Unreasonable Doubts

by Reyna Marder Gentin

  Liana was puzzled. “Steven, your ex-husband?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry, no earth shattering news there—we’re still divorced. He’s stepped up with Max, and who else was going to organize this thing?” Deb asked. Liana was touched to be included and assured Deb she would be there.

  When she arrived at Deb’s apartment, Liana surveyed the room, somehow still expecting to see her friend at the height of fashion, decked out in chunky silver jewelry and a trendy lipstick color, wearing tailored wool slacks, a cashmere sweater, and boots with heels. But Deb had not been into the office for about ten days, and Liana was shocked at how rapidly she had deteriorated in such a short span of time. She was extremely weak. She spent the entire party seated in her favorite comfortable chair in a corner of the living room, covered with an afghan, the slight remainder of her hair tucked up into a cozy wool cap instead of the wig she usually wore to the office. She seemed pleased to introduce her friends from different parts of her life to one another—Liana couldn’t help but marvel at her attitude, given how sick she clearly was. But she was still Deb, holding court and tossing barbs around the room—“What, you couldn’t put on some decent clothes to come to my party?”—though none of them seemed to stick anymore. Liana was inordinately moved when Deb chose her to make her a bagel with cream cheese and lox, knowing how minimal her appetite had been.

  As she nibbled at her food, Deb turned to Liana, who was sitting on the ottoman at the foot of her chair, and said, “I have to ask you something. You can say no, but you should understand that it’s very important to me.” Looking at Deb, Liana knew she would refuse her nothing. Deb spoke very softly, pulling Liana in closer with her voice and shutting out the chatter around them. It was as though they were alone in the room, although Liana could see Steven hovering close by, protectively.

  “When I die, will you help with the funeral arrangements and all that stuff?” Liana’s eyes grew wide with terror, despite her best efforts to keep her face neutral.

  Deb continued, undaunted, as usual, by Liana’s discomfort. “My parents are so overwhelmed already; they’re barely functioning as it is. I’d like to spare them having to deal with the logistics. And my brothers will come in, but nobody lives in New York. It would be hard for them to figure it all out long distance, and it’d just delay everything.”

  Liana had not responded, but her mind had gone to Steven, and she had unintentionally tilted her head in his direction. Picking up on Liana’s nonverbal cue, Deb continued, “Honestly, I don’t really want Steven and his new wife doing this—it’s enough that they’ll have Max to deal with.” Deb started to cry, and Liana took her hand, which felt small and feverish, although she was touched to see that she had somehow managed to get a manicure before the brunch. “Look, I have other friends I guess I can ask if this is too much for you,” Deb said, Liana’s body language as she slumped slightly on the ottoman unwittingly revealing her hesitation.

  Deb was giving her an out, but Liana wouldn’t take it. The last few weeks after Deb had demanded that Liana step up as her friend had cemented their bond in a way that neither woman had anticipated. They had transformed their relationship into something deeper, and now Liana was being asked to commit herself to one final act of devotion.

  “Of course, Deb. I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

  Deb had obviously thought a lot about this, and without missing a beat she said, “When the time comes, you’ll call the rabbi of that synagogue you took me to—Rabbi Nacht. He can make sure everything is done right, and he’ll walk my parents through the funeral and the burial and shiva.”

  Ah, that’s why she is turning to me.

  Liana had brought Deb to services on Friday night a couple of times—once before she was sick and once after. She had been impressed by Rabbi Nacht’s kindness and erudition, but she, like Liana, wasn’t particularly religious. Although Liana remembered Deb commenting on the rabbi’s nice voice and good looks, she certainly hadn’t been moved to become a regular attendee.

  “Deb—you’re not so observant; do you really want the whole Orthodox enchilada when it comes to this?” Liana asked, trying to lighten the moment.

  “You know what, Liana? I’ve come to think that sometimes, not in every situation but in some, there’s right and there’s wrong. And I want to do this right,” Deb said. As in so many moments in their friendship, Liana knew there was just no point in arguing with Deb.

  “Okay, I’ll do it, but no time soon, okay?”

  “Okay,” Deb said, squeezing Liana’s hand. “Now, where’s that birthday cake?”

  CHAPTER 16

  Liana had always thought of Valentine’s Day as a Hallmark holiday at best. She had never held Jakob to any particular recognition of the day—she didn’t expect red roses or chocolate or for him to serenade her or write her a sonnet. But with her self-imposed deadline to make a decision on their future looming, she intended to give their love, and its long-term prospects, every advantage. Spending so much time with Deb—and faced so starkly with the precariousness of every-thing—had strengthened Liana’s resolve to make sure Jakob knew how she felt about him and how much she wanted them to be together through life’s ups and downs.

  And maybe focusing on Jakob and the prospect of marriage will help me stop daydreaming about Danny Shea.

  The embarrassing frequency and intensity of the unbidden and absurd visions were making her anxious.

  So she invited Jakob to her apartment for a romantic homemade dinner on the fourteenth—a curious choice, as Liana had never learned to cook. In college, she’d been on the full meal plan for all four years, happily lazing around the dining hall with her friends, refilling her plate with salad and French fries, and going out late at night for ice cream. Her eating habits hadn’t changed—she was all about takeout of every ethnic variety, and when she was forced to make something at home, she stuck to whatever she could warm in the microwave. So when she woke up on February 14 with no idea what to whip up for Jakob for their repast, she called her mother in desperation.

  “Well,” Phyllis said, “your impulse is a good one. The fastest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. But you’re asking the wrong person what you should make for Jakob.”

  Liana was dejected.

  Is she going to abandon me at this crucial moment?

  “You need to call Arlene,” her mother instructed. “A man wants the food his mother cooks.”

  “Really?” Liana asked. “That sounds so Neanderthal or Oedipal or primal or something.”

  “Trust me on this, Li. A couple of his mother’s old standards, and you will have Jakob eating out of your hand. Or whatever it is that you young people do these days for fun,” her mother said.

  “Ew, Mom! Please don’t go there. Love you.”

  Liana hung up the phone and immediately called Arlene. After explaining her predicament and reminding Jakob’s mother that her culinary skills were nonexistent, she convinced Arlene to work out a menu of his favorites, easily prepared in Liana’s tiny kitchen and suitable for dining in the middle of winter in her overheated apartment. A few minutes later, Arlene emailed Liana her recipes for cold cucumber soup, asparagus pie, curried couscous salad, and apple cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Liana was elated, if a bit nervous. After a quick trip to Fairway, she began, wondering if she should have taken Arlene up on her offer to do the cooking and pass it off as her own.

  By six thirty, everything was ready. Liana wasn’t confident that she’d replicated each dish perfectly, but certainly the food was recognizable and sufficiently similar to Arlene’s that, if Phyllis’s theory was right, Jakob would be both comforted and seduced by Liana’s efforts. She set the small table with a red-and-white checkered tablecloth—a bit picnic casual, but it was what she had—and she stuck some long, tapered red candles incongruously in the small silver-plated candlesticks she sometimes used on Shabbat. She took out her two best wineglasses and opened the expensive bottle she had bought to breathe. Liana had l
aughed out loud when Arlene had started to make suggestions for the wine; her inability to cook had resulted, long ago, in her becoming enough of an oenophile to make her welcome, bottle in hand, at anyone else’s home-cooked meal.

  When she was satisfied that the room looked lovely and enticing, she turned with the time that remained to preparing herself. A quick trip to Victoria’s Secret after the grocery shopping had yielded a sexy new black silk bra and panty set—nothing that would make either of them blush but enough, at the right moment, to divert Jakob’s attention from Liana’s rendition of his mother’s food and put the spotlight back on her. Over her new lingerie she put on jeans and a sweater; there was only so far she could go in pretending this wasn’t a week-night in her apartment, after all. She pumped up her curls, dabbed on a little perfume, and checked to make sure the food was ready to go—soup cold, asparagus pie and cobbler hot, couscous room temperature. Then she sat on the couch and waited for Jakob to arrive.

  Seven o’clock came and went, but Liana was accustomed to Jakob being late, and she wasn’t worried. When it got to seven thirty, she started to pace, and as it neared eight, she felt both hurt and a little foolish. She called Jakob’s office, and a secretary working overtime answered. “Mr. Weiss’s line, may I help you?”

  “Yes,” Liana said, without identifying herself. “Is he available?”

  “No, I’m afraid he’s not at his desk. He’s in a conference; would you like me to try to pull him out?” she said agreeably.

  “No, thank you. He must’ve forgotten,” Liana said to herself, oblivious to the secretary on the line. She hung up, dazed, not sure whether to be angry at Jakob or at herself. Had she reminded him during the week of their date? She couldn’t recall. But most guys, even those as clueless as Jakob, would know it was Valentine’s Day. As she sat looking at the flickering candles and the shimmering wineglasses, she made a decision. She’d rise above her reflexive impulse to be furious with Jakob and his job. She’d be the compassionate and understanding woman that he needed.

  In a few minutes Liana located the large wicker picnic basket she’d bought at Williams and Sonoma when she moved to Manhattan, imagining that she and Jakob would spend long, lazy Sundays in fine weather sprawled out in Central Park, sipping chilled Chablis and eating Camembert cheese and strawberries. The idyllic Sundays hadn’t materialized, both she and Jakob recognizing that it was more important to use their free time to visit with their families, especially after Liana’s father died. But the basket remained, stuffed onto a high shelf in the hall closet, and into its pristine interior Liana now placed paper plates, plastic cutlery, and Tupperware containers filled with cold cucumber soup, asparagus pie, couscous salad, and apple cobbler. The a la mode would have to wait for another day.

  Hopping into a taxi, Liana felt better and more secure in her relationship with Jakob than she had since their weekend in Newport in November. She longed to see him—even if they just had a little while to have some dinner together—and then she’d go home, knowing that she hadn’t been that pesky girlfriend, losing her temper and criticizing him for his work obligations that were out of his control.

  “Thanks,” she said to the taxi driver. “This is great. I’ll get out here.” She paid the fare, impulsively adding on a tip that was almost as much as the cost of the whole ride. The driver gave her an encouraging thumbs-up as she got out of the cab, picnic basket in hand, clearly a woman on a mission.

  If only he could see these undies.

  When she reached the sixteenth floor, she breezed past the receptionist and headed toward Jakob’s office. The woman filling in for Jakob’s regular secretary was sitting at the desk, looking bored, only the overtime pay making up for the fact that she was in the office at nine in the evening on Valentine’s day.

  “Hi. Do you know which conference room Jakob is using?” Liana asked.

  “Yes, he’s in 1630—is he expecting you? I can show you where the room is,” she offered.

  But Liana remembered the layout of the floor from her days as a summer associate, and she knew right away that Jakob was holed up in the same depressing place where she had spent most of that summer after her second year of law school. A wave of empathy washed over her.

  How sad that Jakob is stuck in a bleak and lonely conference room when he is supposed to be at home with me eating asparagus pie.

  She raced down the hallway, moved to be coming to his rescue.

  They were sitting close, their backs to the door, their bodies inclined toward each other but not touching. The thin column of air between them sizzled with what Liana perceived, gratefully, as yet-unrealized possibilities. When she entered the room, they were absorbed in conversation, speaking quietly, and they didn’t notice her. Jakob looked tired but relaxed, his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle under the table. The sleeves of his no-longer-crisp white shirt were pushed up to his elbows, and he had unbuttoned the top button and loosened his tie. The papers on the table had been moved carefully to one side, and a now-empty medium pizza box rested in front of Jakob and the woman, who were each holding a small plastic cup half-filled with red wine.

  “Drinking on the job? That could get you fired,” Liana said, attempting a lighthearted reaction that could in no way counter the pathos of the picnic basket draped over her arm.

  Jakob turned around, so surprised to see her that he didn’t speak. But the woman, clueless and smiling, said, “Well, it’s Valentine’s Day, you know.”

  Liana looked searchingly at Jakob, willing him to recover and take control of the situation as she felt the strength flow out of her.

  “Liana,” he said, finally, “this is Michelle, the paralegal working on my case. We have to work late; we were just grabbing some pizza.” When Liana didn’t respond or move any farther into the room, Jakob continued. “Michelle, this is Liana, my girlfriend. Would you mind giving us a few minutes?”

  Michelle got up slowly from the table, looking as though she did not want to leave and miss whatever scene might follow her departure. She was young—just out of college, Liana surmised—making decent money as a paralegal before deciding whether to go to law school, and sleeping with a few of the attorneys along the way for good measure. Liana had nothing against the standard paralegal strategic plan, as long as it didn’t involve Jakob. This one, Michelle, was pretty in an unusual way—thick red hair and porcelain skin, big blue eyes and substantial curves poured attractively into a tailored navy suit. If she didn’t leave right away, Liana feared she might accidentally drench her in cold cucumber soup.

  When she had finally sauntered out of the room, Jakob asked, “What’re you doing here, Li? You refuse to come to the firm when I ask you to, and now you show up without even calling at nine at night. I don’t get it.”

  “Honestly, Jakob, I think you have more to explain than I do. You were supposed to come over for dinner tonight, and when you didn’t show up, I got worried.” A cloud passed over his face, and Jakob looked chagrined, but he didn’t interrupt Liana. “Then I called, and the secretary said you were stuck here, so I thought I’d bring you dinner and salvage the night. And what do I find? You and the paralegal, all cozy. What’s going on, Jay?” She felt sapped of all her energy and reluctantly sat down in the chair that Michelle had vacated.

  “There’s nothing going on, Liana—I swear,” Jakob said. Liana waited patiently for him to continue. She knew what she had seen, and it may not have been much, but it was decidedly not nothing.

  “Michelle’s a kid. We’re friends.” Jakob was rarely at a loss for words, but he was flailing now. “She’s easygoing. She gets this world—my world, Liana—and she doesn’t give me a hard time about being a part of it.”

  Liana was wounded, but she was no fool. She sensed that a misstep here could send Jakob into Michelle’s arms or someone else’s, and no way was she going to let that happen. She would make the decision about a future with Jakob—no one would make it for her.

  She reached down in
to the picnic basket. “Apple cobbler?” she asked.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Jakob said, relieved both to have not strayed and to have been forgiven.

  Liana pictured her apartment, the table sitting forlornly, set with her good wineglasses, the candles now burnt down low, the smell of the wax lingering in the air.

  “Can we go to your place? My apartment’s a mess,” she said.

  CHAPTER 17

  Nice job, Liana!

  Great win!

  You rock, girl!

  Very good decision. Please see me at your earliest convenience.

  Liana had been checking the Appellate Division’s website every Wednesday afternoon for the last month, looking for the court’s ruling on Danny Shea’s case. Today, she had gotten distracted and forgotten—but the emails from her colleagues told her she’d won. She hurried to pull up the decision on her computer. She read the majority opinion, which adopted almost verbatim her argument that Shea’s trial counsel had been ineffective for failing to redact Alba Velez’s name from the DNA lab report. Judge Simon had dissented, writing that she couldn’t join the majority opinion because there was no way to determine whether Shea was prejudiced when the jury learned of Ms. Velez’s existence or the error was harmless because the evidence was so overwhelming that Shea would have been convicted anyway. Liana wished, for the thousandth time, that she had answered Judge Simon’s question at oral argument instead of punting, but, in the end, the dissent didn’t matter. The court reversed Shea’s conviction and ordered a new trial.

  “Hey, Liana, you won that case!” Bobby squeaked, a little late to the party. Listening to his perky voice reminded Liana of how much she missed having Deb around—Bobby had been pretty good company for a while, but now that Deb was no longer coming into the office at all, his presence was a constant reminder of her absence. Liana was mostly successful in pushing the thought to the back recesses of her mind, but the notion of no longer working with Deb was oppressive. As mercurial as she could sometimes be, Deb was honest and direct, and Liana felt unmoored without her. She picked up the phone.