“Terrific,” he grunted. She kissed his throat and he muttered something unintelligible. She slid her hand down his torso and he muttered something else that included the words Bloom and hell. She wrapped her fingers around his penis, which instantly revived, and he stopped muttering. In fact, she’d be willing to bet he stopped thinking altogether—which was really the best way to go about having sex.

  Thirteen

  Casey’s mother had a pot of fish boiling on the stove. Cod, probably, with some carrots, black pepper and chunks of potato mixed in. Where she’d learned to cook this way he couldn’t guess. It sure as hell wasn’t the Culinary Institute.

  He’d come to his parents’ house because his father had received an audit notice from the IRS, and Casey, as the only member of the family with a college degree, was expected to solve this problem. “There’s nothing to solve,” he told his father after reading the letter. “You and your accountant will meet with the auditor and go through your records.”

  “What if I don’t have the right records?” his father moaned. He was seated in his usual chair in the brown-and-beige living room, and Casey was seated on the couch, his gaze trained on the Mets game being broadcast on TV so he wouldn’t have to look at the leprechauns eerily grinning down at him from the shelves of the hutch. Fumes of boiled fish wafted in from the kitchen, reminding Casey that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast—and that he’d rather fast for a full week than dine on his mother’s boiled fish.

  “Of course you have the right records,” he told his father. “You gave the records to your accountant so he could put together your return. You haven’t thrown the records out since then, have you?”

  “No, I’ve got them in a box in the basement,” his father said, his face going paler than his silvery blond hair. “It’s a box from O’Malley’s Liquor, from when I bought that case of Hennessy’s. Expensive stuff, but he’d had it on sale, and then there was a discount if you bought by the case, so…” He sighed. “I’d better put my records in a different box. A liquor-store box wouldn’t look good.”

  “I don’t think they’d care, Dad.”

  His father lapsed into a tense silence, his lips arced downward and his eyes glassy with panic. “What if they arrest me?” he whispered.

  “They’re not going to arrest you,” Casey said, hoping he sounded patient and reassuring. In truth, he wasn’t feeling either. He had headaches of his own; he didn’t care to suffer his father’s headaches, as well.

  His life was spinning like a pinwheel in a hurricane, so swift the points dissolved into a circular blur. Barely two weeks ago he was asking Susie to marry him. Now Eva was insisting that the bakery she’d found for sale on Avenue B, two doors north of Fourth Street, was perfect for him and he’d better grab it before the owner sold it to someone else to finance his retirement in Hialeah. “Grabbing it” would entail Casey’s taking over the remaining three years on the lease and buying the shop’s ovens, refrigerators, counters and other equipment, some of which was okay and some of which was ancient enough to belong in the Smithsonian.

  The place wasn’t bad. He could use the archaic equipment until he had enough money to replace it—money on top of what he’d need to take over the lease. Mose had told him that between loans and investors Casey could pull it off. Mose knew about financing new businesses. Eva knew real estate.

  Casey didn’t know what he knew, other than bagels and panic and the fact that his heart tightened like a fist that rapped painfully against his rib cage whenever he thought of Susie. If she’d said yes to his marriage proposal, or even just to moving in with him, would he be so eager to set up his own business? If he set up his business in her neighborhood, how would he feel about her dropping by to pick up a loaf of herbed Italian bread or braided challah or a dozen bagels? If he left Bloom’s, would Morty Sugarman be able to maintain the deli’s bagel quality?

  Morty was a terrific guy. Casey had learned a great deal from him. But he was an old-school bagel maker. It would never occur to him to create a sour-cream-and-chives bagel, or a pesto-and-sundried-tomato bagel. If the bagel department started slipping at Bloom’s, would Susie blame Casey?

  Would he ever stop caring? Would his fisted heart ever stop bruising itself on his rib cage?

  His father broke into his ruminations. “So, if they’re not going to arrest me, why are they auditing me?”

  “I’ve heard they go after self-employed people more often than wage earners,” Casey said. His father was the proprietor, president and sole employee of Gordon’s Electric. He did well enough installing sockets, repairing light fixtures, bringing the wiring in old houses up to code so they could handle window-unit air conditioners and using a simple software system to send out bills and keep track of payments. But he’d never earned such a big income that Uncle Sam could expect to fund the Pentagon on what the Gordons of Forest Hills paid in taxes. “They just want to keep you honest,” Casey explained.

  “I’m very honest.” His father folded his hands together and then shook them loose, folded them and shook them. Casey found himself momentarily mesmerized by the wedding ring on his father’s left hand. Such a potent, solid symbol, such a permanent fixture. Nothing elaborate or fancy, just a plain gold band that said, I took a vow, and I’m living by it every day. Casey never wore rings—working with dough could get messy, and jewelry was all but taboo when a person used certain equipment. Still, a ring like that, announcing to the world that you were a grown-up, a man of your word…Wearing a wedding ring struck Casey as a profoundly honest thing to do. “You think they’ll find out about those circuit breakers I bought wholesale and then sold to Jimmy Benedetti at list price?” his father asked anxiously. “I never declared that income. He paid me in cash.”

  “And you made, what? Ten bucks off the deal? Forget it, Dad. That kind of thing doesn’t matter to the IRS.”

  “So why are they auditing me?”

  “You should go to confession before the audit,” his mother shouted from the kitchen. “Just to be sure.”

  “What if the auditor isn’t Catholic?” his father wondered aloud. “You think going to confession’ll make a difference?”

  Casey admitted, with a pang of self-awareness, that he loved his parents. They were weird, they were annoying, and he truly adored them. The possibility that worrying about this stupid audit might cause his father to go into cardiac arrest pained him almost as much as losing Susie did.

  His father quit wringing his hands long enough to rake his fingers through his hair. At his left elbow the TV droned, the Cubs scoring two runs off a bases-loaded single and increasing their lead over the Mets. “I’ll tell you, Casey, I haven’t slept since that letter arrived.” His father gestured toward the coffee table, where the vile missive from the IRS lay. “All I can say is, thank God you and your sister work for other people, your sister at Poodle-Do and you at Bloom’s. Let them do all the bookkeeping. No one’s gonna come after you with an audit.”

  Now was not a good time to tell his father how serious his plans for leaving Bloom’s had become. Nor would he mention that he, too, had been having trouble sleeping. His insomnia was only partly attributable to his career decision; mostly it had to do with Susie. He lay awake wondering where she and her cousin were and why they were making some stupid home movie when she could be in New York, educating him about her neighborhood’s shopping habits and the foot traffic on Avenue B. Could people who lived in brownstone walk-ups afford two-ninety-nine for a loaf of gourmet bread? If he charged less than two-ninety-nine, would he go bankrupt? Would the IRS audit him? Why wasn’t Susie by his side, helping him make this momentous decision? Why wasn’t she in his bed? What the hell was she so afraid of, anyway?

  The same things he was afraid of, he supposed: committing to a course, making a change, redefining his life.

  “So, they giving you a raise at Bloom’s any time soon?”

  “They pay me well,” Casey said noncommittally.

  “They ought to pay you more. You’re dating the boss’s daughter.”

  “Sister,” Casey automatically corrected him, as if it mattered anymore. He wasn’t dating any relative of his boss’s. And his boss—a woman he liked, a woman he’d imagined might one day become his sister-in-law—was going to hate him once he announced that he was leaving Bloom’s, if that was what he decided to do.

  “Play your cards right, your name could be up there above the door. Bloom’s and Gordon’s,” his father said. “Of course, then they might audit you.”

  “He should find a nice Catholic girl,” Casey’s mother hollered from the kitchen. “Casey, are you staying for supper?”

  He pictured the vat of boiling cod on her stove and his stomach lurched. “Can’t,” he said, leaping to his feet, figuring escape would be easier with his mother in the kitchen and his father demoralized over his tax situation.

  “I made too much for Dad and me. You’d like it. It’s like a chowder,” his mother yelled.

  “Sorry, Mom. I’m sure it’s delicious, but I can’t. Dad,” he added, leaning over and squeezing his father’s shoulder, “this audit thing is nothing. You’ll go, your accountant will do all the talking, and the IRS will figure out that either you owe them fifty bucks or they owe you fifty bucks. A waste of an afternoon, that’s all this is.”

  “I could wind up in jail,” his father said, his hands once again fidgeting.

  “Why? Did you break any laws?”

  “No. Except maybe for those circuit breakers I sold Jimmy Benedetti.”

  “Then you won’t wind up in jail. I promise you. After it’s done, I’ll take you out for a beer, okay?”

  “Okay,” his father said so faintly Casey almost didn’t hear the words. He gave his old man’s shoulder another squeeze, then sauntered across the living room, past the leprechaun-infested hutch and out the door. The air was gray and muggy, evening hovering in a warm, thick mass above his parents’ block. Still, being outdoors was better than being in a house that smelled of boiling fish.

  He strolled to the corner, his long legs moving at a gait that would almost qualify as a slow jog. He wasn’t racing to get away from his parents, but was simply burning off energy. As exhausted as his sleepless nights left him, he was nearly as jittery as his father.

  Starting his own business. Jesus. He wanted it, he had the culinary talent, he understood the mechanics of it, the numbers, the strategies—but did he have the passion for it? Was he really concerned about having people like Julia Bloom hate him?

  What he absolutely had to do was separate his career plans from the tar pit of his love life. Susie was gone, she’d said no, and that was that. His father had the right idea: a store with Gordon’s written above the door—although Gordon’s seemed like a pretty lame name for a gourmet bread shop. Gordon’s Gourmet? Casey’s Casa? What was the Hispanic population of the East Village?

  Bread. Staff of Life. Gordon’s Gourmet Grains. Gordon’s Grains and Bagels. Beautiful Bagels. If this dream were genuine, wouldn’t he have thought of a name for the store by now?

  He’d reached the basketball court outside the Edward Mandel School. A half-dozen guys were playing three-on-three, shirts versus skins. He recognized one of them, a six-foot-eight-inch black dude who’d played with the Cleveland Cavaliers for two years before blowing out his knee. He was in his thirties now, and he still boasted quite a few slick moves for someone past his prime with a bum knee. Casey and Mose had played in some pickup games with him. The guy was fierce. Casey loved going up against him, just for the adrenaline rush.

  He spotted Casey leaning against the chain-link fence and shot him a toothy grin. Casey smiled back. Had he not been wearing the cargo pants and cotton button-down shirt he’d donned for work that morning, he might have swung around the end of the fence and planted his butt on the bench, where he could wait until someone collapsed in exhaustion and he could take the guy’s place.

  Simply watching wasn’t a bad alternative. It gave his mind a chance to run though options. His eyes recorded the ex-Cavalier’s feints and spins and his brain calculated how many loaves of bread and dozens of bagels he’d have to sell to break even. A regular, loyal clientele, even if only a small one, could guarantee him a steady income, and that would see him half the way home.

  Susie could see him the other half way home, but he didn’t want to think about that. God, he was such an ass, mooning over her when the world teemed with available women who weren’t so determined to say no. Three-quarters of what Eva said to him qualified as come-ons, yet he was keeping his fly zipped and yearning for a woman who didn’t want him. How had he turned into such a putz?

  One of the skins staggered over to the bench and reached for a towel. The ex-Cav glanced Casey’s way again. “Hey, wanna fill in?”

  “He’s gotta go home to his lady,” one of the other players singsonged, obviously considering the guy on the bench irredeemably pussy-whipped.

  Casey smiled. He wasn’t pussy-whipped. He might be inappropriately dressed, but he did have on sneakers. He started unbuttoning his shirt before he’d even walked around the fence.

  He tossed his shirt onto the bench alongside backpacks, duffel bags and bottles of water and Gatorade, then rummaged in his trouser pocket for a rubber band, which he used to fasten his hair off his face in a ponytail. The ex-Cav tossed him the ball, and he felt himself come to life. The ball felt like an extension of his hand, connected by an invisible elastic strand to his arm. He slammed it against the blacktop and it popped right back up at him. The ex-Cav came at him and he bounce-passed the ball under the guy’s arm to set up one of the other skins.

  The hell with love. The hell with business, bread and IRS audits. This was what life was all about—throwing, passing, setting up a teammate, aiming for the hoop.

  The ball came back to him where he stood, way outside. The shirts hovered, waiting for him to charge toward the basket. Instead, he dribbled into position just to the left of the key and sent the ball in a high arc, his favorite three-point shot. It dropped cleanly through the hoop.

  “Damn! Where’d that come from?” the ex-Cav said, flashing Casey another smile.

  Casey shrugged. He’d gotten his shot back. He was going to be okay. The store would work out, he’d find the money, he’d make a go of it. He’d make a living. He’d make a life.

  Fuck Susie. He had his shot back.

  Susie would kill for a rhyme for stroganoff. Actually, she’d kill for a good night’s sleep and a little convincing proof that she wasn’t completely insane. Of course, if she killed for that, it would probably prove that she was completely insane.

  She had to get a Bloom’s Bulletin written and e-mailed to Julia by tomorrow morning, and she was hurting for inspiration. Right now, the only thing she felt inspired to do was toss her laptop out the window. And maybe toss Linus out after it. The motel where they’d taken a room, just outside Boston in the blue-collar seaside town of Revere, was a giant step better than the place they’d stayed at in Maine—and a giant step more expensive, too—but judging by the conversations she’d eavesdropped on in the lobby, she concluded that the majority of the motel’s guests were far more interested in betting on the greyhound races at Wonderland Park or the horse races at Suffolk Downs than hiking the Freedom Trail through downtown Boston. If they saw a six-foot-tall plastic lobster in the parking lot, they probably wouldn’t think anything of it.

  Linus wasn’t the cause of her woes, and she shouldn’t scapegoat him. She glanced away from her laptop monitor to find the lobster propped up in a corner of the tiny room, staring at her. Actually, she didn’t think lobsters had eyes, so maybe he wasn’t staring. His crooked antennae were angled toward her, though, and one claw pointed accusingly at her.

  She and Rick had checked into the motel after filming a scene with her and Linus on the beach. She’d stood barefoot in the sand, trying to ignore all the strangers gawking at her and Rick as though they were hotshot Hollywood celebrities, and she talked about food. Linus had lain at her feet in the hot sand. Despite Rick’s pleas, she’d refused to hold him upright next to her as if he were her personal escort.

  Once they’d finished filming and settled into their room, Rick had left to scout sites in Boston—or so he claimed. He’d promised to return with a take-out dinner. It was now nearly seven o’clock and her stomach was rumbling like a rock slide. She hoped he’d get back soon—not only because she wanted to eat but because she wanted an excuse to procrastinate writing the bulletin.

  She couldn’t procrastinate. She had to get it done. She’d promised Julia she’d supply the bulletins on time. It was her job.

  Responsibility sucked.

  Julia had e-mailed her all the data she needed for the newsletter: what would be on sale, what guest speakers would be making presentations, what special events the store would be hosting over the next week. Susie kept a file of Grandma Ida’s sayings on her computer’s hard drive, and the motel offered an Internet connection in the room if she had to do any research.

  But instead of putting the damn bulletin together, she stared at the blank screen and struggled to come up with a rhyme for stroganoff. As if she really gave a whoop.

  She leaned back into the pillows and stretched her legs. The laptop rocked on her thighs and she set it aside. Closing her eyes against the yellow glare of the bedside lamp and the paint-by-numbers rendering of a greyhound at full gallop on the wall opposite her, she let her mind drift.

  To her great exasperation, it drifted to Casey.

  Lying down was a mistake, especially on a bed. Her legs shifted again, her hips flexing as her body tensed with a memory of how fantastic sex with Casey had been. Good girls weren’t supposed to admit that sex was everything—they were supposed to act as though a man’s kindness and sense of humor were far more important than what he could do with his penis. But Susie had never considered herself a good girl, and while she certainly appreciated Casey’s kindness and his sense of humor and all his other fine attributes, right now she was sprawled out on a motel bed, all alone, and sex rose to the top of her priorities list.