Jacob's Folly

by Rebecca Miller

  “You have the charm of a Victorian, with all the amenities of modern life,” Nevsky explained as she returned to the living room, his arms whipping around as he indicated the various appliances. “Washer and dryer are downstairs in the laundry room. But you got your dishwasher, garbage disposal, coffeemaker, all that’s in the kitchen. There’s gonna be Wi-Fi eventually! I got you a few groceries, and later I can take you to the store so you can pick things you like, or if you have any dietary requirements, if you’re vegetarian, or—”

  “I’m not a vegetarian,” said Shelley. “I eat whatever.”

  “I’m not vegetarian,” said Masha.

  “I don’t know if you, ah—Masha, if you—”

  Masha turned and looked at Derbhan Nevsky. He was asking if she was going to be eating kosher. “Don’t worry about me,” she said.

  “Truth is,” he said, nodding, Masha thought, with approval, “you’ll be eating at the Coe house most of the time, or in the city between auditions.” Nevsky sat on the brilliant red couch, shielding his eyes from the sun. “This is going to be a very busy few months, girls. Sit down.” They each sat on a stiff black chair. Nevsky snapped the fingers of both his hands once, as if to command his own attention. Then he began.

  “First off, I need to get you ready. Each as an individual. Masha, you need to tone down the accent. Shelley, you need conditioner. Just kidding, but seriously for both of you, trips to the beauty parlor. Exercise! Facials! Manicures! Shopping! I don’t just want men looking at you two on the street. I want them following you. Bridget’s class—obviously, you need to work on the technique, that’s a lifelong process. Once you have your confidence up, we start meeting casting directors. General meetings. Auditions to follow. If necessary, Bridget’s agreed to coach you on your auditions. All expenses paid. You understand?”

  Shelley laughed. “I feel like I just won the grand prize in a game show,” she said.

  Masha looked at Nevsky. He was wearing his floppy white tennis hat at an angle today. She wondered if he was a legitimate person. Yet, if Bridget was letting this happen, it had to be okay.

  “What do you get out of it?” she asked.

  Nevsky’s face brightened. “I’m glad you asked that,” he said, taking two contracts out of a battered briefcase and handing Masha a pen.

  “Ten percent, that’s all. Ten percent of anything you girls make while I’m your manager. If you make nothing after six months, you owe nothing. I’m rebuilding an empire here. You’re my first two bricks.”

  He took them to the grocery store. Masha chose a toothbrush, toothpaste, simple toiletries, makeup. She picked up some underwear from a sale barrel near the entrance. Then she walked down the aisles secretly looking for kosher meat products. All she could find were hot dogs. She took a couple of packets and threw them in the cart.

  Nevsky dropped them off at the apartment and told them he would pick them up at five to take them to Bridget’s class. They should eat a snack, then they would have dinner later, with the Coes. Masha threw two huge kosher beef hot dogs into boiling water.

  “I can lend you clothes,” said Shelley, “till you have time to get something. Unless you’re planning on going home to pick stuff up …”

  “No,” said Masha. “If I go back, I’ll never get out again.” She gave a hot dog in a roll to Shelley, then, before taking a bite of her own, she whispered a blessing over it.

  “What are you saying? Grace?” asked Shelley.

  “Kind of. It’s a bracha. A blessing.”

  “You always do that when you eat?”

  “Or drink,” said Masha.

  “Every sip?”

  “Nah, just once, then even if you’re drinking out of a bottle of water for an hour, the bracha lasts the whole time. There’s different brachas for meat, dairy, water, wine, whatever.”

  “How do you remember it all?”

  Masha shrugged. “I knew most of them by the time I was five.”

  “My grandparents always said grace at dinner,” said Shelley. “And my dad, I think, I don’t exactly remember.”

  “Did he die?”

  “No, he just relocated.” Shelley looked over at Masha. “It’s so weird how things happen,” she said. “I mean, if it wasn’t for you walking by the school, no way would you and I have ever even met. You would just—excuse me for saying this. But—you would be one of those people I stare at all the time.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Masha.

  “Well, I mean, the men who wear the hats and the sidelocks and the women are all covered up, with the thick stockings. Those people.”

  “Yeah?” said Masha.

  “I always want to know why. Why do they dress like that? Why do the women wear wigs and wear long sleeves in August?”

  “It’s something called tznius,” said Masha. “It’s just a kind of modesty. If people are staring at your legs or whatever, they won’t see your neshama, your soul. Who you are as a person. Those people you’re noticing are probably Hasidic, which I’m not, but it comes to almost the same thing. They’re just more … more.”

  “But what if who you are is someone who likes to wear really short skirts?” asked Shelley. Masha laughed, shaking her head.

  Shelley lent her a jean skirt that came down to her ankles and a baggy striped top, choosing a tartan miniskirt with a little white sweater and platforms for herself. As they walked out of their building they saw a light blue vintage Mercedes idling loudly at the curb. The back window glided down and Nevsky waved from the crack. He was on the phone. A slender man in a black suit and white turban emerged from the driver’s side and opened the door for them.

  “I am Surinder Multani,” he said with a kind smile. “I am the driver of Mr. Coe.”

  When they arrived at the school, Masha scurried from the car into the building. She didn’t feel safe so close to her own home. When she got inside, Hugh was standing there.

  “Hey,” he said. “I hear you moved.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  Hugh passed his hand over his spiky hair. “Derbhan Nevsky. He’s legit?”

  “I guess so,” she said. “I couldn’t think of another way.”

  After class, Bridget took Masha back to her office.

  “You’ve made a break,” she rasped.

  “Yeah,” said Masha. “I still can’t believe it.”

  “Your mother and your sister were here asking about you.”

  “They were?”

  “I told them you were fine and that you would be in touch with them when you felt ready.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Your sister—”

  “Miriam?”

  “She was pretty upset with me.”

  Sorry.

  “I have no problem with being a buffer, but I think you should write to them.”

  “I will.”

  “You have every right to do this, you know. You’re an adult. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” Masha shrugged.

  “Masha. Listen. I feel responsible for you in a way. You know I hoped that you would choose this work, to try to learn the craft of this work. And now you’ve chosen to, and I’m nervous as hell that it’s going to mess you up.”

  “It was my choice,” said Masha.

  “I know,” said Bridget. “But … use me. Use me as a sounding board, adviser, whatever. Talk to me whenever you need to. It’s going to be a big, gradual process.”

  “What is?”

  “Integration. I don’t even think you are aware of how different you are.”

  “I’m not that different,” said Masha.

  “You don’t understand,” said Bridget, tucking in her chin and fixing Masha with a steady look. “You need to be rewired.”

  Jeans: indigo, acid-washed, boot-legged, peg-legged, high-waisted, low-waisted, rhinestoned, butt-lifting. Organized into piles, crammed onto shelves, fanned out on tables; the sheer intimidating volume of them made Masha want to curl up in her long gray dress, pull it ov
er her feet, and weep.

  Shelley had several pairs draped over her arm and was efficiently checking the size of another. “You need at least two pairs,” she said. “No one has just one pair of jeans.”

  Masha nodded. She had been quiet all morning. She had known this would happen, that it had to happen. If she wanted to be an actress, eventually she would have to wear pants.

  The dressing room was painted fuchsia; a mirror stretched mercilessly from floor to ceiling. Masha turned from it, trying to shut the curtain completely so no crack of light showed. Her back to the mirror, she pulled up her dress, clamping it under her chin, and tugged on the first pair of jeans. As she pulled the stiff material up her legs, she felt she was being bifurcated, like a mermaid having her tail cut in two.

  “How’re you doing in there?” asked Shelley from outside the curtain.

  “Not sure,” said Masha, hopping up and down as she struggled with the zip.

  “Can I see?” Masha opened the curtain a crack so that Shelley could sidle in.

  “Wow,” said Shelley, “those look great.”

  “They do?” asked Masha.

  “Have you even looked at them yet?”

  Masha turned and faced the mirror. There was a young woman in tight blue jeans. Nothing out of the ordinary in that. Yet how was she supposed to walk out in public like this? Her sex was right behind there at the place where her legs joined. She felt naked.

  Nevsky popped into the store to pay. Then they all went out to lunch.

  “Thanks for the clothes,” said Masha.

  “Yeah,” said Shelley.

  “Thank Ross Coe, not me,” said Nevsky, gnawing on a ham sandwich. “For him, it’s an investment.” He drummed his fingers on the table in a brief volley of nervous taps. “He’s the primary stockholder in my new management company. He wants to help me do this right.” With a jerk, he turned, hailing a passing waitress. “Excuse me, miss! Could I get a cuppa coffee here?” Then, his head snapping back to them: “You girls for coffee?”

  Back in the light-smeared apartment, Masha set the crinkly bag of new clothes on the chintz bedspread and flopped down beside it, gazing up at the ceiling fan batting the air in slow rounds. She felt warm, and so alone in the silence. It was strange not to have her family talking in the next room, to know that Estie wouldn’t bust in any minute with a complaint about Ezra, or Yehudis, spouting a stream of enthusiasm about some boy she’d seen through the barrier in shul. She was so used to Pearl walking in and gently asking her if she’d like a piece of toast, or a bowl of soup, or ice cream. She wanted to go home. I’m nothing but a baby, Masha chided, tears coming to her eyes as she closed them. Shelley woke her up an hour later. Time to go. Elocution class was next on her schedule. Masha peeked inside the plastic shopping bag. There were the three pairs of jeans, folded on top of one another along with the skimpy tops, the dress, and the bras. She had to start the rewiring. She pulled on a pair of the jeans. Again, the feeling of stiff cloth between her legs felt bizarre. In the bathroom she leaned in to the mirror and lined her eyelids with black pencil, coated her lashes with mascara. Her eyes looked enormous, biblical. Shelley walked in, all bare legs and fluffy white hair, her orange platform shoes revealing bright red toenails.

  “Sexy mama!” she exclaimed.

  Doris van Hoff was dressed in solid beige, spectacled, and a little shaky—whether from age or a slight palsy, Masha could not tell. She had an elegant way of speaking, however. For eradicating accents, Nevsky claimed, Doris was the best in the business. Her people went back to Dutch New York. The only danger was, if you studied with her too long you could end up sounding like Cary Grant. And she had an intimate style. Right off the bat she positioned herself so close to Masha’s chair that their knees were touching. Then she tilted her head back, causing her limpid eyes to grow huge behind the thick lenses.

  “Repeat this in a natural way,” said Doris carefully, her great magnified eyes fixed on Masha’s mouth. “I forgot to open the door for you.” Masha repeated the phrase.

  Doris sat back and patted Masha’s knee. “It’s going to take a bit of time, dear. But we’ll get there.”

  Masha tried using Doris’s sharp consonants to sever and flatten her singsong words. She rolled the glacial syllables across her tongue like marbles. It felt impossible to change the way she talked. Plus, she felt truly naked in her tight jeans and tank top. She kept moving behind a floral armchair to hide her crotch from Doris van Hoff, but the woman called her back again and again so she could look down Masha’s throat while she talked.

  A high buzzing noise took Masha’s attention as she enunciated. Through the window she could see a large black boat, and a man wearing ear mufflers, passing something back and forth over its dusty flank. It was the big man she’d met the other day on the porch, the one with the woman’s name. Leslie.

  Once her elocution lesson was done, Masha walked through the cool dark hallway, feeling herself drawn toward the back of the house. She felt her nipples contract and twist beneath the thin bra, goose bumps rise on the flesh of her bare arms. She rubbed her hands along her shoulders, anxious to get outside, into the sun. She wanted to talk to the man, see what he thought of her jeans.

  Leslie looked up from his work as the screen door slammed and she stepped off the porch. A cordial little wave, and he went back to his work. Masha laughed at herself for thinking she would make such a big impression just because she was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a sleeveless shirt. That was all these people wore! She walked over to the black boat and leaned back on it a few feet away from Leslie, the hull nearly hot against her back. Her heart sped up as she waited. At last he looked up at her again from under his baseball cap, his deep-set pale blue eyes focused intently on her blushing face.

  “What’s up, Masha?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “Just kind of bored.”

  “Want a job?” he asked. Her eyes widened.

  “I don’t mean employment, I mean somethin’ to do,” he said.

  “Sure.” There were bits of paint on the interior that needed to be sanded down by hand. He helped her into the boat. Her skin ached a little where he touched it.

  “I’m going to have to strip her right down,” he called up to her. “This boat is a disaster.”

  “Why?” asked Masha.

  “The people that owned her didn’t take care of her.”

  “I’ve never been on a boat,” said Masha, taking hold of the wide Bakelite steering wheel, swinging it left and right.

  “You gotta be kidding me,” said Leslie. Masha took up her sandpaper. They worked for a while in silence. She liked watching the honey-colored wood peek out from under the shiny black paint. It made her forget her nakedness a little. She rubbed until her arm hurt. She stood up straight, the shame returning.

  “I’ll get a couple of my guys out here soon,” said Leslie, taking off his cap and wiping his brow with his forearm. His face was coated in sweat. “They’ll make the work go faster. But they all have jobs they need to finish.”

  “I’m thirsty,” Masha said. “You want a soda? They have Coke in bottles in the fridge.”

  “I’d love a Coke in a bottle.” Leslie smiled.

  Masha climbed down the ladder unaided and hurried away, hopping up the steps to the house. She couldn’t stand being this exposed anymore. Would it be too weird, she wondered, to come back wearing something else? She had a dress in her bag, to wear for class later. No, she couldn’t change entirely. She ducked into the room she’d been working in with Doris, where she had left Shelley’s hoodie flopped over the arm of the big chair, and tugged it on, zipping it with relief. Then she fetched the Cokes from the empty, staff-neatened kitchen.

  What was Ross Coe up to with a beauty like that? Leslie wondered as he waited. Nothing savory, he guessed. The girl came back with the bottles, a black sweatshirt zipped up to the neck.

  “Got cold in there?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said, handing him a bottle. She see
med so small beside him, he thought. Fragile. The little gap between her teeth as she took a sip, the shy, concave way she held herself, those big glittering obsidian eyes, her every sentence spoken like first steps—wobbly, hopeful, important: he found her touching, mysterious.

  “How old are you?” he asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “Twenty-one,” she said.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna card you,” he said. A confused smile flitted across her face. A moment passed.

  Helga Coe marched out of the house in a zebra swimsuit. She walked straight into the pool. They both watched her as she performed a perfect breaststroke, bony arms parting the water mechanically as she swam. A staff member, clad in chinos, darted from the house to the guesthouse carrying a stack of towels.

  “What’s your last name again?” Masha asked him.

  “Senzatimore. It means ‘fearless’ in Italian. Senza, ‘without.’ Timore, ‘fear.’”

  “You don’t look Italian.”

  “Italian-Irish. What about you?”

  Her eyes seemed to lose focus, her face went slack. Then she looked up at him boldly, a challenge in her gaze.

  “Guess,” she said, raising her chin.

  He squinted down at her. “Could be Sicilian … but no … I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Romanian.”

  “Romanian! You think I’m a gypsy?”

  “Not with a name like White, I guess.”

  “White isn’t my real name.”

  “What is?”

  “I’m done with it, anyway.” She leaned back on the boat, pressing the base of the bottle into her lean belly and gazing out at the pool and the sea beyond it. Her eyes, Leslie noticed, had taken on an oddly purple cast, like an oil slick. He wondered if she was a runaway.

  “You’re from the Tri-state area, anyway,” said Leslie, “whatever your forebears.”

  “Four bears?”

  “Forebears. Ancestors.”

  “Fancy.”

  “You know it.”

  “I’m hoping not to sound this way soon,” she said, worrying a few pebbles with the tip of her ballet shoe.

  “You sound fine to me,” he said. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s your connection to Ross Coe?”