Chapter 26
26
My grandmother is looking at me, reaching for me. Her fingers are bare now, but in her liver-spotted hands she’s clutching something that used to adorn them. A ring, gleaming emerald. She’s taken it off, she’s trying to give it to me—but something won’t let her. The ring is trapped in her hand, and she can’t get rid of it.
The air between us thickens. Everything grows darker, a wall of shadows rising to divide us. The shadowy shape is looming, hulking, threatening to hide my grandmother from view. Her eyes widen in terror.
“Make...”
I sit up, my oversize T-shirt drenched in sweat. I look around, disoriented, trying to still my racing mind and heart. I’m alone in my bed. My alarm hasn’t gone off yet, and I quickly unplug it, because I’m not in the mood for Christmas carols. I press my palm to my forehead, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
Was yesterday all a dream?
The golem, my grandmother’s warning, all of it? Weird back-to-back dreams, brought on by the stress of this weekend’s big family wedding?
Probably so.
Obviously so.
Which is a huge relief, and also, incredibly disappointing.
Meanwhile, it’s Friday. I groan inwardly, remembering Rosie’s unequivocal demand that I take the day off today to help with final wedding errands. And that I basically screwed myself by instead requesting to work remotely, so now both my little sister and my boss will be expecting me to get shit done for them. It’s going to be a day full of pent-up emotions, hastily composed emails, and explosions of bridal anxieties.
The whole day plays out in my mind like a bad movie montage: I’ll have a full workload on my plate, but will be trying to hide it from my family. I’ll be juggling my family’s neuroses, and trying to hide that from my boss. My sister will ask to borrow my car. My mother will insist on salads for lunch. None of us will mention the man who used to ease all family tensions. I’ll endure it all in a lingering haze of weird dreams and repressed existential crises, and will undoubtedly stub a toe or trip down a few stairs at some point. Just to bring a little physical comedy to the montage, of course.
What a way to spend the penultimate day of my thirties.
And I have no date. Because Hot Josh—who may or may not be a drug dealer, or was seeing him in a white van also one of my wacky dreams last night?—turned me down. So I’ll also have to explain to my mother and sister that I will not be bringing my mysterious plus-one, because he doesn’t actually exist. There’s just no end to the humiliation.
I ease myself out of the bed, shuffling into the bathroom. Everything about my morning routine is automatic: pee, wash hands, wash face, brush teeth, think about showering, decide I need coffee first. I walk down the hallway, into the living room, where pale December sunlight is filtering through my eyelet curtains. Before I make it into the adjacent kitchen, I glance over at the door, and stop dead in my tracks.
There’s Paul Mudd, fully nude and stone-faced, standing in front of the door like a stripped-down king’s guard at Buckingham Palace.
He turns to look at me.
“Mmmmm...orning, Eve,” says the golem.
I don’t know if I’m more freaked out by his unapologetic nakedness or his ongoing acquisition of language. Or just the fact that he’s there at all.
In a flash, last night comes tumbling back to me with inescapable clarity. It wasn’t a dream. I remember him saying my name. The first word he’d ever spoken. Eve. How hearing him say my name made it feel all right for me to invite him into my bed. How he was indeed flesh, not clay; how we had ravaged one another. At the fresh and flaming-hot memory, I shiver with both guilt and desire. As I glance at his nude body, a wild part of me suddenly wants to take him into the shower with me right then and there.
But even though he held up all right last night, what if that’s a fluke? I mean, he seemed like flesh. He felt like flesh. But is it worth the risk? What if all that pressurized water...undoes him? What if he starts falling apart in muddy clumps in the shower?
This horrific thought quickly zaps my arousal.
“Morning,” I squeak.
“Kaw,” he says, slowly. “Fee?”
I stare at him, finding that I’m suddenly the one without any discernible words.
“Kaw-fee?” Paul Mudd says again.
“Coffee!” I yelp. I start to turn to the kitchen, to point to the coffeemaker, but I can barely form a sentence and know that brewing a pot will be beyond my current abilities. “Yes, we can—We’ll go—Um, I’m just going to take a shower and then we’ll head out to get...coffee.”
I turn and flee down the hallway, back into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me.
What the hell have I done?
Yesterday wasn’t a dream; it was an entire day spent with a man I made out of clay. Followed by a night of sleeping with him. And now a morning where he’s guarding my door in the buff and asking for coffee.
And today I have to see my family.
Crappity crappity shit crap.
Okay. Okay. One thing at a time. First, I’ll shower. Then, I’ll make myself turn on my phone—oh God, that’s a big ask. After that, I’ll figure out how to juggle a day full of my mother, my sister, wedding errands, and a golem.
A golem I slept with after more than thirteen months of celibacy.
I did not have that on my bingo card for this year.
I peel off my sweaty sleep shirt, and tremble at the fine grains of sand clinging here and there to my skin. Paul Mudd doesn’t look or feel as if he’s made from dirt, but the fine film of dust from his fingertips seems like an important reminder. Maybe even a warning.
He looks like a real man, but he isn’t.
But what makes a man...a man? Isn’t everything a construct, even reality? If Paul Mudd is someone who breathes and walks and now even talks...it’s nontraditional, sure, but couldn’t he be...real?
Or am I just trying to justify having slept with a hunk of clay?
I take the hottest and fastest shower of my life. I scrub with such ferocity that I emerge raw and red, steam rising from my tenderized skin. I wrap myself in a periwinkle towel and practically run from the bathroom to my bedroom, not wanting to deal with the golem again until I’m fully dressed and feeling slightly more human myself.
Picking up my lacy black bra from the floor, I see that it’s ripped to shreds. Shuddering with a sort of horrified pleasure, I throw it in the trash. Wishing good bras weren’t so expensive, I take my phone off the charger. When I turn it on, I wince, bracing myself. There’s one brief, blessed moment of silence.
Then it starts dinging like it’s having a seizure.
Dozens of text messages, voicemail alerts, and other notifications are pinging and vibrating and setting my phone ablaze. I want to throw the damn thing across the room. Instead, I do a quick inventory.
Three missed calls from Rosie.
Four missed calls from my mother.
A dozen texts from each of them.
One text from Bryan.
An email from Amy, my boss, asking if I’m feeling any better (oh right, I called in sick yesterday to play hooky with the golem), seeing if I’ll still be working remotely today (oh damn, I’m still supposed to work remotely today), and asking for a quick turnaround on a hot task “if I’m up for it” (this feels doubtful). She needs me to pen three to five headlines with big-picture concept campaigns for Java-Lo ASAP.
I vaguely recall Bryan mentioning the all-hands-on-deck status for Java-Lo, right before he got fired. Still, it seems like odd timing to pull me on to the account. I quickly respond to confirm : I’m on Java-Lo now?
Amy responds immediately to say yes, congratulations, I’m now on Team Java-Lo. She’s attached the creative brief and a link to the folder with all the work done to date in a follow-up message with the subject line “This Is Not a Drill.”
Shit.
I also have a missed call from Sasha—along with twenty-two text messages from her, which I definitely can’t handle reading at the moment. Especially since, like it or not, the family ones are probably more urgent right about now.
Before I can bring myself to open the unread messages from my mother, the phone lights up: HOT MAMA RENA.
Gritting my teeth, I answer.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Oh, good, you’re alive!” Mom says, then yells for dramatic effect, probably to Rosie, “Eve answered! She’s alive!”
“Okay, calm down—”
“I was worried—starting to get really, really worried,” Mom says, and her voice almost sounds shaky.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I say, meaning it. “It’s just—”
“Eve, Jesus Christ!” Rosie says, having grabbed the phone from our mother. “We’ve been trying to reach you forever—we’re at The Other Chicago Bean—”
“What? Why?”
My mother and sister are at my local coffee shop, just a few blocks away?
I immediately break into a cold sweat.
“Um, because the salon and half our other errands are nearby,” Rosie says. “But also because we’re about to come storm your apartment building—”
“Don’t!” I yelp, panicking at the thought of them barreling in here and seeing a naked golem guarding my door.
“Why, you got a guy over or something?” Rosie asks suspiciously, and when I say nothing for three full seconds, she howls, “Oh my God, that’s what it is. She’s got a guy over there, Mom!”
“Is it the mystery wedding date?” I hear my mother ask, muffled but unmistakable.
“I don’t know. Eve, is this your mystery wedding date? Because I totally thought you were bullshitting me with that it’s-a-surprise thing.”
“It’s—yep,” I say, voice squeaking. “It’s, uh, my wedding date. Paul.”
“Paul!” Rosie squeals. “Mom, his name is Paul!”
“Okay, look, I’m going to need a few minutes,” I say.
“Sounds like it,” Rosie says, then snaps into business mode. “But for real. I’m happy you’re getting laid and all but I’m getting married, tomorrow . So I need you, and your car , five minutes ago. We have to pick up the flower arrangements, and then I’m sending you to get the wine while Mom and I get the candles. And then we’ll all meet up at the salon for the mani-pedis—”
“Rosie,” I interrupt, my mind racing. There’s no way I can leave the golem alone for all that time, and I’m not ready to introduce him to my mother and sister. Not yet. Although apparently, they’ll be meeting him very, very soon. “How about we divide and conquer. Just text me the flower and wine pickup info, I’ll go get that taken care of—”
“Yeah but like it’s a lot of stuff to carry out to the car—”
“Paul will help me,” I say.
“Oh, he will, huh,” says Rosie. “That sounds serious. This new guy is already running errands for you?”
“ With me, not for me—”
“So are you also bringing him to the rehearsal dinner tonight?”
Fuck , I think.
“Yep,” I say.
“Wow. This must actually be something, Eve. He must be something.”
“Yep,” I say again, this time so weakly I’m sure Rosie’s going to know there’s something I’m not telling her. “He’s...something.”
“Anyway. If you think divide-and-conquer is best, we’ll do that,” Rosie says, a little whiny, but also desperate to get her to-do list checked off. “We’ll just see you at the salon, then?”
“I’m not sure I’m making it to the salon,” I say. “I never texted Layla back, so...”
“Eve! What the hell! Why didn’t you text Layla back? I told you to text her—”
“And anyway Paul needs me to help him buy a suit,” I say quickly.
“He—What?” Rosie says. “He doesn’t own a suit?”
“Not one that fits,” I say, biting my lip and wanting to get off this call so bad I’m about to explode. “Sorry, Ro, but he really wants me to help him out with this, and obviously I want my date to your wedding to be looking his best, so...”
“Ugh, fine,” Rosie says. “Does this mean we’re not seeing you until the rehearsal dinner?”
“Yes,” I say, trying to keep the relief out of my voice.
“This Paul guy better be unbelievable,” says Rosie, and hangs up.
“ Unbelievable is a good word for him,” I mutter.
Throwing my phone onto the bed, I dress as quickly as I can. I select my best dark-wash jeans, the ones that make me look a good ten pounds lighter, as long as I don’t slouch. I also grab a deep maroon sweater, nice and bulky, and in a flattering color. As I pull it from the closet, I notice the empty hanger beside it and close my eyes, swearing under my breath.
The missing item is my beloved tacky Hanukkah sweater. It’s still in the basement, on the drying rack. It’s been down there for two days now. I have to go get it before some irritated neighbor throws it out. The thought that someone already might have trashed it momentarily worries me. Because it’s not just a shirt; it’s one of the only things I have from my father. I have to go get it before we get all the stupid errands underway.
I make a quick pot of coffee to meet the golem’s need for caffeine—since obviously, I’m not taking him to The Other Chicago Bean this morning, when my family might still be there. After taking a few sips from my own steaming mug, I start heading downstairs to the basement to collect my drip-dried Hanukkah sweater. Paul Mudd tries to follow me out the door, but I stop him.
“I’ll be fine,” I tell him. “I’ll be right back. Just have some coffee, take a breather. Okay? Stay. Here.”
His expression is impassive, and he holds his ground. I’m not sure if he always has to obey me, or only when the odds are decent that I’m not in actual danger. Or maybe he doesn’t have to listen to me at all. Maybe he can make his own decisions, as long as he thinks they’re in my best interest.
I’m not sure if I like him calling the shots that way.
But it does make me feel better about sleeping with him.
No matter what, I don’t want the golem coming down into the basement with me. Taking him to the ground zero of his own creation feels inherently risky. Like returning to the scene of the crime will break the spell, and he’ll just crumble into dust.
Shuddering at the thought, I make my way down into the creepy basement, hoping it’s empty. Lots of people in the building work remotely these days. Mornings have become a popular time to pop in a load before hopping on a video call, and I’m not up for casual chit-chat today. When I enter the laundry room, the washer and dryer are both running, so I must have just missed someone, but thankfully no one’s there. I’m also relieved to see my sweater still waiting expectantly on the drying rack.
I grab it, whirl around to head upstairs, and almost run smack into Hot Josh.
“Jesus,” I say, clutching the shirt to my chest in a vain attempt to get my heart restarted.
“It’s ‘Josh,’ actually,” he says, and almost gets me to laugh.
“All nice Jewish boys look alike, I guess,” I say, and when Josh chuckles, I feel like I’ve won the lottery. Then I remember that he might very well be a drug dealer, and also that I have a golem waiting for me upstairs. I mentally un-cash the lottery ticket.
“Really, Eve,” he says, shaking his head. He has another heaping basket of laundry in his arms. This one appears to be mostly towels. How the hell does this guy generate so much laundry? It can’t all be his. Does he have a side gig as a wash-and-fold service? If he does, I should hire him. “We have to stop meeting like this.”
“Ha,” I say.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“I’m taking the day off.”
“Oh, right, family wedding and all,” he says, nodding.
My cheeks go hot. In the delightful ease of this morning’s banter, I’d momentarily forgotten about inviting him to the wedding while extremely drunk. And getting turned down flat.
“Yep, that’s right,” I say.
“You, er, excited for it?”
“Thrilled,” I say, an iciness in my voice that wasn’t there a minute ago.
“You look nice,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, self-conscious and not really believing him. I’m not wearing any makeup, my hair is still damp, and under normal circumstances I’d never want Hot Josh to see me like this. But at least I’m in my good jeans and my pretty maroon sweater. And maybe I have some sort of postcoital golem glow going for me. The thought makes me blush. “Anyway, I have a bunch of errands to run, for my sister, so I should really get going. Um, have a good weekend—”
“Eve, I meant to explain...” Josh begins, then stops when his phone buzzes in his pocket. “Sorry, I need to see if it’s—”
He awkwardly sets down the laundry basket and takes out his phone. Several towels fall to the floor from the overflowing basket. When he sees whoever’s calling on his phone, he quickly answers it.
“Hey. Yeah, everything’s ready... Well I don’t know why you would have assumed... No, actually, that doesn’t work for me...”
Josh turns from me, hunching down over the clearly upsetting call. He’s getting agitated, which seems to be out of character for him. But then again, what do I know?
I narrow my eyes, picturing him in the white van last night. Because that call sure sounds like it could be someone jonesing for a fix. Maybe my imagination wasn’t overactive. Maybe he really is a dealer. Wouldn’t be the strangest revelation of this week.
“...next weekend, then... Well, it’s not as if I have much choice, so—fine.”
Whatever this call is, it’s none of my business, and I don’t want to leave the golem alone any longer than I have to. So I start to walk around Josh, heading for the stairs. He sees me out of the corner of his eye as he’s ending the call.
“Sorry about that,” he says. “That was... Never mind. Anyhow, I just wanted to say, about the wedding—You said it was at Camp—”
“Yep,” I say, cutting him off at the pass. “Sorry, I really have to get back upstairs, so...have a good weekend. Hope everything goes well with your—appointment.”
“My...? Oh. Right, yes. My appointment. Well...right, thanks.”
I’m more certain than ever that he was lying to me about having an “appointment.” He’s definitely hiding something. Well, I’m not going to be charmed by some con artist. Especially not when someone whose motives are entirely transparent is waiting for me upstairs.
“Sweater’s getting wrinkled,” Josh says, nodding down at the tightly balled fabric in my arms. “Wouldn’t want to waste all those days you spent, leaving it down here to dry flat.”
I know he’s teasing me, but for some reason, it stings.
“If you noticed it down here ‘for days,’ you could’ve brought it up to me,” I snap.
“Oh,” Josh says, looking genuinely taken aback. “Sorry, I didn’t figure you’d want me messing about with your clothes, or I’d’ve—”
“Either mind your own business, or don’t,” I snap.
There’s an awful silence, and I know it’s my fault. There was no reason for me to go after him like that. I’m the one who shifted us from bantering to berating. I should have just gone upstairs and left well enough alone. But his remark felt rude, and I’m not in the mood for an attack of any kind, joking or not.
Honestly, why did I think this guy was so appealing? He’s just some random snotty British dude who lives in my building. He generates more laundry than any normal human being on the planet. He has a secret dealer van he parks off-site, probably so none of the neighbors will suspect he’s the one doling out addictive drugs to innocent minor children. Who knows what kind of stuff this asshole is really doing? And he’s not even that cute.
“Wasn’t intending to be snide, Eve,” Josh says, thick brows knit together apologetically. He blinks huge, dark-lashed brown eyes at me, looking like a sorrowful puppy dog.
Okay, fine, he’s that cute.
But he’s still probably a drug dealer , I remind myself. And I have a golem waiting for me. Who might decide to come looking for me if I don’t get my ass back upstairs.
“Yeah, all good,” I say. “See you later.”
“I got a little something for you.” Josh fumbles in his pocket. “It’s just a bit of a—”
But I walk past him before he can pull out whatever it is from his pocket. If it’s a joint, a number for a dry cleaner, or whatever else he might think I need, I’m not interested. He can keep it, and also keep whatever smart-ass commentary might come with it.
When I open the door to my apartment, it hits something hard, and I gasp. Paul Mudd is standing directly in front of the door again, a guard at his post, although thankfully fully clothed this time. The interior knob must have hit him right in the crotch when I threw the door open.
“Sorry,” I say.
He gives me a confused look. I guess he didn’t even feel it when I rammed him in the business section with a solid brass door handle. Which briefly makes me wonder if he felt anything at all last night, when my body was experiencing ecstasy for the first time in far too long. He keeps looking at me like he’s trying to divine something from my expression.
“Eve,” he says. “Mad?”
“No, I’m not mad,” I say, too quickly. But I am mad. Not at the golem, but at Josh. Or at myself, maybe. I don’t even know. “We just have...a lot to do today.”
“Help,” he says, touching his chest, indicating his willingness to serve.
“Yeah,” I say, a weird lump forming in my throat. “Thanks. Um, I’ll be right back.”
I head once more for my bedroom, blinking back tears I don’t even understand. I close the door behind me and look down at the wadded-up shirt in my hands. Josh was right. I wrinkled it badly, squandering all those days ( just two days , I think defensively) of allowing it to line dry in the basement. I also still don’t know if I’ve fully ruined it by washing it and possibly killing the battery. I hope not. I really, really want to see those ridiculous lights light up again.
The memory of my father handing this shirt to me swims before my eyes. His grin, so sincere beneath that walrus mustache of his. Brown eyes beaming. So pleased to have found something so perfect, and to be able to present it to me.
As with any recollection of my father, the warm scene is framed in cold despair. These moments of memory are welcome, but dangerous. I don’t want to forget him. But if I let myself think about him for too long, I run the risk of slipping back into the darkest depths of my grief. The sharp edge of the memory warns me away, giving me just enough of a pang to remember the larger pain threatening at any moment to be unearthed.
When you lose someone as suddenly as we lost him, there’s no chance for goodbye. He had no final words, no tender farewells. I don’t have a parting gift from him. All I have is everything he gave me over the years, most of which is hard to quantify—my sense of humor, my love of deli sandwiches, my unironic Jewish worship of Christmas. It’s everything, yet somehow still doesn’t feel like enough. I want something I can grasp, something I can show other people to prove that he existed.
But Dad wasn’t much of a “stuff” guy. This stupid sweater is one of the only gifts I can remember him giving me that was just from him, just to me. Not from him and my mother, not as part of some set of gifts Rosie and I both got. This sweater is something he saw, purchased, and presented to me, without anyone else getting involved.
I’m not ready for it to be gone. If it’s broken, the battery pack ruined...I don’t want to know. Not yet.
I’ll deal with it if I have to, but not right now. There’s already too much else to do. I can’t get distracted by something like this.
So I shove the sweater into a dresser drawer, and head out to run some wedding errands with a golem.