After ordering, it took Rachel twenty minutes to finally address the purpose of their meeting, filling up the time with idle chatter about the temple before letting them both get in a few bites of their Caesar salads. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just sitting here babbling. You must get so tired of listening to women babble.”
“It’s fine,” David said, because it was, for the most part. She hadn’t yet asked him to solve anything, which was different than every other conversation he’d had over the last two months.
“No, no, it really isn’t,” she said. “When my father was your age, he didn’t have to deal with what you have to deal with. He could come home at the end of the day and not feel like he’d been party to every single injustice of the world, just the ones facing the Jews.” She took a sip of wine — she ordered a bottle of Merlot immediately upon sitting down, and most of it was gone — and then stared at David for a long moment. “Why don’t you have a wife yet, Rabbi, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Married to the job,” David said. It was a line he’d used about ten thousand times since taking his position at the temple, every young mother in the place wanting to set him up with a single friend, every old-timer wanting to introduce him to their daughters or granddaughters.
“Everyone says Las Vegas is a great place to be single,” she said, “but I don’t believe that. It can be pretty lonely if you’re looking for a girl to start a family with.”
“Well, that’s not my priority right now.” David tried to smile at Rachel, but it didn’t feel natural. It never felt natural. It wasn’t that his face still felt like a mask, though it did; rather, it was that he’d spent so many years trying not to smile, growing up so hard, anything that was happy had the elastic snap of shit, so it was easier to just treat everything evenly. Once he got in the business, he didn’t want to be one of those assholes who ended up with a nickname like “Smiley” or “Gums.”
“If it becomes one,” she said, “let me know.”
“I will,” he said.
“My father says you’re an excellent young rabbi,” Rachel said.
“Your father is a kind man.”
“My father can be an asshole,” Rachel said, without a trace of anger, “but I love him.” She took another sip of her wine and then refilled her glass with the rest of the bottle. “I’m sorry we haven’t had the chance to talk much, because everyone says you’re an incredible listener. Claudia Levine thinks you’re wonderful.”
“Yes, well,” David said.
This got Rachel to smile. “My father teach you to say that?”
“It’s taught on the first day of rabbinical school,” he said, and they both laughed.
“This feels good,” Rachel said. “I don’t remember the last time I laughed.”
“If you could just laugh and cry in a single sound,” David said.
“Maimonides?” Rachel asked.
“Springsteen,” David said. This made Rachel laugh again. David took a sip of his wine, felt his face get a little warm, felt the muscles in his shoulders relax a bit. It wasn’t like drinking Scotch, but at this point, it was better than drinking water. Maybe things would turn out okay today.
Three tables over, David saw a familiar face. “Is that Oscar Goodman?” he asked.
Rachel looked over her shoulder. “Everyone comes here,” she said.
“Looks like he’ll be mayor,” David said, trying to make conversation, but also trying to figure out just how connected the Savones were.
“It will be good for the city,” she said. “He was on the board at Beth Shalom for years, so he knows what it’s like to work with intractable ideologues.”
So that answered that.
“What has my husband told you about me?” Rachel was still smiling, but David could see that something had hardened inside of her, that she’d moved on to the part of the conversation she’d been dreading, too. He found that to be somewhat of a relief. For once, even ground.
“Nothing, really,” David said.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “but I find that hard to believe. He spends more time with you than he does with anyone, except for his lawyer.”
“What we talk about is. .,” David began, but Rachel waved him off.
“I know, I know,” she said. “It’s confidential.”
“Actually,” David said, “it’s mostly business related. Your husband has been very good to the temple. I really can’t thank him enough.” These were sentences David had practiced a thousand times in preparation for anyone asking about his relationship with Bennie Savone. “We’ve also had many interesting talks about his faith, which, as I’m sure you know, is a constant challenge.”
Rachel shook her head and laughed again. “Rabbi,” she said, “I appreciate that you’re trying to be polite, but you don’t need to be. I know who my husband is.”
“He’s said you’re unhappy,” David said.
“Understatement of the year,” she said, “and we’re only in January, so maybe I should include last year, too.”
“And that you’re not well, physically.”
This time Rachel didn’t laugh. “I’m glad he’s aware of these things. I’m glad he can talk to you. It would be nice if he could talk to me.”
“He’s a complicated person,” David said, because he didn’t know what else to say.
“He’s not complicated,” she said, “he’s a liar. There’s a difference, if you don’t mind me saying, Rabbi.”
Thankfully, their waiter arrived and dropped off their lunch. David ordered the chicken Marsala on Rachel’s recommendation, though now he realized he probably wasn’t going to get a chance to enjoy it since Rachel was already dabbing at her eyes in a futile attempt to save her makeup from the tears. He took his handkerchief out of his breast pocket — the advantage of wearing a nice suit every day, David now realized, was that you were forced to be a gentleman around crying women, even if you didn’t want to be — and slid it across the table.
“Thank you,” she said. “Look at me. Crying in the middle of a restaurant.”
“The Talmud tells us that even when the gates of heaven are shut to prayer, they are open to tears,” David said.
“I’m going to leave him,” she said.
David looked around the restaurant, tried to figure out if there was any way Bennie might have bugged it. The guy behind the bar pouring wine into tiny tasting glasses, maybe he was wired up. Maybe the waiter. Maybe Oscar Goodman, walking out right then, was headed off to report directly to Bennie.
“I’m sorry,” David said. “Did you say were considering leaving Mr. Savone?”
“Not considering it, doing it,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. My father, he won’t listen, tells me to just suffer through it. I can’t talk to my girlfriends about it. I can’t talk to anyone, really, except for you.” She reached across the table and took David’s hand. Everyone always wanted to touch his hand, as if whatever wisdom he might have could be delivered through the sweat of his palm, which, in this case, might have been closer to the truth, since David was certain he was sweating like a Baptist preacher. “I’m not a young woman anymore, Rabbi. Don’t I deserve to be happy? Don’t I deserve to be loved by someone capable of love?”
“You’re still a young woman,” David said.
“I’m thirty-nine,” she said. “I’ll be forty in six months. That will make it official.”
“I think you need to consider all of your options here,” he said.
“That’s what I’m doing,” she said. She covered his hand with both her hands now, making a minifurnace that was heating his entire body.
David examined the table for something sharp, but the waiter had taken the steak knives from the table. He didn’t know what he was looking to cut, anyway, other than maybe his own arm off at the wrist. At this point, he could probably do the job with a spoon.