Hostile Makeover

by Wendy Wax

Craig’s shoulders slumped. When she met his eyes, they were troubled. “I just don’t get it. I love her and I thought she loved me. How did everything get so complicated?”

  “I don’t know,” Shelley said as she stood and drew her purse over her shoulder, “I’ve been asking myself that question a lot lately. I’ll let you know if I come up with any answers.”

  Judy studied her younger son surreptitiously as she drove him to Hebrew school. On the outside, Sammy looked the same; he had the same unruly dark hair that he refused to have cut, the same dark eyes that were so much like her own. But there was a new fragility about him that hadn’t been there before. He was careful of what he said, as if he was thinking out each word before he uttered it. Jason had grown surlier and more independent, seeking more and more attention in her absence; Sammy had done just the opposite; shrinking into himself and becoming quieter by the day.

  “So how was school today?” she asked too brightly.

  “OK.”

  “Did the math test go all right?”

  “Yes.”

  Judy turned onto Mayfair, the street on which their temple was located, and slowed for a light. “What does your Hebrew tutor say about your progress?”

  The light turned red, so she was able to watch his face. He blanched and swallowed. Sammy had always been the world’s worst liar.

  “Good. He said I’m, um, right on track.” He turned his head and looked out the passenger window.

  “You know, if you feel you need extra help, we can always set that up. Steve Reinholt had lessons twice a week right up until the week before his bar mitzvah.”

  He turned back to face her and she thought he might say something more revealing, but then the light turned green and she was forced to pay attention to the road.

  “I’m fine,” he said, as she pulled up to the circular drive of the temple. “You don’t need to do anything or call anyone.” He gathered his book bag and grabbed the door handle. “Everything’s going OK.”

  She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek and breathed in the scent of boy. “Good,” she said, “I’m glad to hear it. Give my best to Mr. Pinkhas. And call me tonight before you go to bed.”

  “Sure, Mom. Thanks.” Then he was out of the car and walking up the walkway, his skinny shoulders squared and set. She waited until he went inside. Then she drove out of the temple parking lot and into the crowded lot of an office building across the street, where she’d have an unobstructed view of the temple.

  Turning off the car, she settled in to wait.

  chapter 29

  In less than ten minutes Judy saw her son exit the rear of the temple. He looked both ways before stepping outside, then walked quickly to the sidewalk and took a right toward the closest intersection.

  His clothes were baggy and the oversized button-down shirt he wore open over his T-shirt flapped backward in the breeze. Feeling slightly silly and more than a little afraid of what she might discover, Judy merged into traffic and followed at a discreet distance. No one had ever told her that motherhood would require surveillance and shadowing. She drove along, afraid he’d suddenly turn and spot her before she discovered where he was going, but Sammy Blumfeld just kept trucking, his body and head bopping to whatever song he had blaring from his iPod.

  With her heart in her throat, Judy followed through two intersections. He was headed toward Upper Roswell, a four-lane highway, where it would be harder to follow. She tried to guess where he might be going but all her guesses scared her to death. He was only twelve and a half, but she’d heard all the suburban horror stories.

  Her heart beat faster. Some drug dealer had lured her little boy into an ugly world; worse, some unscrupulous girl had sunk her claws into him and made him her sex slave. Oh, how had she let this happen?

  On the corner before the major intersection, Sammy took a right into a strip mall parking lot. Head still bobbing to the music, hands shoved in his sagging pockets, he walked without hesitation. It was obvious he’d traversed this route before.

  Her son, her baby, was headed for who knew what.

  Waiting in the turn lane as long as she could, Judy scanned the strip mall, which she’d passed a million times but never really paid attention to. A beep from behind forced her to make the turn into the lot. Slowly, careful not to call attention to herself, she slid her BMW into a spot between two parked cars.

  Leaving the car running, she held her breath as she watched Sammy bop across the lot, oblivious to everything around him.

  He went into a McDonald’s.

  Trembling with relief, she drove closer to the fast-food restaurant. Her child might overdose on French fries or caffeine, but it was unlikely he was going to have his virginity snatched or good name sullied under the golden arches.

  After taking a few minutes to compose herself, she took a parking space on the opposite side of the McDonald’s and entered.

  She spotted him right away, sitting at a two-seater near the window, wolfing down a super-size combo meal. He was still wearing his headphones. His head bopped occasionally to the beat.

  Judy walked up and stopped in front of him.

  The bopping stopped. A French fry froze halfway to his mouth.

  Shock and horror crossed his face, and then she saw something that resembled relief. She reached over and removed the headphones from his head. The tinny, once-removed sound of a rap song blared out.

  “What are you doing here?” Sammy asked.

  “That’s my line.” Judy sank into the molded plastic seat across from him. “What happened to Hebrew school?”

  “They canceled today. They—”

  “Don’t,” she said. “Mrs. Kaplan called me. I know you’ve been skipping. And I don’t believe it’s because you had a Big Mac attack.”

  Sammy pushed the food away.

  “Tell me what’s going on, Sam.”

  “I hate Hebrew school and I don’t want to have a bar mitzvah.”

  Judy looked at her son. Her first instinct was to inform him that what he wanted didn’t matter. She prepared to mow down his objections, just as her mother would have mowed down hers. But how could his objections not matter? “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want some big fancy party with people pinching my cheeks and gushing all over me. Because I’m not Jason, and I hate performing. If I go up there and do this, everyone’s going to be comparing me to him.”

  He looked her directly in the eye and she saw the anguish in his. “Because I can’t pretend we’re some big happy family when everything’s falling apart and you don’t even live with us anymore.”

  “But—” Judy began, but stopped herself. All the things she was getting ready to say, every glib phrase that sprang to her lips, were things her mother would have said. Some of them would be true, but none of them were valid. She had spent her entire life trying to please her mother. And then she’d expected her own children to please her.

  Her normally silent child had spoken. Quite eloquently. How could she ignore what he’d said?

  “I’m so sorry,” Judy said quietly.

  “What?” Sammy stopped slumping. He sat up and looked at her.

  “I said, I’m sorry. I should have asked how you felt about this before I went off and started planning everything. And I should have talked to you about what’s going on between your father and me. I’ve been an absolute imbecile.”

  Sammy smiled. It was, she realized, the first time she’d seen him do that in a very long time.

  “I haven’t been paying attention.” She reached out to take her son’s hand, and felt herself smile in return when he didn’t shake her off. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  He dropped his eyes then and looked embarrassed. “Everything’s been so weird with you gone. And I didn’t think it would make any difference.”

  Judy’s heart ached for him, for her family, for the state it was in. She wanted to reassure him, but she didn’t want to lie. “You have to speak up about what’s important t
o you. You have to tell people what you want, especially the people you love. And who love you.”

  A tear slid down her cheek. “I love you and Jason more than anything. And I need you to tell me when something’s not right. How you feel, what you think and want. Otherwise, how can I help?”

  She squeezed her son’s hand hard, and held on to it as the realization hit her. She’d complained and stomped out of the house, but in the end she hadn’t done any better than her twelve-year-old son. Sammy hid out at McDonald’s; she was hiding at Shelley’s. But both of them had given up without communicating, both of them had expected the other party to understand what they needed and somehow provide it without specific direction.

  “I’m sorry, Sweetie-P.” She called him by the nickname she’d used since she brought him home from the hospital. “I dropped the ball. You needed me and I wasn’t there for you. That won’t happen again.”

  He smiled again; a sweet smile that spoke of what was inside him. “It’s OK, Mom. But you better come home soon. We had pizza and hamburgers every night last week and the house looks awful; I don’t think any of us have any clean underwear left.”

  Judy speared him with a look. “Your father made it through Emory Law and you and your brother are on the honor roll. I have complete confidence that between you, you can figure out how to run the washing machine.”

  He wolfed down the rest of his Big Mac and drained the last of his drink. Then he gathered up the wrapper and empty cup. She waited as he dropped them in the garbage.

  “I’m not exactly sure what’ll happen next, Sammy. Your daddy and I have a lot of things to work out. But we both love you; we’ll figure out the whole bar mitzvah thing. In the meantime, no more skipping class or tutoring, OK?”

  He nodded solemnly and she reached out to cup the smooth curve of his cheek. It was still downy-soft and sweet to the touch. “Come on, I’ll drive you back to temple. The size of the ‘event’ is open for discussion; the studying isn’t.”

  Now that Shelley had turned in her notice, time somehow both telescoped and flew. Her last two weeks passed in a blur of meetings and crisis management as she discovered, to her amazement, just how unhappy her clients were to see her go.

  In between meetings and client hand-holding, she did her best to avoid Ross Morgan, but suddenly the place was much too small for the both of them.

  Every time she turned around, he was there, being in charge, the epitome of a fearless leader. Or she was forced to hear someone talking about him.

  Gossip about the upcoming sale and merger filled the halls of Schwartz and Associates, which would soon be known as Miller-Schwartz; everyone buzzed about who would stay and who would be forced to go. Since her fate was already known, Shelley occupied a position slightly above the fray, and, she discovered not at all happily, outside the loop, so that she was reduced to eavesdropping over the coffee machine like everyone else.

  “I heard Ross is going to be worth a bundle before this is all through,” said one wide-eyed sales assistant.

  “That man is hot,” agreed another.

  The two giggled.

  “Even without the money he’s a keeper,” one of Luke Skyler’s trainees chimed in.

  Shelley gritted her teeth and moved on, but wherever she went, the talk was the same.

  “I can’t believe how well Morgan is going to come out of all of this,” an account executive remarked.

  “A born leader, that’s what I think.”

  “The transition went so smoothly, I hardly noticed the old man was gone.”

  Everyone had an opinion or some small piece of Morgan trivia to add. Everyone kept buzzing. It was enough to make a girl sick.

  Shelley kept her head down and tried not to think about what would come next. She tried not to dwell on how little of her father she saw. Or the fact that when they met they were both so painfully polite.

  The truth was, she’d made no progress with any of the things she’d promised her mother. Judy, who had not yet heard from Craig, continued to dither over her next move. They sat at Shelley’s kitchen table hashing it out over Thai takeout.

  “Every time I think about Sammy sitting in that McDonald’s hiding out from Hebrew school, it makes me want to cry. And if Jason gets any surlier, I swear I’ll scream.”

  “Maybe you should go home.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?” Shelley didn’t even want to think about how empty her condo would feel when Judy was gone.

  “Because that would be admitting defeat. Craig and I have to discuss this, figure things out. But I keep trying to get him on the phone and he refuses to talk to me.” She dropped her chopsticks onto her plate. “Oh, God, what if he’s decided he’s happier without me?”

  “Are you happier without him?” Shelley asked.

  Judy looked at her hopelessly. “No. It’s just all so caught up together, you know? The anger and resentment got so big it became impossible to separate it all out. I hate not being there for the kids, but I’m so confused about how to get through to Craig. Why hasn’t he called?”

  Why indeed? If he didn’t act soon, Miriam Schwartz was going to get out her cattle prod.

  “But you’re not, um, seeing Brett O’Connor anymore?” Shelley broached the subject carefully; she’d cut out her tongue before she asked how far that had gone.

  “No. Well, not exactly.”

  Shelley was afraid to ask what that meant. “But Craig and the boys will be at the Tire World grand opening, right? Maybe you can talk there.” Even Shelley could hear what a stupid idea that was. A grand opening was not the place for soul-searching.

  “I sent them an invitation,” Judy said, “but I sent one to Brett, too.”

  “Great,” Shelley said. “If things get slow we can have them duel it out at forty paces.”

  “Ha!” Judy didn’t sound or look at all amused. “Craig’s more likely to ask Brett what he sees in me. I don’t think my husband’s exactly lying awake nights trying to figure out how to get me back.”

  On her last day at Schwartz and Associates, Shelley walked out of the building with a cardboard box full of the “stuff” she’d accumulated: her favorite chipped coffee mug, an ancient gap-toothed photo of her nephews, a travel-size box of tampons. She left early, ostensibly to get prepared for that night’s grand opening. Her sister, whose “stuff” fit in her Louis Vuitton bag, went with her.

  “I can’t believe how strange this feels.” Shelley stopped to look back over her shoulder at the office building. “I mean, I’ll probably never set foot in that place again.”

  “Yeah,” Judy said as they let their gazes travel over the converted warehouse. “I don’t understand what’s going on with Daddy, but it’s their loss.”

  “Too bad it took me so long to figure out how good I am at this.” Shelley repositioned her box on one hip. “Who knows what I might have accomplished if I’d been serious from the beginning.”

  They began to walk across the parking lot.

  “Well, it’s not as if you’re too old to find another job,” Judy pointed out helpfully.

  “That’s true.” Shelley put her box in the trunk of her car. “But who’s going to hire me? My own father pretty much sold the business out from under me. That’s not what I’d call a glowing reference.”

  “It’ll work out,” Judy said, though Shelley couldn’t help noticing her voice didn’t exactly ring with certainty.

  “Yeah, definitely.” Shelley’s voice didn’t sound particularly full of certainty, either. They leaned against the trunk of Shelley’s car, both of them oddly reluctant to leave.

  Shelley studied her sister for a long moment.

  “I hope I don’t look as droopy as you do,” Shelley said.

  Judy snorted. “You’d have to perk up to be droopy.”

  Shelley took in her sister’s sagging shoulders, the chin tucked into her chest. They were acting like whipped dogs, slinking away with their tails between their legs. If Ross Morgan was look
ing out his window right now, he’d know how completely he’d beaten her.

  She definitely shouldn’t have canceled her standing appointment with Howard Mellnick.

  “I hate to admit it,” Shelley said, “but I am so in the mood for one of those famous Jewish whines.”

  “Oh, no.” Judy shook her head.

  “Oh, yes. Are you with me?”

  Judy looked over her shoulder, she looked all around to make sure they were alone. “Oh, all right. But just one.”

  “OK.” Shelley was already starting to smile. “On the count of three.” Three fingers later they began to whine in unison: “I don’t waaaaaaaant to go to Miami.”

  The whine hung in the air around them and then began to dissipate. They were both smiling.

  “Feeling any better?” Judy asked.

  Shelley straightened. “Actually, yes. And you know what?” She brushed her skirt and hunted in her purse. “I’m not showing up tonight feeling sorry for myself.” She pulled out her cell phone. “I’m going to have a facial. And then I’m going to get my hair and nails done.” She hit speed dial for the Darnell Day Spa. “And while I’m there I’m going to get everything waxed.” Shelley looked at Judy. “Are you with me?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Judy straightened, too, and moved toward her car. “See if Joseph’s got an opening. Otherwise, I’ll take Maria. Tonight’s our night. We are required to look hot.”

  “You’ve got that right.”

  Shelley booked every afternoon appointment available. Then they both turned to take one last look at Schwartz and Associates. “I don’t know what it is,” Shelley said, “but I’m feeling this really strange compulsion to shake my fist at Ross Morgan’s window and say ‘I’ll be baaaaack.’ ”

  Judy laughed. “You go, Shelley Schwarzenegger. That man hasn’t heard the last of you.”

  That night, freshly buffed, gowned, and made-up, Shelley and Judy stood side by side in the middle of the sales floor of Atlanta’s newest Tire World. To their right, the line for the ladies’ room snaked halfway out the door as Atlanta society matrons and Jewish suburbanites waited their turn to oohh and ahhh over interior designer Jacques Dumas’s Rococo Revival bathroom.