Chapter 1 #2
Jonah felt that at least entitled him to use the guy as a case study, to hell with client confidentiality.
This had been a tough crowd to crack, so by any means necessary.
And the payoff was sweet – fist bumps and high fives from the kids and a chorus of “Thanks, Mister Jonah!” could be heard as they lined up for gym class.
“That was…” Julie ventured, after she had thanked and sent the other career guests off.
“Totally awesome and you’re in awe of my awesomeness…and in my debt for eternity?”
The She-EO had even slipped Jonah her business card, ruffling her blonde bob and echoing her son’s question of helping do her taxes. Although her tone had implied doing far more…familiar things.
And the zookeeper had invited him out for coffee, after offering to let him pet her bearded dragon – which he hoped wasn’t code for something. In exchange for more dirt on Avi, no doubt. He’d politely declined.
Jonah had no trouble getting dates, but sometimes wondered how many were because he had a famous wingman.
“I’ll buy you a coffee later, and we can call it even, how’s that?”
“Sorry, Jules. Gotta pick up Avi and Leah at the airport.” Speaking of that particular handsome devil. “Raincheck?”
“Of course. I forgot it was Baller week.”
His sister clutched her stomach at the thought of rolling around the New York waterway after consuming decadent Jewish cuisine – and top shelf booze – for the better part of eight hours. But for Jonah, the Matzo Baller Hanukkah harbor cruise was a homecoming he looked forward to every December.
“Say hi for me. I can’t believe Avi has been locked down. And Jay too? You’re the last eligible bachelor.” Julie brushed imaginary dust from his jacket lapels, fussing over him.
“You’re forgetting Eli.”
It was anyone’s guess about Eli Gold’s whereabouts and his love life most days. All Jonah knew was that their larger-than-life friend had sent his regrets early this year, missing their found-family reunion on the boat yet again. “But yeah, I’m pretty much the last mensch standing.”
The girls in his gang were well on their way to happily hooking up, too. Jonah wouldn’t be surprised if Nora and Beck, or Talia and Asher for that matter, began filing jointly by next tax season.
“Well, JoJo. Maybe this will be your year, aboard…the love boat!” Julie warbled. GiGi and Bap, as they called their parents around Avery, had not only forced stable careers on them, but also their love of nostalgia TV.
“Don’t hold your breath…or quit your day job, sis.” Jonah plugged his ears to spare himself from any additional off-key crooning. Until he felt a persistent tug at his elbow.
“Sophie!” His sister admonished. “Why aren’t you in gym class with the other students?”
The little girl who had pulled at Jonah’s suit jacket shrunk back, eyes wide. “I’m sorry, Ms. Klein. I just had a question, but…” She looked over at the rows of desks and dropped her voice. “It’s stupid. I didn’t want the others to tease me if I asked it during class.”
Jonah crouched to her eye level, so he’d be less intimidating. “My mom’s a librarian and she always says there’s no such thing as a stupid question. So this is a no-tease zone, I promise.”
Julie nodded, backing him up.
“Do you know…Rosie, from Room to Bloom?”
Wow, talk about nostalgia. The throwback sitcom brought up instant memories of staying home sick from school and eating Cup O’ Noodles, wrapped in the blanket his grandma (the original GiGi) had made him for Hanukkah that she called her “afghan’t” (as in “I can’t crochet a decent afghan to save my life. ”)
Jonah had loved Room to Bloom because it was the first TV show where he’d ever seen Jewish rep so proudly on display, and could relate to growing up the youngest in a house full of siblings of the opposite gender…
like he had, being the only boy with so many older sisters.
And since he was the same age as the main character Rosie, he’d felt like they had grown up together.
Her on-screen Bat Mitzvah had even coincided with his own call to Torah.
He had totally crushed on Bat Mitzvah-era Rosie Bloom.
“See? I told you it was stupid.” The girl pulled her sleeves over her hands, frowning.
“No, no,” Jonah was quick to assure. “I just…I haven’t thought about that show in a long time.”
Or Rosie Bloom, who had given him such a hard-on under that blanket as the years went by and the on-screen personality bloomed before his adolescent eyes.
“My mom…we don’t have cable,” Sophie mumbled. “But we have old DVDs.”
“It was one of our favorite shows, too.” Julie smiled down at her student.
True, after they had had their fill of suffering on the Prairie, or the high seas cheesiness of what was pretty much 70s Tinder on a cruise ship, the Klein kids would tune into something from their own era. Room to Bloom was something they could all agree on.
“I don’t know her,” Jonah admitted. “But I did meet her once.”
The night came to him in flashes, like it always did.
Last year.
On the Matzo Baller.
His roaming improv gig on the boat for charity.
Too many shots, going down too easy. And inevitably, going down for the count – faceplanting on the back deck of the ship. No cartoon birds circling his head like in the old Looney Tunes clips. Just blackness, pain, faraway voices.
Then, gentle hands.
Velvet and glitter. Kindness.
And the throaty laugh of Kara Koff.
The actress whom he had seen on the Baller from afar, year after year, but had never gotten up the nerve to approach. She was big now – all grown up, yes, but much bigger than her character Rosie Bloom and that old sitcom. She was superhero-cinematic-universe-big now.
In his drunken stupor that night, he had called her an angel. To her beautiful, glittery face. A Jewish angel, coming to his rescue.
“JoJo! You met Kara Koff? You never told me that!”
“See what you miss by refusing to try Dramamine?”
Somehow, he was the only one out of four siblings who’d grown sea legs. As kids, Julie, Jess and Jillian couldn’t even walk past The Flying Wave at Six Flags Great Adventure without turning green and threatening to barf.
Jonah ignored his sister’s thirst for the tea. No way was he going to spill that to Jules. Or to any of his sisters. They would tease him mercilessly.
He turned to Sophie with a smile. “Rosie Bloom is a great hero to have.”
The grin the girl gave him back told him he’d said just the right thing.
“Paging…Zip…zippo…zipporama…”
The loudspeaker at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport barely registered, as its static-filled mumbling stumbled so epically over her name.
“Will Passenger…Sokofluff…please report to Gate B24 for important flight information. Tapioca Sokofluff, please report to Gate B-two-four.”
“Tapioca” was a new one. Or was it the Georgia accent?
Tzipi rolled her eyes, glancing up at the gate number she had just blown by on her desperate beeline to a bathroom. Her flight from LAX had been so delayed, it had shrunk what was supposed to be a leisurely two-hour layover down to a hectic twenty minute hustle until boarding.
“A5, great.” She still had a concourse and two dozen gates to suffer through her name being mangled.
But first, a ladies’ room. At least there was no line there.
“Attention, Passenger…Tzatziki Sololoft!”
“That’s a sauce, not a name!” Her voice echoed off the metal doors of the bathroom stall. “And Tzipora is Hebrew, not Greek!”
Was it really that hard? They were in an international airport, for crying out loud. Surely they dealt with many more names beyond Harry and Sally every day?
“It’s a beautiful name.”
A woman in uniform was washing her hands, and she smiled in the mirror as Tzipi banged out of the stall.
“Thank you.”
Tzipi maneuvered her carry-on and washed at the sink too, noticing the flight attendant’s name on her bronze tag: a nice, pronounceable Anita. Amazing how two names, both with three syllables, could be so vastly different.
Amazing how two sisters, born just three minutes apart, could be given such vastly different names, too. Kara never had these problems. Well, maybe there were different reasons these days why no one would ever get her name wrong.
“Tzipora was Moses’ wife, right?” the flight attendant asked, leaning over the sink and carefully rolling a mascara wand over her lashes.
“In the Torah, yes. Me, though? I’m single,” Tzipi joked.
She’d perfected the comic routine in college, even though it was only part of the story now. Easier than explaining she had been engaged, but was now…widow-adjacent?
Easier than explaining Lorne.
Her groom, not just late to the chuppah, but forever more would just be known as…late?
“Passenger T. Solokoff, please report to B24.”
This time, they had at least gotten her last name right.
Although Sololoft was admittedly kind of catchy. And Tzipi did live in one of the North Hollywood Arts District’s industrial converted buildings now. Alone.
She tried not to dwell on that as she hoofed through the concourse, up a ramp and to the desk at the gate. “You paged me?”
“Are you…zit –”
“Tzipora. It’s like the sound in ‘pizza.’ Solokoff. Yes.”
“Sorry.” The gate attendant was sheepish. “Good news, though. You’ve been upgraded to first class.” With a flourish, the guy printed up a new boarding pass and handed it over. “Congrats.”
Kara.
Her sister was always doing things like this. Not-so-random acts of kindness. Or maybe she had gotten tired of Tzipi blowing up her phone with gripes about the first leg of the trip, wedged in cattle class for almost five hours.
Flying cross-country right before the holidays, last minute, wasn’t exactly budget-conscious, but she’d refused help – Kara was already doing so much for her.
They were staying in a swanky hotel suite and having a spa day on Kara’s dime.
Plus Tzipi had finally agreed to join her sister on the Matzo Baller – Kara’s treat – and that ticket wasn’t exactly easy or cheap to come by.