Two of a Kind

by Yona Zeldis McDonough

  “Also to make me fatter.”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “I don’t know why everyone is still harping on that,” said Jordan. But she peeked inside the bag. There was a necklace made of candy, candy dots stuck to a long strip of paper, licorice twists, jawbreakers wrapped in cellophane. Kid stuff. Silly stuff. “Thanks,” she said.

  “Glad you like it.” He smiled. “So, when are you going back to school?”

  “Next week,” she said. “Ballet class the week after. But I have to gain at least three pounds first. Preferably five.”

  “It won’t even show,” he said.

  “Not to you, maybe. I’ll see every ounce.”

  “Must be rough having to worry about all that shit.”

  “It’s my life,” she said simply. “I’m used to it.” He seemed to be studying her. “How’s your dad, anyway? He sent me these really nice flowers in the hospital.”

  Oliver shrugged. “Same as ever, I guess.”

  “That night at the theater? When I fainted?” Oliver nodded. “I hated him. I yelled at him when he tried to get me to leave with him; the security guard came over and made him leave. And even after all the horrible things I said, he stuck around, and went with me to the hospital in the ambulance.” She leaned back, exhausted from the recollection. “I never got to thank him for that. Not really. Not the way I should have. And now he’s gone and broken up with my mom, and she’s so sad all the time. I don’t get it.”

  “Neither do I,” Oliver said. “But I wish he’d change his mind.”

  “Do you think he might?” asked Jordan. She couldn’t believe she was even asking this question.

  “I can’t tell. He can be really stubborn sometimes.”

  Jordan closed her eyes. “I think I need to take a nap,” she said. “I get really tired all of a sudden.”

  “Sure,” Oliver said, standing up. “I’ll be back.” He ambled over to the rabbit cage and inserted a finger through the wire mesh.

  “Careful,” Jordan said. “She might think you’re a carrot and take a bite.”

  “Would you do that?” Oliver said to the bunny as he stroked her head. She remained where she was and her baby—practically as big as she was now—was huddled right behind her.

  The days in bed, away from school and ballet class, almost didn’t count—she was so weak that she slept most of the time. It was when she was allowed back to school, but not to ballet class, that she really suffered. The doctor had told her she couldn’t return until she gained three pounds. But even though she’d agreed, she found she couldn’t do it; her throat felt like it was closing up and she wanted to gag whenever she ate something rich or fattening, like the gross milk shakes her mother was always waving in her face. Brenda, the therapist her mom was forcing her to see, told her she was having this reaction because she had a distorted body image.

  “You still think you’re going to get fat, obese even, if you allow yourself to gain any weight at all,” she said, sitting across from Jordan in her Upper East Side office with its soft couch, overstuffed armchair, and thick rug.

  “No, I don’t,” Jordan said, but it was a lie. That was exactly what she thought. And coming to the office only confirmed her fear; even the furniture in here was fat. But she would not be allowed back in ballet class unless she saw Brenda, so she nodded her head and pretended to consider the therapist’s words seriously.

  The second week out of bed, she went to SAB, not to take class, but to watch. Francesca was at the head of the barre and in the front row during the center work. It seemed to Jordan that she had gotten even better during the last few weeks. The line of her arabesque was like an arrow, pointing up toward the sky; her turns—she routinely did three pirouettes—were easy and graceful, like the revolving of a top. And she was so thin! How come no one was pestering her to gain weight? Jordan was so upset she had to leave before the allegro.

  When she finally did return to ballet class, she was shaky. The barre was okay. But when she got to the center, she was a mess. And forget about jumping. “Don’t push yourself,” Ms. Bonner told her after class. What are you talking about? Jordan wanted to scream. Of course I have to push myself. If I don’t push myself, I’m nothing—don’t you get it? When class was over, Alexis and a couple of the other girls wanted to hang out, but she couldn’t leave fast enough.

  On Broadway, it was cool but the sky had a springlike brightness to it; now that it was April, the dark didn’t come so suddenly and so hard. She came to the subway station and on impulse kept walking. She’d get on at the next station. Jordan thought about how much she had lost in such a short time, and how hard she would have to work to get it back. She came to the next subway station, at Fifty-third Street and Seventh Avenue. But she did not descend the steps and she walked on, until she’d reached the crazy, pulsating hub of Times Square. The gigantic billboards, flashing lights, and frenetic pace made her feel dizzy for a minute, dizzy and weak, like she’d felt that night at the theater when Andy had tried to stop her from performing.

  She continued south, past Times Square, until she came to the big box on Thirty-fourth Street that was Macy’s Department Store. When she was little, she and her mom used to come here at Christmas, to visit Santa, and then to see the tree at Rockefeller Center. “It’s even bigger than the tree in The Nutcracker,” she’d said. As she continued to walk in the fading spring light, Jordan thought about that first night in the hospital. Sick as she’d been, she had stared at the digital clock by her bed, thinking, “Now I’d be doing the pas de chat, and now comes the little waltzy thing.” But if Andy hadn’t shown up, she might have gone into a coma; she might have died. Then there would be no more pas de chat, no more waltzes, no more anything. She owed Andy Stern an apology; she really did. How to tell him, though? Call or text? Give him a message through Oliver? She thought about it pretty much nonstop for two days. Then the answer just hit her, and after her next therapy session, she walked over to the office whose address she’d found on Google; it turned out to be only a few blocks away.

  “Do you have an appointment?” said the receptionist when she walked in.

  Jordan shook her head vigorously. She had, with revulsion, gained a whole pound and a half; did this woman think she was actually pregnant or that she wanted to be? Eww. “Just tell him Jordan is here to see him.” She waited a beat and added, “Please.”

  “Well, he’s with a patient now,” the receptionist said. “You’ll have to wait.”

  Jordan sat down and began to flip through a magazine entitled Modern Prenatal Medicine. Gross. But not as gross as the hugely pregnant woman sitting across from her; her belly, big as a beach ball, strained against the front of her dress. Jordan put the magazine down and unzipped her backpack. She had to have some work in here she could do. She had just finished her math when Andy, dressed in a white doctor’s coat, stepped into the waiting room.

  “Jordan,” he said. “What a surprise. Won’t you come in?”

  She followed him into a small room with a big, dark desk and three chairs; one large padded one was on his side and two smaller ones were on the other. Taking the one nearest to the door, she sat down.

  “So you’re better,” he said.

  “All better.” How awkward was this?

  “And you came to tell me that?”

  “Uh, no. I came to tell you I was sorry. And to thank you. For everything you did that night. I know I wasn’t very nice.”

  “You were a brat,” he said. Affronted, Jordan sucked in her breath, but he just continued. “I understood, though. It was a clear case of kill the messenger. I’m just glad that things turned out the way they did.”

  How about my mom? she wanted to ask. Are you glad about that too? But the intercom buzzed and he picked up. She watched while he listened intently and then he put the phone down and stood.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Emerg
ency.”

  “Oh, yeah, sure,” she said. Maybe he had to deliver a baby—or two—right away. She stood too and headed for the door. Even though she didn’t look back, she could tell he wasn’t paying attention to her anymore. As far as Andy Stern was concerned, she was already gone. What did she expect anyway? When he was dating her mom, he had a reason to be nice. Now there was none. Deflated, she left the office and walked toward the subway. She would have never guessed that being snubbed by Andy Stern would have hurt quite so much.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Ida Stern placed the crystal goblet on the table, peered at it, and frowned. There was a spot on the glass, right near the rim. She brought it to the sink, where she washed and dried it once again before replacing it exactly three inches from the Wedgwood plate and just above the folded napkin. Ida was a stickler about her Passover table; everything had to be perfect. She surveyed the other elements—dishes, silver, linens, and flowers—leaning over to straighten this or adjust that. When she decided that all met her exacting standard, she went into her bedroom to get dressed. The girls—Betty, Sylvia, and Naomi—would be here soon. Andy and Oliver would arrive soon too. But not the shiksa girlfriend and her daughter; Andy had told Ida that, no, they weren’t coming after all. “Maybe another time, then?” Ida ventured. She had not been sure what this change in plans signified.

  “I don’t think so,” Andy said curtly. “I’m not seeing her anymore.”

  “Oh.” Ida was silent. Her first thought was Thank God. Andy might not think it mattered if he got serious with a non-Jewish girl, but Ida knew better. There would always be a line, a clear demarcation, between Jews and Gentiles. It was foolish, and even dangerous, to think otherwise. Those blue numbers on her arm, faded and softened now by time, were proof of that. “What about that nice Jennifer Baum you used to go around with? You could invite her. And didn’t you say she had a little girl? She could come too.”

  “Jennifer Baum is not coming to the seder, Ma,” Andy said. The annoyance in his voice was apparent. “And while I appreciate your efforts to ramp up my social life, I think I can handle it on my own, okay?”

  “All right,” she had said. “You don’t have to bite my head off.”

  Then Andy apologized—he was, at heart, a good boy, a good man—and she apologized too because sometimes she did butt in; she couldn’t help it, it was just her way. Ida had last seen her mother when she was a girl, barely fourteen and with a baby of her own. She remembered how her mother had tried not to cry as she packed things for the baby—an extra cap, socks she had crocheted, a felt ball to keep him quiet on the ride. None of it had done any good; the guard took the wailing baby from Ida’s arms before she even got on the train. She had never seen him, or her parents, again. So she didn’t know what it was like to be a grown woman and yet a daughter too; she had never had the chance.

  In the bedroom, her dress was laid out and waiting. It was black and gold with puffy sleeves and a full skirt. The dress had come from Loehmann’s but not the Loehmann’s of years ago, when she could find real French, designer clothes—labels cut out—for a fraction of their original price. Today, Loehmann’s was a pale shadow of itself, never mind the big flashy store on 236th Street in Riverdale, where Ida nonetheless went with her friends, largely out of habit. “You can go to a nicer store,” Andy had said many times. “Go to Saks or Bloomingdale’s and send me the bill.” But Ida saw no point in wasting money, even money that was not her own. Her son, thank God, was a good provider. Let him keep his money; maybe one day he’d have a wife again—a nice, Jewish wife—on whom to spend it.

  The bell sounded and Ida hurried to get the door. Betty and Naomi stood outside, each clutching tissue-wrapped parcels. “Sylvia will be down in five minutes,” Naomi said. She came inside, followed by Betty, and handed Ida her package. “She said not to get started without her.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Ida said, tearing the tissue. “Chocolate-covered matzah!” she said. “My favorite.”

  “I brought the same thing.” Betty turned to Naomi accusingly. “You didn’t tell me that’s what you were getting.”

  “Yes, I did,” Naomi said. “You just don’t remember.”

  “You did not!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ida said soothingly. “In my house, there’s never enough chocolate-covered matzah.” When the bell buzzed again, she opened the door to Sylvia, who had a tissue-wrapped package of her own.

  “Did you bring Ida chocolate-covered matzah?” Betty demanded.

  “No,” Sylvia said, looking perplexed. “I brought mixed nuts; is that all right?”

  “Mixed nuts are wonderful,” Ida said, ushering her friends into the living room, where the table had been set up. “I love mixed nuts.”

  “Ida, everything looks perfect. Including you,” said Sylvia.

  “Thank you.” Ida went into the kitchen and returned with a dish for the nuts.

  “So now we’re waiting for the doctor son,” Naomi said, settling on the sofa and popping a nut in her mouth.

  “And the shiksa girlfriend,” Betty added.

  “No shiksa girlfriend,” Ida said.

  “A Jewish girlfriend?” Sylvia asked. Her hand hovered above the nuts but did not alight.

  Ida shook her head. “Just Andy and Oliver.”

  “Do you think he wants to be fixed up? My niece is divorced and she’s a prize.”

  “I don’t know,” Ida said. “I’d have to ask him first.”

  “Feh!” said Sylvia, taking a sizable handful of nuts. “These kids. If you ask, they always say no. Better to arrange the meeting without telling them.” She punctuated this with an audible crunch.

  “Sylvia’s right,” Betty said. “Kids can’t tell what’s good for them. They’re all holding out for some Hollywood idea of romance. And that’s nice in the beginning. But after ten, twenty, thirty years, who cares about any of that? You want someone you can get along with, someone compatible.”

  “Two of a kind,” Sylvia mused. “That’s what Myron and I were. . . .” Myron had died only last year and it was true: he and Sylvia had seemed especially well suited to each other.

  “My Andrew is not a kid,” Ida said. “And he’s stubborn. Always was. He knows his own mind, goes his own way.” She was proud of him too, even though he could be exasperating.

  “You have to be stubborn to get ahead,” Naomi said. “Look at how successful he is.”

  “So where is he, anyway?” Sylvia asked. “Mr. Big-Shot-Successful-Doctor?”

  “He’s very busy,” Ida said. “And I’m sure there’s a lot of traffic.”

  “Well, I hope he gets here soon,” said Sylvia, taking another handful of nuts. “Otherwise we’re going to polish these off and we’ll have to break out the chocolate matzah before we even sit down to dinner.”

  “That won’t be a problem.” Ida smiled at both Betty and Naomi. “We’ve got plenty.”

  • • •

  There was a ton of traffic on the Henry Hudson Parkway. Oliver didn’t care, but he could tell it was making his father crazy. Andy drummed the wheel with his fingers and craned his neck out the window—as if any of that were going to help. He also consulted his watch, like, twenty times and let the occasional shit or fuck slip from his lips when it was clear that they were going nowhere. But Oliver had his iPad with him and was able to tune his dad, and all his tapping, drumming, cursing impatience, out. Eventually the traffic began to move and pretty soon, they were at his grandmother’s building.

  “Boychick!” Ida said, and kissed him twice, once on each cheek. She wore a red checked apron over a gold and black dress and her hair had a three-inch pouf. “We were waiting for you.”

  “The traffic,” Andy said. “Horrendous.”

  “That’s what I told the girls,” Ida said, nodding at the three older women who sat around the table. “But now you’re here and we
can start.” She ushered Andy into a seat at the head of the table and put Oliver right next to her. “You remember my friends? Oliver shook his head. “This is Betty, that’s Naomi, and that’s Sylvia.” Each of the women smiled at Oliver and Andy; Andy, the doctor-god son, smiled back like a king waving to his subjects. Oliver wanted to put his face right down in his matzah ball soup; he didn’t know how he was going to sit through a whole night of this shit. Christina and Jordan were supposed to be here tonight, but that was before his dad had made the colossally stupid move of dumping her.

  The seder itself was abbreviated and apart from the reading of the Four Questions, Oliver kept his mouth shut. This was more than okay with him; Grandma Ida was a good cook and he happily scarfed the meal she made. No one really bothered him as long as he was stuffing his face. Andy kept the three ladies entertained with stories from his practice, stories in which he came across as a superhero, a magician, or both. Oliver had heard them all before.

  There was an awkward moment over the brisket when Sylvia asked what grade he was in, but before Oliver could answer, Andy swooped down with the phrase gap year. Sylvia did not seem entirely sure what that was, but she didn’t pursue it and Oliver could feel the relief that passed between his father and grandmother. Not that he was dying to talk about being expelled from school, but still, the question had been, like, addressed to him and he should have been given the opportunity to answer it.

  “Andy, can’t you tell the girls about the celebrity who’s your patient now? I’m sure they would love to hear.” She put seconds of the brisket, carrots, and roasted potatoes on each of the plates without waiting to be asked.

  “Ma, I told you I can’t discuss that, not with you, not with anyone.”