“I quit,” Julie yelled.
Jill, her mother, stormed out the door after her.
“And where are you going?” Mel yelled as all the customers watched.
“Just back off Mel!” Jill yelled with a look and sound that frightened even him. “And she’ll be back if she wants to come back! She’s my daughter!”
“Well who’s gonna feed these goddamn customers?” Mel turned from the doorway to see the disturbed faces of his patrons. “What are you looking at?!” They returned to their plates of food, feeling like they had just experienced the rudeness of a true New Yorker.
Chapter 25
“Wait, Julie,” Jill said outside the diner, but Julie did not turn around. She kept walking and Jill knew she would not stop. She stepped back into the diner, tossed her apron at Mel and said, “You’re going to have to cover for us for a little while. I can’t lose her again.”
Mel grunted as he caught the apron and knew there was nothing he could do. Julie raced back to her apartment and Jill followed behind. The violin player played violently on the opposite side of the street.
Julie returned to her apartment and began packing her things. She didn’t know what she was doing, where she was going. She only knew that she wanted to leave and start over again. She wanted to find Charlie, but she didn’t know where to begin. He caught the Brookville bus, but where did he say he was from? She questioned, her memory going back to the cold day on the bus. She couldn’t recall if he ever said.
Suddenly there was a knock on the door. She opened it to see the face of a familiar yet estranged woman, claiming to be her mother.
“Can I come in?” the woman asked.
Reluctantly, Julie opened the door further without a word and let the woman enter.
“This is a nice place you have.” She noticed the clothes hanging half way out of the duffle bag that Julie was packing, “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. I just have to leave.”
“Don’t run away, just get it out,” the woman said. “Just spit all of your anger out at me, I deserve it. Let’s get this out of the way right now.”
Julie realized her mother thought she was leaving because of her.
“It’s not me you need to get forgiveness from. I never really knew you, so I didn’t know what I lost. I only knew there was a strange woman out there who gave birth to me. You were just a stranger to me, but not to him. He never forgot you.”
“I never forgot him either,” the woman said.
Julie rolled her eyes than angrily packed more. She paused. “Why did you leave him? He was a good man.” Julie sat on the bed. She was too emotionally weakened to show all the anger she felt. She broke down, her body became weak, and her limbs tingled, but she refused to cry.
“I know he was,” the woman responded. “For a long time I regretted leaving your father. He was all I ever needed. I just couldn’t see it at the time. I didn’t know what real love felt like back then.”
“He’s dead now,” Julie said unable to stop her tears.
“I know,” the woman responded.
“You know?!” Julie was surprised. “If you knew he was gone, why didn’t you come back for me?” she began to yell.
“I figured you were better off without me. I was a failure, Juliet. I failed at being a good wife; I failed at being a good mother. You were already grown up when he died. I didn’t think you would want or need me,” she said.
“Well I did need you!” Julie yelled. “And so did he! We both needed you!”
“I was foolish when I left your father,” she said calmly. “I was a young, scared, stupid girl.”
“He loved you more than anything in the world until the day he died. I know he did,” Julie argued. “He missed you every day you were gone. He never looked at another woman.”
She seemed surprised and saddened to know he still waited for her to return.
“When I was with your father I felt empty inside. I guess I blamed him for that, but I know now it wasn’t his fault. I made the mistake of thinking he wasn’t the right man for me, so I left. By the time I figured it out, I was too embarrassed to return. I figured he had moved on. He was the one I loved. I just couldn’t see it when I had the chance. I didn’t know what true love was then. And that’s my excuse for leaving him, but there is no excuse for me leaving you. For that, I am forever regretful.”
The woman’s words and demeanor calmed Julie. She seemed sincere, thoughtful, as if spoken from a place of wisdom and honesty. Julie could feel the woman’s regret. She let herself cry without restraint.
Jill moved closer. Close enough to touch but she resisted. She silently, waited for her daughter’s approval. Then Julie stood up. Jill stretched out her arms not really expecting them to be filled. She couldn’t blame her. But Julie felt broken. There was no one else to turn to, no one else to listen. She fell into the woman’s arms and the woman embraced her the way a mother should, wishing to take all her pain away.
“I’m so sorry, Juliet. I’m so sorry I left you. I won’t let you go again unless it is what you truly want.”
Julie continued to cry harder in her mother’s arms. She thought of Charlie also and missed him, wishing she was holding him as well. She thought of the things Nurse Betty had told her and wondered if Charlie’s feeling for her were real.
“How do you know when you’re in love?” Julie asked, finding it strange that she was now confiding in the one who hurt her the most. Jill instantly knew that Julie was speaking of someone she cared about and missed deeply.
“You can’t find true love in anyone else. You must find it in yourself. It is measured by the love that comes out of you. Only when you feel it overflowing from within will you know what true love is,” her mother said. It sounded strangely like something Charlie would say.
Julie stepped back and held her mother’s hands. They were coarse from hard work. She knew she had struggled. She thought about Charlie and all the things he said about love.
“I made a horrible, horrible mistake and now your father is gone and I cannot have him back. I cannot have a second chance. So if you love someone, don’t give up on it,” her mother comforted her. “I can see it in your eyes. There is someone special.”
“Yes, I guess so.” Julie let go of her mother’s hands and dried her eyes with her sleeves. “But I’m afraid of relationships. It’s like I always anticipate something to go wrong. How can we really trust anybody? I know he loved me, and then it was as if he didn’t. He wanted to end it. Then today at the diner, Nurse Betty told me things that…” Julie became silent. She didn’t understand how he felt. She thought to herself, If he loved me why didn’t he just say so? Why did he lie to me and let me go? Who is the girl with long black hair?
“Oh honey,” Jill squeezed her daughter’s hand, “don’t be afraid of love because of one bad experience. Love isn’t the problem. Love is so simple. It is what we make of love that is the problem,” Julie looked up, surprised again at the similarity of her mother’s words and Charlie’s. “We make relationships complicated and turn them into something stressful and sad, but true love is not that way. True love is the simplest, easiest thing. It is everything else that gets in the way.”
Julie studied the lines on her mother’s face as she began to brush her hand through her daughter’s hair, wondering if this man she loved had gotten to her. She just listened to her mother.
“I feel love all the time now.” She continued to untangle the knots in Julie’s hair with her fingers. “This is what I’ve been waiting to feel my whole life and I feel it right here, right now with you. It’s the simplest thing, Juliet. The simplest thing.”
After a moment of silence, Jill said to her daughter, “If you would like to get into acting, I have friends in the business. If you like, you could come stay with me for free, save your money, and I’ll do what I can to help you.”
“I better stay here. Daisy wouldn’t know what to do without me. She’s from Texas and couldn
’t handle the rent on her own.” She knew that was a lie but she didn’t want to hurt the woman’s feeling. She was just not ready to move in with her mother. “I suppose I’ll stick it out in that diner until something better comes along,” she added for the sake of getting to know her mother, not the job.
“Something better will come along,” her mother replied with a smile, rubbing her back. She was beginning to feel like a mother again. The weight of wasted years still weighed upon her, but she was willing to do anything to make it up.
Chapter 26
That evening, after Julie’s mother left, Daisy returned to the apartment with some exciting news.
“I’m getting married!”
“What?! Married?” Julie knew Daisy rarely went out with the same man more than a few times.
“Yes, isn’t that exciting?” the blonde Southern Bell squeaked.
“To Simon? Simon asked you to marry him?”
“No, not Simon, Paul!”
“Paul? I never heard you talk about a Paul.”
“Well that’s because I just met him tonight. You see Greg took me to…”
“You mean Simon! That’s who you went out with tonight,” Julie corrected her.
“Oh yeah, Simon. He took me to this wonderful party and the room was filled with handsome men in black tuxes and Armani suits. You could smell expensive cologne in the air. Ah! It was breathtaking. I just knew I was going to meet someone there.”
“But you went there with Greg, or Simon, right?”
“Well yeah, but we’re not attached or anything. Anyway, it was so exciting. I was just standing there while Simon was talking to his colleagues when Paul came up to me, wrapped his hand around my waist and pulled me to him on the dance floor.”
“That’s rude, he didn’t even ask?”
“No, he just swept me off my feet. It was soooo romantic,” she continued until she was suddenly interrupted by a telephone call from her mother in Texas. Her mother was excited to hear the news.
“Yes, he wants to fly the whole family in for the wedding…”
Julie rolled her eyes and turned away.
Marrying somebody she just met today, she thought to herself. But she found what she was looking for. She wasn’t exactly looking for a good man more than she was looking for a rich successful man. He probably doesn’t even know what she enjoys or even her favorite color or flower. Probably didn’t even ask. Then again, maybe he is a good guy. Maybe Charlie set it up and they just knew it was right.
Over the next few days, Daisy moved her things into her fiancés luxury apartment and Julie began looking for a roommate.
She dreaded the thought of finding someone to live with. Some came to the door with no job. Others drunk. Some she couldn’t even tell if they were a man or woman. Her money was running out and another month’s rent was due.
“Stay with me, Juliet. You don’t even need to go back to that diner if you don’t want to,” her mother said over the phone.
There was something about her mother’s voice. She was sincere. How could such a sincere woman leave her daughter? Though Julie had no real memories of her mother, she could tell she was a different person. The woman that stood before her in the diner and now spoke with her on the phone would never have done such a thing.
“I want to work there, just for a little while anyway,” Julie replied, with a quiet understanding that she would move in.
That evening she packed her things and felt a strange sense of going home, like everything would be all right now. Somewhat unable to forgive her mother completely, she hesitantly moved into a spare bedroom, ready to run if she needed to. It felt strange, as if she was back home and had a parent to take care of her once again. Part of her felt as though her mother never even left. She was still angry inside but not at Jill, as if her real mother was someone different, a phantom that did not exist anymore. She trusted and knew she could lean on her new mother.
“What are you doing here?” Mel said when Julie walked through the door the next morning, still wearing his burger stained apron from a week ago. “I thought you qui…I fired you.”
“No, you didn’t, Mel,” Julie replied in a tone her mother would use.
“Just like your mother,” he mumbled.
“She’ll be working here only part time,” Jill said.
“Whatever,” Mel agreed with his usual irritated tone, knowing he didn’t really have a choice. “Just don’t drop anymore food on the damn tourists!” he yelled in front of his patrons. It made him feel in control when he yelled, even though he knew better. An older couple, obviously tourist, sat there shaking in their booth until his presence was gone.
After work, Julie’s mother grabbed her by the arm as they were walking home, pulled her into a nearby bar, and said “Come on, there’s someone I want to introduce you to.”
The bar was dark—one of those places where the professional drinkers drank from morning until night.
Jill walked up to a man sitting at the bar. His head hung low as if passed out. He had an empty mug in his hand. The bartender slid him another beer and took his money off the bar.
“Don’t you think he’s had enough?” Jill said to the bartender.
“Hey lady, I just serve ‘em. I don’t tell them when to stop,” he responded.
“Bob, come on! Get up!” she said as he rose, tipping the empty glass above his mouth. Julie looked on in surprise.
“Huh? Werrrmear?” he mumbled.
“What?”
“Wherrmy ear?” he mumbled again.
“I can’t understand you, Bob,”
“Where mabeer?” he uttered more clearly.
“Your beer is gone. They’re all out of beer,” she said as she slid the full beer away from him. “You drank it all. Come on, let’s go to the coffee shop,” Jill said as she helped him up.
“Jillllly. Hower you dune ees ays?”
“I’m fine. I have a favor to ask, but you have to be sober,” she said as she helped him out of the bar.
“Iee oh ‘n dawaaa cacaro em,” he said stumbling onto the sidewalk. “Ima en carrra gooo ha.”
“You’re not making any sense Bob. Why do you do this to yourself?”
“Inna da da do du. Da caca ton wawa.”
“We better forget the coffee shop,” Jill said to her daughter.
They helped him to his apartment, which happened to be above the bar. They sat him down on the couch, got him water and coffee to drink. His body decided to sleep.
Julie watched how her mother took off his shoes, picked his feet up on the couch, laid him down, and turned him on his side in case he puked. She tucked a pillow under his head and covered him with a blanket like she was caring for her child.
“Who is this?” Julie asked.
“This is Bob Arand.”
“Bobaran?” Julie questioned, “Like the song Barbara Ann, kind of?”
“Actually, yeah. Like the song, kind of. Don’t worry, he’s not too sensitive about it. He got a great personality when he’s coherent.”
“Who is he?” Julie asked again. “Why did you want to introduce him to me?”
“He’s an agent. He’s actually very good at it, again, when he’s coherent,” she stated the obvious. His head tilted back on the pillow and his mouth was open like a flip-top head snoring. “He’s best when he just got a little alcohol in him. He knows many people in the business. He can get you an audition in no time.”
“But I don’t even know how to act yet,” Julie said. “I never had lessons or anything. I don’t know if I’m ready for an audition.”
“Leave that for the judges to decide. You just do it because you love it, and no other reason,” she nodded. “Let’s go now and we’ll come back in the morning. I’ll take his keys. He won’t be going anywhere early in the morning anyway.”
“Except maybe downstairs to the bar,” Julie commented.
Julie and her mother returned to their apartment. They didn’t say much. Julie tried to relax in
the comfort of being with her mother, trying to not dig up the emotions from the past. Television was a good distraction. Her mother made her a meal. All Julie could think about was that the last meal she made her, which was probably heating up a bottle of milk or spoon-feeding her a jar of baby food. Julie said nothing of the thoughts that roamed her head. She kept her attention toward the TV so she didn’t have to endure them herself.
Chapter 27
The next morning they returned to Bob’s apartment. They could hear him in the bathroom flagellating and making all kinds of disturbing sounds that came from the human body, which were not pleasing to the ears of others.
“Is he making fart sounds with his armpit?” Julie asked.
Suddenly they heard one that could not be mistaken.
“That wasn’t from his armpit,” her mother said and they laughed. It was the first time they genuinely laughed together, probably since she was a baby, if it happened then. Then Jill shouted, “Bob, what the hell are you doing in there?”
They heard him fall then the door creaked open. He walked out of the bathroom in his underwear wearing only one sock and toothpaste on his cheek. His hair was sticking up like an electrified Albert Einstein hairdo. Julie quickly turned around.
“Bob, put some pants on,” Jill ordered.
“Who’s there?” he asked tripping over his pants, lying on the floor in the hall.
“It’s me, Jill. Jill Lavine,” she said to Julie’s surprise. She realized she did not even know her mother’s last name till that moment. She was also surprised that she kept her father’s name.
“Hey, Jill. I’m sorry, I had a late meeting last night,” Bob said.
“Yeah, I bet you did,” she replied.
“Yeah, I didn’t get home till late,” he said as he put his pants on and walked out into the living room.
“Mmm hmm! And how’d the meeting go?”
“Oh real good, real good,” he said.
Julie turned back around.
“I’m glad to hear that, Bob. Look, I need a favor from you. My daughter is going to stay here with you this afternoon and you’re going to make her a profile then get her some auditions, alright?”
A New York Romance Page 15
