“Would you like a mango?” Mom asks Herschel.
He’s looking at the gift basket on the counter.
“I’d offer you something from the basket, but—” She looks around, confused. “Sanskrit, what’s this basket doing here?”
“A kid at Sweet Caroline’s school. He’s in love with her.”
“That’s so sweet,” Mom says without so much as a blink, “but you know I don’t allow sugar in the house.”
“I guess her boyfriend didn’t know that.”
“We’ll talk about this later.” Mom frowns at the basket and spoons something green into a bowl. “Herschel, I bought some nice seaweed salad.”
“I can’t. Really.”
“Why not?”
I say, “I hate to burst your bubble, Mom, but your food isn’t kosher.”
“Seaweed is kosher, isn’t it? There’s no meat in it.”
“We’re not kosher,” I say. “Our kitchen isn’t kosher.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, and goes back to whatever she’s doing with the Whole Foods bags.
“What are you doing here?” I say to Herschel.
“I thought you might like to come with me.”
“Where?”
“To shul.”
“Shul? That’s a terrible idea.”
“But it’s Shabbat,” he says, like that’s going to motivate me. “We could go to the synagogue at school if that would make you more comfortable.”
“The whole idea makes me uncomfortable.”
I try to remember the last time I went to a Shabbat service voluntarily.
Sweet Caroline walks in, still in her pajamas.
She looks from the food on the table, to Herschel, to me.
“Who died?” she says.
“Nobody.”
“Why is there food in our house?”
“Mom is making breakfast.”
“Is she on a new antidepressant?”
“Jesus. Give us a second, would you?” I say.
“Lord’s name!” she says. She shakes a warning finger at me, then stamps off.
Herschel says, “Sorry to intrude. It’s early.”
“You’re inviting me to services? That’s why you came over?”
“I didn’t plan it,” Herschel says. “I was walking, and something led me here.”
“Kind of you to offer,” I say, “but—”
“Don’t but. Just come with.”
“I can’t,” I say.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Can’t,” I say.
“Why not?”
I glance at the fruit-and-chocolate gift basket on the kitchen counter.
“You didn’t take care of the thing at school,” Herschel says.
“Shhh,” I say, lowering my voice. “I will. First thing next week.”
“Don’t wait until next week. You’ve got everyone worried.”
“There’s nothing to worry about.”
“They don’t know that. You’re causing them tsuris.”
Tsuris. Yiddish for pain.
“Come to shul with me, Sanskrit. I think you want to.”
“If you think that, then you don’t know me as well as you used to,” I say.
“Maybe not.”
“You want to go to services, Herschel. You like it. I wish I could believe like you do.”
“I don’t just believe,” Herschel says. “I question. I wonder. Just like you.”
“Maybe so. But when you’re done with all that questioning, where are you?”
“I’m with God.”
“That’s the difference between us. When I’m done…”
I look out into the living room at Mom’s yoga mat, her Tibetan singing bowl, the little altar she’s set up in the corner for meditation.
“Where are you when you’re done?” Herschel says.
“I’m alone.”
He rolls a tzitzi thread between his fingers.
“I didn’t come to beg,” he says. “Only to extend the offer.”
“I pass.”
He shrugs and heads for the door. “If you change your mind…,” he says, and then he’s gone.
Mom putters in and goes back to setting the table. The timing is a little too perfect. Was she listening at the door?
“It’s nice to see Herschel,” she says, “even if he doesn’t look like Herschel anymore.”
“He looks like Super Jew.”
“That’s not nice. He’s a boy on a spiritual journey.”
“That’s not what I’d call it.”
“Because you’re jealous.”
“Why would I be jealous? I just want my old friend back.”
“I see,” Mom says.
“You don’t see.”
“Maybe I don’t.”
I hate when Mom won’t fight with me. She goes into this mode where she refuses to argue. She calls it her surrender mode, her Dead Bug pose. That’s an actual pose in yoga where you lie on your back and put your hands and feet in the air like a suffocated cockroach. But she only does it when she doesn’t want to deal with something. Usually me.
“What time did you get home last night?” I say.
“That’s a rude question.”
“When I go to sleep and my mother isn’t home yet, it raises a few questions. That’s fair, isn’t it? To ask the question?”
“You’re worse than your father.”
“Maybe if you two communicated better, he wouldn’t have left.”
“Don’t you—” Mom shakes with anger. She points her finger at me. “Don’t you talk to your mother like that.”
“Fine,” I say.
“This is why I don’t usually make breakfast,” Mom says. “Because you don’t appreciate me.”
“Seaweed salad and mangoes isn’t breakfast, Mom. It’s what people eat after a shipwreck.”
“For your information, there are also whole wheat bagels and Tofutti spread.”
“Why are you making breakfast anyway?”
Sweet Caroline comes in. She’s changed into sweats and a pink hoodie.
She takes one look at the seaweed salad and says, “I’m not hungry.”
“Did this whole family wake up on the wrong side of the bed?” Mom says.
That’s when the toilet flushes down the hall. A door opens and shuts followed by footsteps.
“What the hell?” I say, and I jump up.
The guru walks into our living room. Today, he’s wrapped in bright orange robes and a turban.
“Mom!” Sweet Caroline screams, jumping behind her for protection.
“Sat nam, Zuckerman family,” the guru says. He looks at our surprised expressions. “Was I not expected?”
“I was trying to tell them,” Mom says.
“Who the hell is that?” Sweet Caroline says.
“This is my guru,” Mom says. “He’s come all the way from India to spend time with us.”
My guru? When did he become her personal guru?
Mom smiles and opens her arms wide, like she’s presenting us with a gift.
Sweet Caroline looks at me, concerned. I nod. This is the one I was telling you about.
“Guru, you remember Sanskrit,” Mom says.
“I seem to have a habit of shocking him,” the guru says with a smile.
“You keep showing up where you’re not wanted,” I say. “That’s pretty shocking.”
“Sanskrit!” Mom says.
“No, no. He has a point,” the guru says. “It’s not easy to open your heart to a stranger.”
“It’s not my heart. It’s my bathrooms that are off limits.”
I’d like to see the guru lose his temper, but I’m not sure he has one. No matter what I say he grins and looks calm. I was right. He’s definitely got Barry Goldwasser syndrome.
“Who is this lovely creature?” the guru says, referring to my sister.