Dating Kosher (11 page)

“So that little slut gets
my
wedding and I’m the only Jew within a fifty-mile radius who won’t be attending.”

I wanted to smack her in the face, tell her to stop whining and just get on with her life. I wanted to tell her to just get a grip and grow up…

Oh my God. It hit me in that second. I was my mother. Maybe that’s why Dad had been so harsh with me. Maybe he didn’t want to see me end up like this.

I looked across the table, watching my mother’s lips move at Mach four while her hands flailed about. I squinted. Sure: subtract twenty or so years from her and I’d be looking into the mirror. Okay, that did it.

“Mom, stop it.” I said. She didn’t hear me over her own voice or was just too far gone to put on the brakes.

“Mom!”

“What?” she looked around. “What’s going on?”

“I want you to stop bad mouthing Dad and Susan. No matter what happened between you and them, he’s still my father and I don’t want to listen to your crap anymore. And you know what?”

She was stunned, mouth agape.

Jenzo, who served us every week, arrived at the table with our platters of sushi. We waited in silence until he had placed them on the table. I smiled up at him, trying to release some of the tension that I was sure he was sensing. “Thank you, Jenzo, we’ll have a couple more martinis, please.”

Once he was out of earshot, I continued. “What you are doing is dwelling on something that you can’t change anyway. Stop being so bitter about it and move on with your life.”

She picked up her chopsticks and very deliberately poured some soy sauce into the little square dish. “I am not the one that ended the marriage, Shoshanna. This was not my choice.”

“Mother, I realize that. I know you got screwed over, but dwelling on it isn’t doing anyone any good. Do you think that you will ever feel better about it if you keep harassing Dad? Not likely. He does feel bad and I’m sure he’s told you as much, but going on and on about it is mostly just hurting you.”

With her chopsticks, Mom picked up one of the salmon rolls and dipped it daintily into the soy sauce. She looked at me and opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. When she opened it again, her tone was a little less frantic than it had been only the moment before. “I don’t care what your father tries to get you to do, I need to live my own life the best way I can.” She popped the whole roll into her mouth.

“I am not saying this for Dad, Mother. I am saying this for your own good.” I dunked my California roll into my own little pool of soy and wasabi before raising it to my lips. “And you know what?” I suspended the chopsticks. “I’m tired of your bullshit and until you get over it, I don’t think I want to meet you on Tuesdays anymore.”

All the color, save for what was cosmetically applied, drained from Mom’s face. “What are you saying, Shoshi?” her question came out more like a whine.

“I’m saying that you need to grow up and get over the whole thing about Dad. And until you do and can promise me that you aren’t going to mouth off about him, I’m not interested in hanging out with you.”

“You are being ridiculous!” she snorted, reaching for her glass. She wasn’t taking me seriously.

“Perhaps I am.” I calmly finished my drink and placed my chopsticks neatly on top of the sushi dish. In a move echoing my father’s from two days before, I grabbed my purse and left the restaurant, not even turning around to see the shocked look that surely had appeared on my mother’s face.

Once out of the restaurant I burst into tears but continued power-walking the few blocks to the train station. I didn’t want to risk Mom leaving the restaurant to find me a slobbering mess just outside.

As I dabbed at my eyes with a Kleenex I found crumpled up in the bottom of my purse, I wondered if Dad had been this upset when he had left me in the same way on Sunday.

Probably.

Chapter 16

“Why won’t you go out with me?” Mr. Blue Collar—Nate asked, standing at my reception counter. He’d just been for his massage with Bev and looked all sleepy-eyed and beyond relaxed. Bev was a pro; I too had emerged from one of her massages a virtual pleasure zombie.

“I’ve got a boyfriend,” I said. It was the quickest and easiest excuse, and it rolled off my tongue very convincingly. Or so I thought.

“I don’t believe you,” he said.

Pretty cocky. I looked up at him and squinted. “Why don’t you believe me?”

“I just don’t. But I’m right aren’t I?” He turned his head, looking at me out of the corners of his eyes. He sure seemed to love the challenge.

I buckled. “Okay, fine. Yes, you’re right. I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“So tell me why you won’t go out with me.”

Well, Mr. Blue Collar, the reasons are many, but allow me to brief you
(I felt so lawyerly in my own brain):

1. You are an air conditioning guy, thus, therefore and ergo, you are blue collar, and as we all know by now, blue is the wrong color for Shoshanna Rosenblatt
   
2. It is unlikely that you could treat me as I need to be treated. i.e. dinners out, theater tickets (no cheap matinees, either), jewelry, etc.
   
3. You are obviously not Jewish. This will not do for a nice Jewish girl whose parents, although divorced, would in unison decree that a
   shaygetz
   is an unacceptable match for their daughter.
   
4. I met you at work and I’m not allowed to date clients (since Marjorie, a now ex-employee outed one of Manhattan’s infamous and very married society ladies –
   très
   embarrassing for Rita)
   
5. You’re ugly. (Okay, I’m lying just to make a number five. Four reasons don’t quite seem like enough. I’ll admit it, you’re incredibly hot. I’m ashamed to say that if you put on a tool belt, I might just melt into my chair.)
   

Of course, I didn’t say any of this out loud but just gave him an amused smirk as it all ran through my head at turbo speed.

“I don’t fraternize with clients, it’s against the rules,” was what eventually came out of my mouth.

“You don’t look like the kind of girl that goes by the rules, Shoshanna.” He had remembered my name, his eyes unwavering on my own, not having to drop to my name tag. Or maybe he’d looked at my rack earlier when I hadn’t been looking. Either way, I was impressed now as he said it, looking into my eyes.

He was shamelessly flirting with me and I was loving it. Though, for reasons of self-preservation, I pretended to be unaffected. “We should square up for your massage,” I said, my voice a little rough.

A Visa card appeared over the counter. “Can you add a good tip for Bev and also a gift certificate for another massage? I think my sister would really like to come here.”

I nodded and took the card from him without looking up. Casually looking at the embossed letters, I learned his whole name. Nathan Cooper. Hmm. I knew some Jewish Coopers in the city. Dare I hope?

I looked up. “Any relation to Jeff and Frieda Cooper? They go to the Temple Sinai Synagogue.”

He shook his head. “There are a lot of Coopers out there, but I know I’m not related to
them.
I’m not one of the
Jewish
Coopers.”

Damn. Ah well, refer back to reason * * *3.

I told him the total of today’s bill (including a generous but not crazy-generous tip for Bev). He nodded so I swiped his card and put the machine on the counter for him. Bev came walking up from the back.

He turned and looked at her. “Thanks again, Bev,” he said.

Bev giggled like a schoolgirl, “Anytime, Nate. Hope you liked it.”

“Well if I’m supposed to feel like a wet noodle right now, you definitely did a great job.”

I snorted and watched as he pulled the Visa slip off the machine—I hated when clients did that themselves, but I had to be polite and just wait for them to finish.

“Tell me, Bev,” Nate turned completely toward her so his broad back was to me. “Why won’t your friend go out with me?”

Bev’s eyes widened and darted to mine.

“Don’t look at her, just answer me.” His tone was jovial, but I could tell he was looking for the real answer.

If ever there was a time when Bev needed psychic ability, it was now. I concentrated every brain cell in my head on firing at Bev, hoping she would give him the same excuse I had.

“She’s got a boyfriend.”

Oh shit, I telepathically sent excuse A instead of excuse B.

He turned back around to look at me. Behind his back, Bev’s raised eyebrows and big thumbs up indicated that she thought she’d done well.

“A boyfriend, huh? Interesting.”

I was so busted.

“Okay, okay, here’s the truth. We’re
really
not allowed to go out with clients, and I’m not looking to lose my job, okay?”

“I could stop being a client?”

I shook my head. “That’s not the point, if Rita heard you stopped coming here in order to date me, that would be just as bad. Nope, sorry, it’s not gonna happen.”

Nate sighed, seemingly ready to accept that I wouldn’t date him. “Well if that’s the case, I’d like a standing massage appointment at this time on Thursdays.” He smiled over at Bev.

Wow, he was planning on spending money every week on massages? We weren’t the most expensive spa around, but neither were we the cheapest. I’m embarrassed to admit that I wouldn’t have been able to afford a massage a week without a parental cash injection. That
he
could was surprising for a grease monkey. All this ran through my head as I turned toward my computer blocked out the next month’s worth of appointments on my computer.

“Sounds good by me,” Bev said.

Nate looked down at the Visa slips he’d torn off and placed on the counter before he grabbed one and shoved it into his pocket, tucking the other under the machine.

I turned to Bev as I dug in my desk for a gift certificate to fill out for him. “You all done back there?”

Bev nodded and sighed, echoing my own relief at the day being over. I was almost ready to go; other than Nate, it had been a slow night and I was able to tally up the day’s receipts before close. I recorded the number and handed Nate the gift certificate after filling it out.

He thanked me and smiled at us both. “Have a great week ladies. See you next Thursday,” he said before turning and striding out the front door. Bev followed and locked the door behind him, watching him walk away.

“He is just so hot,” she said when she finally turned back toward me.

I snorted. I opened the cash drawer to put Nate’s Visa slip in but noticed some extra scribbling on the back. It was his phone number, written in neat block letters. Underneath it, there were three words:

Call me, Shoshanna.

Before Bev could see it, I shoved it into the drawer, phone number side down.

“He’s got a tattoo on his shoulder. I’m so into guys with ink,” Bev said.

Turning off the computer monitor, I got up from my chair. “You’re only into guys with tattoos because you’re shit scared of getting one yourself.”

“I don’t see you running and getting one.” Bev turned off most of the lights, leaving the one at the front on for security.

“What do I need a tattoo for?”

Bev shrugged. “They’re just cool, that’s all.”

“What was his tattoo of?”

“A parachute.”

“Huh?”

Bev clucked her tongue. “A parachute. You know, like when you jump out of a plane?”

“I am familiar with the concept of skydiving, Bev.” I just thought it was odd for a man to have a tattoo of a parachute. I was used to seeing Celtic designs and even the odd dragon or astrological sign or even a sleeve of intricate designs, but never a parachute. Maybe skydiving was his hobby. Yuck. I shivered at the thought of jumping out of a plane. To me, an adrenaline rush was Black Friday at Macy’s with my dad’s Amex card.
That
was excitement.

“Let’s get out of here,” Bev said.

I nodded and we headed to the back to grab our purses and set the alarm.

* * *

Friday morning meant it was my day off. I was dozing in bed, not ready to get up but well past my nine-hour sleeping maximum, half-dreaming half-fantasizing about Brad Pitt (from the old days before he got so grisly). It was going really well: Angelina was out of the picture and Brad and I were lounging by the pool, feeding each other Skittles. Suddenly, my mother appeared in the doorway of the mansion, shrieking, “He’ll just cheat on you, Shoshanna, all men are pigs, think of your father!”

Thankfully my phone rang, ending the good dream gone very bad. I slid my arm out from under the covers and grabbed the cell off my nightstand, bringing it to my exposed ear.

“Hello?” I groaned.

“Hi Shoshanna, it’s Rita.”

“Oh, hi.” Oh God, please don’t call me in to work today, I prayed. Then panic set in; I sat up and prayed I hadn’t screwed something up. I mentally went through everything I’d done at work the night before but couldn’t think of anything I’d missed.

“Don’t worry, I don’t need you to come in. I was just going through yesterday’s receipts and I saw your name and a phone number on the back of a Visa slip.” Rita sounded positively giddy. Sometimes it was hard to believe she was a fifty-five-year-old grandmother. She sure didn’t act like it, and thanks to her own products didn’t look it either.

I opened my eyes, blinking a few times to focus. “Oh, that’s the air conditioning guy. He’s come in a couple times and keeps asking me out. Don’t worry, I keep turning him down.”

“I know, Bev told me.” Rita paused. “So, are you going to call him?”

I blinked several times, trying to clear my brain so I could understand what she was saying. “Uh, no. And even if I wanted to, you said we’re not allowed to date clients.”

“I might make an exception in this case. Shosh, that guy is
rowr
!”

It was obvious Rita just wanted to live vicariously through some torrid affair that she was sure I would have with the air conditioning guy. I tried to let her down easy. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Rita, but he’s just not my type.”

She made a noise. “What, you’re not into hot men?”