Against My Will

by Benjamin Berkley

Diane smiled and adjusted my tiara. “We’re almost there.”

  My palm was sticky with sweat from holding the flower bouquet and my hands started to shake.

  “Are you ok?” Dad asked.

  I really had to pee though I knew my window had long ago closed to get out of and back into my dress. I was also thirsty and I wanted something to drink. But I was too nervous to ask and afraid if I did, I would spill all over myself.

  Always wanting to please, I answered, “I am fine.”

  “It’s time,” Diane announced excitedly as my niece dropped the last petal and the sound of the four string quartet playing Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” filtered through the space between the doors. I repeated Diane’s words “it’s time” to myself, musing that it is the same words a condemned person hears before taking his first steps to the gas chamber. But unlike the condemned, I did not know my fate.

  As I was about to take that first step, I felt paralyzed and unable to move.

  “Dad, I don’t know.”

  My father ignored my plea and extended his arm so I would not try to run away.

  “You’re so beautiful. My precious little angel.”

  For as long as I can remember, that was my dad’s favorite phrase when he addressed me affectionately.

  I looked into my father’s eyes that were now flowing with tears.

  “Your mother would be so proud of her little girl. And her wedding dress looks so amazing on you. I am sure she would have wanted you to wear it.”

  Another tear started to form in the corner of my eye as I blinked to blot it and stop its track down my cheek.

  “You cleaned up pretty good yourself, Dad,” I said, softly brushing my hand across the satin lapel of my dad’s black tuxedo as Diane started the countdown.

  “One, two.”

  As Diane whispered “three,” the oversized double doors swung open and I smiled like a pageant queen atop a parade float as we began the procession slowly down the aisle, walking past each row of our family and friends who had risen to their feet to welcome the bride.

  “Slower, Dad,” I whispered to my father who was getting ahead of me, causing my veil to bounce in front of my face. He quickly got in sync and my fourteen-foot long train now flowed gracefully behind me. As I took each step, I inhaled the music inside the synagogue which was sweet and calming even though I felt a crescendo of mistake as we moved forward.

  Five more steps and I wobbled slightly, stepping forward on my right foot. Is the strap on my heel too tight? Will I fall out of my shoes? Will everyone laugh? I remembered all of the items of the list that I was supposed to do today. I wished I was sitting in front of my television watching Lucy with my cereal bowl in my lap.

  Four more steps and there was my law school friend Marcia mouthing “beautiful.” I bet her $1,000 that she would be married before me. She should have taken the bet. Well, too late now.

  Three more steps and the fragrance of the roses was intoxicating. It was as if the synagogue had been turned into a floral shop and was overtaken by the pungent smells.

  Two more steps and the flash from the photographer pierced my eyes. I blinked in rapid succession, momentarily losing my sense of where I was.

  One more step and I looked up at the stained glass windows lit up by the setting sun as they met the ceiling of the sanctuary. And standing at the base of the bema was the man I was to marry. Suddenly, the music became so loud I did not even recognize the song and my eyes focused on Jacob. His back was toward me.

  And then it happened. The words of my Nana rang in my ears louder than the music. “If he keeps his back to you as you make your way to him, he will not love you. Instead, he will think of you as a prize and will never show you warmth. But if he turns to face you as you walk down the aisle, he will love you and cherish you for the rest of your life.”

  Jacob turned to face forward but his eyes continued to wander. He looked all over the room. But not at me. And with each step I took, my thoughts drifted back to that first day.

  (Almost a year ago)

  The bar exam was three long, exhausting days. Add in the stifling heat and humidity, and by the end of each day I was both mentally and physically drained. Today was even hotter and last night’s rain only brought more humidity to Queens, which had been narcotized by the heat.

  But this morning, with no test to take, I slept in until 10. I then spent the rest of the morning catching up on all of the things I had to put on hold for the past two months while I was studying, including making an appointment to get my teeth cleaned, changing my cellular calling plan, and going online to schedule a time to take my written test for my driver’s license.

  After lunch, I went to Barnes and Noble, which was only a two stop ride on the #7 subway, and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon browsing the bookshelves before purchasing Ina Garten’s latest cookbook. On the subway ride home, I hung onto to the overhead rail with one hand as I flipped through the pages of all these wonderful recipes I couldn’t wait to make.

  As I exited the Roosevelt Boulevard subway station, I thought about stopping at Schwartz’s Bakery. My dad loved their apple turnovers, which he so enjoyed after dinner with a cup of tea. If I got there before five, they would still be fresh and right out of the oven. But when he had called me this morning, he’d said he had a surprise. Perhaps he wanted to take me out to some fancy dinner in celebration of my surviving the bar. But knowing my dad, we were probably going to Benjie’s, his favorite deli. And that would be fine with me as it gave my dad a chance to kibbitz with the cashier whom he always seemed to have a thing for although he never asked her out.

  So instead of stopping, and feeling in desperate need of a shower from the humidity, I walked briskly the four blocks to 35th Street where I had lived my entire life.

  34th and 35th Street were sycamore lined and consisted of row after row of five story brick and stone buildings built in the 1940s that shared a garden (really a narrow patch of grass in the middle). When they were first built, my dad said they were the “talk of the town” and were called garden apartments which was the closest thing in Jackson Heights, Queens where you could have your own backyard. But unless you lived here, the buildings all looked so similar except for the street number that it made it almost impossible at night to tell them apart. Our building was full of families and single moms, a noisy beehive of babies, kids, bikes, strollers, scooters and walkers.

  “Hey Sammy,” I said to the red-haired, snub nosed, freckle faced boy playing stoop ball against the steps of our building. “Who’s your friend?”

  Sammy was in the fifth grade. His parents worked long hours and I often helped him with his homework.

  “This is Raj.”

  Raj was much shorter, a little huskier, dark haired, and had a very thin face with deep dark circles under his eyes.

  “Hello Raj. Are you new here?”

  “Raj don’t speak much English. His parents just moved into the building,” Sammy explained.

  “He doesn’t speak much English,” I corrected him. “Well nice to meet you,” I said, extending my hand.

  “Hi,” the short boy answered.

  “Danielle, do you want to see my baseball card collection later? I got the whole Yankee team!”

  “I have the whole Yankee team,” I corrected him again as I started to walk up the four brick steps. “Maybe later. But Raj, watch out for Sammy. He always wins,” I joked as I pushed in the massive, wooden door that led into the darkly lit lobby.

  The lobby had been recently renovated. But built long before there was central air conditioning, without windows, and a weeklong heat wave that had driven temperatures higher each day, the fumes from the fresh paint were choking as I waited for the one elevator. After a minute of gazing at the elevator dial that appeared to be stuck on the fifth floor, I put my hand over my nose and ran up the three flights of stairs.

  “Dad, I’m home,” I shouted as I turned the key and opened the metal door. As I stepped inside, I smelled cigarette s
moke.

  “You told me you quit,” I yelled as I shuffled through the mail on the small wooden table in the hallway.

  “I’m in the den,” he barked back in his heavy New York accent.

  Aside from the new flat screen television that my dad bought last year after our old television died of natural causes, our apartment looked the same as when I was a little girl–oatmeal colored carpeting that was so worn that the vacuum cleaner’s wheels no longer left track marks; dark, mahogany furniture that lost its luster back in the ‘80s; bare walls except for a Yankee calendar that hung on the wall with a thumb tack in the kitchen next to the phone, and ceilings that were white at one time but have now taken on an ugly shade of yellow as a gift from my dad’s decades of cigarette smoke.

  “Ok,” I said as I pressed the blinking amber light on the phone. “I will be right there. I am just checking the messages. Your accountant called. Something about the store. He can’t read your handwriting. And Uncle Eugene wants to know if we can come to their house for dinner on Sunday.”

  “Don’t worry about that now. Come in here.”

  “All right, all right. I am just getting something to drink,” I shouted back as I walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. “So what’s the surprise?”

  “Just get your drink.”

  Holding a can of Diet Coke, I complained as I walked and talked.

  “It is so hot in here. That air conditioner is not cooling off. You need to call– Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t know we had company,” I said, stopping in surprise at the entrance to our living room.

  My dad was sitting on his favorite brown leather recliner, which faced the new flat screen. Seated on the couch next to him was Mrs. Nadel, an old family friend who professed to be a matchmaker, though she had difficulty matching her shirt with her shoes. Next to her was someone I had never seen before. As I went to kiss my dad and Mrs. Nadel, the stranger got up from his seat.

  “Danielle, I want you to meet Jacob.”

  The stranger appeared to be in his mid-thirties. He had a trimmed beard and wore a tweed suit and horn-rimmed glasses. At that moment, I realized my dad’s idea of a surprise and immediately became annoyed.

  “It’s 90 degrees out and you’re drinking coffee? Not anymore. And you told me you quit,” I said as I pulled the cigarette from my dad’s lip and extinguished it in his cup of coffee. As I did, I noticed that there were beads of sweat on my father’s forehead.

  “My daughter wants to be a prosecutor. Guilty,” he said, mocking me with his hands held in front of him like someone who was just about to be handcuffed.

  I could smell the coffee from his breath. “It’s not funny Dad,” I said, pushing his hands down.

  “I have been rude. I am sorry. Hello,” I said to the stranger, accepting his handshake.

  “Hello, nice to meet you,” the stranger uttered in a husky voice as he lowered his head revealing his thinning black, curly hair.

  I smiled and took a seat on the other couch that faced Jacob.

  “How are you, Mrs. Nadel?”

  “I have been fine but I am sorry,” she said looking at her watch, “but I have to go. I did not realize how late it is. Besides, my work is done here.” “I walk in and you have to go?”

  “Mrs. Nadel. You’re invited to stay for dinner,” my dad announced with open arms.

  “Thank you, thank you. Don’t get up. But my granddaughter is in a piano recital and my daughter is picking me up.”

  As Mrs. Nadel rose from her seat, she pointed to me and said to my father, “Soon you’ll have grandchildren from this little one and you’ll know the nachas they bring.”

  “Dirty diapers?” I said wryly.

  “My daughter is such a kidder. You should be on stage. A young Joan Rivers.”

  As Mrs. Nadel walked passed me, she stopped and placed her hand over my cheek. “You’ll see. He’s a nice boy. I can find my way out.”

  Her hand smelled of fish and I wrinkled my nose. The sound of the closing door quieted the conversation in the room as I again took my seat.

  “So, are you a business associate of my father’s?” I asked the stranger, already knowing the answer.

  Both my father and Jacob laughed.

  “No? You’re not?” I responded, not surprised. “What’s so funny?” “Jacob’s parents live on Long Island. And he recently moved to Queens. So Mrs. Nadel one day came into my store and told me about him. She thought you would like to meet.”

  “Good old Mrs. Nadel,” I said with a smirk. “Always working.”

  “Tell my daughter where you live.”

  “Dad.”

  “No, I want him to tell you.”

  “Well, I bought one of those converted lofts near the bridge,” Jacob said. “You know. They’re revitalizing the whole area. Anyway, it needs a lot of work. But when it is done, it will be nice.”

  “You hear that, Daniella. He owns real estate.” My dad called me Daniella when he wanted to make a point.

  “Wow. Another Donald Trump,” I whispered to myself.

  “What’d you say?”

  “So I hear, Dad,” I nodded.

  “And I am an investment banker. I work for Morgan Stanley,” Jacob continued.

  “Oh, that is very nice. Well, then, I assume you two have business to discuss so I will excuse myself,” I said.

  “Danielle, Jacob will be joining us for dinner,” Dad said.

  “OK, but–”

  “And I stopped on the way home and bought dinner.”

  “You did what?” Except for buying his cigarettes, I did all of the grocery shopping as my father rarely ventured into the market.

  “Well I guess I will just set the table.” I stood up.

  “Danielle, please sit down. I invited Jacob to meet you.”

  “Oh,” I replied in a sarcastic tone.

  “Your father has told me some very nice things about you,” Jacob asked as if I were interviewing for a job and he was reading my résumé.

  “I have trained him well.”

  “I understand that you are in law school,” he remarked.

  “No, actually I graduated in May and just took the bar. Yesterday was the last day,” I replied.

  “Congratulations. That is amazing.”

  “What, that yesterday was the last day?”

  “No. I know the commitment you have to make. And I respect that. I thought about going to law school after college but I wanted to start making money.”

  “Law school’s not for everyone.” I quickly realized what I said sounded pompous. “But I am sure what you do is very interesting.”

  “So when do you get your results? I hear it takes several months.”

  “Yeah. They stretch it out. Not until around Thanksgiving time.”

  “Well, I am sure you did fine. Just to get through law school, you have to be very bright,” he said.

  “Thanks. Anyway, I really should set the table. If I leave it up to my dad, he may put out cereal bowls,” I joked.

  “Danielle, you sit. Get to know each other. I’ll take care of the table.” My father winked at me, which I returned with a stare and a roll of my eyes as he walked out of the room.

  “So, I’m sure you want to know all about me,” Jacob said.

  I pressed my lips and glanced at the stained colored ceiling as Jacob began reciting his résumé as if he was reading from a prepared text.

  “I graduated NYU and was fortunate to get a job on Wall Street for an investment banking firm that was based in England. I had a chance to transfer to their London office which would have been exciting. But after a year, and saving some money, I enrolled in Columbia. Two years later, I earned my Master’s degree in finance and took a job with Morgan in their Cincinnati office. Then a managerial position opened up and I moved back to New York. And here I am,” he said, stretching out his arms which revealed his protruding belly as his suit jacket opened.

  Jacob looked for a reaction but I sat with my hands crossed agai
nst my chest as he continued.

  “I have two sisters. Lindsay, the youngest, goes to Adelphi. She is in a Master’s program to become a speech and hearing audiologist. And Sherri is a teacher. She got married last year. I am the oldest. So tell me about yourself.”

  “Well I thought I did. I am waiting for my results. There is not much else to say.” Just to make conversation, I added, “So, aside from the job, why did you move back to New York?

  “I missed my family. And Cincinnati is not the most exciting place to live.”

  “I have heard that. Well, that is great, and you seem nice but this is a little awkward.”

  Jacob hesitated. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Look, I don’t know what my father told you but I am not on J-Date or any other dating service. And I am not looking to meet anyone right now. All I want is to pass the bar exam, hopefully get hired on by the DA where I am clerking now, and find my own place to live. So I have plenty of time.”

  “I had an elderly aunt who said, ‘Arukot Chikit, Le’Olam Lo Tid’eeh Ma Hechmatzt,’” Jacob quoted.

  “I know. She who waits will never know what she missed. But my time for waiting has not yet begun,” I retorted.

  “You’re missing the point and…”

  As Jacob was about to further prophesize, my father shouted from the dining room.

  “Come, come. Talking makes you hungry.” Dad entered the room waving his hands to follow him like he was directing traffic around a car accident. “We’re sitting in the dining room tonight.”

  “The dining room, Dad?” I reacted with surprise. Except for the Jewish holidays, my father and I have our dinners in the kitchen. And as I took inventory of the table he had set, I was so embarrassed and wished that we were eating at Benjie’s.

  “Dad!”

  “What?”

  My father had unfolded the turkey, corned beef and pastrami but left it in its butcher paper wrappings, placing all the deli on a chipped white platter that I could not remember when we last used. And circling the meats were the plastic containers of coleslaw, macaroni and potato salad, a jar of mustard with a butter knife sticking out of it, another jar of Kosher pickles, and a dessert-sized plate of unevenly stacked Jewish rye bread.