***

I

f Riva’s heart had sunk on the seventh date, on the eighth date she was filled with a firm resolve. This date had a double agenda: get dumped, and suggest Mali. A delicate mission, she admitted to herself, getting him to hate her while convincing him to take her suggestion seriously at the same time. But the shadchan had been surprisingly firm, so she really had had no choice. Now it was just a matter of finding the perfect opening.

“How was your day?” Levi asked.

“Fine.”

“Crazy, what’s going on with Trump, no?”

“Yeah.”

“Think it will ever stop snowing?”

Riva shrugged. “Who knows?”

It was July. Levi groaned inwardly. He’d have to resort to his emergency kit.

He was going to kill Yitz.

***

Y

T

“Want to play?”

She could say no. She could say, “Nah, not in the mood,” or “Oh, I’m shy!” She could even — since she was never going to see him again anyway — say, “I think dating games are stupid and useless.” But he was a nice guy, and she was a nice girl. She gathered up her dignity and tried to smile. “Okay.”

He picked up on her discomfort. “It’s okay. We don’t have to.”

That was the thing with Levi. He was such a nice guy. Perceptive. Not a boor.

Mali was going to be a beautiful kallah.

“Do these games make you uncomfortable?” Levi asked.

She laughed, feeling guilty. “Maybe a little.”

He fingered the cards. “I’ll tell you what. Whatever question you get, I’ll also answer. Okay?”

Riva was surprised. “Okay.”

The chandelier threw him in shadow as he drew a card and laid it on the table. What is your deepest fear?

He leaned back into the light. She picked a card and put it down near his. What is your greatest flaw?

Levi grinned. “Ladies first.”

Inspiration struck. He would hear this, and it would be over. “My greatest flaw,” Riva said, “is that I’m intense.”

He furrowed his brow. “Intense?”

“Yes,” Riva said firmly, “intense. I think very deeply about everything. I take everything very seriously.”

He looked intrigued. “Give me an example.”

“Learning,” she said promptly. “I think learning Torah is the most important thing a person can do. And life is so short, and you get only one chance to do it right. It would hurt me to live any other life. No matter what it takes. That’s the most precious thing.” She stopped, embarrassed at how artlessly she’d put it, at how flakey she sounded. He would never want to marry her now; being intense was the biggest sin a girl in shidduchim could commit. But it didn’t matter, she didn’t want him to marry her anyway; she wanted him to marry Mali. Wait, this was her opening!

“Not like my friend,” she interjected quickly into the pause. “My friend is not intense.”

“Oh,” he said, politely.

“She says that learning is very important, but a good husband is also important, and it’s not a woman’s job to worry about how much learning her husband is doing.”

“Oh,” he repeated.

She shook her head. “But I can’t be so blas?. My whole Olam Hazeh, my whole Olam Haba. I can’t just fold my hands and say, ‘none of my business.’ ”

“Oh,” he said again. “That does sound intense.”

She held up the next card. “And my deepest fear is that I’ll never get married because I don’t think I’m ever going have a chance with a guy who takes this as seriously as I do.”

He raised his eyebrows.

Riva colored. She hadn’t intended to dump him like that. That was the thing with Levi, he was just so nice and so easy to talk to, and she’d let down her guard and it had kind of slipped out.

Still, it was kind of a relief. Now she could focus on Mali. “But you never know,” she continued quickly. “Hashem makes shidduchim. And my friend… I mean, I know plenty of people who aren’t intense.”

“So they can get married?”

Riva nodded vigorously. “Right, they can get married. To… to people who don’t want intense wives.” She blushed again. Mortified, she swung her hair forward to hide her face. “You know, birds of a feather flock together.”

“Opposites attract,” Levi countered, gravely.

“No, no.” Riva shook her head. “Similarities can be very attractive too. Especially if you like yourself. It can totally work.”

Levi put a hand over his mouth and coughed several times. “Well, I’ll tell you what doesn’t work,” he said finally. “It doesn’t work when someone doesn’t accept their spouse for who they really are.”

Riva blushed again.

Levi tapped a foot. She had said no and he had said no; why were they even here? To make Sapirman happy? It was over, they could just leave now. It bothered him, though, what she thought of him. He didn’t want her to think of him like that.

Just try talking to a girl straight for once in your life!

Levi took the card. “My greatest flaw.” He issued a sharp laugh. “This one’s easy. My greatest flaw is that I don’t open up.” He drummed two fingers on his knee. “As every single shadchan who has ever set me up has told me.”

“Yeah, well, what do shadchanim know?” Riva said hotly, surprising herself again. What was with her tonight? If she wasn’t careful, he’d never want to hear from her again. And she needed him to take her seriously when she suggested Mali.

“Shadchanim know lots,” he said lightly. “Particularly, it would seem, about getting people married.”

Riva winced at his tone. It must be so frustrating to be told over and over again that you had to open up, be deep or vulnerable or whatever, when you were trying. Levi wasn’t deep, that was exactly the problem, exactly why Riva couldn’t marry him. She shook her head. And the shadchanim were always trying to make him deny his personality. She knew how that felt.

He had stopped talking, so Riva prompted, “And your deepest fear?”

He laughed again, not rueful this time, but an unhappy bark. “My deepest fear is that I won’t be understood. That’s what drives my greatest flaw, obviously.”

Riva was alarmed. If he doesn’t open up, Mali won’t want to marry him either. No, no, no. That was not good. They would have to fix this.

“Why don’t you try, right now?” she said encouragingly. “It’s just me and you, I promise not to repeat it to anyone. Tell me something you’ve never told anyone before.”

Levi considered this. There was, as Yitz had said, no longer anything to lose. “Okay,” he said recklessly. “Here goes.” He cleared his throat. Riva leaned forward.

“Sometimes I feel like society values only one type of guy,” he said, speaking slowly with his gaze focused at a distant point over her shoulder. “Guys who are calm and strong and serious. But a guy who was born with a different personality, a guy who’s friendly or funny, he won’t be taken seriously or valued, no matter what choices he makes or what he does.” He looked at her.

Every nerve in Riva’s body screamed Warning! Danger ahead! She searched for the right response. If she blew this, his first attempt at sharing, he would never try it again. And then Mali would never marry him, and it would be all her fault.

“Thank you,” she said finally, because it seemed like a safe thing to say.

“And?” he prompted. “What do you think?”

“Well,” Riva started, recalling his deepest fear and frantically trying to remember his words and phrases and what exactly his point had been. “You’re saying…” She frowned. “You’re saying that a person’s personality is separate from their choices. And that a person can have a fun-loving, chilled-out personality, and still care deeply about things, even if it isn’t as obvious as… someone…” Her mouth was slowing down as her brain was catching up, “…someone whose personality… is… intense.”

***

“I

did it,” Levi reported.

“Did what?”

“Everything you said. Talked straight for once in my life.” There was a definite satisfaction in the shock that registered on Yitz’s face. “So now you see it’s not my fault that I’m single.”

Yitz ignored this. “Tell me everything.”

“Uh,” Levi stalled. “What do you want to know? I just told her stuff, and we talked about it.”

“And how did it feel?”

“ ‘How did it feel?’ ” Levi mimicked. “Are you charging me for this conversation?”

“I’m a shadchan, I only get paid if you marry her.”

Levi closed his eyes. “Yitz, I—”

“Tomorrow night at eight?”

Levi opened his eyes and looked at the sky. “Yitz, it’s over.”

“What if she wants to go out again?”

Levi hunched his shoulders and turned away. “She doesn’t. Trust me.”

“But—”

“Yitz.” Levi’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle. “For once in your life, leave me alone.”

***

“W

hat would you do,” Riva said to Mali, “if you bumped into your bashert in the street?”

“Why did you bump into him? Were you looking in all the wrong places?”

“Very funny.” Riva was in a bad mood. “Let’s say he bumped into you. Because he has big feet. And now that you knocked him down, he’s not interested in you anymore.” She would call the shadchan, she decided. If she couldn’t have him, at least Mali would. Hopefully they would move somewhere far away.

There was a click. “Hold on.” Sapirman, Yitzchak.

Riva bit her lip. “Hello?”

“Hi, it’s Sapirman.”

“Hi,” Riva started. “Thanks so much, but I—”

“How did it go?”

“Uh, fine.” She was sweating. Do it, just do it. “Actually, I was thinking, my friend…” Her mouth was dry. She coughed. “My friend,” she tried again.

“You want to talk it over with a friend?”

“No!” said Riva.

“Tomorrow at eight,” Sapirman said. He hung up before she could change her mind.

***

T

hey had sipped their coffees and nibbled their desserts and spied on the dates at the tables nearby and it was still only nine fifteen. Levi watched Riva toy with a napkin and wondered what Yitz had said to get her to agree to show up.

“Yitz told me about this place,” he blurted. “Yitz Sapirman, I mean.”

“I know who you mean.” She looked down, trying to turn it into an opening. “Uh, I guess he knows his stuff.” She watched him from the corner of his eye, but his face didn’t change.

“Yeah,” Levi risked. “He’s pretty successful.”

Riva played with that one in her mind, looking for a way to make him understand. “Hmmm,” she murmured, buying time.

Levi gave up. “It’s getting late,” he said. “Should we go?”

Riva followed him silently back to the car. The game was still on the dashboard, staring accusingly at her. He shifted into drive.

Her last chance was disappearing. Riva panicked. “Uh… should we try one more card?” She gestured toward the game.

Levi raised his eyebrows. “I thought you don’t like these kind of games?”

“Oh… it grows on you.”

Levi shifted back into park, leaned forward and drew a card. He stared at it for a moment, then turned it around mutely so she could read it.

If you could change one thing about another player, what would it be?

Whoever invented this game hated her.

He opened his mouth but Riva beat him to it. “Gentlemen first,” she said, firmly.

Levi frowned. He looked at Riva. She looked away. He cleared his throat. “If I could change one thing,” he said finally, “it would be your opinion that you need to marry someone exactly like you.”

For a moment the whole world froze, then the violins burst alive again. Riva laughed and tossed her head. “Like I said before, my best friend is totally not intense,” she said, “and we get along fine. So I see no reason why my spouse would have to be.” She smiled at Levi.

He didn’t smile back. The stretching silence filled Riva with dread.

“What?” she asked.

Levi wiped the intent frown off his face and slid on his easy smile. “Similarities attract,” he said lightly, leaning back. “I once heard that somewhere.”

Riva didn’t laugh. “Don’t do that,” she said. “Your greatest flaw. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

He stared hard at her. Then his face changed. “Okay, I’m thinking about accepting your spouse for who they are,” he said. He held up the card. “If you could change one thing about me, what would it be?”

Riva looked directly at him. “Your shoe size,” she said firmly. “Definitely, your shoe size.”

He looked at her in surprise, then down at his feet. “Ah, well,” he said. “I’ll anyway need new shoes for the wedding.” ?.

(Originally featured in Calligraphy, Issue 757)