The Matzo Ball Heiress (19 page)

Jared play-punches me. “Now I won’t get myself into a relationship with a woman before we’ve spoken at length about religious and cultural values.”

Well, that rules this pagan out. “I guess you’re not going out with Tonia then,” I say as the air-assist platform on the Second Avenue M15 bus screeches opens and lowers a wheelchair onto the ground.

“Tonia?”

“I don’t mean to come off sounding vain, but I thought I picked up a certain amount of anger from her toward me at the factory when your team was filming the Izzy segment. I’m really not used to that, so I noticed it. I thought she was being protective of you or Steve, but I wasn’t sure which one of you.”

Am I trying to find out more about Steve or Jared? At this point I’m not sure. Steve’s inner being is still a mystery to me, which I hate to admit to myself is sexy—even after I’ve been burned by his arrogance. But Jared’s handsome too. He may not be as picture perfect as Steve, but he’s way nicer. What does it matter? Jared’s probably crossed me off his list anyhow, since I eat
traif
.

“First of all, stop selling yourself short. You’re pretty and talented. Live with it.”

“Thanks,” I say with a big grin.

“And second of all, you’re very perceptive. That tension was real, but for Steve. You should hear how he worked Tonia. Told her he was dreaming about her. Why do women always fall for that shit?”

I cringe on behalf of myself and all women.

“He’s a very old friend of mine. We went to elementary school together, and he got me the job when I was floundering after film school. I love him like a brother, but I wouldn’t say he’s the nicest guy, especially to women. Still, he’s very funny at times. A huge practical joker.”

I’m smarting, not only from hearing Steve’s lines about dreaming of me out of Jared’s mocking mouth, but also from learning just how close the two of them are.

“Did he ever pull a big joke on
you
?” I manage to say.

“You bet. I was supposed to go to Puerto Rico with lovable Sarah last year and she said she wouldn’t leave Manhattan until I bought a new bathing suit, something more in style. Steve had me convinced Speedos were back, and told me Speedos come in two sizes, large and extra large.”

“They size them that way?”

Jared smiles and holds up a hand to let him continue. “We had a shoot two blocks away from the Speedo store, and after we wrapped he said he was walking that way, and had me ask the saleslady for the suit with the extra-large pouch.”

“You didn’t!”

“The saleslady almost died laughing.”

“That’s almost too cruel to be a joke.”

“Cruel’s not a bad word for him. Steve is funny and cruel. It’s fine if you are a guy. He’s well liked by the men at work, but the women he’s gone out with hate him.”

“Does he brag about his conquests?” I say with my best poker face on.

“Steve? You’d think so, considering how long we’ve known each other. But strangely, there’s never a peep about anyone. I only hear about it when it’s really bad, from his conquests. Like Tonia. And our sweet little receptionist who he apparently—deflowered. I think he’ll get a psychic check in the mail though. He’s getting laid, but he’s lonely without a serious girlfriend, I’m sure of it.”

Yuck. The thought of the way Steve got over on me repulses me. I shudder slightly.

“It’s getting colder, huh?” Jared asks. “Want to walk a little? It’ll keep us warm.”

“Where to?”

“Anywhere. I didn’t mean to make you stand in the cold so long. I’m still worked up after running into Sarah.”

“Twice.”

“Yes, twice! If you’re not sick of me yet, we could warm up with an espresso. We could go to my place. I just got a great espresso maker as a Food Channel bonus. I’m over on Crosby Street. A bit of a hike but not that far.”

Steve may have never mentioned anything to Jared about our evening together—but why go to Jared’s place even for an innocent espresso when I’m so clearly not what he is looking for? Bettina has drummed into me that a mature woman identifies the right person before allowing romance to continue. I pause a bit too long while I pull these thoughts together.

“We’re just friends. Remember?” he says.

“Yes.” I give him a small cautious smile. I’m worked up from the trip, and the mountain of things to do for the seder. Being with Jared is so easy. “A homemade espresso sounds good,” I say, startling myself. That was my id speaking.

Jared smiles broadly. After we cross the first light toward SoHo, he says, “I was surprised when you told Sarah you weren’t kosher. I thought since the factory is kosher—”

“I’m not. Never have been. In all honesty, my parents aren’t kosher either, but please keep this close to the chest. It could hurt business. I guess you’re kosher, then.”

“Yes,” he says quietly.

“I didn’t see you bless any food, like Uzi.”

“I did. I blessed the bread silently when you weren’t looking.”

“Does it bother you that I’m not observant?”

“Look, unlike Sarah, I respect everyone’s choice. But honestly, I’m looking to settle down now. These things are important to me now that I’m thinking how my children will be raised.”

“You go to synagogue?”

“Every Saturday morning. It’s a young congregation. My folks only go to synagogue on the High Holidays.”

“So how come you don’t wear a
yarmulke
?”

“Honestly? I used to, but then I didn’t get any film or television jobs. I’d wear a
tallis
if I could, but in the film and TV world, religion freaks people out. I can’t imagine the look I’d get from my peers if they could see me at home in the morning putting on my
tefillin
.”

“What’s a
tallis
?”

“A prayer shawl men put on under their clothes. Usually you can spot the fringes hanging out.”

“What’s a
tfillet
?”

“Tefillin.”
Jared looks at me closely. “Didn’t you at least go to after-school Hebrew school?”

“No.”

“Weren’t you
bat mitzvahed
?”

“No.” Is he trying to make me weep?

“You really don’t know what
tefillin
are?”

Is this Daniel Popper all over again? “No,” I say angrily.

He grabs my hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just so amazing to me that a Greenblotz was brought up without knowing her heritage beyond the matzo box.”

“That’s just the way it was.”

“
Tefillin
are small boxes that contain Torah passages. Observant Jewish men wrap them to their head and arms in the morning because of a passage in Deuteronomy.”

“Do you know the passage?” I’m not sure why I just asked this.

Jared looks me straight in my Greenblotz blues and says:

And these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be frontlets between your eyes.

Can I locate the emotion I’m feeling? Is it jealousy? Or a bit of disgust? “Are your parents kosher?” I say neutrally.

“Hardly. My mother’s parents were, but when she married Dad, she toned it down quite a few notches. We didn’t keep a Shabbat, but I guess a bit of the food laws filtered in because we hardly ever ate ham and bacon. On the other hand, we ate a lot of pork at Chinese restaurants—in wonton soup, dumplings, those sorts of things. Our father had a rule when I was growing up—if you don’t know what’s in it, it’s kosher. I’m much stricter.”

I zip up my jacket. I like Jared a lot, but I’ve pretty much written him off as a love interest. “So what happened to change your view?”

“After college I visited Jerusalem, and then signed on to work on Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu.”

“I had a friend from elementary school who went to a kibbutz for a year before she went to Oberlin. She told me she worked for her room and board.”

“Yes, it’s a communal experience.”

“What was your task?”

“I milked Holsteins.”

“That’s not too bad. I guess you could’ve had to scrub toilets.”

“I did that too. But I enjoyed all of it. It was very international and, honestly, half the reason I went was just to get laid by any hot lady in the backpacking international set. But—this is weird to describe unless you’ve lived in Israel—I was amazed after one month by the connection I felt to history. God, we were living right on the Sea of Galilee! A seismic change took place inside of me—I knew what was important to me.”

“Not getting laid?”

“Well, I got some action too, but that was a bonus.”

I think as I laugh. Jared’s words make me remember the day before I left the Netherlands. “I don’t know if this matches your experience, but I had a very strong jolt of heritage guilt at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam.”

“I haven’t been, but I can only imagine. And I wouldn’t call it guilt, Heather. I’d call it revelation. I don’t want to sound remotely like Sarah, but maybe you should consider going kosher. It’s not about the food, it’s about the history.” Jared looks me in the eyes, and touches my hand like a recent Hare Krishna convert.

“That’s just not who I am,” I say kindly. These days I’m infinitely more appreciative of human touch, even when I’m being proselytized.

Waterloo

J
ared takes my coat and drapes it on a wooden chair near the door as we exit from the freight elevator to his third-floor loft.

“What an amazing place,” I say.

“I got it for a song,” Jared says almost apologetically. “The previous owner bought it during the huge Wall Street run-up in the dot-com years, but when the bottom dropped out of the market he needed to unload it fast.”

I nod politely, but
c’mon
. Nobody gets a place like this in Manhattan for less than half a million. The last I checked, the Food Channel wasn’t paying law-firm salaries. Is this a gift from his Westchester parents with the poodle?

“So should I get you that coffee?”

“I’m thinking about my jet lag again, and I’ll need to sleep when I leave—by any chance do you have any herbal tea?”

“Chamomile okay?”

“Sounds good.” After a few seconds, I follow him like Mary’s lamb over to the kitchen area of his loft.

“Nope. I only have Earl Grey,” he calls out loudly.

“As long as it’s weaker than espresso, I’ll take it,” I say from directly behind him.

“Oh, hello.”

“Sorry. I never squelch a chance to check out other people’s kitchens. I’m the world’s biggest
Trading Spaces
addict. Nice floor by the way.”

“My mother’s idea. She says it’s easier to clean because it’s one piece. She’d put any
Trading Spaces
addict to shame. Her idea of a vacation is a trip to Home Depot.”

“One piece? It looks like hand-laid tile.”

“Score one for Miriam Silver. You should hear her go on about it. ‘Dirt doesn’t get through the cracks because it’s not tiling. Stop calling it linoleum, Jared, it’s the latest rage, completely different, it’s
Congo
-leum.’”

“From the Congo?” I crack.

Jared smirks as he opens his natural-wood cupboard to get the tea. As he turns his back, I snoop out the bottom left corner of the magazine on the counter. You can tell a lot about a man by what he reads. When he was living on Park Avenue, Dad not only kept a subscription to every theater magazine in the universe, but also to an absurd number of men’s muscle magazines, even though his own tummy popped out like a six-month pregnant woman’s. And if it was pretentious as the
New York Review of Books
or a McSweeney’s anthology, Daniel Popper had it on his coffee table.

The corner of the magazine reads:
Kosher Gourmet
.

Jared has dog-eared a page with a recipe for a kosher Indonesian seaweed dessert. As he spoons out the tea, I peek in the open cupboard doors. The shelves are packed with kosher foods, like a teriyaki sauce called Soy Vey. I note with a mix of surprise and pride that his olive spread, Garden’s Best, is a Greenblotz product.

I pick up the jar and show it to him. “This is from our company.”

“Where’s your logo?”

“My cousin Jake’s been sneaking our products into the traditional-foods shelf space by using another brand name. Even in the kosher section we use different brand names to get more shelf space. Greenblotz is also Bubby’s Best. The gefilte fish companies cannibalize each other too. You may prefer Mother’s but it’s from the same company as Rokeach.”

“I’ve got the goods on you guys now. Good thing I’m not with
20/20
or
60 Minutes.”

You think that’s the goods on my family
? Hardly. I’ll give you the goods, Jared Silver—you have five hours?

I take a better look around his expansive, well-furnished digs. The guys I’ve been out with since college graduation have mostly lived in glorified pigeonholes, all they could afford in the New York rental market. I’ve felt guilty about having them over to my various expensive apartments—especially my current penthouse—so I almost always had sex at their places. When I was twenty-five I spent four months dating a starving artist who never stepped foot in my place. It had a nice side effect though: he kept going on about how mysterious I was, and mystique is important to a starving artist. As far as my penthouse on the Upper East Side goes, I could have gotten a smaller and less showy place, I guess, but it opened up at the exact moment I was looking. The view across the East River to Queens and the Bronx is remarkable. If you are going to be spending a lot of time with yourself, you might as well have a great view.

Jared’s place is big and clean. “I can’t get over how neat you are. Were you in the military?”

“I can change your mind in an instant. Open the fridge.”

“Yes, Sarge.” He’s right; it’s pretty darn gross. One bowl without a lid contains particularly malodorous, scary stuff. I hold my nose as I examine it closer. “What the hell is in that?”

“Week-old tuna slop. Macaroni, mayo and two cans of tuna. I’m a good cook but I need a woman to cook for. Otherwise, my inner Felix Unger turns into Oscar Madison.”

“How can you have tuna in with mayo? Isn’t that mixing meat and dairy?”

Jared pauses like Aldous Huxley explaining the
Doors of Perception
to a curious teen about to lick acid. “Meat is meat. Tuna is
parave
, it’s neutral. There’s all sorts of neutral foods. Eggs are also neutral.”

“You should apply for
The Bachelor
. The nice-Jewish-boy edition. He has a job! He’s nice to his mother! But of course you’d have to lose the beard. Men with beards are never on those shows. They turn off most women.”

Gibberish often dribbles out of my mouth when I’m sleep deprived. But Jared looks surprised and slightly hurt. “What do
you
think of my beard?”

“That was far too glib, I’m sorry.”

“No, I really want to know.”

“Some woman love beards. Look at George Michael.”

“He’s gay.”

“I’m sure I can think of a straight star with a beard, give me a minute.”

“You don’t think it suits me, correct?”

“You’re very attractive, but it makes you look a little—”

“A little—”

I wince. “Rabbinical.”

“Eeesh.”

“It’s not awful. Awful is the man who wears a barrette, pigtails or a beard braid.”

“Who braids their beard? Have I missed this?”

“It must be a Generation Z thing. I see young skateboarders with them on the street.”

“They probably have so little beard growth, they want to call attention to whatever they’ve got.” Jared pours hot water from the screaming kettle into two small black Japanese teapots. “I didn’t always have it. My facial hair was Sarah’s idea.”

“Maybe you should shave it.”

“You think?” Jared says.

“Maybe. It’s up to you.”

“Only if you help me.”

“Shave your beard? I wouldn’t know how.”

He disappears into the bathroom for a minute and returns with clippers and a can of Barbisol shaving cream. “How jetlagged are you right now? Because I’ll do it myself if you’re about to doze.”

“You’re actually serious?”

“I need to get the last vestiges of Sarah out of my life. Might as well be right now. Before I shave, you have to clip my beard a bit shorter so a razor won’t kill my skin.”

I take the clippers determinedly. This is bizarre, and strangely intimate but fun. “To the end of Sarah’s reign!” Snipped hair falls to the floor as Jared pretends to sway like a rabbi praying. The word
daven
pops up from somewhere in my secular brain. That’s what he’s doing.

What’s left of his dark beard still camouflages his cheeks and chin, although what I can see I like.

I pour and sip my tea as Jared turns on one of two faucets in the kitchen sink and splashes his face. “I’m not an expert on male facial hair, but wouldn’t a hot shower be better?”

“I thought I’d share the shaving experience the G-rated way. You can shower with me if you like.”

I laugh. “Not likely tonight, but my legs are getting so wobbly that I might fall asleep on your carpet.”

“As long as there’s hope for a rain check, that’s fine with me.”

I bat my eyelashes theatrically. Did Jared really mean that, or was he just being funny? “Hey, why do you have two sinks by the way?” I say.

“Had them put in. Makes my life easier when I make meat and milk dishes. I never mix the two different types of food with two sinks. And it’s a luxury for cooking in general. I’m what you call a kosher foodie.” He raises the shaving-cream can. “I’m going to shave this weird gray streak under my chin first.”

“Is there a mirror you can use?”

“There’s one in the bathroom. I’ll finish this off and then we can assess the damage.”

During the five minutes he’s gone I wander back over to the living-room divide of the loft, which is dominated by a huge painting over his couch, one of those instantly recognizable Australian Aboriginal canvases with ocher and yellow dots. I was only a teen when I was in Australia but I remember window-shopping in a Melbourne tribal gallery with my mother—the Aboriginal paintings this big cost a fortune to ship over to the States. Even my mother wasn’t going to pay though the nose. How did Jared afford it? And didn’t that producer from the BBC say Jared went to film school in London? I know British schools charge Americans a mint. His parents have to be loaded.

I flip through Jared’s CD collection. I’m half expecting to find Time Life’s Greatest Cantorial Tunes, but except for the large Klezmer collection—I’ve heard of The Kletzmatics, but are there really bands called The Flying Bulgar Klezmer Band and The Klez Dispensers?—Jared’s musical taste is similar to mine. (I spot John Coltrane. King Crimson. Prince. Lots of eighties ska. Cocteau Twins. The requisite Beatles and Stones albums. Jeff Buckley.) I’m relieved: Daniel Popper, before I pulled the plug on our not even three-week run, took a look at
my
music collection and I was branded
mainstream hip
. Daniel had the cheek to label himself
alternative alternative
, and his finer tastes were presented to me in a self-burned CD that was meant to up my in-the-know quotient. The CD came with his own liner notes tucked in the jewel case. It started with Radiohead and just got more annoying from there; artists like Aphex Twin, Slint, Boards of Canada, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Can, Tortoise and, “Of course, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, so you can develop a rootsy fondness for dub reggae.”

I hate to admit it to myself, but I really liked Scratch.

I chill out with my favorite mainstream hip album by Everything But the Girl. Jared enters the room, completely shaven with a face that is so dishy I blink. I feel like a single publicist hesitant to book an unknown sexy author on too many television shows.
No, please, I’ll keep you locked up for myself
. Great, great lips. Move over, Mick Jagger.

“You like?”

“Okay, you were never meant to have a beard. You have a cleft chin! You know how many men have plastic surgery to get a cleft chin?”

Jared looks very pleased indeed.

“What else can I do to purge the lingering traces of Sarah, Rabbi Silver?”

He hands me an aloe aftershave lotion from upscale Kiehl’s Pharmacy on Third Avenue, where I buy my overpriced shampoo originally developed for a silky horse mane. He squeezes a dollop of lotion into my hand and I rub it into his reddened cheeks and chin.

“At the risk of repeating myself, I just can’t understand why you would cover this face up.”

We may have entered this room platonically, but the mood is getting very sexual, very fast. Jared kisses my neck. He’s headed to my ears, my number-one erogenous zone.

“Jared—are you sure—I told you I’m not kosher—”

He breathes hard as he says softly, “We can change that. I can take you to a service. I have the hippest rabbi around.” He is so close to me that the word
rabbi
booms into my eardrum.

“I’m not sure. Jewish cultural appreciation is one thing. Giving up my food choice and Saturday mornings is another. I hate to say it, but I just can’t believe in those things.”

Jared sits with an angry expression on his face. “C’mon. Don’t put me in a box. It’s not that hard to eat kosher. Most foods in supermarkets, except for the pork chops, are kosher now. You just have to look on the box for the little K or the U in a circle. The companies mark regular foods to secure the kosher marker. I eat Oreos, and all the breakfast cereals you probably like, and I even drink Tang from time to time.”

“Tang is kosher? The astronaut drink?” The thought of that micro-fact makes me snort like I do when Jake imitates my vile cousins Marcy and Rebecca.

“Yes.” He tries to look mad but he laughs anyway. “That one threw me at first too. I thought there might be gelatin in there, which might mean assorted hoof and hide, hoof is verboten—I hate that word, don’t you?”

“Hoof?”

“No, verboten.”

I have to rein in this banter fast, before I’ve crossed the line of cocktease. (Yes, I’m in his home, and I’ve just kissed him, but my clothes are still
on
.) I gently grab his wrist and hold it. “What I am going to tell you is the horrible truth. I really like you. But if you value tradition in your life as much as you say you do, then I’m definitely not the person you want to be with.”

“Heather, please don’t say that. Give me a listen first. People say it’s hard for women in this town to find what they want. Well, that cuts both ways. I’ve been going out with women for years, and not one of them has ever engaged me as much as you.”

“That’s very flattering. But if you knew me better, you’d know the last thing I need is more heartbreak.”

“What heartbreak? Your life seems pretty great to me. Awards. Travel—”

“No. My life is a lie. My family is a joke. I lied to Sarah when I said my cousin was kosher. Hardly.
None
of us are kosher. This whole seder is a joke. And my cousin Jake and I are the wobbly axis of sanity in my family. I can’t even begin to think what’s going to happen at the seder.”

“The majority of American Jews have stopped keeping kosher. And how bad can your family situation be?”

“Hmm. Here’s an appetizer. My long-lost gay father is flying in from Amsterdam with his leather lover to lead our seder. He’s the closest we have to a real Jew.”