Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [52]
The only bright spot has been the catharsis afforded by the mutilated cushion, although even that has left me feeling exhausted. I know I’m being morose. Jerry’s confidence ought to be infectious and probably would be, if it hadn’t been for my suspicions, now rampant and unbridled, that Nicola is pregnant. And why should this matter so? I tell myself that I’m upset on Chloe’s behalf. She has done nothing to warrant her father’s rejection. I forced Jake into fatherhood when I should have known better. In truth, I viewed Jake’s rejection of her as temporary, maybe because I still held out hope that our separation was temporary. I nursed a secret fantasy that perhaps it was her baby-ness that troubled Jake and once she began to walk and talk, as soon as she became a real person, Jake would come around. Only now, with the specter of Nicola’s pregnancy, can I see how foolish I’ve been.
We’re in the midst of our deep, cleansing breaths when my cell phone begins ringing. This is very bad. Not only was I late to class, but I’ve violated one of Mary Ann’s other cardinal rules: Thou Shalt Not Forget to Turn Off Thy Cell Phone. I’m sure this particular instruction was repeated to everyone, as usual, at the beginning of class. Mary Ann is bristling, clearly prepared to excoriate the offender, so I follow my instincts and lie.
“It’s me. I’m so sorry. My daughter has been quite ill, and I just didn’t feel comfortable not being accessible. I’ll just be a minute, I hope.” I grab my purse and head for the door.
“Jerry?” I whisper, as soon as I’m safely in the hall outside the room.
“Mira, is that you? It’s Jerry Fox.”
At the sound of his voice I have a premonition that I should hang up instantly, let him think he got my voice mail. “I’m in anger-management class,” I whisper into the phone.
“Oh.” No apology. “Listen, I just got off the phone with Ethan Bowman. We need to talk.”
There’s something in Jerry’s voice that I can hear quite clearly now.
“What, what is it?” I can feel panic rising, a fluttering that begins tremor-like at the base of my spine. I slide down the wall so that I’m sitting on the floor.
“Don’t panic, Mira. Just an unexpected development that could turn out to be to your advantage,” Jerry says, his voice intended to be soothing, but not in the least believable.
I hear him take a deep breath. “Jake’s taken the option of buying Grappa. I know this isn’t something we expected, but remember that we set the price for Grappa way above its fair market value. This can be a real windfall for you. . . .”
“Jerry,” I say, my voice rising, “I thought you said this wouldn’t happen!”
“Look, we did our best to minimize the likelihood that something like this would happen, but apparently they found some other way to finance the deal—not something we counted on. Listen, Mira, you can stay in the restaurant business if you want. In fact, with the money you receive from this deal, you could even buy into a bigger restaurant. . . .”
“Jerry,” I interrupt, my voice steely, “I don’t want another restaurant. I want this one. I want Grappa! Your job is to get me out of this deal. I don’t care how you do it, but get me out of it. I will kill that fucking bastard and his whore before I see them take over MY restaurant!”
So absorbed and devastated am I by this news, I don’t notice the door has opened. In fact, it’s not until I find myself once again staring into a pair of brown lace-up shoes that I realize Mary Ann is standing right above me. I don’t know how long she’s been listening, but one look at her horrified face and I know that there’s no way she has missed my last statement.
“Oh, Mira,” she says, her eyes tired, her shoulders slumped. And then, turning noiselessly on her rubber-soled shoes, she returns to the classroom, shutting the door quietly and carefully behind her.
chapter 12
Of course, I try my best to salvage the situation. Once I realize Mary Ann has