With Friends Like These: A Novel (31 page)

“Sure you don’t want to take the car,
bubbele
?” my mother said as I left her house. I was raised in that green clapboard bungalow and half my heart still lives here. It’s not in the arm of Santa Monica that looks amputated from some ritzy suburb, on the Brentwood side, near Montana Avenue’s requisite Waterworks and Williams-Sonoma. My parents’ house is closer to Venice, to scruffiness, to residents who’d sooner pry off a fingernail than vote Republican. I adore its shelves sagging with Great Books and
National Geographics
, though the gnarly sycamores out front tilt the sidewalks like a giant’s hands. I especially love that I can walk to the Pacific, blocks away. I love that I can walk, period, and pretend Santa Monica isn’t Los Angeles. This may explain why I was able to fit easily into Brooklyn, which I refuse to see as New York City.

“Mommy, it takes twenty minutes to walk to the farmers’ market—why drive?” I’d announced that I would cook dinner and was off to buy peppers for vegetarian chili, the only recipe I have committed to memory, since Tom prepares most of our meals. He is the more accomplished
cook, with time free in the afternoon, and in our unspoken contract, this helps keep things even. But I didn’t care to expose this infrastructure to my mother, who, despite her liberal leanings, can rarely be found at home without an apron.

“Suit yourself, Talia sweetie,” she said. Each
s
jingled like a charm. “Henry and Bubbe and I have a lot of catching up to do.”

Tom had sat out this trip, never his favorite destination, no matter how much he adores my parents. Henry and I were here for an escape that conveniently coincided with my father’s seventy-first birthday, which was the next day. I’d booked a flight at the last minute, eager to flee as much as to celebrate. I felt sticky with guilt, so much so I hesitated to ask Chloe to take on two more days in the office. But e-mail is a beautiful thing, allowing the writer to fake an attitude as well as an expensive call girl. I’d made the request, doubting that Chloe would refuse—she should have felt guilty herself. She had to know she belonged in the office the day of the school interview.

Self-reproach must have been emanating from me like the scent of garlic, and my mother read me as if I were a billboard. “What’s wrong?” she’d asked twice. When Henry and Bubbe both went down for their nap, my mother brought us glasses of tea and a plate of her almond mandelbrot and sat across from me on the screened porch, waiting for the big spill. “Trouble with your marriage, my darlink?” she asked, stroking the top of my hand.

“Everything’s fine,” I said as evenly as possible. To criticize Tom would diminish my father, who, as a chemistry teacher, never produced a major income. Worthy men, worthy occupations. I was trapped in a saga of consequences I could discuss with no one, especially since I’d stopped seeing a therapist. Even certified social workers cost plenty. So I chased my own tail. If Tom earned more, I wouldn’t have tried to filch a job meant for a friend, wouldn’t be sweating the cost of private school tuition, which, despite the generous stipend Tom seemed convinced Henry would receive, wasn’t going to cover uniforms, trips, and the tennis and
guitar lessons Henry would inevitably want in order to be like every other boy. I wouldn’t have been sweating, period, racking up a ticker tape of grievances against myself. Did I mention that I was feeling guilty?

“Problems at work?” my mother asked.

“Only that we’ve lost a major account,” I answered. This was not untrue. Gas prices were crazy high over the summer and people shopped less, hence a downward spiral in advertising. My boss, Eliot, droned on about it so much I’d stopped listening.

“Are you worried that you’ll lose your job?”

I wasn’t until my mother said it.

“Don’t look so shocked. You read the papers.” I don’t, much. I’m one of those traitors who skims online, less often than I should. “The economy isn’t what it was.”

I was even less in the mood for political discourse than maternal dissection. Hence, the stroll to southern California’s souk, the farmers’ market, bursting with Persian lemons and scolding signs. No preservatives! No pesticides! No smoking! No bikes! No kidding!

I was fondling a handful of watermelon radishes when a voice said, “If it isn’t Talia Fisher-Wells.” Standing in front of the Santa Rosa plums was a tall man in sunglasses and a black baseball cap worn backward. I squinted at his face, obscured by the sun, and when I didn’t greet him, he said, “You have no idea who I am, do you?” He could have been my debate partner from tenth grade, a boy from Hebrew school, my senior prom date. “Admit it, Talia Fisher-Wells,” he said, stretching out my last name. He chuckled again, and I was certain it was at my expense. “You don’t have a clue.”

The voice, tinged with New York, echoed in my memory. I delivered my most luminous smile. “Great to see you. What are you up to these days?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” With one hand he hoisted a bag of apricots. With the other, he removed his sunglasses.

“Oh my God, Jonas!” The man for whom I’d been leaving daily messages.
I’d gotten the feeling that he would make a fast decision—unless he’d made it and didn’t have the chutzpah or manners to tell me.

“Actually, I prefer my first name,” he said, extending his hand as if we’d never met. “Winters.” His tone was warmer than I’d expected. “Don’t tell me you came all this way to ask about the job.”

“My parents. They live on Ashland.”

“You? A California girl?” The Beach Boys never sang ballads about frizzy brunette bookworms who crocheted yarmulkes for their high school boyfriends. “Did they move recently?”

“You’d think, to listen to them, but it was thirty-eight years ago.”
The job—that’s what
I
want to talk about. Is he going to make me ask
? “What brings you here?”

“A visit to my brother,” he said, “and to take a meeting and dodge your calls.”

“Well?” I smiled again.
You schmuck. Spit it out. I’m a big girl
.

“I’ll be honest,” he said. How refreshing. “We lost a few accounts.” Anxiety and deception, wasted. “But yesterday I signed a client, so the job’s definitely on again.”

I brightened, picturing myself taking free business trips that included visits to my parents.

“I owe you an apology,” he had the grace to say, “for keeping you waiting. You and one other candidate are finalists. I promised myself I’d make up my mind when I got back next week.”

I turned to make sure none of my mother’s friends was crouching between the dates and the tomatoes and moved a little closer to Winters. “For what it’s worth,” I jumped in, “I’m very interested.”

“I gathered that.” He grinned back, and I felt his shoulder brush mine, barely. “Want to talk about it over coffee?”

Henry would be waking up soon, but I didn’t see this as a choice. “Why not?” I said, and let him steer us toward a small table beneath a white market umbrella. He placed his hand on my arm and I felt an extra stab of guilt as Mean Maxine registered, again, that while he was not
handsome, Winters had an appeal that was in his eyes and his arrogance. He’d swaggered into this century from the 1950s. Winters was bald, where Tom had a thick head of hair, and why was I comparing?

I regretted that I was wearing a skimpy halter unearthed from the back of the closet, jeans that failed to meet any definition of fashionable, and old sandals exposing toenails I hadn’t polished in months. The highest praise I could offer myself was that my hair was clean.

Since this was Santa Monica, a posse of dogs was tied to the legs of several tables. Winters crouched to meet an especially eager specimen. “Goldendoodle?” I asked. There had to be a law. Every dog was some version of doodle.

“Labradoodle.” He turned in my direction and said, “Talk to me,” three of the most seductive words in the English language. I tried to take a stab at answering the question on one level while avoiding what was going on sub rosa, but that got harder when Winters Jonas added, “Why should I hire you for this job, besides that you’re gorgeous?”

“I doubt you can find a better copywriter,” I started, not believing or acknowledging the compliment, though I was glad that in the shade of an umbrella, this man might not have been able to see the color rising in my face. “I’m fast, I’m sharp, I’m—”

“Tell me about Talia,” he said as he slowly stroked the dog. Obediently, she rolled over for a belly rub, spreading her legs. “The woman.”

I tried not to stare at the triangle of dark curly black hair where Winters Jonas’ shirt was open at his neck, but I didn’t know where to look. “I grew up here.”

“I got that.” He let go of the dog and rested his chin on both hands. They were crossed in a steeple. The gesture said,
I have all the time in the world
.

“I transferred east for college,” I added, and reeled off a few résumé items—editor of the literary magazine, resident adviser—while a server, flame-haired, slender, finely featured, took our orders for iced chai latte.

Winters didn’t give this female a second look. He concentrated on me,
drilling through my defenses. “What makes you passionate?” He asked the question as casually as if he’d said,
Can you pass the salt?
Our lattes arrived with biodegradable wood spoons.

This was no longer plain conversation. I couldn’t say I didn’t like it. “Results, words, ideas,” I answered. “People who love their life.”

“Are you one of those easygoing, life-loving people?” His tone mocked.

“Exactly.” Any cool I’d ever had obviously hadn’t made the trip to this coast. I looked away, searching for the artificial sweetener. There was none.

“I doubt that,” he said. He stirred two spoonfuls of brown sugar—I assumed it was the expensive sort from Belize—into his latte and leaned back; I wondered why I felt as if he had taken a step forward. “Oh, you love parts of your life. But I can see something’s missing, something major.”

What was missing in my life was candor and honesty. That’s all I cared to concede, but only to myself. “Winters,” I said deliberately. I wasn’t going to be baited, and it occurred to me that this was a test. For what exactly, I couldn’t say. “I obviously want a new job. Your job. I mean, the job you are trying to fill. Everything else in my life is fine.”
Not that it’s any business of yours
.

“Don’t go all defensive on me,” he said as he raised his hands in the genuflection of
whoa
. “It’s simply that in my experience, it’s the hungry person, the not-exactly-thrilled-with-his-life guy, who gets ahead, who has that spark. That’s the person I want on my team.”

His laugh was a low ripple in a sea lapping against a beach the color of cashews. He said
team
. I heard
bed
.

“Everyone else is a little fat and lazy,” he added. “I can see you’re not fat, but …”

Mean Maxine demanded my attention.
Wax poetic all you want about beaches and laughter
, she said,
but what sane woman would even want this job, or be up to the sparring if she got it?
Mean Maxine was dead-on. And yet.

“Listen, I’m sorry for fucking with you. I hope I haven’t offended you in some way.”

“Let me count the ways,” I said, reaching for a smile, but I don’t do innuendo well. I was out of my league, or at least out of practice.

“Say,” he asked as he downed half his latte, “I keep meaning to ask—do you know a Chloe Keaton? I believe you two are at the same agency.”

I knocked my glass into his lap. The server appeared with a pile of napkins. As she mopped the icy spill, my mind sputtered. Winters placed his warm hand on my arm as if to steady me while I spat out apologies. “Chloe? Of course …” I was trying to think of what to say, pretending I didn’t enjoy the touch on my skin, when inexplicably I turned around. Walking toward me was a man with a loping gate exactly like Tom’s. Next to him, running to keep up, was a small boy, the image of Henry.

I blinked. Tom shouted, “Surprise,” which Henry repeated.

Try wriggling out of this one, Mrs. Fisher-Wells
, Mean Maxine said.
You are so getting what you deserve
.

  
Jules