“From Ingenue to Earth Mother” – a short story by Lisa Grunberger

“From Ingenue to Earth Mother” was a short-listed entry in our recently concluded 71st Short Fiction Contest, and is published with the consent of the author.

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photo by Christian Himmel/via Pexels

From Ingenue to Earth Mother

by Lisa Grunberger

….. They met at Starbucks on Amsterdam Avenue. Sarah walked to her usual table by the window to find a man sitting there.

….. “You’re in my seat,” she said. It came out sounding more flirtatious than she’d intended.

….. He was tall and lanky, mid-forties, with a shaved head that gleamed under the fluorescent lights. Wire-rimmed glasses. Shorts that hung wrong on his frame. He looked like someone’s uncle, the one who picked an argument at the Seder.

….. “My apologies.” He moved to gather his briefcase, then paused. Saw her black notebook.

….. “You write here?”

….. “Before my shift at the steakhouse.”

….. “A writer who waits tables. In New York, this isn’t unusual.” He smiled, and something in his face changed. “David Brenner. Attorney.”

….. “Sarah Roth. PhD in comparative religion. Also waitress.”

….. “A PhD who waits tables. Now this is unusual.” He set his briefcase down. “What kind of comparative religion?”

….. “Buddhist philosophy and Jewish mysticism, mostly.”

….. “Kabbalah?”

….. “Among other things.”

….. “My mother lights candles every Friday. It’s a mystery to me. That’s the extent of my mysticism.” He pushed his glasses up. “So why aren’t you teaching?”

….. “Why aren’t you minding your own business?”

….. He laughed. “Fair enough. But seriously—where did you get the doctorate?

….. “University of Chicago. Divinity School. My mother thought I was going to be a rabbi.”

….. “Chicago.” He nods, his lips sealed, a smile on his face like he was proud of me, a stranger.

….. “That’s a good program. Top two.”

….. “You know about PhD programs in comparative religion?”

….. “I know about good schools. I know about people who work hard and then don’t use what they earned. It interests me. The waste of it.”

….. “Maybe it’s not waste. Maybe I’m living my life.”

….. “Maybe.” He looked at her notebook. “What are you writing?”

….. “Poetry.”

….. “Can I hear some?”

….. “No.”

….. “Why not?”

….. “Because I don’t know you.”

….. “You could know me. If you wanted to.” He pulled out his wallet, extracted a card. “Call me. We’ll get dinner. I’ll listen to your poetry, you’ll listen to my closing arguments.”

….. She took the card but said nothing.

….. “Or don’t call. Either way.” He picked up his briefcase. “But you’re sitting in my seat tomorrow, I’m charging rent.”

…

…..

….. He called that evening. She hadn’t expected him to remember her number—wait, she hadn’t given him her number.

….. “How did you get this?” she asked.

….. “Information. There’s only one Sarah Roth in Queens with a doctorate in Divinity. I’m a lawyer, snookums. I find things out.”

….. “Snookums?”

….. “It’s a term of endearment. Don’t overthink it. Dinner. Saturday. There’s a place in the Village with lobster.”

….. “I don’t know if—”

….. “You’re not kosher. Seven o’clock. I’ll pick you up. What’s your address?”

….. She gave it to him. Later, alone in her childhood house with over two hundred of her dead father’s antique clocks, she wondered why. The clocks chimed and gonged and cuckooed, keeping her company.

…

….. On Saturday he arrived in a black Lexus, wearing shorts and a sweatshirt. He looked at the house—a narrow two-story in Forest Hills with white aluminum siding and a small front yard.

….. “Your parents’ place?” he asked.

….. “Mine now. They died.”

….. “Both of them?”

….. “My mother six years ago. My father four months ago.”

….. “Jesus. I’m sorry.” He looked at her directly. “That’s rough, Snookums. That’s very rough.”

….. Had any other man called her “Snookums” more than once, she might have belted him. But somehow with this man, it felt familiar, endearing even. He was not a malicious man.

….. They drove to the Village and talked about politics, poetry and literature. He was surprisingly well-read and subscribed to Harper’s and The New Yorker. “Beauty and art and wine and good food ––“ he said, his beautiful hands around the wheel, “what else is there in life?”

….. David drove the way he talked—assertively, without hesitation, honking at taxis that drifted into his lane.

….. “You always drive like this?” she asked.

….. “Like what?”

….. “Like you’re prosecuting the other drivers.”

….. “I’m not prosecuting. I’m establishing dominance. It’s different.”

….. At the restaurant he ordered for both of them. Lobster, steamers, a bottle of Sancerre. When the waitress—young, pretty, competent—brought their bibs, he flirted with her, and Sarah felt something tighten in her chest.

….. “What?” he said, catching her expression.

….. “Nothing.”

….. “You’re upset because I was friendly to the waitress.”

….. “I’m a waitress.”

….. “So you know. Being friendly gets better service. It’s strategic.”

….. “Is that what this is? Strategic?”

….. He cracked a lobster claw, extracted the meat with precision. “This? This is me trying to have a nice dinner with an intelligent, attractive woman who has a PhD in mysticism and writes poetry. If that’s strategic, then sure, I’m playing chess. But maybe I just like you, Snookums. You ever consider that?”

….. “Don’t call me Snookums.”

….. “You said that already. Why don’t you like it?”

….. “Because it’s condescending.”

….. “It’s affectionate.”

….. “It’s what you call a child.”

….. He put down his fork. “My grandmother called me tatteleh. You know what that means?”

….. “Little one.”

….. “Right. And I loved it. Because it meant she loved me. So when I call you Snookums, I’m being affectionate. If you don’t like it, tell me what to call you.”

….. “Sarah.”

….. “Sarah. Okay. Sarah.” He picked up his wine glass. “But you’re wrong about one thing.”

….. “What’s that?”

….. “I don’t think of you as a child. I think of you as a woman who’s scared to grow up.”

….. She should have left then. But the wine was good, and the lobster was sweet, and she’d been alone in that house for four months listening to clocks that didn’t agree on time.

….. Her father had set them to different time zones from where he had lived. The Gustave Becker was set for Viennese time, his birthplace. The grandfather clock for Berlin time. The cuckoo clock for Tel Aviv time. Her father was a Holocaust survivor.

….. He never knew what time it was.

….. Without maintenance, greasing and oiling, they’d all die.

…

….. After dinner they walked through Washington Square Park. Students played guitar, a man sold books from a blanket, couples kissed on benches. The air smelled of summer and pot and pretzels.

….. “You live in the city?” she asked.

….. “I live in Queens, not far from where you live. I’d never live in Manhattan. Too pretentious.”

….. “Alone?”

….. “Always alone, Snookums—sorry, Sarah. I’m forty-five. Never been married. Not likely to start now.”

….. “Why not?”

….. “Because marriage is for people who need completion. I’m complete.”

….. “Everyone needs someone.”

….. “That’s what people say who need someone.”

….. He stopped walking, turned to face her.

….. “Look, I’m telling you this up front. Full disclosure. I’m not looking for a wife. I’m not looking for a life partner. I’m not looking to meet someone’s emotional needs. But I like you. You’re smart, you’re interesting, you’re beautiful. We could have a good time together. If you want that, great. If you need more, I’m not your guy.”

….. She looked at his face in the lamplight—angular, intelligent, already decided.

….. “What if I want more eventually?”

….. “Then we’ll cross that bridge. But I’m not promising a bridge, Sarah. I’m promising Saturday nights. Maybe Friday too. Good dinners. Good conversation. Maybe good sex, if we’re lucky. That’s the offer.”

….. She thought about the house, the clocks, the empty rooms. She thought about her father’s funeral, standing alone at the grave while distant cousins murmured condolences.

….. “Okay,” she said.

….. “Yeah?”

….. “Saturday nights. Maybe Friday too.”

….. He smiled and took her hand. His palm was warm and dry. They walked like that, hand in hand, back to his car, and she felt something lift in her chest. Not happiness exactly. More like relief.

….. That night, in her childhood house with its ticking clocks, he undressed her efficiently. His lovemaking was the same—efficient, brief, but not without tenderness. Afterward he lay on his back, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Was he whistling?

….. He’d never really let himself go with a woman, she thought. She wanted to teach him things an older lover had taught her. But she could tell, it wasn’t the right time. Not yet, at least.

….. “The clocks,” he said. “They’d drive me crazy.”

….. “They remind me of my parents.”

….. “The dead don’t need reminding. Sell this place. Get a studio in the Village or something. Do you have any inheritance? Get a real job.”

….. “I have a real job.”

….. “Waiting tables is not a real job. You have a doctorate from Chicago. You should teach.”

….. “Maybe I don’t want to teach.”

….. “Then what do you want?”

….. She rolled toward him, placed her hand on his chest. “I want you to stay tonight.”

….. “I have an early meeting.”

….. “It’s Saturday.”

….. It was not like her to pursue a man like this, but David felt so familiar, she didn’t want him to leave.

….. “I’m meeting my mother for brunch. Every Sunday. It’s our thing.”

….. She lifted her hand. “I could come with you.”

….. “We just met, for Christ’s sake.”

….. “Why not? It’s just brunch.”

….. He sat up, reached for his glasses on the nightstand. “Because my mother is eighty-three years old, and she has certain expectations. I bring a girl to brunch, she starts planning the wedding. I’m not doing that to her. Or to you.”

….. “So, I’m just—what? Your Saturday night entertainment?” As she said the words, she regretted them. She sounded so God-damned needy.

….. “I told you what this was, Sarah. I was honest.”

….. “You were honest that you’re unavailable. There’s a difference.”

….. He stood, pulled on his boxers and pants. “I should go.”

….. “Of course you should.”

….. He sat back down on the edge of the bed, not looking at her. “My mother had four miscarriages before she had me. Four. Then she had my sister Rachel. Two kids, that was it. My father died when I was twelve. Heart attack at forty-three. She raised us alone. Worked in a bakery on Flatbush Avenue for thirty years. Saved every penny so I could go to Columbia Law.”

….. “David—”

….. “She’s my mother, Sarah. The only person who never gave up on me. Sunday brunch is ours. I’m not sharing it.”

….. “I’m not asking you to share it. I’m asking you to include me.”

….. “It’s the same thing.” He stood again, this time pulling on his shirt. “I’ll call you.”

….. He left. She lay in bed listening to the clocks chime the hour, each one slightly off.

….. Half asleep, she swears she could still hear them in their heyday, when the house was full with people – her parents and all their survivor friends smoking and drinking Sherry Heering late into the night. They laughed a lot. She heard Hebrew and Yiddish, Rumanian and French and Polish and Hungarian.

….. In those days, all the clocks chimed at once, marking different hours, none of them right. But there was never a false note. Sometimes, when her mother was making soup, a clock would startle her. She’d complain they were giving her a headache.

….. What clocks, her father joked, kissing her mother’s forehead.

…

….. A year passed. Then another. They fell into a pattern. Fridays and Saturdays, sometimes Wednesdays. Dinners in the Village, drinks in midtown, once a weekend trip to Cape Cod where he snored so loud she couldn’t sleep.

….. He never stayed over. He never took her to meet his mother.

….. One Friday in November, the second year, they were having dinner at a sushi place on Second Avenue. Small, narrow, dark wood and paper lanterns. She’d been building up to the question all week.

….. “David,” she said. “I want to meet your mother.”

….. He didn’t look up from his salmon roll. “We’ve discussed this.”

….. “We haven’t discussed it. You’ve made pronouncements. There’s a difference.”

….. “Sarah—”

….. “It’s been over two years. Two years, David. I’ve met your friends. I’ve met your sister and her husband once. I’ve heard about your nephews. But your mother—the most important person in your life—I’m not allowed near her.”

….. “It’s not about permission.”

….. “Then what is it about?”

….. He put down his chopsticks. “It’s about not raising expectations I can’t meet.”

….. “What expectations?”

….. “Come on. You know what expectations. I bring a girl to meet my mother, there are implications.”

….. “I’m not a girl. I’m thirty-five years old.”

….. “You know what I mean.”

….. “Say it, David. Say what you mean instead of hiding behind implications.”

….. He poured more sake, drank it in one swallow. “Fine. My mother wants more grandchildren. She wants to see me settled. She wants to know I won’t die alone. If I bring you to brunch, she’ll think you’re the one. And when we inevitably break up because I’m not built for this, she’ll be devastated. And she’ll blame me. And she’ll be right to blame me. So no, Sarah, you can’t meet my mother.”

….. “When we inevitably break up?”

….. “That’s what you heard?”

….. “That’s what you said.”

….. “I’m being realistic.”

….. “You’re being cruel.”

….. “Cruelty would be lying to you. Letting you think this is going somewhere.”

….. She felt something cold settle in her stomach. “Where is it going, David?”

….. “Nowhere. It’s going nowhere. It’s staying right here. Saturday nights. Friday nights. Good dinners. Good conversation. I thought you understood that.”

….. “I understood it at the beginning. Before you read my dissertation. Before you held my hand at my father’s grave at his unveiling. Before you told me about your father dying when you were twelve.”

….. “Those are stories, Sarah. Sharing stories doesn’t mean commitment.”

….. “Then what does it mean?”

….. He looked at her finally, his eyes tired behind his glasses. “It means I trust you. It means I like you. It means I’m giving you what I can give.”

….. “Something’s wrong with you. Deeply wrong. Why do you want to be alone?”

….. “I enjoy my own company.” It felt like a pat answer, a rehearsed response. That he’d given other women.

….. “It’s not enough.”

….. “I know it’s not.”

….. He reached for her hand, but she pulled it back. “Sarah, listen to me. You’re a beautiful, intelligent woman. You should be with someone who wants what you want. Marriage, kids, the whole thing. I’m not that person. I told you from the beginning. I’d be a good interim boyfriend.”

….. “You did. You’re right. You were honest.”

….. She picked up her purse. “And now I’m being honest. This isn’t working for me anymore.”

….. “So that’s it? You’re done?”

….. “I’m done.”

….. “Just like that?”

….. “Not just like that. It’s taken me two years to figure out that you meant what you said. That’s on me, not you.”

….. She stood. He stood too, reached for her arm.

….. “Sarah, wait. Let’s talk about this. Don’t leave angry.”

….. “I’m not angry. I’m sad. There’s a difference.”

….. She walked out into the cold November night. Behind her she heard David calling her name, but she didn’t turn around.

….. When she learned she was pregnant, she didn’t tell him. She just took care of it.

….. Look at me, Mom, look at how I’m fucking up my life, she said to the sky.

….. When she was little her mother would say, “Your Deddy can make planes fly and clocks sing.”

….. They’d met on the Mediterranean Sea in 1940. She was 15 and he was 20. They both spoke German. Theirs was a beautiful love story. He called her puppe, which means doll in German. She called him mickeylein. She had no idea what it meant. It was their own language.

….. She thought of all the cities her father had left behind. Not one clock was set to New York time.

…

….. She went back to him three more times over the next year. Each time he called and said he missed her. Each time she believed it meant something had changed. Each time she was wrong.

….. The final time was a Sunday morning in April. He called and asked if she wanted to get bagels.

….. “I can’t,” she said. “I’m meeting someone for brunch.”

….. “Who?”

….. “His name is Michael. He’s a professor at CUNY. We met at a faculty mixer.”

….. “Mixer, what are we, in the 1950s?”

….. “I meant to say meeting.”

….. Silence on the line. Then: “You’re seeing someone?”

….. “That’s what people do, David. They move on.”

….. “Does he know about me?”

….. “He knows I dated someone who wasn’t available. That’s all he needs to know.”

….. “Are you happy?”

….. The question surprised her. “I think I could be. He wants the same things I want.”

….. “That’s good, Snookums. That’s really good.”

….. “Don’t call me that anymore.”

….. “Right. Sorry. Sarah.” Another pause. “For what it’s worth, I meant what I said. About your work. About you having talent. Your writing.”

….. “I know. I published a poem in a small literary journal.”

….. “Excellent. Now get a tenure track job. Are you still waiting tables?”

….. “I’m figuring things out.”

….. “Don’t wait too long. Life goes fast.”

….. “That’s the most banal thing I’ve ever heard you say, David. You’re losing your edge, counselor. Life goes too fast.”

….. After she hung up she sat at the kitchen table, listening to the clocks. She thought about David’s mother, that woman she’d never meet, who lit candles every Friday and waited for her son to bring home a girl worth marrying.

….. She thought about Michael, earnest and kind, who’d already introduced her to his parents, who talked about the future like it was a place they’d visit together.

….. She thought about David, alone in his apartment reading in bed with a cup of English Breakfast tea, a teaspoon of honey, the air conditioner turned up high even in spring because he liked the cold.

….. Then she stood, walked to each clock, and stopped the ones that had never stopped chiming. She stood before each of her father’s beloved clocks that refused to stop ticking and gently stopped their pendulums. There were six of them left that had persisted in ticking if not keeping time. It made her feel sad and powerful at the same time.

….. The house suddenly, blissfully quiet.

….. Have I finally left him, she wondered as he closed her eyes and drifted to sleep.

…

….. A decade later he still called, especially when he’d been drinking. Late at night, his voice the same, still calling her Snookums, even though she asked him not to. She never just let it go to voice mail.

….. “You married, Sarah?”

….. “You know I am, David.”

….. “Happy?”

….. “My husband’s sick. In and out of the hospital.”

….. A pause. “I’m sorry to hear that. What’s wrong?”

….. “Heart problems. He had a procedure last month. It helped, but—” She stopped. “Why am I telling you this?”

….. “Because we’re friends. We’ve always been friends.”

….. “Have we?”

….. “Sure. What else would we be?”

….. She didn’t answer. Outside her Philadelphia window, snow was falling. Inside, her daughter slept upstairs, her husband beside her, both of them warm and safe. For now.

….. “I had cancer,” David said. “Melanoma. They caught it early.”

….. “From the tennis.”

….. “How’d you know?”

….. “Because you played every weekend and refused to wear sunscreen. You said it felt greasy.”

….. “It does feel greasy. But yeah, I wear it now. Doctor’s orders.”

….. “Are you okay?”

….. “I’m fine. Clean bill of health. Got my check-up last month.” He paused. “My mother died a month ago. She was 94.

….. “May her memory be for a blessing, David, I’m so sorry.”

….. “She held on a long time. You know what I did?”

….. “What did you do David?”

….. “I memorized the kaddish for her. In Hebrew. Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di v’ra chir’utei––“

….. I recited it with him, half whispering it into the cell phone, “v’yamlich malchutei b’hayeichon u-v’yomeichon, uv’hayei d’chol beit yisrael, ba-agala u-vi-z’man kariv, v’imru amen.”

….. “I’m sure she was proud of you.”

….. “You think?” His voice changed, became smaller. “She kept asking me why I never got married. Right up until the end. ‘David, when are you going to bring home a nice girl?’” She said you were nice.”

….. Sarah sat up straighter. “What?”

….. “She said you were nice. You seemed like a good person.”

….. “How would she know that?”

….. “I told her about you. After we stopped seeing each other. I was pretty broken up, if you want to know the truth. She said, ‘So why did you let her go?’ I said, ‘Because I’m an idiot, Ma.’ She said, ‘So call her and apologize.’ I said, ‘It’s too late.’ She said, ‘It’s never too late.'”

….. “But you never called.”

….. “I called. Three years later. You were already engaged.”

….. “I was?”

….. “To Michael. The professor. You told me on the phone. You sounded happy.”

….. “I don’t remember that.”

….. “You were happy, Sarah. I could hear it in your voice. You were over me. Finally.”

….. “I’ll never forget what you said to me once. You were giving me one of your weekly lectures about how fast time goes, how I needed to get a teaching job and publish. And you said, “you’re going to go from ingenue to earth mother in one fell swoop.”

….. And it’s then David breaks into laughter, hearty, abandoned laughter. “I said that, that’s a pretty damn good line. Ingenue to Earth Mother. Nu?”

….. “Nu what, David?”

….. “Have you become an earth mother, Sarah?”

….. She closed her eyes, remembering. She hadn’t been over him. Michael was the rebound. Even on her wedding day, she’d thought about David, wondered if he’d show up, if he’d object when the rabbi asked. Like life was some kind of movie. A scene out of The Graduate. He hadn’t shown up. Of course he hadn’t.

….. “How are all those clocks doing?”

….. “I sold them. I sold them to a man who has a woman’s name. Lindsay. Lindsay from Maine. He came early in the morning with a white van and took every last one of my father’s beloved clocks.”

….. They were quiet for over a minute, a long time.

….. “Your mother,” Sarah said. “She really said I was nice?”

….. “She did. I told her about your dissertation. About your poetry. About how you took care of your parents’ when they were dying, how they both died in your arms. Your mother of pancreatic cancer, right? And your father had stomach cancer. How you lived in the house in Queens all alone with all those clocks. She said, “This girl has depth. Why are you letting her go?'”

….. “What did you tell her?”

….. “I told her the truth. That I liked my solitude. That I didn’t know how to be what you needed.”

….. He stopped talking. I could hear the ice clink in his glass. Whiskey, I knew he was drinking whiskey.

….. “David? Are you there?”

….. “…that I might, I dunno, I might be bi. I liked to sleep with a man every once in a while. With one man. Remember my friend, Jay, who lives next door?”

….. “The real estate guy?”

….. “Yeah, well. He and I, we’ve had a thing since college. On again, off again. I mean we both sleep with women too. I could, ah, just never see myself with a woman, a family, when I had this other life. Jay.”

….. When he said Jay, it was almost a whisper.

….. Once he said it, it made sense. He never felt fully there when we made love. I felt his love, but not passion.

….. “Are you still there, Sarah?”

….. “I’m here, David. I’m here.”

….. He was finally telling her something real. He was 55 years old and finally coming out.

….. He was drunk, she could hear it in his voice. “But you, you turned out good. You got your books published. You’re the chair of the department. Well done. You have a family. That’s what matters.”

….. “You could have had that too.” No, he couldn’t.

….. “No. I couldn’t. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I wasn’t built for it. Some people aren’t. I told Mom that I was over fifty years old and set in my ways and probably going to die alone just like I’d lived alone.”

….. “And what did she say?”

….. “She said, ‘So you’ll die alone. But at least you’ll die knowing you chose it.’ Then she didn’t speak to me for two weeks. That was her way. The silent treatment. Worse than yelling.”

….. “She sounds formidable.”

….. “God, she was something, Sarah. Four-foot-eleven, weighed maybe a hundred pounds, but she could make me feel six inches tall with one look.”

….. Sarah smiled in the darkness. “I wish I’d met her.”

….. “Yeah. Me too.” His voice broke slightly.

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Pushcart nominee and Temple University Professor Lisa Grunberger is a poet, essayist and performer. Her poetry book, For the Future of Girls, was nominated for an Eric Hoffer Independent Poetry Award. She’s been published in The New York Times, The Southern Review, Newsday, The Southern Review, Teachers and Writers, Infertilities: A Curation, and n +1. Her play Almost Pregnant premiered at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival (Next Stage Press). Her work has been translated into Slovenian, Russian, Polish, Spanish and Yiddish. She’s a founding member of the Philadelphia chapter of Yetzirah, the national Jewish poetry organization. Former Arts and Culture Editor at the Philadelphia Jewish Voice, Lisa is completing a memoir entitled The Girl in the Sailor Suit.

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