Laurie Graff - You Have To Kiss a Lot of Frogs

“The modern miracles of the Catskills,” I said, picking up the I Love My Grandparents mug Lenny’s wife Sharon had sent from Boston. It had pictures of their two-year-old twin girls on it. “Good coffee, Ma.”

“Henry made it.”

“I love it up here,” said Henry, setting up his bagel, cigar, paper, radio and fisherman’s cap on a plastic table, ready to embark on a day of sitting out on the deck and watching the resort community of Nottingham Forest walk by.

“Maybe when you retire you guys should live here all year,” I said.

“No, too cold,” said Henry.

“The winters are too cold,” yelled out my mother, who kept up her end of the conversation from the kitchen.

“Too much ice in the winter,” said Henry.

“You know how icy it gets up here in winter?” said Millie.

“We’ll stay in Queens, and when we retire we’ll go to Florida,” said Henry.

“We’re going to Florida. I want to be near my brother. We’ll live by Uncle Sy and Aunt Cookie,” said Millie.

“We want to be near family,” said Henry, from the deck. “In Florida it’s warm.”

“It’s warm,” said Millie, from the kitchen. “Why should I freeze?”

“We don’t need to be cold,” said Henry, getting up and sliding open the screen door in an attempt to hear.

“Shut it. The mosquitoes.” Millie turned to me. “Karrie, come in here and help me carry this platter.”

I nibbled at a piece of lox and stared down the whitefish with its bulging eyes before I went into the house.

“Have you called your machine since you’re here?” Millie asked, removing the eggs from the frying pan and putting them on a Lucite platter. She handed it to me, then lifted the arm of the faucet and drew some water into the pan to unfasten the pieces of egg that stuck to the nonstick Teflon.

“No. Not since Friday.” I brought the platter out to the deck and put it on the outside table.

“Maybe someone called. Maybe you have an audition,” she said, wiping her hand with a dish towel as she joined me at the table outside. “Henry. Eggs?”

Henry looked up from his beach chair and shook his head.

“You just want to know if that doctor guy from the park called.” I took a fork and started eating the eggs from the serving platter.

“Put it on a plate,” said Millie.

“I don’t want a lot.”

“I don’t care how much you want. But if you want some, put it on a plate. Don’t eat like that, Karen, it’s not nice.” My mom put some eggs on my plate. I knew she meant it because she called me Karen, and not Karrie. “It doesn’t matter if I care if the doctor called you or not. It matters if you care. It’s your life.” She took a bite of her eggs. “So, did he call?”

“Yes. He’s working this weekend. He called to say he’s on call. Don’t get so excited. We’ve only been out a few times.”

“Who’s excited? I’m not excited. It doesn’t matter to me.”

It mattered to her. And it mattered to me but I didn’t want to tell her. I had just turned thirty and I had met a Jewish doctor. I was a cliché. What’s more, I really liked him, but he seemed a little remote. I was trying to be cool, something I wasn’t very good at.

“I had a blind date last week,” I said, opening up a new can of worms, giving more information than necessary, illustrating just how cool I was not. I needed to take the attention off the doctor guy because I didn’t want to appear overly interested in case it didn’t work out. I had enough trouble dealing with my own feelings about these things without having to worry about my mother’s. “My voice coach set me up with his high school buddy.”

“How was that?”

“Delightful.” This was easy. A straight case of an idiot guy. I was off the hook. “We ate in Chinatown,” I told my mother, “we walked around. Then we got on the subway, he said he’d take me home. When we were approaching Times Square he asked if he’d be able to come in when we got uptown. I told him if he wanted we could watch the news and I’d make some tea. He said he didn’t want tea and he wasn’t interested in the news. He wanted to make out with me on my couch. And if I had no interest in making out with him I should let him know, because Times Square was where he made his connection and he didn’t want to wind up uptown and have to pay another token to go home if, ultimately, he wasn’t going to get what he wanted.”

My mother looked heartbroken. “I don’t know what’s wrong with these guys,” she said, finishing her eggs. “I think the whole world’s crazy.” Millie paused. “You didn’t go home and make out with him after that I hope.”

“You want me to even answer you?”

“What can I tell you,” Millie said, when there was really nothing to say.

“Let me clean up,” I said.

“It’s all right. I’ll do it.” Millie collected the dishes and brought them inside the house.

Henry waved to the neighbors across the way. Molly Berger, and her husband, Hal, were on their deck playing with their grandchildren. The kids saw Henry and waved back. Henry was a kid magnet. He started to play with them by throwing his cap in the air and pretending not to be able to catch it. The children watched from across the court. Whenever the cap seemed to almost touch bottom, they squealed with delight, only to get more excited when Henry actually caught it.

Molly motioned for Hal to keep both eyes on the kids when she saw me on the deck. She left hers and walked across to ours. Her gold sandals clacked against the wood as she made her way up the stairs.

“Karrie, hello,” she said, pulling me into her large frame and hugging me. “How are you? When did you get up?”

“Two days ago.”

“Really? I didn’t see you. What have you been doing?”

“You want a cold drink?” Henry asked her. “It’ll only take a minute. We’ve got iced tea, seltzer, sodas, whatever you want.”

“No. I just had something with the kids. I’m running back,” said Molly, pulling over a chair and sitting down.

“So tell me…” she said, as if I knew what it was I was supposed to tell.

“Tell you…?”

“Everything!”

“About?”

“You know…”

Molly and I were in cahoots. And the fact that I was clueless didn’t seem to make any difference. She looked at me and crossed her arms. “Karrie, you’re a smart girl. What do you think I’m talking about?”

“Molly, no offense. I have no idea.”

“You seeing anybody? I love to talk with single girls,” she confessed to Henry. “I know you just turned thirty so you must be interested in settling down.”

I looked up at Henry and smiled a closemouthed smile. Actually it was much more like a grimace.

“How are your grandchildren?” I asked Molly, changing the subject. “They look cute. How old are they now?”

“Jessica’s three and Zachary’s five next month. Wendy has her hands full. But my Scotty does very well, thank God, and she has help. You know, they have a very big house in Roslyn. You should visit. Maybe Scott has some friends for you.” She winked.

“Yeah,” I said, standing up and walking a few feet away. I put my leg up against the edge of the deck and knelt over it, stretching my calves as I contemplated a run.

“Grandma Molly, come here.” Molly turned her head to see Zachary on the deck calling her. “We’re hungry.”

“I should be getting back.” Molly stood and waved to Millie through the glass door. “See you later,” she said, walking to the edge of the deck and putting her hand on the handrail for support. “Don’t worry, Karrie. In this world all you need is a little mazel.”

“What was that?” I said. Henry went back to his paper. He didn’t want to get involved. “What was that, Henry? What’s the matter with her?”