The Matzo Ball Heiress (7 page)

“Sorry,” she says. “Yogurt break. I packed up that polka-dot dress for you. The one from the window. Remember, you don’t pay a thing. If it doesn’t fit, bring it back for something else you like.”

“No, no, I said I’d
buy
it from you at discount. Sukie, you can’t stay in business giving your merchandise away.”

“I wasn’t sure if you meant it about buying it.”

“Absolutely I meant it.” I can afford it, and I feel bad for these microshops. They have gushing plugs from the in-the-know shopping pages of
Time Out
and
Paper
, but I never see anyone shopping in them. Trust-fund vanities, I think, but then I remember who I am and feel guilty for passing judgment.

“You’ve got a deal then. How was your meeting at the factory by the way?”

“Fine. I led a production team from the Food Channel on a tour of the place. Actually it was more than fine. Two very cute guys on that crew.”

“Send one my way. I just broke up with my boyfriend.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Congratulate me! He was seeing two other suckers ‘exclusively.’ I can’t even, like, think about him too long without getting nauseous. So, wait, how did you get to tour two hunks if you don’t work in the factory?”

“My cousin would normally do the tour, but I step in for him from time to time. Jake’s over at City Hall, being toasted by the mayor.”

“The mayor? Isn’t that a huge deal?”

“It’s Passover season, which means Greenblotz season. We get serious attention this time of year.”

“My last name is Cohen. My dad’s Jewish, but we never celebrated anything.”

Cohen? With her Asian face and that “those people” comment Sukie had made about the factory, I didn’t see that coming.

“My father met my mother when he was trekking,” she continues. “Mom’s from Tibet, and was raised Bön.”

“Raised what?”

“Bön. It’s a Tibetan religion.”

“The first I’ve heard of it.”

“No one in America has. And believe me, there aren’t too many Bön houses of worship in Sacramento. So we were raised in Sacramento like blank pages. I may be the only Tibetan Jew you ever meet!”

“Probably! I thought Sukie was Japanese or something.”

“No it’s an old nickname for Susan. I got it out of a baby book when I was fifteen and reinventing myself.”

I grin and say, “I went the other way. Years ago my mother told me they were dithering on my name before I was born. Dad wanted Joan after Joan of Arc and Joan Crawford, and Mom wanted a prettier name, a bird name or a flower name. They flipped a coin—Mom won. But during the semester in ninth grade when all the jiggling bimbos on TV were named Heather, I made my friends call me Joan.”

Sukie laughs, and sighs. “Maybe it’s fate that we met. My mother thinks everything happens for a reason. I’ve been telling my family I’d like to know more about my Jewish side, and along comes a Greenblotz who can fill me in. Can you believe I’ve never been to a seder? Even Jesus got to go to a seder.” Her joke hits a chord with me. I’d like to be friends with Sukie Cohen, but I am sure she is foxing for a possible invite to a Greenblotz seder that doesn’t exist, so I quickly feign delight at an off-the-shoulder gold lamé eighties shirt.

“You can try it on if you like.” She points to an Oriental screen with hand-painted butterflies, next to a vintage rack of seventies sunglasses with
Polarized!
tags still on them.

When I emerge, Sukie claps silently. “Perfect on you.”

“How much is it?” I ask.

“Forty,” she says with a whiff of embarrassment that suggests she scooped it up at a vintage buying spree at a Salvation Army or Goodwill for two or three bucks.

“I’ll take that as well.”

She wraps the lamé shirt in white tissue paper and tucks it in with the dress. The shopping bag is matte white with a silk-screened logo—daisies woven into the words
Upsy Daisy.
She hands me a card with the same design.

I’m about to put it in my Filofax, when I remember our first conversation. “Hey, when’s a good time for my cousin Jake to show you the factory? I really meant that.”

“Cool! Mornings are best. No one shops in the Lower East Side in the mornings. My customers crawl out of bed at, like, noon maybe.”

“Then I’ll give you a call sometime soon. I’m usually here several times a week this time of the year. Maybe I can even do it myself.”

Sukie smiles, retrieves the business card from my hand, and writes her home number with a little
h
next to it.

The Request

T
uesday afternoon, Jake calls me again at my office. “You might like this favor. It’s up your alley. It’s exotic.”

What can this be?

“There’s a busload of retired Jews from Argentina touring the factory at four. I don’t see how I can lead it seeing as I have ten faxes from irate supermarket managers in Texas to answer.”

“Texas?”

“Our trucking company never made it to Houston, and their customers are already stocking up for Passover.”

“How can I lead the tour if I don’t speak Spanish?”

“Not a problem. They come with a translator from their charter company.”

Vondra and I are between shoots, so the tour happily delays the accumulation of paperwork I was set to tackle. Are all Argentines big on matchmaking, or just the Jewish ones?

“You move to Buenos Aires, we need Jewish women. My nephew is perfect for you.”

“My son…”

“My grandson…”

A Latino-Semitic mix is intriguing, but I can’t stop thinking about my flirtation with New Yorkers Steve Meyers and Jared S.

Tour over, I hail a cab to my place and collapse into my beloved cushiony couch. There’s one message.
Heather, Steve Meyers. You never gave me your cell number. Call me ASAP. I have a question I hope you’ll like being asked.

The call plunges me into a rare state of delight. This could be about a date. Maybe he was too uncomfortable asking me out in front of Jared and Tonia. Maybe Steve and Tonia have never had even one date, and Tonia’s simply gaga on him, too. Vondra would put up a confident fight for a man; I should take a page out of her book. After watching a few dozen cars go by out my window, I nervously make the return call.

“Just who I wanted the call to be from,” Steve says. “I had a
terrific
time yesterday.”

There’s a skip to my voice I haven’t heard in years. “I have to confess I wasn’t looking forward to it before I met you, but honestly, I had a blast.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Listen, I know how busy you are, so I’ll get straight to the point. Would you meet me for dinner tonight? Micro notice, but I’m dying to see you as soon as I can. “

Micro notice? I pause, and think,
I’m dateless. I’m horny.
“Sounds fun. I’m actually free tonight.”

“Excellent. How about Union Square Café then?”

“That sounds great. But will you be able to get a reservation there on such short notice?”

“Not a problem for me.”

“What, you’re related to—what’s the owner’s name—”

He laughs. “Danny Meyer? No. He may have a restaurant empire, but I’ve got that
s
on him. We did a segment of Great Restaurants of America there and I’m friendly with the maître d’.”

“More power to you.”

“Would you like to meet at the bar?”

“If you don’t mind, can we meet outside the Union Square Barnes & Noble bookstore?”

“Sure,” he says. “But why?”

“I want to buy my accountant’s book. It’s her first novel. Tax day is coming up and we’re supposed to meet—”

“It would be nice if you had read her book, right?”

“Exactly.”

“What is it about? Should I ask?”

“An accountant in the 1930s who was taught magic by Harry Houdini.”

Steve laughs. “I’ve actually heard about that. I can’t think of the name—”

“Hyman’s Hocus-Pocus.”

“Yeah,” he laughs again. “It got a nice write-up in the daily
Times
. That’s your accountant?”

“Irma Zimmerwitz. One and the same. She’s sold the film rights already, she’s amazing. But she’s not giving up her day job. She loves numbers too much.” I omit the other half of the truth. I never meet a man inside a restaurant anymore, since I was stood up on a blind date two winters ago. Mr. Mama-the-Cat-lover from Matchmaker.com pales in comparison to the awful feeling of being stood up by the guy I “met” on nerve.com. The no-show’s self-description via e-mail was vague enough (science writer, brown hair, occasionally wears glasses) to make me look inquisitively at every man who entered our coffee bar. I did an image search on the Internet to see what he looked like, but all that came up was a picture of a black hole. The real guy was a black hole as well: the memory of waiting there with all those people looking at me still fills me with horror.

As soon as I hang up with Steve, I spend a thousand hours picking out the right outfit, finally settling on a hopeful purchase I made at Fred Segal during a business trip to Santa Monica last April—a romantic soft sheer dress in muted pink—unworn to date. The weather doesn’t know what it wants but I decide on a mauve pashmina shawl instead of a coat for a sexier effect.

When it starts to drizzle I realize meeting a date on the street is a bad call. I’m thankful that my mascara is waterproof as I run back and forth from the bookstore lobby to the curb.

As Steve crosses from the north corner of Union Square Park and Seventeenth Street, he spots me and waves. He’s dressed in a hip dark gray suit, tapered so it fits his slim and tall build. I don’t know if I’ve ever been on a date with a man in a suit.

“Hey, you look beautiful,” he says as an opener when he’s close enough.

Lightning illuminates the dark skies. It’s followed by a loud rumble of thunder that lends the short stroll to the restaurant a slightly kinky ambience.

Safely dry inside the Union Square Café, Steve lifts the shawl off my shoulders, folds it neatly and hands it to the coat clerk. According to city lore, this is one of the hardest restaurants in town to get a last-minute reservation. So when the maître d’ comes over to say hi to us with a broad smile, and then insists on a dozen iced oysters on the half shell as a complimentary appetizer, I am duly impressed.

After I’ve decided on my dish, Steve flags a striking waiter to order the Atlantic salmon for me. As he talks out the merits of his two final contenders for his main meal, the steak frites and the yellowfin tuna burger, I sneak another look at Steve’s own striking face. The only flaw I can spot is a little scab on his chin from a tiny razor nick. What would happen if I ran a finger down the edge of his pretty nose?

We’re left alone again to talk. “Nice suit, by the way.” What a dull thing to say in the company of major charisma. Could I be more nervous?

“Thank you. I actually wore this to work today. A memo went around last month reminding us that in the office there’s a dress code. For men that means slacks or a suit.”

Inwardly, I’m disappointed that Steve Meyers hadn’t raced home to the wardrobe for Heather Greenblotz. “How did it go over in your office?” I say.

“The code wasn’t heeded at all until a second memo came the next week telling us that black jeans are not slacks.”

The salmon is outrageously delicious and the expensive pinot makes my head swim.

Steve leans forward toward my side of our candlelit table to ask, “So why are you a filmmaker when you could sit pretty on your family’s matzo laurels?”

I answer honestly. “There’s something about filmmaking that really turns me on. Its excitement, its novelty, its emotional pull. Most of all its unexpectedness.”

Steve nods his head enthusiastically and tells me about the last time he truly loved his job, the two years he spent in the Peace Corps stationed in Lesotho. “I switched my religion major to television management in my senior year. The Peace Corps recruiter, who loved my résumé, confused a television major with a telecommunications major. He thought I could wire poor towns with fiber optics. It was too late to get a new recruit when I arrived, so the field manager put me to work building a schoolhouse instead.”

I laugh. “Was the Peace Corps your first job?”

“No.” Steve smiles. “My dad always made me work so I wouldn’t grow lazy. My first job was at an Adirondack resort. I was a security guard on Lovers’ Lane. It was difficult to break people up.”

I laugh again and Steve feels comfortable enough to make a deeper confession: “I’m good at what I do now, though. It’s fun, but I’d love a bigger challenge. My boss thinks I could host my own show in a year or two. I love to talk, and I
love
to eat.”

The scent of the hot chocolate dessert at the next table wafts over, a cruelly pleasant smell that inspires Steve to call our waiter over again. I agree to a shared serving of blueberry cobbler with lemon ice milk, and an after-dinner sherry. I never diet on a date. Steve seems pleased that I didn’t put up a fuss.

“But you know what really turns me on?” Steve says.

“What?”

“You.”

“I have to admit, Mr. Meyers, you really turn me on too.”

Steve smiles, a beautiful ferocious smile. He leans over to lick my arm of fallen blueberry-cobbler topping. He swirls his tongue suggestively with the prize crumb on its tip. “Does this evening end here?”

I’m nicely drunk. “Not if you don’t want it to.”

The taxi pulls up in front of my building’s green-and-white awning. Tito, my always drowsy night doorman—a third-year marketing student at Columbia University—is sound asleep when Steve and I walk past him.

Since my co-op management crew has modernized my building’s elevator, we no longer have an elevator operator. This is the latest cost-cutting move by Westin Drimmer, the new head of our co-op board, a type-A man who lost his job on Wall Street last June. The changes to our building are coming fast and furious—Drimmer is practicing his management skills while he searches for another position for an unemployed fifty-something used to a high six-figure income.

Steve and I ride the shiny new elevator to the upper floors alongside a dogged real-estate agent with pink-tinted glasses and a triangular face who’s been showing a three-bedroom apartment one floor below mine for the last two months.

The agent and I nod hello. “Isn’t it late for you to be here?” I ask her.

The agent fixes the flounce of her black skirt stuck halfway up her ass from static cling. She speaks as if confiding a secret. “I have the perfect buyer coming tomorrow. I’m making sure the place is swept.”

“Good luck,” Steve says.

The agent smiles and turns to me. “Is the B penthouse available yet?”

“No, Mrs. Leventhal is on life support,” I say.

“Are they going to pull the plug? Isn’t she in her nineties?”

“She told her son not to pull the plug. She got her request notarized.”

The agent passes me her card. “Would you be a dear and call me when she dies?”

Steve shakes his head in disbelief.

“Sounds awful, but that’s what you have to do to survive as a businesswoman in this city.” The elevator door opens at her floor and she scurries out.

Seconds later the door opens on the seventeenth floor, and Mr. Kleinman, my other elderly neighbor, emerges from penthouse C with his fly open and the tip of his penis peeking out.

I wince.

“Good God,” Steve says.

“You need to go home, Mr. Kleinman,” I say.

“Is the girl here yet?”

“Your nurse is here in the morning.”

He offers me a hollow stare. “It’s nine o’clock. She should be here.”

“Oh, but it’s 9:00 p.m.” My heart goes out to this poor man. His pants are soaked in urine. His bare feet are browned with toe rot. I lead him back to his apartment by his wrist. “Back to sleep, Mr. Kleinman. Do you understand? Tomorrow morning. It’s nighttime now.”

“Yes,” he says. His look is grateful, desperate. Has a flash of awareness broken through his Alzheimer’s?

I close the door on my neighbor. “You’re a good person,” Steve says. “Not many people can handle that kind of scene with such grace.”

“I swear he was sharp as a tack when I moved in. I heard he was a senior vice president at Chase Manhattan Bank once, but with Alzheimer’s he’s a shell of a person. His kids have two homes each but they won’t foot the bill for an overnight nurse—so I keep an eye out for him.”

“He’s hard to miss.”

Can I recapture any of the romance from the restaurant? Is it kind of sick trying? My guest makes no indication that he’s changed his objective, so I turn the dimmer to a seductive level of light. Steve compliments my modernist black-and-white decor, which I proudly already know is in very good taste, not too trendy, not too decorated. He also admires my one collection I chose to add subtle color to the room: twelve cat’s-eye paperweights. I put on a Nina Simone CD that Vondra swears by as an aphrodisiac and join him on the sofa.

Steve pats one of the seat cushions. “Is
this
comfortable. I could sleep on this.”

Nina sings about being misunderstood, and Steve drapes his spiffy suit jacket over the nearby chair. In moments he’s beside me stroking my hair. It’s been so long since I’ve been in this scenario that I have to think about what comes next. Should I pull off my dress or ask him more about his job?

“I love how you smell,” I say finally.

“And how’s that?” he asks in a velvety voice.

“Musky. Manly.”

“That’s a relief, because it sure ain’t cologne.”

I laugh.

He looks at me and the stars line up as he leans toward my lips. No awkward saliva, no dry tongues. We kiss each other for at least five unbelievable minutes.

“Man,” I say when we finally come up for air.

“Can I make a confession?” Steve whispers again.

“Yes?” I pant.

“I can’t say this—”

“Don’t hold back on me now.” I smile.

He grins like a bandit in a bad John Wayne film. “I had a hard-on all through your interview yesterday. You’re so damn cute. You must know that.”

“Really?” I breathe harder.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you. I even dreamed about you last night.” I graze his fingertips and Steve leans over and unbuttons the top of my dress. He kisses between my breasts. “What did
you
dream about last night?”

I think, which is very hard in such a state of arousal. “You really want to know?”

“I do.”

“I was floating like a magic carpet over the matzo factory.”

Steve kisses my neck and says, “Elevation while sleeping usually means the penis is rising, so it’s not that. But it could be the clitoris rising. Maybe I slipped into your consciousness.”