Happy Any Day Now (4 page)

Now he kissed the pulse in my neck and held the kiss for two beats.

“I’m thinking we could go to Japan this summer,” he said, seemingly out of the blue, but I got the drift: cherry blossoms/Japan. “Not Tokyo, which is just another big, crowded city, but a country inn with the shoji screens and futons. How’s that for my birthday gift to you?”

“A trip is a wonderful gift, Geoff. But Japan?” I wrinkled my nose. “Not to be piggy, but do I get a choice of where?”

“Your birthday, your choice.” He pulled me tight against him. “I’m up for anything.” Yes, I could feel he was. He pressed harder to underscore the point.

We were facing an exhausting schedule at the orchestra. “Maybe just kick back on an island somewhere? Antigua. St. Martin. Only a few hours’ flight and the pace is easy and slow.”

At the mention of slow, his hand tugged my skirt up to bunch around my hips, then traveled to my thighs. “Right, I like easy and slow.” His voice had gone silky.

“Beaches.” I was into it now. I heard my own response, thick with desire.

“Good beaches on the Riviera.”

“Too many fat Russian mafia in Speedos.”

“Hmm. The Greek islands? Santorini. White sand. Cliffside nightclubs where we’ll drink ouzo and dance in the moonlight. Maybe we can get in some hang gliding.” Forget that. “And long afternoon naps where I’d . . . and you’d . . . and we’d . . .” He whispered a menu of appetizers more spicy than taramasalata. “How does that sound?”

It sounded exactly like Geoff. Felt like him, too, after I unbuttoned his shirt. He worked out and his chest was as glossy and muscular as those airbrushed pecs on the covers of romance novels. My hand skimmed its smooth surface and he groaned and inched me toward the kitchen table. For Geoff any flat surface would serve. Failing that, he’d make do with a broom closet.

“Not here. My lower back’s been acting up.”

“I love older women.” His laugh was husky.

“Sofa?” I mumbled.

“Bed,” he said. Bed was best. He did this incredible trick with pillows and a rolled-up quilt. And other jazzy moves. He had a large repertoire, sweet and hot.

“So good,” I said when it was over, when I could catch my breath.

“Just
good
?” He was propped on his elbow, gazing at me in mock alarm. “Not exceptional?”

“Exceptional,” I agreed. And it had been, in spite of a minor interference during the blissful post-orgasmic decrescendo when The Barrister’s face had surfaced.

“I can’t allow a blot on my record. Give me twenty minutes and we’ll try again,” Geoff promised with the assurance of a man in his prime.

We did. It was even better the second time. No ghosts.

O
n Thursday, I still hadn’t heard from Charlie, but Marti had called three times and then stopped by with a loose-leaf notebook crammed with party-related materials she’d collected over the last few days. First, we chose the invitation. I passed on the one with a cartoon Maxine bitching about support stockings and droopy boobs for something blandly tasteful in ecru with engraved lettering. Done.

Next, she briefed me on the venue. She’d narrowed the choices to the Parthenon, the Hamden Rotary’s clubhouse, “and”—she consulted her notes—“there’s the Belvedere,” naming the Baltimore landmark that had once been the city’s most famous hotel. The building had been converted to condos in the nineties, and its two gorgeous ballrooms on the twelfth floor were perfect for weddings and other celebrations. “The Belvedere will give me a twenty percent discount because the catering manager and I went to culinary school together, but it’s still pricey, probably out of your range.”

“The Belvedere, definitely.” It wasn’t even a horse race. “My mother is footing the bill.”

Marti’s face brightened. “No shit? Gracie came through. Your father die and leave her guilt gelt?”

“We should only be so lucky. No, she struck it rich at the craps tables. Or maybe baccarat. I can’t remember.”

My mother was—had been for as long as I could remember—a gambler. As an Asian, she had gambling in her blood, she told me. “Korean people love to bet anytime, anything.”

In my childhood, she’d given me—a kid—sucker’s odds on the outcome of cockroach races she set up on our kitchen floor. And she’d pocket my pennies, too. “You always pay off, Judith. It is honorable thing to do.”

“Well, good for Mama,” Marti drawled on. “I guess this means I strike Irwin Raphael’s name off the guest list.”

“Not funny, Marti.”

Without my father-in-name-only, she still insisted on fifty. Fiftieth birthday, fifty guests. Propitious.

“That’s a lot of people. I’m not inviting the whole freakin’ orchestra,” I grumbled.

“Of course not. You’ll cherry-pick. You’ll want the fifty who loomed largest in your life. The ones who made a difference. Current, past, whatever.”

“Brenda Himmelstein,” I blurted. “My mother gave me strict instructions to invite Brenda Himmelstein.”

“Then by all means invite your grade school best friend.
Only
friend in your pathetic antisocial childhood. Just joking.” Marti flicked me a semi-penitent glance.

“I’ve searched for her on the Net but I guess she’s married with a new name,” I said. “And she probably left Brooklyn. How can you track someone down after all these years?”

“Leave it to me and my laptop. There are all kinds of Web sites out there willing to tell the world your deepest, darkest secrets for a price. I could turn up Jimmy Hoffa with enough time and money. I’ll find Brenda.” Marti was like a multi-armed Hindu goddess with an inspired energy and a divine will you really didn’t want to cross. The pen, in one of her eight hands, was poised. “Okay, who else?” Her eyes lit with a wicked twinkle. “How about Eloise Flint?”

“How about the head of al-Qaeda while you’re de-scumming the universe?” I snarled. “Eloise Flint. Over my dead body. Or better yet, hers.”

Acclaimed cellist, five-time Grammy winner for best classical performance, international pain-in-the-ass renowned for her arrogance and her hairspring temper, Eloise Flint had been my personal and professional nemesis for almost half my life. She’d been a classmate and pseudo-friend at the conservatory, but when Charlie dumped me, she moved in on him like a spider on a fly, rendering my humiliation complete and very public. Five years later, she and I had met up again. And I’d had a chance to even the score.

Marti had heard the story ad nauseam, so she should have known better than to joke about Eloise, but for Marti a good laugh took precedence over the pain of faded heartbreak any day. This time, though, she saw my face and must have deduced she’d gone too far because she quickly said, “Strike the bitch. Bad joke. On the other hand, I was thinking you’d like to include Tim Beckersham, son of the late Florence.”

That worked. I smiled at the memory of the plump English woman, my intrepid cello teacher who had followed me into the bowels of Bed-Stuy for my after-school lessons. Fiercely determined not to let my talent go under, Florence Beckersham had managed to tack together bus transfers and subway routes and make her way to whatever high-crime neighborhood my mother and I had landed in on our downward spiral. But she was equally committed to connecting with me, the girl who—except for my brief friendship with Brenda—had no one to talk to or be heard by.

My mother had been depressed and exhausted most of the time. Circumstance had stripped life pretty much to its essentials. Communication beyond the directives—“Take bath now, Judith”—and the interrogatives—“You finish homework? How long you practice?”—had been limited.

Only while tucking me in at night did
uhm-mah
make time for me. Grace sat on the side of my bed in the room we shared and, as her mother and
her
mother before
her
had, she sang the traditional Korean folk song
Arirang
in an enchantingly soft voice. In winter, tucking the quilt under my chin, in spring, as a fresh tar-scented city breeze blew the sheets-made-into-curtains into ghost shapes in the half dark, she smoothed my bangs back from my forehead and crooned
Arirang
for my lullaby. I lived on that nightly sliver of song, that precious, comforting stroke of affection from my mother.

Otherwise, it was Mrs. Beckersham who guided my emotional life. Mrs. Beckersham who explained that ignoring the taunts at school would make me a stronger person. Mrs. B who scrubbed away at my lack of confidence and helped me polish the essay that got me into the New England Conservatory.

After my graduation, Mrs. B and I stayed in touch. Then I moved to Baltimore and she retired to California. The last time I saw her, I was playing a Mozart festival in Berkeley and her son drove her over from San Francisco. Backstage, while Tim beamed, she and I hugged and wept.

“I knew it from the first, Judith. You were just so special—as a musician, yes, but more importantly as a child,” she’d said.

Six months later, she was dead.

“I have Tim’s address,” I said to Marti. “He sends me a Christmas card every year. I remember him as a kid doing his homework at our recital rehearsals. Now he’s a doctor living on the West Coast, so he probably won’t come in for it, but, sure, invite him.”

“Okay, who else? Charlie Pruitt?”

“Ah, the Harvard Houdini. Vanished! He said he’d call and he hasn’t.” So much for tracking me down. Nothing had appeared in my mail cubby at the Berenson Concert Hall, and the orchestra’s webmaster confirmed that no one had attempted to trace me through the musicians’ page. “Screw Charlie Pruitt.”

She gave me a measuring look. “Maybe you should call him when you’re in New York this weekend. Casual like. That is, if you want to follow up.” The Maryland Phil’s annual performance at Carnegie Hall was Saturday evening.

“Forget it. If Charlie wants to reconnect, he’s going to have to come after me.”

Fat chance, but Marti said, “Atta girl. You’re not nineteen anymore and bowled over by the fancy background. I gotta tell you, Jude, your story, outie impressed with innie, is never going to be made into a major motion picture starring Lucy Liu. It’s a new day, and you’re not the same old wannabe, and all that snooty Episcopalian bullshit doesn’t wash anymore. Trust me, honey, I was a Southern Baptist before I expelled myself from the fold for lusting after women—WASP is
très passé
. Check the demographics. And can you imagine anything more fashionable than the Jewish-Asian mix? You’re finally in style. Now
you’re
in,
he’s
out.”

“Right,” I said. “And we only met for five minutes on Sunday and it was so superficial. He probably thought it over and decided we really had nothing to talk about. Polluted water under the bridge and all that.”

So why did I feel so—I don’t know—dumped? Again.

• • •

The first time, back in Cambridge, had been orchestrated by his parents. Not that he hadn’t played his part brilliantly, but Kiki and Don held the baton, the purse strings, the power, and Charlie’s balls in escrow.

I was astonished when my romance blew up after two years. What an idiot! With my head in the clouds, you’d think I’d have noticed the thunder rumbling around me. Almost from the beginning, Charlie had dropped hints that I wasn’t what Mum and Dad had in mind for the son they called Chip. There were hundreds of girls more appropriate than I, daughters of his mother’s bridge partners, daughters of his father’s colleagues at the law firm and chums from the Fenwick Club and the New York Athletic Club.

Donald Pruitt was principal senior partner in the law firm of Pruitt, Bryce and Summerville, LLP, with offices in New York, London, Bermuda, and Hong Kong. The firm had been founded by Charlie’s great-grandfather, who’d married a Rockefeller cousin and sired eight children, every one a winner. Charlie’s mother, Kathryn with a K and a Y, she reminded me twice during my visit to their Sutton Place apartment, was a direct descendant of Willem Van Tiller, who’d helped settle Manhattan Island. She was known as Kiki by those closest to her. I would never call her Kiki, I knew by the time I left that afternoon.

On that visit, my own ancestral tree was shaken until every nut and rotten apple had hit the ground. “Tell me about your family” didn’t mean just the immediate or the current. I put the best slant I could on what was essentially unslantable. I was a direct descendant of Chaim Rafalsky, milkman of Lvov, and his wife, Malka. On my paternal side, the family history didn’t go back more than three generations; Hitler had seen to that with the destruction of all Hebrew records. On my mother’s side, I came from a long line of peasants and shopkeepers from North Hwanghae Province. Irwin Raphael had fought in the Korean War and that’s how he’d met my mother. One boozy evening—I was about seventeen—while Mom and I played gin and she also drank it, she let slip that back in Seoul she’d been an entertainer of unspecified talents. “Sang, danced, all kind things.” (Probably a bar girl.) Needless to say, my father’s mother took one look at the skinny Asian chicken of a woman standing in her kitchen, one listen to my father’s intro of the chicken as his wife, and had to be forcibly restrained from turning on the gas and shoving her freshly permed head into the oven.

“Once our family marries we stay married,” Kiki Pruitt had informed me on my first and only visit. There was no record of divorce in the family back to William of Orange on one side and just after Henry VIII on the other. In other words, Charlie had better nip this in the bud or I’d be his mistake for life.

In the apartment on Sutton Place the day I met Kathryn with a K, if she could have put her head in
her
oven, she would have, but she wasn’t in charge of her kitchen. A black woman named Reba ran the household. Reba helped bring Charlie up. Correction: it was Reba who raised Charlie. She’d taken the newborn from the nurse’s arms for the drive home from the hospital and never let go. Six months after my introduction to the Pruitts, she retired, having put in twenty-two years of service.

She moved back to her rural South Carolina home, where she lived on social security and the small pension Kiki and Don doled out. From his spending money, Charlie sent her an extra hundred dollars a month. He also sent her photos of himself, some including me, which, her daughter wrote, Mama passed around as if Charlie was “her own flesh-and-blood son. And the girlfriend is right pretty.”

Every August, Charlie visited Reba, stayed the weekend at a cousin’s house, and treated the whole family to dinner at the local barbecue restaurant. When her daughter called to report the housekeeper’s death, he sobbed in my arms. Then he cut classes to fly to South Carolina for the funeral, where he gave the eulogy. He’d adored Reba. His mother, not so much. But Kiki wielded serious influence. I had a feeling that if Reba had been there to drum some common sense into Charlie’s head, we would have stayed together. But Reba wasn’t there, Kiki was, and we didn’t . . . stay together.

The last couple of weeks with Charlie had been hell. By then, I had a premonition of what was coming, but was helpless to deflect it. And I loved him with every nerve ending in my body.

He was smart—
really
smart, a deep thinker, not just clever. He was a brilliant bridge player. He taught me bridge and never yelled. He was charming. Generous in bed, a deft and tender first lover. Witty, but without the brittle edge of sarcasm. He had this trick of raising one eyebrow that cracked me up. Reba had taught him how to cook, and he made the best French toast, which he served me in bed Sunday mornings after we made love. He recited case law to me as if it were poetry. I dreamed of him at night after we’d been together the entire previous day. I was saturated with Charles Evans Pruitt.

He was equally besotted, but he couldn’t make up his mind about the relationship. About next steps. I tugged one way. His parents tugged the other. We were living together then, and one afternoon I walked in from a lesson to find him stinking of scotch and packing his books. I sat quietly in our only living room chair, half jury/half condemned woman, as he told me we weren’t right for each other. It wasn’t just his parents. Dr. Joyce Brothers said matches in which the parties came from significantly different backgrounds were doomed to failure. He loved me with all his heart, he declared. He would die for me. But he wouldn’t, couldn’t marry me.