What would you say is the appropriate amount of time in which to have to decide which parent you love more than the other?
Because my parents seem to think that twenty-four hours ought to cut it, and while I’m not what the kids call a “whiz” at math, that feels a little short.
“Let’s go through this again,” Camila Morales says with the focused dedication of a girl who already has both her love life and future career in order. “Pros of staying here for the summer. Obvious number one: I’ll be here.”
“I don’t know if you can count your presence in Manhattan when you’ll be visiting your Abuela in Puerto Rico for an entire month, but okay.” I yank a handful of grapes from the bunch we brought with us on our picnic to Central Park—because nothing helps us make big decisions like people watching—and put one between my teeth, letting them pierce the skin slowly. About ten feet to our right, three girls who look a few years younger than us sit together on their own blanket, each one glued to a cell phone, and to the left, a couple is babying a cat so big and fluffy, it looks like the world’s comfiest pillow. “Obvious number two: it means not ditching my dad, plus not packing.”
“Okay, but obvious number two is canceled by not seeing your mom, though I will give you points for the packing thing. You’re horrible at packing.”
I can’t even be offended. I absolutely am horrible at packing. If you invite me to a pool party, you can be certain I’ll forget my bathing suit. In fairness, my absent-minded gene is so clearly inherited from my dad, I can hardly be blamed for it. If it weren’t for his various TAs and author’s assistants over the years, and the fact that he’s one of the most brilliant math professors Columbia has ever seen, he would have been out of a job decades ago.
“Fine.” A throuple walks by, the man in the middle wearing a baby in one of those carriers while the parents on either side of him each have a pinkie in the cooing infant’s grip. It’s impossibly cute and reminds me of my easy number three, though I’m not going to say it aloud to Camila.
Unfortunately, my best friend knows me at least as well as I know myself, if not better. “Obvious number three: the Redhead.”
“The Redhead is not a reason to stay,” I argue weakly, even though she absolutely is, because we both know she occupies an absurd amount of my brain space. But to be fair, she is obscenely cute, and also ridiculously hot, and impossibly cool, and it’s not easy to roll that all into one person. “Besides, what if she’s not here for the summer?”
“Okay, but what if she is?” Camila counters. “What if she’s wandering the Upper West Side all summer wondering why she’s stopped running into that cute blue-eyed brunette everywhere? And then, because that cute blue-eyed brunette was the last thing keeping her in Manhattan, she leaves town and moves to Nebraska?”
“I don’t think they have punk girls in Nebraska.”
Camila rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure there are no punk girls in the entire state of Nebraska. I forgot they’ve completely banned nose rings over there, and I hear listening to Bad Religion can get you exiled to Kansas.”
I stab another grape with my teeth. “Now who’s being ridiculous?”
“Still you, Tal,” she says, yanking out her ponytail holder and immediately putting her thick black curls in an even higher and tighter knot. “Always you.”
“Says the girl who thinks random run-ins at bookstores and cupcake shops are the last
things keeping the Redhead in New York.”
“You know what I mean.” She stretches out her legs in front of her and flexes her toes back and forth, fuchsia pedicure winking in the sunlight. “The universe is clearly smashing you and the Redhead together. You’ve been crushing on her for almost the entire year, and you haven’t even managed to get her name. This is the summer you finally introduce yourself and ask her out. I’m convinced.”
“Or, point for going to my mom in LA: no pressure to make a fool out of myself to the Redhead, who may or may not even be queer, let alone interested in me.”
“Didn’t you say she wears a rainbow pin on her backpack?”
“Yeah, but maybe it’s an ally thing. Maybe she’s got queer parents.”
“Maybe she has a bisexual best friend who absolutely cannot get up the guts to ask out anyone of any gender, despite the fact that she would be the world’s greatest girlfriend and anyone would be lucky to have her,” Camila says pointedly.
Whoops—I accidentally crushed the last couple of grapes in my hand. I shove them all in my mouth together to avoid acknowledging Camila’s jab, sweet as it may be, and immediately regret it when one goes down the wrong pipe. She has to whack me on the back, and eventually it dislodges. “You talk big for someone who’s practically married,” I shoot back. “You haven’t had to deal with dating since before we were old enough to date.” That part isn’t even an exaggeration—Camila’s and Emilio’s moms are both nurses at New York Presbyterian and bonded immediately over their parents being from the same city in the Philippines. Their kids bonded just as quickly the first time they met, and their friendship morphed into romance the second hormones hit. They’ve been “Camelio” for as long as I can remember. “Let’s tone down the judgment, please.”
“That was a compliment mixed with judgment, thank you very much.” She helps herself to some of the grapes, then reaches for her phone when it chimes with a text. Judging by her sappy smile, it’s Emilio, which fascinates me because it feels like a person should not be able to still have that effect on another person after this long.
Then again, I don’t have much to model it on. You know those couples who split up and everyone is all, “Oh no, why? They seemed so happy!”?
My parents are not that couple.
My parents are the couple who make you say, “What were they ever doing together to begin with?” And they’d be right there with you in asking it.
In their defense—or, at least, as they tell it—finding another Jew at a grad school Christmas party in Durham, North Carolina, seems like the kind of scenario for which the word “bashert” was created. Between awkwardly declining shrimp cocktail and crab puffs at every turn and faking knowing the words to carols they’d only ever heard on TV, Ezra Morris Fox and Melissa Rina Farber exchanged numbers. Then they went on way too many group dates to realize they didn’t actually like each other when it was just the two of them, eventually figured it out on their honeymoon, but also realized they’d gotten pregnant on their honeymoon, and voilà—then came me. Cue three years of trying to make it
work with couples therapy, four years of trying to keep it together by throwing themselves into their jobs and avoiding me as much as possible, and finally, a weary, inevitable divorce that was just amicable enough to work out shared custody.
Until three years ago.
When Melissa got poached from her marketing firm to join Cooper Frank in LA as an executive vice president, she couldn’t say no—but I could. And my refusal to move to LA meant I was now in full custody of one absent-minded professor and spoke to my mom approximately once a week. So it could be nice to actually get to spend the entire summer with her.
Or it could be awkward and miserable, lonely for my dad, and just generally an ill-advised mess all around. Who can say, really?
“Maybe LA will have its own version of the Redhead,” Camila suggests, her daggerlike nails catching the sun as she unscrews the cap on her coconut water. “Los Angeles definitely has punk girls.”
“How do you know what LA has?” I challenge, watching a corgi do a series of tricks for a bone-shaped treat and willing it to toddle over so I can pet it. “You’re always complaining that you’ve never been west of Chicago.”
“First of all, LA is huge—I’m pretty sure they have literally everything. Second of all, my mom’s brother lives in Eagle Rock, so we’re going to visit at some point. We just have to, you know, actually get there.”
“I don’t think that makes you an expert on the city, Cam.”
“No, but you could be.” She takes a swig of her water, and it’s a good reminder for me to hydrate, but of course my Nalgene is empty. I grab another couple of grapes instead. “Go to that all-romance bookstore. Do a zillion sketches of the beach. And my uncle would be very happy to make Filipino restaurant recommendations, since he never shuts up about them.”
The corgi flops onto its belly, exhausted, and accepts a treat happily. “Maybe you should go instead of me. Melissa probably won’t even notice. I doubt she even remembers what I look like.”
Okay, so I’m a little dramatic about her move. But I’ve earned it. I understand them splitting up, and I was all for it, even at seven years old. Leaving your daughter behind as you move three thousand miles away for a job, though? A job she already had—albeit at a lower level and in a firm she hated, with a boss who absolutely sucked—in New York? When she never even tried to look for another one here? That part, I can’t understand.
I don’t know if I wanna have kids when I grow up, but I sure as hell know I wanna live on the same coast if I do.
Camila rolls her dark Bambi eyes; she’s used to my drama by now. “Or maybe spending time with your mother will help fix things between you and you can stop making excuses to avoid her calls and actually tell her what’s going on in your life. You know your mom would be very happy to talk you through college applications and not knowing what you wanna do with your life.”
Sometimes I really hate how well Cam knows me. Though it’s easy for her to act like having a conversation with my mother will be the fix to everything; just
like her relationship, Camila has known for years what she wants to do for a living—follow in her mom’s footsteps as a labor and delivery nurse.
“So basically, we’re back where I started. Obvious pros, obvious cons, and no closer to an answer.” I huff out a breath. “What would you do?” I ask, even though I already know.
“Oh, definitely LA, but I like trying new things. That’s not really your MO.”
“So you think I’m gonna stay here.” Am I offended? I can’t tell.
“I think you’re gonna stay here,” she confirms. “You like what’s comfortable. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“There isn’t,” I agree, but the words don’t feel like they carry as much weight as I want them to. I don’t want everything to be exactly the same this summer, do I? But how uncomfortable do I have to get to shake things up? “I don’t know. Maybe I need a change of scenery to finally make some decisions.”
“Maybe you could use a different sounding board, too.” She gets to her knees and starts gathering up her stuff. “It’s almost five and I promised I’d make dinner for the kiddos tonight.”
The kiddos are Emanuel and Esperanza, Camila’s twelve-year-old brother and nine-year-old sister, who get seriously hangry after 6:00 P.M. We clean up quickly and part ways with our usual double air-kiss, and I go on home with my head still swimming with possibilities.
What does it mean that I don’t like being thought of as someone who doesn’t take chances? It’s not like Camila’s wrong—not by a long shot. I haven’t taken a risk since … well, I’m sure I’ll think of an example eventually. But do I want to? And is spending a potentially horrifyingly awkward summer with my mom the kind of risk I want to take? Not all risks are created equal, is for sure.
“Tally? Are you okay?”
I blink when Adira Reiss snaps her fingers in front of my face. I didn’t even notice her getting out of the elevator, but I guess I’ve just been standing at the door to my apartment, key in hand, afraid to go inside and be confronted by my father for my decision. “I’m okay,” I say with a sheepish smile, meeting the concerned brown eyes behind her round-framed glasses. “Just spacing.”
“Still trying to decide about LA?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And avoiding your dad because you still don’t know?”
God, why do all my friends know me so well? In fairness, as my across-the-hall neighbor for the last billion years, Adira sees a lot more than most people, but still. “You don’t know my life.”
She cracks a grin and opens her front door. “Shabbat leftovers for dinner?”
“Yes, please.” I abandon my apartment and follow Adira into hers, my mouth already watering at the thought of her potato kugel. When my dad and I do Shabbat meals together, it’s always takeout from the Kosher Emporium or, if he’s feeling fancy, one of the many kosher (or kosher-style) restaurants in the area. But the Reisses have us over at least once (usually twice) a month, and both Adira and her mom can seriously cook. Dr. Reiss keeps telling me she’ll show me how to make bourekas and stuffed chicken myself one of these days, but she’s one of the most
in-demand pediatricians on the entire Upper West Side, and honestly I’m not even sure when she makes her own food, let alone when she’ll find time to teach me.
Maybe that’s another thing that can go on the summer to-do list if I stay.
Learn how to make a Shabbat meal by myself, from challah to dessert, so my dad and I can have home-cooked Shabbat dinners without relying on the Reisses.
Not a risk, but a change. A good change.
I take a seat at the small round table in their kitchen while Adira makes us plates that’ll go right in the microwave. I’ve tried to help a million times before, but she always says not to bother since she’s got this down to a science. And she does, always portioning out the perfect amounts of garlicky chicken, fluffy rice, oniony potato kugel, and whatever roasted, steamed, or sauteed vegetable is on the menu that week. (In this case, string beans that drip with soy sauce and minced garlic—my favorite.)
“Do you want soup?” she asks, taking one last look in the fridge to see if she missed anything. She doesn’t need to specify—it’s chicken soup with matzoh balls and a healthy heaping of carrot and parsnip every Friday night, which was Adira’s father’s favorite, and is still their tradition nearly five years after his death. But while they have it fifty-two Shabboses a year, I can’t bring myself to have soup in the summer.
“No thanks—just a plate is perfect.”
Once our food is steaming from the microwave, we dig in, and Adira tells me all about the day camp she’ll be running this summer with her best friends, Chevi and Becca, in Chevi’s backyard. (Unlike Camila and me, who go to public school a few blocks away on West End, Adira goes to a private Jewish school down by Lincoln Center with lots of kids from Jersey and the suburbs—backyards aplenty.) It’s obvious she’s giving me some space from talking about the Summer Dilemma, but it’s impossible to clear my brain from it. Finally, she asks where I’m leaning, and I ask her the same question to her I posed Camila, though I’m far less certain of her answer: “What would you do?”
“I don’t know,” she says, and I appreciate having someone else in my life who doesn’t think it’s a no-brainer. “Being near the beach in the summer sounds a lot nicer than being in the city, and LA’s got a ton of great kosher food. Plus, no getting on subway cars with—surprise—no AC or walking over grates blasting hot air.… New York in the summer is kinda gross.”
“Okay, but it’s also kinda great,” I argue. “Random free concerts? People watching with ice cream in Central Park? Hanging out on the High Line? Movies in Bryant Park? Yankees games? Shakespeare in the Park? And I know you’ve never been to Pride, but trust me when I tell you it’s one of the best parts of the summer.”
Adira laughs, showing off teeth made perfect by two separate rounds of braces. “I’m pretty sure LA has Pride celebrations too, but you don’t have to sell me on the city, and you know I’d be happier if you stayed! I just think it’s cool that you have options. But anyway, we’re only
places. Going to LA also means leaving your dad, and I know you guys are really close.”
Close feels like a funny word to describe what we are, like I run and tell him all my secrets or whatever. Our relationship isn’t like that, because he’s not that kind of person. When I told him I’m bi, all he said was, “Dating rules remain the same—don’t bring anyone home who can’t do a basic algebraic equation.”
But we are a unit, and I absolutely hate the thought of leaving him on his own. He’s not incapable of taking care of himself or anything, but he’s spacey in that way people are whose brains are always occupied by work they’re passionate about, and it’s not unusual for him to realize as he’s going to bed that he hasn’t consumed anything other than coffee all day.
Of course, if he got even a whiff of the fact that taking care of him factored into my reasoning to stay, he’d put me on the first plane to LAX.
My phone beeps with a text, and I look down to see a message from the professor himself. Café 84 for dinner?
Whoops. I’ve devoured 90 percent of what’s on my plate already, and I’d been eyeing the babka on the Reisses’ countertop, but if I’m even potentially bailing on my dad for the summer, I’m definitely not bailing on him for dinner.
Even if this is the dinner where I’ll have to make my choice.
“Sorry to pig out on your food and run, but apparently my dad wants to do dinner.” I start to clean up, but Adira tells me to leave it.
“I got it,” she says. “Just tell me what you end up deciding. I’m dying to know.”
“Me too,” I respond with a shrug. “Meeee too.”
On a long list of places I’d miss if I went to LA, Café 84 is definitely near the top. The food is perfectly average—typical quiche and pasta and fish and whatever—but the real magic is in the massive menu of desserts, and, in the summer, twelve different kinds of lemonade. Plus, the sidewalk dining setup is beautiful, studded with small trees wrapped in fairy lights.
“What are you thinking?” Professor Ezra Fox, aka Dad, asks, the hand that isn’t holding his menu tapping a beat on the glossy table.
My skin prickles in a cold sweat. I didn’t think he’d start the meal by asking the all-important question. “I, uh … I’m not sure yet.”
“Really?” He raises his bushy graying eyebrows. “Last time we came here, you talked about the butternut squash ravioli for hours afterward.”
Oh. He wants to know what I’m thinking about the menu. Still a huge choice but not quite on par with choosing a parent and city. “I don’t think I can do pasta right now,” I hedge, the pounds of food I consumed at the Reisses still sitting heavy in my stomach. “Maybe eggs. Like a Denver omelet, hold the ham.” We’re not as strictly kosher as Adira and her mom are, but we do forgo all things pig. “I’m feeling adventurous.”
He looks like he wants to laugh at the idea of an omelet with some vegetables passing as “adventure,” but he very politely says, “And I assume you’ll be getting an adventurous lemonade as well.”
This is a good point. I usually stick to the delicious fruity ones—raspberry or strawberry or pomegranate. But there’s a section of plant-y ones I never dip into, like basil or lavender, and judging by my conversation with Camila, it’s time I mix that up. “Yes, in fact,” I say firmly. “I’ll have the…” My eyes scan the list. “Limonana.” I’m not sure what that is, but it definitely sounds adventurous.
“Oh, limonana.” My dad’s voice takes on a wistful tone that suggests some long story from his past is about to follow. There are three eras to said past—the good ol’ college days at MIT, the master’s program he did at Technion in Haifa, and his PhD program at Duke, which doesn’t get quite as much love because, well, my mom. “There was this place by the beach in Netanya that made the most amazing ones, and we used to go parasailing and then chug ’em.” Master’s program, then. “I think I’ll join you in that. And in an omelet, too—sounds good.”
Of course my “adventure” involves a few bell peppers and a new flavor of lemonade and my dad just randomly drops something about flying through the air. I make even math professors look cool.
We place our orders, and I ask for my omelet to be delivered with some hot sauce. There, that’s something. Or at least it would be if my dad didn’t add an “Ooh, that sounds good too. Tal, you’re really hitting every nail on the head tonight.”
Is this really who I am? I don’t feel this boring. Would going to LA change it all? Or is staying and making the most of NYC the best move?
How do I still not know?
I ask my dad how the book’s going—he’s working on a second edition of his best-selling textbook on algebraic topology—and he immediately gets excited talking about the new exercises he’s adding and all the supplemental materials he’s been discussing with his editor. “Animated diagrams, Natalya!” he says with not a little bit of joy in his voice. “Imagine Intro to Algebraic Topology, second edition, with animated diagrams!”
Well, now I know what
my dad is thinking about when he makes goofy noises in his sleep. I guess that’s better than the alternative.
As always, his descriptions start to get far too technical for someone who doesn’t have at least an undergrad degree in math, and I let my gaze wander to the other diners. There’s a young couple with a toddler who’s absolutely giddy with sugar from a half-eaten cupcake, her face smeared with berry-pink icing the exact color of the bows securing her adorable tiny Afro puffs. On the other side of them, an older white woman in an awesome feathered hat is sitting in a wheelchair pulled up to the table, an aide in aqua scrubs helping her with a plate of plain salmon and undressed broccoli. And then my view is obstructed by a server in khaki shorts and a black T-shirt carrying a tray of tall, frothy green drinks. “What do you think that is?” I ask my dad, immediately feeling bad when I realize he was still talking. “Sorry.”
He smiles. “I’m aware my work isn’t quite as scintillating to you as it is to me. But what do you mean?” he asks, and I realize the server is coming right to our table. “Didn’t you want a—”
“Limonana!” The cheerful ginger server places one huge glass in front of my dad and the other in front of me. “Enjoy! I’ll be back with your omelets in a few minutes. ...
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