“One of these days, you’re going to fall.” Jessica tried once again, this time with considerably less vehemence. It was futile, she knew, on the same par as suggesting to Evel Knievel that he consider a desk job. Her son had simply been born to climb.
“Here, Sammy, have some more rice.” David leaned over and pushed the bowl a little closer to him. “You’ve hardly eaten anything.”
“Yum! Rice gives you strong muscles!” As if to demonstrate his enthusiasm, Sammy bypassed his spoon and instead grabbed a handful of rice. As he attempted to push it into his mouth, most of it tumbled down onto the floor. “Yum!” he repeated, smacking his lips loudly.
Jessica sighed. “Little did I know when I fell in love with the movie The Miracle Worker twenty years ago that one day I would be living it.’’
“Remember those dinners we used to have when we were first married?” David rested his chin in his hands, a dreamy faraway look coming into his eyes. “That was part of this same lifetime, wasn’t it?”
“Hard to believe, but true. We used to use our fine china every night. Can you even remember what our wedding pattern looks like?”
“Vaguely. I remember those crystal wineglasses, though, the ones that Rob and Emily gave us. I also remember the wine that used to go in them.”
“That’s right; I’d forgotten about that. You used to stop off at that fantastic wine store on your way home from the subway every night. We were getting pretty good at evaluating them, too.” Jessica was becoming lost in a sort of reverie. “And there were some great take-out places near us. We had our choice of Chinese restaurants . . . and then there was that Thai place.”
David reached across the table and took Jessica’s hand.
“Do you remember what used to come after dinner?’’ he said with a meaningful smile. He had begun fondling her fingers in an X-rated way. “Boy, being a parent really makes drastic changes in the way people spend their free moments, doesn’t it?”
“I’ll say. You know, I really miss the time we used to have alone together,” Jessica said wistfully. “It’s hard to believe that—”
Just then there was a loud crash, followed by a bloodcurdling scream. Sammy had lost his balance and gone careening off the chair, falling backwards and hitting his head against the edge of the radiator.
“Aughh!” he was screaming, his voice raw with pain and fear.
“Oh, my God!” Jessica was already scrambling toward him.
But David was faster, and he got to him first. Carefully he picked up the screeching child and carried him over to the couch.
“You’re okay, Sammy. It’s going to be all right,” he said over and over again.
Jessica followed, her eyes wide, her hands glued to her cheeks.
“He’s bleeding,” she said, feeling helpless. “His head is bleeding. We have to get him to an emergency room. He might need stitches.”
David nodded. Already he was wrapping the little boy in the loosely woven gray wool afghan that was kept folded up on the back of the couch. “Do you know how to get there?”
“I—I think so. Glen Cove Hospital is right across from the Finast supermarket. I’ve seen the signs.”
“Good. Get the car. Hey, it’s okay, Sammy. We’re going to make it all better.”
The ride to the emergency room was interminable. Jessica drove and David clutched their sobbing son, the little boy’s pain complicated even further by his knowledge that he was being taken to a new place with a scary name. She felt slightly sick to her stomach. At the same time she was numb, as if the queasy stomach really belonged to someone else.
“It won’t be long now, Sammy,” she said as the three of them sat in the waiting area. “The doctor is going to fix you all up.”
He was curled up against David with his face tucked underneath his jacket. Jessica took hold of his foot and gave it a squeeze.
He peeked out timidly. “After, can we go to Friendly’s for ice cream?”
“Yes, Sammy. If that’s what you want.” Anything, anything in the world.
“I want chocolate ice cream with sprinkles. And the kind of cone that Gramma has.’’
Jessica let out a deep sigh and looked at David. “I think he’s starting to feel better.”
“Sammy? My name is Dr. Ditzler, but you can call me Dr. Don.’’ The blond, white-coated man who strode into the waiting room, a stethoscope around his neck and a stuffed Big Bird in his pocket, was considerably younger than Jessica. But his confident manner instantly convinced her that her son was in good hands. “I understand you had a nasty fall.”
“He’s bleeding.” Jessica choked on the words.
Dr. Ditzler was studying the back of Sammy’s head, gently pushing aside the silky strands of yellow hair that were now streaked with dried blood. “Yup, looks like quite a boo-boo. Come on inside. We’ll fix you right up.”
“Will he need stitches?” Jessica asked hoarsely.
“Oh, it won’t be too bad,” Dr. Ditzler said. “Just two or three.”
It was hard to say who did more crying, Jessica or Sammy. It was one of the worst experiences of her life, seeing her baby being subjected to this. Yet throughout it all. Dr. Ditzler remained unruffled. As David and a burly orderly held down the screaming child, he closed up the wound with three neat stitches.
“I know this hurts, Sammy,” he said patiently, “but it’ll be over soon, I promise. It’s the only way we can make your head better. Besides, you’re acting like a real big guy. How old are you, about twelve?
“There,” he finally said, looking quite pleased with himself. “Come back in a week, and we’ll have one of the nurses take them out. But for now you’re as good as new.”
With a wink he added, “If I were you, I’d see if I could get my parents to take me over to Friendly’s right now. I’d say this was worth at least a double-dip cone.”
“Thank you, thank you so much,” Jessica cried. She was wondering if there were any way she could ever repay this healer—not only for patching up her broken son, but for actually making him smile. He, meanwhile, had already moved on to his next patient.
“Frankly, I could use something a little stronger than ice cream,” Jessica said a few minutes later as they pulled into the Friendly’s parking lot. “I wonder how long it’s going to take for my knees to stop shaking.”
As for Sammy, he seemed to have already forgotten all about the evening’s trauma. In fact, as they sat in a booth, he insisted upon standing up in his seat.
“Sit down!” Jessica pleaded. But her son remained frustratingly unaffected by her reminder that this was how it had all started in the first place. It took several threats and bribes to get him under control.
“Hey,” she said, finally able to turn her attention toward her husband, “you were a real trouper tonight. Remind me to bring your telephone number with me the next time I’m stranded on a desert island.”
“You should see me throw together a split-level hut out of coconut shells and palm leaves,” he returned with a grin. Then he added, “You weren’t too bad yourself. You’ve got to stop taking those red lights so seriously, though. They don’t apply to a family on its way to the emergency room, you know.”
She liked the way he said “family.” She also liked the way he had come through in a crisis. He had been much more than efficient. Even in the midst of it all, he had never forgotten for a moment that it was Sammy’s crisis more than anyone else’s.
As she sat across the table from him, watching him instruct Sammy in the art of licking the drips off the side of the cone, Jessica made a mental note to pick up a bottle of wine before dinner tomorrow.
* * * *
The parking lot of the Greenvale Shopping Plaza, home of Haagen-Dazs, Doubleday Books, Ben’s Kosher Deli, and the shopping center’s star tenant, the Pathmark supermarket, reminded Jessica of Jones Beach on a crowded day. The cars were lined up in even rows, as patient as the sun seekers who religiously lay stretched out on the sand in the quest for
tinted flesh. The variety of colors on the auto bodies was like the fashion show of bathing suits that lit up the shores on a hot weekend in July. The only thing missing was the sound of the surf.
After cruising the area for a minute or two, Jessica found a good place to park the Volvo. On the right was an unmarked beige van with a crumpled fender; on the left, the dull silver bars that marked off the special parking area for supermarket carts. Everywhere the bright sun of a cloudless mid-November day was glinting off metal.
It was a great relief, being able to go to the supermarket alone. “Alone” meaning sans Sammy. His head wound was all but healed, and at the moment he was safely tucked away at nursery school. That meant she was free to tackle her mission of food acquisition without distraction. No small thing, since her son, it appeared, was simply one of those individuals who had shopping in his blood.
“Let’s get some of these,” he would command, grabbing a package of fudge-covered Oreos off the display and cavalierly tossing them into the cart.
Or, “Look! Fruit Slushy Slush!’’ he would exclaim with glee, demonstrating an uncanny ability to imitate the voice-overs off the TV commercials he was barraged with during his Saturday morning bout of media exposure.
She invariably ended up putting so much energy into explaining to him each choice she made—the purposes of canned chicken stock, the reason for the existence of so many different sizes of catsup, the story behind her lifelong preference for rye bread over white—that what should have been a fairly straight-forward task instead became an exhausting examination of personal and societal values.
Inside the ultra-modern, ultra-large supermarket, Jessica was stricken with the same case of amnesia that she experienced every time she crossed through the electric doors. She was overcome by a wave of confusion, something bordering on panic, as she stood at the edge of it all, her hands clammy as she clutched the plastic bar of her cart. So much to choose from, so many decisions to make ... so many of life’s details to remember, all in such a terrifyingly short period of time.
Was that shrinking tube of toothpaste finally empty, the one that had been hanging on week after week, yielding still one more little blob onto the brush if only it was coerced with enough conviction? What about that last bit of heavy cream, left over from two—or maybe three—weekends ago? Was there enough for tonight’s beef stroganoff recipe? And even if there was, had it by this point curdled into some yellowish, squishy, totally inedible substance? What about the lettuce? What kind of condition was that in, tucked away in the vegetable keeper, out of sight and virtually out of mind?
It was a lot to take on. That was where lists came in. She was one of those people who, in anxiety-provoking situations like this one, required a clear-cut outline of what she was meant to accomplish. Something in writing to ward off the inevitable attack of foggy brain at the moment of truth.
Today, however, as Jessica searched through her purse, a familiar sinking feeling came over her. It was like that sudden cramping in her gut that invariably filled her with dread, forcing her to realize that she hadn’t quite been watching the calendar carefully enough.
“Oh, no,” she groaned, earning a sympathetic look from a woman agonizing over the four thousand brands of toilet paper.
Jessica checked her pockets—coat, pants, purple man-tailored shirt—finally admitting the ugly truth: she had come to the supermarket without her list. There she was, lost in the jungle without a map, left to fend for herself, to stand on her own two feet under the most adverse of circumstances.
It was difficult to reconcile this fearful soul with the woman who at one time had given presentations to Klinger-Wycoff’s executive vice president of marketing with as much self-confidence as Sammy Davis, Jr., at an opening night performance at Caesar’s Palace.
But no matter how she was feeling, there was no turning back. This was a task that had to be done, and she was the one to do it. Bravely, she grasped her cart even tighter and began making an all-inclusive tour.
Slowly, she chose more and more items. As she watched them pile up in her cart, a visible testimony to the fact that she was, indeed, accomplishing something, the panic began to subside. It even became sort of fun, studying the selection of crackers, picking out the shampoo whose promises were the most compelling, reading the ingredients on the different jars of tomato sauce. Gradually she was getting into the rhythm. Before long she was sailing along, feeling in control, seeing the next few days take shape as she designated Tuesday as a chicken day, Wednesday as a day to try out the new moussaka recipe, Friday as the day to call upon Pasta and Cheese for a break.
She was in this state—confident, cocky, even—standing in front of Baking and wondering if perhaps there could be tollhouse cookies in her future, when she got the creepy feeling she was being watched. The natural assumption was that she was committing the number-one sin of supermarket shoppers, blocking the aisle with her can. Automatically she yanked on her cart and then, already filled with remorse, turned to apologize.
“Gee, I’m so sorry—oh, it’s you!”
She forgot all about the Nestle chocolate chips as she grappled with the fact that here among the different brands of cake flour, the mind-boggling collection of spices, she was standing next to Terry Nolan, certainly one of the last people she would ever expect to run into in a place like Pathmark.
“Jessica! What a nice surprise.”
“What are you doing here?” she demanded, too baffled to worry about being polite.
“I can’t explain it,” he replied with a shrug, “but every few hours, I get this overwhelming urge to eat something.” He flashed his irresistible grin.
“Oh.” Ask a silly question ... “I know exactly what you mean. Unfortunately, I happen to be a victim of the same syndrome.”
“So I see.”
He was surveying the foodstuffs piled high in her cart. Feeling vulnerable, she countered by looking over his paltry collection of frozen dinners. Having the chance to glimpse someone’s food selection like this was like running into a new acquaintance at the beach, clad in nothing but a skimpy bathing suit.
“So how have you been?” he asked.
“Fine, just fine. And you?”
“Excuse me.” The woman hovering nearby with a cart full of junk food made it sound more like a command than a polite request.
“Uh-oh. We’re blocking the aisle.”
“Hey, I have an idea. Since we’re both fans of stuffing our faces, what do you say we do something about it?”
Jessica maneuvered her cart out of the way, meanwhile casting Terry one of her looks that said. Are you crazy, or am I?
“Wait a minute. I thought that’s what I was doing.” With her chin, she gestured toward the impressive pile of jars, cans, bags, and boxes jumbled up in her cart.
“What I had in mind was something more along the lines of immediate gratification. How about lunch?”
“Now? You mean, right now?”
Terry peered at her with a quizzical smile. “You don’t get out much, do you?’’
A million different excuses were already popping into Jessica’s mind, all of them quite legitimate. Too much to do this afternoon. Too many refrigerated products in her cart to risk leaving them in the non-temperature-controlled trunk of a car. Then there was the basic impropriety of the suggestion. She, a married woman, having lunch with a strange man? What if someone she knew saw her?
Then she remembered that that last one would never do, because she hardly knew anyone around here. Even so, she was all set to call upon one of the many other excuses at her disposal.
Yet much to her amazement, as she opened her mouth, the words that came out sounded very much like, “Sure, I’d love to.”
She was a trifle dazed as she stood in the check-out line with Terry beside her, cradling his Budget Gourmet entrees and his quart of milk gently in his arms. He was one of the few males in the store, and she kept glancing around, expecting the other shoppers to be glaring at her�
��perhaps even whispering about her. Instead, they didn’t even notice. They were too busy thumbing through the latest issue of Good Housekeeping, thoughtfully left near the checkout for their reading enjoyment, or counting the number of items in their carts to see if they dared try slipping into the express line.
“Why don’t we take my car?” Terry suggested, once he had gallantly lifted all three of her grocery bags out of the cart and arranged them in the trunk of her car. “I’m parked right down here.”
“All right. Where are we going, anyway?”
“I was hoping you’d have some ideas. I’m the out-of-towner, remember?”
Jessica felt a bit disconcerted as she and Terry rode the quarter mile or so to one of the only restaurants she knew, the Barefoot Peddler. She tried to mask her awkwardness by keeping up a running monologue about the kind of menu she expected the restaurant to have and whether or not it would be crowded on a weekday afternoon. She had always been firm in her belief that silence was deadly. In her book it translated to social failure. And for some unfathomable reason, she resisted violently the idea of failing socially with Terry Nolan.
The restaurant was pleasant enough. It was decorated in what appeared to be a wine barrel theme. The dark wooden casks and the dark wooden paneling resulted in a decor slightly reminiscent of the Disneyland school of interior design. The lunch-time crowd was relatively thin—not in stature, but in number.
“Tell me,” Terry said once they had been seated at a booth, “have you recovered from Mrs. Balazs’s Chicken Paprikash yet?”
Jessica grimaced. “I know it’s been more than two weeks, but I’m sure I can still feel it, right about there.” She stuck her finger in the middle of her stomach.
Terry laughed, much more heartily than her valiant attempt at being clever deserved. Jessica wondered if perhaps she was being courted for something other than her wit, charm, and knock-’em-dead good looks. She brushed that thought away, deciding that she was simply getting paranoid.
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