Goodbye To All That Read online

  Table of Contents

  Paise for GOODBYE TO ALL THAT

  Goodbye To All That

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  About Judith Arnold

  Paise for GOODBYE TO ALL THAT

  “GOODBYE TO ALL THAT is for any woman who has picked up that last pair of shoes or done that last stack of laundry and wanted to walk—or run—out the door. Written with wit and compassion, Ruth’s story of revival and rediscovery is simply one of the best books of the year. A must read!”

  —Jill Barnett, New York Times Bestselling Author

  “Every character is real and rare, people you already know. You hurt for them . . . and love for them. A joy of a book—witty, wonderful and wise.”

  —Jennifer Green, USA Today Bestselling Author and winner of RWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award

  “With surgical precision, Judith Arnold dissects the strands of family and relationships, giving voice to the often unspoken desires felt at any age. Warm, witty and unflinchingly honest about the depths to which our families shape us, GOODBYE TO ALL THAT was one of the best books I’ve read all year.”

  —Kristan Higgin, New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author, and two-time winner of the RWA Rita Award.

  “Judith Arnold’s sly, perceptive look at a family resisting change is a delightful, often humorous, read, with characters you won’t stop thinking about after you turn the final page.”

  —Emilie Richards, USA Today Bestselling Author.

  Goodbye To All That

  by

  Judith Arnold

  Bell Bridge Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead,) events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Bell Bridge Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-116-6

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-093-0

  Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 2012 by Barbara Keiler writing as Judith Arnold

  Printed and bound in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  We at BelleBooks enjoy hearing from readers.

  Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Cover design: Debra Dixon

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Photo credits:

  Photo (manipulated) C Richard Thomas | Dreamstime.com

  :Magt:01:

  Acknowledgements

  My huge thanks to the team at Bell Bridge Books: Debra Dixon, Deborah Smith, and my wonderful editor, Pat Van Wie. I am also grateful to Lisa Gardner, Jennifer Greene, Kathryn Shay, the Romexers, the Bunnies and my BHS buddies for inspiring me, encouraging me, listening to me whine and celebrating with me. Finally, thanks to Ted, who has always had more faith in me than I have in myself, and our two glorious sons, who keep my life in balance and remind me of what’s important. I love writing about families, because in my own family I am truly blessed.

  Chapter One

  It was perfect.

  All right, it was small. Three rooms, the ad claimed, but Ruth would hardly call the kitchen—an L-shaped configuration of Formica counters with painted metal cabinets above and below, a stove that had cooked at least twenty years worth of meals, a stainless-steel sink that wasn’t stainless and not even enough space for a table and chairs—an actual room. A cooking alcove, maybe. A galley. An applianced hallway. She could probably jam a small, square table into the corner, with one chair. Pushed all the way in, the chair wouldn’t block the doorway into the entry, at least not much. A second chair would interfere with the refrigerator.

  Ruth didn’t need a second chair.

  According to the rental agent, an unnaturally perky woman in a polyester suit that struck Ruth as a little too formal for the occasion, the living room was eighteen by twenty feet. Ruth would bet the diamond earrings Richard had given her for her fiftieth birthday that the agent was exaggerating by a few feet. And the carpet—it wasn’t quite shag, but the nap was longer than it should be. It reminded Ruth of how the front yard looked in the rainy early days of summer when the lawn service skipped a week of mowing because the ground was too wet. Ruth might not have minded the carpet’s uncut-grass length if it was also uncut-grass green. But it was a dull neutral shade, somewhere between taupe and khaki.

  “It matches with everything,” the rental agent boasted.

  It matches with nothing, Ruth thought.

  The bedroom was small, too. Like the living room, it overlooked the parking lot. Beyond a hedge of yews bordering the lot was a broad four-lane avenue, and on the other side of the avenue was a strip mall with the First-Rate convenience store where Ruth would begin working next week.

  Imagine: Ruth Bendel, a college graduate who’d written her honors thesis on Arcangelo Corelli’s use of suspended seconds, running a cash register at First-Rate.

  Cash registers were complicated, she reminded herself. And even without having to master the buttons and scanners and “enters” and “deletes” on the cash register, Ruth would find the job challenging. The rituals, the responsibilities, the schedule, the social environment— everything would be different. Unfamiliar. A whole new way of life.

  A double bed would just about fit inside this room, she thought as she surveyed the bedroom. Only one closet, but it was wide and she didn’t have to share it with anyone. The apartment also had a coat closet in the entry and a walk-in closet adjacent to the bathroom, as well as access to its own locked storage cage in the building’s basement.

  That would be enough, she assured herself as she did a mental calculation of just what she was planning to bring with her and what she would leave behind. She wouldn’t need that many clothes, really. At First-Rate she’d be wearing an official red apron over her outfit to identify her as a store employee. So there was little point in filling the apartment’s closets with chic ensembles.

  Not that she’d ever been particularly chic. Once Frugal Fannie’s had gone out of business, she’d cut way back on buying trendy clothes. She couldn’t see spending a fortune on a fancy garment so distinctive she might only wear it once. Good, solid, clothes, classic styles that lasted forever—that was her preference, especially when they were on sale.

  So she’d pack some slacks, a few skirts, a few sweaters and move them here. With her red First-Rate apron covering everything she had on under it, why knock herself out?

  The closet would do, she decided as s
he shut its hinged panel doors and surveyed the room once more. A double bed, a dresser, a night table . . . It would all fit in somehow. And she could buy a couple of plastic bins and stash them under the bed. They were good for storing linens and sweaters.

  Better yet, she could buy a platform bed with drawers built into the frame. She’d always thought platform beds were amazing. Such a smart use of space, and they seemed so . . . Swedish. Sweden was an idyllic country, politically progressive, with excellent health care and maternity-leave policies. The word Eden was tucked inside Sweden. That had to mean something.

  Richard had always been opposed to platform beds. “A bed should consist of a mattress and a box-spring,” he’d insisted. “A platform topped with foam padding doesn’t offer the proper support.” Since he was a doctor, she was supposed to accept his opinion as scientific.

  But all those Swedish people didn’t seem to be hobbling around like cripples. They were too busy skiing and playing hockey to kvetch about their bad backs. Platform beds were probably as orthopedically sound as any other bed. And extra storage space never hurt anyone.

  What did Richard know, anyway? He was a cardiologist. Since when was he an expert on the subject of back support?

  “There’s a laundry room in the basement,” the rental agent noted, hovering near the window as if she wanted to draw Ruth’s attention back to the spectacular view of the parking lot. “Very well lit, very safe. The buildings are secure. We’ve never had a problem here.”

  Well, there was always a first time. Ruth had enough Russian blood in her to expect the worst. But how much more dangerous was this apartment than the house? Richard had installed an alarm system shortly after they’d moved in, and Ruth had screwed it up so many times, pushing the wrong buttons or the right buttons in the wrong order and accidentally summoning the police, who would then bill her a hundred dollars for the false alarm, that Richard had wound up having the system removed. What a waste. Ruth had never felt safer with it.

  “This particular unit,” the rental agent said, “gets a lot of sunlight. It’s really a very bright unit.”

  Ruth wished she wouldn’t call the apartment a “unit.” It was a residence, a dwelling. A home.

  Not a home like the house where her children had grown up and where Richard still lived. Not a spacious colonial with rhododendrons and daffodils and spirea that Ruth herself had planted, and ancient pines bordering the backyard and towering above the roofline. Not a house with a kitchen big enough to prepare a Thanksgiving feast or a Seder for the whole family and a finished-basement rec room with a ping-pong table, and a formal living room that always looked pristine because it was so rarely used. Not a house with an elegant master bedroom suite, with two walk-in closets and a sleek fiberglass tub in the bathroom.

  This place—this unit—was very bright. That would be enough.

  It would be perfect.

  Chapter Two

  Like a silken waterfall, our shantung scarf will leave you feeling caressed and refreshed as it spills over your skin. Drape it around your arms like a stole or fling it dramatically over one shoulder. Loop it in a sassy sash around your waist. Wrap it multiple times around your neck, stand on a chair, tie the end to a tree limb and jump.

  With a groan, Jill shoved away from what she euphemistically called her desk. It was in fact just an extension of the kitchen counter, beige laminate atop a cabinet of drawers crammed with scissors, rolls of tape, unsharpened pencils and other school supplies. Her printer sat on the floor underneath the counter in the space where her feet were supposed to go, forcing her to straddle her chair with her legs spread wide enough to facilitate childbirth.

  Geoffrey had emailed her several photos of the scarf, which she’d printed out, spread across the counter and stared at for the past two hours, hoping for inspiration. Unfortunately, the scarf didn’t have much going for it. It looked nothing like a waterfall, silken or otherwise. And the Black Pearl catalog refused to refer to the available colors in ordinary language. There was no red scarf, although it could be purchased in “cherry” and “persimmon.” No green scarf, but customers could choose from “lime” or “mint.” Not purple but “grape,” “plum” and “eggplant.” Not brown but “chocolate,” “mocha” and “taffy.” Not black but “licorice.”

  The hell with flinging the scarf over your shoulder. You might as well eat it.

  Or use it to hang yourself.

  “Shit,” Jill muttered. She could curse out loud because Abbie and Noah weren’t home from school yet. Once they got home, she had to be a Good Mom. Good Moms didn’t say “shit” within range of their children.

  She shoved away from her computer, crossed to the refrigerator and pulled a can of Diet Coke from the bottom shelf. She’d managed to cut back to only two cans a day and intended to wean herself completely before Abbie’s bat mitzvah, eight months from now. Interesting people, exotic people, people with actual lives, got to wean themselves from booze, cocaine, cigarettes and compulsive sex. Jill was trying to wean herself from Diet Coke. She didn’t want to analyze what that said about her.

  Taking a swig, she savored the fizzy burn of the carbonation across her tongue and up into her sinuses. She hoped the caffeine would give her brain a needed jolt, like those paddles doctors used to restart the hearts of patients in cardiac arrest. Jill was in mental arrest; she needed her brain shocked back to life, stat, as they said in medical dramas on TV. Geoffrey needed the shantung-scarf copy by five p.m. Which meant she had to get it written and emailed by three. Once the kids got home, Jill’s time, like her language, was no longer her own.

  Geoffrey Munger, the editor of the Black Pearl catalog, favored what he called “nature-based yet sensuous metaphors” in the copy describing the company’s offerings. Lois Foreman, the editor of the Prairie Wind catalog, had a strong preference for “bright and breezy.” Sabrina Lopez, the editor of the Velvet Moon catalog, preferred “edgy and erotic.” Jill appreciated how lucky she was to be writing catalog copy for three different companies—not just because the money was three times better than writing for only one but also because the three different commissions offered her creative variety. She only had to remember which catalog she was writing for on any given day.

  She also had to try not to let the catalogs’ refusal to describe colors by their actual names distract her. “Blue” didn’t exist for any of the companies that employed Jill. A customer could buy a garment in periwinkle, navy, aqua, royal, sky, tiffany, ocean, peacock, azure, powder or indigo. Not blue. Never blue.

  Another hit of Diet Coke and she was back at her desk, shoving the blues to a remote corner of her brain and reminding herself that today she was writing for Geoffrey Munger at Black Pearl. If she sent him edgy and erotic text instead of natural yet sensuously metaphorical text—if, for instance, she described the shantung scarves as being ideal for lashing one’s lover to a four-poster—he’d probably keel over.

  She stared at her computer monitor so long her eyelids synchronized their blinks with the pulsing cursor. A sharp shake of her head broke her trance, and she took another stab at describing the scarf Black Pearl hoped to entice thousands of women into purchasing. More refreshing than a waterfall, lighter than a breeze, perfect to protect bare shoulders during a romantic evening stroll. Our shantung silk scarf is available in every color of the rainbow. Be playful in persimmon. Lyrical in lemon. Mysterious in midnight. This scarf is available in a wide array of hues to match your wide array of moods.

  The phone rang.

  “Shit,” Jill said.

  She supposed she could ignore the phone and let the caller leave a message. But before the machine picked up, she’d have to listen to four more rings, which would shatter her concentration. As if one ring hadn’t already shattered it.

  She allowed herself a brief fantasy of setting up her catalog copy business in a real office rather than a corner of the kitchen—an office with a separate phone number, just for her. She imagined commuting to her office every d
ay . . . in bumper-to-bumper traffic, in blizzards, in flooding downpours and tornado-like microbursts.

  No. She’d settle for an office right here in the house, but soundproofed so she wouldn’t hear the family phone when it rang. In the unfinished part of the basement? Too dark, and there were spiders. In the attic? Too hot, and there were spiders. Maybe she could hire a contractor to build an extension off the back of the house. An office suite, spider-proof, with a private bathroom and kitchenette to go with the private phone line. It would only cost about twice what she earned in a year.

  The phone rang a third time. Two more rings and the machine would pick up.

  Her caller might be one of the kids. Or the school nurse, informing her that Noah had puked his lunch all over the floor in gym, or Abbie had gotten her period and needed Jill to bring her some clean panties and jeans. That very disaster had occurred last spring, and for the following week Abbie had moped around the house, whining that the humiliation had been so awful she wanted to die.

  Jill was a Good Mom. How could she ignore her ringing phone when the caller could be her daughter, wanting to die?

  She shoved away from the desk, mumbling a few therapeutic curses, and strode around the center island to reach the phone. “Hello?”

  “Jill? It’s your mother.”

  As if, after thirty-six years as Ruth Bendel’s daughter, Jill wouldn’t recognize the woman’s voice. “Hi,” she said.

  “Have you got a minute?”

  Jill sighed. Her monitor glared at her, the cursor flashing imperatively, a computer version of a nagging, wagging finger. “I really don’t,” she said.

  “I’ll be quick,” her mother promised. “I want you to invite your brother and sister to your house this weekend. Saturday afternoon would work. No need to fuss.”

  Jill was a Good Daughter as well as a Good Mom, so she refrained from cursing—just barely. “You want me to host a family gathering?”