“We have to talk.”
“Why do we have to talk, Jake?”
“Because there’s something wrong with you. In a good way,” Rosenfarb clarifies. “That waitress thinks you’re special. She thinks you have power.”
“She’s young. She doesn’t know anything,” Overman replies, trying to get rid of this garden pest he has been foolish enough to call a friend.
“I considered that, but then I opened my mind to the other possibilities.” He takes a deep, portentous breath, then stares at Overman. “What if, Ira? What if?”
“What if what?” Overman is completely flummoxed.
“I can’t talk about it here,” Rosenfarb whispers. “You and I need to have a meeting,” an oddly formal tone to his pronouncement.
“What kind of meeting?”
“We need to discuss what your plan is. Map out the future.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Overman asks. “What do you have to do with my future?”
Rosenfarb has gone from annoying to certifiable. “I’ll tell you all about it at the meeting. Tomorrow. Lunch. I’ll come out to Calabasas. My treat.”
While well versed in his friend’s legendary noodging skills, Overman accedes, just to get it over with. He looks for Ashley but she has disappeared into a different group of friends. Rosenfarb remarks to Overman that Nancy is looking really good. “I always loved her vagina,” he sighs, as if remembering a favorite wine he used to sip as a young man.
This “meeting” was bound to be unbearable. The only positive was that agreeing to Rosenfarb’s demand bought Overman some breathing room for the rest of the afternoon. He would still have to make conversation with Nancy and Stan’s friends who treated him like some sort of leper unless they needed a deal on a car, but to the new Overman, this was amusing rather than insulting. Krakauer the stockbroker, Morganthal, the entertainment lawyer, Gerstein, the dermatologist: they had all become the people they were destined to be and weren’t going any further. Overman, on the other hand, had been re-hatched. His future was tabula rasa. For all he knew, he could now will a mole to be removed, rather than having to pay Gerstein eighty bucks a pop. He makes a mental note to try that sometime.
Overman picks at the buffet, keeping an eye on Ashley, waiting for an opening. As he examines some sort of wild mushroom puff, she enters from the patio. She is by herself, and from the looks of it, has come in to see him.
“Enjoying the party?” she asks.
“Oh yeah, this is great,” he replies, doing his best to appear enthusiastic.
“I’m happy you came,” Ashley smiles.
“Me, too.” Overman takes a deep breath, then goes for it. “Listen, do you think maybe we could have dinner one night?”
“Absolutely. Right after I get back from Israel.”
“Israel?”
Ashley explains that she is going on her birthright trip, an expedition available to any Jewish child under the age of twenty-six for the purpose of embracing his or her roots. Overman doesn’t have a problem with this. He has heard that stringent safety precautions are taken to protect young American tourists. What strikes him, however, is how out of the loop he has become. His daughter is about to leave the country and he had no prior knowledge of it. No one consulted him, asked for any input whatsoever. But why would they? He had allowed himself to drift apart from his children, letting it go far enough that he was embarrassed to call them after having been out of touch for so long. And this was the price.
“You’re going to have a great time,” Overman tells her, figuring it’s the right thing to say.
“I hope so. Anyway, I should get back to my friends.”
“Is that Jennifer Marcus?” Overman asks, indicating a blond girl on the patio.
Ashley nods that it is.
“I haven’t seen her since she was nine. How’s her dad? I always liked Charlie.”
“He’s a prick,” she informs him.
“Maybe that’s why you and Jennifer stayed friends all these years,” Overman postulates. “Because of your lousy fathers.”
“He tried to touch my boobs when I was sixteen. I’m sure you never did anything like that,” Ashley says, walking back out to the patio.
Overman is shocked to hear this about Charlie Marcus. Charlie was a respected ophthalmologist, known for his political activism and philanthropy. He was the husband every wife wanted, the father every kid looked up to. And it turned out he was some form of Closet Merkowitz. Overman decides to interpret this news as an opportunity to pat himself on the back. Yes, he has been a crappy parent, a social ignoramus, a selfish boor, but he never tried to feel up an underage girl. Life was good.
The Kennedy assassination might have marked a turning point for the country, but to Overman, it would be remembered as The Day of Losing Glorietta Zatzkin. Of course he had never “had” her in any sense of the word. They were in the fifth grade, partners on a few school projects and happened to live around the block from one another. He harbored a serious crush, but so did every other boy at Melvin Terrace Elementary. Whether or not Glorietta realized the extent of their group lust was conjecture, but regardless, she remained a nice, bright and polite young girl who had simply decided that she was no longer interested in Ira Overman. She never said anything mean or ignored him. As far as he knew, she never talked behind his back. She just had a way of letting him know that there would be a line of demarcation between them, and the line seemed more pronounced with each passing day.
This saddened Overman, particularly when after the sixth grade, Glorietta returned from summer camp having developed the luscious breasts that he himself had prognosticated. As he walked through the halls of Lakeview Junior High School, guys came up to congratulate him about being the first to make the call.
“You were right, Overman. She’s totally stacked,” said Tommy Oshefsky, who had the desk next to his in homeroom. “I wish I lived around the block from her.”
“What’s her cup size?” Jimmy Rizzoli asked Overman, like he might actually have access to such information.
Overman made up a number just to drive them crazy. “I’m guessing she wears the kind of bra than makes them look smaller, so I’d have to go with 36 DD.”
In truth, Overman was the one being driven crazy, less out of lust than confusion. What was it about him that was putting her off? Did he smell? Was he ugly? He didn’t have buckteeth or an overbite like Tommy Oshefsky. He wasn’t hairy and chubby like Rizzoli. Ira wanted answers but had few places to turn. If he asked any of his peers, they would then know that he wasn’t as tight with Glorietta as he used to be, which could only serve to lower his standing with kids who weren’t very high on the ladder to begin with. So Ira went with the only option he could think of.
“Who could not like you?” Irma Overman barked, shoving milk and cookies in his face. “I’m not saying somebody doesn’t like me,” Ira replied. “I’m just asking if somebody didn’t like me, what about me wouldn’t they like?”
“It’s the Goldstein boy, isn’t it?” Irma blurts out. “Jerry Goldstein. I never liked him and I’m not crazy about the parents either. The country club and the Cadillac and the fancy patio furniture—”
“It’s not Jerry Goldstein. And that’s not the point—”
“Frankie Cosentino!” She’s sure of it. “What do you expect? The father hangs a big lighted cross over their garage at Christmas time. Don’t they know Jews live in this neighborhood?”