Shulamis
Shulamis has asked Chani for suggestions on how her family could cut back.
Velvel’s accountant had shrunk from the task of forcing Velvel to own up to his indiscretions and accept draconian cuts. How spineless, Shulamis thought with distaste. Now Izzy was foisting the task on her, hoping she could make him see reason.
But she knew Velvel valued her opinion, and had agreed to speak to her. That evening she threw on a light sweater, braced herself and marched across the street for the confrontation, bearing a box of bakery rugelach as a peace offering.
She also brought the list of potential budget cuts she’d drawn up with Chani.
They installed themselves around the Elmans’ massive, carved mahogany table with a tray of tea and the pastries. Velvel’s fair complexion turned ever-deepening shades of peony as the list of proposed budget cuts was read off. He immediately nixed every idea. “Downgrade my car? Stop eating out? Stay home for Pesach?” he railed. “Are you kidding? I would never be able to hold my head up with my friends.”
“But Tatty,” Chani said reasonably, “how will you hold your head up if you can’t pay your debts? Isn’t it less disgraceful to cut back and be able to pay what you owe honestly than to keep spending and have to keep avoiding Mr. Potchnik because you didn’t pay your tzedakah pledge, or the golf course where you didn’t pay your dues, or Prime Slice because your account is in arrears?”
But Velvel and Chani’s mentalities were like oil and vinegar. While Chani resembled her mother in so many ways, including a certain frugality and dislike of extravagance, somehow these traits (which he’d always managed to tolerate in his wife) rubbed him the wrong way when Chani was the one manifesting them. Her argument didn’t sway Velvel in the least. His sense of honor had more to do with being seen in the right company, and living in a certain style, than it did with living with integrity and paying the piper. “I’d rather leave Brooklyn than remain home living like a pauper,” he said.
“It’s not living like a pauper to cut down on expensive restaurants and travel,” Shulamis insisted.
“And eat where? Some greasy fast-food place? Do you want to destroy my health too?”
The conversation batted back and forth for a tense hour so, the only concession being Zahava’s agreement to delay a re-do of the downstairs décor even though, as she put it, “It’s so old-fashioned! Nobody has velvet drapes anymore!” Velvel finally put an end to the misery by declaring he was exhausted and had to get himself off to bed, leaving Zahava sullen and Shulamis and Chani staring at each other in disbelief. Zahava disappeared into the kitchen, ostensibly to put away the teacups and pastry, while Chani walked Shulamis to the door. “Thank you for trying,” Chani said with a sigh.
Shulamis shook her head. “I used to think I could be persuasive,” she said.
The next day, Shulamis reported to Izzy Shapiro. “He was impossible! He refuses to change his habits one iota. He has to be able to hold up his head in Brooklyn, it seems.”
Izzy clucked his tongue; he knew Velvel as well as Shulamis did.
Suddenly, he brightened. “But that’s just it!” he said excitedly. “If Velvel can’t change his habits in Brooklyn, let him leave Brooklyn! Listen to me! He should rent out his house and live somewhere else for a while!”
Shulamis was taken aback. This was an idea that never would have occurred to her. “But – where would he possibly go?” she said.
“Look, summer’s almost here,” Izzy said. “Maybe he should take a small place in the Five Towns, or Jackson or Toms River. The difference between the rent for his big house in Brooklyn and a smaller place in Jersey would help settle the debts, and he’d be removed from his Brooklyn friends who always influence him to spend more than he has. Shinui makom, shinui mazal! Maybe the girls could make some new connections for shidduchim!”
Not at all a bad idea! Shulamis was impressed. She herself was off from teaching in the summer and had been planning to spend time with her married daughter in Lakewood, who had a baby due in July. “Izzy, that’s genius,” she said. “But they’d have to find a tenant willing to pay big money for a place that big.”
“I’ll call Yvette Dweck,” Izzy said. “She deals with high-end clients. I imagine she’ll find someone.”
“Even in the summer? Most people try to get out of New York.”
“True, but sometimes people come in for simchas, or for business,” Izzy said. “We’ll just have to daven that something comes through.”
A second reason for the Elmans to move occurred to Shulamis as she drove through Brooklyn’s leafy streets to work that afternoon. “Maybe this would take Zahava away from Rikki!” she thought, maneuvering around a loitering garbage truck. She would never say as much to Izzy, who was her father, but she had a viscerally negative reaction to Rikki, a sixth sense born of 35 years of teaching high school girls. She wasn’t sure if the girl had always been this way, or if divorce had thrown her off the rails, but there was just something about her that made Shulamis distinctly uncomfortable. Rikki reminded her of those girls in her classes who, while not overtly making trouble, always seemed to be passing notes or consulting a cell phone under the desk the minute her back was turned, the ones who would look up with a fake sweet smile and croon, “Yes, Mrs. Rosner, I’m sooo sorry, but my cousin got married last night so I didn’t have time to do the homework…”
Well, Rikki wasn’t a schoolgirl anymore. She was a grown woman with two children she’d announced she planned to send away to camp for the entire summer – on their father’s dime, of course. Fine, Shulamis thought, trying to judge her l’chaf zechus, maybe she needed some space to herself after the divorce. But her kids were probably traumatized too, and maybe she should be thinking about their psychological well-being?
And while many women feel the need to reinvent themselves after a traumatic life change, Rikki’s approach seemed to involve wearing a new curly wig that descended way down her back like a curtain (and given her particular shade of auburn, it was nothing if not eye-catching), plus a tremendous amount of colored eyeliner, and clothing that technically covered all the right parts but nevertheless drew attention to her figure. Why did girls these days take their fashion cues from Hollywood instead of rebbetzins? Shulamis had never understood it. Did the constraints of modesty chafe so badly against Rikki’s craving to be noticed? Or was this part of a campaign to find herself a new husband who could give her the lifestyle she coveted? What was that restless soul of hers craving, that two beautiful children and loving parents couldn’t satisfy?
“Up to no good” was the expression that came to Shulamis’s mind unbidden, as she pulled into a parking spot someone had just vacated. Yes, there was something about Rikki that just didn’t smell right, and she wasn’t referring to the trendy perfume she wore that was way too heavy on the musky, spicy notes.
To be continued
