“Do you want one?” she offered.
I did want one and said yes. She lit the cigarette for me, and I thought about the fact that she was always giving me things to put in my mouth. Was this girl my worst nightmare?
My eyes went to the three moles on her neck. I felt a strange desire to suck on them.
As a kid I’d had three moles just like that. They’d lived on the inside of my right arm, below the inner elbow crease. Her moles were bigger than mine had been, but both hers and mine—if connected with a pen—formed a shape like the Big Dipper.
I’d hated those moles: their prominence, their strangeness, the way I felt they called attention to my arm chub. I always wished they were on the outside of my arm instead. The inside was such a soft, vulnerable place, more shameful than the outside.
It hurt when the dermatologist shot me with novocaine, then lopped them off with something that looked like a hole puncher. But I felt elated to have them gone, free. Now, on the inside of my arm, there were three little white scars—each a tiny cloud. I hadn’t noticed them in years.
“You’re working here full-time now?” I asked her, trying to suss out the situation.
“I’m filling in for my brother Adiv,” she said. “He’s traveling in Israel.”
That was all she said about that: He’s traveling in Israel. She issued no disclaimers. There was no: He has mixed feelings about the political situation or He’s not on Birthright or anything or I’m personally for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions.
“My family owns this place,” she said. “All of the Yo!Good shops. I fill in whenever they need me. I’m Miriam, by the way.”
That was my Hebrew middle name. I was Rachel Meredith, and in Hebrew, Rachel Miriam. I didn’t tell her.
“I’m Rachel,” I said. “I’m surprised you smoke.”
“Because I’m religious?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And because it’s LA. It’s nice to see someone who isn’t afraid of cancer. I mean, life is long enough.”
“You’re funny,” she said without laughing. “Orthodox people smoke. And drink. I love to drink. Mai tais.”
“Mai tais?”
“They’re tropical.”
“I know what they are. It’s just an interesting choice.”
“Are you Jewish?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “But bad. I’m a very, very bad Jew.”
“Me too.” She laughed. “But you keep kosher?”
“No,” I said, taking a puff of clove: warm, sweet, and cinnamon-y.
“Oh,” she said. “I do.”
When she said she was a bad Jew, she definitely did not mean it in the way I meant it.
“There’s a kosher Chinese restaurant on Fairfax that makes the best mai tais. The Golden Dragon. Ever been there?”
I shook my head no. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be her: drinking and eating her way through a smorgasbord. I wondered if she got egg rolls, scallion pancakes, all that good fried shit. I bet she did.
“Do you drink?” she asked.
“Definitely,” I said, even though I didn’t really, because I didn’t want the extra calories.
“I love it,” she said. “Especially getting drunk with my family. There are eight of us, six kids. It’s a lot of fun.”
I’d never thought of Orthodox Judaism as fun—more as sexism and rules.
“Sounds fun,” I said.
“It’s total mishigas.” She laughed.
Then she exhaled another smoke tree.
“So,” she said. “You’re close with your family?”
CHAPTER 13
On day 13 of the detox, my father called.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I asked.
I was standing in my bathroom with wet hair, having just finished Breakfast One in the shower.
“Rachel, I don’t know what this is about a ‘detox,’ but you better call your mother immediately.”
If she was bringing my father into this, she had to be desperate.
“Tell her I’m fine,” I said.
“I’m glad you’re fine. That’s not the point. The point is that now she’s calling me every day and I have to hear about it.”
Displeasing my father was painful. He rarely expressed disapproval about anything. When my parents were together, he never confronted my mother about the way she policed my food. Instead, he would sneak me out for all-you-can-eat junk food benders to compensate. When they divorced, he remarried a ceramicist named Christina (not a Jew) and moved to the Berkshires. I only saw him a few times a year, but I had no real daddy issues to speak of. Even in his absence, I at least knew where I stood.
When he’d come to town on my birthday or for Chanukah, we would gorge all day. We’d do lunch and dinner out: the diner and the Chinese restaurant, or a farm place in a real barn where they served plate after plate of creamed spinach, creamed corn, waffles. Then we’d go to the candy store and the 7-Eleven to load me up with bags of junk food. My mother gave me 24 hours to keep my stash before it all got thrown out. I wished I could hide my riches, but she took an inventory of all of it when I walked in the door.
The only time I remember feeling sad about my father’s absence was on my tenth birthday. After he dropped me off back at home, I changed into my pajamas and went down to the kitchen for a round of junk food. I had 23 hours left to eat, and I was determined to get in as much as I could.
Rifling through the 7-Eleven bag, I found a box I hadn’t seen him buy. It was one of those packages that contains all different little bags of chips: Cheetos, Doritos, pretzels. On the box, in big red and yellow letters was printed: VARIETY PACK.
What was this? It seemed he’d chosen a special, secret box just for me. While I’d been busy with the Slurpee machine, he must have been inspecting the shelves, his glasses falling down his nose, ruminating on the question: What’s something Rachel would really like?
Suddenly, his Dad eyes had spotted it: Variety Pack. With his Dad hand, he reached out and touched it. Variety Pack! Maybe he’d even whispered out loud, “The Variety Pack—yes, she might really enjoy that.”
“Variety Pack, Variety Pack,” I said, as I stood in the kitchen, eating and crying.
The words were beautiful to me. Also devastating.
“Rachel, am I on speaker? Can you hear me?” asked my father.
“Sorry,” I said.
Water was dripping from my hair onto the screen, and I knew it would fuck up my swiping for days.
“Please talk to her,” he said. “As a favor to me. For my sake.”
“I can’t,” I said. “No more hardware store.”
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
I looked at my wet face in the mirror. Was my face getting more annoying? My neck looked like it had somehow gotten thicker.
“This isn’t easy for me either,” I said.
“So then—”
“But listen. Just because something feels bad doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
“Huh,” said my father. “Who said that? Benjamin Franklin?”