Dottie 9.
I sniff the bouquet again. Oh, lay off. It’s beautiful and understated and perfect and smells amazing.
Alright, fine. It’s from Ezra Kraus. And that fact makes it that much more beautifully understated in its odoriferous perfection.
He sent me calla lilies with baby’s breath, and several others I don’t recognize but can’t stop from inhaling.
“Calla lily is a well-known symbol of death.” Rose enters my office without knocking and already half-way through a conversation, apparently. Her red hair in loose curls, a stylish romper dressing her tall, slender frame. “However, it also means fertility and life.” She stops in front of my desk, eyeing me with concern while my face is buried in the bouquet, her phone in front of her chest. “So, I don’t think he wants you dead, but either to knock you up or start a life with you.”
“Rose. We’ve barely been in the same room together—”
“Yet, he’s been in your vagina!” she sing-songs.
I continue, ignoring her and her assholery, “and only had one and a half, maybe two conversations.”
She scrunches her face up, “How do you have one and a half conversations?”
I lift my shoulder, “How can people have 2.5 children?”
“That number is only possible if you have a white picket fence.”
Shaking my head at the absurdity of this conversation, I continue, “My point is…he isn’t hoping for a pregnancy.”
Blanche sweeps into the room, shaking her head, not a single blond hair on her head moves, despite hanging pin straight past her shoulders. Even her follicles are afraid of her. “You’d be alarmed at the number of men who have pregnancy fetishes. Not to mention habitual impregnators.”
“I didn’t sign up for this.” I wave my hand to encompass the two of them, “I’d like to sue for mental anguish and emotional damage.”
“Funny,” Blanche says, her deadpan tone and blank expression indicate otherwise. “What number is today?”
I glare at my sister, reminding myself that I love each and every one of them. So. So. Much. “23.”
“The man has sent you 23 gifts. Either we’re filing a restraining order or you’re inviting him back to Casa Vag.”
“Never call it that again.”
I don’t know what I want to do. Honestly. He’s in the mafia. He murdered someone, regardless of whether they deserved it or not. What else has he done in the name of the family ? It’s too close to home for me. My father…I vowed early on never, ever, ever to get involved with anyone like the man that splooged into a cup and had his wife artificially inseminated.
But is he? That’s the million-dollar question. How similar is Ezra to Hiram Goldman? Already, I can admit there are differences. Glaring differences. But is it surface stuff? Will he change if I give in to the attraction between us? How much do I know about him when admittedly, we’ve only spent 30 minutes together, tops?
“He isn’t Dad.” The three of us growl at Sophia’s soft statement. She’s hiding in the hallway. Because she knows we hate it when she refers to that man as “dad”. He isn’t anything of the sort.
Rose tilts her head toward the doorway, “Wuss.” Sophia pokes her head into the opening, a tentative and hopeful expression on her beautiful face. Her long black hair is pulled back in a tasteful chignon and her delicate collarbone peeks out from the boatneck opening of her baby pink shift dress.
“I’m not a wuss.” Sophia scowls adorably at Rose, then glances at Blanche. “I’m just smart enough to stay out of the line of fire.” The three of us concede her point and I wave for her to enter and explain. Wringing her hands in front of her, she shifts from foot to foot, “The flowers, the embarrassing stories of his youth, the Eagles tickets—”
“Front row center and signed merchandise. If you don’t marry him, or at least suck his dick, I will.”
Sophia, Rose, and I slowly turn to stare at our sister with open mouths. Sophia recovers first, spluttering before whispering, “But it’s a penis.”
I raise an eyebrow, “Aren’t you the one who’s asked me nearly every day if I want to take out a restraining order?”
“Front. Row. Center. And. Signed. Merch.” Blanche says slowly in response. Because obviously any lesbian would gladly swallow a cock in exchange for good concert seats.
“I love how quickly you’d whore yourself out.” Blanche lifts her chin at what she no doubt perceives as a compliment. My sister is weird. They all are, but Blanche…she’s special .
“May I continue?” Sophia asks, and I nod. “Thank you. Catered lunches for all of us, pictures of the adorable squishy baby boy they just welcomed into the family—”
“Holy hotness, Batman. What are they drinking in the Kosher Nostra, because… damn , those men are hawt enough without holding a baby, but my ovaries fainted just looking at them.” I can only nod along in agreement, because she ain’t wrong. The others, who he identified as his cousins and brother, are in a league all their own. But while I can appreciate a fine specimen of man, none of them hold a candle to my Ezra.
Shit. Not my Ezra. Just Ezra. He’s not mine or anyone else’s. At least he better not belong to anyone else. I’ll snatch a bitch bald. Shit. Shit. Shit.
“She’s spiraling.” Rose comments on my deteriorating mental capacity and I find I don’t like them being so observant. Can’t a woman descend into madness in private?
“He’s included you in his life. Taken you on dates to learn more about him without putting any pressure on you for him to be there. It’s actually kind of genius.” Sophia shakes her head to get back on track. “And most importantly, he has access to every facet of your life, your upbringing, your finances, and your home address. But he hasn’t used it. Every one of these 23 gifts has been delivered to our office Monday through Friday. You told him he was a mistake,” I cringe at the unpleasant reminder, “and he has shown you with every new piece of the Ezra puzzle, that he isn’t. That what you two experienced is not a mistake. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity and you’d be a fucking idiot to pass it up.”
I sit back in my chair as Blanche and Rose slump against each other in shock. “You…you…you cussed?”
“And raised your voice?”
Blanche starts clapping to a beat only she can hear, until she begins chanting, “Be aggressive, be, be aggressive.”
She’s right. In the back of my mind, I’ve known that he was respecting the boundaries I set while still trying to convince me of the man he is. I knew with every bite of delicious food he sent, I knew when I bounced on my feet and belted “Hotel California”, and I know now, bringing the bouquet to my nose once again.
He isn’t Hiram Goldman. But I don’t know who he is either. And I won’t know until I give him a chance to show me.
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
“Fuck you, Wayne Gretzky!” I snap at Rose, not liking the smug look on her face. With a deep breath, I push the vase aside and scoot my chair closer to my desk. “Thank you for the inspirational quotes and support for prostitution,” Blanche gives me a thumb’s up with a wink, “but I’m sure we all have work to do. So, let’s get back to our jobs and put a pin in my love life for now.”
I’m not ready…but I’m more ready than I was yesterday. And that’s something.
A few hours later, the intercom on my desk buzzes. I tap the button, “Yes?”
“There’s someone here to see you.” My stomach flutters in excitement as a sense of déjà vu overwhelms me. Ezra is here again. “A female someone.” Well, damn. Not Ezra.
I do not want to talk about the immense disappointment at the realization.
A tall woman with dark hair and a curvy body stands nervously near the front desk, a sweet and timid smile on her face. She clasps her hands in front of her ample chest and bounces a little. It’s endearing and I find myself smiling at her.
“Can I help you?”
“I see it. Wow, do I see it!” She thrusts her hand out to shake. Automatically, I stride forward with my own extended, but the woman changes her mind before I can grasp her hand and instead pulls me into a warm and constricting hug. “I’m Ruthie. Ezra’s cousin. Well, not really. But I’m going to be his sister-in-law soon.”
At my back, I hear Rose cough, Sophia gasp and Blanche blurt, “What in the Jerry Springer are you going on about?”
Ruthie releases me, but only far enough to wrap her arm around my neck and guide me to the chairs in our lobby. “I’m sorry. How rude of me. My name is Ruth Holofcener. My brother is…uh…Moshe Holofcener.”
“The Avraham Avinu of the Kosher Nostra.” Blanche helpfully supplies. Rather than being offended, Ruthie’s grin broadens.
“Yes. And you pronounced it correctly. Such a mensch .” She winks at my sister, and I swear Blanche blushes. “Anyway, I apologize for bothering you at work, however, I thought showing up on your doorstep would be creepy and inconvenient.”
“Good call.” I murmur, unsure what’s happening and why she’s here. “Uh, did you need…real estate?”
She waves me off, turning in the seat to face me. “Nope, all good on the property front, thanks for asking though. No, I’m here because, well, because I’m incapable of minding my own business. It’s a family trait.”
“In our experience, it’s a Jewish trait too.”
“So true.” Ruthie nods enthusiastically. “The Yenta gene!” She and Sophia giggle girlishly. Rose meets my eyes, and we share a soft smile. A moment later, Ruth sobers and looks me in the eye. Ruth might be a mafia princess, but there is nothing but warm compassion and an open light in her eyes. “I don’t know how you grew up, or where you’re from, Zeppo only tells me so much. That’s my fiancé, and Ezra’s brother. But I know that who my family is perceived to be is not who they are. You’ve heard stories and rumors, and some might be true, but this…this is my mishpocheh .” She grabs her cell phone from her mini-backpack and pulls something up before handing me the phone. “This is the real Ezra.”
My sisters crowd around me as a video plays. We don’t make a sound, too stunned at what we’re seeing. I don’t need my sisters to tell me that they are just as confused as I am, as unable to balance the life we had growing up and the one the Kosher Nostra lives. Ezra sent a few photos of his family with the new baby, but they do not capture the love and pride and soul that consumes the families of the Jewish mafia. Moshe dancing. The cousins joining in as they tease him. Laughing and crying and hugging as they watch the baby through the nursery window. Ezra kissing Moshe’s wife’s forehead and so much more.
Our father refused to bed his wife after their arranged marriage. He put her through fertility treatments and the cold sterility of artificial insemination. She endured 7 months of pregnancy alone. He wasn’t even at the hospital when we were born two months early. We weren’t the sons he demanded. Hell, our mother stayed only a day in the hospital before going home. Our nanny, new to the United States, named us after the Golden Girls because that is how she learned English. We were her Goldman Girls and she loved us with everything she had. Until Hiram decided we no longer required her services. That was the day the four of us decided that we didn’t require his services either. It took us several years, but we finally moved out from under his thumb.
When Blanche told me who Ezra was and his affiliations, it was a gut reaction. An immediate need to purge the ugliness of the world I grew up in. What I thought at first would be more of the same with Ezra, the frigid and bloody life of a mafia girlfriend or wife, couldn’t be further from the truth. The evidence is in my hands.
With shaky hands, I return the phone to Ruth. She slips it into her bag, and grabs my hands, holding them securely between her own in her lap. “I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice to say, Ezra’s brother and I went through hell and back last year, and it took so much pain and suffering and time to get where we belong. If you feel anything for him, please, please don’t put yourself through the same for some perceived notion of what is right.” I glance up at her and my throat tightens at the tears in her eyes, matching mine. I don’t need the details to see the heartbreak she endured. To feel it in my gut. She chuckles, lifting her shoulders to wipe her eyes so she doesn’t have to release my hands. “My mame always says, they are not always on the right side of the law, but they are always on the right side of those who count on them.”
A numbness engulfs me, my stomach turns. “I don’t even know him. We fucked in an elevator one time. Then he came here, and I turned him down spectacularly. I called him a mistake.” I confess, but she doesn’t yell at me or scowl. She grins.
“Is he?”
I’m shaking my head no before I even realize it. My gut reaction. “No. He’s not.”
“You called him a mistake and he has set out to prove you wrong. Are you secure enough to prove yourself wrong?” I think so. “You miss 100% of the shots—”
“What the hell! I’m being haunted by the Great One and he ain’t even dead!”