The Middlesteins (19 page)

“You knew who I was before you got there?”

“I’m fifty-eight years old,” said Beverly. “I don’t have time to waste.”

“I find this flattering somehow.”

“Don’t let it get to your head. I was misled, obviously. You are so wrapped up in
it you can’t see your way out.”

He was still holding her hand, and she was still letting him.

“I like you,” she said, softening. “Don’t think I don’t.”

The fiddlers announced that they were taking a break. They passed the hat, and the
drunks began to dig into their pockets.

“We make good companions for each other,” said Richard. “It would be so easy to take
it to the next level. If you would let me be near you.” He leaned in, close and desperate.
“I’m trying to think out of the box here. Beverly.” He kissed her lips, irresistible
and soft, a young woman’s lips; they were just what he imagined a young woman’s lips
would feel like. He thought of the ChapStick he saw in the bottom of her purse on
the day he met her, forever softening her lips. “Beverly, Beverly, Beverly.” He kissed
her each time he said her name, until she was kissing him back, and the jolt to his
groin was so furious he was afraid he might pass out in front of her. “I am a good
man,” he said. They kissed some more, and he heard her breathing turn funny, a breath
unfamiliar and familiar at the same time. “I promise you.” The intention was there.
The intention was true.

Middlestein and Beverly, kissing and kissing until someone at the bar yelled, “Get
a room.” Middlestein and Beverly, taking their cars separately, a good fifteen miles
above the speed limit, to Beverly’s house the next town over. Middlestein and Beverly,
crushing their hips and chests against each other on Beverly’s overstuffed couch.
Middlestein and Beverly, finally making their way upstairs, where they would push
and pull and gasp and breathe and then wrap themselves around each other so perfectly
and tightly to sleep that it was a wonder they had ever slept apart before. Middlestein
and Beverly, two lonely people, successes, failures, a widow, a husband, caught up
in something resembling love.

T
he Middlestein b’nai
mitzvah, are you kidding me? We wouldn’t have missed it for anything. They were our
oldest friends in the world practically, or at least our oldest friends at the synagogue.
We all came up together, Edie and Richard, the proud grandparents, and us, the Cohns,
the Grodsteins, the Weinmans, and the Frankens. We attended each other’s children’s
bar mitzvahs and their weddings, we have celebrated our birthdays together and anniversaries,
too, plus sometimes Passover and the odd Thanksgiving, and every year, without fail,
we have broken fast together. And now, to celebrate the first b’nai mitzvah of the
third generation, was there any question we wouldn’t be there? Who even knew we would
live this long? There are no guarantees in this life.

The ladies among us bought new dresses at the Nordy’s at Old Orchard and got mani/pedis
from the Polish girls at the new nail salon where the Blockbuster used to be and blowouts
from Lonnie, who we’ve been going to for years and don’t know what we would do if
he ever retired. The men got their suits dry-cleaned and gave up their tee times to
a few of the new guys at the club who didn’t know to call months in advance like they
did. We all dieted a little bit the week before so we could eat whatever we wanted
the night of the party. Some of us took our water pills even on days when we didn’t
need to.

We all sat together through the day and the night, first at shul, where we took our
seats in the fourth row, the first row belonging to the Middlesteins: Edie and her
escort, the Chinese man whose name we did not know; and Benny and Rachelle, the proud
parents, with the twins, on one side. And on the other side sat proud Aunt Robin and
her boyfriend, that charming schlub Daniel; Richard with his new girlfriend (also
unmet, because no one ever introduced us to anyone), who sounded British from three
rows away, which seemed impossible (though we later discovered was true); Rachelle’s
parents, straight as arrows, cool as cucumbers; and a handful of empty seats beside
them, as if no one wanted to go anywhere near that traffic jam. The next two rows
were filled with people we didn’t know, but it was children mostly, and some out-of-towners
we were guessing, and also we noticed Carly there—how could you miss Carly? So glamorous,
even at sixty!—and some friends of Benny’s and Rachelle’s. We supposed we could have
sat closer, fought our way through the out-of-towners, but we’ve sat in the front
enough in our lives. Sometimes it’s better just to sit in the back and watch. Watch,
listen, and learn, that’s what we say.

Little Emily and Josh sang their haftorahs beautifully, Josh’s voice cracking during
a high note, the whole room restraining their laughter, Emily a sullen, brunette,
already bosomy beauty who smiled at nothing, and while we would like to think she
was caught up in the majesty of the moment, it was more likely that she took after
her grandmother Edie in her intensity. (We had all feared Edie at one time or another.
The woman knew how to make a point.) Emily pounded away at her portion, as if she
were adding exclamation marks where they did not need to exist. None of us knew what
she was singing, but we all got the message: If she had not arrived somewhere yet,
she was intending on getting there soon. Good luck with that kid, we all thought.
She was going to be a handful.

We shared cars from shul to the party at the new (new-ish, anyway) Hilton. It had
been built two years ago, and we had driven by it hundreds of times on the way to
the health club, but why would we ever visit it? We already have homes, why would
we sleep somewhere else? So we were excited when we got the invitations. Ooh, we said.
The Hilton. We had heard good things through the grapevine. Plenty of bar mitzvahs
and weddings had been held there, even if we were not invited to them, as we were
at the age where we had almost been forgotten but were not quite old enough to be
heralded for still being alive after all these years.

Of course we were seated together at the reception, the eight of us. We barely glanced
at our place cards, which we picked up at the entrance to the ballroom from a table
decorated with dance shoes: shiny black tap, pink satin ballet, bright red high-heeled
flamencos, and a scuffed-up pair of Capezios. Flanking the table were two life-size
photos on cardboard of Emily and Josh dressed in dance attire, and in the center was
a sign that read,
WE KNOW WE CAN DANCE
. Charming, we said. Isn’t that adorable? Some of us had seen the television show
being referenced and watched it twice a week before bed, and some of us had better
things to do with our time than sit around rotting our brains with garbage like that,
especially when there were books to be read. Politely and calmly—some of us squeezing
our spouses’ hands for silence—we agreed to disagree.

The banquet room was just stunning, with a huge wall of windows facing a well-manicured
rose garden backed by a trellis, the highway only faintly visible in the distance,
and there was an atrium lit by strands of twinkling lights. Every table had a different
dance theme and was decorated accordingly. Hip-hop! Broadway! Bollywood, salsa, and
krump. (We never really understood krumping.) We were at Table 8—the waltz table.
They must have run out of ideas for that, because all they had was two pairs of high
heels on the table and a box of Viennese cookies. One of the husbands sat down first,
opened the box of cookies, and offered it to the rest of us, but we all declined.
Not before dinner,
we demurred.

We were all silent for a moment. The table was covered with glittery stars and tea
candles. The room was so romantic, but something was off. We were all thinking the
same thing: Wouldn’t everything be so perfect if there weren’t two pairs of shoes
in front of us? Shoes were just so unappetizing. Would anyone even know if we moved
the shoes? Two of the wives exchanged glances, and then suddenly the shoes had disappeared,
ditched under the table. We can’t help it if we just want to make things a little
bit nicer.

Around the room the other guests took their seats, and again we noticed the new configuration
of the Middlesteins; the traditional notion of the head table was now kaput, with
the kids sitting with their school friends, Rachelle and Benny sitting with Rachelle’s
parents and Edie, whose date had now disappeared, while at another table Robin sat
glumly with her father, while her boyfriend chatted animatedly with the British woman,
who seemed dazed, perhaps even a little angry, although she still held Richard’s hand
tightly. We wouldn’t have wanted to be sitting anywhere else, but at the same time
we wouldn’t have minded being a fly, hovering back and forth between Edie and Richard.

We tried to decide if we should go over and say hello, but to which table? We had
never officially taken sides in the split. We still saw Richard at the health club
and said hello, we still spoke to Edie, who was no more erratic than usual, giving
and taking her affection and attention from us; we loved her when we saw her, but
we hadn’t been able to count on her being emotionally present for years. Plenty of
divorces had rolled through our lives, our children, our siblings, other peers, but
we thought that once we hit a certain age, we were in it for life. When Richard left
Edie after she got sick,
especially
after she got sick, there were too many ways to interpret it for us to decide how
we felt. Everyone agreed that Edie was a tough woman to love, though she was worth
loving. Was Richard saying that these unspoken rules did not apply to him? Was he
a bold individual making a last grab for happiness? Or a coward who could not contend
with fighting for his wife’s life? Was he merely soulless?

Did we even know these two people at all?

We are happy to inform you we were not disappointed with the food. The salmon—obviously
we all ordered the salmon over the chicken, because (a) we just knew that chicken
was going to be covered in cream sauce, and boy, was it ever, and (b) you can’t get
enough omega-3 these days—was delicious. Also, the sauvignon blanc was so buttery
it was practically sublime, and the women drank three glasses each, first depositing
ice cubes from their water glass into their wineglass with their spoon, while the
men, with the exception of the two designated drivers, drank Heinekens poured into
glasses ceaselessly throughout the night.

At least a few of the Middlesteins had joined us in the celebration: Robin’s head
lolled gently on her boyfriend’s shoulder, her eyelids barely open. We also were pretty
sure we saw a bread roll go flying from the table where Edie sat over toward Richard’s
general direction, bouncing instead off his chair. Richard’s girlfriend, who we had
determined had a cute little figure on her and was at least five years younger than
Richard, if not more, and who was overheard in the bathroom offering a stick of gum
to someone, and definitely was British, or was at least British at some point in her
life,
and
whom we never got to meet because we are apparently
unimportant
, made a not-quite-dramatic exit soon after this incident with barely a brush of lips
to his cheek. We watched Edie watch this, and we watched Edie smile. Then she saw
us watching her and hoisted herself up from her chair with the help of her son and
came in our direction, walking slowly but surprisingly with ease, considering her
weight, and, of course, those surgeries.

We had to admit she looked glorious, our Edie Middlestein, even as she was so ill
of health. Her skin was a bluish putty, and she had gained another twenty pounds since
the last time we saw her—was she three hundred pounds now? Three-fifty? We couldn’t
tell anymore—but her hair was dyed a deep, lustrous black color, and it sprang out
beautifully from her head, and she was covered in a vibrant plum-purple caftan flecked
with shimmering gold threads, and she wore a fantastic array of gold jewelry, the
centerpiece of which was a long braided necklace from which dozens of charms dangled,
bouncing up and down on her chest as she made her way toward us, until finally she
was leaning casually above us. We could only presume she was channeling some sort
of higher spiritual force (or dark demonic agent) to power her through the night.

“My dear friends,” she said.

Dolly! we cried. We offered her our chairs, but she declined, instead grasping the
back of Bobby Grodstein’s.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get over here sooner. There’s just so much excitement tonight.”

You look beautiful. How’s the health?

“Enough about me. Can you believe the children?”

Could you be any prouder?

“Not possible.”

But really, Edie, how are you feeling?

“Top of the world,” she said, and she opened her arms wide, and then she stumbled
a little bit, and Al Weinman, still so fit, jumped up and steadied her. “I’m fine,”
she said. “Too much excitement.”

We said: Why don’t you sit, Edie? What we were thinking was:
What a shame her husband isn’t here to catch her.

She did sit, finally, and we all unclenched whatever body parts we had been clenching.
“The kids are going to do a little dance in a minute,” she said. She did some jazz
hands. “A little razzle-dazzle for the crowd. Hey, did you understand the theme?”

Yes, we’re at the waltz table. It’s a very old dance for very old people.

That cracked Edie up, and she laughed so loudly that other people turned and stared,
but we loved that laugh, we loved her as much as she scared us sometimes. She was
just so deeply feeling about so many ideas, and when she was present and capable of
loving, she had astonished us with her fire. She had driven us to doctors’ appointments
and written us lovely notes when our children got married and brought deli trays over
when we sat shiva for our parents. She had convinced us to try sushi for the first
time, and also to donate money to Planned Parenthood, even though, obviously, none
of us had ever had abortions. When she was engaged, she could make anything happen.
When she was sad, and she had been so much lately, she could do nothing but eat.

We hid the shoes under the table, we whispered to her. Who wants to look at shoes
while you eat?

Edie laughed even harder. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “My friends.”

A smile so wide, the most charming cackle. It was hard to believe she had been killing
herself for years.

The lights flashed a few times, and the conversation level in the room rose briefly,
and then there were shushes, and then it was silent. Edie lifted herself up from her
chair, blew us all kisses, and wandered crookedly back to her seat. In the corner
near the DJ booth, we saw a stand with fourteen candles waiting to be lit, except
it wasn’t time for that yet, nor was it time for dessert, nor was it time for us to
get our coats and head home, but the wine was hitting us, the Heineken, too. All we
could do was sit and wait for Emily and Josh Middlestein to dance for their lives.

The lights went out for good, and then a
bomp bomp bomp
keyboard note started playing, and suddenly a spotlight kicked in on the dance floor—Christ,
where did the spotlight come from? This Hilton had everything!—and out came Josh and
Emily, both wearing little hooded sweatshirts, baggy jeans, and high-top shoes. The
lyrics came on, that song we’d heard everywhere, those of us who watched television
anyway and were still alive and kicking and trying to keep ourselves young.
I gotta feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night.
And then Josh and Emily danced! They pumped their arms, and they marched their legs
up high, and then they crisscrossed them, and then they pumped their pelvises, almost
all of it close to being in unison, and then they held each other’s hands and did
this jumping move, where their knees flew up in the air, and everyone burst into applause,
Edie the loudest, whooping it up. And then when the singer sang “mazel tov”—followed
by this strange electronic processed
“l’chaim!”
—the whole crowd shouted it at the same time, while Emily and Josh started this running-jumping
action around the room, waving their arms to get the crowd up dancing with them, and
everyone stood, the young people and the old people alike, and clapped along with
Josh and Emily on their special day. We don’t want to give too much credit to the
song, because obviously it was the energy and enthusiasm of those children that got
the room moving to the music, but we had to admit it was pretty catchy.