Young Jane Young(13)

She removed the jacket, and I hung it in the hall closet.

“Maybe it’s a blessing, my love,” I said. “Weren’t you thinking of ending it anyway?”

“Yes,” she said. “But I never would have.”

“Let me make you something to eat,” I said. “You must be starving.”

Aviva stood up. My offer of food re-enraged her. “You say I’m fat and then you’re always trying to stuff me like a pig!” she yelled.

“Aviva,” I said.

“No, you’re very clever. You never say I’m ‘fat’ – you just talk about my weight obsessively. You ask me if I’m eating right, if I’m drinking water. You say some dress looks a little tight.”

“That isn’t true.”

“You say I shouldn’t cut my hair too short because it makes my face look round,” Aviva said.

“Aviva, where are you getting this?” I said. “You’re a beautiful girl. I love you, just as you are.”

“DON’T LIE!”

“What? Your hair does look better longer. I’m your mother. I want you to look your best. Is that a crime?” I said.

“Just because you think about your body all the time, just because you never eat more than three bites of dessert, just because you work out like a crazy person doesn’t mean I have to feel or behave the way you do!” she said.

“Of course you don’t have to feel the way I do,” I said.

“Which bothers you more? That I could attract a man like Aaron Levin, or that you couldn’t?”

“AVIVA!” I said. “Enough. That is a ridiculous and ungenerous thing to say.”

“And I know you said something! I know you said something or did something! Admit it, Mom! Stop lying! Please stop lying! I need to know what happened, or I’ll go crazy!”

“Why does it have to be anything I said? Maybe being at the school reminded him of how young you are and how inappropriate this relationship is? Isn’t that possible, Aviva?”

“I hate you,” she said. “I am never speaking to you again.” She left the house and she shut the door.



Never lasted until August.

At the end of the summer, Mike and I rented a house in a little town outside of Portland, Maine. I called Aviva and said, “Haven’t we not been speaking long enough? I’m sorry for anything I’ve done and anything you think I’ve done. Come to Maine with me and Daddy. I miss you terribly. And Daddy misses you, too. We’ll eat lobster rolls and whoopie pies every day.”

“Lobster, Mom? What’s come over you?” Aviva said.

“Don’t tell Grandma, but I refuse to believe in a God who doesn’t want me to eat lobster,” I said.

She laughed. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, I’ll come.”

We had been there about four days when she said, “It feels like last year was a dream,” she said. “It feels like I had a fever, and the fever has finally broken.”

“I’m glad,” I said.

“Still,” she said, “sometimes I miss the fever.”

“But you don’t see him anymore?”

“No,” she said. “Of course not.” She corrected herself. “I mean, I don’t see him socially. I see him at work.”

I was impressed with her that she had somehow managed to keep working for the congressman. “Is that hard?” I asked. “Seeing him, but not being with him?”

“I almost never see him,” she said. “I’m not that important now that I’m not that important.”





EIGHT





A

few days after Camelot, Roz calls me and asks if she might use my ticket for The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Her sister is coming to town, and wouldn’t it be nice for the three of them to go together? I say yes, because who wants to see a musical version of The Mystery of Edwin Drood? Whenever you subscribe to a regional theater season, there’re always a few duds. She says she’ll pay me for the ticket, and I say your money’s no good here, Roz Horowitz. It’s a mitzvah to not have to go to Edwin Drood.

Roz laughs and then she says, “Oh, Rachel, how could you?”

I know what she is going to say before she says it. I know that Mr. Elbow in My Seat has told her that I tried to kiss him and not the other way around. He’s made a preemptive strike. I should have called her, but in my defense, who wants to get in the middle of someone’s marriage? Even knowing what he’s done, I’m still not sure how to proceed. She’s not the first woman in the world to end up married to a cheating louse. It can happen to anyone. Do I really want my friend to have to divorce? At her age? Do I wish her a future that involves profile pictures and swiping and squeezing into Spanx to go on dates with alte cockers? No, I do not.

“Roz,” I say, “Roz, my dear one, I think it was a misunderstanding.”

“He says you tried to give him” – she lowers to an outraged whisper – “a hand job, Rachel.”

“A hand job? Roz, that is fantasy.” I tell her what happened. Why in the world did he make up the hand job? What is wrong with him?

“I know you’re lonely, Rachel,” Roz says. “But you’ve been my best friend since 1992, and I know what you’re like. You’re lonely and you’re vain and you meddle. I believe him.”