Significant Others

by Baron, Marilyn

  Table of Contents

  Significant Others

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One: The Jesus Tree

  Chapter Two: The Shrine

  Chapter Three: Swimming with the Sharks,

  Chapter Four: A Chicken in Every Freezer

  Chapter Five: The Silent Bullfrog

  Chapter Six: The Boss from Hell

  Chapter Seven: Swing Dancers

  Chapter Eight: Déjà vu

  Chapter Nine: The Q-Tip Brigade

  Chapter Ten: Love Letters

  Chapter Eleven: Flyboys

  Chapter Twelve: Something’s Wrong with Mom

  Chapter Thirteen: The Confrontation

  Chapter Fourteen: Facing the Music

  Chapter Fifteen: Reunions

  Chapter Sixteen: My Son Has a Million Questions

  Chapter Seventeen: I’m No Prince Charming

  Chapter Eighteen: Second Chances

  Chapter Nineteen: The Most Important Things

  Chapter Twenty: The Gift

  A word about the author...

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Also available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Significant

  Others

  by

  Marilyn Baron

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Significant Others

  COPYRIGHT © 2013 by Marilyn Baron

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

  Cover Art by Kim Mendoza

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Mainstream Edition, 2013

  Print ISBN 978-1-62830-110-6

  Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-111-3

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  I would like to dedicate this book to my mother,

  Lorraine Meyers,

  who lives in a retirement community in South Florida much like Millennium Gardens.

  And to my father,

  George Meyers,

  who was her significant other for 63 years.

  Thanks, Dad, for your bomber missions,

  which I’ve incorporated into this story.

  And to my wonderful husband,

  Steve,

  who is my significant other.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank all of my mother’s lovely friends for sharing their stories of love and second chances. Thanks also to Jana Feldman Kreisberg, who shared her wonderful stories of the fabulous mother-daughter realtor team (Jana and her mother, Natalie Feldman). And to Claudia Phelps for filling me in on the life of a realtor.

  And a special thank you to my wonderful and versatile editor, Nan Swanson, with The Wild Rose Press, Inc., who can edit in any genre and has worked with me on a variety of novels—from historical and romantic thriller to romantic suspense with paranormal elements, and now Women’s Fiction.

  Chapter One: The Jesus Tree

  One Week Before Christmas

  Atlanta, Georgia

  When my brother Donny called to tell me our mother had seen the image of Jesus in a live oak tree on the golf course behind her retirement condo in Boca Raton, I knew I had to make a pilgrimage to Millennium Gardens to answer her cry for help.

  It’s not that I’m particularly religious, but there were two major problems with this sighting. One, my mother is Jewish, so she had no business seeing Jesus in a live oak tree or any other place. Two, it was the first anniversary of my father’s death and she probably wasn’t thinking straight.

  For the past year, my mother had managed to avoid making some important decisions about the disposition of Palladino Properties, our family’s residential real estate firm in Atlanta. In her grief, Dee Dee Palladino, the other half of our award-winning mother-daughter real estate team, had all but deserted me.

  Dad’s death not only left a hollow place in my heart, it left a gap in the business that was threatening to become a sinkhole. And my mother’s extended absence was aggravating the situation. I’d done my best since the funeral to keep an eye on her. But with my busy schedule, and the fact that I worked and lived in Atlanta and she had taken up residence in Florida, my best didn’t even come close to being good enough.

  My brother was not doing much better. Donny, who used to play baseball for the Miami Kingfishers, bought the condo at Millennium Gardens in Boca for Mom after Dad died so she could be near her sister, our Aunt Helene, who also lived in The Gardens. He used it as a home away from home when he was in Miami making fan appearances and fulfilling his endorsement obligations.

  The trouble was, my mother liked being near Aunt Helene so much that she’d stayed on for the past year, leaving Donny and me to run Palladino Properties alone. And my brother, who had agreed to help me out after Dad died, was not pulling his weight. All the time he spent with my mother was time away from the business, which had put an even greater strain on me and my marriage.

  Mom still hadn’t come to grips with my father’s death. Otherwise she wouldn’t have chosen to stay in a two-bedroom condo in Boca when she had a spacious home in Atlanta, one she hadn’t stepped foot in since my Dad passed away. I knew she couldn’t face that empty house alone. So I’d given her a deadline. I was determined to bring her home by Christmas. I needed her to come back to work at Palladino Properties, and she needed work to take her mind off my father.

  But she hardly needed an artificial deadline when a real one was looming. The generous offer she’d received from billionaire investor Hammond Reddekker to acquire the family business was set to expire on Christmas Day.

  Suddenly, she’d come to the conclusion—the wrong conclusion—that she had to sell the business to Hammond Reddekker. Mr. Big-Deal Hammond Reddekker wanted to change the name of my father’s company, which meant Palladino Properties would disappear forever. I was determined to make sure my mother walked away from that deal, to preserve my father’s name and legacy and guarantee that Donny and I and my daughter, Hannah, who would hopefully join Palladino Properties when she graduated college, would always have a place in the family business.

  No one, not even one of the richest men in the country, was going to swallow up my father’s company.

  If I didn’t change my mother’s mind, my father’s entire life’s work would vanish. And for what? A few dollars? Well, actually more than a few million dollars, but that would leave nothing tangible behind. Except me. And Hannah. So it was up to me to stop the sale and bring my mother back home to Atlanta, where she belonged.

  After making my airline reservation to Ft. Lauderdale, I called my brother to let him know what time my flight would arrive the next day.

  My mother wasn’t the only one who’d been acting strange lately. My brother had been borderline secretive in the past few months...ever since my father died, really. Stanley Palladino wasn’t Donny’s biological father, but they had been as close as any father and son could be. Donny was definitely hiding something. Probably something he wasn’t telling me about our mother.

  “Have you seen the tree?” I asked, biting my b
ottom lip as I haphazardly stuffed my carry-on bag with some lightweight clothes. It seemed somehow incongruous to watch the gathering winter clouds outside my window when my bedroom was scattered with bathing suits and outfits suitable for the stifling heat of Boca. Who had time for swimming anyway, when there was work to be done?

  “Of course I’ve seen it, Honey,” he answered.

  “And could you see Him? Jesus, I mean?” I made a final walk-through of my walk-in closet, snagging my favorite silver sandals off the shelf.

  “Touchdown Jesus,” Donny replied.

  “Touchdown Jesus?”

  “His hands are in the air in a victory sign.”

  “You see sports in everything,” I said. “It’s almost Christmas. We need to have Mom packed and out of Millennium Gardens by then, in time to make the Reynolds closing. Otherwise we’ll be celebrating the holidays down in Boca.” What was the difference, really? Christmas would be like any other day, even though it was my birthday. I had nothing to celebrate this year and neither did my mother. This year didn’t even feel like Christmas.

  Of course, Christmas in Boca Raton, Florida, was hardly traditional. It never snowed in Boca. There were no ice storms like we had in Atlanta. The only signs that Christmas was in the air were the non-denominational holiday light displays hanging from the lamp posts that lined Boca’s wide boulevards. And the reindeer, gaily wrapped gifts, starfish and jellyfish, sand dollars, shells, and stylized stars they depicted couldn’t be claimed by any religion.

  “When Barbara looked at the tree from a different angle, she thought it looked like Abraham Lincoln,” my brother continued.

  “Oh,” I said, bewildered, not knowing what to make of this troubling new development. Donny’s wife Barbara was a high-powered divorce attorney, known and feared in legal circles (and in our family circle) as “Barbara the Barracuda.” These were intelligent, practical people, not normally given to flights of fancy.

  “Jackson thinks it looks like a rabbit, and the twins see Mr. Potato Head. But it’s a definite face.”

  Eight-year-old Jackson, Donny and Barbara’s midlife surprise, and his teenage twin sisters—Hayden and Taylor—were just kids, so who could blame them for imagining they saw Mr. Potato Head or wanting to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

  The conversation stalled.

  “Donny, what aren’t you telling me? Is something wrong with Mom?”

  “It depends on what you mean by wrong. She’s—”

  “She’s what?”

  “She’s getting Bat Mitzvahed.”

  “Bat Mitzvahed?” I knew I wasn’t hearing Donny correctly.

  “She’s, um, become more religious since Dad died, and, well, she’s decided to have a Bat Mitzvah.”

  “Bat Mitzvahs are for thirteen-year-olds. Hannah had a Bat Mitzvah. Hayden and Taylor had Bat Mitzvahs. Donny, that’s crazy. Women in their seventies don’t have Bat Mitzvahs.”

  “Well, she’s never had one before, so—”

  “Most women her age get facelifts. My mother is getting Bat Mitzvahed?”

  “I don’t think it’s crazy at all,” Donny said. “I think it’s nice. It’s giving her something to do. And she’s not the oldest one in her class. There are two men in their eighties and one woman who’s 94. But don’t tell her I told you. It’s supposed to be a surprise.”

  “I’m surprised, all right. Do I have to buy a Bat Mitzvah dress?”

  “If you want, I guess. Barbara’s getting a new dress.”

  I smacked my wrist against my forehead. “It’s a good thing I’m coming into town.”

  A low, vibrating sound rumbled under the bras still stacked on my bed.

  “Hey, my BlackBerry® is buzzing. I’ve got to go. I’m expecting some news on the Lake Lanier listing.”

  “You’re still using a BlackBerry? When are you going to upgrade to an iPhone?”

  “No time,” I stated.

  After we said our goodbyes and I checked my message, I called my mother and broached the subject of the tree, NOT the Bat Mitzvah.

  “So, Mom,” I began casually, wondering how I would approach her, before I gave up the pretense of delicacy and succumbed to my habit of hurtling right to the point. “Donny says you saw Jesus in a live oak tree on the golf course at Millennium Gardens.”

  “That’s right,” she answered, as if seeing Jesus was a normal, everyday occurrence. “I called Mrs. Kane from 401—she’s Catholic—and she came down to see it. She couldn’t actually see Jesus, but she said it reminded her of the time she saw the Shroud of Turin. Then she turned to me, crossed herself, and whispered, ‘Oh, Dee Dee, this is very important. You’re blessed.’

  “Mrs. Kane thinks I should take a picture and sell it on eBay, like that woman who saw an image of The Virgin Mary on a potato chip, but I want to keep it quiet,” my mother whispered into the telephone.

  “Well, then maybe you shouldn’t have told the town crier,” I couldn’t help pointing out.

  “She promised not to tell anyone.”

  “Let’s hope she doesn’t. You shouldn’t be spreading this around.” Until you’ve had a thorough psychiatric workup.

  “Mrs. Rubin in 415 thinks the face in the tree looks more like a bearded rabbi carrying a Torah.”

  Oh, so it was a non-denominational holy tree.

  “Honey, did I mention that two of the tree branches overlap in the shape of a cross?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said evenly. The situation was even worse than I thought. My mother was either going to have to convert or be institutionalized.

  “If people find out, they’re going to be flocking here, especially at Christmastime,” my mother added. “I don’t want to start a riot or turn Millennium Gardens into a circus.”

  Too late, Mom, it already is a circus. In case you didn’t know, Millennium Gardens got its name from the approximate age of its 15,000 residents. Gardens was really a misnomer. Other than some broad-based palms scattered around the complex like an afterthought, the sparse pink hibiscus bushes and some less spectacular landscaping, the complex seemed more guard-like than garden-like.

  Practically every city in South Florida had its own version of Millennium Gardens. When my mother first saw the condo, she referred to the complex as “the barracks” because of its “Early American Army” architecture and the cookie-cutter four-story tan stucco and concrete block structures that stretched into infinity. Since then, she and “the barracks” had come to terms with one another. But it was still a love-hate relationship.

  Millennium Gardens was a city within a city. I had to admit it contained just about everything a senior could want, including a medical center, roving ambulances, fire rescue vehicles, and an on-premises pharmacy, which also sold milk and deli sandwiches. It even had places of worship for every flavor of Judaism—Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform.

  The entire complex was surrounded by barbed-wire fencing to keep the rest of the world out, with the help of some jovial, uniformed Rastafarians who monitored the gates and patrolled the grounds.

  But occasionally some lost souls managed to slip out or, as my mother says, “had to be hauled away.” Just yesterday she told me about an elderly couple in a condo at the end of her hall, found curled up in each other’s arms in bed. Theirs had been a sweet and peaceful death. They weren’t exactly a “couple” in the traditional sense, because they weren’t married to each other. But they had made the decision to leave this earth together. Certainly theirs could be considered a “till death do us part” kind of commitment. And speaking of “till death do us part...”

  “Mom, do you know what tomorrow is?” I asked tentatively.

  “I don’t need you to remind me,” my mother bristled. “I don’t need a calendar. I live with your father’s death every day of my life. Of course I know what tomorrow is.”

  “I just don’t want you to be alone,” I said.

  My mother responded with a wild, shrill laugh.

  “Alone? Honey, I am alone. I’
ve been alone for 364 days.”

  “Well, I wanted to be there for you tomorrow, so I’m coming down.”

  “So come. It’s a free country.”

  “Mom,” I pleaded, massaging the spot on my scalp like I do when I’m getting a headache. “I miss him too.”

  “I know,” she answered faintly.

  I held the phone tightly while she cried into the mouthpiece and I tried my best not to. The sound of my mother’s tears unnerved me.

  The BlackBerry was buzzing again. I looked at the message. I needed to call this client back as soon as possible. But my mother might be delusional or, at the very least, confused. I seriously doubt she really saw Jesus in that tree, though she firmly believed she did. I’m convinced Mom just needed something to hang on to. I think the fragility of life was partially responsible for her anxiety and for what she saw—or thought she saw—in that tree on the golf course.

  “Fran from down the hall was rushed to the hospital a few days ago. She never came home. It was complications from pneumonia. She had a do-not-resuscitate order.”

  “Mom, I’m sorry. I know you and Fran were good friends.”

  “The funeral is tomorrow morning.”

  “Do you have a ride?”

  “Yes.”

  People were dying all around my mother. Her complex was like a warehouse for the dead. I had to get her out of there.

  My mother was obviously trying to tie up loose ends. She was divesting. According to my mother, by the time she entered assisted living, she’d be down to a shoebox, into which would fit all of her possessions. Then another resident would steal the shoebox and she’d have nothing left.

  Recently, some of my Mom’s friends had traveled that route, that downward path from independent living to assisted living to a nursing home, and from there to hospice and after that, who knew?

  She didn’t think I knew what she was doing, but even I could see she was planning for the end. She’d passed on her recipes for chicken soup and matzo balls and her challah-egg soufflé to me, and her recipe for potato latkes and split pea soup, which I had dutifully passed on to Hannah.

  “Look, Mom, I’ve got to return a call, but I’ll see you tomorrow morning, okay?” I said, my voice faltering.