Lauren Takes Leave

by Gerstenblatt, Julie

  “Eleven thirty,” I say.

  “Can I bring some art projects over? My little sister loves them,” Carrie says. I will myself not to love Carrie too much, because I now believe that, like every babysitter I’ve ever had, she will eventually disappoint me and my children.

  “Sounds like a great plan.” I pull the blanket up over the sheets to make the bed, cradling the phone under one ear.

  I am about to make the kids’ beds, too, but then I stop myself. Today may be the end of my school leave, but it’s also the start of a New Order in the Worthing household. Today, my children will do some housework.

  “Kids!” I call from the hallway landing. “Come up here, please, and make your beds!”

  For someone on leave from the darker side of life, I’m sure spending an awful lot of time around dead bodies.

  Well, really, just one dead body in particular.

  And today, we’re putting her to rest.

  I shake some of this morning’s rain off my jacket and hand it to a woman behind the coat check at Stillman’s Funeral Home. Doug gives her our umbrella and takes the claim ticket. We follow the signs for Sonia Goldberg and make our way down the hushed, softly carpeted yellow hallway.

  “Hi-yyy,” Jodi says, embracing me as I enter the family visitation room to the side of the chapel. She’s wearing a tight black floor-length sheath à la Morticia Adams.

  I had a theory and now it’s been proven: Jodi owns a sexy ensemble for every occasion.

  “Hi, Doug,” Jodi purrs, hugging him next.

  Before letting us go, she leans into us. “I am so hungover,” she whispers. “I got totally trashed after they announced last night’s winners! And guess who I drank with?”

  “Can’t imagine,” I say.

  “Rabbi Cantor,” is Doug’s guess.

  “Well, Kat, of course,” she says. “Kat…and Leslie.”

  “Leslie Koch?” I blurt.

  “One and the same!” Jodi says. “She apologized to Kat, and then we did shots of Manischewitz. Well, Kat and I did. Leslie won’t drink anything purple anymore. It’s part of her—”

  “Twenty-four-step program?” Doug guesses.

  “Anyway, she’s coming today to pay her respects.” Jodi reaches into the deep V of her dress’s neckline and pulls out a small packet of Tums. She pops two in her mouth and offers the roll to us.

  I wave her offer away. “That should be interesting,” I say, hoping Leslie isn’t on to us yet.

  We make our way down the line of mourners in the Moncrieff-Goldberg clan, saying hello to all the people we just saw last night, and head into the chapel.

  Kat’s seated alone, about ten rows back. She waves us over with a halfhearted hand in the air. She appears to be sucking on a lollipop.

  “Blow Pop, actually,” she says, when I ask her what she’s got in her mouth. “Trick from the Clevelander. Keeps me from puking.”

  I slide into the wooden pew and put my arm around her. Her face has a greenish tinge. “Kat, you’ve got to stop drinking so much.”

  “Brilliant plan. You’ve solved all my problems.”

  Too much sarcasm so early in the day can mean only one thing. “Peter?” I guess.

  “I’m serving him with official divorce papers tomorrow. And I have to go back to school to deal with the diministration. So, yeah, I’m just trying to keep my food down.”

  “The Sundays.” I nod.

  “Yeah. Worst part of the job,” she says. “Besides the, you know, teaching aspect.”

  Doug, who has been silent until now, clears his throat. “Why don’t you quit?”

  I swivel my head around to face him. “Her or me?” I ask, knowing the answer.

  “Lauren, not everything is about you,” Doug says, sounding just like my mother. I hate when he does that.

  “I need money, Doug. That’s the problem.” Kat starts chomping on the lollipop with her incisors to break through to the gum.

  “Like teaching is the only way to make a living?” he asks. “You can’t waitress or something for a while?”

  “Would you want me to serve you the pasta special? Really?” She smiles and chews a big wad of gum. I imagine her spilling Alfredo sauce on customers she doesn’t like. Often.

  “Fold T-shirts at the Gap. Work in a bakery.” Doug is chock full of creative solutions for Kat. I’m sitting in the middle of them, wondering, why isn’t he letting me off the hook? How come Kat gets to bake and I have to go back to teaching, tomorrow and probably forever?

  An orchestral version of “Wind Beneath My Wings” interrupts my thoughts. Before I can get into another fight with my husband, the Moncrieff-Goldbergs come through the door and take their seats in the first row.

  Slipping in right behind them is Leslie Koch.

  Given our new peace pact, I smile and wave in her direction. She turns to me and time slows down.

  You know that thing people do in movies, where they hold up two fingers, point them in their own eyes, and then aim them right at you? It’s a menacing, foreboding gesture that means I’m watching you. Well, that’s exactly what Leslie does when she sees me. And then, just as Rabbi Cantor is about the begin the funeral service, she sits down at the end of a row across from me and mouths the word “Meow.”

  I do believe that we are fucked. Again.

  “I want to quit,” I say as Doug and I get into his car, metaphorically ripping the Band-Aid off quickly. We are getting into line for the police-escorted procession down State Street and to the quaint Jewish cemetery about ten minutes away in North Elmwood. “Also, I do believe that Leslie is back to hating me. Well, this time it’s us, really, you included.”

  “Why?” Doug asks, turning to meet my eyes. He adjusts the wipers and the rain slides out of view.

  “Well, for starters, because we broke into her house last night while she was dancing her ass off.”

  “No, Lauren.” He places the sign from the funeral home on the dashboard, letting other drivers know we are part of this convoy of cars. “I mean, why do you want to quit your job so badly? You are a great teacher.”

  I smile sadly. “Just because I’m good at it doesn’t mean I like it.”

  “Since when?” He pulls out of the parking lot slowly, making a right hand turn behind Kat’s black VW Beetle.

  “Since…I don’t know.” I think for a moment, watching businesses and strip malls pass by under gray skies, their neon signs blurred by the rain. “It’s just so…predictable.”

  “You really wanted that promotion.”

  “Actually, no,” I say. “I wanted to be the department chair because it seemed like the logical next step. I liked the idea of teaching a lighter course load, and of spending more time in other teachers’ classrooms, helping them. You know how I love to teach teachers. Maybe even more than I love teaching children.”

  “So, why not apply for positions as the English chair at another school?” Doug asks. “It’s the right time of year for job hunting in education; I bet you could land something great.”

  I am already shaking my head no before he even finishes the complete thought. “Because, here’s the thing: I don’t want to be an administrator. That’s one of the things I realized this week. I would absolutely hate to be Martha. I am terrible with scheduling and overseeing a budget. I don’t want to have to discipline people. I just want to…”

  “To what?”

  “Fold T-shirts at the Gap?” I joke.

  “Lauren!” The way he says my name makes me feel like I’ve just been scolded by my father.

  “Why is okay for Kat and not for me?”

  “Um…let’s see.” He’s angry now, and the car jerks sideways as he takes one hand off the steering wheel to count reasons on his fingers. I clutch the underside of my bucket seat and keep my wide eyes staring at the road. “Number one: you have a Harvard education.”

  “Smart people can work in retail.”

  “Not you. Number two: Kat is in crisis. Her husband is a dick and her marri
age is falling apart.”

  “Maybe I’m in crisis, too!”

  He puts both hands back on the wheel and turns to me, his eyes dark and unreadable. “Are you?”

  I take a deep breath. “No,” I say, feeling stupid. “I just needed a break. A mini vacation from my monotonous, tenured life. A small leave of absence. But I’m back now.” I feel a wave of regret pass over me as I admit this.

  It’s really Sunday, after all.

  “Kat also told off the principal. Right?”

  “Yes,” I concede.

  “And it wasn’t the first time?” Doug would make a good prosecuting attorney.

  “Like maybe just four other times?” I say in a small voice.

  “So she’s in deep shit.”

  “Deep Shit, Arkansas,” I agree, laughing to myself. Doug looks at me funny. “It’s a line from Thelma and Louise.” I wave my hand dismissively. “Forget it. Inside joke.”

  We arrive at the cemetery and park behind the other cars. Kat joins us, and we walk together toward the burial site. The grass is soft and wet and the heels of my boots keep getting stuck. Doug holds a massive umbrella over the three of us and we huddle underneath.

  “I’m thinking bakery,” I whisper to her. “You need to work in a place that smells comforting. Kneading dough and puff pastry is a way to heal.”

  “I’m thinking that Leslie’s going to stuff me into an oven and fry me like in Hansel and Gretel.”

  “She gave you the death stare, too?”

  “No, on the way to our cars, she said, ‘I’m going to stuff you in an oven and fry you, like in Hansel and Gretel.’”

  “That’s pretty clear, then.”

  “Yeah. I’m safe for the moment, though. I don’t think she followed us to the cemetery.”

  Sonia’s plain pine box is already suspended over the deep hole of earth. We say a few prayers—well, Doug and I say them and Kat gives a hearty “Amen” at the end of each—and then the coffin gets lowered slowly down on a mechanical platform. Which is weird to watch and somber all at the same time.

  Jodi is crying now, as is her mother and father, and her daughters and even Lee. I didn’t know Sonia, but I know what it’s like to lose your grandparents. I mourn for Jodi’s family and I mourn for Sonia. Her life seems like it was filled with love and rich with interesting opportunities, and I guess that’s all we can ever hope for. To live long, and to live well.

  The sound of a cell phone ringing in close proximity to me jars me from my silent contemplation. Kat jumps and fumbles for the offending phone in her coat pocket.

  “Turn that off,” Doug whispers.

  “I’m fucking trying,” Kat says through clenched teeth.

  When she looks at the caller ID, however, her eyebrows raise and she pushes a button on her screen. “Hello?” she whispers, stepping away from the crowd and our protective umbrella. She moves quickly under a tree a few feet away and continues talking on her cell as Doug and I and the entire Moncrieff-Goldberg family watch incredulously.

  Rabbi Cantor clears his throat and regains the group’s attention. “Now we have reached the point in the service that represents the family’s final act of honoring their deceased loved one. “Al mekomah tavo beshalom,” he says, then hands a trowel to Jodi’s father, to spill some dirt onto the coffin.

  This part of a Jewish funeral always gives me the creeps. I shudder inwardly and watch as the spade is passed to Jodi’s mother and then to Great-Aunt Elaine.

  “She shaves her what?” Kat calls out from under the tree. “No fucking way!”

  I continue to cringe and shudder, but not because of the sound of spilled earth on a plain pine box. Doug coughs and I take out some tissues and sniff into them, as we try and cover the sounds of Kat’s wicked cackle.

  The service ends a minute later and people make their way back to their cars. “Shivah will be held today at the Moncrieff home in Elmwood, and then for the remainder of the week at the Goldbergs’ apartment in Queens,” the rabbi says.

  Kat meets us on the hill as the crowd disperses. She shakes her damp curls out like a dog coming in from the rain and splatters me with water as she ducks back under my umbrella. “Subtle,” I say. “Holy.”

  “Holy shit.” Kat is grinning from ear to ear. “You have no idea.”

  Chapter 37

  As much as I’d like to hear the details of Kat’s telephone conversation, my priority right now is to get out of the rain, which has crossed over from light drizzle to heavy downpour.

  “Tell me later!” I shout over my shoulder as I break away from Kat and the rest of the crowd and make my way behind Doug to our car.

  “But…it’s important!” Kat calls back. “And really funny!”

  “I can live with the suspense!” I say, shooing Kat back to her own car.

  Doug’s phone starts buzzing in his pocket. A shadow crosses his face as he looks at the screen. “Gotta take this,” he says. “Work.” He presses the phone to his ear and slides into the driver’s side, slamming the door shut.

  I’m about to go around to the other side of the car when I realize that I haven’t said good-bye to Jodi. There is a black limousine a few cars ahead of ours, so I decide to knock on the window and wave a quick farewell from under my umbrella.

  The black tinted glass slides down a few inches. A hand emerges, holding a fedora.

  That’s not Jodi’s, I think.

  “No way!” I laugh. I jump up and down in the puddles and demand more. “Roll down the window, Tim! I need to see your whole beautiful face to verify that it’s really you!”

  The automatic glass window dips lower to reveal the complete facial franchise, from twinkling blue eyes to the adorable dimples surrounding the slightly cocky grin. He even has the requisite two-day blond stubble. “Satisfied?”

  He doesn’t say the word, exactly. He drawls it, nice and slow like.

  I believe Tim Cubix is using his southern charm on me.

  And it works.

  “Well, yes, actually, I am feeling quite…satisfied.” I smile, flirting with him in a way I never could have earlier in the week. I’d like to take him home with me so we can snuggle up under a blanket and watch one of his movies while the rain pitter-patters on the roof, but I think that might be taking things a bit too far. So instead, I just babble. “You see, any old schmuck in a limousine can wave a fedora in your face and pretend to be a Hollywood hotshot.”

  The window lowers more, revealing a passenger in the seat next to Tim. MC Lenny waves a fedora at me, his lips pressed tightly together in an embarrassed smile.

  I nod my head in his direction. “My point exactly.”

  “We had a meeting in the city about the upcoming New Orleans video, so we came by to pay our respects,” Tim says, but I’m so busy watching those lovely lips move, I hardly hear what they say.

  “Kat!” I call, looking out from under my big black parasol. She needs to see this. Jodi, too. I can only glimpse people a few feet ahead of me, and neither of them is in my sightline. Strange. Kat’s car is still here, though. I’m not sure about the immediate family, but they probably already left. I adjust the umbrella, holding it back so that I can get a wider view of the surrounding area. “Jodi!”

  Three figures in black are huddled under a tree, the same tree that Kat used when answering her disruptive phone call. It’s hard to make them out through the gloom of the rain. Although my vision is distorted, I can tell that one of them is wearing a dress that reaches all the way to the ground.

  “Stay here!” I instruct the fellas. “I’m going to get Jodi!” I yell the words, trying to be heard over the pounding precipitation. In response, I get a double thumbs-up. I’m telling you, they are like two peas in a pod, my Tim and my Lenny.

  I pass my Doug, who is still on the phone in our car, now gesticulating wildly. I hold up my pointer finger to him, in a gesture meant to say, One minute, I’m going to find Jodi and Kat and bring them back to that limo over there, in which sits Tim Cubix and MC
Lenny, but I’m not sure he gets all that. He merely nods through the windshield in my general direction and goes back to his call.

  Whatever. His loss.

  It’s a slight uphill climb to my destination, and my feet are soaked by the time I reach the giant elm, my boots caked with thick mud. I’ve probably ruined the leather, but Tim’s worth it.

  “Hi,” I pant, talking to the three pairs of feet meeting my down turned gaze. “I just wanted to tell you that—”

  “Lauren,” says a voice that at first I don’t recognize. “Glad you could make it to your funeral.”

  “Leslie?” I ask, moving my umbrella out of the way. “Are you quoting Dynasty or something?” It’s Leslie, all right. The sunglasses are gone and her face no longer has the bandages. Instead, a slick, Vaseline-like cream is smeared over the scar. The ointment makes the jagged line glisten and shine repulsively.

  But there’s more. On her head is a plastic CVS pharmacy bag, tied neatly under her chin like a bonnet.

  “Hi,” Jodi says. What she means is, we’re in deep doo-doo.

  “Hey there,” Kat says. And what she means is, make a run for it.

  Neither one looks all that happy to see me.

  “Lemme guess,” I say. “She found out about last night’s intermission break-in?”

  “And catnapping!” Leslie adds.

  “We did not nap your cat,” Kat clarifies. “We merely moved him to an isolated locale.”

  “Because my husband thinks he’s allergic,” I say.

  “But he’s not,” the three of us explain in unison.

  “May I just say, I thought your dancing was fantastic last night,” I interject, trying to kiss Leslie’s substantial behind and confuse her simultaneously.

  Leslie considers this, nodding as if she agrees.

  Kat jumps in to continue. “More importantly, had we known that you were on the verge of apologizing for your ridiculous and perverse behavior, we never, ever would have stolen your nanny cams.”