PRAISE FOR BERTRAND COURT
“With insight and empathy, Michelle Brafman portrays a wide range of interconnected characters who share heartbreak, indiscretions, and tantalizing secrets in this keenly observed multi-generational chronicle.”
— J. RYAN STRADAL, author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest
“Michelle Brafman’s gorgeous linked narratives focus on a group of astonishing characters, all grappling with power, lust, love, sex, and how best to be alive in a complicated world, all set against the backdrop of a Washington D.C. suburb. Gloriously alive, moving, and blazingly honest—Bertrand Court is brilliant.”
— CAROLINE LEAVITT, author of Is This Tomorrow and Pictures of You
“Brafman eavesdrops on the human heart and reports back to us in Bertrand Court with honesty, compassion, and soul. This is gorgeous writing, in stories lit with grace.”
— DYLAN LANDIS, author of Rainey Royal
“In Bertrand Court, Brafman invites us to ‘the family dinner table of life.’ This is a beguiling collection of gently intertwining stories, celebrating in pellucid prose the infinite variations of ‘normal.’”
— MARY MORRISSY, author of Prosperity Drive
“I was in love with this novel-in-stories by page ten, and I stayed in love to the end. What a moving, powerful collection! It’s like listening to the world’s best gossip—someone who’s happy to fill in her friends on the juicy details of their neighborhood, but does it with so little judgment and so much knowing and empathy that it makes you feel like a better, kinder citizen of the world. Read it—you’ll feel loved, seen, and understood by this wonderful writer.”
— REBECCA BARRY, author of Later, at the Bar: A Novel in Stories
“Like a Jewish Anne Lamott, Brafman reels you in with warmth, depth, and heart.”
— SUSAN COLL, author of The Stager and events & programs director at Politics & Prose
PRAISE FOR WASHING THE DEAD
“A fast-paced and compelling debut.”
— Library Journal
“Brafman examines the inner lives of her characters with the dexterity of a surgeon and the compassion of a saint.”
— Lilith Magazine
“Heartfelt and genuine, Washing the Dead never betrays the complicated truths of family and tradition.”
— DAVID BEZMOZGIS, author of The Betrayers
“Intimate, big-hearted, compassionate, and clear-eyed, Michelle Brafman’s novel turns secrets into truths and the truth into the heart of fiction.”
— AMY BLOOM, author of Lucky Us
“Compelling.”
— The New York Jewish Week
“[A] striking debut novel.”
— The Jewish News Weekly
“A heartfelt story of loss, hope, and reconciliation…[it] captures the complex essence of the mother-daughter relationship with honesty and sincerity.”
— Booklist
“Brafman’s astonishing compassion for all human frailty infuses this story about the need for truth and the promise of forgiveness.”
— HELEN SIMONSON, author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand
“[Washing the Dead] succeeds in showing how family history has a way of sneaking up on us from the depths of the past, shaping the present in ways both familiar and unexpected.”
— Haaretz
“A rich tale of love, friendship, yearning, and forgiveness.”
— JESSICA ANYA BLAU, author of The Wonder Bread Summer
Also by Michelle Brafman
Washing the Dead
Copyright © 2016 by Michelle Brafman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All incidents and dialogue, and all names and characters, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. With a few exceptions, all places are also products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
Published by Prospect Park Books
2359 Lincoln Avenue
Altadena, CA 91001
www.prospectparkbooks.com
Distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
www.cbsd.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Brafman, Michelle, author.
Title: Bertrand court / Michelle Brafman.
Prospect Park Books, [2016]
Identifiers: LCCN 2016002128 | ISBN 9781938849817 (e-book)
Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Family Life. | FICTION / Jewish.
Classification: LCC PS3602.R344415 B47 2016 | DDC 813/.6--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016002128
Cover design by David Ter-Avanesyan.
Book layout and design by Amy Inouye, Future Studio.
For Tom
The Solonsky Family & Forebears
Hannah, Eric, and Amy Solonsky — the Solonsky siblings
Simon Solonsky — their father
Goldie Solonsky — their grandmother and Simon’s father
Sylvia Seigel — their great-aunt and Goldie’s sister
Hannah’s Family
Danny Weiss — Hannah’s husband
Goldie, Jane, and baby number 5 — Hannah and Danny’s children
Robin Weiss-Gold — Danny’s sister
Marcus Gold — Robin’s husband
Justin and Sydney — Robin and Marcus’s children
Rosie Gold — Marcus’s sister
Eric’s Family
Maggie Stramm Solonsky — Eric’s wife
Alec and Kaya — Eric and Maggie’s children
Helene Stramm — Maggie’s mother
Amy’s Family
Leon Falk — Amy’s husband
Related Characters
Becca Coopersmith — Hannah’s college roommate
Adam Kornfeld — Becca’s husband
Jason and Isaac — Becca and Adam’s children
Georgia Dumfries — Former lover of Adam
Nikki Chamberlain — Georgia’s best friend
Tad Chamberlain — Nikki’s husband
Phil Scott — Eric Solonksy’s partner/cameraman and former lover of Amy and Georgia
Molly Flanders — Phil’s wife
Residents of Bertrand Court
Eric and Maggie Solonsky (and children)
Robin and Marcus Gold (and children)
Phil Scott and Molly Flanders
Becca Coopersmith and Adam Kornfeld (and children)
CONTENTS
Shhh
Two Truths and a Lie
Sylvia’s Spoon
What Hannah Never Knew
Skin
You’re Next
In Flight
Ladies Night
Would You Rather?
Harvard Man
Georgia and Phil
The #42
Ripe
January
Molly Flanders
Minocqua Bats
More So
SHHH
Baby #5 and Danny Weiss, March 1993
You swim inside your mother’s womb, and the sound of her heartbeat lulls you to sleep, and you wait for Michael, the archangel who spoke to Adam after Eve bit from the apple, and to Moses through the burning bush. Now he speaks to you. He teaches you everything, the languages of the pelicans and dolphins and tigers and the names of the eighty-eight constellations. He tells you secrets. Your father Danny’s secrets, like stealing Playboy from his bar mitzvah tutor’s briefcase, and your mother Hannah’s secrets, like stealing Aunt Sy
lvia’s spoon. You learn the names your parents give each other when they fight and when they love, and the names they gave to the babies that preceded you, Ruth, Zeke, Jacob, and Sylvia, the two who never made it past the first trimester and the two who did.
You know that the Jewish folktale about Michael is true, that he will speak to you for the last time seconds before you see your first glimpse of fluorescent hospital light. “Shhh,” he’ll whisper, pressing his cool, dry index finger into the island between the base of your nose and your upper lip, forming a valley dividing two tiny mountains of raised skin. And all that knowledge? Gone. You’ll have to relearn everything. But while you’re still inside the belly, you’re smarter than Aristotle or Einstein or Voltaire or certainly your parents, who in an effort to birth you are behaving badly right now.
Danny pretends to read an article about the Cardinals’ new pitcher, but he’s really watching Hannah concentrate on a spinning bowl of egg whites, as if she could will them to peak. The steady rhythm of the electric beater makes him want to take a nap; everything makes him want to take a nap these days.
“My sister’s not going to care if the cake doesn’t have the meringue thing on top, sweetie,” he offers, fairly confident that his attempt to simplify life for his wife will only annoy her.
“You told Robin?” Hannah turns to him, narrowing her eyes, which are round and almost black.
“Of course I didn’t.”
He wouldn’t dare. The first time a second stripe materialized on the home pregnancy test they practically sent The Washington Post a press release announcing the news of their good fortune. This time, they shroud the pregnancy in secrecy because that’s what Hannah wants; Danny doesn’t know what he wants, or whether it’s okay for him to want anything at all.
“Better not have.” Hannah empties a bowl of limp egg whites into the trash, yet another failed attempt to bake this cake for her sister-in-law’s belated birthday dinner. Robin is due at five with her husband, Marcus, and their two children, three-year-old Justin and infant Sydney.
Last week Hannah stir-fried chicken for her sister, Amy, on the verge of pummeling another poor guy’s heart, and her brother, Eric, newly in love with a good-looking woman named Maggie, who seemed a little out of his league. But hosting Robin’s family? Bad idea. Hannah’s so jealous she can’t even bring herself to touch the baby; she insists that they need to be around babies, however, because they avoided them during the last four pregnancies and see what happened? Danny’s happiness for his sister feels like a betrayal to his wife.
The thermometer outside their kitchen window reads sixty-four degrees, balmy for a March day in Washington. Normally, they would take a walk along the canal through their Georgetown neighborhood, which would be teeming with students and suburban refugees lapping up “God’s little hot flash” (his mother-in-law’s term for this kind of weather). Blue skies would do them a world of good.
Hannah wipes a puddle of egg yolk off the counter, spraying the residue with a lemony-piney-smelling cleaner. “We need more eggs.”
Danny sees this as an opening, and he folds up his paper. “Why don’t we take a walk down M Street and scare up a cake?” His tone is tentative and too cheery at the same time. “I’ll spring for a mocha.”
“No caffeine or chocolate.” She sighs. “Especially in the first trimester.”
“How about citrus? I’ll buy you an orange juice. Fresh squeezed.” He feels like someone is sucking the energy from his body with a hose; if he doesn’t leave the house now, he will lose his will to do so, maybe forever.
She rubs her neck, long and elegant like the rest of her body, and gives him a patronizing smile that screams, The health of our baby rests on my baking this cake, but you, Mr. Lunkhead, would never get that.
He gets more than she thinks. He’s never mentioned the credit card statement revealing the handmade fertility drum she bought at an import store in Dupont Circle, or the visits to the psychic (it had never occurred to him that psychics accept Visa). And then there was the plane ticket to Milwaukee — $878 after she’d talked the airline into giving her a bereavement fare — to visit her barren aunt’s grave. Don’t ask because she won’t tell you why.
“Come on, Hannah.” He wants to yank her, actually both of them, from their row-house apartment, as if it were filling with smoke and fire.
“Can’t you walk a few blocks alone?”
“Fresh air is good for the spirit.” He’s almost begging now. Pathetic.
The phone rings. “I bet it’s your sister.”
Hannah is right. It is Robin, who never begins a phone conversation with him by saying hello. “Justin and Marcus picked up some disgusting stomach bug. They’ve been getting sick all morning. I hope you guys haven’t gone to the grocery store already.”
“Don’t worry about that. Just get everyone well.” He can hear Sydney cooing in the background. “At least the baby didn’t get it.”
“Rain check?”
“Of course.” Danny hangs up. “Snow day,” he tells Hannah, but she doesn’t laugh at their code phrase for when fate allows them to skirt a social obligation.
“Whatever.” She tosses the empty carton of eggs into the trash and doesn’t mention the three grocery stores they’ve visited to shop for this dinner.
“At least we don’t have to go back to the market now.”
Hannah runs her hand through her bangs in that way she does when she’s agitated. “Then can you just go and get a carton of milk or the Sunday Times or a new pair of boxers or.…”
Her tone incites in him the smallest hit of adrenaline, just enough to hoist himself out of his chair. “I get it.”
“Finally.” She cracks one of her last eggs.
He grabs his car keys and the fleece jacket she gave him for his thirtieth birthday, four years ago, the night they first decided to make a baby. Their bellies full of steak and birthday sundaes, they made love and then fake-bickered over baby names. Christ, the hubris.
You’d think with all your learning you could find a way to break out of this uterus and tell your parents to relax. You want to congratulate your father for finally mustering himself to take a break from trying to cheer your mother up. You wish you could tell Hannah that she doesn’t have to bake Grandma Goldie’s icebox cake (the psychic instructed her to “connect” with her dead relatives) or spend a fortune on hucksters (although some are the real thing, like the palm reader who told her that she will have two healthy girls) or obsess that she’s going to end up like her infertile dead aunt Sylvia, who contrary to family lore wasn’t infertile at all. She would have had children if her husband hadn’t insisted that they give up after a couple of miscarriages. Did you hear that, Hannah? She quit. She would have succeeded on the next try. Hang on.
Danny drives down M Street. Sunshine splashes the faces of college kids looping their elbows through the handles of Abercrombie & Fitch bags, sporting expensive eyewear, and laughing into the wind. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” he mutters to them as he turns onto Wisconsin Avenue, cranking the volume on a Phish CD; Hannah detests jam bands, “the sophomoric lyrics and interminable guitar solos.” She has a point; you have to be in the right mood, which he is.
Three lone cars occupy the Bethesda Bowl parking lot. It takes Danny’s eyes a minute to adjust from the bright daylight to the dark bowling alley, whose familiar smell of stale beer and feet comforts him. The sporadic clunk of a solitary bowling ball hitting wood replaces the usual hum of laughter and cheering. He rents a pair of size elevens and picks out a thirteen-pound ball; he hasn’t bowled without his own ball in years, and he’s never had practically the whole alley to himself.
He keys his name into the electronic scoreboard and then on impulse types in Hannah’s name too. He grabs a nine-pound ball and designates it as hers. When it’s his turn, he bowls like Hannah, lugging the ball to the starting stripe, swinging his arm back spastically, heaving the ball down the alley and into the gutter. When it’s Hannah’s turn, he bo
wls like the St. Louis, Missouri, champ that he was, back when Wednesday afternoons meant bowling with Russ Newman for a few hours after school. Afterward, they’d split a roast beef sub, the mayo and peppered vinegar drenching their swollen fingers, and dream up schemes to audition for Bowling for Dollars. By the time they figured out they’d been watching reruns, they’d gone on to different high schools.
The next game, he picks up Hannah’s ball but releases it, feeling its weight curl down his palm to his fingertips and into the ball return rack. The hell with Hannah Solonsky. He plays both turns like himself. Strike. Strike. Strike. He’s as juiced up as he was the night he won the Spare No Strike Bowling Alley’s thirteen-and-under title. The sound of the pins crashing into each other makes his heart pump faster. Maybe they installed microphones at the end of the lanes to rev up the players.
He figures a beer would go down nicely right now. Sitting in a dark, overheated bowling alley and downing a Heineken on a warm, sunny afternoon feels decadent as hell. No Hannah. He can breathe.
As he’s settling with the bartender for his second beer, he catches sight of a couple standing by the cigarette machine dry-humping each other like teenagers. But they’re not. Strands of gray streak the woman’s dark hair, and she’s wearing low-cut jeans that are doing some very nice things for her ass; the man is practically twice her height and balding.
Danny and Hannah used to be like that. One time they did it in the laundry room of the Hotel Washington, on Hannah’s dare, at Danny’s company Christmas party, right after his boss announced that he’d made Rookie Realtor of the Year. And to think they’d worried about using birth control. What a joke.
The couple must feel Danny staring at them, because they both look up. Oh, man, it’s Sam, his new client, with a woman who is not his wife. Sam looks at Danny like he’s just been busted shoplifting porn from a 7-Eleven.
Danny walks over to Sam and the woman who is not Sam’s wife and blurts out, “My wife’s pregnant. Don’t tell anyone.”
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