“You must love her, dude, to wear that mangy thing,” Salman commented.
“You wish you had this.”
“Vijay’s your brother?” Aisha asked, with a mix of revulsion and admiration.
“Cousin,” I said. “It’s a Punjabi thing.”
Gran served herself a bowl of soup.
“Joshua,” I heard her say, “there’s something wrong with the soup.”
“Ma—there’s nothing wrong with your matzoh ball soup.”
“Taste this,” she said, putting a spoonful into his mouth.
“Ma—”
“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
“—there’s never anything wrong—” Just then, Daddy started to cough, and he couldn’t stop.
“What is it, son? Speak to me. Are you choking?”
Daddy held up one finger while he tried to catch his breath.
“Green chilies,” he said, wheezing. “I swallowed one.”
“Chilies? What are you, meshugge?” Gran yelled, but then she turned to Meena Auntie sharply. Auntie looked around desperately, but no one was going to save her. Aisha hid behind her mother.
“I didn’t do anything, Ruthie-jee,” Meena Auntie lied.
“Yes, she did,” Vijay said. “I saw her.”
“Meena!” said Mum. “How could you?”
Aravind Uncle ladled some soup into a bowl, tasted it, and delivered his ruling: “This soup has been souped up,” he said.
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then an explosion of laughter—no one remembered hearing Uncle’s voice before, and here he was cracking a joke. He lapsed back into silence, smiling serenely, while we all laughed.
Only Gran was not amused.
“Meshuggeners,” she muttered.
“Poor Joshua,” Meena Auntie whispered to Mrs. Khan. “He can’t take the strong spices. Very delicate stomach he has.”
Daddy left the room in a huff. I caught Mum’s eye and we both giggled.
I wandered over to the fireplace and stood watching this strange masala that was my life. I couldn’t help smiling. My desi mishpacha, I thought—my crazy Indian Jewish family—was a lot like Gran’s souped-up matzoh ball soup. Traditional and spicy at the same time. Who else could say that?
I thought again of Nanaji, how much he would have approved of Auntie’s mixed-up little Punjabi-Bengali-American-Hindu-Muslim-Jewish Diwali potluck. And then I knew—it was going to be okay. More than okay. I could be Indian American and Jewish American all at the same time. I could have my bat mitzvah and still honor Nani and Nanaji. I was a spiritual person, like Nanaji. I was just me, and there was nothing weird about that. Nothing at all.
fter Ryan Berger’s bar mitzvah ceremony, Mr. Khan drove Aisha, Rebecca, Ben-o, and me to the reception, which was at a fancy catering hall on the far Upper West Side.
Ryan had changed out of his suit but was still wearing the fancy French-cuffed shirt and dorky red-and-white polka-dot bow tie from the morning—the ones he’d gotten at Macy’s that time we ran into each other. His thick mat of brown hair was plastered down with something hard like varnish.
“You look fancy,” Aisha said to him on the receiving line.
“Thanks,” said Ryan, tugging at his collar. “The tie’s a little tight. I tied it myself.”
I have to admit, I was actually a little impressed by that.
There were tons of people there, because Ryan had invited everyone from both Hebrew school classes, plus our homeroom and the entire Robotics Club. Surprisingly, after that thing in the park, he’d even invited Ben-o, who I think showed up just for me. Or maybe Jenna Alberts.
Sheila was there, too, even though she hadn’t invited Ryan to hers. Rebecca still wasn’t talking to her, which was awkward. I was seated next to Missy Abrams, but Rebecca made her switch seats so we could sit together and to put some space between herself and Sheila. Ben-o sat across the table from me, with Adam.
I was happy Ben-o was there. I’d been invited to so many bar mitzvahs that most of my Saturdays were booked. A couple of times recently, I’d fallen asleep afterward and missed movie night. And I’d never made it up to him for missing his chess thing. Although he had taken Jenna, so—You’re welcome.
“You were right about Ryan’s tie,” I told Adam.
“Dorky, right?”
“Very. But cool, too.”
Ben-o was listening. “What are you guys talking about?” he asked.
“Ryan’s tie. I ran into him at Macy’s the day he got it.”
“You were at Macy’s?”
“With Mum. Shopping for dumb dresses.” I crossed my eyes.
“You never mentioned you ran into Berger.”
“I was there, too,” Adam chimed in.
“So … what? Did you help him pick out his Pee-wee Herman tie?”
“Don’t be stupid,” I said. “We just had ice cream.”
Ben-o stared at me silently.
We all danced while the main-course dishes were being cleared away. After a couple of fast songs, the deejay switched to a slow one so the old people could dance. Some kids left the floor, but Ben-o put out his hand.
“May I have this dance?”
I smiled. Friends again. Ben-o put his hands on my back, and I put mine on his shoulders, and we started swaying awkwardly.
After only a minute, Ryan tapped Ben-o on the shoulder.
“Can I cut in?” he asked. For a second, I thought he meant like cutting in line, and I was confused. Then I realized he wanted to dance with me, too.
“No way,” Ben-o said.
“Come on,” he insisted. “It’s my bar mitzvah.”
Ben-o couldn’t say no to that. Not that anyone had asked me.
Ryan was a way better dancer than Ben-o. We kept colliding, but truthfully it was mostly my fault, because I kept forgetting I had to step back when he stepped forward and vice versa.
“You’re supposed to let me lead,” he said, stepping on my feet.
“Ow,” I said.
I stared over his shoulder at Ben-o, who was looking down at the floor and scuffing his foot like a bull about to charge. I kept hoping he would look up and see that this wasn’t my idea. But then I saw Jenna Alberts tap him on the shoulder and whisper something in his ear. His backup, I thought bitterly. Maybe he really did like her better and had just been using me for target practice.
But then Jenna gave him a little shove back onto the dance floor.
Without warning, Ryan tried to twirl me, and I got tangled up in my own feet.
“You could have given me a heads-up,” I complained.
Ben-o walked up to us slowly, turning around once or twice to look at Jenna, who waved him forward. He tapped Ryan’s shoulder.
“I’m cutting back in,” he said.
“Why don’t we ask Tara who she wants to dance with?” Ryan said, gripping my arm.
Well, it’s about time someone asked me, I thought.
I bit my lip. “I want to dance with Ben-o.”
Ryan looked surprised, but he let go of my arm and stepped away. Ben-o slid in to take his place. Before things could get any more awkward, Jenna saved the day by running up and asking Ryan to dance.
“Careful, Benny,” he said in a loud whisper. “She’s a toe breaker.”
Jenna did an expert dance move that landed them about ten feet away. Ben-o and I were alone.
So I had been wrong about them—Jenna and Ben-o. That should have been a relief. But instead I felt another stab of envy at the way she had taken charge, known exactly what to do. Like a best friend should.
Also, I felt a little bad for Ryan. After all, it was his bar mitzvah. And it was he, not Ben-o, who had acknowledged it was my choice—to dance or not dance with whoever I wanted to. Yet I hadn’t chosen him.
Ben-o was really a terrible dancer. Worse than me, even. We were holding hands in an arm-wrestling pose and were smooshed up too close together. I didn’t know where to look. I guessed he was having the same p
roblem, because he was staring over my shoulder in the direction of the dessert table, so I said, just to break the tension, “Are you hungry?”
“What?” he said, sounding confused. “I’m dancing. We’re dancing.”
“Oh,” I said. “I saw you looking at the desserts and I thought …” I started sweating then, because I knew I was just babbling, saying anything that popped into my head, and I was desperate to shut up. Ben-o’s ears were turning an alarming color, and his eyes were willing me to be quiet, but I rambled on. “Are you thirsty? I mean, I’m not thirsty. I mean, I like dancing with you, and I’m not asking you to stop or anything …”
Blah blah blah blah blah. So I guess Ben-o did the one thing he could think of to make me stop talking. He kissed me. A long, drawn-out, mouth-to-mouth kind of kiss, holding my face in both of his hands. That shut me up, all right. But for some reason, I just wanted to cry, right then, just put my head on his shoulder and weep. I didn’t even know why. It wasn’t that I was unhappy—the opposite. Only not exactly happy, but—it was hard to describe. Relieved. Only not relieved, but maybe a little embarrassed. Because I hadn’t seen it coming. It was like I was someone else, or watching Ben-o kiss someone else—Jenna Alberts, for example. Like I wasn’t really there. And all these thoughts felt so STUPID that I suddenly panicked, as if I had said them out loud. Which was impossible, of course, because, like I said, BEN-O WAS KISSING ME. I pulled away to take a deep breath that felt like a gasp and ran outside.
I had on the same gray dress I’d worn to Sheila Rosenberg’s bat mitzvah, only I hadn’t worn tights this time. It was freezing cold, and I didn’t know what I was doing out there. I started to cry for real.
Ben-o came outside then. He didn’t say a word, just took off his suit jacket and put it around my shoulders, patting my back like the old Ben-o, the one who hadn’t been acting weird lately, who hadn’t confessed to Rebecca that he had a crush on me, who hadn’t shaved his head just because he thought I wanted him to. Who hadn’t just kissed me on the dance floor at Ryan Berger’s bar mitzvah. When we went back inside, the deejay was playing a normal song, so Rebecca grabbed my hand and the three of us danced together, and then the moment was over. Like it had never even happened.
This was Ben-o. And me. Best friends since forever. And now—what? He was dancing loosely and avoiding my eyes, which gave me a chance to really look at him, trying to imagine he was someone new, someone who didn’t live three floors down, who I hadn’t known forever. After all, he was one of the cutest boys in our grade. I had been surprised when Jenna said it last year, but now I looked at him—and it was true. Which wasn’t the main point, of course, but still.
When Rebecca’s dad came to pick her up, I told Ben-o I was going with them, just so I didn’t have to walk home with him. But I didn’t go with them either. I felt like taking a long walk home in the cold. By myself.
Why was I so upset? I knew how he felt about me, but I’d convinced myself he was over it. Over me. That he was interested in Jenna Alberts. It was clear now he was telling her things. As a friend. About us—him and me. That made me insanely jealous.
Why couldn’t he just come out and tell me what he felt? Who was Jenna Alberts to get up in between us? Since when did we need someone else?
Were they best friends now? And if I didn’t want to be his girlfriend, if I just wanted us to be BFFs like always—was that position now filled?
It wasn’t too long ago that I’d almost lost Rebecca—I’d taken her for granted, and she went and found herself another best friend. That should have woken me up, but it hadn’t. Probably I was a very terrible person. Because I had also taken for granted that Ben-o and I would always be friends. Nothing more, nothing less.
I wasn’t sure if I could handle such a big change. Almost losing Rebecca made me not want to take chances with Ben-o either. Was it possible to be best friends and boyfriend-girlfriend at the same time? Was that what I wanted? I hadn’t been willing to think of him in that way before. Now I couldn’t stop.
considered faking a headache to get out of Hebrew school on Sunday morning, if only to avoid running into Ben-o downstairs. Then I felt guilty for even thinking that way. Besides, skipping Hebrew school so close to my own bat mitzvah seemed like a bad idea.
Luckily, Ryan Berger took the day off because of his bar mitzvah, so no one gave me a hard time about THE KISS—which I couldn’t help thinking about in CAPITAL LETTERS and imagining everyone was gossiping about. I had blown it, big-time.
I invited Sheila to sit next to me in class, on my right. Rebecca sat to my left, pretending to be absorbed in the lesson sheet. Sheila gazed at her mournfully. Since I couldn’t concentrate on the lesson and I didn’t want to dwell on what had happened with Ben-o, I occupied myself by thinking about my ex-sari bat mitzvah dress, which Gran was bringing over later.
When I reached home, though, Meena Auntie and Vijay were there. I looked at Mum in blank horror. We had to get rid of Meena Auntie, fast, or somehow get word to Gran. Almost immediately, we heard Gran’s key in the lock. It was too late.
“Ruthie-jee!” sang Meena Auntie.
“Meen-a-la,” Gran replied. “Tara, wait till you see this.” She reached into her enormous purse. Mum’s eyes grew wide with terror. Gran drew out a parcel wrapped in tissue paper and began to unwrap it.
“Not now, Gran,” I said, tilting my head toward Meena Auntie in what I hoped was a meaningful way.
“Isn’t that—” Meena Auntie sputtered.
“You’d hardly recognize it!” Gran said, shaking out the folds. “Isn’t it something? Tara, go try it on.”
Vijay started laughing like an idiot and pointing, slapping his knee. “Tara’s in truh-uh-uh-uh-uh-ble, bah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Meena Auntie slapped him with her dupatta, but he only laughed harder. Then she turned to Mum. “You have allowed this—this desecration?”
“Meena, let me explain—” Mum began.
“Explain? How you have destroyed Daadiji’s only good thing?”
“Meena—please. It was an accident.”
“You let that child run wild.”
That was a little harsh.
Mum stiffened. “Enough!” she barked. “I am the mother, nahi? Her legal guardian. Not you.” That finally shut Auntie up for a minute. I didn’t want to stay for the rest of their fight, so I went to my room to try on the dress.
Mum and Auntie were still bickering when I came back wearing the sari dress. They turned to look at me.
“Oh, my goodness,” Meena Auntie gasped. “It—it’s beautiful!”
Vijay sniffed, wiping phony tears from his eyes.
“What did I tell you?” Gran crowed. “Good as new!”
“Not exactly,” said Meena.
“What do you mean, not exactly?” Gran said. “Marvin did a beautiful job. You said so yourself.”
Mum nodded vigorously. “I couldn’t agree more. He did a lovely job. She’ll get more use out of the dress than a sari.”
“Exactly!” Gran agreed.
Meena Auntie showed the flat palm of her hand, just as Nani used to. “That does not change any of the facts.”
I walked up and put my arms around her waist, which is something I never do.
“I’m really, really sorry, Auntie,” I said into her neck. “This is all my fault.” I explained how much I had wanted to wear the sari to my bat mitzvah. I told her how I planned to mention it in my speech, about my great-grandparents fleeing with their small children in that moment when the entire world must have felt upside down. That I would give anything not to have damaged it.
“Burned it,” Vijay coughed into his hand. I was pretty sure no one else heard him.
“I wonder if it’s too late to find a new deejay,” I said over my shoulder. He stopped laughing.
“No fair, cuz!” he cried. “I kept your secret.”
“You knew about this?” Meena Auntie asked, turning on him. Vijay cringed.
“I wanted to tell you my
self, Auntie,” I said.
Meena Auntie nodded. I could see she was still angry, but she had decided to blame it on Mum instead of me, just as I’d predicted. “Thank you, Tara,” she said. “I’m glad someone in this family has respect for her elders.”
Mum sucked her teeth but didn’t say anything.
“All’s well that ends well,” Gran cried, clapping her hands. “Now, that hem is still a little long for you, Tara. Let me get my sewing things.” She pulled out a pincushion and tailor’s chalk from her enormous purse. I was surprised she didn’t have a sewing machine in there, too. “And what was Marvin thinking here?” she said, grabbing a fistful of extra material around my chest. “I’ll have to take that in myself.” This was too much for Vijay, and he left the room.
“Stay still. Raise your left arm,” Gran said. “Other left.”
en-o wasn’t in the lobby when I came downstairs for school on Monday.
“He left ten minutes ago,” Sal said. “He said to tell you he’s got chess practice.”
That was a lie, of course. The tournament had been in October, and the next one wasn’t until the spring.
“Who?” I asked, pretending not to know.
“Who?” Sal echoed. “Your boyfriend, that’s who!”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I called over my shoulder as I left.
As I was crossing the street, I heard someone calling, “Tara, wait up!” It was Sheila Rosenberg.
“Guess what?” she said, rolling her eyes. “My parents are letting me redecorate my room—no more purple. It’s supposed to make me feel ‘empowered.’”
“That’s cool,” I said. “I’d like to feel more empowered. Think you can have your mom talk to my mom?”
“Not a chance.” Sheila giggled.
“I’d paint it black if I were you. Just to keep them on their toes.”
“Great idea. Maybe I’ll get one of those velvet paintings that glow under black lights.”
“Careful,” I said. “Black lights are actually purple. Don’t want to give them the wrong message.”
My Basmati Bat Mitzvah Page 15
