Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [91]
She hands me a box of tissues, when I was really hoping she’d offer me the other half of her corned beef sandwich. “What are these for?” I ask innocently.
“Just wait until you hear this. Trust me, you’ll need them. By the way, I hope you can watch the kids a week from Thursday,” Ruth says. I nod, even though she hadn’t really been asking. “Oh,” Ruth continues, “and do you think you could help me make a couple dozen rugelach? It’s very important that they be good and mine; well, suffice it to say I have a problem with anything that involves a rolling pin. And in this instance, props are key.”
“Props?”
“Yes, the machine has been put in motion!” Ruth says, leaning toward me, her face pink with excitement. A pool of saliva has begun to accumulate in the corners of her mouth that, coupled with her flushed face, makes her appear vaguely rabid.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, looking at her with alarm.
Ruth stops short and looks at me with surprise. “Can you really be this dense?” she asks.
“Apparently so,” I tell her, removing my coat and taking a seat on the sofa.
“Clearly, you’re going to need the long version,” Ruth says, plopping down on the ottoman next to me.
I’m barely settled on the sofa before Ruth launches into her story. While the kids were napping, she got a call from Leah Hollander inviting her to join them for their weekly mah-jongg game at Rona Silverman’s house the following Thursday afternoon.
“Okay, so while we’re on the phone, Leah asks me how long I’ve been divorced, and when I tell her that I’ve never been married and that Carlos is adopted, she says something about what a good mother I must be to take all this on alone.” Ruth looks over at Carlos, whose face is covered in masticated bagel, which he is in the process of smearing onto Ruth’s expensive Persian rug. “Hmm, well, anyway,” Ruth continues, turning back to me. “She then proceeds to tell me all about her poor son, Neil, whom she would love to see settled, particularly with a woman who is so clearly interested in being a mother.”
“I’m beginning to get the picture,” I tell her.
“I thought you might,” Ruth says, getting up to retrieve the deli bag from the kitchen counter. On the way back, she grabs two beers from the bar fridge. “You can’t drink wine with corned beef, right?”
“Definitely not,” I tell her, accepting the Stella Artois she offers me, along with a sheaf of napkins and the other half of her corned beef sandwich.
“Okay, so then, completely unsolicited, she tells me all about Neil’s wife. How much they wanted kids and how hard they tried to get pregnant, how Neil has wanted to be a father since he was a little boy. Finally, she gets pregnant and midway through the pregnancy discovers a lump on her breast. Obviously they remove it, but she has to choose between getting an abortion and delaying treatment until after the baby is born. She waits until just after Eli is born to start treatment. My God,” Ruth says, popping the lid on her beer and taking a sip, “can you imagine giving birth and then having to go through that kind of treatment when you have a newborn and are probably already feeling sick, hormonal, and depressed?” Ruth grabs a Kleenex from the box and blows her nose. “Anyway, at first it seemed