The Matzo Ball Heiress

by Laurie Gwen Shapiro

  Dad shakes his head in disbelief. “Gertie’s still alive? That’s so good to hear. I was going to ask you about her.”

  “She’s alive and she needs you too. You want to have her lose her job? We all need you to pull your weight to lead this thing. You’re the only one who reads Hebrew, and you’ve always had a passion for cultural trivia.”

  Dad touches his forehead like a Talmud scholar contemplating a moral dilemma.

  “I’m not asking you to move back. I just want you to visit. One day to pretend all is hunky-dory, so we can capture it on video and give the business a kick start.”

  “Representing the matzo factory is asking too much. I’ve just comes to terms with saying I’m gay. There’s a Dutch saying Pieter taught me, ‘Don’t let the herrings swim over your head.’”

  I stand up. I make a mental note to dismiss Bettina as my therapist when I get back to America. This isn’t treatment, this is torture. “I think I should go.”

  “Sit down. You’re not going anywhere. You’ve just traveled three thousand miles to see me and I haven’t seen you for—”

  “Three years. That’s the last time you flew in for a Broadway musical.”

  He searches my face for compassion. “I want to know what else is going on in your life.”

  I remain seated, stone silent.

  “Are you seeing someone special?” he asks.

  “No,” I muster. “There’s one prospect, but I’m not holding my breath. It’s hard for me to trust anyone. I’ve been dating, but it goes nowhere. Sometimes it feels impossible.”

  “Pieter said to me that finding me in Bali was about as likely as two bits of dust whirling around the sun and bumping into each other.”

  I look at him without a smile. What’s going on in my head? I feel empty of thoughts, as if I’ve swallowed a new drug designed to keep me from hurting myself.

  “Would you like some soup?” Dad says finally. “Pieter’s a wonderful cook.”

  “Better than Mom?” I joke softly, which gets an insider’s laugh from my father. “I wouldn’t mind a nosh,” I add. “I haven’t eaten anything but the Gouda slices at the hotel this morning.”

  “How do you like the cheese here? Out of this world, huh?”

  I smile sadly.

  Dad returns to the kitchen and brings me a black Chinese bowl filled to the rim with something thick and wet that smells awful. “Erwtensoep, it’s a Dutch pea soup. Very popular. It has cubes of pig fat, slices of blood sausage and cracked pig’s knuckles in it.”

  I stare in mild horror at my bowl. Quite the offering for a Passover conversation. “You mind if I pass?”

  Dad shrugs his shoulder and says, “Let’s get some air.”

  We walk silently down the street that runs along the Prisengracht Canal. I spot a sign for the Anne Frank House.

  “I really wanted to see that,” I confess. “I didn’t have time to go, since I used up my hours in gay bars.”

  “Are you lesbian? Did I miss that?”

  “Dad, I’ve been looking for you for the last three days! You forgot to give us a phone number or a new e-mail address. It was more important that I find you than hit any museums.”

  “You’ve always been good at research,” Dad says.

  I offer him a halfhearted smile.

  “I’ve never made it inside the Anne Frank House,” Dad says. “When are you going to be back in Amsterdam?”

  “I’m not sure if I ever will be.” I check my watch. “I better pack soon. My flight leaves early in the morning.”

  “C’mon, then, let’s see it.”

  Prior to today, the one museum that has made me cry is the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. I visited there after wrapping my first human-interest documentary gig, an eight-minute PBS travel segment on Alabama for an upmarket travel-show pilot that never got picked up.

  It was a chatty segment in the Lonely Planet/Rough Guide vein, with an opening shot of all the many passengers on the American Eagle commuter plane headed toward the Bible Belt actually reading from their Bibles. Of course, we shot the largest cast-iron statue in the world, the huge bare-assed pagan Vulcan that was originally erected in 1904 for the St. Louis World’s Fair and moved back to Birmingham at the end of the fair. There was a small bit on the hooch whiskey that moonshiners in Desoto Caverns cooked up during Prohibition, and another on Red Velvet, a chocolate cake with red food dye that is a wacky but tasty specialty of the South.

  Although the Civil Rights Institute was walking distance to our hotel, it was not on my film agenda. It was my then-new friend Vondra who highly encouraged a visit if I had the extra time. My cameraman went back to sleep after the final shoot but I was still wired. When I wandered into the institute, I was unprepared for the asteroid about to hit my brain. I was the only white visitor that day, and the cashier smiled at me when I paid my admission. The rooms were filled with Southern black high-school students on field trips, and a few elderly black women weeping softly as we entered each room.

  As I looked at the heartrending pictures, films and relics of everything from slaves packed in ships to twentieth-century policemen sousing black children, I felt ashamed to be white.

  Now, in the Anne Frank House, a second asteroid hits me straight in the noggin. This time I feel ashamed to be cut off like an oxbow lake from my own family and culture. Am I a Jew or a nothing? Our ancestors left Europe before the Nazis catapulted to power. Our family has the gift of life and all we do is ignore each other.

  After we’ve left the final room, Dad sits in a chair near the exit. His face and his clothes are crumpled as he puts his thoughts on two overwhelming experiences in order, my visit and this provoking time capsule from the Holocaust. After considerable silence, Dad stretches his hands like Rip Van Winkle awakening from his hundred-year sleep. Then he says, “I’ve changed my mind. I’ll do it. So when exactly is this seder?”

  “April 16.”

  “Let’s swing by the KLM offices. It’s not far. We’ll book me a ticket. April 14 is Pieter’s birthday, but I can come April 15, just in time for my U.S. tax filing.”

  I slip my hand under his arm and we bundle out to the same ground that Otto Frank did with his children on a safe, innocent morning, a day or week or month perhaps before his growing concerns for his family calcified into terror and loss.

  The sun is gone, but the sky still holds some light.

  NINE

  Silver Lining

  “You’re serious? Uncle Sol is coming?”

  I fill Jake in on my roller-coaster three days in Amsterdam, culminating in Dad’s last-minute change of heart. “He’s staying with me. I have his phone number in Amsterdam now. You want to call him and go over everything?”

  “No, I made a checklist. We have the matzo of course, but I have to figure out where to buy a shankbone.”

  The to-do list for a TV-perfect seder is staggering. After I hang up I hear a soft noise under my door and investigate. Through my peephole, I can see one of my building’s maintenance men headed for the stairs with a stack of papers in arm. He’s slipped one of his notes under my door:

  Dear Co-op Owner:

  Maintenance has logged many complaints of rain and even mounds of snow creeping in through our windows this winter. We are pleased to announce that starting this week the thin panes installed for the original tenants will finally be removed and upgraded to a tough double-glazed pane. The installation will be done by Skyline Windows, who offer quality and speed. They are so trusted in the industry that they installed the windows for the Empire State Building and Lady Liberty’s crown. This project will save our co-op considerable money as 30% less heat will have to be utilized…

  I read on. The penthouses will be done first. My appointment time is Sunday, 9:00 a.m. Today. In one hour! And according to the note, I must be in the apartment until they finish in the afternoon.

  Great. I’m not feeling the jet lag yet, but I will. I need this now? I call the board secretary, divorcée Flossie Reichein
der, who prides herself on colorfully written notices and annual reports. You can tell she wrote this memo up even though it’s signed Westin Drimmer, Board President.

  “This is not going to work for me, Flossie. I’m a Greenblotz. This is matzo season. I need to have this done after Passover.”

  “You’ll have to find a way. Find someone who can substitute for you, honey.”

  “Don’t the workers take off Sunday?”

  “They rotate shifts. They’re booked all week long. We’re lucky to get the chance to use them. They’re doing the Chrysler Building next! Imagine that. That’s how good they are. We were on standby rate, and a midtown office building canceled. The vote on the board was unanimous to go ahead this way. We’re doing the top floors first. No exceptions.”

  I wrack my brain. Who can house-sit for me? I don’t want ten guys in my apartment without me to supervise. My shit is valuable.

  The next morning a team of Skyline Windows workers arrive and within seconds duct-tape plastic sheets over my furniture. If only these commandos of the sky protected the floors too: from my front door to the living-room window the carpet is covered with the team leader’s boot prints. What is that nasty red? I really don’t want to know.

  Within twenty minutes they’ve dislodged every window in my apartment. A brutal crosswind gushes through, wreaking havoc on my loose bills. This is when a paperweight collection comes in handy. Papers secured, I scoop up my cordless phone, the Hollywood issue of Vanity Fair that just arrived, and retire to the bathroom dressed in a wool hat and Isotoner gloves.

  The phone rings midway through a profile on born-into-money Reese Witherspoon. “Hello?” I say with chattering teeth. It’s April, but it feels like February today.

  “Are you okay? It’s Jared.”

  “I’m in the bathroom—”

  “I could call you back when you’re finished—”

  “No, I’m hiding from the cold and talking will use some muscles.”

  “You didn’t pay your rent?”

  “My windows are being upgraded and the bathroom is the only trench hole to be found. Who knew a windowless bathroom would be a blessing? It’s frigging Alaska in here.”

  “You poor thing.”

  “I’ll live,” I half laugh through my teeth.

  “Speaking of cold, how was Amsterdam?”

  “Productive. I just got back.” After a new big shiver, I add, “How are you doing?”

  “I had a rough weekend. My sister’s cocker, Milo, ate all her allergy pills.”

  “God, is he okay?”

  “We rushed him to the vet, who made him eat charcoal. He’s fine now.”

  “He’s a lucky dog,” I say. My teeth have decided to chatter again.

  “I have to get you out of there. If you can stay awake.”

  “I wish you would. I’m plenty awake with a squadron of men drilling in here.”

  “Well, Hunter Thompson is appearing at the Union Square Barnes & Noble this afternoon. I just read about it in Time Out. He’s presigned bookplates if you want to buy his new memoir.”

  “He’s not even signing books?”

  “Nope. But this might be a great scene. Maybe Johnny Depp will show up. I heard that the last time Hunter was there Depp was prepping for Fear and Loathing and followed him into the store. Interest you at all?”

  A yucky memory surfaces. The last time I was at that Barnes & Noble was when I bought my accountant’s novel. Hyman’s Hocus-Pocus turned out to be pretty good, but of course my night with Steve did not. I coolly rise above my shame: “My guess is that Hunter won’t even show up. Wouldn’t that be his way?”

  “Oh he’ll show. This is his money for easy living. And you never know, with the way he lives, it might be his last. How many living legends are there?”

  “What time is the non-reading? I have to stay until the windows are installed.”

  “It’s at 3:00 p.m.”

  I think fast. There is nothing going on at the factory until the interview with Channel Four tomorrow morning. I can’t move ahead on The Grand Ladies of Sex until after the dreaded sedercast. Jared is so sweet, and I need some uptime. “Sure, I’ll go.”

  “Would you like me to scoot over and keep you company now?”

  “Trust me, you’ll freeze,” I say, sidestepping. Sweet now may turn sour later. I’m not inviting Food Channel men up to my apartment anymore. I have a reputation to sort of keep.

  For atmospheric purposes—to evoke the sixties?—the Barnes & Noble staff has removed all the folding chairs in the special-event area. The audience camps under the political science shelves, seated on corporate-green carpet.

  “I can’t believe how many people are waiting for this poser to show up,” the sniffling man crouched next to us says.

  “I figure in a city of more than eight million there would be at least two hundred and fifty fans,” Jared says.

  I rearrange my knees. “I told you he wouldn’t come.”

  The manager of book events walks by in wire glasses. He’s wearing the dreaded bow tie. He’s overheard me. “Oh no, he’s coming. He’s just running late.”

  “What’s going on?” interrupts a frizzy-haired woman toting a socially responsible recyclable net shopping bag. “I was having a coffee and I saw all these people going upstairs.”

  “Hunter S. Thompson appearance,” the nerdy manager says.

  “Is he reading?” she asks.

  “No, he’s, uh, there are, uh, presigned bookplates.”

  “Bookplates?” the woman asks.

  “Yes. You have to go to the cash register and buy the book. Then you get back in this line. You can speak to him for a second or two, and then one of our staff members will paste down the bookplate.”

  A woman with a baby sits down near our bit of carpet. She holds her infant out for a baby stretch.

  A familiar teen voice crackles from somewhere nearby: “Whoa! Check out how long those baby’s legs are. Longer than a Zulu baby.”

  “Hey, Roswell,” calls Jared with a big grin. Roswell heads our way with a short olive-skinned buddy wearing oversize black glasses and a purposely tattered Dole pineapple T-shirt.

  “Hey, Squid, this is Abdullah. And this is Jared and my intern boss, Heather.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I say to Abdullah. He’s sucking on a coconut Frozfruit, so I continue, “I heard you were having some visa difficulties. I hope they work out.”

  Roswell sneers.

  “I’m okay for a year now. I just got a job at NYPIRG,” Abdullah says after another long suck. “I start next week. Ms. Lambert in the guidance office hooked me up. They are making a point of sponsoring Arab students.”

  “Nywhat?” asks Roswell. “You didn’t tell me this.”

  “New York Public Interest Research Group. Ralph Nader founded it.”

  Roswell nods his head. “Dude, can you hook me up there for when I graduate? My dad thinks I need a summer job before he’ll fund my film. Some crap about a work ethic.”

  “It’s a shit job, so don’t get worked up. I’ll have to work from two to ten.”

  “That bites.”

  “They drop you in a neighborhood and make you fund-raise.”

  Roswell grimaces. “If you knocked on my door, dude, I’d say, ‘Cocksucker, why are you bugging me for?’”

  “I wanted to work for a think tank,” Abdullah confesses. “I asked Ms. Lambert to hook me up. She said you have to be older to work for a think tank.”

  Jared pinches the back of my arm.

  “HUNTER!” screams an impatient guy at the front of the room.

  “THOMPSON!” screams Roswell.

  “Dude, that was so uncool,” tsks Abdullah to Roswell.

  “There he is, guys!” Jared says.

  “Where? Yo, Squid. It’s weird to see him as an old guy. What a rip-off. No one said Hunter Thompson was old. He’s older than my father, dude! He’s a fat old man with no hair—he’s my chemistry teacher. I can’t take this. I can’t admire
someone that old. Did you check out Hunter’s rainbow shirt?”

  “That’s one fucking ugly shirt,” says Abdullah.

  “This is like that flick Weekend at Bernie’s,” Roswell says.

  “Never saw it,” says Jared.

  “My dad has it on DVD. They prop a dead guy up. They’re going to be propping Hunter up in that chair.”

  Standing under mammoth posters of Gulliver’s Travels and Moby Dick, Hunter picks up the mic. With obvious resentment at the obligations of an author, he conducts possibly the shortest Q & A in history. “Anyone else?” he asks three and a half minutes in and miraculously unable to spot even one of the two hundred raised hands. “Okay, let’s get going with those bookplates.” He’s unmoved by the audience’s cries of protest. The milksop manager look genuinely frightened as he shrugs his shoulders to the shattered crowd.

  Jared and I both pick up a copy of Hunter’s book and stand on line. We’re toward the end of the impossible queue that snakes around, all the way back to the African-American literature section on the other end of the floor. Slowly our part of the line inches past two gold elevators, flanked by a fire extinguisher and posters of Shakespeare and Maya Angelou. We round the corner to The Blues Fakebook and Classic Piano Rags. A conversation about cat litter is ahead of us as the line-serpent slithers past tomes about Klimt, Schiele, Van Gogh, and Miró paintings in the Hermitage Museum.

  A hipster nymphet with a plunging neckline on her tight sweater has an extended conversation with Hunter, so we have an extra five minutes by the fashion section.

  “Dude, he’s going to do her. Look at the way he’s fucking her with his eyes,” Roswell says as Abdullah peruses A Brief History of Underwear.

  “What do you think of Hunter in the flesh, guys?” Jared asks.