May We Be Forgiven

she’ll find something that’s a good match.”
    “She’s studying at the yeshiva.”
    A moment of contemplative silence passes between us.
    “There are two ways we can go with this,” Lauren says. “I can refer you to some party planners and our preferred vendors for catering, flowers, personalized yarmulkes, or we could consider a postponement—I hate to use the word ‘cancellation.’”
    There’s something in her tone that gives me the sense that the temple would rather there not be a bar mitzvah on July 3.
    “The temple is mindful of its image; between your brother and his wife and the Ponzi, we’ve been slightly higher-profile than some of the community is comfortable with.”
    I take a breath and start again. “Tell me, Lauren Spektor, is there still such a thing as the Sisterhood Luncheon?”
    “Are you talking about egg salad, tuna, and cherry tomatoes galore?”
    “That’s the stuff.”
    “Long gone,” she says. “Our current Sisterhood is mostly working women who don’t have time to cook—but we have several caterers who can provide something similar.” She pauses. “I don’t mean to pressure you, but I’d like to know sooner rather than later. We’ve got a gay couple looking for a wedding that morning—they want to be done by eleven so they can get out to the Pines for the weekend and beat the traffic.”
    “Something to think on,” I say, at a loss for words otherwise. “As you can imagine, I’m at a bit of a loss as to what the plans may have been.”
    “I would think Jane had a file—everyone has a file,” Lauren says. “Also, she left a deposit. Typically, that’s nonrefundable, but we’re willing to work with you. We’d consider a partial.”
    “How much was the deposit?” I ask.
    “Twenty-five hundred,” she says. “So—how should we proceed?”
    “Let me talk with Nate and get back to you.”
    “It’s been a difficult time for everyone,” she says.
    “So it has.”

    W hen I raise the subject of the bar mitzvah with Nate, his voice cracks. I’ve been dreading this.
    “I don’t think I can do it—it makes me too sad. It was something Mom was working on.”
    “You could do it for her—in her honor?”
    “I can’t imagine everyone we ever knew just staring at me, somehow thinking I am a survivor. I can’t imagine writing the thank-you notes for all the iPods and all the crap people give me that will mean more to them than to me, because the truth is, I don’t want more stuff. I can’t imagine that any ‘god’ I believe in would think this is the thing to do.” He stops to take a breath. “If I was being honest,” Nate goes on, “I wouldn’t want to do anything that would bring the whole family together again. People talk about the nuclear family as the perfect family, but they don’t say much about meltdown.” He stops. “Did you have a bar mitzvah?”
    “I did,” I say.
    “And? Was it a good experience?”
    “You want to know about my bar mitzvah?” I pause. “My parents didn’t want me to get a swelled head—as though having any decent feelings about yourself caused something akin to encephalitis from which one might not recover—so I shared my bar mitzvah with Solomon Bernstein. It was pitched to me as a good deal, cheaper, and, with the Bernsteins further up the food chain, it put my parents in with the right people.”
    “Basically, it was all about your parents?”
    “Yes.” I pause. “After the ceremony there was what was called a Sisterhood Luncheon. All the ladies of the temple made egg salad and tuna fish. Some people got food poisoning—luckily, no one died. But there were new rules after that: all food for Sisterhood Luncheons had to be made at the temple, and they all used Hellmann’s mayonnaise and not Miracle Whip—which was deemed a goy food and not to be trusted.”
    “Goy food?”
    “According to my mother—your grandmother—all things, products, food, et cetera, can be divided into Jew and non-Jew.”
    “Such as?”
    “Crest toothpaste—Jew; Colgate—non-Jew.”
    “Tom’s?” Nate asks.
    “Atheist or Unitarian. Gin is non-Jew, as is Belvedere, Ketel One, or any artisanal liquor with the exception of Manischewitz, which is Jewish. In any Jewish household you might find a single bottle of honey-colored liquor that no one can remember if it’s Scotch or bourbon, rarely two—certainly not three. Crème de menthe on vanilla ice cream is assimilated Jewish. Mah-jongg and pinochle are