Match Me If You Can, page 6
“The problem is me,” I finally say. “I’m not disciplined.”
He nods. “I’ll help you.”
“I can be stubborn.”
“So can I.” His dark brown eyes glint with challenge, reminding me how competitive we both were as children. I was a shockingly good ping-pong player despite the height discrepancy, and there were times when both Zevi and Caleb refused to quit playing until they beat me.
If there was ever a game worth playing, it’s this one.
“Okay, Kahn.” I nod. “Deal.”
In the non-Orthodox world, we’d probably shake hands at this point, but touching the opposite sex isn’t allowed in our community. Except for immediate family members and grandparents, you’re not even supposed to give someone a high-five. You can’t even touch your fiancé until the glass is broken under the wedding canopy. Being shomer negiah is so ingrained in my purview that I rarely stop to think about it.
But standing here with Caleb, under the cover of a beautiful night sky, I imagine slipping my hand into his and feeling the heat of his touch. I wonder how much pressure he would apply. He seems like the type who’d give a strong handshake, firm and confident.
Gaaagghh. What was in the wine tonight?
“Okay, then.” I clear my throat. “Now tell me what you’re looking for in a wife.”
He shakes his head. “It’s late, and,” he dips his chin at my house, “you’re home.”
“Oh no, you don’t.” I shake my head. “You don’t get to avoid this part of the conversation.”
“It’s late,” he repeats.
“Are you going to turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight?”
“—It’s dark—”
“—So what?”
“—I have to get up early to go to shul—”
I point my finger at him. “You’re coming inside and you’re going to answer my questions, and I will tell you when you can go. Otherwise, the deal is off,” I call over my shoulder as I climb the front steps.
“Ashira,” he says, hurrying after me. “Stop. This is a terrible idea.” I ignore him as I unlock the door. He rants about how inappropriate this is, how unnecessary, and yichud this and yichud that. He’s awfully jumpy about being in a house alone with the opposite gender considering the fact that he wasn’t shomer at all for fifteen years. Maybe even longer. I’m pretty sure I caught him holding Aviva’s hand once or twice.
“I’ll leave the door ajar, okay?” I say. “Or would you prefer it all the way open? You seem nervous.”
“I’m not nervous. I’m concerned for your reputation,” he says, crossing his arms. “Don’t you think inviting a man into your house late at night where anyone can see would be the nail in your coffin?”
He’s right, of course. And if I hadn’t had a few glasses of wine tonight and if I didn’t feel like he was trying to get out of our deal, I probably wouldn’t be doing this.
“Can I take your coat?” I offer.
“No, I’m good.”
I shrug off mine, feeling slightly self-conscious as he watches. The fabric of this dress is clingier than what most would consider tznius, but it’s cute and hey, at least it covers my elbows and knees.
“Do you have any potato chips?” Caleb says abruptly, turning in the direction of the kitchen.
Potato chips? Is he having some kind of early midlife crisis?
He opens the cupboard and frowns. “Did you move the junk food?”
“Yes, two decades ago.” I pull open a different cabinet and gesture inside. “I’ve got a whole array of flavors. Help yourself.”
“Thanks.”
I sit at the kitchen table and watch as he selects salt and vinegar, and digs in. This is so wrong. The man sees junk food like other people view arsenic.
Understandably, I’m concerned.
Is it because he’s alone in the house with me? Or because I’m making him answer a few questions about what he’s looking for in a wife? Because this is the easy part. The blind dates are what sucks. It’s like getting a root canal, but at least then you’re given laughing gas to help ease the pain. With blind dates, you take so much time getting ready and putting your best self out there, only to either be disappointed by your date or have them reject you. Unless, of course, it’s a match. Even then it usually collapses by the second or third date.
And dating for marriage comes with high stakes. Everything is forever. Like, is this the person I want to wake up with forever? Is this the person that I want to forever parent my children with? And most importantly, is this the person that I’ll want to have sex with forever?
All of which is hard to determine when there’s no touching of any kind allowed. Until you’re officially married, at which point, you immediately go from your first kiss to your first time together—once the wedding is over, that is. Depending on who you talk to, it’s either incredibly romantic or incredibly awkward.
And unless you’re more modern, it’s frowned upon to take too long to decide; the longer you’re together, the more likely you are to find things to fight about. Plus, the temptation to touch each other gets harder the longer you’re around the person.
So, I get where he’s coming from. But still . . .
“Aren’t you concerned about the amount of chemicals in there?” I say, pointing to the bag.
“I’m trying very hard not to think about it.”
“Caleb, stop, you’re better than this,” I say, moving to pull the bag away, but his reflexes are quick and he slides it out of my reach. I frown and watch him take another big handful. “Why are you doing this?”
“I’m not allowed to eat chips?”
“It’s a sign of a mental breakdown, and I’m afraid it’s because of me.”
He leans back in the chair and crosses his arms. “I wouldn’t call eating chips a sign of a mental breakdown.”
“It is for you.” I watch him pop another few into his mouth, and I add in a warning voice, “Don’t make me tell you how many calories are in one serving.”
“One hundred and forty. And I don’t care.”
“You seem a little . . .” I stop and chew on my lower lip, wondering how to word it. “Don’t you want to get married?” I ask for the second time tonight. Because something isn’t adding up here.
“Of course.” A flash of emotion skitters across his eyes as he lifts them to meet mine.
And then without permission—it’s always without permission—my mind takes me back to a night five years earlier when Caleb’s mom had invited me to her and her husband’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. I didn’t want to go, but I also couldn’t not go after I saw the challenge in Caleb’s eyes.
After dinner, I volunteered to do the dishes and Caleb joined me. I reminded myself to keep my distance, that he was nothing but trouble, but before long, we fell into our old rhythm of teasing and chatting.
Although it was different, too. Our eyes caught here and there, lingered an extra beat. There was something in the air.
Everyone else had left by that point, and Caleb’s parents sat on the couch drinking champagne and going through old photo albums.
“I think your parents have the best marriage I’ve ever seen,” I said, passing him a wet plate.
“Yeah.” He stood beside me at the sink, his hip against the counter. “I think it helped they were friends first.”
I nodded. I’d heard the story of how they met countless times. Caleb’s mother had been one of the thousands of Jewish Ethiopian children rescued in a daring mission called Operation Moses carried out by the Mossad. She’d met her future husband, Dr. Yishai Kahn, in Israel at the age of twenty when he had taken a gap year and she had been a guest speaker at an event commemorating the operation. They had a common interest in medicine and ended up becoming friends. By the time she was offered a scholarship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and he’d been accepted into NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine, they were already married and somewhat Orthodox, and raising six-year-old Caleb.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
“I agree,” I said, pumping more soap onto the sponge. “It’s nice to have that strong foundation to start off with.”
“Although,” he said, after a pause. “It can be tricky too.”
I turned to look at him. “What do you mean?”
“If you cross that line and it doesn’t work out, it’s impossible to go back.”
“True.” I handed him a glass. “Sad, but true.”
“What would you do?”
I tilted my head. A few strands of hair came loose from my ponytail and fell across my face, and I used the back of my sudsy hand to swipe the hair back. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said slowly, leaning closer and dabbing some leftover suds off my face with the dish towel, “what would you do if you developed an attraction to a friend?”
Chapter Seven
My body understood what was happening before I did. My pulse fluttered. My stomach fluttered. A minute later my brain caught on, and then it fluttered too. Then my eyes dropped to Caleb’s lips. I couldn’t help imagining how it would feel to have them pressed against my own. More shockingly, I realized that I wanted to.
“I—” I swallowed, suddenly confused by my body’s reaction to having Caleb this close. Was I having a hypersexual crisis? Was that even a thing?
“I don’t know,” I murmured, as my cheeks burned with heat.
His eyes pooled with intensity. My back was pressed against the sink and he put a hand on either side of me, effectively trapping me. My breathing quickened with excitement. Then he tilted his head and whispered in my ear, “When you figure it out, let me know.”
But my hormones had already figured it out and were busy shouting step-by-step instructions. Find the nearest room with a lock. Tear off his shirt Tarzan-style. Dance naked to Meghan Trainor’s ‘All About That Bass’.
Such a good song.
But then the Judge Judy in my head banged her gavel and barked, “Unless you suddenly changed your mind about marriage, maintain a minimum of fifty feet from his Royal Hotness at all times.”
Had I changed my decision to never get married? No, I definitely hadn’t. I’d long since decided heartbreak wasn’t worth the risk, not now and not ever. I’d seen how my father’s abandonment destroyed our once happy home. I spent countless nights in bed, unable to fall asleep, worried that I’d wake up and discover that my mother had vanished too. I remember watching Zevi pretend to be sick so he wouldn’t have to go to shul on Shabbos and sit alone in the men’s section. I saw how matchmakers treated Leah differently because she came from a broken home—it was another reason why my mother wanted to become a matchmaker. She wanted to help level the playing field for those with extenuating circumstances.
And if the fairytales my father read to me were true, that love was always the answer, then what did that say about my father? Had he lied all those times he said he loved me? Or was love not always the answer?
I didn’t know. But I knew that the girl who was abandoned by her father grew into the woman who didn’t trust men to stick around.
Which meant no nude dancing to ‘All About That Bass’.
Caleb drew back and searched my face. He’d always been perceptive and all the more so when it came to me. I don’t know what he saw in my eyes, but he cleared his throat and stepped back.
And that was that.
The rustling of the chip bag snaps me back to the present.
I watch him chow down like there’s no tomorrow and it makes me feel guilty by association. “Do you want some Vitamin C with that?” I ask, getting up. “I think I have orange juice in the fridge.”
“Orange juice is nothing but glorified soda.”
“I guess I won’t offer you a Coke then.” I fill up a glass of water and hand it to him. “Gotta keep hydrated in this weather,” I joke, gesturing to the window where the wind howls against the pane.
“Are we back to discussing the weather?”
I shake my head and smile.
My mind drifts to the years that have passed since the night of that anniversary dinner. I know he asked Zevi about me over the years. But I was back to being annoyed with him, and couldn’t help but wonder if he saw that night as some cheap opportunity to mess around with a virgin. I didn’t trust him, and I was grateful that I had the sense not to listen to my hormones and lunge myself at him the way I wanted to. But I think about that night more often than I’d like. And sometimes I find myself wondering if he does too.
I clear my throat. Time to put on my matchmaker hat. “I’ll try to keep this process as pain-free as possible.”
“Considerate of you.”
I smile. “So,” I say, “what are you looking for in a woman?”
He reaches for more chips. “I don’t know.”
I give him a long, hard stare. If he thinks he’s going to get away without answering this question, he should think again. “You must have a general idea.”
“Not really.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Well,” he taps his fingers against the tabletop, “I’d prefer someone who doesn’t hate football.”
I look at him funny, wondering if that’s supposed to be a dig at me. I hate football. It’s stupid and violent and shortens the players’ lifespans. Not to mention the fans whose blood pressure spikes when their team loses. “O-kay.” I paste on a bright smile. “Anything else?”
“I don’t want to be dragged around malls.” I force my eyes not to circle upwards. As a pre-teen, I used to beg Caleb to take my friends and me to the mall. He hated every minute of it. “And,” he adds, pointing at me, “I don’t want to have to fight with her about eating vegetables.”
Message received.
“Let me see if I have this straight—you want someone who enjoys football, hates shopping, and loves vegetables. Is that right?”
He nods. “That about sums it up.”
“So, basically,” I say, “you want to marry yourself.”
He chokes on a potato chip as he starts to laugh.
“Look, Caleb. Those are all great. Obviously.” Even though they seem suspiciously the exact opposite of me. “But what about more substantial things?”
“I prefer women with darker skin and hair,” he says, his eyes traveling to my light-skinned face and blonde hair. “The shorter the better.”
Well, that felt personal.
“When I said substantial, Caleb, I wasn’t referring to skin or hair color, or the length of her legs,” I bristle.
“I didn’t realize I’d be judged on what I was looking for.”
I gaze at his neck and picture squeezing it. Is he trying to irritate me? Because it very much feels like he is. “What about her personality? Or Hashkafa?”
I’ve seen plenty of divorces happen because of philosophical differences and how best to observe the Torah and commandments, especially once couples start raising their children.
“I’d like her to be accepting and non-judgmental.”
I nod. Finally, we’re getting somewhere.
“Do you care about race?” I ask and he shakes his head. “Do you care if she comes from a broken home? Or what about yichus?”
“Good yichus would be nice,” he says. “It would definitely help my kids out.”
I nod. In Judaism, if the mom isn’t Jewish, then the kids aren’t. But having good yichus—coming from a long line of respectable family and Torah scholars that you can trace back all the way to the old country—brings a whole new status.
“I’m assuming that you don’t want someone from a broken home then,” I say lightly, careful to keep my voice absent of emotion. Even someone with good yichus can’t overcome the stain of being a product of divorce.
It isn’t fair, but few things in life are.
You’d never know it now, but at one point, my family was considered prestigious. We had money and decent yichus, not to mention a peaceful home filled with light and laughter. At least, that’s how it seemed in my innocent and childlike mind.
“Really, it’s not that important,” he says, holding my gaze. If I didn’t know any better, I think he was trying to reassure me not to take offense. “I’d rather have someone that I can connect with.”
“Don’t worry,” I say firmly. “I’ll find you someone who can be all that and comes from good yichus.”
He stands up and puts the potato chips away. “Do you think someone like that would be interested in dating someone like me?” he asks, with his back to me.
“Yes. Are you kidding?” I say, taken aback by the question. “How can you even ask that?” Needing something to do, I stand up and start to sweep the crumbs that had fallen onto the floor.
“It’s not as though I come from good yichus.”
Well . . . He does have a point. People of well-respected lineage usually marry into similarly prestigious families.
“Your family is lovely,” I say firmly. “Who cares if your dad is from an irreligious family from the Bronx, or that your mother grew up in poverty in Ethiopia and then Ramat Beit Shemesh?” I say, waving my hands. “She’s freaking amazing, and your dad is a total sweetheart.” Needing something to do with my hands, I take his spoon to the sink and run it under soapy water. “Seriously now. How many people can say that their mother is the director of neurology at Mount Sinai Hospital? Or that their father is an electrophysiologist at NYU?”
“I appreciate what you’re doing here, Tinsel, but that’s not what counts as good yichus.”
“Good yichus can kiss my ass,” I say, pointing my finger at him. “Your family is awesome, full stop.”
But no matter what I think, conventional standards within the greater community might disagree. Caleb’s paternal side consists of agnostic Jews and his maternal side is made up of Ethiopian-Israelis. He isn’t exactly what people think of when yichus comes to mind.
The fact that he moved from Israel to America at seven was another huge adjustment. Kids laughed when he read certain Hebrew letters with the “T” sound rather than the “S”, or pronounced words with “Oh” instead of the Ashkenazi “Oi.”
