Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead (26 page)

A month later, with her father having recovered enough to return to his job at a midtown accounting firm, and her mother having thankfully returned to her job at the store, Mindy was free to focus on graduating. She knew that her bachelor’s degree in psychology would mean nothing careerwise until she went for her master’s, but she was too stressed to think about graduate school and decided instead to take a year off and take any job that paid well.

The first “any job” she applied for brought her to Forest Hills Ophthalmology and the office of a Dr. Stanley Sherman, who was trying to hire a new office manager. Though Mindy had had no previous experience, it did not matter to Dr. Sherman. He admitted to being desperate, as his wife, Rhoda, had just given him her two weeks’ notice. “It’s fine if I have to work another twenty years, but she should get to retire?”

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Mindy had a bad feeling after speaking with the grouchy doctor by phone, but she decided to at least interview and find out his deal. On her way in, she recognized a young man leaving Dr. Sherman’s office. It was the sweet dad with the little boy she’d helped at Denny’s.

When he held the door and smiled, she shivered. But it wasn’t from the cold, it was from the heat. She found him cute in a teddy bear way, yet stopped herself from saying hello. Not only was he a family man, she was back to dating Noah, her former high school sweetheart. And yet, only that morning she told her friend Nadine that he didn’t do it for her anymore, since he’d become a kosher-vegetarian-psychic trying to make millions selling his homemade hummus.

“How’s your little boy?” Mindy blurted.

“What?” he jumped, unprepared for a stranger to ask.

“Mindy Baumann.” She shook his hand. “I used to work over at Denny’s. . . . Didn’t I help you pick out a winter jacket for your son? He was so cute.”

“Oh . . . yeah, right. Thank you. I thought you looked familiar.

Are you a patient here? He’s my dad. I’m finishing optometry school. Artie Sherman. Sometimes I work part-time in the office.

My life is such a mess. My wife took away my son. They’re living in Oregon. Do you want to maybe get some coffee?”

“Oh my God. I mean sure, but I’m here for a job interview.

How would it look if I went on break before I was hired?”

“Don’t take the job!” Artie uttered so fast he surprised himself. “You’ll hate working for my dad. He’s crazy, and my mom’s not really quitting. She just wanted a raise.”

All true. And coffee it was. Then an official date. Then a second, at which point Mindy already knew that she wanted her parents and her Grandma Jenny to meet him, though she had the good sense not to mention he was married with a child.

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As soon as Artie excused himself to use the bathroom, her grandmother rendered her opinion. He seemed like a nice boy-chik, it was just too bad that he hadn’t gone to work on Wall Street like his brother, or better yet, planned on becoming an ophthal-mologist like his father, who had an office in Queens, one on Long Island, and a vacation house in the Berkshires. “It’s such a
shanda
when a bright young man like that wastes his potential.”

“Well, he did mention he might still be thinking of applying to med school.”

“Oy. That’s crazy. You’ll end up supporting him and then he’ll leave you for a nurse.”

When they married a year and a half later, Artie’s single greatest regret was that three-year-old Aaron was not at the wedding to serve as ring bearer. His single greatest joy? That his bride had taken a pregnancy test hours before the wedding and whispered under the chuppah that their new life together would truly be blessed with new life.

Mindy parked in front of a row of modest two-family houses, shocked that she had found the block. Remarkably, the dwellings looked unchanged, with their postage stamp frontage and the familiar Fedders air conditioners hanging from bedroom windows.

“Aaron, wake up.” Mindy nudged him. “You’ll never guess where we are.”

“Your grandmother’s nursing home.” He didn’t bother opening his eyes.

“No . . . c’mon. Wake up. We’re at the house where you were born!”

“What?” he looked out. “Why?”

“Because the traffic was getting to me, so I pulled off and then realized this was where your mom and Art first lived. Does it look familiar?”

“No.”

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“Well, you were only two when you left, but isn’t it cool to see where your life began?”

“It’s okay,” he shrugged. “When are we goin’ back?”

“Don’t you want to get out? Maybe ring the bell?”

“Hell, no! Am I getting a cell phone today?”

“Oh, come on . . . I know the experts say not to do this, but I thought we could see if someone was home and ask if they’d let us look around.”

“Let’s just break in. Now that’d be awesome!”

“We’re not breaking in. We’ll say hello, sorry to disturb you, but this young man was born in this house and we were wondering if we could maybe see his old room.”

“The place means nothing to me. Can we just go?”

“Really? I thought you’d be so excited. Who doesn’t want to see where their story began? Can I at least take a picture of you in front of it? It’s that one over there.” She pointed to a tan brick duplex with two front entrances and an American flag flapping between the doors.

“You’re such a tool!” He grumbled, but opened the door.

“No, just sentimental. And if you don’t cooperate, next I’ll take you to where I was born.”

“The old lady don’t open the door for no one.” So said the ghost of Lucy, a spindly, redheaded woman with a career-smoker rasp who had come outside for a cigarette and pointed to the next-door neighbor’s. “Been here six years and don’t speak a word of English.”

“Excuse me?” Mindy noted the high-rise hairdo, the orange nylon jogging suit that swished with every step, and the white leather Keds, all remnants of the eighties. Had this woman escaped her time capsule?

“You thinkin’ of buyin’ the place?” She coughed. “’Cause they took down the For Sale sign last month.”

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“Oh. No,” Mindy motioned Aaron to move to the right. “We thought it would be nice to take a quick picture. This young man was born here . . . just moved back from Portland, Oregon.”

“Maybe tell her your garage code, too.” Aaron squirmed.

“Aaron?” The woman squinted in the bright sun. “Are you little Aaron?”

He stopped in mid yawn.

“You remember him?” Mindy almost dropped her phone.

“A grandma never forgets a face . . . I used to babysit you when you was this big.” She placed her hands together, her cigarette f lopping. “I gotta get my boy out here. You remember Jimmy?

He was maybe six or seven when you was born. He’d try playin’

with ya, but you’d just be layin’ there on your little blankie and he’d say, ‘Ma, you said a new boy was livin’ next door, when’s he gonna be able to play catch with me?’”

Aaron said nothing. Was he being his usual, off-putting self or trying to dredge up any recollection of a boy named Jimmy?

“You’re not the mother.” The lady eyed Mindy. “She was an itty-bitty thing.”

Thank you?
“No . . . I’m wife number two . . . Mindy Sherman.”

She shook her hand.

“Yeah, yeah. Sherman . . . that was the name. Oh, good lord, I’ll never forget the day she up and left with the baby. Never saw them two again. And my Jimmy, he cried and cried.”

“They were close?”

“No . . . it was on account of the fact that Aaron used to play with Jimmy’s big-boy toys and he liked this certain fire truck, see . . . my husband, John, God rest his soul, spent twenty-three years with Engine Company forty-five in the Bronx. Every week he’d be bringin’ home another fire truck for Jimmy and Mikey, and I’d say, John, they got enough of them stupid things, I’m trip-pin’ on ’em all day. Anyway, this one truck lit up, made all kinds a noise and Aaron here, that was his favorite. But that day he and Dear Neighbor, Drop Dead

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his mom run off, they took it with ’em and Jimmy kept sayin’,

‘Ma, I want my truck back. . . . Make ’em bring my truck back.’ I just never forgot that day.”

“Aaron, any of that ring a bell?”

“So you knew my mom?” he ignored Mindy’s question.

“Oh, sure! Ya can see how close you lived. Hard not to get to know the people, except of course for these folks. So many goddamn people livin’ there now we can’t keep track no more.

You got the parents, the grandparents, the kids, the uncle from Sri Lanka, and not one of them stinkers knows how to come out and say good morning.” She stared at the long lost boy. “So how’s she doin’, your mother? She still makin’ those nice quilts? She made me a beauty for my birthday once . . . bet I still got it somewhere.”

“She passed,” Mindy whispered as if Aaron couldn’t hear.

“Just recently.”

“Oh . . . well, very sorry to hear that. Gotta be rough on a young man to lose his mother.”

“What’s your name?” Aaron blurted.

“Darlene. Darlene Fitzgerald. Maybe you guys wanna come in and say hello to Jimmy? He’s home almost a month now. Just got back from Iraq . . . second tour . . . sons of bitches in Washing-ton sending these kids on a mission to hell, and for what? So they can come back all shot up. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for bringing him home alive,” she looked around to make sure Jimmy couldn’t hear, “but he ain’t ever gonna be the same. His right foot got blown to bits in a Humvee, and his mind ain’t the same neither. I thought fine, the government’s gonna take care of him, pay for all his rehabilitation, pay for college, but good luck tryin’

to get the sons of bitches to answer the damn phones, let alone send the money they owe him. You listen to me, young man. You stay in school and get yourself a good education so you don’t gotta go join no stinkin’ army and spend the rest of your life 230

Saralee Rosenberg

feelin’ sorry for yourself. Yeah, come on inside.” She finished her smoke. “Say hello to Jimmy. He’s just sittin’ around watchin’ the TV. Meantime I’m gonna look for that quilt for you, Aaron, and I might just come across some pictures, too. Used to be real good about gettin’ them in albums, but lately the arthritis’s actin’ up pretty bad.”

Mindy looked at Aaron’s puzzled face and knew he was trying to decide between racing to the car and holding the woman’s hand.

“We’ll just stay a few minutes,” she whispered. “I swear to God I did not plan this.”

“Then who did?” He looked around. “My mom?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised.” She rubbed his back. “You remember that fire truck?”

“Yeah,” he swallowed. “Still got it.”

Aaron sobbed the whole ride home, clutching the mildew-stained quilt his mother had sewn, each handwoven square a patchwork of her troubled past. Still, it was comforting to hold something she’d created from love, something that held the remnants of her life.

And on his lap? Several Polaroids, including one of him and Jimmy under the Fitzgeralds’ Christmas tree, fighting over a fire truck. Who could have known that when their paths finally crossed again, they would both be soldiers fighting a war against abandonment?

Mindy prayed that this unexpected detour wouldn’t prolong his agony, though from the way he clung to the quilt and the photos, it was just as Mindy’s father had said. Getting lost was good for the soul, as it could take you down roads you were destined to explore.

Twenty

“Does that really help?” Mindy watched Artie pace as she dozed in bed.

“I don’t want to fall asleep yet.” He f licked on the news. “My parents still might call.”

“They never call past eleven.”

“Oh believe me, if they find that policy, they’ll call.”

Artie had spent the day trying to keep his mind off the fact that his parents were still searching for any record of taking life insurance on Davida. As of six o’clock, they had nothing to report, though their investigation did turn up a box of invitations left over from his bar mitzvah. “We thought the kids would like to have them,” Rhoda sounded so pleased.

“Mom, throw ’em out,” Artie begged. “Nobody cares about that stuff; just get back to looking.”

“Believe me, we’ve been schlepping boxes down from the attic since we got here.”

“I don’t understand why you can’t just call Henry’s office. He handled your insurance stuff for how many years?”

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“Number one, he’s retired now, and number two, we didn’t buy this policy from him.”

“Why not?”

“Because at the time I was fighting with him. I didn’t care for how he handled my mother’s claims when she broke her hip.”

“So who the hell did you buy it from?” Artie yelled. “My agent said if you know the company name, you call, give them your social security number, and they’ll trace the policy.”

“Stop yelling at me, Arthur. What do you want from me? It was a long time ago.”

“I’m not yelling,” he yelled. “I’m just upset. That money would be a huge help to us right now, okay?”

“If things are so terrible, talk to Ira. Who knows more about making money than a big success like him?”

“Mom! Stop! I don’t need to talk to Ira. Just tell me what else you remember.”

“Well, I was saying to your father that I remember how reasonable the premiums were because you were so young and in good health.”

“I still don’t understand how you could have bought it from some no-name company.”

“It didn’t sound no name at the time. They were advertising on Joan Hamburg’s program on the radio. You know how much we trust her.”

“All right, well just keep looking.”

“Aren’t you going to ask how your father and I are getting along?”

“Fine. How are you two getting along?”

“Oy. Don’t ask!”

“I can’t stay up another minute,” Mindy said, and yawned. “I’m exhausted.”

“You were busy today, that’s for sure,” Artie sniped.

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You have no idea. I wonder why Beth never called. She must have peed
on the stick by now.
“Can you open the window?” She kicked off the covers. “I’m so hot.”