Stanley Elkin - The Rabbi of Lud

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Mom?”

“What else?”

“Beverly’s on the swim team at her middle school.”

“That’s not all peaches and cream,” I said. “Every morning you have to get up early for practice. Her hair could dry out. Her ends could all split. She probably smells of chlorine.”

“Guess what?” she asked at the dinner table.

“What?” Shelley said.

“They belong to a health club. The East Bank Club. It’s very exclusive. They have a family membership and go whenever they want. I was their guest. There was this cosmetologist, there was this hair stylist. I had a makeover. They gave me a facial with collagen, the skin’s natural moistening conditioner, and taught me to use eyeliner, to start in the middle and go to the outer corners instead of starting from the inner corners. That opens your eyes and makes them look bigger. Guess what?” she demanded.

“What?”

“You have to pat it with a Q-tip to make it less harsh.”

“Connie?”

“Because my face is so round she showed me how to use blusher to bring out my cheekbones. She put apricot scrub on my skin to clean out the pores. I had a cellophane wrap. I lost three pounds.”

“Connie?”

“Guess what?”

“Connie?”

“Guess what?!”

“What?” Shelley said.

“They gave me a shampoo and washed it out with herbal rinse. They conditioned my hair, they styled it. They gave me the layered look. Guess what else?”

“Connie.”

“Go ahead, Dad. You can guess too. Guess what else?!”

“What else?”

“Marvin? Diane’s boyfriend from Hebrew school? Marvin likes me. That’s what they told me at the slumber party. They said he got this crush on me when he saw my new makeover. They said he means to write me. And guess what else?”

“What else?” Shelley and I said together.

“They get clothing allowances. All the girls get clothing allowances. My colors are autumn. Forest green, deep orange, the browns. Guess what?”

“No, you guess what, Connie! You guess what,” I shouted at her.

“‘What?”

“More St. Myra Weiss? More with your St. Myra Weiss?”

“You don’t believe Marvin likes me? He likes me all right! You think I made that up? You think I’d lie about something like that? You just wait until he starts writing me letters.”

“Connie,” Shelley said.

“Connie,” I said, “Connie, sweetheart.”

“Or that they don’t get a clothing allowance? Well, they do too.”

“Connie,” said Shelley.

“Connie,” I said.

“And they belong to the East Bank Club! It has Nautilus. It has free weights. It has aerobics and jazzercise. It has Jacuzzi and whirlpool and sauna and racquetball. It has an Olympic pool and a natural juice bar where they’ll mix you a cauliflower or spinach cocktail or anything else you want, or squeeze out the juice not just from organically grown fruit, melons and oranges or bananas or whatever, but from right out of the peel too. And they bring it right to your table. I had this cauliflower cocktail on a dare? And you know something? If you chug-a-lug it, it’s not half bad.”

“Connie, calm down.”

“No,” she said, “you calm down. You calm down!”

“How can I calm down,” I asked reasonably, “if I’m not the one who’s excited?”

“Well, you should be,” she said. “You should be. I’d be excited if I were you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it means.”

“You hear this?” I asked Shelley. “ ‘It means what it means.’ What’s that supposed to mean? Now she talks in riddles.”

“She’s telling us about Chicago-le.”

“Oh, stop that!” Connie said.

“Don’t talk that way to Mama.”

“Oh, please ,” Connie said.

“You’re a little cranky,” Shelley said. “It’s probably jet-e-le lag-e-le.”

“That’s old, Mother. That’s so old.”

“Don’t you criticize your mother,” I warned. “Who do you think you are? Don’t you dare criticize her!”

“You think I don’t know what’s going on? You think I don’t know you don’t even sleep together anymore? You think I don’t know that?”

“We sleep together, dear,” Shelley said. “Really,” Shelley said. “Honest. We do.”

“Why do you answer her? Why do you give her the satisfaction?”

“Really,” Connie said. “I suppose your comb and brushes just happened to walk into the spare bedroom! I suppose your lucky porcelain lion did! And your jewelry case that you never leave lying around anywhere and always keep in the bottom drawer of your bureau under your sweaters! Oh, sure ! Tell me another, why don’t you?”

“You spy on your mother? You search out her little secret hiding places?”

“I decided to move some things around without going to the trouble of rearranging the furniture,” Shelley said. “To see how it would feel, you know? You were visiting in Chicago and I had some time on my hands.”

“I wasn’t ‘visiting’ in Chicago, Mother.”

“Of course you were. You were visiting your uncle Al Harry. You were visiting your cousins.”

“He’s not my real uncle. Don’t you think I don’t know he’s not my real uncle?”

“No,” I said, “Al Harry’s not your real uncle, and you weren’t ‘visiting’ in Chicago. You were on the lam because of all the trouble you caused.”

“And you and my mother don’t sleep together anymore.”

“I already explained that,” Shelley said. “I already told you what that was all about. There’s a saying: ‘A place for everything and everything in its place.’ I was a little bored. The sheets with the sheets, the tablecloths with the tablecloths. My jewelry case in the bureau drawer under my sweaters.”

“Oh, yeah? Then why’d you put it all back?”

“It was too hard to find things. I couldn’t remember where anything was.”

“Oh, sure, oh, right,” Connie said, crossing her arms and glaring at her mother. “If you couldn’t remember where anything was, then how’d you know where to find the things you forgot so you could put them back where they belonged?” she demanded triumphantly.

“Aha,” Shelley shot back, trumping her triumph, “but I didn’t! You found the brushes, you found the comb! You found my jewelry and lucky lion!”

“What is this? What’s going on? What’s this about?” I asked, sliding into my rabbi mode. “What’s all this fireworks between my two best girls?”

“Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, young lady,” Shelley said, “you must never, but never, go to bed angry. Your father and I never go to bed angry.”

“Mother, that’s gross.”

“Because we’re no different,” Shelley told her suddenly, ardently. “Connie, dear, you have to understand this. We’re no different. We’re not. You aren’t different. I’m not. What, just because we live in a funny little town? What’s that? It’s nothing. Or any of the rest of it either. All that peer baloney you think you missed out on. It isn’t anything, Connie sweetheart. Really. I promise you. It’s nothing at all, Connie dear.”

I looked at my serious, even solemn, wife, in her rabbi mode once more. I’ll be, I thought. I’ll be damned, but you never know where your succor is coming from next. I’ll be, but my redeemer liveth. I thought we were all about to embrace each other.

“If he was my real uncle, or Diane and Beverly were my real cousins, I could never look them in the face again, especially Diane,” Connie said softly, suddenly, her point dipped in a sort of quiet, come-hither hostility.