May We Be Forgiven Part 56

"It's a new position," she says. "Formerly I worked in development at City Opera." Another pause, as though she's reviewing her script. "We were going over our calendar and I see that we've got Nathaniel down for a bar mitzvah on July 3." Another pause. "I was wondering where we are with that?"

"Good question."

"Does Nathaniel know his Hebrew? Has he been studying? No one here has heard a peep...."

"Actually," I say, "I tried to make an appointment with the rabbi a while ago, but his a.s.sistant demanded a contribution of not less than five hundred dollars and I found that off-putting."

There is a long pause. "That issue has been addressed."

"Is the Chinese woman no longer working at the temple?"

"She's gone back to school," Lauren Spektor says.

"Good," I say. "Hopefully, she'll find something that's a good match."

"She's studying at the yes.h.i.+va."

A moment of contemplative silence pa.s.ses between us.

"There are two ways we can go with this," Lauren says. "I can refer you to some party planners and our preferred vendors for catering, flowers, personalized yarmulkes, or we could consider a postponement-I hate to use the word 'cancellation.'"

There's something in her tone that gives me the sense that the temple would rather there not be a bar mitzvah on July 3.

"The temple is mindful of its image; between your brother and his wife and the Ponzi, we've been slightly higher-profile than some of the community is comfortable with."

I take a breath and start again. "Tell me, Lauren Spektor, is there still such a thing as the Sisterhood Luncheon?"

"Are you talking about egg salad, tuna, and cherry tomatoes galore?"

"That's the stuff."

"Long gone," she says. "Our current Sisterhood is mostly working women who don't have time to cook-but we have several caterers who can provide something similar." She pauses. "I don't mean to pressure you, but I'd like to know sooner rather than later. We've got a gay couple looking for a wedding that morning-they want to be done by eleven so they can get out to the Pines for the weekend and beat the traffic."

"Something to think on," I say, at a loss for words otherwise. "As you can imagine, I'm at a bit of a loss as to what the plans may have been."

"I would think Jane had a file-everyone has a file," Lauren says. "Also, she left a deposit. Typically, that's nonrefundable, but we're willing to work with you. We'd consider a partial."

"How much was the deposit?" I ask.

"Twenty-five hundred," she says. "So-how should we proceed?"

"Let me talk with Nate and get back to you."

"It's been a difficult time for everyone," she says.

"So it has."

When I raise the subject of the bar mitzvah with Nate, his voice cracks. I've been dreading this.

"I don't think I can do it-it makes me too sad. It was something Mom was working on."

"You could do it for her-in her honor?"

"I can't imagine everyone we ever knew just staring at me, somehow thinking I am a survivor. I can't imagine writing the thank-you notes for all the iPods and all the c.r.a.p people give me that will mean more to them than to me, because the truth is, I don't want more stuff. I can't imagine that any 'G.o.d' I believe in would think this is the thing to do." He stops to take a breath. "If I was being honest," Nate goes on, "I wouldn't want to do anything that would bring the whole family together again. People talk about the nuclear family as the perfect family, but they don't say much about meltdown." He stops. "Did you have a bar mitzvah?"

"I did," I say.

"And? Was it a good experience?"

"You want to know about my bar mitzvah?" I pause. "My parents didn't want me to get a swelled head-as though having any decent feelings about yourself caused something akin to encephalitis from which one might not recover-so I shared my bar mitzvah with Solomon Bernstein. It was pitched to me as a good deal, cheaper, and, with the Bernsteins further up the food chain, it put my parents in with the right people."

"Basically, it was all about your parents?"

"Yes." I pause. "After the ceremony there was what was called a Sisterhood Luncheon. All the ladies of the temple made egg salad and tuna fish. Some people got food poisoning-luckily, no one died. But there were new rules after that: all food for Sisterhood Luncheons had to be made at the temple, and they all used h.e.l.lmann's mayonnaise and not Miracle Whip-which was deemed a goy food and not to be trusted."

"Goy food?"

"According to my mother-your grandmother-all things, products, food, et cetera, can be divided into Jew and non-Jew."

"Such as?"

"Crest toothpaste-Jew; Colgate-non-Jew."

"Tom's?" Nate asks.

"Atheist or Unitarian. Gin is non-Jew, as is Belvedere, Ketel One, or any artisa.n.a.l liquor with the exception of Manischewitz, which is Jewish. In any Jewish household you might find a single bottle of honey-colored liquor that no one can remember if it's Scotch or bourbon, rarely two-certainly not three. Creme de menthe on vanilla ice cream is a.s.similated Jewish. Mah-jongg and pinochle are Jewish."

"Back to the bar mitzvah," Nate says.

"There were two tables of gifts, one with my name, one with Solomon's, and all during the party I kept going over and checking to see whose pile was higher, whose looked better."

"And?"

"It was hard to tell-on account of how someone gave me a set of encyclopedias and wrapped each volume separately. The one thing I really liked was a pair of binoculars that were meant for Solomon but ended up with my gifts."

"How did you figure out it was for Solomon?"

"The card: 'For Solly, With Love from Auntie Estelle and Uncle Ruven.' My mother wanted me to give them back to Solomon, but I refused. I took the binoculars and hid them outside, under the house."

"Is it unreasonable to expect a rite of pa.s.sage to feel good or be essentially positive?" Nate asks. "What about losing your virginity?"

"Look, Nate, I'm a lot older than you. I just don't want you to be disappointed."

"So you pop the bubble now?" he asks. "You make me feel as miserable as you?"

"No," I say definitively and then stop. "I just want to protect you."

"From what?"

"Life?" I suggest.

"Too late," he says. "Did you ever give the binoculars back to Solomon?"

"I spilled the whole story to him one day at school. 'Keep 'em,' he said, 'I already have binoculars.'" I pause. "I don't think I ever told anyone that story before."

"Not even Claire?"

"No."

There's a pause. "Why didn't you and Claire have children?" Nate asks.

"Claire was afraid she'd be too cold as a parent; she thought she had no capacity to really love and that a child would suffer."

"And?"

"I agreed."

There's a long pause. "I used to pray," Nate says. "Every night I said a prayer to cover my bases; I always believed there was something larger-some bigger idea. I'm not sure what I think now; my relations.h.i.+p to belief has changed."

"So-I get the feeling that you're thinking no bar?"

"I thought it was meant as a conversation."

"You're right. It's not something we have to resolve tonight."

After her cover is blown, Amanda of the A&P vanishes.

Half as a prank, half because I'm genuinely curious, it occurs to me not to wait for her to come to me, but to go to her. I round up the half-empty cartons of Chinese food from the fridge, pack it all into the brown paper bag it came out of several days ago-receipt still attached-and staple it shut. Wearing Nate's old white lab coat like a waiter's jacket, I drive to her house, upscale Tudor, and ring the bell.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, opening the door.

"I have half-order for you," I say in a bad Chinese accent as I hand her the bag. Peeking into the house behind her, I see nothing except a faded Oriental rug, a coat-and-hat rack, and a heavy dark wooden banister and stairs-carpeted. I imagine that on the left is the living room, on the right the parlor or dining room, and straight back under the stairs a half-bath, and then the kitchen across the back of the house-with perhaps a breakfast nook.

"You brought used Chinese food?"

"There's a lot of it," I say. "Fried rice, moo-shu pork."

She hands the bag back to me as her mother comes up behind her: thin, with basketball belly pus.h.i.+ng at the waistband of her bright-green pull-on pants; formerly tall, now substantially reduced; her fluffy white hair neatly fixed in tight rolls around her head, midGeorge Was.h.i.+ngton.

"We give to the Kidney Foundation regularly," the mother says. "My husband doesn't approve of door-to-door solicitations, but how about some of my pin money-do you take cash?" She clicks open a small wallet and digs out five dollars, which she moves to hand me.

"Mother, he's delivering food," Amanda says, pus.h.i.+ng her mother's arm away. "And he has the wrong address. Better luck next time," she says, closing the door in my face.

Out of boredom I try again. In my mind, it's humorous and demonstrates my determination-I want something more, some better conclusion. I drive to the 7-Eleven and get a gallon of milk and some orange juice and pull up at the curb outside her house. After cutting across the dewy lawn on foot, I hop up onto the front step and ring the bell twice. BING-BONG, BING-BONG.

Her mother answers the door.

"I remember you," she says, and I'm suddenly nervous that I've been made-so much for my disguise. "You used to come around years ago; the milk was in a bottle."

"I'm not the one you remember," I say.

"Must have been your father, then," she says. The mother is elfin, playful, and very charming. She takes the milk from me with surprisingly strong arms. "Put me down for half a gallon next week, and some of the powdered-sugar doughnuts if you've got them." She looks past me. "Crocuses are coming up," she says, and I turn around and see that I've trod across a good number of them. "Daffodils come soon."

"Is that man related to us?" I hear the father ask.

"No relation to you," the mother says, closing the door.

Amanda calls me that afternoon. "All right, then, Mr. Curious, you want to come for dinner?"

"I think your parents like me," I offer.

"They've conflated you into a milkman who needs a heart transplant. My mother said she gave you fifty bucks."

"She gave me five."

"Welcome to my world. She bragged to my father that it was fifty. 'Any man comes to the door, you give him fifty bucks?' 'Just the good-looking ones,' my mother said."

"What time is dinner?"

"Come at five-thirty."

"Can I bring anything?"

"Drugs?" she suggests.

"What kind?"

"Your choice."

I bring one of George's better bottles of wine. "You kids drink the grape juice, I'll stick to my usual, if you don't mind," her father says, making himself a drink and mumbling that soon they're going to have to let the cleaning lady go because clearly she's dipping into the spirits and watering it down to cover her tracks.

The decor throughout is stiff-chintz, toile, and Staffords.h.i.+re bull terriers on the mantel, a clock that chimes every fifteen minutes. Honestly, I didn't realize that people lived that way: very non-Jew, very company man and proud of it, a chair with ottoman, and a sofa, all beyond formal and almost painful, with crocheted doilies under the lamps. Amanda brings out a plate of appetizers, Triscuits dotted with Cheez Whiz, sliced green olives with red pimiento centers.

The table is set with china, crystal, and silver, a small cup of soup at each of our places. "Cream of mushroom," Amanda announces. I dig in, and then see that no one is eating it. The mother has dipped her spoon in, and the father seems interested only in his drink and the remaining Triscuits. At first I think it's about grace-they're waiting for someone to say grace-and then I realize it's just the way it is.

Amanda looks at me. I move to help her clear the table, and she shakes her head no. She clears and returns with dinner plates-serving her father and me first, and then her mother and herself. Four fish sticks each for father and me, and two for Amanda and her mother; six Tater Tots for the men, four for the women; three spears of asparagus each; and a broiled half-tomato.

"So much," her mother says, "I'll never be able to eat it all."

"Do your best," her father says.

"The fish is nice," her mother says.

"Mrs. Paul's," Amanda mouths to me, as she takes a bite of a fish stick. Later, she tells me that the family's menus are based on what her elementary-school cafeteria used to serve-fish sticks, spaghetti and meatb.a.l.l.s, tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches, snickerdoodles. "For some reason my mother saved all the mimeographed menus-she calls it her recipe book."

"What's for dessert?" her mother asks just after the fish is served.

"Pound cake with whipped cream and berries," Amanda says.