Chapter 2
Chapter Two
“ D o you believe in true love, Avi Wolfson?”
Sylvie sounded as unraveled as he felt. Her breath hot on his shoulder as she collapsed next to him.
Avi searched out her hand, splayed across his navel. Fingers entwined, he brought her palm to rest upon his heart. Letting its beats speak for him.
She wasn’t satisfied with silence. Not on their last night together. Sylvie Shapiro wanted words – a declaration.
Come tomorrow, she and the others would board flights home, scattering to colleges and jobs and lives after their gap year in Israel. Avi was staying – for a while, anyway. Undecided of his future, but sure as shit not ready to go home and face his father and the future he had decided for him.
“Tell me, V,” she mock-threatened, rolling to pin him on her narrow mattress. “You and me. For always.”
Sylvie drove a hard bargain, shrewd as a Tel Aviv shuk market vendor. Her inner thighs, strong from their hikes in Eilat, trapped him; and her boobs mashed against his chest as she captured his hands above his head. Instantly, he was turned on again.
“You’ve got me, Syl. True love. For now, for always. Forever.”
Truthfully, he only knew for certain what they had right now.
They had until Nora, Libby, and Talia began pounding on the door, demanding to be let into the room all four girls shared on the kibbutz. Until Jonah came to collect him for one last night of drinking with Jay and Eli. Until he saw each and every one of them off at Ben Gurion and was left standing with his duffel and guitar at his feet.
Avi really couldn’t think beyond that.
“True love…for now.” Still pinning him, Sylvie rose to her knees, reaching for her bra and slinging those beautiful tits into the black lace. Leaning back so that her long blonde hair tickled his thighs. She knew her power, laughing as his dick poked at her backside, feeling its way around. “I bet you’ll turn that pick-up line into a song and have a Top Ten hit.”
“Top five.” He shot back, grinning. “And it’s not a pick-up line if I’ve already laid you down.”
Sylvie snorted, pushing his chest. As she moved to release him, Avi seized his chance, scooping her at the waist and flipping her beneath him.
“For now.” He stole a kiss. “And twenty years from now,”
“Sixty,” she insisted.
“Forty,” he bargained. “Starting now.”
“Avi…?”
“I’m sorry. Can you repeat the question?”
The hotel suite came into focus as he blinked. Generic, tastefully appointed. A fully-made king-size bed. At least a dozen people he didn’t know milling about. Glasses clinking, laughter. Snow clotting against the windows, twenty stories up from the ground.
“I asked, does Avi Wolfson believe in true love?”
The journalist – like each one before her – had to go there. Had to mine the lyrics of Painted Doors’ most celebrated song to date, trying to chisel right into that hard rock to expose the gold. If Avi penned those lyrics, surely he’d have more to say on the matter?
Sylvie had been right, of course. The song had gone straight into the Top Ten, catapulting the band from undiscovered to unstoppable. And Avi? He had been wrong, of course. “True Love For Now” had hovered stubbornly at number six for weeks, but it had firmly planted them on the rock and roll map. Gold and platinum proof. Sold out tours, awards, international attention. All because of true love.
For now.
“You can think on that one.” The journalist reached for her tablet. “Let me show you the photo spread that will accompany the cover story.”
Black and white images filled her screen. Avi studied himself, noting every mood. Remembering every shot before it happened. Of course they had commissioned her for this piece.
Sylvie was a gifted photographer, but it wasn’t just that. It was no wonder she’d been able to capture such raw, unfiltered emotion time and again. As evident in this array of photographs that spanned the last six years. Sylvie, behind that camera lens, had a way of looking right into Avi’s soul.
And his soul stared unflinchingly back.
“All that’s left to shoot is the cover. Although the feature is a retrospective, we’d like that to be ‘of the moment.’” She flashed finger quotes. “Sylvie Shapiro will be in New York this weekend.”
“Tell Ms. Shapiro I’m at her disposal.”
Avi was tempted to use air quotes, too. But he refrained.
Somehow – miraculously – they’d managed to keep her name out of the media frenzy that had glommed on to the botched proposal. He was fine taking all the heat since he had been the catalyst. And relieved, seeing her professional life hadn’t taken a hit.
Even if it meant putting himself in front of her lens again.
“Great. We’re all really excited about this issue, thank you again for letting us follow you on this leg of the tour.”
The label, or the magazine, had splashed out for this final pre-show interview: five-star hotel, sumptuous room service buffet. Anything he wanted, literally laid out on silver platters and under shiny domes.
The journalist lifted one as if to prove a point. Her tone turned provocative.
“The world’s your oyster, Avi Wolfson. You know that, right?”
No, he really didn’t. Oysters weren’t kosher, and Avi had never tried one in his life. He didn’t need an aphrodisiac; he needed something to render him an amnesiac. Something to make him forget how much he and Sylvie had hurt each other over the years.
Beginning with that night when she’d haggled for something she hadn’t ever really wanted in the first place. And ending with Vegas.
Now, every time he had to sing that song and think about it, it was like death by a thousand papercuts. And no one even noticed he was bleeding.
“Wolf.” Buck was at his side, leaning in. “Sorry to interrupt. We’re getting news of some pretty bad weather tomorrow. Fucking Buffalo. Think we should pull out tonight to be safe?”
There went all visions of his own hotel bed, dancing right out of his head. Just as well. Buffalo was the last show on what had been a pretty grueling arena tour, three months out with little time off for good, or bad, behavior. No one wanted to get stuck on the road in a storm when they were so close to being home – or to disappoint any fans eager to catch the final show in the run.
“Yeah, I’m with you.”
He could tell the tour manager was relieved to have the backup. Corralling musicians was like herding tom cats most days. The worst of the bunch were feral and territorial about free time. Avi had no doubt Paul would give them grief. Or, specifically, him. Sure enough, the drummer turned their limo ride to the venue into a cage match.
“Thanks for making that executive decision, jerkoff.”
Paul tumbled into the stretch Escalade, slamming the door on the shrieking gaggle of fans cordoned off in front of the hotel. “Last time I checked, we were equal shareholders.”
“Yeah, you’re not the bloody band,” Jordy supplied, obnoxious and not helpful. Typical . He was Paul’s yes-man if he thought it was a winning battle. Or if it could somehow end in him getting laid by night’s end.
“You think I want to waste that perfectly good hotel room waiting for me? I’m thinking of the safety of the band and crew. As is Buck.” Avi added. And I am the band, asshole — the star power, at least.
Avi knew the resentment wasn’t really about the weather, or the itinerary change. It was about taking their most lucrative song out of rotation.
His lyrics. His music arrangement. His decision.
“True Love For Now” would no longer be the encore, or anywhere on the setlist, after this tour. The rest of the band had accepted it, some more begrudgingly than others.
Paul grabbed a water bottle from the minibar and chugged it, eyes on Avi from where he sat across from him. “He probably just wants to be one state closer to Sylvie .” His two hyenas laughed on either side of him.
“Enough, Pauly.” Vic leaned forward from where he had been silent on Avi’s other side. “Avi, don’t.” His tone held a warning.
“You weren’t complaining when they handed you a Grammy.”
“Exactly. You don’t try to marry your muse, dude. That’s the kiss of death.”
“Your feuding asses need to kiss and make up before you take the stage in thirty,” Buck warned.
“Yeah, yeah,” Avi muttered, trying to get in the right head space.
“Sorry, bro.” Paul’s gaze shifted somewhere past Avi’s shoulder. “Forgive and forget?”
Again, forgiving came in time. It was the forgetting that was a real bitch.
“Letty, I can’t find my menorah. Where’d you put it?”
Leah gripped the steering wheel, cursing the day she gave her number to the Kibbitz they remind me of…bam, dot, crack!”
The old woman had said the same thing about the tiny rectangular enamel buttons she had sewn on when she gifted Leah the early Hanukkah present that week. The swirling dots and reedy sticks embossed on the fasteners were reminiscent of two types of tiles used in Mahjong.
“For luck,” she added now, looking up with watery blue eyes and smiling her signature Elizabeth Arden red smile.
Lizbet leaned in. “Ugh, Avi Wolfson . “Remember how he always won the shofar-blowing contest every year at the Apples I’ll take a piece of Tilly’s rugelach any day.”
“These are your daughter’s, Cantor. She’s a good student. She let me teach her.”
Leah helped herself to a plump, pillowy piece. It was a damn fine specimen. But as for Mrs. Ackerman teaching her the art of Jewish pastry?
Ha, more like prying the recipe out of the woman’s thick scull with a pizza cutter. For weeks, that was the only tidbit Leah got out of her. A pizza wheel gives you an even cut. But slowly, ingredient by ingredient and step-by-step, Mrs. A. answered Leah’s questions about the flaky, fragrant holiday treat. Chill the dough twice. And I only use brand name cream cheese, Letty. Not store brand! Until one day, she had commandeered a corner of the retirement home’s social hall kitchen, barking off ingredients to Leah, and their baking lessons began.
Mrs. A.’s memory was not what it used to be, so Leah figured this was a good exercise. Until the day came when Leah had, under the watchful eye of Mrs. Ackerman, baked a perfect batch. “Hershel will love these. You’ll take him some, right? When you get to Manhattan.”
And there was Mrs. Ackerman’s bucket list item.
She was the one who had clued Leah and Jaz into the Matzo Baller in the first place, insistent it was not only the perfect place to find investors for their bespoke Mahjong line but the ideal public place for Leah and her sweet grandchild to meet.
“It’s Shelly’s happy place, year after year. Oh, the stories I hear of this boat and food and the people!” She was telling the group now.
“Lots of celebrities on that ship, Letty.” Mrs. Blum gave her a gentle bop with her gossip magazine.
“She’s going for a shidduch , not to schmooze!” Mrs. A. smacked her right back. “Hershel loves my rugelach, and he’ll love Letty’s, too.”
“What, she can’t kill two birds with one stone during the boat ride?” Leah’s dad loved to instigate.
“Never kill a bird on a boat! Especially albatrosses,” warned Ms. Felder. Spoken like a true retired Lit professor.
“I’ll take 19 th -century English poets for two hundred!” Mr. Felder yelled from his Jeopardy chair.
Saul Horowitz looked up from his Wall Street Journal . “I heard rumors that Eli Gold might be on board, Letty.”
“There you go! Butter him up with some rugelach.” Her dad grinned.
“Not my Hershelah’s rugelach! Plus, it’s more cream cheese than butter.”
The conversation was giving Leah heartburn – and whiplash.
“I’ll make sure to give you all a full report,” she promised, making the rounds to say goodbye. Saving her father for last.
“Remember the three things I’d ask students returning to Hebrew school after holiday break?” Her dad said as she gingerly returned his hug.
His fingers, numb from the peripheral neuropathy that had, along with a host of other health issues, forced him into Bramblewood’s Beth El Campus at an earlier age than most, counted them off:
“One, did you read a good book? Two, did you make a new friend? And three, did you have a grand adventure?”
Leah remembered. And she promised she would.