Bikini Carwash (That Business Between Us)

by Pamela Morsi

  Andi rushed through her shower and makeup. Deciding after a couple of attempts with the curling iron just to pile her hair on top of her head and call it a style. Thanks to the car wash her skin was now attractively tan and her arms amazingly buff. So the simple, cool sundress she chose looked fabulous and with a pair of perilously high strappy slides, it was dressy enough for any place in Plainview.

  When she went downstairs, Jelly was giggly and excited and ready to go. Pop, on the other hand, seemed nervous. He was dressed in his very familiar, utilized-once-weekly suit, but his crisp white shirt was brand-new, as was his tie. The tie, with blue variegated lines atop a pewter-colored background really freshened up his traditional Sunday gray. Andi was surprised to see her father looking so sharp, almost fashionable.

  “You look great, Pop,” she told him. “So where are we headed?”

  “Delmonico’s.”

  Delmonico Prima Vera, known by locals as simply Delmonico’s, was located on the side of a hill near Mt. Ridley Park. The only place more fancy or expensive was the country club and anyone who’d ever eaten there concluded that Delmonico’s served better food.

  Pop ignored the optional valet parking and found a space for his old white truck near the far edge of the lot. They walked the distance with Jelly managing to hold up all ends of the conversation on her own.

  “I look really nice in Andi’s blue dress and I get to go to a fancy restaurant because I have good manners ’cause I never eat with my fingers or blow bubbles in my drink like Tony Giolecki does. I don’t wear high heels because I could fall over and break my leg. Andi doesn’t mind if she breaks her leg ’cause she doesn’t have to carry meals to people’s houses, but I do and I couldn’t if I had to be on crutches the way Mrs. Pietras was after she had the operation on her foot.”

  Andi listened absently and glanced over at her father occasionally. His thoughts appeared a million miles away.

  When they stepped up to the desk of the hostess she asked if they had reservations.

  “Yes,” Pop answered. “Wolkowicz. I’m supposed to have the small private deck at eight o’clock.”

  “Yes, sir,” the young woman said, smiling at him very broadly. “If you’ll follow me.”

  Andi had only been in the restaurant a couple of times and she’d always eaten in the main dining area. They were led upstairs and down a hallway into a corner room that had floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides. The view of Mt. Ridley, and their pleasant little small town, was magnificent. In the center of the room was a table for six with snowy white linens and an abundance of very breakable-looking stemware.

  “Jelly, you’re going to need to be very careful,” Andi warned.

  Her sister nodded, eyeing the elegant table decor with great trepidation as if it were set with explosives able to go off with one false move.

  “So, what’s the deal, Pop?” Andi asked. “Did you win the lottery?”

  “No, but I do hope it will be...well, a bit of a celebration.”

  Celebration, Andi thought. Nobody, not even Pop, would announce some dreaded disease like a celebration.

  “The chef helped me to select the wine when I came in on Monday,” Pop told the waiter.

  “Yes, sir,” he answered. “Would you like me to serve it now or wait for the rest of your party?”

  “The rest of our party?” Andi asked.

  Before the question could be answered, the hallway door swung open once more and three well-dressed strangers were ushered in.

  No, Andi thought. They weren’t strangers, she recognized all three. And Jelly did, too.

  “Mrs. Joffee!” she said, excitedly. “Andi let me wear her blue dress, don’t I look really nice?”

  “Yes, you look very nice,” Mrs. Joffee answered.

  “Rachel,” Pop interjected. “This is my other daughter, Andrea.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  The dainty little woman took Andi’s hand and smiled up at her.

  “And you probably know my boys, as well,” she said. “Andrea, Angela. This is Dave and Seth.”

  She politely shook hands with the Joffee brothers.

  “You can call me Jelly,” her sister told them. “That’s what everybody calls me, so you can call me that, too.”

  “I remember you from school,” Seth said.

  Jelly nodded. “So are you the fall guy?” she asked him. “Your brother will be out on parole in three to five, but you’ll be making license plates until your reservation’s in hell.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Oh, Jelly is just playing around,” Pop interjected quickly. “I’m Walter Wolkowicz,” he told the guys as they shook hands.

  “Mr. Wolkowicz,” Dave acknowledged.

  “Please, call me Walt,” he said.

  All six of them stood together for a long moment, everyone smiling falsely bright. Andrea had a pretty good idea what this must be about and she wished her father hadn’t sprung it on her as a surprise.

  “Why don’t we all sit down,” Pop suggested. “I’ll get the waiter to bring us a cool glass of white wine. Does that sound good, Rachel?”

  “Yes, lovely,” she said.

  As Pop stepped out of the room, Mrs. Joffee glanced around at them all again.

  “Come, let’s sit,” she said, taking Jelly’s hand before Andi even thought to reach for it.

  She took a seat at the end of the table, with Jelly across the corner from her. As Jelly frequently required a little help at restaurants and this one was unfamiliar, Andi knew she needed to be close. She sat down beside her sister. The Joffee brothers sat opposite them.

  Pop returned with two waiters and a couple of bottles of wine.

  “I didn’t ask you boys if you want a cocktail,” Pop said. “I’m sure they can make anything here at the bar.”

  “A glass of wine is fine,” Dave said. Seth nodded agreement. “What about you, Andi? Is wine okay?”

  “Fine,” she answered, reminding herself that she needed to keep her wits about her.

  “I don’t drink wine,” Jelly said. “It stinks funny and it’s really gross if you think like Father Blognick that it is blood. I’ll have a Scotch, neat, the way Jack McCoy drinks it.”

  “I don’t think so, Jelly,” Pop said quietly. “Would you fill her wine glass with water, please? So she can toast with us.”

  The waiter quickly did as he was bid.

  “We’re going to have toast,” Jelly said, sounding disappointed. “I thought we might at least get a hamburger or something.”

  “It’s not toast like a breakfast,” Andi assured her, sotto voce. “It’s a toast like...well...like a pep rally or something.”

  “A pep rally?” Jelly looked incredulous.

  Andi felt exactly that way.

  Her father stood. “Rachel and I weren’t exactly sure how to bring this up,” he began.

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t,” Andi interrupted. She glanced around quickly, embarrassed for her father and for herself. He was such a nice guy and he always tried to do the right thing, but recruiting the Joffees into her camp was just unnecessary. “This was very nice, Pop, to try to line up support for me from one of the most influential downtown businesses, but really, it’s not that big a deal. Any support is always appreciated, but I don’t think we to need to...to twist any arms over this. I have a legal right to run my business. I’m going to fight for that right and I believe that’s the end of it.”

  “We’re okay with you running the car wash,” Seth told her. “We don’t see any downside with it. And our foot traffic has improved.”

  His brother, Dave, agreed. “I think this meeting must be about the property itself.” He turned to Pop. “I heard recently how Hank Guthrie welched on the sale.” Dave then glanced toward his mother at the other end of the table. “Are you now thinking to buy that corner, Mama?”

  Mrs. Joffee didn’t immediately answer, but looked over at Walt for a moment. He shrugged and sighed heavily. She stood and walked around
the table to stand beside him.

  “This is not about you, Andi,” Pop said. He looked over at the young men on the other side of the table. “And it’s not about you, either, or about property.”

  “Is it about me?” Jelly asked.

  “No,” Pop answered. “Though you are going to be one of the people most affected.”

  He glanced down at Mrs. Joffee again and then smiled at her before he cleared his throat.

  “Rachel has done me the honor of agreeing to be my wife,” he said. “We’re going to be married.”

  There was a moment of completely stunned silence around the table.

  “For real?” Jelly asked, loudly and enthusiastically.

  Andi was thinking the same thing, but without her sister’s joyous optimism.

  “Yes,” Pop answered. “It’s for real.”

  “And you’ll be my new mom?” she asked Mrs. Joffee.

  “I’ll be your stepmom,” Rachel answered. “Your mother will always be your mother, but I want to love you and be a part of your life.”

  “Cool,” Jelly said.

  “Hold on, hold on,” Dave said. “This is...this is surprising and...unexpected. We haven’t talked about this at all. Are you two sure you’ve thought this through?”

  “Oh, yes,” Pop said. “We’ve thought it through.”

  “We’ve thought it through and thought it through and talked it to death,” Rachel added with a light laugh that had Pop joining in.

  “How could you have thought it through that much?” Andi asked. “Mom has only been dead for six months.”

  “It’s almost ten months,” Pop corrected her. “And we’re going to wait a full year out of respect before we make it official.”

  “Oh, well then, if you’re waiting a full year that’s fine,” Andi said, her tone heavily laced with sarcasm. “Grass isn’t even growing atop her grave yet, but you certainly can’t let any grow under your feet.”

  She wasn’t the only one who had a problem with their engagement. Seth Joffee’s tone was heavily laden with sarcasm. “Uh, Mama, in case you haven’t noticed, this guy is not Jewish.”

  “Yeah,” his brother agreed. “Don’t tell me you’re planning to become a Catholic?”

  “We’re each keeping our own religion,” Rachel said. “We respect each other’s beliefs. And since our children are already grown, there won’t be any sticky decisions about how to raise the kids.”

  “This is just too fast,” Andi said. “You hardly even know each other. How long can you two have been seeing each other? A few weeks, a month?”

  “And let’s be clear about this for sure, Mr. Wolkowicz,” Dave said. “If you’re thinking that you’ve hit the jackpot with a rich widow, let me assure you that we will insist on a very strict prenup. You won’t take anything from this marriage beyond what you bring into it.”

  “Pop’s not like that,” Andi defended. “He doesn’t care about money. He’s just lonely.” She turned her attention back to her father. “Pop, I know you miss Mom. But you can’t just jump right back into marriage with the first woman who makes eyes at you.”

  “My mother doesn’t ‘make eyes’ at anyone.”

  “Well, I doubt they met over bingo in the recreation hall at St. Hyacinth’s.”

  They were all talking at once and the level of discourse got louder and louder.

  Suddenly Jelly covered her ears and cut through the noise. “HAVE YOU PEOPLE GOT A PROBLEM OR SOMETHING?”

  There was a moment of stunned silence before Jelly added, “Let Pop and Mrs. Joffee talk. They are the ones who are getting married.”

  The obvious logic of her mentally handicapped sister’s words caught them all up short.

  “Thank you, Jelly,” Pop said. “Rachel and I will answer all of your questions, or at least all of them that we think you have any right to know.”

  Rachel smiled, appreciating his humor.

  “This isn’t some whirlwind courtship,” she said. “We’ve known each other almost our whole lives.”

  “And,” Pop added. “We’ve been in love with each other for over forty years.”

  “What?” a chorus of three potential stepsiblings asked in horrified unison.

  “Rachel and I fell in love in high school,” he said, with a confirming glance toward her. “Our families, our religious communities were completely opposed. We wanted nothing more from life than to just be together. But we allowed our parents to talk us out of it. Believe me when I tell you that we have no intention of allowing our children to do the same.”

  Rachel nodded. “When we told our parents, we did it separately. I told mine, Walt told his. They would never even agree to meet each other. So we decided that we’d make our families sit down together before we even spoke a word.”

  “It’s important to us that our children approve,” Pop said. “But we want to make it clear, this is our decision and we’ve already made it.”

  A stark finality of silence settled around the table. Andi glanced at the two thirty-something guys across the table from her. Their expressions reflected much of what she was feeling.

  “So you two have...have...” Seth was loath to say it, but managed to get it out. “You two have been...uh...close all this time?”

  “No we have not,” Rachel answered her son, sternly. “We made our commitments and we honored them. We never tried to see each other, we never even spoke until we were both free.”

  “And so you flew from Mom’s funeral straight into her arms,” Andi accused.

  “Andrea, there is no need for that tone,” Pop said. “Ella knew all about us. She was there. We were a foursome. Rachel and I and Ella and Paul.”

  “Paul?”

  “Paul Gillette,” Pop answered. “My best friend and the love of your mother’s life. He was killed in Vietnam in 1969.”

  Andi felt as if the bottom had just dropped out of her world and she was suspended in dangerously frightening midair.

  “Ella and I were both suffering broken hearts,” Pop said. “It’s what brought us together and we made the best of it.”

  “You made the best of it?”

  He nodded. “We had a full life with a happy marriage with wonderful children. Neither of us wasted a lot of time wishing it were different.”

  “You children can never understand what it was like for us,” Rachel said. Addressing her sons she added, “Your grandparents lost family and friends in the concentration camps in Poland. That I would give up our heritage and marry a Pole was more than they could bear. And I couldn’t bear to hurt them. I grew to love your father, just like my parents said I would. I regret nothing in the past. But I would regret not taking hold of our future.”

  “Irv was an honest, decent man,” Pop said. “I don’t need to tell you boys that. Because I loved Rachel, I wanted her to be happy. And I am grateful that she was.” The two shared a smile. “And as for my Ella,” he continued looking at Andi. “I have no doubt she would be happy to see us together at last.”

  Andi couldn’t argue. She didn’t know what to argue. She couldn’t claim to know her mother better than Pop did. It had become completely clear to her that she did not know either of her parents at all.

  “So, if there are not any more immediate questions...” He let the words hang out there in the silence for a moment. “Pass your mother’s glass down this way, David, I’d like to propose a toast.”

  The piece of crystal was handed down the table and she held it daintily by the stem.

  Pop raised his toward her. “To my beautiful Rachel, whom I have loved so long. I wish to spend every day of the rest of my life with you.”

  She smiled at him, her eyes glowing with admiration. “And to our two families,” she added. “Very soon to be one.”

  Jelly cheered and gulped down her water. Pop and Rachel eagerly brought the wine to their lips. The two Joffee brothers drank as well, though a bit reluctantly.

  Andi gazed at her glass as if it contained poison, but she did man
age to choke down a sip.

  Jelly decided it was necessary to convene a grand jury. Since Jack McCoy was not available, she took on the role of prosecutor herself. She lined up all her dolls and stuffed animals in rows, poised for attention. Then she carefully explained the gravity of the situation to Happy Bear, Quaky Duck, Baby Dimples and the rest assembled.

  “Andi was mad and Mrs. Joffee’s sons were mad and it was like nobody was happy for them but me,” she explained.

  Her words were acknowledged with complete silence in the Jury Room, located on the floor space between her bed and the closet.

  “I think it will be great to have Mrs. Joffee as my new mom. My stepmom she calls it. I will never step on her, of course. But that’s something Andi might do.”

  Still the jurors were uncommitted.

  “I have a picture book I’d like to put into evidence,” Jelly announced.

  She opened the creaky, old photo album that had so many photos of her mother in high school. Jelly flipped through until she came to the ones with the prom. She held the book up and pointed out to the assembly one particular photo.

  “See this one,” she said. “I thought this girl looked familiar. It’s because she is Mrs. Joffee. And Pop is kissing her. So he must love her. I rest my case. ”

  18

  THE FIRST STOREWIDE cross-training at Guthrie Foods went pretty well, Pete thought. There had been only minimal bellyaching as they started out. There were cashiers who didn’t want to stock. And there were ham-handed meat clerks who just couldn’t get the right buttons on the registers. But Pete presented the exercise as a great adventure for the employees and a way to learn how to appreciate each other. His upbeat attitude continued to be contagious and he thought it had gone very well.

  As he neared nine o’clock, he was eager to pick up Andi and tell her everything that had happened. That had become the best part of his day. He stored up incidents he wanted to share with her. And he listened eagerly to what she had to tell him.