Cosmo's Deli (27 page)

“And my mother and your aunt?”

“I told my aunt…she must have told your mother.”

“All these months, why didn't you say something to me?”

“I can't even count how many times I started to. But if you remember, when we met that night, you called me your ‘blind date from hell.' I wanted time to change that perception.”

“I need to sit.” Renny drops onto the top stair. “You should have told me.”

“Really?” He asks sitting beside her.

She hates herself for knowing that if he had told her his identity back then, she would have rebuffed him. She never would have given him the chance to show her how great a guy he is. After all, she'd decided he was a loser, sight unseen.

He scrutinizes her face, as if searching for a keyhole to the gears spinning in her head. “When you were a kid did you have a bicycle?”

“What?” she asks.

“Did you have a bicycle?”

“Of course.”

“What did it look like?”

She doesn't understand what this has to do with anything, but she answers anyway. “I had one of those banana seat bicycles.” Her hands gesture as she talks. “You know, with the handlebars that are u-shaped. It was purple, with a flowered seat, and a basket, with big plastic daisies on it.”

“I had one of those too, but in black, with a tiger seat. Did you ever just sit back on the bike and let go of the handlebars? Let the bike take you where it did, no control, no steering, just riding.” He draws near, his face just a few inches from hers.

“Yeah.” Renny envisions herself doing just that, with him riding next to her, their arms outstretched, flying. And with that vision fresh in her mind, Renny leans in to his kiss. Everything fades away—the house, the street, even the step they sit on. Only their lips—hers on his, his on hers—exist suspended in time.

They part.

“Huh!” She says.

“Just huh?” He holds his breath, his face still close.

“I'm not surprised that you kissed me,” she says.

“You're not?”

“No. I'm just surprised I enjoyed it so much.”

And without the slightest analysis or hesitation, Renny kisses him again. It is the kiss she should have given him before getting on that bus months ago. It's the kiss she should have given him at the end of every phone conversation. It is the kiss that takes the two men in her mind and melts them into one.

“Okay, everything is settled, now come inside,” her mother says.

Marty and Renny look up and find her in the doorway. Mrs. Meyerson hovers behind her.

“Ma, privacy would be nice.”

She waves a dismissive hand. “It's time for babka.” Her mother walks away, leaving the door open for them to follow.

***

After their pleasant afternoon with Marty and Mrs. Meyerson ends, Renny stacks the coffee cups and cake plates that litter the coffee table. Her mother lays sprawled out on the couch, clearly exhausted from the visit.

“Thanks for cleaning up,” she says.

“No problem.” Renny crumples up the used napkins.

“So, Marty's nice, isn't he?”

“Yes, he's very nice.” Renny turns to her, “Just say it.”

“I wasn't going to say anything.”

“Fine, I'll say it. You were right. He's a good guy. And, yes, I like him.”

“Is it so terrible having your mother be right?”

Renny chews on this question like a cow with fresh cud. “No.”

Her mother smiles. “Are you going to go out with him?”

“Yes,” Renny wags a finger at her, “but that doesn't mean I'm getting married tomorrow.”

“But, you might get married someday.” She turns over on her side, settling in for a nap.

“Anything is possible,” Renny concedes.

“Anything is,” her mother calls out as her daughter carries the dishes to the kitchen.

After depositing the plates in the sink, Renny comes back and finds her mother lightly snoring. Gently, she pulls a throw blanket over her mother before tiptoeing out of the room.

Epilogue

One year later …

“The truck is empty,” Renny's father says, poking his head into the kitchen of his daughter's new apartment. “Should I tell the movers they can leave?”

“Sure.” Renny opens the carton marked
Kitchen Stuff
.

“Don't forget to tip them,” her mother says, pulling a wad of newspaper out of the box.

“I'm not an idiot,” he says walking out.

“I know that,” her mother says waving a hand at him.

Renny walks into the living room of the apartment and over to the mountain of boxes that fill the small room. Not that it took much to fill it, since by all standards her new one bedroom apartment is tiny. A cool breeze blows from the open living room window. It is autumn and the warm day is giving way to a late afternoon chill. Renny shuts the window before carrying another box to the kitchen.

Four month ago the doctors declared her mother cancer free, giving her a clean bill of health. Renny opted for a clean slate too, allowing Lucy to take over the lease on her old place. She spent a month out with a realtor trying to find the right apartment, within her budget. When the realtor first brought her to this third floor walk-up in a brownstone on 19
th
Street between Second and Third Avenue, Renny was disappointed. She wanted a doorman. The apartment had an exposed brick wall in the living room and a pass through kitchen with granite counters. But it was more than brick and rock that sold her. Renny knew this was home when she entered the bedroom and closed the door behind her. An hour later she wrote the check for first and last months rent, bidding adieu to the paycheck to paycheck living in her previous studio apartment. Being with her parents for the past fifteen months had allowed Renny to sock away cash for the first time in her life. And thanks to a few referrals from her friend Jeff, she's added five web clients to the ever expanding Cedar Foods business. Two months ago she was confident enough to name her company and order letter head. That's when Groys Madel Marketing was born. Her mother came up with the name. In Yiddish
groys madel
means “big girl.”

“Thanks for helping me move,” Renny tells her mother as she puts the box on the counter.

“It's what a mother does,” she says, peeling away newspaper and revealing a blue drinking glass. Her parents bought them for the new apartment at Crate and Barrel. Renny wanted eight, but her mother insisted she needed twelve. “I don't have cupboard space for twelve. My kitchen is really small,” Renny said.

“It is better to have too many. If I buy eight and you break one, then you'll only be left with seven,” she warned.

True to form, a heated debate ensued until they compromised on ten. Renny had to promise to handle them carefully.

The door slams and a moment later her father walks in the kitchen. “We should go before we get stuck in rush hour.”

“I hate to leave you with this mess.” Her mother waves a hand toward the box.

“I'll get it done, don't worry.”

“If I don't worry about you what else am I going to do?”

“Enjoy life.”

“Who's not enjoying?” she says with a shrug.

“I'll walk you down,” Renny tells her.

***

Out on the street she and her father hug. “Take care of yourself,” he says.

“I will, Dad,” Renny says.

He gets into the driver's side of the car as Renny turns to say goodbye to her mother. “Are you seeing Marty tonight?” she asks.

“Tomorrow night. We're going to order in Chinese.” They'd been a couple since that day he visited with his aunt.

“Maybe soon…” Her mother raises an eyebrow and twirls her hand to punctuate her meaning.

“I don't know, Ma. We're happy, okay. And, we'll probably live together before we do anything else.” When Renny began looking at apartments, Marty suggested she move into his place. She liked the idea, but didn't want to go right from living with her parents to living with him. She felt like a sailor who had finally found her sea legs and was enjoying the horizon for the first time. However, as a promise toward their future, she signed a one year lease. “Will you ever stop pushing?” Renny asks.

“Never,” her mother says, stretching out her arms. Renny welcomes her mother's embrace. “Just because you live in the city again, don't become a stranger.”

“I won't.”

She keeps Renny in her arms. “You're a good girl.”

Renny squeezes her mother tight. After letting go, she notices a rogue strand of gray hair dancing in her mother's eyes and moves the straggler back in place. “You're still a piece of work, you know?”

Her mother cracks a smile, and Renny knows it is because she wouldn't have it any other way.

After a final hug, Renny watches her parents' car move up the street until it rounds the corner and disappears from sight. Then she mounts the steps of the brownstone two at time, at home with her city and herself.

END