It's a Whole Spiel

by It's a Whole Spiel- Love, Latkes

  Rye returned to the party with a new confidence. He ate dinner next to Dara at a folding table, and for the first time all night, he felt like he belonged.

  The feeling didn’t last long. Some of the older women kept glancing his way and whispering. And, even though at least half of the latkes had been salvaged, Dara’s mom was looking at him differently, less warmth in her eyes.

  “That’s a lot of menorahs,” Rye said as about a dozen of them replaced the dinner platters on the main table. It was partly to prove that he knew at least one thing about Hanukkah.

  “You brought one, right?”

  Rye’s eyes widened.

  “I’m kidding,” Dara said, shaking her head in wonder at this new neurotic Rye.

  Within minutes, everyone at the party was crowded around the table. “They were in the garage, btw,” Rebecca said to Dara, holding up three boxes of candles and passing them around.

  The rabbi appeared next to Rye. “Heard you had a little spill,” he said, a subtle smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  “Oh man,” Rye said. “I’m so sorry about that.”

  “You’re no longer welcome in this house.”

  Rye knew he was joking—all the social cues were there—but it stung nevertheless. Rabbi Goldfarb put one hand on Rye’s shoulder, as if to further convey that all was good, and began to speak.

  “Hello, everyone. It is so nice to have you all here with us tonight. We’ve been hosting this party since…” He looked to Dara’s mom. “Robin, this is our, what…?”

  “Sixteenth year,” she said.

  “Sixteen years!” Rabbi Goldfarb said. “It’s our sweet sixteen!” People cheered and laughed. “But seriously, we are so grateful that we’ve been able to gather together during the Festival of Lights for so many years.”

  “Us too,” Shelly said, one hand cupped over his mouth like a megaphone.

  “Thank you, Shelly,” the rabbi said. Rye was thrilled by the hint of sarcasm in his voice. “Now, every year, we invite someone to tell the story of Hanukkah, usually one of our younger attendees. Any volunteers?”

  The kid who Rye knew to be Elijah shot his hand up in the air.

  “Elijah, wonderful,” Dara’s dad said. “Please tell us the story of Hanukkah.”

  “Okay,” Elijah said. “Well, there was this small amount of oil, right? So the Maccabees decided to rub some on their butts—”

  “Elijah,” Shelly snapped.

  “Not exactly the telling we were hoping for,” Rabbi Goldfarb said, laughing. “So, thank you, Elijah, but I think we’ll find someone else.” Elijah ran off snickering with another kid.

  “Any of our other young guests want to have a go?”

  There were a few other kids, but none volunteered.

  “Hmm,” Rabbi Goldfarb said, scanning the group before his hand again landed on Rye’s shoulder, freezing his insides. “What about you?” Rabbi Goldfarb asked, his eyes burning into Rye’s soul.

  “Daddy,” Dara said from Rye’s side.

  “Everyone, this is Rye,” the rabbi said to the crowd. “He’s the schmendrick my daughter Dara brought home, and even though he dropped all my latkes on the floor, we’re so happy to have him here tonight. What do you say, Rye?”

  “Oh,” he said, though it came out more like a squeak. He tried to maintain balance as the room gently spun around him. Here it was, the moment all of his preparation had been leading up to, and he had studied the wrong material.

  “Go, Rye!” a woman he didn’t know said.

  “Sure,” Rye said. “I’d love to.”

  “Excellent!” the rabbi said, patting his back twice before removing his hand. “Take it away.”

  Rye’s mouth was so dry it took a few tries before he could swallow. “Hello, everyone.” He decided to start with a joke that had occurred to him moments before. “Makes sense that Elijah couldn’t be here to tell the story. But we’ll save a place for him.”

  Staring faces, zero laughs.

  “Wrong holiday, honey,” one of Dara’s mom’s friends said.

  “Oh, yeah, I know,” Rye said, though he hadn’t remembered which holiday it was, just that one of them had this guy Elijah who Jews saved a place for. “So, um, the story of Hanukkah.” Why hadn’t he hopped on Wikipedia earlier? He only knew key bullet points, gathered from school and life and Hanukkahs with Josh. “It’s a powerful story. And moving, too.”

  Just be a nice Jewish boy, Rye thought, though it wasn’t helpful advice. “The oil is the main thing. That it’s about. Because these Jews were trying to light a lamp, and it seemed like they would only have enough oil for a night, but it lasted for eight nights. Which is really, you know, that’s a lot more than one night.”

  “Antiochus,” Dara said quietly into his ear. “Mention Antiochus.”

  “Oh,” Rye said. “Also Auntie Okus. Is another big part of the story. Because she, uh, was the one who…”

  “It’s he,” Rabbi Goldfarb corrected.

  “Huh?”

  “Antiochus is a he. He’s the one they were fighting against.”

  “Why couldn’t it be a she?” Rebecca asked. “We don’t know for sure.” She gave Rye the tiniest of nods. He now recognized her awesomeness.

  “Well…” The rabbi shrugged at his older daughter. “In this case I think we do know, but. Go on.”

  “So, right,” Rye said. “Auntie Okus is probably a he. Because back a long time ago men could be aunties.” Some people chuckled and others stared in bewilderment, and Rye understood that aunties had no place in this story. “But anyway, the Jews fought him, and then had enough oil to last more than a week, and it was a miracle. And, to commemorate that miracle, we give each other presents for eight nights. And spin dreidels.” Rye had officially run out of things to say, so he stopped there, sitting in an awkward silence until Dara’s dad popped back in.

  “Well, okay, Rye,” he said. “I’m not sure which temple you go to, but clearly they taught you the abridged version.” The room erupted with laughter. “Maybe someone could pick up from there to flesh out the story a bit?”

  Rye’s inadequacy sat heavy in his chest, like he’d swallowed a couple of dreidels.

  “I gotcha,” Matthew said, putting down his cup and sauntering up next to Rabbi Goldfarb, forcing Rye to make space for him. Of course. Stupid Matthew. Rye noticed his yarmulke featured the NY Mets logo, and for some reason this infuriated him.

  “So, to build on what Ryan was trying to say,” Matthew began. Rye was almost positive Matthew knew that wasn’t his name. “King Antiochus and the Syrians had been persecuting the Jews for a long time, but, led by Judah and the Maccabees, the Jewish people defended themselves. They fought back.”

  Matthew continued with a spellbinding telling of the story of Hanukkah. Even as Rye resented him, he couldn’t deny that he was learning a whole lot.

  As Matthew finished, Rye was about to turn to Dara, who he hadn’t looked at since his own pitiful telling petered out, but suddenly it was time to light the candles and say the blessings. Dara stood next to her mother, father, and sister at the menorah, lit candle in hand, Rye a moon hovering behind them.

  The moment when he believed that being neurotic was all it took to be a Jew was a distant memory, a cruel joke. It wasn’t enough. No matter how much research he did, it would never be enough. Rye stared at all the families huddled together around the candlelight, seething with anger at his own parents. I’m Jewish, Rye thought. I should know the goddamn story of Hanukkah. Why did they never tell me the story?

  Everyone in the room began to sing in Hebrew, and Rye pretended to sing along, hating himself for not being brave enough to keep his mouth shut. He knew the beginning of this one from hanging out with Josh: Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam…

  It was unlikely anyone was listening fo
r Rye’s voice, but now he felt like he had even more to prove, raising his volume on the random syllables he remembered. He sounded like someone singing prayers on the other end of a bad cell phone connection. Matthew’s rich baritone, meanwhile, soared over the other voices. Frigging Matthew. Why couldn’t he just go by Matt, like the other ninety-eight percent of people with his name?

  The blessings finished, presents were passed out to the younger kids, and the speedy process of bringing out dessert began. Rye wanted to melt into a pool of slime and ooze out the door, but first he needed to get proper closure on his and Dara’s relationship. He cautiously walked over to her as she was putting down a plate of dreidel cookies.

  “Hey,” he said, grimacing. “I did a terrible job with that story.”

  “Oh, it was fine,” Dara said, not very convincingly. “I mean, you missed a lot, but the overall ideas were there.”

  Rye looked at Dara. Her dimples, the speck of makeup under her right eye, the asymmetrical birthmark on her jawline. He had to tell her the truth.

  “I’m not really that Jewish,” he said.

  “Ha, what?” Dara smiled and blinked twice.

  “I mean, technically I am Jewish, both my parents are by blood, but my family doesn’t go to temple. I wasn’t bar mitzvahed.”

  “But you said you belong to Temple Beth Shalom. You go to services, like, all the time.”

  “Yeah. No. I don’t.” Rye figured he might as well rip the Band-Aid off entirely. “And also my dad’s Buddhist.”

  “Oh, wow,” Dara said. “That’s interesting.”

  “I’m really sorry.” Rye looked down at his bright blue dress shoes. They were a little over-the-top.

  “It’s weird that you lied,” Dara said, “but you don’t have to say all this as if it’s, like, a tragedy.” She took Rye’s hand in hers, and he looked up. “I’m not with you because of your deep connection to Judaism. You could be zero Jewish for all I care.”

  “Dar, could you help me for a sec?” Dara’s mom asked. “I can’t find the cake cutter.”

  Dara gently smiled at Rye. “Are you gonna be okay if I leave you here for a second, my sweet not-really-that-Jewish boyfriend?”

  Out of habit, Rye opened his mouth to defend himself, then smiled instead. “Probably.” Dara walked with her mom into the kitchen.

  So she didn’t care. It wasn’t as big a relief as Rye thought it would be.

  Which begged the question: What was bothering him? He had been shamed by Dara’s father in front of the entire party, so there was that.

  Rye wandered down the hall to the bathroom, but when he saw it was occupied, he kept walking and found himself in the garage. It was chilly without his jacket, but Rye didn’t care. He deserved the cold.

  He paced around the two parked cars, replaying his Hanukkah story over and over, astounded that he was somehow able to top the latke debacle.

  “Hey,” a voice said, pulling him out of his own brain. Rye turned and looked over the top of a red Hyundai to see, of all people, Matthew.

  Pretty much the last person he wanted to see.

  “Hi,” Rye said, trying to omit anything resembling friendliness.

  Matthew stood in the doorway to the garage, looking like he wanted to speak.

  “Do you need something from out here or…?” Rye wanted him to go.

  “I’m not really Jewish either,” he said.

  “What?” Rye said. He was ninety percent sure he was being messed with.

  “Sorry. I heard what you were saying in there to Dara. I wasn’t, like, eavesdropping or anything, but I was just, like, nearby.”

  “Uh. Okay.”

  “My mom’s not Jewish,” Matthew said, staring up at the garage ceiling. “So technically that means I’m not Jewish either. That’s the way it works, through the mother’s family line. If you’re conservative, like my dad.”

  Rye could now tell he was not being messed with, but he was still very confused.

  “So I know what you’re feeling,” Matthew continued. “Is what I’m trying to…I mean, like, feeling like a fake. I get that.”

  “But…” Rye was bewildered not just by the words, but by the sudden vulnerability presented by someone who up till now seemed completely impenetrable. “You’re, like, totally Jewish. You know all the Jewish things. You told that story so well.”

  “Thanks, man.” Rye thought Matthew might have been blushing. “But…doesn’t matter, because I’ll never actually be Jewish.”

  It seemed so ridiculous. “That whole thing about the mother’s line,” Rye said. “What does that even mean? What does any of it mean?”

  “You said both your parents are Jewish?” Matthew asked.

  “Well. Yeah. In theory.”

  “So you’re Jewish.”

  Rye wasn’t sure how things had flipped so dramatically in the past two minutes, but hearing Matthew say that did carry a lot of weight. He realized suddenly that, unlike his Chewbacca impersonation—done for a laugh, to impress Dara—his impersonation of a nice Jewish boy had been done expressly for one person: himself.

  Matthew shrugged, wiped his face. “She really likes you.”

  “Who?” Rye said, in that involuntary way where of course you know the answer but feel like you have to ask anyway.

  “Dara. She never liked me like that.”

  “Oh.” Rye of course loved hearing those words, but he felt bad, too. “On the bright side, I’m still a total mess.”

  Matthew laughed. “Your story did leave something to be desired.”

  “Yeah, no kidding.”

  “But I can tell you’re a really good dude. You’re just, like, very relaxed or something.”

  Rye was again skeptical before realizing that, since Matthew had appeared in the garage, he had been pretty relaxed. Maybe he’d absorbed more of his dad’s Buddhism than he’d realized. And maybe he was also Jewish. Maybe he was a lot of things.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Absolutely.”

  It only took a few seconds of them standing there nodding at each other for Rye to remember that, other than their mutual feeling of Jewish imposterism, he had no idea what they had in common.

  He wanted to get back inside to Dara, but he didn’t want to be rude, so he searched for something to say, landing on a reference to Matthew’s passion for the Mets. Matthew, however, beat him to the punch.

  “So, uh, you get anything cool for Hanukkah?”

  EL AL 328

  BY DANA SCHWARTZ

  The plane lurched down with such urgency it was like it had disappeared through a wormhole and reappeared a few yards lower. Several of the passengers on El Al 328 to JFK gave small involuntary yelps. Fi’s guts climbed into her throat. She gripped the armrests on either side of her until the tendons in her wrists bulged. Please, God, she thought, a little self-consciously, wondering if she should have included an introduction, a brief Hello there, remember me? Please, God, Fi thought as the plane dipped and righted itself, hurtling across the Atlantic. Please don’t let me die before I have sex.

  Neither Emma nor Dean seemed to pay any attention to the turbulence. With the plane’s lights still off, Fi wasn’t certain at first whether they were even awake. Maybe they had fallen asleep with their limbs entangled under a single blanket in the space between the middle and aisle seats of the row in which Fi was crouched into the window. But no—the bracelets on Emma’s thin wrist jangled as she curled her arm, like a rhinestoned snake, farther around Dean’s neck. To the best of Fi’s observational skills, the two hadn’t come up for air since the cabin lights dimmed.

  They had been in the air long enough for the hours to bleed into each other, and Fi felt like a failure. She had wasted Birthright, and she was coming home not only not devirginized, but also completely unkissed. How had she managed to go ten days
with purposefully minimal adult supervision without finding someone who was interested in her?

  That was what Birthright was for, wasn’t it? Fi thought bitterly. Meeting eligible Jewish spouses? There was a rumor that if you met your significant other on Birthright, you would get a honeymoon to Israel for free. She was trying to have sex on a trip designed to get kids to have sex, and she had still managed to fail.

  Even sweet Dean, with his bad skin and eyes a little too far apart, had been only politely friendly when she had attempted flirtation—offering a bite of her shawarma, sitting next to him on the bus and pressing her knee into his—during the trip’s early days. And now he was here. Next to her. Giving Emma a dental exam with his tongue.

  It’s not that Fi was surprised Dean would go for Emma—she was probably the prettiest girl on their trip, with a sort of undone gorgeousness that always made her look like an off-duty model backpacking through Nepal. What was surprising to Fi was that Emma would be interested in Dean. For the first half of their ten-day trip, Emma had been playfully fending off the flirtations of Eitan, the obvious ringleader of the Israeli soldiers who had been assigned to accompany their college group. The morning that the group was supposed to hike Masada, Eitan and Emma were conspicuously missing, and Fi had heard that the two had been having sex at the hotel and received a formal reprimand from Corinne, the trip leader.

  Dean was a full head shorter than Eitan. He and Fi had usually gone to eat lunch in the same group, and he used a fork and knife to eat falafel sandwiches. If he asks me out when we get back to Iowa, Fi remembered thinking back during orientation, I will probably say yes. The memory of her own presumptuousness now that he was chosen by Emma made Fi’s stomach sink with humiliation.

  Emma’s bracelets jangled again, and her fingernails (painted black) clawed at the back of Dean’s head. Where did Emma even get those bracelets? How old had she been when she pierced half a dozen rings through the cartilage of her ears and through her septum? There were a thousand questions she wished she could ask Emma, interrogating her in a white, locked room away from the rest of the world for as long as she wanted without anyone else ever finding out: Did she shower in the morning or at night? How was her skin so smooth and poreless? Did she purchase her jeans like that—soft and worn, dotted with fraying holes—or did she wear them in? Were her band T-shirts actually vintage, or did she buy them, like Fi, at Forever 21? How did Emma look cool wearing a backward baseball cap, when Fi looked like a prepubescent male clown, with her hair poofing out on either side of her ears, demented uncontrollable triangles?