Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [11]
I don’t ask her about married life, feeling sure that during our meeting she will treat me to all of the details I can stomach. Renata has a way with men. She was actually the first to warn me about Nicola. At one of our meetings, shortly after I hired Nicola, I introduced Renata to our newest employee. They had greeted each other cordially, each appraising the other in the way that only women who know their own power can do.
“Mira,” Renata had hissed when we were out of earshot, “are you out of your mind? What were you thinking?” I was seven months pregnant at the time and tired. Nicola was barely a whisper in my hormone-clouded head. In retrospect, I wonder if perhaps Renata had seen something in Jake, some evidence of his wandering eye. Attractive women always know when they have the attention of a man. At the time I considered what she said, but then dismissed it, so blind was I to the possibility that Jake could love anyone else.
We push back the meeting to eleven thirty, which gives me a little extra time to get cleaned up and feed Chloe, if she awakens before Renata arrives. When Renata volunteers to bring lunch, I don’t refuse. I hang up feeling full of good intentions. After a shower I’ll feel more human, and then there is the prospect of a sumptuous lunch. I’ll even whip up a batch of hazelnut biscotti, which we can have with a little espresso for dessert.
My train of thought is interrupted by the ringing phone. The cordless handset slipped in between the cushions of the sofa when I set it down, and as I fumble for it, the answering machine picks up. “Mira, it’s Jake. It’s almost nine. I don’t know if I’ll have another chance to talk before lunch—”
I switch on the handset. “Hello, Jake,” I say, trying to sound calm and collected.
“It’s Jake.”
“I know, you said.” Neither of us says anything for a few seconds.
“I got a couple of messages that you called. Tony said something about the baby being sick.”
I want to tell him that she has a name and that it would be nice if occasionally he would use it. “Yeah, Chloe has some sort of virus. I took her to the hospital in the middle of the night when her fever hit a hundred and five.”
“Jesus, is she okay?”
I want to tell him that I was worried and scared, but I don’t do that either. “I think so. We’re home now. Her fever is down, and she’s sleeping. I think she’s going to be all right.”
“Wow,” is all Jake can think to say.
“Actually, I don’t think we could have made it to the ER any faster in an ambulance. Crazy Manhattan cabbies. Good thing, too, because she started convulsing on the way over. As soon as we got there they gave her an IV drip, you know, to rehydrate her.” Who is this person casually tossing around big medical terms?
“Well, I’m here. Lunch is covered,” Jake says.
I can’t think of anything else to say, but I don’t want to hang up yet. “What’s up with Eddie?”
“Black bass,” he says, after a pause. “Beautiful stuff.”
“What are you going to do with it?” I ask, and for a minute we slip into our old ways. Talking food. He’s animated as he tells me that he’s thinking of roasting it on a bed of caramelized fennel and leeks.
“If there’s any left you might think about a cioppino for lunch tomorrow,” he finishes, embarrassed that he’s let himself go like that. I am, he has just remembered, the enemy.
“Well, I have to see how Chloe’s doing. Tell Tony to be on call for lunch tomorrow, too, just in case,” I say coolly.
“Yeah, okay.”
It isn’t until after we hang up that I realize he didn’t ask me about my meeting with Renata. Our conversation had taken approximately eight minutes, and I start to replay it in my mind, rehashing and recasting the nuances: what was said, what was implied.
Sustaining that calm and in-control tone I had adopted with Jake had been key in gaining the upper hand, but it sapped what little strength I had. I slump into the couch, maneuvering myself so that the loose spring isn’t directly in the small of my back. Just another minute or two on the couch before I’ll get up and get moving. Of course, I fall asleep.
Some time