THE BUSINESS TRIP
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2004
Morris Feldstein drove down Soundview Avenue. In-ground sprinklers hissed and pulsated and sputtered on every lawn. Air conditioners groaned from steel cages next to every home. Stately Tudor homes lined the street, with dark wooden moldings and high-pitched roofs. A canopy of maple tree branches splattered odd-shaped patches of sun on the pavement. Landscaping trucks sat on the sides of the road like infantry vehicles in an army of occupation, a foreign legion of immigrants impressed into lawn-to-lawn combat in the global war on dandelions.
He approached his house, and felt a twinge of nervousness. This time of day there was a good chance of crossing paths with Rona’s last appointment. There were, in fact, two paths on the Feldstein’s property. One curved from the driveway to the front porch. Lined with evergreen bushes, it wrapped around a chipped aluminum light pole that leaned at a slight angle and bore a sign that said THE F LDSTEINS. (Morris had been meaning to reattach the missing E since it fell off, sometime during the winter of 1987.) The second brick path originated at the separate entrance to Rona’s office at the side of the house, then cut straight across the front lawn and terminated at the curb. Rona had wanted to plant a sign on the curb that advertised:
RONA FELDSTEIN, CSW
FAMILY & INDIVIDUAL THERAPY
With one of those bright-yellow happy faces. But Morris knew that the village zoning board frowned upon happy faces on people’s curbs.
It was always possible that when Morris came home, one of Rona’s patients could be walking down the side path, only thirty feet away. (“Please don’t call them patients!” Rona scolded Morris. “That stigmatizes them. They are clients!”)
To Morris it seemed the unstigmatized clients walked out of Rona’s office as if they were walking the perp line at the county jail. They bowed their heads, hastened their pace, and avoided eye contact. Maybe they thought he was casting judgment on the frayed marriages, the midlife crises, the family feuds, the panic attacks, phobias, and foibles that sent them up and down that path. But Morris didn’t stand in judgment of anyone—with the possible exception of the Mets’ pitching rotation. He just felt guilty for violating their privacy. So he pretended not to notice them—feigning an urgent fascination with the contents of his trunk, or how the grass was growing next door at the Schiffs’.
Morris drove slowly, craned his neck, and blew a sigh of relief when he saw no car.
He had planned a busy evening. First, there would be the matter of deciding between take-out Mexican, take-out Greek, or take-out kosher deli. After dinner, he would descend into the basement, sit at his junior desk and complete his Celfex Daily Report by pecking at a keyboard with two fingers and e-mailing it to corporate headquarters. Then, he would settle into his RoyaLounger, and watch the game he had recorded between the Mets and the Marlins. And if he still had it in him, there was the possibility of joining Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn on Turner Classic Movies later in the evening.
He pulled into the driveway and saw his across-the-street neighbor, McCord, on his usual vigil, standing like a sentry at the foot of his immaculate blacktop driveway, protecting it from terrorists, criminals, or windswept leaves.
Lately, McCord seemed to be on a heightened state of alert. Watching Morris. Surveilling him in the early mornings when Morris retrieved his newspaper from the curb, and when he left for work and returned home. One night, Morris thought he heard raccoons rummaging through the trash cans at the side of the house. When he opened the front door, he could have sworn he saw McCord dart across Soundview Avenue in night camouflage.
McCord’s paranoia, Morris realized, was making him paranoid. He rushed up his brick walk, avoiding eye contact with McCord.
He opened the door and saw two bulging pieces of Rona’s luggage, planted smack in the middle of the front hall.
Tsuris. To go.
He heard Rona’s urgent footsteps clacking against the ceramic kitchen tile. She appeared in the hall, holding a variety of take-out menus, splayed like a deck of cards.
“Morris? You’re home already? How was your day?”
Morris was silent.
“What would you like for dinner? I was thinking maybe Greek.”
Morris looked at the luggage and back at Rona. It seems like a lot to pack just to get some Greek takeout. Unless you’re going to take it out from Greece.
Rona caught the surprised look in Morris’s eyes. “Morris, guess what? I’m going back to the condo! On a business trip!”
The Feldstein Anxiety Anticipation Index edged up.
In thirty-four years of marriage, the only “business trip” Rona made was to that little office at the side of the house.
“Remember my Arab friend from Boca? Hassan? He has some friends who need counseling. Persecution complexes I think. Accchhh, all the racism they must experience. I’ll do some group therapy. Maybe teach them to meditate. Who knows, maybe I’ll open a practice down there! Rona Feldstein. CSW. Florida Office!” She cackled.
Sure, Morris thought. That’s Rona. Counseling Jews in Great Neck and Arabs in Florida. Rona Feldstein. Counseling the world.
A slight twitching in his stomach overtook his appetite for chicken souvlaki.
“But, Rona. We just got back. Last weekend.”
“I know! Isn’t it wonderful? A three-hour plane ride and we can come and go as we please. Besides, it’s only two days, Morris. I’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning and be back Saturday. Just in time for dinner.”
“Can’t this wait?”
“Well,” she said as she puckered her lips, a warning sign that a guilt zone was just ahead, “next week is Rosh Hashanah so that won’t work. And the week after is Yom Kippur. When we atone for our sins.”
She pronounced the “atone for our sins” part slowly and distinctly. For the benefit of any sinners in the room who might also be hearing impaired.
“But, if you want me to stay here and not see clients while you watch your baseball games and movies, I guess I’ll just unpack.”
Rona moved slowly toward her luggage, waiting for Morris to say stop.
Morris felt an unusual sensation. Not the usual anxiety accompanied by the release of acids and fluids. This feeling was a soft burning. Like a flame.
Rona stretched out her arms and bent toward the luggage.
Then it happened. That low flame in Morris’s gut erupted. Like a fireball, shooting up his stomach and straight into his mouth. Erupting from his cheeks as a withering:
“I’d really rather you not go to Florida, Rona. Not now.”
In almost any marriage in America, such a statement would be a civilized way to raise an objection. In thirty-four years of the Feldstein marriage, the words “I’d really rather you not” had never been uttered. There was “Yes, Rona,” “Fine, Rona,” and “Okay, Rona.” This was unprecedented. A violation of the “peace at any price” treaty signed on the Feldsteins’ wedding day. A breach of the diplomatic protocols that kept the waves at bay.
And it felt good to Morris! For the first time, refusing to surrender to Rona. Determined to fight. He assumed a self-righteous posture. Something Clint Eastwood might do. Or Gary Cooper in High Noon. His legs spread, both hands on his hips. Waiting for Rona to return a fusillade of high-velocity guilt.
“Make my day!” he thought.
He could anticipate what would happen next: how far Rona would roll her eyes upwards, when she would heave her shoulders, how long it would take her to top off her lungs with oxygen, and the duration of the exhalation.
He predicted wrong.
Rona pulled in her cheeks. Her eyes narrowed into slits. Her face turned almost as red as her Clairol Auburn No. 4. Her fingers clenched into tiny fists, shredding the take-out menus. Then she seemed almost paralyzed, gripped by an eerie wordlessness.
Morris sunk his hands into his pockets and began jiggling coins. He visualized the images in the photos of Caryn and Jeffrey on the walls around him. Wondering what would happen next, frozen not only in time but suspense as well.
Watching Rona glare at Morris and Morris jiggle the coins in his pockets.
It was less than a minute, five seconds actually, when Rona’s facial muscles untightened and her lips parted just enough for her to force a few words through them. Her voice was gravelly, and she spoke in a tone that was firm, so that even an imbecile like Morris could understand. And when she dropped her Long Island accent, and began pronouncing her Rs, it was a sign of formality. She said: “Excuse me. I have people who need me. In Florida.”
“Really, Rona? What are you, the official social worker for Arab towel boys?”
That was the moment when Morris knew how it felt to be a Mets pitcher who threw a game-losing home-run ball. How desperately that pitcher wanted to reclaim the pitch as soon as it was released from his grip; how his stomach dropped when he realized that something bad was going to happen, and all he could do was stand there, watching as the ball wafted toward the batter, waiting for contact. That’s how Morris felt the split second after his lips tossed that little bit of patronizing sarcasm at Rona.
But he couldn’t take it back. And so he jiggled the change in his pockets faster, blinked helplessly, and waited for Rona to swing away.
Which she did.
“I’m sorry, Morris, that you find it so hard to believe that there are people who want me to travel to Florida to receive my professional services.”
There’s a long fly ball . . .
“I’m sorry they seem to believe in me. And you don’t.”
It’s well hit. It’s way back, way back . . .
“And one more thing.”
Morris is at the warning track . . .
“Why should I ask you who I should spend my time with?”
It’s at the wall . . .
“When you didn’t ask me what woman you should spend your time with?”
It’s going, going . . .
It’s gone! Rona Feldstein hits a grand slam of guilt!
“Now, go get the Greek food. I have more to pack.”
Morris Feldstein loses! Loses again!
There was little talk during dinner. Morris pushed his chicken souvlaki back and forth across his plate, his shoulders in a resigned slump. Rona angrily chewed on her Greek salad. He has some nerve! He gets to have his midlife crisis, cheat on me, then gives me an attitude about a two-day business trip to Florida! All of a sudden he’s found a little backbone?
You know what? He can sit in that chair for two days. Watching his movies and his Mets and not once will he have to watch Wolf Blitzer! Maybe a little loneliness will teach him something. This will be good for us both.
Still, watching Morris’s eyes staring at his plate, Rona couldn’t help feel some guilt. Suddenly, in the guilt department, she was getting as much as she could give.
They continued eating in silence. Ignoring the raccoons in the bushes. Or whatever it was.