Peep Show (5 page)

“Keep going. ‘The main text for this class . . .'”

“‘. . . is called the Shulchan Aruch, the book that lists the laws of
halakhah
.'”

“Keep going.”

“No.”

“Please, one more line.”

“I'm not, Ma. I'm sleeping.”

“‘These are our rules. We follow these rules . . .'”

“I know, Mom.”

“I will not let you take everything I've worked so hard to build and crush it in front of my face.”

“I heard you.”

“You lied to me.”

“I tried. I tried to get home sooner.”

“You
failed
! And there's no way I'm taking you to see him today.” She stands and I hear her march down the stairs.

“Was that Mom?” Debra says through the wall.

“Get dressed,” I tell her.

“What?”

Downstairs I find her kneeling into the refrigerator. “Mom?”

“Not negotiable. Everything's going to change, starting today.”

I have to laugh. “Today?”

She shuts the fridge and moves to the table. “Your sister wanted to know where you were all night.”

“So tell her.”

“Tell her? Tell her you were with your disgusting, smutty father at his
place
of business?”

“Don't blame him.”

“I blame
you
,” she says. “I'm just putting a stop to it.”

“I forgot it was a Friday night. It got busy there and Dad had things to do.”

“And I forgot it was Saturday,” she says and smiles at me. “You forgot it was Friday and you came home eight hours late without calling me. And I forgot it was Saturday. I don't drive on the Shabbos, David. You and your sister won't be going to New York today.”

Debra walks in, dressed, and sits at the table. “Why is everyone yelling in whispers?”

“Because Mom's made a deal with Dad,” I say. “We're going into New York to see his new place today.”

“Today?”

“Yup. He's excited about it. Mom made a deal last night on the phone.”

My mother is glaring at me. “There is no deal.”

“I was very late and I didn't call. I apologize.”

“You weren't home when we left at five o'clock. You blew the deal. I don't drive on Shabbos.”

I stare at the back of her football helmet–shaped wig as she walks away. An actress, that's what she is. Playing a role, wearing the costume, the pensive and protective farm girl who thinks the truth about Martin Arbus will destroy her daughter and all that she may become as an adult. The vile, revolting truth that she kept from me for thirteen years. He owns a theater. Big fucking deal. And Debra probably knows, she must know that he isn't really
in “real estate.” Maybe she doesn't. Maybe she's as fragile as my mother wants her to be, needs her to be, begs her to be. Your father owns a strip joint, Deb. Let's go see it. Let's go visit it together.

“So we can't go?” Debra says.

“How about the train?” I say. “We'll take the train.”

“No, David,” she says. “No trains either.”

“Then let
me
drive.”

“Just stop.”

“
Mom!
Don't be a . . .”

Both of their heads pop up and glare at me.

“Don't be a
what
, David?”

“People compromise. Hasids compromise on some of the laws, they must. It's not like you're a
real Lichtiger
, right? You're an American . . . born in Nutley. Not White Russia or wherever . . . Poland. Didn't you once put gefilte fish in a bowl of matzah ball soup during a seder?”

“This is not a negotiation. You broke the trust. You betrayed me. Call your father and tell him. No one is going.”

I walk to the phone and dial my father's number. There is no answer. I hang up and my mother hands me one of her leather-bound books and points to a paragraph. I know this one well. The thirty-nine categories of verboten activities on the Sabbath:
sowing, plouwing, reaping, winnowing, spinning, weaving, making two loops
. . .

“
This
is your defense? A book from the sixteenth century?”

. . . trapping, slaughtering, flaying, writing two or more letters
.

“Not everything that is thought should be said,” she says in her pious, calm tone. “And not everything that is said should be repeated.”

“Just stop.”

“I love you, David.”

“You
love
me?”

“But you're pushing me in ways I won't be pushed.”

“I
apologized
for being late.”

“I want to go,” Debra says. “I want to see his apartment.”

“We're going,” I say. “You should be able to see your father, regardless of what
I
did.”

My mother walks out of the room, into the bathroom. I wait for the door to slam but it doesn't. Upstairs I grab my shoes, a sweatshirt, my mother's car keys off her dresser, and my camera. I run out to the car, start the engine, and my sister opens the front door of the house. I roll down the window to hear her.

“Me too. I want to go.”

I know it's stupid but I open the door and she's in.

“I can't believe I'm doing this,” she says.

I am my father. A kidnapper. I pull out of the driveway just like yesterday, just like he did.

“What am I doing?” she says.

“He wants to take you to lunch. Lunch! Okay, Deb? He loves you!”

“She loves us too,” she says, looking back at the house.

“It's going to be
fun
. Forget all the other crap and let's just feel good. It's Saturday and it's nice out. Right?”

She doesn't answer me.

“Deb?”

“What?”

“I won't take you if you don't want to go.”

“Just don't ask me,” she says. “Just go.”

“Okay. I won't ask anymore.”

She nods, still staring out the window. I turn the radio on—“Crocodile Rock”—and face her. “She'll get over it.”

“She'll hate me.”

“No.”

“I'm nervous,” she says.

“Stop thinking about it. Wanna play twenty questions?”

“No.”

I lower the music. “I'm thinking of an animal.”

“Do you think she knows we're gone by now?”

“It's not a crime to see your father.”

“We took her car.”

“She's not using it. I'm thinking of an animal. Not a human. Please. Do it. Guess.”

I look at the back of her head, her long dark ponytail. A sinner today, a villain, an accomplice to a crime. She tugs on her seat belt.

“Hello?” I say.

“Okay, okay,” she says. “Is it a zebra?”

“No. It isn't. Ask if it lives in or zoo or something.”

“Does it live in a zoo?”

“No.”

“I don't care. A monkey. Do you think she knows by now?”

“No. It's not a monkey.

“Is it a cat?”

“In a way.”

“Is it a tiger?”

“Yes. Wow. That's it. That was fast. It's a tiger. All right, your turn.”

“I don't want to play. I have a stomachache.”

“Does it live in Africa?”

“No.”

“Does it have a tail?”

“No. It lives in New Jersey and its yelling my name right now, running around the house looking for me.”

I laugh. “Trust me,” I say, giving her shoulder a light shove. “She knows where you are.”

“Y
ES?” SAYS MY FATHER
.

“It's David,” I announce through the intercom. A long silence follows.

“You're
here
?”

“Yes. I have Debra.”

“Where's your mother?”

“She let me drive.”

“Into the city?”

“I did fine. I'm a good driver, Dad.”

“I thought she was driving.”

“Should I park?” I say.

“No, no need. I have to get out of here. I'll just get in with you.”

EAST 70TH ST
., the sign says and underneath in small letters,
EAST JERUSALEM WAY
. I somehow justify my stint as
kidnapper with the Semitic-sounding street name. As if my mother would be relieved. Watching me from the car, I point out the sign for Debra but she's climbing in the back. My father emerges wearing a dark suit and a reddish tie. I don't know why he's so dressed up.

“David?” he says, from twenty feet away, and right behind him comes Brandi.

“Marty, wait, Marty!” she screams. She's running in heels, trying to get her enormous handbag over her shoulder.

“Who's that?” Debra says.

“Friend of Dad's.”

My father opens the door. “Go, David,” he says. “She's drivin' me nuts.”

“What do you mean?”

“
Drive. Punch
it.”

“You gotta wait for her, Pop.”

“No, no. She's got other plans.”

Too late. Brandi opens the back door and gets in next to Debra. Out of breath and wide eyed, just glaring at the back of my father's head. “Hey, asshole.”

“I explained this to you, Arlene.”

“Oh,
blow
it out your ear.”

My father spins and points at her. “Watch your mouth. My daughter's in the car.”

They look at each other and Brandi offers her hand. “I'm sorry. Hi. I'm Brandi.”

“I'm Dena.”

“Happy now?” my father says. “Good, be happy.”

“You have your father's eyes.”

“Do you mind if we go have a family day now, Arlene?”

“I'm not sitting on that couch all day, Marty.”

“Then go to a movie. A museum. It's New York City, for crying out loud.”

“I want to be with
you
.”

“It's a goddamn
family
day. What's so hard to understand?”

“It's okay, Dad,” I say. “She can come with us.”

“Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Finally, a nice person.”

“Where to?” I say.

Silence.

“I've heard so many wonderful things about you,” Brandi says.

Debra clears her throat and sits taller in her seat. “How do you know my dad?” she says.

Here we go. Stomach burn. I glance at my father but he's looking out the window.

“We work together,” Brandi says.

I see Debra nodding.

“At the Imperial.”

Through the rearview my sister's eyes meet mine. I put the car in drive. No one is talking. Debra sits with her hands in her lap and my father's still sulking like a six-year-old.

“Where are we . . . uh . . . ?”

“The Queens Midtown Tunnel to the L.I.E.,” he says.
“Take that to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and I'll guide you from there.”

“Queens?” I say.

“It's a surprise, a family surprise.”

“I wanted to see the apartment,” Debra says.

“I'll bring you back later, baby.”

“Is it your father's grave?” I ask, and he looks disappointed.

“We're going to a cemetery?” says Brandi.

My father turns to her. “What? You don't like the plan now?”

“You never said a cemetery, Marty.”

“You can
wait
in the car, Arlene. The Queens Midtown Tunnel.”

“Where's that?” I say.

“Just go straight. Turn right at the corner.”

“I really hate cemeteries,” Brandi says, and my father starts shaking his head.

“I do too,” my sister says.

“It's Saturday, Marty. And we've got the kids. Let's go the beach, Jones Beach.”

For a moment all I hear is the sound of the highway. I try to think of a question to ask, to dilute the tension.

“Maybe Debra and I will go shopping instead,” says Brandi.

“Terrific,” my father says. “Just leave her with me and you go right ahead.”

I find Debra in the mirror, smiling. Brandi sits forward
on the seat and faces her. “Can I see what your hair looks like when it's down?” she says.

Debra shrugs and looks at my father.

Brandi reaches to remove the ponytail holder. “Just for a second. It's so beautiful.”

The hair comes down over her shoulders. My father turns to see it and can't help but grin. “My God,” he says, “You
are
your mother.”

Brandi fluffs it like a hairdresser and reaches for her purse. “I know we've just met,” she says.

It's lipstick that comes out first. I wait for Debra to reject the idea, but she doesn't. What I see in the rearview is a fifteen-year-old Hasidic girl with her lips puckered and ready. Eight seconds in the car with Brandi Lady and the Jew laws get tossed out the window.

“Does it come off easily?” Debra asks.

“Oh yes,” Brandi says, uncoiling the stick. “It's the eyeliner we'll have to scrub at. Okay . . . face me . . . lips like this . . . good . . . perfect. Don't move. And here we go.”