The Big Nap (16 page)

Today wasn’t any different. I closed my eyes and imagined that the sucking and hissing of the machine was really my darling baby boy. I visualized. I meditated. And half an hour later I had three ounces of milk.

“Is that enough?” my mother asked.

“I hope so. It’s all I’ve got.”

“Here. Give it me and I’ll put it in the fridge.” My mother reached out to take the bottle. I waved her away.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got it.”

“No, give it to me. You’re still hooked up to the milking machine.”

We wrestled for the bottle and, inevitably, watched it crash to the floor between us.

“Oy,”
she said, as the milk spilled in a tiny little pool on the floor.

“I guess the baby is coming with me tonight.”

“I guess so.”

“H
ERE
’
S
my question for you,” I said to Libby’s husband’s friend. “If Ari Hirsch is hiding the fact that he is gay, what would happen if that information were made public?”

We were sitting around Libby’s kitchen table. Libby’s children were sleeping and she was leaning against the counter, holding a dozing Isaac in her arms. She’d made roast chicken and Brussels sprouts, and we’d eaten the meal awkwardly, waiting to have this conversation. Josh’s friend, Sam Kramer, had come to dinner somewhat reluctantly.
I could tell he suspected my motives for asking questions about Ari Hirsch. Josh wasn’t any happier to see me.

After a moment, Sam answered my question.

“I don’t really know. Maybe his family would disown him. Maybe they wouldn’t talk about it and hope it would just go away.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Mr. Kramer, maybe you can just give me some background here. Do you know if there are any gay Hasidic men? Are being gay and being religious mutually exclusive?”

Sam carefully wiped a crumb of strudel from the corner of his fleshy mouth. He leaned back and crossed his hands over his corpulent belly. “The way I see it, there are basically three routes open to the gay man who is also a religious Jew,” he said. “First of all, he can get married and do his best to suppress his sexuality. He can fake being a heterosexual man.”

“But do you think that’s really possible?” I asked.

“What do I know? I imagine it’s possible. If the man concentrates on the holiness of his life and not on his own needs, he might be okay.”

This was more or less the scenario Libby had described. “Do you know men who live like this?” I asked.

“Not really. It’s sort of a necessary corollary to that lifestyle that a man keep it all a secret, don’t you think? But once I met the rabbi for the gay Jewish center in the Village. They run workshops and have meetings there. He told me they even have a group of gay yeshiva students that meets regularly.”

“Really?” I was surprised.

“Really.”

I thought for a moment. “It seems like Ari’s parents are hoping he’ll do just what you’re talking about: get married and ignore it, hope it’ll go away. If the rumors are true, that is.”

“If he is gay, then that’s probably what they want, but we don’t know that he is, do we? Whatever he is or isn’t, he could make the most wonderful, loving, and sensitive parent. He could be a perfect husband.” Sam belched softly.

“Maybe,” I said doubtfully. “You said there are three options. You described one. What are the other two?”

“He could break with the strict Hasidic community altogether. There are Modern Orthodox synagogues on the Upper West Side that would probably accept him. He might find a community there. That’s more or less what that gay rabbi I told you about did. He’s from a strict Orthodox family. He came out of the closet when he was in rabbinical school. You can imagine what his family thought of that. Needless to say, he’s not really Orthodox anymore.”

“And the last option?”

“Lastly he could remain in the community, but be on his own. He would never get married. He would live alone, or even with a man if he did it very discreetly. He would be isolated from the gay community, but he would still be a member of the religious community.”

All this was very interesting, but how did it relate to Fraydle?

“Ari was getting married, so he was clearly choosing the first path. What would have happened if Fraydle’s family found out?” I had asked this question of Libby, but I wanted to see if Sam’s answer was any different.

“That depends. They might cancel the match. Or they
might ignore the rumors and go forward. It depends on how important the match was, and on how suited the two were for each other in other ways.”

Could Fraydle and her family have heard about the rumors? Perhaps her father had pushed her to go forward despite what they’d heard. Maybe that had been her reason for running away.

“Listen, Juliet, if I were you, I’d be careful.” Josh said.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“The Hirsches are an important family. And Ari’s uncles on his mother’s side are, well, powerful.”

“I know. I heard about the rich uncles who own half of Borough Park.”

“Those uncles have their own reputation. They’re . . . they’re not so easy to deal with.”

“Josh,” Sam said, a note of warning in his voice.

“What do you mean?” I pressed.

Josh looked at Sam and shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing really. It’s just that they’re real estate guys. They collect their own rents.”

“What? Like they’re Jewish mobsters or something?”

“No! No! Nothing like that. All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t mess around with these guys. They might not like someone asking questions about their nephew.”

I looked at Josh for a moment, wondering if he was serious. Was he really telling me to watch out for a couple of old Hasidic men? I thanked him for his warning and assured him I would be careful. I almost told him that after being shot once, I wasn’t likely to put myself in that position again, but I decided that I didn’t have the time for the explanations that comment would require.

What he said did make me think of something else, however.
Maybe Fraydle had found out about Ari and threatened not only to call off the match, but also to tell people why she was doing it. How far would the uncles have gone to ensure her silence?

“I need to talk to Ari Hirsch. Can you arrange that for me?”

Libby, who had been silent throughout our conversation, interrupted. “No. That’s ridiculous. Why do you need to talk to this boy? Why do you need to bother him? You’ll just scare him with this.”

“Look, Libby, all I know right now is rumor and innuendo. I need to know the truth, and I need to find out what Fraydle knew. The only way that I can think of to do this is to talk to Ari.”

“Ridiculous,” Sam blustered.

“Not ridiculous at all,” I said. “The other option is to ask Fraydle’s family. Which do you think would bother Ari more?”

The three looked at each other for a moment. Finally, Josh spoke. “I can’t promise he’ll talk to you. But I can tell him who you are. The rest is up to you.”

J
OSH
agreed to speak to Ari the next day. Libby handed Isaac to me and stiffened when I hugged her. She did not return my embrace. I hoped I hadn’t lost a friend.

I found Ruby still awake and waiting for us at my parents’ front door.

“Hi, kiddo,” I said. “Did you have fun with Grandma and Grandpa? Did you go visit Bubba in the nursing home?”

She nodded, but, with a trembling lip, whispered, “I miss Daddy.”

I handed Isaac to my mother and scooped Ruby up in my arms. I kissed her on the cheek. She buried her face in my neck and started to cry.

I said, “I know, honey. It’s hard to be away from Daddy. I miss him, too. Should we give him a call?” We’d already spoken to Peter about three hundred times in the two days
we’d been gone, but another call wouldn’t hurt. I settled her on one hip and reached for the phone. I dialed Peter’s cell phone number, since I was pretty sure I’d find him on the set.

It rang twice and then a female voice answered, “Hi!”

I felt a wave of intense jealousy crash over me, utterly obliterating all the good feelings generated by our loving moments at Miserable Mindy’s party and at the airport. Now, I know that my husband is crazy about me, and I know that he would never cheat on me. But there’s something about being postpartum, even four months postpartum, that makes you feel vulnerable. The problem isn’t that you’re still carrying around that extra pregnancy weight, although that doesn’t help. It’s not even that sleep deprivation has etched permanent black smudges under your eyes and in your mood. The real problem is that the very last thing in the universe you feel like doing is touching any human being other than your baby, and that includes your husband. When you’re a nursing mother, your body belongs to someone else. You are perpetually available to satisfy the physical demands of your baby. The idea of satisfying another person’s physical desires, no matter how much fun that might end up being for you personally, is just too much. At least that’s how I felt. There I was, a woman who loved her husband desperately but who had about as much interest in sex as in skydiving; less, in fact. And there she was, whoever she was, with her breathy little “Hi!”

“This is Juliet. Is my
husband
there?” Icicles dangled from my words.

“Juliet! It’s so wonderful to hear from you! We were just wondering how you and your adorable kids are doing!”

We? “Who is this?” I asked, not defrosting in the least.

“Oh, I’m sorry. This is Mindy Maxx.”

“No,
I’m
sorry,” I replied. “I thought I dialed Peter’s cell phone. I must have gotten your number by mistake.”

Mindy and I both knew that I didn’t know her cell phone number. Obviously, I couldn’t really believe I’d miraculously dialed it instead of Peter’s. She would have had to be a total moron not to understand how angry and suspicious I was.

She wasn’t an idiot. “Juliet, I just picked up Peter’s phone. We’re in the production trailer going over the rushes and I just picked it up off the table where he left it. Honestly.”

There was a scuffling noise and then Peter’s voice came on the line.

“Hey, honey!” he said. “Sorry about that. Mindy just grabbed my phone as a joke.”

“Ha ha ha,” I said.

He paused, as if he was trying to figure out why I was upset. Are all men this clueless? “Let’s talk about this later, okay?” he said.

“Whatever. Your daughter wants to talk to you.” I handed Ruby the phone and walked out of the kitchen, tears in my eyes. I grabbed Isaac from my mother and sat down on the couch and buried my nose in his soft little neck. He giggled deliciously.

“
You
love me best, don’t you?” I whispered in his ear.

He grabbed a clump of my hair and shoved it in his mouth. I listened while Ruby chatted animatedly with her father. That little girl sure loved her Daddy.

“What’s wrong,
mamaleh
?” my father asked, leaning forward in his chair. He patted me on the knee. “Did Peter say something?”

“No,” I sighed. “I’m just jealous of Mindy, his new best friend.”

“What are you jealous for? You’re a beautiful woman. You’re the mother of his children. What do you care if he has some friend? He loves
you
!”

“I know. It’s just that things haven’t been very much fun around the house lately. I can’t blame him for enjoying her company more than mine. At least she doesn’t smell like spit-up. And I’m not beautiful, by the way.” Now I was fishing.

“Yes, you are. You’re gorgeous. Lovely. A little
zaftig
, maybe, but that’s very attractive. Who wants to sleep with a bag of bones?”

Great. Even my own father thought I was fat.

“For God’s sake, Gene,” my mother said, whacking my father on the back of the head with a magazine. “She’s not
zaftig
! What are you saying?
Zaftig.
You idiot.”

“Stop hitting me!”

“What hitting? I tapped you on the head. I should show you hitting.”

By now I’d stopped crying and was just laughing. My parents, the Jewish Honeymooners. I handed Isaac to my dad and went back into the kitchen. I took the phone away from Ruby, unwinding her from the cord she’d managed to wrap around her neck and waist.

“Hi. Sorry,” I said.

“Me, too,” Peter said. “Why don’t you come home so we can fight in person? That way we’d at least get to have make-up sex.”

“We could have make-up phone sex.” I suggested.

“Hmm. Maybe. Where are your parents?”

“Right here.”

“Never mind.”

“We’re coming home soon.”

“I know. I love you, Juliet.”

I started to cry again. “I know. I love you, too.”

“I love you too, too.”

“I love you too, too, too.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” my mother said, pushing past me into the kitchen. “What are you, a couple of teenagers? You miss him so much, you should go home.”

“I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here and watch you and Daddy hit each other with newspapers.”

“It wasn’t a newspaper! I tapped him with a magazine. You and your father. The two of you should go down to City Hall and get yourselves a restraining order.”

I laughed. “Hey, Peter? Have I ever told you how insane my parents are?”

“I figured that out all by myself,” he said. “Listen, I’d better go. We’re in the middle of something.”

“Okay, honey. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

We hung up.

My mother was pulling covered dishes out of the refrigerator. “I’m heating up leftover chicken for a little late-night snack,” she said.

“Sounds fine to me.”

“You should go visit Bubba tomorrow morning.”

“I will.”

“So how did it go today? Did you find your girl, what’s her name? Fruma?”

“Fraydle. No, I didn’t. I don’t think she’s in New York.” I recounted my conversation with Sam.

“Sounds to me like you need to speak to that boy,” my mother said.

“I thought of that myself. I asked Josh, Libby’s husband, to call him for me.”

“Why not just call him yourself?”

“That’s a terrible idea, Mom. What am I going to say,
‘Hi there, Ari. Are you queer and did you make your fiancée disappear by any chance?’”