Firm Ambitions (3 page)

I was sitting on the floor cross-legged and wiping my face with the towel when Andros came over. He positioned himself directly in front of me. His arms were crossed over his chest and his legs were slightly apart. He was standing so close that I had to crane my head up to see his face.

“You and Ann are family, no?” he said. He had a slight foreign accent. I hadn't noticed it when the music was on. Greek? Turkish? I couldn't quite place it.

“We're sisters.”

“You are very good,” he said sternly. He had dark blue eyes and long black eyelashes.

“Thank you,” I answered, not knowing how else to respond.

He held out a hand. “Stand up.”

I stood up without his help. He stepped back and crossed his arms. With a look somewhere between clinician and swinger, he studied me from head to foot. I shifted uncomfortably.

“Your triceps,” he finally said, frowning.

I couldn't keep a straight face. “What about them?”

“I can shape them. I can make you magnificent.”

I laughed. “Come on,” I said, feeling myself blush.

He shook his head impatiently. “Your body is a gift from God.” He stared into my eyes. “I can help you attain the perfection God intended for you.”

It was hard to take him seriously. He seemed so much sexier—and taller—up there on his stage, strutting around and shouting commands and showing off his tight little buns. As a pin-up, he was definitely a hunk, a suitable Mr. March for the “Men of Aerobics” Calendar. But down here in person, hustling business and feeding me lines, he seemed more of a small-time con artist.

I could see why Eileen Landau might pick him for a one-night stand, or even a short bout of revenge sex. But the way Eileen talked, it sounded like she was having a real affair with this guy. I couldn't see it. But then again, I hadn't spent the last fifteen years of my life picking Tommy Landau's chest hairs off my body.

Andros started pitching his personal workout program to me. I interrupted his spiel, explaining politely but firmly that I really wasn't interested. As I moved away, several other women crowded around him with questions about their fitness routines. They giggled and flirted as they asked him questions and listened wide-eyed to his answers. When Ann and I left a few minutes later he was still surrounded by women.

“Well,” Ann said as we walked through the mall toward the parking lot, “what did you think?”

“It's a good workout,” I said, intentionally answering the question she hadn't asked.

“Not the aerobics. I mean Andros. Isn't he gorgeous?”

I shrugged. “He's okay.”

“He's okay? Come on, Rachel! Doesn't that little tush make your mouth water?”

“It's cute,” I agreed.

“How about that package up front?”

We walked in silence for a moment. “He's just not my type,” I finally said.

“Oh, yes.” There was an edge in her voice. “I forgot. He's not an intellectual.”

“That's got nothing to do with it, Ann.”

“Rachel, honey, the last thing to worry with a guy like that is the size of his brain.”

The phrase “Rachel, honey” was the warning signal. It meant that we were headed toward a fight, sinking into that familiar La Brea Tar Pit of our relationship.

I tried to slog toward firm ground. “Come on, Ann. That's not what I said. He's just not my type.”

“Which means what?”

We had reached the parking lot. Ann turned to face me.

I tried to gauge where the tar pit ended and firm land began. “He's too smooth. Too…coiffed. And…”

“And what?”

I shrugged. “A little slimy.”

Ann shook her head in angry amazement. “Slimy?” I was now up to my knees in tar. “You think he's slimy? I see. He's too good for
you
but he's just right for me, huh?”

“Come on, Ann. I never said that. I don't think he's your type either. He just struck me as the kind of guy who preys on rich women, a gigolo.”

“A gigolo? I can't believe you, Rachel. I bring you to
my
exercise class, a place that's special for
me
, a place I want to share with my
only
sister, and what do you do? You dump all over me and the people I care about.”

I was sinking deeper. “Ann, I didn't—”

“Just forget it,” she said as she spun around and stomped off.

I stood there watching her stomp down the row of cars.

Again
, I moaned.

I thought back to when Ann and I were in elementary school, back before we moved into a bigger house with separate bedrooms. I had felt closer to her than I have ever felt to anyone since. We slept in the same bed, bathed in the same bath, walked to and from school together, invented our own secret clubs, protected each other from our parents. I can close my eyes and still recall the smell of her breath in the morning. We once had our own private language. Now we often seemed to need a translator. (“What your sister really means to say is…”)

Off in the distance, I could see her unlock her car door. She got in and slammed the door shut. A moment later I heard her car engine rev as the rear lights came on. With my shoulders slumped, I turned to find my car.

“Oh, damn,” I said aloud as I remembered how I'd gotten there. I turned back as Ann pulled her Suburban alongside me. She was staring straight ahead.

We drove home in silence.

“Ann,” I started as she pulled into the driveway, “he's definitely cute. It's just—”

“Forget it,” she interrupted as she turned off the engine and opened her door. “We're different. That's all. Forget it.”

My mother was ironing in the den. There was an Italian opera on the television.

“Hi, Mom,” I said with forced cheerfulness. “Phew, that's a real workout.”

In the five seconds it took her to put down the iron and look at her two daughters, she had sized up the situation and decided that tonight it was best to let the parties cool down on their own instead of initiating multilateral peace talks. She gave Ann the dress and a container of fruit compote for her family and walked her to the door while I waited in the den.

“So?” my mother said when she returned.

I shrugged. “I don't know.”

“What did you fight about?”

“Andros, I think.”

“What about him?”

“I'm not sure. Ann thinks he's a hunk. I thought he was so-so. Maybe she was thinking of fixing me up or something. I don't know.”

“Did she talk to him afterward.”

“No.”

“Did you know he comes to her house for workouts?”

“That's the fad these days, Mom. It's part of his business. These exercise people make house calls. After class he even tried to hustle me for that stuff. If you had gone, he'd have done the same to you.”

“What's he like?”

“He's a good-looking guy. Dark, nice body, great eyes. Maybe thirty. He's a hustler.”

She shook her head and frowned. “I don't like hustlers.”

“Mom, I wouldn't worry about Ann and him. I happen to know for a fact that he's in the middle of a wild love affair with another.”

“Oh?”

I nodded.

“I still don't like it,” she said.

Twenty minutes later I was pulling back the covers and getting into bed. I set the alarm and reached up to turn off the reading light. As I did I paused to look around. My bedroom looked the same as it had the day I left for college. The red-and-white Cardinals banner over the dresser (“1967 World Champions”), the Billie Jean King poster over the desk, the multicolored scented candle on the nightstand, the psychedelic Eric Clapton poster on the back of the door, the large peace sign glued to the headboard. The only decorating touch I'd added since moving back were the two framed 5x7 photographs on my nightstand. I found them when I went down to my father's office to clean out his desk and personal belongings. They were in the top drawer of his desk. One was from high school, with me in my U City cheerleader outfit; the other was at my law school graduation, with me in a black gown and mortarboard. In both pictures, my father is standing next to me beaming with pride. Now his gentle smile is the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night.

“Good night, Daddy,” I whispered as I turned out the light.

Chapter Three

The phone started ringing as I came in the front door lugging the bag of softball equipment in one hand and my purse and briefcase in the other. I dropped the equipment bag, ran into the kitchen, and reached the phone before the answering machine clicked on.

“Hello,” I said, panting from the exertion of carrying the heavy bag of equipment from the car to the house.

“How are you, Rachel?”

Not again
, I groaned to myself as I put my purse and briefcase on the counter. “I'm fine, Andros.”

It had been almost two weeks since his aerobics class, and he had called me at least ten times, sometimes at home, sometimes at the office, urging me to enroll in a series of personal workout sessions that he would be happy to conduct at my house. At first I thought it was just a pickup gambit—I could almost feel him trying to smolder through the phone line. But eventually I realized it was just part of the sales shtick. He was the personal-exercise equivalent of one of those demoniacally persistent life insurance salesmen. At the end of the last week, refusing to take ten separate nos for an answer, Andros had mailed me an appointment card stating that he would come by my house at 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday to give me a free personal fitness session. I received the note on Saturday. I tried to call him the day I got it, and then again on Monday. It was now Tuesday.

“Rachel, my assistant, Kimmi, tells me you've been trying to reach me.”

“I have. Look, I have
no
interest in a personal fitness session, and even if I did—which, believe me,
I definitely do not, I promise
—I work during the day. I'm not interested and I just don't have the time.”

“But what could be a more important use of your time than to fine-tune that magnificent body?”

My mother had the call-waiting feature on her phone, and it started making that clicking signal. “Hold on,” I told Andros. “I have another call.” I depressed the cut-off button once. “Hello?”

“Tell your mother's cat I'm running late.” It was my pal Benny Goldberg.

“Where are you?” We had left the softball practice at the same time.

“Well, I decided to drop by Wolfie's on the way over to your house.”

“Oh, Benny. For what?”

“Just a nibble.”

“Define nibble.”

“Just a sampling of some of the basic food groups.”

“Which ones?”

“Meat, vegetable, and dairy.”

“Specifically?”

“A Big Daddy with extra grilled onions and a chocolate shake.”

“Benny,” I said with disapproval, “I thought you had a hot date for dinner.”

“Hey, Rachel, that's later. This is now. Gotta keep the furnace stoked.”

“You stoke enough in your digestive tract to run a Bessemer steel operation down there. If you don't watch out you're going to end up on Oprah.”

“Funny you should mention her. I'm already scheduled on a panel next week: Big Men Who Turn Women into Love Slaves.”

“Are you sure it's not Big Men Who Need Lobotomies?”

“Very funny. Listen, I'll be there in ten minutes, but that's not why I called. As long as I'm at Wolfie's, I thought I'd bring Ozzie a treat. Can he eat frozen custard?”

I smiled. Ozzie was my golden retriever. Benny was taking care of him temporarily. “Sure. But just a small cone. I've got to get off. I have Andros on the other line.”

“Again? Tell that oily putz if he doesn't leave you alone I'm going to haul his sorry ass outside and beat him like a rented mule.”

“A rented mule?” I was laughing. “See you soon, Benny. Bye.” I clicked back to the other line. “Andros?”

“Rachel, you say you don't have time to devote—”

“I don't. Period. I get my exercise jogging. That's plenty.”

“Oh, Rachel, when I think of the punishment that jogging inflicts on your supple legs and hips, I get tears in my eyes.”

“Don't. I'm canceling tomorrow's personal fitness session. I appreciate the offer, but I'm not interested.”

“I don't understand how can you pass up my offer to—”

“I just did,” I snapped, and then immediately felt a tinge of remorse for being so abrupt. “I'll tell you what,” I said. “Do you still have that aerobics class on Wednesday nights?”

“I do.”

“I'll go to it tomorrow night, but
only
if you promise to leave me alone and never call me again. Okay?”

There was a long pause. I heard him sigh. “With great sadness, I promise.”

As I went back to the front hall to get the bag of softball equipment I heard my mother's car pull up the driveway. I waited until she came in the house.

“Hello, sweetie pie,” she said as she gave me a kiss.

“Good day?”

“Good enough. Are Benny and Ozzie here yet?”

“Benny's running late. They'll be here soon. Where's Gitel?”

My mother looked beyond my shoulder and smiled. “There's my little princess. Come here, young lady.” I turned around to see the cat promenade down the stairs from the second floor. She gave me a withering glance as she passed by. The feeling was mutual.

Gitel was the reason Ozzie and I were separated. Ozzie was a Valentine's Day gift from a former boyfriend named Howard Stein who now is a gynecologist in San Diego. He was six weeks old at the time. Ozzie, that is, although Howard often seemed to hover around that age emotionally. Howard and I didn't last to Ozzie's first birthday. Ozzie and I celebrated our seventh Valentine's Day together this past February—which says something about dogs, and probably men, too.

Gitel, on the other hand, is a Persian with more than a touch of the Ayatollah in her. While she tolerated having me around the house, she declared a
jihad
on Ozzie the Infidel the day we moved in. She made his life miserable during the forty-eight hours he spent there, poor thing. He'd been living with Benny ever since, and I was starting to feel guilty about the arrangement.

Benny is my best friend and soul mate. We started off together as junior associates in the Chicago offices of Abbott & Windsor. A couple years after I left Abbott & Windsor, he left to teach law at De Paul. Last December, he was offered a faculty position at Washington University's School of Law. I told him he was an idiot not to accept the offer. Although I had pretty much decided by then to move back to St. Louis, I still meant what I told him. Benny took the job and moved to St. Louis two months before I did. Now he jokingly claims that the whole thing was a ploy to find Ozzie a home in St. Louis.

Meanwhile, I was missing Ozzie terribly. With my work and other commitments, I wasn't able to see him anywhere near often enough. So Benny and I had decided to try our hand at matchmaking after softball practice.

“I didn't have time to pick up any food,” I told my mother as I lifted the bag of softball equipment. “I'll take you out to dinner after Benny leaves.”

“Don't be silly. I've got stuffed cabbage in the refrigerator.” She now made her stuffed cabbage with ground turkey meat. “It'll take a minute to heat it up.”

“Mom, it's my turn tonight, and I'm taking us out to dinner.

I took the duffel bag of softball equipment down the stairs to the basement and lugged it into one of the back storage rooms. Our basement had terrified and tantalized me as a child. A creaky wooden staircase with handrails on either side descended into what seemed, at least back then, a haunted house of blue pilot lights, spiderwebs in the corners of low ceilings, and camphor-scented clothing hanging in garment bags like cadavers. Each of the three prior owners had expanded the house, and each time a new foundation had added yet another basement hallway and set of storage rooms. I spent hours as a child back in that maze of little rooms beyond the staircase, poking around and opening up and peering into the foot lockers and storage boxes in each room. In fact, I knew my way around so well that even now, so many years later, I didn't need a light to find my way back to the storage room.

As I stashed the bag of equipment in the corner of the room and turned to go, my foot bumped against something. Reaching overhead, I found the pull string and turned on the light. I stared down at my father's battered shoe-shine kit. I smiled as I kneeled beside it. Father's Day. Back when we were in elementary school, Ann and I would sneak down to the basement early on that special Sunday morning, unload the black Kiwi polish and the brushes and the rags from that wooden shoeshine box, and shine our daddy's shoes. Then we'd carry them proudly into our parents' bedroom with shouts of “Happy Father's Day!” And now, more than twenty years later, I opened that same battered box. There was still a tin of Kiwi polish inside the box, along with a worn-out brush and a couple of stiff rags stained black. The black polish inside the Kiwi tin was dried and cracked. My eyes watered as I closed the lid.

I must have been in the basement much longer than I realized, because as I came up the stairs I heard Benny's voice. I reached the top stair and opened the door to the kitchen.

“I cannot believe this,” I said in amazement.

Benny was at the kitchen table with my mother. There was a steaming bowl of stuffed cabbage in front of them. He gave me a big smile. “Hey, gorgeous.”

He was wearing baggy khaki slacks, black Converse Chuck Taylor high-tops, and a red T-shirt with the white-lettered message PLEASE HELP ME—I AM AN ENDOMORPH. His black curly hair was at least a month overdue for a trim.

“Mom,” I said in exasperation, “he has a dinner date to night, and he's already had a grilled Polish sausage and milkshake on the way over here.”

She waved her hand dismissively. “He'll have room,” she said. “The boy has capacity.”

“Extra protein,” he said. “I might need my strength tonight.”

“Oh?” I asked, eyebrows raised.

“Some women seek me out because of my charm, others because of my devilish good looks, and a few for my expertise in, shall we say, certain rare techniques perfected in the boudoirs of the Far East. My companion for this evening, however, at least according to rumor, places a high premium on sheer physical endurance. That means that tonight, God willing, I may need some extra lead in my pencil.” He turned to my mother. “And anyway, who could pass up Sarah Gold's stuffed cabbage?”

My mother smiled.

Benny Goldberg was fat and crude and gluttonous and vulgar. He was also brilliant and funny and thoughtful and ferociously loyal. I loved him like the brother I never had.

“So,” I said, “how're the matchmakers doing?”

“This boy is a
meshuggener
,” my mother said.

“Your mother thinks I'm a pervert,” Benny said with a grin.

“So do most people,” I replied as I turned to her. “What did he suggest?”

She shook her head, smiling against her will. “Crotchless panties.”

I glanced at Benny. “For the cat?”

He shrugged, running his thick fingers through his hair. “Well, an outfit like that would certainly put me in a conciliatory mood.”

“Ozzie's already in a conciliatory mood,” I said. “The problem is that damn cat.”

“Rachel,” my mother warned, “don't talk like that about my little Gitel.”

At the sound of her name, Gitel materialized at the kitchen door. In a haughty manner, she padded across the room and jumped into my mother's lap. As my mother kissed her on the head, Gitel gave me a smug look.

“Well,” I said wearily, “I guess it's time. I'll go get Ozzie.” I looked at Benny. “Is he in your car?”

Benny nodded. “The door's unlocked.”

As I stepped out onto the front porch, Ozzie started barking and jumping between the front and back seats of Benny's car. He was scrabbling against the car door as I opened it.

“Hey, Oz,” I said happily. “How you doing, pal? How you doing?”

He jumped up, placing his paws on my shoulders, and started licking my face. I laughed as I rubbed his head and scratched him behind his ears and gave him a hug. He sat down in front of me, his tail flopping wildly, and barked three times. Then he jumped up again and licked my cheek.

“I know, I know. I miss you, too, Oz. We're going to see if Gitel will let you move in this time.”

“Don't get your hopes up,” Benny said. He was coming down the front walk. “Did you see the look that fucking cat gave you? In cat talk, I think it meant ‘Don't even think about it, bitch.'”

I nodded with resignation. “I know. If this doesn't work, I'm going to have to find a place to live.”

“What's your mom think of that?”

“It'll be hard. On both of us. But we both know it's got to happen sooner or later. She's got her life, and I'm starting to feel like an old maid.”

“An old maid? What are you talking about, woman? You're a total babe.”

“Benny, look at the facts. I'm thirty-two, I'm single, and I'm living at home with my mother. And my mother's cat. This is not normal. I've got to get my act together.”

“Jesus, Rachel, you've got your act more together than anyone I know. Come on, let's see if Ozzie and Gitel want to get it on.”

We started up the walk.

“And then this divorce case.” I shook my head glumly.

“Your sister's friend?”

“I should never have taken it.”

“Not another Tommy turd?”

“No, thank God.”

A week ago I'd filed the petition for dissolution of marriage in the case of
In re the Marriage of Thomas A. and Eileen Beth Landau
. I filed the day after Eileen dropped the news on Tommy. She told him on Sunday afternoon when he returned from eighteen holes at Briarcliff Country Club. The children were at her parents' house at the time. She told him she had packed most of his things and wanted him out of the house by dinnertime. She had feared that he might become violent; at the very least, she expected screams and curses. At my insistence, the Ladue police were on standby, so that if anything happened they could respond quickly.