Ashley waits until our grandmother is two glasses of Manischewitz into the Seder to announce her engagement. She interlocks her fingers with Chuck's and the diamond throws feverish white shards over grandma's Passover china. I can see how huge it is even from my seat at the kid's table, with my under-ten cousins.

Chuck's face flushes in the heat of too many bodies in a room with closed windows; grandma believes drafts cause pneumonia. My mother side-hugs Ashley and my aunt clasps a hand over her mouth, in apparent excitement.

Grandmother's former co-worker holds up a cup, Mazel tov. I don't know why her son Rafe gets to sit at the grown-up table and I don't; he's in high school, like me. His long eyelashes brush his cheeks and he actually ate gefilte fish with the pink horseradish.

Grandma stands up, her apron knotted around her waist, a stain in the approximate shape of Florida cascading down a hip. She throws her napkin down on the table, on top of her Maxwell House Haggadah and the used plates. So I survived the Holocaust just so you could marry a goy.

She disappears into the kitchen.

Ashley huffs. Tells Chuck, I think she took that pretty well.

My mother leans toward my aunt. Should we go after her?

My aunt says, I told you she's losing it.

During the war, my grandmother lived in Forest Hills, on Long Island, with my great-grandparents and two brothers. She wasn't even born in Europe.

My mother and aunt follow grandma to the kitchen. My father clears his throat. Uh, well, let's look for the afikomen.

My cousins dash to the back of grandma's house. It could be anywhere. In a hat box, the barrel of the washing machine, behind those vintage Bobbsey Twins books grandma collects.

My father says to me, Come on, Julia, don't tell me you're too old. And you too Rafe.

I'm sixteen, for god's sake. Of course I'm too old. I bet the prize is a snap bracelet or a set of jacks. Last year he made me look for it and I won a My Little Pony coloring book.

Whatever, I say.

Ashley shows off her ring to the former co-worker. Tells her the dumb engagement story. We went to the cutest BNB in Napa and . . .

I can't imagine kissing Chuck. You'd think that some guy who runs a start-up wouldn't still go by the nickname his fraternity gave him, either because he upchucked during hazing or those Chuck Taylors he wears. But Chuck looks at Ashley like she's one of the best chocolates in the See's Candies box, the Bordeaux or the chocolate fudge.

Rafe follows me down the hall. I'm not sharing the prize with you, I tell him. My cousins squeal from grandma's TV room. I open grandma's closet. I used to hide there when I was a kid. Long wool coats trimmed with fur collars, a leopard print raincoat, and rain boots, all those clothes she wore back East and rarely wears in Los Angeles. I grab Rafe's hand, tug him in, close the door. The smell of mothballs envelops us. Dim light seeps under the door.

What are you doing?

Heat comes off his skin like fire. I slide my palms up his arms, hook my hands around his neck. He'll do. Ever play seven minutes of heaven? I haven't.

Geez, it's Passover, he says. He pulls my hands off of him, opens the door.

What am I, leavened bread? But he's already gone, shutting me in the closet.

He tells my cousins, The afikomen's not in there.

I stay in the dark. I can't show my face out there anymore. In the dining room, my cousins shout as they present the afikomen to my father.  Dishes peal against each other as flourless chocolate cake is served. Hinges squeak as the front door opens for Elijah.

Ashley finds me, still sitting in the closet, her silky kimono fluttering. You okay? she asks. I shrug. She doesn't ask me to come back to the table, but closes the door after her. We make a cave out of grandma's coats, screeching hangers along the rod. Wool and cashmere on my skin. She pulls from her pocket airplane bottles of rum and fills two kiddush cups, the hand-painted ones grandma bought in Israel.

We toast.

So I survived Temple Emmanuel preschool just so you could marry a goy.

So I survived my bat mitzvah just so I could marry a goy.

The alcohol is thick syrup. I wonder if love is that sweet. It burns my throat.


.

Lori Sambol Brody lives in the Santa Monica Mountains. She has stories in or coming from Pidgeonholes, New Flash Fiction Review, SmokeLong, matchbook and others.

Read her postcard.

Detail of photo on main page courtesy of Dean Hochman.





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