The Matzo Ball Heiress

by Laurie Gwen Shapiro

  “The perforations must run deeper on the megasheets,” I answer in Jared’s direction. “I never even thought about that.” Steve motions for me to look back at him and away from Jared.

  Now I’m certain that Jared is Jewish, or in the tribe, as Jake likes to say. Not that I factor in religion when I want to hook up with an attractive guy. I’d put available and funny over Jewish any day. I’m agnostic to the bone, but oddly, I do daydream about landing myself a nice Jewish hipster. He’s someone who knows all the latest foreign flicks but who can also guide me through the parts of my religion I don’t have the foggiest idea about. I can never see my fantasy man’s face, but he’s hugging me in public after our first son’s bris and we’re feasting on potato salad and corned beef with his parents, who are alternating bites of celebratory deli with beams of approval at their newest “daughter,” and their newly circumcised grandson. Where this embarrassing reverie comes from mystifies me. But I have it a lot, as much as some people fantasize about a thousand bucks on a horse with impossible odds.

  Jared isn’t done. “You know that matzo joke about an aerospace engineer who—well, that joke is really long.”

  “Stop the camera,” Steve says in exasperation. “Go ahead, Jared, you obviously want to tell it. We’ll pick up after you’re finished.”

  “You sure?” Jared asks sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself.”

  “Yes. Tell us,” Steve says.

  “It’s long. I shouldn’t have interrupted.”

  “Go ahead already.”

  “Well, my uncle tells it the best, but I’ll give it a go.”

  “Begin the damn matzo joke already, for Christ’s sakes,” Steve demands, although it’s obvious from his face that he’s not really mad, and that these two guys have a friendship outside of work.

  “This guy Avrum is a gifted Israeli aeronautical engineer who launches a company in Tel Aviv to build jets. Everything looks terrific on paper, but when he has a pilot test the new jet, disaster strikes. The wings can’t take the strain, and they break clean off the fuselage.”

  “So the pilot is dead?” Tonia interrupts. “He’s responsible for his death?”

  “No, no, the test pilot parachutes to safety. Avrum is shattered. His company redesigns the jet, but the same thing happens—the wings break off again. Suicidal, the engineer goes to his synagogue to pray. His rabbi asks him what the matter is. After hearing the sob story, the rabbi tells him, ‘Avrum, all you have to do is drill a row of holes directly above and below where the wing meets the fuselage. If you do this, I absolutely guarantee the wings won’t fall off.’ The engineer mumbles thanks to the rabbi for his advice. But the more he thinks about it, the more Avrum realizes he had nothing to lose. Maybe the rabbi had some holy insight. On the next design of the jet, they drill a row of holes directly above and below where the wings meet the fuselage. The next test flight goes great! Avrum tells his rabbi, ‘Rabbi, how did you know that drilling the holes would prevent the wings from falling off?’ The rabbi says, ‘I’m an old man. I’ve lived for many, many years and I’ve celebrated Passover many, many times. And in all those years, not once—not once—has matzo broken on the perforation!’”

  Steve and I snort in unison. Steve hits an imaginary boom, boom, cha drumroll.

  “Worth stopping for?” Jared asks.

  “No,” Steve says with a smile.

  “Oh c’mon, Steve, it’s a classic.”

  “When Shecky Green told the joke in the Catskills, it was a classic,” Steve says. “When you tell it, it’s just sad.”

  Jared takes the put-down with a good-natured laugh.

  “I don’t get it,” Tonia says.

  “Oy,” Jared says with an old-Jewish-man accent. “No matter how you try, matzos never break on the perforations. So the wing could never break off if it has a stippled matzo pattern.”

  There’s a touch of confusion still in Tonia’s forehead. “Oh, okay.”

  “We ready to continue?” Steve’s tone is impatient.

  I smile at Jared and he winks at me.

  Since breaking it off with Daniel I have spent the last year in the spinster desert; that is except for one laughable date with a guy whose real face and personality didn’t match his online profile, a sparkling profile that certainly didn’t say anything about his halitosis. After a very long, supposedly ironic hour together at the new Manhattan branch of Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, this sad sack decided that he had finally found his soul mate, the one who would love to hear the many, many adventures of his cat named Mama over an “ironic” blue-plate special at the Times Square Howard Johnson’s.

  I feel a bit silly getting such a charge from an interview. Flirtation must be all in a day’s work for Steve and Jared. I can only imagine the number of beautiful women these handsome men meet behind the scenes at New York’s trendiest restaurants. Even so, now I have two handsome guys with clean breath winking at me. Both intellectually involved with their careers and charismatic.

  “And this monstrosity over here is the packaging machine,” I say quickly. Am I actually blushing? “Working this thing is probably the worst job in the factory because it’s a repetitive hell. Not to mention that the person who oversees the machine has to have very fast hands.”

  “Does that person know it’s the worst job?” Steve asks.

  “Hopefully, Braulio won’t watch the Food Channel special or he may find out it is.”

  Braulio, a short Dominican with a considerable beer gut, a constant smile and a never-ending repertoire of Sinatra songs, returns from a bathroom break and gives me a bear hug. I haven’t seen him since last high season. His Yankees shirt smells like a mix of flour and Tide that wasn’t completely rinsed out. “You want to be on TV, Braulio?” I ask.

  “We’re from the Food Channel and want to see what you do,” Steve chimes in.

  Braulio nods enthusiastically. He flicks a switch and demonstrates how fast the packages move on the conveyor. “Like Lucy, no?”

  “Lucy?” Steve says.

  This time Tonia knows the reference. “I Love Lucy,” she whispers toward Steve. “The chocolate-conveyor episode, when everything got out of control—”

  “Oh right!” Steve says.

  When we start to move on, Braulio happily sings us off with a bit of Frank Sinatra’s “I Got Plenty of Nothing.”

  “See,” I whisper to the camera. “I don’t think he knows it’s the worst job.”

  “I’d say the next stop for this baby is the Smithsonian,” Steve says when we’re standing over an aging machine with a queer array of gadgetry. “What is it?”

  “I have to admit even I don’t know exactly what this one does. It’s old and it’s been here for eternity. I’ll have to ask my cousin and get back to you on that. But I can tell you that whatever it is, it works. Everything here works because of our in-house mechanic who likes to do things his way. The factory will buy him any tools and parts he wants but he’d rather use what works best. Aesthetics be damned. We couldn’t find the right tubing to match an old machine and he brought in a garden hose that fit perfectly. Our matzo-cooling fan broke and we weren’t going to get a fan for a week from the supply company, so he brought in his house fan. He uses a ski pole to get gears moving again. If he doesn’t want to weld, he uses a clamp. Big on duct tape too.”

  Steve is clearly amused. “What’s that machine over there?” he prods.

  “That’s our polypropylene machine. It’s our newest machine, from the fifties.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “To put the plastic wrap over the boxes of matzo. Predates shrink-wrap.”

  “Where do you get a polypropylene matzo machine?”

  “You don’t. We adapted a basic model for our needs. You could use it to package baseball cards if you set it up right.”

  Steve gives me a broad smile as we turn the corner: “Our editor will love you. Adorable. You’re going to get fan mail, mark my words.”

  “Especiall
y for those eyes,” Jared says from behind the camera.

  I am doing an interview, but now the attention is bordering on embarrassing. It’s not as if I’m wearing some miracle musk guaranteed to draw them in, this is plain old me we’re talking about!

  “Your eyes are incredible,” Steve says.

  I’ll concede that my eyes are my best feature by a mile. “It’s the recessive Greenblotz Blue that shows up once or twice every seventy-five years. Apparently old Izzy had them.”

  “Sounds like a new lipstick color,” Jared cracks.

  I grin and pan for Jared’s viewfinder: “Greenblotz Blue. New from Max Factor.”

  We come upon the huge and weighty silver-colored fire doors. “These doors are required by law.” I grunt and push the one on the right side open. “We’re near the matzo ovens again. This is the most likely place a fire would start, and the heavy fire doors would isolate the flames.”

  Antique-looking gears are attached to each door, rusting hardware which I hope the camera doesn’t focus in on. You’re supposed to have regulation weights, but instead, our thrifty mechanic dredged these heavy gears up from the basement.

  I curse to myself. I told Jake the last time I saw these doors that you can’t screw with the fire department. If someone from the New York Fire Department is watching the Food Channel and sees these rusty gears, we’ll get called on a violation. Jake knows the local hook and ladder isn’t too crazy about our factory to begin with. After September 11 and several Code Orange terrorist scares, they’ve had bigger fish to fry, but now things are returning to normal in New York and we could get closed down on a moment’s notice if the fire department resumes spot-checking Manhattan factories.

  “You ever have a fire here?” Steve asks.

  “Three years ago a matzo caught fire and the smoke was streaming out the windows. A science-fiction writer who lives in a walk-up across the street called 911, and in a minute ten guys from the fire department burst in wanting to ax open the oven. But Jake knew that if the burning matzo could be kept in the seventy-two-foot oven, it was safe. In an oven that big, a burning sheet of matzo is likely to be contained. He wouldn’t let them hack Izzy’s oven, so he was arrested for obstruction of the fire department.” I have second thoughts about the information I’ve just let loose. “Steve, maybe you better not let that on TV either.”

  “You mean about how long the ovens are? Is that a trade secret?”

  “No, about Jake’s arrest.”

  “I’ll get that edited out if you want. We’ll have more than enough for the Izzy Greenblotz segment. Let’s get the last of it to be sure.”

  We continue the tour for another half hour, continuing to the machine that heats wax paper and seals it on the boxes with no glue. I end up showing them some of our collected mementos from the early years of the factory, including Izzy’s penny notebook of ideas.

  Steve says, “You’re a wealth of knowledge, chickie.”

  “To paraphrase my father, how badly can you screw up flour and water?” Okay, I fucking love how Steve called me chickie so casually. A slick style that’s working on me big-time.

  “Is your father still active in the business?”

  “Uh, no, not really.”

  “Oh, I forgot to ask. Do you have a slogan?”

  “We do. Buy Greenblotz—Because Family Is Everything.” I force those words out. How could my visitors know how humiliating that phrase is to say and what a joke it is, given our crumbled family connections.

  “Perfect. We’ll put that on air.” He starts undoing his mic. “I’ll say that in a voice-over. Where’s the best place to call you if we have to check our facts?”

  “I can give you my regular office number at my production company. And I’ll add my home number in case you can’t get me there.”

  “Super.”

  I hand him one of my business cards and scrawl my home number on the back.

  Steve opens his wallet and hands me his producer’s card from the Food Channel.

  “Can I have one too?” Jared says to me. Steve gives Jared an indecipherable look.

  “Sure,” I say, and Jared hands me his card that reads Jared S.—Camera and only lists his cell-phone number.

  Tonia does not ask for one, nor do I give her one. She packs away her equipment. “We’re so near Chinatown,” she says to Steve, loud enough so I can hear her. “Can we stop the van and get my sister some imported pimple tea?”

  Steve shrugs his shoulders. “I’ve seen your sister, she doesn’t have pimples.”

  Jared whispers in my ear, “That’s because she drinks the pimple tea.”

  Steve sees Jared leaning in close to my ear and ups the ante with a slightly lingering peck on my cheek on the way out. “You were awesome. I’ll call you about when this segment will air.”

  “Bye!” I call out libidinously. Which one to choose? Bachelor Number One or Bachelor Number Two?

  After they’ve packed up and gone, I remember Sukie and the dress I planned to buy at my Good Samaritan discount.

  I take the short stroll down the street and try to open the door to Upsy Daisy, but it’s unexpectedly locked. Sukie comes out from a back section cordoned off by a maroon velvet curtain. When she spots me she breaks into a big smile and lets me in.

  “Sorry,” she says. “Yogurt break. I packed up that polka-dot dress for you. The one from the window. Remember, you don’t pay a thing. If it doesn’t fit, bring it back for something else you like.”

  “No, no, I said I’d buy it from you at discount. Sukie, you can’t stay in business giving your merchandise away.”

  “I wasn’t sure if you meant it about buying it.”

  “Absolutely I meant it.” I can afford it, and I feel bad for these microshops. They have gushing plugs from the in-the-know shopping pages of Time Out and Paper, but I never see anyone shopping in them. Trust-fund vanities, I think, but then I remember who I am and feel guilty for passing judgment.

  “You’ve got a deal then. How was your meeting at the factory by the way?”

  “Fine. I led a production team from the Food Channel on a tour of the place. Actually it was more than fine. Two very cute guys on that crew.”

  “Send one my way. I just broke up with my boyfriend.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  “Congratulate me! He was seeing two other suckers ‘exclusively.’ I can’t even, like, think about him too long without getting nauseous. So, wait, how did you get to tour two hunks if you don’t work in the factory?”

  “My cousin would normally do the tour, but I step in for him from time to time. Jake’s over at City Hall, being toasted by the mayor.”

  “The mayor? Isn’t that a huge deal?”

  “It’s Passover season, which means Greenblotz season. We get serious attention this time of year.”

  “My last name is Cohen. My dad’s Jewish, but we never celebrated anything.”

  Cohen? With her Asian face and that “those people” comment Sukie had made about the factory, I didn’t see that coming.

  “My father met my mother when he was trekking,” she continues. “Mom’s from Tibet, and was raised Bön.”

  “Raised what?”

  “Bön. It’s a Tibetan religion.”

  “The first I’ve heard of it.”

  “No one in America has. And believe me, there aren’t too many Bön houses of worship in Sacramento. So we were raised in Sacramento like blank pages. I may be the only Tibetan Jew you ever meet!”

  “Probably! I thought Sukie was Japanese or something.”

  “No it’s an old nickname for Susan. I got it out of a baby book when I was fifteen and reinventing myself.”

  I grin and say, “I went the other way. Years ago my mother told me they were dithering on my name before I was born. Dad wanted Joan after Joan of Arc and Joan Crawford, and Mom wanted a prettier name, a bird name or a flower name. They flipped a coin—Mom won. But during the semester in ninth grade when all the jiggling bimbos on TV were
named Heather, I made my friends call me Joan.”

  Sukie laughs, and sighs. “Maybe it’s fate that we met. My mother thinks everything happens for a reason. I’ve been telling my family I’d like to know more about my Jewish side, and along comes a Greenblotz who can fill me in. Can you believe I’ve never been to a seder? Even Jesus got to go to a seder.” Her joke hits a chord with me. I’d like to be friends with Sukie Cohen, but I am sure she is foxing for a possible invite to a Greenblotz seder that doesn’t exist, so I quickly feign delight at an off-the-shoulder gold lamé eighties shirt.

  “You can try it on if you like.” She points to an Oriental screen with hand-painted butterflies, next to a vintage rack of seventies sunglasses with Polarized! tags still on them.

  When I emerge, Sukie claps silently. “Perfect on you.”

  “How much is it?” I ask.

  “Forty,” she says with a whiff of embarrassment that suggests she scooped it up at a vintage buying spree at a Salvation Army or Goodwill for two or three bucks.

  “I’ll take that as well.”

  She wraps the lamé shirt in white tissue paper and tucks it in with the dress. The shopping bag is matte white with a silk-screened logo—daisies woven into the words Upsy Daisy. She hands me a card with the same design.

  I’m about to put it in my Filofax, when I remember our first conversation. “Hey, when’s a good time for my cousin Jake to show you the factory? I really meant that.”

  “Cool! Mornings are best. No one shops in the Lower East Side in the mornings. My customers crawl out of bed at, like, noon maybe.”

  “Then I’ll give you a call sometime soon. I’m usually here several times a week this time of the year. Maybe I can even do it myself.”