by Suri Rosen
I heard you’re like a miracle worker from my cousin Rebecca. I’ve had such a rough time finding my soul mate. I get a bit nervous on dates. What’s really embarrassing is that I start sweating and after an hour my clothes are soaking. I know that sounds gross. I’ve actually brought a spare set of clothing in my car so I could secretly run out and change during the date. The first time I did that, I accidentally brought different clothes, and when I came back to the table the girl gave me a funny look. Which made me even more nervous. I think I’m a nice guy though. I’m decent looking, and successful as a chartered accountant. I own my own house. I love my nieces and nephews. I’m really most comfortable with kids — I love them. And my dog. I have a Great Dane named Bronx. We run together every day. Bronx and I visit two elderly blind men every week.
I’m thirty years old and looking for a great girl who wants to keep a kosher home. Do you think you could help me?
Thanks, Daniel Sharfstein
Hi Matchmaven,
Can you help me? My old friend Daniel Sharfstein said amazing things about you. I’m a 34-year-old dental hygienist and love singing in a women’s choir. I enjoy historical fiction, philosophy, and current events.
I’m also slightly OCD. I’m extremely picky about my food. I have this thing where I prefer eating cold colour foods to warm colour ones. I haven’t had ketchup for years since Heinz stopped making it in green and purple. For some reason, guys seem to get freaked out by this. I’m a giving person and am anxious to find a match. I heard you’ve done some great work and am hoping that you can help me find a great Jewish husband.
Shelly Sarfati
Were these people insane? Me? A matchmaker?
Hello, I was a sixteen-year-old stranger in a really strange land. (We’re talking about a city that worships a hockey team that hasn’t won a championship since the Vietnam war.) I didn’t even have my own computer. What did I know about matchmaking? And why were they all turning to me?
This had to be a mistake. I typed in a message.
Dear Tamara,
We need to talk!
Rain
No, on second thought this couldn’t wait for an answer. I needed to speak to Tamara immediately.
I swivelled the chair and called out. “Professor Kellman, can I please use your phone?”
“Sure, right there on the end table.” I picked up the receiver of the old rotary phone to call Tamara. This was no simple matter since dialling a number on those things can run you back ten minutes or so. I was glad I had her number memorized. There was no answer on her line so I left her a message that I needed to speak to her immediately.
I shuffled back to the kitchen, still reeling from the emails. “Professor Kellman, I think I need to go now.”
“You sure?”
I traipsed back to the computer to log out of my account just as another email came in.
Hi Matchmaven,
I’m hoping you can help me. I’m 23 years old and I just moved from New York to go to nursing school in Toronto. I was engaged to be married next month, but my fiancé Ben broke it off.
My entire body froze.
Our relationship wasn’t perfect. I knew that Ben had some hesitations but my younger sister got into trouble at school with an elderly teacher and that was the final straw for him. Let’s just say that she’s somewhat irresponsible. Unfortunately my parents coddled her and didn’t impose any consequences on her. On top of that she was sent to Toronto, where Ben and I were supposed to be starting out. Ben said he was completely turned off of my family and it confirmed his doubts about our relationship. Now I’m stuck in Toronto because I’m enrolled in a Bachelor of Nursing program here. Anyway, I’m 5-foot-6, slender, with black hair and blue eyes. I also work at a hospice in downtown Toronto. I love cooking and I’m a runner. I’ve been volunteering with my aunt at an abused women’s shelter. I think that I’d like to be a midwife one day.
Can you help me?
Thanks so much!
Leah Resnick
My heart raced. I said my goodbye to Professor K. and stumbled out to the front porch where the last of the day’s sun was tucking itself into the horizon for the night.
In a daze I drove back to the Bernsteins’, my brain a complete mess.
It really was my fault.
So that’s why no one would talk to me. I felt sick. I had an overwhelming need to speak to my mother. I staggered into the Bernsteins’ house and noticed MazelTovNation was open on the computer monitor. That was obviously the last thing Leah had looked at on the computer before she left home. My hands shook as I hung Uncle Eli’s car key on the wall hook. Would Leah hate me even more if she knew that I was the Matchmaven she had opened up to? The worst part was that I couldn’t even apologize to her. My family was trying to protect me … from me.
I glanced at my watch and calculated the time difference between Toronto and Hong Kong. I climbed the stairs to my bedroom and kicked off my shoes. Curling up on my bed I dialled my mother’s number. No answer.
My father wasn’t there either and of course I wasn’t allowed to call my best friends in New York, Maya or Danielle. There was too much of a risk of Aunt Mira checking the call log if I tried it. For someone who was completely on top of my social game at Maimonides a few months ago, I felt utterly alone. The girls here were so reserved and unfriendly. The thought of nine more wretched months in this city made my eyes begin to sting.
I pulled out the pink Post-its.
Things I miss about New York:
~ friends (waaaaaaaa)
~ Manhattan
~ knishes
~ seltzer
~ everyone there knows what seltzer is
Although I knew I should have been studying, I wandered downstairs and tried to call my parents again. They still weren’t answering and my gloom was deepening by the minute. Bubby Bayla sat knitting silently in the recliner in the family room. I plunked myself down on the leather couch and stared out the window to the park. Three teenage girls lounged on a picnic bench under the gazebo, laughing and chatting. A dull ache throbbed in my chest.
I glanced at Bubby in the recliner — she’d have to do.
“Bubby, I got problems.”
She put down her knitting in her lap and peered at me through her thick cat glasses. Taking this as an invitation, I launched into a rant.
“Jeremy was supposed to be this great match for my sister, but I didn’t know and I fixed him up with this really nice girl, Tamara, and they seem to be crazy about each other, but I can’t tell anyone because Aunt Mira and Leah really wanted Jeremy to go out with her and now they’re going to be so mad when they find out that I fixed them up and Leah will get even angrier at me, since it’s my fault that her engagement is broken. And Mom will be upset with me — again. Oh, and Mrs. Levine hates me and the girls are really unfriendly here and I’m terrified that if I mess up I’ll have to go back to my parents in Hong Kong and finish high school by correspondence.”
I couldn’t believe that I unburdened myself to somebody who had hairs growing out of her chin.
“Let’s get some pizza,” she said, dropping her knitting into the fabric bag at her feet.
I stared at her in awe. Until five minutes ago it didn’t even occur to me that she had teeth.
“You can do that?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Go get my purse. It has my credit card.” She picked up the phone from the side table and dialled the pizza place number by heart, ordering a large olive pizza, two spicy fries, and a large Diet Coke.
She was one efficient Bubby.
Bubby’s eyes flitted to her watch. “Just go pick up the food — it’ll be faster.”
Thirty minutes later I returned from Café Mango, carrying a pizza box with a large paper bag. I placed the pizza on the table where Bubby had set out plates, glasses, napkins, and a l
arge bottle of ketchup. She sat at the head of the table and I dropped into the seat next to her as she pulled out the french fry containers from the brown paper bag.
“So you’re the one who fixed up Jeremy?” she said in a loud voice.
“I am so dead,” I said as I opened the pizza box, releasing the melted cheese and tomato sauce vapours into the kitchen air.
“Nah,” she said as she squirted a small puddle of ketchup onto her plate. “Just don’t blab.”
I pulled back in my chair. “What? Not tell Aunt Mira?”
“Oh please,” Bubby said, popping a fry in her mouth. “I’m going to tell you something but first go to the fridge. I need a beer.”
I obeyed immediately. “But Mira always seems to know everything,” I said as I opened the stainless steel door. Leaning into a cloud of cold air I rooted through the fridge until I found a chilly bottle of Corona.
“Don’t forget the lime,” Bubby called out.
I returned to the table, handed the bottle to Bubby, and slid into the seat next to her. She took a long swig and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She curled her bony finger, beckoning me to move closer. I leaned in until our faces were three inches away from each other, the whiff of beer tickling my nose. “Between you, me, and the lamppost, there’s something you need to know about my daughter-in-law Mira.”
“Really? What?”
Her eyes flicked around the kitchen and she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “She’s a tyrant.”
I blinked. “Huh?”
Bubby grabbed my arm and squeezed. “She’s a control freak.” She pinched her lips together, nodded, and leaned back in her chair, satisfied as she savoured my reaction to this delectable info-gem she had just gifted to me. Before I had the chance to question her, the front door burst open and the sound of clomping drew closer to the kitchen.
Mira entered the kitchen with my sister trailing behind her. Mira glared at me, then slammed her briefcase onto the kitchen table. “Rain!”
Bubby shot me a knowing look.
Unease prickled me. Mira turned to me, hands on her hips. “Did I not ask you to deliver a dinner after school today?”
“Yes,” I said cowering. “I took it over. There was no problem.”
Her nostrils flared. “Well, there is a problem.”
Leah reached out and lightly cupped my aunt’s arm, her brows knitted with worry. I’m not sure what scared me more, Mira’s wrath or Leah’s disappointment. “I took it, I swear,” I said in a feeble voice.
“Then why did the family just call me asking where their dinner was?”
“What? I took all the foil pans in the fridge right to the house — 141 Magnolia Drive!”
She took a deep cleansing breath and then said in her Very. Controlled. Voice. “It was 141 Gladiola Drive. You took the meal to the wrong house.”
chapter 9
The Colour of Squirrel
“You took a shiva meal to the wrong family?” Bubby smacked her fist on the table. “I never even heard of anyone doing that. And I’m old!” She threw her head back and roared with laughter.
My purse sat on one of the kitchen chairs. I unzipped it and yanked out Professor Kellman’s business card. “I took it to this nice old professor,” I said, trying to steady my voice. “His wife died. He told me.”
Aunt Mira looked at the card for a few seconds and handed it back to me. “Mo Kellman lost his wife ten years ago.”
“Does that mean the shiva is over?”
Aunt Mira glared at me, then suddenly noticed the spread on the table.
She pointed to the box of partially eaten pizza and the french fry containers. “What’s this?” she said in a pinched voice.
“Um. Dinner,” I said.
She turned to Bubby Bayla. “Ma. Please tell me that you didn’t have any pizza.”
Bubby shrugged slowly and looked down at the table, affecting a faux innocent pose. A Golden Globe–winning performance it was not.
Mira’s face hardened as she turned to me. “How did this food get here?”
“I … drove Uncle Eli’s car to pick it up.”
“You brought this food here?” she said, her face red. “My mother-in-law is on a salt-restricted diet. This kind of food is extremely dangerous for her.”
I blanched. And no, in case you’re wondering, I did not rat out Bubby for this culinary set-up.
“Well, I have a huge problem,” Mira said. “Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is that the Millers didn’t get their dinner?”
“I’m really sorry, I —”
Her hands shot up in the air and she squeezed her eyes shut: the variation of covering one’s ears that is more socially accepted in middle-aged circles.
Leah spoke in a quiet voice. “Aunt Mira, I really wish you would have let me take care of it.”
“Me too,” Mira said.
Ouch.
Bubby was chuckling. My non-shiva visit had apparently given her a new lease on life. Leah put her hand on Mira’s arm and spoke in a calming voice. “Why don’t I go to Café Mango and pick up some pies and salads. I’m happy to take them over to the Millers.”
Mira exhaled slowly while she considered it. “Fine,” she finally said with a nod. Leah shook her head at me and strode past me to the wall hook where she grabbed the car keys.
“I think I better come along to the Millers,” said Aunt Mira. “I’d like to apologize in person.”
They swept out the door, leaving me standing alone in the kitchen with Bubby.
“See what I mean?” she said. “A tyrant.”
Then she plucked a french fry from the box and popped it into her mouth.
The next day I found myself once again trapped in Mrs. Levine’s weekly torture session. I stared at a photo of her grinning granddaughter in a sticky high chair with spaghetti falling off every surface. It looked like the girl’s head had been hand-dipped in a fondue dish of tomato sauce. The unfinished pine frame was painted with messy childish hearts, the words “I Luv You — Miriam” crudely written on the bottom.
Really? Or was this just one of those coercive “I Love You” craft projects that preschools foist on defenseless grandchildren?
Mrs. Levine’s clipped voice jarred me back to reality. “I’m going to suggest you try to spend some time with someone responsible in the school. Someone like Dahlia Engel, perhaps. Do you know her?”
Of course I knew Dahlia Engel. She was the class brain with hair the colour of squirrel.
“Your aunt and I had a long talk this morning,” Mrs. Levine was saying. I already didn’t like where this was going. “We’re both concerned about your lack of social integration at Moriah, and we think Dahlia would be an excellent mentor for you. She’ll help you with your studying and to develop some friendships with the other students.”
That was it. I was going to have to strangle Mira.
My hands clenched the moulded edges of my seat. “Mrs. Levine, are you sure you don’t want to give me a bit more of a chance to connect on my own with some of the girls here?” Like girls I actually wanted to be friends with?
“Your second math test as well as your English assignment were on the weak side. I don’t want you to fall further behind, and I think sometimes it helps to have a friend.”
Dahlia Engel?
Mrs. Levine stared at me without blinking.
Sharks. I thought of sharks. Did you know that sharks have upper and lower eyelids and they don’t blink either?
I rest my case.
I shifted in my chair as she continued a blinkless glare. I had no choice but to agree. “Okay, Mrs. Levine,” I mumbled as I stared down at my hands.
The meeting was over. Just like that.
I spent the afternoon fantasizing an escape back to New York. But every scenario ended with the s
ame inevitable result — an eight-thousand-mile exile to my parents’ apartment. When the afternoon was thankfully over I trudged to my locker through an end-of-the-day kaleidoscope of unbrushed hair, abandoned uniform sweaters, and discarded candy wrappers. The roar of yelling and laughter squeezed my head like a clamp. Nobody waved. No one even acknowledged me.
I was completely invisible.
Maybe I really did need the principal to set me up on a play date with Calculator Girl.
The next morning, Aunt Mira drove me to the bus stop.
“How is Mo doing?” Aunt Mira said as she turned onto Bathurst Street.
“Mo?”
“Professor Kellman. Moses.”
“Oh,” I said. “Sad.”
She shook her head. “I was friends with his daughter Rena, before she moved to Lakewood with her family,” she said. “Now he’s all alone.”
“He appreciated the meal,” I said. And since I was now in the business of winning points I added, “And I think he appreciated the visit too.”
“Really?” She leaned over and squeezed my wrist. “He enjoyed chatting with you?”
“He practically begged me to come back,” I said proudly.
“You don’t say,” she said in an intrigued voice. She drove quietly for a few seconds, then smacked the steering wheel with excitement. “I have a wonderful idea,” she said. “Since he wants you to come back, you’ll take another meal over and then you can visit with him again!”
“What?” As in: What … have I done?!
“I’m sure he’ll be delighted!” she said, as she cruised through the intersection.
So this is what it was like to be the victim of your own success. Although I admittedly didn’t have much experience with it. It was just too awkward to visit a complete stranger. What would I talk to him about?
“Say, Wednesday?” she said. “I’ll let him know that you’ll bring over some dinner.”
I gritted my teeth as she dropped me off at the Number 7 bus stop. I stamped up the stairs of the bus looking for Tamara.
Tamara was at the back of the bus in her usual place, practically dancing in her seat. “I just know it,” she said. “I’m afraid to get excited but I think Jeremy is The One.”