Fashionably Late (44 page)

Karen covertly scanned the crowd again. Everyone was, in her opinion, overdressed, except for Sylvia, Sooky, and Buff, who waved from the other side of the aisle. As always, they looked understated. Well, perhaps for once a bit too understated. After all, this was black tie.

Was it a sign of their contempt? But the quantity of glitz, sequins, and beading on the rest of the women was astonishing. Looking around, Karen realized she didn’t recognize any other guests. Who were these people, Karen wondered?

Jeffrey looked at his watch. They were already late in starting.

People were getting restive. At last, a cameraman walked down the aisle and made some minor adjustments. Then, from the back of the sanctuary, Tiff, Lisa, Leonard, Stephanie, and Belle and Arnold walked in. They were followed by the rabbi. Slowly, they walked down the entire aisle nodding to friends. Lisa’s big straw hat was the exact melon color of her dress.

What in the world was she doing? With her wide smile and her hat and her stiff-wristed waves at the audience, she looked like a Jewish Princess Di. At the first row of seats Belle Arnold, and Stephanie stopped and sat down with the elder Sapersteins, but the rest of them continued up the three shallow steps to the dais. There, on either side of the tabernacle, modernistic stone chairs were arranged.

Leonard, Lisa, and Tiff took seats while the rabbi began the service.

Karen had never gone to Hebrew school or even Sunday school. Arnold had always been a pinko agnostic and Belle could never be bothered. On High Holy Days, she had schlepped the girls to services but Karen had spent the time daydreaming. She hadn’t gone to temple in years. She doubted that Belle had. Did Lisa and Leonard really care about all this? Karen had never heard them mention God.

Why do people turn to religion when they have kids, she wondered. It seemed a kind of automatic thing. Lisa had once said she wanted the girls to grow up with a sense of reverence, but when Karen asked her if their own pilgrimages with Belle at the holidays had given Lisa reverence, she had changed the subject and Karen dropped it. She hadn’t wanted to sound critical.

Karen smiled grimly as she thought of the irony of losing the baby, Louise’s baby, because she wasn’t Christian. Well, she certainly wasn’t a Jew, except in the birth sense. And then she stopped. For all she knew, she might not be a Jew by birth, either. Religion had been so unimportant to her, she had never considered that before. Who knows, maybe I’m Polish Catholic. But could I have told Louise anything different than what I did? Even if it meant I’d get to keep the child?

Karen thought of the baby that she might have been given, and bit her lip. It seemed she was not Jewish enough to find comfort in this ceremony, but she was Jewish enough to be prevented from getting the child. It wasn’t fair. Where would Louise place the child now?

I wanted that baby, I deserved that baby, and I would have been good for it. Better than its real mother. That thought made her pause.

She was so confused. If she raised the child, would it be better off or would it always miss its birth mother, always feel uncomfortable, an outsider, as she did. That was not a heritage she would wish on a child.

She herself would have been a lot happier if she could feel part of this or any group.

Now, as the cantor joined the rabbi and the service began, Karen had to admit that there was something moving about the tradition of gathering together to welcome a new generation into the fold. There was a child almost directly in front of her, perhaps seven or eight years old. The back of her neck was very white and her hair, pulled into a rhinestone clip, gleamed. Karen felt herself longing to stroke it. If she had a child would she and Jeffrey start attending temple? Would they sit together as a family at Park Avenue Synagogue? Would it feel good?

Would she ever have a child?

She looked over at Jeffrey sitting beside her. She couldn’t imagine him up there on the dais, patiently going through the motions as Leonard seemed to be. Surprised at herself, Karen felt very moved by the little group on the stone chairs. It was a ceremony of passage, one that she had missed.

Lisa, despite other problems she may have as a mother, had made this happen for Tiff. And maybe it would help Tiff feel as if she belonged.

Belle had done nothing like this for either of her daughters. Karen looked over at her mother. Belle sat erectly, with a proprietary air.

In fact, she looked as if she were responsible for the whole affair, although Karen knew she hadn’t been involved at all.

What, Karen wondered, would her real mother have done for her? Would she have made a confirmation dress for me, or taken me to Bible school, or brought me in for Hebrew lessons? What was her real mother doing now, while Karen sat with all these people? And what did it matter?

She’s really nothing to me, Karen told herself. But if I’m not attached to my real mother, who am I attached to?

Truthfully, she guessed she was connected to the line of Sapersteins and Lipskys sitting in the orange light cast by the stained-glass windows. They had tried to be good to her, to love her as best they could. If it wasn’t perfect, it would have to be enough. Karen looked up at Tiffany, nervously biting her lips. Karen was swept with a wave of pride, and she was grateful that her niece had put the pearls on.

It made Karen feel more of a part of the experience, her tiny contribution.

For a moment, Karen was overwhelmed with longing: to be connected, like a pearl on a string, in a line that moved from the past, through her, to the future. She looked again at Tiff and, despite her baby fat and her chipmunk cheeks, despite the rag of a dress she wore, Tiff seemed invested with the dignity of this moment. When the rabbi called her to the podium, Tiff stood up, and for once her height served her well.

She was a big girl but in that enormous space she moved cleanly toward the rabbi. The Paris show, the NormCo buyout, the disappointment of Louise, all disappeared into the background. Yes, Karen thought, if I had a baby I would want it to be a part of this tradition. Karen felt very proud.

It didn’t last long.

Excruciating was the right word. Jeffrey’s prediction had been correct.

Karen sat in the orange velveteen upholstered seat of the tabernacle and tried not to squirm in discomfort, though everyone else already was.

This was tsouris, the Yiddish word for trouble. Tiff was standing at the podium, the big scroll of the Torah spread out before her like an architectural plan. She might have had more success building it than reading it.

Tiff had started reciting in Hebrew calmly enough. Karen hadn’t a clue what Tiff was saying and neither did most of the attendees, but Tiff seemed, at first, to be doing fine. Then the rabbi, a clean-shaven man who looked a lot like Mr. Rogers, had stopped her and made a small correction. Tiff had mumbled it and he had corrected her again. She’d repeated it properly and then continued for a moment, but he had again interrupted and corrected her.

Karen remembered hearing once that the Torah must be read perfectly.

But surely there was a limit. Tiff had stopped then and for the first time the entire congregation had been silent. Not even the young children squirmed. The silence stretched out. When Tiff began again, not surprisingly, she had fumbled immediately and the rabbi had jumped to correct her once more. Tiff rolled her eyes. Karen had crossed her fingers and wondered if that was sacrilegious in a temple. At the next correction, Tiff shot the rabbi a murderous look and repeated the word.

Then she stopped.

“Chama,” the rabbi had prompted.

“Chama,” Tiff had repeated, and stopped. Stopped cold. Then, for the last five excruciating minutes, he had read each word to her and she had echoed it like an automaton. The beautifully coiffed and magnificently overdressed congregation had moved from an embarrassed silence to rustling discontent. The rabbi prompted a word, Tiff repeated it, then stopped. Karen looked up at her sister, who sat beside the now-empty tabernacle, up there on the dais, her face frozen in a glassy smile.

Beside her, Leonard was clearly boiling. It was then that Karen heard the first giggle. She thought it was Stephie’s but she couldn’t be sure.

It was high-pitched and was immediately echoed by two or three and then a dozen more. Karen looked up at Tiff. Her face was flushing as dark as the red in the ugly tafteta plaid. Shushing began, and elbowing, and the giggles at last stopped. Oh God, Karen thought, what would they have to celebrate after this fiasco was over?

“Belle, if you say one word to Tiffany I’ll strangle you.” Arnold and Belle were sitting across from Karen and Jeffrey in the limo on the way from the temple to the reception.

“She’s being threatened by her husband,” Belle announced, as if they hadn’t all heard him. Now they all looked as bad as Arnold. The ceremony had stretched out for over two hours. Jeffrey was consulting his watch every thirty seconds now.

“You’ll make the plane,” Karen hissed.

“What plane?” Belle asked. Usually she paid no attention to anybody else. Just my luck that now she listens to me, Karen thought. She’d have to tell Belle about Jeffrey’s early departure before she told Lisa.

Karen sighed. How had she ever managed to have a career or a marriage when handling her nuclear family was a fulltime job?

“Jeffrey has to leave tonight for Paris. He’s flying out of JFK.”

“He’s leaving after the reception?” Belle asked. “Do they have planes that late?”

“No. That’s why he’s leaving before the reception. He’ll just congratulate them and go. It’s very important. He has to get there by tomorrow.”

“What’s more important than his niece’s bat mitzvah?”

Luckily, before Jeffrey could explain to Belle that the list was long and distinguished, Arnold interrupted again. “Leave its Belle,” he warned. It was unusual for him to interfere with her mother, but Karen quickly saw that its rarity apparently didn’t give it any weight with Belle.

“How can you be leaving?” she asked Jeffrey directly. “Before the cake?”

“I don’t eat dessert anyway,” Jeffrey said.

“No, I mean…”

“Belle.” Arnold’s warning tone was almost a roar. Karen couldn’t remember ever hearing Arnold raise his voice before. She looked over at her father. His face had taken on some color but it was probably an angry flush.

Belle was silent for a few moments as the limo drove through Inwood on its way to the reception in Lawrence. Hadn’t they passed this once already? Was the driver lost? The streets here were confusing. One more thing to be anxious about, Karen thought. Then Belle spoke again.

“She told them that the dress would look ridiculous. She was right.”

She crossed her arms over her flat chest and brushed her shoulders with each hand, making a gesture that looked like a sparrow checking for dandruff. They looked at her mother, distant and self-satisfied.

Didn’t she have any compassion for her daughter and granddaughter?

This must be the most humiliating day in their lives. Karen felt sick.

They drove in silence for the rest of the ride.

They did get lost. The driver had to stop twice for directions. At the restaurant, the uniformed valets jumped to open the doors, but it didn’t take four of them to do it, so the other three lined up while the Tom Wolfe driver also stood at attention. Karen looked around.

“Are we the first to arrive?” she wondered out loud. The place looked deserted.

“Didn’t Lisa have two buses to bring people over?”

Belle shrugged. “Nobody wants my opinion,” she said pointedly.

“Where’s the powder room?” All four of them walked in to the enormous foyer of the restaurant. It was clearly one of those places where catering for affairs like this was the only specialite de la maison.

Two discreet chrome placards pointed in opposite directions. “Levine wedding” said the one pointing to the right, and “Saperstein bat mitzvah” said the other. They walked off in the direction indicated and, when they saw the ladies’ room, Karen and her mother left the men in the hallway.

They were alone in there as well. “Where is everybody?” Belle asked “Maybe it took them a while to get boarded,” Karen said, but she felt uneasy. What had it been like in those buses? The limo driver had gotten them lost and it had taken almost half an hour to get over here.

Could the buses take that long? Surely they knew the way. Karen looked into the enormous murror that was rimmed with light bulbs. She hadn’t seen a fixture like that since the seventies. It was a kind of Hollywood disco style that had been out in Manhattan for a couple of decades. It cast a grim light on her and her mother.

Belle immediately began to unpack her purse on the vanity shelf, ready to make repairs. Karen looked at her own pale face. Her misery showed.

She looked as if she’d recently lost a baby. Her face was colorless, her skin pasty. She’d eaten off all her lipstick in her nervousness at the ceremony and her hair had completely wilted. Nothing less than reconstructive surgery could save this face, she thought, as she reached for her makeup bag.

From the corner of her eyes, Karen looked over at Belle, who was applying mascara, her mouth half open in the expression Karen had learned to imitate when she put on her own mascara. For a crazy moment, Karen thought of asking about her adoption right then and there. There was so much she’d like to tell Belle, so much she’d like to share, if only Belle was open to it. But only Belle’s mouth was open.

“Do you think Daddy looks okay?” Karen asked now.

“What do you mean? His suit? I told him…”

“No no. I mean his health. Is he all right?”

“Oh you know your father,” Belle said, and shrugged. “Working all hours and eating dreck. What can I tell you?”

When they rejoined the men, after Belle’s lengthy toilette, Jeffrey and Arnold were talking business. Not surprisingly, Jeffrey must have mentioned the goddamn NormCo deal. It was the only thing on his mind.

Arnold, also in character, was launched into a complete labor review of NormCo’s union policy. Didn’t Jeffrey know better?