Joanna Rakoff - A Fortunate Age

At the ladies’ room she found a line—older women in suits, Lil’s aunts and cousins—and she walked on, without hesitating, into the foyer, then pushed open the synagogue’s heavy metal doors. Outside, the sun shone heavily, pricking her arms through the weave of her dress, and the sky was a brilliant, deep cloudless blue. The cars Dr. Roth had ordered to drive the mourners out to the Island had not yet arrived. Shading her eyes with one hand, she peered up Fifth, to see if they were on their way. European tourists, brightly and tightly clad, in groups of two and three and four, strolled gamely along the sidewalk, dispatched from the St. Regis and the Plaza and the Sherry-Netherland, and bound for Barneys or Bergdorf’s or the park. Suddenly, an odd thought possessed Sadie: What if she were to cross the street and enter the park? She had a fat book in her bag—a galley of the new Zadie Smith, which she hadn’t yet opened—and the arts section of the paper. She could buy a bottle of water and lie under some big tree—how good it would feel to lie down without Jack jumping on top of her or Mina nursing beside her—and read, just as she and Steph had in high school. Would anyone really miss her?

Just then the glossy nose of a town car glided silently up to the curb. With a low hum, one dark window slid down and the driver, in a cap, called out to her: “Roth?” he asked. “Um, yes,” she said, pulling her arms back over the stains on her dress. He nodded. “The other cars’ll be here in a second. There was some traffic on the bridge.”

“Okay,” she said, “do we need to get on the road soon?”

The driver pulled back a crisp white sleeve and studied the enormous face of his watch. “The funeral’s at three? I’d say, we leave in fifteen minutes, we’ll be in good shape.” A second car was already rolling up behind the first.

“Great, thank you. I’ll start rounding people up.”

Some sort of herding instinct—or perhaps Rose Peregrine—had propelled the crowd upstairs before Sadie had made it past the foyer, much less back to the ladies’ room, and she unexpectedly found herself within a mass of people, many of them hugging her and kissing her cheeks. Dr. Roth began guiding his family into the waiting cars, which drove off, one by one, like an army of beetles. When just he and Mrs. Roth remained, he walked quickly over to Sadie. “We’ve ordered extra cars,” he said. “For you”—he waved his arms in a circle—“for the group, the friends.”

“Oh,” she said, “thank you. Thank you.” He nodded, by way of an answer, and helped his wife into a car. Sadie’s mother and father climbed into the car behind them. “See you there,” Rose called. “Yes,” said Sadie weakly, wondering where her friends had got to, where her husband was—but then there they were, Beth and Emily and Dave, and, yes, Tal , bringing with them a gust of the synagogue’s stale air. Ed put his arms around her. “Hey,” he said. “How are you holding up?”

“They ordered cars,” she told him, told all of them. “We can go. The Roths said so.”

“You don’t have to go,” said Ed, pulling back and inspecting her face, a gesture she hated, actually. “If you’re tired.”

“I want to go,” she said. She did. And yet the thought of driving out to Long Island made her want to go back inside the synagogue and crawl under a bench.

“I don’t mean to intrude,” the driver called. “But we should get going. Traffic’s bad today.”

Beth and Will and Emily and Dave climbed into the car, followed, before they could stop her, by Caitlin and Ismael, and Meredith Weiss, whose husband had gone back to work, as had Josh.

“Um,” Sadie said, looking at Ed.

“They can make room for you,” he said.

“You’re not going to come?”

He looked at her uncomfortably. “I was thinking I’d go back to the office.” She folded herself into his chest, stiffly, stupidly, conscious of Tal nearby.

“Okay,” she said. “That’s fine.”

“No, I’m going to come,” he said, resting his head on hers. “I’m sorry I said anything.” He pulled her closer. “It’s just because we’re leaving tomorrow.” Toronto, she’d forgotten about it. “But I can go into the office tonight.” He pulled back from her. “I just thought, you know, we weren’t supposed to go to the burial, so I’d planned to go back—”

“It’s okay,” she said, pulling away from him, irritated. She wished that he’d just go and leave her alone with her friends. “I’m okay to go alone.”

“No, I can come,” he said, pulling her close again and pressing his face into her hair.

“No, I forgot we were leaving. Maybe Jack and Mina and I should stay here.”

“ No. ”

“We can make room,” Beth called, glancing angrily at Caitlin.

“We should really get on the road,” the driver said.

“I have a car here,” said Tal, whom Sadie had sort of forgotten about. His thin shoulders had grown thicker with age, pulling at his white dress shirt, but he otherwise looked eerily the same, his wide slash of mouth sloppy, like a child’s drawing, red against his new beard. “I can take you.”

Ed looked at her. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll go with Tal. You go to the office.”

“You’re sure,” he said, inspecting her face.

“I’m sure ,” she said.

“We’ve met,” said Ed, holding out his hand to Tal. “At Lil and Tuck’s. A few times. I’m Ed Slikowski.”

“I know,” said Tal. “Tal Morgenthal.” He turned to Sadie. “I’m parked around the corner.

“Can I have a ride?” came a hoarse voice. Tuck.

“Sure,” said Tal, with a heavy exhale. “Let’s go.”

They sat in silence over the glistening ribbon of the East River, but once the grim houses of Queens gave way to the strip malls of western Long Island, Tuck leaned in toward the driver’s seat.

“So you found God?” he asked Tal.

“ What? ” said Sadie.

Tal smiled, keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him, and said, “I wouldn’t put it like that.”

“What?” asked Sadie again. “What are you talking about?”

Tuck nodded, ignoring her. “I can understand that.” He nodded again and lolled his head lightly against the window. For a moment, Sadie thought that they might continue in silence, as befit the occasion, but then he sat up again. “I just never saw you as the religious type.”

Tal shrugged.

“Tal?” said Sadie, unsure, even, of what to ask him.

“So what are you?” Tuck pressed. “Lubovitch?”

“Tuck, what are you talking about?” Sadie swiveled fully around to face Tuck, but he refused to meet her eye. He’d pulled off his jacket, she saw, and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt. The hair on his forearms was turning gray. And his face had lost all of the softness she’d seen after the service.

For a moment, Tal turned from the road and looked back, wearily, at his companion on this bleak journey. “No,” he said. “Not Lubovitch. Not even close. The opposite.”

“But you’re religious, right?” Tuck pressed, with a slight guffaw. “Was it like, one of those guys stopped you on the street and asked if you were Jewish—and next thing you know you’re in the mitzvah mobile? Didn’t they, like, recognize you from that Robin Williams movie?”

Tal said nothing.

“Sorry,” Tuck offered. “I’m an asshole.”

“You are,” Tal agreed.

“Tal?” said Sadie. He had not, she saw, taken off his yarmulke when they left the synagogue, but then neither had Dr. Roth or many of the other men. “We all thought—”

“Oh, come on, Sadie,” said Tuck. “Are you blind?”

“You don’t need to take that tone with her, okay?” said Tal, turning his head sharply toward Tuck.