Back to Jerusalem

by Jan Surasky

  Both George and Mary had insisted she use their gardens to paint in, despite their long absences of travel in Europe and this year in the Amazon and Equator. Jenny surveyed the blues and the lilacs of the asters and the lupines, and the brilliant reds and oranges of zinnias. She looked at the ground covers in the rock garden which sported little white and purple flowers. It was almost too difficult to choose a subject from the varied and well-tended gardens. She chose a burst of clustered daisies. Common but elegant among the more exotic, imported blossoms which surrounded them.

  The daisies were yellow and white and stood beside a cluster of magenta “painted’ ones, no doubt a product of cross-breeding designed to make a more elegant daisy and pull the daisy out of the realm of common. But, Jenny missed the daisies that grew in abundance along the banks of Keuka Lake and the fields of Jerusalem, all wild and untended. As a child she and her school chums would often pick them, using the petals to find out who they would marry, or making daisy chains to wear as a summer necklace.

  “What you doing here, Miss Jenny? Why aren’t you out on a date with some handsome young man? And, where is Mr. Josh?”

  Jenny looked up to see Manuel, the all-round handy man, stopping the tractor he used to mow the estate. His brown work clothes made him practically invisible against the brown steel of the well-used tractor.

  Jenny shaded her brow with her hand against the brilliant afternoon sun behind his back. “Josh is out with his friend practicing basketball, and I thought I better capture these beautiful flowers while they’re at their height. You’ve made them look so perfect, Manuel.”

  “I like coaxing them, keeping the weeds away, loosen the dirt and feel it running through my fingers. Flowers favor the hand that tends them.”

  “Did you have gardens in Mexico?”

  “We were too poor. We only have time to scratch for food. But, sometimes, if we were lucky, a flower would grow in the village square, its seed dropped by a bird, and people would tend it and worship it like a god.”

  “Sounds like you were pretty close to nature in your village. In my town, too. I miss it.”

  “Well. We were in one way. We could grow our own food. But, sometimes we were outnumbered by the bugs that ate it or the packs of wild dogs that would run through and destroy it. We managed to survive. But, it is much easier here. Mr. George is good to me. And, Miss Mary, too.”

  “Well, you take good care of this place, Manuel.”

  “I try. Say, Miss Jenny, why you not have a husband? You too young to be alone. My wife, we marry when she sixteen. She was beautiful. She still beautiful, but she chase after eight children now.”

  “I’ll give it some thought.”

  As Manuel returned to his mowing, Jenny finished dabbing blues and purples, reds and oranges on the canvas that sat in front of her. The flowers grew fuller, and the slice of the garden she had staked out began to appear as a mirror image on her canvas, but with some strange twists. The colors seemed true, but the flowers seemed wilder than the gently tended flowers in front of her. Perhaps that was their true personality coming out. Or, perhaps it was hers. Anyway, they seemed far from the gardens that Monet depicted with his sense of calm and Madame Monet a picture of calm within them.

  Jenny packed up her easel and her paints and took her canvas to the small greenhouse attached to the big house in the back to dry. It would be out of the way along with the new seedlings Manuel had planted just yesterday.

  She took her leave of Manuel and got into her snazzy new BMW, a gift from Cathy and Jeff in honor of the huge contract she had helped them land. It was the only luxury she allowed herself. She didn’t want to raise Josh coveting money. Despite her distance from Jerusalem, she wanted to instill in him the values she thought important.

  As she drove along the empty back roads, in a car that could go 140 mph on a good day, she thought about what Manuel had said. Perhaps she was depriving Josh of a male figure by being so exclusive. But, she hadn’t found anyone she really liked.

  What had been stopping her? It was certainly not a lack of opportunity. Jeff had offered a number of times to fix her up with his clients and associates. Denny had found her a few who were part of the unit he worked in. And, there were many obviously eligible men who smiled at her on the elevators in her luxury high-rise apartment building.

  No, she realized as she thought hard about it, it was Jake. Jake had been in her memory since she had left Jerusalem, and she had been measuring every man she met against him and they had all failed. But, it was the Jake she remembered, not the Jake looking triumphant on the front page of The New York Times. The Jake who had the dirt of the earth he had tilled and planted scattered about his coveralls. The Jake who had been so earnest in planning to help the poor. The Jake who had put his arm around her to keep her from the chill of an autumn evening.

  She made a resolution to move on, to override the memory of a young, innocent girl. She had been raised to believe that Mennonites and Methodists didn’t mix and she had complied. As she tooled about the streets of New York, the street lights coming on to cover for the twilight, the Sunday traffic sparse compared to the work week, she made another resolution to keep that philosophy out of the values she tried to instill in Josh. She must make him understand that it was character that counted in an individual, not some kind of restrictive background. She concentrated on the road until she pulled up in front of Rinaldo. The valet rushed out to open the door.

  When she turned the lock of her apartment, she arrived to find Josh in the easy chair cheering on his favorite NBA team from the safe distance of a television set. She gave him a big hug and unpacked her paints. As she lay in bed in the later hours of the evening, she counted the stars in the well-lit sky, its natural light bolstered by the roof lights of the brick and steel skyline. Somehow they looked the same as those she had counted so often with Jake on an autumn evening over Jerusalem.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chip Everly stood in the middle of his gallery floor looking at Jenny.

  “Have you brought me something new? I could use a large canvas. I just sold two last week.”

  “Congratulations! You are doing well.”

  “As well as I can. It was slow last month so I am trying to make up for it. Have you eaten at all? You look thin as a rail.”

  “If that is an invitation to lunch, I accept, only if I pay. We just closed a big deal last week and I am supposed to celebrate.”

  “Wow. Jenny the successful tycoon. I guess I will have to take you up on it.”

  “Well, I’m not the real tycoon. Cathy is. She works eighteen hours a day. But, she has been very generous.”

  Jenny surveyed Chip. Thin, somewhat balding, but pleasant underneath that brash exterior which still defined him, despite a big dose of humility thrown in since he had left the Brooklyn Museum and a steady paycheck for a modest, almost hole-in-the-wall gallery in Brooklyn.

  They had become friends through a chance encounter in the diner where Dee had worked while Jenny was still a Brooklyn resident. Jenny had remembered him immediately, but it had taken a little prodding on her part to bring into focus their first meeting at the Everson in Syracuse where he had brought the Andy Warhol exhibit as curator and she and Sparky had attended thanks to Miss Lindstrom’s gift of tickets.

  They had immediately become friends in what could only be termed a symbiotic relationship. Chip urged her to paint, and she urged him to leave the museum where he was by her observations so highly underused. Both were successful. Jenny had begun to paint again and Chip set up in Brooklyn where he could afford the space instead of in the Village or in Soho where he would like to have been. Nevertheless, he had managed to lure those matrons who frequented those kitschy galleries to his place and Jenny’s paintings were selling very well.

  Not that she had considered what she really wanted to paint. She liked flowers, however, and she had great access to the Parkers’ gardens, so the subject seemed a natural. She evolved into painting large ca
nvases with the study of one flower against a stark, white background. That seemed to please Manhattan apartment dwellers and Long Island beach house aficionados as well. The subject went back to the Garden of Eden but the rendering was what sold. Modern enough to appeal to the decorators who furnished their assigned apartments in the very same style with a number of variations so the matrons who hired them could compete, but with enough flair so that a beach house resident could sit and quietly, secretly, share with the canvas a primal moment.

  As they sat at lunch at a deli around the corner from Chip’s gallery, Chip ordered the roast beef piled high on a thick slice of rye, along with their famous pickles. Jenny ordered the chicken, and picked at it.

  “What’s the matter, Jen? No man in your life?”

  “Not really. But, Josh is on my mind a lot. Now that he’s going to be a teen, I want to make sure I do right by him. His future is in the balance.”

  “I think you’re doing fine, Jen. He’s got a great mom, and he’s got all your men friends to fill in the gap. He’s got a great future.”

  “He wants to go to LaGuardia School of the Arts. I hope he can get in.”

  “He’ll get in. He’s got great grades, and a lot of extra-curricular stuff. Sports and the school paper. A great combination.”

  “He wants to be an international correspondent. It’s a lot to ask. Too many wannabes and too few jobs.”

  “Well, he’s got a good shot at it. He’s a bright kid.

  “Say, Jenny, I know you’re busy, but would you like to meet a guy who’s as busy as you are? CEO of his own company, and an art lover. He likes your stuff a lot.”

  “I don’t know, Chip, I’ll give it some thought.

  “I’d better go. Got to get back for Cathy’s client from the Ukraine. Seems they have a great fruit deal she doesn’t want to pass up.”

  “Thanks for coming to lunch, Jen. Give me a ring when you’ve got some more big canvases.”

  “Will do.” She kissed Chip on the cheek and waved a hasty goodbye as she paid the bill on her way out.

  As she sat on the train headed for Manhattan, she mused on Chip’s enormous generosity. Not only did he keep his artists happy, he understood their angst. As a gay, he had experienced more than his share of loneliness, not to mention social scorn for his sexual persuasion. Nevertheless, he always kept good cheer and most often overrode his cryptic countenance with a steady dose of empathy. She must remember to relay his good wishes to Josh. Josh had practically enshrined the baseball Chip had given him won at a batting cage with a Yankee pitcher’s autograph on it. It was the centerpiece of his room. As Jenny’s mind began to wander almost all the way back to her high school art classes and the small-town atmosphere of Jerusalem, which she still missed, she almost passed her stop. But, the conductor’s voice called her back to reality. She was, after all, a New Yorker.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Sparky was playing croquet on the small patch of lawn behind her rambling farmhouse she had given up as a nod to civilization and her Long Island upbringing. Aunt Gert had joined her. Josh and Cliff were playing ball in the back field with Shakespeare catching the flies, and Sarah and Jesse were pushing their four little ones in turn on the tire swing Sparky had set up for the occasion. Sammy and Anne, pregnant with their first, were helping as needed, and Jenny was sitting on the porch on the creaking swing taking a much needed rest.

  The drive home, despite a year’s hiatus, had been the same. Different billboards, the same barns and fields, and towns on the edge of the thruway that looked dragged out of the 1930s. They had stopped at Dino’s as always, just outside of Binghamton, where the burgers beat Manhattan’s according to Josh, and the waitresses never stopped calling him ’honey’ no matter how old he got.

  As she mused from her perch on the porch swing, all was as Jenny remembered it. The fields that stretch for miles, the summer daisies, white and yellow, popping up everywhere, and Sparky’s tractor named Alma after a former classmate who thought daily events revolved only around city life safely parked in the barn.

  Some things had changed. Mother had given up her cranky ways toward Jenny’s divorce, doting on Josh when the Andersons disowned him, despite her bitterness that she would never be connected to the high society she craved. “Mattie, he’s your grandchild,” Aunt Gert would say. In fact, she downright spoiled him as much as her stern nature would allow, plying him with his favorite lemon cupcakes whenever they visited, and knitting him scarves and mittens he would never need in the warmer climate of Manhattan.

  Other things had changed as well. Most of Jenny’s childhood friends had moved on and out of Jerusalem. Dotty Thatcher had gone to Boston to live, picking up with wealthy and well-connected men and landing the best office jobs in the city. Only Caroline Mackey had returned, a vet who had set up practice on the edge of town. But, despite their occasional get-togethers on Jenny’s visits, they had little in common now. Caroline had never been to Brooklyn or The City and had no desire to do so. Jenny would never understand what it was like to be roused at 3 a.m. and face a farm family who was about to lose a whole herd of dairy cows to blackleg or Johne’s disease.

  What Jenny missed, she realized, as she reminisced, were the nighttime meetings with Jake and the call of the whippoorwill, their secret signal. The times in the hayloft where they shared their hopes and their dreams. But, Jake had never returned. Caught up in the excitement and challenge of a high-powered law practice, and the pull of a society new to a former farm boy, Jake had strayed far from his roots. Sarah and Anne rarely heard from the once adored big brother.

  “Hey, Mom, watch out!” Josh called out, too late for Jenny to get out of the way. The ball just missed her by a hair, and Shakespeare diving to catch it, upset the precarious swing. Jenny laughed as she landed on the porch with Shakespeare’s muddy feet all over her new jeans. No longer a puppy, the dog began to whimper, wondering what he had done.

  “It’s alright, Shakespeare,” Jenny said firmly, as she rubbed his back. “Nothing a good bath won’t cure.” She laughed as he lay down at her feet begging forgiveness with his large brown eyes looking skyward.

  Aunt Gert excused herself from the croquet game and headed for the kitchen to make the pot roast. Sparky joined the ball game, ever the tomboy. Josh was excited, since he and Sparky had had a special bond since his birth.

  “How about some help, Jenny?”

  “Love to, Aunt Gert. Soon as I wash up and shampoo Shakespeare.”

  As Jenny peeled carrots and onions in the kitchen that looked like it hadn’t been changed in at least one hundred and fifty years, Aunt Gert pounded the chuck roast and floured it, starting up the oil in the cooker at the same time.

  “How’s New York?”

  “About the same as you last saw it. It’s hard to keep up with, but stimulating. No question.”

  “Have you ever thought of moving back?”

  “Not really. Josh is thriving, and he needs that distance from the Andersons still. Their power seems never ending. But, it doesn’t mean I don’t miss here.”

  “You’ve done a good job with him, Jenny. He’s grown into a fine, young man.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Gert. He’s a handful sometimes, but he’s such a great kid. I’m so very lucky. And, my friends have helped out when they could.

  “I’m not sure I’d even fit in anymore if I moved back.”

  “You’d fit in Jenny. That’s what home is all about. People still ask about you. Ned Baxter down at the dress shop still remembers your size. Edith, his wife, still remembers the pearls you coveted but Mattie wouldn’t let you have. Too grown up, she insisted.”

  “I remember. And, when I was old enough to get them, I forgot all about them.”

  “Well they’re still there. Ned doesn’t change his stock or styles too often.

  “Say, I’d better get to this pot roast. The oil is hot and sizzling. Just right.”

  As Aunt Gert tended the pot roast, Jenny looked round at the antique kitch
en. What had happened to the painting dreams she had had? She was painting, but almost by formula. She knew what the matrons by the sea or the tenants of the posh buildings in Manhattan would want. And, she was turning it out.

  What would Rafe Tewksbury have thought about that? His life cut short, she was the recipient of the scholarship his mother had put out in his memory. She no longer had the money, but she had the experience. Accepting that award had meant a lot. She knew it meant a lot to Aunt Gert as well. She knew that she, Jenny, had been the promise he could not fulfill.

  Aunt Gert never mentioned it, but Jenny somehow felt the disappointment, even though she knew Aunt Gert would never express that feeling. Rafe lived in Aunt Gert, but he didn’t live in Jenny. She had never known him. But, she must remember to show Josh the table Aunt Gert still had set up in his memory, and the parts of the planes he had flown still in her barn.

  As Jenny tore the lettuce for salad, the odor of cooking pot roast permeated the room, as it had throughout Jenny’s childhood. Mother’s lemon pie, for which she was famous, had ended almost every family dinner.

  Aunt Gert reached for the dishes in the cupboards above the sink. Chipped and mismatched, they were definitely bright and floral. Typical Sparky, mused Jenny. Sparky, who had wanted to change the world but ignore social convention. She smiled as she remembered their student days and their walks along the lakeshore. Sparky with her shoes off and her hair hanging braided along her back.

  “I think we can call them all in.” Aunt Gert took down the ricer to whip the potatoes.

  “Will do, Aunt Gert. I can’t wait to ring the old cowbell.”

  As they all straggled in, Jenny marveled at the patience of Anne and Sarah with the little ones. As they sat, Cliff said a short grace and they all dug in. Somehow, food here was savored in a way that didn’t seem possible in a Manhattan restaurant. Long days in the field brought an appreciation no one could have after a day of hailing taxis and fighting the hustle and bustle of a busy and determined crowd.