Chapter Thirty-Seven
THIRTY-SEVEN
Faye placed her newest modular design, a rust-colored Havdalah set painted with swaths of metallic gold, in the window of her storefront. It wasn’t perfect, but stepping back from the ledge, careful not to trip over Hillel in the process, she was proud of it.
It had a unique kind of beauty. In the faded sun of a winter afternoon, she liked the dark undertones at the edges. She liked the weird lip of the kiddush cup, the slanted ring that, when it sat on a shelf, looked as if it were in the middle of melting. The design had been a mistake, the result of overfiring during the coloring process, but Faye had been working hard in therapy to silence the negative voices that lived in her head.
Things could be imperfect and still be loved.
It had been almost three months since her article, “The Art of Imperfection,” had been published—and in the wake of her writing, things had changed. Her Etsy orders had increased.
Her vases and pottery were finally garnering some critical acclaim, with one of her pieces even being featured in a local folk museum. The Paper Boys operating in Woodstock had all been caught, and though life was never going to return to normal, she was finding a way to be happy.
The only thing missing was Greg.
She thought about him, of course. When she did her Jewitch rituals, eating magic cakes alongside scrambled eggs in the morning. When she went caving, lighting candles in the spot where she had once attempted to banish him—focusing her intention on full healing instead. When she snuck downstairs at night and struggled to slice her own hard kosher salami. He was gone, but it felt as if there were still pieces of him everywhere.
Faye moved to her storefront window. Outside, the blizzard that had fallen over upstate New York had come to a standstill. Now, a thick layer of white blanketed the sleepy off-season town, causing a complete standstill when it came to customers. Thankfully, there were still good reasons to keep the front door unlocked and open to visitors.
The bell above her business rang out. Nelly shivered in the threshold, shaking off the snow from her jacket as she entered.
“Wooooooo,” Nelly said. “It’s freezing out there. I swear, my diabetes medication is gonna turn to popsicles in my car.”
“So you’re finally moving to Boca to be with the grandkids?” Faye teased.
“With all that humidity?” Nelly scoffed. “I’ll take the freezing cold.” Nelly reached into her pocket, pulling out her car keys. “You ready? The hot Jewish men of Single over Tu B’shevat won’t wait forever.”
Tu B’shevat marked the beginning of a New Year for trees, and coincided with the time in Israel when the trees were just beginning to emerge from their long winter sleep. In the States, however, it was still freezing—the dead of winter, early February. And yet, the celebration of life, of things that take root and manage to grow again, felt wholly relevant to her current life.
“Hold on,” Faye said, grabbing her lipstick. “I just want to reapply some makeup before we go.”
“Ooooooh.” Nelly beamed. “Going for extra sultry tonight. I like it.”
Nelly edged her way beside Faye, and then, staring at herself in the mirror, pushed her own sagging breasts up in comradery.
“Honestly,” Faye said, pressing her lips together into a heart, “you would think Shulamit could come up with a better title for these things.”
“I suggested Get Wood on Tu B’shevat, but Shulamit didn’t like it.”
Faye turned to the old woman, mouth open, somewhat aghast, before bursting into full hysterics. Shaking her head, she tossed her lipstick into her purse. After grabbing her jacket, she closed up Magic Mud Pottery and followed Nelly towards the car. They were halfway to her vehicle, another round of snow flurries appearing in the sky, when Faye suddenly remembered that she had forgotten something.
“Oh, crap,” Faye said, racing back down the street. “I promised Shulamit I would bring wine for tonight’s event. Just start the car. I’ll be right back.”
Nelly waved her off, and Faye returned to Magic Mud Pottery. Opening the door, moving to the front hall closet, she stared down at that last box of red wine—the one she had saved all these years, which had originally been purchased for her wedding to Stuart. Bending down, she grabbed that box, hoisted it up, and carried it down the icy road, where she got it situated safely in the trunk of Nelly’s car.
Faye returned to the passenger side of the vehicle and, out of breath from the haul, took one deep and cleansing breath. Nelly smiled wryly at her over the console—that twinkle of love, and friendship, and often, motherly concern, evident in her warm blue eyes.
“You ready?” Nelly asked.
Faye nodded, certain now of the future she was writing. “I’m ready.”
Okay. It was still pretty much a disaster.
Faye couldn’t help but think it. Despite shifting her focus to being open to love, it was one missuited, and sometimes misguided, five-minute match after another. Still, she had promised herself that going forward, she would be open. She had survived so much in her life—abuse, anti-Semitism, a violent criminal attack—but she was tired of letting all the bad harden her. And though most of the bachelors she was meeting didn’t exactly inspire her to consider romance, she was having a good time.
The conversation was pleasant. She had good friends, a chosen family of women, to keep her company. Glancing back towards Miranda and Shulamit—standing by a table set up with nuts, dried fruit, olives, cheeses, and an array of baked goods—the universe felt good. Magical, even. She didn’t even mind that Suitor Number Six was regaling her with a lengthy story about his love of taxidermy.
“You would be surprised,” Number Six droned on, “how many pet owners want their dogs stuffed after they die. Not just dogs, you know? Sometimes birds, cats, snakes... I once had a request for a pigeon. All very fascinating. Different anatomies, you know?”
Faye didn’t know. But she couldn’t help but think about Hillel sitting stuffed one day in a corner of Magic Mud Pottery.
“Do you have any living pets?” Faye asked, trying to politely change the topic.
“Nope,” he said proudly. “Just dead ones.”
She was happy to humor him. Clearly, the man had a passion—which, as an artist herself, she could respect. But she also couldn’t bear the thought of spending the rest of her life with a man and his ten thousand stuffed animal carcasses.
“Have you ever tried it?” Suitor Number Six asked.
“What?” Faye said, returning from her thoughts.
“Stuffing an animal,” he said, using his hands to demonstrate. “What most people don’t realize is you have to break all the bones in—”
Faye drifted off, her chin in her palm, her mind wandering out the window and towards the snow. And Greg. She didn’t want to do it, but she constantly found herself comparing every man she met to him. She knew it wasn’t healthy—but the memory of him sat etched upon her heart all the same.
And then, a sight at the entrance of the room caused her to sit up. An extremely large man, with long red hair, covered in a fine mist of snow, was standing in the threshold. She blinked three times, just to be sure she wasn’t experiencing some new type of delusion...and then she nearly fell off her chair in shock.
It was Greg.