Three are the Fathers by Joanne Jagoda

It hasn’t been easy growing up as a test tube baby. As soon as I was old enough to realize no dad showed up at my soccer games or was there to read me stories, I started asking questions. “You’re extra special Billy,” my mom assured me. “I wanted you so badly that I put in the order for a handsome, tall and smart boy who likes music and sports and look what I got… perfect you”. “But Mom,” I protested, I’m short, can’t sing and never get picked for a team. Maybe they got the order mixed up like when they put tomatoes on my burger and I hate tomatoes.” She’d laugh, tussle my red hair and blink away tears. Even though Mom does her best as mother and father, when I turned ten, I got in my head that one day a magic genie would appear to give me three chances to find MY REAL FATHER. First I was sure he was the owner of Moran’s Super. Then I was convinced he was my pediatrician, Dr. Goldberg. But I settled on Mr. Purdy, our laughing, red-headed mailman. When he recognizes me, he’ll give me a man-hug and ask polite questions about my life. Then he’ll come to my soccer games, take me for pizza. I’ll go for a one night sleep-over at his house where I’ll meet his daughters, then spend Christmas in Hawaii, and summers together. Now if only that genie will hurry up.

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The Living Room Chill by Joanne Jagoda

“Living my life in a slow hell”…Kid Rock has it right. I drop my backpack with a thud. She’s at her desk wearing her stupid half glasses… doesn’t look up. “You’re late. Maria left dinner.” What happened to the days when I would walk in and grab her ass and nuzzle her neck in that soft spot that turned her on. I mumble, “…faculty meeting.” She doesn’t answer. I open the frig. Chicken breast, broccoli, mound of white rice covered in cellophane. I pitch it down the disposal. I just devoured a super grande burrito oozing black beans and guacamole and drowned in mango salsa. She wouldn’t approve of the six glazed donuts in my backpack either. Her nagging refrain chips away at me like a relentless ice pick. “You’re getting a big gut. You’ve got to watch your cholesterol.” She never eats anything. I try to be civil. “How was your day?” She’s mastered the raised-eyebrow look, “Big liability case… court next week. Look, I’m too busy to chat. We’ll uh…catch up soon.” “Oh, sure, no prob….” Icicles of indifference surround her. I swear her breath comes out in wafts of cold vapor. I can’t stop thinking about Tess, the new librarian. Hell, she’s chubby and cute, and I want to melt in her chocolate eyes. I know she likes me…brought me muffins this morning, still warm. Tess just can’t seem to get you off my mind. … Isn’t that what it says in that song.

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Shells by the Shore by Joanne Jagoda

I have my ritual on this day. When I hear him leave, I shut the bedroom door, walk to the dresser, open the top drawer. I feel around for the red velvet bag that used to hold my beaded necklace. It’s not there. I panic. Fear washes over me. John must have taken it. “You have to move on. Don’t keep those broken shells. They only make you upset.” That sonofabitch. How could he. They’re all I have. I know he blames me. I yank the drawer and dump it on the bed, bras and underpants in a tangled pile. There it us… under my panties. I clutch the bag like it’s a holy relic, pouring the shards in my hand, caressing them, hearing their familiar clacking. Fourteen precious pieces, cream and pink. I count them twice. I close my eyes. The morning is warm and Hawaiian perfect, a cloudless cobalt sky. John is at his meeting, and I’m on a lounge chair in my floppy sunhat lazily watching the gentle waves break. Billy is running back and forth collecting broken shells in his yellow bucket. He doesn’t mind they’re not perfect. “Careful honey,” I call. “Don’t get too near the waves.” A rogue wave, they called it, crashes in and pulls Billy. A man dives in but Billy is gone, swept away. I am in my own bad dream, but can’t wake up. I hear disembodied screams.They are coming from me.

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Sunday Supper by Joanne Jagoda

If I get dressed in the bathroom, maybe mama won’t see the finger marks turning purple and green. Lord, they make me feel sick. After he forced me I told him we were done and he started beggin …“ It was the whiskey Del, I’m sorry.. I won’t force you no more. ‘Ya got to believe me.” I love Billy but he can be a brute. Mama invited him to Sunday supper. She thinks he’s something ‘cause he sells cars at the Auto Mart. The fried chicken smell and the apple pies are makin’ me sick. I’m afraid Grandma’s going to see right through Billy but I can’t give him up. He’s like a drug. The Baxter women are cursed with a third eye. Mama has it and I reckon I’ve got it. You can see the good and bad in people down to their bones and sinew, into their core. Grandma knew my daddy was a no good bum when he rang the bell selling brushes and took mama away. When she came home, she was pregnant with me. The screen door slams and Billy walks in like he’s some celebrity just ‘cause he’s movie star handsome. I know he’s trying to impress them, all cleaned up in his white shirt and best blue jeans. Grandma grips his hand hard. She stares at him with her evil eye, drops the bowl with the peas she’s shelling, and they skitter everywhere. Billy starts to sweat and runs out the door.

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Richie Under Wraps by Joanne Jagoda

Hey Richie, when ya’ going to bring her ‘round? Richie, you a Homo or something? When he heard that word he wanted to puke. Dribbling down court, high tops thumping and pounding, Richie grabbed the ball and took off. Huffing, he wiped his face on his sleeveless undershirt, sweat stinging his eyes. His twenty first birthday was coming, the big one. The guys were taking him drinkin’ to O’Brien’s. He made a quick decision. “Hey you dorks, I’m gonna’ bring her Saturday.” Tony yelled on the run, “Richie, she a dog? Wow wow?” They howled. Someone shouted, “does she have hair on her upper lip?” Richie shook his head and grinned, his gut clenching. The teasing made him play harder. “There see that.” He landed a perfect three pointer. The guys crowded the bar, joking, downing shots waiting for the birthday boy to show up. Eyes on the door, finally he walked in spiffed in a clean shirt, tight jeans with his flat-top perfectly bryl-creamed, Old Spice aftershave filling the air. At first hidden behind him, he pulled her forward, put his arm tight across her bare shoulders and smugly said, “Meet Sylvia.” They were drooling. She was a drop dead gorgeous brunette in a red sundress. They stood with their mouths open then crowded her teasing and flirting. When they left holding hands the guys stared, watching her whisper in his ear. “Richie ya’ promised me twenty bucks, but I did so good I want thirty.”

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The Changed Password by Joanne Jagoda

In the middle of a video conference with Japanese clients, my assistant mouthed, “your mom.” I scribbled a note to my boss eyeing me, “ mom emergency” slipped out and grabbed a phone. A feeling of dread bubbled in my stomach. She probably misplaced her keys again. I kept a spare set. She was forgetting simple tasks too. Last Saturday at 6am I got a panicked call. “Dede, my coffee maker is broken. I put in the coffee but it is not working. I hate it.” I rolled over in bed and groaned. “ Ma, give me half an hour and I’ll check it out.” She had put the coffee where the water was supposed to go. I refused to believe my vital, intelligent sixty four year old mother; retired business woman, bridge player, and crossword whiz, could be showing signs of dementia. I attributed these changes to her getting over the sudden loss of my dad last year. My husband Stan was trying to prepare me that this was more than normal grieving. “Ma, please, I’m in the middle of work.” “Dede, I tried to get money out but someone changed my password. I tried it over and over, but the machine ate my card.” I closed my eyes and tried to breathe. Tears filled my eyes. “I’ll come and find out who changed your PIN, uh..your password. Ma, where are you?” She answered sheepishly, “I’m not sure. This nice man here in the handsome uniform will tell you.”

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The Last Stop by Joanne Jagoda

Clarice waitressed at the last truck stop at the border where the men came for showers, hot food and diesel before the grueling trek through the mountains. When she arrived at work each morning, she went into the back to change. She never brought her uniform home because everything reeked of her mother’s cigarettes. Mama coughed half the night, and if she saw her spitting brown juice into pink tissues one more time she was going to scream. She forced the uniform down over her wide hips and could barely close the buttons gaping over her full breasts. It had belonged to Steph, an itty bitty size six bitch. She begged Irv, that cheapskate, to replace it but he refused. He said the men liked eyeing her over their ham and eggs, and it was good for business. She dreamed about getting out of this crummy place and mama’s stinkin’ house. Across the border she could breathe and start over. Wiping the sticky counter, the door tinkled and a stranger came in, beer belly hanging over his jeans. Acting all manly because he just got out of the shower outside, he reeked of cheap aftershave. “Hey Sugar. Give me your Special.” He devoured her with hungry eyes as she poured his coffee. Clarice weighed her options. His pockmarked face repulsed her, but if she gave him what he wanted he might take her across the border. Then she could ditch him. She pushed her chest out. “Hey baby,…”

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Beach Reverie by Joanne Jagoda

When the sun hit his face he closed his eyes and was back on the white sandy beach with her.  He could feel the hot sand and smell her apricot body lotion. Her eyes were green like the sea at dawn.   They watched violet sunsets getting wasted on icy beers at beach cafes.  She would slowly lick the salt off the rim of the chilled glass and laugh at his attempts to speak Spanish. He could taste her tongue in his mouth tart from the limes.    She led him to her apartment down a cobbled path.    He was totally smitten, and she said she had never met anyone like him.  They hung out for the two weeks he was on Spring Break, and they were making plans for her to come to L.A during the summer. They would live together in his apartment.   On their last night, she asked him for a favor. “ Mi Amor, take this package to my grandmother in East LA.  She needs these documents to help her get a green card.”   He was proud she trusted him.     The German shepherd at the customs line started barking.  He was yanked out of line and taken to a back room, stripped; then his luggage was torn apart.  They found the “letters” containing tiny cellophane bags of cocaine.    The horn blast to return to his cell woke him from his daily beach reverie.

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The Little Things by Joanne Jagoda

The little things tipped her: the haircut, designer jeans and especially the jacket. She had been nagging at him for years to dump his corduroy with the patched elbows. So many professors wore them they were a cliché. When he came into the kitchen in a black leather bomber jacket with his hair spiked, she glanced at him sharply, peering over her half spectacles from the morning paper. This “new” look made her feel frumpy and self conscious. “Eggs?” “No, I’ll grab a bagel. I’ll be home late. I’m meeting a potential faculty hire. You know the routine, dinner and meetings.” “Oh, ok. I have my book group.” It was past 1am. Pretending to be asleep, she was barely breathing. Quietly he pulled off his boots, stripped and showered. . She loved when he would wrap his long legs around her, pull her close and nuzzle her neck, but he stayed on his side and fell into a deep sleep. She got up, smelled his leather jacket and breathed in the unmistakable perfume. Gorge rose in her throat, and she went to the computer. She knew his password, S-P-O-N-C-O-M, for “spontaneous combustion”, the topic of his physics thesis. She had put the bastard through six years of graduate school. There in his email were thirty adoring emails from “J”…signed with a letter, not even her full name. Pure rage bubbled and she grabbed her best shears. He was sleeping peacefully. She cut that beautiful leather jacket in tidy squares.

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The Sounds of Silence by Joanne Jagoda

In her last years with her debilitating illness, a Parkinson’s-like syndrome, speaking was increasingly difficult. I would phone her on my way home from work, and though I knew she was listening, because her helper gave her the phone, she could no longer converse. It was painful for both of us because we were so close and missed our daily shmooze. I would carry on a one-sided conversation just so she could hear my voice, jabbering about work, the grandchildren, and padded the strained silence with filler words. Despite the fact she could barely speak, on occasion she would still communicate. One Saturday her weekend caretaker annoyed her and my mother looked at me and rolled her eyes. I totally got her frustration and a glint of her feistiness and humor. When my teenage nephew came to visit her in the hospital wearing a tee shirt and shorts and she noticed it was a blustery San Francisco day from the swaying trees visible through the window she suddenly piped up, ”Where is your jacket?” Her grandmotherly love and concern could not be silenced by her illness. Shortly before she died, the young rabbi from her congregation came to her hospital room with a shofar or ram’s horn. It is customary to sound the shofar every day in the Jewish month of Elul before the New Year. The rabbi blew the shofar for her and those plaintive sounds transformed the heavy silence of her sick room and changed her whole demeanor.

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The Missed Bus by Joanne Jagoda

Every morning is a variation of the same theme. First I can’t find my glasses, my backpack, wallet, cell phone or keys. I admit I am scatterbrained, despite having plenty of brain power when it comes to physics and advanced math. The organization gene is clearly missing from my DNA. Unfortunately I haven’t changed my bad habits while studying in Israel doing my junior year abroad. Though I attempt daily lists and try to set my things out the night before, I still waste so much time running about gathering my belongings every morning. This morning is especially chaotic. My glasses fell under my bed and I spent an extra fifteen minutes cursing and hunting for them. My trying-to-sleep, exasperated roommate is fuming under her pillow. Then half way up the block I remember I forgot my cell phone. I trudge back to my apartment shivering in the chill of this January morning under a stunning blue sky. I figure as long as I am going to miss my regular bus and be late for class again, I will rummage for my knit scarf and gloves. Warmly bundled and finally confident I have my stuff, I head to the bus stop, a ten minute walk to the #18 which will take me up to the university. A deafening explosion shakes the ground and I hear a crazy cacophony of horns and blaring sirens. I start to shudder. That was my regular bus.

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Kazimerz by Joanne Jagoda

When my husband’s wiry hair stands up in the morning I remind him he looks like Kazimerz. We have fond memories of Kazimerz from our Jewish heritage trip to Poland. He was our driver, ferrying us about as we learned of the vibrant Jewish life and culture which once flourished in Eastern Europe from a knowledgeable Polish guide. We walked the streets of the former Warsaw ghetto, toured ancient cemeteries in Krakow, and gritted our teeth while visiting the death camp of Auschwitz. Every morning as our small group trudged on the bus, Kazimerz would help us up the steep stairs with his bad haircut getting worse as the week went on as did his body odor. Taciturn, he barely gave a smile or grunt. His blondish hair was trimmed close on the sides but the top part would be standing up at precarious angles and had a life of its own .No real barber could have done this. His wife must have cut his hair in the kitchen. As the week went on his lack of bathing and hairstyle became a hot topic of conversation. At the end of the tour it is customary to “tip” the tour guide and driver, and our guide was not shy in reminding us. We dutifully handed them our tips and Kazimerz lit up like a Christmas tree, all smiles, babbling away in Polish. The international language of money must have done the trick. Maybe now he could do something about his hair.

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