Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [164]
“You know, Enid. It sounds romantic, but when you own a restaurant, you live, eat, and breathe it. There’s room for nothing else. You have no idea what it entails. I do. The headaches, the frustrations, not to mention the time.”
Enid looks over at me. “So why are you doing it?”
“Because it’s always been my dream. I can’t not do it.”
Enid sits back and considers me. “How do you know it’s not my dream, too?” she asks.
I hesitate. “I don’t.” Who am I to tell Enid not to pursue this? “If it is, then I think you should go for it. It will be hard, though,” I tell her. Enid looks crushed. I change the subject: “I’ll stay on for a couple of weeks. I’d like to write a farewell column, if you’ll let me. I’ve been thinking about it and—”
Enid waves her hand dismissively. “Of course. Write whatever you want. But Mira, are you sure? Isn’t there anything I can do to change your mind?”
I shake my head. “I’ve got the papers all signed and ready to mail.” I pull the FedEx package from my purse and set it on the table between us. “The closing on the deal is Thursday.”
Enid calls the waiter over and waves a hand over her plate. She has hardly touched her salad.
“Cancel my veal chop and bring me a large piece of your best chocolate dessert instead. And two forks. Did I mention it’s my birthday?” Enid asks, turning to me.
I raise my wineglass. “Happy Birthday, Enid.”
“Congratulations, Mira,” she says, touching her glass to mine. “To dreams fulfilled,” she adds, her eyes wistful.
chapter 33
On the way home from lunch with Enid I stop at the Federal Express office to mail the signed documents back to Jerry. Once the envelope is swallowed up by the postbox, I feel like the tiny hourglass in Dad’s beloved Scrabble set has just been flipped. As a kid, whenever I played with him and he thought I was taking too long, he would flip the hourglass. But the rapidly draining sands made me too nervous to come up with any decent word, and I almost always ended up doing something stupid, or just traded in my letters. As soon as I get home, I call Ruth to tell her she should forget about finishing the documents; if she hasn’t found anything in the first box, she probably isn’t going to find anything in the second.
“But I want to finish. It’s really interesting how this is all put together,” she says. “I hadn’t realized how much I missed the world of high finance,” Ruth tells me.
The next morning I stop by to pick up Carlos. Fiona, Dad, and I are taking both kids to the Schenley Park pool so Ruth can continue her review of the documents in peace.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t get mushy, but I’m going to miss you—and not just the food,” she says, looking up from her work. Her dining table is littered with paper, an old-fashioned adding machine spewing miles of white tape.
I hand her the insulated lunch box in which I’ve packed her fresh tuna and avocado salad.
“Thanks,” she says, getting up from the table to put her arms around me.
The professor Fiona works for is summering in the south of France, so she is at liberty to use the twelve weeks of vacation she has accumulated over the past several years, which basically has amounted to her having the summer off. She has also somehow managed to get my father to take advantage of the lighter summer schedule at the university and work only three days a week.
We’ve agreed to meet at the pool. When Carlos, Chloe, and I exit the women’s changing room, I see that Fiona and my dad are already there. They’ve managed to secure three chaises and are encamped in prime real estate by the baby pool, Fiona, a glowing bronze goddess in a bright yellow bathing suit and my dad in plaid bathing trunks I can remember from my childhood, his bald head covered in sunscreen and glistening like a greased melon.
“I like your bathing suit, Fiona,” I tell her, approaching.
“Thanks,” Fiona says. “Your father likes me to wear a bikini, but I don’t think it’s appropriate when I’m with my gr—my Chloe,” she finishes shyly.
“Honestly, Fiona!” Dad says. “That’s not something I think Mira