Til the Real Thing Comes Along (6 page)

“Oh, honey, this will pass. We’ve made it through so much worse than this. And this is happening for a reason, which is that
it was wrong. A mistake. I was stupid and made a wrong choice. But something good will come of it. You’ll see.” She felt his
body shaking with sobs, and the wetness of his tears on her face. Or were they her tears against his?

Jeffie. Her baby. Tonight, after she heard him go back to his room and turn on the television, she called Michael.

“Hello?”

“It’s R.J.,” she said nervously.

“Hi,” he said. “Thanks for calling back. Listen, I need to talk to you.”

“What about?” she asked.

“It’s important,” he said. “Too important to talk about on the phone. I’d like to come over.”

Come over. No. Jeffie would still be awake for a while. Seeing Michael walk in the door would only confuse him.

“Not a good idea.”

“After he’s asleep,” he said, obviously knowing what she was thinking.

What did he want? Not just to chat, or to see if she was surviving.
That
he could do on the telephone. And why did she care so much? She realized now as she caught sight of herself in the mirror
above her bedroom dresser that she had actually put on makeup before she returned his call, as if he would somehow be able
to tell through the telephone line whether or not she looked good.

“Okay,” she said. “At ten.”

By nine-thirty she had completely redone her makeup, changed her outfit four times, and finally ended up back in the jeans
and work shirt she’d been wearing to make dinner, so she called Dinah for a pep talk.

“It’s none of my business, obviously,” Dinah began.
And then she and R.J. both said the word
but
in unison, because they both knew Dinah couldn’t help but try to interfere.

“But what, Di?” R.J. said. Maybe, she thought to herself, the red sweater was better than the blue work shirt. Her black hair
always looked great against bright colors.

“But don’t let him seduce you. Don’t go to bed with him no matter what he says. Even if he begs your forgiveness and has a
rabbi with him to perform the ceremony tonight.”

“Di, he’s probably just coming over to make sure I haven’t slashed my wrists or anything.”

“Don’t kid yourself,” Dinah said. “That little stand-in for Herve Villechaize is probably just horny so he figures—”

“I won’t go to bed with him, Di, I swear. I’ll call you in the morning.”

“What morning? You’ll call me when he leaves. Which better be a half hour after he arrives.”

“Later,” R.J. said, and hung up.

She peeked in on Jeffie, who was peacefully asleep, then walked around her quiet house trying to figure out how she felt,
what she should say to Michael. What if he’d changed his mind? Could she ever take him back after the crazy exit he’d made?
Why would she want to? His breaking up with her had been God’s way of telling her she wasn’t supposed to marry him in the
first place. That thought made her laugh out loud.

Michael’s headlights in the driveway brought her to her feet, and she was at the door before he was even out of his car. Before
she could think about it he had taken her into his arms and was kissing her all over her face the way he used to, and her
body was responding, not just to the kisses but to the familiar feel and smell of him, some cologne that she remembered he
sometimes wore, and the gum he chewed in the mistaken notion that Trident cinnamon covered up the smell of the cigarettes.

“I’ll get you a drink,” she said, reluctantly breaking free of his embrace, so confused, wishing she’d never said yes to his
visit but excited that he was here. Maybe just as an antidote to her loneliness. Please, just as an antidote to her loneliness.

She poured wine for each of them. He raised his glass to her.

“You’re still my beautiful R.J.,” he said.

She forced a smile. She knew him. His expressions. This one she’d seen him use in business. With writers or producers he was
trying to woo. She’d be with him when they’d bump into one of them when they were out to dinner or walking on the beach, and
he’d get that forced sincere look on his face and say sweetly, “Don’t forget… I’m you’re biggest fan.” Now the look was there
for her, and he asked her ever so sweetly: “Are you okay? I mean you look fabulous but I’ve been worried about you. Tell me
you’re okay.”

She took a long sip of wine so she could decide what to answer. Yes, goddamn you, I’m more than okay, because I’ve survived
a fortunate escape from your sniveling little clutches? Yes, I’m okay because I really didn’t love you? Or should she tell
him the truth—that she felt so alone and so cheated out of the dream she’d been harboring about making a new life that even
though she knew what a mistake it would be, she wanted to curl up in his lap and have him hold her and tell her that he was
back and really would make everything in her life work?

“I’m fine,” was all she could manage.

In one swift move he pulled a Dunhill from the maroon-and-gold box and extracted his gold Dunhill lighter from his shirt pocket.
He lit the cigarette. He took a few long drags until he was surrounded by a smoke doud. When it cleared, he looked long at
R.J.

“You’re a survivor, kiddo,” he said, still with the sincere look. “You’re tough. It’s what I love about you the most.”

Love about you. That’s what he said. Not
used
to love about you. Not
loved
about you.

Now he cradled the cigarette in the crook of his hand, rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, and blew on the lit end.
Tiny ashes flew all around his face.

“And you have values. Good strong values. Not like most of the girl—women in this town. You
know
what’s important.” He sucked hard on the cigarette again, then exhaled. There was another cloud, and then, as if it were
a pronouncement, some information she could live on forever, he said, “You are
not
a bimbo.”

“Thank you, Michael,” she actually found herself saying.

“I’ve been so depressed since we broke up,” he said,
looking everywhere but at her. “I’ve been a mess. I haven’t gone to my office in weeks. They’ll probably can me.”

What was he getting at? Of course. It was just what she thought. Six weeks ago he had allowed a rush of the pre-wedding jitters
to get to him, and now he was sorry. Now he was regretting his outburst so much that he was back to try and reconcile with
her. Back to tell her what a mistake he’d made. And the weird thing was that, in spite of what a jerk she knew he was, she
was actually sitting there flickering back and forth between wondering how she could ever have loved him, and aching for him
to come back. To make it okay. To stop her from having to go out into the world again alone. Back to dating. Back to courting.
Back to going through the long process with someone else.

“I don’t eat,” he said to her, and put the cigarette out. “Hardly eat at all,” and then he looked at her with big tormented
eyes.

Doesn’t eat. Poor thing. God. He
did
miss her. Maybe she should…

“Want me to fix you something?” she offered. Dinah would kill her for that one. “The shmuck treats you like garbage and you’re
gonna cook for him?” she would say. But now, when Michael’s face lit up the way it used to when they first met, R.J. decided
not even to mention it to Dinah.

“You know,” he said, leaning forward as if he were going to tell her a secret, so close that she could smell the cigarettes
on his clothes, “I’ve really missed your omelettes.” Any minute he was going to beg her to get back together. He was just
too embarrassed to do it right off the bat.

“You got it,” R.J. said as she smiled and practically skipped into the kitchen, where she ripped open the refrigerator door.
Once he launched into his spiel about getting back together, she wouldn’t say anything at first. She’d just listen. Let him
explain away all the crummy things he’d done. Give him the opportunity to win her over. Eggs, cheese—ah, she even had some
mushrooms. She’d tell him that it would be difficult. That she and Jeffie would have a hard time trusting him again and that
he’d have to promise to work hard to regain their trust. Butter. It was true. Especially for Jeffie, her baby. He’d had enough
hurt and she had to protect him.

For weeks after Arthur’s death, Jeffie had refused to go to school no matter how much she encouraged him. After a lot of encouraging,
R.J. decided that maybe the best thing for her to do was just to back off. Her cousin Mimi’s husband the psychiatrist said,
“Everyone has his own mourning time. Jeffie will go to school when he’s ready.”

“Do the other kids know about my dad?” he had asked R.J. one night.

“Yes, they do,” she told him, knowing, by the way he lowered his eyelids when he heard her answer, that this was why he was
afraid to go back. He was probably afraid that not having a father would set him apart from the others. Make him weird.

“Mrs. Liebman calls me all the time to say how much everyone misses you,” she said. That was a little bit of an exaggeration.
The teacher had called twice.

“Yeah, sure,” he said.

R.J. was afraid of what the children might say to him. The questions they might ask him. Children in their innocent but eager
curiosity could evoke thoughts that might never have entered his mind. Did your dad’s stomach get ripped open? Did he bleed
to death from the bullet? Did you see him when he was a corpse? Who are you gonna make something for when it’s Father’s Day?
Maybe that was why she didn’t push him to go back. Jeffie.

One day, in the middle of the morning, he had called her at work to tell her he couldn’t find the red-and-blue Lego truck
he’d made a few months before. He said he needed it very badly and he sounded worried. He said he thought maybe he had left
it in his cubby at school. She asked him if he’d like to go over to the school and look for it, and when he said yes, she
told Harry Elfand she had an emergency and rushed home to pick Jeffie up. When she and Jeffie pulled into the school parking
lot in the Mustang, and Jeffie saw all the cars and realized that it was a regular school day and everyone was there, he looked
nervous. “Maybe,” he said, “this was a mistake.” Probably he had left the truck at Jamie Eisner’s house and not at school
at all. He wanted to go home.

“Why don’t we check your cubby?” R.J. had asked gently but firmly, in the tone her cousin Mimi’s husband the psychiatrist
had suggested she use. She pulled the Mustang in between a green Volkswagen bug and an old red
Cadillac. Then she had a long panicked moment when she was sure she’d been too firm and not gentle enough, because it looked
as if he were about to cry and insist that she take him home. Instead, he opened the car door, got out, and looked over at
the one-story building for just a second. Then he slammed the car door and ran with a kind of combination gallop and hop toward
his homeroom. By the time R.J. had reached the door of the schoolroom, he had already gone inside. So she stood on her toes
and looked in through the one tiny window set into the top of the door.

It was an odd moment she was seeing. Frozen in time. No one moved. Jeffie was standing very still just inside the door, looking
nervously at the group of children and the teacher, all of whom looked back at him with great silent surprise. No one moved.
R.J. bit the inside of her lower lip. Then the teacher said, “Jeffie.” That was all, and as if that was their cue, all twenty
children leaped from their seats and ran to him, their arms open wide, shouting his name, hugging him, holding him, tickling
him, tackling him lovingly to the ground. They were a pile of joyous friends, and the most joyous of all of them was Jeffie,
who R.J. could see was filled with relief as two of the boys now helped him to his feet. That was when R.J. opened the door
and entered the room. None of the children even looked at her. They were all still surrounding her son. But Mrs. Liebman came
over.

“How is he?” the teacher asked R.J.

“Fine now,” R.J. said, fighting back tears of gratitude as she watched her son being led around the room by friends who were
showing him projects that he had missed on the walls and shelves.

“I hope we didn’t disrupt you too much,” R.J. said to the teacher.

“Not at all,” Mrs. Liebman said.

“I mean, he’s not really back to stay,” R.J. apologized. “It was just that he forgot his Lego truck and I…”

Then Jeffie’s eye caught R.J.’s and he smiled a little happy smile at her and waved a little wave. The kids were all jabbering
away. Some to Jeffie and some to one another, and the noise level was very high. Even so, R.J. was able to make out the words
her son was saying to her over the din.

“Ma, you can go now. I’m gonna be okay.”

The mushrooms were just soft enough for her to add
the eggs. She grabbed a plate, and by the time she’d pulled the popped toast out of the toaster and buttered it, it was time
to flip the omelette in half and slide it onto a plate. My God, it looked great. Michael would be…

“Michael,” she said, carrying the tray into the living room. Coffee. She should have put some coffee on the tray. That would
have been good. Or at least some orange juice.

“Michael?”

He must have gone into her bedroom. Maybe he’d gone through there to use the bathroom, or… “Michael?” No answer. He couldn’t
possibly think she would follow him into her bedroom and then… Maybe this
was
a seduction. Maybe Dinah was right. Maybe Michael just came over to try to get her into bed. It sounded from where she was
standing as if drawers were being opened and dosed. Maybe she should walk right in there and…

“Michael!”

Michael stood wild-eyed and red-faced in the middle of her room.

“Where is it?” he demanded. He looked silly. Like some impersonator on television doing a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde routine.

“Where is what?” R.J. asked. She was afraid. What in the hell did he want?

“The ring,” he said. “The ring my mother gave you. I want the ring back.” If he hadn’t been so serious, the contorted enraged
face would have made her laugh.