“It’s not that simple,” I said. “His staff put it on the schedule. And some guy named Jorge?”
“Yes, Jorge Rodriguez. He’s in charge of fund-raising.”
“Okay, so you know him. This Jorge fellow went over my head to Rabbi Barney. And now the whole thing’s become political, I guess. My hands are tied.”
I could hear Aviva breathing, but she had not hung up.
“Fine, Mother,” Aviva said. “I believe you. I need you to promise me you won’t say anything about”—she lowered her voice—“my relationship to anyone. Promise me you won’t talk to the congressman or to his wife.”
“Aviva, God forbid, of course not. I won’t mention your relationship, but I’ll have to talk to them. It isn’t practical for me not to talk to them. They used to be our neighbors.”
Aviva began to sob.
“Aviva, what is it?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, the bully from her voice gone. “I’m tired,” she said. “I miss you,” she said. “And I’m twenty and I feel so old,” she said. “Mommy,” she said, “I think I should break it off. I know you’re right. I just don’t know how to do it.”
My heart bloomed like a hothouse rose. All the lying had been worth it if this was going to be the result. Even if I got fired for this narishkeit fund-raiser, it would have been worth it if I had managed to save my daughter and her good name. “Are you saying you want my advice?” I said cautiously, not wanting to scare her off.
“Yes,” she said. “Please.”
“Talk to him without bitterness. Tell him that you loved the time you have spent together, but that neither of you is in the right place in your life for this relationship to continue.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Tell him that you understand that his life is complicated. Tell him that you are too young to settle down with one person. Tell him that the end of a school year is a good time to reassess. It is, Aviva.”
Aviva began to sob again.
“What is it, my love?”
“I’ll never meet anyone as good as him again.”
I bit the tip of my tongue so hard, I could taste the blood in my mouth. The things I did not say!
If I ever write my memoir, that should be the title. Rachel Shapiro: The Things I Did Not Say!
SEVEN
It had been six years since I had seen Aaron Levin in the flesh, and what I noticed about him was that he had a small bald spot in the middle of his black curls.
Aviva was there, of course. How could she not attend Boca Raton Jewish Academy Presents a Night of Jewish Leaders? It was a hot ticket, and she worked for the congressman and she was my daughter. She was wearing the St. John suit I had bought for my meeting with Embeth—I hadn’t even known she had taken it from my closet. It was too tight across her bosom, but she still looked like a little girl in it. I did not know if she had broken up with him, or he with her.
The congressman greeted me warmly. “Rachel Grossman, you look wonderful. Thank you for setting this up. It’s going to be a grand night.” And other politician schlock.
“Happy to do it,” I said. This was how civilized people behaved.
Nothing in his behavior suggested that he was screwing my daughter. Though what he was supposed to do, I do not know. What behavior of his would have pleased me? I led him and one of his aides into the dressing room behind the auditorium. The students were going to give speeches about what being a Jewish leader meant to them, and then the congressman would come out to give his own speech and present a small cash prize to the graduating senior who showed the most leadership potential. I had invented the prize about a week ago to make everything seem legit.
The congressman’s aide had excused himself to take a phone call, and for a moment, the congressman and I were alone. He looked me right in the eyes. His eyes were clear, kind, and honest, and he said, “Aviva is doing a wonderful job.”
I looked around. “Excuse me,” I said.
“Aviva is doing a wonderful job,” he repeated.
I considered the possibilities.
1. He didn’t know that I knew about the affair.
2. He did know that I knew about the affair, and he was making a repulsive sexual innuendo.
3. He did know that I knew about the affair, and Aviva was genuinely doing a wonderful job.
There may have been other options, but this is what occurred to me at the time. All three of the options made me want to slap him, though I did not slap him. If Aviva had already broken up with him, what good would my slapping him have done?
“Yes,” I said. I could tell he was put off by my terse reply. He was one of those people who needed people to like him.
“How’s Dr. Mike?” he asked.
“Very well,” I said.
“I was hoping to see him tonight,” the congressman said.
“Well, his medical practice keeps him busy,” I said. And I’m not certain why I said this next thing, but I did. “Also, his social life.”
“His social life?” the congressman asked with a laugh. “What kind of social life does Mike Grossman have?”
“He cheats on me,” I said. “He has a woman I know about, but there may be others, too. It’s been humiliating for me. I don’t know if Aviva knows about it. I’ve tried to keep it from her. I want her to be able to love and respect her father. But I have a feeling that children sense things even when you don’t tell them. Still I worry, Aaron, what it will do to her morals, having a father like that.”
“I’m sorry,” the congressman said.
“It is what it is,” I said and then I left to organize my students.
THE CONGRESSMAN’S SPEECH was about being one of very few Jewish kids at Annapolis and how it was not a bad thing to find you were the “only one” from time to time. Being the “only one” was good practice for imagining what it was like to be a minority or even a poor person, the congressman said. Government’s greatest danger was myopia and egocentrism. Good leaders and good citizens had to consider the needs of those who were not like us, too.
It was a fine speech from a putz.
I ushered everyone into the lobby of the auditorium for a reception with the congressman. Somehow, I had misplaced the congressman. I went backstage and I was about to knock on the door of the dressing room when I felt a hand on my shoulder. Jorge shook his head. His smile was the feigned amusement of a peasant made to listen to a king’s off-color joke.
“Don’t worry, Rachel. I’ll get him,” Jorge whispered. “I’ll bring him to you in a moment.”
The congressman opened the door. Aviva’s lipstick was smudged, and her chin was pink and raw. The room smelled musky, salty. Oh, why be polite? It smelled of sex.
“Aviva,” I said, “here.” I reached into my pocket and handed her a tissue.
“Congressman,” I said, “you’re needed in the lobby.”
The congressman told Jorge and Aviva to go on ahead.
“Rachel,” the congressman said in a low voice, “that wasn’t what it looked like.”
When someone tells you ‘it’s not what it looks like,’ it’s almost always exactly what it looks like. “You’re a disgrace,” I said.
The congressman nodded. “I am,” he said, but this admission did not please me.
“She is twenty years old,” I said. “If you have any interest in doing the right thing . . . If you were any kind of a man, you would end this right now.”
“Yes . . . ,” he said. “It’s funny,” he said. “Around us . . . Lockers, baseball bats, a judge’s bench—what show are the kids doing this year?”
“Damn Yankees,” I said. I wondered if he had even heard me.
“Damn Yankees,” he said. “What’s that one about?”
“Well, there’s this baseball player . . .”
By that time, we had arrived at the reception. The congressman put on a smile, and so did I.
AROUND ONE IN the morning, Aviva let herself into our house, but I knew she was coming beca
use the guard at the gatehouse had called me. God bless those Forestgreen gates.
Her eyes were swollen, like cherries. She pointed at me like a prosecutor in a legal movie. “I know you said something, Mother!”
“What’s happened?” I asked.
“Don’t play innocent,” she said. “I know this is your fault.”
“I’m not playing anything. I don’t know what’s happened,” I said.
“He ended it,” she said. Her lip trembled and then she began to sob. “It’s over.”
Oh God, the relief felt like oxygen. The relief felt like getting off a plane, after a long winter and a turbulent flight, and finding yourself outside the airport in a tropical clime. The relief was so profound, I felt undone. I wanted to smile, to laugh, to scream, to weep, to fall to my knees and thank God. I went up to her, and I tried to take her hand. “I’m so sorry,” I said.
“Don’t touch me!” she said, pulling her hand away.
“I am sorry for you,” I said. “But I am relieved for you as well.”
“You don’t care if I’m happy!” she said.
“Of course I do.”
“I don’t understand it. Did you say something? You must have said something. Tell me, what did you say?”
“I said nothing,” I told her. “The congressman and I barely spoke.”
“What about after you gave me the tissue? Did you say something then? Your face looked so judgmental.”
“No,” I said.
“What exactly did you talk about?”
“Aviva, I don’t even remember. It was chitchat, nothing more. We talked about Daddy! We talked about Damn Yankees.”
“Damn Yankees? You mean the SHOW?”
“It’s the senior musical.”
“It’s my fault,” she said. “I shouldn’t have . . .” She did not say what she shouldn’t have done.
Aviva flopped on the dark leather couch, which Mike had chosen. I mistook her body language for retreat. There was a whitish stain on her suit jacket—my suit jacket. This is motherhood, I thought. Your daughter stains your jacket, and you get to clean it up. “Take off the jacket, Aviva,” I said. “I should get it dry cleaned.”
She removed the jacket, and I hung it in the hall closet.
“Maybe it’s a blessing, my love,” I said. “Weren’t you thinking of ending it anyway?”
“Yes,” she said. “But I never would have.”
“Let me make you something to eat,” I said. “You must be starving.”
Aviva stood up. My offer of food re-enraged her. “You say I’m fat and then you’re always trying to stuff me like a pig!” she yelled.
“Aviva,” I said.
“No, you’re very clever. You never say I’m ‘fat’—you just talk about my weight obsessively. You ask me if I’m eating right, if I’m drinking water. You say some dress looks a little tight.”
“That isn’t true.”
“You say I shouldn’t cut my hair too short because it makes my face look round,” Aviva said.
“Aviva, where are you getting this?” I said. “You’re a beautiful girl. I love you, just as you are.”
“DON’T LIE!”
“What? Your hair does look better longer. I’m your mother. I want you to look your best. Is that a crime?” I said.
“Just because you think about your body all the time, just because you never eat more than three bites of dessert, just because you work out like a crazy person doesn’t mean I have to feel or behave the way you do!” she said.
“Of course you don’t have to feel the way I do,” I said.
“Which bothers you more? That I could attract a man like Aaron Levin, or that you couldn’t?”
“AVIVA!” I said. “Enough. That is a ridiculous and ungenerous thing to say.”
“And I know you said something! I know you said something or did something! Admit it, Mom! Stop lying! Please stop lying! I need to know what happened, or I’ll go crazy!”
“Why does it have to be anything I said? Maybe being at the school reminded him of how young you are and how inappropriate this relationship is? Isn’t that possible, Aviva?”
“I hate you,” she said. “I am never speaking to you again.” She left the house and she shut the door.
NEVER LASTED UNTIL August.
At the end of the summer, Mike and I rented a house in a little town outside of Portland, Maine. I called Aviva and said, “Haven’t we not been speaking long enough? I’m sorry for anything I’ve done and anything you think I’ve done. Come to Maine with me and Daddy. I miss you terribly. And Daddy misses you, too. We’ll eat lobster rolls and whoopie pies every day.”
“Lobster, Mom? What’s come over you?” Aviva said.
“Don’t tell Grandma, but I refuse to believe in a God who doesn’t want me to eat lobster,” I said.
She laughed. “Okay,” she said. “Okay, I’ll come.”
We had been there about four days when she said, “It feels like last year was a dream,” she said. “It feels like I had a fever, and the fever has finally broken.”
“I’m glad,” I said.
“Still,” she said, “sometimes I miss the fever.”
“But you don’t see him anymore?”
“No,” she said. “Of course not.” She corrected herself. “I mean, I don’t see him socially. I see him at work.”
I was impressed with her that she had somehow managed to keep working for the congressman. “Is that hard?” I asked. “Seeing him, but not being with him?”
“I almost never see him,” she said. “I’m not that important now that I’m not that important.”
EIGHT
A few days after Camelot, Roz calls me and asks if she might use my ticket for The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Her sister is coming to town, and wouldn’t it be nice for the three of them to go together? I say yes, because who wants to see a musical version of The Mystery of Edwin Drood? Whenever you subscribe to a regional theater season, there’re always a few duds. She says she’ll pay me for the ticket, and I say your money’s no good here, Roz Horowitz. It’s a mitzvah to not have to go to Edwin Drood.
Roz laughs and then she says, “Oh, Rachel, how could you?”
I know what she is going to say before she says it. I know that Mr. Elbow in My Seat has told her that I tried to kiss him and not the other way around. He’s made a preemptive strike. I should have called her, but in my defense, who wants to get in the middle of someone’s marriage? Even knowing what he’s done, I’m still not sure how to proceed. She’s not the first woman in the world to end up married to a cheating louse. It can happen to anyone. Do I really want my friend to have to divorce? At her age? Do I wish her a future that involves profile pictures and swiping and squeezing into Spanx to go on dates with alte cockers? No, I do not.
“Roz,” I say, “Roz, my dear one, I think it was a misunderstanding.”
“He says you tried to give him”—she lowers to an outraged whisper—“a hand job, Rachel.”
“A hand job? Roz, that is fantasy.” I tell her what happened. Why in the world did he make up the hand job? What is wrong with him?
“I know you’re lonely, Rachel,” Roz says. “But you’ve been my best friend since 1992, and I know what you’re like. You’re lonely and you’re vain and you meddle. I believe him.”
I say, “I would never betray you for him. For the farkakte glass guy? I would never. After all that we’ve been through together.”
Roz says, “Rachel, stop.”
So I stop.
I’m sixty-four years old. I know when to stop.
NINE
When she went back to the University of Miami in the fall, Aviva decided to move off campus to a tiny studio apartment in Coconut Grove. We had a good time decorating that little place together. We did a whole “shabby chic” thing. We bought wood furniture from Goodwill and sanded it and painted it cream, and we bought faded floral sheets, and a beige quilt from an antique store, and we had a turquoise bowl filled
with seashells, and gardenia and lavender scented soy candles, and we painted the walls white, and we hung sheer voile curtains. And we lucked into a genuine Wegner Wishbone chair in birch. This was before the midcentury craze, so I think we got it for about thirty-five dollars. The last thing I bought was a white orchid.
“Mom,” she said, “I’ll kill it.”
“Just don’t overwater it,” I said.
“I’m not good with plants,” she said.
“You’re twenty-one,” I said. “You don’t know what you’re good with yet.”
It was so beautiful and perfect and blank, this little place, I remember wishing I could move in with her, and I felt almost jealous of Aviva. Everything in her apartment could be exactly the way she wanted it.
It was a happy time in our relationship and a happy time in my life in general. The board had decided not to seek out a new principal, and I was made permanent principal of BRJA. They had a cocktail party for me. They served smoked salmon on toast points. Unfortunately, the salmon had turned, and though I did not eat the salmon, everyone who did got sick. I did not take this as a sign.
Roz took me out to lunch for my forty-ninth birthday. She said that I looked great and asked me what I’d been doing.
I said, “I’m happy.”
“I’ll have to try that,” she said.
I don’t know why—maybe I’d had too much wine—but I started to cry.
“Rachel,” Roz said, “oh my God, what is it? Has something happened?”
“The opposite,” I said. “Something that I thought was going to happen didn’t happen, and I feel so relieved and grateful.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Roz said. She poured me another glass of wine. “Was it your health? Mike’s health? Did you find a lump?”
“No, nothing like that.”
“Aviva?” Roz said.
“Yes, something to do with Aviva.”
“Do you want to tell me? You don’t have to tell me,” she said.
“Roz,” I said. “She was having an affair with a married man, and now it’s over. It’s over, thank God.”
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