chapter eighteen

Jo sat on the bench and tilted her head back to soak in the September sun. The light dappling through the trees couldn’t be more golden, the sky more blue—or the rolling hills more green. It was the kind of day that would have made Rachel insist on a climb. Twenty years ago, Rachel and Jo and Kate and Sarah would have blown off their classes, piled into Jo’s Jetta, and set off for the Shawangunks. Today they gathered at Rachel’s grave, one year after her death.

Jo’s gaze drifted about twenty yards away, to a plot now surrounded by mourners. She was glad that the grave was covered with grass, and that the traditional Jewish ceremony would be confined to the unveiling of Rachel’s headstone. Jo never did like funerals of any kind. They brought back too many painful impressions: the choking smell of Kentucky clay, the big gaping hole, and the lingering smell of cigarette smoke in the folds of Aunt Lauralee’s dress. Today’s ceremony would be the last in Rachel’s honor, and Jo couldn’t help feeling that it was time for closure.

She hazarded a glance at Gracie, seated on the bench beside her and swinging her legs. The little girl still gripped the seat’s edge with tight white hands. They’d come early to pay their respects, but now the crowd had grown too thick for the girl, too full of clucking and pitying gazes, so Jo had drawn Grace away. They’d ended up on this bench by a gravel path, which was close enough to watch, but far enough away so they could avoid direct contact.

Jo stretched an arm across the back of the bench and tugged a lock of dark hair to get Gracie’s attention. “Your nana sure is looking forward to spending the holidays with you, kiddo. I could smell the honey on her clothes.” Jo hoped, by turning Grace’s thoughts to the upcoming visit to the Brauns, she could help Gracie get through the next difficult hour. “She promised me some of her honey cake for Rosh Hashanah, so you’d better not eat it all, you hear?”

Grace continued to bob with each swing of her legs.

“Maybe,” Jo added, fingering the open edge of her bulging purse to check one last time that she’d remembered to bring tissues, a granola bar, and a lollipop, “I’ll ask Jessie for that applesauce recipe, too. Then, when we go apple-picking in October, you can teach me how to use my stove again.”

Gracie stopped swinging her legs. She twisted her right foot to scrape the sole of her Mary Jane against the concrete brace of the bench. “Jessie’s applesauce is okay. I like the challah better.”

“I hear you, kiddo. I’m a carb girl myself.” Jo shifted her weight, subtly turning her body toward Grace. “Cornbread’s my preference, but challah will do. Did you remember to pack your Cinderella toothbrush?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And the new underwear, the princess ones still in the package?”

“Aunt Jo!” Grace turned her face up. “No talking about underwear!”

“Well, why not? A girl’s gotta have it.” Jo pinched the lapel of her black suit and pretended a playful peek. “Mine’s red.”

Red and lacy and downright raunchy. Because Rachel would have hated to see them all gathered here like a bunch of crows. Only respect for the family—and Grace—had kept Jo from striding into the cemetery sporting a leather miniskirt and stilettos.

Gracie’s roll of eyes didn’t quite hide the hint of a smile. “I packed enough for a whole two weeks, Aunt Jo, just like you told me.”

“That’s my girl.”

Fortunately, Grace had become very good at packing. The arrangements Jo had made with the Brauns meant a lot of shuttling back and forth between New York and New Jersey. Only a month ago, Grace had returned from a summer in Teaneck. Jo knew the summer had been difficult on Mrs. Braun, though the older woman refused to admit it. Mrs. Braun was still struggling to come to terms with the idea that Grace’s primary home was in Jo’s condo. Thank God, the older woman wasn’t fighting the custody arrangements anymore, and was by degrees becoming more amenable to compromise. In time, Jo hoped, Mrs. Braun would come to accept the new situation as the best one possible in an imperfect world.

Now the Jewish holidays loomed, and Grace would be going back to Jersey again. That would give Jo an opportunity to put in some serious face-time at work—and prove to her boss that the flextime she’d negotiated was just that—flexibility in her hours, so she could be a real mother to Grace.

Yep. It’d been a long, hard road, but she’d finally gotten this working-mother thing down.

“Aunt Jo?”

“Yeah, kiddo?”

“Where will I go when you die?”

Jo sucked in a breath so fast that spit hit the back of her throat. Her body spasmed and then she coughed, covering her mouth with her forearm. She motioned for Grace to wait as she turned away to root through her purse for tissues, continuing to cough long after she needed to, as she desperately searched for an appropriate response.

You’re not going to get rid of me that easily, kiddo, so no worries.

No worries. Jo knew she couldn’t tell Grace that. Gracie had been told that before, when her mother first went into the hospital, and look how that turned out, with them sitting on a bench in a cemetery.

After Jo got her coughing under control and wiped her watering eyes, she looked back at Grace. There were Rachel’s eyes, big in the face of Rachel’s daughter, as deep and brown as her mother’s but without the laughter, without the wisdom, and with more innocence and twice the sorrow.

Jo should have seen it coming.

In that instant, Jo followed her instincts and went with what she would have wanted to hear when she was sitting on a bench near her own mother’s grave, all those years ago.

The truth.

“That’s a good question, Gracie girl.” She wadded the tissue and shoved it in her purse. “I’m not planning to go anywhere soon, but,” she added, as she gestured to the mourners with her chin, “there’s no harm in looking at your options.”

By the graveside, the rabbi began the ceremony by reading psalms. The lilting Hebrew wafted to them on the breeze. Jo eyed Leah and her husband, Abe, standing close to the gravestone. Abe leaned on his walker. Leah, her head bowed, gripped the head of her cane.

“Well, you already have your nana and your grandpa.” Jo quietly slipped the tip of her finger across the part in Grace’s hair, fussing with that one stubborn strand, and gently combed it to the other side. “You have a room in their house, here in New Jersey. If something were to happen to me, you’d still have a place to stay.”

At that moment, Leah’s cane wobbled, and the elderly woman leaned in to Jessie. Gracie caught sight of her grandmother’s physical weakness, and then looked pointedly at Jo.

“Well,” Jo said, as the lock of hair that Jo had been fussing with twisted right back into place, “there’s always Aunt Jessie.”

“She’s got a boyfriend now.” Grace turned away and took an interest in peeling a sliver of green paint off the seat of the bench. “He’s over at the house all the time. And they’re always staring at each other.”

Jo smiled as she noted Jessie’s companion, a tall, rather gawky young man with Clark Kent glasses, whose body language screamed, She’s mine. It’d be a while—and maybe a wedding—before those two matured out of the cow-eyed phase.

Then Jo’s gaze fell upon another relative, Rachel’s buff, bachelor older brother. “There’s always Uncle Artie—”

“His house smells like gym.” Gracie shook her head hard. “And he keeps rats as pets.”

“Gracie girl, you gotta help me here. I’m plumb out of ideas.”

Gracie shrugged. She toyed with a sliver of rubbery green paint, but Jo noticed that the little girl’s gaze drifted beyond it, to a point just to the left of her mother’s granite gravestone.

To Kate.

Kate, a slim silhouette in a black Liz Claiborne suit, stood close by Paul. On one side stood her older daughter, Tess, clutching her elbows tightly. Michael, a smaller version of his father, stood frowning at the rabbi in concentration, as if he were trying to figure out the Hebrew. Anna swayed in front of her parents, blithely playing with the ruffles of her velvet dress.

A perfect nuclear family. What more could any orphan want?

“Ah, Gracie.”

Jo slipped her arm around her and pulled the warm bundle of girl against her side. She held Grace tight, so the little girl wouldn’t see the brightness of Jo’s eyes or the trembling of her jaw. Death was an ever-present thing. Yet, to live a full life, you had to face your fear.

Like Rachel did.

“I’ll tell you what, my girl: I’ll have a talk with Mrs. Jansen later today.” Jo scraped her fingers over Gracie’s head, messing that crooked part and all those dark locks. “Your ma took good care of you; now I’ll do the same. If something happens to me, don’t you fret. I’ll be sitting on a cloud, sipping an appletini with your ma. And you’ll be here, in the very best of hands.”

Staring at the gravestone, Kate rolled the pebbles in her palm. The rocks slipped smoothly over one another, like oiled massage stones. A long time ago, she’d taken a pile of them from a brook in the Shawangunk Mountains, from a stream she, Rachel, Jo, and Sarah had all bathed in during a brutally hot summer jaunt. She liked the way they felt in her hand. Over the years, they’d become her worry stones, clicking between her fingers as she studied or worked or fretted.

Time to give a few of them up. She leaned down and slid the first pebble on the granite base of Rachel’s gravestone.

One.

This is for opening Sarah’s eyes to what was right in front of her. And for teaching Jo what is really important in life.

Two.

For restoring my sanity, and my marriage.

Three.

And for you, Rachel. For reminding all of us that we have to jump out of airplanes every once in a while, for perspective.

Kate straightened. Paul’s hand felt warm on her shoulder. He’d been sweet today—attentive, accommodating, and a source of comfort and support. She slipped her hand in his and squeezed his fingers, to let him know how much she appreciated it. As they rambled down the hill, Kate saw a car stop on the road just beyond the green. A woman stepped out of the passenger’s side, dressed in a coral tie-dye sundress. Kate’s heart leapt: Sarah had arrived. Late, as usual, and wrinkled, as if she’d just tripped off an international flight. Sarah waved at her briefly, then struggled to tie a black mourning band around her upper arm as she wound her way through the gravestones toward the huddled crowd.

Paul dropped his hand from her shoulder. “I’d better get going if I’m going to get Tess to her soccer game.”

She tugged the lapel of his navy suit jacket. “Thanks, hon. I really need this afternoon with the girls.”

“You can pay me later.”

She couldn’t resist a slow, wicked smile. “Oh, I will.”

She watched him for a while, as he herded their three kids into the car.

“Sugar, didn’t anyone tell you the rules?” Jo sauntered up behind her. “You’re married. You’re not supposed to drool over your husband.”

“Clearly, you’ve been given the wrong information.”

Kate turned and embraced Jo, who looked very much as if she could use a cigarette.

Jo spoke into Kate’s shoulder. “I take it things are still improving?”

“Oh, yeah. And the make-up sex is great.” Any marriage, Kate had come to realize, was a work in progress. Kate glanced around. “Where’s Grace?”

“She’s going to Leah’s house for the High Holies.” Jo brushed at a dusty little handprint on her skirt. “It’s a perfect arrangement. I can concentrate on the new launch, and I may even squeeze in a love life.”

Kate grinned. “Do spill.”

“Surely you know who it is.”

“Really?”

“Down, girl. The accountant and I have been out to dinner twice, real casual, to talk about the new account after hours.”

“An account your buddy Hector is handling now, I hear.”

“Well, yes. I did insist he be promoted. Somebody has to handle the travel and the talent after hours, now that I’ve got Grace at home.”

Kate gave Jo a soft smile. Six months ago, Jo had quit her job. Jo said she had enough money to keep her and Grace comfortable for at least a year, and she needed to sort things out. Grace’s little episodes had worsened over the winter, and though Jo made Herculean efforts to handle both the job and the grieving little girl, the strain had proved too much.

“Rachel would say,” Kate said, “that you got a big dose of reverse karma when your boss begged you to come back after you quit.”

“I can’t say I didn’t enjoy hearing that my clients were bailing when they heard I had left the company.”

“So is it working—the flextime, working at home one day a week, the whole new situation?”

“Oh, it’s working. But, sugar, I’m no fool. I won’t make CEO before fifty.” Jo gave Kate a wink. “But there’s a good chance I’ll get something better. Gracie will raise a glass in my honor at her wedding.”

Kate laughed, a little laugh, a laugh that went husky and wet.

“Don’t you start, Kate Jansen,” Jo said in a shaky voice, “because then there’ll be no stopping.”

Sarah came toward them, glanced at both of them in concern, and then opened her arms for a hug.

Kate embraced her. “Hey, Sarah. Welcome back to the real world.”

“Is that where I am?” Sarah burrowed against Kate and then gave Jo a squeeze. “I can’t think. My head is still in Burundi time.”

“We’re glad your body’s here.”

Then they held on to one another as they talked, the three of them in one loose circle. Kate couldn’t stop looking at her friends. Marriage was treating Sarah well, for her cheeks flushed when she spoke Sam’s name, and she looked peaceful and happy. Jo let out a hearty laugh at something Sarah said, and the oh-so-familiar sound made Kate’s breath hitch a little. Her thoughts turned—inevitably—to the one whose laughter was missing.

Rachel.

Suddenly they all fell silent.

Jo was the first to speak. “You know, girls, I’ve been doing a bucket load of thinking lately.”

Kate felt a teary weakening. “If you cry, Jo, I swear, I’m going to lose it.”

“You know all this trouble Rachel caused us?” Jo blinked rapidly. “The skydiving, the hunting of old boyfriends, the raising of small children?”

Kate and Sarah, in unison: “Oh, yeah.”

“Well, this much I know is true.” Jo looked at each of them. “Rachel didn’t want us to go through it alone.”

Kate tightened her grip. She pulled them all close, until all that was left was a small space between them, a space just big enough for one athletically slim mountain-climber with a big heart.

Then Kate lifted her head and smiled up at the blue, blue sky.

Dear Reader,

If you’ve been to a college reunion lately and noticed a bunch of crazy women in the local pub singing bad eighties rock… and, if you’re in a certain upstate New York college town, then it’s a good bet that those are my friends, and I’m the one in the middle, dancing badly.

We’ve been doing this every five years since we graduated. As a group, we celebrate the memorable times we spent together lolling on grassy quads, as well as the years after graduation, where, cash-strapped and struggling, we suffered through one another’s horrid first jobs, romantic relationships, and roach-infested apartments. Now we’re scattered all over the country and settled into marriage, mortgages, careers, and family life. When we get together, we tend to embarrass our children.

We’re an odd and varied bunch: One raises money for charity by biking in 100-mile marathons; another, a gregarious working mother, juggles incredible responsibilities yet throws fabulous parties; and a third started her own landscaping business in midlife.

Honestly, I don’t remember how we were drawn together all those years ago. We’re a jumble of religions and races and socioeconomic classes and political beliefs. There are rough edges, old hurts, and fundamental disagreements. There’s also respect, humor, and empathy. It’s a recurring miracle that we’ve maintained our bond despite the distances of both time and geography. We know we are blessed. That’s why, every five years, we make Herculean efforts to reunite at our alma mater.

Magic occurs when we are in a room together. We talk about politics, sex, money, religion—all the things you’re not supposed to talk about in polite company. We roll out the old stories, and then tell new ones until we laugh ourselves to tears. By the wee hours of the morning, we’re at the college pub singing hair-band power-ballads and dancing as if no one is watching. And by the time we return exhausted to our regularly scheduled lives, we are sure of one essential truth: Life has taken us in very different directions, yet we all strive for the same goal—joy in our work, our marriage, our parents, our children… and our friends.

This novel, The Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship, is my little valentine to all of them.