Mean

by Justin Sayre

  The minute she’s gone, Ducks pummels me with questions about Noah and the texting. “Why didn’t you tell me you were texting him?” Ducks smiles. The truth is, with everything with Charlie and then with Mom, I didn’t have a chance. When I got up this morning, I saw that Noah had texted me a few times last night, but I’d been so distracted with my life ending that I haven’t texted back. What’s the point anyway? I’m leaving.

  The rest of the day flashes by me in confusion and worry. Sophie finds me and says she still wants to have that talk. What am I doing after school today? Probably just going home to pack. I don’t say this, I just shrug her off and tell her I have to get home and help with Hannah tonight.

  “So call me at least, okay?” Sophie laughs.

  After school, when I get to my phone again, I text Rosalinda that I have to go up to Hebrew school for a little extra study and I will be home a bit late. I text my dad the same thing to no reply.

  There are four new texts from Noah that I haven’t read.

  I feel terrible to ignore him like that. He deserves so much better than that. He’s actually great and I can’t believe that I’m going to have to leave him. I don’t know how to handle any of this. So I’m not. And I know that’s not the right thing, but I don’t know what the best thing is.

  Grabbing my bag, I walk toward the park, before I even see Sophie or Ducks. I just want to have a minute alone. I need a walk through Brooklyn, my Brooklyn, just to take it in while it’s still mine. It’s so pretty near the park. I’ve ridden my bike here so many times. I know the best spots. But none of that will really matter now.

  At Hebrew school, I ask if Rabbi Jessica is in, and the lady at the desk says she’s working with someone at the moment, but she should be out in a few minutes. I sit on the bench to wait, thinking of all the things I should text to Noah, and type a few responses but don’t send any of them.

  “So I guess you didn’t lose your phone,” Noah says as he walks into the hallway.

  “Hey,” I say, turning beet red.

  “Hey.” Noah smiles his perfect smile, the one I think about all the time, but there’s a sadness in it that makes him look really only more beautiful, but makes me sad that I caused it.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been around. It’s been a crazy week,” I say, trying to be honest, but not honest enough to tell the whole truth.

  “I get it. But you could at least text that,” Noah says. “What are you doing here?”

  “I just wanted to talk to Rabbi Jessica. I felt bad about yesterday. I had an emergency.”

  “She knows. You’re not a skipper.”

  “I try not to be.” I smile back. “Can I still text you?”

  “Yes, please.” Noah smiles. We both want to say a lot more, but Rabbi Jessica comes out into the hallway and calls me into her office before either of us figure out exactly what. I’ll text him on my way home.

  “We missed you yesterday,” Rabbi Jessica says as she sits down at her desk.

  “I’m sorry about that. I had an emergency. But I didn’t want to miss, and I’ve really memorized my haftarah portion.”

  “I don’t worry about that with you, Ellen. I know you take it seriously.” She smiles. “I worry about you in different ways.”

  “You worry about me?” I ask.

  “I’m a Jewish mother, half my job is worrying.” She laughs. “I worry about you because I think you take on too much, and you do it alone.”

  “I just . . . don’t . . .” I stumble. It’s so strange to hear the things you’re thinking coming from someone else’s mouth.

  “I know. I know a lot better than you think.” Rabbi Jessica smiles. “But relying on each other is the part we all need to work on. It’s why we’re always talking about family and connection. It’s not just so you marry a nice Jewish boy or girl and have a bunch of little Jewish babies someday. It’s because we need each other to survive. We need the support and the friendship and the love. Without that, this life is not worth the trouble of getting out of bed.”

  “I know,” I answer.

  “I know you know. You’re too smart not to know. But do you believe? That’s a very different question.”

  “In God?” I ask, really nervously, thinking this is a much bigger test.

  “We can get into that another time. I’m asking if you believe you need other people.”

  Of course I do. I know I do, but I don’t answer because the question hits me a lot harder than I have the words for. I don’t know that I always do. I don’t know that I always let people in. Because sometimes I don’t know what will happen if they see all the stuff inside me. If they think I’m mean now, what will they think then?

  Rabbi Jessica and I talk for a while longer. About the party and the speech. Even about my Bubbe Brunch.

  “That’s a very beautiful tradition. You’re very lucky to have a bubbe like that,” Rabbi Jessica says. I agree with her and promise not to miss another class. She’s glad to hear it.

  “We need you in class,” she says.

  It’s a nice feeling, to feel needed. I wish it could keep me here, but I don’t think it can.

  Chapter 21

  Friday night, Rosalinda tells me I have to lay out my outfit for meeting Bubbe for our brunch. I have a few dresses, but none of them I really like, and I don’t think Rosalinda likes them either. We finally decide on a little sweater set and skirt. It’s classy, but not dressy, and I’m worried that with all the pressure I’m getting from every direction, it won’t be just right and I will ruin everything. Why do clothes trip me up so much?

  When Dad finally gets home, he’s exhausted and blustering to get Rosalinda out of the house. She’s not supposed to stay this late, but she always does. Dad still feels guilty about it.

  “How’s your day?” he asks, looking through the mail.

  “Okay. I laid out clothes for my Bubbe Brunch tomorrow,” I tell him.

  “Oh, yeah. You’ll be in the secret club then, right?” He looks up, smirking a little.

  “I guess, I’m still not sure what exactly I’m supposed to do.”

  “Show up. Ninety percent of life, honey, is just showing up.” He kisses my forehead and gets on his computer. I don’t know if he knows that I know about Cleveland and I don’t know if I want him to know. We don’t talk much for the rest of the evening. I play a little Xbox and try to go to bed, but can’t really sleep.

  At nine the next morning, Mom wakes me up before she goes for a jog. She’s all smiles and happy, trying to get me to be happy too, but it’s too early and I’m too exhausted.

  “You’re doing a great thing today, Ellen. I’m very proud of you,” she says, kissing me, then heads down the stairs. I don’t know why she’s proud, I’m just having lunch with my grandmother. It’s not a big deal.

  I get dressed and wait, perfectly still, on my bed until it’s time to go. I’m ready for a long time before I need to be so there’s a lot of waiting and trying not to wrinkle. Hannah comes in and starts to climb all over me, wanting to play, but I can’t play. I am doing something important. I’m waiting. I’m not wrinkling. I need to be alone for both. So I push her off, which starts a whole tantrum that Dad has to fix. An hour later, I finally head to the subway.

  It’s a pretty day in Manhattan when I get out of the subway. The trees in Central Park are beautiful, but I still like my park better. I walk up to the building and the doorman calls up to my grandparents’ old apartment. I can hear my aunt tell him to send me up, which he does.

  When I step out of the elevator, Aunt Claire is already waiting in the hallway with her arms out to give me a big hug.

  “You look so big. Awww, c’mere and give me a hug!”

  My aunt Claire is like this. She loves you when you’re around, but if you’re not, it’s like you don’t exist. I mean, I only live in Brooklyn and I never see her. While I’
m getting squished into Aunt Claire’s shoulder, I can hear Bubbe calling from inside the apartment.

  “Is she here? Oh, my goodness, tell her I’ll be right out.” Aunt Claire walks me into the apartment, asking me a thousand questions about the party and the Hebrew. Her son, Aaron, read his haftarah portion so beautifully even the rabbi cried. “It was a moment I’ll never forget.” She smiles at me. It’s as much a promise as a threat, and I start playing with my little purse to avoid her questions as much as I can.

  Bubbe finally comes out of the bedroom, looking gorgeous. She’s almost eighty, and honestly, my grandmother is beautiful. And not in an old-lady sort of way, but in a fashiony gorgeous kind of way. I think of taking a picture of her to send to Sophie, because I know she would get exactly what I’m saying.

  “Don’t you look lovely, darling.” Bubbe smiles at me. “Are you ready to go?”

  “Sure. Should I say hello to Zayde?” I ask.

  “He’s having a nap. You can say hello when we get back.”

  Bubbe and I get into the elevator with Aunt Claire still shouting at us to have a wonderful time. We walk to the front door and the doorman calls us a cab.

  “Thank you for coming with me today, Ellen,” Bubbe says once we’re in the cab.

  “Of course. I’m happy to come,” I answer.

  “I’m happy to hear that. I was going to take you to the Plaza, but that’s different now. Then I was thinking Tavern on the Green, but that’s changed. Don’t ever leave New York, darling, because everything you love will be gone before you get back.”

  It’s a terrible thing to hear, but I smile and get out in front of a very fancy hotel. There’s a doorman there who opens the door for us and a different man who leads us into a restaurant with a piano player already tinkling away. It’s fancy and dark. It’s a bit scary, but Bubbe seems to love it.

  “I used to come here all the time to go to the nightclub, but they have a nice brunch. Is this all right with you?” Bubbe asks as we sit in a circular booth along the wall. I answer that it is. Of course it is. It’s the fanciest place I’ve ever been.

  Bubbe orders a mimosa for herself and a Sprite for me. She tells me to get whatever I want, and after a long time I decide. We order from the waiter who calls her madame and me mademoiselle, and then we’re alone. Waiting for food and whatever this brunch is supposed to be.

  “My aunt took me to a brunch like this. My aunt Zelda, have I ever shown you a picture of her?” Bubbe takes out an envelope filled with old photos and lays them all on the table in front of us. They’re mostly black-and-white but I can recognize a few in color of my mother and my aunts.

  “This is her. She was a brilliant woman. It runs in the family. She was a socialist, well, really an anarchist, but she liked to eat out a lot, so I think she was at least sensible.” In the picture Bubbe shows me, a woman with a round face and glasses holds a cigarette in one hand and a bottle in the other. “She heard Emma Goldman speak when she was just six years old, and she said it changed her whole life. I loved her very much.”

  Bubbe smiles at the picture and puts it back in the lineup.

  “She wanted us to have a meal like this because she knew the most important thing for a woman to know in this world is that she’s not alone. That she has people she can trust and confide in. See, when I was your age, I didn’t have a bat mitzvah. We were too poor, and my mother was too proud to do anything that would’ve showcased that fact.” Bubbe sighs a little. “I shouldn’t be so harsh about my mother. I don’t want you to think she was a mean woman. She wasn’t. She was kind and loving, as much as she could be. But she had a very different life and being soft was hard for her. My mother was my boss. My aunt Zelda was my friend.”

  Bubbe tells me about how her mother, Rachel, was the oldest of three girls. She’d come over on the boat from Poland with her mother when she was three years old. She’d gone to work when she was nine, after her father was hit by a car and couldn’t work. She was the last one to get married, waiting until both her sisters started their lives before she finally started her own. “By the time she got around to having me. I think she liked working more than she ever liked being a mother.”

  “I understand that,” I answer, without thinking.

  “Do you think your mother’s like that? Is that the impression you have of her?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Oh, honey. I’m sorry. I can tell you it’s not true. If you knew for a moment how much your mother misses you when she’s away. She’s cried on the phone to me more times than I can count.”

  I’ve never known this, and part of me doesn’t believe it even now, but sitting with Bubbe, I start to think it’s true. She’s being honest about everything. About marrying Zayde, about the years when she thought of leaving him—“I mean, how many times could I hear those jokes?” About my mother and my aunts as children. “Debbie was always too nervous, and I’ll never know why. Claire cried all the time as a baby, so you see where she gets it from now.” About getting older. About not being the same person you thought you were, and wondering who you will turn into next. About dying. Not her, but her friends, her family, and now Zayde.

  “Is Zayde that sick?” I ask her.

  “Yes, darling. He is. He wanted so badly to come up for your big day. It’s all he’s been looking forward to, but after this I don’t think he’ll ever come up again.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, more upset for her than I could ever be for myself.

  “Me too. I’ll miss the jokes then, won’t I?” We both laugh, but it’s just an excuse to move on to something else.

  “What will you do?” I ask her, almost as a friend.

  “Well, I’ll probably stay in Florida. I thought about coming up and staying with Claire, but I can’t walk around New York like I used to. Why do you think I’m taking cabs everywhere?” Bubbe laughs.

  “Do you miss New York?” I ask her.

  “Always. It’s a wonderful place. But sometimes I think I just miss the person I was here more than I miss here. I miss the shopping and the food and the shows, sure. But I miss seeing them with my friend Iris. And eating food with Zayde at the Cub Room. And shopping for clothes when my boobies weren’t on the floor.”

  We both laugh at this so loudly the table next to us starts to laugh too.

  “Speaking of that, what are we going to do with you and a dress?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know that I want to wear a dress,” I say, sort of shyly, hoping that if she’s really mad at the idea, at least she won’t yell about it. We’re having such a good time.

  “So don’t. Wear something that makes you feel wonderful. It doesn’t need to be a dress. It needs to be nice, but it doesn’t need to be a dress. How about I take you after our brunch to my favorite store and we find something?”

  I agree just as our salads come. But I have to ask something important.

  “I don’t know what kind of woman I want to become, and it’s freaking me out.” I try to laugh it off, but I can’t.

  “What kind of woman? Honey, I don’t understand.” Bubbe smiles.

  “I’m becoming a woman, and I don’t know which kind I should be. Am I a woman like you? Or like my mom or Aunt Debbie?”

  “Please not like Debbie. It’s just too many dogs.” Bubbe laughs. She sees how distressed I am by the whole thing, and puts her hand on my face and stops. “There’s no right way to be a woman. What is that even? You’re becoming a person. A wonderful person, with an open heart and a beautiful mind and a real sense of purpose. You don’t need to be any kind of woman. Especially if all you have to pick from is us. You have to be you. Beautiful, brilliant Ellen. That’s a gorgeous woman. That’s a woman who can take on the world. That’s a woman I’m proud of.” She smiles at me. She wants to say more, and so do I, but the eggs Benedict come after that and we both want to eat.

  After
that, the conversation is easy. I tell Bubbe everything about Ducks and Charlie and being mean to Allegra. “She sounds like she’s got her head on completely backward. Be gentle with her when you can.” About Hannah and her cochlear implants. “You really love her, don’t you?”

  “I love her more than anything in this world,” I say.

  “I’m very glad to hear that. She’s going to need you now, more than ever.”

  “Do you know about us moving to Cleveland?” I ask.

  “Yes. I’m not happy about it either.” Bubbe sighs. “Your mother is a brilliant woman. Driven. Ambitious. Maybe more than she needs to be, but that’s probably just me being old and jealous. But she struggles. She wants everything to be perfect, but it can’t ever be. She wants to be such a good mother to you both. It kills her to be away.”

  “So why doesn’t she ever say that?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. I think she doesn’t want to make you feel bad. Or feel as bad as she feels.”

  “I just don’t get it,” I say.

  “Neither does she. It’s not a perfect science being a mother. You try, and hopefully you try your best, but your best is rarely good enough. What you hope for is that you teach your children how to love themselves and others. And maybe even you. On that front, your mother’s done very well by you, Ellen.”

  “I guess,” I say, a little embarrassed for not believing it.

  “Your mother is doing something amazing for you, do you know that? She’s laying out the world for you. She’s showing you that you can do and be anything you want. You can have anything you want. And she’s not getting it right all the time, but she’s leaving that to you.”

  Bubbe smiles and takes my face in her hand. “Be the woman she is, and the woman she isn’t, but look at her with admiration, because so much of what she’s doing is out of love for you.”

  Bubbe gives me a big kiss after this. I don’t know why, but both of us are crying.