No Vacancy

by Tziporah Cohen

  Sammy is squealing and splashing and trying to grab Uncle Mordy’s glasses off his face. I hate that my baby brother is so happy in the water without even trying, when I can’t even put my big toe in without freaking out.

  “No, thanks,” I say from the doorway. “Too cold.”

  “You can tell from all the way over there?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I see,” he says, dodging Sammy’s hands. He stands him on the side and catches him when he jumps in. I jump back so I won’t get splashed, even though there’s no way the water can reach me.

  I like that Uncle Mordy doesn’t pretend the water’s really warm or try to splash me or pull me in. I want to tell him so much. How every night since we got here I hear Mom and Dad argue through the wall between our rooms. How I miss my friends. How much I want this motel thing to be a dream that I wake up from and find myself back in our apartment in Manhattan.

  “You’ll go in when you’re ready,” he says.

  Which will be never. Or maybe longer.

  Shabbat starts at sundown, so around six o’clock we all take a break from the cleaning and phone calling and organizing and take showers and put on clean clothes. Uncle Mordy and I put a couple of the little tables together in the middle of the dining room. Our special Shabbat tablecloths are in storage, so Mom covers the tables with one of Sammy’s bedsheets that she brought so his bed here would feel more like home. She sets the Shabbat candles up on the counter between the toaster and the waffle maker.

  Maria pops her head in the room to say goodbye. She has her own little room here at the motel, kind of hidden behind the office, with a bed and a desk and a dresser, but tonight she said she’s going to stay at a friend’s.

  I hope that Mom invites her to dinner. Having company is a big part of Shabbat, probably my favorite part.

  She doesn’t.

  “Adios, Maria!” I say.

  Maria is teaching me three words a day. Today’s words were cama, which means bed, mesa, which means table, and motel, which means motel. I thought that one shouldn’t count because it’s the same word in English, but Maria said it was still important to know that, and besides, it’s not pronounced exactly the same way.

  “Hasta mañana,” says Maria. “See you tomorrow.” After a few seconds I hear the tinkle of the bell as she goes out the door.

  Uncle Mordy did bring barbecued chicken, plus potato kugel and couscous, along with the challahs and grape juice. I made a salad with the lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes Mom brought back from the grocery store. Dad heats the food up in the half-size oven in the kitchen while I set the table with paper plates and plastic forks and knives. Our nice dishes are still in boxes, and Uncle Mordy won’t use the plates the old owners left because they aren’t from a kosher kitchen. Even Sammy helps, bringing the salt and pepper shakers from the kitchen, leaving a trail of salt behind him, like in Hansel and Gretel.

  I stand next to Mom while she lights the Shabbat candles. She covers her eyes and says the blessing, then kisses me on the head and says, just loud enough for me to hear, “Shabbat shalom, sweetie. You’ve been a great sport this week and I haven’t said thank you enough.”

  Shabbat is like that. No matter how busy the week has been, how much everyone has rushed around not having time for anything but work, on Friday night everyone takes a big breath and sees each other again.

  We walk back to the table holding hands. I squeeze hers three times and she squeezes four times back for “I love you too.”

  This is the Mom I remember from before all this motel mess.

  Everyone takes their seat at the table. Because Uncle Mordy is here, Dad does the blessings over the grape juice and challah. At home, we just eat.

  Even though we’re all Jewish, everyone in my family is Jewish in a different way. Especially when it comes to food. My parents will eat just about anything except pork and shellfish — things like shrimp and crab and lobster — because those are the big no-nos in Judaism. Uncle Mordy, even though he’s dad’s brother, only eats kosher food on kosher plates, like Bubbie and Zaydie do, so no pork or shellfish for him. He also doesn’t eat milk products and meat together — so no cheeseburgers. That’s another big no-no if you’re kosher. And he doesn’t eat in restaurants unless they’re kosher ones.

  Dad says there’s no right way and no wrong way to be Jewish. But if that’s true, then why do Bubbie and Zaydie get upset when Dad takes me and Sammy to Burger King? And why did we have kosher plates back at home but eat on Mrs. Whitley’s plates at the diner?

  The whole thing would make a lot more sense if someone would just tell me the real rules.

  It’s weird, eating Shabbat dinner surrounded by cereal dispensers and labeled juice machines. Sammy’s in a high chair next to me and I cut up his chicken. I can’t go fast enough for him and he keeps yelling, “Mo! Mo!”

  “Let me take over, squirt,” says Uncle Mordy, reaching over to take Sammy’s plate.

  “Mi-wam do it!” Sammy says. I’m his favorite person in the world, which is both extremely cool and extremely annoying.

  I ignore him this time and pick up a chicken leg, sinking my teeth into the crispy skin. I close my eyes and pretend we’re back at home, eating Shabbat dinner on the special Friday night china, on top of a real tablecloth, the one that Mom’s grandma made, with hundreds of tiny flowers that she embroidered herself around the edge. I picture Dahlia at her grandparents’ dining-room table, listening to her father sing the blessings and fighting with her brothers over the biggest piece of challah.

  “Guess what, Miriam?” Mom says. “Myrna came over this morning to introduce herself and told me you and Kate will be in the same class in September.”

  I open my eyes and I’m back at the Jewel, staring at a paper plate and a tablecloth with smiling red, blue and green trains on it.

  I don’t want to talk about school. Not when the summer just started. And not when going back to school will mean being the new kid.

  “I’d think that living in a motel would make a kid seem pretty cool,” says Dad, winking at me. “Wouldn’t you, Mord?”

  “Cool indeed.”

  Yeah, right. Maybe if the kid lived in the Plaza, with a doorman that greets you when you arrive and a butler on every floor. Where the faucets are real gold and a glass of OJ costs twelve dollars but doesn’t taste like rust.

  I figure this would be a good time to tell Mom and Dad about my grape-peeling job. I explain about the pies and tourist season and how Mrs. Whitley makes extra pies on Saturdays to prepare for all the people who come to the diner after church on Sunday.

  “Sounds like fun, but not tomorrow,” Mom says. “There’s still tons to do around here.”

  “Speaking of tomorrow, Danny,” says Uncle Mordy, looking at Dad. “Where is the nearest synagogue here?”

  “There’s one in Spartanburg, but it’s twenty minutes from here.”

  “That’s not so bad,” Uncle Mordy says.

  “Twenty minutes by car, he means,” says Mom.

  “How long would it take to walk?” I ask.

  Uncle Mordy doesn’t use a car or electricity on Friday nights or all day Saturday until the sun goes down and Shabbat is over, so he walks to his synagogue in the city. But that one is only a few blocks from his apartment.

  “A long time,” says Dad. “I don’t think Uncle Mordy will be going to shul on Shabbat while he’s here.”

  Shul means synagogue. And too far away is just fine with me.

  5

  ——

  It’s Sunday. We open tomorrow.

  Dad is yelling bad words at the computer at the Reception desk. Mom is shouting at Sammy, who doesn’t want to put on his clothes. When I told her I was going over to the diner, she shouted at me too, handed me a broom and told me to sweep the upstairs balcony and the walkway in front of the first-floor rooms.


  Shabbat is definitely over.

  Only Maria is calm. She glides from one place to another, handing Mom the key she’s looking for or typing something into the computer to find the file Dad needs. She even gets Sammy into his pants by pretending to put them on herself first.

  In between helping everyone, she unpacks a box of brand-new bedspreads and I help her put them on the beds. They look great, except they make the carpet in the rooms look even worse.

  No time for any new Spanish words.

  The bakery man delivers packages of English muffins and bagels and I put them in the cabinets in the dining room. The fridge — the extra-big one for the motel — is stocked with cartons of waffle batter and gallons of milk.

  Sammy gets passed around like a hot potato. Uncle Mordy has him now but asks me to take over while he goes to the hardware store in town.

  I beg to go with him.

  No one’s taken me anywhere and I’m not allowed to go off the motel grounds on my own, except to go to the gas station down the street to buy a popsicle. The strap on my sandal broke the day after we got here and Mom promised me she’d take me to get another pair. After three days I gave up and fixed it with duct tape that I found in a drawer in Reception.

  Uncle Mordy says taking Sammy would slow him down too much. Teamwork, he tells me. My family’s favorite word these days.

  Sammy pulls me toward the swings. The sun is hot on my neck. Mom’s so busy she didn’t even nag me about sunscreen. At least Sammy has a hat on. When I get tired and sweaty from pushing him and stop to give my arms a break, he starts yelling. I yell back and he starts to cry.

  I wish he were older and I could talk to him. I’d tell him how much I want this whole motel thing to fail so we can go home, but because we don’t have a home to go back to, it really has to work out. Maybe he would say something back that would make me feel better.

  Instead, the smell of dirty diaper fills the air.

  I want to be on Mrs. Whitley’s team.

  Around one o’clock, cars start to pull into the diner. Kate comes over and asks if I can come for lunch. Sammy’s ready for his nap so Mom actually says yes. I give her a big hug to say thank you. Uncle Mordy sends me over with the leftover challah.

  The diner smells amazing when we walk in, and it’s not from grape pie.

  “Wow,” I say. “What’s Mr. Whitley cooking?”

  “That’s the bacon,” says Mrs. Whitley.

  Bacon is pork, so I’ve never eaten it. And smelling it makes you really want to eat it.

  Most of the tables are filled with people, eating and drinking coffee and talking. Some are dressed up in pretty skirts and button-down shirts with a tie but some are wearing jeans, which is weird to me. People definitely don’t wear jeans to synagogue back home.

  Kate introduces me to her parents, who are sitting with another couple at a booth, and then leads me over to a little table in the corner, away from the windows.

  “This is my special table,” she says. “No one ever wants to sit in the corner, so Grandma says it doesn’t take up a table from a real customer.”

  Mrs. Whitley takes the challah into the kitchen and fifteen minutes later Mr. Whitley comes out with two plates of grilled cheese sandwiches balanced on one arm and a plate piled with bacon strips on another.

  The smell makes me lick my lips.

  “Dig in, girls,” he says, putting the plates down on the table.

  “Thanks, Grandpa,” says Kate. She grabs a strip of bacon and crunches off a bite. She pushes the plate toward me.

  “No thanks,” I say. I pick up my grilled cheese instead. It’s a perfect golden brown color and the cheese is oozing out around the curves of the challah.

  “How can you not want bacon?”

  I start to tell her that bacon isn’t kosher, but then I remember her surprise when Mom told her we don’t go to church because we’re Jewish.

  “I’m a vegetarian,” I say.

  “Really? The only other vegetarian I know is my brother’s girlfriend. She eats fake hot dogs that taste like cardboard, and if she sees a spider in the house, she carries it to the backyard instead of squishing it.” She crunches on another piece. “I can’t imagine not eating meat. I could never give up bacon.”

  Lekha is a vegetarian, sort of. Her parents are Hindu and believe that animals are sacred. The first time Lekha came to our house for Shabbat dinner, I forgot to tell Mom that she didn’t eat animals, but when Mom passed her the plate of roast chicken she took a big piece and ate it in like three bites. She even asked for seconds! Later she told me it looked so good that she just couldn’t help herself, and she made me promise not to tell her mother.

  Now I know just how she felt.

  Mrs. Whitley comes over with two glasses of water.

  “You’re right about the challah bread, Miriam. Mr. Whitley just made me the best grilled cheese sandwich I’ve eaten in our forty-two-year marriage.”

  She says challah with a regular ch sound in front, not the sound in Hebrew that makes it sound like you’re clearing your throat.

  “What do you think about the bacon?” she asks. “It’s a new double-smoked kind Mr. Whitley’s trying out. Made a couple of miles from here.”

  “Miriam’s a vegetarian, Grandma,” Kate says.

  “Oops, sorry! Well, good for you, Miriam. I’ve always admired people who take a stand like that.”

  I feel my face burn.

  “Oh, it’s Father Donovan!” says Kate, waving to a man wearing a dark suit and a white collar.

  “This is Miriam, Father Donovan.”

  “Nice to meet you.” He holds out his hand and I shake it.

  “Father Donovan’s the priest down at the church,” Mrs. Whitley tells me. “He’s also one of my best customers.”

  “Yep,” Father Donovan says, rubbing his stomach. “Especially this time of year. Myrna’s grape pie is a slice of heaven here on earth.”

  “Miriam is Jewish,” says Kate. “That’s why she wasn’t at church this morning.”

  My face burns even hotter. Why did she have to say that?

  “Everyone is welcome in Greenvale,” says Father Donovan. “And we’re so happy to have you and your family here, Miriam. It’ll be great to get the motel back in business again.”

  He goes to sit at the next table over just as Mom comes in.

  “Oh, hi, Deborah,” Mrs. Whitley says. “How are things coming along over there? You must be exhausted.”

  “Totally,” Mom says to Mrs. Whitley. “The work never ends.”

  She sees the bacon on the table and raises her eyebrows at me.

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t have any,” I say.

  “Miriam told us about being a vegetarian,” Mrs. Whitley says. “You’ll have to share some of your recipes with me.”

  Mom’s eyebrows go even higher but she doesn’t rat me out.

  “Have you finished lunch? Sammy’s up and I need you,” she says.

  “But I just got here!” I know I’m kind of whining but I can’t help it. “I really want to stay and help Mrs. Whitley with the grapes.”

  I can tell she feels bad but she still shakes her head. “Sorry, Miriam. We open tomorrow and there’s still a ton to do.”

  “Don’t worry,” Mrs. Whitley says to me. “The grapes will be here tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.”

  “Fine,” I grumble, grabbing the rest of my sandwich.

  Mom pulls a few bills out of her pocket but Mrs. Whitley waves them away. “Miriam brought over that delicious challah. That’s payment enough.”

  Mom doesn’t look happy about it but puts the money away.

  I stop on the way out. “Father Donovan, this is my mom.”

  He stands and puts his hand out. “Wonderful to meet you. It’s nice to have some new faces in town.”

&nbs
p; “Thank you, Mr. Donovan.”

  “It’s Father Donovan,” I say.

  “Father Donovan,” Mom says after a pause. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I really need Miriam back at the motel.”

  “Of course,” he says. “Please let me know if there’s any way I can help.”

  “Bye, Kate. And thanks for lunch,” I say to Mrs. Whitley, and we’re out the door.

  Teamwork.

  The next morning, Dad replaces the Closed sign with a new one that says We’re Open! Under New Management! A wooden sign that says Vacancy hangs underneath the Jewel’s sign. There’s a way to slide a piece of plastic back and forth to make it say No Vacancy. I weeded underneath the sign yesterday but it still looks like my dad before he’s had his morning coffee.

  I’m not sure how people will see the sign anyway. No one drives by here unless they’re coming to the diner or getting off the highway to get gas down the street.

  Check-in isn’t until three o’clock though, which is hours away.

  “Can I please go over and help Mrs. Whitley with the pies?” I ask Dad.

  “Sure,” says Dad. “I think you’ve earned it.”

  I run right over before he can change his mind or check with Mom.

  Today the diner’s almost empty, except for one table where a woman is drinking a cup of coffee and reading a newspaper. But even empty, it feels bright and happy, the opposite of the Jewel.

  “Yoo-hoo!” I call, just like Mrs. Whitley does.

  “Perfect timing, Miriam,” she says as she comes out. “Just come wash your hands in the back.”

  I follow her back through the swinging door into the kitchen. Big pots and frying pans are piled on the metal counters, and oversized ladles and strainers hang from hooks on the walls. There are shelves on one side, some stacked with white dishes and others filled with bottles of oil and packets of flour and huge cans of tomatoes.

  On one of the counters is a huge bowl of wet and shiny purple grapes. Mrs. Whitley shows me how to take a grape between my thumb and first two fingers with the part where it was attached to the stem sticking out, and gently squeeze it.