I’ve noticed that Mum will only stop for a “fresh-up” if there’s a woman of color at the counter, because white women don’t understand her skin—they’ll slather on a foundation color that’s either too light, making her look like a circus clown, or too dark, so she looks like she’s wearing a mask. I couldn’t blame anyone for being confused—on the counter was a massive color wheel with about a thousand different skin tones multiplied by four different “undertones”—apparently you were supposed to know both to find your perfect shade. I gave the outer wheel a spin, and it randomly landed on ebony.
“Stop playing with that, Tara.”
“Mum, am I a Warm or a Cool?”
“A what?”
“Do I have pinkish, yellowish, olive, or brown undertones?”
“You don’t need foundation, Tara.”
“I know. I’m just asking.”
Shanette lifted my chin, tilting my head this way and that. “I would say your tone is a light brownish,” she said. “Wheat, to be precise. With a touch of honey.”
Personally, I would have said oatmeal, with grayish-blah undertones, but honey wheat sounded nice. Like something delicious. I turned back to the color wheel, lining up the two parts. Honey plus Wheat—that made me a Warm. Look for yellow, gold, or peach-based makeup shades. Okay! I grabbed a Coral Lush lip pencil from the counter display and carefully drew a large pink bindi dot between my eyebrows. I bunched up my lips like Aishwarya Rai, the Indian movie star, and gave myself a long, sexy look in the magnifying mirror, drawing Mum’s scratchy linen scarf across my face like a silk dupatta. That was when it hit me.
“Mummy,” I said, “I have an excellent idea.”
“Yes, love?” she murmured, through slightly parted lips as Shanette applied powder all over her face with a large, soft brush.
“For my bat mitzvah, I think I’ll wear Meena Auntie’s sari.”
I thought Mum would like that. It wasn’t like wearing a hand-me-down. It was something more special than that—an heirloom. She couldn’t possibly object. The sari was very expensive and old, with lots of family history. It had once belonged to my great-grandmother, who had passed it on to Meena Auntie, who passed it on to me because she doesn’t have a daughter, only Vijay. It seemed to me the kind of “lovely gesture” that Mum was always talking about. Plus, it wasn’t technically a dress. Bonus. I turned and smiled, anticipating Mum’s pleasure.
“Tara,” Mum said through her teeth while Shanette painted a wide, Heavenly Hibiscus gash across her mouth. “There is a time and a place for everything.”
I was surprised by her reaction—hurt, too. This wasn’t the same as having potato samosas—this was different. Special. A way to have a little piece of Nanaji there with me. In other words—I wasn’t kidding.
“You will do no such thing,” she continued. “You will not be having some … some—basmati bas mitzvah!”
I had a good laugh at that, actually. When Mum gets flustered, she sounds exactly like her mother—my nani—making up silly bilingual puns and alliterations on the fly. It’s something all Indians do, like the billboard for Amul butter I saw when we visited Mumbai that said, “Let bhaingans be byegones!” Bhaingan being eggplant. I had no clue why that was supposed to be funny.
I decided to play it straight and have some fun at her expense, to get back at her.
“Good one, Mum, except it’s bat mitzvah. No one says bas nowadays. ‘Basmati bat mitzvah.’ I love it!”
“Seriously, Tara.”
“It’s a great idea,” I said, acting all serious. “We can serve pullao on a big star-shaped platter.”
“Tara,” she said in a warning tone.
“Yes, exactly!” I said. Tara means “star” in Hindi, after all. “And instead of throwing candy at the bimah, everyone can throw basmati rice, like at a wedding.” I smirked.
“Enough, Tara.”
“Or they can throw marigolds, like in India. I love marigolds, don’t you, Mum? I’d like my corsage to be marigolds.” I’d been obsessed with marigolds, and Indian weddings, ever since seeing Monsoon Wedding on cable over the summer.
“Tara, you take a thing too, too far,” Mum said in the singsongy Indian accent that comes out when I’m aggravating her.
“But you said—”
“I said you can have a say in the arrangements. I did not say you could make a mockery of everything.”
That was harsh. I had mostly been kidding about the other stuff, but I was way serious about the sari. If I could choose the decorations and the menu and the cake, then why not my outfit, too? If I wanted to desi it up—“Indify” it a little, honor Nanaji by wearing my sari—then why not? It was my party.
Besides, it was just clothes. Mum, of all people, knew you could express yourself with what you wear. Why couldn’t I express my Indian heritage and my Jewish one at the same time?
“You are wiping that—that shmutz off your face. Right now.”
“Here, try these new makeup-removal towelettes!” Shanette put in, tearing open a little packet for me. I have to admit, it worked really well—took the pink stuff right off and wasn’t greasy or anything. I pocketed the rest of the samples for the next time Rebecca came over.
“You should get these, Mum,” I said. “So you don’t wake up with kohl eyes in the morning.”
“Twelve ninety-five for one drop of aloe vera lotion on a paper towel?” Mum said with contempt. “Nothing doing.”
Shanette looked disappointed. She went back to applying Mum’s fresh-up.
I wanted to go home so badly. I was sick of shopping and annoyed with Mum for being so conventional. This fitting-in business was never for me. It actually made me feel more self-conscious, like there was something weird about me that everyone could see except me.
Keeping things orderly and separate may have made Mum feel more in control of her life, but me? It made me feel like someone with multiple personality disorder—make that multiple ethnicity disorder.
I knew where she was coming from, but it had nothing to do with me and what I wanted. Just because she hated going to high school in the U.S. didn’t mean I was going to. I definitely didn’t hate middle school. I kept telling her that things were different now from when she was a kid, but I don’t think she got it. I wasn’t even the only Asian kid in my Hebrew school. Well, Asian-looking—Adam Greenspan was adopted, so it’s not as if either of his parents is Asian. And nobody gives him a hard time, not even his best friend, Ryan Berger, who’s not exactly the most thoughtful person on the planet.
Anyway, this wasn’t the “time” or the “place” for a real argument, so I tried to sit quietly and not pick a fight. But Shanette was taking forever with the eye shadow, showing Mum how to “accentuate” the crease in her eyelid. I didn’t know that was supposed to be a good thing.
“Sit still, Tara,” Mum said when I accidentally kicked Shanette, causing her to goof up Mum’s left eye.
“Sorry,” I said. “Restless leg.”
Shanette wiped off the eye shadow and started again. I stifled a groan. I needed to get away from Mum for a few minutes.
“Can I go downstairs and get a shake at the Cellar? Please?”
“You’ll ruin your lunch,” Mum said.
“But I’m hungry now.” I put some extra whine into it, knowing it would irritate her into saying yes. “Please?”
Mum sighed. “Take money from my wallet. But I want you back here in five minutes. You hear me, Tara? Five.”
“Okay!” I called over my shoulder. I was already past the accessories counter. I headed downstairs to the Cellar via Small Leather Goods. To make myself feel better, I rode the escalator backward.
While I was waiting in line at the ice cream counter, someone tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned around. Of all people, it was Ryan Berger and his permanent sidekick, Adam Greenspan. As if I had conjured them up just by thinking about them five minutes earlier. That was a disturbing thought.
“Oh. My. Gawd! Tara Feinstein,
” Ryan said. He stuck out his hip and pointed at me, imitating some gum-chewing airheads in our grade. “Random!”
“What are you doing here?” I asked, eyeing them both with suspicion.
“Getting ice cream, same as you,” Ryan said.
I thought about what Ben-o had said on Wednesday, about Ryan Berger having a “thing” for me, which was totally gross. But it was true that everywhere I went, there he was. Random, my butt.
“At Macy’s, I mean. Are you following me?”
“Nice ego,” Ryan said, holding up a shopping bag. “Shirt and tie. For my bar mitzvah.”
“Without your mom?”
“She’s here. Upstairs, I mean. In No-Man’s Land.”
“Oh.” I nodded. “Lingerie.” The very thought made me itchy again.
“Yup.”
The line started to move forward. “Well, see ya,” I said, turning my back to him. A moment later, he tapped my shoulder again. “What do you want, Ryan?”
“Can we cut in? Behind you?”
I couldn’t believe the chutzpah. Ryan Berger and I may have been partners in Robotics, but that didn’t make us friends. Then we “randomly” run into each other at Macy’s and he thinks he can chat-cut? No way.
“No way,” I said.
“Come on,” he insisted. “We’ll reverse-cut.”
“That’s between you and the people behind me,” I said. But behind me was a mom with four little kids who were all over the place, and she said she didn’t mind if my “little friends” wanted to join me. Blech. I kept my back to Ryan and Adam and pretended to be super-interested in the menu painted on the wall above the counter, even though I knew exactly what I was going to have. Vanilla shake, one pump of chocolate syrup. Same as always.
Ryan tapped me a third time, which was starting to get on my nerves. “Can Adam borrow a dollar? He’s a little short.” He practically fell over, he was laughing so hard at his own joke. Adam stood there grinning like an idiot, not at all insulted by the joke about his height. I wonder why he takes it.
One time in fifth grade, Ryan called me a Hin-Jew, which was totally ignorant, because how would he even know if my Indian family was Hindu or not? There are like a thousand different religions in India, even Judaism. When I told my dad, he just laughed and said that was a good one, but he didn’t hear it the way Ryan had said it. Daddy said you have to have a sense of humor about things or you end up holding grudges your whole life, like Gran. And Mum, I thought, but he didn’t say that.
Anyway, I lent Adam the dollar, but I doubted I’d ever see it again.
“Why do you keep scratching under your arm?” asked Ryan.
I didn’t say, “BECAUSE MY STUPID BRA ITCHES!” Instead, I gave him a murderous look, and he backed off. Then it was my turn to order. Ryan and Adam walked up to the counter with me.
“Together or separate?” the ice cream lady asked.
“Separate!” I barked.
Adam was served first, and his ice cream cone was already starting to melt by the time I got my shake.
“You better not drip on my new stuff,” said Ryan, shifting the shopping bag away from Adam. “My mom’ll have a cow.”
“You should see the bow tie his mom made him get.” Adam snorted. “It’s really dorky.”
“No, it’s not,” said Ryan. “It’s cool—for a tie, I mean. Wanna see, Tara?”
“Not particularly,” I said, slurping my shake.
Ryan shrugged. “I guess you’ll see it at my bar mitzvah, then.”
“I will?” That was a surprise. “I didn’t think I was invited.”
“Of course you are. My mom said I have to invite everyone.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I would have invited you anyway,” he said. “But not Sheila Rosenberg, probably.”
“Please,” I said, holding up my hand. “Don’t put Sheila Rosenberg and me in the same sentence.”
“Just let her tell me I’m not Jewish,” Adam declared, recalling our fight. “I’ll punch her in the nose.”
It’s interesting, when you think about it. Here was this Korean-born Jewish kid named Adam Greenspan. Yet his best friend—the same jerk who called me a Hin-Jew in fifth grade—didn’t even seem to find anything remarkable about him, other than his height. He would never call Adam a name like that, even though Adam probably wouldn’t care.
“She’s bigger than you,” I reminded Adam.
“I can take her.”
“Go for the hair,” I advised.
Ryan hooted. “See ya tomorrow, T,” he said.
“See ya, T,” Adam echoed.
“Yeah.”
Did Ryan Berger really just invite me to his bar mitzvah? Well, that was weird.
ran was there when we came home from Macy’s, empty-handed. She had let herself in while we were out. Walking is her favorite exercise, and she only lives about fifteen blocks away, so she almost always makes a “pit stop” at our place.
She was sitting at the kitchen table playing solitaire. Mum’s lip curled in irritation.
“Ruthie,” she said, smiling tightly. “Make yourself at home.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” said Gran evenly, shuffling the deck.
“Is Joshua home?”
“Haven’t seen him,” said Gran. “I used my own key.”
“Of course you did,” Mum muttered, sucking her teeth.
Mum and Gran don’t have the warmest relationship. A really long time ago, before Mum and Daddy were even married, Mum called Gran a yenta—a busybody—right to her face. She wasn’t trying to insult her—she didn’t even know what it meant. She had heard Daddy call Gran that behind her back and thought it was Gran’s nickname or some kind of term of endearment, like bubeleh or something. Gran never forgave her for it, even though Daddy’s the one she should have been mad at.
Gran had really wanted Daddy to marry a “nice Jewish girl.” Mum’s converting to Judaism should have made her happy, but, truthfully, nothing Mum does makes Gran happy. Gran is a champion grudge holder. It’s one of the few things they have in common.
Mum shut herself in her office. I went into my room and brought out the sari to show Gran, getting it out of the special cedar box Meena Auntie had given me for safekeeping.
The sari was dark pink, black, white, and a deep red Mum called crimson. It also had real gold embroidery and a lime green border—a combination you’d never think of, but it worked somehow. Mum said it was too sophisticated for me at my age, but I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world.
Sometimes Rebecca and I would take it out of the box and put on an old Indian CD and spin around and around in it, like a starlet in some Bollywood dance number. I always folded it back carefully when we were done, though. I knew how to take care of nice things.
“Fancy-schmancy,” Gran said, pushing out her lower lip and nodding her approval. Gran loves anything with a lot of bling to it. “And look at those colors—can you believe it? Leave it to the goyim to come up with something like that. Is that what your mother’s wearing to your bas mitzvah?”
“Why does everyone assume I’m having one?”
“A what—a bas mitzvah? What are you talking about? Of course you’re having one.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. It takes a simcha—a happy event—to bring the whole family together. How else can I get my no-goodnik older son and that wife of his to visit me?”
In point of fact, Gran didn’t care that much about Uncle Robert and Aunt Charlotte, but she misses her grandsons, my cousins Avi and Jonathan. They live in Cincinnati. We don’t see them very often, mostly because Aunt Charlotte is terrified of New York City.
Anyway, she was right—they’d definitely come to my bat mitzvah, even though Charlotte recently told Gran she was surprised Mum and Daddy were raising me in the “Jewish tradition.” Whatever that meant.
“What tradition should they raise her in? Buddhism?” Gran had snapped.
“Oh, is that what Ri
ta practices?” Charlotte reportedly asked. Gran wouldn’t tell me how she answered that, except to tell me that Charlotte’s got a screw loose.
“Why is being Buddhist any screwier than being Jewish?” I asked her.
“Don’t talk crazy,” Gran said. “And don’t tell your mother, okay? I got enough tsuris—aggravation.”
“Why don’t you have a bat mitzvah, Gran?” I asked her now.
“Me? Don’t talk crazy. Who wants to see an alter kocker make a fool of herself?”
“I might enjoy that,” I teased. Alter kocker means, basically, “old fart.”
Gran shook her fist at me. “You’re a lousy kid, you know that?”
“So I’ve been told.” I started to fold the sari and put it back in its cedar box.
“Since when does your mother wear a sari anymore?”
“Not Mum,” I said. “I was thinking I’d wear it, Gran.”
“You?” Gran said. “You’re flat as a matzoh. You couldn’t hold it up with suspenders.”
“Look who’s talking,” I retorted, stopping to rest my elbow on her puffy white hair. Gran is about four feet tall with her Shabbos shoes on, and bent over like a question mark. Which is totally appropriate, because she’s the most inquisitive person I know.
“Fresh! We’re not talking about me. Get off. I just had my hair done.”
“When?” I asked, feigning innocence.
“Two days ago!”
“Two days!” I teased. “You haven’t washed your hair in two days?”
“I get my hair done once a week, and you know it,” she said, fluffing up the spot where my elbow had penetrated the crunchy helmet of hair spray. “What are you kratsn—scratching at?”
My Basmati Bat Mitzvah Page 5
