Good Riddance(32)

I asked when Jeremy had ever come up in conversation. “Not ours. I had a brief conversation with him right outside your door. He introduced himself. I picked up a little . . . what would I call it? . . . maybe fond goodwill.”

“We can’t help seeing each other. I mean, he lives a few yards away.”

“I got the sense it was more than that. Or it could be.”

“I wouldn’t call it dating. It’s visits. With no strings attached.”

“Which is okay with you?”

“I set the ground rules myself: friends with benefits. Is that hard for a dad to hear?”

“I’m not easily shocked, not after thirty-six years as a high school principal, most of it during the sexual revolution.”

Oh, the phrases that were passing between the divorced daughter and the widowed dad these days! “What’s your next step?” I asked.

“If you mean with Kathi, I’m taking it one appointment at a time. She says Sammi gets excited even before the doorbell rings, as if she knows it’s me and walkie time.”

With his sounding happy and optimistic, I risked saying, “One more thing, Dad . . . I don’t want to walk on eggshells, don’t want the mention of either Geneva’s movie or even, God forbid, Peter Armstrong to make you freak out again. I don’t want any more calls from booking rooms of police stations.”

“We had an agreement,” he said quietly. “I had a good reason to, as you put it, freak out.”

“Who had an agreement? Us?”

“No, with your mother. And with Armstrong—that he’d never intrude on your life; that if he did, there would be consequences! He had no legal standing. None! Obviously, his word meant nothing. Obviously, he’s a man—and state senator and member of the bar—without honor!”

Why had I veered off the cheerful topic of his new lady friend? “When did you say you’re next walking Sammi?” I tried.

“Tomorrow!”

“Will you let me know how it goes?”

“I will. Any advice for your old man on how these things should proceed nowadays?”

My old man. Thank goodness he still thought of himself that way. “Okay,” I said. “How’s this: Over coffee or sherry, presumably as you’re enjoying a very pleasant talk, you say, ‘Can we continue this conversation over dinner?’”

I heard him rehearse softly. “Shall we continue this conversation over dinner some evening?”

“She’ll jump at it. Believe me. She’s already told her friends about you.”

“I doubt that, but wish me luck.”





17


Holden’s Willing Accomplice



I wrote to my ex-husband via his lawyer, requesting the following: an infrared thermometer, two silicone baking sheets, a silicone spatula, a dozen dipping forks and spoons, parchment paper, nesting glass bowls, candy molds, sea salt, superfine sugar, pistachios, dried cherries, and a bain-marie, preferably Meltinchoc brand. I knew I’d get most of the things on that list—not because Holden was generous, but because in the same letter, purely for leverage, I asked for a two-bedroom apartment.

The lawyer crossed the edibles, the parchment, the Meltinchoc, and the apartment off my list just to show who was boss and as an unspoken reminder of the get-nothing prenup I’d signed.

Jeremy was proving to be a good audience for both my progress on the confection front and for all anecdotes that vilified my ex. I noticed the funny look I got the first time I pronounced my ex’s fancy moniker. He asked me to repeat it, then said if it had been a regular-guy name—a Joe or a Dave or even a Geoffrey with a G—he’d be less judgmental. But Holden? So pretentious and lit-ambitious. What was the story there?

I told him it was a family name, that the first son in every generation got it, like it or not, a century before Catcher in the Rye.

Further empathic questions: Were these in-laws nice to you? Did they take sides in the divorce? Did they know what he was up to, marrying you to kick-start his trust fund?

I said his father was out of the picture, the apple having fallen not far from the adulterous tree. His mother was a sharp cookie, nice enough when I was the shadow daughter-in-law but ultimately possessing a heart of plutonium. Her name was Bibi, short for nothing. She’d had Holden late; the most personal thing she’d ever confided was that he was conceived on her fortieth birthday after a surprise party, after they’d given up hope. At our first meeting, family heirloom on my ring finger, she stated that she was relieved that her bachelor son was settling down with a woman who wasn’t . . . well, you know.

I said, “No, tell me.”

“A woman my generation would have called easy.”

I should’ve dropped it there, but instead I asked, “Did you meet many of these women?”

“Some.”

“And what gave you the impression they were easy?”

“You can tell. Sometimes it’s the makeup or the clothes or the way they carry themselves.”

I saw her practically never during my short marriage. Family dinners consisted of Holden having Manhattans and not much else at his mother’s apartment, solo. After the first few of these exclusionary suppers, I smelled a conspiracy. Was he unhappy and confiding in her? Or had I become as unfortunate a choice as the skanky also-rans? Evidence to the contrary and always reassuring: He’d come home with a beautifully wrapped cashmere cardigan or an evening purse I’d never use, or an Hermès scarf with a note that said, “For no reason! Kisses, Bibi.”