The Truth About My Bat Mitzvah (4 page)

Girls Like Who?

I was right about Yom Kippur. Nobody at school put it together. Nobody came up to me and said, “Oh, cool, Caroline, I didn't know you were Jewish.” Rachel didn't even ask, because, of course, she didn't know I wasn't in school yesterday.

I didn't feel like bringing it up to her. I felt silly. It was Thursday. I'd missed a math test, that's all, and now I had to make it up before the end of the week. Nothing had changed for me, but apparently Ryan had found a new square-dancing partner in my absence because
she
came up and told me about it.

“Oh, hey, Caroline. We missed you in gym yesterday. But it's okay. I filled in for you.”

It was the new girl, Lauren Chase. Rachel and I still called her “the new girl” even though she had been here since the end of sixth grade last year. She showed up around April as the new girl from Virginia. Richmond, Virginia. She was in my science class this year, which is where I was headed right now.

“We did a lot of square dancing at my old school,” Lauren informed me.

I responded with my old tried and true, “What was that?” which is meant to buy time until I can think of something more clever but never works. So I suppose, in reality, it is only tried but not true.

Lauren laughed, showing her white teeth. She did that a lot. “It was fun. Ryan's got really nice moves,” she said.

Nice moves?

Who says something like that? Maybe you just need the Southern accent to pull it off. Lauren walked into the science room ahead of me.

No, I thought. “Nice moves” sounded stupid any way you said it.

I followed her in.

Then just as class was about to start, Lauren leaned as far over her desk as possible. “Hey, Caroline. By the way, I'm having a sleepover in two weeks. For my birthday. Do you want to come?”

 

Now, Lauren was one of those popularity enigmas. Most of us had to pay our dues. We had to suffer through second-tier seating in the cafeteria, last-place picks for gym teams, and a lack of invitations to certain “popular girl” birthday parties. It was work just to get a halfway decent status position in the middle school—not at the top, but not at the very bottom, either.

But Lauren Chase had somehow skipped all those steps.

She came onto the scene popular.

Like being praised by Simon Cowell on your first song.

I think it was her blond hair. Her clothes, certainly. And the
way she just assumed it. I believe I am popular, therefore I am, and therefore everyone else will believe it as well. As much as I didn't like her, I wanted so badly to be just like her.

“Well, do you?” Lauren asked again.

I wanted to know if Rachel Miller was invited too. I wanted to tell her I'd get back to her when I found out. Because I wouldn't go to any party Rachel wasn't invited to.

Really, I wanted to know why she was inviting me at all.

Did she think I was someone else? I was trying to remember if she had called me by my name or not.

“Look, if you don't want to…,” Lauren pressed.

“No, I do.”

Then I crossed my legs casually and looked up like I was waiting for the teacher to start class, which I really wasn't since I just remembered I hadn't done the homework. “Thanks,” I added, to seal the deal before it was off the table.

Lauren whipped her hair around off her shoulders and leaned back against her seat. “Good,” she said.

 

At lunch, I was anxious about telling Rachel about Lauren's invitation.

I waited until we were both sitting down with our lunch trays. It was noisy and crowded and the hot lunch looked awful. I picked at my Beefaroni with my plastic fork while I thought of the right way to phrase what I wanted to say. I knew Rachel's feelings would be hurt if she hadn't been invited to Lauren's party and I was. But if Lauren had asked her, too, then Rachel was probably just as worried about telling me. I needed to say it just right, slowly….

“So Lauren Chase just invited me to her sleepover party,” I finally just blurted out.

“Oh.” Rachel looked up and smiled at me. “I'm so glad,” she said. “I got an invitation too and I was so worried that you didn't. But now we can both go. Right? I mean, if we want to.”

“Yeah, I guess. Do we want to? We don't even like her. Do we?”

“No. But oh, who cares.” Rachel laughed. “Maybe it will be fun.”

We talked about who else would probably be going, what we would wear. And could Rachel borrow my brother's sleeping bag if we needed to bring our own.

Of course.

I was so excited that we had both been invited, it wasn't until after we finished lunch, brought up our trays, and had each headed off to our fifth-period class that I realized something.

Had Rachel said she got an invitation?

Like a paper one? In the mail? But Lauren had just told me about it in school, just a few minutes ago. So maybe
I
was the afterthought. Maybe someone else couldn't come to Lauren's party and I was just a fill-in.

I was trying to figure it all out as I got on the bus and took my seat next to Megan Nichols. Maybe Lauren didn't want to invite me but she was trying to get in closer with Ryan Berk. Maybe she
liked
him?

“Hi, Caroline,” Megan said.

Well, there was nothing I could do about it anyway.

“Hi, Megan.” I smiled.

Megan was my school-bus friend. She wasn't in any of my classes but I really liked her. In school, Megan hardly talked to anyone, and I suppose that was part of the reason she was near the bottom of the middle school social ladder, but I think it had
more to do with her clothes (Megan made
me
look like a fashion model), and maybe how shy she was.

A girl like Lauren would never invite someone like Megan Nichols to her party. I was just lucky to be invited at all.

What's a Knish?

“Glad you're feeling better today,” my mom said to me that night. She was sitting at the end of my bed.

At first I didn't even know what she meant. How could she know about Lauren Chase's birthday party? No, of course she couldn't. She was talking about yesterday. About Wednesday, about skipping school.

“Oh, yeah. I am,” I said, even though I already knew she knew.

What chance did I have? I mean, my mom's a doctor. I was caught. I was just not sure of what. For pretending to be Jewish, or for playing hooky? I was getting my big excuse story all ready, but I didn't need it.

When I looked at my mother, I saw her eyes were filling.

I knew this wasn't about my missing school. She had cried so much these last weeks, since Nana died. She turned her head but I saw that she was trying to bat her tears away, blinking her eyes like crazy.

“Hey,” my mother said suddenly. “Do you want to go with me Sunday? Into the city to help Poppy. I think he's probably going to move to Florida year-round soon. Not just fall and winter. Retirement, you know. And Aunt Gert has a place down there too.”

 

My mother's face is so pretty. If I had to pick a movie star that she looked like, it would be Amy Irving, Steven Spielberg's first wife, and not just because my mother's name is Amy too. It would be because of her hair, mostly, I suppose. My mother's hair curls in ringlets, golden brown ringlets. Her face is round, like a soft heart.

Her eyes are light brown, like mine.

 

“Okay,” I said. I was lying down with my head on my pillow. “I'll go with you.”

She smiled. Her eyes were dry now. “Want me to tuck you in?” she asked.

I hadn't been
tucked in
in a long time. “Okay.”

There isn't much to the ritual. Really, it isn't anything more than pulling the covers up to my chin and then patting them down around my body, my feet, and up to my shoulders. I never liked my covers tucked under the mattress. My legs like a little “elbow room” so I can shift around while I get comfortable without pulling out my blankets. My mother knew how to do it just right, so I was tucked in but not confined. Comfortable but not trapped.

Then she always used to say the same thing:
Tight as a knish.

Only she pronounces it like its two syllables, almost.
K-nish
, but not exactly. When I was little, I used to wait till she left the
room, then I would practice saying it in the dark to myself.

Kenish. Nish. Kinish. K-nish.

But what is a knish? Something to wear? Something to eat? I just knew it was something Jewish, like
shayna maideleh
and
oiy vey
; something Nana probably said to my mother when she was a little girl.

I just never thought to ask.

“Tight as a knish,” my mother said now, but she didn't turn off my light. She stood in my doorway with her hand on the switch. “Caroline, start thinking of something you might like. Something of Nana's.”

I guess I could have told my mother about the necklace right then, but I was afraid she'd think it was silly. Or she'd say something like she said to Rachel's mother, that it was hypocritical, like having a bat mitzvah.

“Okay, sweetie? Something to remember her by. Maybe one of her needlepoint pictures or one of those little figurines she collected.”

She flipped off my light.

“Okay, Mom,” I said into the darkness, but I didn't have to think.

I knew exactly what I wanted.

Putting on Her Face

The first time I ever got to see my nana without her makeup on, I was five years old. I will never forget it. It was the first time I got to sleep at my grandparents' apartment by myself. Sam wasn't even born yet.

I was taking my bath in the tub in the morning, even though at home I took my bath at night. I remember how I loved the black and white tiles in their tiny bathroom, the matching towels, and the fuzzy cover on the toilet seat.

“Can I come in?” My grandmother knocked on the door. She was already in.

“Sure, Nana,” I said.

My grandmother was still in her underwear and I think I was more embarrassed than she was. She looked like she was outfitted in white armor, a big, huge bra and massive underwear combined into one, only her arms and legs sticking out. I couldn't imagine how she had gotten herself into it. But she had.

“You know we can't go anywhere until I put on my face.” She always said that. She had to “put on her face.” Without her makeup my nana was like a completely different person. Her lips were faded and thinner, her eyes were smaller, and her eyebrows were totally nonexistent. But I thought she looked much more beautiful.

I remember thinking, I could see more of her.

 

The very first thing my nana did was take a small round cotton ball and press it to the top of her favorite, her only, perfume bottle. The room filled with the sweet smell. She flipped the bottle over once, quickly, and then she tucked the damp cotton ball into her bra, right between her breasts.

Then she continued to talk to me while she was blotting her face with what looked like squares of tissue paper, up and down, all over her skin.

“Did you have a good night's sleep?”

“Of course,” I answered. I lowered my back into the hot water. My legs stretched out and my feet rose up, not quite touching the shiny metal faucet.

“Was it too noisy last night for you?” she asked. “It can be so noisy in the city and you are a country girl.”

“I live in Greenport, Connecticut, Nana, and I slept good,” I answered.

Because I loved the sounds of the cars beeping, the mournful sirens, the sharp voices that would drift up from Lexington avenue all night long. It was comforting to me. It was Nana and Poppy's apartment. It felt warm and safe. I felt like I belonged here.

“Now for the most important step,” my grandmother said. I had to poke my head out of the curtain again to see.

“Moisturize,” she said. She rubbed her whole face with cream, till she shone.

While I watched, I was hoping we would order Chinese food that night, even though we hadn't had breakfast yet. I would get egg rolls. Wonton soup. Fried rice. Lo mein. Maybe sweet and sour chicken. But I didn't have to worry. We always got Chinese food when we came to my grandparents' apartment.

Nana was in the middle of spreading the liquid foundation that made her look tan. She never missed a spot, and you would never see that line some old ladies get all along their jaw. That line that makes you wonder if they were blind when they were putting on their makeup, or when they asked, “Do I look all right?” that someone was playing a nasty joke on them. Never my grandmother.

“What would you like for dinner, my
shayna maideleh
?” my nana asked. I remember thinking that she could read my mind.

Shayna maideleh
? She had probably said it a hundred times before, but it was the first time I really heard it. Now she was putting on her eyes, a liquid black line on the top and on the bottom. Fake eyelashes and then blue shadow.

“What does that mean?” I asked her.

“What does what mean?” Nana was leaning in toward the mirror, drawing eyebrows, perfect arches where they must have once, long ago, grown all by themselves.

“What you called me. Shayna you-know-what.”

She turned to me, her face was almost completely on. “
Shayna maideleh?
It means my pretty girl. Caroline, my beautiful granddaughter. My
shayna maideleh
. In Yiddish.”

“Did you used to call my mother that?” I asked her.

“Of course I did,” she told me. “All the time.”

The last thing my nana did, I noticed, was her lips. She took a colored pencil and drew a line just outside where her lips really were, and then filled it in with red lipstick. While I watched she reached over and tore off a single sheet of toilet paper. She pressed it to her lips and then tossed it away.

“I'm going to get dressed now. You take as long as you want. So how about Chinese food for a change?”

“That's a funny one, Nana.”

She shut the door behind her.

When I was getting out of the tub, drying myself with a big soft towel, I looked down into the wicker trash basket under the sink, and there was my nana's fragile red kiss.

Now I wish I had thought to take it out and save it.