Chapter Sixteen #3
There were Maccabean Mocktails, Miracle Martinis and Hasmonean Hazelnut Chocolate Cake.
After much discussion, Claire ordered a Hallel Tody and a Chag Urim Cannoli.
David settled on a glass of Sevivon Sauvignon Blanc and a slice of Oil You Need Is Love Cake—a Hanukkah take on Mediterranean olive oil cake that was tinged with hints of almond and citrus.
David had first discovered the dessert on his honeymoon to Italy with Evelyn. He shook the thought away.
“How did you even find this place?” Claire asked.
“I know the guy who created this pop-up,” he explained, as the waitress brought their order over. “Josh Cohen. We went to Jewish summer camp together. Him and his twin sister, Avital.”
In fact, judging from the packed bar and tables, he ventured he went to Camp Ahava with at least ten percent of the room. There was Jacob Greenberg and Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt-Greenberg, sitting at a table nearby surrounded by friends.
He also recognized Dara Rabinowitz’s name on a flyer pinned to the wall.
She was set to do a singles event for her company J-Mate the following evening.
Last he’d heard, Dara had also fallen in love and gotten married.
Sometimes it seemed like everyone in the Jewish world—or, at least, his Jewish world—had found their bashert and lived happily ever after.
“Wait,” Claire said, cocking her head sideways, “you don’t mean Avital Cohen, who runs the medicinal cannabis dispensary What the Heart Kneads?”
“You know her?” David squinted, happily surprised.
“Frozen shoulder,” she explained, lifting her left arm to demonstrate.
“Ouch,” he said sympathetically. As an orthopedist, he was familiar with the condition. “When did that happen?”
“I broke it right after giving birth and it didn’t heal right. Avital and her husband, Ethan, were instrumental in getting me through six months of physical therapy.” Claire took a bite of her cannoli. “Have you ever been up there?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“I told your sister about it,” she said. “Their Cannabliss Brownies are to die for. They got me through single parenting during the pandemic, too.”
David laughed, and then considered recommending some to Evelyn. Between the migraines, the stress of her job and what had happened today with the flu—He stopped himself right there. Why the hell did he keep thinking about Evelyn?
“Well,” David said, determined to focus on his date, “if you ever have a problem with that shoulder again, I’m more than happy to help.”
Claire leaned in flirtatiously. “I will certainly take you up on that offer.”
It was good. They were having fun, sparking a connection. He was moving on with his life, dating a new woman, not thinking about his ex-wife. He scooched closer to her. She didn’t seem to mind.
“So, you went to Jewish summer camp as a kid?” she continued.
“Jewish camp and Jewish day school,” he explained, before clarifying, “at least until high school. Then I went to public. My day school only had about seven kids in my grade, so it only went up to eighth.”
“That must have been a big change, then?”
“It was,” he admitted. “But I was lucky enough to make a few good friends.”
Despite his best intentions, his mind returned to Evelyn.
He recalled how relieved he’d been to see her sitting in his homeroom class.
He also remembered the corduroy skirt she’d been wearing, and her long legs .
. . He needed to stop thinking about his ex-wife.
“So,” he said, pushing his dessert out of the way.
“Have you always lived in New York City?”
“Mostly,” she said, “though I went to veterinary school in Guatemala.”
“Oh,” he said, sitting up. “That’s really cool.”
“You haven’t lived until you’ve been asked to sedate a jaguar.”
David laughed, and she continued regaling him with stories of exotic wildlife, conservation management and tilapia.
Apparently, there were a lot of tilapia farms in Guatemala.
And, being purely objective about the whole second-date experience, he was having a nice time.
A great time, in fact. If there were any problems with his pregnant rescue alpaca in the future, he would call on Claire for her professional opinion.
Evelyn barely had time for succulents.
It bothered him that he kept thinking about his ex-wife, comparing them to each other. It felt unfair, too. He wondered if it was him. If he was so out of practice that he had simply forgotten what it was like to go out on a date. Either way, he had to move on.
The sound of cheering and laughter exploded from a room off to the side. David and Claire looked over. “I guess someone won Hanukkah trivia.” She beamed before turning back to face him. The smile on her face was infectious.
“Would you like to play?” David asked.
“Oh gosh.” She laughed. “I’m terrible at trivia.”
“But you forget,” he said, rising from his seat and offering her his hand, “I spent most of my youth in day school and Jewish summer camp. This time, you’ve got a secret weapon.”
“Well, then . . . how can I resist?”
She took his hand, and David escorted her toward the room where a crowd was playing, wrapping one arm around her waist while they waited to be signed in and registered.
And he reminded himself that this was good, that Claire felt good standing beside him.
He was having a nice date. He could see a future with Claire, full of children and animals and plants they both made time for . . .
But she still wasn’t Evelyn.
By the time Evelyn got home, it was almost eleven o’clock at night.
After seven full hours of reblocking with Demi and the choreographer, sending out emails to the cast and crew, and notifying legal and bigwig executives, she was spent.
Her head was killing her. Her eyes landed on the aluminum menorah sitting on her windowsill, waiting to be lit for Hanukkah—and fully said screw that.
Plopping down on the couch, she retrieved her production tablet from her bag.
In a way, everyone on set would have to start from the beginning.
The missing choral members could be dealt with, obviously, but it was the dance numbers—and those giant freaking puppets that had to be maneuvered successfully during dance numbers—that were still causing her to panic.
She could feel the cortisol in her brain firing out messages. Her headache began to worsen.
Alcohol and migraines never played well together, but her entire life was falling apart around her, and she needed a drink that wasn’t water.
She had always loved a good Gibson—a popular drink from the fifties that had long been forgotten in place of martinis, but which replaced olives with cocktail onions. Her father always drank them.
She went into the kitchen, and after shaking one into reality for herself, chugged it down.
At first, it felt good. She closed her eyes and let the dizzy feeling wash over her. From there, she turned on music. She blasted a mixture of Christmas and Hanukkah songs at full volume, sashaying around her living room, arms waving.
At one point, she knocked her knee into the coffee table.
She clutched it, knowing it would leave a bruise, when her stomach rumbled.
She thought about ordering in dinner—a huge antipasto salad with rich creamy dressing from Patsy’s down the street.
But she was having too much fun, losing herself, getting out of her own head.
And it felt good to be drunk, to not have to think about the ride-and-die rehearsal that was waiting for her tomorrow. Or David.
She poured herself another drink.
When she was halfway done with it, two tipsy onions still left, waiting to be eaten, the migraine began.
Putting down the glass, she stumbled over to the medicine cabinet.
She knew it wasn’t a good idea to be mixing meds and alcohol, but she had passed her limit.
She needed to get control of the headache, and herself, before everything spiraled out of her control again.
Just as she was reaching for the Excedrin Migraine—also a terrible idea, considering her liver—a voice from the living room stopped her.
Someone was singing.
No, it couldn’t be. Her apartment was a doorman building.
Her heavy metal door always locked behind her.
Plus, she had just come from her living room.
If someone had been hiding beneath the coffee table, she would have seen them, right?
It had to be a mistake. It was a neighbor whose television was on too loud, the sound seeping through the walls.
Or, better still, someone was singing on the street.
It would make sense. Christmas was approaching, and it was still Hanukkah.
She swallowed over the realization.
Steeling her will, she tip-toed out of her bathroom, through the hallway and down to the main living room.
Some old dude was standing in her living room, imbibing the last of her Gibson.
His back was turned to her, and he was at least six feet tall and wearing blue jeans and a sweater.
She could make out tufts of curly gray hair emanating from beneath a Yankees hat.
For one brief second, between her splitting headache and being kind of drunk, she thought it was her father.
“Mmmmmm,” he said, finishing off her drink. “I forgot how good those were.”
The man turned around. Evelyn faltered, stumbling back. No, it was most definitely not her dad. Her dad was dead, and had been for many years. From there, she finally registered the fact that there was a stranger standing in her apartment. A scream escaped her throat.
“Oh, come on,” he said, waving away her panic. “No need for all that.”
Evelyn reached for the closest weapon she could find—a vase from famed Jewish ceramicist Faye Kaplan, which had been given to her as an engagement present by her ex-sister-in-law, Danielle—and pointed it at the stranger’s head.
“I warn you,” she shouted in the direction of the man. “Get out! Get out of my apartment right now—”
“Or what?” he interrupted her, stepping closer. “You’ll bash me to death like you did your marriage?”
“Wha-what?” she stammered.
“You know,” he said, continuing his advance. “You’ll destroy me. Make it impossible to pick up the pieces. Blame all the failures on someone else.” The man was standing in front of her. Evelyn took her chance and swung.
The vase passed right through him.
The old man was unimpressed.
“Commendable effort, though,” he said, raising two caterpillar-like eyebrows in her direction. “Unlike in your marriage. Now, if you would put that fabulous piece of pottery down . . . we can get on with why I’m here. In case you were wondering, I’m your third heartbreak.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s not possible.”
“Of course it’s possible! It’s Hanukkah, after all. A time for miracles . . .”
“No,” she said, turning away from him. “I’m not doing this anymore.”
“You don’t actually have a choice.”
“You’re a delusion.” She spun back at him. “You’re a figment of my imagination. I’m having some sort of . . . stress-induced waking nightmare.”
She tried to escape, passing the second bedroom—door still shut tight—before realizing she lived in a two-bedroom in Manhattan.
There was no way out. She wound up running into a closet.
And then, just like that, reality shifted.
She awoke to find herself standing in the middle of a bustling holiday party on the Upper East Side—and she recognized the party, the penthouse, the night, because it was the night when she reconnected with David, as a full-fledged grown-up, in New York.
It was the night that had changed everything.