Fiction

Her very first boyfriend was Vinny Boterelli in the fifth grade. They ate at the same lunch table and felt some sparks fly one day when Lea gave him half of her egg-salad sandwich. Their hands touched and things went from “casual lunch buddies” to “we’re basically for sure a couple, let’s pass notes in class and draw little hearts with our initials in the middle.”

It was hot and heavy (5th grade hot and heavy, which was basically hand holding and maybe a few brief hugs here and there) for about a week, but then Vinny decided he couldn’t have any distractions from baseball. It was a short-lived romance, but Lea was crushed.

Getting dumped brought on emotions she’d never experienced before. It was more than sad or upset or angry, it was this achy feeling in her gut that contracted every time she thought of that Gogurt they shared at recess, or the time he carried her backpack home from school. She didn’t like the sensation, and she imagined it would only get worse as she got older and hormones got involved.

A year later, just when she’d fully recovered from the breakup with Vinny B., she went to the movies with Jordan Newlon, and he threw up on her after devouring an entire tub of popcorn, a box of milk duds, and a super-sized Razzleberry Slurpee. The puke ruined her new blouse from Limited Too as well as any hopes and dreams she’d ever had of having the perfect first date.  And the disappointments kept coming.

In seventh grade, Patrick Lanford asked her to the spring formal. She got so excited that she bought a new dress and practiced kissing on her hand, but the day before the dance, Patrick said he changed his mind and wanted to go with Carla Reyhoff instead. So Lea had to scrounge around for a last-minute date and ended up going with Miko Anastas, the new transfer student from Greece whose English was spotty. The words he did know were still almost impossible to decipher through his thick accent. Turns out he was a fantastic dancer, but he worked the floor as more of a solo act and Lea ended up spending the rest of the formal by the snack table with notorious nose-picker Mike Stavski. It seemed almost comical, how nothing was working out right for her, and she couldn’t even eat her feelings because of the nausea that came with watching Stavski shove his fingers so far up his nose that he was probably poking his brain; if he even had one.

Then there was her camp boyfriend, Ryan Cutler. After they kissed for the first time, he made it clear that it could only be a summer thing because he had a year-round school-time girlfriend who had a house with an indoor pool and a trampoline, so there was no way he could break up with her. That seemed fair, right? Lea went along with it like an idiot because he told her she had a cute laugh, and anytime he looked at her with his sheepish brown eyes she turned to a huge pile of incoherent putty.

In high school, she had an all-consuming crush on Henry Fink, the president of Model UN whom she sat next to in math sophomore year. He never really looked at her ‘that way’ because there was always some other girl with tanner, more exposed skin for him to lust after.

The closest she ever got to confessing her feelings for him was through her friend Arthur, who said he’d talk to Henry about her and gauge his reaction accordingly. Lea got so excited she even practiced different ways of saying “yes” in the mirror, so she’d be prepared when Henry asked her to prom, which he did not. Arthur barely even got an apathetic grunt from the guy at a house party senior year.

“What do you think about Lea Silber?” he asked casually as they both refilled their red solo cups with Heather Peretti’s homemade jungle juice.

“I don’t know, she’s cool I guess.” Henry’s level of enthusiasm was so non-existent that it verged on robotic.

“Okay, well would you at least touch her tits?” Arthur figured he might as well jump to the good stuff before Henry passed out in the back of someone’s car.

“Yea, sure.” he answered and then walked off.

It wasn’t exactly what Lea had imagined when Arthur said he’d talk to Henry for her. She was picturing more of a cute he-said-she-said convo from a romantic comedy about two young high schoolers falling in love for the first time.

“At least he said he would touch your tits,” Arthur tried consoling her. Lea supposed that was better than nothing, but as the whole flop of a conversation fed her disillusionment of romantic love, she wondered if maybe she was cursed, destined for a life of solitude. But, that line of thinking made her anxious and she felt it was just easier to keep on believing in the whole “bashert” thing and chock up all her failed efforts to bad luck and timing.

Then there was Brendan. Her sort-of-not-really boyfriend from college. He was always bumming Adderall off her, and ‘forgetting’ his wallet whenever it was convenient for him. Needless to say, it caused her to lose hope, whatever was left of it anyway.

But still, she kept her eyes open every time she left the house, hoping somewhere she’d come across the right guy and everything would fall into place.

Lea was just a little girl with chocolate on her face when she first learned the word “bashert”. Grandma Pearl had taken her to Arnie’s, their favorite homemade ice cream shop, and sat her down on a wooden park bench for a little story. Despite concentrating on the enthusiastic consumption of her chocolate cone with rainbow sprinkles, she remembered the whole thing quite well. Her Grandma was eating an apple, because she was always on some type of diet that didn’t allow her to have fun, at least in Lea’s eyes. They sat side-by-side staring out onto a small man-made lake when Grandma Pearl told her a story that would shape her life forever.

“Long ago, exactly forty days before your Grandpa Max was born, his father, your great-grandpa Leo who you’re named after- was working very hard in his store. He was a tailor, the best tailor in town, which means he would help people sew their clothes to make them fit better. You know how Mommy always needs to get her pants hemmed because she’s so short? A tailor fixes that. That’s what your great grandpa Leo did before the war.

So, he’s working in the store when all of a sudden, a woman comes in holding a large pile of suits. She sets them down in front of Leo and asks him to alter them for her husband, because he was heading out of town and he needed to look nice for his trip. You know how important it is to look nice, right? Are you listening, Lea?”

Grandma Pearl was getting to the good part soon and she wanted her granddaughter’s full attention. She took a moment to lick her thumb and wipe some ice cream off Lea’s face before continuing. Lea hated when she did that. Her grandma’s long red nails always scratched her, but she never said anything because she didn’t want to make her grandma feel bad.

“Anyways, your great-grandpa Leo was sorting through the suits, organizing them, when he hears something fall to the floor. It sounded like a button or something little like that. So, he bends down to pick it up, and what does he find? Not a button, but…”

She stared at Lea, waiting for her to take a guess, but Lea was working on the cone, so her mouth was full.

“A pearl! He finds a beautiful little pearl right by his foot. He didn’t think much of it at the time, so he picked it up, put it in the pocket of the suit on top of the pile, and carried on with his day. Fast forward – nineteen years later, Grandpa Max and I met, and we fell in love. He told his father that he’d met a nice Jewish girl named Pearl, that’s me, and that he was going to marry her. When Leo heard Grandpa say my name, he remembered that little pearl he had found that day in his store. He knew then that it was a sign. It was “bashert”. It was destiny.

Before Grandpa Max and I met, before we were even born, we were up in heaven with Hashem. We were a part of the same soul. We shared a face and we had four arms and four legs. Hashem took that soul and split it in two to create me, one half, and your Grandpa, the other half.

So, then we were born – your Grandpa in Poland and me in Hungary – and we were two halves of the same soul walking around and living without one another. When our paths crossed, and we decided to get married, it was meant to be; it was destiny. Hashem brought us together to become one because we are soulmates. That is “bashert”. Your Grandpa Max is my “bashert”, you understand? He’s the one I was meant to be with from the very beginning.”

Grandma Pearl looked at Lea who had finished her ice cream and was now listening intently to the story.

“In the Jewish tradition, the husband and the wife are not united by chance. They are destined for one another, and they must take the search very seriously. There’s a special person out there for everyone, someone we’re separated from in heaven before we’re born: your Mom and Dad, Aunt Deb and Uncle Simon. Every pair is predestined by Hashem and our life’s journey is to find the other half of our soul so we can come together once again in marriage. You understand?”

“Yea, I think so.” Lea’s head was spinning. She wished she had more ice cream.

“Your “bashert” is out there somewhere too. You just have to find him. And once you do, you’ll be whole again, and everything will fall into place.”

“Where do I find him?” If only it were that simple.

“Well, only Hashem knows. But you have to be looking. You don’t want to miss him.”

“Um, what happens if I don’t find him?”

“You’ll find him.”

“But what if I don’t?”

“You will.”

“How do you know?”

“Because, it’s destiny. It’s “bashert”, my darling, it’s “bashert”.

Peggy could hear the grunts of exhaustion coming from the staircase. The clacking of high heels came in intervals of three or four and were followed by a deep breath and a cough, sometimes a clearing of the throat, notable for its heavy phlegm factor. It was an unusually comforting sound for Peggy, a clear indication and reminder that she had in fact arrived and Grandma Zopa's. 

Zopa made it to the top of the staircase and let out a breathy "oy." Once she caught her breath, she pulled her foldable shopping cart up the last few steps. The plastic bags made crunching noises and glass bottles could be heard clanking together. Peggy knew that Grandma Zopa had definitely made a stop at the corner liquor store, and that meant Peggy was in for a long night of Zopa drunkenly telling stories of her "golden years." It wasn't that Peggy didn't like these stores, but she sometimes felt like Zopa forgot that she was only eight-years-old and had trouble following stories that involve cigar-smoking men named Louie and bags of counterfeit money. 

"Peggy, darling. How long have you  been waiting here?" Zopa scurried over to give Peggy a suffocating hug and a lipstick stained kiss on the cheek. 

"Not long." Peggy helped her Grandma with the groceries, balancing piled up bags as Zopa dug through her studded fanny pack, looking for the keys. 

"You remember when I taught you how to pick a lock?" Peggy nodded. "Well, next time you can just let yourself in. I always keep a few bobby pins under the doormat here." Zopa swung open the door of her apartment, kicking a pile of newspapers and magazines off to the side of the foyer. 

The apartment was old, just like Zopa. Cleaning was never a priority, but having cigarettes and red wine around at all times was something Zopa had mastered. She had one cat named Earl, a fat, gray ball of fluff that kept to himself and somehow managed to find the cat food when Zopa forgot to feed him. 

Peggy took the bags into the kitchen and set them on the counter. Grandma Zopa was unconventional in almost every way a grandma could be, and Peggy loved that about her. But, the one thing that Peggy wished Zopa could do was cook, like all her friends' grandmas. There was never any soup or kugel or cake waiting to be eaten when Peggy visited. If she was lucky, there would be old Chinese food in the fridge, which she would have to eat cold becuase the microwave was where Zopa kept her bills; the oven was for board games. Zopa loved her board games. 

Peggy left the groceries in the bags and went to sink into the big sofa that smelled like tobacco and lavender body spray. Zopa emerged from her bedroom, wearing black leggings and a large Cosby sweater. Her frizzy, auburn hear was a bit of a mess and her pearl necklace made her clip-on earrings pop. She sat down next to Peggy on the sofa, her layers of caked on makeup coating her smile. She pulled out a cigarette, a glass of wine, and started to set up the Monopoly board for her and Peggy. 

After lighting her cigarette and exhaling her first puff, she took a sip from her wine glass and said, "Peggy, doll, I'm going to be the little thimble. What about you?"