They May Not Mean To, But They Do(68)

“I’m sorry,” Karl said. “Bad idea.”

“No, it’s a wonderful idea, Karl.”

“But?”

She shook her head.

“Your children? I thought that might be a problem.”

“No, no. Not them.” Although they might not like it, he was right. In which case, she thought, they could lump it.

“It’s too soon,” Karl said.

“Well, yes, it is too soon.”

Karl made a disgusted sound. “I was afraid of that, I understand, but when you think about it, nothing is too soon when you’re our age.”

“It’s not just that, Karl. Although it is too soon for me, even if I’m old. But there’s something else. It’s my apartment. I can’t leave my apartment. I just can’t.”

“Too many memories, the place where you raised your children, yes, I see.”

“No, not that.”

“Well, what then?”

“The apartment is … rent-controlled.”

They both burst out laughing.

“I can’t give it up. I mean I just can’t,” she said, laughing still.

Then Karl took her hand, kissed it. “We are star-crossed lovers,” he said good-naturedly.

Joy took his hand now and squeezed it. “Star-crossed lovers.” She liked the sound of that. She liked the idea of being any kind of lover at all. She finally looked at him, his clean-shaven face a little pink in the spring air, his heavy eyelids and serious eyes, his fine silver hair shining. He loved her. He had loved her all along. She wondered if she loved him. A shiver of something that could have been love passed through her. Or it could have been simple pleasure. Or vanity. Or was it gratitude? She tried to remember what she had felt like when she had fallen in love as a girl. She remembered the sunlit giddiness, the dizzy confusion of falling through air without moving, the conviction that roared like an animal inside her. She remembered trembling and touching and knowing. She remembered Aaron scooping her up in his long arms. She remembered Karl, too, pushing the hair from her face before he kissed her. She remembered parties and dancing and being held close, her face against Aaron’s cheek. Unless it was Karl’s. But, no, it was Aaron’s, before he grew his beard, she could hear him singing along to the music, his breath in her ear. She could not remember the song. She wished she could remember the song.

“It was all so long ago,” she said. “And it’s still too soon.”





47

For weeks, thick, heavy invitations had been arriving for Ruby, a glory of colors and raised types and complicated inserts. One had a pop-up basketball net and ball, another a locker opening to reveal “baseball cards” featuring the bar mitzvah boy, a cute little boy disfigured by a wad presumably of gum meant to look like chewing tobacco, at bat and leaping for a fly ball. One was a flat pink satin box that opened to reveal not only the invitation but also a string of fake pearls.

Coco collected the mail each day with increasing dread. What origami of excess would fly from the mailbox next?

“Aren’t there any nice little gentile children in your school? This is crazy. I guess we better send out our invitations soon,” she said.

“Mommy, it’s months from now.”

Coco fingered the flowered chiffon of one invitation and marveled at it. She had no idea what kind of invitation Ruby would want. A sparkly corncob pipe in honor of Tom Sawyer? Pop-up Dead Sea scrolls to show her seriousness?

“But you will have to have a party. And you’ll need party clothes.”

“Yes, Mother, that does follow.”

Ruby refused to partake in either the excitement or the dread of the social aspect of her coming-of-age.

“As if it all just happens by itself,” Coco said to Daniel one night. “I don’t know what to do. I’m not a party planner and I’m not a mind reader.” She had gone to Sunday school at a Reform temple. She could not remember a single bar or bat mitzvah growing up. “I’m out of my depth.”

“Well, just Google it, I guess.”

When she did Google “bat mitzvah,” she saw dresses that looked to her like figure-skating costumes on thirty-year-old prostitutes. She saw professionally produced videos of little girls dressed as rainbow-hued rappers lip-synching hip-hop songs.

“Daniel, we are in big trouble.”

Whenever Coco tried to get Ruby to discuss plans for the bat mitzvah, Ruby was busy doing her homework or studying Hebrew.

“Can’t have a party if I can’t do the service, Mother,” she would say in her new sarcastic way. Mo-ther: Coco noted how ludicrous a status the word suggested.

Finally, Coco ambushed her as she came in from school. “Ruby, sit down. Now.”

Ruby slammed herself down on the couch and crossed her arms. “Hello to you, too, Mo-ther.”

“About your bat mitzvah…”

“You can’t talk me out of it, so don’t even try.”

“I don’t want to talk you out of it. What makes you think I want to talk you out of it?”

In truth, though she would never have admitted it to her mother, Ruby was getting a little worn down by Judaism. There were an awful lot of rules. And poor old God was always so annoyed with his chosen people. Rabbi Kenny explained the historical context of the rules and explained the relationship between God and his people as a dynamic one. She liked talking to Rabbi Kenny. She was still mesmerized by his physical beauty. His eyes were the color of sapphires. And she liked learning the alphabet, the sounds of the language, ancient and secret. She liked to chant, and she liked to think about Genesis and the big bang. All in all, it had been a satisfying hobby. But it was nearly summer. Her best friend, Alexandra, went to a stable in Riverdale twice a week to go horseback riding. Ruby started to go with her. In August they were going to riding camp together.