Page 97 of This Is How It Started
Brooke invites everyone back to the house on Vallejo for refreshments, which is really kind of her. She’s a good person, and my father was lucky to have her.
I head to Adam’s car when Campbell waylays me on the sidewalk. “I’m not going to make it over,” he says and looks away.
“Okay.” It’s probably better that way. Lately, Campbell has been taking up too much of my head space.
“How’s the sale going?” I ask because it’s easy, because I don’t want to address what’s going on between us. The heaviness.
“A lot of interest. Niki’s taking offers next week,” he says to answer my question, but I can tell the sale is the last thing on his mind. There’s only regret and sorrow for all the things that might have been.
“That’s good. She’s the best. She’ll get you top dollar,” I ramble. My eyes start to sting, and I turn my face slightly, trying to pretend this isn’t the man I’ve been in and out of love with for twenty years.
“Yep.” He reaches out and brushes my hair out of my eyes. We stand like that for a few moments, him touching me, and then we pull apart.
“Look, I’ve got to get going.”
“Okay.” My voice is whisper thin.
Then he leaves without saying anything, not even goodbye.
* * * *
Three days later, I’m in Chicago, in the Ackermanns’ lovely suburban home, the one where Josh grew up. His childhood pictures line the hallway walls like a haphazard art gallery. Him playing T-ball. His debate team. A preteen Josh, donning a bow tie (this one cracks me up). Prom with his high school squeeze, the lawyer. Our wedding portrait on the tree swing at the house on Vallejo. And about a dozen others. None of them in chronological order, just a stream of consciousness history of Josh’s evolution from boy to man.
On Pauline and Saul’s coffee table is theSan Franciscomagazine cover with the interior of Il Matto, the Mission District restaurant Josh designed the year before he died. Next to it liesArchitectural Digestwith a blurb on Rabbits. The burned-out yahrtzeit candle sits on the polished black lid of the grand piano no one knows how to play.
“Are you hungry, dear?” Pauline pulls a tray of cold cuts from the refrigerator and pushes a basket full of French rolls at me in their dated but sunny kitchen. It’s the kind of kitchen that hugs you as soon as you walk in the room.
My stomach is a little off from the plane ride, but I take one of the rolls and a couple of pieces of salami to appease her.
“Josh loved hard salami,” she says as if I don’t remember her bringing a whole salami every time she and Saul came to visit. For three weeks after they left, we had salami on everything. Omelets, sandwiches, cheese and crackers, even stir-frys. It was a salami festivus.
“I know,” I say. Our conversations are about as dry as those salamis.
It isn’t that Pauline isn’t a wonderful person, but she and Saul are...shall we say, less colorful than their son was. Definitely less colorful than the Golds, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We can suck the oxygen out of a room in less than a millisecond.
Instead, it’s like that scene fromAuntie Mame.No matter what story my mother-in-law is telling, all I hear is “And I stepped on the ping-pong ball” in an upper crust accent.
I told Mom once. She erupted in laughter, then told me she’d had the exact same reaction. I never shared that special piece of cattiness with Josh, though. Some things were better left unsaid.
“Pauline, can I ask you a question?” Maybe it’s the awkward silence between us, or maybe I subconsciously planned this all along. But as much as I want to make peace with Josh’s past, I can’t seem to let Beth Hardesty go. “Did you know Josh’s girlfriend Beth? Beth Hardesty.”
I catch Pauline off guard, I can tell by the slightly caged look on her face. Beth’s name has definitely registered with her. Of course it would. Her son lived with the woman, for God’s sake.
“I remember her,” she finally says. “Why do you ask, darling?”
“No reason, really. I came across some old pictures and correspondence between her and Josh from a long time ago and wondered.” I left out the part that I’d been regularly stalking Beth. “It’s just that Josh never mentioned her before, and I was surprised.”
“It was a short-lived relationship. I’m sure Joshie didn’t think it was important enough to discuss.” She raises her arms in the air likewhat are you going to do?
“But he lived with her, right?” I don’t want to put Pauline on the spot, but this is my chance to answer the questions that have been keeping me up at night.
“Yes, and we weren’t happy about it.”
I know instinctively that it’s because Beth isn’t Jewish. The Ackermanns had no qualms with Josh and I living together before we were married. At least none that I know of.
The Golds have never had a problem with marrying outside of the faith. Don’t get me wrong, my mother was thrilled that Josh was Jewish. But as long as we were happy, my parents were happy.
I don’t press Pauline on this point and let her finish telling me about Beth.
