Chapter Seventeen #2
“No wonder Batya made it her business to talk to me about the article and also, going back to the Ida of it all… Just…wow,” he said, his words slightly dizzying as he followed the GPS’s instructions through the streets of Rivertown.
Naomi didn’t answer, or didn’t fill in the space because she figured he’d have more to say once they got back on to route 9.
“The more you learn about her,” he said once he headed into Hollowville, “the more you realize what a piece of work she was, and how lucky you are not to have to deal with her anymore.”
Naomi nodded. “The fact I survived Ida got me a caterer, and a tax guy.”
“That’s wonderful,” he said. He paused, and somehow, in the May night, she could see the smile on his face. “I’m so glad your business is thriving, not to mention the wedding.”
“It’s…freeing,” she said after thinking about it for a while. “I was thinking about how lucky I am that I’m part of a really great community of people who care about each other.”
“I’m glad,” he said. “I’m glad that you’re starting your company, with the knowledge that people care about you, respect you and want to work with you.”
“Me too.” She paused. “Abe and Batya are really good people.”
“They are,” he said. “And you know what?”
“What?”
“We were right. Abe asked me to help him.”
“We predicted it,” she said. “If it was a secret, it would have been the worst-kept secret in the universe.” And then she found herself wondering whether he got information for his own business as well.
“Speaking of business beginnings, did you get any ideas that you wanted to share? Any inspiration?”
“About…oh yes.”
She grinned; she loved watching his thought process play across his face even if she couldn’t actually see it clearly now.
“Speaking of the debrief?” he asked.
“You want to debrief now?”
Which was surprising considering how Jason usually reacted, pushing back the part of the evening where he’d summarized what he learned, in favor of forwarding other aspects of the conversation.
“Why not,” he said.
“I am all ears.”
He nodded, as he continued to drive. “Here’s the thing,” he said, words perfectly pronounced and spaced as if he’d thought about what he wanted to say. “Talking with Batya made me really think, deep down, into why I do what I do.”
“Really?”
Jason nodded as he turned onto the highway. “Did you realize I never really stuck with one type of food, that I learned different types of cooking, and then focused on different ways of cooking during my series of…stages, for lack of a better word?”
“I didn’t,” Naomi replied after digesting what Jason had said and what it had meant. “Not until now at least. What does that mean?”
“It means,” Jason continued, “that my goal has always been to…have culinary adventures, both for myself and to facilitate them for whoever I’m cooking for.
Whether it’s an athlete who needs basic meal prep, a bit of knish folding and recipe creation for a family empire, a friend who needs a chef on set, a wedding, graduation party, a gala, or someone special in my life who desperately needs a pick-me-up. That’s what I want.”
It sounded like he had a philosophy, but…not much else.
She had so many questions; did he want to be a small-batch caterer, open to both larger and smaller experiences? Did he want to go back to personal cheffing and do a pop-up restaurant every once in a while? So many questions and very few answers.
But Naomi knew Jason well enough to recognize the end of a conversation angle when she saw one. Tonight’s conversation was meant to be more general and encouraging, not about putting things on specific checklists. The checklist would have to come after tomorrow.
But now?
“I love this,” she said, doing her best to remind herself what the focus of the conversation was. “Now you have a way of positioning yourself. The philosophy and positioning will help you narrow down what your ideas are, which will help when you sit down to put together your business plan.”
Jason nodded. “And I think it’s definitely your influence,” he said. “I mean the way you organize things, the way you think about things and present them.”
“You mean my influence got you to actually think about what you want?”
He nodded. “Yes. Seeing you create a business out of nothing, when so many lesser people would have given up and shoved this wedding, and this part of your life, into someone else’s hands.
But you’re not. You’re making sure your cousin gets the wedding she wants and using that to force yourself back onto your feet. ”
Which was something she hadn’t thought of.
Then again, as she told Batya earlier in the evening, she really hadn’t taken the time to process what had happened or even analyzed what she’d been doing.
She’d been way too focused on putting one foot in front of the other, taking one step at a time to even think about why or how she was doing it. “Thank you,” she said. “I mean…”
“You have to know,” he continued, “that if I wasn’t driving, I’d kiss you right now.”
“And if you weren’t driving,” she returned, “I’d kiss you back right now.”
“I’ll use the energy to get us home,” he replied, a look on his face she definitely wanted to kiss off. “Your place or mine?”
She shrugged. “You choose. Which is easier traffic wise?”
“Mine,” he said. “Getting to yours requires a whole bunch of other things including Queens. Mine just requires getting all the way downtown.”
“Then yours it is,” she replied.
If nothing else, the choice would allow her to stay in his bed, skin to skin, by his side, for one more night. Any more, and she would have to start to think why staying so close to him, covered in his scent, was important to her.
Maybe love? Maybe lust?
But instead of freeing her, attaching possible words to her emotions terrified her. No relationship she’d ever been in survived her being anything less than perfect. And the last thing she needed was attaching relationship words to her most important person.
So, she closed Pandora’s dictionary and let the thoughts go.
*
As far as Jason was concerned, there was something about seeing Naomi getting the praise that she deserved from someone who wasn’t him. And the night they’d spent with Batya and Abe was all of that and more.
Over two nights of art exhibits, Naomi heard, over and over again, that Ida’s way of interacting with people in general, and eventually, the way she conducted her business, were horrible.
And that Ida’s personal failings had nothing to do with Naomi and choices she wasn’t permitted to make.
Words spoken by contractors, professionals, who then immediately agreed to follow her into an uncertain business future.
But tonight?
A business professional had told her that he had her back. Someone who spent his time doing work for people who had been in business for a long time, had offered to help her. And that was priceless.
Even more so than the things that had happened to him, the fact that a brilliant journalist and a brilliant barbecue guy had offered them his help would have been the center of his thoughts on any other night. But this one?
The relief in Naomi’s eyes after a night that was successful beyond her wildest dreams, where she’d got a caterer, a tax guy and a lead on Judith’s dream cake, as well as confirmation that her instincts were always one thousand percent right in one night, was the fuel that powered Jason on the drive to the city.
It excited him to the point where he strongly suggested that the head parking attendant at his favorite garage should put in an order for celebratory knishes, after he’d agreed to put the car in a place that was easy to get to.
But by the time they arrived at his apartment, all of the energy they’d had seemed to evaporate.
“Tea?”
Naomi nodded, exhaustion clear in the way she held her body and her inability to leave the couch. “Yes.”
Not long after, Jason had joined her on the couch, matching tea mugs warming their hands and their hearts—her favorite nighttime brew and his favorite green.
Once he’d settled onto the couch, the closest he’d get to holding her when she was drinking a steaming cup of tea, he said, “let’s do an inventory. What do we have?”
“Well,” she said. “We have a venue, we have a photographer, an event designer, and we have a caterer.”
He nodded. “We’ll talk about the cake later, because you said you had something?”
She nodded. “Okay, that leaves music and clergy.”
“Lev will officiate, if the rabbi from Briarwood can’t,” he said, doing his best to remember and then pass along information that had been discussed in the best men/groomsmen group chats.
“If that happens, I’ll take best man ceremonial duties and then pass the torch back to him while I’m in the kitchen. ”
“And that’s clergy,” she said. “My folder is on the other side of the room, but I don’t remember whether Judith made music choices or if she signed contracts about it.”
“Odds are,” he said as he remembered that discussion, “Ash probably said he’d take care of it. And it makes sense—he’s got favors he can pull, but also both Artur and I can make inquiries. I also suspect Artur might be on the hook for this one because he might owe either you or me.”
“Which makes sense as to why I had no idea,” she said as she took a long drink of her tea. “I mean the Ash of it. So that’s organized. Checked off.”
“Now the cake,” he said.
“Your interesting conversation was about your family,” she said with a laugh. “My interesting conversation with Batya was about my ex-boss.”
“Interesting,” Jason said as thoughts ran through his head. “Good conversation? Bad conversation?”
She shrugged. “Interesting conversation that made me think. But…”
“Yes?”
“We went from my ex-boss to community to Charlotte Liu, and how she’s expecting us tomorrow, before noon at the bakery on Long Island.”
Jason paused, thoughts running through his head; that conversation would have his head spinning too. He also found himself thinking of people who would be back in for the wedding but were out of town at the moment. “The Rockliffe Manor bakery?”
“Yes,” Naomi replied. “There.”
Which meant they had a direction and maybe a plan. “Then the plan is…”
“To drive out there and catch her? Which is not as bad as that sounds. Batya said to expect me, or us or…?”
“Of course I’m going with you,” he said, not even waiting for the end of that line of thought. “I’m in it with you. I’m going to see this through with you.”
She bit her lip, and the uncertainty affected the look of her whole face. “I didn’t want to assume…”
He kissed her shoulder. “We’re doing this. I promise.”
“Good,” she said. “I…you…”
“It’s okay,” he said, pulling her close. “I’m here. Way too few people are.”
“I’m lucky,” she said, and he could feel the emotion in her voice, in her expression. “We need to get there by twelve.”
Classic Naomi, changing the subject before the emotional explosion. But he was okay with it. “Do we have a contingency plan?”
“Order a few cakes from her bakery and doctor them up, turn them into a wedding cake. That or hope she hated Ida as much as Abe did, and likes either my cousin or my sister as much as Batya does.”
“Anything else?”
Naomi raised an eyebrow. “Not much else we can do, unless you have any pastry favors in your back pocket?”
Jason shook his head. “Pastry was never my forte. And the favors I’d have, though out of town, are for Charlotte.”
Naomi nodded as if she understood. “Judith’s boss is expected back into town just before the wedding.”
Which meant she did, in fact, understand. “That’s who my cards are with. And his wife would have anybody’s head, including her husband’s, if he broke the no communication rule they agreed to for this trip.”
“Yep. Actually,” she said, “it was Jacob who put Tom Walker into my orbit the first time.”
“And Samuel sustained it, hm?”
Naomi nodded. “Friends helping friends, and family and networks and all the things.”
“All of which is the reason we’ll be driving out to the island tomorrow morning.” He paused, thought about things. “We should have the advantage of going the opposite direction to the commuting traffic.”
“Which is the tiniest of victories,” she said with a grin. “Still horrible traffic.”
“Maybe, potentially slightly less than horrible.” He paused. “I don’t expect to hear from Jacob, but we might get some kind of something, whatever it is, because we’re going to Rockcliffe Manor. And talking to Charlotte.”
Naomi nodded. “He’s protective of his people. I don’t think he liked Ida either.”
“Ida didn’t like people who didn’t fit her view of the world,” Jason said. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but her existence would have destroyed your reputation if you weren’t…”
“What?”
“You. If you weren’t you, Ida would have chewed you up, spit you out and tossed you away.
But you’re you. Which meant she could do absolutely zero of those things, including turn you into a carbon copy of her.
People who hated her held their tongues because they knew that you were doing all of the work, not only behind the scenes but in the front as well. ”
He waited, stopped talking, and watched her. “I guess,” she said. “I felt broken. I felt very lost. But I couldn’t let the waves overtake me. Like you said, I couldn’t give up.”
“Even before she dropped you, she let you hang on your own,” he said. “And I’m so very lucky to be a part of your life and your world.”
And when he pulled her close and kissed her, something fell into place.
They’d been physical, they’d been emotional. But not like this, not in this way.
His mind immediately went to the conversation he’d had with Abe.
“I can see it in your eyes,” Abe said as they stood outside, in the slowly dwindling daylight amidst the beautiful smell of hickory and oak. “You’re on the precipice of falling completely for her. Don’t fight it, let it happen. But. Be very careful.”
He looked up at the other man. “What should I be careful about?”
“There’s a difference between a couple being on the same page, and the first time you’re admitting you’re in the next chapter. Don’t even think those words you’re heading toward, until you’re sure.
So, in the dark of the night, with her in his arms, in his bed, under the covers, hours before they would test their luck on Long Island with Charlotte Liu, he tested out the words that desperately wanted to gallop out of his mouth. Instead of letting them, though, he whispered, ‘I love you.’
He wondered if she heard him. It didn’t really matter; they’d been said. And he meant them. Every single word.
And this time he wasn’t running from what those words would do to his relationship with Naomi.