Young Jane Young(12)

“His social life?” the congressman asked with a laugh. “What kind of social life does Mike Grossman have?”

“He cheats on me,” I said. “He has a woman I know about, but there may be others, too. It’s been humiliating for me. I don’t know if Aviva knows about it. I’ve tried to keep it from her. I want her to be able to love and respect her father. But I have a feeling that children sense things even when you don’t tell them. Still I worry, Aaron, what it will do to her morals, having a father like that.”

“I’m sorry,” the congressman said.

“It is what it is,” I said and then I left to organize my students.



The congressman’s speech was about being one of very few Jewish kids at Annapolis and how it was not a bad thing to find you were the “only one” from time to time. Being the “only one” was good practice for imagining what it was like to be a minority or even a poor person, the congressman said. Government’s greatest danger was myopia and egocentrism. Good leaders and good citizens had to consider the needs of those who were not like us, too.

It was a fine speech from a putz.

I ushered everyone into the lobby of the auditorium for a reception with the congressman. Somehow, I had misplaced the congressman. I went backstage and I was about to knock on the door of the dressing room when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Jorge shook his head. His smile was the feigned amusement of a peasant made to listen to a king’s off-color joke.

“Don’t worry, Rachel. I’ll get him,” Jorge whispered. “I’ll bring him to you in a moment.”

The congressman opened the door. Aviva’s lipstick was smudged, and her chin was pink and raw. The room smelled musky, salty. Oh, why be polite? It smelled of sex.

“Aviva,” I said, “here.” I reached into my pocket and handed her a tissue.

“Congressman,” I said, “you’re needed in the lobby.”

The congressman told Jorge and Aviva to go on ahead.

“Rachel,” the congressman said in a low voice, “that wasn’t what it looked like.”

When someone tells you ‘it’s not what it looks like,’ it’s almost always exactly what it looks like. “You’re a disgrace,” I said.

The congressman nodded. “I am,” he said, but this admission did not please me.

“She is twenty years old,” I said. “If you have any interest in doing the right thing… If you were any kind of a man, you would end this right now.”

“Yes…,” he said. “It’s funny,” he said. “Around us… Lockers, baseball bats, a judge’s bench – what show are the kids doing this year?”

“Damn Yankees,” I said. I wondered if he had even heard me.

“Damn Yankees,” he said. “What’s that one about?”

“Well, there’s this baseball player…”

By that time, we had arrived at the reception. The congressman put on a smile, and so did I.



Around one in the morning, Aviva let herself into our house, but I knew she was coming because the guard at the gatehouse had called me. God bless those Forestgreen gates.

Her eyes were swollen, like cherries. She pointed at me like a prosecutor in a legal movie. “I know you said something, Mother!”

“What’s happened?” I asked.

“Don’t play innocent,” she said. “I know this is your fault.”

“I’m not playing anything. I don’t know what’s happened,” I said.

“He ended it,” she said. Her lip trembled and then she began to sob. “It’s over.”

Oh God, the relief felt like oxygen. The relief felt like getting off a plane, after a long winter and a turbulent flight, and finding yourself outside the airport in a tropical clime. The relief was so profound, I felt undone. I wanted to smile, to laugh, to scream, to weep, to fall to my knees and thank God. I went up to her, and I tried to take her hand. “I’m so sorry,” I said.

“Don’t touch me!” she said, pulling her hand away.

“I am sorry for you,” I said. “But I am relieved for you as well.”

“You don’t care if I’m happy!” she said.

“Of course I do.”

“I don’t understand it. Did you say something? You must have said something. Tell me, what did you say?”

“I said nothing,” I told her. “The congressman and I barely spoke.”

“What about after you gave me the tissue? Did you say something then? Your face looked so judgmental.”

“No,” I said.

“What exactly did you talk about?”

“Aviva, I don’t even remember. It was chitchat, nothing more. We talked about Daddy! We talked about Damn Yankees.”

“Damn Yankees? You mean the SHOW?”

“It’s the senior musical.”

“It’s my fault,” she said. “I shouldn’t have…” She did not say what she shouldn’t have done.

Aviva flopped on the dark leather couch, which Mike had chosen. I mistook her body language for retreat. There was a whitish stain on her suit jacket – my suit jacket. This is motherhood, I thought. Your daughter stains your jacket, and you get to clean it up. “Take off the jacket, Aviva,” I said. “I should get it dry cleaned.”