Every Other Saturday (12 page)

Tales from the Man Cave
#376: Jessica Rabbit

Dear Jessica Rabbit:

Oh my dear. Thank you, thank you. For your almost debilitating hotness, your self-confidence, and that tiny silver dress. I admire your ambition, your forthright manner, and your plans for making the most of a life in the public eye. You are, in many respects, out of my league.

Thanks, too, for helping me realize how dangerous this experiment could be: how close I am to the edge of becoming someone I don’t want to be. I can honestly say you’ve helped me answer a question that’s been bothering me since this experiment began. It turns out that I
do
still hold some things sacred: it’s not all lip service as I have sometimes feared.

I have this friend, I’ll call her Diana, who doesn’t believe in soul mates and true love anymore. She thinks relationships are founded on proximity rather than some grand design. You take it one step further, Jessica, by suggesting relationships can be founded purely on strategy and convenience.

The jury’s still out for me on the whole grand design thing. When you’ve been through a painful divorce, you begin to question all the saccharine, happy-ever-after stuff. But I will say this: when I began this journey, I wasn’t looking for romance or some deep, meaningful relationship. Thanks to you, I know I’m not ready to give up on those things either.

You’re not bad; you’re just drawn that way. And drawn very well, I might add. I wish you the best.

With admiration,

Dave from the Cave

# # #

Julia jumped when the cowbell on the door alerted her to a new customer. She closed the blog window and stashed her phone beneath the counter and smiled broadly at Mrs. McKesson, a regular customer who came in often, talked for hours, and bought very little. Myra always handled her the best, being of similar age and temperament, but Wednesday was Myra’s late day and she was picking up Hugh on her way in. His ancient truck hadn’t been working for the past week, and he refused to let anyone else work on it.

As she followed Mrs. McKesson through the garden tool section, discussing the pros and cons of various spades and trowels, what Julia really wanted was to re-read Dave’s blog and see whether there were any comments yet. It was surreal being mentioned in his blog. And why was he calling her Diana? As, in Princess Di? Or the hunting goddess? Neither seemed to fit her. She wasn’t sure yet whether to be flattered or insulted.

She was grateful when Myra and Hugh came into the store half an hour later, bickering about the quickest route from Hugh’s modest neighborhood a few miles away.

“Mills Ferry to 62 is faster,” Hugh grumbled. “Only one traffic light and half a mile shorter.”

“I don’t like to go that way.” Myra lived with her daughter’s family in a sprawling planned community, just two miles north of Hugh’s rural home. “There’s nothing there. What if I broke down or needed gas?”

“Didn’t need gas, did you?”

“I like to have options. What if I get hungry and want to stop for food on the way home?”

“When yer hungry, go the long way,” Hugh said with finality. He turned away from Myra, touched the bill of his John Deere hat in the general direction of Julia and Mrs. McKesson, and went straight to the back door. “Going to fix that spigot,” he said to no one in particular.

Myra shook her head. “That man. You’d never know we were the same age, would you? It’s all about attitude.” She held up her quilted purse and lunch box. “Let me put my little bags away and I’ll be right out.”

When Julia got to her phone a few minutes later and refreshed the browser, there was just a sprinkling of comments on the Jessica Rabbit blog. Most of them were questions: What had Jessica been suggesting? Why didn’t Dave give more details? Why hadn’t she responded yet like the last two dates had? And good old, perceptive BravesGrl92 asked, “Who is this Diana chick? Not your ex, right? Spill!”

She checked the blog off and on for the rest of the day, and even that night after the kids were in bed. But neither Dave nor Jessica Rabbit appeared in the comments with any answers.

# # #

Thursday morning, Dave dropped Lyric off in the pre-K classroom and made his way to the synagogue’s basement. He hoped Julia hadn’t read the blog yet. At the time, it had seemed so natural and harmless, including their conversation with her identity disguised. Not until someone had asked about “Diana” in the comments did it occur to him he should have asked her permission. Unlike the girls he was meeting on J-Date, Julia had not signed a waiver or agreed to be part of his project. He wanted to catch her at the meeting to make sure everything was okay between them.

He hadn’t been down these worn carpeted stairs in years. As he descended, he unconsciously looked for his family name on the wall of the stairwell, listed among fifty or so founding families who had been major contributors to the original building fund. Aaron and Max’s families were on the list, too, a reminder of the intertwined history Dave was doing his best to ignore. In these musty halls, the three of them had played paper football and traded comic books hidden inside Torah commentary workbooks. Meanwhile, the tireless Mrs. Roth went over and over their lessons, seemingly oblivious of the fact that pre-teen boys would rather be anywhere but in a basement classroom, studying an ancient language.

Dave could hear female voices echoing in the hall before he had exited the stairwell. He could pick out Julia and Debbie, plus a few other preschool moms, all talking at once. Come to think of it, a nearly forty-year-old man wanted to be anywhere else right now.

The tables in the sixth-grade education classroom had been put off to the side, with about fifteen empty chairs gathered in a circle in the center of the room. Women in skinny jeans and yoga pants stood all around, sipping coffee and chatting. Julia was at the chalkboard—in a broomstick skirt and hiking boots, her black t-shirt streaked with white dust. She had just written “Hanukkah Carnival Planning” on the board and underlined it, but no one seemed to notice. She threw him a smile, cleared her throat and picked up a three-ring binder, but the conversation in the room continued unabated.

Dave edged toward her, keeping one of the plastic chairs and a bit of distance between them. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Debbie engrossed in conversation with Lianne and Tamara Goldman, employer of the NASCAR nanny. Deb didn’t stop talking, but he could feel her eyes on his back. Other than the logistics of handing off Lyric, they hadn’t spoken since Dave’s visit from Aaron.

“Hey,” he said to Julia. “Can I talk to you for a sec when this is over?”

“Sure.” She looked around at the room. “How about now? It’s more like cocktail hour than a meeting anyway.”

“It’s about my blog.”

“I read it. It was great.” She was smiling—a good sign. “I also read the one from earlier in the week about the World Series running into Thanksgiving this year. Pretty funny.”

“Thanks. Look, about the blog—”

“Okay, ladies! Let’s get started!” Debbie called. The room quieted, and the women took their seats. Julia looked taken aback, but did the same.

Debbie pushed the empty seat next to her toward him, not meeting his eye. “Let me say first that Dave and I are just so grateful to all of you for volunteering this year.”

He took the seat next to her, and she handed him a pad and pen, still addressing the group. “I thought we’d start by covering the basics today: settling the date, music, invitations, programming, and then we’ll do the nitty-gritty of the auction next meeting. If that’s okay with you, Julia?”

Across the circle, Julia’s neck flushed pink. “Of course, Debbie. Thanks.”

As Debbie talked about working with the synagogue on scheduling and screening kosher caterers, Dave thought some of the moms in the room sent him pitying or curious glances.
They know
, he realized. The news was out about Debbie and Aaron, and these women felt
sorry
for him. It was like public castration.

The more Debbie talked, the harder he gripped the pen, and the less he looked around the room. By the end of the meeting, the pen had leaked through several pages of the pad and blackened his fingertips, and his clenched fist ached.

Julia hovered awkwardly near the door after the meeting ended, but Debbie hung around, too, talking expansively with everyone who had questions. She kept including Dave in the conversation, making it impossible to step away.

Eventually, Julia collected her binder and purse and gave him an apologetic glance. “I have to get to the store. Sorry.”

Before Dave could make an excuse to follow her, Debbie cut him off, grabbing his sleeve. “Thanks, Julia. Dave and I will make sure all the lights are off. We’ll call you if we need anything.”

Debbie released him as soon as they were alone, and seemed to concentrate intently on stacking chairs and returning tables to their original positions.

“Are we going to talk about it?” he asked.

“What? The meeting? I think it went fine. Though I do wish Mia Mendel’s Mom were a little more active.”

Dave felt himself flinch, and she glanced up at him.

“I mean, she’s great, but… well, you’re around her more than I am these days. It must be driving you crazy. I know you’ve never been a fan.”

“It’s fine,” he said. Julia wasn’t driving him crazy, but that was not something he wanted to discuss with Debbie. “I wasn’t talking about the meeting. Or Julia.”

“
Julia
,” Debbie repeated with a smirk. “So what are we talking about?”

“About you and Aaron. How many people know that you’re dating my former best friend?”

“Former best friend? Don’t be dramatic. Besides, we’re not dating. We’re…seeing each other.”

“There’s a difference?”

“I think so.” Debbie bit her lip, and then met his gaze. “No one knows. At least, I haven’t told anyone, and you know Aaron didn’t.”

“But you’re really seeing him?” He was incredulous in spite of himself.

Debbie just looked at him with the sympathetic expression she wore when Lyric asked why Santa Claus didn’t visit Jewish kids.

He’d known the answer, of course. They’d both told him as much. But Dave realized that until now, he’d been holding out irrational hope. That his angry response when Aaron stopped by the house had given them pause. That one or both of them would realize their relationship with him was more valuable than whatever infatuation was between them. That “Aaron and Debbie” would one day be a funny thing that almost happened. Not a reality to be faced.

“No big deal. I promise,” Julia said. “It was a week and a half ago, and you didn’t mention my name. Besides, it’s sort of an honor, right, to be part of your blog?”

Dave smirked. “Somewhere between the ring toss at the fair and a Nobel Peace Prize.”

She watched Dave toy with the label of his beer bottle across the kitchen table. She’d never been a fan of beer, but the Belgian-style stuff Dave liked was far more drinkable than the watery swill she’d been offered at keg parties in college. There was something satisfying about it: sitting here with her feet up, letting her legs recover from a sixteen-hour workday, sipping a Belgian wheat with Dave. Weird, but companionable.

“Why Diana? I don’t mind, it’s very regal-sounding. Like Princess Di. But she’s not a cartoon character.”

“You are named after a Princess Diana, but not the one you’re thinking of. You’ll have to figure it out.”

Julia bit her lip, thinking. “I am
so
not a cartoon expert. I was more of a library/artsy type.”

He gave her a look but said nothing else.

“So how was this one?” she said.

“Huh?” His eyes remained focused on his beer label.

“Date Five?”

He seemed to process the question and looked up. “Oh. Fine. Lisa Simpson, I’m calling her. She was one of my secret admirers. A nurse, or medical tech, or something like that.”

“One of your
secret admirers
?”

A half-smile flitted across his features. “Yeah, it’s a J-Date thing. When someone wants to be a secret admirer, J-Date sends you her picture along with three others in a group. You basically say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to all four of them, based only on their profile pictures. If you say ‘yes’ to your secret admirer, J-Date connects you. It’s a way of approaching someone without feeling too embarrassed, I guess. And if they don’t like the look of you, they never have to know it was you.”

“That sounds horrifying.”

He shrugged. “Why?”

“You’re basically getting instantly judged on your profile picture. That’s my worst nightmare. Basically reaching out to tell someone you like them, only to have them reject you with one swipe of the thumb.”

“Isn’t that how real life works anyway? We weed people out based on all kinds of little stuff—the way they look, the way they dress and talk… We’re a society of first impressions.”

“Why are you talking like there are a thousand blog readers in this room? Talk like a normal person.”

He laughed. “Just think about it. Since you and Adam split, you have probably been to the grocery store…how many times?”

“I don’t know. Hundreds.”

“Hundreds of times, not wearing your wedding ring, right?”

Julia instinctively rubbed her thumb against the empty spot on her left hand. “Yes…?”

“So in those hundreds of times, you gotta figure maybe half the time you ran across some single guy—between the parking lot, the produce section, the freezer section…”

“Okay, maybe.”

“And how many of them have come up and asked you out?”

“None.”

“See? You’ve totally been rejected. You just didn’t know it.”

Julia moved back. “That’s harsh.”

“Sorry. I’m in Man Cave mode tonight, I guess.”

She rolled her eyes. “Anyway. Maybe I wasn’t rejected. Who says any of those guys even noticed me?”

“Oh, they noticed you,” Dave said. “You’re a woman who gets noticed.”

Julia flushed. He met her gaze. “What? You’re attractive. And different. Guys are noticing you, whether you want to admit it or not.”

“This sucks. Here I was just thinking I was buying applesauce and waffles, but it turns out I have been getting turned down by the general public for months. I’m going to have to go back on antidepressants.”

“Nah,” he said. “You just need to put on that red lipstick you wear sometimes. It’s a good color on you. They’ll be slipping you their numbers in the checkout lanes before you know it.”

She waved this away. His logic was seriously flawed. “I still say it’s different, having someone not approach me in a public place, when we’re both there for another reason. That’s like, a passive rejection. Not the same as taking a look at someone’s picture online who has said they want to date you and just swiping NO. Plus, you multiply that by, what? Five or six rejections a day? My ego would never survive.”

“I don’t reject anyone,” he offered.

“Of course
you
don’t. You need to keep your Saturday night dance card full. But what if you were actually doing this, for real?”

“Can I tell you something?” he said.

“Sure,” she said, bracing herself.

“I was a little nervous about this at first,” he gestured at the table between them, “because, well, I’ve always had the impression you didn’t like me much.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, you’re right. I don’t really like you. I didn’t.”

To her surprise, his smile widened. Most people would’ve been offended or angry. Dave looked entirely energized. “I knew it. I knew it! But why? Just out of curiosity.”

Julia shook her head. “It’s late—let’s not do this.”

“I want to know.” The words were insistent, but his face looked oddly delighted, like a child opening a birthday gift. “Please?”

She gave him a dubious look.

“Come on, I won’t be mad. It’s the blog, right? You think I’m a misogynist pig and I’m not politically correct and blah, blah, blah.”

“Um, no. Your blog is actually pretty tame, from what I’ve read.”

Dave looked a little crestfallen, and Julia had to laugh. “Sorry,” she added lamely. “Maybe I’ve missed your more controversial posts.”

“So what is it then? It’s the Hanukkah Carnival, right?”

“No. A little. Yes. You’re very lackadaisical with it and I ended up doing most of the actual work last year, but no.”

“You’re killing me.”

“Okay, fine. You want to know what it is? It’s because one of the first things you ever said to me was that my children aren’t Jewish.”

“What? When did I say that?”

“At the parents’ night, two years ago. When Lyric started at the school.”

“That doesn’t sound like something I would say. Why would I say that to you?”

“You tell me.” A bit of her indignation from that night returned.

He looked down, seeming to search his internal files. “Was that the wine and cheese thing? In the social hall?”

“Yep.”

“Oh, no. I remember that night. Debbie and I had a horrible fight at dinner on the way there. I had a couple of extra cocktails. I’m sorry.”

Julia affected what she hoped was a casual shrug. “I’m over it.”

He watched her, and Julia felt hot tears building in her eyes. She wished he would look away.

“I don’t think you are over it,” Dave said. To her relief, he stood and went to the kitchen for another beer. “I am sorry. I don’t know what would’ve made me say that.”

“It’s okay.”

He sat back down, contemplating, and rubbed his chin. “That said…no. Never mind.”

“What?”

“It is,” he hesitated,
“true
, though. Isn’t it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your kids aren’t technically Jewish, are they?”

“Are you seriously saying this again? Please tell me you’re drunk.”

He looked sheepish, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. “Well, you’re not Jewish, are you?”

“No.”

“Judaism works by matrilineal descent. That means—”

“I know
exactly
what that means,” Julia hissed. The long, beleaguering conversations with Adam and his parents had left her feeling like she could pass rabbinical school if she had to. “Believe me. I’m well aware.”

Dave sat back, both hands up in a defensive posture. But he held his ground. “Okay, I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings and I was tipsy or…probably more than tipsy, when I pointed it out, but what I said is technically true.”

And this,
she thought,
is why I didn’t like you. Don’t.
“So you’re taking back your apology from two minutes ago?”

“No. I am sorry I spoke out of turn. I’ve been known to do that, especially when I’ve had a couple too many.”

“Shocking.”

“But I was right. Technically.”

She fought to keep her voice under control. “Not that it’s any of your business, Dave, but my children
are
Jewish, by every possible definition.”

He looked surprised. “But—”

“They were both taken to the mikveh at two years old for conversion. My ex and his parents insisted on it. Well, mostly Adam’s parents. They were worried that if something should happen to Adam, their shiksa daughter-in-law wouldn’t raise the children properly in the faith, and then they couldn’t…I don’t know. Claim dual citizenship in Israel or whatever the Mendels are worried about.”

Dave stared at her.

Julia must have sounded so bitter. “The thing is, I’m not religious, and since Adam is, we always agreed that we’d raise the kids Jewish,” she added. “I would honor that, no matter what. But Adam’s parents are a little intense about it. They insisted that the kids’ religious upbringing be detailed in our divorce. It was a whole page of the divorce decree.”

“
They
insisted?” Dave said. “How? It’s your divorce.”

“They paid for Adam’s divorce attorney, and I had some guy from the Yellow Pages. I’m still making payments. But Adam’s parents are paying Mia’s preschool tuition. It’s generous, but I think they’re afraid if they don’t, I’ll be tempted to move her to the daycare down the street. Which, honestly, I would. It’s way more convenient.”

“But you’re the PTA president,” Dave said.

Julia laughed. “You know what they say. When in Jerusalem… God, you’re not putting that in your blog, are you? Please don’t tell anyone. I was kidding about the daycare down the street. I actually love Judaism. If I’d grown up Jewish, maybe I wouldn’t have become…faithless.”

She suddenly felt very exposed. It had been a long time since she opened up to anyone about the Mendels, much less her religious questioning, and here she was babbling her whole life story to another Jewish preschool parent. If her divorce from Adam had taught her anything, it was that the Jewish community in Atlanta was very close-knit and connected. David’s parents might sit next to Adam’s at the High Holy Days for all she knew.

“Faithless?” A smile crinkled the corners of Dave’s brown eyes. “That doesn’t strike me as a fitting adjective for you.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No. Opinionated, maybe. Pushy. High maintenance.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“And sort of, pleasantly weird. But faithless doesn’t seem right for you. Whatever your religion.”

Julia didn’t know what to say.

Dave took a sip of his beer. “I can relate to Adam—not the divorcing you part—but the parents with a firm view of what it means to be Jewish. My parents won’t even use Lyric’s name because it’s not Jewish enough for them. They call her Lirit, her Hebrew name.”

“You’re not serious.”

He nodded. “Fortunately it’s cute, but that’s how they’ve been my whole life. I never wanted to be a person who would make someone else feel crappy about their level of Jewishness. I am sorry for being a self-righteous ass.”

“Like you said, you were drinking, and fighting with Debbie—but, you know what? You were self-righteous. I accept your apology.” She smiled at him.

He grinned back.

They sat for a while in silence, sipping their beers.

When Dave finished his, he stood and took it to the recycling bin. “Alright, Mia Mendel’s Mom. I gotta run. Thanks for the scintillating conversation, as always.”

Julia went to the living room while Dave collected the sleeping Lyric, noticing as she waited that the dingy beige walls needed repainting. Maybe a little color. She opened the door and whispered good night, still appraising her living room walls. Adam had preferred neutral colors and conservative choices, so Julia had limited her creative energy to the projects in the barn. Once Adam had left the house, maintaining the décor had become one of the many indulgences she no longer allowed herself. Like long baths and spa days and, Dave had a point, red lipstick.