Much Ado About Jessie Kaplan

by Paula Marantz Cohen

Natalie, not averse to entertaining proof (a clear sign that she found Anish attractive), threw her hair out of her eyes and leaned forward, thereby exposing even more of her substantial cleavage.

  “I never thought I’d be arguing for Shakespeare as a feminist,” Anish whispered to Hal. “‘Do I wake or sleep?’”

  “Maybe the bat mitzvah is the Forest of Arden,” Hal whispered back. “Everything is possible. All are reconciled.” He then drifted off into a reverie.

  Meanwhile, the Joyce discussion had taken off in a new direction. Anish, given his recent rereading of Ulysses, had queried the group as to whether Leopold Bloom, the Jewish protagonist of the novel, had been circumcised.

  “Funny you should mention it,” said Samuels. “I just came across a letter from a urologist in the New England Journal of Medicine on that very topic. According to the writer, there are indications he wasn’t, though Joyce is characteristically oblique.” Much discussion ensued on this topic, pro and con.

  Griffin, the entertainment motivator, had now introduced the Goodman family in suitably imperial style, and they had taken their seats at the head table. Mark was mortified by this, but fortunately the whole ordeal had passed quickly, and before he knew it, he was dancing to “Sunrise, Sunset” with Stephanie. She looked so happy and so beautiful that he couldn’t even feel embarrassed by the conventional nature of the moment.

  “And now, for the hora,” announced Griffin, his two entertainment facilitators grabbing everyone within the vicinity of the dance floor and hurling them into the semblance of a circle. The klezmer band took over here in a rousing rendition of that traditional, much-performed staple of ethnic festivity. Felicity Gardencourt and some of the nurses had somehow become sandwiched in among the Brooklyn Katzes, forcing them to a level of energetic exertion they might otherwise not have known how to experience. The whole thing left everyone breathless and exhilarated as they sat down for their salad.

  It was now time for the candle-lighting. The candle-lighting is always the high point of the bar mitzvah reception—an expression of banal but heartfelt sentiment that goes to the very root of the bar mitzvah ethos. Stephanie, with Carla’s help, had written rhymes for each member of the family, which she now recited as, one by one, they came forward to light a candle on the thirteen-pronged menorah that Moishe had set up in the center of the room.

  Florida is where they stay,

  They love me and they’re lots of fun,

  I’m very glad they’re here today,

  Will Grandpa Charles and Grandma Rose light candle number one.

  Mark, who had been against the whole candle-lighting thing as an exercise in doggerel, smiled and laughed along with the rest as his parents walked proudly up to light a candle. Carla elbowed him and whispered, “You see, it’s adorable.” Mark, who wouldn’t go quite so far as that, was diplomatic enough not to respond.

  She cooks and cleans and works so hard,

  She really is like very few,

  She even thought she knew the Bard,

  Will Grandma Jessie come light candle number two.

  Everyone laughed, and Jessie, casting a shy glance back at Saul Millman, went up to light a candle.

  He really bothers me sometimes,

  And many times we disagree,

  But as a brother he is fine,

  Will Jeffrey come light candle number three.

  And so it went: through Margot, Uncle Sid, Aunt Edie and Uncle Fred, Aunt Rachel and Uncle Bart, Cousins Mindy, Tasha, Bethany, Sara, Ari, and Carlotta (one communal candle), her camp friends (one candle), her school friends (one candle), and her Hebrew-school friends (one candle). A memory candle for Grandpa Milt. And finally, the thirteenth candle:

  They have their faults,

  They sometimes scream,

  But they are just the best there is,

  I love them though I say they’re mean,

  Will Mom and Dad please light candle number thirteen.

  “Wow,” whispered Mark, “we got an extra line of doggerel. That must really show she loves us.” Carla gave him a look. They went up and stood on either side of Stephanie, as the photographer snapped their picture (“in the manner of a Best Picture Academy Award shot, Mom and Dad as Producers”—as Cass Sunshine explained, directing in the background). Everyone applauded. Indeed, it was right that they applaud, thought Carla. Stephanie was their product—at the same time that she was her own unique person. A welling of love for her daughter, her family, her friends, and her religion passed over her in a great wave of happiness.

  They began the meal. The matzo-ball soup was a big hit with both the adults and the kids.

  Then the deejay did a game and gave out a CD.

  The sherbet course was served to cleanse the palate, while the klezmer band played some authentic Jewish songs.

  Then the deejay played some Motown and led another game—with the distribution of the hula hoops and sparkle rods.

  Then the main kids’ course was served—the kids lining up for their buffet of faux cheese steaks, nuggets, and pasta, after which more kids’ songs, games, favors, and CD prizes.

  The adult main course was served. More klezmer. And then some oldies by the deejay for the oldies.

  Saul Millman came over to the head table and asked Jessie to dance. Everyone watched them silently for a few minutes.

  “She looks happy,” said Mark.

  “She’s in love,” said Carla.

  “Who would have thought it?”

  “On the contrary. After hearing her talk about being in love with William Shakespeare four hundred years ago, being in love with Saul Millman from Vineland seems a very normal sort of thing.”

  “You have a point there. But how do you think she knew all that stuff about Shakespeare? It got pretty detailed for a while.”

  “I think that she remembered,” said Carla. “And then, when things happened for her again in the present, she forgot.”

  Meanwhile, Margot had been flirting with Uncle Sid, trying not to pay attention to anything going on in the room around her. A number of Mark’s colleagues from the hospital had already swept her up for the Motown tunes. Now that the deejay had segued into the ballads—they were playing Sinatra’s version of “Witchcraft”—she expected one of them back by her side, intent on holding her closer than she liked.

  Feeling a presence near her chair, she assumed it was the allergist with the earring. When she turned, her brow was slightly furrowed.

  But it wasn’t the allergist. It was Hal. He was standing with a look on his face that she couldn’t quite make out. Was it fearful, expectant, assertive, desiring?—it was, she felt, a combination of all these things. She stood up and he took her in his arms. She felt suddenly weak. What was happening to her? She had, she realized, been waiting for this all day. She had been waiting to dance with Hal Pearson—and now she was.

  “I’m sorry about the sonnets,” she said.

  But he didn’t respond. Instead, he continued to look at her in a way that made her at once uncomfortable and extremely happy.

  “I don’t really care about the sonnets,” he finally said.

  “You don’t?”

  “No.” He cleared his throat and recited softly, “‘My spirits, as in a dream, are all bound up.’”

  “That’s from The Tempest.”

  “You do have a retentive mind.”

  She looked up at him as they danced and moved closer.

  “You’re teasing me,” he said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because—I’m not good enough for you. I teach middle school. I don’t work out. I haven’t got much money.”

  She drew him to her, pressing her body against his, and murmured, “‘My affections are then most humble. I have no ambition to see a goodlier man.’”

  “Look, at that,” said Saul Millman, who had deserted his place at the table with the Brooklyn Katzes to sit beside Jessie. “Your daughter is kissing that Shakespeare teacher. I thought she didn’t like
him.”

  “Oh, no,” said Jessie, smiling knowingly, “Margot and Hal were made for each other.”

  Carla Goodman WAS WORRIED.

  She knew she had much to be thankful for: a nice home, a good marriage, two beautiful children. She even had a close relationship with her mother, whom her husband actually liked.

  But lately, there were problems.

  First, her husband was coming home from work frazzled and depressed. A gastroenterologist in private practice, he should have been free from worries about making a living. But medicine wasn’t what it used to be. “It’s one thing to look up butts and get rich,” Mark complained wearily. “It’s another to do it for nickels and dimes.”

  Then there was Jeffrey, their ten-year-old, on his way to becoming a fifth-grade delinquent. Each week, Jeffrey’s backpack released an avalanche of notes from his teachers. “Dear Mrs. Goodman,” one recent note read, “Your son’s poking of the girls with pencils is unacceptable. Please apprise him of the dangers of lead poisoning and the fact that several of his victims’ parents are lawyers.”

  If this weren’t enough, there was Stephanie, aged twelve, who existed in what seemed to Carla like a perpetual state of PMS. Stephanie’s bat mitzvah was only months away, but the unpredictability of her moods—which often revolved around whether she was having a good or a bad hair day—meant planning this event required the tactical insight and diplomacy of a seasoned military strategist.

  But these were all everyday problems, part of the expected stresses and strains of life. The business with her mother was another story. Carla found it confusing, disturbing, even (truth be told) scary.

  She had noticed the first sign that something was wrong one evening a few months after her mother had moved in with them. The afternoon of that day had been uneventful—which is to say, no more nerve-wracking than usual. She and Stephanie had spent several hours fighting in a stationery store in an upscale strip mall on Route 73 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey … .

  ALSO BY PAULA MARANTZ COHEN

  Fiction

  Jane Austen in Boca

  Nonfiction

  Silent Film and the Triumph of the American Myth

  The Daughter as Reader: Encounters Between

  Literature and Life

  Alfred Hitchcock: The Legacy of Victorianism

  The Daughter’s Dilemma: Family Process

  and the Nineteenth-Century Domestic Novel

  Acknowledgments

  I would LIKE TO THANK MANY PEOPLE WHO PUT THEIR TWO cents, or more, into this book. First, the early readers of the manuscript: my mother-in-law, Gertrude Penziner (how was I blessed with such a mother-in-law?), my husband, Alan S. Penziner (whose wit and weird erudition never ceases to amaze me), and my daughter, Kate Marantz Penziner (who is not Stephanie but who did help with Stephanie’s dialogue). I also want to thank my delightful research assistant, Irina Teperman, who hunted down background material and served as a touchstone for my ideas.

  Other thanks go to those who served as informational resources. On literary and pedagogical matters: Rosetta Marantz Cohen and Sam Scheer. On Philadelphia geography: Barbara Coleman and Sue and Phil Lipkin. On the Venetian ghetto and sundry Italian details: Lauren Weinberger, Fred Abbate, and Mort and Annette Levitt. On Jewish law and lore: Phyllis Markoff. Special thanks to Rabbi Ramy of the Chabad of Venice, who answered my e-mails and whose responses I hope to have accurately incorporated.

  I am also grateful to Rosemary Abbate, who never ceased cheerleading for this book, to Albert DiBartolomeo (aka Liza), my literary therapist, and to the conversational and culinary support of my dear friends Mark and Vivian Greenberg. Others who have provided support and advice include Bella Stander, Karen Simonides, Carolyn Hessel, Don Riggs, and Marsha L. Mark.

  I could not have written this—or anything else—without my family. The influence of my father, Murray S. Cohen, and the memory of my mother, Ruth Marantz Cohen, inform everything I do.

  I count myself blessed to have Felicia Eth as my agent and the brilliant Hope Dellon as my editor.

  Finally, I want to thank Drexel University, where I have taught for over twenty years. Early portions of the novel were presented at the Honors Research Forum for the Drexel Pennoni Honors College, the Writing Gala for the Drexel Online Journal (DOJ), and the Betty and Milton Shostak Lecture for Drexel Hillel. I am grateful to my academic mentor, Dave Jones; to my supportive department head, Abioseh Porter; and to the university in general for allowing me to range so widely in my work. Most of all, I want to thank my Drexel students, who have helped me stay fresh as a teacher, thinker, and writer.

  MUCH ADO ABOUT JESSIE KAPLAN. Copyright © 2004 by Paula Marantz Cohen. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  Book design by Jonathan Bennett

  eISBN 9781429903004

  First eBook Edition : December 2011

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cohen, Paula Marantz.

  Much ado about Jessie Kaplan / Paula Marantz Cohen.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-312-32498-7

  EAN 978-0312-32498-8

  1. Parent and adult child—Fiction. 2. Shakespeare, William, 1564–1616—Relations with women—Fiction. 3. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 4. Jewish families—Fiction. 5. Reincarnation—Fiction. 6. Aged women—Fiction. 7. Widows—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3603.0372M83 2004

  813’54—dc22

  2003026481

  First Edition: May 2004