“YOU WANT WHAT?” Eli’s hamster eyes narrow before me. I reach for the Coke can on his desk, resting atop a towering pile of papers, but he stops me. Not today, Missy.
By the way he just put his hand between me and his Coke, I realize this is going to be even harder than I thought. Ever since we talked about “the detective,” as Eli refers to him, he’s no longer my easy-going, easily manipulated friend.
“I want you to come to Ronit’s birthday party with me,” I repeat, nice and slow, and add, “It’s tonight. Tali Unger is coming too.”
It’s always best to give out all the information at once. Or at least, most of the information. And Eli has heard enough from me about Miss Unger.
“Explain it to me. Why exactly do you want to go to that party?”
Take a wild guess.
“Because I think Ronit is involved somehow, or she at least knows more about the murder than she’s letting on. I didn’t care for that chance encounter with Tali Unger, not one bit.”
And that’s certainly the truth. Not that I wanted to go, but watching Tali squirm when Ronit invited me to her party, I just had to say yes. A thousand times yes. You can’t have it all, Miss Taliunger.
“Oh, yes, Tali Unger. The woman who prevailed where you failed,” Eli quips, feigning a light-hearted laugh, but we both know it’s true. I pick up the Coke can and take a sip, pumping free radicals straight into my bloodstream. He doesn’t stop me.
“Why don’t you be honest with yourself and just admit you feel like brushing up against the past, and maybe see Neria Grossman again?”
My grip tightens on the can, but it doesn’t crush as nicely as it does in the movies.
A sharp angle grazes my pinkie finger, producing a long thin scratch, just like the one I got after my last meeting with Neria; the last chance encounter, not the last awful planned one. Images from that encounter flash before me – Neria sitting on a street bench, vigorous and robust as ever, me happening to pass by after a long and ugly bout of mono, dragging my feeble body down the street. What can I say? Fate and its famous humour. We both uttered the perfunctory “Oh, hello there,” and “It’s been years!” and “So how have you been?” but he felt the need to add, “You know, I hardly recognized you.” I, on the other hand, instantly recognized him, especially the nasty edge that crept into his voice. But I felt l had it coming after what I did to him, after what Dina did to him.
So I smiled and kept my mouth shut, but on the way home I stopped at a drugstore and bought ten different kinds of vitamins and minerals to boost hair, skin and nail health, and when I got home, I opened all the small bottles and tore into the pill sheets, scraping my finger on the vitamin B-complex wrapper. Which is when I finally burst into tears. Little witch, little witch fell down a ditch, scraped her finger and broke into whimpers.
“Trust me, I’m in no hurry to see Neria again,” I say.
“Then why do you want me to go to the party with you?”
Why do you think.
“Because you’re a fastidious accountant, that’s why; you notice every detail, and people who know Ronit and maybe Dina are going to be there. We might find out new information.”
He takes the crinkly can from me, peers inside to make sure it’s empty and tosses it into the garbage can, a good accountant never wastes a thing. “Sheila, it has nothing to do with the murder. You just want a man by your side there, that’s all. Don’t be embarrassed.”
But I am embarrassed, Eli, you little hamster, and anyway, when did we start telling each other the whole truth and nothing but? What’s so nice about friendships is that friends don’t have to share everything with each other, certainly not the truth, which is usually ugly and insulting. So yes, given that I’m likely to run into a few figures from my decidedly unglamorous past there, I’d indeed prefer to have a man by my side, especially a submissive, docile one like you, who’d let me ignore him the entire night. How’s that for the truth, huh, Eli?
He must have noticed a slight change in my expression, because he immediately says, “Don’t worry, I’ll go with you.” To which I reply, “Thanks, you’re the only person I trust,” and while my mouth is chewing out the words, I realize it’s the truth.
Then he just has to ask, “You haven’t heard anything from that detective?”
That detective. I see we aren’t quite ready to call him Micha yet. And no, I haven’t heard anything new, and I have no idea whether that’s a good or bad sign. It’s an excellent sign, you stupid baby. I automatically reach for my phone, and no, no missed calls. And how could there be any, when you’ve been staring at the damn thing all day?
The press also took half a step back, I mean the news pages, because the magazines were still brimming with the shock waves; just this Saturday, one of the women’s magazines featured a piece about “religious couples who choose not to have children,” or at least that’s what the tantalizing title advertised, but the reporter did everything within her power to wrest a limp promise out of each of the miserable couples that maybe, down the road, they’d reconsider their choice, that “maybe one day…” In a predictable yet ludicrous manner, the reporter pointed the finger of blame solely at the wives, while the husbands were granted full immunity and sympathizing support. One of them bore a remarkable resemblance to Eli.
“It’ll be okay, don’t worry,” he says, and it takes me a few seconds to realize he’s talking about Ronit’s party. He’s completely clueless about what he has agreed to because he doesn’t know Ronit, but I have no doubt that’s about to change. He’ll get to know her all right. The moment we step into her party together, she’ll be all over him. A scorpion never changes, and neither does a Lilith. I stick my pinkie in my mouth and taste the warm, soothing blood.
It’s the night of the survivors.
I look up at Ronit’s bright balcony, hear the voices carried in the air, whispers and giggles. I feel Eli’s body tense beside me. He looks exactly the way I wanted him to: a solid partner, but the kind of partner no one can quite figure out. There comes a time in every woman’s life when obfuscation is her best companion. Just as I start sucking in my stomach, I remember I don’t have to. I have my organ-crushing Lycra shapewear on for that. Sure, I’m sweating from every pore under this cling-film bodysuit, but like the saleswoman said: A building’s most important feature is its foundation, and yours could use a little reinforcement. And the most important parts of the foundation are the ones you can’t see.
The moment we step into the spacious, well-lit apartment, I’m instantly struck by the smell of alcohol, sweat and expensive perfumes. Eau de cougar. I take in IKEA’s version of a living room, complete with several nondescript landscapes on the walls. Well, well, turns out the seductive siren has the soul of a coupon-clipper. She even has the bulky EKTORP in off-white, possibly the ugliest armchair ever made. Currently sitting on this eyesore is a woman I vaguely recognize as an actress who starred in a commercial for some feminine hygiene product, maybe incontinence pads.
Standing by the door to the balcony is another semi-recognizable actor, muttering tired happy birthday greetings in front of someone’s smartphone screen. A few other couples are roaming the room, armed with tiny crackers and large wine glasses. Neria and Taliunger are nowhere to be seen, but I sidle up closer to Eli, just in case.
“I’m so happy you made it! Oh my, and you’re not alone!”
Ronit leaps at us from across the room in her dark, slinky dress, holding a glass of twinkling red wine that swirls and splashes as she zips towards us, making me fear for the fate of her spotless IKEA armchairs. Off-white can be quite unforgiving. She greets me with a peck on the cheek. For all its smudge-proof promises, I feel her lipstick smearing a clown-like red circle onto my cheek.
“Good to see you, Witchiepoo,” she smiles at me and immediately turns to Eli, “and you too, Mister Witchiepoo.” She holds out her hand with that dramatic poise of hers, and I can practically hear the cogs of her mind cranking and clicking as he shakes it. I consider her with weariness, a twenty-year-old weariness.
Eli stares at her and says, “Sheila and I are good friends.”
Ronit’s red smile widens into a devious grin.
She lifts her hand and performs the old, familiar gesture of running her fingers through her hair, and I smile at the thought that the gesture might be twenty years old, but Ronit is not. The dissonance is jarring, and the way she’s squinting like a leopardess on the prowl makes me think that this leopardess might need reading glasses.
“Really really good friends?” she asks, and I notice her black dress isn’t new. In fact, it’s either terminally old or has suffered one too many laundry spins.
“Pretty good,” he replies, and looks more like a punctilious accountant than ever.
Ronit, on the other hand, looks like a priestess sizing up a new follower. I remember how back then, when the group helped me land Neria Grossman, and we each had our distinct role, Ronit’s only duty was to remove herself from his field of vision. That’s all she needed to do, just pull a Houdini.
Out of the corner of my eye I notice a red-headed girl smiling at me from across the living room. As she raises her half-empty wine glass in my direction, she suddenly looks familiar. I turn to ask Ronit who she is, but Ronit and Eli have already disappeared.
And now, good lord, they’re stalking towards me.
Taliunger is in the lead, dragging a reluctant Neria by the hand. She waited for the moment I’d be alone to make her move. My God, my Eli, why hast thou forsaken me? I want to reach up, run my hand over my hair and tuck in the loose strands, but a small voice orders me to keep my hand where it is. No last-minute makeovers needed! You’re not some runny-nosed invalid recovering from mono this time, you’re a gorgeous woman in her prime, standing here in the middle of the living room with killer instincts and a winning smile, waiting to bump into Neria again as if it hasn’t been at least ten years since you last crossed paths. But it has been.
And here he is in front of me, and I sense Taliunger’s body tensing beside him. I look up and meet his gaze; still the same lofty height, nor has his face changed much with those bright eyes, and yet there’s no doubt this is a man in his forties. And the years have not been kind to him. As hard as I try, I can’t see the boy I once knew inside this man. He’s just a stranger in a living room. And was his nose always that crooked? I look at this tall stranger and feel nothing. And shooting into that nothingness is one distinct feeling: the spandex! First chance I get, I’ll go to the bathroom and peel it off me.
But Taliunger is a whole other story: standing beside us tense and tremulous, her face twitching underneath several strata of make-up, her stilettoes embedding themselves in the floor, she looks like a tiny nail. She shifts her gaze from me to Neria, her lips ready to curve into a smile, but her nerves get the better of her and her mouth flatlines. She still doesn’t get that I don’t care about him, same as back then.
Go ahead, Tali, you can smile.
But, boy, did I chase after Neria back in college.
The whole gang joined in on the effort. “What are friends for?” Dina said, but that icy look had already filtered into her eyes. It didn’t stop her from overseeing the entire operation, learning his class schedule and tracking his movements around his department building (“Hey, Neria, funny running into you here!”), finding out which protests he attended (“Hey, Neria, funny running into you here!”) and rifling through the phone book for his home number. Naama was entrusted with emotional support, and Ronit? Well, as I said before, she was tasked with not straying, even by accident, into his field of vision.
And what do you know, it actually worked. The hunt was deemed a success. I still remember the moment when one of my idiotic excuses for calling him yielded an invitation to go to the movies with him. A movie! I couldn’t believe my luck. But then, after a remarkably short period, came the moment of dumb dismay.
As we sat in his car, Neria Grossman confessed his unwavering love. I remember that moment well, the image still pooling across my mind. How the prey had finally succumbed to my weeks-long hunting campaign and said, “I’m in love with you,” and “I never felt this way before.” As the love burned in his fair eyes, I felt that something inside me shrivelled up and died.
All my feelings disappeared at once, like a plug violently yanked out of its socket.
Even in real time, while it was happening, I was already thinking: Sheila Heller, you’re batshit, you’re fucking nuts, what’s going on with you? It’s Neria! Your Neria! Your prince charming, the subject of your elaborate pursuit, the man you imagined, even if just for a fleeting second, as the father of your children. Here he is, sitting right next to you, confessing his undying love! What’s happening to you, Sheila? Get your act together this moment, you basket case!
Neria continued gushing, I think he even used the hair-raising term “love of my life,” while I sat there, immobile, staring out the car window. I felt like a doll, devoid of emotion.
And now he’s standing in front of me with his Taliunger, both silent.
Taliunger is boring into my eyes, searching for something inside them, and I feel like saying: I’m not interested in your husband, just like I wasn’t interested in him twenty years ago. The only person I’m interested in is me. But she pre-empts with, “After so many years, we all meet again!”, cracking a big, smarmy smile.
“No, not all of us,” Neria hisses, and his slurred speech indicates that the empty wine glass in his hand wasn’t his first. “Someone’s missing.”
“Who are you talking about?” I ask, although I know perfectly well who.
“Queen bee, mother of all bitches,” he says, “Dina fucking Kaminer. I can’t begin to describe how happy it makes me to know that someone went and drained her, just like she drained your minds.”
“Drained her?” a familiar voice cracks through the eerie silence.
“Drained who?” It’s Ronit, wafting in out of nowhere, her cape dragging behind her, like a bat with a broken wing.
“Her, that bitch, Kaminer, she was drained. Exsanguinated. Didn’t leave a drop of blood in her!” he exclaims, face flushed, drunk grin. Neria Grossman is brimming with blood and something else. A primal emotion. It’s hatred.