When she arrived, to her surprise, Tiff had recruited her own help. Gil McCarin, dressed in a pair of lime-green swim trunks, was soaping up the rims of a big, mud-encrusted pickup.
Tiff was hosing down the truck bed.
“How was it?” she asked.
Andi shrugged. “Good. Sad, but a lot more talk about his life than his death.”
“You look great,” Tiff pointed out. “I love that dress on you.”
Andi glanced down. “I bought this for my mother’s funeral. I could never wear it, but I guess for another funeral it’s perfect.”
Tiff nodded.
Andi gave a small head nod toward Gil and then asked, feigning innocuousness, “What’s up?”
Tiff blushed. She offered a shrug. “I think Gil decided that if he couldn’t beat us, he’d join us.”
“I never wanted to ‘beat’ you,” Gil said, rising from his squatting position to face Andi. “It just took me a while to come around.” He turned to Tiff. “Are you finished with that wand?”
She nodded and handed him the water hose.
Tiff stepped down from the truck’s open tailgate. She stood, first on one foot and then the other, not seeming to know what to do with her hands, as no bikini ever had pockets.
“Spill it,” Andi said. “You obviously have something to say.”
“Gil and I are…we’re working on getting back together,” she said sheepishly.
“Wow,” Andi responded.
“I…I told him that he’d have to prove that he was willing to work at anything to support his family,” she said. “So he’s here, helping out just for tips.”
“That’s great,” Andi said. “I mean, it’s great if you’re sure.”
Tiff shook her head and gave Andi a self-deprecating grin. “I’m not sure about anything,” she admitted. “But I do still love him and we both love Caleb. It’s seems like in hard times like these maybe if we pull together things will be easier than trying to make it alone.”
Andi hugged her friend, wishing, hoping for the very best for them.
“Well, if you two have got this under control,” Andi said.
“I think I’ll go over to the Guthries’ house. Pete asked me to come by, but I didn’t want to leave you in the lurch.”
“Go,” Tiff said. “Me and my assistant here, we’ve got it covered.”
Andi laughed.
She dug her phone out of her small clutch bag, intending to call Pop. But when she saw the time, she knew he and Jelly were already deep into their delivery route.
Maybe she should just walk, she thought. Then she glanced down at her shoes. Four-inch high-heel pumps were not exactly crosstown hike compatible. She could put on her sneakers, carry her pumps and then change when she got there. But would she carry the old sneakers around? Hide them in the bushes? And how hot and sweaty would she get in the interim.
She needed a ride.
Andi was thinking to wait until Tiff and Gil were finished with the pickup and ask if one of them could give her a lift. But just then, she noticed a shiny blue Mercedes pulling up to the curb across Fifth Street at the side entrance to Joffee’s Manhattan Store. The two Joffee brothers exited the vehicle.
Without thinking twice, Andi began walking in that direction. As soon as Rachel caught sight of her, she rolled down the window, but her expression was wary.
She was an attractive woman, Andi couldn’t deny that. Her hair was as much silver now as brunette, she was trim and petite with a lovely smile. Momentarily Andi compared her with her own mother. Ella Wolkowicz had been a big-boned blonde with sad eyes and a gentle smile. Had these two women actually been high school friends? It was off balance
to think that Rachel Joffee had known her mother in a way that was so different in the way that Andi knew her. And it was just plain crazy-making to think that Pop had loved this woman, this stranger, so long ago and now, too.
“Hi, Andi,” she said.
“Hi, listen, are you going over to the Guthries’ house?” she asked.
“Well, yes, I was just on my way there,” she answered. “I dropped the boys off to get their cars. They hate to be ‘trapped’ somewhere with me. They want to be able to leave when they want to leave.”
Andi nodded. She could appreciate the feeling.
“Pop and Jelly are already out doing meals on wheels,” she said. “Could you give me a lift over there?”
“Absolutely,” Rachel said. “Get in.”
Andi walked around the car, opened the door and slid into the passenger’s seat. The two women smiled at each other, but with a certain amount of trepidation on both sides.
Rachel put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb. At the stoplight, she turned left onto Grosvenor Avenue.
“It was a lovely service today for Mr. Guthrie,” Andi said, sort of practicing her small talk for the after-funeral gathering.
“Yes, it was very positive, very uplifting,” Rachel agreed. “That was Maddie’s influence, I’m sure.”
“I don’t know her,” Andi admitted. “But she’s a very attractive woman.”
“She looked great today,” Rachel agreed. “She was all rested and tanned. Still, what a terrible thing to come home to.”
“Yes,” Andi agreed politely, thinking that the conversation was going very well. It would not be a good idea for Andi to
go prying into this woman’s relationship with Pop or accusing her of moving too fast. “It was so nice for so many of the Guthrie Foods employees to show up. The store was closed for the day, but nobody twisted any arms to make anyone show up.”
“They’re a good company to work for,” Rachel said. “They always have been.”
Andi nodded vaguely.
“How long have you and Pete been dating,” Rachel asked.
“Oh, we haven’t,” Andi answered quickly. Then realized she’d been caught in a lie. Or maybe an inconvenient truth. Rachel had obviously seen them together. “We’ve been sort of seeing each other for about a month,” she admitted. “But we’re not officially dating. I haven’t said anything to Pop about him.”
Rachel nodded as if she understood. But, of course, she couldn’t. Andi wasn’t sure she understood it herself.
“There is so much going on right now,” Andi felt obligated to explain. “My business is all up in the air and my mom’s death and now…now you and Pop getting married. With all that, I don’t know how straight I’m really thinking. And I don’t want to blindly jump into anything. I mean, just because he’s the most eligible guy in town, doesn’t mean that I should get involved with him.”
“Wait a minute,” Rachel said with a teasing smile. “I believe that my sons are actually the most eligible guys in town. Though I hope they are both looking for a nice Jewish girl.”
That statement gave Andi momentary pause.
“So, it’s okay for you to marry a Catholic, but you wouldn’t want your sons to do it.”
“I’d hope,” she answered thoughtfully, “that if they decided
to do that, I would be able to be happy for them. You know what they say, ‘the heart wants what it wants.’ And that’s as true for the mother thinking about daughter-in-laws as it is for young people looking for brides or grooms.”
Andi regretted her question. She was sure that Pop would not appreciate having her ask it. She had undoubtedly said something she shouldn’t have. As the silence between them lengthened she humbly tried to backtrack.
“I hope that didn’t sound like a criticism of you,” Andi said.
“No, it’s okay,” Rachel assured her quickly. “I understand just how little sense it all seems to make. We start out in life thinking things are supposed to sort out easily and that everything ties up neatly. Then we find out that almost every question has at least two good answers that may be completely opposite of each other. We just have to feel our way through it, making the best decisions we can. Sometimes we make the wrong choices. But I’m not sure we ever even know that for certain.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, like Walt and I,” she said. “If we’d gone against our parents and married, we’d have had forty years of wedded bliss by now. Paul would probably not have gone to the army and he and your mom would have had a lot of good years. So that seems like a good choice. But if we’d made it, it would most likely have cut us off from our families just when they needed us. And you children, you and your sister are the light of Walt’s life. And my boys, for all that they drive me crazy sometimes, are the best sons in the world. I’m not sure I’d be willing to give them up.”
“But you and Pop would have had kids,” Andi pointed out.
“Yes, that’s possible. But they wouldn’t be the ones we have,” she said. “I guess, the upside is that it really cuts down on the regrets. Personally, I don’t waste a minute on regrets, they’re useless.”
Andi heaved a sigh and shook her head. “I have enough for both of us,” she said. “Big things, little things, I’ve messed up a lot. And some of them I can never make right.”
“I’ll bet some of them have to do with your mother.”
Andi felt her face flush with embarrassment. “How could you know that? Has Pop said something?”
“No, of course not,” Rachel told her. “It’s just that when people die, especially people we love, there are always things we did or didn’t do that haunt us. It’s part of the grieving process.”
Andi nodded. She was glad that Pop hadn’t talked to Rachel about her. Andi should never have left town. Or she should have come home sooner. She should have tried to know her mother better. She should have… So many “she should haves.”
“You are very much like her, you know,” Rachel said.
The words startled Andi out of her thoughts, but surprised her, too.
“I’m more like Pop,” she said.
Rachel nodded. “You are like him. But I see Ella in you as well. We were not close in the last thirty-five years, but we were good friends in high school. You are, in many ways, how I remember her. She was so smart and she was fearless.”
Andi glanced at the woman skeptically. “Fearless?” she repeated.
“Absolutely. You didn’t see that in her?”
“No, not really.” Andi thought of her mother. Sewing matching dresses. Baking cookies on rainy days. Making a
papier-mâché menagerie with Jelly. None of those things really called for courage. “My mom was more the happy homemaker type.”
Rachel agreed. “Yes, I suppose she was that, too. But I saw her willing herself to go on living after Paul died. Determined to have a happy marriage with Walt and defending her girls relentlessly against the status quo in this town.”
“She had to defend Jelly,” Andi said. “People can be so backward and suspicious of anyone who is different, no matter what the reason.”
“Yes,” Rachel agreed. “She defended your sister. But she defended you, too. I suspect that the same ladies that find your current business venture so abhorrent, were also quick to suggest that going off to Chicago to have a career did not compare favorably with staying home in Plainview and getting respectably married.”
Andi recognized a vague memory of that very thing being said a number of times in her own hearing. Her mother had only laughed lightly and waved away the advice with unconcern.
“I have Jelly to stay home with me,” her mother had said, time and time again. “I want Andi to go out and see the world.”
At the time, she’d not thought that much about it. There were a lot of silly women in church with outdated ideas. And Father Blognick was not much better. But she’d interpreted her mother’s response as typical of the structure of her family. Mom and Jelly were a team. Andi was not on their team. Andi was with Pop and therefore where Andi went, what Andi did was not so critical, not so much concern to Mom.
“Pop and I spent a lot more time together,” Andi explained. “We like the same things. We understand each other.”
Rachel nodded. “You are a terrific father-daughter pair,” she agreed. “But, think about it. Walt would never have defied Hank Guthrie. If Hank put Walt out of business, he would have just shrugged and walked away. He would never have dignified such pettiness as worth the fight.”
That was true, Andi realized. Hank reneged on buying the car wash. Pop hadn’t gotten angry or threatened a lawsuit, he’d just ignored it and went on about his life.
“And you can be sure,” Rachel continued, “that Walt would never have done something like opening a bikini car wash, wagging his finger in Hank’s face and daring him to do something about it.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Andi agreed.
“But I’m thinking that’s exactly what your mother might have done,” Rachel said.
Andi let those words sink in as Rachel drove down the wide, pristine boulevards of Plainview’s wealthier section of town. Since the bombshell at Delmonico’s, Andi had been emotionally flailing with the unwelcome idea that her family had not been quite what she’d thought them to be. Now, for the very first time, she considered that perhaps the reality of who and what her family actually turned out to be was something more complex, more well-rounded, simply better than her stilted, adolescent understanding had allowed for.
HIS PARENTS’ HOME
, the house where he’d grown up, was bursting at the seams with the friends, acquaintances, officials and alumni who had come to comfort the family. Pete was very tired of smiling and of saying, “thank you.” Big parties, crowds of people, were very draining, especially so when you were still reeling from loss. He had to force himself to come up with things to say. And he was not all that good at it. All he wanted to do was hide out someplace until all these people went home. But he didn’t do that. He stood in the archway between the front hall and the formal living room, conversing with all comers. His father, ever gregarious, would have loved the idea of all these people in his house talking so nicely about him. Pete decided that it was the last thing he could do for his father, make his final gathering friendly and memorable. So he smiled and nodded and listened to the people who talked to him. And explained over and over exactly what had happened.
“It was apparently massive and irreversible,” he said to Dr.
Schott, the retired pharmacist. “The EMS was there within minutes, but the doctor said they couldn’t have saved him even if he’d been in the hospital when it happened.”
The old man who’d known Hank all of his life nodded sadly.
Pete accepted the words of sympathy that were offered. He imagined that humans had come up with this way of honoring the dead to make it easier on the family. After you’d said the words aloud a hundred times to a hundred different people and accepted their expressions of grief, there was no way that you could continue to deny your own. It was there, you had to face it.
Fortunately most people were eager to get the mournfulness behind them. They easily bridged to happier times, recalling memories that provoked smiles, even laughter.
“We were on the sixth hole,” Claymore Reddy, a heavily tanned golfing buddy with snow-white hair, said to him. “I’d bogeyed on five but your father was still two strokes back. He went with a wedge and I thought, ‘good God, Hank, that’s the worst choice you could make’ but you never could tell him anything so I didn’t try. And when he swung…”
Pete didn’t hear the rest of the story. The front door opened and he saw Andi. He wanted to rush over and hug her to him. He’d missed her so much. It had been nearly a week since he’d seen her. Even longer since he’d touched her. He called her on the phone every night and they lay in their separate beds in separate houses sharing the day’s happenings and sound of each other’s voice. Phone sex was not nearly as good as the real thing. And staring into her eyes, instead of into the darkness of his bedroom, would be such a gift.
“Excuse me,” he said, as soon as Mr. Reddy got the re
membered golf ball onto the long-ago green. “I need to greet these ladies.”
Pete waylaid Andi before she was three steps inside the door. She looked so different in her stiffly tailored black dress. But her smile was still the one he remembered, her lips were the ones he wanted to kiss.
“You came!” he said, just a little above a whisper. It was only when he took her hand in both of his own that he realized who was with her.
“Mrs. Joffee,” he said, greeting his neighbor more formally. “Thank you for coming.”
She gave him a motherly hug. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Pete,” she said. “How is your mother doing? Maybe I can help her?”
“I think she’s on the patio,” Pete said. The older woman hurried off.
“I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my life,” Pete whispered to Andi. “I thought you were going to have to work.”
“Tiff’s husband is filling in for me,” she said. “It was a beautiful funeral, Pete. How’s it going here?”
“You know I’m not so good at this sort of thing,” he said.
“I think people are very forgiving at times like this,” Andi assured him. “We almost expect things to go badly. At my mom’s wake, Jelly got into her
Law & Order
lingo and demanded that Father Blognick ‘exhume the body.’”
Pete groaned and chuckled. “Gosh, I can just hear her saying that.”
“Trust me, no one felt much like laughing at the time.”
“That’s the first time I’ve laughed all day,” he said. “You’re good for me, Andi Wolkowicz.”
“All the guys in town feel that way,” she said. “And today I’m not even wearing my red thong.”
He loved her naughty grin. “I just want to hide out somewhere and talk to you,” he confessed. “But I’ve got to hang with all these people.”
“Absolutely,” she agreed. “Go, mingle, be consoled. I can manage my way through the room. And I promise I’ll be the last to leave.”
She drifted off and Pete continued moving through the house listening to the stories of these old friends of his father’s. Still knowing that she was here, knowing that she would be here for him when all these people were gone, gave him a second wind. He could run as many miles as he had to, as long as she was at the finish line.
And it got easier. As time went on more of his buddies congregated together for whatever talk they shared in common. And the friends of his mother seemed content with a quick word. So Pete was mostly talking with people from the store or other business people in the community. That was more shop talk and he was better at that. It came much more easily to him.
The crowd had dwindled down to perhaps a dozen people. The caterer was restacking the food on fewer trays, rather than bringing out more. Pete caught sight of his mother, patiently listening on the edge of an impromptu group discussion with the mayor about potholes. Pete walked over and took her by the arm.
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” he said.
They found Andi in the living room. She was seated on the chintz couch next to Miss Kepper. She stood up quickly as they approached.
“Hello, ladies,” he said, including Miss Kepper in the greeting. “Mom, I want you to meet Andi Wolkowicz.”
His mother smiled. “Oh, of course, you’re one of Wolkowicz’s twins,” his mother said offering her hand. “You’re all grown up now. And I wasn’t back in town ten minutes before hearing all about your unusual car wash venture.”
“Uh…yeah,” Andi answered.
Pete could hear the nervousness in her voice.
“Andi’s my…my…” The hesitation was a genuine dilemma. They were sleeping together, but they’d never had a date. He was in love with her, but he’d never once called her his girlfriend. The word
girlfriend
just sounded stupid next to what he felt for her. “Andi’s mine,” he finished finally.
His mother’s jaw dropped open. He heard a startled little puff of disbelief from Miss Kepper. Andi’s cheeks blushed bright red. It was within that little bubble of stunned silence that he noticed that Andi held an empty glass.
“Let me get you some more wine,” he said, taking it from her. “Miss Kepper?”
She handed over her glass as well.
“Bring me one, too,” his mother said.
As soon as Pete moved away, he regretted it.
Peterson, what kind of idiot drops a bombshell and then leaves his woman to pick up the pieces?
He filled the glasses as rapidly as possible and kept his head down so that no one would approach him for even a fast word of conversation. He was back in the living room in less than two minutes. All three women were now seated. His mom and Miss Kepper on the couch, Andi in the chair angled beside it. Pete passed out the drinks and then, rather than
standing or dragging up more furniture, he sat on the arm of Andi’s chair.
“So Andi has been telling us about your new high-concept promotion for the store,” Pete’s mom said.
“I wondered where you came up with such a brilliant idea,” Miss Kepper said. “I had no idea it came from Andi.”
“Oh, it didn’t,” Andi piped in quickly. “It was Pete’s idea entirely. He just let me work on it with him.”
“Andi certainly inspired it, even if she didn’t come up with it,” Pete said. “I think it was mostly a collaboration. We work very well together.”
As he spoke, Pete looked both of the older women directly in the eye. He wanted it clear that he was putting up with no interference in his relationship with Andi. Not at home. Not at work.
“Well, it sounds like a great new direction for Guthrie Foods,” his mother said.
“The initial response has been very positive,” Miss Kepper said. “Our store sales are up and it’s been like a vitamin shot for employee morale. Everyone is happier, working harder. Some of that is probably the cross-training, but a lot of it is the Wholesome Foods, Hometown Friends concept.”
“You’ve been doing cross-training?” Mom asked incredulously. “Hank always spoke very derisively of cross-training.”
“In the end, I think, I won him over,” Pete said.
“He was always very proud of the way you ran the store,” Miss Kepper said.
Pete wasn’t sure if she really spoke for his father or for herself, but either way, he was willing to take the compliment.
They talked for a while longer, several people left, includ
ing Mrs. Joffee. They all rose to their feet to say goodbye. Rachel and his mother embraced.
“Are you going to need a ride home?” she asked Andi.
“I’ll be fine,” she answered.
“Thanks for bringing her,” Pete said. “I’ll see that she gets home safe.”
“I’m sure her father might ask ‘safe from whom?’” Rachel teased. Then she gave Pete a hug as well. “I have been telling her what a good guy I think you are. The neighbors always know the truth.”
“Uh, thanks, I think,” Pete answered, teasing a bit himself.
After Mrs. Joffee left, his mother made a great suggestion.
“Why don’t you kids sneak off somewhere for some time alone,” she said. “I’m sure Pete could really use a break.”
Pete studied her face for lines of weariness or stress. “Are you sure you can handle the rest of the guests by yourself?”
“I’ll be fine,” his mom insisted. She reached over and grasped Miss Kepper’s hand. “Doris will help me. We’re old, dear friends. We’ll do this together.”
Pete looked at Miss Kepper. She was smiling at him. She looked more vibrant, healthy, younger, than he ever remembered seeing her. “Go on,” she said. “Helping out the Guthries is my life’s work.”
“Thank you,” he told her.
He clasped Andi’s hand and they made their escape.
“Do you want another glass of wine?” he asked her.
“I only want to be with you.”
“Come on.”
He led her upstairs and down a long hallway. The last door was the guest suite. He stepped inside. The rarely used area
had the look of a perfect designer room, the kind seen in magazines, with no personal mementos or family heirlooms. As perfect, beautiful and lifeless as a statue.
On one side of the room, French doors led out to a lush second floor balcony, verdant with climbing vines and pots of blooming flowers. They passed through the doors and found a small bench with a view of the backyard foliage and the dark gray swimming pool.
Pete sat down and pulled Andi into his lap. He kissed her and held her tight against him, thinking he never wanted to let her go. But, of course, he did. He wasn’t so blinded by desire that he could forget that they were in his mother’s house and she had guests downstairs.
“It feels so good just to hold you,” he said. “I don’t like being away from you for days at a time. I like having you in my arms.”
“I like it, too,” Andi said.
He smiled, pleased. “I was worried about you when I left you alone with Mom and Miss Kepper. I hope they were nice to you.”
“Oh yeah, they were great and I know they were shocked. Your mom was very sweet and said nice things about my parents,” she told him. “And Miss Kepper…” Andi rolled her eyes. “Miss Kepper talked about how impressive I was when I came into interview for the job at Guthrie Foods.”
“Impressive?”
“That’s what she said, ‘impressive,’” Andi quoted. “And then she told your mom and I that the only reason she didn’t hire me on the spot was because she thought I was so much ‘your type,’ and she worried that we might get involved.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I don’t have any idea what to believe about anything,” Pete said. He hugged Andi close and then added, “But if she did think that, then she was exactly right. You are my type and I am
so
involved.”
Andi rewarded him with a peck on the lips.
They sat together silently for long moments, lost in thought.
“Miss Kepper,” he said with a heavy sigh.
“What about her?”
“This really weird thing happened when my father died,” Pete said. “I haven’t talked about it because I was kind of trying to sort it all out in my own head. I don’t know if I can. I may need your head, too.”
“What happened?”
“I saw my father as he collapsed and I ran into the hall and really caught him before he hit the floor. Miss Kepper came out of her office and I sent her back in to call an ambulance.”
“Right.”
“My dad was kind of confused. He didn’t know where he was. He thought I was Mom, then he said he needed to talk to Mom, that he needed to tell her something.”
Andi nodded.
“Then Miss Kepper was there and she was holding his hand and he seemed so glad to see her,” Pete said. “He told her that he loved her. That he had always loved her.”
“Oh my God.”
“Miss Kepper didn’t hear him asking for my mother. But I did. And it wasn’t clear to me whether the words he said were meant for Miss Kepper or if he thought Miss Kepper was my mother.”
“Did you say anything to Miss Kepper?” Andi asked.
“No,” Pete answered shaking his head. “And I didn’t tell Mom about it, except to say that he asked for her in the end.”
They sat silently for a few moments. Pete was reliving it all in memory. Andi sat beside him, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly.
“I’m pretty sure that my father didn’t love Miss Kepper,” Pete said. “But I’m not so sure he really loved my mother either. What do you think?”
Andi gave it a moment or two more of thoughtful pondering. “You know, Pete, I don’t think it matters what is really true,” she said finally.
“Huh?”
“Miss Kepper waited all her life to hear those words from your dad,” she said. “If it was a lie, then it was a good one. She certainly earned it. It was a monumental private moment. I doubt very seriously that she would ever tell your mother about it.”