Chapter Twenty
It’s a Tuesday which means dropping off Bernice’s dry-cleaning, and visiting my buddy Bruce on the way back. It’s been several weeks since our little “break”, and I can tell I’m growing on him.
I open the bodega’s shop door and wait in line for my turn.
“Oh good,” he says with a straight face, “it’s you again.”
“Hello dearest Bruce, it’s so good to see you.”
“I’m sure,” he murmurs, and starts preparing a lox and cream cheese bagel. Bruce has gotten into the habit of giving me free food with my coffee, and like a stray cat, I keep coming back for more. “How’s your love life?”
“Our agreement is that I give you free food as long as you don’t harass me.”
“Really?” I drum my fingers on the counter. “I don’t recall agreeing to that. By the way,” I say, “I need a favor.”
“Something more than free lunch twice a week?”
“Yup.” I nod, and he sighs. “So, you know my neighbor, Bernice? The one whose dry-cleaning stuff I pick up and drop off?”
“Mmhm,” he murmurs, pressing buttons on the coffeemaker.
“Well, I think I know a guy that she might like, but she’s made it very clear that she won’t go on a date unless I go with her. And I have to bring my own date too. But it wouldn’t be real,” I quickly add. “The date, that is. So . . . can you do it?”
“Me?” He looks slightly appalled by the idea. Not even slightly, actually. Just straight-up appalled.
“Calm down, it’s just a one-time fake date for my neighbor’s sake.”
“Why are you asking me?”
I shrug and try to look innocent. “Why wouldn’t I ask you?” Maybe I’m trying to draw him out of his shell, slowly and cautiously, as one would with an injured squirrel. If I wanted an injured squirrel to join my database, that is.
“Is this a setup?” he asks, narrowing his eyes as he hands me my coffee. “Am I going to get there and find out that I’m Bernice’s date?”
I laugh. “No, definitely not. Although,” I add, still laughing, “she’d love that.”
“I’ll think about it.” He puts the food in a small paper bag.
“Thanks.” I make a show of bringing out some pennies and nickels and throwing them into the tip jar. “Don’t spend it all at once.”
He shakes his head and smiles. “Get outta here already.”
“We’ll be in touch. Byeee,” I call and wiggle my fingers.
But instead of going home like normal, I make a small detour.
* * *
Looming in front of me is an old brick mansion that has been converted into a Jewish funeral home.
This was where Bubbe, my paternal grandmother volunteered in the seventies and eighties, before her back gave out.
For many years, she was a member of the Chevra Kadisha, the Jewish burial society that perform taharas—cleaning and dressing the deceased in plain white shrouds before the bodies are placed inside their caskets.
It’s not your average kid’s playground, but it was like a second home to me.
For years after my father left us, my grandmother helped pick up the slack by babysitting me so my mom could work and take college classes at night.
The transition from being a normal, middle-class family to being poor and labeled as ‘broken’ isn’t something that goes away.
Those feelings of shame and grief become part of you, as if someone has taken a hot iron and branded them on your soul.
The funeral home was my escape—the place I looked forward to going to when Bubbe did her taharas in the basement along with two other women. The only part I never ventured to was the bottom level where the bodies were kept.
The owners of the funeral home, Lenny and Betty, lived on the third floor, and always made me feel welcome.
Lenny was often in and out, depending on how many funerals he had to run that day, but Betty was a homebody.
Though they didn’t keep kosher, Betty made sure to keep some snacks certified by the OU—Orthodox Union—for me.
She taught me how to play Gin Rummy, Slapjack, and War.
When she had friends visit, we’d play Mahjong, and while they sipped on their fruity cocktails, she gave me Manischewitz grape juice in a plastic cup.
I always suspected the cocktails tasted better.
A fierce wind snaps me out of my reverie as I climb the front steps.
The door is locked, and I ring the doorbell.
I remember how Bubbe had once panicked because she couldn’t find the key to the freezer where the bodies were kept, and explained that bad guys like to steal corpses.
I chuckle about it now, but it was a bit much for eight-year-old me to take in.
But that was Bubbe for you, eccentric to the core.
“Can I help you?” a woman’s voice rings out.
I swivel my head to the camera with the intercom attached. “Hi, I’m an old friend of Mr. Horowitz’s, and I was hoping to chat with him for a few minutes.”
“Is he expecting you?”
“No, but I’m—”
“Name?”
“Ashira Wernick.”
“Hold on. You want elevator music?”
“Uhm.” I blink. “I’m not really a fan, to be honest.”
“What do you like then?”
“Uh . . . I like most pop.”
“Who are your favorite artists?”
I cross my arms and wonder if this is some kind of entrance quiz? “I love Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. Coldplay. Madonna. The Beatles—”
“What are you, a hundred years old?” the woman says, not sounding all that impressed.
“Twenty-eight, but I’ve got an old soul.” I don’t bother to explain that these were the artists whose music my mom and I listened to together on her sickbed. Some of them were vomited to as well, but I try not to think about that.
“Do you like Aidan Bissett?”
“Sorry, I don’t know who that is,” I say as a gust of wind slams against my face. I tighten the scarf around my neck and wonder where I went wrong. Why am I discussing musicians outside on one of the coldest days of the year? “Could you let me in?” I ask. “It’s freezing out here.”
“What’s your name again?”
“Ashira Wernick,” I say, between jump up and down. Gotta keep the blood flowing.
“Hold on, please. And you said no to elevator music?”
“Correct,” I say through clenched teeth. I swear, this woman is worse than a phone and internet bot.
After a few minutes that feels more like twenty, a young woman opens the door. She can’t be a day over eighteen, sporting pink hair, black lipstick, and too many piercings to count. Her shirt says, Embrace the rage.
“I can’t believe you don’t know who Aidan Bissett is,” she huffs. “He’s the best new musician around.”
She’s embracing the rage, all right.
“Is Mr. Horowitz around?” I ask, not wanting to get sucked into another music debate. I step inside, but I keep my coat on. The heating in this house is as bad as I remember.
“Maybe.” She gazes at me suspiciously. “How do you know him?”
“We go way back. He and his wife used to watch me when my grandmother did taharas.” My eyes land on Betty’s picture hanging in the parlor, and I go closer and run my fingers across the frame, feeling a lump form against my throat.
I remember hearing about Betty’s death a while back, but I couldn’t go to the funeral because my mother was too sick to be left alone.
I sent flowers and a note, but I wish I had done more.
“I’m her granddaughter,” the woman says, dipping her head toward the picture.
“Ooh.” I turn around and gaze at her in surprise. “I had no idea.”
“Yeah.” She studies the photo of the Betty, with the conservative gray bob and pearl necklace, before turning back to me. “We don’t really look alike.”
A burst of laughter escapes me, and I cover my mouth because, well, dead people.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I say, clearing my throat. “I have a lot of great memories of her.”
“I didn’t know her very well,” the woman—girl, really—says. “She had dementia for like, a decade.”
“Oh my gosh. I had no idea.” I was thirteen when Bubbe died, and I hadn’t seen either Betty or Lenny since. “What’s your name?”
“Sadie.”
She doesn’t look like a Sadie. I guess I was expecting her to say something along the lines of ‘Viper’ or ‘Spike’.
“Nice to meet you, Sadie. How is your grandfather these days?”
“Why are you here?” she says, leveling cool eyes at me.
I guess we’re leaning into the rage again.
“I’m a matchmaker,” I say. “I have a neighbor who’s recently widowed and the first man I thought of was Lenny.”
Mostly because of Lenny’s off-brand humor. He never had a shortage of dead people jokes, although he made sure Betty wasn’t within hearing distance beforehand; she thought it her wifely duty to smack his upper arm every so often just to keep him in line.
And also, there aren’t that many eligible older men. There’s a fair amount that I wouldn’t set up with my worst enemy, and some widowers or divorcees that enjoy being single for the first time in decades and have no desire to remarry.
“I doubt he’ll be interested,” she says after a long moment. “He’s got a girlfriend he met online and he’s obsessed with her.”
“Oh, never mind then.” I shake my head. “I don’t want to suggest it if he’s already involved with someone.”
“I think it’s worth a try,” she surprises me by saying. “Honestly, I wouldn’t be shocked if his girlfriend turned out to be a man writing from a Nigerian prison.”
I grimace. “Especially if he starts wiring money overseas.”
Her face turns slightly green at the thought. “Wait here,” she says. “I’ll see if he’s interested in coming down.”
Some five minutes later, I turn to the sound of footsteps approaching. Behind Sadie is an older version of the man I remember, thinner and stooped over, but otherwise in seemingly good health. His thick white mustache fans across the breadth of his lips and his smile stretches from ear to ear.
He comes to a stop in front of me, and I think we’re both amused to find that I’m the taller of us two now. “Ashira Wernick, is that really you?”
“It’s me, all right.” I grin. “How are you, Lenny?”
“Can’t complain. Still putting the ‘fun’ in funeral,” he chuckles. “Say, do you know what funeral homes have in common with pet supply stores?”
“No,” I laugh. “What?”
“Cat litter and no cats!”