“Yeah, cool beans,” I said. “Cool beans”? Seriously? What is this, 1991?
Lex giggled. “I don’t think I’ve heard that expression in twenty years!”
“Me neither,” I said sheepishly. “Not really sure where that came from.”
“You’ve always made me laugh, Seth.” She smiled and kissed my cheek, before turning toward the front door. I stood by the truck, admiring her graceful stride. Unlike Holly’s cacophonous crunch, Lex’s feet seemed to skim across the pebbles without a sound.
“Wanna run the lake tomorrow morning?” she called out from the porch. “Jordana says it’s about four miles around and really beautiful.”
“Definitely!” I said, feeling a rush of adrenaline.
“Great! It’s a date!” she said, then closed the door.
Get it together! I thought, as I sauntered toward the house. It’s Lex, for crying out loud! She’s married, with three kids, and you’re an ass.
I scooped up the wineglass I’d left on the porch and gulped the remainder of the cabernet before walking inside. I placed the glass in the kitchen sink. As I headed toward the staircase, I noticed the flickering blue light of a television illuminating a bedroom near the kitchen.
The door was slightly ajar. I poked my head inside and saw Becca in her pajamas, lying atop the quilt and staring gloomily at a muted TV. Amid the room’s angled cathedral ceiling and California king bed, she reminded me of a sad Alice in Wonderland, dwarfed by her surroundings.
“Hey,” I said. “Whatcha doin’?”
“Just flipping through the channels,” she replied. “I can’t sleep.”
“Mind if I join you?” I couldn’t walk away and leave her to wallow in depressing local news.
“Sure.” She shrugged like an apathetic teenager. It wasn’t the most welcoming invitation, but I accepted nonetheless.
I was tempted to ask if she had heard from Nolan, but I could intuit the answer just by looking at her. Maybe the others were right about him, I thought. After all, I would never have uttered the words Becca said he shouted at her in that doctor’s office.
I kicked off my shoes, reclined on the tufted velvet chaise in the corner of the room, and watched the channels flip past. “Wait a minute,” I said, “Go back. I just saw Christie Brinkley in a swimming pool.”
“Really?” she asked, a bit of verve returning to her. I could tell she knew exactly what that meant. National Lampoon’s Vacation had been a staple of our childhood. My father recorded it on our living room VCR when it played on local television one holiday weekend. Despite the abundance of commercials and the fact that it had been cleansed of its raunchier content, the movie never failed to make me laugh. That was the cassette I would bring over to Becca’s house on the days when she was too tired to play Parcheesi but still yearned for company. We’d sit in her parents’ den—I reclining on the frayed tweed La-Z-Boy, Becca sprawled out on the brown corduroy sofa with a needlepoint throw pillow beneath her head—mouthing along with Chevy Chase and Beverly D’Angelo for the entirety of the film. When we eventually rented the original, rated-R version from Blockbuster, we enjoyed it, but we agreed that my father’s grainy VHS cassette with the Crazy Eddie commercials was far superior.
For the next hour, we lay in our spots, reciting the movie verbatim, just like we did as kids. There was no need for conversation; we were just two friends hanging out, enjoying the distraction from our lives. And that was enough.
Chapter 11: Holly
I woke Saturday morning when Adam slipped out of bed. I watched as he draped an ivory linen prayer shawl over his head, opened his prayer book, turned east toward the window, and began reciting his morning invocations. As the sun rose over the hilltops and cast its light upon a corner of our guestroom, I rolled onto my side and tried to go back to sleep.
Sometime during my first trimester, when exhaustion had become the only gear in which I operated, I decided that sleep should take precedence over going to synagogue on my only day off from the bakery. The Sabbath was a day of rest, I reasoned, and I would wholeheartedly obey that commandment.
This morning was no different. But between my racing mind and my inability to find a comfortable sleeping position, catching some shuteye was as likely as the women in my community throwing me a baby shower. I decided to get out of bed and head into the kitchen for a glass of juice. That’s when I saw Lex at the counter, decked out in form-fitting black and fuchsia Lululemon spandex, with a perfect ponytail and her giant sunglasses perched on top. She looked like a celebrity preparing to jog past paparazzi.
“Good morning, hot mama!” I said. I felt homely beside her in my terry robe. I couldn’t recall the last time I had gone for a run or worn spandex as an outer layer. “Where are you off to?”
“Seth and I are going to do a loop around the lake. Jordana says it’s beautiful and just across the street from the base of the mountain.”
I heard a cell phone ring down the hall. Can’t be mine, I thought. It was Saturday morning, and I never used the phone on the Sabbath.
“All right! Let’s do this! Who’s ready for a power run?” Seth clapped his hands like a track coach as his neon sneakers pounded the treads of the wooden staircase down from the second floor. “You ready to go, Lex?”
“Am I ready? No, Seth, the question is, are you ready?” Lex asked. She turned and winked at me.
He smirked. “Check out the trash-talking Midwesterner. I guess you can take the girl out of Queens, but you can’t take Queens out of the girl.”
“I’m full of surprises, Mr. Gottlieb,” Lex said, hip-bumping him out of her way, before bolting out the front door for a head start.
If she weren’t married and he weren’t Seth, they’d actually make a cute couple, I thought.
I started to pick at some of the leftover challah from the night before, when I heard the cell phone down the hall again. A moment later, Adam came ambling out of our bedroom.
“Hey, Hol, can I see you for a sec?” he said, nodding toward our bedroom. “I need to speak with you.”
Adam never interrupted his prayers, and it was only 7:30 a.m.—way too soon for him to have finished the morning Shachris service.
I followed him. “What’s wrong?” I asked, as he closed the door behind me.
“You forgot to turn off your phone before Shabbos,” he said.
“I’m really sorry,” I said. “I must have forgotten to—”
He cut me off. “Everyone knows we don’t answer the phone on Shabbos, so I thought maybe, you know, God forbid . . .”
“Well? Who was it?” I demanded. I didn’t want to look at the phone and break the Sabbath rule right in front of him.
“Babies ‘R’ Us called,” he said. “They want their gun back.”
“What?” I didn’t think I had heard him correctly.
“Babies ‘R’ Us is missing a registry gun, and they tracked it back to you. I insisted they had the wrong phone number and that my wife would never steal anything, let alone create a baby registry, so I hung up. But when I put the phone back in your purse, I found this.” He dangled the zapper in front of my face as proof.
Oh my God! I thought, staring at the evidence. I must have thrown the gun into my purse when Becca got upset!
I felt awful for not having told Adam about the registry, and awful for having stolen someone else’s property.
“I can explain,” I said to Adam, whose disappointed eyes stung more than if he had erupted in anger.
He put up his finger to shush me. “Not now. I want to finish Shachris. We’ll talk about this later.”
“Please, let me explain,” I begged, but he was already wrapping himself back in his prayer shawl and flipping to the page where he had left off.
I exited the room and headed down the hall with the gun in one hand and the cell phone in the other. When I reached the kitchen, I saw Becca sitting alone at the island, sipping herbal tea and dabbing at her eyes.
“Are you all right?” I asked
.
She flashed a smile that collapsed as quickly as it formed. “I’m fine,” she said unconvincingly.
I remembered the vow Lex, Seth, and I made the night before: distract her, lift her spirits.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“Seth and Lex are jogging, Jordana went to run an errand, and I think Sal is still sleeping. Can’t tell you where Nolan is. . . .”
I showed her the registry gun. “Look what I’ve got,” I said.
“Why do you have that?” Then her eyes widened. “Oh, shit!”
I nodded and bit my lip.
“You just found it?” she asked.
“Adam did. They tracked me down. I need to return it. Do you think there’s a Babies ‘R’ Us nearby?”
Becca looked up store locations on her phone. “Here,” she said pointing to the screen. “There’s one twelve miles away. If you give me the keys to your car, I’ll take it back. I know you can’t drive on Shabbos.”
I hadn’t ridden in a car on the Sabbath since Adam and I had returned home from our Israel trip in high school. But the thought of Becca’s driving twenty-four miles alone in the middle of nowhere was unacceptable.
If I were to get in the car with her, I rationalized, I wouldn’t be breaking the rules of Shabbos for a frivolous reason. I would be supporting a friend in crisis—a friend who would otherwise be hanging around Jordana’s house, staring at a clock and waiting for her absentee husband to arrive. It would be a good deed, an act of loving kindness to distract her. I wouldn’t buy anything at the store; I would simply return what I should never have taken in the first place. The car, I convinced myself, was merely a vessel—a conduit to cleansing myself of the sin of theft, as well as a means to help a friend in need.
“Give me three minutes,” I said. “I’m coming with you.”
Becca looked dumbfounded. “Really? Have you lost your mind? They’ve got a million of these stupid guns. I’m sure they’ll understand if you bring it back on Monday! And honestly, I’m happy to make the drive myself. Maybe the open road and some music will help clear my mind.”
I ignored her and returned to my bedroom to get changed. I pulled an ankle-length denim skirt and long-sleeved cardigan sweater set from the duffel bag on the floor beside the dresser. “I’m going out,” I whispered to Adam, who was mid-prayer, his eyes fixed on the pages of his book and his lips in perpetual motion. I slipped on my black opaque stockings and a pair of Mary Janes, wrapped a blue-and-silver-flecked scarf around my hair, reached for my sunglasses on the nightstand, and grabbed the gun.
“I’m ready!” I announced, waddling back into the kitchen.
“Are you sure?” Becca asked.
“I’m a grown woman, and I want to. It’s my choice. Let’s go!” I really did feel very much at peace, and even slightly empowered, like I was seizing a rare opportunity to make a difference in Becca’s life. There is so little to do when a friend is ill. Opportunities to really help don’t always present themselves. Sometimes you need to create them.
Becca held the passenger door of my car open as if she were my chauffeur. I stepped in, sank into the caramel-colored leather, and gazed at the treetops through the sunroof on our descent down the mountain. Don’t feel guilty for taking pleasure in the experience, I reminded myself. This is a mitzvah ride.
During the twenty-minute drive from Jordana’s house to Lenox, Massachusetts, I couldn’t help but marvel at the region’s beauty. Hidden among the tall, lush trees that blanketed the winding roads, I spotted modern hilltop homes with huge picture windows, as well as quaint historic houses with rickety rocking chairs on the front porch. There were open fields with farm animals and scarecrows, shingles hung from mailboxes advertising glass-blowing or antique quilts, and even a small town with a banner announcing its annual zucchini festival. I didn’t know a zucchini festival was a “thing.”
“So, you think there’s any symbolism in the fact that this road is named Church Street?” I asked, as we drove through the charming town of Lenox and watched as women in strappy sundresses and flip-flops strolled lazily past art galleries with avant-garde sculptures and beautiful boutiques with hand-knit clothing in the windows. “Because, personally, I think it’s a sign, given this is the first time I’m breaking Shabbos in twenty years.”
Becca laughed.
She’s laughing, I thought. Mission accomplished.
“You know you didn’t need to sin on my behalf,” Becca said.
“I’ll atone for it later.” I pretended to beat my chest in repentance.
“Seriously, won’t Adam be upset?”
“Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. Life changes, and you redraw the lines a little.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I’m more open-minded now. Maybe the line I was willing to draw when I was twenty-five is different than the one I want to draw now.”
“Redraw the lines, huh?” Becca said. “How do I do that?”
“I think you know,” I said. “Bec, you’re the most authentic person I’ve ever met. Other than that crappy fake purse you bought on the street corner—McPolo or something?”
“That was a great bag!”
I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, my point is, you’ve always been real and honest. You wore that scarf on your head in high school and didn’t give a hoot if the kids stared. When you guys were dating, you were up front with Nolan about your medical history and about how you could relapse or have a hard time having kids, and guess what? He wasn’t fazed. He wanted to marry you anyway. You turned heartache into a beautiful success story with Emma; she understands about her birth and has explained it to her friends. There’s a theme here, and it’s authenticity. So whatever you choose to do about the surgery, be true to yourself and let the cards fall where they may.”
“How can it work out if Nolan won’t even tell me where he is or what he’s thinking?” she asked, and then curved into the parking lot of Babies “R” Us. As we entered the store that Shabbos morning, I thought about how smudged my own lines had become. There I was, finally on the cusp of motherhood—a time when I was supposed to be settled, stable, and ready to be my child’s role model—and yet, for the first time in over two decades, I was coloring outside the lines.
You talk a big game, kid, I thought. Here you are, touting the virtues of authenticity to Becca, when you’re an impostor! The voice of our rabbi back home rang in my ears: If you choose to look the part of an Orthodox Jew, you need to act the part of an Orthodox Jew. You are a representative of our faith and our community, and when you dress in this fashion, you accept certain responsibilities. I wondered what our rabbi would say if he saw me walking around a national chain store on Shabbos morning with my long skirt and covered hair. Was I helping a friend in need or deserving of a scarlet letter for breaking the rules and being a disgrace to my community?
Returning the gun was wholly uneventful. There were no lines, no documents to sign, and I was absolved of my crime in ninety seconds.
“Wanna browse?” I asked, remembering my mission to keep Becca busy. “I won’t buy anything today, but you wouldn’t have to twist my arm to check out the layette section.”
“Okay,” she said, giving me a quizzical look. It was the same look my parents displayed when, at age seventeen, I asked them to toss their cookware, torch the inside of their oven to burn away the residue from the non-kosher chickens they bought at the local supermarket, and buy two brand-new sets of utensils, pots, pans, and dishes—one set for meat meals, one set for dairy meals. Just like Mom and Dad, who complied with my request, albeit with furrowed brows and how-long-is-this-gonna-last skepticism, Becca agreed to ogle the onesies with me. But just as we started down the clothing aisle, her phone rang. It was Jordana.
“Where are you?” I could hear her voice through Becca’s cell. “I went to pick up some coffee, and by the time I got home, you were gone. No one’s here except Sal. What’s going on?”
Becca motioned for me
to follow her toward the exit. I waddled behind like an obedient duckling.
“Sorry,” she said, fishing my car keys from her purse. “We had to run an errand. Long story. We’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
Poor Jordana, I thought. She put so much effort into this weekend, and nothing has gone smoothly.
We settled into my car and turned back onto the main country road. “You know,” Becca said as she slowed at a traffic light, “you can do it, too.”
“Do what?”
“Make a new drawing of yourself.”
“I’m not having a midlife crisis—at least not yet.” I laughed.
“I’m just saying, you give good advice. Maybe you should listen to yourself sometimes.”
I leaned my head back against the headrest and stared at the clouds through the sunroof.
“I just don’t want to mess up motherhood, you know?” I said. “I’ve waited so long for this, Bec. I just want to get it right, and I don’t know what right is. And what if my right is different than Adam’s right? I’m a month away from delivery. I want this all settled before the baby comes. Do we stay the traditional course, which Adam and I have been on for the past twenty-something years, or can I blur the lines a little and incorporate some of the things I loved from my childhood, even if those things are inconsistent with Orthodoxy?”
“Like what?”
“Like eating out at a restaurant. Right now, we eat only at strictly kosher places. I doubt Adam would do it, but I’d consider going to a regular restaurant and ordering a salad or pasta. But once you try it, you’re labeled. It’s one thing to pick that path if only you are affected. It’s a whole other ballgame to put your innocent child in that position, and they get excluded from playdates and birthday parties because of the choices you made.”
“Which feels more authentic to you?” Becca asked.
I suspected I knew the answer, but, just like Becca in her situation, I wasn’t yet ready to verbalize it.
“Listen,” I said, turning to look at her, “I’ll be your gut-checker if you’ll be mine. Two rules. One: brutal honesty. Two: no judgment. Deal?”
The Cast Page 17
