The Right Thing to Do at the Time Read online

  Ari turns to Itche and their eyes meet, Ari’s lighter brown eyes, amber or bronze, and Itche’s darker. There is a spark, and a smile and the smile soon turns into a frown. Itche rubs his stubbled cheek against Ari’s smoothly shaven face. “I told you already,” Ari says in an emphatic whisper, pushing Itche gently away. “I’m going to see Bubbie Pearl in the hospital. Now shhhhh.”

  “But what I mean is,” Itche says, pressing his shoulder to Ari’s. “What are you doing after this and before that? Because it’s not like she’s going anywhere anytime soon.”

  “I appreciate your sensitivity,” Ari says, feeling the top of his head to adjust his kippah11 and touching his shoulders to make sure his tallis12 is in place. He begins, again, to sing, but Itche interrupts.

  “Come on. You know what I mean. This will all be over soon. The lights, the camera, the action. The month of tevet will be welcomed and set off on its journey like so many months before. So, what then?”

  “Whatever you want, Itche. I’ll do whatever you want. Just please shhhh.”

  Itche smiles. He puts his arm around Ari and nuzzles in. Ari smiles too, but not without a little bit of a gevalt.13 In fact, his time spent with Itche is largely fueled by gevalts, which, by the way, is a renewable energy source. Better than petroleum products. Makes a laughing stock of solar power. But how to get them into the engine, nobody knows.

  BAGELS OR LOVE

  AFTER ROSH CHODESH minyan,14 Itche and Ari folded their tallises, said a few hellos, bundled up and wandered into the chill but quiet morning air. They went to a nearby bagel shop and Itche was happy. “This is just what I wanted,” he said. “Having a bagel with you. It is even more fun15 than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne. He means New Jersey, right?”

  “I have Mekimi16 stuck in my head,” Ari said.

  “See! That’s why I don’t sing. That always used to happen to me. Now I don’t have that problem because I think of anything except what we’re singing when we’re singing. I think about bagels. I think about Rubes. I wonder what people are doing in Delaware, because all the great philosophers ask, what do people do in Delaware? I consider whether newspapers are meant to increase our understanding of the world or turn us into idiots (or turn us into idiots so we might better understand the world.) I wonder why people try to predict the weather two weeks in advance and why anyone ever says there is a zero percent chance of rain. I wonder if I’ll remember to light the chanukiah17 tonight. If I’ll ever understand a poem written by Hilda Doolittle. If Frank O’Hara means Bayonne, New Jersey when he says Bayonne. Why do you always get poppy seed?”

  “Is that something you think about in shul18 or are you asking me a question?”

  “The everything is so much better.”

  “I like poppy seed.”

  “But why?”

  “Why does anyone like what they like?”

  “Bad childhood experiences?”

  Ari rolled his eyes. Itche went on, his dark eyes flashing around the room and then back at Ari, with the soulfulness of a man recalling important times in his life. He took a bite, smiled, swallowed, put more sugar in his coffee and took a sip. Ari winced.

  “How can you drink that?” Ari asked. “You’ve put so much sugar in it I’m surprised it’s still a liquid.”

  “Last night I dreamed about Judd Sapolsky,” Itche said. “Do you remember him? Bunk counselor my first year. He was absurdly foxy. One of the first times I questioned my dubious heterosexuality was in his presence. And in my dream he was saying, ‘You never know until you try.’ That’s what he always used to tell me. He said it about swimming. He said it about the talent show. He said it about kissing (not him, unfortunately). But last night was a bit confusing. When he said ‘you never know until you try’ he was either talking about love or jalapeño bagels.”

  “Jalapeño bagels,” Ari said.

  “I prefer to think it was love.”

  “Love,” Ari said. “And jalapeño bagels.”

  “I’m going to be thirty eventually, you know,” Itche went on. “And I’ve never had a significant other. Sometimes I think it’s because I’m happy the way things are, and sometimes I think it’s because I’m shy. Or maybe God is waiting to set me up with someone incredible and is having a bit of trouble getting us in the same place at the same time. It can’t be easy. But he’s working on it. Right?”

  Ari’s phone buzzed. “I have to check that,” he said, though he wished he didn’t have to. His heart skipped a few beats, as it always did, in dread of the possibility it might be Mandy Weitzman or Rona Falk, one or the other near-exes wondering why he hadn’t returned their calls. He had the habit of avoiding breakups by avoiding people and this meant a lot of phone calls and text messages to be avoided, and these phone calls and text messages gave him the sensation he was being chased through the forest by fierce predators. His dates eventually gave up, but until there was a passage of weeks with no text messages and no phone calls, Ari was overcome by anxiety every time the phone rang or buzzed, not quite proportionate to its cause, but nevertheless, debilitating.

  “It’s Jeremy,” Ari said, relieved.

  “What’s he want?”

  “He says, ‘beeeee-ah-ches, big haps at shul this weekend. Get ready, get set, get your foxy-moxy on.’ Can you please decode?”

  “I don’t know. A grand personage is coming to B’nei Tikvah?”

  “Foxy-moxy?”

  “I believe that can be translated into don’t wear spandex to shul unless you’re one of the seven people in America who can look good in spandex, at shul.”

  Another text arrived. “Apparently it’s somebody’s nephew’s Bar Mitzvah,”19 Ari said. “Talia Weisbaum?” Ari shook his head impatiently. “Jeremy’s mother works with Weisbaum’s brother. Blah blah blah. Who the hell is Talia Weisbaum?”

  Itche took a bite of bagel. He chewed and stared with a glazed-over look at the far wall. His eyes suddenly opened wide, snap of the curtains. He spit his chewed bite out into his napkin and took a swig of coffee.

  “Eeeew!”

  Itche grabbed Ari’s hand. “Did you see that?”

  “Yes. It was totally gross.”

  “No. That!”

  Ari looked around.

  “That!” He hit the table with his hand, squeezed Ari’s arm. “The second I said God was waiting to set me up with someone incredible, Jeremy sent that text. The very moment!” Beads of sweat formed like dew on Itche’s forehead. He tried to casually wipe them away, but sweat was never a casual thing with Itche Mattes. “Holy shit,” Itche said, coughing and half-choking. “Holy fuck. It’s, like a sign from God.”

  “Do you know even know who she is?” Ari asked.

  “God?”

  “Talia Weisbaum.”

  “Dreamy,” Itche croaked. His voice was hoarse from choking, and from the thrill of the prophetic moment. A bead of sweat rolled down his cheek onto the table.

  “Do you need more napkins?” Ari asked.

  “No.”

  “A beach towel?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “A blow dryer?”

  “I’m fine!”

  “So who exactly is she?”

  “Talia Weisbaum?”

  “Yes.”

  “Only, like, the Jewish Anne Hathaway.”

  “Anne Hathaway isn’t Jewish?”

  “I don’t think so. But she plays Scrabble.”

  “Anne Hathaway or Talia Weisbaum?” Ari took a bite of his bagel. Itche wiped the burning sweat from his eyes with his sleeve.

  “They both do. That’s why I said Talia Weisbaum is the Jewish Anne Hathaway. Anne Hathaway and Talia Weisbaum both play Scrabble.”

  “Oh,” Ari said. “Talia Weisbaum is famous for playing Scrabble?”

  “No!” Itche covered his face with his hands. “No, Ari. Talia Weisbaum, like Anne Hathaway, is an actress. She’s on a TV show. It’s called Art School Oh Yeah. It’s like ‘Glee’ for art nerds. And they both play Scrabble.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Because I live in the actual world.” Itche took Ari’s napkin and dabbed his forehead, planting a few poppy seeds there. “Unlike certain people sitting across from me. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, apparently Talia Weisbaum is coming to shul and she’s, like, dreamboat city.”

  “Oh,” Ari said. “How’s your bagel?”

  Itche threw it on the table. “Forget it,” he said. “I can’t eat.”

  Ari raised his eyebrows.

  “I mean, don’t you think that’s weird? The timing of it all?”

  Ari shrugged.

  “Remember that time the daughter of Mason Fishbine came to summer camp for two weeks and everyone went crazy over her?”

  “No.”

  “It was our second year at Camp Tabatchnik.” Itche loved to say the words Camp Tabatchnik. He always had to pause for the briefest second to savor the moment before proceeding. “My second year, your third. It was right after Fishbine’s biggest hit came out. ‘Rock Your Lover Like a Rocket Lover.’ Wasn’t that it? Or was it ‘I Wear My No-Glare Glasses At Night’? She was a year younger than us.”

  “Who?”

  “Tilly Fishbine. I think she arrived the day Mike Wish got his lower lip stuck in his braces during volleyball. He and Jamie Potter were going for the ball at the same time and Potter hit Mike’s face instead of the ball. That’s when I swore I would never get braces. Or play volleyball. It took the camp nurse like two hours to do the extraction, braces from lip. Anyway, I don’t want to be like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “I mean, everyone was up in her business.”

  “Whose?”

  “Tilly Fishbine. The daughter of Mason Fishbine. It was really
hard for her. I mean, she comes to Camp Tabatchnik to get away from it all, to feel a sense of belonging, and people swarm around like gnats. It wasn’t the kind of attention she was looking for. She just wanted to be part of things.”

  “Come with me to see Bubbie Pearl,”20 Ari said. “She’ll be so happy to see you. It’s her birthday.”

  “I can’t,” Itche said. “Gotta be at the set.”

  Ari’s phone rang. It was Mandy Weitzman. The color went out of his face.

  “What’s wrong?” Itche asked.

  “Nothing.”

  Itche shook his head. He knew Ari well enough to know what that look meant. He stood up and inspected his barely eaten bagel, wondering if there were meaningful future moments to be had with it. He shook his head again, queasy. “I have to go.”

  Ari stood up. “Well so do I,” he said. “You’re not the only one with important things to do.”

  Itche left the bagel shop, his mind full of images of Talia Weisbaum. Hadn’t he seen her on a talk show or maybe one of the late night shows last week? He poked around on his phone and saw that she’d recently been interviewed for the podcast “Duck Soup for the Soul that’s had it with Chicken.” “Long title,” he thought, put his phone away, and walked a little faster. He was almost at the train.

  The same bagel shop spit Ari out into the winter air. He felt uneasy and out of sorts. He watched Itche disappear toward the train and shook his head. “I can’t believe he couldn’t take a little time out of his day to come see Bubbie Pearl.” But the truth was, Itche had already spent a good part of his day with Ari, and he had to work, and he had a thing about hospitals, even more so than Ari. “He probably wouldn’t even come to see me in the hospital. Though he’d probably see Talia Weisbaum. If she asked him to. Which she wouldn’t. I would visit him in the hospital! God, why am I trying to put everyone in the hospital? Everything’s fine. Everyone’s fine.” But everything didn’t feel fine. The rawness of the air got to him and there was a bleakness to everything he saw. He shivered and frowned. “Put one foot in front of the other,” he told himself, and tried to conjure the joy he felt singing.

  TWO THOUSAND YEAR OLD CAN

  AS HE WALKED to the hospital, Ari couldn’t stop thinking about Mike Wish’s gums and Mandy Weitzman’s phone call, though he was a little distracted by Itche’s strange behavior at the cafe. Who was this Talia Weisbaum and why was Itche having adolescent fantasies about meeting a TV actress? At least she was in a show about art. It made the whole thing microscopically less absurd.

  The sun darted in and out of clouds at a winter angle and followed him no matter which way he turned, like a painting whose eyes follow you around a museum. He lowered his gaze and took off his hat. He needed to get away from the knife edge of a sun whose slicing wasn’t particularly warm. But more than that, he needed to feel the air. The cold nipped at his neck and ears. It felt good. He glanced up every few seconds to get his bearings and down again away from the glare. Four more blocks. The sun went in again. The world grayed. Three more blocks. The sun emerged, but a few snowflakes fell. Soon he would see Bubbie Pearl. He wanted to be happy but he was out of the ingredients. He was tired. Gloomy. He dreaded navigating Bubbie Pearl’s despair. He understood her position on things, but what choice did she have? Stay in an apartment up three flights of stairs she couldn’t climb? Or go to the assisted-living-lite community that would grant her easy access to everything she needed. His hair was blowing about and he touched the top of his head to see if his kippah was still there. He’d taken it off, though, and remembered now it was in the tallis bag tucked under his arm. He couldn’t seem to keep track of all the things he needed to have a handle on: hat, head, bag, kippah, Mandy anxiety, Itche anxiety, Bubbie Pearl anxiety, Mike Wish’s gums.

  He went through the spinning doors of the hospital and ran into a wall of cloying heat. If the chlorine smell were just a little more powerful, he might convince himself he was heading to the pool. The building smelled of rubbing alcohol and scented candles, too. Not to mention death and institutional indifference. He stopped, turned around. Tried to formulate a theory as to whether or not one could drown in hospital air. Went back outside and took a few deep breaths before making his way back inside, and through the hallway, to the elevators. It upset him that Bubbie Pearl was in this place, aesthetically poor with fluorescent lighting, bleak grayish-tannish-white hallways, and unpleasant chemical smells. It had the personality of an office building full of drab, endless cubicles, with the added benefit of grand exits and bodily fluids. Thank God Bubbie Pearl was okay and would get to leave in the next week or two. But she was still stuck in a hospital and understandably pissed off, and he didn’t see how he was going to get through a visit with her in one piece on a day like this, when he felt, already, at best, existentially shaky.

  The hospital was alive with pedestrians. Visitors and staff seemed either to be wandering lost or overly directed. Getting to his destination required the ability to swerve out of the way of fast-moving people without bumping into meanderers. He reached the elevators and pushed “up.” As soon as the doors closed behind him he sighed with relief or dread. He would soon arrive safely at his destination, or as safe as one such as Ari could be in a room with his heartbroken and hostile bubbie.

  The elevator coughed him out onto the fourth floor and he remembered he’d forgotten to pick up flowers. He headed down to the gift shop and found himself philosophically perusing mugs decorated with kitschily over-cute cartoon cats and dogs. “Are these animals symbolic of the adorable experience of suffering? Or does somebody actually think they’re uplifting enough to compete with death?” There was nothing here Bubbie Pearl would like, but he couldn’t visit her empty-handed.

  “What the hell is that?” Bubbie Pearl asked in her thick Yiddish accent when Ari walked in the door with a heart-shaped balloon.

  “Happy birthday!”

  “Never mind that, Arnold. People my age like to forget their birthdays unless cake is involved.”

  “Ari,” he said. “My name is Ari.”

  “Oh shush.” She sat up a little, opened her arms, pulled him into her bosom and smushed his face. When she let him go, he dropped into the chair by her bed. She raised an eyebrow, giving him a sharp, vaguely suspicious look, as if he might have an even more disappointing gift somewhere on his person.

  “Happy birthday,” he said, doing his best to smile. “Cake will be here soon, so never fear! In the meantime, do you want I should sing to you?”

  “Do I want you should sing to me? Of course I don’t want you should sing to me. When have I ever wanted you should sing to me? If you want to dance on the other hand, I’m happy to watch.”

  Ari smiled more authentically. He squeezed Bubbie Pearl’s hand.

  “What’s the matter? You don’t look so good,” she said.

  “I’m fine. You’re not supposed to be worrying about me. I’m supposed to be worrying about you.”

  She waved at him. “Forget that. You look like your puppy went to Las Vegas and eloped with a hyena.”

  “And then died?”

  “Of course and then died. Always that’s how it goes in these situations.”

  Ari let the balloon go and it hit the ceiling and bounced around a little before coming to relative rest. He took off his coat and hung it on the back of the chair. He noticed a pair of eyes peeking at him from the other side of the room. He smiled and waved. The curtain snapped shut. “A new neighbor?”

  “Shhh,” Bubbie Pearl said, squishing his cheeks between her hands like a vice. “Never mind that. Where’s your mother?”

  “She’ll be here in a bit,” he said as best he could with his face in the bubbie cheek press, one of the many bubbie wrestling moves he tried to keep track of.

  “Is Joshua coming?”

  “No. Josh isn’t coming,” Ari mumbled. Bubbie Pearl let his face go.

  “That was a no?”

  “Yes. A no.” Ari leaned back and massaged his jaw.

  “What about your father?”

  “What about him?”

  She shook her head, crossed her arms.

  “You really expected them to show up?”

  Bubbie Pearl sighed. “Just you and your mother then? This could have been about three generations of strong vimmim. But you had to go and take those pills.”