“Hello, hello.” She wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me toward her.
I couldn’t help but warm to her embrace. She was back! She’d returned from wherever she’d gone while she was sick.
“Let me take a look.” She studied me in a way she hadn’t since before the Shabbos goy stole her from us. “All that sunshine agreed with you.”
“I loved it there,” I replied.
“Oh, everyone should have an adventure at your age, sweetheart. I’m just glad you’re back.” She looped her arm through mine as we walked to the baggage claim.
Our house smelled the same: cigarettes and the Lemon Pledge our cleaning lady used to polish the floors. My father’s galoshes were lined up neatly next to the back door. I dragged my suitcase upstairs and ran a hot shower. My bathroom at the Levensteins had a mirror slightly larger than my head, so I hadn’t seen my naked body since I left. I cleared the condensation from the long mirrors in my bathroom. Thick strands of gold striped my hair, and new freckles sprayed the bridge of my nose. My hands and wrists were brown. I turned around to look at the back of my body. My legs and rear were taut and sinewy from walking and racing Benny down the beach. My eyes reluctantly traveled up my back. A miracle. The skin had nearly cleared. I wished my arms were miles long so I could reach over my shoulders and feel the smoothness with my own fingers. Maybe the rebbetzin hadn’t exiled me; maybe she knew that I needed to grow new skin. I was home, and my mother was healthy again, and that was all that mattered.
My father greeted me when I came downstairs.
“How’s my California girl?” he said, shaking his winter coat from his shoulders. His skin looked gray and his lips slightly blue, and he hadn’t gained back the weight he’d lost while my mother was sick.
I walked over to him and put my arms around him. “I missed you, Dad.”
He hugged me back in his awkward way, and we both waited an extra second before we let go. “Me too, Bunny.”
My mother called us to the table, and over meatballs and rice, my favorite meal, I told my parents about Benny and Ollie and Simone. My dad nodded and smiled, and we talked about his patients and my mom’s history paper. They told me that Tzippy would be home in a few days to prepare for her wedding. The mention of her name gave me a jolt. I mentally counted the hours until I could see her.
When my mother got up to refill the rice bowl, she put her hand on my father’s shoulder, which I took as a sure sign that the Shabbos goy was out of the picture. I tried not to grin when my father’s eyes, shining with love and admiration, trailed her into the kitchen.
“I ran into Mrs. Kessler a few weeks ago at the butcher, I forgot to tell you.” My mother dug her fork into a meatball. “She’s proud that you’re going to pursue Madison’s teaching program.”
Yes, I could become just like Mrs. Kessler, adored by the children, respected by their parents, someone who always did the right thing. I chewed on that idea while my dad and I watched Kojak, his favorite show. Maybe I was imagining things, but his breathing seemed labored. I kissed his cheek and went off to bed.
“Glad you’re home, Barbara,” he said as he picked up his newspaper and disappeared into the front section.
It was Tuesday, and I couldn’t help lying awake, alert, waiting for my mom to creep out of the house, even though the information coded onto my palm and my physical transformation gave me hope that all of life’s blemishes had disappeared with a little sunshine and a glimpse of a different world. I heard nothing as I listened for my mother’s footsteps.
I didn’t let the bitter weather interfere with my morning walk. I trudged up and down Lake Drive, the air whistling through my cap. My ears were numb by the time I returned to our warm kitchen. My mother placed a steaming mug of cocoa in front of me and asked if I wanted to go shopping.
“I’d love to.” We hadn’t been shopping together in more than a year.
“First, we have a stop to make.” She ran upstairs and returned from her bedroom with a canvas bag she used to tote library books. The bag was heavy and dragged on her shoulder. She set it down and signaled me to look inside. I thumbed through the pile of Michener novels.
“You read all these?” I asked.
“Every last one,” she said with pride, telling me without the exact words that we were done with her illness and the Shabbos goy. I wrapped my arms around her, and she didn’t feel as if her bones would break. She pulled me close and stroked my back for a few seconds. I almost started to sob.
We spoke little as we drove to the library and then to the Boston Store, but my mother looked over at me a few times and smiled. We walked into the mall like any other mother and daughter visiting a department store, shopping for an outfit to wear to a wedding. She snatched a reddish-brown wool dress off the rack and held it up to my face. “This looks pretty with your hair.”
She waited outside the changing room while I glided the dress over my head. It was a soft wool, a grown-up fabric I’d never worn before, and it fit as though it were made for me. The neckline revealed a tiny bit of collarbone, and because I was short, it hung below my knees, so I could wear it to the Schines’. I pulled my shoulders back and examined the way the dress fell over my breasts. I tentatively exited the changing room and walked toward the stool where my mother sat, by the three-way mirror.
She stood beside me and put her hand on top of my head. “When did you grow taller than your mom?”
“Guess it was the California sunshine.”
“So what do you think?”
“I like it.” I was referring to both the dress and the feel of her hand.
My mother touched my neck lightly. “It will look nice with my pearls.”
I felt like Eliza Doolittle in the dress and the pearls I imagined against my skin. She bought me the dress, a pair of nylons, and a white half-slip. It wasn’t elegant or sexy like hers, but she told me that it would make my dress hang better on my body. It did. I held two large shopping bags on my lap as we drove out of the parking lot.
“You don’t mind if we stop at Beckerman’s on the way home?” She turned on her blinker. “I just need to pick up some sandwich steaks.”
The butcher shop was small and dingy, and you could just see the back room where maroon beef carcasses striped with columns of white fat hung on giant hooks. My mother greeted Mr. Beckerman, a small man whose beard overpowered his tiny face.
“Hello, Mrs. Pupnick. Let me go and get your steaks,” he said as if my mother was his best friend.
Just then, the front door opened, and a gust of cold air assaulted my ankles. I turned my head. The rebbetzin stood in the doorframe in a stylish cap and the black double-breasted coat she’d sewn a few winters back. Her nose was red from the cold. My anger toward her had been dissolving for months, and now I was just happy to be here with her and my mother. She held my mother’s hands and then turned to me and pinched my chin with one of her cold fingers.
“I heard wonderful things about you from the Levensteins,” she said.
I looked down at my feet, a little embarrassed but wanting to hear more about the Levensteins’ compliments. “Benny was easy.”
“You did a real mitzvah,” the rebbetzin said. “And your mother didn’t tell me how gorgeous you look. Tzippy can’t wait to see you. She’ll be home the day after tomorrow, early she’s coming. Ten o’clock.”
“I can’t wait either,” I said, blushing.
Mr. Beckerman returned with a brown paper bag. “Hello, rebbetzin.” He turned to my mother. “Let me take this to your car, and I’ll be right back.”
“Take your time,” the rebbetzin told him, “and then I want the news from Florida.”
My mother rubbed the rebbetzin’s hands. “Your fingers are like icicles, Rivkah.” She gave the rebbetzin her gloves. “I got two pairs for my birthday last year.”
“June, keep your gloves. I have some at home.”
“I only have two hands! I don’t want you to get sick before the wedding.” My moth
er put both gloves in her palm and extended it to the rebbetzin. She paused for a second before she accepted my mother’s gift, which further convinced me that my mother had ended things with the Shabbos goy. After all, the rebbetzin would never warm to my mother’s touch, much less take her gloves, if my mother were still having an affair.
During the drive home, I noticed that my mother’s fingernails had purpled from the cold. My hands were sweating inside my mittens, so I took one off and handed it to her. She touched my fingers to see if they were warm and then took one mitten for the hand she used to steer the car and placed her other hand in her pocket.
The day before Tzippy was due home, I filled in for my dad’s receptionist, Frannie. I didn’t mind answering the phones, listening patiently while the moms figured out how to squeeze my father into their children’s schedules. The ones from the northern suburbs had names like Marlene and Brenda and belonged to synagogues with pews and plush red carpeting. They lived in custom-built houses and shuttled their kids to and from Sunday school in their station wagons. Sometimes I wondered what it was like to have the pieces of your life fit together so logically.
Who was I kidding? I wouldn’t trade being part of the Schines’ world for anything. I fantasized about helping Tzippy prepare for her wedding. I’d spend my days at the mansion, just like when we were kids. We’d retreat to the nook and she’d tell me all about her new husband, and I’d tell her all about the Levensteins and how great she was going to be as a rebbetzin.
I was so excited to see Tzippy that I couldn’t fall asleep that night. The house was quiet, and I tried on my new dress. I practiced crossing my legs, smoothing the wool over my bare thighs. I sat in the dark in front of my window and watched the start of a new snowfall.
I was just about to change into my pajamas when I heard the stairs creak. The back door opened, and an engine thrummed. I peered out the window. Snowflakes danced around my mother, dotting the shoulders of her blue coat as she disappeared down the alley. I pressed my hands against the cold glass and opened my mouth to scream. Nothing came out. Inside I was shouting at my mother so loudly that I thought my skull would shatter. You’re a liar and a shamer. You shamed Dad. You shamed me. You shamed the rebbetzin. I heard the blue Dodge drive off.
I threw on my boots and walked up Lake Drive to Atwater Beach. I sat down on a wet bench overlooking the black lake. Flakes of snow settled on my face and bare legs. I held my palm up to the streetlight and looked for those lines, searching for the spot where they reconnected. I wanted to believe Simone, but if my mother was still seeing the Shabbos goy, then no rupture could be mended, not now. I might have sat there for ten minutes or an hour, I wasn’t sure. When I lost feeling in my toes and lips, I walked the half mile home.
My mother was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me, an ashtray full of cigarette butts in front of her. She blew out a puff of smoke, narrowing her bloodshot eyes. Her nose was swollen from crying. “I’ve been worried sick about you.”
I glowered at her. I didn’t trust my words, so my silent rant continued. All I’ve done is worry about you, and you’ve cost us everything, and now you think I’m going to continue hauling around your filthy secret like a fifth limb. I started to hyperventilate, and then I felt as though my head was a carved pumpkin and someone was removing the lid. My mother put her arms around me and guided me upstairs to my room. I couldn’t believe that I actually felt comfort in her arms, but I did.
I lay down on my bed, and she returned a few minutes later with a glass of water and a brown paper bag. “Here, breathe into this if you get light-headed again. You’re having a panic attack.”
I nodded my head.
She smiled sadly. “They pass quickly.”
I clutched the bag and took a sip of water. “I can’t be a part of this anymore, Mom.” I still couldn’t breathe very well. “Did you hear what I said?”
She looked down at the bag and nodded.
I felt a shift inside, as though a long chain with a silver hook was scooping me from my bed, from my physical being. I was floating, suspended over myself like my own ghost. Something steely gripped my heart.
“I’m going back to San Diego,” I said as the decision came to me.
My mother looked up. “You’re going to skip Tzippy’s wedding?”
“I don’t know.” I took a deep breath. Never yet had I broken the commandment to respect my mother. I had held my tongue, but I couldn’t any longer. Each word came out with force. “I will not walk into the Schines’ shul with you and your lie.” I paused. “Ever again.”
The air crackled between us. I’d never mentioned her affair.
She rose and said softly, “Don’t throw away your friendship with Tzippy over me.”
I wanted to say, You’re right, you’re not worth it, but instead, I spoke the vow I’d made to myself. “And I will not take care of you after he leaves you again.”
I met her eyes and saw the fog rolling in, but she wanted to say something to me first. “Oh, Barbara. It’s so much more complicated than that.”
I was exhausted. I closed my eyes and seconds later drifted off, wondering if she’d come back and sleep on the floor next to my bed, and despite everything, wishing that she would.
My mother wasn’t there when I woke up in the middle of the night, chilled, my new dress gathered in a damp heap next to my bed. I took a hot shower, whimpering like an animal. When the water turned cold, I wrapped myself in a towel and put on pajamas that my mother had washed for me that morning.
The house was still and dark. I found my wallet, retrieved the grocery-bag scrap with Simone’s number, and crept into my father’s study to use his phone. I almost hung up when a man answered. It had to be Daniel. His voice was inviting and distracted at the same time.
“I’m sorry to be calling so late. May I please speak with Simone? This is Barbara, we used to meet on the beach in La Jolla, and she said she needed a live-in babysitter and that I should call if I wanted to come back to California, which I do, which is why I’m calling, but I can always call back if this is a bad time, and I sure hope I didn’t wake Ollie. I could also just give her my number and she can call me back. I know it’s long distance, but I can hang up right away and dial her back.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Um, is anyone there?”
“I’m here,” Daniel answered with a smile in his voice. “Are you done?” He laughed, and I had an odd sense that he would have listened to me for as long as I rambled.
“I’m done.”
“Okay, then.” He paused. “Simone, for you.”
“Thanks, babe,” she said. I recognized her voice, confident and a little raspy.
I put it to Simone straight. “I’d like to work for you if you still need help.”
I woke up the next morning to the smell of banana muffins baking in the oven. Did my mother think that making me my favorite breakfast was going to erase what happened last night? I picked my dress up from the floor and hung it in the bathroom, and then I crawled back into bed and stared out the window, watching the wind blow the snow off the branches of our oak tree. I folded my hands over my chest and lay still, but my brain was speeding all over the place, trying to figure out what to do next.
After the front door shut and my mother’s car engine started, I went to my father’s study and booked a flight for myself. It would cost me a chunk of my earnings from working for the Levensteins, but I didn’t care. I dressed quickly and walked to the mansion to see Tzippy, the wind biting at my face as I trudged over the icy sidewalks.
Rabbi Schine was in the front hall when I entered the mansion. I greeted him without looking in his direction. I didn’t want to find pity in his face, because I wanted to believe that he didn’t know that my mother hadn’t quit seeing the Shabbos goy.
“Barbara,” he said.
I stared at my boots.
“We’re glad you’re home.”
“Thank you, Rabbi Schine,” I mutt
ered, still not looking up.
“She’s in the bride’s room,” he said kindly, and I hurried off. The bride’s room doubled as a place for mothers to nurse their babies. There was an old couch with juice stains from when Tzippy and I were little and played here during services. Tzippy was sitting in front of the vanity, clearing crayon shavings and crumbs that had accumulated since the last wedding. Our eyes met in the mirror. Hers sparkled, and her skin glowed. This was not the scared girl who had cried to me in Mrs. Kessler’s room. She held her shoulders back, and her smile was radiant. She looked womanly.
She sprang up from her chair and ran to my arms. We held each other for a few minutes. In my reflection in the mirror, I could see the sadness making my whole body droop.
“Tell me all about San Diego.” She held my hands in hers and gave me the full force of her attention.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“So isn’t Sari a honey pie?”
“She is, but she was really sick, so I didn’t see her that much.”
“And Benny?”
I missed Benny. “He’s very cute, but this is your day. What do we need to do to get ready?”
“My mother just told me that we have twenty more people coming. We have to bake.” She rolled her eyes.
“Okay.”
“I told her that I’m getting married in a few days, and she not so gently reminded me that I was going to be a rebbetzin and I had to put the needs of the community first.”
We got to work in the shul’s kitchen. I was relieved that Tzippy and I were using it because I didn’t want to bake in the Schines’ apartment. I couldn’t face the rebbetzin after what happened last night.
“Are you going to tell me about your husband already?” I teased.
Tzippy smiled with her whole face, and we sat on the counter and dangled our legs like we did when we were little. “His name is Zev.”
“Okay. I know his name is Zev. Tell me more.”
Washing the Dead Page 18
