Chapter 5
Two weeks had passed, and Jake had not left the condominium since he went to the gynecologist with me. The man was gloomy—and on my heels. Wherever I turned, there he was. Our marriage wasn’t built on constant interaction. Except for during the pandemic, which at this point was years ago, I was not accustomed to Jake lurking around the house. But too much togetherness was not the main issue. What concerned me most was that he was into strategy, a big planner, and he wasn’t planning.
Lucky for me, I had a perfect excuse to leave the condo—a standing date with friends. Each weekend, we had breakfast at a restaurant we’d never been to. Before I departed, I asked Jake if there was anything I could do for him. With flat eyes, he said a dreary no. I asked if he was certain. He told me to leave already.
I was the first to arrive at Everything Bagel. The owner, stationed at the cash register, agreed to seat me, even though—as she pointed out several times—my entire party wasn’t present. I asked for a table by the window. She led me to a corner opposite the men’s room, the first spot a restaurant unloads and the last one anyone wants. I kvetched . She said, “Okay, take the table you want.”
Trying new foods was my latest adventure. I resolved to order avocado toast for the first time. Go wild, I thought. Avocado toast. Lisa would be proud of me for being up to the minute. Unless avocado toast had already come and gone—after all, it was on the menu at Everything Bagel.
Suzy and Amy filed in together, chatting, both in sandals, cotton pants, fitted T-shirts.
I announced I was going with avocado toast.
“What an adventure,” Suzy said. “Are you taking up skydiving next?”
The waitress arrived, packets of imitation sweetener poking out of a pocket on her snap-front apron. Amy asked for the special—two eggs, bagel, hash browns. Then she added, “I will also have a large glass of orange juice.”
Suzy and I looked at each other aghast. “What are you doing?” Suzy asked Amy, as though accusing her of racing through a red light at a busy intersection.
“What?” Amy said. “What did I do?”
“You ordered OJ,” I said.
“No one orders orange juice in a bagel place in Florida. Look at the menu. The price is outrageous. More than the complete breakfast special. And oranges grow here! Have your citrus at home. Drink it before you meet us for breakfast,” Suzy said.
Amy looked at me, sure I’d back her up. She was incorrect.
“Don’t let me stop you from being robbed on this highway,” I said.
We always had such a good time together.
Suzy and I both placed our orders after Amy retracted her OJ request.
When the waitress moved on to another table, Amy asked how Jake was doing.
I spoke the truth. I revealed the raw and embarrassing circumstances in which Jake had lost his job, how hurt he was. Back in New York, I wouldn’t have told a soul what to order any more than I would have said Jake had been fired. Of course, I had friends in the city, but we pretended our lives were perfect. We all had children who never took a misstep, were doing as well as landed gentry, husbands who took any suggestion we made, careers that caused lesser women to weep. This was not lost on me.
Back when my mom passed, Suzy and Amy were the first to pay condolence calls, turning up immediately at my home. When I said I couldn’t decide what to wear to the funeral, that I didn’t have a proper black dress, that my late mom would detest the two dark numbers I owned, and I’d hear her saying that from the casket as it was carried to the grave, my friends glanced at one another, left suddenly, and returned later with a long-sleeved two-piece outfit in a bag from Macy’s. I had been crying all day. That’s when I bawled.
“Jake’s a wonder,” Amy said when I finished telling my sad story. “Such a terrific guy. I can’t wait to see what he does next.”
“Honestly, my friends, you wouldn’t recognize him. Lollygagging in a recliner all day. He’s turned doing nothing into a fine art.”
“Oh, Jodi, I’m sorry, but he’s in mourning. Give him room,” Suzy said as she stirred her coffee. “All that wisdom and experience will be put to work as soon as he decides to take his next step.”
“Absolutely,” Amy agreed, downing water instead of juice.
My friends were being overly kind. “Jake’s not a teenager,” I said.
“Oh, come on, Jodi. You two will be fine no matter what he decides. Jake is your perfect match,” Amy said.
“Here’s some good news,” I announced, changing the subject. “Jake and I are going to the Berkshires to watch Macallan while Lisa and Brian are out of town.”
“That’s terrific! But please don’t catch the ‘I should move there’ disease that’s been going around my complex. It’s the beginning of the end.” Suzy schmeared a bagel, which was what I should’ve ordered because, in my opinion, avocado toast turned out to be a waste of both avocado and toast.
I returned to an empty condo. No Jake. Good. He’d gone out. Finally. His keys were on the console table in the hallway. I assumed he had taken a walk. He certainly needed it.
I chose luggage from the closet. We weren’t leaving until tomorrow, but it had always been my habit to pack in advance. I filled his suitcase, wondering how many pairs of socks to pack. Not that it mattered—Lisa had a washer and dryer.
Jake called. “I took your advice,” he said.
“What advice?” I asked on speakerphone as I packed his undershorts.
“I tried something new.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Pickleball.”
“I said pivot, not pickleball.”
“Too late now.” It was clear from Jake’s tone he never planned to play again. “Jodi, I fell. I’m in the emergency room.”
Of course Jake had an accident. Too much on his mind. “I’ll be right there.”
“My pickleball partner brought me to the emergency room. He’ll drive me home.”
I hesitated.
“Don’t come, Jodi. I look like hell. And it’s all your fault. You said to try new things. Obviously, I wasn’t ready.”
He was blaming me? He had to be kidding. I stuffed down my anger, which wasn’t easy. What would I gain by starting up with him now? But I had to make my point. “Excuse me, Jake Wexler. I never suggested pickleball. I never said, ‘I know the solution: pickleball!’”
“Well, you might as well have.”
An hour or so later, he showed up—black and blue, forcing a grin. His front tooth gone, a casualty of the fall.
“Jodi, I can’t go to the Berkshires. I’m too distraught. I’ll ruin it for everyone.”
“Oh, stop. I’ll call Dr. Gonzalez at Sunshine and Smiles.”
“He retired. I have a new dentist there, and you might as well call him ‘son’ because he’s young enough to be ours.”
“I’ll find the Aleve,” I offered. Should I suggest I stay home with him instead of babysitting Macallan? I took a beat, which became the length of a song. The words wouldn’t come out.
Would Jake cancel a business trip if I injured myself? Nope. He’d kiss me goodbye, tap me on the nose, message me from wherever he was each night. Lisa was counting on me. If I reneged, how long would it be before she’d ask for my help again? I couldn’t just show up for a visit any old time. Lisa was very busy. With the restaurant, with her family, with her friends. On top of that, she chaired an organization that fed the homeless. Lisa looked out for other people.
I had good reason to bow out—I’d be taking care of Jake, Lisa’s only father. If Jake needed me, Lisa might not understand, but she would find someone else to cover. She’d ask Di to change her plans, leave Macallan with her next-door neighbor, or hire a student from the college, a sitter without an injured husband.
“You’re sad. You’re hurt,” I said. “I should tell Lisa I can’t make it.”
“You’re needed in the Berkshires,” Jake said firmly.
Would he slump further into the abyss in my absence? I wasn’t sure I should leave, but he wasn’t a kid. He was a grown man.
“Go,” he repeated. “It’s time I stopped following you around.”
“Oh, come on, you haven’t been following me.” I tried to be kind.
“Go.”
“Okay then,” I said.
I wanted to babysit so badly. I didn’t want to disappoint Lisa. But nothing was simple. As I called the dentist on behalf of Jake, I experienced a flush of guilty pleasure—shadowed, of course, by the ultimate party pooper, the inevitable self-reproach. I knew well it would not go away. No one chastised me more than I did myself.
I took care of whatever I could at the office. I spent a lot of time with Rizzo. I gave Slivovitz a “please warm it up” speech.
Then my last act. I buzzed my son.
“Alex,” I said on the phone. “Did you know I’m heading to Lisa’s? Dad isn’t up to it, but he insists I go, and he’ll be fine.”
“Stop worrying, Mom.”
Why did everyone in my family constantly tell me to stop worrying? If I didn’t worry, who would do the worrying? Did they suppose you could pay someone to be anxious?
“Is there any possibility you could pay a visit to Dad?”
Pause.
Double pause.
Double pause and a half.
“Mom, I’d like to, I want to help, I’d do anything for Dad, but it’s my busy season.” Alex, a workaholic, was at the computer before he brushed his teeth, slept with a laptop by his side in case something came up in the middle of the night.
“I know how jammed you are, but Dad isn’t himself these days. He had a bruised ego before the pickleball accident, and it would help if one of his kids showed up here.”
“What about Lisa-Can-Do-No-Wrong? She’s his favorite.”
“That’s not true,” I said.
“Oh, come on.”
“You’re his favorite,” I said.
“I bet you say that to all the kids.”
“Alex, Lisa is going somewhere. That’s why she asked me to come.”
“Where’s her mother-in-law? The real estate agent on Viagra—or the equivalent for women.”
“Her name is Di, as in Diandra.”
“I thought she moved to Massachusetts to be near her family.”
“She must be out of town.”
“Where’s Lisa heading? Maybe she doesn’t have to go.”
Bonehead. “Alex, you’re missing the point. I want to watch Macallan. And Lisa is counting on me.”
“I’ve heard you can’t always get what you want ...”
I was about to say thank you, Mick Jagger, when I heard her in the background. The Pilgrim.
“Who’s on the phone?” my daughter-in-law asked.
“My mother.”
“Again?” she said with disdain.
What did she mean by again ? I hadn’t spoken to Alex since his birthday almost a month ago. And I’d say I was entitled to speak to my son. Besides all that, it was my husband who spoke to Alex frequently, chatting it up with our youngest several times a day. They were joined at the cell phone.
“Mom wants me to visit Dad this weekend,” he said in an aside to the Pilgrim. He spoke in the kind of hushed voice people used in the prehistoric days when they were covering the receiver with a hand.
The Pilgrim said in a disappointed voice, “This week?”
Yes, I thought, this week.
“She has to go to Lisa’s,” Alex said.
“Where’s Lisa’s mother-in-law?” the Pilgrim asked him.
“Out of town,” Alex said. “Maybe I should go look in on Dad.”
That’s the spirit.
“I can drive there on Saturday, return Sunday,” he said to the Pilgrim.
“We have plans. I don’t want to cancel on our friends,” she whined.
I wondered if the Pilgrim would say that if it was her dad who had lost the job he loved and fallen on his face.
“It’s out of the question,” the Pilgrim declared.
Blistering friction in the air.
“Maybe Michael can handle this,” Alex implored.
Did I really raise this boy? “Alex, you live in Florida. Michael’s in California. It’s a state six hours away by airplane. Longer if he walks.”
“That’s always the excuse,” I heard the Pilgrim say, as though Michael had strategically moved to California to avoid any familial responsibility. Did the grown children who lived near the parents feel their siblings moved far away as an excuse to avoid the parents? I didn’t believe Michael had done that. Who would purposefully choose to live that far from Jake and me? We were gems.
At that point, no one was talking, but the phone was sizzling. After all, my poor son was lodged between his mother and his wife. I imagined what she’d tell him if I couldn’t hear the conversation. I wished I could fix things with Peggy the Pilgrim, but honestly, I wasn’t privy to what I’d done that caused her to dislike me. First time I met her was at a dinner at my home. I had asked Alex in advance what she liked to eat. He said she liked lima beans. Lima beans. Who liked lima beans? I made lima beans as though I were serving them in a Chinese restaurant—lima beans three ways. Of course, I also served salad, honey roast chicken, tarragon salmon, kugel . Black-and-white cookies, rugelach , and fruit for dessert. I had brought out the best dishes and silver, which I polished.
Peggy sat erect at my dining room table—her royal highness, bestowing a nod here or there. And guess what? I discovered something she enjoyed more than lima beans—excusing herself and walking off with her cell phone in her hand. Don’t say maybe she had important business. The dinner was on a Saturday night—and at the time she worked in a bank. So, bank hours. One more annoyance: She was the only guest I ever had who never asked to help clear the plates from the table. Of course, I wouldn’t have let her help. I would’ve told her to remain seated because she was our guest of honor, but she could have at least gone through the motions of asking. From then on, she avoided coming to Boca Raton, no matter the event. Time and again, Alex claimed she had alleged “problems with her stomach,” a condition that Jake aptly named “Peggy the Pilgrim Disease.”
I knew if Alex had kids, I’d have to work around Peggy. I suspected that before she delivered, she’d advise me to delay coming to see the newborn until they had adjusted. Did these people who told a grandparent to wait a while to see the newborn understand how hard that was to hear? Then, Peggy would claim she didn’t need my help at all because her mother was coming for the first sixteen years. Peggy ragged on her mother. But next to me, she was a saint.
“Okay, Mom, I’ll be there,” Alex said. “Anything for Dad.”
“Thank you.” What a relief.
“No need to thank me.”
“Alex, tell Peggy I said hello.”
“She says hello back,” Alex said.
The morning of my flight, I dressed in duck boots, boyfriend jeans, and a checked shirt, which I considered country clothes. I had packed a heavy crewneck sweater as well as a khaki coat with a green corduroy collar, both of which I hoped I’d need upon arrival. I was wishing for a temperature apropos to lighting a fire in the fireplace. The Berkshires were irresistible when chimney smoke drifted into the night air.
Jake wheeled my big suitcase into the hall, which made me feel as though he was pampering me when I should’ve been taking care of him. “Have a great time,” he said. “Lisa needs you, and I’ll be fine.”
“Will you?”
“Promise.”
He was trying.