From Comfortable Distances Read online

  FROM COMFORTABLE DISTANCES

  By Jodi Weiss

  This book is a work of fiction. All incidents, dialogue, names, and characters are the products of the author’s imagination. Where real-life locations appear, the situations, incidents, and dialogues concerning those locations are entirely fictional and are not intended to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons or events is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Jodi Weiss

  For information about permission to reproduce a chapter or selection from this book, or to offer comments or questions, contact the author through her website.

  www.JodiWeiss.net

  For this is action, this not being sure, this careless

  Preparing, sowing the seeds crooked in the furrow,

  Making ready to forget, and always coming back

  To the mooring of starting out, that day so long ago.

  John Ashbery, “Soonest Mended”

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: Insanity

  Chapter 2: State of Mind

  Chapter 3: The Awakening

  Chapter 4: Seek and You Shall Find

  Chapter 5: Much Ado About Nothing

  Chapter 6: Chance Meeting

  Chapter 7: The Sound of Music

  Chapter 8: Your Boundaries are Your Quest

  Chapter 9: In Search Of

  Chapter 10: Strange Coincidences

  Chapter 11: Smelling the Roses

  Chapter 12: Every Action Has a Reaction

  Chapter 13: The Confession

  Chapter 14: Truth and Consequences

  Chapter 15: Rose Gardens

  Chapter 16: Coincidences are God’s Way of Remaining Anonymous

  Chapter 17: A Different Climate

  Chapter 18: Returning Always Takes Too Long

  Chapter 19: Close to Home

  Chapter 20: Second Thoughts

  Chapter 21: A Separate Peace

  Chapter 22: Out to Sea

  Chapter 23: Holding on for the Ride

  Chapter 24: The Encounter

  Chapter 25: Silence and Serenity

  Chapter 26: Close Quarters of Another Kind

  Chapter 27: Challenge Includes Change

  Chapter 28: What You Seek; What You Find

  Chapter 29: All in a Day’s Work

  Chapter 30: The Heart of Yoga

  Chapter 31: Coming Undone

  Chapter 32: An Ounce of Faith

  Chapter 33: Fireworks

  Chapter 34: The New Moon

  Chapter 35: Confrontations

  Chapter 36: The Rhythm of Life

  Chapter 37: Where You've Been

  Chapter 38: New Lines of Communication

  Chapter 39: All the Things About You

  Chapter 40: A Change in Temperature

  Chapter 41: Away From Home

  Chapter 42: Show and Tell

  Chapter 43: When We Meet

  Chapter 44: Seeking Serenity

  Chapter 45: Way Leads to Way

  Chapter 46: The Long and Winding Road

  Chapter 47: Following the Path

  Chapter 48: Difficulties and Differences

  Chapter 49: After Silence

  Chapter 50: All the Days

  Chapter 51: The Power of Love

  Chapter 52: Judgment Day

  Chapter 53: Remote Places

  Chapter 54: For Many Reasons

  Chapter 55: Thanks and Giving

  Chapter 56: The Bookends of a Life

  Chapter 57: Cross Encounters

  Chapter 58: Whatever Will Be, Will Be

  Chapter 59: Full Speed Ahead

  Chapter 60: Knowing

  Chapter 61: The Wanderer

  Chapter 62: The End of Something

  Chapter 1: Insanity

  I have often felt completely alone.

  There is always in this life something to discover.

  The days and years have gone by in some sort of blur.

  On the whole, I am satisfied. —Alice Munro

  The sun still a promise in the pre-dawn sky, Tess Rose glimpsed a figure in the middle of the street as she approached the stop sign at the Whitman Drive intersection. He seemed to be trying to walk on the double-yellow line that divided the road, like a drunk testing his sobriety.

  Only no, up closer, Tess could see that he was staring up into the sky. Nothing happening up there except some pigeons flying by.

  She slowed down when she was a few feet from the man, beeped her horn, and opened her window. The dank April-morning air from Jamaica Bay chilled her. Being situated on the water was the catalyst for a strong real estate market in Mill Basin, a remote corner of southeastern Brooklyn. Families liked boats and beach in an urban environment.

  “Wake up, mister,” she said. “Get out of the way or I’ll run you over.”

  He grinned at her, nodded his head, and waved. Surely, he must be high on something. He grew faint and distant in the rearview mirror as she sped past him. That was it. She was going to have to meet with the neighborhood association. She was not going to let these crackpots wander the neighborhood if she could help it. She paid enough in taxes to have her say.

  Goodness gracious! She screeched on her brakes the moment before impact. She had been so caught up in the jerk behind her, that she almost slammed into a fat, mangy, orange cat as he darted across the street, pausing directly in front of her car. Just what she needed—to start off her week killing Garfield. She beeped and the cat fled as quickly as it had appeared.

  When she hit the red light at the four-way intersection of Avenue U and 66th street, her image on the billboard at the bus-stop shelter smiled back at her. Below her cheesy, smiling face, the caption: Why buy from the rest when you can buy from Best Realty? If you are in need of Real Estate solutions, call Tess Rose at 1-800-TRY-BEST. Did she really look that old? In the rearview mirror she lifted her eyebrows and rearranged her strawberry-blonde curls with her fingers, working the banana curls this way and that from the roots. The dew always managed to frizz her hair so that she looked like Shirley Temple. So much for living on the water. More wrinkles on her brow, more surrounding her eyes. Every day now, more wrinkles. She pulled out her blackberry and scrolled to her to do list: call photo guy, she typed with both fingers, her foot pressing the brake. Fix up face, and tossed it back into her bag. After all, it was quicker and less painful to fix her face in a photo than it was to get plastic surgery. She tapped her steering wheel. The traffic light seemed to take forever but then she remembered that she was one of the advocates in getting the civic association to put in turn arrows after all of those accidents. Houses didn’t sell well on a block that had a history of car accidents. In her rearview mirror, the character in the middle of the road was making his way towards her. Freak. The way his bald head shone in the early-morning light reminded her of Mr. Clean.

  Some days the 15-minute ride to her office was luxurious: precious minutes to shut off from the world and gather her thoughts. Other days, like today, the ride seemed to last forever. She had three real estate deals to close this morning, which meant that she had on her black power suit, the skirt falling just above her knees with a slit to show off what she thought to be her best feature: long, shapely, well-defined legs. The blazer was double breasted and hugged her narrow frame. As she drove past the stores on Avenue N, her black BMW convertible reflected off the storefronts. Michael, her ex-husband, had fought her on getting the black. He thought it was too much of a funeral procession car. She, on the other hand, had seen it as sharp and sophisticated, and after splitting from Michael, whom she had promised herself was to be her last husband, she wanted something hot and sexy in her life.

&nbsp
; She waited for a clearing to make a left turn into the parking lot of Best Reality. One car sped by, then another. This was one of the many things she loved about Brooklyn: no one would stop to let her turn. The more she looked at the mustard-yellow and white Best Realty sign, with its fancy scrolled lettering, the more it reminded her of squiggly lines of mustard on hot dogs. Michael was opposed to changing it. He liked to remind her of what the big-wig marketing consultant who had convinced them that it was the right logo had told them: that the yellow and white coloring would remind buyers of a price tag, so when they came to Best, they would think buy. “Besides,” as Michael said, “If it’s not broken, why fix it?”

  She pulled into her reserved-for-owner spot and immediately saw Michael’s pale-blue Mercedes in his spot across from hers. Couldn’t she get one morning of peace and quiet? Tess’s third husband, David, had introduced her to Michael, and was instrumental in bringing Michael on-board as Best Reality’s in-house lawyer. Tess had never imagined herself with Michael, although she found him handsome with his steely blue eyes and his salt and peppered hair. There was something too Ken-like about him, and yet the first time they kissed, Tess had fallen for him. It wasn’t long after that she and David split and Michael and his wife split, and Michael moved into her house in Mill Basin. Why she married Michael, she didn’t know. She wondered sometimes if they hadn’t gotten married if they would still be in a relationship. But if they hadn’t have gotten married and then divorced, she wouldn’t have gotten to sell him her dream house in Mill Basin, and it would have killed her to have sold that house to just anyone.

  “All I want is a few hours here alone to get some work done. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Good morning to you, too, Tess. You asked me to meet you here early today, remember? We need to go through some contracts before your meetings.”

  “Have you put on the coffee?”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a piece of work?” Michael asked.

  “You did, dear, all two years we were married.”

  “Shhh. Listen. Hear that? Either the Gods are peeing in the kitchen, or maybe, it’s coffee brewing.”

  “Do you ever get tired?” Tess asked.

  “At around 12:00 a.m. each night.”

  Tess dropped her bag on her desk and plopped down on her chair.

  “How is it that I can be exhausted already and the day didn’t even begin?” she said.

  “You’ll drink your coffee and feel fine.”

  Tess traced the lines on her forehead, creasing her brow and releasing it. The pockets under her eyes felt puffy.

  “Michael.”

  “Tess?”

  “Do you think I look old in the billboard ads?” Tess asked.

  “My dear, if you look old, then I look old.”

  “And your point is?” Tess asked.

  “We’re both 55.”

  “Will you answer my question?”

  “No, Tess, you don’t look old. And if you think you do, go to a plastic surgeon,” Michael said.

  “Just what I want. Someone cutting my face up.”

  “How was your weekend?” Michael asked.

  “There was a weekend?” Tess said.

  “Tell me you weren’t in here working all weekend.”

  “I wasn’t in here working all weekend,” Tess said.

  “Now tell me the truth,” Michael said.

  “I was in here working all weekend.”

  “Did you relax at all?” Michael asked.

  “I watched The Sound of Music on Saturday night.”

  Michael sat down on the edge of her desk, knocking over one of her hollowed metal tristate Realtor of the Year awards, which he quickly picked back up, smirking. She knew he thought her displaying the awards was tacky and she generally agreed with him, but she felt that they served as a reminder to her staff of her credibility.

  “I love the fact that inside that workaholic exterior, you’re a sap. How many times have you seen it now?” Michael said.

  Tess shrugged. “I lost count.”

  “What is it with you and that movie?”

  “I love that Maria does the unexpected. Maybe it makes me think that there’s hope for me.”

  “Do you have plans tonight?” Michael said.

  “It depends.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t try to woo you. You’ve made it clear that it’s a losing battle. Besides, I’m waiting for you to come to me and tell me that you’re in love with someone else.”

  “Well, you’ll be waiting a good, long time, because that’s not going to happen,” Tess said.

  “Man-lover to man-hater.”

  “I am not a man-hater, Michael. I just don’t want to be bothered with romance anymore. It gets me off my course.”

  “And your course is?”

  “Work,” Tess said.

  “Go with me to a yoga class tonight. My treat,” Michael said.

  “A yoga class?” Tess said. She pushed herself away from her desk and propped her legs up on her desk.

  “Don’t start, Tess.”

  “Don’t start? I’m intrigued by your venture into spirituality, go on.”

  “It’s not a venture into spirituality. One of my golf buddies told me that yoga has helped his game and that the teachers are pretty attractive, too.”

  “Oh, now I see. You want me there so that you don’t look desperate when you hit on other women. If you’re there with me, they’ll think you can’t be half so bad, right?” Tess said.

  “There’s an 8:00 p.m. class—we could shoot into the city after work and give it a whirl.”

  “Michael, my dear, I gave up yoga when I was a teenager, or have you forgotten that my mother was, is, the spiritual, Buddhist, healer of Woodstock? My yoga days ended when I left that god-forsaken upstate town.”

  “Was your mother a stressed out workaholic?”

  “Well no, because she didn’t work. Unless you consider being a guru work.”

  “Tess Rose, your mother is the freest, most joyful person that I’ve ever met.”

  “Let me remind you of your reaction when I first took you to Woodstock—you felt sorry for me for having grown up there, and when the folks started piling into my mother’s house at 6:00 am to meditate, you were ready to check into a hotel.”

  “Look, just come with me. What do you have to lose?”

  “I do not need yoga. I’m glad to leave my past in the past. But thanks for thinking of me.”

  “If you ask me, you’ve spent the last 30 or so years of your life trying to undo your past and it doesn’t seem to have gotten you anywhere.”

  Tess dropped her legs to the floor and pulled herself closer to her desk.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that you fled from upstate New York to Brooklyn, got an MBA, married four husbands, own a thriving real estate business, and lead a stressed-out, neurotic life.”

  “For your information, I’m far from stressed out,” Tess said. “Is that coffee ready yet? I don’t hear it dripping anymore.”

  “I’ll pick you up at your place at 6:30 tonight and don’t tell me you need to work late. It’s 7:00 am. Get to it. I can’t wait to see you in your yoga clothes.

  Chapter 2: State of Mind

  “It’s an incredible property,” Tess said. “And you couldn’t ask for a better area. Brooklyn Heights boasts some of the hottest real estate around. Great shopping, cafes, restaurants. Some pretty good private schools, too, not to mention playgrounds nearby.”

  She guessed Kyle, the prospective buyer, couldn’t be more than thirty. On his application form, he had noted that he was a broker for Morgan Stanley, earning close to $500,000 a year plus a substantial bonus. That had made her laugh. Substantial. Normally, his smugness would have turned her off, caused her to dismiss him as a pretentious young punk, but something about him, perhaps it was his hair—Tess connected with curly haired people—eased her up. He reminded her of her son, with his penetrating,
black eyes. They had the same quicksand quality as Prakash’s eyes. The girl he was with, Dale, his fiancé, twirled her long, wavy, chestnut hair over and over, so that Tess wanted to tie her hands down. The way she coasted around in her tall, lanky body made Tess pause. There was a floating quality to her that registered with Tess: this girl was not ready to settle down and move in.

  Tess leaned against the kitchen counter. Charcoal gray and white granite. Nice touch. The three-floor, eleven-room brownstone had just the right mix of old and new with its high ceilings embellished with an intricate woven pattern at the corners and exposed silver pipes. Charming was how she’d describe it to a more mature couple. She was dying to take her shoes off, kick back and relax on the ivory leather sofa that she had positioned adjacent to the fireplace. She had learned that the best way to make a property that she was showing appealing, was to put some comfortable couches in the living room and a coffee table that was the perfect height to put papers on that needed signing. No reason to make the house-seeker bend down too much. Pain and selling a house didn’t go together. Her colleagues believed in baking pies in the oven of a property to make it smell “homey” and inviting. Tess believed in sprinkling the plush ivory rugs she brought in with baby powder to make the house smell fresh, clean. She’d certainly prefer to move into a house that appealed to her sense of freedom rather than her stomach.

  Kyle looked up at her and exhaled, as if he were a balloon losing air.

  “When I saw this property, I thought of you right away,” she said.

  “It’s a great place,” Kyle said. It sounded more like a question to Tess. He passed his hand through his thick, black curly hair and shook his head as if he were waking himself up.

  “But—” Tess said. There was always a “but.”

  “But, well.” He glanced to his fiancé. When their eyes met, she shrugged her shoulders.

  “I think we’re interested in something smaller. Something more along the lines of a first house,” he said.

  “I see,” Tess said. She had learned that the best approach when you were dealing with young people who had a lot of money to spend but were confused how to spend it, was to intimidate them.