Love in Bloom's (13 page)

Ben was dead. Jay was the senior male of the family now. And damn it, if he was going to read the
Haggadah,
he should be running Bloom’s.

He stared around the table, exhausted and irritated that no one had thanked him for having plowed through all that Hebrew. Did they think it was easy? A little appreciation would be nice.

But at least they’d get to eat—and drink. He wanted another Manhattan, but bottles of a kosher rosé stood around the table, and he figured it would be too complicated to request anything else. The wine was bland, but its alcohol content, not its flavor, was what counted.

Lyndon and his buddy waltzed in and out, carrying plates of gefilte fish and bowls of steaming soup with matzo balls protruding from the broth like pale, round boulders. Everyone was talking at once. Neil was telling Julia, the famous no-show executive, about some rich European and his bosom-enhanced mistress who had chartered him to sail them from Miami to Key West. “They paid me in cash. Is that illegal? It kind of creeped me out, you know?” he asked, tapping into her legal expertise.

Now, there was an idea: send Julia down to Florida to defend his son if he got arrested for accepting cash payments. For all she was contributing to Bloom’s, nobody would miss her.

That conversation was to his right. To his left, Ida was criticizing Wendy’s hair—“It looks too blond,” she complained.

It did, but so what? If Ida was going to criticize someone’s hair, she might as well attack Rick, whose hair looked as if it had been styled with an eggbeater.

Farther down the table, Sondra and Susie were sniping at each other across steaming bowls of soup, while Adam repeatedly asked for someone to pass the horseradish. At the far end, Martha pontificated to Susie’s latest boyfriend about how Judaism was a sexist religion because women weren’t allowed to lead the seder. Jay took her criticism personally. She probably thought she could do a better job reading the Haggadah than
he had, but he knew she couldn’t. Just because she had taken a seminar on women and theology at the New School didn’t make her an expert.

He ate his own soup. It was flavored perfectly, the matzo ball was dense, the way he liked it, and little yellow circles of chicken fat skimmed the surface of the broth like a delectable oil slick. The gefilte fish had been firm and just slightly sweet. After the soup there would be a roast. One thing about Lyndon—he sure knew how to cook. Jay wondered whether he’d be willing to give Wendy a few lessons. Maybe on Sunday, while Jay was out golfing, she could come over here, learn how to boil water and beat eggs, and work on improving her relationship with Ida. For all Jay knew, the reason he’d been cheated out of the presidency of Bloom’s was that his mother hated Wendy.

Last Sunday he’d been out at Emerald View, playing a round with Stuart Pinsky, his attorney. Somewhere between the fourth and fifth hole, he’d mentioned that he was worried about his mother. “She’s not as sharp as she used to be,” he’d said.

“None of us is as sharp as we used to be,” Stuart had pointed out.

“Yes, but we’re not eighty-eight. She is. And she’s making some decisions about the store that frankly worry me.”

“Really?” Stuart handled Jay’s private affairs—his divorce, his will, the trusts he’d set up for the boys—but he didn’t work for the store. Still, he knew a lot about it. “You think it’s time for you to exercise power-of-attorney over her affairs?”

“She’d disown me if I did anything that drastic. But I’m worried about the store.”

“So you keep telling me.”

It was true—every time he and Stuart got together, Jay wound up ranting about the store. “It’s because she put my niece in charge of it, and my niece doesn’t know
bupkes
when it comes to retail. Or deli. The girl probably wouldn’t know what pastrami was if it bit her on the ass. But she’s Ben’s daughter. That’s the only reason she’s got the corner office.”

“You sure it’s got nothing to do with you?”

“Me? I’m holding the place together. But it’s hard, I’ll tell you. If the store’s value drops, some big
macher
could come in and buy us. Then Bloom’s would be just a brand name, not a place, a family’s lifeblood. You see what I’m saying?”

“The store isn’t publicly owned, Jay. How can you be worried about a hostile takeover?”

Jay wasn’t exactly clear on how hostile takeovers worked. “Well, if we start losing money—and you know, we’ve been just sort of drifting for the past year since Ben died, because my mother refused to make any decisions for that whole year—and if instead of just drifting we start drifting
south,
who’s to say? Bloom’s is Bloom’s. It goes under, a huge piece of New York culture goes under with it.”

Stuart actually stopped lining up his shot and stared at Jay. “You think it’s that shaky, Jay?” He sounded genuinely concerned.

“I don’t know how shaky it is. I’m just saying, the store could be slipping, my mother could be slipping, and they’ve locked me out of the executive suite.”

“Sounds like you’d better start looking for the key,” Stuart advised. “You’d better find a way to get into that room and stabilize things. It would be an act of mercy, I would think. If your niece can’t handle the store, you can’t just stand aside and let it go under.”

This was mere golf advice, nothing legal, nothing that cost six hundred an hour. But since Stuart’s words had been exactly what Jay wanted to hear, he’d savored them.

He was going to find that key. It had to be somewhere. Maybe everyone else wasn’t as sharp as they used to be, but damn it, Jay wasn’t getting any duller.

T
his time the frantic phone call had come to her apartment the night before, rather than during the workday, when she would be up to her elbows in Griffin, McDougal business. Thank God, too. Her superiors at the law firm were growing suspicious about the increasingly frequent cell-phone calls that led to her disappearing for a few hours here and there.

“Family problems?” John Griffin himself had asked the last time. “What exactly
is
the problem? Is it something we can help you with?”

His solicitude had swamped her with guilt—as if she hadn’t already felt guilty enough. “The only way you can help is to be flexible about my having to run across town,” she’d told him, smiling sweetly so she wouldn’t seem demanding.

He’d given her a long, pointed stare, which implied that he wasn’t so much interested in helping her with her problem as he was in making her problem go away so she could once again give 150 percent of herself to Griffin, McDougal.

“Go, take care of your family problems,” he’d said. “My only concern is that you’re getting your work done.”

Which, of course, she wasn’t. She was trying to keep up. She was staying late at the office, working through the dinner hour, turning down all Heath’s invitations because she didn’t have time to go anywhere with him and argue about whether they should have sex. She was dragging files home and writing reports until two in the morning. But she had her limit—and she’d passed that limit well before the beginning of Passover.

Passover was done now. Someday, Julia would actually honor all eight days of the holiday. She’d skip doughnuts and eat matzo for breakfast every morning of Passover week. Maybe Lyndon would teach her how to make
matzo brei.
She’d have plenty of time to learn how to cook once Griffin, McDougal fired her.

But they weren’t going to fire her today, because instead of bolting from the office during business hours, in front of witnesses, she would not be going to the office at all. She would be calling in sick. Lying seemed much more palatable than bolting.

Francine took her call. “I’ve been vomiting all night,” Julia told her, figuring that would discourage questions. She hadn’t realized she was such a smooth liar. She felt proud—and a little ashamed—that she could deceive Francine so easily.

She dressed in a below-the-knees straight skirt and matching jacket, swallowed a few handfuls of Cheerios, brushed her teeth and slicked her lips with gloss. She’d pick up some coffee at Bloom’s, and she’d drink it out of a mug emblazoned with Bloom’s lettering. That ought to impress the reporter.

A reporter. She couldn’t believe she was going to have to meet with a reporter from
Gotham Magazine
to discuss the direction she intended to steer Bloom’s now that she was behind the wheel. Her mother had explained that an article in
Gotham
would be excellent exposure for the store, a way to generate excitement for the store’s new management in the new century.

“What if someone from Griffin, McDougal sees the article?” Julia asked.

“You’ll tell them you’re a figurehead. You’ll say it’s family PR. Don’t worry—you’ll think of something.”

The sun was bright, and spring gave the air an apple-fresh scent, unusual in a neighborhood that usually smelled of bus fumes. She walked the few blocks to Broadway, concentrating on her posture and mentally rehearsing what she’d tell this reporter from
Gotham
. Would he go easy on her if she said she adored his magazine?

Journalists could be dangerous. This one might be snide and supercilious. The thrust of his piece might be that Bloom’s products were guaranteed to clog one’s arteries, and they weren’t even kosher. Only kosher-
style
. She might have to explain the importance of kosher-style in the lives of Bloom’s customers. “Kosher can be viewed as a style,” she’d say. “Kind of like a lifestyle. People who want to eat a salami and Jarlsburg sandwich ought to be able to buy a kosher salami and a kosher Jarlsburg, even if piling them together between two slices of bread isn’t kosher.”

Too verbose. As a lawyer, she knew the value of saying the absolute minimum, answering the question but volunteering not a single extra syllable. If the reporter criticized Bloom’s for being kosher-style, she’d simply smile and say, “That’s the way our customers like it.”

She nodded, pleased with that approach: “That’s the way our customers like it.” He couldn’t possibly describe such a philosophy snidely.

Deirdre had set up the interview and promised to spend time with the reporter. She would be able to supply him with any business information he might want. Julia’s sole function, according to her mother, was to put a human face on the president’s office.

Closing her eyes, she imagined taping a yellow smiley face to her door—and locking herself inside.

She reached her desk at nine-fifteen. He was scheduled to arrive at nine-thirty. She couldn’t remember his name.

She took a sip of the coffee she’d brought upstairs with her, in her nice new Bloom’s mug. She’d made her purchases anonymously, paying full price. She was already thinking like a Bloom’s executive, refusing to depress profits by helping herself to merchandise without paying for it. If her mother could serve food from the cheap supermarket down the street, Julia could pay her own money for a cup of Bloom’s Colombian supreme.

Her door swung open and her mother bounded in, beaming like a cheerleader after a touchdown. “I’ve brought you some things so you’ll look busy,” she whispered, dumping a stack of folders on the desk. “These are the profit-loss statements for March from each of the departments, if he asks.”

“Are the profits bigger than the losses?” Julia asked, opening the top folder and slamming it shut when she saw the intimidating array of numbers on the top sheet.

“I don’t know. I haven’t looked. Just tell the reporter our profits are growing. The store’s doing great. Our customer base increases every day. The coffee department in particular is doing magnificently,” Sondra added, her gaze snagging on Julia’s mug and her smile fading. She was probably wondering whether Julia had paid retail for it. “On-line sales are stagnant, of course—but you don’t have to tell him that. Just tell him everything’s doing fantastic. He wants details, you send him to me.”

“I thought Deirdre was supposed to handle the details.”

Her mother pursed her lips. “Better he should come to me. Deirdre doesn’t run this place.”

Julia wasn’t so sure of that. She also wasn’t sure she wanted her mother talking to the reporter. Sondra was so eager to minimize Uncle Jay’s contributions to the store that she might just say something negative—for instance, that the on-line sales were stagnant. Or she’d insinuate not only that Deirdre wasn’t running the place, but that Julia, the president, wasn’t, either. Julia might not know what she was doing at Bloom’s, but one thing she ought to be doing was protecting the store’s reputation.

Her mother left, and she thumbed through the folders, looking for the one with information on last month’s Internet sales. She wondered, in particular, how well the Seder-in-a-Box sold. She’d just found that folder, stuffed between the heat-n-eat folder and the electric appliances folder, when her door opened again, this time to admit Deirdre.

One glance at the tall, red-haired woman was enough to convince Julia that Deirdre knew more about the store than all the Blooms combined. She’d been with Bloom’s nearly from the first day Julia’s father had become the president. First she was a secretary, then a glorified secretary, then an administrative assistant and finally assistant to the president, a more impressive title than Sondra’s for sure, since Sondra didn’t have a title at all.

Julia gave Deirdre her best smile. Deirdre had never commented on Julia’s chronic absences. She simply did her job, put things on Julia’s desk, took things off and figured out what Julia needed long before Julia realized she needed anything at all.

“These are some letters you have to sign,” Deirdre informed her, setting a pile of stationery beside the heap of folders. “Oh, and Ron Joffe from
Gotham Magazine
is here. I believe he intends to speak with me first, and then I’ll send him in to you. When will you be ready for him?”

Julia glanced at the stack of letters, then the thicker stack of folders. Stacks or no stacks, she would never be ready for him. “Whenever you’re done with him,” she said bravely.

“If it’s all the same—” a man’s voice floated into the office from the hallway “—I’d just as soon start with you.”

The owner of the voice appeared in the doorway. He was wiry and slightly taller than Deirdre, with wavy brown hair crowning an angular face. He wore a gray tweed jacket and blue jeans, and he extended his right hand toward Julia. He marched directly to her desk. “Julia Bloom? I’m Ron Joffe.”

She had no choice but to shake his hand. His grip was as firm as his gaze. His eyes were an intriguing hue, brown but with undertones of amber and copper, like autumn leaves changing color.

No, his eyes weren’t intriguing, she corrected herself as she extracted her fingers from his warm clasp. They were very ordinary eyes. He was a very ordinary man. Lean and turbo charged, with a harsh jaw and a golden cast to his skin, and surprisingly wide shoulders for someone as lanky as he was.

Really, quite ordinary.

If she suddenly found getting oxygen into her lungs difficult, it was only because she was anxious about the interview. She was worried that Ron Joffe would splash across the pages of the most popular magazine in New York City that Bloom’s had a do-nothing, know-nothing as its president, a woman whose only qualification to run the place was a law degree from NYU, which wasn’t any sort of qualification at all.

“That coffee smells good,” he said, surveying her office and opting to sit on the couch. “What do I have to do to get a cup?”

“Write a great article about us,” she said pleasantly. “The coffee is from the store. Deirdre, could you send one of the secretaries downstairs to get a cup for Mr. Joffe?”

Deirdre gave the reporter a toothy smile. “Cream? Sugar?”

“Black is fine.”

With a nod, Deirdre departed. Julia felt abandoned. She wished she had gone to get the coffee and Deirdre had stayed behind. She didn’t want to be left all alone in her office with Ron Joffe.

She eyed him cautiously. He was digging assorted paraphernalia from his jacket pockets: a notepad, a pen, a tiny tape recorder. “You won’t even notice this,” he assured her, placing it on the scratched table in front of the couch and popping open a compartment to make sure it contained a tape. “It’s just a backup.”

She might be a know-nothing, but she knew a few things. “It’s so if I say anything I shouldn’t say, you’ll have incontrovertible proof that I said it.”

He shot her a look, then grinned. He had dimples, she noticed with some dismay. Ordinary dimples, but still…

“If you can pronounce
incontrovertible
, you won’t be saying
anything you shouldn’t say.” He pressed a button on the compact machine. “The mike’s built in. Just speak in a normal voice.”

She nodded.

“Okay. So, you’re Julia Bloom, the new president of Bloom’s. Why you?”

“Why me what?”

“Why are you the new president of Bloom’s? Isn’t it hard for you to replace your father, given his untimely death?”

She decided she didn’t like Joffe. She didn’t like anyone who used the phrase
untimely death,
even if in her father’s case it was accurate. Deaths happened when they happened. What kind of death could possibly be timely?

“If you’re asking whether I’m too crushed by grief to handle the job,” she said, “no, I’m not. Of course I miss my father. We all do. No one can replace him. But Bloom’s is more than just one person. It’s family.”

“Food poisoning, right?” He wrote something on his pad, then peered over the spiral binding at her. “Your father died from food poisoning?”

“Yes.” She wished she could fabricate a few tears so he’d believe she really did miss her father. She was able to produce only an emotional sigh. “It’s not a happy subject.”

Joffe shrugged as if reluctant to move on. He studied his notepad, then asked, “What about your uncle? He started working here just a few years after your father did. How come he didn’t get named president?”

“It was my grandmother’s decision,” Julia said carefully. “She probably believed Uncle Jay was contributing so much where he was, developing our on-line and direct-mail presence. He’s doing a fantastic job there. I can’t imagine we’ve got anyone else on staff who could have taken on that task if Uncle Jay had moved into this office.”

“Oh, come on—any teenage boy can set up a Web site. Your uncle has some sons, doesn’t he?”

“My cousins Neil and Rick. Neil runs a charter sailboat out
fit in the Florida Keys. You probably ought to interview him. His job is much more exciting than mine.” She smiled, hoping she could disarm Joffe with what he would view as charming modesty rather than the pathetic truth it was.

He smiled back at her, and the air grew precipitously thinner in the office. She didn’t know why she was having trouble breathing, why her heart seemed to have the hiccups, why she was letting him get to her. She was a confident, successful woman, after all—not necessarily a successful president of Bloom’s, but successful in other contexts. She was a Wellesley graduate. She was an attorney. She’d passed the bar exam on her first try. Surely she could handle this reporter.

If only his eyes weren’t quite so…beautiful. If only the movement of his hand as he jotted notes on his pad wasn’t quite so graceful. If only he’d close the top button of his shirt so she couldn’t see so much of his neck.

“So Neil Bloom is a yachtsman,” Joffe murmured.

“Not really,” she argued.

Joffe flashed a skeptical smile at her, and she was once again startled by the fact that such an ordinary-looking man could look so extraordinary. He had a big nose, she observed. Straight and thick. It lent ballast to his face.

His quizzical expression prompted her to explain herself. “What I mean is that Neil works very hard, sailing rich people around the Florida Keys. It’s not like he’s rich himself. ‘Yachtsman’ makes him sound rich.”