21
The following Monday morning, I brought Pepper with me to drop the kids off at school, but I took the long way home to walk past Mr. Moskowitz’s house again.
He was on his front porch, ostensibly reading the newspaper with a cup of coffee, but from the way he peeked over it as I approached, I wondered if that was a pretext to protect his lawn from four-legged defecators.
I waved merrily, and he raised his paper to avoid speaking to me. “Good morning, Mr. Moskowitz,” I called. He grunted in return.
Apparently I was less interesting than my mother-in-law. No matter.
“That’s okay, Pepper,” I said, speaking exaggeratedly loudly for Mr. Moskowitz’s benefit. “You can do your business wherever you need to.”
Suddenly, Mr. Moskowitz’s newspaper was on the chair, and he was striding across the lawn with big, angry steps.
“Careful, Mr. Moskowitz. I’d hate to see you step in anything untoward on your lawn.”
He reached me and pointed a finger in my face. “Now see here, missy,” he sputtered.
“Oh, calm down,” I said, scooping Pepper up so she wouldn’t actually relieve herself on his grass, ruining my plan. “Pepper has never done any business on your property.”
“That sidewalk—”
“Belongs to the county,” I finished. I stuck a hand in my pocket and pulled out a folded-up section of that morning’s Washington Post that I had grabbed to protect against his accusations. “And I clean up my messes.”
Mildly placated, he crossed his arms. “So you’re just here to antagonize me, then?”
“Actually, I’m here to invite you to dinner.”
He made a face. “You’re too young for me, and I don’t approve of forward women.”
I resisted the urge to make a face back. “Believe me, you’re not my type. But no, I want you to have dinner with my mother-in-law.”
This certainly piqued his curiosity. “Really now?” He straightened the collar of his short-sleeved button-down. “I could tell she liked me.”
I wouldn’t exactly say she liked him. She’d had some choice words about his attitude, and Susie and Bobby now wanted to know what an alter kaker was and why it needed to geh in drairt .
I had no intention of explaining that she wanted to tell the crotchety old fart to go to hell, so I told them it meant she wanted our neighbor to be nicer, and they lost interest once the words weren’t inappropriate.
But if she could become friends with Mrs. Kline, I didn’t see why romance couldn’t bloom with Mr. Moskowitz. There was no accounting for taste.
“Yes, well, I made you a reservation at Rive Gauche in Georgetown for six tonight.”
“Rive Gauche!” Mr. Moskowitz said. “Absolutely not! I’m not giving her the impression that I’m the kind of man who will spend money willy-nilly like that. No, sir.”
“Do you even want to know what kind of strings I had to pull to get you in there?” Technically it was one string—a girl Janet and I went to college with had married the son of the owner, so we were two of the rare common folk who could snag a table on a moment’s notice.
And our cocktails were on the house. But Mr. Moskowitz didn’t need to know that.
“Don’t care. No woman is worth a three-dollar piece of French fish.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Fine. Why don’t you just take her to the McDonald’s on Rockville Pike and get her a fifteen-cent hamburger, then? Maybe you can splurge and spend a quarter to get her a Coke too.” We glared at each other for several seconds until finally he caved.
“I don’t like driving that far at night anymore,” he said, somewhat more meekly. “Can it be someplace closer ... and more reasonable?”
I conceded slightly. “Would O’Donnell’s work?”
“The one in Bethesda?”
I nodded.
“As long as she doesn’t try to order the lobster,” he grumbled.
“She doesn’t eat shellfish,” I assured him, though I had no idea if that was true. Harry and I kept kosher, but loosely and in the house only. If Ruth wanted to order the lobster, that was going to be her problem to handle. “Pick her up at five forty. She’ll be ready.”
I turned and walked back toward my house, setting Pepper down as soon as we were no longer in front of his house. She did still have to finish her business before we went inside.
Of course, once we were home, I had to figure out how to get Ruth to go on this date.
Calling it a date would never work. Harry had been unequivocal that while he wished his mother would find someone, she had no interest in replacing his father.
It was one of the few areas where I truly felt I understood Ruth, honestly.
When Harry told me that, years ago, I didn’t.
But now? No one could replace Harry. And the idea of another man in my bed? I shuddered.
But it had been a lot longer since Abe died.
And Ruth was lonely. I could definitely see that once the kids were out of the house, companionship would be welcome.
Would it be the same passion and love that I had with Harry?
No. But a sedate, older relationship formed of a mutual desire for company?
There was an air of eventual appeal to that.
And while Mr. Moskowitz was a crotchety old crank, he appeared .
.. softer ... when Ruth’s name came up.
Satisfied with that line of thought, I rationalized that a white lie to help these two people find solace in each other was just fine.
Music emanated from the kitchen, and I went in to find Ruth humming along idly as she flipped through the newspaper, a cup of coffee in front of her. Pepper ran right over to her, and Ruth lifted the puppy up onto her lap.
“I ran into Mr. Moskowitz on my way home,” I said by way of greeting.
“Oh?” Ruth asked, completely uninterested.
“Yes. He—he actually asked if you’d have dinner with him.
” She looked up, brow furrowed, but I kept talking before she could say no.
“He ...” I cast around desperately, wishing I had come up with a real plan before I spoke to her.
I looked down at the table in front of her and saw she wasn’t reading The Washington Post , but The Jewish Week .
A headline mentioned the Jewish Community Center, which was down on Sixteenth Street, just a few miles south of Ruth’s house.
And an idea formed. “He wants the JCC to open a branch up here. He thinks you’d be perfect to help convince them it’s needed. ”
I crossed my arms and smiled at her, satisfied with my bait.
Ruth contemplated this. “I suppose we should have something up here,” she said slowly. “Though I think that would only make the situation worse in the District.”
“The situation?”
She shot a knowing look at me. “Half the houses on my block are for sale. And they’re not moving to Boca for the weather.
” She shook her head. “They don’t realize that they’re behaving just like people did when we got here.
Did we ruin the neighborhoods when all the ‘good Christians’ ran away from us?
Of course not. All they’re doing is driving down property values. ”
She wasn’t wrong. Of course, we had chosen the suburbs because we would have more room for children, and it was more affordable—but we had also bought the house before the schools in DC were integrated nine years ago. That was when the mass exodus really began.
“It would be good for the children to have a JCC nearby,” Ruth said, thinking aloud. “And then you could save money by dropping that country club membership. Especially if they build a pool.”
I bristled at the mention of the club. The pool was the only reason I still kept our membership, but it wasn’t Ruth’s place to tell me how to save money—especially not when she had mismanaged her own enough to lose her house.
But she also wasn’t wrong—I hated the club without Harry.
The well-meaning questions that just reminded me over and over again that I was different now.
The happy families playing in the water.
The men golfing and playing tennis while the women lunched.
It was all a reminder of loss. A local JCC would fix that at a fraction of the cost.
I shook my head suddenly. There was no plan to move the JCC. It was just my story to get Ruth to go on the date, fall in ... maybe not love , but ... mutual companionship, and leave my house.
“Exactly,” I said. “And—uh—Mr. Moskowitz said he doesn’t like driving so far anymore—especially at night ... So will you meet with him? To help convince the board?”
“If he’s not comfortable driving, he shouldn’t drive,” she said.
I had let Ruth drive to the store the previous week in her boat of a 1946 DeSoto Suburban, and I personally felt she was a little too comfortable driving, but I kept my mouth shut.
Then she agreed, but with a slightly sour face.
“Why dinner though? Can’t he just stop by the house? I can make coffee and a babka.”
If he tasted her cooking, the whole plan fell apart. I shrugged. “If he’s willing to buy you a meal, what’s the harm?”
“He’s probably lonely,” she said with a sigh. “When does he want to meet?”
“Tonight,” I said confidently.
“Well, that won’t do. I have lunch with Mrs. Kline today. I can’t eat out for two meals in a row.”
“Sure you can. What would you do if you were on vacation?”
“If this is a vacation, the maid service is severely lacking,” Ruth said, though there was a glint of humor in her eye. “I’ve already started two loads of laundry this morning.”
“You don’t have to do that, you know.”