Hostile Makeover

by Wendy Wax

  “Is there going to be a doctor here?”

  “No,” Nina interjected, eager to share her knowledge. “They’re going to use a mohel—that’s a specialist who just does circumcisions.”

  “He goes from place to place cutting off the tips of penises?” If possible, Trey’s face went a shade greener.

  “Well, it’s not a random thing,” Shelley promised as she led him over to introduce him to the proud grandmother. “I think your manhood is safe.”

  Shelley leaned over to hug and kiss Sarah Mendelsohn. “Trey,” she said, “this is my aunt Sarah.” Trey stuck out his hand, but Sarah enveloped him in a motherly hug. “So you’re the one Shelley’s seeing.” She looked him up and down. “Very nice, Shelley.” She winked. “I’d make sure he’s standing at the back of the room.”

  “Where’s Uncle Abe?”

  Sarah pointed toward the bar area. Abe stood with his back to her, her father on one side. Ross Morgan was on the other. Shelley decided those greetings could wait.

  “Have you seen Paul yet?”

  “No,” Shelley said.

  There was a loud baby’s wail.

  “I don’t blame him one bit,” Trey said under his breath as they turned toward the sound. “Maybe he’s heard what’s going to happen.”

  “Oh, here’s Ilana.” Sarah motioned her daughter-in-law over.

  Shelley hugged Paul’s wife and gazed down at the baby. “Very cute.”

  The new father joined them and slid an arm around his wife’s shoulders.

  Shelley kissed her old friend on the cheek. “You did good. And fortunately for everyone he doesn’t seem to resemble you at all.”

  “Ha!” Paul gave Nina a hug and shook hands with Trey. “And I’m not letting any bossy girls put frogs in his diaper, either.”

  Shelley smiled. “Ha, yourself!”

  Her mother descended on them, a plate of desserts intended for the sweets table in her hands. “There you are,” she said to Shelley with an air kiss. “Nina.”

  Shelley braced for the “See what Paul and Ilana have produced, when are you going to settle down and start producing grandchildren” conversation, but her mother just stepped back and contemplated Trey for a moment. “And this is?”

  “Mom, this is Trey Davenport. Trey, my mother, Miriam Schwartz.”

  Trey extended his hand and bowed his head formally. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” His manners were automatic and were probably honed at cotillions and debutante balls. Trey was very cute and formidable in his own way, but she didn’t think he’d ever gone mano a mano with a Jewish mother before.

  Sarah looked on with interest. Miriam stepped closer, an Inquisitional gleam in her eye.

  “Stockbroker,” Shelley replied before her mother could get started. “Morgan Stanley. Ole Miss.” She flashed them both a warning look. “No.” The last was intended to keep the question of religion unasked.

  “Well, then.” Her mother’s smile was brittle. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, too. You won’t want to miss the blintzes and sour cream. I make them from an old family recipe.”

  Shelley found herself hoping Trey wouldn’t ask what a blintz was. Maybe she should have given him a study sheet or sent him to the rabbi with Nina.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Trey loosened his tie a bit and flashed his beautiful smile. He towered over Miriam physically, but he was sunny and unencumbered with any noticeable sort of agenda. There was no question in Shelley’s mind which of them possessed the greater force of will. Her mother could have him for breakfast. “I’ll be sure and do that.”

  Her mother’s lips pursed. “Sarah, come take a look at the dessert table and tell me what you think.”

  The two women smiled, nodded, and scurried off, though Shelley doubted it was a food emergency that propelled them. More likely a dating dilemma they were going to try to solve—hers.

  She spotted Judy carrying a coffee urn toward a table and sent her a quick wave. Craig stood with a group of other businessmen, but though Judy passed by her husband on numerous occasions as she helped set up the food tables, neither ever moved into the other’s orbit. The sight of them so separate niggled at Shelley; there’d been a time when neither of them could have passed by the other without a smile or a touch. She knew, because she could still remember the stab of jealousy she’d felt at their obvious attraction—as if some sort of compass or magnet drew them into each other’s sphere whether they meant to or not.

  When she could avoid it no longer, Shelley led Nina and Trey toward her father’s circle.

  “Hi, Daddy. Uncle Abe. Ross.” She gave and received hugs and kisses from the two older men. Nina did the same. Trey nodded genially and shook hands all around.

  She watched Ross Morgan assess Nina and relaxed slightly when he didn’t light up like most men automatically did in her presence. Then she watched him consider and dismiss Trey, which rankled. His gaze ended up on her.

  “Ross tells me you’ve sold Brian Simms on an L.A. shoot. And got him to agree to use professional talent. Never thought I’d see that day.” Her father turned to Abe. “You, I understand, are going to be a star.”

  “Our Shelley is very impressive when she puts her mind to it.” Abe Mendelsohn beamed at her. “I didn’t even know Ross here had vocal cords the first time I met him.” He slapped Ross on the back and grinned.

  Ross raised an eyebrow at her. “I’d been threatened with a fate worse than death. She wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise.”

  Shelley snorted at the understatement, but she didn’t call him on it. As the six of them conversed, she felt him dominating the group, and that rankled, too.

  It wasn’t that he monopolized the conversation or sought attention, but somehow everyone seemed to address their comments to him. In response he made these dead-on observations and flashed his incredibly droll wit. He and Trey were both tall and blond and blue-eyed, but while Ross exuded an air of command and a total ease with his surroundings, Trey looked like a sweet, towheaded schoolboy who had somehow wandered out of his milieu.

  The swirl of conversation in the room changed slightly and people began to move.

  “Oh, boy.” Nina gestured toward the other end of the room. “It looks like they’re getting ready to start.”

  “Excuse me.” Abe left to go find Sarah. Her father went to join a group of his cronies at the other end of the living room, where the rabbi and mohel were preparing for the ceremony.

  “Come on,” Nina said. “I want to be up front.”

  Trey put down his drink and swallowed. His face turned a bit greener and his blue eyes telegraphed his panic. Ross’s eyes glinted with amusement.

  “It’s OK,” Shelley said, taking Trey’s arm. “We’re going to stay back here.” She shot Morgan a look. “I don’t like to get too close.”

  Trey licked his lips nervously and fell back a step. “How can you look so calm, Morgan?”

  Ross shrugged. “You just put your mind somewhere else, and before you know it,” he snapped his fingers merrily, “it’s over.” He looked from Trey to Shelley and his smile turned wicked. “It’s the adult male converts I worry about. Imagine getting ready to go through this, knowing what’s going to happen. There’s not enough sacramental wine in the world to make that palatable.”

  Shelley gritted her teeth. “Very funny.” She waved him off. “Go away. We’re staying back here. There’s no rule that says you have to watch.”

  “Ross can come with me,” Nina said. “I don’t want to miss anything. Maybe I can score a few brownie points with Rabbi Jordan by showing him how comfortable I am in this setting.”

  The two of them made their way to the front of the room, and took a spot right behind the baby’s godfather, who was now taking the baby from its mother and stepping forward toward the mohel. Silence fell as the baby’s gown was lifted and his diaper undone. The ancient Hebrew words, repeated in this very situation for thousands of years, rang out.

  “Oh, God,” Trey groaned.
“Is it hot in here?” He clawed at his necktie.

  The chanted Hebrew was a distant murmur in the back of her mind as she turned her thoughts elsewhere. Trey’s discomfort, the Simms shoot, the pride in Paul Mendelsohn’s face as he looked down at his son. Ross Morgan.

  Realizing her gaze had strayed along with her thoughts, she pulled it back from the broad shoulders and blond head at the front of the room next to Nina. Spotting Great-aunt Sonya perched on a couch to her right, Shelley took Trey’s now clammy hand in hers and signaled him to follow her. Leading him quietly through the press of bodies, they sank down next to her great-aunt.

  “I prefer this view myself.” Aunt Sonya nodded toward the sea of backs in front of them.

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  “Your young man doesn’t look so good.”

  Shelley looked over at Trey. Aunt Sonya was right. “I think he’s got some sort of stomach bug.”

  Aunt Sonya cackled. “You could have picked an easier family occasion to expose him to.” She gave her a considering look. “Unless you’re trying to drive him off?”

  Was she? She considered the questioning gleam in Aunt Sonya’s eyes. A baby naming, a Friday night dinner, even a temple service might have felt alien to Trey, but not quite so inherently threatening. Had she wanted him to be uncomfortable?

  “Does he play tennis?”

  “Hmmm?” Shelley refocused on her aunt. She knew her mind had wandered, but the leap from circumcision to tennis was pretty astronomical.

  “I organized a mixed doubles game for Saturday morning, and the other team canceled. Would you two come play?”

  Her eighty-two-year-old great-aunt Sonya on a tennis court? Shelley blinked and tried to picture it. “Trey’s into extreme sports, Aunt Sonya,” Shelley whispered as a loud wail split the room. “I don’t think he plays tennis.”

  A loud female wail followed the baby’s, and there was a collective gasp at the front of the room. Then came the thud of something solid hitting the floor.

  “Oh, God, what was that?” Trey moaned.

  Before she could reassure him the sound was way too loud for a falling foreskin, his eyes rolled back in his head. There was another moan as he crumpled and slid boneless to the floor.

  Shelley fell to her knees to try to revive him while her great-aunt Sonya sprang up and craned her neck for a better view. A shocked silence gave way to a buzz of excited conversation.

  “Trey, get up,” she whispered in his ear. “It’s all over.”

  Beside her, Great-aunt Sonya went up on tiptoe in an attempt to see over the people in front of them. The murmuring grew. Soon it was accompanied by muffled laughter.

  Shelley was still trying to revive Trey when the crowd parted. She dropped Trey’s hand and looked up as Ross Morgan stepped in front of them. He had a body slung over his shoulder and a pair of long legs hanging down his chest. He held them in place with a hand across the backs of the thighs just below the buttocks.

  The buttocks were Nina’s.

  “Where do you want her?” Ross didn’t laugh, even though it was clear he wanted to.

  Shelley motioned to the sofa she and Aunt Sonya had just vacated and he deposited Nina in a corner of it. Without asking, he bent down and hefted Trey off the floor and propped him against the opposite arm. They looked like a pair of blond bookends.

  “What happened?” Shelley asked, though it was obvious.

  “The same thing that apparently happened here. I guess the reality was a little too . . . real.”

  “Oh, my God,” Nina moaned. “I am so humiliated. Did the rabbi see me go down?”

  Shelley looked at her friend, then over at Trey, who was also starting to come to. “Can somebody get a glass of water?” she shouted.

  Ross looked from Nina to Trey. Shelley wanted to wipe the smile off his face, except she was having a hard time beating back her own.

  “It looks like you’re zero for two today,” he observed. “Not exactly a staunch showing for the Schwartz contingent.”

  “Very funny.”

  Aunt Sonya stepped forward and swept her gaze down Ross Morgan’s body. Shelley blushed on his behalf.

  “What about this one?” her aunt asked. “Does he play tennis?”

  “Aunt Sonya, I have no idea, and I don’t think—”

  Ross got that wicked gleam in his eye again and she knew she wasn’t going to like what came next.

  “I’ve been known to swing a racquet now and then,” he said smoothly.

  “Good.” Her aunt gave him a nod, then turned back to Shelley. “Bring him with you Saturday morning at ten, and we’ll see what he’s made of.”

  “Aunt Sonya,” Shelley said, “this is a really bad idea. Ross and I have never even played together.” Why did everything seem to spiral out of control when he was around? She shot him a “Get lost” look, which he ignored, so she was forced to turn her back to him and practically whisper to her aunt. “We don’t even really like each other.”

  “Save your excuses for the court, girl,” her great-aunt Sonya said with a smile for Ross. “I’ll see you both there Saturday morning. Horace and I haven’t lost a match this season. And I don’t intend for us to start now.”

  chapter 19

  Because it was a weekday, the crowd at the Mendelsohns’ thinned quickly. Shelley and her contingent were among the first to leave, but Judy stayed to help clean up. She took a break from her duties to walk Craig out. On the Mendelsohns’ wraparound porch he placed an underwhelming peck on her cheek and patted down his pockets in search of his car keys.

  “I was thinking about chicken on the grill tonight,” she said to his chest. “What time do you think you’ll be home?”

  He stopped patting and looked at her with barely disguised impatience. “I have a dinner tonight with the new client I told you about—the investment group out of Minneapolis. It’s been on the calendar for weeks.”

  “Right.” When had their schedule become too much for her to keep up with? What had happened to her organizational zeal?

  His cell phone rang. As he pulled it out of his pocket he focused on some point just to the side of her. “Can you pick up my gray suit from the cleaners?” He was already bringing the phone to his ear as he added, “And don’t forget the red tie. I hope to hell they got the gravy stain out of it.”

  She stood on the porch and watched him drive off, torn as she always was lately, by a vague sense of disappointment and a not-so-vague flash of anger at how easily he dismissed her.

  After a few steadying breaths, she forced herself back into the kitchen, where her mother and Sarah were dissecting the morning’s happenings. Picking up an empty Tupperware container, Judy began to spoon chopped liver into it.

  “I still can’t believe they both fainted,” her mother said.

  “Amazing, wasn’t it?” Sarah said. “I thought that Trey business was made of sterner stuff. He looked too . . . buff . . . to pass out.”

  Judy looked up from the chopped liver. Had Sarah Mendelsohn really used the word “buff”?

  “Pfft.” Her mother dismissed him. “All of Shelley’s dates are tall and blond and . . . buff.” The word sounded just as strange on her mother’s lips. Her tone made it clear the word was not intended as a compliment. “What good is buff when the going gets tough?”

  “She’s young yet. She’ll figure it out.” Sarah dipped a knife into the container Judy was filling and smeared a thin layer of chopped liver onto a piece of bagel.

  “She’s not so young.” Miriam shook her head. “And if I left it to her she’d never go out with anyone remotely appropriate. Look at your Paul, all settled down and giving you grandbabies.” She smiled at Judy, then reached over to bracket her cheeks in one hand. “Thank God I raised one sensible daughter.”

  Sensible. Normally Judy would have taken pride in the word, would have accepted her mother’s approval as confirmation of the rightness of her life. Today the word rang hollow.

  “I’ve got to get going.�
� Judy covered the container of chopped liver and shoved it into the refrigerator, then pulled off the apron she’d drawn on over her new suit. “Mazel tov, Aunt Sarah.” She bent and pressed a kiss to both women’s cheeks. “Mom.” She collected her purse and moved to the kitchen door. “I’ll call you later.”

  And then she was sprinting out the door, trying to escape the horrible stifling fact that her whole life could be summed up in that one suddenly unappealing word. “Sensible.”

  That was her, the eminently sensible and completely dismissible Judy Schwartz Blumfeld.

  Shelley arrived at Howard Mellnick’s office for her Friday afternoon appointment rushed and out of breath. Taking her seat, she contemplated the therapist with affection. Actually, she seemed to be contemplating the whole world through some strange rosy glow. She tried to stifle her smile as he contemplated her back, but the corners of her lips kept tugging upward.

  “You look . . . happy,” he finally said in wonder. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “I feel fabulous.”

  He didn’t comment, just let one of his eyebrows go up, but she could see an answering smile playing on his lips.

  “I hope that’s not going to be a problem,” she said.

  “I’ll try to get over it.” He went ahead and smiled. “To what do we owe this startling situation?”

  “Well . . .” She thought about it for a moment, but even trying to analyze it didn’t dim the internal glow. “For one thing, I blew everybody away this morning with my presentations. Uncle Abe signed on to everything I suggested. And he kept shaking his head and rubbing his chin and saying how he couldn’t wait to call my father and tell him what a great job I was doing. That was my nine o’clock meeting.”

  Mellnick’s smile grew.

  “At ten-thirty, Fadah Awadallah told me he loved the proposal for his Falafel Shacks. We’re going to concentrate on building his Atlanta presence and then look at introducing him around the southeast. Then Wiley Haynes came in for lunch. He was a little harder to sell, but he’s agreed to my plan to market Tire World to women. Judy’s doing an incredible job on his grand opening, and I know the coverage is going to be huge.”