Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan Read Online Free PDF Page B

of selling the child on the ice cream.
    â€œI’m sure it’s wonderful,” said Carla, relieved to see Stephanie behaving with such docility. How, she wondered, might she perfect Moishe’s mixture of flattery and bullying so as to ingratiate herself with her daughter?
    â€œFine,” said Mark, glad to have the thing over with. “We’ll take it.”
    â€œAnd the table setting?” asked Moishe. “Would the young lady like to look through our sample books for other options?”

    â€œI like this one,” said Stephanie, to Carla’s surprise. Her daughter had never made a decision this quickly before in her life.
    â€œA wise choice, if I may say so,” said Moishe. “It’s our favorite setting by far. Your daughter, I can see, has a good eye.”
    â€œThat she does,” said Carla, trying to share in the goodwill that Moishe had generated. Stephanie, however, would have none of it—this was a love-fest between her and Moishe alone—and she shot an annoyed glance at her mother. Still, there was no fighting, and they shook Moishe’s hand at the door with a certain amount of relief.
    â€œNow that was easy, wasn’t it?” said Carla as they drove home, Stephanie having fallen asleep in the backseat.
    Mark grunted. Moishe’s brand of salesmanship rubbed him the wrong way, and he still wasn’t thrilled by the idea of serving food that imitated other food. But he had to admit that it had all tasted pretty good and that the whole thing had transpired more painlessly than expected. The cost, of course, was another story. He had put down a substantial down payment, and the final bill for the meal promised to be very painful indeed.

Chapter Seven
    â€œ I broke UP WITH KEVIN,” ANNOUNCED MARGOT AS SHE AND Carla settled into a booth at the back of Sal and Joe’s, a family-owned Italian restaurant in Maple Shade, just outside of Cherry Hill. It was the custom of the sisters to have lunch at least once a week to “catch up,” mostly with Margot’s fast-paced love life. Sal and Joe’s was a favorite meeting-place, since they were both partial to the mussels marinara.
    In the current instance, it had actually been two weeks since they had last had lunch. This was because Margot had been away in L.A. taking depositions for a big case involving half the Philadelphia mob. (“Construction and union graft are passé with organized crime these days,” Margot explained. “They all want to be in movies.”)
    Carla had hoped to begin their lunch talking about their mother’s condition, but her sister’s announcement effectively preempted this. Margot’s latest romantic misadventure would have to be thoroughly worked over before they could move on to other things.
    â€œWhich one was Kevin?” asked Carla. She had difficulty keeping Margot’s boyfriends straight. It was not only that there were so many but the relationships were so short-lived. In some cases,
calling them relationships was a stretch. Was two weeks together—even if it meant taking a private jet to Paris or relaxing on the shores of Lake Como—a relationship? Carla wasn’t sure.
    â€œKevin’s the guy in L.A. in ‘development.’ I don’t know what development is,” noted Margot, “but it seems to involve having lunch with lots of rich, famous people to talk about projects that never get off the ground. How he’s managed to make so much money when he’s never produced anything is a mystery to me. I suppose I could figure it out if I had more time with him. But that, as I say, doesn’t seem to be in the cards.”
    â€œHow long did you go out?” Carla wondered how this liaison had passed her by unnoticed.
    â€œThree months. But of course we didn’t see each other much, since he was in L.A. and I was here—which helped.” Carla might have said that it hindered, but