Chani
Recap from last week: Effi Weinberg prepares to come to Brooklyn, while Chani prepares to leave it.
Chani was trying to work on her middos, she really was, but sometimes it was a real challenge to deal with her family. With the house rented, they were all expected to clear out by early June. She had absolutely no interest in going to Toms River—what was she supposed to do there all summer, even if the house had a pool? “Let her stay with Mrs. Rosner, then! We don’t need any extras,” Zahava had sniffed to her father when Chani expressed her dismay.
As for moving out, her father hadn’t the foggiest idea how to go about it. Was he really expected to pack up all his stuff? He felt faint every time he thought about it. He had never once had to do anything more complicated than packing a suitcase for vacations or holiday hotel programs, and this only after his wife passed away.
The tenants had quite graciously agreed to let the Elmans store winter clothing and housewares in the basement. Chani had offered to leave them basic kitchenware, as well as some linens and towels, as the Krausses would be leaving most of their affairs in their closed-up Palo Alto home. Their books could stay on the shelves, but they’d still have to bring along whatever small appliances they’d want in the new place—the cappuccino machine, the vacuum…oy, this was as bad as making Pesach!
Zahava packed her own things and her father’s, but the prospect of leaving her home to strangers was so distasteful she couldn’t bring herself to get involved with any more of it. She and Velvel left the house with their suitcases one sunny June morning and left Chani to handle all the rest. As a token gesture of helpfulness, Zahava left her the name of a high school acquaintance who’d become a personal organizer. “And who’s going to pay for her services?” Chani asked.
Zahava narrowed her eyes. “Do I have to remind you of the reason we have to move?” she hissed. “It started with an M and ends with a Y. And there isn’t any!”
Chani shouldered the burden without the organizer, but it would be lying to say she wasn’t resentful. “Hire Lucia for some extra hours,” Velvel said, as if Lucia could magically handle the logistics. It took her the better part of two days to get the place ready for its new occupants, a task that so tired her that when she finished she cried with exhaustion and self-pity as she showered off the dust. “I don’t have a stepmother, but I still feel like Cinderella,” she thought as she toweled off. “Where’s my fairy godmother and the handsome prince?” Nor was the irony lost on her that she had to shoulder all this in order to rent out the place to Effi Weinberg’s sister, of all people. How was that for adding insult to injury?
Velvel felt not the slightest guilt leaving everything in Chani’s hands. After all, Mindy was married and had a family to take care of, and he needed Zahava with him to…well, to make sure he was fed and his clothes cleaned. It didn’t occur to him that of the four of them, Chani was the only one with a full-time job. (He wasn’t sure what she did all day at that agency, but couldn’t imagine that talking to children and their families could be all that exhausting.)
The icing on the cake was when Zahava announced that her friend Rikki would be going with them to Toms River. “She really needs a break,” Zahava said. “Poor girl, after the divorce and all, she needs time to chill.” In other words, while Chani’s presence was a matter of indifference, Rikki was being welcomed with open arms.
Chani knew her sister had little respect or admiration for her, and their interests were oceans apart, but this stung nevertheless. Something else bothered her. She’d seen Rikki’s friendliness to her father, which occasionally bordered on the inappropriate and flirtatious. As strange as it sounded, given that her father and Rikki were 20 years apart, she sometimes wondered if Rikki might have her thickly made-up eyes on the acquisition of the Avenue K house and the Elman yichus.
She made the mistake of sharing her misgivings with Zahava, who found it ridiculous. “You’re crazy,” she said flatly. “Tatty is a zillion years older than her. And anyway, he once said he thinks freckles and red hair are unattractive, and Rikki has freckles and red hair.”
“Well, looks can grow on a person, especially if they make their personality appealing,” Chani said.
“I totally disagree,” Zahava said. “Especially for men. If they don’t like your looks, they write you off immediately. And I’m quite sure Tatty would never stoop to trying to run after a woman so much younger than him, especially his daughter’s best friend! It would be so—so—well, smarmy.”
On whose part? Chani thought, but held her tongue. She’d heard of plenty of stories of men in midlife crisis who were only too flattered to believe a much younger woman found them attractive, and were subsequently hoodwinked into handing over their fortunes to trophy wives.
Her aversion to moving was unexpectedly, if temporarily, resolved by a call from Mindy as she sorted linens with Lucia. “I feel GRROSSS!” Mindy wailed so loudly Chani turned down the volume on her phone. “I keep getting these migraines and the kids make me nuts. I don’t know what I’ll do with them all summer even with day camp. Could you come over again today, pretty pretty please? You can eat by me and anyway, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
Making supper and eating alone did sound depressing, so when she finished with Lucia she drove over.
“Where’s Chezky?” she asked, deftly navigating a floor dangerously strewn with Duplos, toy cars, and trucks, some of which were still flashing lights and making grating noises. Pinny and Shloimie, ignoring the toys, were jumping up and down on the couch, but they stopped to run over for hugs before resuming their use of the couch as trampoline.
“Off with his friends,” Mindy pouted. “You think he asked me if I needed him around? He just whooshed off to shul and then he told me they decided to go play basketball because it’s such a nice evening. When do I ever get to go out with my friends? I’m always stuck home dealing with these two monsters!”
Pinny and Shloimie giggled to hear themselves called monsters and began yelling, “Monsters! Monsters! Aaargh!” as they jumped even higher.
Chani took a seat near her sister, and Mindy leaned toward her. “Chani,” she said confidentially, “You’re not allowed to tell a single living soul, okay? But…well, I just found out I’m pregnant again.”
She waved aside Chani’s reflexive, “Mazel tov! B’shaah tovah!” by saying, “Well, yeah, it’s great, except that I’m feeling awful. I can hardly lift my head off the pillow and I wake up so queasy! So I was kinda wondering…” She gave Chani a sideways glance. “Since Tatty rented the house, would you mind maybe waiting a few weeks to go to Toms River and staying by me? You know, just to help me out while I get through this first trimester?”
To be continued.
