The Grown Ups (29 page)

Sam put his hand on the door handle. When he finally got up enough nerve to look behind him, a mass of white filled the space where Bella had just been standing. She was gone.

A
s Suzie stepped from the car her coat button popped, revealing
the slight pouch of a pregnancy six months along. She touched a hand lightly to her belly, still in awe that this time, this time, she had stayed pregnant. She had felt sluggish all morning and now she watched Marguerite, who had been driving, gather items from the backseat instead of helping her. Suzie squinted over at the front windows of the restaurant. She could see Sam moving back and forth. He was so involved in what he was doing that she doubted he even knew they'd arrived.

Suzie stepped ahead of Marguerite and held open the door just as Sam came forward. He smiled at them in a distracted way. Against the long brick wall was a lineup of paint cans and drop cloths. To save money wherever he could, Sam was painting the interior himself, and Marguerite's brother had helped with the kitchen remodel. The actual dining space was small but charming, and as soon as the paneled walls were covered in the soft shade of white Sam had them all approve from a sheaf of paint cards he'd carried around for weeks, the interior would reflect
the sage and lavender that huddled against the squat brick-and-shingled building.

The building that housed Sam's soon-to-be restaurant was a long, vacant tavern at the end of a small string of businesses in what Marguerite had called the quaint downtown corridor of Rye. Quaint or not really didn't matter to Sam, Suzie knew. Before he signed the lease Michael and Suzie had met him here at the restaurant. Sam claimed to know instantly when he walked inside that this was where he was meant to be, but he still wanted another opinion.

Across the street, out the front windows, the commuter train station that had been a fixture of their childhood stood guard. It was strange to hear how differently the brothers remembered those years of their lives. Sam had said that he and his mother had picked up his father most nights from that station. In the winter Sam would wear pajamas and slippers under a coat, and wrap himself in a sleeping bag that his mother kept in the far back of the wagon. Some nights while they waited, Elizabeth would quiz Sam on spelling words or multiplication tables, but mostly they sat in silence. Sam would stare down the tracks, but he knew the train was coming before he could see it; that first vibration of steel against rail, rippling beneath the concrete and coming up through the floorboards of the car, signaled the approach. That was the sign for his mother to toss her cigarette out the open window and check herself in the rearview mirror.

Michael claimed that he had been along all of those nights, and that he was the one who helped Sam with his math homework. Michael also said it was his idea to wear pajamas to the station so they would have extra time before bed for the glass custard cups of ice cream with chocolate sauce that their mother doled out for special desserts. Once home, before bed they would
join their father in the kitchen while he ate his reheated dinner, saved in the same faded red pie plate night after night.

Suzie had listened to Michael and Sam as they had relayed their stories and seen a hint of defeat in Sam, a concession that Michael had the right memory. Michael seemed not to notice Sam's confusion. He was all about the facts, and confident in his own recollection. The difference in the way the brothers saw their world had never been so black and white as it had been in that moment, at least for Suzie.

Now Suzie smiled at Sam in greeting as he tried to take the things out of Marguerite's arms, even though she wouldn't let him. Suzie pointed to the kitchen and Sam nodded, so she headed back to look at the stove he had talked about the last time he had seen them, a few weeks ago in the city. The stove had cost more than two months of the restaurant's rent, but Sam said it had been worth the price.

When Suzie returned to the dining room Marguerite had set the box down and shrugged out of her coat near the painting supplies. She was bent over with her hands on her knees, squinting at the colors smeared across the lids. With a nod of approval she straightened up, smoothing the fabric down over her hips. “Look what I found,” she said to Sam. She pointed down by her feet.

Inside the box was a stack of large dinner plates, somewhat irregular in shape, with an organic, handmade feel. Sam lifted one up and turned it over in his hands. The glaze was white with underlying facets of gray and blue, so the effect was like the warmth from a well-worn set of pearls. He smiled at Marguerite's find.

Marguerite grinned at his reaction and clapped her hands together. “I'm so happy! I thought they were the ones, but I didn't want to jinx it. I can have the lot of them, but I just took a few to show you. They're from a French place near Columbus Circle
that went out of business. I went to the liquidation sale in Garden City yesterday, and I talked my way in before they opened it to the public. I put a hold on six cases of thick handmade green glasses with a cobalt lip, and the farm tables too.” She took a tape measure from her pocket and began to walk the space from front to back. She snapped the tape and looked over at Sam. “Perfect! How many times does that happen?”

Suzie looked over at Sam. He gave Marguerite a wide, toothy smile that made him look goofy and impossibly young. Suzie felt a twinge in her gut at the glimpse of the boy she once knew. She shook her head and glanced out the window. The restaurant had been just as much Marguerite's project as it had been Sam's; she had invested an endless amount of energy to make everything happen. Sam had told Michael that he had run out of ways to express his thanks for all her generosity.

Before the restaurant, Sam had spent months at an organic farm out on Long Island planning for the growing season, but when the financing for the farm had disappeared, Sam had no choice but to retreat to Hunt and Marguerite's home once again. As Suzie understood it, the restaurant was born out of several late-night conversations between the three of them at that time.

Marguerite dug around in her bag for her phone. “I'm going to step outside and call them. I don't want to take any chances. This stuff is good, and cheap because they need to sell quickly.” She disappeared out the door.

Sam moved over to a stack of notebooks piled on the bar that ran along the back of the room, and Suzie followed him. “We got the liquor license this week,” Sam said as he flipped open the top notebook. He tapped his palms flat on the bar, a long stretch of gleaming chestnut, while looking for a pen, located a nub of a
pencil, and scribbled something. “A friend of Dad's helped a lot,” he added, and Suzie nodded, although he wasn't looking at her. “So I got Brooklyn Brewery and maybe one other local brewer doing some great organic IPAs.”

“What's all that?” Suzie pointed to the notebooks.

Sam looked down at the stack under his hands. “Apparently I've been working on the menu for a restaurant my entire life.”

“In there? You mean you've been making up recipes and—”

Sam snorted. “I never took notes in class when I was supposed to. But these books have been with me forever. Notes on what I cooked, what I wanted to cook, attempts failed and successful, sources for meat and veggies. You name it.” He shrugged, closed the notebook, and shoved the pencil nub in his pocket. “You guys are coming next week, right? I'm going to cook the menu and invite friends and family for a taste test. It's helpful to know what works, what doesn't work. An opening before the opening, you know?”

“Absolutely,” Suzie said. “I'm looking forward to it. I'm always starving.”

“You want something now?”

Suzie pushed aside her pending doctor's appointment and weigh-in and what she had already eaten so far that day, and nodded. “I won't turn it away.”

Sam beckoned for her to follow him into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and took out a bowl of hummus, opened the wire vegetable bin and grabbed a few carrots and peppers, sliced them quickly, and slid the cutting board toward Suzie. She scooped a red pepper into the hummus and popped it into her mouth. The hummus was thick and lemony with the right amount of bite from sriracha.

“Good?” Sam asked as he wiped his knife off on a towel.

Suzie nodded, her mouth glued shut with hummus. When she could speak she asked, “Are you still going to crash upstairs? Did you get any furniture? What do you need?” When Sam had shown Suzie and Michael the place, he was most excited about the small apartment above the tavern. It was dark, with an odd placement of casement windows at half height and a pitched ceiling that made it difficult to stand upright except in the middle of the room, but Sam had been thrilled that it was all his, not a room at his father's house and not a place with roommates.

“I got an old mattress, it's all good.”

Suzie finished the hummus and sat back. Her face was flushed, her cheeks and neck a bright red, as she fanned her face with her free hand.

“You okay?”

She ducked her head, trying to downplay the fact that her body was reacting the way it was supposed to. “Oh, yeah, hormones are working overtime. So, your stove is beautiful and terrifying.”

“Perfect, right?” Sam stroked the surface with the dish towel, buffing the stainless. “She's a studio apartment in Manhattan in a so-so neighborhood with no view.”

Suzie laughed. “Well, you could probably sleep in that oven if you tucked your legs to your chest.”

“I think I have,” Sam said, laughing. “You never saw some of my apartments.”

Marguerite came into the kitchen with a triumphant look on her face. “It's all set. But I have to give them a cashier's check today, and that means I need to run to the bank and then get on the road.” She looked at her watch and then over at Suzie. “Is that okay? I know I said I'd give you a ride back into the city. You could wait for me at the house or take the train.”

“Let me give you a ride,” Sam said to Suzie.

“No one has to give me a ride. I can take the train,” Suzie said.

Sam shook his head, rattling the keys in his pocket. “I don't need Michael to bust on me for letting his pregnant wife take the train.” He was half joking, but Suzie could tell from the look on his face that he didn't want Michael to think he was incapable of doing the right thing.

The minute they
got in the car Suzie said to Sam, “I don't want this to sound the wrong way, but don't ask me about Bella.”

Sam frowned at the road. Suzie stared at him for a minute and then looked down in her lap. Bella had told Suzie that she just couldn't deal with everything Sam had dumped on her right now. She said he'd called constantly and she refused to answer. She claimed it was self-preservation. Suzie thought she was just scared after everything that had happened with Ted.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

It took Suzie a moment to realize Sam was asking her for advice. “I think you have to leave her alone, Sam.” She didn't want to betray Bella by saying anything more.

“Peter and Frankie have told me the same thing. I thought they just wanted to shut me up because they were tired of me crying into my beer. I asked Mindy and Ruthie too. But I guess you know their answer. You were my last hope.” He frowned at the windshield. “What can I say? I'm desperate.” He said the last thing without any pity in his voice.

Suzie's mouth twisted into a smile. She bit the inside of her cheek; she didn't want Sam to think she was laughing at him. “The restaurant looks good,” she said.

“I've had stress dreams where I fuck everything up there in such a massive way that I take down the people who believe in me the most.”

Suzie waved a hand in front of her face. “Oh, that's perfectly normal.”

Sam laughed. “Normal? Now that's a word I didn't think doctors like you were allowed to use.”

Suzie shook her head. “Tell me about the menu; start at the beginning.”

As he drove Sam fell into a recitation of the meals, from appetizers to dessert. Suzie was hungry again, and she fell asleep with a hollow ache in her stomach at Sam's description of a warm orzo dish with fresh mozzarella, garlic, and spinach in a spicy butter sauce.

Her sleep was restless, uneasy, but she was still drowsy enough not to want to open her eyes and really wake up. Her cheek was pressed against the window, and while she knew Sam tried to drive smoothly, there was no way he could avoid the awkward shifts and change in speed that made her head jerk forward and her body brace against the seat belt. She searched for a comfortable position, adjusted the lap belt, and opened her eyes just as they hit the city. “Something's wrong,” she said.

Sam took his eyes off the road quickly and glanced at her. “What?”

Suzie felt light-headed. She pressed her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth and counted to ten before she answered. “I think, I'm pretty sure, I'm bleeding.” She said the last part in a whisper as she looked down at her lap. She touched her sweater where it was bunched between her thighs and quickly moved a hand to her puffy abdomen. She couldn't be sure of what she was feeling. There wasn't any cramping or lower back pain. At least she wasn't in labor, not yet anyway. “Can you get over to the hospital? Now?”

Sam nodded and jerked the car to the right. Suzie flinched as a
taxi swerved around them. She fumbled with her cell phone, her top lip caught in her bottom teeth. She jabbed at the screen over and over, leaving messages first for Michael, then for her doctor, and then she clutched the phone in her hand until her knuckles turned white. A few minutes later it finally rang: the nurse told her she was in luck; her doctor was doing rounds at the hospital and had already been warned of her arrival.

Suzie ended the call and repeated the phrase:
I'm in luck
. The word
luck
was no comfort to someone who had lost so many pregnancies before this one.

Sam pulled up to the entrance as Suzie directed him to, the one that said no passenger drop-offs. She fumbled in her bag for her doctor's credentials. As soon as Sam slowed down, a burly guy in a security jacket stepped forward to tell him he couldn't be stopped at the curb. Suzie flashed her badge out the passenger's side window and he backed off.