The moon had slid in front of the sun, and an eerily radiating circular penumbra was the otherworldly result. A solar eclipse. Harlem, Manhattan, New York City: All dark. The crowd, so festive, had quieted. The adults observed the school-kids, impressed with their seriousness of purpose. Several people shaded their eyes with their hands and glanced fleetingly at the sky. Dag was not sure how to behave in the face of this natural phenomenon. The science teacher suggested he not look directly at the sun. She handed him a pair of goggles. Dag thanked her, slipped them on, and faced the sky.
Almost as impressed with the celestial event she was standing next to as she was with the one occurring in the heavens, Gloria Alvarez took several pictures of Dag with her phone. Haunted by having witnessed the killing of John Eagle, the beauty of this cosmic wonder, in the presence of D’Angelo Maxwell, was a cherished consolation.
Dag shared the goggles with Trey, who held them to his eyes and was instantly transported by what he saw. Trey stared at the sun until his brother asked for them back.
This breathtaking contravention of habitual expectations that held everyone’s attention transfixed and unsettled Dag. He believed in signs and warnings. A bird winging into a room brought bad luck. If you accidentally put your clothes on backward, there was money coming. But what was the meaning of a solar eclipse? He had no idea.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Religion was not a significant factor in Nicole Gladstone’s suburban Virginia childhood. Her parents were vaguely Protestant but neither attended church, so other than Christmas, which in the Pflueger home was more about Santa Claus, gifts, and candy canes than anything having to do with the birth of Jesus, there were no markers of the season aside from a liberally tinseled tree. Back in Washington after having pulled the plug on her modeling career, the overt religiosity of many of the politicians she encountered (and her belief that this fervor often seemed motivated more by political expediency than authentic religious feeling) was not appealing, and further rendered any thought she entertained of exploring her nominally Christian roots a nonstarter. When Jay suggested, after they decided to get married, she might want to explore Judaism, or at least take the dreidel out for a test spin, Nicole, always game for new adventures, was willing to investigate the possibility. Following some research, she enrolled in a conversion class taught by a young female rabbi with a halo of curls and a welcoming manner at a Conservative synagogue on the Upper West Side and dutifully attended for several months.
Nicole took pleasure in learning about Jewish history and rituals, but when it became apparent how much actual work was involved—familiarity with not only the Torah, but all of the holidays (What was Shemini Atzeret again?), the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Shulchan Aruch, Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed, and other texts so numerous her jottings about them filled an entire Moleskine notebook—what seemed an endless list of mysteries all finally blended into one big who-put-the-bop-in-the-bop-shoo-bop and it no longer seemed worth the effort.
These arcane requirements never ceased to baffle her. Nicole could not fathom why the Jewish people, a tiny minority of the world’s population, did not allow anyone who wanted to share their joys and lamentations to do so without delay. If you declared yourself a Christian, you were a Christian. You accepted Jesus as your savior, and that was the end of it. Anyone wanting a more hardcore experience had the option of being dunked in a baptismal font. No one cared if you knew what St. Paul said to the Ephesians. Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists, none of them required aspirants to pass a religious exam. Whatever her problems with the theology—most of it seemed beside the point—the Christian attitude struck Nicole as more, well, “Christian.” She knew that was simplistic, and perhaps even slightly anti-Semitic, but why did religion have to be so demanding? Wasn’t it something that was in your soul? Who cared what she thought about the Talmud? It was as if they expected her to earn a Ph.D. in Judaism before she would be allowed to take off her clothes and submerge naked into the welcoming waters of the mikveh bath in order to surface as a recognized member of the tribe.
It’s not like she wanted to be a rabbi. Although she found the lighting of Sabbath candles unutterably beautiful, to Nicole the Jews remained inscrutable.
Since Jay was not particularly observant, he lacked the moral authority to press the issue and disappointedly submitted to her announcement that, while she was happy—if he’d like, if he ever wanted, if he insisted—to fast on Tisha B’Av in order to commemorate the destruction of the temple (fat chance), wave a lulav and an etrog around on Sukkot (again, unlikely), light the menorah and exchange gifts during Hanukah (she liked that), and, of course, host the family Seder, she was going to hold off on becoming an actual Jew, particularly if it was going to have no effect on Jay’s desire to have another child. If she chose to read a biography of Spinoza, that was her business.
While Nicole was not Jewish, the fact of her marriage rendered her, in real estate terms, Jew-adjacent and as a result, she lived a kind of a dual life. Despite Jay’s lack of overt religiosity, and his having never found the time in his packed schedule to visit Israel, he was an ardent Zionist and a staunch defender of the nation (if not every specific policy of whatever government happened to be in power) when friends and acquaintances discussed Middle Eastern politics. Nicole adopted his point of view (At dinner parties, she would declare: “The situation is far more complicated than a lot of well-meaning people in the media seem to think.”) and learned to bridle when anyone attacked Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
Jay did not reciprocate. Although Nicole harbored a sentimental attachment to seasonal tropes—the carols, the eggnog, the Charlie Brown Christmas Special with its undercurrent of melancholy that transported her back to lonely childhood—he refused to have a Christmas tree in the house (“It reminds me of two thousand years of Christian anti-Semitism,” he said) so Hanukah became her domestic marker for the arrival of winter. As for spring, its advent was Passover. This is how a former high school cheerleader from Virginia came to be pushing a cart down the vegetable aisle in the Mt. Kisco Whole Foods on a March afternoon, shopping for the ingredients to make charoset in preparation for her Seder.
It was Nicole’s fifth Passover since beginning her life with Jay and the first one where she had stated her intention to supervise the meal. In previous years, they had used caterers who served an elaborate if soulless feast, but this Seder would be prepared in the Gladstone kitchen (by a chef, of course) and have Nicole’s artisanal stamp. It was her unstated but firmly held belief that if Jay saw her in this light, as a woman who, however gentile, could nonetheless direct the preparations for this most Jewish of celebrations, the liberation of a people from bondage, perhaps he would unchain her ardent womb.
An hour earlier Nicole was in a Chappaqua cafe eating lunch with her friend Audrey Lindstrom, the thirty-six-year old second wife of an investment banker in his fifties. The two women had met on a committee to plan a gala for the Guggenheim Museum and, upon discovering that they were both former models and second wives of successful businessmen with homes in northern Westchester, established a friendship. Nicole was on her second glass of chardonnay. Audrey wore a fedora and large sunglasses even though they were indoors. Some recent cosmetic injections in her upper cheeks had caused unanticipated swelling.
“I gave one of your necklaces to a friend,” Audrey said, picking at a crab salad. “For her birthday? She loved it. Loved it!”
Nicole took a sip of wine. Preoccupied with her ovaries, the asparagus omelet in front of her was untouched. She regarded her slim and preternaturally stunning friend whose skin appeared luminous.
“Which one?”
“With the rubies?”
“That one’s nice,” Nicole said. Recently, she had been working exclusively with sapphires because of Jay’s Brooklyn project of that name, believed it to be good for marital karma. Had he even noticed? She wasn’t sure.
“I’ve been holding out on you,” Audrey said, taking a sip of chamomile tea. “I have news.” Nicole wrenched her mind from her reproductive system. “I’m pregnant.”
Although this was the most brilliant announcement imaginable for Audrey, it was the last thing Nicole wanted to hear. They had talked about having children. Audrey was slightly younger, a fact that always reminded Nicole of her own rapidly advancing age, and with great effort, she feigned joy for her friend.
“That is splendid news,” Nicole said. Audrey’s husband already had two older children, which made the entire situation even worse since it nearly mirrored her own. Nicole swallowed the last of her wine. It was all she could do to keep from ordering a third glass.
“I had been considering starting a business,” Audrey said. You know, like you? But now that the baby’s coming, I think I’m going to put it off.”
“Makes sense.”
“But you find jewelry design fulfilling, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes, so fulfilling. I do.”
The tears that had formed in Nicole’s eyes took her by surprise.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing.” She produced a tissue from her bag and daubed her cheeks. “I’m thrilled for you.”
Nicole sorted through a pile of Granny Smith apples in Whole Foods, pleased that she had repressed the impulse to get drunk. It was bad enough she had cried in front of her friend. Perhaps Audrey interpreted them as “tears of joy.” It would mortify Nicole if anyone thought she was jealous or, worse, bitter. She worried that her wine intake was growing at a rate that indicated a prescription for Ativan might be in order. Of course, that was hardly better than medicating herself with wine. It was a puzzle.
The conversation that had taken place with Jay while horseback riding continued to trouble her. She had been turning it over in her mind, examining his words from every angle, and now viewed their spat—was it even a spat? Did it rise to that level?—as indicative of an ungraspable marital fissure. How did Jay see her? She was an accomplished woman, hardly a trophy wife. The work in Washington on the Congressional Ethics Committee attested to that. She was formidable on her own, and were they not partners? Why was he so against having another child? It wasn’t as if he would be the one getting up to do the middle-of-the-night feeding, cleaning the spit up from his pajamas. Jay was always saying he wanted to make her happy. Was his refusal a sign of both the emptiness of those words and the lack of seriousness with which he viewed their marriage?
She finished packing the apples into a plastic bag, fastened it with a tie, placed it in her cart, and moved to the beverage aisle.
Nicole had never considered having an affair, but she and Jay hadn’t had sex in over a month, and her libido remained vigorous. Something was going on with him. For a man in his fifties, he had a healthy sex drive. Or at least he used to. His recent attempt at making love lacked passion, which is why she resisted. Had that been a mistake? He hardly seemed overly concerned with her rejection of his advances. Could it be that he was the one having an affair? The possibility had not even occurred to her. It was a wild thought. One of her many calculations in marrying Jay was his age and how that would affect his future behavior. Presumably, the need to spread his seed was something for which there was no longer a biological imperative. But if he were feeling dissatisfied in the marriage, if he were no longer finding the emotional sustenance it was meant to provide, then perhaps he was searching for it elsewhere. To Nicole, he never seemed like the cheating type, but a therapist had once told her that “love is giving something we don’t have to someone we don’t know,” from which she concluded anything was possible, and that was the most disturbing realization of all.
She was loading bottles of San Pellegrino water into the cart when she heard an unwelcome voice, at once insinuating and aggressive.
“Nicole!”
A slightly plump middle-aged woman wearing a forest green tracksuit with white piping and tennis shoes was piloting a shopping cart in the opposite direction. Her russet hair naturally fell in tight coils, but the industrial-strength straightening solution her stylist employed gave the tresses a wiry quality. The result was pulled into a short ponytail. Expensive sunglasses perched on her head. Recently, the skin around her light brown eyes had been tightened and despite having abandoned herself to a scalpel belonging to one of the top plastic surgeons in Manhattan the result left her looking as if she were in a perpetual state of surprise. This was Marcy Gladstone, Franklin’s wife. It was bad enough that Audrey Lindstrom was pregnant. What malevolent imp had placed this woman in her path? Didn’t she live on Long Island?
“Marcy,” Nicole trilled.
“Are you sure you have enough matzo?” Marcy said by way of greeting, examining the two boxes of unleavened spelt in Nicole’s cart.
“No one eats a lot of matzo,” Nicole said. “Too many carbs. What are you doing up here?”
“I was visiting a friend who just put in a new tennis court and I thought I’d get some shopping done before I drove home. What’s with the spelt?” she inquired, tapping a fire engine red fingernail on the offending item.
“Jay likes it. It helps with digestion.”
“Men and their heartburn,” Marcy said, shaking her head. “And their prostates.”
This declaration caused Nicole to reflect on Jay’s health. Was he overdue for a checkup? One of the downsides of marrying someone twenty years older was the Prostate Years came earlier.
“I’ll bring some regular matzo,” Marcy assured her as she began to root around in Nicole’s brimming cart.
“What are you doing?”
“Just looking,” Marcy said, innocently.
Along with the apples, there were lemons, walnuts, raisins, and cinnamon for the charoset she was going to make, ingredients for kugel, kreplach, borscht, a root vegetable casserole, and an impressive brisket. Marcy eyeballed it. Nicole had no idea what she had done wrong, but apparently, the spelt was not her only offense.
“I also found chopped liver they make from the livers of cage-free chickens,” Marcy said. “I’ll bring that, too.”
“It’s not a potluck. You don’t have to bring anything.”
“Did they have those at your church? Potlucks, I mean?”
“We didn’t go to church. My parents weren’t religious.”
“Right, I forgot. You were nothing.” Nicole flared, and Marcy quickly said, “Oh, I’m sorry. That was stupid. I didn’t mean it in a negative way.”
“I would never take it like that,” Nicole lied. Her counterfeit smile failed to find its target, now squinting at the ingredients on a carton of chicken broth with the same discernment she brought to the offending matzo.
It was a deeply held belief of Nicole’s that Marcy judged her ability to hew to the holiday traditions and found it wanting. Anyone could prepare a meal, but for the food to have the requisite Jewish soul, her cousin-in-law believed, it required the presence of a Jew in the kitchen. Marcy’s attempt to hide her disappointment when Nicole told her she had abandoned her plans to convert was unsuccessful. In Marcy’s view, it was bad enough Jay divorced his first wife for reasons she could never comprehend, but he compounded that error by marrying a non-Jew who didn’t even know what kind of matzo to buy for Passover. That there would be no Jew supervising the kitchen of the Seder family obligation forced her to attend rankled Marcy almost as much as the concept of her cousin-in-law’s intermarriage.
“Am I forgetting something?” Nicole asked.
“No,” Marcy said, in a way that conveyed yes. Then, “San Pellegrino?”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s not exactly seltzer.”
Nicole reflected that if she were to become the Grand Rabbi of the Satmar Hasidim, somehow, she still wouldn’t be Jewish enough for Marcy. The first time they had met was at a family brunch. When Nicole had referred t
o the lox as “smoked salmon” Marcy’s laugh devolved into a fit of coughing, which she recovered from to patronizingly explain that no self-respecting Jewish person would ever refer to lox (“It’s lox for godsakes!”) as smoked salmon (“That’s like calling a bagel a roll!” she pontificated).
“You know, I’m curious why you mentioned prostates,” Nicole said, tired of her quasi-relative’s self-righteous bullying. “Is Franklin having problems with his?”
Marcy seemed taken aback by the question. She looked around to make sure no one was listening. Several shoppers grazed passively nearby, none paying attention to the Gladstone women.
“What does that have to do with Passover?”
“You brought it up,” Nicole reminded her.
Marcy weighed whether to share anything other than her disdain with Nicole.
“He is.”
“Can he get an erection?”
If Marcy could have opened her eyes any wider, she would have, but surgery had rendered that impossible. Nicole looked around with feigned concern as if atomic secrets were being discussed. She enjoyed tweaking the prudish Marcy’s sense of decorum.
“With or without the little pill?”
“It’s not always men’s prostates, Marcy. Sometimes you have to spice things up a little.”
“Oh?”
“Jay and I made a sex tape.”
Somehow Marcy’s eyes widened. The thought that two married people, at least one of whom was Jewish, had made a sex tape was like telling her there were eleven commandments.
“No, you didn’t.”
“It was hot.”
“You videoed yourselves?”
“For Purim.”
Marcy’s mind spun into orbit. Since Purim was the holiday where Jews were encouraged by rabbis to wear costumes of the most outrageous kind, drink wine to the point of intoxication, dance in the street—behaviors Marcy would never in a million years engage in, but still—and pursue all manner of licentiousness short of having sex with other people’s spouses, perhaps Nicole was telling the truth.
The Hazards of Good Fortune Page 20
