Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan

by Paula Marantz Cohen

  “In one of those mock-Tudor developments or hacienda-style mini-mansions?” asked Carla.

  “Yes, with the two-story foyer and the Palladian windows,” laughed Margot. “But you know, suburbia gets to look better and better the older you get. You develop a sort of yen to make cupcakes for a kindergarten class and trade in the sports car for a Volvo.”

  “And there’s always the consolation of getting a Jaguar later on,” noted Carla. “When the kids are grown and we move down to Boca, Mark and I definitely plan to acquire one. My instincts tell me that we will.”

  “And what do your instincts tell you about me?” asked Margot.

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t really recommend Cherry Hill if you’re single, which at the moment you are—though somehow my crystal ball tells me that condition will be altered. Perhaps, if I might speculate, you’re thinking of altering it soon?”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Margot, reverting to her usual flip tone. “I was only pulling your leg.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  Two hours BEFORE THE BAT MITZVAH, JESSIE HAD TAKEN the curlers out of her hair and applied a generous amount of eyeliner and mascara.

  “You’re really putting on the ritz,” noted Mark. “Perhaps you have someone in mind to impress?”

  Jessie waved her hand coyly.

  Meanwhile Jeffrey had come downstairs in a straitjacket-like suit bought for him at one of the outlet stores that specialized in “formal boyswear,” an oxymoron if there ever was one. He looked extremely uncomfortable, though he perked up when everyone exclaimed at how handsome he looked. In no time, he had shoveled down most of the smoked turkey and three hard-boiled eggs, and had gotten a large mustard stain on his tie. Carla applied some spot remover and deposited him in front of the television with the express admonition that he not eat another thing before the ceremony.

  The phone rang. It was Susie Wilson.

  “Don’t tell me that Mr. O’Hare won’t wear the tux,” said Carla with exasperation, not waiting to hear what Susie had to say. “Tell him he has to; I won’t stand for it otherwise. He’s a fundamental part of this occasion and, even if he’s in a wheelchair, I consider him an usher and so he has to dress accordingly. And make sure that Pinsky remembers to zip his pants. You know he has a problem with that.”

  “It’s not about the tux,” said Susie quietly. Carla didn’t like the tone of her voice. “It’s Mr. O’Hare,” said Susie, after a moment’s pause. “He passed away this morning.”

  Carla took the phone away from her ear, then brought it back. “What?” she said.

  “Mr. O’Hare died this morning,” repeated Susie.

  “That’s impossible,” said Carla. “He couldn’t have.”

  “I’m afraid he did,” said Susie.

  “But he’s got to be at the bat mitzvah! He was looking forward to it. It’s important—that he have the experience.”

  “I think he got a pretty good idea of what the experience would be like.”

  “But you don’t understand,” cried Carla. “I wanted him to hear Stephanie chant her Torah portion—and see the flowers and the mashed-potato sundae bar. He could have eaten that.”

  “I know,” said Susie gently, “but sometimes things are better when they’re left to the imagination.” Her inclination to see the bright side was kicking in. “This way he’s taken his own idea of the occasion with him. It’s more—poetic, in a way. And he was eighty-nine, after all. He had a long run.”

  “Yes,” whispered Carla, trying to get her bearings. “Is there going to be a Mass?” She knew O’Hare was Catholic—she had seen him with a rosary and they had once talked about the consolation of belief. “I’m sure we go to the same place,” he had told Carla, “only the scenery is different, which makes a lot of sense when you think about it. God doesn’t want to go to the same goddamn play every night.” Carla had thought this was rather a profound way of looking at the idea of religious diversity.

  “Yes,” said Susie, “Mass will be on Monday morning. It’s at Our Lady of Good Counsel. I’ll pick you up.”

  “All right,” said Carla.

  “I know how you must feel, but this mustn’t spoil your celebration. I’ll be there and so will Mr. Pinsky—I’ll be sure to check his pants. O’Hare will be there too, in spirit.”

  “I know,” said Carla, wiping her eyes. “But I so wanted him to see the hors d’oeuvres stations.”

  “He’ll see them,” said Susie. “He’ll have the best seat in the house.”

  Chapter Forty-six

  After Carla HAD REDONE HER MAKEUP AND PUT ON THE overpriced mauve silk suit of the conventional mother-of-the-bar-mitzvah-child variety, she went to check on Stephanie. She knocked softly on her daughter’s door. The Bloomingdale’s dress—especially the sleeves—flattered Stephanie’s slim, adolescent frame. Margot had come by early to do her niece’s makeup, and had managed to convince her that a light touch would show her hair and dress to best advantage. What it really highlighted, of course, was Stephanie’s face—a face that was open and fresh, with nothing yet to harden or disappoint it.

  “You look beautiful,” said Carla.

  “So do you,” said Stephanie, and they hugged, taking care not smear each other’s lipstick.

  After leaving Stephanie, Carla looked in on Jessie, who was sitting quietly in her new blue dress (very much like her old blue dress) in the armchair in her room. “Are you all ready, Mom?” she asked.

  “More than ready,” said Jessie.

  “You look happy.”

  “I am, dear. It’s not just meeting Saul again, though I must say that’s given me a lift. It’s everything that’s happened in the last few months. It’s been—exciting. And it’s helped me see what a blessing my life has always been. Full of joy and surprises—and to still have surprises, at my age, that’s saying something.”

  “It is,” agreed Carla.

  “And today is Stephanie’s bat mitzvah. What naches for our family. I only wish your father could be here to see it. He would have been so proud.”

  Finally, Carla went into their bedroom to see how Mark was doing. He had finally broken down and purchased a tuxedo. His new career in the media spotlight made the acquisition of this garment a necessity, since he was now being invited to black-tie events on a regular basis. Yet the outfit was still a novelty, and he was struggling with the studs for the shirt, muttering under his breath that studs were absurd, labor-intensive ornaments, and that the word “stud,” when you came to think about it, was an obscene term to apply to a button on a man’s shirt.

  Carla watched for a moment, then quietly took the studs out of his hands and put them into the shirt for him. “You’re upset,” she said. “You’re remembering your own bar mitzvah.”

  “Yes, the D’var Torah about menstrual fluid.”

  “Poor boy,” said Carla, kissing his cheek. “But I’m sure you handled it well. And you look very handsome now.”

  “I do?” Mark turned to admire himself in the mirror.

  “The tuxedo looks good with your haircut,” noted Carla.

  He looked for a moment at his reflection and then turned back to her. “You know—I ought to confess something.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ve never told you this before, and it may come as a shock.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I actually enjoyed my bar mitzvah. In fact, it was one of the best days of my life.”

  “Of course it was,” said Carla, straightening his bow tie complacently. “I never doubted it for a moment. And this is going to be one of the best days of your daughter’s life. But enough talking. Let me put in your cuff links so we can get this show on the road already.”

  Chapter Forty-seven

  The Goodman BAT MITZVAH WAS HELD IN TEMPLE B’NAI Or, a spacious Reform synagogue in the developing suburbs of Cherry Hill—once the boondocks of the area, now the site of multimillion-dollar high-concept homes, upscale multiplex movie theaters, and synagogues in
the Frank Lloyd Wright architectural style. B’nai Or, which vaguely resembled Wright’s Falling Water, was one such relatively new congregation that already boasted about five hundred families. This was large, by any standard, though certainly not exceptional in Cherry Hill, where there were several Reform and Conservative synagogues twice the size.

  Normally temple services were not heavily attended, but for certain occasions the parking lot was full. This was during the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur (which often featured sermons in which the frustrated rabbi berated the congregation about their failure to attend the rest of the year) and at bar mitzvahs and weddings. Indeed, on Saturday, the synagogue was never empty, since a morning and an evening affair were usually held back to back, forcing rival caterers and florists to brush elbows. Angry skirmishes, one involving a serving fork, had been known to occur during this interval.

  Because of the size of the congregation, children were sometimes forced to pair up for bar mitzvahs—a “double” being a result of only so many Saturdays in the year. Stephanie had drawn a solo evening ceremony, making her one of the lucky ones (or unlucky, as the case may be, since some children enjoyed the comfort of the buddy system). Of course, it had only been possible to assure a solo date by scheduling the bat mitzvah rather far afield from Stephanie’s actual birth date—she would not turn thirteen for another month. (Carla had put aside some of the bat mitzvah booty for presentation when the actual birthday arrived. She knew that thirteen-year-olds were prone to literalness in such matters.)

  The whole ceremony would take perhaps an hour and three quarters. One of the boons of Reform Judaism was the shortened service. A Conservative bar mitzvah was likely to run nearer to three and a half hours, which meant that guests invariably knew to arrive late and were liable to come and go throughout the ceremony. Carla remembered her experience as a child in an Orthodox synagogue, where the tendency to move around during a service was even greater—the women and children often spending most of the time in the coatroom trading recipes and gossip. She recalled this scene as great fun as well as oddly infused with spiritual feeling. The Reform synagogue, by contrast, was more exacting in its view of attendance. Perhaps because congregants had moved further from the fold, they behaved more properly on the occasions when they actually made it to the temple.

  But whatever the denomination of Judaism and however long or short the service, the bar mitzvah was, in the final analysis, one of those rituals—part rote, part festivity—that assured that the religion would live on. Everyone liked a good bar mitzvah, and many non-Jews, invited to one as children, had shed their suspicion of this alien religion by virtue of the fun they’d had doing the limbo.

  It was impossible, in short, to overestimate the public relations value for the Jewish faith of the bar mitzvah ceremony and celebration. It was here that one saw the full vitality of the Jewish people—their love of family, food, talk, song, and dramatic festivity. Here were all the excesses endearingly displayed, an event so full of energy and glitz as to disarm all but the most puritanical Puritans and the most snobbish self-hating Jews.

  For Stephanie’s bat mitzvah, everyone was present in his or her expected place as the designated starting time for the ceremony drew near. There, in the front row, sat the immediate family: Stephanie between Mark and Carla—their precious jewel, her curls sparkling, her face radiant. Beside Carla sat Jeffrey, showing promise that he would one day be able to pass through this ritual himself by the simple fact that he was now capable of sitting still. Next to Mark sat his parents, Rose and Charles Goodman, a well-brushed and handsome couple. Charles, a retired furniture salesman, had the slightly smug look of a seventy-three-year-old man with a nice pension, good eyesight, and a full head of hair (attributes that made Rose the envy of all her friends).

  Seated next to Jeffrey was Jessie, looking like the aging beauty she was, but with an added quality of youthful anticipation and excitement in her posture. She had been turning around, ever since she arrived, glancing toward the door of the sanctuary until Saul Millman finally entered, at which point she waved her hand shyly and appeared almost inclined to blow a kiss. He entered the synagogue in a tallis and skullcap of richly embroidered material, a kind of proclamation of his business success, and put his hand to his heart in an unabashed expression of devotion. Jessie blushed and turned away, but only to turn back at regular intervals to smile and nod again in his direction.

  Margot sat next to Jessie, looking, as always, show-stopping. She had tried, to her credit, to play down the effect of her appearance in deference to Stephanie’s designated role as the center of attention. She was wearing a suit (less expensive and a shade lighter than the mother-of-the-bar-mitzvah-child suit) that did not succeed in damping down her luster. As already noted, it was a paradox of Margot’s appearance that in dressy clothes she looked striking, while in more understated ones, she looked more so. Uncle Sid, now fully recovered, was sitting in the row behind and announcing to everyone in the vicinity that Margot was a “Jewish Sophia Loren.” (Margot told Carla that she wished Sid would update his references; Sophia Loren was rapidly disappearing from cultural consciousness. “The Jewish Madonna would be better, or maybe the Jewish Catherine Zeta-Jones.” “I’ve never seen anyone so picky,” noted Carla; “you even critique your compliments.”)

  Stephanie’s friends, a swarm of gabby seventh-graders, were seated at the left of the bima under the stern eye of the Sisterhood member assigned to keep them in order. The problem of the bar mitzvah child’s friends was a much-discussed topic of the Education Committee. How was one to control the hysterical giggles that tended to erupt when some fifty twelve- and thirteen-year-olds were clumped together to watch a friend perform in another language for long, boring intervals? A number of suggestions had been proffered by way of solution. One was to forbid the children to sit together. When this idea was implemented, however, the result was worse: The giggles grew louder and the gestures broader, as friends attempted to communicate across the vast space of the sanctuary. Another suggestion—to distribute a printed sheet explaining rules of behavior—also backfired: The children crumpled the sheets loudly or configured them into airplanes to be sent with messages back and forth across the room.

  The committee had finally settled on installing a special bar mitzvah guard, drawn from the ranks of the Sisterhood. It was agreed that not just any Sisterhood member could serve in this capacity. The woman had to have a proven reputation for ferocity—an ability to take on the thirteen-year-olds without fear. A group of candidates had been assembled for this purpose, and since these women were outright scary (“Jewish ballbusters,” as one board member had whispered to another), behavior had markedly improved.

  Now, a woman in a tartan skirt and high heels was parading back and forth, shooting withering glances at the children whenever they began to act up. The girls in the entourage were all dressed alike: even the non-Jewish ones had on the requisite skimpy dress with cover-up (to be removed during the party), the bangles and chains, the Nine West heels, and fake Kate Spade bags. The boys wore suits or sports jackets (generally too small or too large). Unlike the girls, who were busy sizing up each other’s outfits and reapplying their lipstick, the boys were concentrating their minds on the first-rate spread that they knew was awaiting them once the service was over.

  Stephanie, seated between her parents, was of course the focal point of her friends’ attention, and she was continually darting glances and making faces at them when she was not trying to assume the pose of being above the fray and ignoring them entirely.

  The doctors and nurses from Mark’s hospital were also seated in respective clumps near the back of the synagogue. The doctors, mostly Jewish, felt at home. The nurses, mostly not, did not—they had a look of petrified formality on their faces, wondering what to expect.

  Margot continued to look back toward the sanctuary door, and seemed relieved when finally Anish, Felicity, and Hal entered. Jessie had insisted that they be invit
ed. Fortunately, there were a number of last-minute cancelations from Florida, the result of phlebitis flare-ups and hip replacements, to accommodate them.

  Jill and Adam Rosenberg sat amid a group of Carla’s friends. Jill was busy regaling everyone about her success at preventing the residents of the Golden Pond Geriatric Center from being thrown out onto the streets of Cherry Hill. Adam was sitting quietly beside her, his eyes half-closed, like a dog before the hearth.

  On the other side of the synagogue sat Dr. Samuels and his wife, Sylvia. Samuels regularly attended his patients’ bar mitzvahs, both to have a handle on what they would subsequently be talking to him about and because, as he put it, “nothing beats a good bar mitzvah.” As always, Samuels had a way of stripping things down to their most basic and, ultimately, appealing form. “It’s a headache to plan,” he said, “but in the end, it’s a sacred ceremony of initiation and a hell of a party. What’s not to like?”

  Near Samuels, the Brooklyn Katzes, wearing boas and yellow cummerbunds, were vying with the thirteen-year-olds in the amount of noise they could make. And near the door, in case a quick bathroom trip was necessary, sat Mr. Pinsky next to Susie Wilson.

  The service began. Rabbi Newman, only months earlier a mere assistant rabbi, had made great strides in his appearance and manner. His beard had come in and his voice had assumed a pleasant, steady timbre. He seemed to actually enjoy reciting the prayers, so that the congregation was inclined to enjoy them too. Best of all, he did not speak too much or have too many opinions. It was therefore concluded, in that most desirable of all descriptive phrases, that “he has a nice way about him.”