Bertrand Court

by Michelle Brafman

  “I hate to talk about it, because I probably sound like I’ve joined a cult or something.” Becca wiped a carob chip from the table.

  “Oh, no. Please go on. I’m fascinated.” Molly was more than fascinated. She couldn’t tear herself away from Becca’s talk of the bat mitzvah, just as she couldn’t stop biting her nails or cracking her knuckles. She felt like she was thirteen years old again, sitting in a red upholstered chair, trying to ignore the way her new pantyhose constricted her breathing, wishing she was up on that altar thanking her grandma Esther for flying in from Miami for her special day. The tingling was rising now, teetering on the verge of becoming that itch, the sensation distant and familiar at the same time. Goddammit. Not now, not Becca.

  Adam appeared in the kitchen. Talk about divine intervention! Maybe the tingling would go away if Becca just stopped talking about her bat mitzvah.

  Adam wiped a line of sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his T-shirt. “When the power comes back, I’ll bring over a few fans to dry the edges of your carpet.”

  Molly took care not to make Adam feel like he was her hired help, to sound gracious and avoid what Phil called her “master of the servants” tone. “Thank you so much for everything. You must have saved us hundreds of dollars.”

  He grinned. “Glad to help. I’m going to hose off.”

  “Thanks, Adam.” She knew she should leave, but instead she took a big breath and begged Becca to tell her more about her bat mitzvah.

  “Okay, but I get emotional when I talk about this one part.”

  “Now you have to tell me about it.” Molly wanted to dig her nails into every square inch of her skin.

  “Do you know what a tallis is?” Becca didn’t wait for Molly to answer. “You know those prayer shawls you see people wearing around their shoulders?”

  “Yes, they’re beautiful.” Even the insides of her ears were beginning to itch.

  “Adam asked my mother to give him my grandfather’s tallis from his bar mitzvah back in the old country. Lithuania.” Her face began to flush. “So the night before the kids left for camp, we all went out to celebrate my forty-fifth birthday. Right after I blew out the candle on my raspberry mousse, Adam handed me this package he’d wrapped in lavender tissue paper, decorated by Isaac, the artist in the family. I opened it, and there was my grandfather’s tallis — I recognized it right away.” Tears flooded her little eyes.

  Becca was assailing Molly with the meaning in her life, admittedly at Molly’s request, but still. “How incredible that must have been for you!” Molly clenched her hands in her lap so she wouldn’t scratch.

  Becca wiped her eyes with a dish towel and sniffled. “God, this is so embarrassing!” She disappeared into the living room and returned with a navy blue velvet case embroidered with gold Hebrew letters. She removed the long, rectangular piece of fabric gingerly from the bag. It smelled musty. She combed her fingers through the fringes of the shawl. “When I wear this, I can practically feel generations of Jews passing right through my soul. I can feel God.” She shuddered, folding up the tallis and returning it carefully to the bag.

  How could this be happening? Molly thought she’d grown out of her Nancy envy, as she had her excessive use of the word “like.” But here she was, yearning for what belonged to Nancy and Becca: grandparents who’d escaped pogroms, intense friendships formed at Jewish summer camps, a compulsion to complain about constipation from eating too much matzoh on Passover. She wanted Becca’s highly compassionate sons, she wanted the adult bat mitzvah; she even coveted Becca’s big rear end. She felt so beige, so meager. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried to replicate Nancy’s spiritual abundance. In college, she joined a Quaker group. She hated it, and it wasn’t just because of the mouth-breather who sat next to her. She’d grown up in a home with enough silence to last a lifetime.

  “Becca?” Adam called from the top of the steps. “Can you bring me another flashlight? My battery died.”

  Molly took deep breaths and rubbed her palms together.

  “Just a sec,” Becca hollered back. Jewish people liked to talk to each other from different rooms, Molly remembered from Nancy’s family. She watched Becca hunt around in her junk drawer for another flashlight and run upstairs.

  Molly sat alone with the tallis and her empty Pier One ice cream bowl, burning with that godawful lust. The rain had tapered off into a light drizzle, punctuated by the occasional gush of water from Becca’s downspouts. She took the worn tallis out of its bag and held it against her face; she wanted it even more than Nancy’s mezuzah or the picture of Mr. Cohen stuffing a wadded-up piece of paper into the Wailing Wall. Anything else she’d ever wanted in her life — clothes, vacations, sometimes even friends — she’d simply bought for herself.

  The floorboards creaked above her head, and she prayed that Becca would fly down the stairs in time to save her from herself. More whispering and giggling. She ran her fingers along the creases of the tallis, put it in the large inside pocket of Phil’s jacket, and stuffed a folded dish towel into the velvet case.

  Becca reappeared in the kitchen, and they talked for a few more minutes.

  “I better head home,” Molly said through a yawn.

  Becca gave her a flashlight and a week’s supply of batteries. “Should I walk you?”

  “It’s just across the street. Don’t be silly. Please thank Adam.”

  “Hug.” Becca pulled her in close.

  When Molly hung Phil’s jacket in the bathroom, a few raindrops slid off the Gortex and tickled her feet. She cradled the tallis to her body. Flashlight in hand, she retrieved a knife from the kitchen and an unopened moving box labeled Trust Documents from the messy study. She punctured the packing tape, running the knife along the seam of the box, entirely certain about where she’d packed her valuables.

  She slid her hand beneath a college notebook filled with aborted feelings, a packet of old love letters, some loose photos of her ex-boyfriend, and felt the soft velvet jewelry pouch against her fingers. She loosened its gold drawstrings and withdrew Nancy Cohen’s tarnished silver mezuzah.

  She returned to exactly where she’d been sitting earlier that evening while she contemplated walking over to Becca’s house. The mezuzah kissed the skin a couple of inches below her collarbones, and the flimsy satin of the tallis felt cool against her shoulders. Humming the melody she’d heard Nancy and Becca chant, she ran one hand through the silky fringes of the prayer shawl and fingered the mezuzah with the other. Her skin no longer itched.

  The storm passed, and Becca’s house lit up. Hugo had finally stopped barking. Molly made no move to turn on the air conditioning, because she didn’t mind the heat; she didn’t reset the phone, because she didn’t know what she’d do if Becca called. She put Phil’s copy of Blue on the turntable and listened for the scratches, the trilling, the echoes of gentle wails.

  MINOCQUA BATS

  Becca Coopersmith, September 2006

  On a Tuesday morning in September, Becca Coopersmith pressed the only black suit she owned. She hadn’t touched an iron in years. The cab would be here in an hour to ferry her to Reagan National, where she’d catch a flight to Rhinelander, Wisconsin, for Timmy Carver’s funeral. It didn’t matter if she missed Jason’s soccer game or ladies night. She had to say goodbye to Timmy, even though she hadn’t seen him in twenty-three years.

  Because Timmy, a decorated firefighter, had come home safely after rushing to help out at Ground Zero, emerged from long, angry blazes that had killed or maimed his friends, and survived a relationship with Becca, she’d assumed he’d been assigned some kind of guardian angel. He slipped in his bathtub, broke his neck, and died instantly, survived by his widow, Elizabeth, and four children, or so the obituary read. She’d been checking the Rhinelander Daily News online for tidbits about Timmy ever since she discovered the great information superhighway. Last night she found the obituary after logging on to book a surprise trip to Israel for Adam’s fiftieth birthday.

  She zi
pped a toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, moisturizer, and comb into her toiletries bag, then decided she’d better try on the outfit, which she hadn’t worn since her mother’s funeral. After dropping her sweatpants and tank top in a heap, she paused to examine her reflection in the full-length bathroom mirror. Her breasts had kept enough shape that she could go braless without looking like a slattern, and her belly was borderline bikini-friendly, which was more than most mothers of two teenage boys could say. But who was she trying to impress anyway? Was Timmy going to wink at her from his open casket in acknowledgment of her ass, firmed by pole-dancing classes, if still a little bigger than she’d hoped?

  The skirt and jacket fit her perfectly. Becca hung them on a wooden hanger, removed the dry-cleaning plastic from one of Adam’s shirts, and slid it over the suit. Curls still damp, she went down to the kitchen wearing her nice jeans, a black V-neck sweater, and a necklace she’d made at a beading retreat. Adam had brewed her a pot of green tea. Sweet Adam. He’d never complained about covering carpools and meals when she spent weeknights studying for her bat mitzvah, or went off for five days to a yoga retreat at Kripalu, or attended a weeklong shamanic conference in Taos, returning home with a tattooed ankle.

  Becca loved Adam with equal commitment. And she’d mothered hard: she’d pulverized carrots in the food processor when the boys were babies, managed Jason’s soccer teams, and stalked the Washington area’s coveted guitar teacher until he agreed to give Isaac private lessons.

  She spread a piece of wheat toast with goat cheese and took her plate and perfectly prepared cup of tea out to the porch. Thank God for Sudafed, though she’d gladly endure ragweed season in return for the gold and red leaves, rich with the scent of their sweet decay. A native Californian, she loved how the change of seasons held the possibility of things to come. After she finished her tea and locked up the house, she returned to the glider and waited for the cab.

  She and Adam had been waiting for this cab for years.

  Becca had wanted Timmy Carver to love her so much that he’d kill for her. She’d have settled for a smile during their five-hour drive to his parents’ cabin up north, in the part of Wisconsin shaped like a thumb. They’d fought hard last night, and she wondered if this could be the argument that broke them.

  Every forty miles or so, she reached over and snaked her index finger under his shorts and the new Bucky Badger boxers she’d given him for his birthday. He clenched his teeth so hard that she could see the little muscles moving around in his jaw, and fixed his blue eyes, round as poker chips, on the pine trees and black-eyed Susans that made her sneeze and wheeze. Lynyrd Skynyrd drowned out any prospect of conversation.

  They passed two signs: one for a deer crossing, the other a square brown wooden one carved with a rendering of an American Indian in a feathered headdress under yellow block letters that read “Minocqua 5 Miles.”

  Becca broke the silence. “Let’s stop. I have to go to the bathroom.”

  Timmy pulled into the driveway of the Minocqua Soda and Fudge Shoppe. “I’ll wait.”

  She glanced at his bowed head before she let herself out of the truck. He was still smarting from Becca’s words. Last night she’d called him an emotional miser.

  The store smelled like the pine-scented candles accenting the display of brightly beaded moccasins, leather wristbands, and Escape to Wisconsin T-shirts. A large blond woman wearing a suede vest and a name tag that read “Patty” smiled at Becca, and Becca bought a half pound of walnut fudge in exchange for Patty’s kindness.

  Timmy had rolled down the window, and he was flicking his Schlitz key chain back and forth against the dashboard in time with the music blaring from his stereo. She had a childish urge to walk past the truck, so he’d have to drive after her. She’d get hit by a car and he’d rush her to the hospital and donate his blood to keep her alive. Jesus, she was desperate. She slid into the passenger’s seat and handed him the white box with the gold Minocqua Fudge sticker.

  “Peace offering,” she practically shouted. She moved so close to him that the blond fuzz on his thighs grazed her bare leg.

  “I just don’t know what you want from me, Becca.” He accepted the box. “Should I rent the Goodyear Blimp and fly over Madison with a big sign that says ‘I love Becca Coopersmith’?”

  Beats the car accident idea.

  He looked down at his lap. “I don’t think I can give you what you need.”

  “Come on, Timmy. How hard would it have been for you to buy me a birthday card?” Her panic that he’d leave her crested into that familiar wave that washed over her.

  He started to grind his teeth again.

  One. Two. Three. Four. She buried her face in her hands. Five. Six. Seven. Breathe. Say something neutral. She’d turned into this sorry-ass girlfriend who groveled for scraps of love like her parents’ dog, Hendrix. He died choking on a wishbone.

  He opened the box and handed her a piece of fudge. “Let’s have a nice time.”

  “I’m nervous.” What if his parents saw how miserable she made their son?

  “Just be yourself.” Their equilibrium had been restored; Timmy was telling her what to do.

  Be myself? Mouthy Jewish girl from the wrong side of Beverly Hills?

  By the time they pulled up to Timmy’s parents’ cabin, they’d eaten the whole half pound of fudge and had fondled each other to the point of heated distraction. Both ravenous and carsick, Becca craved something substantial, like a steak or a hunk of cheese. It was still light out, because that’s how it was at nine o’clock at night in northern Wisconsin in June.

  Timmy’s dad cupped a sweating can of Schlitz and gave his son a “Well, what have we here?” look. “You must be Becca. Damned glad to meet ya.” He extended his hand.

  “Nice to meet you too, Bud.”

  His father looked surprised.

  Should she have called him Mr. Carver? “You look exactly like Timmy around the eyes,” she said. He did.

  Bud gazed off toward the lake in the same way that Timmy did when she complimented him. Timmy’s mother emerged from the cabin smoothing the waist of her culottes. A visor kept strands of her grayish-brown hair from falling into her eyes. Timmy and his parents were built like greyhounds.

  Okay, no calling her Dot. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Carver,” Becca said, embracing her. Becca was from a family of big huggers. Mrs. Carver stepped back and patted her on the back formally. The brisk northern air had already chilled Becca, and she folded her arms over her chest.

  Becca tried harder over dinner: potato salad, steaks on the grill, and iceberg lettuce. Who ate iceberg lettuce?

  “So why the fascination with indigenous people up here?” she asked, spearing a mayonnaise-soaked potato, genuinely wanting to learn more about the North Woods.

  Timmy and his parents looked at each other.

  “Well, you’re in Indian country,” Bud said. “Menominee to be exact. Did you see the reservation—”

  She cut him off mid-sentence. “Did you ever read that book? Can’t remember the name. The one about fetal alcohol syndrome?” In her enthusiasm for the topic, Becca forgot to swallow fully before talking, and a white fleck of potato flew across her plate onto the green tablecloth.

  Becca was used to expressing her opinions at the family dinner table. Her mother, a reading specialist, and her father, a hippie turned Beverly Hills High history teacher, would look at her with admiration, and then they’d bait her into an argument until everyone was screaming and yelling at each other at the top of their lungs. Finally someone would say something irreverent and wickedly funny, and they would all laugh, and that would be that. Bud and Dot were not likely to say anything remotely wicked or funny.

  “Becca wants to be a social worker,” Timmy explained with a trace of pride in his voice.

  His unexpected display of approval melted Becca. He dug a serving spoon into a bowl of Jell-O embedded with all sorts of crap, topped off with a layer of cream cheese. “Anybody want the rest of this?”
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  “You go ahead, Timmy,” his mother said, and they all nodded. “Finish it up.”

  After dinner, as she dried the dishes, Becca asked Dot about Timmy’s sister’s kids — Bud Jr., seven, and Kerry, three and a half. Dot asked Becca nothing about herself, which should have cued Becca to refrain from relaying how she and Timmy met.

  “It was a year ago this weekend, actually. Timmy and I were both at the Klinc Bar.”

  Dot didn’t look up from her dishes, but Becca could tell she wanted to hear more by the way she turned the water down and cocked her head.

  “He’d fought a big fire that day, an accident in a chem lab at the U.” Becca paused, remembering his hair, wet and neatly parted to the side, and the powder-blue shirt that showed off his reddish tan. Adrenaline oozed out of every pore of his body, sending a current through the whole bar. Everyone wanted to touch him; his buddies couldn’t stop patting him on the back, and she thought she’d die if she didn’t get close enough at least to smell him. Big hero.

  “Oh, sure, Timmy’s always been the type to lend a hand.” Dot scrubbed a stubborn glob of red Jell-O from a bowl.

  Becca told her about how they started playing darts — and how later she tracked down his fire station and called him up. This was the point when someone who was fond of her and appreciated her chutzpah would say something like, “No way!” Dot raised her eyebrows but still didn’t look at Becca directly. She would freak Dot out if she added that Hannah had said that Timmy had become her new religion.

  “And here we are.” Becca paused and waited for Dot to say something, maybe offer up the lore of how she had met Bud. But then again, Becca sensed that Dot didn’t want the same outcome for Becca and Timmy. When the kitchen was spotless, they all convened in the living room. Becca took in the assortment of dead animals decorating the walls. Bud and Dot divided the newspaper — sports and business for Bud, lifestyle and coupons for Dot — and settled into their matching recliner chairs. Timmy motioned toward the two bedrooms at the back of the cabin.