She heard him laughing as she walked away.
CHAPTER TEN
At the Woodrow Wilson Service Plaza, I checked my phone while waiting for my grandmother to finish in the bathroom. I had felt the texts come in while driving, but I couldn’t read them until we stopped.
Are you ready to kill her yet? my father asked.
Is she behaving? from my mother.
Are you really on a road trip with Grandma? Did you learn nothing from my adventures in Mexico? from my cousin Lily.
And one from Brad. I looked at his name suspiciously but didn’t open the message.
We had only communicated through text and email since I moved out. Except for that one phone call, when he asked me to sign the property settlement agreement and attest that our separation had been mutual so he could file for divorce quicker. It hadn’t gone well. I asked if he was in such a hurry so he could marry Taylor, and he hesitated too long.
“We’re not even divorced yet,” I had hissed at him, careful not to yell with my parents downstairs. “You can’t be serious!”
“I’m not planning to get married yet. I just—”
“YET!”
“Jenna, it’s serious. I don’t want to wait a full year when we both know it’s over. And I don’t see why you do either. I want you to be happy too.”
The condescension pushed me over the edge. Was I being vindictive? Yes. I didn’t want him to be happy. I wanted him to be miserable for doing this to me. I wanted him living in his childhood bedroom and single and . . . well . . . something worse than what I was doing, even if I didn’t know what that was. And I wanted to move on and be happy. But the too of that last sentence was when I vowed to make him wait the whole year even if Zac Efron proposed to me that very night. Brad was the reason I had to tell everyone my marriage fell apart. He was the reason I hated my name every time my students called me Mrs. Shapiro. And while, yes, I could go back to being Miss Greenberg sooner if I granted the divorce, I could suffer longer if it meant he was suffering. Too.
“Why are you looking at that phone like it’s going to bite you?” For an older woman with a bad hip, my grandmother was excellent at sneaking up on people. Not that a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop is quiet, so she could have been stomping like an elephant and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.
“Brad texted me.”
“And?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t opened it.”
She gave me an incredulous look. “Good. Throw it in the trash.”
“My phone?”
“The message. Recycle it. Wherever those things go. He can gai kaken afen yam.”
I didn’t know much Yiddish, but I was familiar with that expression, and I snorted. “Grandma!”
“What?”
I sighed. “I can’t just delete it.”
“Why not?”
“We’re still married. It’s not done done yet.”
“From what your mother tells me, it could be.” I crossed my arms. “Oh, don’t make that sour face. You’ll get wrinkles. That’s why I don’t have many. I always smile.” She grinned to prove her point. “I’m with you, though, darling. Make that shmuck suffer. But you don’t need to suffer along with him. Read the message if you want, but remember he can’t do anything worse than he’s already done. You’re wearing the pants now.”
She took my crossed arm and pulled me toward Starbucks. “Come on. Get me one of those frap-a-mochiatto things.”
I let myself be led. “Are you going to steal all of the Sweet’N Low again?”
“Of course not. Now I’m taking the Splenda.”
“Right.” I rolled my eyes.
“You get the coffees.”
“We should probably get lunch too.”
Grandma looked distastefully at the fast-food options. “Absolutely not. I brought sandwiches.”
“You did?”
“It’s tradition. Didn’t your mother tell you about driving to Hereford?”
“No?”
She shook her head. “Well, there are sandwiches. Get the coffee.”
Back in the car, Grandma pulled two foil-wrapped packages from a cooler in the back seat and handed me one, along with a paper towel as a napkin. “I can drive,” she offered, “so you can eat.”
“Nice try. I can drive while eating a sandwich.”
She shrugged. “So can I.”
I unwrapped mine. It was tuna, seasoned with diced apples and a splash of lemon juice, on rye bread. The smell brought me back to my childhood at her house. The nights when I slept over, in my mother’s old bed. After a bath, she would dry my hair carefully with her old hairdryer, so much gentler with the brush than my mother, who ripped through my thick hair, before tucking me into sheets that were thin with so many washings, but soft and fresh. In the morning, I would wake to the smell of French toast, made with thick-cut challah bread. Then we would do puzzles, sitting at the old oak dining table, under the chandelier that had come from her mother’s house in Hereford, while my grandfather drank coffee and did the New York Times crossword puzzle in blue ink while sitting in his armchair in the living room. At lunchtime, I would stand on a wobbly kitchen chair at the counter and help make these exact sandwiches for the three of us to eat.