Love for Scale (15 page)

“Don’t
you
start crying.” Rachel pleaded with her mother.

“I’m so sorry,” Pearl sobbed, throwing her arms around Rachel.

“It’s okay, Ma, it’s okay.” She patted Pearl’s back. She had never consoled her mother so much as she had since starting her diet. It was a bizarre twist.

“Oy, and my Jeffery…dating…a…
shiksa
!” Pearl let go. The sobs permeated her speech, causing her to hiccup.

That’s
what this is about
, Rachel thought. Her brother dating a non-Jewish girl and bringing her home for a holiday dinner attended by the rabbi: how embarrassing. Could life deal Pearl a worse hand? Rachel smiled in spite of herself, her mother still clutching at her.

“Ma, Jeffery is a big boy, isn’t it better that he’s happy, even if she’s not Jewish?”

Pearl pushed Rachel away, frowning. “What? Where does this come from? Did he ask you to say this?”

“No, I’m just saying that you should be glad he’s happy and just accept it. Think of
The Jazz Singer
.”

“This is not a movie, Rachel,” Pearl scolded.

“No, but the message is still a good one. Wouldn’t it be better to have him with a
shiksa
than not have him at all?”

Never one to be overly rational when it came to matters of tradition (Rachel could hear Tevye from
Fiddler on the Roof
in her head, bellowing out TRADITION!), Pearl shook her head. “No, it’s not right, he should be more like Aaron: He's a good boy. He found a nice Jewish girl.”

I don’t know about
nice
. Oh, and by the way, that nice Jewish girl cheated before she upped and left him, and is probably using his money to finance her Caribbean singles cruise. Rachel kept her mouth shut, not wanting to exacerbate her mother’s distress. She turned back to her can of opened soup and took it from the opener, dumping its contents into a saucepan.

“OH! I’ve got a turkey,” Pearl proclaimed.

“I’m good with the soup, Ma,” Rachel said, scraping down the sides of the can into the pot on the stove.

“No, for the shelter people. I’ve got an extra turkey in the freezer, and maybe a spare brisket…I’ll go check.” Suddenly happy again, due to the prospect of feeding people, Pearl turned on her heel and headed down the stairs to the chest freezer in the basement. Rachel rarely dared to venture into the freezer but knew that it held all manner of frozen meats. She could never imagine having so much food that you had an ‘extra turkey’ or a ‘spare brisket’ but that was a Pearl trademark: food stockpiling. God forbid you have twenty people show up at your door and not a crumb to serve them…

Stirring her soup, Rachel watched her mother’s head bob and disappear down the stairs. “I so need to get out of here,” She said to her soup. It didn’t protest.

Chapter 20

Rachel dialed into her voicemail as she sat on her bed, pulling her Weight Watchers food journal out of her purse to record her dinner.

Sheri’s voice came through. “Hey Rach, sorry I haven’t called, been really busy. I need to talk to you, please call me. It’s really important.”

“Oh sure,
now
you call. What’s the matter, is Brian busy?” Rachel said out loud as she scribbled into her journal.

On Sunday afternoon, Rachel had been sitting in Sheri’s apartment, enjoying the solitude and in the middle of watching a movie when Sheri had called from her cell phone to thank her for dog-sitting. And tell her she had basically fifteen minutes to vacate.

Apparently she and Brian were on their way home and wanted a continuation of their ‘couple time.’ Chalk it up to NBS, Rachel thought. She certainly was no stranger to this kind of behavior from Sheri, but wondered when New Boyfriend Syndrome would turn into the less offensive ‘the honeymoon’s over’ Boyfriend Syndrome, which would mean more girls’ nights with Rachel and infinite complaining about Boyfriend.

Packing up her things in a hurry, she had said her final goodbyes to Sunny (not sure which she would miss more: the quiet apartment or the sweet little dog) and left.

And she hadn’t heard from Sheri since.

After the beep, the second message began and Rachel leaned in close. It was a man’s voice. “Hello, uh, this message is for Rachel. Um, this is Brian, uh, Sheri’s friend.” Rachel’s heart skipped at the mention of his name. “Um, anyway, I was hoping to talk to you, if you could give me a call…” he stammered his phone number. Rachel struggled to scribble the number into her journal.

Why was he calling her? What could he have to talk to
her
about? Why did he call Sheri his ‘friend?’ Maybe this is what Sheri wanted to talk about.

Rachel needed a few minutes to wrap her brain around what might be going on. Coming up empty, she figured she would just call and find out. But she certainly wasn’t calling Brian back until she talked to Sheri.

Sheri answered after only one ring. “Hello?”

“Hey, Sher, what’s going on?”

“Oh God, Rach, I’m so glad you called,” Sheri breathed into the phone.

“What’s going on?” Rachel repeated.

“Brian asked me to move in with him.”

Rachel swallowed. “Wow, so soon?” she asked. “That’s great, though,” she added quickly.

“No, it’s not good. It is too soon. I freaked. We were in bed at my apartment, you know, right after…well, you know. Anyway, he said he loved me and then asked me to move into the townhouse and I just thought of Sunny and Glen and would they get along, and having to give up my apartment…I just couldn’t do it, I freaked …” Sheri was spitting out the words faster than Rachel could comprehend them.

Rachel closed her eyes. “So wait a minute, he asked you to move in?”

“Yeah,” Sheri gasped.

The invoice for the keys in Brian’s townhouse suddenly made sense. “And you freaked and told him what, exactly?”

“I broke up with him!” Sheri’s voice contracted into a squeak.

Rachel’s heart jumped. “You did what?”

“I ditched him. I panicked and threw him out of my place.”

So why is he calling me?

Trying to be rational, Rachel sorted her thoughts. “I thought you really liked this guy.”

“I do, I did…I mean, I don’t know anymore.” A sob escaped her. “Rach.”

“I’m coming over.” Rachel cradled the phone on her shoulder as she slid out of her work pants, replacing them with a pair of worn-in jeans.

“No, Rach, you don’t have to.”

“Bullshit, you’re a train wreck. I’m on my way.”

“Thanks, Rach,” Sheri sobbed into the phone. “You’re the best.”

“I’ll be there in ten.” Rachel hung up the phone and looked at her journal where she’d jotted down Brian’s number. She’d deal with him later. Until then, her best friend needed consoling.

* * *

By the time Rachel got to Sheri’s and stopped her friend from crying (thanks in part to her stopping for a box of comfort: Krispy Kreme’s, which she swore she wouldn’t touch, but they smelled sooooo good), it was well past ten. Rachel was exhausted: between work and the drama that had begun at her Weight Watchers meeting, continued with the latke debacle and culminated with Sheri’s crisis, she was emotionally drained. But she had to be there for Sheri to nod and console and listen to her friend’s twisted logic. She hadn’t told Sheri about the message Brian had left on her machine, deciding she would talk to Brian first to see what he wanted, before complicating things further.

“I just can’t see myself moving in with him,” Sheri said, her voice muffled by a mouthful of warm donut. “I mean, he’s nice and all, but I can’t give up my place, you know?” The rest of Sheri’s donut was pinched between her thumb and forefinger.

Rachel’s gaze was fixated on the donut. She shook it off, refocusing on her friend. “Yeah, you’ve got a great place here.” Maybe if she played with Sunny, it would occupy her hands and distract her from the donuts. She snapped her fingers at the little dog, trying to entice him onto the couch. He looked up from his rawhide boot Sheri had brought home (out of guilt for leaving him for the weekend, no doubt), ascertained that there was no food involved and returned to his toy.

“I don’t know. What should I do, Rach?”

“Only you can answer that, Sheri. But you kinda dumped him already. Shouldn’t you have thought about this before you did that?” Rachel looked down at the Krispy Kreme box. Only two gone, plenty left for Sheri to consume. And Sheri wouldn’t mind if she had just one, after all, Rachel had bought them.

Sheri sighed. “Yeah, I just panicked, I don’t know. I guess I really do have a commitment problem.”

“It does seem to be a recurring theme,” Rachel agreed.

The phone rang. Sheri leaned over to look at it. “It’s him. I’m not picking it up.”

They waited for the fourth ring and the voicemail picked up. They sat there in silence until the phone flashed and Sheri picked it up, dialed into voicemail and put it on speaker.

Brian’s voice was as clear as if he’d been sitting on the couch beside them. “Babe, it’s me, please. Why won’t you take my calls? Call me, please?”

“Nope,” Sheri said even though Brian couldn’t hear her.

“Babe, I want to work this out, but I can’t do anything if you won’t talk to me.”

Rachel felt bad for Brian. He didn’t deserve Sheri’s bad treatment.
She
would never have treated him so badly.

“See?” said Sheri as she pressed a button and erased the message.

Staring at her friend, Rachel shook her head. “Um, no, I don’t think so.”

“He’s so willing to forgive me even though I had a conniption on him. That’s just weird.”

“Ugh, you’re just
looking
for reasons to get rid of this guy,” Rachel said, wondering how many Weight Watchers points were in one of the donuts. It couldn’t be that bad: they were so light and airy. And God help her, delicious.

Sheri pushed the box across the table toward Rachel. “Did you want one of these?”

Rachel, shook her head, thinking of the latkes, “I really shouldn’t.”

“Then I’m putting them away. You’re practically having eye sex with them.” She got up from the couch, taking the box into the kitchen. Sunny followed her, always willing to accompany someone when they had food in their hand.

Rachel sighed, thankful that her friend had taken away the source of the torture. “So what are you going to do?”

Sheri returned to the living room, Sunny at her heels. “I don’t know, maybe I’ll just let it slide. He was a bit…you know.” She shrugged.

“No, I
don’t
know. Could you elaborate?”

“I don’t know.
Too
good, you know. Too nice.”

“
Too
nice? Are you kidding me?” Rachel couldn’t believe her ears. She would kill to have a guy who’s biggest fault was being
too nice
. Hell, she’d just kill to have a guy, period. How could Sheri be so stupid? “Listen, this guy’s a keeper. Don’t screw this up.”

Scowling, Sheri picked Sunny up and deposited him on the couch next to her. “What do you mean, a keeper, you’ve barely met him.”

Turning to look out the window, Rachel shrugged. “He’s just the type of guy you should hold on to, you know. He’s got a job, already owns a house, he’s funny and smart.
Too
nice!” she snorted before she looked back at her best friend. “My God, what are you waiting for?”

“I’m waiting for Mr. Perfect, okay? The guy that sweeps me off my feet and two months later I still feel the excitement when he calls me, you know?”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “You’re an adrenaline junkie. You’re never going to be able to settle down with anyone if you keep looking for that all the time. Maybe you should just grow up.”

Sheri’s face contorted into an angry grimace. “Maybe you should mind your own business!”

Shocked, Rachel stared at her friend. Sheri had never raised her voice to Rachel before. In fairness, Rachel had never been so harsh before, but she was tired and her tolerance for crises was waning fast. “Listen, Sheri,
you
called
me
about this.” She got up to leave: if she wanted abuse she could get it at home.

“Hold on,” Sheri’s voice lost its edge. “I’m sorry. I’m PMSing or something. Sit down.” She patted the couch beside her. Sunny groaned a complaint. “Please?”

“I really should get going,” Rachel said, a yawn punctuating her point. “I’m zonked.”

“Just stay for a bit. I promise I won’t bite your head off anymore.”

Obediently Rachel sat back down.

“So do you really think he’s a keeper?” Sheri tilted her head.

Rachel nodded, biting her lip.
More than you know
. “Yeah, I do,” was all she said aloud.

Sheri took a deep breath. “I don’t know, I think I like his dog more than I like him.” She looked down at the sleeping Chihuahua. “Sorry Sunny, no offense. You’re still my number one guy.”

Rachel got up again and headed for the front hall. “You’d better figure out what you’re going to do. He won’t stick around forever waiting for you to come back.”

And then maybe he’ll be looking for a nice
Jewish
girl to rebound with. A nice Jewish girl who doesn’t have hang-ups about commitment and cohabitating. Rachel forced the thoughts out of her head as she slipped on her shoes. What was she thinking? Sheri was her best friend.

Sheri didn’t bother getting up off the couch. “You’re probably right, Rach. I’m being really ridiculous, I know.”

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah, thanks for the donuts and for being a good ear and shoulder combo.”

“You know it.” Rachel smiled before she let herself out the door.

Rachel took a deep breath. Score: Rachel one, Krispy Kremes, zero.

Things were looking up.

Chapter 21

“Christmas break is coming,” Tina said as she and Rachel sat in the library’s staff room, eating their respective lunches.

“Yeah, I know,” Rachel groaned. Although the Christmas season brought with it the promise of paid days off, it was bittersweet, tempered with the infusion of tons of children who were off school for the two weeks surrounding the holidays. Only the most senior library staff were allowed to book their holidays at Christmas and March breaks: the coveted golden weeks of vacation.