Chapter Nine
As we fix one leak, another starts…
Unofficial wedding scavenger hunt (N)
Debrief (J): How do you deal with an impending family bombshell?
The smells coming through the door of Leah’s apartment were amazing; just enough to clear out Naomi’s nostrils from the subway ride.
“You got whitefish,” she said with a grin as Leah opened the door. “I love you.”
“You love me for other things,” Leah replied, blocking her way to the kitchen, forcing her toward the living room. “And you get no whitefish until you explain why you’re here alone.”
She blinked as she sat down on Leah’s couch, stunned. She’d expected to be interrogated over the slowly building relationship that she was creating with Jason, in a way that was half serious, half joking, by her bloodhound of a cousin.
But not like this.
Not in a way that felt like the information was the literal price of admission.
“You wanted him here for the gossip,” Naomi returned, letting the feelings she’d held back from conversation rumble up inside of her.
“You don’t care about me. You don’t even care about Jason.
You care about bagels, which you’re not getting, and gossip.
You care about telling the second family group chat, the one that doesn’t include me, whatever you’ve learned before everybody else. ”
“If I didn’t care about you,” Leah replied, standing, glaring at her, arms folded, “I wouldn’t be writing you contracts and not telling my sister that the business responsible for planning her wedding has gone kaput.
And with it the contracts she signed to the wedding vendors.
And if you don’t give me bagels, you don’t get coffee. ”
Naomi sighed, really not in the mood to deal with this from her cousin right now.
“Look,” she said, standing up from the couch, gathering the bag of bagels and finally succumbing to the emotions she’d been feeling over the last few days.
“In the end, either Judith finds out or she doesn’t.
I’d rather not have her find out from the maid of honor in a way that will make the date impossible to pull together.
Which isn’t a threat or anything, just simple facts.
I’d rather not have to go to a website that creates legal documents when I have a cousin who’s licensed in New York State to do that. But I can.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying,” Naomi replied, clear as to what was really bothering her, “if you really have no interest in helping me, tell me now so that I can arrange for other ways of getting things done. I am so sick of how projects, events, whatever…things I’m working on get held up because I’m not important enough to someone. ”
“Oh…I’ll come back later.”
Samuel.
She’d almost forgotten he was in the apartment; it was as if he’d fallen off a cliff. “It’s fine,” Naomi said, moving past her cousin and toward the door. “I’m leaving.”
“No,” Samuel replied. “Don’t.” He turned to Leah. “Jason’s not going to leave her alone unless something’s going on. Your cousin looks exhausted, and there’s a ton of food on the table.”
“I don’t feel like eating anyway,” Naomi said. “Just email me. Let me know if you’re going to give me the contracts.”
“I have to sign another contract,” Samuel said. “At least wait until I’ve done that before you go.”
“Do I have contracts, or will I have to tell him that I’m going to need a few days?”
Leah sighed. “Fine.” She reached for an old-school envelope, brown and tied tightly with a string.
“Here are the contracts.” She paused and then reached for a blue binder Naomi recognized.
“I also have this, from the initial wedding expo with some of Judith’s choices.
For the benefit of the wedding, here’s the binder. ”
“I’ll leave the bagels,” she said. “I don’t feel like eating.”
Samuel raised an eyebrow. “Should I take a year in signing so that…?”
Naomi shook her head, understanding the kindness behind Samuel’s attempts. “I’m not good company right now.”
“Not even for coffee?”
Once again, Naomi shook her head; it was a good offer from Leah especially because the air was filled with the strong scent of the coffee that Leah brought out for special occasions. But her stomach was too much of a mess to drink it. “No,” she said. “I can’t.”
“Cup of tea before you go? He does have to sign the contract.”
That was an offer she could take. “I can do a cup of tea.”
And once she’d had her tea, Samuel signed the contract.
“You might want to try the photographer first,” Samuel said as she headed to the door. “I think he’s got a show in Hollowville in the next few days. He’s a good guy.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate it.”
And as she headed back to Queens, she did her best to try and process what the hell had happened. She desperately hoped that Jason’s summons to his brother’s house went better than the disastrous visit she’d had with her cousin.
*
Per tradition, Greenblatt’s didn’t open on Saturdays; it was a big part of the business and how important that was. They were open on Sundays but never during the day on Saturday. Sometimes, during the summers, they’d open for a brief period on a Saturday night.
Which meant that to answer this summons, Jason found himself heading downtown, getting off the subway, picking up his car and driving up to Briarwood, where his brother had moved recently. The weather was nice, there wasn’t much traffic, and there was an open space near Steven’s townhouse.
Seconds after he’d walked in the door, he found out why the summons had been so urgent.
“The short of it,” Steven said as he poured coffee, “is that for this set of Greenblatt’s issues, I need you, Jason.”
“I don’t get it,” Jason said, not really in the mood for this discussion. “You’ve done fine with me coming in and out as I choose for years, Steven. Greenblatt’s is your baby, your interest. You take the lead in it.”
“But to make it great, to make it better, I need you.”
Jason sighed. There wasn’t going to be enough of his brother’s brunch food to get him through this conversation. “You have my yes votes for whatever you want to do; you know that. I don’t understand why they need more than my approval. Hasn’t that always been the case?”
“It has,” his brother said, bringing the bagels to the table, placing them around the smoked fishes and spreads. “And I appreciate it. But that’s not what’s going on here.”
“Then tell me,” Jason said, regretting the words immediately. “What?”
Steven sighed. “Dad is coming in and the New York family want a meeting.”
The tone made Jason feel like he was in a cross between a movie set on the Lower East Side in the old days and an old classic of a different culture.
“You sure our family business is just knishes?” he said with a laugh, attempting to defuse the tension in his brother’s voice. “Come on, Steve. Seriously.”
“Seriously, Jason. You need to take this seriously. I can’t do what I want with the business, and that includes the shop in Briarwood, if you’re not there, demonstrating…whatever it is you’re doing, can be considered an active part of the business.”
Jason wondered whether he was living in a twilight zone. “Haven’t I said that you have whatever support I can give you? My vote, even more than that if you need. But what do you mean active part of the business?”
“Before the New York family signs off on us for real, they need to know exactly what you’re up to. Because all of that ‘jet-setting’ you’re doing…don’t get mad—Dad’s words not mine—needs to ‘create a positive impact on the business’.”
And if anybody had ever felt more ‘hit by a truck’ with information before, that would be him right then. Which meant he had to dig out of it. “First of all, I thought they’d signed off on us already.”
“I thought so too,” Steven said, “otherwise I never would have opened Briarwood. But that’s neither here nor there.”
“But that’s the whole point. You thought they’d signed off. So, what brought this on?”
“Family doesn’t have to play by any legal rules, especially when there apparently haven’t been any legal documents involved.”
Which set off bells and alarms to Jason, but that was another question for another day, and another person. But this was now, and he had to untangle the mess that seemed to be emerging in the intersection between business and family.
And unluckily for him, his brother had become the deliverer of bad news.
“So,” Jason finally said, trying to get a hand on what his brother wasn’t saying, “suddenly we’re at the end of the transition period, and instead of just inspecting what you’re doing in the business, they’re looking for information about what I’m doing outside of it?”
Steven nodded. “You got it.”
“What I want to know is why,” Jason replied. “What inspired this? What catalyzed this whole…shebang?”
“Well,” Steven said pushing a paper across the table, “it’s this.”
The paper Steven passed in his direction was gray and looked like an oversized magazine, with bold headlines that were just this side of a tabloid. A single column.
NEPO-BABY CHEF JASON GREENBLATT MAKING HEADLINES FOR HIS CONNECTIONS AND NOT HIS FOOD
Jason Greenblatt, a member of the family that owns Greenblatt’s Knishes, has been moving and shaking.
Reports are the chef, the younger brother of Steven Greenblatt, who has been touted as the next-generation head of the family business, is selling his services to the highest bidder.
And boy has he sold high. Is his food a party in the kitchen or is he just partying in the sun all winter long?