle animals. If Jake had a ruff, it would have doubled in size.
Ira put out his hand. “We owe you a debt of gratitude.”
“For giving over my wife?” Jake grinned.
“Jake believes in the chattel theory of marriage,” Phoebe said.
“Humor. Love’s favorite servant,” Ira said.
“Is that a quote?” Phoebe asked.
“Just made it up,” Ira said.
“A humanitarian plus a poet.” Jake clapped Ira on the back. “You deserve the gratitude, I’d think. Sacrificing so much for so little.”
“Little? Hardly.” Ira cocked his head and studied Jake. “My work’s not measurable by a gold standard, but I sleep well at night.”
“Thank goodness for men of mammon to support saintly works.”
Zoya insinuated herself between Ira and Jake and clapped their broad backs. “The two big shots finally meet.” She caught a glance at the four of them in the mirror. “We look good, huh? We should all go out sometime.”
“Who knows, maybe we will,” Ira said. “We’ll celebrate as we look back at the beginning of the Mira House fortune. Created by Phoebe. Brought to life by Mira House. Invested with Jake.”
CHAPTER 15
Jake
April 1986
Compared with New York, Cambridge in April looked bucolic—at least from where Jake waited for Gita-Rae
’s call. Outside the limo, students, professionals, and even the street people moved at a leisurely pace that made New Yorkers resemble overwound toy soldiers.
Jake enjoyed saying “My daughter’s at Harvard,” but the kid better think twice before thinking she could settle here. Living in New England was fine for college, but she’d be back in New York when she went to graduate school.
He planned for both the kids to work at JPE. Only in the brokerage side, of course, until he got caught up at the Club or shut down the entire pain in the ass. Keeping that garbage from Phoebe and the kids, now and forever, was his top priority.
Jake glanced at his watch: 10:01. Gita-Rae was late. Phoebe would kill him if he didn’t return to the restaurant before the food came. He reached for his worn brown notebook, identical to the hundreds he kept in a locked drawer in his home office, each used for only one purpose: tracking the Club funds. Every page was divided in two and then labeled in his own hand:
Cash In: Funds brought in with new accounts.
Cash Out: Withdrawals by clients.
All written in unintelligible shorthand.
Each morning, he checked his personal account balances—some in his name, most in a joint account with Phoebe, some in just Phoebe’s name—against the Club account. Their personal savings were spread between Fidelity and three banks.
Jake monitored the in and out more often than he shaved—which was a feat, because his beard grew so thick that he needed two shaves a day.
Two things let him breathe: checking the numbers with Gita-Rae and making sure his father had enough tasks. He couldn’t stand picturing his old man slouched in front of the boob tube. Jake kept him busy; made him feel worthwhile. He wrote out a list of senior centers where his father could pass out business cards. Not Jake’s—ones from Gallagher & Graham.
Ronnie Gallagher, no longer the green young assistant he was for Uncle Gus back in the Bronx, had formed the bookkeeping partnership of Gallagher & Graham, also known as G&G. They fed more clients to the Club than anyone—though lately, the Cook and Baylor Equity Fund in New Jersey showed promise for bringing in the horsey set.
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