Love in Bloom's Page 4

  “It was even more crowded by the olives. It’s too crowded here, too. Let’s go to the stairs.”

  “If this disaster isn’t the sort of thing you can discuss in a crowded place, maybe we ought to leave. Everywhere is crowded at Bloom’s.”

  “That’s because Bloom’s is such a successful store,” Julia said, then winced.

  Susie scowled. The fact that Bloom’s was a successful store shouldn’t fill her sister with angst. The success of the store enabled their mother—and Grandma Ida and Uncle Jay—to enjoy a very affluent lifestyle. This was a good thing.

  “Let’s just go to the stairs,” Julia said in answer to Susie’s unvoiced question.

  Susie turned in the direction of the stairway—and felt her heart seize. Godiva. That man behind the bagel counter was definitely Godiva—dark chocolate, maybe spiked with hazelnuts—or no, filled with marzipan. Deserving a wrapper of pure gold.

  “Who’s that?” she whispered.

  Julia followed her gaze and shrugged. “How the hell should I know?”

  “He’s gorgeous.”

  “He’s a bagel guy,” Julia remarked, sounding not condescending but simply matter-of-fact.

  “I’m in love.”

  “You’re insane.”

  Susie was not insane. The fellow counting bagels into a bag for a woman in a sari was gourmet chocolate. He was tall, and lanky, with dark-blond hair pulled back into a neat ponytail, a long face, a forceful nose and chin, and green eyes so round his lids didn’t seem able to open all the way. They drooped slightly, giving him a deliciously sleepy look. His smile was sleepy, too. Lazy. Dangerous.

  She wanted to eat him up.

  “Come on, we’ve got to talk.” Julia clamped her hand around Susie’s elbow and tried to steer her away from the bagel counter, toward the stairs. Susie tossed a look over her shoulder, but he didn’t notice. He was busy with his bagels.

  It occurred to Susie that, much as she wanted to eat him up, she wanted even more just to eat. Julia had sounded panicked enough on the phone that Susie hadn’t stopped to grab a bite before leaving Eddie’s apartment. She hadn’t consumed anything since that latte at around three o’clock that morning. She was famished.

  “I never had any breakfast today,” she said.

  “It’s too late for breakfast.”

  “I never had any lunch, either. I’ve got to get something to eat, and then we’ll talk.” At Julia’s impatient frown, Susie added, “I bet you’ve eaten breakfast and lunch.”

  Julia looked sheepish. “Brunch at Grandma Ida’s. Lyndon made lox and eggs.”

  Susie felt a stab of jealousy. Lyndon’s lox and eggs qualified as five-star cuisine. “You ate that, and you’re going to make me starve to death, and I’m supposed to help you with your disaster?”

  Julia conceded with a sigh. “Fine. Go get something to eat, and then meet me at the stairs.”

  Susie hurried over to the bagel counter. Godiva was busy wrapping a wire tie around a plastic bag filled with bagels and grinning at the lady in the sari.

  Susie sidled up behind the woman. Another, older, clerk working the bagel counter was available to help her, but Susie could survive another few minutes without food for the opportunity to talk to Godiva. When the older one tried to catch her eye and beckon her over, she pretended to be fascinated with the marble ryes stacked on a shelf beside the bagel bins.

  At last the sari-wrapped woman departed. Susie leaped forward and planted herself in front of the man. “Hi,” she said.

  His smile was slow and effortless. “Hi.”

  No “Can I help you?” No “What do you want?” Just a husky-voiced “Hi.”

  Her stomach rumbled hollowly. “I’d like a bagel,” she said.

  His smile didn’t change. His eyes were as much gray as green, she realized now that she was close to him. “Okay,” he drawled.

  “What flavor do you recommend?” she asked, gesturing at the variety of bagels. Raisin. Whole wheat. Cranberry. Pumpernickel. Pesto? Who in their right mind would want to eat a pesto-flavored bagel?

  Godiva gave her a thorough perusal, his gaze lingering at her mouth, at her unspectacular chest and lower, in the vicinity of her navel. “Egg.”

  “Egg sounds great.” She watched as he plucked a square of wax paper from a box and used it to lift an egg bagel from the bin. His fingers were long and thin, surprisingly graceful. As he handed it to her, his smile grew warmer. “Why did you pick egg?” she asked.

  “Because you’ve got a nubile look about you.”

  Nubile. What kind of bagel counter-man knew the word nubile?

  Definitely, she was in love. “I can’t remember the last time I ate a Bloom’s bagel,” she told him. “Are they any good?”

  “They’re awful,” he whispered, his eyes glinting with the kind of mischief that made Susie giddy with lust. “People just pretend to like them. It’s the biggest scam in town. You want some cream cheese to go with that?”

  “No, I’ll take it straight up.”

  “Pay for it before you eat it,” he warned, as she lifted it to her mouth. He gestured toward the cashiers at their posts along the front window.

  She sighed at his dismissal of her. He’d made his sale; he didn’t need to flirt anymore.

  Okay. She’d go pay for her bagel and eat it and get some nourishment out of this encounter. Obviously, her nubility failed to leave him in a state of abject passion. Several customers had formed a line behind her—and he probably found one or two of them even more nubile.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled, then spun away and stalked to the cashier.

  She could have told the woman there that she was Susie Bloom, of the Blooms, and then she wouldn’t have to pay for the bagel. Assuming the cashier believed her. She’d probably ask for two forms of identification, and then she’d fuss and shout across the line of cashiers, “Look who’s here! It’s one of the Blooms!” And then Susie would have to smile and be charming, and she wasn’t in the mood to smile and be charming after Godiva had sent her packing.

  And it wasn’t as if she couldn’t afford the eighty-five cents.

  She paid, took a bite of her bagel and shook herself out of her Godiva fantasy. Christ, what was wrong with her? Not much more than an hour ago, she’d been in Eddie’s bed. She must be some kind of slut, yearning for a total stranger with droopy eyelids.

  No, she wasn’t really a slut. Just a chocoholic.

  She found Julia waiting halfway up the stairs on the landing, perhaps the only place in the store that wasn’t full of chattering, browsing customers. Susie took another bite of her bagel and glanced around. They were surrounded by wall clocks in a variety of colors, offered at a variety of prices. To have so many clocks staring at her was like being trapped in a Salvador Dali painting.

  “So, what’s this disaster?” she asked, feeling a little better now that she had some food inside her.

  “Grandma Ida wants to name me president of Bloom’s.”

  “She wants to name Mom president? That sounds about right to me.”

  “Not Mom. Me.”

  “You?” Susie guffawed. Her sister could no more run Bloom’s than Bart Simpson could run the Vatican. And her sister wouldn’t want to run Bloom’s. She was a lawyer. Lawyers didn’t sell lox. Fifty-nine-dollar bottles of olive oil, maybe, but not lox and latkes and round slabs of stuffed derma. “Why the hell would Grandma Ida do something like that?”

  “Because she’s Grandma Ida,” Julia explained, twirling a finger nervously through the fringe of her scarf. “Because she’s crazy. Because she’s pissed at Uncle Jay and she can’t bring herself to turn the place over to someone who isn’t a blood relation.”

  “Why is she pissed at Uncle Jay?”

  “Because he married The Bimbette and he spends too much time doing Internet stuff.”

  “The Web site is pretty cool. It’s got all these great pictures of gift baskets overflowing with bread and phallic-looking salami and big green apples.” Every now
and then, when she was Web surfing, she liked to visit the Bloom’s site, just to get in touch with her roots.

  “Grandma Ida doesn’t understand the Internet, so as far as she’s concerned it’s useless.”

  “And this president thing can only go to a blood relative?”

  “That’s why she won’t give it to Mom.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Susie tore off a small chunk of bagel and popped it in her mouth. “Why you? How come she didn’t name me the president?”

  “You’ve got a tattoo,” Julia told her.

  Grandma Ida was clearly exercising great wisdom. Uncle Jay had married The Bimbette, so he was out. Susie had a little butterfly inked into her skin above her left anklebone, so she was out. Mom had spent thirty years married to Dad, but she carried no Bloom blood in her veins, so she was out. “It should have gone to Mom,” Susie said.

  “I know. I feel sick about this. I don’t want it. Mom does want it. Grandma Ida has managed to screw us both.”

  “So why don’t you kill her? I’ll be your character witness during the trial. I’ll testify you were driven to it. I’ll say you acted in self-defense.”

  “Thanks,” Julia grumbled. “I knew I could count on you.”

  “What does Mom have to say about all this?”

  “She doesn’t know yet. Grandma Ida asked me to come for brunch, and then she laid this on me.”

  “Yeah, but she laid lox and eggs on you, too,” Susie reminded her. There was a limit to how sorry she could feel for Julia, given the quality of Lyndon’s cooking.

  “She said she’s going to talk to her lawyers next week. We’ve got to do something.”

  “What can we do? She owns the damn company.”

  “And if she wants it to stay solvent,” Julia said, “she’ll name Mom the president, because Mom ran the damn company with Dad for years, and she’s been practically running it all by herself since he died.”

  “Well, you’d better tell Mom. She’s going to shit a brick.”

  “What do you mean, I’d better tell Mom? We’re going to tell her together.”

  “Why do I have to be there? You’re the president.”

  “I can’t tell her alone. You see what I mean? I can’t become president of Bloom’s. A president would have to have the guts to give people bad news. I don’t.”

  “You’re a lawyer. You give people bad news all the time, and charge them hundreds of dollars an hour for it.”

  Julia ignored her remark. “What I thought was, if Mom is home now, we can go upstairs and tell her. The three of us can come up with a plan.”

  “What if she’s not home?” Susie asked hopefully. She really didn’t want to have to go upstairs and deliver such lousy news to her mother. There would likely be a scene, and Susie hated scenes—at least, she hated scenes involving her family. Scenes involving strangers she found kind of fascinating.

  Julia hauled her cell phone from her purse. “I’ll call her, and if she’s home I’ll tell her we’re coming up.”

  Susie nibbled on her bagel and issued a silent prayer that her mother wouldn’t answer. God must not have been paying attention, because in the time it took her to swallow, Julia was saying, “Mom! You’re home! Wonderful!”

  Wonderful, Susie thought grimly. Just wonderful.

  3

  Jay Bloom steered his BMW Z3 coupe down the ramp to the garage beneath his East Sixty-Third Street apartment building. A few degrees warmer and he might have put down the convertible top. But while it was a bit too chilly for top-down driving, it hadn’t been too chilly for golf.

  He adored golf. A nice Jewish boy, born and reared in the heart of Manhattan, and he’d fallen deliriously in love with this goyishe suburban sport. Until four years ago, he’d never even swung a club, except for miniature golf with the boys on family vacation trips to Point Pleasant, New Jersey. But then his attorney had invited him out to Great Neck one Sunday for a round of golf, “to celebrate your divorce being finalized.” Jay had definitely been ready to celebrate, so he’d accepted the invitation.

  He’d been dazzled by the beautiful setting, all those gorgeous rolling lawns, the meticulously groomed trees and ponds and sand traps, the discreet paths and white fencing. For a city dweller, being surrounded by such lush greenery was a treat, and Jay always responded to visual appeal, whether in a location, a car, a woman or a Web page layout. But even more than the splendid scenery of the golf course, what Jay loved was swinging a club, feeling the muscles expand and contract in his shoulders and along his spine, the shift of balance in his hips, the liberating sweep of his arms and that fat, satisfying thwack as his club hit the ball.

  Athletics had always come easily to him. It didn’t surprise him that by the eighteenth hole of his divorce celebration he was able to drive the ball three-hundred-plus feet with consistency, any more than it had surprised him eight years ago when he’d tried squash for the first time and wound up beating the photographer, a fellow fifteen years Jay’s junior, who shot the layouts of gift baskets and braided bread that appeared in the Bloom’s catalogs. Or twelve years ago, when Jay had strapped on a pair of skis for the first time at Hunter Mountain and by the end of the day had figured out how to use his edges to make clean turns.

  These skills came naturally to him. He didn’t know why. He wasn’t a jock.

  But now he was a member of the Emerald View Country Club out on the island, and the owner of a magnificent set of titanium golf clubs for which Wendy had bought little socks with breakfast pastries embroidered on them: a bagel, a croissant, a muffin, a doughnut, a Danish—“They reminded me of Bloom’s,” she’d explained. And on the first sunny Sunday in March, Jay had spent the day out at Emerald View with Stuart, being the suburban golfer.

  If his mother knew he spent his Sundays golfing on Long Island, she’d hold it against him. She was a tightly clenched woman with a lot of what Martha, his first wife, would call “issues.” After Ben died last year, the old lady had become even more tightly clenched and issued.

  He wasn’t finding fault that she’d grown crankier since Ben’s death. He had two sons; he couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to lose one of them. He missed Ben, too. He’d grieved, he’d mourned, he’d sat shivah at his mother’s house for the week, wearing a cheap black necktie with a symbolic rip in it. It was terrible that Ben had died. It stank. Tragic. Awful.

  But life went on, and not playing golf wasn’t going to bring Ben back.

  He waved to the garage attendant on his way to his reserved space. He had to pay extra for the privilege of parking his own car, but he considered the expense more than worth it. With his own parking space, he never had to wait for one of the attendants to shuffle the cars around, jiggling this one here and that one there in order to free up a car buried in the back. The reserved spaces were right in the front, just past the gate, and Jay could come and go at will. He liked that.

  In fact, he liked a lot about his life right now: his pretty wife, his seven handicap, the tiger-purr of the Z3’s highly tuned engine and the fact that the year of mourning was finally over. Now even Ida might be ready to accept that life went on.

  Life wasn’t the only thing that went on, either, he thought as he climbed out of the car, pulled his clubs from the trunk and wiped an errant fingerprint from the chrome latch with the knitted sleeve of his jacket. Bloom’s also went on.

  He had been more or less running the business single-handedly all year. Oh, sure, Sondra butted in every now and then, meddling and carping and muttering, “Ben always did it this way. Ben reconciled the inventory lists using that format,” as if Jay didn’t know computers better than she did. But he had essentially run the show, and now that a year was up, Ida was going to have to name him president.

  He’d never fill Ben’s shoes, of course. Younger brothers never got to fill their older brothers’ shoes, never got to be the Number One Son, never served as first in line to the throne…but when older brothers passed on, younger brothers moved up.
It was simply the way of things. He’d understood it when Ben was alive, and he understood it now.

  On the seventh day of shivah after Ben had died, Myron Finkel, Ida’s accountant since forever, had asked her about who was going to become the company’s president now. Ida had peered up from her stool—she’d gotten a sudden surge of religion with the death of her firstborn, and had insisted that the immediate family sit on low stools instead of the comfortable upholstered sofas and chairs in her spacious living room—and said, “For a year I’ll be in mourning. When that year is up I’ll make decisions.”

  The year was up now, and the decision would be made. Jay would be the president of Bloom’s.

  It was going to feel good. To take on the office, the power, the prestige…Oh, yeah. It was going to be sweet. Sweeter than cruising the Z3 down the winding, tree-lined driveway of Emerald View with the first hints of new grass dotting the fairways as winter thawed away. Sweeter than sinking a driver into a ball and watching it soar in a perfect arc through a weekend-blue sky and land on the green. Sweeter than telling Sondra to go shtup herself, because he was going to be doing things his way from now on.

  Very sweet.

  He could hardly wait.

  Stepping out of the elevator, Julia saw Aunt Martha emerging from her apartment. She would have dived back into the elevator and slapped the Door Close button, but Susie was right behind her, blocking the way, and by the time Susie realized that Aunt Martha was out there and that escaping back into the elevator would be a prudent move, Aunt Martha had spotted them.

  “Girls,” she said in a growl that seemed to seep through a bed of gravel in her throat. Martha was tall, with a football-shaped head—a narrow forehead and chin widening into her cheekbones—and eighteen inches of gray-streaked brown hair rippled down her back like yarn with kinks in it. She wore a dowdy skirt, thick, ribbed stockings and Birkenstock sandals. She’d wrapped around her an outer garment that looked like a wool blanket with armholes cut into it, and she carried a canvas tote bag stenciled with the women’s power symbol. Earrings that resembled the contents of a man’s trouser pocket—clusters of coins and lint—dangled from her ears. She looked as though she were heading to the nearest bazaar to haggle over the price of a camel.