Til the Real Thing Comes Along (8 page)

“Either that or your grandchild would have been dead too,” she snapped, but then her own grief replaced her anger and she
wanted to explain. To somebody. To anybody. Even this poor sad man who was so stunned by the loss of his son that he wanted
to lash out at everyone. “I wasn’t really running off. I thought that maybe if I…”

Arthur’s father had turned his back and walked away. He rarely spoke to R.J. now, except to ask her if he could speak to Jeffie
when he called the boy every month or so.

“Will those of you who have to go back to work please sign the guest book for Mrs. Nussbaum, and for those of you who would
like to come to the Nussbaum residence for a nice piece corned beef, there are printed directions being handed out in the
lobby.”

That night R.J. quoted as many of the funny remarks from Marty Nussbaum’s funeral as she could remember to Dinah. Robert the
dentist was at some convention in San Francisco, so Dinah brought the twins over and joined R.J. and Jeffie for dinner.

“You look awful,” Dinah said. “No man, a job that takes up your whole life. What in the hell are you going to do with yourself,
R.J.?”

“Di, it’s a terrific job,” R.J. said.

“So terrific it kills people. Besides, I’m more concerned about your social life than your work. Ever since Willie-Shoemaker-without-the-horse
dumped you, you haven’t so much as gone to the movies with a member of the opposite sex.”

“I don’t want to,” R.J. answered. “There’s no one out there. Why should I bother?”

“That’s what I said until one day I had a toothache that required endodontia. And poof. I made an appointment and there was
Robert with his cute furry fingers in my mouth, and we were both in love.”

“Inspiring,” R.J. said, wishing she hadn’t given Manuela the night off as she looked at the sinkful of dishes.

“Tomorrow, any day, any minute you could meet someone. But not if you stay cooped up at the office and then come back here
and lock yourself in. You have to get out into the world.”

“Ma, I have homework,” one of the twins whined.

“I know,” Dinah said. “We’re leaving.”

Cooped up. That’s exactly what she was. At the office and then at home, R.J. thought, and it was just the way she wanted it.
She didn’t want to date. She didn’t want to have to tell her story to some new guy and then have him tell his story to her
and then go through all of the first date politeness and then… no. She was going to wait a while—a long while—before she put
herself through the horrors of dating again. Maybe forever. Maybe she’d just become one of those women who was so driven by
her career that she didn’t even think about romance. Yes. She liked that idea. Except for the bleak outlook it offered her
son. Jeffie deserved to have a man in his life. Someone constant. Someone who would be there for him. Not someone who, if
it didn’t work out with R.J., would be gone. And never again
would she introduce him to someone who made false promises.

Once, a few weeks after the engagement party, Michael, Jeffie, and R.J. had gone out to lunch. R.J. had looked on happily
as Michael and Jeffie talked about airplanes. C-49’s and F-18’s. Things she knew nothing about. She could not have been more
delighted that her son and her fiancé seemed glad to be with each other. After lunch all of them, wordlessly reluctant to
have their time together end, piled into the car, and Michael took a drive out toward Malibu. For some reason he took a right
turn off the Pacific Coast Highway into the Serra Retreat neighborhood. At the end of one street there was a house with a
FOR SALE
sign stuck into its front lawn. What a house. Red used brick and a shake roof, and green grass that was dotted everywhere
with brightly colored flowers. All of it framed by two enormous oak trees. It was so perfect it didn’t look real. More like
a symbol. The dream house for the dream family.

“Maybe that’s the house we’ll be buying soon,” Michael had said.

R.J. remembered looking at Jeffie in the rearview mirror. He was gazing at the house with such longing it pained her. The
memory of it still hurt her because she’d failed him. She had failed to make everything okay.

Friday afternoon was brown with muddy rain, and the car-pool line crept forward inch by inch. R.J. had been there for thirty
minutes and at last her Mustang was three cars from the front. Finally she saw Jeffie separate himself from the sea of yellow
hooded slickers and run, splashing water around him, toward her car. Breaking the school’s rules of an orderly exit.

“Jerry Vogel’s mother came, and Lefty went with them,” he announced, cheeks red, and tossed his books into the back seat.
As he sat, his wet slicker squeaked against the seat of the beat-up yellow Mustang. “So we can go straight to our appointment.”

He was excited. R.J. could tell. The appointment was at Big Brothers. R.J. had made the call asking for the appointment yesterday.
She and Jeffie would be interviewed by a social worker who matched men who had volunteered their time, with fatherless boys.

“Whaddya think she’ll ask us, Mom?” Jeffie asked, as
if he feared there would be a test he might not be able to pass.

“Just questions about your interests and hobbies, I guess.” That answer seemed to hold him for a while. He looked out the
window at the rain, quiet for a long time.

“Will my big brother be there too?”

“Not yet, honey. It may take a while for them to find one for you. We may have to wait.”

The United Way building was a funny-looking two-story Fifties-style structure. The rain started coming down in a torrent as
R.J. pulled into the parking lot. She found a parking place and maneuvered the Mustang into it. She stopped the car and left
the radio on, and she and Jeffie sat listening to the Beatles singing “Michelle” until the rain slowed. Then they got out
of the car and ran to the front entrance. R.J. felt the welcome warmth and could smell the overworked heating system as she
pushed open the glass doors. Jeffie ran ahead of her, following the arrows drawn on cardboard and tacked haphazardly along
the hallway on the way to the Big Brothers waiting room. It was a tiny room. There were two chairs with wrought-iron armrests
and orange plastic seats, and there was also a Formica side table on which a chartreuse lamp sat.

Jeffie took his slicker off, hung it on the back of one of the chairs, and sat tapping his damp-sneakered foot on the linoleum
floor in an impatient gesture, glancing every few seconds at the door of the social worker’s office. Now they could hear voices
on the other side of the door and the knob turned, as if someone was about to open it. When someone did, it was a small man
in his sixties. He was wearing a damp-looking plaid raincoat and carried an umbrella over his arm. He was followed by a smiling
redheaded woman of fifty.

“Bye, Abe,” the woman said. “Thank you.”

Jeffie stood nervously as the woman turned her attention to him and extended her hand. “Jeff,” she said, “I’m Anne Schaffer.”
He took the woman’s hand and shook it, and R.J. thought to herself that Jeffie looked younger and more vulnerable than ever.
Anne turned to R.J. and said, “Welcome,” and mother and son followed her into an office furnished in the same wrought-iron
and orange plastic decor.

“Well,” the woman said when they were seated. It was
an opening for conversation but Jeffie was uncomfortable and he looked down at the floor. As if she knew to go on talking
instead of waiting, Anne Schaffer said, “When she called me on the phone, your mother told me she thought you should have
a big brother. What do
you
think?”

Jeffie shrugged and didn’t look up. R.J. could tell that he was afraid. Afraid that if he said the wrong thing they might
not give him a big brother at all.

“Guess so,” he answered.

“You know that big brothers come in all shapes and sizes and types,” Anne said gently. “Like that man Abe who just left here.
He’s a big brother.” Jeffie’s lower lip protruded a bit at that and R.J. knew it was because That Man Abe was not what he
had in mind.

“So just for the sake of imagination let me ask you this. If you could create him,” Anne said, “make him anything you wanted,
how would you like your big brother to be?”

Jeffie shrugged, and still wouldn’t look up. R.J. wanted to rush over and hug him, but her eyes met Anne’s and she sat very
still.

“Good athlete,” he said softly. Arthur had been a wonderful athlete. “Likes video games. Fun. You know.” Now he looked up.

“I do know,” Anne said, “and I’m going to try to find you one. Right now there are lots more boys who need big brothers than
there are big brothers. But I’ll see what I can do.”

She asked him questions about school. What classes he liked and disliked. His friends. When he seemed to begin to warm up
to her, to relax, R.J. relaxed, too, and thought about Arthur. For months after he died she had continued to feel his presence
in the house. She would be cooking or reading, when suddenly, from nowhere, she would be certain that she’d caught sight of
him just out of the farthest corner of her eye. But when she turned, of course, he was gone.

“Arthur,” she had said aloud one day, feeling foolish but eerily as though he were really around. “Don’t rush away. I could
use your advice about so many things. Like how to handle your father, and what to do about a medical insurance policy for
Manuela, and whether or not I should sell the house to pay off all the debts from the business.” That particular morning it
was chilly outside, the chill that
comes right after a rain, and she had stood in her living room hugging herself to keep warm, looking out at the view of the
hills. “Arthur, it’s hard not having anyone to talk to. No one to share all the questions I have about Jeffie. I mean, sometimes
I wonder if I’m doing a good job with him and I wish that…” Then she sighed. This was bananas. Over the edge. Probably her
cousin Mimi’s husband the psychiatrist would tell her it was something every widow goes through. She should go and turn up
the heat and sit for a while and read. Arthur was murdered. Dead. Gone. And she was left. Left to make the decisions about
his father and medical insurance and the house alone. That was just how it was. And as far as whether or not she was doing
a good job where Jeffie was concerned, no one else could tell her that. She would just have to continue to do her best and
hope it was enough. Then, just as she had been about to turn away from the window, right above the houses on stilts that jutted
out on a nearby hillside, there appeared the beautiful arc of a rainbow. R.J. had looked at it for a moment and then smiled.
She was sure it was her answer. From Arthur.

“Thanks, Art,” she had said. “I miss you so much. Thanks for stopping by.”

Now, Anne the social worker was summarizing.

“Your big brother won’t ever really replace your dad, or make you not miss him, but he can be a great friend to you, so that’s
what we’ll try for. Okay?”

Jeffie nodded.

“Remember, too, that it may take a long time for us to find the right match for you,” Anne warned. “But when we do, it’ll
be worth it.”

They all got to their feet.

“I’ll be on the lookout for a nice warm man who will come over and take you out once a month, and you can talk things over
with him, and call him if you need a friend at any time, and know that he’s reliable and there for you.”

Jeffie nodded, and R.J. smiled and said, “While you’re at it, could you find one of those for me?”

They all laughed.

Jeffie galloped down the steps ahead of R.J. and through the lobby, pushed the door open, and in a gesture she’d never seen
from him before, held it open for her. The rain outside had slowed to a fine mist, and Jeffie walked ahead,
deliberately and happily sloshing through puddles like Gene Kelly in
Singin’ in the Rain.
In fact, as he reached the Mustang he extended his arms and did a happy twirl.

Thank God, R.J. thought. This is the happiest I’ve seen him in years. Thank God I thought to do this for him. Why did it take
me so long?

Jeffie pulled the passenger door open and slid into the seat. R.J. opened her door, shuffled through her purse for her keys,
found them, and was about to get into the car when something caught her eye in the sky above Westwood. It was a rainbow.

Have Patsy say: It seems to me there are two kinds of single men in the world. There’s the kind that can’t make a commitment
to a woman. Who fears gettin’ married like it was the plague, and… (SHE THINKS ABOUT IT)

Actually, now that I think about it, there’s only
one
kind of single man in the world.

You think I’m suspicious of men? The other day I was in the doctor’s office and when the doctor told me to take all my clothes
off, I said, “I’m not that kinda girl,” and stormed outta there. Now how could I do that to kindly old Doc Milgrom? He’s a
fine man and a wonderful podiatrist.

I told my girlfriend Sally that I wanted a man who could make me hear bells ring, so she fixed me up with a guy who looked
like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

I wanted to meet a man who was safe and stable. So far the ones I meet are only safe
in
a stable.

I met a man at a party who was like fine French food. Heavy on the sauce. (You need a vacation, girl. You’re losing your grip.)

Hobart Fineburg was a voice-over actor. That meant he did radio commercials and the voices of Mattel toys that talked. He
starred in two Saturday morning cartoon series at Hanna-Barbera studios. In one he played a dog, and in the other he portrayed
a villain of a thousand disguises.
Despite Hobart’s alleged brilliance, however, R.J. thought they all had the same voice. And she’d been in show business long
enough to know going out with an actor was a big mistake.

“Hey, it’s just dinner. You don’t have to marry the guy,” Eddie Levy said. Hobart was Eddie Levy’s friend. He came to have
lunch one day with Eddie and spotted R.J. He had dark curly hair that needed a haircut and nervous eyes, and even though he
wore a coat and tie and some reasonably nice gray pants, with them, probably for effect, he wore dirty sneakers. One of the
laces on the sneakers looked precariously loose. As soon as R.J. noticed it, she began to worry that it would come untied
any minute. She could tell right away that Hobart liked her when he and Eddie stopped by her office to ask if she wanted to
join them at Canter’s for lunch, because Hobart, whom Eddie called Hobie, laughed at everything she said, and none of it was
funny.