Dating Kosher

by Greene, Michaela

  I needed to change the subject. “But I do want to know—tell me what made you realize Dad was the one.”

  She looked at him and then at me, a goofy smile on her face. “Well, I guess I knew I wanted to be with your dad for good when he took me to Taco Bell for our third date.” She winked at him in a way that made me suddenly want to be elsewhere, but I was still curious.

  “What does Taco Bell have to do with knowing he’s the one?”

  Susan chuckled. “Your father hates taco bell, but he took me there because he knew I had a taste for it. That’s how I knew he was for me.”

  “I’ve never been to Taco Bell,” I admitted.

  Dad rolled his eyes, “You’re not missing anything, trust me.”

  “It’s my guilty pleasure, what can I say?” Susan shrugged.

  Dad got up from the table. “I’ll be right back, I’m going to go wash my hands before we eat.”

  Once he was out of earshot, I turned back to Susan, leaning over the table. “Okay, you can tell me: what was it really?”

  She tilted her head, frowning. “What do you mean?”

  “What really attracted you to him. That he’s a lawyer?”

  “No, I told you. Your dad is very sweet.” Her brow scrunched up. “Being a lawyer is not enough to make a man worth marrying. Not in my books, anyway.”

  “So it had nothing to do with his job or money?” Sadly, my research was only confirming Bev’s observations.

  Susan shook her head. “Not at all.”

  The waitress came to the table with a pot of coffee, filling all our mugs when we nodded.

  “And I don’t want you to worry that I’m going to infringe on your ‘dates.’ I won’t be joining you after today; I just wanted to see you and thank you for helping out with the wedding.”

  “Oh, it’s okay, you can come anytime,” I said, although I was secretly relieved. But Susan was cool, and I probably wouldn’t mind if she came some of the time.

  “Well thank you for saying that, but I think you and your dad need something that’s just your own. Either way, I hope you had a good time at the wedding.”

  I felt my face heat up. “Uh, yeah. About what Bev and I were talking about in the bathroom…”

  She grinned, waving off my embarrassment. “Don’t give it another thought. I know all about it; I was young once too, you know. Your mother and I used to tear it up at the USY dances. If I remember correctly, she was very partial to martinis.”

  I grinned. Sometimes I forgot that Susan and my mom used to be like Bev and me. “Oh yes, I come by my love of the martini very honestly.”

  Dad returned to the table. Susan winked at me and I looked down at my full coffee cup.

  “Are you two done talking about me yet?”

  “Someone thinks a little highly of himself,” Susan said to me, nodding toward my dad beside her.

  I laughed. Yeah, Susan’s pretty cool.

  Dad rolled his eyes at both of us, but kept quiet. He took a sip of his coffee before opening up the laminated menu.

  “Oh Dad, before I forget, there’s a girl I know who’s interested in covering Marnie’s mat leave. I had her send her resume to your office and Marnie put it on your desk for when you go back to work tomorrow.”

  “It’s not you, is it?” he teased, glancing over the top of the menu at me.

  “Yeah, Dad, as if I’d work for you! No, it’s a client from The Confidence Closet. I think she’d do really well.”

  Dad’s silly smile disappeared when he realized I was serious. “I’ll have a look at it first thing. It’s a good thing what you do at that place.”

  I couldn’t help but smile as I looked down at my menu.

  * * *

  I was zoned out on my couch Sunday afternoon, remote loosely in hand, full belly hogging much of my body’s resources in order to digest the huge brunch. My brain activity was barely over coma as I lay with Armani next to me. My lids began to feel heavy and I started to drift when my phone rang, scaring me into hurling the remote onto the floor.

  “Shit,” I yelled involuntarily before grabbing the phone from the coffee table. I looked at the screen. It was Nate. Catching me completely and absolutely off-guard.

  I couldn’t do it. Even though I owed him an apology, I chickened out and left it for voicemail. After several long, agonizing minutes, the message signal sounded. I dialed voicemail and held the phone close to hear what Nate had to say.

  “Hi Shoshanna, it’s Nate. Listen, I just wanted to thank you for what you’ve done for my sister. She and I both really appreciate your help.” His voice had a frosty tone, one I’d never heard from him before. I could hardly blame him after the way I acted. As an afterthought, he quickly added, “Anyway, I hope Armany (I was sure he misspelled it in his head) is feeling better. Bye.”

  The guilt came back and I reached for the phone to call him but then put it down on the table. “Chickenshit,” I called myself, evoking a half-hearted, “mreow?” from Armani. I reached down and scratched between his ears.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Armani, I really don’t. Well, I’ve got a new guy now anyway.” Armani didn’t argue so I put on Tiny House Hunters for the eight minutes it took me to doze off.

  Chapter 31

  I was expecting fireworks, spitting, hissing and above all, the kind of guilt trip only Tippy Rosenblatt could deliver. But when all I got was: “That’s fine, Shoshie,” I was truly and utterly shocked.

  “Huh?” I stared at the phone, wondering if it was actually my mother on the other end.

  “I said that’s fine. You have dinner with your father and Susan.”

  “Aren’t you upset?”

  She sighed and I thought this is it, here it comes, but all she said was, “Well, Shoshanna, of course, I’d like to spend the evening with you, but I can understand if your father would like you at his family dinner. Sushi with your borderline alcoholic mother is hardly suitable for Rosh Hashanah.”

  I was at a loss for words. When I finally did speak, my own voice sounded distant. “You’re not an alcoholic.” I had to say something…

  “Either way, honey. You have a nice time and say hello to everyone for me.”

  “Are you sure, Mom?” This was too easy. I had sudden and very vivid vision of her standing on the Brooklyn Bridge, a suicide note pinned to the front of her sweat suit citing my abandoning her at Rosh Hashanah as the reason why she ended it all.

  “I’m sure, Shoshanna, I’m a big girl. I’ve…I’ve realized a few things and have started making some changes.”

  “Okay then.” I stroked Armani, who was purring loudly, sitting in my lap. I was very relieved he was feeling better.

  “Okay, Shoshie, I’ve gotta run. Have a nice time Tuesday, just don’t be surprised if your Uncle Moishe isn’t there.”

  Ew. I hung up the phone. Well, that explained how it had been so easy for me to bail; while I would be eating gefilte fish and introducing a guy I barely knew but had already had sex with around to my family, my mother would be getting it on with my dad’s brother. If they got married, she’d be my mother and my aunt.

  Oy vey. My life had gotten very bizarre.

  Chapter 32

  I had to work both Monday and Tuesday, so helping Susan get ready for the big dinner just wasn’t going to happen, so it ended up that my contribution consisted of picking up my bubby and bringing her to dinner.

  I led her out of her home to where the cab waited at the curb and helped her into the back seat beside Bev. I climbed in after, settling the giant silver platter of gefilte fish, covered in several layers of plastic wrap, across our laps. God help us all if the platter shifted and we lost some fish.

  Bev smiled and looked at my grandmother and then down at the platter. “Mrs. Rosenblatt, hi! Your fish looks delicious. I can’t remember the last time I had some that was any good. My aunt made some a couple of years ago, but she used salmon and it was awful.”

  “Salmon?” Bubby was incensed. “You can
’t use salmon!” she clucked loudly. For such a small woman she sure had big opinions.

  “Just so you know,” Bev turned to me, her face very serious. “I didn’t tell Jake I was going to be there, it’s going to be a surprise. We were supposed to get together later, after dinner. Now he won’t have to bail so early.”

  I glanced over at my friend. She looked nervous; fidgeting her hands in her lap. “Susan knows you’re coming—she might have told him.”

  “He would have said something if he knew,” she said. “He just texted me an hour ago. Maybe she didn’t think it was worth mentioning.”

  “What does Susan know about you two?”

  Bev shook her head. “I don’t think he’s said anything. It’s not like we’re really dating or anything. You know, just e-mails and texts…”

  Bubby piped up from between us, “Are you having internet sex with him, Beverly?”

  The cab almost rear-ended the car in front of us. “Sorry,” the driver said, catching my eye in the rearview mirror. I smiled back at him.

  Bev was horrified. “Oh my God, Mrs. Rosenblatt! No, we’re not doing anything like that!”

  My grandmother shrugged as though she had internet sex all the time. “What? At least then no one gets any diseases.”

  Bev looked at me over my grandmother’s head and mouthed, “Oh my God,” her eyes like saucers.

  I looked down at Bubby. She winked. I rolled my eyes at her; what a shit disturber.

  “So where is this gentleman you’re bringing, Shoshie?”

  “He works a bit later than I do so he’ll be meeting us there.” I thought about Ari driving up in the Beemer and making his entrance right in the middle of dinner. (The dining room was at the front of the house; everyone would be able to see him pull up through the huge bay window.) It was going to be good.

  “So you’re getting on well with him, then?” Bubby asked.

  “Yeah, he’s okay,” I answered automatically. I hadn’t actually seen Ari since the night we spent together, but we’d talked on the phone twice and texted a few times. He seemed really into me. He’d as much as said it, and it was kind of turning me off.

  “Well I’m looking forward to meeting him,” Bev said, turning in her seat to talk to my grandmother. “Is he hot?”

  Bubby shrugged. “He’s a very nice-looking boy. Very polite.”

  Yeah, cool. That’s what I need in a husband: someone polite. Whatever.

  * * *

  Even before we walked into the house, the combined smells of different foods cooking reached our noses. It had been a long time since I’d had a home-cooked Jewish meal and I was drooling by the time Susan opened the door.

  She beamed as she greeted us; totally in her element. “Hi everyone, thanks so much for coming. Please come in.”

  She reached out to take the tray of fish from my arms, but I dodged her as we stepped through the door into the foyer. “I’ll take it into the kitchen, Susan, it’s okay.”

  “Thanks, Shosh.” She turned to my grandmother, “Mrs. Rosenblatt, please let me take your wrap.”

  Bubby slid out of the fawn-colored dead animal wrap (I hoped it wasn’t made of fawn, actually) circa 1955 and handed it to Susan, who disappeared down the hall toward the bedrooms. I quickly passed the living room and made my way into the kitchen with the fish, Bev close on my heels. Bubby, empty-handed, took an abrupt right into the living room to join the crowd.

  “Do you think he’s here yet?” Bev whispered into my ear from behind.

  “Who? Ari? I doubt it, he told me he had to work late,” I said over my shoulder.

  “Shut up. You know who I’m talking about,” she hissed at me.

  I didn’t have a chance to respond. The kitchen was a whirlwind of activity, the center of which was my dad. He didn’t seem to fit in with the two uniformed hired servers; they seemed to know what they were doing. He, on the other hand, was looking frazzled, wearing an apron over his white shirt and tie, hovering over a turkey, holding a carving knife. He looked up. “Hi girls, good yontiff to you both.”

  “Hi Mr. Rosenblatt,” Bev said. “Same to you.”

  “Dad, where can I put this fish?” I looked around, surveying the kitchen counter for some space to put the platter. Susan had really outdone herself: there were two kugels, one noodle and one potato, the turkey my dad was working on, a roast standing in a pan waiting to be sliced, a pot of soup on the stove, a massive bowl of salad and a few nondescript covered casseroles that likely contained vegetables of some sort. Add to that the two apple cakes and a very familiar looking banana cake sitting on top of the fridge and this was definitely a bona fide home-cooked Jewish meal. Wow. My stomach complained loudly at my not having given it anything since breakfast. It had been a good decision, though: I would be consuming a huge amount of calories at this meal. Well worth the wait.

  I nodded toward the refrigerator. “Grab the door, Bev, we’ll see if there’s any room in there.”

  “There isn’t,” Dad said, shaking his head as he returned to carving his bird. “You’ll just have to find a space.”

  One of the servers put down her knife and the apple she was slicing then approached me with a smile. “I’ll take it, don’t worry.”

  I smiled my thanks before turning to Bev to herd her out of the kitchen. I leaned toward her and whispered in her ear, “Let’s get out of here before we’re recruited to help.”

  “So, um…is Jacob here?” Bev asked of Susan, who was returning to the kitchen.

  Susan’s brow furrowed slightly, although her smile didn’t waver. I was sure she had no idea about her son and Bev’s online relationship and probably thought they just had a random hookup at the wedding. “Yeeeeees,” she said, drawing out the word as she was obviously trying to figure out what was going on. “He’s talking to Lauren in the living room.”

  “I’ll go say hi,” Bev said, a blush rising to her cheeks before she disappeared.

  Leaning in close to Susan so as not to be overheard, I whispered, “Is Lauren behaving?”

  Susan smirked. “So far, but who knows what the evening will bring. Your uncle Moishe begged off sick, so I don’t know who will keep her in line. Mitchell’s wife wasn’t feeling well, either. Would you believe she hasn’t had that baby yet? Let’s just hope it doesn’t happen tonight; I’d like a nice evening with no drama…although…” She leaned in close, placing her hand on my shoulder to whisper in my ear. “Your mother sent a banana cake.”

  What? I backed up and stared at Susan to see if she was joking. My mother baking was completely uncharacteristic; my mother baking for her ex-husband’s new wife was borderline inconceivable. I had to admit that getting laid was certainly doing good things to my mom in unexpected ways.

  Susan nodded, biting her lip—she didn’t know what to make of it, either.

  “I think Mom’s turned a corner. I doubt there are razor blades in it or anything.”

  Susan’s hand flew to her pearl necklace to anxiously finger the perfectly uniform spheres. “Oh my God, I never thought…”

  I smiled, rolling my eyes. “I know, I’m just saying that she was probably being sincere when she sent it. She’s actually been pretty mellow lately.”

  Making my way into the living room, I scooped a few carrot sticks on my way by the buffet table, cursing my grumbling stomach. My grandmother was already seated on the most uncomfortable looking chair, speaking with Mitchell. Lauren looked up at me and nodded, her face a little less clenched than usual. I didn’t see her tagalong boyfriend; maybe he was in the bathroom.

  Jacob looked up, his face brightening when he saw Bev. He stood up and walked toward her, a twinkle in his eye that made me feel weird, like I was intruding by just standing there. “I didn’t expect to see you until later. Are you here for dinner?”

  Bev nodded.

  Jacob grinned. They looked like a couple of high school kids discovering the opposite sex for the first time.

  Apparently I didn’t exist, as far as he was c
oncerned; I didn’t even rate a nod or his usual grunted ‘hey.’ It bothered me for a second and then suddenly didn’t as I looked at the way Bev was looking at him. The two of them retreated to the couch in the corner, trying to look nonchalant, but obviously totally into each other.

  The doorbell rang.

  Susan was closest and disappeared into the foyer around the corner. “Oh. Hello. Thank you so much for coming.” I heard her say, her voice strained and animated. It must be Ari, I thought. She had already expressed her displeasure at my inviting him and not Nate. I stepped toward the foyer to intervene.

  But before I reached the front hall, Susan escorted the latest guests into the living room.

  Neither of them was Ari.

  It was Simon and his lover, Ben.

  In that silent moment, before Simon spoke, I could almost hear the gears turning in the collective minds of all of those assembled in the Rosenblatt home. Bubby and I knew, as did Bev (I had told her when I first found out). But it was painfully obvious that Simon’s siblings were completely clueless until that very moment. And it wasn’t that Simon said anything, or that he and his lover looked the stereotype of a gay couple, that gave it away. It was the supportive and loving way Ben had his right hand on Simon’s upper arm that communicated to the whole room the intimacy shared between them.

  “Hi everyone, this is Ben. He’s my…” Simon choked on the words when he finally spoke.

  Before he could finish, my clueless father came out of the kitchen in that moment, no sign of his turkey carving apron, although he did have a sizeable grease spot on his pants. “Okay, everyone, the turkey’s carved and we’re just about ready.” He looked around at everyone, maybe wondering at the tense silence. But then he looked at the newest arrivals. “Hi, Simon,” he said, his eyes darting from Simon’s face to that of the man standing next to him. Then he turned and looked at Susan, then to Bubby, who was smiling, and finally back to Simon. Poor guy was obviously confused.