“Nice to meet you, Sylvia.”
“Nice to meet you, Valentina.”
“Nice to meet you, Sarah.”
Next, Ursella, the Boyfriend’s mother. “Hello,” she said to everyone in her heavily accented English. Alan tried to place the accent, but Sylvia already knew, courtesy of her Google search: Russia.
And then, finally, the Boyfriend. Sarah didn’t know what to make of him. He didn’t look like Rebecca’s other boyfriends, which is to say, tall, dark, and handsome. This one looked different. He was blond haired and blue eyed, like a Ralph Lauren model. And his smile. His smile was so bright, it couldn’t possibly be real.
“What?” Becca whispered to Sarah. She could tell something was wrong.
“Nothing,” Sarah whispered back. “He seems nice. They all seem nice.”
Becca pulled Sarah into their father’s study.
“But you don’t like him,” she accused.
“I don’t even know him!” Sarah said. “I’ve barely said five words to him. He’s very handsome.”
“You think he’s too handsome,” she said.
“No,” Sarah said. “Why don’t we go back inside so I can get to know him a bit better?”
“Have you spoken with Gid?”
“We video chatted the other day,” Sarah said. “The holidays make me miss him.”
“Me, too,” Becca said. “Even though we hate him.”
“You don’t have to like someone to love them.”
Twenty-Seven
When it came to house tours, Ursella was an expert. (Town & Country had photographed her home three times. Architectural Digest—once.) But of this Alan had no idea. Instead of a “nice view of the backyard,” he should have described the “sweeping view of the nearby lake.” Instead of “Sylvia picked out all of the bedding,” he should have known that his duvet was bespoke Egyptian cotton, with a six-hundred-thread count. Instead of “a decent-sized bathtub,” he should have talked about the oversized Jacuzzi, large enough for two.
But Ursella didn’t care about any of those things. What she cared about, what she wanted to see, was Becca’s room. Ursella liked Becca. She liked her a lot. She certainly liked her more than the girls Henry usually brought home. Girls who would be better left outside. Better suited to cleaning their toilets. Becca was different. For one, she had already graduated college—usually Henry liked to date girls who were younger than he was. She was poised. Most of Henry’s ex-girlfriends chewed gum and flipped their hair with alarming frequency. But what really excited Ursella was the fact that Becca went to medical school. She was smart. She was going places. A girl like Becca could make Henry a better man.
Or at least Ursella hoped she could. But she needed to see Becca’s bedroom to figure out if she was right about her. Perhaps, like her Henry, Becca merely looked the part. Maybe once you peeled back the first layer, you’d find that she was no different from the girls Henry usually dated, just in a better outfit.
Ursella let out a tiny sigh. She hadn’t meant to do it, but she had been holding her breath since leaving Manhattan. She’d only just realized it. Becca’s room was just what Ursella had hoped for. The room exuded a pale-pink innocence. High school mementos littered the walls. A bouquet of dried roses was displayed on the bedside table. Stuffed animals were huddled on the ivory bedspread. Ursella smiled to herself. Yes, Becca would do just fine. Alan pretended to be humble when he showed off Becca’s embarrassment of trophies and achievements. First place in a gymnastics tournament. Second place in a storytelling competition. Five first-place trophies stacked neatly in a row from tennis matches. But Ursella knew he enjoyed bragging. Why shouldn’t he? If Ursella had such a child, she would yell it from the rooftops.
Ursella looked up from the trophy case and her eyes met Edmond’s. He, too, had noticed that Becca’s room was a shrine to perfection. He nodded at his wife. Ursella smiled in return, certain that they were thinking the same thing.
They were not.
For Ursella, it was enough that Becca be a good influence on Henry. The dog-eared copies of The Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird, the high school letters from various sports played and mastered, the framed letters of commendation from the dean. This was the sort of girl Henry needed. Please let her stay around long enough to get Henry interested in re-enrolling in school. Or getting a job. Or doing anything besides padding around her town house all day.
Edmond needed more. But Ursella didn’t know that just yet. No one knew that just yet. (But more on that later.)
For Ursella, Becca would do just fine.
Twenty-Eight
“May I have your attention?” Sylvia clinked her wineglass with a tiny spoon. “Chef Michael will be serving the wine.”
Becca shot Sarah a look.
Sarah shot one back.
Chef Michael made a big show of pouring the wine properly, explaining how he’d poured the wine properly, and then, after he had poured the wine properly, telling the guests that they were drinking Opus One.
“Is that one of ours?” the Boyfriend’s mother asked.
“Yes, sweetheart,” the Boyfriend’s dad responded. “How lovely, Sylvia.”
“How cute,” the Boyfriend’s mother agreed, and Sylvia winced. With Ursella’s accent it sounded like: how coot. As in: what a coot! Sylvia did not like to be described as cute. Or coot. She liked sweeping adjectives. Adjectives that were grand in stature. Adjectives that conveyed exactly how important Sylvia Gold was. Cute was not such an adjective.
“Thank you,” she responded with a tight smile.
Chef Michael then set out the foie gras and toast points, along with Sylvia’s newly purchased linen napkins.
Sylvia nodded her approval while Chef Michael continued his presentation with passed service—potato pancakes, placed beautifully on one of Sylvia’s sterling silver trays. Only these weren’t your regular potato pancakes, fried lovingly until crisp and served with a generous dollop of applesauce. No, these were fancy-chef potato pancakes. An “interpretation” of a potato pancake. Chef Michael was explaining this to a very doubtful Sarah (it involved something called a “deconstruction”), who stuffed one into her mouth for the sole purpose of shutting him up.
Sarah turned away to chew, hoping this would signal Chef Michael to stop talking. (It did not.) She was disappointed in the pancake. It tasted nothing like the potato pancakes she had grown up on. The ones she would make on the stove top with her mother, wearing an apron that was too big, Sylvia pulling her back any time she felt the oil splatters getting too high. The potatoes in Chef Michael’s dish were separated from the matzo meal, and he used real apples instead of applesauce for that taste of sweetness. Sarah spit it out into her embroidered linen napkin.
* * *
Sylvia was ever-so-gently steering Valentina away from Ursella. She did that whenever the women got within five feet of each other. But Valentina didn’t notice. After all, she didn’t care about Becca’s boyfriend or his parents, Rothschild or not. All she ever cared about was Joe.
Valentina doted on Joe, running her fingers through his hair, wiping imaginary dirt from his face, brushing her hands across his broad shoulders. Sarah often joked that if he were to let her, she might even try to feed him.
After “cocktail hour,” Sylvia ushered her guests to the dining room. The table was set with her good china, yet more linen napkins, and something their family had never used before: place cards.
“Ooh, I’m next to you, Alan,” Valentina cooed.
“I am as well,” Ursella said, sitting in the chair to Alan’s right, at the head of the table.
“Lucky me,” Alan said. “I’ve got the best seat in the house.”
“So do I,” Sylvia said, showing the Boyfriend’s father to his seat, the one to the right of her place at the head of the table. The Boyfriend was seated to her left.
The table was rounded out like this: Rebecca next to the Boyfriend; Joe and Sarah across the table from each other; Joe next to
his mother; and Sarah in between her sister and the Boyfriend’s mom. Sarah hated that she and Joe were not sitting next to each other. She looked down as she carefully, slowly took out her cell phone to text Joe.
“Absolutely not,” Sylvia said, catching Sarah as she tapped away under her linen napkin. “Phones away,” she scolded. Even though this comment was meant only for Sarah, the Rothschilds all dutifully took their phones out and turned them off.
Valentina did not. In fact, almost as if to show just what she thought of this no-phones-at-the-Seder-table rule, her phone began to chirp.
“I’ll just answer this real quick,” she stage-whispered to Sylvia. She tried to keep her voice down, but it was no use. Everyone at the table was looking at her, waiting to find out who was on the other end of the line. “I should have let you know. We’ve decided not to take the call.”
Then, she stage-whispered to Sylvia: “It’s the warden. I’m taking care of it now.”
“The warden?” Ursella asked. “What are you taking care of?”
“We were going to do a video chat with Joe’s dad,” she said. “On account of his good behavior. Joe’s dad’s, I mean, not Joe’s! Joe’s not even in prison!”
“Prison?” Becca repeated, and looked to Sarah for an explanation.
“Well, that sounds love-eh-lee,” Mrs. Rothschild said, not skipping a beat. “Why are you canceling that?”
“Oh, Sylvia thought it wouldn’t be a good idea. We don’t want to upset anyone. You know, especially given your family’s history.”
“Excuse me?”
Mr. Rothschild, who hadn’t really been paying attention to this whole exchange, turned to hear the answer to his wife’s question. He looked a bit pale.
“This is just a big misunderstanding!” Sylvia trilled from the edge of the table. “Of course we’re having the video chat! Tina, you must have misunderstood me.”
“I did?” Joe’s mom asked, and looked to Joe. Joe looked at Sarah. Sarah, in turn, looked back at both of them and tried to formulate a thought. But the wine wouldn’t let her.
“Of course you did!” Sylvia said. Everything Sylvia was saying was so emphatic that Sarah furrowed her brow, wondering if her mother might explode from the sheer force of her words. “Go get your iPad! I insist!”
Valentina looked to Alan. “She insists,” he said.
Valentina got up slowly and walked toward the door. Moments later, she returned to the table with her iPad.
“Chef Michael!” Sylvia called out. “I think we’re all going to need another glass of wine.”
Twenty-Nine
“Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?”
It was not a promising start. Valentina could barely get her iPad to connect. Every time she thought she was connected, that spinning beach ball returned to the center of her screen to say otherwise.
“Alan has an enormous computer in his home office,” Sylvia said, under the guise of being helpful. “Maybe you’d get a better connection there?”
Alan shot a look to Sylvia that was roughly the equivalent of giving her the middle finger. She smiled back: You can’t blame a girl for trying. Alan’s face turned to a soft, mushy smile.
“Let me take a look,” he said, and fidgeted with the iPad until the video chat came in loud and clear.
“Where’s my daughter-in-law?” Dominic asked. “I want to see my daughter-in-law.”
“They’re not married!” Sylvia trilled.
“Hi, Dom,” Sarah said.
“Beautiful!” he said. “You look so beautiful. Mazel tov!”
Mazel tov wasn’t exactly the correct expression, but Sarah found it so endearing that he tried to be appropriate to the occasion that she didn’t have the heart to correct him.
“A zissen Pesach,” Alan said. “Happy Passover.”
“Alan!” Dominic said, as Sarah passed the iPad to Alan. “A decent pay sock to you, too!”
“You okay in there?” Alan asked.
“Oh yes, fine,” he said, as if he were staying in a three-star hotel, and not his usual four-star. “Where’s my bride?”
“I’m right here, honey!” Valentina said, reaching across Alan to take the iPad from him. “I miss you so much, Nicky.”
“Beautiful!” he said. “You look so beautiful. Where’s my boy?”
“Hey, Pop.” Joe looked slightly embarrassed by this whole exchange, but the Rothschilds sat smiling, enjoying this bit of computer-assisted family time.
“You taking care of the shop?”
“Yeah, Pop.”
“Good,” he said. “I want you to be a big success like your little lady.”
Sarah couldn’t help but smile when Dominic said things like that. He meant it with good, old-fashioned love. Surely Anna Wintour allowed a “little lady” to slip by here and there?
Moments later, Joe was waving the iPad around, submitting to his father’s request to “show me all of the beautiful people there at the table.”
“Gorgeous!” Dominic said. “Just gorgeous! Every single one of you is gorgeous!”
* * *
Dominic never met a person who didn’t like him. He noticed it at a young age—that he was able to make men like him and women fall in love with him with little to no effort. He didn’t know what it was, but guessed that it was something in his face. It looked honest, his father had told him, the kind of face you could trust.
But this was a new experience, being in prison. He was finding that he couldn’t win people over with just a charming smile. If he resorted to his regular trick, the one he’d taught Joe—show them your teeth—his teeth were very likely to get kicked out. And Dominic did not want his teeth to get kicked out.
Everyone he encountered there was inclined to hate him. He thought he’d be able to win over the prison guards with his charm, but that wasn’t how things worked inside. Not even at a minimum-security prison. Everything on the inside worked on favors.
What can you do for me?
What can you get for me?
How can you help me?
But Dominic didn’t have anything to give. In the real world, he owned a business. He did people favors. He helped people out. But inside, he was finding it hard.
He could have asked Valentina to bring him things to trade, but he wanted her to think he was all right. He didn’t want her to know the way things really were.
The female guards offered sex for money, the warden was a sadist who enjoyed watching inmates fight, and things were being sent in and out of the kitchen at an alarming rate. Dominic had been assigned to laundry duty, the least scandalous place there was. He thanked his lucky stars for small miracles.
Valentina came to visit every week, just like she’d promised, and Dominic was sure to put on a happy face for her. When she convinced the warden to let her do a video chat—at a Gold family holiday, no less!—he didn’t have the heart to say no. He could never say no to Valentina.
He only hoped that Joe would forgive him.
* * *
“So nice to meet you, Dominic,” the Boyfriend’s father said to the iPad. “We look forward to meeting you in person soon.”
“Classy!” Dominic said. “Youse all are some classy folks!”
At this, Joe’s face turned a slight shade of red. Sarah moved her foot to his leg, a show of support, but she hit the leg of the table instead.
LOVE YOU, she texted under the table. Joe reached for his pants, saw the message, and smiled.
Dominic continued going on about how gorgeous everyone at the table was; no one seemed to mind. Even Sylvia realized that it must be refreshing to see something normal after being in jail for a few weeks. There probably wasn’t anything beautiful to see in that prison, and it probably felt good for Dominic to remember that there was a whole life waiting for him when he got out. After all, even a minimum-security prison was still a prison.
The warden came back to announce that the chat was over. Valentina put the iPad away. Sylvia let out a deep breath.
It was as if she’d been holding her breath this entire time. Which she had been.
“Now,” she said, “shall we begin?”
Thirty
Depending on who leads a Passover Seder, it can go one of two ways. It can be a long and somewhat depressing service. (Slavery. Ten plagues brought upon the land. The slaying of all firstborn children.) Or, it can, in the right hands, be a joyous family celebration. (Four cups of wine. A children’s song about Moses floating in a basket. A sandwich made out of apples, walnuts, red wine, and cinnamon.)
Every Jewish family conducts its Seder in its own way. Some strive to make the ceremony as precise as possible. They do not skip pages; they sing every song. They lean when the Haggadah says to lean, wash hands when it says to wash hands, and they do not dare drink wine unless the text specifically says to do so.
The Gold family, too, had its own distinct kind of Seder. Year after year, they would sing a song about the plagues—a holdover from Gideon’s childhood days when he’d learned a nursery school song about jumping frogs—and drink wine whenever they felt like it. They would sneak bites of matzoh before the Haggadah called for it, because even though matzoh tastes like cardboard, anything is better than giving your full attention to the service at hand.
Sylvia knew this—she’d hop up from the table like a jumping frog under the pretense of checking on the food at regular intervals. Sarah always tagged along—the self-appointed marshmallow police, making sure the top of the sweet potato casserole was caramelized just the right amount. With the addition of Chef Michael to the holiday, Sylvia would have no choice but to stay at the table for the entire service. Sarah wondered if that meant that she, too, would have to stay put like a dinner party guest, as opposed to a member of the family.
At this evening’s Seder, there was to be no silly singing, no matzoh sneaking, no furtive drinking. Alan sat a little higher in his seat; Sylvia left her wineglass untouched. Sarah could tell that the Rothschilds, too, were taking this Seder more seriously than need be. Ursella took out one set of reading glasses for herself and passed another to her husband. Edmond flipped through the pages of the Haggadah, readying himself. Valentina, upon seeing this, paged through her own Haggadah. Joe silently took the book from his mother’s hands and showed her how to open it from left to right, as opposed to the other way around, which had caused her book to begin at the end.
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