Chani
Recap from last week: Chani realizes her family’s new tenants include the sister of the man she dated eight years ago – and always regretted giving up.
Chani and Effi had dated exactly seven times, and she had been so sure he was The One. She liked everything about him: his quick wit, his combination of intellectual sophistication and straightforward simplicity, his good heart. Their conversations flowed with a sort of natural sympathy and synchrony at a level she hadn’t experienced in the few other dates she’d had, and she’d looked forward to each meeting.
Then, just as she was dreaming of diamond rings and a frothy gown, Mrs. Rosner and her father had told her she had to end it. She was devastated.
Her father objected to Effi’s complete lack of money or social connections. “I don’t know how I even let you get started with this boy,” he huffed. “His parents are nobodies! I don’t care if he’s a top learner in BMG! How would I present this family to my friends?”
Mrs. Rosner said, “He seems so sure of himself already! I’m not sure that’s appropriate at his age. Are you sure he isn’t arrogant?
“And honestly, my dear,” she continued, “he hasn’t been very clear about what kind of goals he really has. From what he told you, it sounds like he’d drop yeshiva after a year or two, because his parents can’t afford a dime of support. It’s all very noble to say he doesn’t want to accept support from your father, but it’s so unrealistic!” (In retrospect, Chani now thought, Effi had been so right to refuse! Her father would have promised support and later had to back out.)
“Chani, you deserve a boy who will become a rosh yeshiva,” Mrs. Rosner had insisted. “You’re only 19! There are lots of wonderful young men out there for you. Stop with this one before you find yourself on a path that won’t take you in the direction you deserve!”
Like an idiot, she allowed them to persuade her. Maybe Effi was too sure of himself. Maybe she could find a boy who was more promising rosh yeshiva material, who didn’t come from cash-strapped, unconventional baal teshuva parents. Maybe her judgment had been swayed by Effi’s good looks and charm.
So she ignored her gut and backed off, trusting implicitly that the two most important adults in her life wanted only the best for her. Too young, too unsure of herself, she let them convince her they knew better than her what she needed.
Effi hadn’t taken the rejection well. Not at all, in fact. He was extremely confused and hurt, and it wasn’t long before Chani heard he’d packed up and moved away. Chani herself was devastated. The more time went by, the more she was convinced she’d made a horrible, irremediable mistake. Effi, in her mind, became forever the one who got away. No one else she dated had his wit, his intelligence, his pleasant personality.
Time went by, and little changed in her life except that she finished her degrees and got a job. She dated here and there, but no one ever measured up to Effi, and she always ended up saying no. Even Mindy’s husband Chezky had been redt to her! (Fortunately, Mrs. Rosner thought he wasn’t intellectual enough for Chani, and her father thought the family not classy enough. But somehow when Chezky was redt to Mindy two years later, he acquiesced, perhaps because by then the Moskowitz family’s fortunes had grown substantially.)
Mrs. Rosner didn’t think Chezky’s lack of intellectual depth would be a problem for Mindy, who rarely picked up a book. Chani sometimes wondered if Chezky might have become a different person had he married a wife who was more intellectually or spiritually inclined. Mindy, when in the right mood, had lots of energy and could be the life of the party, but her mind was largely occupied by shopping and Insta feeds, and she was more likely to push Chezky to come to the mall with her than to attend a shiur.
Well, Chani reflected, at least very few people in Brooklyn had even been aware she and Effi had dated – just herself, her father, and Mrs. Rosner, and it was all so long ago it was possible her elders had forgotten the whole episode. Zahava had been in Israel the month they dated, Effi’s sister was already living in California with her husband, and Mindy was away at school. Chani was now infinitely grateful she’d listened to all those seminary teachers who’d preached the importance of discretion in dating. But how awkward was this, that now Effi might end up visiting or staying in her house – the very house where he used to come pick her up for dates?
It was now eight years later, she was still unmarried, and all of Mrs. Rosner’s worries about Effi’s prospects for success in life had been upended in spades (even if he hadn’t become a rosh yeshiva). But surely by now, with the superlative achievements and wealth achieved with his brother-in-law, Effi would be aiming for something much grander than Chani Elman for a shidduch. He was probably looking for some genius of a girl who had launched her own startup and looked like a supermodel (and was also, of course, a baalas middos who’d founded three chesed organizations). At the very least he’d be holding too strong a grudge against her to ever consider her again. He must absolutely hate her for what she’d done.
In the meantime, the available pool of eligible men seemed to narrow every year. How many dates had she even had this past year? One? Two? There was Baruch, the assiduous talmid chacham with the build of a string bean and the personality of a potato. Hoping for something with more flavor, she tried a date with Shimon, who came from a wealthy Persian family in Great Neck. He was sweet, but so reticent she felt like a magpie chattering away to fill the silences. “I’m sorry, he’s very nice, but I just don’t feel any connection,” she told Mrs. Lowy, the shadchan.
The previous year Mrs. Lowy had proposed Eli, from Belgium. His family owned a chocolate factory. But even a lifetime of free chocolate was not enough to convince her to continue the shidduch with Eli, whose fair good looks and ease in Torah and business left him rather too self-satisfied for her taste. “He only talks about himself and his accomplishments,” she reported back to Mrs. Lowy. “It makes him seem very self-centered. And he’s so punctual it makes me nervous. How could I live with a person who insists on arriving everywhere at exactly the right time and checks every restaurant bill three times for mistakes?”
Mrs. Lowy sighed. “Chani,” she said, “Is there anyone you could find acceptable? You say no to every boy I bring up for you!”
“Yes,” Chani thought. “Find me a boy like Effi and I’ll say yes in a heartbeat.”
When she thought of Effi, she was instantly filled with shame and regret, and – honestly – longing. But how could she ever face him again? There was no way he had forgiven her, and she knew she deserved every ounce of his disdain.
The prospect of moving to Toms River for the summer suddenly seemed appealing. It was the next best thing to disappearing into a crack in the earth.
To be continued.
