“She may be pretty to look at, but she strikes me as a demanding, shallow, spoiled child!” Zipora said to her husband.
“If he’s crazy about her, there must be something to her,” the rabbi said, though dubiously. “Why is he making this choice?” the rabbi quietly asked his wife, changing his tone. “Were we too hard on him? Did we push him too far, too much?”
His wife shook her head. “We didn’t push Shimshon to be who he is. It was self-propelled.”
The rabbi sighed. “I’m not keen on this match, but since she’s a Jewish girl from a nice family, I have no grounds to veto the decision.”
Zipora took Shayna shopping for the traditional wedding present of a silver candelabrum to hold the Sabbath candles.
“Maybe I’ll see better qualities when I spend more time with her,” Zipora had confided in her husband.
But that was not to be. While Brooklyn girls had to deal with the unceasing pressures in the dating business, at least their families got to know the boy as their relationships progressed. The boy’s family only got to meet the girl after they were engaged — or, in other words, when it was too late.
“This is nice,” Shayna said in the silver shop as she fingered an expensive candelabrum. “But I’ll need two — the second leichter
should match the original, for when our family grows.”
“But I got all my married children one candelabrum,” Zipora said. “It wouldn’t be fair to them if I buy you two.”
“But you must!” Shayna argued. “This is what Shimshon would want!”
“I could always get you another one a few years down the line, when you, God willing, have children to light candles for,” Zipora said.
“Why did you waste my time here if you didn’t want to get me what I want?” Shayna said at the top of her voice in front of everyone in the store.
Zipora flushed red with embarrassment. “Shayna, I am prepared to purchase this model as well as the matching tray. But I cannot buy you anything else at this time.”
“Fine. So I’ll take it then.” Shayna sulked over her two-thousand-dollar gift. And Shimshon Kaplinsky only had praise for his adorable future wife.
• • •
Hindy sat at her wooden desk in the dimly lit basement. She was doing Aryeh’s accounting as she clicked away on her calculator, faster and faster every minute.
She smelled a cloud of heavy perfume coming down the stairs to her basement office.
“Oh, Hindy, so early today?” Suri greeted her.
The only condition Hindy’s parents had set to allow her to work with Aryeh in his basement was that Mrs. Kaufman be present. They didn’t want the working conditions to be immodest.
At first Suri had laughed. “Do the Goldfarbs think my handsome son would attack their daughter?”
Hindy knew what she meant: their
ugly
daughter. But Suri seemed to enjoy popping into the office. She’d told Hindy that it brought her back to the time when she used to help out Michael, and how she had liked seeing their business grow, knowing that her contributions helped propel it along.
Hindy rolled her chair back on the gray carpeting and glanced at the clock that hung on freshly painted walls. It wasn’t quite nine in the morning, and Hindy was surprised to see Suri awake at that hour, let alone fully dressed. She wondered what Suri’s ulterior motive could possibly be.
“I have to make some copies.” Suri used the tips of her fingers to place the papers in the printer/copier, avoiding abuse to her long, manicured nails. “I heard your sister looked stunning at her engagement party.”
Even though Suri clearly just wanted to chat, to Hindy, any word out of this woman’s mouth sounded like an insult. She could almost hear what Suri was probably thinking:
Your sister is pretty and getting married — and you, Hindy, are ugly and single. Which is why we keep you in the basement, working for my son.
“Darn. Out of ink.” Suri bent down and opened the printer, hoping to fix it.
Hindy gazed in amazement; she’d never seen Suri work that hard before. Her sudden movement shifted her perfume cloud, and some molecules got caught in Hindy’s nose; she sneezed.
“Gesundheit!” Suri looked up to see Hindy typing into the Excel spreadsheet at the speed of light. “When is she getting married?” she asked.
“This coming spring after Purim, God willing,” Hindy replied as she continued working.
“That sister is a real beauty. She caught that Kaplinsky boy and she’s going to look gorgeous at the wedding,” Suri remarked as Hindy cringed inside. “It’s a shame you couldn’t go out with such a guy.”
Normally polite, Hindy had had enough. “I
did
go out with such a guy,” she blurted, immediately sorry for her indiscretion.
“Really? How?” Suri asked, obviously surprised at such an admission from this plain girl who worked in her basement like a mole.
Hindy stopped working. “I’d visited his grandmother in the hospital during our weekly visits to the sick. She set us up.”
Suri looked Hindy up and down. “You know, my friend Sharon has a single son. Maybe you’d like to meet him?”
Hindy was intrigued. Dates came from the oddest places. “Thank you, Mrs. Kaufman. But you know, I only date boys who are in learning.”
“Sharon’s boy is learning. He’s studying for the rabbinate up at Yeshiva University. He’s not too good looking. But he’s very sweet; he learns all the time.”
Hindy smiled.
“I’ll go call Sharon right now!” Suri jumped as high as she could in her spiked heels and scurried upstairs to set up this match.
Hindy stared at her spreadsheet and tried to sort out what had just happened.
Rachel watched Daniel move his king across the chessboard in his Long Island den. She sat on the Golds’ plush creme-colored couch, resting her head on a gold embroidered cushion. Daniel sat a few feet away at his antique game table; opposite Daniel sat his friend Frisch.
Frisch studied the move with deep concentration, and then responded by moving his black bishop diagonally across the board.
Daniel eyed Frisch’s move. “I am so going to get you, buddy,” he laughed.
Daniel’s mother, a small, lithe woman with bleached-blond hair, came into the den and sat beside Rachel. In looks and demeanor, Mrs. Gold could have been Suri’s twin. “Sweetie,” she said to Rachel after a few minutes, “it must be so dull watching the boys play chess. Would you like to help set up for the party?”
“Sure.” Rachel got up to help her future mother-in-law, and they walked together to the Golds’ stately dining room. A rich mahogany dinner table rested on a dark red Persian rug, surrounded by twenty-two Louis XIV-style chairs. Parallel to the table stood a huge baroque china cabinet laden with Fabergé eggs, Mr. Gold’s collection of clocks, and some silver Judaica. On the opposite wall hung a large original Chagall over a heavy wooden buffet. On top of it lay an ornate silver cornucopia of fruit, along with glass cups, sodas, and a crystal bowl full of punch.
“I so love collecting beautiful things,” Mrs. Gold remarked as she opened the heavy red drapes to let in the light.
Rachel and Mrs. Gold walked through the butler’s pantry toward the kitchen, where Rachel stood ready to assist Mrs. Gold in her preparations. To complement the three-course meal Mrs. Gold had made, Rachel arranged wines and spirits on the buffet, along with traditional hamentaschen cookies for their annual Purim party, which fell in March this year. It was a festive occasion, commemorating Jewish salvation from genocide during the time of the Persian Empire. As a child, Rachel always looked forward to the springtime holiday: She would dress up in costume and give out baskets of treats to neighbors. But now that she was almost married — an adult — she wore a pretty cream silk blouse and a salmon-colored woolen skirt, and looked forward to a party.
Mrs. Gold took platters of veggies and dips from the fridge, and placed them in a row on the black granite kitchen countertop. “Did you see Daniel’s award collection, Rachel?” she asked, pointing to the den, where framed documents and shelves full of awards were hung.
“Yes, Mrs. Gold, a number of times.” Rachel stood at the counter cutting slices of seven-layer cake and arraying them on a platter.
“You know he also won the tennis championship at the Y.”
Rachel nodded.
“Three years in a row.” Mrs. Gold smiled. “The fourth year he would have won too, only I’m sure it was fixed.”
“Right.”
“There’s nothing he wants that he doesn’t win,” Mrs. Gold said pointedly, handing Rachel a platter for the table.
“Oh, come on!” Rachel heard Daniel challenge Frisch from the other room.
The guests began to arrive, bringing huge baskets of goodies wrapped decoratively in cellophane, and some of Daniel’s friends brought bottles of liquor.
Mrs. Gold sighed. “I hate all that drinking, but it’s that time of year.” She handed Rachel a crystal bowl of salad to carry to the table.
Rachel agreed. “They say the wine goes in and secrets come out.”
Mrs. Gold laughed. “I’m not sure if I want to hear any secrets!”
Rachel could hear Daniel arguing with Frisch over the game while groups of their friends egged them on. Someone turned on a CD of Jewish music — loud, jumpy, tunes. Daniel’s platonic girl friends came into the kitchen to greet Mrs. Gold and give Rachel the evil eye.
“How are your wedding plans coming along?” asked a short girl with short hair.
“Great!” Rachel plastered a frozen smile on her face.
“Did you get your gown yet?” another girl with numerous freckles dotting her face asked Rachel point-black, tapping her foot and expecting an immediate response.
“We’re working on it!” Rachel exuded a confidence she did not feel.
A petite girl with big glasses and tight mousy-brown curls grabbed Rachel’s hand. “How did you know it was right?” she asked in a squeaky voice.
Rachel’s smile felt so tight she thought it would crack. “Oh that! Well, uh, you just know. Right. You just know when it’s right — you know?”
Another girl, tall and thin with long raven-colored hair and wide green eyes, hunched her shoulders to reach Rachel’s ear. “He’s such an amazing guy. You are very,
very
lucky to have caught him,” she cooed. “All of us who grew up with Daniel — we love him.” The girl whispered again slowly and with emphasis. “We
love
him.”
As suddenly as the girls had appeared, they left Rachel, disappearing to the den where the boys were partying and raucously taking sides over Daniel and Frisch’s chess game.
Mrs. Gold smiled and whispered conspiratorially, “You know they all want him, my Daniel. But he only has eyes for you!”
Rachel smiled. Mrs. Gold could be really sweet. “I still don’t know why.”
Mrs. Gold shook her head, handing Rachel a bucket of ice for the buffet. “Don’t you know, Rachel? You played the game well.”
“Checkmate!” Daniel’s voice resounded from the other room as Rachel watched.
• • •
“Can you believe Shayna is marrying Shimshon Kaplinsky?”
Shimshon’s mother, Zipora Kaplinsky stole a glance at the boys talking about her future daughter-in-law as she stood in line at the pizza parlor, listening intently to their conversation.
The blond one dressed like a yeshiva boy, in black pants and white shirt, sported a five o’clock shadow and reeked of cologne. He grunted as his friend, short and squat with red hair, checked his Blackberry. With their cigarettes, their jangling keys, and the way they held themselves with a cocky self-importance — they weren’t yeshiva boys. They were bums who hung out all day and told their mothers they were in yeshiva.
The blond one answered. “I can’t believe it. Not Shayna. I mean, anyone but Shayna.”
Zipora leaned against the cold metal counter, getting her bearings while the bushy-haired server who stood behind the counter took her order.
Next up, the boys ordered their pizzas from the server, laughing in deep guttural tones that resembled the sounds of a rushing subway.
The pizza man gave Zipora her slice, and she pretended to look through the glass-enclosed refrigerator for something to drink to give her a reason to linger.
The sexes were purposely segregated to avoid any trouble between teenagers before they were married off. How did these bad boys know her future daughter-in-law?
The blond shifted his tray of pizza to his hip and took a puff on his cigarette. “Boy, Woodbourne will miss that babe.”
Zipora froze. Woodbourne was a block of pizza parlors — and back rooms — in the Catskill Mountains, where a good part of Brooklyn spent the summer. Where rebellious teens made trouble. It was inappropriate for a young lady to be there, unless in a group or chaperoned by her parents.
“Excuse me. Can I get a drink?” the blond one asked Zipora Kaplinsky as he nonchalantly reached into the refrigerator and grabbed an Arizona Iced Tea.
Zipora was barely able to move.
Then the short one spoke. “She definitely was a hot one.”
“The hottest.” The boys continued chatting as they walked toward a table with their trays of pizza.
Is Shayna Goldfarb used goods?
Zipora asked herself. She didn’t want to know the answer.
• • •
Reb Goldfarb sat with Hindy and Shayna at breakfast before they all ran off to work.
“Tatty — ” Shayna ate her puffed wheat “ — when will you give me money to buy Shim’s watch?”
Reb Goldfarb pinched the bridge of his nose and frowned. “Financially, it’s a bit tight right now with the wedding.”
Hindy tidied the kitchen table from the previous breakfast shift, and then placed a cup of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal in front of her father’s place setting.
Shayna pushed her puffed wheat around in her bowl in short, forceful movements. “I bet you’d find the money if Hindy was getting married!”
His spoon frozen midway between the bowl and his mouth, Reb Goldfarb paled. “How can you say that?”
Shayna glared at her sister. “It’s always been clear that you love Hindy more than me.”
Reb Goldfarb sadly shook his head. “A parent can’t love one child more than another. Right now I’m strapped, Shayna. Can’t Shimshon wait two months for his watch while I pay off some credit card debts?”