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Raj scooted Tabitha over a foot on the love seat and handed her a glass of white wine.
This was going to be good.
Steadman had been giving Nora’s current outfit the side-eye. While Raj had already admired the fit of her of her dress, the covering she wore over her hair seemed to be the target of Steadman’s distaste.
Back on their one week of plastic surgery, Steadman had given her a bad time over the origin of the traditional head coverings married Jewish women wore. Today’s head covering was quite bejeweled and complicated. It was twelve times fancier than what he’d berated her over during plastic surgery.
“Ah, you must be Daniel Steadman,” Barak greeted him.
“Doctor,” Steadman corrected him, almost rolling his eyes.
“No, I’m not the doctor in the family. You must be thinking of my twin sister, Abigail. She graduated pediatric residency in June. I’m Barry.”
Now Barak ‘Barry’ really had Raj’s attention since he was speaking with a strong Israeli accent, similar to Gal Gadot’s from Wonder Woman. Most of the time, Barak sounded straight out of Brooklyn.
“Ah,” Steadman said.
“Oh, you meant you were a doctor. My apologies. Sometimes my brain is still speaking Hebrew,” Barry said, accent still thick.
“I understand. Nice to meet you.” Steadman kept it short, trying to find a way to end the conversation.
“There are so many languages to know. We spoke Moroccan at home, and then I had to learn Arabic for school in Israel,” Barak continued.
Nora also wanted to stop this interaction and took her husband’s arm. "Barak moved here this past fall from Israel."
Her husband wiggled his arm out of her grasp. “Yes, I finished my time in the IDF, and it was time to go.”
“IDF?” Steadman was guarded.
“Yes, the Israeli Defense Force. They need more than doctors in people like me.” Barak reached out his hand to shake.
“What did you do in the IDF?” Steadman slowly extended his arm as social convention took over.
Barak waited till the handshake started. “I was a Mossad agent. Spent my days hunting terrorists. With my sniper scope, I could hit one at three thousand meters. BANG. Never saw it coming.”
Raj wanted popcorn right now, because Daniel Steadman was thoroughly uncomfortable. Barak was smiling a serial killer smile. Kayla Varma caught sight of the scene and was walking quickly from the coat closet to the rescue.
She wasn’t the only one. Nora punched her husband lightly on the shoulder. “Seriously, ba-ali?”
Barak winked and released Steadman’s hand, returning to his usual Brooklyn accent. “Joking. I was a cook.”
“None of that was true?” Tabitha squeaked out, forgetting she was supposed to be solely an observer.
“Definitely not. TV makes it look like Israel’s only job is importing Uzis, Gal Gadot, and Mossad agents.” Barak fixed his glare for a single frightening second on Steadman again. “Besides, you can’t hit a target at three thousand meters. It’s most accurate under a thousand.”
With that, Raj resolved to never go up against Barak Perez. He still had no idea if Barak was joking or not. However, a few things were certain. His sister, Avigayle Molla, was very Israeli, implying Barak was equally so, and this ‘ordinary schmuck from Brooklyn’ was for show. Then he had graduated fire academy, which meant he was in outstanding physical shape, regardless of whether or not he had been a Mossad agent.
“Would anyone like wine? We bought kosher wine,” Dr. Varma said, trying to separate the two almost combatants. “Manischewitz white concord grape. It comes in a green bottle, and it’s amazing. Have you tried it?”
“Manischewitz is legendary,” Nora assured her.
“Let me help you open the bottle,” Barak said, following Varma in the direction of the kitchen, away from Steadman.
Nora gave the plastic surgeon a wide berth and ended up near Raj and Tabitha. As a keen observer of the human condition, Raj noticed Nora’s telltale sign of a crease between her eyebrows that something was amiss.
“What’s wrong with the wine?” Raj hissed. “Or is it the surgeon smack down?”
“Nothing.” Nora kept smiling, unable to smooth the crease.
