Chapter 32
The entire drive to her parents’ house, Marisa could barely keep her mind focused on the road. It was only due to pure survival instincts and her car’s muscle memory that she managed to avoid the regularly scheduled potholes riddling the Parkway exit ramp.
Never in a million years could she have expected her encounter with Phoebe to have gone the way it had. It was a jarring thing to have one’s certainties questioned, especially when precedent had done its damnedest to ensure a consistent experience, good or bad.
Nothing about her time with Phoebe had been consistent.
Instead, it had been eye-opening on more levels than Marisa was ready to explore.
It took a big person to admit when the rival they thought they knew was perhaps more like them than they could have imagined.
And sure, did she spend her highway miles replaying all their interactions together and start picking out moments where, had Marisa been paying closer attention, she might have seen how the hurt and fanfare were all just a cover-up for deeply rooted insecurities?
Yes, yes she did. But that wasn’t the only thing playing on repeat as she pulled into her parents’ driveway.
Alec was gone. Not just gone, but across-the-ocean gone. Different-country gone. The reality of it rankled her and sat heavily on her chest with an unease that made it hard to breathe.
He hadn’t truly said those things, those awful, hurtful things that had publicly humiliated her and her business. And she’d not given him the chance to explain himself, to tell her the truth from his mouth directly.
Phoebe, of all people, had been the one to clear the air in that regard instead, and, God, Marisa wished the woman hadn’t busted out the original recording of her and Alec’s bar conversation in front of the coffee shop audience the way she had.
After days of not hearing his voice, the brogue came back to claim Marisa’s heart all over again.
“She’s not your girlfriend.”
“No, she’s not. I mean, she is, now, I think, but wasn’t before, though even that doesn’t sound at all fair.”
“What is she, Alec? It’s a simple question.”
“She’s . . . she’s mine.”
Already, her tears were doing their level best to force her sadness to the surface, and there was no way she’d let her broken heart ruin everyone else’s New Year.
It was doing a bang-up job of ruining hers.
“Dry this for me, honey bun, will you?” Marisa’s dad handed her another sterling silver something or other. What had she been polishing again? Oh, right. A dreidel-shaped serving tray.
As if summoned by the stately piece’s appearance, her mother swept into the kitchen with a slew of to-be-assembled boxes under one arm, with a caddy full of bottles, sprays, and cloths dangling from the other, each one still wearing their yellowed price tags from decades ago.
It was a testament to just how often the stuff got called into service.
Marisa had to smile at that. Perhaps seasonal neglect was more of a family trait than she realized.
“I’ve put the rest of the Hanukkah items on the living room table so we can tackle them like an assembly line.
Now, the porcelain platters will be the hardest ones to wrap, but I got the tiny bubble wrap this year, which does a better job around the contours, so I’m hoping that won’t be a problem.
For the menorahs, especially the ones from the party, I already picked off as much of the wax as my arthritis would allow.
The rest is up to you two. Remember,” she said, setting down the caddy and pulling out each bottle with care, “first, you use this spray to remove the wax. Let it sit for five minutes so it gets nice and loose, then you use one of these cloths to wipe it all away.” She held up a jar with an angry-looking dispensing spout.
“Once that’s done, grab a glob of this silver polish—a good glob—and schmear it all over the metal.
That one should stay on for ten minutes, not five.
Make sure it’s all ten minutes. Very important.
After that, wipe it off with the cloths in this canister, which are different from the other ones.
These have a cream on them or something.
” She picked up the container and narrowed her eyes as she tried to confirm her directions with the label’s fine print.
Yikes.
“Okay, Ma.”
“Yes, dear.”
While her mother kept going on about proper polishing techniques—with hand gestures Marisa could have really freaking done without—her father had quietly already returned from the living room, one of several wax-stained menorahs in hand.
Out of the corner of her eye, he turned the sink faucet to scalding and, standing behind the protection of Marisa’s back, stuck the first menorah beneath the hot water.
In seconds, all the wax disintegrated. A quick swipe of a soapy sponge later and the thing was gleaming with glossy pride.
The whole endeavor took ten seconds tops.
Marisa blinked, then whipped her head back at her mother, who was caught up in balancing all the bottles upside down so the products would come out faster that she hadn’t noticed a damn thing.
Her father grinned and whispered out the side of his mouth, “Don’t tell your mother. Making a fuss makes her happy.”
“But this could all be done in, like, five minutes.”
“And if she couldn’t worry over this stuff, what do you think she’d spend the time worrying about next?”
Marisa thought about it for all of two seconds before she reached for more of what he’d brought over from the living room—a cluster of serving utensils this time. She gave him a playful shove. “Make some room at the sink, will you?”
They fell into a comfortable routine. Her father dousing the metal in hot water, Marisa wiping it all down, and her mother flitting around like a fly trapped inside, desperate to find a window—or something else to clean.
God, the woman was just not happy if she wasn’t moving.
Which made sense. When Marisa thought back to all the Hanukkah glitz and glamour that had dripped down these halls only a week ago, it was kind of sad to say goodbye to it all.
For eight days, her family fussed and ate and sang songs and ate some more and, yeah, poked her about parts of her personal and professional life she’d rather not offer up for scrutiny, but somehow, packing all of it up didn’t make her feel any better the way she thought it would.
“Oh,” her mother said, pointing a finger in the air.
“The fireworks are starting at nine thirty, but the Jamesons are firing up the grill at six. I said we’d bring over all the hamburgers and hot dogs and such.
Hank, can you get everything out of the fridge?
It’s all bundled in the plastic bag in the door. ”
“Sparklers,” Marisa mumbled, wiping down a carving knife and setting it aside. “They’re just sparklers.”
“They’re exploding sticks of gunpowder.”
“Pretty sure they haven’t used gunpowder in sparklers for, like, the last century or so.
Aunt Gail would know. I can’t imagine there’s a History Channel documentary she hasn’t seen.
Speaking of which, where is Aunt Gail? Doesn’t she usually like to supervise when we put everything away?
I remember her having very specific opinions on how to properly wrap and store the Star of David serving dishes. ”
By the time Marisa finished drying down all the silver and neither her mother nor her father had spoken, she knew something was wrong.
And, yup, she’d sure as hell nailed that one when she saw the two of them exchanging worried glances. Again, that stupid knot began forming in her stomach.
“Honey, there’s something we should probably tell you.”
“Okay . . .”
Her mother twisted her fingers in the hem of her sweater. “Aunt Gail and Uncle Max are getting a divorce.”
“What?”
Her father went into the fridge and pulled out the plastic bag of meats and treats, as he liked to call them. “That’s right. My stepbrother’s finally cutting her loose.”
“About time, if you ask me,” her mother added.
“I think Max thinks so, too. I know he hasn’t been happy for years, but at their age, change doesn’t come easy.
I did talk to him this morning, though, and he already sounds so much better now that he’s finally settled into the decision.
He even has an eye on this property in Puerto Rico he’s been dying to get his hands on.
Once the paperwork goes through, I suspect we’ll see an invitation or two. ”
“Hold on. Just hold the fuck on for a second.” Marisa put her fingers to her temples but stopped rubbing when she saw what was in her dad’s hands. “Are those brats?”
“Sure are, honey bun.”
“Pork brats?”
A confused crease crossed her mother’s brow before a dawning look of awareness smoothed everything out. “Oh, sweetheart,” she said, patting Marisa’s shoulder in a my sweet Southern child rhythm that Marisa did not appreciate. “We haven’t kept kosher for years.”
“Years?” Aaand the tension headache was back. Yup, just sitting there right between the eyes. “I’m not hearing this. I am so not hearing this.”
“Hear it or not, it’s the truth. Gosh, I can’t even remember the last time we had any kosher meat in the house that wasn’t catered by your aunt.”
A niggling feeling crept its way into Marisa’s mind in the form of a strange hunch she’d never given legs to before. “You did all of this for Aunt Gail?”
Her father put the brats and other assorted meats on the kitchen table.
“We didn’t really have a choice. Think what you want of her, but she’s helped us out a lot over the years financially, and your mother and I weren’t always in a position to turn her down.
Let’s see,” he added, holding up his fingers to tick things off.
“There was the roof leak thirteen years ago that started out as a patch job but turned into a total replacement.”