Mimmy says, “There is no one on earth who loves parties more than your mother.”
I wonder if Mimmy and I are speaking of the same woman. Once, I asked my mother if she and Daddy had been happy. “He was a good provider. He was good to you and your brother. Happy?” my mother said. “What’s that?” This is to say, I am reminded for the millionth time that it is a very different thing to be a woman’s sister than it is to be her daughter.
I say, “Mimmy, is it really the right time for a party?”
Mimmy looks at me as if I am the most pitiable person she has ever met. “Rachel Shapiro,” she says, “it’s always the right time for a party.”
THREE
Sometime before my marriage ended, Mike and I drove down to the University of Miami to have dinner with Aviva, who said she had an announcement for us. At long last and a few semesters behind schedule, she had decided on a major: Spanish literature and political science.
Mike said that sounded impressive, but he was always such a softie where Aviva was concerned. I was the one who had to ask her what she was planning to do with a degree like that, which sounded like a whole lotta nada. I had visions of my daughter living in her childhood room forever.
Aviva said, “I’m going into politics.” The Spanish literature, she explained, was because she noticed that everyone who won elections in our part of the country spoke Spanish fluently. The political science, she felt, was obvious.
“Politics is a dirty business,” Mike said.
“I know, Daddy,” Aviva said, kissing him on the cheek. Then she asked Mike if he was still in contact with Congressman Levin. Though it had been a while since we had lived next door to the Levins, Mike had performed heart surgery on the congressman’s mother about a year earlier. Aviva hoped this connection would help her to land an entry level job or an internship.
Mike said he would give the congressman a call the next day, which he did. Where Aviva was concerned, Mike was more than reliable. She was daddy’s little girl. I find the term Jewish-American princess offensive, but if the tiara fits. At any rate, Mike talked to Levin and Levin gave Mike the name of someone in his office, and Aviva went to work for the congressman.
In those days, I was vice principal at the Boca Raton Jewish Academy, which serves students from kindergarten to twelfth grade. I had held this position for the last ten years, and one of the reasons I had not driven down to Miami to see Aviva much that fall was because my boss, Principal Fischer, had been caught shtupping a senior girl. The girl was eighteen years old, but still . . . A grown man and an educator should know how to keep his schlong in his pants. Eli Fischer was foolishly determined to keep his job and wanted me to advocate on his behalf with our board. “You know me,” Fischer said. “Please, Rachel.”
I did know him, which is why I told the board that Fischer should be fired immediately. While they searched for a replacement, I became the principal of BRJA, the first woman ever to hold that post, for what such distinctions are worth.
When Fischer returned to pack up his desk, I brought him a black-and-white cookie. It was a peace offering but also an excuse to see how the packing was going. I wanted him out of what was to become my office. He opened the white wax paper bag, and he flung the black-and-white cookie at my head, like a Frisbee. “Judas!” he yelled. I dodged just in time. The cookie was from King’s—six inches in diameter with an almost petit-four-like consistency. What a stupid man.
By the time I saw Aviva at Thanksgiving, she had lost some weight, but she was otherwise rosy and happy, so all I could think was that the employment was doing her good. Maybe Aviva has found her calling, I thought. Maybe politics is her calling? I entertained a fantasy of myself at her inauguration for some office, dabbing my eyes with a red, white, and blue silk Hermès handkerchief. Aviva was always a girl with smarts and energy, but it often went in many directions, like sun rays or a bag of marbles dropped on the floor—maybe this is just youth, though? I asked her, “So you like working with the congressman?”
Aviva laughed. “I don’t work with him directly, not really.”
“What do you do, then?”
“It’s boring,” she said.
“Not to me! Your first real job!”
“I don’t get paid,” she said. “So it’s not a real job.”
“Still, this is exciting stuff,” I said. “Tell me, my daughter. What do you do?”
“I get the bagels,” she said.
“Okay, what else?”
“They send me to Kinko’s.”
“But what are you learning?” I said.
“How to photocopy double-sided,” she said. “How to make coffee.”
“Aviva, come on, give me one good story to take back to Roz.”
“I didn’t take this job so you’d have stories for Roz Horowitz.”
“Something about the congressman.”
“Mom,” she said impatiently. “There’s nothing to tell. The congressman’s in D.C. I mainly work with the campaign staff. Everything’s raising money and everyone hates raising money, but they believe in what they’re doing and they believe in the congressman, and I guess that makes it all right.”
“So you like it?”
She took a deep breath. “Mommy,” she said, “I’m in love.”
For a second, I thought we were still talking about the job, that she was saying she was in love with politics. I realized that we weren’t.
“It’s early,” she said. “But I think I love him. I do.”
“Who is he?” I asked.
She shook her head. “He’s handsome. He’s Jewish. I don’t want to say too much.”
“Did you meet him at school?”
“I don’t want to say too much.”
“Okay,” I said. “Well, tell me one thing. Does he love you, too?”
Aviva flushed prettily, like when she was a baby and had a fever. “Maybe.”
She wasn’t saying something. It is probably obvious what she wasn’t saying, but it didn’t occur to me. She was only twenty years old, just a kid, a good girl. I didn’t believe that my Aviva could get herself mixed up in something dirty like that. I had faith in her.
“How old is he?” I asked. The worst I thought was that he could be older.
“Older,” she said.
“How much older?”
“Not as old as Daddy.”
“Well, that’s something,” I said.
“Mom, he’s married,” Aviva said.
Oh God, I thought.
“But he’s unhappy,” she said.
“My love, I can’t caution you strongly enough—please don’t get yourself mixed up in someone else’s marriage.”
“I know,” she said. “I know.”
“Do you? In this life and the next one, all you have is your good name.”
Aviva began to cry. “That’s why I had to tell you. I’m so ashamed.”
“You must end this, Aviva. This can’t go on.”
“I know,” she said.
“Stop saying ‘I know’! ‘I know’ doesn’t mean anything. Say ‘I’ll do it,’ and then go do it. Nothing has happened yet. No one knows except me.”