My Favorite Midlife Crisis (Yet) Page 9

  We were both laughing by the time I finished.

  But not for long. “You-know-who called last night,” she said suddenly.

  Which could have been any of Fleur’s cyber suitors. “Funguy4U?”

  “Jack. My Jack. Well, not my Jack anymore. Bambi’s Jack. Well, not Bambi’s Jack either, at least not for long. Or so he implied.”

  I groaned. “I thought you sent him packing when he showed up at the shop.”

  “I did.”

  “Yeah, well obviously he didn’t get the message. And can you see how he’s manipulating you? Calling to tell you he’s leaving Bambi.”

  “He never said that. Not in those words. But he implied...oh, I don’t know what he implied. It was late and he sounded like he’d had more to drink than he’s used to. Jack was never a drinking man. Gambling. That he liked. And his cigars. But she doesn’t let him smoke anymore. Because of the baby. And she has him on a low-fat diet. Lots of fish. Jack hates fish.”

  “He’s leaving his wife because she makes him eat salmon?”

  “Not just that. He sounded overwhelmed. The baby’s been sick. They haven’t even had the bris yet. They were worried it was something really serious, but turned out to be gastric reflux. Mason’s on medicine now, but he still keeps Jack up all night.”

  “Well, I’m sorry for Mason, but I can’t say Jack has my sympathy. So he loses a little sleep. It serves him right for procreating at sixty-five. A man collecting Social Security should not be changing diapers unless they’re his grandchildren’s.”

  “And Bambi gained forty pounds with the pregnancy.”

  I looked at her questioningly. Fleur’s weight never bothered Jack. They happily ate the top of the food pyramid together. “He thinks she’s having hormone problems. He says she has a short temper. That she yells a lot. He says he misses me. How comfortable it was. You never know what you have until you lose it.”

  “He didn’t lose it. He threw it away.”

  Dead silence.

  “Fleur,” my tone was a warning.

  “Don’t worry, I’m steering clear of him. He wanted to go out. Just for coffee. Just to talk. And I said no.”

  “Of course you did. If you said yes, I would have petitioned the court to declare you mentally incompetent.”

  She twirled her spoon in her ice cream. Fudge soup. If my mother had been there, she would have slapped Fleur for playing with her food.

  “I loved him,” she said. “Please note the past tense. Still, when he walked into my office the other day, I nearly passed out. And last night when I heard his voice, I actually felt my heart turn over in my chest.”

  “Of course you did. It was trying to send signals to your brain. Alert, alert! Common sense and self-preservation, man the barricades!”

  “He sounded so sad, Gwyn. I kept feeling ‘poor Jack.’”

  “Poor Jack? Are you forgetting what kind of shape you were in when he left you? On the verge of a clinical depression. That’s what your poor Jack did to you.”

  “Point taken. But it was easier to hate him last night when I still had Mitch247 on the horizon.”

  I peeled the package of Oreos from her fingers and shoved it in the pantry. “There will be other men. Not Mitches. Good men who want a good woman, which is you. There are thousands of them on those websites. You’ll find someone and if you don’t, being without is better than Jack Bloomberg. Ugh, I can’t believe the gall of the man. Running back to you at the first sign of trouble in his marriage. Who are you, the Salvation Army? I guarantee you, when the baby’s Zantac kicks in and Bambi loses five pounds, he’ll forget you ever existed. Promise me you won’t get involved with him. Even for coffee.”

  Her eyes widened and filled, and she exhaled a sigh so deep, it ruffled the napkin in front of her. “Promise,” she said.

  But since her hands were in her lap, I had no way of seeing if she was crossing her fingers.

  Chapter 12

  Kat lived in Columbia, a planned city west of Baltimore that began as a haven for reconstructed hippies and old-guard liberals back in the sixties. Her rancher was sheltered by trees that gave way to woods behind. To the left were the herb and vegetable gardens for which Ethan had turned the first earth and which Kat still tended, although her heart was in the flower garden, riotous with mums and impatiens on this warm Indian summer afternoon. As I crossed the brick patio, I noted that the family room was open to whatever breeze wafted in the vicinity since, in spite of my warnings, Kat left her sliders and screens open to mosquitoes and rapists and wouldn’t even consider wiring the place for alarms. Only the tinkle of wind chimes announced my entrance.

  “Hello,” I called out and three cats dashed out of nowhere to nuzzle at my ankles. Denny and John scattered in my path, but Mama Cass stuck around, mewing, as I checked rooms for Kat. I finally found her in the huge walk-in bedroom closet, paralyzed in front of Ethan’s third of the closet space. She seemed a little quavery. Not teary, but on the brink. She was wearing Ethan’s NYU sweatshirt over decades-old jeans and held a brown crewneck in one hand.

  “Goodwill?” She poised it over a heap of clothes. “Or Tim?” Summer’s husband.

  “It has a hole in the sleeve. You can’t give it to Goodwill in that condition. Give it to Tim. His kind likes clothing with holes. It says they’re too rich to care.”

  “That’s old money,” Kat said. “Tim is very careful about looking just right.”

  “Well, throw it out then.” I regretted saying that when I saw her stricken face. “Oh, Kat. I’m sorry. But you know if Ethan were alive, you’d steal it from the laundry basket to put it out with the trash.”

  “You’re right. But he’s not alive and these are the last of his things.” Kat’s mouth twisted with pain and I reached out to squeeze her free hand.

  “I know, sweetie. This has to be rough on you.”

  “It happened so quickly. He’s here, then swoosh he’s gone and there’s this need to hold on to anything you have left.”

  Some of my patients take years to die, giving up molecules of themselves each day so their family gets used to their absence little by little. Ethan had been there at breakfast and vanished before dinner. Kat never knew what hit her. Hopefully, Ethan never knew what hit him.

  She reluctantly dropped the sweater to start a third pile. She pulled out Ethan’s robe and held it against her cheek. “It barely smells of him anymore. I slept in this robe every night until the smell faded away.” Then she straightened up and said abruptly, “I feel guilty about Lee. Maybe Summer is right. Maybe it’s too soon.”

  Summer. Of course. “Only you know that, sweetie,” I hammered the point. “But remember, if Summer gets cold in the theater, she has someone to give her his jacket. And you’re not shopping for engagement rings so I don’t understand why she’s got her knickers in a twist over a few innocent dates.”

  “Not so innocent.”

  “But she doesn’t know that, does she?”

  “Summer has very strong intuitive powers. Even as a child she could pick up on things you didn’t want her to know.”

  “Like a witch,” I mumbled, my head turned into a row of trousers.

  Kat expelled a small groan as she swung out a clutch of hangers with Ethan’s shirts. “Let’s just do this,” she said firmly. “Let’s just get this over with before I change my mind.”

  ***

  By six, we had three bags of Ethan’s clothes standing at the front door and Fleur, Kat, and I were seated around the table set on the patio, rewarding ourselves with Chablis and a tray of grapes and cheese. Fleur had been incommunicado for a week. I’d left a few messages, then emailed and got a Don’t worry—I’m just busy reply. So I let it go. Now she’d emerged from her silence with smudges under her eyes and an aura of depression casting a blue shadow on her normally rosy complexi
on.

  As a result of Mitch247 and probably Jack, she’d been neglecting The Plan, and Kat, assuming my role as its defender, tore into her. “This isn’t like you, Fleur. I can’t believe you have nine emails from three websites sitting on your computer and you haven’t opened them. Doesn’t it drive you crazy to ignore them? It’s like Christmas. All these wrapped presents and who knows, one of them might contain just what you always wanted.”

  “Yeah, or a salad spinner or one of those fish plaques that sings, ‘You Are My Sunshine.’ I’m better off not knowing, believe me.” Fleur’s voice had a defeated ring.

  “You were so gung-ho until that idiot commented on your weight. One lousy slight—”

  “From a guy with very few front teeth.”

  “My point exactly,” Kat said. “Now what kind of judge of beauty could this man be? Why should a toothless clod have the power to sidetrack your life-enhancing project?”

  Fleur popped a grape between her own perfectly aligned front teeth. “Because he’s a man and men have power. Even the cruddiest of them. They’re born with it. It’s part of the package. With the penis and the testicles.”

  “This isn’t about Jack, is it? You haven’t heard from him again, have you? After that b.s. about leaving Bambi.” Kat sounded so innocent with that wispy voice, but she could be sly.

  “As a matter of fact, I have,” Fleur said, too casually. “He called last night. The baby’s finally well enough to have his bris and Jack called to invite me.”

  “You’re not going, of course,” I said.

  “Well, actually...”

  “Oh, Fleur!” I was outraged.

  “Before you jump down my throat, Jack made it a personal request. His sister Bea isn’t driving anymore. Cataracts. So he asked me to pick her up. Bea has always been very nice to me.”

  “You’re treading on thin ice here,” I cautioned.

  “I think Fleur is safe,” Kat said. “I can’t imagine a man coming on to you at a bris. I’d walk around clutching my crotch and keeping my distance from any life form that can hold a knife. As far as Jack goes, it’s my personal opinion that—”

  Before she could finish, a deep voice emerged, like a tossed hat, from the side of the house. “Uh-oh, Kat’s going to get personal. I am really intruding.” Then Lee Bagdasarian, Kat’s new beau, materialized holding a bottle of wine and wearing a sheepish, endearing grin. “I know, I know, I should have called first.”

  We turned to stare at Kat who jumped up, eyes wide with surprise, warm with pleasure.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “You’re just in time for dinner. No really, we’d love you to stay.” And we all buzzed agreement. “I have enough food for an army. Grilled veggies. Couscous. Salad.”

  Fleur said, “And we’d be interested in a man’s point of view in this conversation we’re having. About circumcision. You know, snip-snip where it hurts.”

  We all heard Kat’s intake of breath and Fleur quickly added, “Or not.”

  We lingered over dessert. Lee was telling us about his trip to Ethiopia and how he learned leather sculpture from Amhara tribesmen when Summer Greenfield Ellicott burst through the open slider onto the patio.

  She blinked in the oranging sunset, looked around, took us all in. She’d never met Lee, who was sitting next to me and across from her mother, and you could see her trying to figure out the connections. Was he with me? Fleur? Or was this the man who was after her father’s old job?

  Kat was obviously flustered by this unexpected appearance. “Well, another surprise visitor.” (“Like a Marx Brothers movie,” Fleur whispered to me.) She introduced Lee, and Summer nodded, but her eyes seethed.

  “Have some fruit,” Kat said. She grabbed the serving spoon and waved it over the bowl like a wand that could transform it into something her daughter might want, something that would bring a smile to her scowling face. Summer shook her head no, glanced towards the platter of cookies, and backed off. She had the tired, puffy look of someone working too hard from the inside, like the patients I see who have chronic pelvic pain.

  It always amazed me how she didn’t resemble her dark, thin, and quietly earnest father, or her dark, pear-shaped, softly molded mother. And as soon as she’d understood what was really important to them, Summer disdained her parents’ political and social views. This broke Kat’s heart. But she kept on trying. She remembered her own easy relationship with her Ethical Culturist mother and she hung in there trying to win over this mismatched daughter who wore Baltimore Country Club getups of plaid or toile with matching headbands and lived in a huge colonial decorated in chintz and portraits of someone else’s illustrious Calvert-related ancestors.

  “The pineapple is really sweet,” Kat pressed.

  “Nothing for me, thank you,” Summer said. “May I please see you inside, Mud-ther?” It was a command.

  Until Lee thought to close the sliders, we could hear enough to know that Summer came over to borrow Kat’s Cuisinart and found the bags of Ethan’s clothes at the door. We heard “how could you”s and “betrayal” and lots of “Daddy”s. There was an uneasy silence around the table for a few minutes and then Kat and Summer appeared in the kitchen window, which hung over the flower garden. The window was open, and the voices were audible from the patio. Kat stacked dishes while Summer ranted on, and we couldn’t help but hear Summer’s screeching “My God, he looks my age! You’ve lost your mind, Mud-ther!”

  At which point, Lee stood up and announced, “I think I’ll walk off Kat’s delicious dinner. I’ll be back,” and vanished into the woods.

  Fleur and I deliberately made a clatter clearing the table and only really exhaled when we heard the front door bang so loud the cats yowled. When Summer was a teenager, Ethan removed the door to her room as punishment for her slamming it to make her points. She had a vile temper.

  Kat was at the sink, scrubbing away at the couscous pot as if she could Brillo off the cruddy part of her life. Her face looked collapsed and pale. “Should we go in to her?” Fleur asked, and I was considering our options when we saw Lee slip behind her and wind his arms around her waist. He nuzzled her neck and whispered into her ear, and it wasn’t long before her face took on structure and a healthy color.

  “She’ll be okay,” I said. “For now, anyway. Long term, I wouldn’t make book on it.”

  Chapter 13

  I let myself into my father’s house a little before noon. The first thing I noticed was no TV blare. A bad sign. If depriving him of his television was Sylvie’s idea of punishing an old man, she’d have to deal with me.

  Then I heard the music, a gentle reggae beat, set low, and I remembered it was Monday, Sylvie’s day off, Blossom’s day on.

  A sloe-eyed, dimpled beauty of nineteen, Sylvie’s cousin Blossom might have been my dad’s favorite hon. All day long, she played her Jamaican CDs. Sometimes she danced while doing her chores. Sometimes she pulled my father to his feet and tugged him around with her, which made him chuckle.

  Today, the scene in the living room was peaceful. My father, freshly shaved and combed, snored in the La-Z-Boy, an empty Friendly’s ice cream cup his lap. As I smoothed out his Orioles afghan, he twitched something resembling a smile. Chocolate mint dreams? Dreams are nonsensical to start with. What happens when waking sense dies?

  Blossom stopped waggling her head to the tropical beat long enough to acknowledge me with a wave. She licked chocolate from her lips and continued spooning up her hot fudge sundae.

  As I tried to decode the tableau, Stan emerged from the kitchen with a cup of tea, which he placed in front of Blossom who awarded him a gold-toothed smile. “Everything’s under control,” he whispered and reached behind Blossom to plump her pillow. He was sporting a row of six silver bracelets on his forearm to match the huge Mexican silver and turquoise belt that held up his low-rise jeans and as he plumped, he
tinkled.

  “You can talk in normal voices,” she said, hitching her head at my father. “When he’s out, he’s out.”

  “You’re not working today?” I was unaccountably irritated with my ex. It wasn’t even noon and I had already been usurped.

  “I just stopped by to check up on him. Brought some ice cream.”

  Why did this scene grate me so? Stan caring for my dad. Maybe because ultimately he hadn’t cared for me. Which was probably not entirely true; my pain was talking.

  “He is also Mr. Fix-It, Mr. Stan is. See what he did with the kitchen door?” Blossom said.

  “It’s no big deal. While I’m here, if there’s something that needs fixing, I fix it. This wasn’t a major problem. Not like the stuffed toilet last time.” I hadn’t known about last time.

  Stan walked me over to the swinging kitchen door that would swing no longer. He’d installed a hook and eye on the outside, high enough for the tall Jamaican women to lock, but beyond my father’s reach. Simple, but I hadn’t thought of it.

  “He can’t get in when I’m not watching or if Sylvie turns her head. He can’t set fire to the house.” Blossom seemed satisfied.

  “I had the tools,” Stan shrugged. “It took me three minutes, tops.”

  “It should do the trick, thanks,” I managed to say, but the words were stones in my mouth. I thought, If you’re Mr. Fix-It, how come you were so talented at taking my life apart?

  “My pleasure.”

  Stan had become unfailingly gracious to me as soon as he knew he was out of the marriage. Of course, with Brad in the wings, he wanted the fastest settlement money could buy and we’d come to a quick agreement about the condo and the rest of the stuff of twenty-odd years. The beach house was the only booty we’d squabbled over and I don’t think he would have fought for it by himself. That war flew Brad’s flag. He’d egged Stan on, he and the lawyers who had to earn their fee. And that’s why I’d battled for it. In the end, I think as much as Stan loved the Rehoboth house, he gave it up with saintly relief, to expiate his guilt.