Chapter Nine #2
The photos that accompanied the cut piece of newsprint were taken in rare moments when he wasn’t in the tiny makeshift kitchens he’d put together, on a movie set or TV set with Sam Moskowitz or backstage at a concert venue with David Streit; or even using broken-down equipment in need of major repairs, if not replacement, to feed people who desperately needed a good meal.
He was wearing a shirt that stuck to him, standing under sunlight, guzzling down as much water as he could after spending hours in chef’s gear.
It was clickbait, gossip, and complete bullshit. “What the hell?”
The gust of wind that emerged from his brother’s mouth could have caused a tornado. “Yep,” Steven replied. “The New York family has concerns about chefs who aren’t stable, people who have vagabond lifestyles, especially those who are tied to the business.”
Vagabond.
Nobody used that word anymore, unless their ideas were stuck in the era that word was created.
Apparently, the New York family was that kind of family.
“You mean they think my behavior might reflect badly on the name? That I might do something to put the business in the newspaper for the wrong reasons?”
“In a nutshell.”
“Great. What can I do?”
“Honestly?” Steven said. “You need to show them your plan. Where you’re going, what you’re doing and what you’re using those contacts of yours for. It doesn’t matter what it is, it just needs to be clear.”
Which meant as he sat at his brother’s table, enjoying brunch, he tried to figure out how he could demonstrate a business path for a business he wasn’t quite sure about.
*
Naomi wasn’t the best at dealing with the depth of her own emotions. Especially when so many other things took up so much of her time. Her experience told her that the best way to handle things was to go from item to item as if nothing was wrong. Don’t stop. Don’t think.
Thinking, analyzing what you’re feeling will send you down the rabbit hole of an emotional breakdown and that cannot happen when you’re on a deadline. And Naomi had learned that lesson the hard way. Ida always used to remind her that ‘people’s dreams remain unfulfilled if she missed a deadline.’
Unfortunately, the disastrous meeting with her cousin had awakened every single feeling she’d tried not to feel. Every single flimsy boundary she’d built up in her mind had come crashing down.
And hours after she’d come home, she was still trying not to lose her mind. Then the phone rang. She’d half expected the caller to be her sister, knowing the family gossip train as it was.
But it wasn’t.
It was Jason’s number on her caller ID.
Feeling no need to hide what a mess she’d become, she immediately answered.
“Hey…”
She wanted to fall into the sound of his voice, wrap the sound waves around her.
“Jason,” she managed.
“I’m coming,” he replied.
She didn’t mean to sit on the couch, staring at the door, waiting for him to come back. But that’s what she’d done.
And when the knock on the door came, she moved quickly to answer it, stopping herself short of falling against the door before she unlocked it.
“Hi,” he said.
She restrained herself long enough to let him walk inside and put the bag he was carrying down on the table before she threw her arms around him.
He caught her, and she breathed in the scent of the food he’d cooked that afternoon with his brother.
“Didn’t go well?”
She buried her head in his shoulder. “I…somewhat.” But she pulled back and looked up at him before asking. “You?”
He sighed, and in his expression and the cast of his features, she could see clear signs that she wasn’t the only one going through something.
What was wrong?
What had happened?
“I need a shower,” he finally said, as if he’d convinced himself of something, “then we’ll debrief?”
She nodded, but there was something else she could offer him, some extra comfort. “You want me to join you?”
She waited a few moments. Watching his face as he settled into the idea, watching his face as he shook his head. “I want nothing more,” he said, “but I need time to think before we debrief. Next time. ’Kay?”
She nodded; he’d put up boundaries and she’d respect them. “I’ll get into pajamas and make us some tea.”
He nodded. “That sounds perfect.”
As she watched his retreating form, she found herself thinking she could get used to this: him by her side in good times and bad. His touch to comfort, his kiss to bring her home.
I want nothing more.
*
Debrief.
The concept seemed so…formal, though neither they nor the location were.
Over tea and a bunch of peanut butter cookies he’d whipped up, his tablet and her laptop on the table, her adorable in her pajamas, the pajama pants he’d left at her place comfortable with a T-shirt that he’d picked up somewhere.
“What happened?”
He sighed, and even after a shower that loosened his muscles, baking cookies that calmed his spirit, and drinking tea with a person he could tell everything, he felt awkward.
Because he knew he wasn’t the only one dealing with trouble; he didn’t want to ignore her problems in favor of his. “I’ll tell you only if you tell me what happened with Leah. Because I can tell something absolutely did.”
Jason could tell right away that his words hit their intended mark; Naomi sighed, settled deeper into her seat and took a cookie from the plate, putting it on a napkin. “You’re right,” she said. “But now I’m here to listen.”
And he could see from the intent look on her face, the way she held the cookie in her hand, that there was no dissuading her, no changing her mind.
He would tell his story first, setting the stage for her to tell him what had happened to her. Make the situation reciprocal, even though he didn’t need it to be.
Which meant he began with the way his brother had initially presented the situation and continued to describe the narrative, up to and including the newspaper clipping.
She didn’t respond immediately, but that didn’t worry him. Because the distaste in her expression evoked by the name of the newspaper that belonged in litter boxes settled slowly into understanding. “That is…wow. It’s horrible.”
He shrugged; he appreciated the understanding, but the distance made him realize that things hadn’t been as bad as he’d originally thought.
“I mean,” he said. “I hate it, not going to lie, but…”
“But?”
He sighed. Perspective was everything. “I guess it’s their right.
Right now, Greenblatt’s Knishes is their business and if they want to be garbage, they can.
My issue, as a result, is that I need to figure out how to plan what I want to do with my life and my career…
before they show up. For my future, obviously, but also for my brother and his. ”
She nodded. “Understandable. Do you have any ideas on how to figure this out?”
“Well,” he said, “I don’t have much time.
But I was thinking that I’d be able to come up with some ideas as we go on your wedding-saving scavenger hunt.
Maybe I can get advice on business plans from the people we talk to, tie those to what I thought of my experiences on the West Coast and get some concrete plans ready to start. ”
“You want my help?”
He smiled; he loved how she was willing to step in. “I would love it,” he said. “You think we can brainstorm, maybe debrief as we go?”
“That,” she said with a grin, “sounds perfect.”
“I’m glad you think so,” he said, grabbing a cookie from the plate. “I’m glad to see how easily the things we’re doing fit together.”
“They do,” she said with a smile. “It’s like it was meant to be.”
Which was a thought that didn’t scare him on any level as much as it probably would have if he’d been talking with or about someone else. But that would be a conversation for another time. “Yeah. But more importantly, how are you doing?”
“Better we talk about the next stop, which is to see the photographer: Tom Walker.”
A balk. Of course there was. But he wasn’t letting her get away with it this time; there was something bothering her and she needed to let it out. So instead of letting the comment pass, he called her on it.
“That good, huh?”
She didn’t answer immediately, and again, he wasn’t worried.
She wasn’t someone who vomited words when the situation was tight, tense.
“I think your timing was perfect,” she finally said, her tone making him think she was using the distance to make light of a bad situation.
“Leah just…presented something in a way that stepped on every single one of my weird, sensitive spots and I lost it. I almost left moments after I got there.”
And apparently the distance wasn’t as far as he’d thought. “Ouch. Is everything okay?”
“It will be,” she said, her voice a combination of pain and exhaustion. “Samuel came out of nowhere and got her to give me the contracts; I barely left the bagels. She conceded after she realized I was serious about leaving, and in exchange, they gave me information about Tom.”
There was a knot of information, which he’d eventually untangle and help get to the bottom of. But then, it was obvious to him that she immediately wanted to switch subjects and talk about the first item on what felt like their ‘Save the Wedding’ scavenger hunt.
Having decided to let the rest pass until she was ready to tell him the details, he focused on the information she wanted to give him. “Which is?”
“He’s got an exhibition in Hollowville tomorrow. I figured we’d go early and stop by the bookstore.”
He nodded. “Sounds good.”
And then he pulled her close. “One more question,” he said.
“Mmm?”
“How do we spin this?”
“What do you mean, spin?”
He sighed. “We’re going to Hollowville to see the photographer at an exhibition. We know why we’re going, but we may run into people, you know? If not family, then people who know family.”
“Right,” she said. “And we want to be clear about what we’re doing because we don’t want anybody, beyond the people who already know, to find out what we’re actually doing.”
He nodded. “That. Exactly. News travels fast within the communities we’re a part of.”
Naomi nodded. “And the very last thing we want is people finding out the wedding arrangements fell apart. Because then Ash will find out, and then Judith will take over, stressing out and stressing the entire family out with her.”
Speaking of stressing, he turned his attention to the first name on the list. Tom Walker. “Why are you targeting this photographer exactly? Have you seen any of his work?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I was at an exhibition of his, actually. Judith had taken an interest in his work, and one of those Jacob Horowitz-Margareten favors was going to be him taking photos. But then Ida swooped in, he pulled out and…”
“Right.”
Hurricane Ida.
“I take it he’s good?”
“Which means you haven’t seen his stuff,” she said.
Jason paused. Had he? “I don’t remember, actually. I don’t think so.”
“Which means our story is that I told you how much I liked seeing his photography and said you should come with me to see this exhibition. Especially one for a good cause.”
He nodded. “That works. And the rest could happen as it happens, right?”
“The rest?” she asked. But then a flash of realization made its way across her face. “Right. Us. And yes. Emotional honesty works perfectly for us. What people see, they see.”
And that was fine with him, at least for then.