Price to Pay
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“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. I sat down again and stirred my tea. “You think I’m an awful person. Sitting here on an all-expenses-paid vacation, complaining. How greedy, right?”
T he greatest difference between my friends and me was that most of them had 1,000 square feet of floor to keep clean, and Miele canisters, while I had 3,500 square feet and a central vacuum system. A broken central vacuum system.
After the repairman, who charged $150 to prescribe a $700 motor replacement, left, I turned to my broom and said, “You and me are going to become tight.”
I was reaching for the shovel to collect yet another mound of dirt when my mother called.
“I have a little surprise for you,” she said. The tinkle in her voice made my stomach knot.
“A surprise?” I repeated weakly.
She chuckled. “Yup. Me and Tatty decided to treat you girls in honor of Mimi’s wedding. I made an appointment with Tehilla for you, Rivky, and Chani to get new sheitels. On us, of course.”
The knot in my stomach went snap. “Wow,” I breathed. “Th-thank you.”
When my mother said “new sheitel,” she was not referring to the AliExpress variety. I’d given up estimating how much this wedding was costing my parents. All I knew was how much it was costing us. Babysitters for the wedding night and all sheva brachos, the sheva brachos my siblings and I were doing (in a restaurant; siblings always do restaurant sheva brachos), gowns for myself and my girls. (“Ma is gonna pay, she always does,” my sister Rivky kept reassuring me, but these things were so unpredictable, and so far my mother hadn’t said a word.) And a gift for the chassan kallah. (“We have no choice,” I’d explained to Efraim. “My siblings bought us an antique silver fruit bowl when we got married.” To which Efraim retorted, “Give them ours.”)
In hindsight, I probably should not have broken the sheitel news to Efraim over supper. With my husband running out to tutor a bochur before night seder, we had a skimpy half hour together every night. A shame to squander that on an argument.
Worse, he was 100 percent right. “What’s wrong with your sheitel?” he demanded. “What do you need a new one for?”
“What do you want me to do?” I snapped. “I didn’t ask for it. Don’t you think I’d prefer if she gave us the money and told us to use it for wedding expenses?”
“Why don’t you tell her this?”
“Are you nuts? She’ll be totally insulted.”
He grunted. “Did you tell her about the vacuum?”
I sighed wearily. “I can’t. This vacuum system was a moving gift from my parents, remember?”
“The gift that keeps taking.”
“Like the house?” I asked quietly.
Efraim nodded grimly. “Like this fancy, tremendous house, which we’re going to lose.”
I filled my lungs. “You’re exaggerating, right?”
“If only.”
It was quiet after that. Efraim shuffled through the mail, ripping and tossing envelopes.
“They mean well,” I said. “My parents, you know. They have this vision, buying houses for the children, supporting them in learning.”
“Torah u’gedulah,” Efraim muttered. “Ah, the beauty.”
“Efraim!”
He waved an envelope in my face. “Tuition. We’re three months behind. And I wasn’t joking about the house. We’re this close to defaulting on the loan. Who needs it? We can buy three condos with the value of this property.” He paused. “I know Mimi’s chassan. Yehuda is a serious boy, totally sincere. He wants to learn.”
The insinuation stung. I understood Efraim. Still, it wasn’t fair to blame my parents. “They may be clueless, but they’re also very generous. They gave a 30 percent down payment on this house.”
“Thirty percent, plus a central vacuum system.”
That was going too far. I glared at Efraim and was about to say something really nasty when the doorbell rang. Biting my lip, I went to answer it.
“A meshulach,” I came back to report.
Efraim rubbed his forehead and pulled out his wallet. He deliberated, then withdrew a bill.
“Ten dollars?”
He nodded sadly.
I swallowed. My anger of moments before slowly faded, replaced by deep pity. I took the money and headed back to the door, trying not to think about the voucher checks my father ripped off every time the bell rang. The booklet did not contain any $10 checks.
I averted my eyes as I placed the bill for the meshulach to take on the console table — the polished chrome console table that matched the mirror above it, a little gift from my parents for our 10th anniversary.
In a couple of days, I was going to be the owner of a brand new wig, probably a Yafi.
And I couldn’t afford to give a meshulach more than a 10 dollar donation.
*****
“Nice bag,” I raved.
Rivky grinned, blushing. “Shimon picked it up for me for my birthday. On his own, can you believe it?”
Yes, I could believe it. The taste part, anyway. You don’t have to be a world’s maven to appreciate a Chanel bag. What I couldn’t believe was that my brother-in-law had spent that kind of money when, to the best of my knowledge, his mortgage was in a similar range as ours. Since when was he so reckless?
Oh well, none of my business. I turned my attention to my girls’ gowns. My mother had hired Rosie Simon to guide her through the gown process. The entire Feingold clan was clustered in Christina’s dingy basement, and the results were showing.
Christina was admirably patient with her fidgety clients. After two hours, when the last kid stepped up for her turn, my mother donned her jacket. “I’m going out to buy her some chocolate,” she told us, gesturing at Christina who was kneeling to adjust a hem, her mouth full of stickpins. “She deserves it.”
“Totally,” Chani agreed.
The next thing I knew, there was an invoice in my hand. I looked at my sisters, bewildered. What did this mean? Wasn’t my mother paying?
“Ma just called,” Rivky said. “She’s going ahead and said we should meet her at Butter House for lunch. I’m sending Fraidy out for the chocolates.”
“Rivky?” I whispered urgently, holding up the invoice.
“What’s a matter?”
“Isn’t Ma paying?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? Don’t be cheap. She’s giving us plenty and more for this wedding. We’re getting new sheitels, remember?”
My cheeks burned. I watched as Chani wrote out a check, as Rivky counted bills. Slowly, I withdrew my wallet and reached for my credit card.
In Butter House everyone seemed to be having a blast, claiming the food was out of this world. I picked at my portion, trying to swallow past the barrier in my throat.
When the waiter approached us with the tab, my mother smiled and waved him over. “On me,” she said, chuckling.
The bill was $400. The amount Efraim earned every month from his tutoring work. My mother handed over her credit card and casually signed the receipt.
*****
Gowns!” my mother announced.
The girls squealed. There was a rush of petticoats and zippers, flashes of black and white and gold. I fluffed up satin skirts, safety-pinned fabric, tied bows. “Beautiful!” I gushed, hugging my princesses.
I met Rivky at the rack as we unzipped garment bags. “Ma never mentioned the gowns, right?” I asked, casually.
“Right. I guess she didn’t think about it this time.”
I eyed her closely. How was she all chilled about this? We weren’t talking about gemach gowns here. Ma had hired Rosie, gone to several fabric stores, and joined us for countless fittings. Whatever happened, she couldn’t have not thought about it.
“Twelve hundred dollars for a gown for one night?” Efraim had groaned. “Plus the girls. Libby, this is crazy. You’re not living in reality. This is miles out of our budget.”
I had tried explaining why gemach gowns wouldn’t do, but he didn’t get it. Now, admiring my reflection in the mirror, I pushed the memory aside. This was not the time to worry. My sister was getting married and I intended to enjoy every minute of this incredible night.
The wedding was, as Ma’s friend Chumie Zitron so aptly put it, insane. It was like a Vegas food show and HASC concert combo. The walls shook during dancing, and by the time the music crashed to an end, my bunions were fuming and my contacts stinging my eyes. Tired but happy, I trudged up the curved marble staircase to the bridal suite to change into flats and glasses. The wedding wasn’t over yet because the chassan’s family did mitzvah tantz.
When I opened the door, I stopped short. Efraim was deep in conversation with my uncle Luzi, both of them smoking.
My husband blushed. He knew I hated when he smoked, and he hardly ever did, maybe twice a year. Luzi must have offered him a cigarette. Okay, it wasn’t an ordinary night, I got that, and totally forgave him. I smiled and kicked my heels off. “Hi,” I chirped.
Luzi left the room.
“Well, mazel tov,” I said sweetly. “How was?”
“Nice. Beautiful.”
“That’s all?”
“It was the wedding of the century, but no surprise there, right?”
Efraim discarded his cigarette absently. There was something unnerving about him, a kind of fog over his face.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
“Yes, yes.”
I waited.
“Your mother didn’t mention the gowns, did she?”
I sighed. Couldn’t he let me enjoy the night without stressing me out? “No, she didn’t.”
“Libby, I have something to tell you.”
My heart skidded in my chest. “Okay,” I said slowly.
He popped his top button open, then clasped his fingers. “Luzi offered me a job.”
“What?”
“Yes, he has an opening for a warehouse manager.”
“Warehouse — a hi-lo driver guy?”
“And I’m ready to accept.”
*****
The echo of drums pounded in my head as I followed Efraim back to the ballroom. I pulled up a chair at the far end of the room. The badchan’s voice blared through the speakers, the Yiddish going straight over my head. Efraim, backslapping amigos from nine to five? How? What?
A platter of refreshments landed on my lap, chocolate truffles and freshly roasted nuts. I passed it on. A few minutes later a waiter approached me with a tray of custom sorbet pops, embossed with Mimi’s and Yehuda’s initials. I waved him away.
The badchan droned on. I picked up a few words, something about how beautiful, the chassan kallah starting their lives in Yerushalayim. It had been beautiful, those three years Efraim and I had lived in Eretz Yisrael as newlyweds. There were no worries back then as we flew back to New York to spend Yamim Tovim with our parents. Efraim had shteiged away, loving every minute, and we got our house as soon as we returned, as promised. Rosy.
Efraim’s words jarred in my ears. “A job or the house,” he’d said, simply. “Which one do you choose?”
But… operate a forklift? My chashuv, talmid chacham husband, to whom my parents had promised the world before the engagement?
How had this happened? We were failures. All my siblings managed to pull it off, learning and covering their expenses. And affording Chanel bags on top of that.
“Can’t you at least look for something a bit more prestigious?” I’d asked. “Something in the chinuch field maybe?”
“Chinuch doesn’t pay. Believe me, Libby, I’ve been hunting for a while,” he’d said. “I have no marketable skills, no experience, no funds for schooling. I can always leave if something better comes up.”
I shivered, my head spinning. Desperately, I texted Efraim. I’m shaking!!! This makes no sense!
It took him forever to respond. We have a problem. Can you think of another solution?
Weakly, I dropped my phone into the recesses of my beautiful, beautiful gown.
*****
When the children were finally shepherded off to school after a late post-wedding morning, Efraim and I sat down for breakfast.
“My friend Leah once mentioned tuition discounts for kollel families,” I said. “Ever knew that?”
Efraim cackled. “Seriously, Libby. Do you think we qualify for a break after we spent Succos in Eretz Yisrael with the entire family?”
“We didn’t pay for that trip!”
“Explain that to the administration.”
I crumbled a piece of toast. “My parents make huge donations to the school every year. How does any of this make sense?”
He sighed. “You’re right, it doesn’t. Look, Libby. Things are going to change. I’ll have this job, we’ll have a steady income. We won’t need tuition breaks.”
Gracias, amigo.
*****
“Hold my rings?” Mimi asked me at the sink.
“Anything for you, Mrs. Tirnauer.”
Mimi washed and I dropped her rings back into her palm. “The kedushin ring goes under the diamond ring, not over,” I chided her.
Mimi raised her brows. “Oh, really? I thought it was safer this way.”
I chuckled at her innocence.
My sisters and I had reserved the last night to host our sheva brachos, to end the simchah with a bang. Everything had fallen into place: menu, music, centerpieces. In the dim lighting of Piccolo, my mother’s face glowed.
The wait staff was making the rounds with palate cleansers when Efraim texted me. I should’ve stayed home and saved the money my portion costs.
I ignored the message.
Throughout the evening, I couldn’t tear my eyes off Mimi. First because she looked so absolutely beautiful. There was something about a Ruchi Amit wig, I couldn’t deny it. But mainly I was focused on that dreamy shine in her eyes. A girl with a blissful future ahead of her. Beautiful marriage, beautiful house, and Torah on top of all that. How well she’d davened.
How many years had passed from the time I was that girl?
I wanted to shake my sister. Don’t do it. You’re walking into a trap. It’s all glamor, glamor, glamor until poof, one day it explodes and you face a reality that’s so scary, you want to hide from the world.
I gripped the handle of my steak knife. Maybe not. Maybe she’d be smarter.
“Hey, what’s up with this dessert?” I heard Chani ask.
I turned to look at her plate, just as a waiter slipped a portion in front of me. It was the Mont Blanc flambé we’d ordered, and next to it, a fortune cookie.
Who had ordered fortune cookies? Weren’t these things passé?
My sisters and I exchanged quizzical looks.
“Open them!” my mother ordered, laughing.
Ah, so she was behind this. I cracked my cookie open.
You will be going on vacation to Vail, Colorado, for five days to unwind after the wedding frenzy.
My mother was laughing uproariously.
“Maaaa!” Rivky shrieked. “You’re a riot.”
My sisters squealed and high-fived. “How? When? Oh, Ma, this is totally wild! What made you think of this?”
My mother beamed, babbling about her plans. I dug my palms into my seat.
Five days of vacation.
Wow.
My brain roiled. I knew vacation. My mother treated us to vacations all the time. She sponsored tickets and sometimes also the lodging and car rentals.
We’re losing the house.
My sisters were shouting excitedly, asking questions, making plans. I couldn’t follow what anyone was saying. Five days. I’d just taken two days off from work for the wedding. This trip would cost us another week’s salary.
I tried picturing the Vail mountain range, snowcapped peaks, skiing down white slopes. But the only image my mind conjured was that of a huge warehouse, Efraim in a company sweatshirt sitting in a forklift and shouting orders at a bunch of sweating workers.
After bentshing, the crowd lingered, holding on to the last moments of simchah before returning to regular life. The band kicked off a lively tune and the men broke into a dance.
I couldn’t take another minute of it. I sent my nephew to call Efraim to the mechitzah.
“The babysitter…” I started. “Should we leave?”
“I’m ready,” he said. “Wait, I’m hearing something about a trip?”
I twisted the chain of my evening bag around my finger and waited for him to make a snarky comment, something about the vacuum, the mortgage, the gowns, the kollel tuition discount.
But his words surprised me. “I’m happy for you,” he said sincerely. “You deserve it. I know how stressed you’ve been feeling lately. You need a break.”
I looked down at my shoes, my brand new Manolo Blahniks. “Thank you,” I said quietly.
*****
Rivky outdid herself with the itinerary. We’d barely checked in to our hotel and we were off snowmobiling. Whizzing across snowy trails, crisp air filling my lungs, I felt light and carefree. Efraim had been right; I needed this.
We returned to the hotel exhilarated. “Let’s go down to the spa for massages after supper,” my mother suggested. “And after that, we should do an early night. The idea is to get some rest, right?”
But after we’d all turned in, I lay awake, restless, my thoughts racing. What was I doing here? Efraim was preparing to accept that degrading job Luzi had offered him, to save our house from foreclosure, while I stayed in some five-star resort, getting massages and sledding down mountain slopes.
After an hour, I gave up and got out of bed. In our suite’s kitchenette, I set water to boil, absently flipping through tourist brochures.
“Hey, why are you up?”
I swirled around. It was Rivky.
“Gosh, you scared me. Guess you also can’t sleep?”
“Yes, it’s always this way when I travel. Not my own bed and all that.”
I prepared two cups of tea and we sat down on barstools.
“Rivky,” I said slowly. “Can I ask you a weird question?”
She looked at me curiously. “Let’s hear.”
“Don’t you think it’s crazy? You know, this whole trip and everything?”
“Totally wild, isn’t it?”
I sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“Tatty and Ma are incredible. They’re so generous, they give us so much. Always treating us to luxuries.”
“R-right,” Rivky said cautiously.
“It’s just… this lifestyle. It’s not standard. How many people do you know whose parents buy them such big, beautiful houses, take them on over-the-top vacations?”
“What are you trying to say? We’re lucky, I’m aware.”
“Because it’s expensive. I mean, our husbands are in kollel — it makes Tatty so happy — but do you have any idea how much it costs to repair a central vacuum system?”
Rivky was quiet, eyes fixed on her tea.
“Tell me how you deal with it. It’s — it’s killing me.”
“It’s a struggle,” she said tightly. “But I’m grateful for whatever they give.”
My throat burned. “Look, you seem to manage just fine. Eh, for all I know, Tatty pays your mortgage every month.”
Rivky smirked. “Yeah, right. Probably.”
“So explain it to me!” I cried. “My husband would love to buy me a Chanel bag. A Gucci, a Louis Vitton, a Hermes for that matter.”
“Excuse me,” Rivky hissed. “That’s disgusting.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. I sat down again and stirred my tea. “You think I’m an awful person. Sitting here on an all-expenses-paid vacation, complaining. How greedy, right?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“What should I tell you? It’s not all-expenses-paid. There’s a huge price tag. The learning condition. Tatty’s point of pride, all his kids staying in learning, Torah u’gedulah. I don’t know about you, maybe you have a money tree in your backyard, but for us, it doesn’t add up.”
“Frankly, Libby, that’s disrespectful. You can’t talk like that.”
“We’re going to ruin his beautiful picture, Rivky. Efraim is leaving kollel.”
The room was still. Rivky gazed at me, sucking in her cheeks.
And suddenly, her eyes welled up. She dropped her head into her hands, shoulders heaving. “You won’t be the first,” she whispered.
My breath froze. What?
“Shimon works,” she sobbed. She reached for a tissue. “For a long time. Years. He’s a real estate broker. A businessman.”
“Does Tatty know?” I asked, my voice quivering.
Rivky shook her head.
*****
Reality grabbed me in its clutches within minutes of my return. That’s the thing with vacations. You cut off completely, but when you return, it’s as if you’d never gone away.
Work was stressful, racing to catch up on the week I’d missed. And after being away, the house needed a thorough cleaning. “I don’t understand why you don’t hire cleaning help,” my mother admonished me. “Julia is a brachah in my life. I would never manage without her.”
A 30-hours-a-week brachah. G-d bless us all.
But I wasn’t feeling resentful that day. I hummed as I swept and washed and scrubbed.
During our half-hour suppertime block, Efraim broke the news. “Luzi called me. I told him I’ll start on Monday.”
I put down my fork. “No, you’re not,” I said slowly.
“Come on, Libby. We can’t think about our pride now. We have to do the responsible thing. We can’t afford this house, I can’t afford to start school at this point. We’re not going through this again.”
I lifted my eyes. “I think we should. One last time.”
Efraim knotted his brows.
“There is another option,” I started.
“Let’s hear.”
“We can call Shimon.”
“Shimon?”
“Rivky’s husband, yes.”
“Don’t tell me. The house?”
I took a deep breath, nodded slowly, and said, “I think it’s time to sell.”
(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 620)
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