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“30k a month as a retainer,” Rammy said. “Is that clear enough for you?”
His salary in the new job would be 40k per month.
“It’s a retainer for the first thirty hours per month. Anything above that is 1,200 shekels per hour,” Erez bargained.
“Done!” Rammy said it so fast, Erez felt like a fool. But it was a good bargain. And with this kind of salary, he was financially independent, which mattered to him greatly. Dafna would be happy with his decision. It was both surprising and thrilling that in the short time they were together, he’d already thought of her as his significant other.
Erez walked towards Yogev’s office, experiencing a weird sense of déjà vu. Not of his environment, but of an emotional state.
Dorit’s hair was a soft orange glow around her face. She smirked at him. “You’re here to resign.”
“How do you know? Maybe I’m here to accept G&L’s offer?”
“With Rammy waiting in your office?” she asked, and he understood how Rammy knew of the offer.
“You want me to leave here?” he asked her.
“I don’t want you to, but it’s what’s best for you. Go enjoy life a little. With your daughter and beautiful woman. You’ll never do it if you take this position.”
He walked into Yogev’s office.
Chapter 47
Epilogue part 1: The Face I Can’t Forget
This was ridiculous. In order for Gal to sing, he had to miss everything!
Dan and Baruch, Rammy’s son and his boyfriend, were tying the knot. Since gay marriage wasn’t acknowledged in Israel, the couple had a contract made with an attorney in a small private ceremony. But Rammy insisted he wanted to party. He said his daughter’s wedding was a business event, but here he meant to enjoy himself.
“Gays have the best parties,” said the man who attended his separated-seating synagogue every day. “I want to throw the best gay wedding ever held in Israel.”
He met Rammy several times a month now that his startup due diligence consultancy, already eight months old, was making progress. Rammy used all his retainer hours every month, as Erez should have suspected would happen.
Tel Aviv had already held a large gay wedding with twenty couples tying the knot, and a desk nearby to have them register immediately in the municipality as common-law partners. But Rammy favored style over splash, and hired the most expensive venue in Tel Aviv, a rooftop in Jaffa that had its own private chef cooking the menu.
Gal would sing the song that the couple chose to walk down the aisle. The most popular song in Israel for that was “Boi Kala”, meaning “come, my bride”, but since there were two grooms, this wouldn’t do. Erez wasn’t privy to the eventual choice, and Gal ordered him to arrive at the wedding only after she sang. Then she had aggravated him further by asking, “But Dafna knows she has to be there when I sing, right?”
“Yes, she does,” he had answered moodily.
But he violated her orders. He got here early and found a hiding spot, in the farthest corner of the roof, behind where the couple would stand and Gal would sing. There was a breathtaking view of the bay, the juxtaposition of the ancient Jaffa stone buildings and Tel Aviv’s modern cityscape as they touched the blue of the Mediterranean. Erez indulged, as he waited for the reception to unwind and for the ceremony to begin.
He smelled fresh lavender right before he felt a warm weight pressing into his back. He sent his arms backwards and hugged his woman.
“I knew you couldn’t stay away,” Dafna said.
He turned and feasted his eyes on her. She had on a 1950s style purple dress, which she explained was cocktail length. It was quite daring for her, baring her neck and showing cleavage. Gorgeous. The butterfly tattoo showed one long lashed eye, while the other was hidden by the wide, bright purple strap.
“As long as Gal doesn’t know I’m here, it’s okay,” he whispered, just in case.
“And as long as she knows I’m here.”
Erez made a face, and Dafna giggled. Gal insisted Dafna attended all her gigs. His daughter couldn’t tolerate her parents being in the crowd, but since her performance at Kisharti’s offices, she had become addicted to Dafna’s presence.
“You’re so jealous!”
“I am! And she can’t keep this forever.”
“I agree. So today we’re doing an experiment, Gal and I,” Dafna said. “I told her to always perform thinking that she is doing it for a higher cause, like she did in Kisharti. If she thinks she’s doing it for others, not herself, maybe it will be easier. Today, if she chokes, then the ceremony will be ruined, and Dan’s and Baruch’s special day along it. I told her to think of her singing as an act of selflessness.”
