May We Be Forgiven

mail. Later, I ask Marcel what he knows about Wanda. “Not much,” he says. “Only that she’s the granddaughter of Nelson Mandela—or Desmond Tutu, or someone like that …” He trails off. “Born in South Africa, sent to England for school, came here, sold her memoir for three-quarters of a million dollars,” he adds as an afterthought.
    “Why is she working here?”
    “Going to law school in the fall,” he says. “And she gave away the advance, donated to charity.”
    “Really,” I say.
    “Really,” Marcel says, echoing my tone, as he pushes his cart down the carpeted hall.

    T apping the resources of what she calls “the sisters-are-doing-it-for-themselves network,” Cheryl has arranged for a party planner and a travel agent to come to the house and discuss Project BM South Africa. Everywhere we go, Cheryl keeps saying “BM” loudly—it gives me flashbacks to my mother asking, “Did you make a nice BM?” “I can’t talk right now, I have to make a BM.” “Are your BMs regular?” and so on …
    “Can we change the name?” I beg her. “Just call it what it is, a bar mitzvah.”
    “Too much to say,” she says.
    “Then let’s just say ‘bar,’ as in ‘We’re planning a bar.’”
    “Won’t people be confused?”
    “No more than they already are now.”
    Sofia, the party planner, arrives with a box of props marked “Bar Mitzvah.” She slaps it down on the dining-room table. “I have boxes for every occasion—Communion, Bar-Bat, Sweet 16, Engagement, Baby Shower, Adoption Celebration, Family Reunion, Corporate Picnic, props for every event, everything from your yarmulkes to flight jackets and those magic pens with a photo of either the bride or groom, tilt it and their clothes fall off—very popular. Let’s face it, people like free stuff. It’s gotten so bad, you go to someone’s house for dinner and you leave wondering, Where’s my booty bag?”
    “How did you become a party planner?” I ask.
    “By accident,” she says. “My mother was a wonderful hostess: flowers on the table, so many ways to fold a napkin. You’d be shocked to know the number of people who don’t know the fork goes on the left, much less what to do if there’s a salad fork and a dessert fork. … Okay,” she says, catching herself, aware that she has a propensity to go on. “What’s the time frame?”
    “The temple date was July 3; Nate’s actual birthday is the fifth.”
    She looks stricken.
    “What?” I ask.
    “We’re beyond late—this is like sudden-death overtime.” She takes a deep breath. “It is what it is—so we’ll jump right in and get started. First the invites.”
    “The good news is, we don’t need invites. It’s going to be really small, and Nate has already told me, no gifts. We’re going to make a donation to the village to help them improve the school.”
    Sofia looks at me like I’m an idiot. “You’re having the bar mitzvah in July in South Africa—no one is going to come, so what you want to do is invite everyone. All the more if you want to raise money for the school. Invite his whole class and the faculty. Do you have a list of who came to the funeral? The family holiday-card list? The wife’s relatives, who might hate you but still care for the boy? Invite everyone you can think of—it’s halfway around the world and in the height of summer; they’ll be thrilled to say no and send a gift. Figure you invite two hundred fifty people and they each spend fifty to a hundred bucks, you’ll do very well. The cost of the invite is going to be a little high. We want it nice, lined envelope, reply card, stamped envelope. It’s about three fifty per—plus some kind of a rush charge. Let’s call it a start-up or opportunity cost. We want people to open the card, read the program, and be moved to send money. We’ll have thank-you notes printed at the same time. Anyone who sees this is going to know the kid got lucky having an uncle like you.”
    This is the first compliment I’ve gotten about my new role, and I am surprised at how good it feels.
    “Okay,” she says, not giving me a second to revel in it. “Let’s use our time wisely. For the invitation, thermography is fine. In this case, with the family history, to go full-on engraved would be excessive. And I strongly suggest you not invite people by e-mail. We’ll have a nice invite, and people will feel obligated. … ‘At Nate’s request, all gifts will be directed to building a school