Mindy
Chani has moved into Mindy’s home temporarily.
Although the idea of someone else living in her family’s home was absolutely pathetic, and Mindy felt exasperated just thinking about how careless her father must have been with money to have required such drastic measures, she was simultaneously dying of curiosity to see the people who would be renting her family’s home – tech millionaires, by all accounts!
“They’re supposed to arrive today. Let’s go over and meet them!” she said that Sunday morning as she sat with Chezky and Chani, polishing off some bagels and danishes Chezky had brought home from a bris in shul. “I mean, with Tatty and Zahava in Toms River, we’re going to be their contact people if they need a plumber or the AC needs fixing.”
Chezky groaned. “Let’s pray that doesn’t happen,” he said. “We have enough headaches with our own house without worrying about your father’s entire mansion.” He still remembered last year’s burst water pipe upstairs, which had meant ripping out a wall and having to plaster and repaint for an exorbitant, unanticipated cash outlay.
“I’m not so sure I feel like meeting the Krausses so soon,” Chani said, strategically getting up to refill her coffee cup so that they couldn’t see the distress on her face at the prospect of meeting Effi’s sister. “It’s not so easy seeing other people take over my home. Why don’t you and Chezky go, and I’ll just stay here with the boys.”
“Oh – oh thanks!” Mindy said. “Yes, that’s perfect!” After all, how could she possibly have a normal conversation if she had to constantly chase two active little boys? While she could understand Chani’s aversion to watching strangers take over her home, she marveled at her lack of curiosity. “I heard the Krausses took a red-eye flight from California and came straight to the house to meet the moving van,” she said. “They’re probably already there.”
“They must be exhausted,” Chani said.
But when Mindy and Chezky arrived at the Avenue K house an hour later, the Krausses looked surprisingly chipper, standing outside in the brilliant June sun supervising the movers. While they’d left their furniture in California, they had still moved plenty of clothing, books, kitchenware, computers, sefarim, and other odds and ends. Mr. Krauss was somewhere in the back, and Mrs. Krauss, a trim woman of medium height dressed in a tee shirt, sneakers, and casual skirt, was directing traffic as two burly men streamed in and out of the house bearing taped cartons.
“I’m so sorry I can’t invite you in for coffee, but I have no idea where my kitchen things are!” Mrs. Krauss said after they’d introduced themselves. “We rented a furnished house, but just packing up our clothing and all our other stuff became a whole yetzias Mitzrayim!” Mr. Krauss, a tall man with a dark trimmed beard and polo shirt, emerged from the front hallway to shake Chezky’s hand affably.
“It’s going to take time to unpack all your stuff! Moving is the worst!” Mindy said. “Actually, now that I think of it, why don’t you just come to us for dinner tonight? We’d be happy to feed you until you get yourselves organized.”
“No, I couldn’t possibly impose on you like that!” Mrs. Krauss said, intercepting a mover with a box marked “BEDROOM” and shouting, “Upstairs on the right!”
“It’s fine,” Mindy insisted. “I was planning to invite my husband’s family over for barbecue tonight. Two more people are really no problem, and you can get to know your neighbors!”
Mr. Krauss gave a deep chuckle. “We’re not exactly next-door neighbors, I think,” he said. “Don’t you live 20 blocks away, or more?”
“Yes, but since my father-in-law is away, we’re his local representatives,” Chezky said. “Please join us! You can get to know my wife and her sister a little. We’re always happy to have company. Summer in Brooklyn can be pretty dead! Most people leave!”
The Krausses exchanged a look. “Are you sure?” Mrs. Krauss said, looking tempted.
“Well,” Mr. Krauss said, “I guess if it’s not too much trouble…”
On the way home, Mindy and Chezky stopped at the Moskowitz supermarket and picked up steaks and chicken to grill, vegetables to roast, and microgreens for salad. A quick phone call assured her all the Moskowitzes would come. Mindy felt magnanimous giving her mother-in-law an invite and a break for a change, not to mention a chance to meet these prestigious tenants.
Mindy’s hours scrolling through Instagram had served as her cordon bleu education, and when motivated, she could summon enviable energy to attack large gourmet meals. She spent the afternoon in a frenzy of activity, marinating meats and chopping vegetables for salads and sides, while Chani took her boys to the park. Chezky brought folding chairs and two Lifetime tables to the back patio and helped Mindy cover them with green plastic tablecloths to complement her rustic tablescape of burlap place mats and carafes filled with daisies. Hennie and Lieba arrived early to help set the tables as Mindy dressed salads and roasted baby potatoes.
In the park, Chani watched Pinny and Shloimie endlessly climb up the slide and shimmy down, trying to calm her fluttery stomach. “There’s no need to be nervous,” she told herself. “The Krausses have no idea you once dated their brother. Just play it cool and everything will be fine.”
By the time the Krausses showed up, the summer light was softening and the humidity had lifted. Mrs. Krauss handed over a bouquet of lilacs and hydrangeas, blush pink and baby blue, and a fruit tart from Brooklyn’s newest patisserie. “Gorgeous!” Mindy exclaimed, passing the flowers to Chani and peeking inside the box. “I’ve been meaning to try this place!”
“Thank Rabbi Google for finding us kosher bakeries,” Mrs. Krauss said with a grin.
Mindy introduced them to her sister and sisters-in-law, and Chani breathed a sigh of relief to realize Mrs. Krauss clearly had no idea who she was. The others lost no time engaging them in chatter about the best Brooklyn restaurants and best summer day trips.
“What do you girls do?” Mrs. Krauss asked Hennie, Lieba, and Chani. “I work in a property management office, and my sister is a morah,” Lieba said, and Chani said she was a social worker at a Jewish agency.
“You must be a tzadeikes,” Mrs. Krauss told Chani. She seemed very nice, sharp-eyed yet amicable, and Chani couldn’t help but think wistfully of Effi’s pleasant, perspicacious personality. “Hardly,” she replied. “But it’s interesting, and I like to think that sometimes we help people.”
“Min, I need more steaks!” Chezky cried, showing off his cave-man skills by standing decoratively next to the grill in an apron, armed with tongs as if wielding a spear. “Coming!” she yelled from the kitchen window. The effusive compliments on her food were gratifying, even if it was hard to ruin anything cooked on a grill.
Mr. Krauss proved himself entrancing to her little boys, pulling little toys out of his pockets and then making them disappear and sending them into fits of giggles with his funny faces. “My one grandchild is still a baby, so I have to practice for when he gets older,” he told Chezky.
Mindy wasn’t sure why Mrs. Krauss was speaking with Chani so much, but suddenly she overheard her remark, “I heard from Mr. Shapiro that you all know my brother!”
Chani, all of a sudden, looked seasick.
To be continued.
