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Six weeks later, I looked over at Ethan, sleeping on his stomach in Orly’s old bed. I knew it was her bed because the headboard was white lacquer. Mine was beige with leaf etchings on the corner.
“You’re moving in with mom and dad? Aren’t you going to miss your big house?” Orly had asked when I told her of my plan.
“Yes,” I’d replied simply. But it turned out that I didn’t end up missing our big house all that much, even as Ethan and I bunked together in my sister’s old room.
My mother had converted my old room into a reading room, where she had bookcases packed with mostly cookbooks and a comfortable chaise lounge that she never used.
My mom had moved my bed into Orly’s room and converted it into a guest room, consisting of the two mismatched twin beds, my old dresser, and up until recently, Orly’s two hundred Beanie Babies, which were now in the reading room.
I glanced over at Ethan, who was still sleeping. He’d adjusted to the new environment easily. A little too easily. I had a recurring worry that it would all implode one day and that the effects of the divorce and the move would come out all at once. I tried to push that thought down. Maybe kids are just resilient.
Since that day when I’d stalked Roberta’s landlord and asked my parents if I could move in, my mother had gone from insinuating, and sometimes downright asking, why I didn’t want to have another child to now insinuating, and sometimes downright asking, why I didn’t want to look for a traditional lawyer job.
Two days after the stake-out of William Nadine’s office, Roberta’s dishwasher was replaced, her windows were cleared of mold, and her pipes were fixed.
It was the most rewarding day’s work I’d ever put in.
I had tried to explain that to my mother. “I would like to try something different, work-wise and life-wise. A new beginning.”
“It’s a career that you went to all that school for, not a damn dessert menu. Ya wanna try something different? Get the tiramisu.”
My parents weren’t the only ones who were concerned about me.
I propped a pillow behind my head and scrolled through old emails. I had to find an old lease for another one of Joyce’s mother’s friends who I was helping. That was when I reread the emails from a couple of weeks ago.
“Hi, Karen, so since I got canned, I haven’t really had a chance to have a good, long goodbye with you. No time for that now, but I don’t know if I ever thanked you.”
I recalled the time I’d misplaced my phone and become hysterical. Karen had helped me look everywhere until we found it in the office refrigerator. It was the morning after Ethan had had a stomach bug, and I’d been up all night.
“I just want to say I really appreciated it when you covered for me if I had to stay home with Ethan for whatever reason. Thank you for being a good coworker. Whoever takes my place is lucky to work alongside you.”
Ethan’s footie pajamas were slightly twisted around his left ankle. He must have been tossing and turning. The comforter and top sheet were coiled and wedged between the bed and wall. I resisted the urge to untwist the pajama pant leg.
I went back to my phone and scrolled an inch to the next email.
“Hi, Dan. It’s Jada, your favorite associate. I’m writing to say something I never had the chance to say to you on my last day, or ever. Thank you. I know I apologized, but I don’t think I ever thanked you. Not once. Thank you for being a good supervisor and putting up with me. Thank you for everything you did for me.”
Dan and Karen both replied right away, saying they missed me and that we had to get together for lunch sometime. We never did. Life got too busy. But it was easy to write them. It was easy to be gracious to people I liked. The challenge was extending that same courtesy to someone I didn’t, to find something to appreciate about someone I found loathsome.
I readjusted myself on the bed and typed.
“Lionel, this is Jada Marlone. I’m writing to first, apologize for my last correspondence. It was disrespectful and unprofessional. This message is not at the prompting of Dan or anyone at the firm. In fact, they are not aware that I am emailing you. I am no longer with the firm, but I felt it was incumbent upon me to express how sorry I am. If you were my father or uncle or family member or even a friend, I wouldn’t want someone to speak to you the way I did, and so again, I’m sorry. Thank you for your continued patronage of the firm. If you’d left them because of me, I would feel even more awful. So thank you, Lionel. I learned a great deal from the cases you brought to the firm. Thank you for that too, and good luck.”
I clicked Send. I didn’t expect Lionel to reply. But that was not my intention in sending it.
I checked the clock. It was 6:07 a.m. Ethan would be sleeping for at least another hour. We’d been up late with my parents, watching The Wizard of Oz.
A couple of hours later, while Ethan played with my nieces, I told my parents and sister I had to run a few errands. I drove to Long Island at Play.
I pulled into the parking lot for the last time and checked myself in the mirror. Nothing in my teeth. Nothing on my face. I hadn’t been back since the party.
Am I really going to do this? Yes, because I have to.
I opened the doors to hear the cacophony of bouncing joy and inhaled the wafting scent of chicken fingers one last time. It was Saturday morning. Jessica always brought the kids on Saturdays.
I made my way around the padded wall, past the party room—the scene of the crime—toward the bouncing-ball den. And there they were. Danielle, Melody, and Jessica were seated on the mommy bench. I hadn’t heard from any of them since the party.
Melody was the first to see me approaching. Her face filled with popcorn-eating delight at the possibility of impending drama. Danielle caught sight of me next, and her expression went from shock to a sympathetic smile. Then Jessica looked up from her phone.
“Hi.” I focused on Jessica. “Can I speak to you alone?”
“What do you want?” She sounded like William Nadine’s assistant. What did I expect?
“I’d like to speak with you alone if that’s okay.”
“It’s not okay. What are you even doing here?”
Okay, we’ll do it like this, in front of Danielle and Melody, and with you sitting and me standing.
“It’s fine. There’s something I also want to say to all of you anyway that I should have relayed sooner. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you and your children had to see that. And it would be very easy for me to move away—which we did, back to my parents’ in Queens—and never face any of you again, but that’s the easy way out, and I want to be respectful.”
“Ha!” Jessica said.
“You live with your parents now?” Melody asked with an incredulous smile.
“Yes. And thank you all for coming to Ethan’s party. And thank you for always being cool and not being like the ponytail moms in puffy vests.”
Danielle smiled.
“Despite everything—and I can’t say it enough; I wish none of it happened, believe me—but I’m glad I met all of you. Honestly.”
Jessica snorted.
“We’re glad we met you too,” Danielle said. “I hope everything works out for you.”
Melody turned sharply toward Danielle.
“Thank you, Danielle,” I said.
“Enjoy Queens,” Melody said.
“And, Jessica, I am truly sorry for any pain I caused you. Not just at the party but even before that, even before you knew. It was all wrong, all of it, and I’m sorry.”
“Is that it? Are you done?” she asked.
I didn’t feel done. My apology didn’t feel adequate. I wanted her to know I was sincere. “I hope that your family can heal. I really do.”
“God works in mysterious ways.” She smirked. “There will be no other baby. And my family is staying intact.”
“I’m happy for you. I really am,” I said.
Her eyes went back to her phone.
I turned to Melody and Danielle. “See you guys on Frontbook. Ha.”
Danielle waved.
Melody sneered. “Byeee!”
“Byeee,” I wanted to chirp back in mock imitation, right in her face, but I didn’t. I let it go and walked away.
“Hold on!” Jessica called. She marched toward me. “I want to know something.”
“Okay.” I tried to sound willing. Go ahead. I was in the wrong. I’ll answer anything.
“Why would you never mention, this whole time, that you knew my husband?”
“It was awkward. Would you have wanted to know that I used to date him?”
“Yes. I don’t stand for secrets.”
You might want to check your husband’s text messages. “You’re right. I should have let you know that I knew your husband. It was all so weird and coincidental and—”
“Like running into him in a hotel?”
“Yes. I’m sorry you found out the way you did. Believe me, not just because it was mortifying for me, but what an awful way for you to find out. I wish I could go back and take that away, and I wish I could go all the way back and change everything, but I guess it all happened the way it should.”
“It all happened the way it should?”
I don’t know where that came from.
Before I could even attempt to explain, she said, “Enjoy dating apps.”
“Ha. I’m just focused on my son and my work. But thanks.”
“Good. And good luck,” she said coldly before turning away.
I couldn’t blame her for not forgiving me. I hoped I would become a distant memory and that the sting of ever hearing my name again would fade. Remember Jida? Joda? What the hell was her name? Remember her son’s birthday party? Whatever happened to that piece of work?
As I headed toward the exit, I spotted Ponytail Mom out of the corner of my eye. At least her child wouldn’t be able to put his hands around my son’s throat again. This place is full of landmines.
“Oh, hey!” she called.
Is she talking to me? I glanced to the side and saw that she was. Oh, come on. What the hell could she want?
She pranced toward me, with her slick hair and shiny puffy vest. “Did I hear you had a birthday party here? Because I was thinking of having my son’s party here.” She talked like she was trying to refrain from laughing. “How did it go?”
“Horribly. I drank too much and threw up.”
She nodded slowly as if she already knew the answer but hadn’t expected me to come clean so quickly.
“But the kids had fun,” I added. “No one got choked.” I smiled and left.
I couldn’t let that one go. What can I say? I’m a work in progress.
After that, there was not a single loose end left in Long Island except for a massive house that we hoped someone would buy when the market improved.
###
THE NEXT MORNING, I was just about to go through another lease from one of Joyce’s mom’s referrals when I heard, “Mommmyyyy.”
I raced up the stairs to see Ethan sitting up in bed. “Shhh. No one’s up yet. Why are you up so early?”
“I had a bad dream.”
I picked him up and walked down to the kitchen. “What was it about?”
“You left and never came back, and I had to stay here forever.”
“What a scary dream.” I rocked him and kissed his head. “I spent eighteen years in this house, so I know.”
He looked up at me with a horrified expression.
“I’m kidding. Is this place so bad? That was a joke. Okay? Don’t repeat that.”
“I want pancakes.”
“Pancakes? Not cereal?”
“Pancakes.”
“Okay.” I got work to do, kid. But fine. Pancakes, it is.
“Can I watch Buddy?”
“No one is awake yet but us. Let’s not turn the TV on.”
“But—”
“Shhh.” I nipped his impending wail in the bud. “We’re going to play a game.”
“What game?”
I went to the living room and opened the bottom drawer of a built-in bookshelf, where my mother kept the board games.
As I lifted Ethan onto the kitchen counter, I handed him UNO. “While I make the pancakes, you get the game ready. Okay? Here. Open it.”
I was whipping the batter when Ethan asked, “Why is this one taped? And this one too?” He held up two cards that had tape holding them together.
“I don’t know.” Yes, I do. “Actually, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you over pancakes.”
The truth was it was a short story, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell my son.
I had been ten, and Orly had been six.
“You can’t do that,” I’d announced. My wet bathing suit stuck to my skin, and my wet hair left droplets on the outdoor table every time I leaned in to put a card down.
“I didn’t do anything,” Orly replied.
“You just put down a yellow four.”
“I know, but—”
“Relax.” My mother tipped her Virginia Slim into an ashtray and blew smoke away from us, but the wind carried it to our nostrils. “Whose turn is it?”
“It was Orly’s, and she put down the yellow four and then took it back.”
“No,” Orly protested, putting down a yellow five.
I needed that yellow four. I seethed but kept playing... until she did it again.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as her arm reached out to drop down a card—the green six. I needed a six! Then she grabbed it back.
I glared at her.
“What?”
“You know you don’t actually want us to see your cards, right? Green six. She has a green six, Ma.” That’ll teach her.
“Stop it. No, I don’t!”
“I just saw it.”
My mother flipped the page of her Redbook magazine. “Stop it, Jada. Go. It’s your turn.”
I put down a red six then took it back.
“No. No. You can’t do that,” my mother said, blowing smoke again.
“That’s what she did. Twice!”
Orly was silent.
“Put that red card down,” my mother said.
“No. Why? You need it?”
“Jada, watch that tone. Play right. Put the card down that you just put down.”
“I’m just doing exactly what Orly did, but you didn’t see.”
“I saw. Now play right.”
“Tell her to play right!” I demanded.
That was when I grabbed the three cards in Orly’s hand and attempted to rip them in half all at once, but I didn’t have that dexterity at ten years old, so I ripped them in half, one by one, as my mother and Orly watched, speechless, until my mother slapped my hand away and screamed, “Stop that!”
I could hear my mother screaming my name as I marched off to my room but not before turning back and yanking Orly’s ponytail. “That’ll teach you to play right.”
Orly had screamed in surprise and possibly pain.
I suppose the ponytail yank was overkill. And it hurts, I know. I held my hand to my head, imagining the pain.
I was shaken from the memory as my mother appeared in the kitchen in her bathrobe and slippers. “What did you make?” she asked.
“Pancakes!” Ethan squealed.
“And you’re playing a game? This early?”
“I didn’t want to turn on the television,” I said. “I didn’t want to wake you and Daddy.”
“We’re going to play UNO,” Ethan said.
“I see. Make sure your mother doesn’t rip any of the cards in half.”
“I won’t.” I flipped a pancake so hard, some of the batter splattered on Ethan’s pajama leg. I wanted to say, “I didn’t give birth to a cheater.” But I let it go.
###
LATER THAT MORNING, I went to work in my new “office,” which was my parent’s basement, and which I now shared with my father.
It was finished with a couch, coffee table, television, and two desks, plus the washer and dryer in the corner. With what I got paid now, which was virtually nothing as I tried to build a clientele, it was all I could afford office-wise: free. But hopefully, more clients would come my way, and more landlords would do the right thing after my pep talks. Justice, Jada style. Bitch for hire.
I dialed the number of the latest deadbeat.
Ring. Ring.
“Pick up, asshole.” I tapped my pen against the desk, when someone coughed behind me.
“Oh, hi, Dad.” Where did he come from? He was examining a piece of pipe with a magnifying glass. “Did you hear that?” Hopefully my dad didn’t hear me calling someone an asshole.
“Hear what?” Benito Wolfe barked into the phone.
“Oh! Mr. Wolfe. How lovely to hear your voice. This is Jada Marlone again, Mrs. Hendricks’s lawyer. How are you?”
“Yeah. Good. Why the call?”
“You must not have received my letter, or my email, or my voice mail. She hasn’t received her security deposit back.”
“Yeah. It’s being processed.”
“Excellent. How much longer will the processing take?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“I’m assuming it will be for the full amount.” I looked over at my father, who didn’t seem to be listening. The pipes were far more interesting to him, I supposed. He ran a magnifying glass up and down the piece of metal he was holding.
“I can’t tell you that,” Mr. Wolfe said.
“What can you tell me?”
“It’s being processed,” he hissed.
“It’s Thursday, right? One of the seven days I hate to be jerked around.” I glanced in my father’s direction. The metal was still more interesting. “Full amount in Mrs. Hendricks’s mailbox by next week, or you will meet Renata.”
“Get the—who?”
“Renata. From channel five. You know, Renata Makes It Right. Ever been on TV, Benito?”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you more!” I hollered.
“What the fuck do you want me to say? It’s being processed.”
“I’ll believe that when it’s in my client’s hands. It’s been eight months. Write the check. You were hoping she would die before you ever paid, weren’t you? Well, sorry to tell you, but she’s got a lot of life left in her, the old girl. She loves Zumba. Did you know that?” That wasn’t entirely true. She told me the center brought in dancing teachers, but most residents stayed in their wheelchairs and moved their arms around. “She’s a dancing fool, Benito! She’s not going anywhere, and neither am I. Fair is fair.”
I hung up.
“What’s Zumba?” my father asked.
“Some kind of dance.”
“Oh, good. I thought it was some kind of new pastry I hadn’t heard about.”
“What are you looking for on that thing?” I asked.
“Bubbles. Sometimes, when water flows over a pipe...” He went on to explain what could happen in full detail.
The man so rarely got a chance to talk that I tried to listen carefully.
“Interesting.” I nodded. “Very cool.”
“Not as interesting as Renata and Zumba.”
“Whatever floats your boat.”
I used to handle leases for large warehousing corporations. It was as interesting to me as bubbles on a pipe, but the money was good, and I could handle the people—or so I’d thought—but it wasn’t fulfilling. I had never known what it meant when people said their work was fulfilling. But now I knew. Screaming at Benito Wolfe on behalf of Mrs. Hendricks filled my heart with something I’d never felt while reviewing a warehousing lease. I would do it for free... almost.
###
“WHEN YOU GOT FIRED...” Orly spoke with her mouth full of chicken. My mother, father, Orly, Paul, my nieces, Ethan, and I sat around my parents’ dining room table.
“Did they escort you out of the building? That’s what they do at my office. If you get fired, a security guard literally walks the person out of the building.”
Every time she said “fired,” I cringed. But that was what had happened. I had to own it.
“No. One of the secretaries walked me out.”
“Did you have photos up? Like what about framed photos of Ethan?”
“They’ll probably sell them on the internet. His face could end up in a Target catalog on some other kid’s body.”
No one laughed.
“Seriously, you had to leave all that stuff?” Orly asked.
“A secretary mailed it to me a few days later.”
“I just always wondered what happens to your stuff when you get fired.”
“You have to get escorted out,” my mother, who’d never worked in an office, chimed in. “They have to take precautions.”
“Isabella, eat that right now,” Orly said as she pointed to a chicken cutlet. “One more bite, and you can get up and play.” She turned back to me. “Did Mark move out because of the affair?”
I glared at her. “I didn’t have an affair.”
“Well, whatever it was. You know, when you were in California.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” I said calmly. Can’t she think of things in a more nuanced way? Is she capable of that? I would love to scream, “It wasn’t just because of Todd. And news flash: Mark has Alana! We had no connection for years. We were like robots. Is that happiness? Is that any way to live? Todds and Alanas were bound to get in the cracks that were already there.”
But all Orly would say to that was, “So Mark was cheating on you too?”
I have to change the subject before I can no longer let things go. “I really like your T-shirt,” I said.
“Thanks.” Orly looked down. The shirt had a bear with a daisy behind his ear, sitting on the moon. “Another one of Gina’s.”
“I wore one of hers to bed the other night. I woke up remembering the weirdest thing. Remember the time Uncle Eddie stepped in dog shit at some carnival?”
“Yes! And Mommy kept saying ‘shit,’ and it made us laugh so hard.”
“How about the time I ripped your UNO cards in half?”
That made Orly start to laugh hysterically, which made me laugh hysterically. My father seemed amused, while my mother shook her head.
“I can still picture Mommy’s face as she held on to her Virginia Slim.” She imitated my mother with her hand sticking out as if she were frozen mid-puff.
“What I wouldn’t do for a Virginia Slim right now,” my mother said.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said.
Orly wiped her eyes and exhaled. “Good times.”
“They were,” I said.
Should I thank Orly for being a good sister?
“Do you miss your big office and secretary? I can’t believe you have to share with Daddy now.”
Nah. Never mind.