Young Jane Young(2)
He says, “It was a blight on South Florida, a blight on Jews, a blight on politicians if that’s even possible, a blight on civilization in general.”
He says, “Can you honestly not remember it? It was on the news every day here in 2001, until September eleventh happened and everyone forgot about her.”
He says, “I wish I could remember her last name. You really don’t remember her? Well, Rach, she was like Monica Lewinsky. The girl knew he was married and she seduced him. I guess she was drawn to the power or the limelight. Or maybe she was insecure. She was slutty and a bit zaftig – one of those such-a-pretty-face types – so it probably raised her self-esteem to attract a man like Levin. I can’t feel much sympathy for people like that. What the heck was her last name?”
He says, “It’s a real shame. Levin’s been a solid congressman. He might have been the first Jewish president if not for that farkakte girl.”
He says, “You know who I feel sorry for? Her parents.”
He says, “I wonder whatever happened to that girl. I mean, who would ever hire her? Who would marry her?”
He says, “Grossman! Aviva Grossman! That’s it!”
And I say, “That’s it.”
I excuse myself to go to the ladies’ room, and when I come back, I tell the waiter to pack up the rest of my paella, which is very good and way too much for one person. Some restaurants skimp on the saffron, but not La Gamba. You can’t microwave paella but it will reheat on the stovetop very nicely. I say let’s go halfsies on the check, and Louis says he was planning to pay. But I insist. I only let a man pay for me if I’m planning to see him again. Roz says this is either feminism or the opposite of feminism, but I think it’s plain manners.
We walk to the parking lot, and he says, “Did something happen back there? Did I say something wrong? I thought it was going very well until suddenly it wasn’t.”
I say, “I just don’t like you,” and I get in my car.
TWO
I
live in a three-bedroom condo on the beach. I can hear the ocean and everything’s the way I like it, which is the best thing about living alone. Even when you’re married to a doctor who’s gone most of the time, he’ll still feel like he should weigh in on the décor. And his opinions are, I think I’d prefer a bed that was more masculine and Definitely blackout curtains, you know my schedule and Sure it’s pretty, but won’t it get dirty? But now my couch is white, my curtains are white, my duvet is white, my countertops are white, my clothes are white, everything is white, and no, it doesn’t get dirty, I’m very careful. I bought near the bottom of the market – I have always been lucky in real estate, if nothing else – and the condo is worth three times what I paid for it. I could sell it and make a killing, but honestly, where would I go? You tell me where I would go!
Back when I was married and back when Aviva was young, we lived across town in a Tuscan-style minimansion in Forestgreen Country Club, which is a gated community. Now that I no longer live there, I can admit that the gates always troubled me – we lived in Boca Raton; who were we keeping out? People were always getting robbed in Forestgreen anyway. The gates seemed to attract thieves. Put up gates, people will think there’s something worth protecting. But Forestgreen’s where I met Roz, who has been my best friend through some times, let me tell you. And that’s where we met the Levins. The Levins moved in when Aviva was a freshman in high school, fourteen.
When we first knew him, Aaron Levin was a lowly state senator. His wife, Embeth, was the one who made the money – she worked as in-house counsel for a conglomerate of South Florida hospitals. Roz’s nickname for Aaron Levin was “Jewish Superman” or “Jewperman.” And honest to God, that’s what he looked like. He was six feet two inches tall in New Balances, with black curly hair and blue-green eyes and a big, kind, dopey smile. The man could wear a dress shirt. He’d gone to Annapolis and served in the navy, and he had the shoulders to show for it. He was a few years younger than Roz and me, but he was not so young that Roz didn’t like to joke that one of us should try to sleep with him.
The wife, Embeth, always looked unhappy. She was thin from the waist up but frumpy on the bottom – thick calves and hips, puffy knees. How the woman must have suffered to keep her brown curly hair in that straight blond bob. Roz used to say, “In this humidity, oy vey iz mir, maintaining a hairstyle like that is nothing short of madness.”
For the record, I tried to make friends with Embeth, but she wasn’t interested. (It wasn’t just me, because Roz also tried.) Mike and I had them over for dinner twice. The first time, I made beef brisket, which takes all day. Even with the AC blasting, I was shvitzing on my Donna Karan open-shouldered dress. The second time, I made maple-glazed salmon. No big deal. Marinate for fifteen minutes, thirty in the oven, and done. Embeth never reciprocated. I can take a hint. Then when Aviva was a junior in high school, Aaron Levin ran for Congress, and they moved to Miami, and I thought I’d never see or hear from them again. You have a lot of neighbors in a lifetime and only a few of them turn out to be Roz Horowitzes.
But it’s not Roz I’ve been brooding about all day, it’s the Levins, and I’m still thinking about them when the phone rings. It’s the history teacher from the public school, wanting to know if I’m Esther Shapiro’s daughter. She has been trying to reach Mom to see if she will be able to be a speaker for Survivor Day at the high school, and Mom’s not been answering her texts or her phone. I explain to her that Mom had a fairly devastating stroke about six months ago. So, no, Esther Shapiro will not be able to attend Survivor Day. They will have to find other survivors this year.