On the MORNING OF THE BAT MITZVAH, STEPHANIE ROSE early to review her haftorah portion. Hearing the sweet voice emanating from her daughter’s bedroom, Carla momentarily forgot to worry about her D’var Torah. Of course, a few minutes later, she remembered and began worrying again.
The issue of the D’var Torah had not been resolved—at least not to Carla’s satisfaction. Stephanie had prepared a draft of the speech for her meeting with the rabbi the week before, but Carla had not had a chance to review it. She had been in a state of distraction when she dropped Stephanie off for her appointment with the rabbi and rushed to the airport to meet her mother and sister’s flight from Venice. Then, after depositing Margot at her apartment in Center City and Jessie at home, she had returned to the synagogue to find her daughter waiting placidly in front of the temple door.
“So how did it go?” asked Carla.
Stephanie seemed extremely pleased with herself. “He liked it,” she said.
“Really?” said Carla. She couldn’t imagine what her daughter had finally written, after resisting every possible idea that she and Mark had offered on the subject. “I’m sure it’s very good,” she
said, trying to keep the note of doubt out of her voice. “When we get home, I’ll take a look and we can polish it up.”
“No,” said Stephanie. “I like it the way it is and so did Rabbi Newman. I don’t want you to read it. You’ll hear it at the bat mitzvah.”
“Honey,” said Carla, “I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”
But Stephanie was adamant, and Carla, worn down by the events of the past few months, eventually gave up trying to change her mind. Nonetheless, she remained in a state of trepidation about what her daughter was going to say. That Rabbi Newman liked the speech did not in itself seem a powerful recommendation. Rabbi Newman was very green. No doubt he was easily pleased, or at least willing to accept anything that did not seem utterly off the wall or flagrantly heretical. What did he care if the child appeared simpleminded? She was not his child. But Carla was Stephanie’s mother. She knew that Stephanie was a bright girl, and, furthermore, that relatives and friends, who had traveled long distances at great expense, would be judging her daughter—and herself, as the one principally responsible for shaping her. For Carla, the stakes were higher.
Yet nothing could be done. Stephanie had dug in her heels, and Carla, recalling the admonitions of Dr. Samuels, decided to back off and let things take their course.
At eleven A.M. on the day of the bat mitzvah, she took Stephanie to the local beauty salon for the bat mitzvah coiffure. This was de rigueur. Having one’s hair done professionally was as important a mark of initiation for the adolescent female as the religious ceremony itself. The hair had to be teased and twisted into some kind of serpentine style that screamed “special occasion.” Stephanie had made an earlier pilgrimage to the crafts store, and bought an array of sparkles and small silk flowers for insertion into the lacquered hairdo. The hairdresser, a blasé, gum-chewing young woman named Angela, was, as a result of her Cherry Hill clientele, an expert on the bat mitzvah coiffure. She looked at Stephanie with a serious gaze, cocking her head to one side and popping her gum.
“I recommend an upsweep with a few tendrils and maybe a few
of these sparkles,” she concluded after some deliberation. “My thinking is, trash the flowers. You want to look fun, but also sort of spiritual. The flowers are too, you know, prom queen.”
Stephanie listened and nodded. She put the flowers back in her purse (perhaps to be resurrected for the seventh-grade dance) and gave herself over to Angela’s ministrations.
The final result was, Carla had to admit, decidedly fetching. Her daughter had an excellent face: the striking Lubenthal features softened by less intimidating contributions from the Kaplan and Goodman sides of the family. It helped as well that Stephanie seemed to like the way she looked, turning her head this way and that and smiling with pleasure. It occurred to Carla that the greatest beauty enhancement to an adolescent girl was a smile.
They returned home for a light lunch of smoked turkey and hard-boiled eggs that Jessie had prepared, in between ironing her new dress and creaming her face and hands. Carla had never seen her mother so concerned about her appearance. She put it down to the fact that Saul Millman would be attending the bat mitzvah.
Jessie had talked to Saul every night since her return. Although he had continued with his tour of Italy and had not returned to the States until yesterday, he had called like clockwork, calculating the time difference with great care so as not to disturb what he called Jessie’s “beauty sleep.” The bat mitzvah would be the first time they would see each other since meeting for drinks and dinner at the Gritti Palace the week before.
When Margot had called from Venice to report that Jessie’s delusions had vanished, Carla had been surprised to hear a note of disappointment in her sister’s voice. “But it’s wonderful news!” exclaimed Carla. “It means we have her back again.”
“I suppose,” said Margot. “But to think that she no longer wants to talk about Shakespeare and the lost sonnets.”
“Are you crazy?” said Carla.
“I suppose I am,” Margot sighed.
“Mass hysteria; group delusion; folie à deux. I read about that
stuff in my abnormal psych course in college. But I never thought that my rational sister would be party to it.”
Margot said that she had surprised herself as well. “It’s odd, but the trip changed me somehow. I feel sad about not finding the sonnets but glad to be coming home. You know, I’ve actually been thinking that maybe I should move out of the Rittenhouse apartment and nearer to you and Mom in Cherry Hill.”
“What?” said Carla. “Don’t tell me you’re having the delusions now!” She had always supposed that Margot would want to move to New York or possibly Paris—but to Cherry Hill, never!
“I feel somehow drawn to the place,” continued Margot. She spoke in her usual facetious tone, but her sister, who knew her better than anyone, discerned an underlying seriousness. “Maybe it’s the way Mom felt for a while about the ghetto in Venice. Places like Cherry Hill are probably scattered all over the world, where ‘our people’ feel instinctively at home. In any case, I have the oddest feeling that I’m going to end up living in Cherry Hill, or its facsimile, sooner or later.”
“In one of those mock-Tudor developments or hacienda-style mini-mansions?” asked Carla.
“Yes, with the two-story foyer and the Palladian windows,” laughed Margot. “But you know, suburbia gets to look better and better the older you get. You develop a sort of yen to make cupcakes for a kindergarten class and trade in the sports car for a Volvo.”
“And there’s always the consolation of getting a Jaguar later on,” noted Carla. “When the kids are grown and we move down to Boca, Mark and I definitely plan to acquire one. My instincts tell me that we will.”
“And what do your instincts tell you about me?” asked Margot.
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t really recommend Cherry Hill if you’re single, which at the moment you are—though somehow my crystal ball tells me that condition will be altered. Perhaps, if I might speculate, you’re thinking of altering it soon?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Margot, reverting to her usual flip tone. “I was only pulling your leg.”