Hostile Makeover (30 page)

Mandy was right. The first decision was the theme of the event and everything else simply flowed from that. It just felt so unimportant at the moment. What did any of this have to do with Sammy becoming a man? She suspected her son would rather have two parents and the life he was used to than a big-ass bar mitzvah. She put down her bagel as her appetite disappeared.

“Look,” Mandy said more quietly, “I know your life has been a little . . .
unsettled
. . . since your father’s heart attack.” The coordinator did a semi-tiptoe around her marital situation. “And I know sometimes things . . . change. If you can’t afford to do this . . .”

Judy looked the coordinator in the eye; she was tempted to shoot a few cartoon lightning bolts herself. All this woman cared about was making her outrageous fee and enhancing her own reputation. She didn’t care about Judy or Judy’s family; she simply didn’t want a client who couldn’t or wouldn’t go all out.

Or worse, a soon-to-be-divorced client whose standard of living might be about to drop.

The words “You’re fired” hovered on Judy’s lips, but she knew better than to make a rash decision; she’d made too many of them over the past few weeks. “It’s not about the money,” Judy said, her tone brittle. “Or my personal life.” Which, of course, was none of Mandy Mifkin’s business. “I understand what you’re saying, and I’ll give it some serious thought.”

“But—”

“It’s only April; Sammy’s bar mitzvah isn’t until August.”

“I know, but . . .”

It was clear Mandy Mifkin craved closure. She wanted to know that they were moving ahead under her terms, or parting ways. Judy could identify completely, but she wasn’t interested in Mandy Mifkin’s issues; she could barely keep up with her own.

Judy put enough money to cover both their meals down on the table. “I have to go. I’ve got some things to take care of at—home.” She stumbled over the last word. “And then I need to get into the office. I’ll give you a call later this week.”

Judy hurried out of the deli. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Mandy Mifkin pick up her phone and start dialing. The ladies at the corner table put their heads back together.

Two left turns and a traffic light later, Judy was in her neighborhood, sailing past the elaborate clubhouse to the cul-de-sac on which her family lived. She didn’t pull into the garage and enter through the kitchen door of her home as she would have just a week ago. Instead, she parked in the driveway and came in through the front door, like the stranger she’d become.

The front rooms felt musty and unused. If Craig had had Eva in this week, he’d neglected to ask her to dust. Pausing in the foyer between the formal living and dining rooms, she tried not to think about the family dinners that had taken place there. Or the cocktail parties and fund-raisers they’d hosted. She’d put such time and effort into decorating these rooms, into creating the public face they presented to the world. Perhaps she should have spent more time on the guts of their family, shoring up the parts that they kept stuffed inside.

She went up the front stairs and into the boys’ rooms, where mounds of dirty clothing covered the carpet and discarded candy wrappers and food-crusted plates littered every flat surface.

Leaving things where they’d been dropped, she padded down the back stairs. In the master bedroom, the unmade bed and clothing-strewn floor confirmed that her two apples hadn’t fallen far from their father’s tree.

The kitchen made her gasp. It was clear Eva had never been called and that neither Craig nor the boys had lifted a finger in her absence. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to clean it up. Or choke on the tears of hurt and anger that filled her.

Instead, she picked up the phone to check messages. They were all the detritus of her old life, and she couldn’t find the strength to write any of them down. Then she heard the one from the temple Hebrew school that had come in last Friday. She cleared a pile of junk from a bar stool so she could sit down and listen.

“Hi, Mrs. Blumfeld,”
the B’nai Mitzvah administrator’s voice said.
“I’m calling to make sure Sammy’s OK.”

Judy went still at the woman’s words. What could be wrong with Sammy?

“He hasn’t been in Hebrew school the last two Thursdays. And his Sunday school teacher says when he
is
there, he’s not, if you know what I mean.”
There was a pause.
“Can you give me a call to set up an appointment?”

Judy jotted down the phone number, but her mind was already racing. Craig drove the boys to Sunday school, but she drove Sammy to Hebrew every Thursday afternoon. In fact, she’d driven him right up to the front entrance the last two Thursdays and watched him amble toward the front doors. It had never occurred to her that he hadn’t gone inside.

Her son was playing hooky from Hebrew school, and she hadn’t even known it. She’d always scoffed at those news stories in which children came to harm or did outrageous things and their parents acted so surprised. Like the mother of a serial killer she’d once heard interviewed who’d said, “I don’t know what happened. I talked to him this morning and he sounded just fine.”

How could a mother not know? Knowing was a mother’s primary job.

Maybe the serial killer’s mother had been off trying to find herself, too.

Hollow-eyed, Shelley sat across from Howard Mellnick. Drowning in hurt and anger, she’d rushed to his office when he’d offered to fit her in during his lunch hour. Now she waited for him to throw her a life preserver; something, anything she could cling to in order to keep her head above water.

“So,” he said quietly after she told him what had happened. “What now?”

“What now?” she asked. She was afraid she might go under and not come up again and he was asking “What now?”

He nodded.

“I was
really
hoping you were going to tell me that.”

Dr. Mellnick smiled gently. “It’s your life, Shelley. That makes it your decision.”

“Look,” she said, madly treading through her emotional waters, “I don’t have the energy for major analysis right now. I just need to get through this day. And then I need to get through tomorrow.”

“Then answer the question.”

“Fine.” She sat back in her chair and pretended to think. All the while, in her mind, she was bicycling her legs, sculling her arms, trying to stay afloat. Trying not to think of her father’s dismissal and all the horrible truths Ross Morgan had hurled at her.

“Let’s see,” she said, “my father, who gave his business to someone else and allowed that someone else to demote me, torture me, and make me jump through all sorts of, as it turns out, unnecessary hoops, has now decided to sell his business to people who will get rid of me. On top of that, one of the main reasons this is happening is that I slept with the person he gave the business to in the first place and then flung that fact in my father’s face.”

She shuddered anew over the memory and treaded harder.

“So even though I’ve been working my ass off for the last two months and have actually managed to do a really great job, I’m going to be out. And Ross Morgan, the double-crossing job-stealer, whom I had the bad judgment to sleep with, is going to make a ton of money from the sale and end up being president of a much larger agency.”

The knowledge of her stupidity and his perfidy churned in her stomach and left a horrible sour taste in her mouth. She’d been had in every sense of the word. And pretty soon she was going to be a have-not.

Howard Mellnick simply looked at her, still calm. “That’s a pretty good recap of what’s already happened, Shelley. My question was, what are you going to do about it?”

“You mean other than crawling into my bed and assuming the fetal position?”

“I mean, what do you plan to do
now
?”

Shelley stopped treading water. It was way too hard anyway, and she wasn’t getting anywhere. Putting her head in her hands, she groaned like a very old person and rocked back and forth once or twice for good measure.

The Mellnick just looked at her. She sensed he wanted to roll his eyes, but he just waited.

“All right, all right,” she groaned. “God, you’re merciless.”

“So, I repeat,” he said quietly, “what do you plan to do now?”

Shelley forced herself to think about it. No treading, no dodging. It wasn’t easy with all the emotional garbage churning around inside: Ross’s betrayal, her father’s abandonment. All of it hurt so badly. And she felt so stupid.

But as she prodded her wounds, she began to notice a very strange thing. While they were tender to the touch, were, in fact, quite painful, they didn’t feel . . . fatal.

She might want to curl up in a ball. But she was not going to die.

“What?” he asked.

“I think I’m going to be OK,” she whispered, hearing the wonder in her voice.

He smiled. “Could you say that a little louder?”

“I’m . . . OK,” she said, amazed that it was true. “Kind of bruised and bloody. But OK.” She smiled back at him. “I mean, I’m not going to jump up, throw away my crutches, and shout ‘I’ve been healed!’ but I’m not going to fall apart, either.”

“Good.” Again, his manner was calm and straightforward, but approval and pleasure were evident in his voice. “That’s very good.”

Shelley sat up straighter. And somehow the load that had been weighing her down lightened. She was going to be OK. She was not going to run out and shoot herself in the foot. Or suddenly revert to the screwup she’d been. Her father might not be able to see the changes that had taken place in her, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

Dr. Mellnick looked into her eyes and gave her a last encouraging smile. “All you have to do now is move forward. Today you took two steps back, but as I believe Scarlett O’Hara once said, ‘Tomorrow is another day.’ ”

chapter
28

S
helley spent the afternoon wrestling with her thoughts. Most of them were unpleasant and many were humiliating; she had to keep fast-forwarding past them so that they didn’t drag her all the way down. By early evening, she’d drafted a letter of resignation. It was curt and to the point, as coldly professional as she could make it. She intended to deliver it to Ross Morgan in the morning; her only regret was that she couldn’t nail it onto his forehead or superglue it to his ass.

She spent the rest of the evening at the kitchen table composing a letter to her father. For hours she agonized over each word of each draft, until she gave up at midnight with nothing to show for her time but a pile of crumpled paper.

Riddled with regrets, she paced her living room, unable to halt the litany of if-onlys. If only she’d taken herself seriously from the beginning, if only she hadn’t let others’ assumptions about her become reality, if only she’d stayed away from Ross Morgan. There were a million of them, but those three stood head and shoulders above the rest. They formed a recriminatory loop that replayed endlessly in her mind. Sinking into her club chair, she stared out her window into the darkness, and tried not to listen.

“Are you all right?” Judy sat down on the couch. She wore a pale pink peignoir and matching bedroom slippers. Her eyes were sleepy, and she, too, appeared to be focused inward.

“Not really. How about you?”

“I feel like I’m standing at this great crossroads and the next step I take will alter things forever. I’m so afraid of stepping out in the wrong direction.”

“I know what you mean.” Shelley’s first step had been her decision to resign before they chucked her out, but choosing a new path meant taking more steps. This time she was determined to weigh her choices carefully; no more leaping before she looked.

“You know,” Judy said, rising, “I ended up here with you sort of by default. But despite the reasons for my coming, and the fact that my life seems to be pretty much in the toilet, I’m glad we’ve had this time with each other.” She stopped in front of Shelley.

“Me, too,” Shelley said, reaching out her hand and letting her sister pull her up. “I can’t believe it took me so long to figure out what a dynamite sister I have.”

Judy’s hand was smaller, the bones more delicate, but Shelley imagined she could feel Judy’s inner strength. It was then that the realization hit her: The Schwartz sisters were a whole lot stronger than they’d been led to believe.

“Gee,” she said, slipping her arm around Judy’s shoulder, “I feel like we should break into a chorus of ‘We Are Family’ or something.”

Judy hugged Shelley with all that hidden strength. “If I could reach the top of your head, I’d give you a couple of noogies to make you appreciate the solemnity of this moment.”

“Right.” Her sister’s acceptance warmed her, made her stronger still. “You and what army?”

In her room Shelley slipped into bed and felt a new resolve fill her. Judy was facing her new life head-on; there was no reason why she couldn’t do the same. The time had come to stop talking and dithering about what had been, and focus instead on what might be.

In the morning Shelley deposited her things on her desk and marched to Ross Morgan’s office.

“Is he in?” she asked his secretary for the second day in a row.

Mia looked nervous, which was understandable in view of yesterday’s fiasco. “Yes, um, let me let him know you’re here,” she said.

Shelley offered no argument. One office-storming and humiliation per week seemed sufficient.

This time when Mia nodded her in, Shelley walked sedately through the double doors and looked carefully about the room before she approached the desk. Which was kind of like closing the barn door after all the horses were gone.

“So,” he said.

“So.” She dropped the letter on his desk and waited while he opened it. “This is my resignation. I’d like to stay for the next two weeks so that I can see the Tire World grand opening through and interface with Brian Simms while his commercials are in postproduction. I’ll get my other accounts ready for whoever’s going to take them over.”

She could see she’d managed to surprise him. Evidently he’d assumed they’d have to drag her out the door screaming and kicking.