Spanking Shakespeare (13 page)

APRIL

My life is a disaster. I hate being me.

Today I see Jane Blumeberg holding hands with Eugene Gruber. Eugene Gruber, for God’s sake! Jane is my safety. If nothing else works out, Jane is always supposed to be there. I cannot believe that Eugene Gruber has a girlfriend and I don’t.

And it gets worse. My mother has invited the Blumebergs to our house for Passover. So now I have to sit through an entire
seder
with Gandhi and Meredith on one side of me and Jane and the specter of Eugene Gruber on the other.

Plus I started therapy.

“An early birthday present,” my mom jokes as I head off sullenly to my first appointment.

“I bet Hitler’s mother never made him go to therapy,” I say.

My mother is not amused. “Well, maybe she should have.”

At my session I tell my therapist everything that is wrong with my life, following up my litany of complaints with a detailed account of my pot-smoking experience.

“It sounds to me,” he says after listening to me carry on for close to an hour, “that you like to portray yourself as the victim of crazy parents, unsympathetic peers, and unlucky circumstances, because you are afraid to admit that your unhappiness might be your own doing. Smoking marijuana is just an easy way to avoid dealing with your problems. If you want things to change for you, you have to decide you’re ready to start taking responsibility for your own well-being.”

I can’t believe my parents are paying this guy 150 dollars an hour.

Charlotte and I are back on speaking terms, but she has not shown me any more of her memoir, nor have I asked to see it. She rarely comes to lunch these days, choosing instead to head straight to the library after math to catch up on work. I ask her sometimes how things are going, and she says fine, but in unguarded moments I see her leaning heavily against her locker, or with her head down, asleep, in the library. She is still often late or absent, and I know she is struggling to keep not just herself but her family afloat.

What is most difficult for me to understand is why she is so unwilling to ask for help. I’m sure if she spoke to Mr. Basset, he would be able to connect her with people who help families at risk. She could get counseling for Henry or find a support group for her father. But I know she will get angry and defensive if I try to suggest anything, so I don’t bother. If she insists on playing the martyr, then that’s her business, not mine.

On a whim, I ask her if she wants to come to our house one night for Passover. My parents go all out for the two
seders,
inviting more than twenty people each night, and I figure that one extra person won’t make much of a difference.

“I’m not Jewish,” she says.

“It doesn’t matter. We always have lots of non-Jews at our
seders.
”

“Seders?”
she says. “I don’t even know what that is.”

I explain that the holiday lasts eight days, but it is the first two nights—the
seders,
they are called—that are really the big deal. I explain that during the
seders,
Jewish families sit around the table and retell the story of the Exodus from Egypt, using a guidebook called a
Haggadah.
“There are all kinds of weird rituals,” I say, “but you get to drink a lot of wine and eat a lot of really good food.”

Charlotte asks more questions, and it seems as if she is seriously considering my invitation.

“You should come,” I say, feeling a little ashamed as I realize my eagerness stems mostly from a desire to have a buffer against any awkwardness with Jane.

“It’s so nice of you to ask me,” she says at last, “but I think it’s just too complicated with how late it goes and how far away I live.”

“I’m sure someone could give you a ride,” I say. “Or we could call you a taxi.”

“Maybe next year,” she says.

Next year? Next year we’re going to be away at college. Next year I won’t have to think about Jane Blumeberg and Eugene Gruber.

“Let me know if you change your mind,” I say.

College letters have begun coming in, and the first letter I get is from one of my safety schools, telling me I have been wait-listed.

“Don’t worry,” my mother says, trying hard not to look worried.

“You didn’t really want to go there anyway,” my father says.

“That’s not the point,” I say. “It was a safety school.”

“What probably happened,” my mother says, “is the school saw how overqualified you were and wait-listed you because they know you are just using them as a safety.”

If my mother was the guidance counselor at my high school, I think I would shoot myself.

“It’s their loss,” my dad says, and goes off to fix himself a drink.

Over the next week Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Wesleyan, Amherst, Dartmouth, and the University of Pennsylvania all reject me, but other schools that I was not so sure about—Hamilton, Brandeis, Tufts, Middlebury—offer me spots. I get into all my other safeties, and when all is said and done, eleven schools have accepted me, and four more have placed me on the waiting list, including Brown. The biggest surprise is getting into Vassar, which is one of the best schools I applied to.

“What kind of name is Vassar?” Neil asks me. He and Katie have taken me out for a birthday dinner at Ernie’s Pizzeria, because Passover starts so late this year. “It sounds like a combination of
vagina
and
ass
.”

Katie, who before dinner downed four shots of vodka at her house, laughs out loud. “That’s funny,” she says.

“I can’t wait to go to college,” Neil says. “At Bard you can invent your own major.”

“I doubt you can major in bowel movements,” I say.

“Ha,” says Katie. “That’s funny.”

For her part, Katie only applied to schools on the West Coast and is going to the University of San Diego. “As far away as I can get” was her main criterion for choosing.

I take another slice of pizza. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be relegated to matzo.

The next night, at the first
seder,
I start drinking as soon as we sit down. It is customary to finish four glasses of wine, spread out at intervals throughout the night, but I have decided that tonight I will drink considerably more. Our
seders
tend to be raucous affairs, so no one will pay attention. Many of the people at the table will be drunk by the time the evening is over.

Over the years we’ve added some twists to the traditional
seder,
one of which is
Haggadah Jeopardy!
At any point during the
seder,
guests can jump in to pose a
Jeopardy!
answer to the assembled group, and everybody tries to come up with the correct question.

We are barely five minutes in when Gandhi begins to hum the
Jeopardy!
theme song. Everybody who has been to our
seders
before laughs and joins in, and when the song is over, he announces the category.

“The category,” he says, “is divine miracles. This modern-day miracle is today’s equivalent of God’s parting of the Red Sea.”

“What is the leopard-skin thong?” Harvey Lessing calls out. Harvey is a forty-five-year-old bachelor who has been coming to our
seders
for years and who can always be counted on to be completely inappropriate, even by our standards.

“What is a
seder
that lasts under four hours?” I say, looking pointedly at my father, who has a tendency to ramble on about the meaning of the holiday.

“What is a dutiful and obedient son?” my father counters.

“All good questions,” my brother says, “but what I was looking for was, what is the slicing of the brisket?”

Everybody laughs, and the evening proceeds, with people taking turns reading from the
Haggadah,
singing Passover songs, making stupid jokes, and drinking a lot of alcohol. I realize how much fun it would be to share all this with Charlotte and wish suddenly that I had pressed harder for her to come. I look across to Jane. She is drinking juice, even though we are all allowed to drink wine. Our eyes meet, and she smiles. Now that she is unavailable, she is far more desirable than she ever has been in the past. Her face is so soft, her eyes so big and innocent. She has silky hair that falls all the way down her back, and small breasts that poke out from behind her white blouse. I pour myself another glass of wine.

“I heard you’re going to Vassar next year,” she says. “That’s one of the schools I want to apply to.”

“I was surprised I got in.”

“Are you excited to graduate?”

I shrug. “I guess so.”

We don’t talk to each other for a while after that, and I drink some more wine. The more I drink and the more I look at her, the more preposterous it seems that she is going out with Eugene Gruber, and I begin to convince myself that she is only going out with him because she thinks I am not interested.

My brother has been watching me watch Jane, and when Meredith and Jane go off together into the kitchen, he leans over and tells me I should ask her out.

“What are you talking about?” I say.

“Jane. She likes you.”

I feel my heart leap. “Isn’t she going out with someone?” I ask.

“Who? Eugene Gruber? They’re just friends now. She told Meredith she wants you to ask her to the prom.”

The girls come back to the table, whispering and giggling, and I pour myself another glass of wine. Is Jane really waiting for me to ask her to the prom? How am I supposed to do it in a room with twenty other people, including her parents? I drink some more wine and plan my strategy. The bathroom is on the second floor. At some point before the end of the evening Jane will have to go. When I see her get up I will follow her upstairs, and when she comes out of the bathroom I will ask her. I finish my glass and pour another.

Gandhi begins to hum the
Jeopardy!
theme song again. “The category,” he says, “is holy numbers.”

Everyone smiles.

“The answer is sixty-nine.”

I nearly spit my wine out, and it goes up my nose.

“Now we’re talking,” Harvey says.

“No X-rated questions,” my mother warns. My brother looks temporarily confused, and then starts to laugh.

“I don’t get it,” Jane says to me.

“It’s stupid,” I say.

“How many bottles of wine will we finish tonight?” my father calls out.

Everybody laughs, and my brother shakes his head.

“When’s the last time the Mets won the World Series?” someone says.

People take a few more guesses, and then everyone gives up.

“The correct question is, on what page do we get to eat the festive meal?” he says.

“Festive meal, indeed,” Harvey Lessing says with a smirk.

My mother gives him an annoyed look.

The first half of the
seder
finally ends, and we begin to eat. I pile my plate high and shovel food into my mouth. Jane, I notice, eats only half her bowl of soup and picks daintily at a piece of brisket. At least she’s not a vegetarian.

The meal lasts over two hours, and I begin to wonder whether Jane will ever go to the bathroom and what I will do if she doesn’t. I’m feeling pretty light-headed by this point, and I’m starting to imagine scenarios in which I lead her back into the bathroom when she emerges, I close the door behind us, and we begin to make out. I realize, with a start, that I have an erection, and it’s at this moment that Jane gets up quietly and leaves the room.

I’ve had too much wine to be able to make a new plan, so I wait several seconds, then get up, walk upstairs, and hover outside the bathroom door. My heart is pounding, and I realize that I have had a lot to drink, because this is not something I would ever do sober and certainly not sober with an erection. It’s the weirdest thing just standing there, and I pray that nobody else comes upstairs and sees me. I look down at my pants and see they are still pushed out at the crotch. This is crazy, I think. What am I doing? Just turn around and go back downstairs.

The toilet flushes, I hear the sink run, there is a moment of silence, and then Jane opens the door.

“Oh,” she says, blushing. “I didn’t know you were waiting.” She steps past me, and I realize the moment is about to pass.

“Jane,” I say, and she stops and turns.

We stand there for a second, and I forget what it is I am supposed to be doing. I take a step toward her, put my hand on her shoulder, and lean forward to kiss her.

She turns her face so I end up kissing her cheek, then backs up two steps.

“I’m going to go downstairs,” she says quietly, and hurries off.

I stand there for a moment. Then I go into the bathroom and shut the door. “Idiot,” I hiss at myself in the mirror. “What were you thinking?”

I realize I have to go back downstairs and sit across from Jane for the rest of the evening. I doubt she will have told anyone what I did, but how will she act toward me? Should I apologize? What if she acts like nothing happened? Will she still want to go to the prom with me? Did she notice I had an erection?

By the time I get downstairs, the final part of the
seder
has begun. Jane looks up briefly from her
Haggadah
and gives me a tight smile before looking back down. She does not make eye contact with me for the rest of the night.

When the
seder
ends, there is a little milling about, and by 11:30 people are starting to say good night. I say good-bye to our guests as they leave and tell Jane I’ll see her in school.

That night I dream I am at an appointment with my therapist, except my therapist is Jane Blumeberg’s father.

“I asked Jane to the prom,” I tell him.

He nods. “How did it feel to ask her?”

“I don’t know. I was a little nervous, I guess. It’s hard to ask a girl out. You never know what she’s gonna say.”

“But you did it anyway. That takes courage.”

“I guess. It made it easier that I was a little drunk.”

“Well,” he says, smiling. “There’s no question that alcohol can break down some of our inhibitions.”

I sit quietly for a moment, wondering how much I should confess. “I did something stupid, though,” I say at last. “After I asked her, I tried to kiss her.”