by Julia Dahl
“Wipe your face, Aviva,” said Eli, not a trace of pity in his voice.
But I felt like I needed my hands to hold my mind still. Penina took a napkin from the table.
“Here,” she said, leaning over me, her belly bumping my shoulder. When I did not take the napkin, she scooped up the stream herself and wiped my face for me as if I were a baby. And I did feel helpless then, Rebekah. I would not have agreed to go to Israel and live with Schlomo and Golda and their spoiled children if I thought I had a better choice. I knew I could never go back to Florida. I had proved to your father the only thing that would keep him from taking me back, which was that I was an unfit mother. And I knew I would not survive the winter in a car with Gitty. I know now that there were other choices, but I couldn’t see them then. And truthfully, when I resigned myself to their plan, I felt a slight relief. I would do what they told me to do. I would go back to following the rules and the rules would make it possible to live. I would make no decisions. I would be like a train on a track. Turns and stops and the destination all set by someone else.
Eli and Penina went to bed and I fell asleep in my clothing, curled up on the sofa. I woke up to Sammy’s quiet crying at three o’clock. I had a headache and my eyes were red and swollen. I splashed hot water on my face in the bathroom and tied one of Penina’s scarves around my hair. There were half a dozen subway tokens among the loose change in a dish by the front door. I took two and stepped out of the apartment into the darkness. It was September, my favorite month in New York. The air still almost warm in the middle of the night. At first I was just walking, making loops in the neighborhood toward the shuttered stores on New Utrecht Avenue. And then I turned south, back toward Coney Island.
CHAPTER EIGHT
REBEKAH
I wake up around noon, and when I open my computer I see that the library has e-mailed me with attachments on Sam Kagan and Ryan Hall. I start with Sam. He was born, like me, in 1989. The search lists addresses in Roseville, New Paltz, and Cairo, New York. Could the Roseville address be where my grandparents live? Are they still alive? There are three possible phone numbers listed. Without even getting out of bed, I try the first number, which corresponds to the Roseville address. A woman answers the phone.
“Hello?”
Aviva? “Hi,” I say, stumbling. “Is this Aviva?”
“Aviva?” says the woman. “Who is this?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, throwing the covers off. “My name is Rebekah Roberts. I’m trying to reach Sam Kagan.”
“Sam has not lived here in years.”
“Oh,” I say. “Can I ask who am I speaking to?”
“Please do not call this number again.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, but it is too late. She has hung up. “Fuck!” I know better than to call a possible source without ready questions and a plan to keep her talking. But I’m not thinking like a professional, I’m thinking like a desperate orphan. Fail.
I go back to my laptop and dial the second number listed for Sam. Before I press SEND, I take a deep breath. Another. In and out. I will take control of the conversation. I will speak slowly. I will introduce myself as a reporter first, and then ask if he is related to Aviva. But the number goes to voice mail: “This is Sam. Leave a message.”
“Hi,” I say. “My name is Rebekah Roberts. I sent you a message on Facebook. Um, if you can, give me a call.” I leave my number and then hang up. My face is hot. My lips itch. The Kagans are real people. With addresses and phone numbers. With voices and attitudes. They are so close.
The last number I dial corresponds to the Cairo address. A woman answers.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m trying to reach Sam Kagan.”
“Sam? He doesn’t live here anymore. Did you try his cell?”
“I left a message,” I say.
“Okay,” she says.
“So, this might sound like a kind of random question, but you don’t know a girl named Pessie Goldin, do you?”
“Sure,” says the woman. “I mean, not well or anything. She used to hang out with Sam and Ryan sometimes.”
“Did you know she died recently?”
“Pessie? Really?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m actually a reporter for the New York Tribune working on some articles about her. I’ve heard she and Sam were close.”
“They grew up together,” she says. “What happened? When did she die?”
“Early this month,” I say. “That’s what I’m writing about. It’s kind of a mystery. Her husband found her in her bathtub, but he thinks she might have, like, been killed.”
“Jesus. I can’t believe I didn’t hear about it. If you’re looking for Sam you should talk to Ryan.”
“Do you have his number?”
“Yeah,” she says, and gives it to me.
“Do you mind if I ask your name?”
“Kaitlyn,” she says. “With a K.”
“And your last name?”
“Morris. Am I gonna be in the paper?”
“I’m not sure,” I say. She seems okay with this. “Is this the best number to reach you at? In case I have any more questions?”
She gives me her cell number. “I’ll text Ryan and Sam and let them know you want to talk.”
After we hang up, I click into the search attachments for Ryan Hall. The library found two addresses: one is the Cairo address where Kaitlyn picked up the phone; one is about fifteen miles away, in a town called Greenville. I call the phone number listed for the Greenville address, but it just rings and rings.
I go into the kitchen to make coffee and while it’s brewing my phone rings. It’s a blocked number, which I assume is the city desk.
“Hi, it’s Rebekah,” I say.
“Rebekah Roberts?” It’s not the city desk.
“Yes.”
“My name is Nechemaya Burstein. Levi Goldin gave me your phone number. Are you still reporting on the death of Pessie Goldin?”
“I am.”
“Good,” he says. “I have some information I would like to share with you. I realize it is a lot to ask, but might you be able to travel to Roseville tomorrow to meet in person?”
“I might,” I say, thinking, maybe Saul will loan me his car. “Were you a friend of Pessie’s?”
“I did not know her particularly well. But I believe her death may have been part of a larger plot.”
“A plot?”
“I do not wish to say more over the telephone, if you do not mind.”
“Okay,” I say. “Let me get back to you in a couple hours. Is that all right?”
“Yes,” he says, and gives me his phone number,
When we hang up I Google Nechemaya Burstein. He is, apparently, a member of the Rockland County Chevra Kadisha, which is a Jewish burial society. His name pops up in a 2012 article in The Journal News about two men from Roseville traveling to Israel to attend a conference on Jewish burial rites.
“As our community grows, so do our responsibilities,” he is quoted as saying. “This conference is an opportunity to improve our response to those in need.”
The group’s Web site doesn’t say much—just that they are members of the National Association of Chevra Kadisha and affiliated with three funeral homes, two of which are in Roseville. I encountered a Jewish burial group once before when the NYPD allowed their members to snag Rivka Mendelssohn’s naked body from a pile of scrap along the Gowanus Canal. At the time, those black-hatted men did not strike me as the kind who would reach out to a secular female reporter with a tip. But maybe it’s different upstate.
Iris finally comes out of her bedroom about twelve thirty. She’s got her hair in a ponytail and is carrying a yoga mat.
“I figure if I’m bailing on work I should do something semi-productive,” she says, opening the refrigerator. She picks up a carton of orange juice and shakes it, then pours some into a glass that had been sitting upside down on the drying rack in our sink.
“You are a better woman than I.” I haven
’t done any sort of physical exercise, other than walking to and from the subway, since getting out of the hospital in January. I know enough to know that I should; that exercise is almost as good for depression and anxiety as, well, antidepressants and antianxiety pills, but going to the gym—or yoga or Zumba or spinning or whatever Iris does—feels really, like, optimistic. Like, look at me, I’m so healthy. Fuck that.
“You working your shift?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Brice is coming over tonight. I was thinking maybe we could all get drinks together or something. Are you done at ten?”
“Should be,” I say.
“Cool. I’d love us to hang out a little more.”
“Yeah?”
“You’d like him if you got to know him,” Iris says. “It’s stupid that you judge him by the way he looks.”
“I don’t,” I say.
“Yes, you do,” she says. “I love you, but sometimes you’re kind of a reverse snob. Just because he likes nice clothes and products doesn’t make him an asshole.”
“I never said he was an asshole.”
“He told me he loves me the other night,” she says, sitting on the sofa.
“The other night? You didn’t tell me!”
“I’m telling you now,” she says.
“Did you say it back?”
Iris nods.
“Is this a good thing?”
“I’m really happy,” she says. “It just feels fast.”
“They say when you know, you know,” I say.
“He mentioned getting married.”
“Are you serious?” Pop, there goes the pilot light in my stomach.
Iris nods.
“How long have you been dating?”
“Four months, but three exclusively,” she says. “But it’s … intense. He really knows what he wants. Ford offered him a job managing models in Asia.…”
“Asia?!”
“He’s not gonna take it,” she says. “He doesn’t want to leave New York yet.”
Yet.
“But his career is good,” she continues. “And he wants a big family.”
“How old is he?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Iris wants me to say something encouraging, which is what a real friend would do. A real friend would be thrilled for her. A real friend would feel elation, not dread.
“What are you telling me, exactly?”
She hesitates, unsure herself, it seems. “I guess I’m telling you that … he might be the one.”
“The one? Do we really believe in that?”
“I do,” she says. “You know that.”
“Do I, like, need to look for a new roommate?”
“No,” she says, sounding slightly irritated. “I mean, maybe, eventually. But … I’m trying to tell you something happy. And kind of scary. Like, what if this is the guy I’m gonna have babies with?”
“And I’m being selfish.”
“A little.”
I exhale and lean forward to hug her. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m happy for you.”
What I don’t say is that I worry I may have forgotten what happiness feels like. I’m not a zombie like I was a couple weeks ago, but what she’s going through—falling in love … I can’t even fathom such a thing.
“Thanks,” she says, getting up. I can tell I’ve hurt her. I can tell that the way I reacted has made a mark, maybe even a permanent one, on our friendship. I am ashamed and afraid at the same time. But I don’t know what to do.
“I’m sorry, Iris,” I say again.
“It’s okay,” she says. But I can tell she’s shut me out. She rinses her glass and grabs her keys.
“So, I’ll see you tonight?” I ask.
“Sure,” she says. “We’ll be here.”
After Iris leaves, I stay curled on the couch for a few minutes, trying to think my way out of the pain in my stomach. You haven’t lost your best friend over one selfish reaction, I tell myself. You haven’t.
Ten minutes later, I send Iris a text that says “I love you” and then I call Saul and tell him about Nechemaya.
“He wants to meet in Roseville,” I say. “Any chance I could borrow your car?”
“Sure,” he says. “You’re in luck. I’m staking out a nightclub in Greenwich Village but there’s a bench on the sidewalk outside. The Doom Room. Do you know it?”
“The Doom Room? No. What are you doing there?”
“My client thinks her husband is seeing a dominatrix,” Saul says, chuckling.
“It sounds like we’ve switched jobs.” I staked out a fetish place in Queens last year when we got a tip that a local politician was into S&M. The Trib paid day rates to keep a photog and a reporter sitting outside for almost a week, around the clock, to get that story. But none of us saw him coming or going. I don’t miss that kind of work at all, but I know that I have to prove myself capable of coming up with headlines on my own if I have any hope of getting a staff job—and thus some freedom—at the Trib or anywhere else. Coming up with headlines means having sources, which are basically impossible to cultivate sitting at a desk rewriting copy. I’ve been hiding in that office since Aviva called. It’s time to get out.
“I went to a chulent last night,” I say. “And I met a guy who knew Pessie. Listen to this: the Sam she was engaged to is Sam Kagan. Aviva’s brother. I found a number for him in Roseville and when I called the woman said he hadn’t been there in years. I asked for Aviva, too, and the woman got all upset. She definitely knew her.”
“How old is this Sam?”
“The readout I got from the library at the Trib says he’s my age, almost exactly.”
“You know,” says Saul, “I believe Aviva’s mother died in childbirth while she was in Florida…”
“What? Wait, how long have you known that?”
“I guess I’m just remembering,” says Saul. “I wonder if Sam is that child?”
My mother is motherless. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this before.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m just…”
“We need to talk,” I say. “It’s time.”
Saul takes a moment to answer. “Okay. I will be in the Village starting at about nine tonight. Why don’t you come join me?”
Right before I leave for my shift, I call Larry at the Shack and inform him I have a meeting tomorrow with a member of the Roseville burial society about the Pessie story. He says I can put in for my day rate and get paid for mileage.
“If I stay overnight, do you think I can get reimbursed?” I ask. “I’ve got a couple leads on addresses related to the ex-fiancé.”
“Okay,” says Larry. “Run ’em down. Just one night, though. And make sure the room’s cheap. Less than one-fifty. I can swing that.”
On the subway to Manhattan, instead of listening to a WNYC podcast to pass the forty-five-minute ride, I do something I haven’t done in months: I think about a story. When a woman dies, the first suspect is always the husband. But if Levi Goldin killed his wife he wouldn’t be begging a reporter to pay attention to her death, so I feel safe assuming he’s not the perp. It sounds as though Sam was the one that dumped Pessie, so jilted lover doesn’t fit, either. Unless she had another ex-fiancé, or lover, which Levi isn’t likely to know about. Her family probably wouldn’t know either—though even if they did I can’t imagine they’d tell me. So far, Sam seems like the best possible source for information on what was happening in Pessie’s life. Sam and maybe this Nechemaya. The fact that Nechemaya called me is, frankly, a huge coup. If he didn’t hate me, I’d call Tony and brag: Scoop’s got a scoop. I wonder if he’d even want to hear from me again. He probably thinks I dumped him because I got bored or hooked up with someone else. He doesn’t know that I’ve never had a relationship that lasted more than four months. He doesn’t know that the only time I didn’t run when I felt like I might be in danger of falling in love was when I was pregnant in college and imagining that my boyfriend
and I would make up for where my dad and Aviva went wrong. He doesn’t know that that boyfriend was also sleeping with two other people, and that Iris was the one who took me to Planned Parenthood. He doesn’t know that I haven’t been able to make myself come since we broke up. He’s probably with somebody else by now, anyway.
Shit. Iris.
I call her but the call goes to voice mail. Maybe she has her phone on silent for yoga.
“Hey,” I say, “I’m really sorry but Saul says he has some stuff to tell me about my mom, and I think I should hear it before I head upstate tomorrow. Get this: apparently her mom died in childbirth, like, while she was still with my dad. And Saul thinks Sam might be that kid. I doubt I’ll be too late. Maybe you guys can wait up? I’m meeting him right after work. Okay. Did you get my text? I love you. I’m really happy for you. Okay. Bye.”
When I get into the office I call Nechemaya and tell him I can meet him tomorrow.
“Thank you,” he says. “There is a Starbucks in the Target just off the Thruway. Can we meet at eight thirty?” Saul always used to ask me to meet him at Starbucks. So did a former Haredi woman I met a few months ago. What’s with Starbucks?
“Sure,” I say.
I walk over to the editors’ desk at the center of the newsroom and fill Mike in on my plans tomorrow. There have been two arrests in Drug Dorm Den, and a small plane just went down on Long Island, so he’s not terribly interested in my little maybe-murder upstate. I start to walk back to my desk when he stops me.
“Wait,” he says. “Does this mean you have a car now? We need somebody in Nassau County tonight to door-knock when we get an ID on the plane vics. I’d rather have you on that than this … other thing.”