Naked (14 page)

Today I was happy to hum along with the tunes without trying too hard to stumble along with the Hebrew. I knew it only phonetically, anyway, and had to read the English translation to get any sense of what was going on. But I didn’t necessarily go to synagogue to mumble mindlessly without really
trying to seek out meaning from the words. I could’ve gone to church for that.

“Shalom, Olivia.” Rabbi Levin put my hand between both of his to shake it. None of that no-unmarried-male-female contact for our rabbi. “We haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Shalom, Rabbi. I liked your talk today.” The afternoon service didn’t usually feature a sermon, but Rabbi Levin had spoken briefly of fresh starts, new beginnings and how the recent New Year, the secular one, was a second chance for traditional Jews who celebrated their new year in the fall. “I liked what you said about celebrating the holidays of the community even though they might not technically be yours.”

“We have to live in the world. Yes, it’s important as Jews to maintain our heritage and identity. But at least here in Harrisburg, we don’t live in a community where everyone worships the same as we do. It’s important to recognize how we can merge the secular and religious aspects of our lives,” Rabbi Levin said with a broad grin. “I’m glad you liked the sermon.”

He touched my shoulder and moved off to greet the other congregants.

We have to live in the world. I could get behind that. Keeping hold of my identity, that was something I could get behind, too, if only I could figure out what my identity was.

The first few times I’d come to a service here, nobody’d known what to say to me. I overheard whispers suggesting I was maybe one of those “Ethiopian Jews” but nobody had the courage to come up and flat-out ask me. I knew how I looked, with my café au lait skin and hair in shoulder-length Nubian locks. I didn’t fit in with these women in expensive pantsuits, the men in their handwoven talliths. They couldn’t
know I’d been raised at least half Jewish, with memories of lighting a menorah and spinning the dreidel as equally prominent as those of sitting on Santa’s lap. I was scary to them.

In comparison, when I’d gone to Mass, the man next to me in the pew had turned and given me the handshake of peace with such wholeheartedness I worried he might crush my fingers. A gaggle of people had stopped me after the service to welcome me to the church and ask if I was a new member, or if I was considering joining them. They’d circled me, their smiles bright and sincere and just a little desperate. They were scary to me.

I didn’t feel I fit in either place. The services were unfamiliar, as were the prayers. I took comfort in the ritual sameness of both church and synagogue, even though their messages were so vastly different.

Yet something drew me back to Ahavat Shalom, and I think it was the lack of overwhelming welcome. I didn’t have to prove myself to anyone there. I didn’t have to pretend I knew what was going on, because nobody asked me how I felt about God the way the church folks did. I didn’t feel I had to step up and proclaim anything.

Maybe this was the year to figure out what I wanted to proclaim.

Maybe this would be the year to do a lot of things, I thought as I pulled into my parking lot and didn’t see Alex’s vehicle. Disappointed, I shivered as I left the car, and not just from the freezing air and gray skies promising snow. In the warmth of my apartment I stripped out of my coat and hat and gloves, and made a huge pot of Earl Grey.

Then I picked up the phone.

“Happy New Year,” I said when my mother answered.

“Olivia! Happy New Year to you! I’m so glad you called.”

I believed her, of course. She was my mom. She’d changed my diapers, bandaged my knees, held my hand crossing the street. She’d taken pictures of me before every school dance. My mother loved me, despite everything that had happened and how I’d disappointed her. I loved her, too, but I found it hard to forgive her for the things she’d said and done. Maybe she found it hard to forgive me, too.

Silence fell as I thought of what to say that wouldn’t be too heavy. My mom cleared her throat. My gaze fell on the book I’d been reading.

“I picked up the new Clive Barker last week. I’m about halfway finished with it.”

She paused. “I haven’t read it.”

“It’s really good.”

Another pause and clearing of her throat. “I haven’t read him in a few years.”

Oh. I hadn’t forgotten the minefield of “don’ts” between us, but now I became extra aware of how treacherous every step would be. “I didn’t know.”

I should’ve. I might’ve, if we’d been as close as we used to be, but who could I blame for that? Her? Or myself?

“But tell me about you,” my mother said. “How’s the new business going?”

She had to have heard it from one or both of my brothers, or their wives, but I didn’t mind. It let her pretend she knew more about my life than she did, so I could act as if we still spoke every day. I told her about the business, and my job with Foto Folks and with the school photo gig.

My mom, in turn, told me about Chaim’s job, their new house, the synagogue, the trip they were planning to Israel.
She talked a lot about friends I hadn’t met, and of the classes she was in charge of at their shul.

“I’m teaching the aleph class,” she told me proudly. “Religious schoolkids, kindergarten and first grade. I love it.”

“Good for you.”

“You could visit, Olivia,” she said finally, which was what I’d been waiting to hear since the conversation began. “We’d love to see you. Both of us would, Chaim, too.”

That might be true. I didn’t know my mother’s husband well enough to say. “You could visit me, too. If you wanted.”

“You know that’s not possible.”

The coffee in my stomach sloshed. “Well, I’d better get going. Happy New Year, Mom.”

“Olivia—”

“Bye,” I said, and hung up before she could say more.

At least we hadn’t argued, screaming and accusing each other of awfulness. At least we’d been civil to each other. At least we’d managed that.

A knock on my door got me up off the couch, and I opened it to find Alex.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” I said, and I let him in.

I
t was a good time to work at a photo studio catering to families with children. Most people had brought their spawn in for holiday portraits way back in October and November, which was also the busiest time of year for school portraits. I’d run myself ragged then, driving miles every day and coming home to work until the mall closed at night. Now I could sit back a little and relax.

Or so I thought. The mall wasn’t as crazy crowded as it had been during the holiday shopping frenzy, but it seemed as if a lot of people had decided to redeem their gift certificates. And, thanks to some fancy marketing done by Foto Folks in the fall, a lot of women were coming in with vouchers for a free glamour session.

Every makeup chair was filled when I got there for my shift, and so were all the seats in the waiting area. They’d started signing people up for time slots and handing out short-
range beepers the way they do in popular restaurants. Three of the four small picture-taking cubicles in the back were full, too, with the fourth just vacated by a woman in a feather boa
and
a tiara.

“Wow,” I said, unable to stop myself.

Mindy, who did hair and makeup, had just finished with a customer and was ducking back to the coffeepot for a mug. “You’re telling me. It’s been nonstop in here since we opened.”

A woman in a red pleather jacket covered in zippers—think Michael Jackson in
Thriller,
and you’d be only half as close to how ugly that jacket was—sauntered past us. From the waist up she was entirely glamazon—hair, fake lashes, bright red lipstick. The works. Below the waist, the part the picture wouldn’t show, she was totally Mennonite. I mean complete with the flowered dress, white athletic socks and sneakers.

“What the—?”

“She’s doing them for her husband.”

“But that’s…Isn’t that against…They don’t…”

Mindy filled her mug and added sugar and cream. “I don’t know. But she came in, picked that jacket off the rack, told me just how she wanted her hair and makeup done. I’m not going to argue.”

I wouldn’t, either. It wasn’t my place to tell anyone who came in how to dress or how much eye shadow to put on. “Hi, I’m Olivia,” I said when I went into the cubby.

“Gretchen.”

“So, Gretchen, did you have something particular in mind today?”

I fiddled with the camera while we talked. Gretchen did, indeed, have an idea of what she wanted. She described it to
me, including the use of the large electric fan to get the windblown look.

“My sister-in-law Helen was in here before Christmas and she had this done,” Gretchen explained. “I want what she got.”

Just because I’d never do it didn’t mean I couldn’t understand the appeal. Gretchen, by the looks of her, didn’t live a glamorous life. If I could make her feel pretty for just half an hour, give her pictures she could gaze at for the rest of her life, I’d do it.

“All right, let me see you up here on this stool.” I posed her in front of the table, low enough so that she could rest her elbows on it and place her chin in one hand. Classic glamour pose. “Let me get the fan blowing.”

We worked it hard, Gretchen and I. She was a trouper, too, bending and stretching and holding still when she had to. Her expression didn’t change much. She looked half-terrified in some of the shots, sleepy in some others, but she was laughing in between so I knew she was having fun. Our time and my allotment of shots were almost up, though, when I took the picture that would be the best of the lot.

“Look at that one,” I said more to myself than her. “Gorgeous. That’s the one.”

“Really?” Gretchen looked hopeful. “They look good?”

“Beautiful,” I assured her. “Go on and get changed into your own clothes and meet me in the approval room—the small one with the door on the left. That’s where you can see all the shots and pick which ones you want.”

We use digital photography at Foto Folks, film being outdated and nearly obsolete except for hobbyists. Customers come to the approval room to look at the pictures on a
large-screen monitor, then pick their packages right then and there. They can walk out with the photos within an hour if they want to wait. Most of them do. It’s a far cry from the way we did it when I was in high school working for a local photographer. He’d have a studio session, then call the customers back in about a week later to see a slide show of the best shots, and it was another couple of weeks before they had their prints in hand. We really have become a drive-through society.

I slipped the memory card into the reader, and had opened up the ordering software to fill in all of Gretchen’s information by the time she came in without the red jacket, her face scrubbed back to plainness. I pulled up the files and showed her each picture, one at a time.

She didn’t say much until we got to the last one. She was laughing in it, her face turned a little, eyes downcast. It was nothing like any of the rest, all of which had a forced, plastic quality to them that shamed me, even though I knew it was what she’d asked for.

“I think this one is the best,” I said.

Gretchen stared at it for a long, silent moment. “I don’t like it.”

I’d been so ready for her gushing praise I was already hovering the cursor over the add-to-order button. In fact, my finger slipped in shock at her words and I added the shot to her order. “Oops.”

She shook her head. “That doesn’t look like me.”

It looked more like her than any of the others, but I wouldn’t argue with her. “All right. We can choose different portraits.”

“Wait, please.” Gretchen touched my hand on the mouse to stop me from clicking back to the image I’d chosen.

She looked at it for a much longer time than I should’ve allowed her. I knew there were customers waiting, and Foto Folks based bonuses not only on portraits ordered but number of customers serviced. I wasn’t just holding up myself, but my coworkers, who depended on me to make their handiwork look good enough to convince customers to buy.

“No. It doesn’t look like me. I like that one with my chin on my hand,” she said, and there was no convincing her otherwise.

Gretchen walked out of the approval room after ordering over a hundred dollars worth of photos, including wallets. I got the idea she was going to trade them with her friends, sort of like the kids did in school with photos I’d also taken.

“I’m so glad Helen suggested I request you,” Gretchen said as I walked with her out to the front of the store. “I’m going to tell my other girlfriends about you, too!”

“Thank you, I appreciate it.”

She was still bubbling and giddy as she left, and I considered I’d done my job pretty well. It was my turn to think about a run for coffee when Mindy tapped my shoulder. “You have a special customer.”

I turned to look. “Teddy.”

“Hey.”

My stomach climbed into my throat. I managed a squeaky “hi.” Unlike most every other time I saw him, Teddy didn’t open up his arms to give me a hug. Awkward silence hung between us while Mindy watched, her eyes round and mouth open just a little. To be fair, Mindy’s mouth was always open just a little. But it was open a little more today.

Teddy’s smile should’ve warmed me more than it did. “I was hoping you’d be working today.”

“I’m working most days.”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Listen, Olivia. Patrick told me…about what happened.”

This wasn’t a private place and I couldn’t have this conversation with him here. Didn’t want to have it with Teddy, at all. I felt the frown tug the corner of my mouth.

“Did he?”

“Of course he did.” Teddy looked sad, a big burly bear of a man who favored colorful sweaters and had been kind to me when he didn’t have to. “What were you thinking?”

Past kindness didn’t give him the right to scold me, though. “I wasn’t thinking of anything. I told Patrick I was sorry. I don’t know what you want me to say, Teddy. Did Patrick send you over here to be his messenger boy, or what?”

Teddy looked taken aback by my tone. “He’s very angry.”

Around us, makeup artists and customers moved back and forth. Most gave us curious looks. I glanced back toward my booth, where Mindy had taken the next customer.

“I have to get back to work.”

“I think if you just apologized to him—”

“You know what?” I said tightly, turning on my heel to get up in his face a little bit. “This isn’t any of your business, Teddy.”

His mouth worked. I didn’t give him the chance to speak. I dropped my voice low to keep some semblance of privacy.

“If he wants me to grovel, he’s out of luck. I’m not going to beg his forgiveness, Teddy. I’ve done that already for a bunch of shit that wasn’t my fault, and I’m not going to do it again.”

Teddy drew himself up. “Well. I don’t know what to say.”

“Nothing would be a good place to start,” I told him. “Because you don’t know. You really don’t. You think you know about me and Patrick, but you only know what he’s told you, and I can guess that it painted him in a pretty flattering light, didn’t it? Because that’s the way he likes to think of things. He’s not good at taking blame.”

Teddy knew this, obviously, since he lived with Patrick, and loved him. “I think I know him well enough—”

“You don’t know about us,” I repeated. “You only know what he’s told you, and I’ve heard his version of the story.”

“Are you saying Patrick’s a liar?”

“I’m saying,” I said evenly, “that he has a version of the story. And I have one. And they’re not exactly alike.”

“Olivia, I’ve never tried to shut you out of Patrick’s life—”

I cut him off again. “And I love you for that, Teddy, believe me. I do. But this is between me and Patrick. I know what he wants. More than an apology. He wants some sort of declaration of loyalty, he wants groveling, he wants me to roll over and show him my belly just to keep the privilege of remaining in his good graces. Am I right?”

Teddy shifted from foot to foot, looking supremely uncomfortable. “I don’t know.”

“I have to get back to work now.” I shook my head when Teddy tried to speak again. “I appreciate you playing the part of peacemaker, I really do. But this isn’t your job and it’s not your business. It’s between me and Patrick, Teddy. And I’m not sure I’m ready to resolve it right now.”

“But, Olivia…”

“This is not your business.”

Teddy had never seen me like this, and I could tell it startled
him. Probably pissed him off a little, too, the way people get when they feel their good and noble intentions have been stepped on. He drew himself up with an audible sniff.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” he said. “I thought we were friends. After all I’ve—”

He cut himself off that time, maybe because the flash of anger I felt was reflected on my face. He backed off, and it was a good thing, because while I really liked Teddy a lot, if he’d tried to smack me down with how good he’d been to me I’d have said something I really would regret.

“I didn’t tell Patrick I was coming here. I won’t tell him I did, either.”

“That’s probably good.”

I didn’t thank him, and we parted with as much dignity as was possible, considering the circumstances. The confrontation had left my stomach twisted and churning, though. My palms sweaty.

“You okay?” Mindy asked.

“Sure.” The lie tasted sour.

I should’ve been used to that.

There might be something I despise more than getting up early on a day I technically didn’t have to. Puppy mills. Paper cuts on my tongue. The smell of sewage. But I really hate rolling out of bed when I could be snuggled down under my blankets, dreaming.

There was no help for it. I’d taken a job laying out a brochure-style menu for the coffee shop down the street. The owner wanted something simple in design but fancier than text photocopied on colored printer paper. I’d let it go too long, had gone back and forth with him on the pricing
of the printing, which I’d stupidly agreed to negotiate. My feeling at the time had been one-stop shopping for the client. I’d do the artwork, the design and figure out all the details for printing and packaging, which basically entailed calling some local places and doing Internet research. No biggie. Except, of course, I was still working for Foto Folks and getting calls for fill-in work with LaserTouch Studios, the place that hired me for the school and sports team photos.

I fiddled with my mouse, changing the specs on the document one more time to get it to fit the requirements of the site the client had finally chosen—not because of superior quality, of course, but for the price. Said site didn’t seem to understand the superiority of Apple computers, and though customer service had assured me several times my files should load, no problem…there were problems.

“Fuck it in a bucket,” I said when the file timed out, midload, for the seventh time.

“Olivia?”

I turned, startled. “Hey, Alex. What’s up?”

He came through the door I hadn’t realized I’d left half-open. “I knocked downstairs and when you didn’t answer I thought maybe you were up here.”

“I am.” I gave him a smile and twirled around in my office chair.

“Working? Or playing?”

He was still all the way across the room, but I could feel the pull and surge of sexual tension. We’d been together for a couple weeks now but he’d been in my studio only one other time, and look how that turned out.

“Working,” I said. “What are you up to?”

He moved across the wooden boards with slow, deliberate
steps, and by the time he got to me, my thighs had already parted so he could stand between them. The chair moved from side to side as I tilted back in it to look up at him. He stroked my hair off my shoulders and his kiss was brief, but sweet.

“I came to see if you wanted to go to Chocolate Fest with me.”

I raised a brow and hooked my fingers in his belt loops to hold him close. “Is it today?”

“Yep. I got tickets to the VIP session. All the chocolate you can eat, plus hors d’oeuvres and champagne and live music.”

“Huge crowds. You have to fight for a sample bite of brownie from Sam’s Club. It’s pretty ludicrous.”

“No crowds,” he promised. “I have it on good authority that the VIP session is crowd-free. And champagne, Olivia.”