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“I tried to tell her you were very busy,” Kathy said, her arms folded over her ample chest. David resisted the urge to shrug. He hadn’t really developed the knack for explaining to people that his daughter didn’t see his job as anything special. Sure, she understood that on Shabbat, daddy--he rather liked she preferred the Yiddish tateh--led services, and lots of people wanted him to help with things, but to her the Torah was just a thing in his office. The child was only four, for God’s sake.
“Dani is a big help with this part,” David said to Kathy, then looked at his daughter, lifting the triangular post-it pad. “Aren’t you?”
“Can I stick the paper?” Dani said, legs kicking in excitement. David caught one of her flailing limbs and nodded conspiratorially.
“Right where I point, remember?” David said, turning back to the lectern, “It’s important to get it just right.”
“Cause if I miss then somebody’s going to say the wrong words,” Dani said, her chubby fingers clutching the post-it like it was something much more important.
“Exactly,” David said. He looked at Kathy. The lady had been the congregation secretary since the flood, or at least since the nineties. She had a very specific way of doing things and she was willing to do what David asked her to, but she made sure he knew that in the end her way was probably going to be more efficient. “Would you like to help, Kathy? Dani will share, won’t you, Dani?”
“You have to stick the paper just right, though,” Dani said to Kathy. Her brow furrowed in a way that made David think she was mimicking his most serious face. “You can do good at that, right?”
“I’ll do my very best,” Kathy said, something that could have been amusement flickering on her face. David got it, his kid was diabolical when it came to goodwill. He reached into his pocket, handing another colored post-it pack to Kathy. He used different colors for morning and evening services. She took it, looking to Dani as though for further direction, and stepped back so that he could reference the printed page. He appreciated her forethought.
“Okay, Dani, it’s going to go right there,” he said, using the silver yad with its finger-shaped tip to hover above a section of calligraphy. His daughter peeled a post-it from the pad very slowly. Her little tongue was peeking out of the side of her mouth and he bit his lip to keep from laughing. David glanced sideways at Kathy and the older woman’s attention was similarly on the girl. Her own face was a mirror of Dani’s serious concentration.
The little girl used both hands to align the post-it and then place it on the vellum. She looked up at Kathy and said importantly, “You have to do it this way, cause we can’t touch the Torah with our hands.”
“Oh, I see,” Kathy said, as though this were entirely new information for her. “I’ll be very careful.”
David was grateful for this congregation, he realized. He had been worried when he made the decision to leave Maryland. But they had accepted him with open arms, joyfully, even. So much so that his worries about Dani’s transitioning to a much smaller support network seemed entirely unfounded.
Two
“What do you think, Deev, too much?” Shoshana walked out of the closet, tying the wrap dress closed. Her large, gray cat yawned. She laughed because she hadn’t really expected anything less. “Well I can’t just go in the leggings I wore to work. They have the holes, you know?”
D’varim, Deev to his friends, began to methodically lick his own butt.
“You could at least pretend to care, dude,” Shoshana said as she eyed herself critically in the mirror. It was so rare that she wore anything dressier than dark-wash jeans. She knew she looked good, but she wondered if she lookedtoogood. It was one thing to go to services with Leah and Abigail, sure that wasn’t a thing she did… well at all really, but it was quite another to show up wearing something that looked like she was going to go on a date later.
Would she wear this dress on a date? She cocked her head and turned to the side, her hands on her hips. Well, maybe if she adjusted the wrap bit so the neckline was lower. She wondered if she should be wearing Spanx. It was eighty-five degrees outside, she was already skipping the pantyhose. She probably should commit to foundation garments.
Deev made a sound in his throat that was somewhere between a growl and a chirp. Shoshana sighed.
“It’s the bubbes, okay? If I were just going out for drinks this would befine.”
The cat blinked at her, long and slow. D’varim had a long, old-man face. It made him look otherworldly. It was probably also why she was so willing to talk to him. She’d never talked to her pets before. He lifted one of his massive paws, inspected his toe beans, and then placed it back down on the bed so his front paws were crossed. The cat could have been posing for his headshot for Psychology Today: Feline Edition.
“Don’t look at me like that, I’m not being paranoid,” she said over her shoulder, fingers plucking at the long lariat necklace that dangled down her throat.
Deev made a sound that was definitely a chirp.
“And I’m not covering my hair,” this was said more defiantly that she meant to. She was overdue for a touchup, so the pink in her hair was more faded than she would have liked, but her hair was decidedly pink. More a brownish mauve at the roots, fading to a pastel at the ends, shades of magenta and peony and pepto mixed in for flair—it was her favorite of all the colors her hair had been over the years.
But she knew the bubbes. They’d either love it or they’d decide she was an abomination.
She considered a scarf for a brief moment. Plenty of women more observant than she was, chose to cover their hair for services. It wouldn’t be completely out of the ordinary if she decided to do that. Never mind that she would be doing it because she was a coward who didn’t want to deal with commentary on her hair choices.
Of course, Abigail would know immediately why she was doing it and would never let her live it down.
Deev jumped down from the bed, winding his big, floofy body around her leg. She reached down to give his head a good scritch. He was a judgmental, twenty-pound monster, but she loved him. Her phone buzzed on the vanity, reminding her of the time, and she straightened. No, she wouldn’t cover her hair. She was just going to Friday night Shabbat services, there was no need to second guess her entire life.
“This rabbi better be sex on a stick,” she told the cat. Anything less than that would be a letdown after the amount of preparation this was taking.
* * *
“This rabbi is sex on a stick,” Shoshana murmured behind her prayer book.
