That’s what the voice says, followed by loud knocking on my door.
I sit up fast in bed, waking from a deep sleep.
“Sanskrit. Wake up. He’s here.” Mom’s voice.
The sun is shining through my blinds. It’s morning.
“Who’s here?” I say.
“It’s your friend from down the street,” Mom says. “The one who got really Jewish.”
“Herschel? What’s he doing here?”
I stumble out of bed, throw on some sweats.
I crack the door, but Mom is gone. I walk into the living room.
Herschel is standing there in a full suit, the white tzitzit threads hanging out, a black fedora on his head.
“I could get you some juice,” Mom is saying to him.
“No, thank you,” Herschel says.
Mom is setting the table, pulling items from a Whole Foods bag and setting them out on plates like real mothers do in the morning. Or so I’ve heard.
Mom never sets the table, and we never get breakfast at home. Mom usually fasts in the morning or has a glass of juice. I can drink my breakfast or get something on the way to school. If I want to chew in the morning, I have to smuggle solid food into my room the night before. Pop-Tarts, bagels, muffins. It’s like the Underground Railroad for breakfast pastries.
“Would you like a mango?” Mom asks Herschel.
He’s looking at the gift basket on the counter.
“I’d offer you something from the basket, but—” She looks around, confused. “Sanskrit, what’s this basket doing here?”
“A kid at Sweet Caroline’s school. He’s in love with her.”
“That’s so sweet,” Mom says without so much as a blink, “but you know I don’t allow sugar in the house.”
“I guess her boyfriend didn’t know that.”
“We’ll talk about this later.” Mom frowns at the basket and spoons something green into a bowl. “Herschel, I bought some nice seaweed salad.”
“I can’t. Really.”
“Why not?”
I say, “I hate to burst your bubble, Mom, but your food isn’t kosher.”
“Seaweed is kosher, isn’t it? There’s no meat in it.”
“We’re not kosher,” I say. “Our kitchen isn’t kosher.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, and goes back to whatever she’s doing with the Whole Foods bags.
“What are you doing here?” I say to Herschel.
“I thought you might like to come with me.”
“Where?”
“To shul.”
“Shul? That’s a terrible idea.”
“But it’s Shabbat,” he says, like that’s going to motivate me. “We could go to the synagogue at school if that would make you more comfortable.”
“The whole idea makes me uncomfortable.”
I try to remember the last time I went to a Shabbat service voluntarily.
Sweet Caroline walks in, still in her pajamas.
She looks from the food on the table, to Herschel, to me.
“Who died?” she says.
“Nobody.”
“Why is there food in our house?”
“Mom is making breakfast.”
“Is she on a new antidepressant?”
“Jesus. Give us a second, would you?” I say.
“Lord’s name!” she says. She shakes a warning finger at me, then stamps off.
Herschel says, “Sorry to intrude. It’s early.”
“You’re inviting me to services? That’s why you came over?”
“I didn’t plan it,” Herschel says. “I was walking, and something led me here.”
“Kind of you to offer,” I say, “but—”
“Don’t but. Just come with.”
“I can’t,” I say.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t,” I say.
“Why not?”
I glance at the fruit-and-chocolate gift basket on the kitchen counter.
“You didn’t take care of the thing at school,” Herschel says.
“Shhh,” I say, lowering my voice. “I will. First thing next week.”
“Don’t wait until next week. You’ve got everyone worried.”
“There’s nothing to worry about.”
“They don’t know that. You’re causing them tsuris.”
Tsuris. Yiddish for pain.
“Come to shul with me, Sanskrit. I think you want to.”
“If you think that, then you don’t know me as well as you used to,” I say.
“Maybe not.”
“You want to go to services, Herschel. You like it. I wish I could believe like you do.”
“I don’t just believe,” Herschel says. “I question. I wonder. Just like you.”
“Maybe so. But when you’re done with all that questioning, where are you?”
“I’m with God.”
“That’s the difference between us. When I’m done …”
I look out into the living room at Mom’s yoga mat, her Tibetan singing bowl, the little altar she’s set up in the corner for meditation.
“Where are you when you’re done?” Herschel says.
“I’m alone.”
He rolls a tzitzi thread between his fingers.
“I didn’t come to beg,” he says. “Only to extend the offer.”
“I pass.”
He shrugs and heads for the door. “If you change your mind …,” he says, and then he’s gone.
Mom putters in and goes back to setting the table. The timing is a little too perfect. Was she listening at the door?
“It’s nice to see Herschel,” she says, “even if he doesn’t look like Herschel anymore.”
“He looks like Super Jew.”
“That’s not nice. He’s a boy on a spiritual journey.”
“That’s not what I’d call it.”
“Because you’re jealous.”
“Why would I be jealous? I just want my old friend back.”
“You don’t see.”
“Maybe I don’t.”
I hate when Mom won’t fight with me. She goes into this mode where she refuses to argue. She calls it her surrender mode, her Dead Bug pose. That’s an actual pose in yoga where you lie on your back and put your hands and feet in the air like a suffocated cockroach. But she only does it when she doesn’t want to deal with something. Usually me.
“What time did you get home last night?” I say.
“That’s a rude question.”
“When I go to sleep and my mother isn’t home yet, it raises a few questions. That’s fair, isn’t it? To ask the question?”
“You’re worse than your father.”
“Maybe if you two communicated better, he wouldn’t have left.”
“Don’t you—” Mom shakes with anger. She points her finger at me. “Don’t you talk to your mother like that.”
“Fine,” I say.
“This is why I don’t usually make breakfast,” Mom says. “Because you don’t appreciate me.”
“Seaweed salad and mangoes isn’t breakfast, Mom. It’s what people eat after a shipwreck.”
“For your information, there are also whole wheat bagels and Tofutti spread.”
“Why are you making breakfast anyway?”
Sweet Caroline comes in. She’s changed into sweats and a pink hoodie.
She takes one look at the seaweed salad and says, “I’m not hungry.”
“Did this whole family wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” Mom says.
That’s when the toilet flushes down the hall. A door opens and shuts followed by footsteps.
“What the hell?” I say, and I jump up.
The guru walks into our living room. Today, he’s wrapped in bright orange robes and a turban.
“Mom!” Sweet Caroline screams, jumping behind her for protection.
“Sat nam, Zuckerman family,” the guru says. He looks at our surprised expressions. “Was I not expected?”
“I was trying to tell them,” Mom says.
“Who the hell is that?” Sweet Caroline says.
“This is my guru,” Mom says. “He’s come all the way from India to spend time with us.”
My guru? When did he become her personal guru?
Mom smiles and opens her arms wide, like she’s presenting us with a gift.
Sweet Caroline looks at me, concerned. I nod. This is the one I was telling you about.
“Guru, you remember Sanskrit,” Mom says.
“I seem to have a habit of shocking him,” the guru says with a smile.
“You keep showing up where you’re not wanted,” I say. “That’s pretty shocking.”
“Sanskrit!” Mom says.
“No, no. He has a point,” the guru says. “It’s not easy to open your heart to a stranger.”
“It’s not my heart. It’s my bathrooms that are off limits.”
I’d like to see the guru lose his temper, but I’m not sure he has one. No matter what I say he grins and looks calm. I was right. He’s definitely got Barry Goldwasser syndrome.
“Who is this lovely creature?” the guru says, referring to my sister.
“This is my youngest, Sweet Caroline,” Mom says.
“An apt name. I can feel the sweetness in your aura, little one,” the guru says.
Obviously, his powers of perception leave something to be desired.
Sweet Caroline smiles. I hope she’s not falling for it, but she’s been known to succumb to compliments, especially from men.
“What’s he doing in our house?” I say.
“He needed someplace to stay,” Mom says.
“Where did he sleep?” I say.
“Sanskrit. That’s rude,” Mom says.
“I understand why you would be concerned,” the guru says. “I slept right here.”
He points to the meditation area in our living room. He smiles at me. Which only makes me hate him more.
“He’s a visitor,” Mom says. “What does your religion say about visitors, Sanskrit?”
“You mean our religion,” I say.
“My point is he’s come a long way,” Mom says, “and it’s our responsibility to offer him hospitality.”
“That’s why they have hotels,” I say.
“He’s a guru,” Mom says.
“Gurus like hotels. When the Dalai Lama comes, he stays at a suite in the Ritz Carlton,” I say.
“No, he doesn’t,” Mom says.
“It’s true,” Sweet Caroline says. “I read it in the L.A. Times.”
“See that?” I say.
“I don’t think that’s the truth,” Mom says.
“Actually, his Holiness stays at the Montage,” the guru says. “He has a lot more money than I have.”
“I thought Buddhists took a vow of poverty,” I say.
“Individually, yes. But his organization raises money to spread the word of the dharma.”
I think about Rabbi Silberstein pushing High Holy Days tickets. Maybe Tibet and Brentwood aren’t so different.
“Why doesn’t your organization have money?” I say.
“We have nothing to spread. If people want what we have, they will find us. That’s what we believe. Therefore, money is not needed.”
“You can’t live without money,” I say. “Everyone knows that.”
“Dad lives without money,” Sweet Caroline says.
“Zadie had money,” I say. “You barely remember because you were so young.”
“I remember,” she says.
“I do not want to talk about your zadie,” Mom says. “Not when we have such interesting living people in the room.” She sits down at the table. “Let’s have breakfast and get to know each other.”
The three of us look at her.
“You can’t just push a guru on us at breakfast,” I say. “Right, Sweet Caroline?”
She sits down.
Traitor.
The guru and I stay standing, looking at each other.
“May I join you, Sanskrit?” the guru asks.
I can see what he’s doing. Trying to give me space, trying to win me over by being deferential. I’m not falling for it.
“You can eat, but then you have to go,” I say.
“Sanskrit!” Mom says.
“What? We don’t have enough space as it is. Much less enough food.”
Mom tenses like she’s about to get into it with me, then, just as quickly, she lets the anger drain from her. She makes one of those motions like she’s pulling an invisible string from her chest. She takes a deep breath, and her voice softens.
“It’s strange to have a new person here. I understand.”
“You don’t understand,” I say.
The guru and I are still standing, looking at each other.
“Can we just have breakfast like civilized people?” Mom says.
“Since when are we civilized?” I say.
I look to Sweet Caroline for support. I don’t get any.
“Please have breakfast with us,” Mom says. “I got you some organic breakfast bars. I know you like those.”
I look at the guru, all wrapped up in flowing orange robes. The man who believes in nothing, yet has followers wherever he goes.
He’s not going to add me to his list.
“I changed my mind,” I say. “I’m not hungry.”
I grab my backpack and storm out of the house.