Allen Zadoff: Since You Left Me

In most situations, an amply endowed woman with an accent who wants me for something—anything, really—is a good sign, but not tonight. Not in the high school gymnasium on the night we’re having parent-professor conferences. And not when the woman shouting is the new office lady trying to tell me it’s time for my conference.

That is not a good thing. Not at all.

“Sanskrit Aaron Zuckerman,” she shouts.

That’s my name, in all its confusing glory. She says the Sanskrit part like it’s Hebrew, which is not a terrible guess given that we’re at Brentwood Jewish Academy. B-Jew for short. That’s what the students call it. The faculty does not appreciate the term.

But my name, Sanskrit, is not Hebrew. It’s an ancient Indian language.

“Sanskroo…,” she says, garbling it.

When someone is looking in my direction and choking on a word, they’re almost always trying to say my name. Or they have a piece of corned beef stuck in their throat. It’s me or a choking incident.

“Zuckerman?” the woman calls out, opting for the familiar territory of my last name. “The professors are ready.”

Professors. That’s what we call them here, even though it’s only high school. We’re so college obsessed, we even use the nomenclature.

Now I can see the Israeli office lady pushing her way through the crowd. She’s wearing her favorite outfit—a silky blouse that covers all of her skin yet leaves nothing to the imagination, and a long, too-tight skirt. Appropriate length. Inappropriate width. Which makes it all the more interesting.

If she’s calling me, it’s time for my mother to go in and meet the faculty.

Problem: my mother isn’t here yet.

Solution: evasive action.

I duck behind Mrs. Rosenthal. That’s easy to do because she is, shall we say, on the large side. When Moses climbed the mountain to get the tablets, I imagine the mountain looked something like Mrs. Rosenthal, only with a less attractive pantsuit. Mrs. Rosenthal is heading for a little nosh at the snacks table, and I move with her, using her ample girth as cover. I stay behind her until I get to Mrs. Stein, Talya’s mom, and then I jump behind her until I get to Barry Goldwasser’s parents. In this way, I hopscotch across the gymnasium using large Jews as cover until I’ve put as much distance as possible between myself and my name.

I scan the room for my mother, hoping I’ve missed her.

I haven’t.

I look at my phone. No calls, and she’s over an hour late.

My mother promised she’d be here. It’s just that she has a different definition of promise than the rest of the world. For her, it’s a relative term.

Parent-professor conferences can be squirm-worthy in the best of circumstances, but they’re especially problematic when your parents don’t show up. Not that I’d expect both of my parents to be here at the same time. They haven’t been in the same room in five years, unless you count my bar mitzvah. I’ve been trying to erase the memory of that day for years.

But Mom has to be here. That’s because she missed the last one, along with just about every other school event, and we almost got expelled. I say “we” because they blame the whole family in our school. There’s no such thing as a student alone—the student is an extension of the family. They call it the Critical Family Dynamic. I call it Guilt by Association.

In any case, we had to sign a Family Education Contract after that. It wasn’t all Mom’s fault. I blew off religious studies homework and skipped prayer four times in a month and got myself on academic probation. Basically, I was failing God.

Failing HaShem .

That’s what we call God here. HaShem. The Name in Hebrew.

Anyway, I was already the dean’s special remodeling project because of my lack of religious commitment, and Mom not showing up made it a thousand times worse. In the family contract, we each agreed to a list of responsibilities. On the top of Mom’s list: stay engaged in the educational process by attending all meetings and conferences. On the top of mine: find God, or at least fake it well enough to get through Torah class and morning prayers.

I drift towards the edge of the gym, weaving my way through the families. Parents stand in clumps, some with their arms around their children. They’re chatting and laughing, trying to look calm even though I can tell some of them are scared. Not every family got a good report about their child. You can feel the Ivy League hopes hanging in the balance. Not just Ivy. Yeshiva hopes, a year in Israel hopes. B-Jew hopes.

Parents and the dreams they have for their children.

I look at my watch. Where the hell is my mother?

The new office lady stalks through the crowd with clipboard in hand, her angry breasts searching me out. She taps a kid on the shoulder.

“Where is Sanskrit?” she asks him.

The kid shrugs.

I move in the opposite direction, stalling for time.

I grab a knish and pretend I’m going to talk to someone I know. But I don’t really have anyone to talk to. I’m not what you call a popular kid. I’m more of an outsider. All Jews are outsiders in a certain way, so you really have to work to be on the outside of the outsiders. Actually, it’s not that difficult in Jewish school. All you have to do is not believe in God.

There are other kids who don’t believe, but they do it quietly or couch it in intellectual inquiry. I do it openly and loudly. Add that to the fact I come from a family of divorce, I’m named after a dead goyish language, I have a yoga teacher for a mother and the Invisible Man for a father—you pretty much have the definition of outsider.

I look up and I see Herschel, my former best friend, in a full suit and black fedora moving amongst the parents. He’s one of the few who dresses in religious garb in our school. Brentwood Jewish is an Orthodox school, but we’re a lot more modern than most. Herschel isn’t modern, not anymore. He’s in it to win it. Today he works the room like a politician, smiling and shaking hands, patting various parents on the shoulders as if to calm them. He’s comfortable with the parents, with the kids, with God. Especially with God. I wish I could believe like he does. Life would be so much simpler.

There’s a tap on my shoulder.

“Sanskrit. Am I saying that right?”

The Israeli office lady. She found me.

I say, “It’s San like sand . And skrit rhymes with Brit . Emphasis on the first syllable. San -skrit.”

She looks at me like I’m an idiot, that special look Israelis have that makes you feel stupid because you’re soft, and American, and haven’t fired an UZI.

“Sanskrit,” she says.

Heads turn. God, this woman is loud.

Most of these people know me, but even so, what’s a Jew doing with a name like Sanskrit? It’s the unspoken question everywhere I go.

The woman says, “We’re ready for your parents.”

“Parent. Singular,” I say. “For your information, my mom is stuck in traffic. She’ll be here shortly.”

She wrinkles her nose.

“What about your father?”

“My parents are divorced.”

The foundation of Jewish education is parent involvement .

That’s what it says in our school brochure. It’s also written on the wall outside the main office. It’s on the letterhead of all the school newsletters.