Unreasonable Doubts

by Reyna Marder Gentin

  Liana had been so absorbed in the drama she hadn’t noticed that Deb had not come back from the bathroom. She half walked, half ran down the hall to the ladies’ room. She checked the stalls, but no Deb, so she went to Tony’s desk to see if Deb had signed out for the day. She had. “Did Deb look okay when she left?”

  Tony said, “She looked all right. She said she’d be in first thing on Monday.”

  “Okay,” Liana said. It was after five and time to go. She gathered up her things, turned off her computer, and straightened her desk chair. As much as she wanted to read Danny Shea’s version of the events of July Fourth, it would keep.

  It’s not like he’s going anywhere anyway.

  CHAPTER 4

  Liana glanced at her watch. It was after seven o’clock, and soon the sun would set, and it would be too late to go to Friday night services. She looked out the window of her apartment, hoping to catch sight of Jakob so they could walk together down the block to Darchei Tikva, “Paths of Hope,” one of the myriad Jewish synagogues of every stripe in her Upper West Side neighborhood. Although traditional, DT was an eclectic Manhattan institution through and through. The attendees were young, hip, and diverse; most of all, DT prided itself on its tolerance. The members were welcoming, and no one asked anything about Liana’s and Jakob’s religious background or practice, which was next to nil. They had wandered in one Friday night several months earlier, following a group of well-dressed young professionals, and liked the atmosphere. What began as a lark had become something more for Liana.

  The rabbi, Jordan Nacht, noticed Liana and Jakob when they first started coming to services and was always solicitous, bonding with her over their mutual love of the New York Mets, chatting about their work, or asking after Liana’s mom. He was ten years older than Liana, married with a bunch of kids, a transplant from Louisville with Southern style and a drawl to match. Liana appreciated that, as marginal a part of the synagogue community as she was, the rabbi knew her; it made the big city feel a little smaller. Like most of the other women congregants, Liana was not impervious to the rabbi’s charms. His singing voice was so sweet that sometimes Liana blushed.

  Jakob is running late, as usual.

  Jakob was often the last attorney on his team to call it a night, putting in that extra time that made him one of Wilcox’s highest billing and most prized associates. Just as she was contemplating calling to tell him she’d meet him at DT, Jakob buzzed. Liana hit the button, unlocking the outer door to the building, and locked her apartment door behind her. The security in her building was almost nonexistent; Jakob would have had to wait only another minute before someone let him in, even though he wasn’t a tenant. Liana was all too familiar with the modus operandi of burglars, robbers, and other nefarious characters; she made a practice of locking her door and using the chain whenever she was home.

  She stepped out of the elevator in the lobby and crashed straight into Jakob. She was enveloped in the familiar scent of his Armani Code aftershave and immediately forgot her earlier impatience in an overwhelming wave of comfort and longing, the sort of Proustian moment only smell can evoke. He put his arms around her and lifted her in the air.

  “Put me down!” she giggled. “You look handsome.”

  “I went home after work to shower and shave,” Jakob said. He was wearing her favorite pink oxford button-down and tan linen trousers. He dressed straight out of an L.L. Bean catalog, but it was a look she loved.

  “And you look much too beautiful to be going to synagogue,” he added, stepping back and admiring Liana’s new ribbed jersey dress, which clung to her curves in all the right places. “We should be going out dancing or something.”

  “Maybe another time,” Liana said. “I’m in the mood for this.”

  “Whatever floats your boat,” Jakob said amiably.

  They walked slowly down Seventy-Sixth Street, hand in hand. After a few minutes, Liana stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, just steps from the synagogue, and turned to Jakob.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why do you come to services on Friday night? What do you like about the experience?” She knew what appealed to her—how when the people arrived, each with his or her individual work problems and family issues, they were transformed into something greater than themselves. She felt herself drawn to that sense of community, waiting subconsciously for the moment when she would transition from watching to belonging. But she worried that Jakob was not on board with her forays into religious observance, however tentative.

  “Truth?” Jakob asked.

  “Of course. Don’t we always tell each other the truth?” “I come because it’s meaningful to you, and I want to be with you, wherever you are.” Jakob squeezed Liana’s hand and started to walk again.

  Liana stopped in her tracks. “Jakob! That’s terrible! I’m guilty of religious coercion!”

  He laughed and walked back to where she was standing.

  “Don’t be silly, Li. There are plenty of things I like about the service,” he said patiently. “I like the way it’s a little oasis in my otherwise frenetic week. I like the music, and I appreciate the poetry of the prayers. But it’s not so terrible to do something just because it makes the other person happy. That’s called love.” Jakob wrapped his big comforting arm around Liana’s shoulders, and they walked the last few steps to the building.

  When they reached the synagogue, they parted ways—in accordance with tradition, women were seated on one side of a large circular sanctuary, men on the other. The Friday night service was brief but moving, filled with beautiful melodies welcoming the Sabbath Queen. There was the feeling that the day of rest had finally arrived and that some peace could be attained for the next twenty-five hours. No phones would ring, no email would be checked, no money would be spent. Liana was only a spectator, but she envied the discipline of unplugging and the rewards it offered. At least from her vantage point, these people seemed to know where and to whom they belonged.

  At the end of the service, the president of the congregation—a young guy with a waxed handlebar mustache—and an adorable little dark-haired girl in a fuchsia dress hanging off his left leg rose to make announcements.

  “I regret to inform the congregation of the passing of our longtime member Harry Rosen. The family will be sitting shiva at their apartment on Seventieth Street until Wednesday morning. May the family know no further sorrow.”

  “Amen!”

  “On a happy note, I want to announce the engagement of Gideon Marks to Eva Sussman!”

  “Mazel tov!”

  “And I also have the pleasure of announcing the birth of a baby boy to David and Michelle Barkan. The bris will follow morning services on Thursday.”

  “Mazel tov!”

  Liana always felt like a bit of an imposter chiming in with the congregation’s hearty “amens!” and “mazel tovs!” but the goodwill was infectious. “Finally,” the president intoned, “we would like to announce that we are starting a program for newly marrieds—by which we mean anyone married two years or less. There will be a rotating Shabbat dinner on Friday nights so you can get to know one another. Please contact the rabbi’s wife if you are interested in participating.”

  Liana felt a catch in her throat. Every now and again, and with increasing frequency, Jakob brought up the topic of marriage. He was ready. She wasn’t sure.

  Liana left the sanctuary and looked around for Jakob in the lobby. It was Rabbi Nacht’s custom to greet the congregants as they left the building, wishing them “Shabbat Shalom” and exchanging a few pleasantries before going home to have dinner with his family. Usually Liana looked forward to those few moments of connection with the rabbi—in accord with his religious practice, he didn’t shake hands with women, but he always made eye contact in a way that was almost more satisfying than a touch would have been. But tonight she couldn’t face the rabbi with the “newly marrieds” echoing in her head. Jakob didn’t care about t
he meet and greet, and she easily led him out the side door without anyone noticing.

  After dinner at their local Italian place, they walked back to her apartment. Before she knew it, Jakob had pulled her close to him on the sidewalk in a goodnight embrace. He was almost eight inches taller than she, and her lips pressed into the warmth of his neck as she breathed him in.

  “Stay,” she whispered.

  “Li, I would do anything to stay and chase you around your apartment all night long,” he said, playfully pulling at her dress. “But I have to go back to work. We have an electronic filing due in the Circuit on Monday. I’m going to be in the office the whole weekend.”

  She pressed herself against him, as if perhaps the warmth of her body would melt away his work deadline, but he eased himself away from her.

  “I hate your job,” Liana pouted.

  “I love my job,” Jakob said, “but I hate it when it keeps me away from you.”

  Do the married men also go back to the firm at night and leave their wives standing outside on the sidewalk? Is that what’s in store for me?

  She was well aware that big New York City law firms were pressure cookers and that the young associates especially worked insane hours. It was one of the reasons she hadn’t taken a job at Wilcox herself. But Jakob seemed to volunteer to take on the extra burden, as though she didn’t exist.

  Liana looked down at her feet. “I miss you, Jay; that’s all,” she said quietly.

  “I miss you too. It won’t always be this way; I promise. Go get some sleep, babe.” Jakob lifted Liana’s face tenderly in his hands and gave her a quick kiss before he walked away toward the subway.

  Sometimes Liana wondered if she would feel more settled in their relationship if she and Jakob were living together. When they’d graduated from law school and both accepted jobs in Manhattan, they had talked about it, even looked at some rentals. But partly out of deference to Liana’s mother, who claimed she was old-fashioned and would be embarrassed to tell her friends that her unmarried daughter was “living in sin,” and partly out of their own concerns that they weren’t quite ready after just a year of long-distance dating, they’d settled on separate places. Now, three years later, the arrangement felt artificial.

  She stepped into the tiny bathroom, stripped off her clothes, and turned on the shower full blast, high heat. The shower was what Liana liked best about her place, which, apart from its prime location, was a fairly nondescript one-bedroom that she’d rented from a friend who had moved on to better digs when she’d gotten married several years earlier. There was no doorman, and the apartment was boxy and small, with barely a kitchen, and looked out on an ugly white brick building across Seventy-Sixth Street. On the corner of Amsterdam Avenue was the Riverside Funeral Home. At first Liana was disturbed by the proximity of the dead, but Riverside had turned out to be quite a good neighbor. The doors were always open, and there were security guys and other employees working and visible round the clock. If, returning home late at night, Liana were ever spooked by someone threatening walking down the block, she knew that she could take shelter with the poor souls awaiting a proper Jewish burial.

  But the shower was Liana’s preferred refuge. She could stand in the scalding water for fifteen minutes and let her mind run over anything that was troubling her. Sometimes she ruminated over a legal issue she was trying to work to a client’s advantage, and a clear, elegant solution would come to her as the bathroom’s mirror steamed over. More often than not, she contemplated Jakob and their relationship, but so far, no matter how long she’d stayed under the punishing water, no clarity had come. There was no doubt in her mind that they loved each other. But things had been so much more straightforward in the beginning, when they were students with none of the pressures of the adult working world and all that mattered was being together, preferably wearing as little clothing as possible. Now he wanted her to commit to their future together at the same time his career ambitions were pulling him away from her.

  Liana put a glob of shampoo in her hand and furiously attacked her hair. Her coiffure was a source of constant worry and required focused maintenance. On a good day, she looked sassy and cute, with a plethora of messy but chic blond curls setting off her blue eyes. On a bad day, the frizz was unbearable, and no amount of gel or mousse could contain the damage. She poured half a bottle of high-octane conditioner on her hair and let it do its work.

  As the hot water beat down on her back, Liana played the highlight reel of meeting Jakob that summer four years earlier. She could pinpoint the exact moment she had first been aware of him. She had just arrived at the Wilcox & Finney annual Sail Around the City event—the firm had rented the Circle Line, and the summer associates and the attorneys were treated to hors d’oeuvres, an open bar, a jazz quartet, and spectacular views of Lower Manhattan. Liana had been at the firm for two weeks, and she didn’t know many people. After getting herself a Corona, she was leaning on the railing of the boat, lost in thought, looking out over New York Harbor at the Statue of Liberty, when she sensed someone near her.

  “Think she’s going to sail the ship?” A very deep but lilting voice came from somewhere to her right, so close the man speaking might have been touching her.

  “What?” Liana turned toward the sound, and she saw Jakob, six feet tall and athletically built, looking scrubbed and wholesome, his curly hair neatly cropped in stark contrast to her unruly mop. He lifted his chin over his left shoulder, and Liana followed his gaze. There, in the middle of the deck, stood a fifty-or-so-year-old woman in full blue-and-white sailor suit regalia fashioned into a pseudotrendy, “way too short for a woman her age” dress, gold epaulettes on the shoulders, and white sailor cap perched absurdly on her head.

  “Oh my God!” Liana gasped. “Who is she, and why is she wearing that costume?”

  Jakob smiled. “That’s Irene McDonald; her husband’s the managing partner of the firm. And she’s wearing that costume, as you so aptly put it, because she’s playing a role—best supporting spouse.”

  “I don’t get it,” Liana said, but she would have said anything to keep Jakob talking. His voice was gripping, and the fact that he knew who was who and what was going on was very sexy.

  “Well,” Jakob continued, “he is the rainmaker, and she’s the one standing by his side, keeping the whole operation afloat.”

  “Wow. That’s quite an analysis based on so little evidence. I don’t think I could ever play that part,” Liana mused.

  “You won’t have to,” Jakob said. “You’ll be the rainmaker partner, and your husband will have to wear the sailor’s suit.”

  Liana laughed. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I doubt very much I’m going to have that kind of career. And I’m not that attracted to nautical.”

  “Let me guess,” Jakob said. “Do-gooder?”

  “Guilty as charged,” Liana said, smiling. “And you? You fancy yourself a big partner at Wilcox & Finney someday?”

  “I do,” Jakob said, turning serious. “It’s one of the top firms in the city, and it has the best antitrust department—that’s my beat. And I have to get a job where I can pay off my law school loans in some reasonable amount of time—my father has plenty of money, but he felt it was a good lesson in responsibility for me to pay my own way.”

  “Well then, you better start recruiting some cute sailors to audition for supporting actress,” Liana said.

  “How about we just begin with some sushi, before these hungry hordes demolish all the food?” They spent the rest of the event side by side, Jakob clueing Liana in to all the office politics and personalities, Liana hanging on his every word but pretending not to. When they had filled their plates, they sat on a bench on the upper deck of the boat, the lights of lower Manhattan just beginning to show off as the sun set.

  “So what do you think of the whole summer associate thing so far?” Jakob asked, popping a spicy tuna roll into his mouth.

  Liana sighed. “They have me on this case—we represen
t an accounting firm charged in this big fraud. I sit all day in a small conference room on the sixteenth floor with no windows, looking at computer runs—hundreds of pages of printouts of bank account ledgers—as if I’m going to suddenly notice some random numerical entry and say, ‘Aha!’ Honestly, I’m out of my depth.”

  “Sounds to me like you’re doing just fine,” Jakob said. They sat listening to a reggae band play some Marley, watching the skyline come ablaze. After a few minutes, the musicians went on break, and Jakob asked the keyboard player if he would mind him fooling around a bit. When he got the okay, he took Liana’s hand.

  “Come sit next to me; I want to play you something. It’s an old show tune from The Music Man that the Beatles covered.” He sat on the piano bench, leaving enough space for her to be close at his side.

  As Liana sat, transfixed, he started to play, humming quietly but unselfconsciously, as though he truly had been expecting this moment.

  “That’s lovely,” Liana murmured.

  “Wait, here’s the bridge—it’s my favorite part. Listen. Can you hear the chord progression?” Jakob asked. “B flat, B flat minor, F . . .” Liana had no idea what he was talking about, and it didn’t matter.

  He kissed her then, somehow magically managing to keep playing for a moment while he did, ensuring that “Till There Was You” would always be the soundtrack of their romance.

  By summer’s end they were inseparable, until forced to part in September to go back to their respective law schools—Liana making the trek north to New Haven and Jakob taking the subway back uptown to Columbia. The year they’d spent apart had been simultaneously excruciating and unspeakably sweet; they’d appreciated each other in a way that they might not have if it had all been easy. And now, these years that they were together and in the same place were sometimes harder than Liana thought they should be. She and Jakob often battled their stress alone instead of together.