Blessings Read Online Free PDF Page A

me.”
    “It’s just something I could never imagine myself doing.”
    “Fair enough. But I do pro bono work also, you know.”
    “That’s good too.” She smiled back.
    “You’re not enjoying this,” he said. “All the pop sociology and psychology. You know what it boils down to? ‘Look at me, I’m here, listen to me.’ When it’s all over, you’ve nothing but a headache to show for the whole evening. Let’s leave.”
    In a quiet bar downtown they sat half the night telling each other all about themselves: their politics, their families; their taste in music, food, books, and movies; their interest in tennis. They liked Zubin Mehta, Woody Allen, Updike, and Dickens. They hated golf, buttery sauces, zoos, and cruises. Something clicked. Afterward they both agreed that they had known it right then, that very night.
    The next day he sent flowers. She was touched by the old-fashioned gesture, and expectant as she had never been before. Suddenly it was clear to her that she had never known the possibilities of loving, never known what lay at the core of things. She had only thought she knew.
    So it had begun.
    She had come a long, long way since the row house in Baltimore and Pop’s delicatessen. A long way from the University of Pennsylvania and its tuition, so painfully eked out. About the time she had graduated from the university, her father became ill with a degenerative kidney disease. When he died, she was already twenty-five. Her mother sold the store and with the small proceeds of the sale, plus Pop’s small insurance, went to live with her sister in Miami, where the climate was benign and living was cheaper. Then, having saved enough for law school, Jennie went back to Philadelphia and enrolled again at the university.
    She had no time to waste, for she had lost four years. She was all purpose, working hard and seldom playing. At twenty-nine, she graduated with an outstanding record, enough to provide her with a prized clerkship for the following year. The clerkship would have led to a position in an esteemed Philadelphia law firm, if she had wanted it to. But during the intervening hard years, a distinctive character had been formed and a point of view had been taken. The times were ripe for what she wanted to do, and the logical place to do it was, in her mind, New York.
    In a modest neighborhood downtown near Second Avenue, she established an office, two rooms sublet in space belonging to a striving partnership of three young men who were just barely out of law school themselves and eager to get a footing in criminal law. Having no interest in family cases or the particular problems of women, they were glad to refer all such to Jennie. So she began and gradually was able to build a reputation as a dedicated, caring, tough defender of women’s rights, especially those of the poor.
    And the years went by then in the style of the times and the place. She went to consciousness-raising groups, learned something from them, and left them behind. Like Shirley, she had her share of men, who were bright and fun but wanted no permanence. She fell briefly in love—or thought she did—with a nice young man who finally, half in tears, confessed that he had tried hard, but he really preferred nice young men, after all. She was pursued by one or two decent men who would have married her and whom she would have married if only she could have loved them. She met a charming man who adored her but had no intention of divorcing his wife. Somehow nothing worked out. So she was thankful to have her work and all the good things that the city afforded, the ballet and opera at Lincoln Center, the first-run foreign movies, jogging on Sundays in the park, Fifth Avenue bookstores, Italian trattorias in the Village, and courses at the New School.
    A busy life it had been, a productive and useful one, but it had led nowhere in particular, and when all was said and done, there had been a coolness at its heart.
    Until Jay had come