The Widow of Wall Street

by Randy Susan Meyers

  • • •

  Phoebe slid her tiny gold locket back and forth on its thin chain as she waited at Katz’s Deli for Rob. She’d lied to her parents, to Jake, and even to Deb, about the heart, telling them the necklace had come from Helen (and swearing her best friend to secrecy).

  “You can’t put my picture in there,” Rob said when he gave her the present. “At least not yet. But simply wearing it will bring me close.”

  He planted kisses on her bare shoulders as he placed the almost weightless chain around her neck.

  Everything would work out.

  I love you. I love you. Rob had vowed his devotion countless times.

  Her parents would adjust. Being Jewish meant little to them. Her cousin in Great Neck had married an Italian girl, and they attended the baby’s baptism bearing pink-wrapped presents six months after they’d gone to the church wedding.

  Jake would explode.

  Phoebe worried the edge of her wool sweater, soothing herself by pressing her fingers hard against one another.

  She’d break his heart, but she had no other choice. Tears leaked at the idea of never seeing Jake again, his pain, imagining him with another girl, but she couldn’t have two men.

  Confirming the pregnancy was step one, but that meant solving two mysteries: how many weeks before a test would work, and who would give her an exam without her parents finding out.

  She prayed that Rob would offer answers.

  Her stomach churned. She searched for the ladies’ room, just in case, hoping the queasiness signaled only nerves.

  Rob walked in wearing a sports coat and a wide smile. Blood rushed from her head so fast that she knew her skin matched the white of the chipped mug in front of her.

  After a not-so-furtive glance around, he pecked her on the forehead. His chaste lips brought heat back to her heart, even if the rest of her was still made of ice.

  “Tea?” He cocked his head to the side as he examined her cup. “I thought you were a coffee person.”

  “My stomach’s been off,” she said. “My mother served tea with tons of milk and sugar when we were sick.”

  “No milk there.” He pointed to the dark liquid, the tea bag sunk to the bottom of the cup.

  “I grew up.” Dairy nauseated her these days.

  “So you did.” Rob’s smile became tender. “So you did.”

  He picked up the smeared menu, studying the plastic-wrapped paper, looking proud of his newfound knowledge of Jewish delicacies. “Can one eat blintzes for breakfast?”

  “Any time of day is fine,” she said. “They’re like pancakes: breakfast, lunch, or dinner.”

  “I ate a bowl of Wheaties at six.” He weighted his gaze with significance. “Writing.”

  Together they worshipped at the altar of Rob’s novel. The first few pages immediately revealed his worship of J. D. Salinger, but in a good way, she told him—and she believed what she said. He wrote as Salinger would have written if Salinger had composed with more heart.

  Salinger had children, right?

  “How about we share a plate?” he asked.

  “A plate of what?”

  “Blintzes, of course. Where are you this morning?” Only after studying her face did he reach for her hand. “Whoa! You’re cold.”

  “I’m freezing.” With those words she began chattering so loud she heard her teeth clicking.

  “Phoebe, are you sick?” Rob rushed around the table and sat in the empty chair beside her.

  She squeezed her eyes tight against tears. “I—I can’t eat any blintzes.”

  “Forget the blintzes!” He moved the glass sugar pourer to bring her hands closer. He covered them with his own, sharing his heat.

  “My period is late,” she whispered. “Two weeks.”

  Rob dropped her hands. She twisted her tiny locket, twirling until the chain would twist no more, then unfurling the necklace and starting over. Perhaps she’d put a picture of Rob on one side and the baby on the other.

  “You can’t be pregnant. I used a condom every time.” He offered this as though arguing an irrefutable point of logic.

  “They’re not infallible.”

  The ancient waiter arrived carrying his small green pad and nub of a pencil. “Order?”

  “Coffee. Just coffee,” Rob said.

  The old man shook his head and left.

  Her hands trembled as she reached for him. “We need the name of a doctor where I can go.”

  He drew back, leaving her hands in the tundra of the empty table, and crossed his arms over his chest. “I hear Mexico is the place.”

  “Mexico?” She struggled to make sense of his words.

  “You can get what you need there. Easy.”

  “Why would I go to Mexico for a pregnancy test?”

  “Don’t act ignorant.” The waiter placed a mug before him, halting Rob’s words for a blessed moment. She built a tower of wrapped sugar cubes until he covered her hand. “Stop.”

  “Mexico?” she asked again.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?” He lightened his coffee, stirring the liquid until small riptides appeared. “Girls take care of these problems with doctors in Mexico.”

  She cocked her head in confusion until awareness came, and she realized what he meant. A ragged cry emerged unbidden.

  “What the hell were you asking for when you said you needed help?”

  “What I said,” she whispered. “Where to go for a pregnancy test.”

  “Aha. So you’re not sure that you’re . . .” He rested his elbows on the table and laced his fingers. “Can’t your girlfriends tell you?”

  “It’s hardly something I want to ask about.”

  He nodded. “Of course. You don’t need to spread rumors and such.”

  “Rumors?”

  “You can hop down and get put right. Nothing’s public this way.” He gazed off to the side as though receiving information. “No. Not Mexico. Wrong place. Sorry. Puerto Rico is what I meant.”

  “Maybe I’m not pregnant. I’m not very late.” Protective instincts kept her from telling him about her morning bathroom sessions. Her sore breasts were no business of his.

  “The sooner, the better.” Rob clipped off the words as though talking to a student seeking advice on whether to major in sociology or political science.

  Phoebe shivered. “We need to figure this out. First we’ll get the facts and then think about what’s ahead.”

  “Can I ask what you mean by ‘what’s ahead’?”

  Did Rob work at speaking as though he were the fucking Prince of Wales? Impatience replaced fear. “Can we end the polite charade, please? I think I’m pregnant, and if I am, well, we’ll be parents.”

  Rob shook his head. “First, I’m not going to be anyone’s parent. Second, are you crazy? You’re my student. Do you want me to lose my job? Are you trying to ruin my life?”

  “Rob—”

  He held up a hand. “I’ll help you find out where you can go in Puerto Rico.” His eyes darted around the restaurant. “If need be, I’ll ask my father for money.”

  • • •

  Rob became a stranger. She didn’t ask for anything again. He didn’t offer. In class he treated her as though she were invisible.

  After two weeks spent praying he’d become the man with whom she had fallen in love, class again passed in a haze of her stares and Rob’s snubs. Each time she raised her hand, he disregarded her waving arm so pointedly that Phoebe wondered if everyone noticed his deliberate refusal. Rob picked Mary Alice to speak about typhoid management in the late 1800s, even though containing infection had been Phoebe’s topic in the most recent paper assigned.

  Five minutes before the end of class—Rob glanced up at the clock on the wall and nodded at the 3:55 time—he put down the chalk and brushed off his hands.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m handing out your papers. They represent almost half of your semester final mark. Let’s hope you gave your best efforts.” Campus wisdom thrummed w
ith the rarity of an A from Mr. Gardiner, much less an A+.

  He took a stack of papers from his briefcase and walked into the first aisle. The perfectly aligned pile he carried reminded her of his damned organization skills. Each of their rendezvous had been timed to the minute, with precise snacks laid out in the borrowed apartment. Two glasses for the half split of wine and a plate with crackers, cheese, and grapes always appeared, as though an assignation maître d’ had arranged their trysts.

  Only the first time did she ask why they were meeting at his mythical friend’s house and not at his apartment—though the question tortured her every time she arrived at the anonymous Jane Street apartment in Greenwich Village.

  “Since your wife moved out, why don’t we go there?” she’d asked.

  A pained expression covered his face. Rob shook his head as though ridding himself of memories. “Ah, bringing you to where I lived with . . . it would seem wrong. Iniquitous.” He breathed out the sigh of a million beleaguered men. “But if going there is so important . . .” His sentence trailed off in an implication of the pain and humiliation such a request would engender. Oh, but he would bring her to his home if forced.

  Phoebe now faced the realization that he’d likely never left his wife.

  She was third in line to receive her paper.

  Abrams.

  Abrams earned a soft “Excellent.”

  Ahern.

  Rob returned Ahern’s paper with a raised eyebrow and a clipped question as to Ahern’s interest in pursuing legibility lessons or, barring that, would he consider the purchase of a typewriter?

  Beckett.

  He placed Phoebe’s paper on the desk. “Good work, Miss Beckett.” A stoplight red A+ screamed from the title page. Underneath the grade he wrote a comment in his sophisticated half-cursive, half-printed handwriting: “Excellent analysis. You understand all the inherent problems. You’ll go far.”

  Rob had nailed one thing in his comments. Phoebe understood. She finally understood.

  • • •

  Phoebe paced the nap off the rug waiting to be with Jake the following weekend. While he hadn’t been absent from her life, she’d avoided being close, claiming anything from exams to clusters of migraines to avoid being alone. They’d been as intimate as always, which meant staying above her beltline and his, but as infrequently as she could manage.

  Now, as her waistline expanded, her mother scrutinized her morning till night. Now, when being thin meant so much, food beckoned like water in the desert. All week she’d forced herself to be calm until Sunday, when she found her moment.

  As everyone readied to leave for a bris out in Hempstead, Long Island, hosted by her aunt Ruth, Phoebe feigned a migraine—one requiring cold cloths and hot tea. When Jake showed up at the house in his suit and tie, her impatient-to-leave mother sent him up to her bedroom.

  There she lay, freshly showered, dusted in Cashmere Bouquet talcum powder, wearing a black silk slip as though about to be covered by her dress, with the sheet arranged around her almost bare shoulders.

  He knocked on the open bedroom door. “Your mom sent me up to get you.”

  Phoebe imagined them all waiting at the foot of the stairs, her mother’s arms crossed impatiently over her emerald-green dress, the one she rotated with her cornflower-blue shift for afternoon occasions.

  “My head is pounding,” she said. “Driving would kill me, but I don’t want to keep you from going.”

  “And miss witnessing someone snip your cousin’s son’s schlong? I can manage. I’ll study and be your nurse, okay, princess?”

  She lay on her side in a boudoir pose, the thin covers draped just so, crossing her arms to make cleavage with her hormone-inflated breasts.

  Jake brushed his fingers over her arm, lightly, but with intent. “I’ll get my books.”

  “Tell my parents you’re staying with me.”

  Phoebe shut her eyes when he left, trying not to cry. Sounds floated up. The front door closed. Her father started up the car. The front door opened. Footsteps came closer.

  Tears flooded her cheeks.

  “Pheebs? Honey? What’s wrong?” He stood in the doorway. “Should I stop your parents? Do you need your mother?”

  “No. No. Just you.” She wiped her tears. “I only need you, Jake.”

  He lay beside her, stroked the swell of her hip, the curves of her body, first slowly and then with rushing intent.

  As though enchanted, her body responded. She wondered if it was wonderful or awful how she had turned from Rob with such speed.

  Who cared? Rescue beckoned.

  She matched Jake, bone for bone, skin to skin. Made for each other. Whereas with Rob she had watched her every move, needing to prove her worth, with Jake she became unconstrained until she understood Helen’s wide-eyed chatter about orgasms. Phoebe thought her best friend had been exaggerating when she described in embarrassing detail the wonder of sex.

  Rob’s touch brought pleasure, but perhaps she’d been more excited by the idea of someone like Rob than by the actual Rob.

  With Rob, she sighed.

  Jake made her scream.

  Afterward, he didn’t question the lack of blood. Jake understood tampons and afternoons at Catskill hotels spent horseback riding. He cradled her as though holding a crystal doll, stroking her back with a steady, soothing hand.

  “How’s your headache, Pheebs?”

  “Better.”

  “Are you okay otherwise?” Jake tucked his head a bit, gesturing “down there.”

  She cupped his rough chin. “I’m quite fine.”

  “So what’s with all the jokes about ‘Not tonight, I have a headache’? Seems like we found a miracle cure.”

  “You’re my miracle.” Truth, she now knew.

  “I love you, Phoebe.” Jake appeared astounded at his luck; the warmth she showed after a season of remoteness. “I’ll always take care of you.”

  “You’re too good to me.” She bit her knuckle, willing to rip her flesh to keep from crying.

  “You make me whole. I need you by my side. You balance me. Forever, right?”

  “Forever,” she repeated.

  “Consider this my unofficial proposal, Pheebs. You won’t believe what will follow. I swear I’ll make this place seem like a pauper’s house.”

  After the awful things she’d done, Jake would save her. Phoebe swore to God she’d never hurt him again for as long as she lived.

  CHAPTER 5

  Phoebe

  Jake and Phoebe spent every night together, most often driving to Jones Beach on Long Island, the most secluded place in their universe. Phoebe didn’t believe that Jake had come to her a virgin, but his intoxication with her was obvious. In an unfortunate moment of introspection, she connected the dots between Jake, her, and Rob. The truth resembled an analogy from a comparative literature paper.

  Phoebe was to Jake as Rob was to Phoebe.

  With Phoebe, Jake jumped a class.

  She knew that the more frequently they made love, the more believable her pregnancy would be, but exhaustion saturated her every cell. Tonight she’d rather read in bed than see Jake. Perhaps this was a by-product of her condition, but who in the world could she ask?

  Her mother’s determined footsteps, the creak of a knob turning, and muffled words, signified Jake’s arrival. A vague discomfort at the base of her spine—she’d felt it twanging the moment she woke—became progressively worse when she walked.

  “He’s here!” her mother shouted up the stairs, as though Jake didn’t deserve being called by name.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  The other night, she’d asked her mother directly, “Why don’t you like him? He’s graduating college. He works hard, and he’s good to me. What else would I want?”

  Her mother ignored the question, staring a hole through Phoebe’s midsection and then frowning. “Your father says I should leave it alone.” Phoebe had walked away without a word.

  Jake would soon be
her unwitting savior. Her mother should embrace him as the Messiah. Every time Phoebe turned around, she caught her mother studying her middle as if expecting a tiny grandchild to leap out and shame her.

  Scribble-filled papers—Phoebe’s invented formulas as she attempted to figure out how soon before she should spill her secret—covered her desk. She tossed them in the trash, all the while praying that Jake possessed no aptitude for menstrual math.

  After seeing her wan face in the mirror, Phoebe added another layer of bright red lipstick. As her middle thickened, she wore ever-livelier shades, despite the pale, almost white, lip colors that had sprouted as though a zombie cult had invaded fashion. Overnight, anyone with style sense had stopped wearing red lipstick, but Phoebe needed to wear something fiery enough to stomp out all else about her.

  She threw a windbreaker over her untucked blouse and stood soldier straight, sucking in her gut, trying to hide the bump as she squinted at the full-length mirror hanging on the back of her door. Disgusted by her image, Phoebe ripped off the thin jacket and pitched it on the bed. Who wore a coat in 79-degree weather?

  “Phoebe!” her mother yelled. “Are you coming down? Did you hear me call?”

  She opened the door. “One minute!” she screamed and then clicked the lock.

  Ridiculous clothes crowded her closet, one more form fitting than the next, as though she were Brigitte Bardot and not some foolish knocked-up Brooklyn girl. She flipped the hangers until she reached a navy blouse dark enough to minimize her size.

  Phoebe drew on another layer of lipstick and walked downstairs. Her mother glued her eyes to her stomach. Why not put on a searchlight and make sure everyone stares, Mom?

  Jake hadn’t mentioned marriage since the first time they had made love, and Phoebe would rip her teeth out before she let herself be the one who broached the topic. The words needed to come from his lips; be his idea. She’d be indebted to him forever, but if he sensed even a hint of her desperation, the world would be permanently uneven between them.

  Leading with her gleaming mouth, beaming wide enough to show all her father’s hard work in ensuring her perfect smile, she went to Jake.

  • • •

  Seeking lovemaking positions in Jake’s Plymouth Fury meant choosing between working around the stick shift or using the backseat, which translated to a toss-up between awkward discomfort and twisting like a pretzel.