"Emma," I said, "I told you, the Cohen's said you didn't have to bring anything."
She finished climbing into my car balancing the large bowl on her lap.
"I know what you said, Jimmy," she answered, "But I am not turning up empty handed and you said Joanie liked my potato salad."
There was not going to be any arguing with that woman, she just had her ideas of things and they weren't about to change for anyone.
Al settled into the back seat with Bill. Ike and Annie were riding with Buck and Carol while the newlyweds were driving separate.
It had been a real small wedding. I was best man and managed to not lose the rings so I guess I was a success. Lou's dad was long gone so Al walked her down the aisle. Her mom was far too sick to come so Theresa stood as her maid of honor and Emma took over the job of weepy mother of the bride. Joanie made them a cake. I had no idea but she took some class on how to decorate cakes. It was real pretty. Emma made some changes to Lou's prom dress and it was such a light yellow that you could hardly tell that it wasn't white. Lou said it wouldn't have been proper to wear white anyway. I asked her why and Joanie whispered to me that only virgins were supposed to wear white. I think that's stupid and even at the time I'll bet there were a lot of liars strolling down aisles in the wrong color dresses. I'm told it don't matter anymore. Hell, my own little girl wore white and she and my son-in-law were living together three years before they tied the knot. She's a mom herself now so I guess there's proof but I don't like thinking of my baby girl as anything but virginal. Still even I would have to admit she probably wasn't on her wedding day. Lou had blushed when she said it and I still don't know why. I guess virginity is different for girls. Hell, I know it is 'cause as much as I like to think of my daughter as being pure as the driven snow, I was proud in a way of my son when he lost his virginity. But Lou was so much one of the guys that I didn't think anything of it when she and Kid went all the way. Though it was the first time I wasn't all congratulations when one of my buddies got some. I remember telling him that if he ever hurt her, I might just forget we was friends. But he'd made an honest woman of her as the saying went and I don't think a happier bride was to be found.
So there we were on July 4, heading out to Bloomfield Hills to a cookout with Joanie and her family. Some of the guys were nervous but I told them not to be, the family was really nice. It was one of the best days I can remember. Everyone was together and laughing and eating. Emma and Mrs. Cohen hit it off and it was funny 'cause it was like my folks was meeting her folks even though Al and Emma weren't really my folks. Turned out Al and Mr. Cohen had plenty to talk about which was a good thing. Judy, who usually spent her time staring at me enough to make me uncomfortable, decided that she liked Bill's blue eyes plenty and spent the day staring at him. He was real good with kids so he was nice to her. But then a friend of Joanie's, Mary Lou caught sight of him and had his attention the rest of the day and into the evening. Mary Lou was a nice enough girl but I know his looks wasn't all she was noticing. His family life made him a lot more desirable and attractive to her than the rest of us would have been. But she really did like him too. I have never before seen a woman actually find Bill funny. I guess she hadn't heard the jokes a thousand times already so they were new and fresh to her. I would have been happier for him that day but his attention moving to Mary Lou only brought Judy's gaze back to me. If I had been five years younger, she'd have caught my eye for sure but I wasn't and she didn't. Besides, I was far too in love with her older sister to really be able to pay any other girl much mind.
I noticed Lou sidling up to me and I turned to see what she needed.
"Jimmy, what does mazel tov mean?" she asked, "People keep coming up to me and saying it, to Kid too. They're smiling so I been thanking them but should I be."
I smiled. It was one of the few things I did understand in Yiddish.
"It means 'congratulations'," I said, "You know, 'cause they know you just got hitched."
She looked relieved. It was then I heard the yelling from inside and I recognized one of the voices immediately as Joanie's. The argument was short and ended with Joanie running out of the house slamming the door behind her and stalking up to her mother. She was crying and I went over to her.
"You talk to that fercockte woman because I can't anymore!" she yelled at Mrs. Cohen. I gathered she'd been arguing with her grandmother Goldman, Mrs. Cohen's mother.
"Joanie, calm down," her mother tried to soothe, "She's an old woman."
"Mammala," Joanie pleaded, "She called me a nafka."
I saw Mrs. Cohen stiffen at that word though I didn't know at the time what it meant. I know now and I don't know how Mrs. Cohen didn't go right in and slap the old lady. I know it was her mother but still I think I would have slapped the Mother Theresa herself if she called my daughter a whore.
Mrs. Cohen didn't run in and confront her mother; she just pulled Joanie into a hug and smoothed her hair.
"I knew she'd be upset he's a goy," Joanie went on and not knowing what 'goy' meant, I didn't know she was talking about me. "But to call me that. Does she think it's so easy for a klutzy meeskait like me?"
She started crying again and I really didn't know why. It used to bother me sometimes when they would sprinkle Yiddish into whatever they said, especially since it seemed the Yiddish words were the ones you really needed to know to understand what was going on. I felt myself pulled away and looked to see Mr. Cohen's face trying to be sympathetic to me. He put a bottle of Stroh's in my hand and sat me down at the table on the deck.
"James that conversation is nowhere a man needs to be right now," he said.
"But she's crying," I said, "Shouldn't I be there to do something?"
"There's nothing you can right now," he looked sad when he said those words. I knew even then it was because he didn't like seeing his daughter hurting anymore than I liked seeing my girl hurting.
"What was the fight about?" I asked.
"You," he said, "Bubbe Goldman doesn't like that you are goyishe, not Jewish. She is very old fashioned in ways that Gladys and I are not."
I started seeing how complicated things could get. I wasn't sure Joanie had thought this through before dating me. Mr. Cohen could read the look on my face.
"You aren't causing a problem between Joanie and her grandmother," he said, "They've always butted heads. Joanie is a very strong willed person and that has never set right with my mother-in-law. I think Joanie takes after my own mother. Mama would have loved you."
I still didn't understand all of what had been said.
"Mr. Cohen?" I began, "I know what klutzy means but what is meeskait? She called herself that and I don't know what she was saying."
"It means an unattractive or ugly woman. It's hard to have such Jewish features in this society."
I know I looked shocked and that made Joanie's father smile at me. He looked over to where Joanie was more calmly talking to her mother and grandmother. Well, she was attempting to stay calm. I started to speak, to say she wasn't a meeskait but I could see I would have been preaching to the choir on that. He just smiled again and spoke.
"You could probably wander over there without a fear that you'll get hauled into a shemozzle. And you should learn this phrase: 'Bei mir bist du sheyn'. Before you ask, it means what your look says right now."
I walked over to the women and was still a little ticked at the oldest among them for making Joanie cry and it was a good thing that I still didn't know at that time what 'nafka' meant. That woman and I never did get along and it was even frostier between us once I knew what she had called her own grandchild. If I saw my daughter or any of my granddaughters walking the street asking men if they wanted to party and charging for it, I wouldn't use that word to them. It's just not what you say to family. I could hear Joanie's pleading voice as I walked up.
"Luzzem Bubbe!" she yelled. "Ikh hob im lib."
Her grandmother gasped but said nothing but when she saw me she did this thing where she sort of spat at me. I learned later that night after everyone had headed for home and Joanie and I were just sitting and talking that she was warding off the evil eye. That woman was convinced that I would bring death and destruction to her family.
We sat down in the lounge chairs that night side by side and were quiet for a while. She seemed so lost in her thoughts and I knew some of them were of her grandmother's words. She only had one grandmother left and had only briefly known her grandmother Cohen. I knew she tried not to take seriously the old world ways of her Bubbe but then it was hard for her because she did love the old woman and knew the woman's worries came of a love for her as well. I didn't know what to do to make her feel better so I thought I'd try what her father had told me to say.
"Bei mir bist du sheyn," I said hoping the man hadn't told me to tell her that I have purple cows grazing behind my house or something equally crazy.
She smiled.
"I know," she said, "It's part of the reason I love you so much though I do think you need your eyes checked sometimes."
I just stared stupidly at her and she laughed. It was a beautiful sound even though it was directed at me because it was the first laughter since her showdown with her Bubbe.
"Daddy told you to say that, didn't he?"
I nodded.
"And he didn't tell you what it meant, did he?"
I shook my head.
She laughed again, "It means 'You're beautiful to me'."
"Well, you are," I said a little defensively.
"I know," she said kind of sad like, "I didn't believe it at first. Some guys will say anything to have a girl put out. They don't even have to be pretty for a man to want sex."
It sort of shocked me at that time to hear a woman use that word to describe that act but Joanie never batted an eye. I wasn't sure if I should be offended that she thought I would lie to her for sex or angry that from the sound of it, there had been some who had. I decided I couldn't be that offended. I had lied to get girls to put out before. She seemed to understand my anger but I think she misunderstood it a little.
"None of them succeeded," she said quickly, "But it was not for a lack or trying. If you were lying to get somewhere, you'd have tried something before now. I decided a while ago that you must be telling me the truth."
"Joanie," I said and I was upset but I wasn't sure why exactly. "It is the truth. I don't know what it is about you but I was in love the minute I laid eyes on you."
She smiled and it was the satisfied smile some women get when they have a man right where they want them but it was different in a way because those women know their beauty and expect to turn a man inside out. Joanie had never had that expectation.
"Will you do something for me?" I asked and she looked up with her eyebrows raised. "Never call yourself a meeskait again."
She shifted and before I knew what was happening, she was on the same lounge chair as me. She was half on top of me.
"Deal," she whispered in my ear, "As long as you stop calling yourself names and acting like you don't deserve everything everyone else does. Sure Bubbe sees you as a schlimazel but the rest of my family thinks you're wonderful."
I could barely think with her being so close. I think I had her on some pedestal up to that point. I know I fantasized a great deal about being with her like that but when she was really near me, it just felt wrong to try anything with her. I kissed her plenty but kept my hands in respectable places. She was just lying there in my arms and I had to shift around so as not to embarrass myself with her finding out what it was doing to me to have her there. I didn't want her to move but I also didn't think she was offering anything there on the deck with her parents sleeping just inside. She giggled at me.
"You act like you're scared of me, James," she said.
"No," I said, "I'm scared of me."
I'd never had a second thought about if I was going too far with a girl before but I hadn't ever cared before if she was still there the next day.
"Why are you scared?" she asked. For such a smart girl, I was surprised she couldn't figure it out.
"I want certain things when you're close," I said, "And I don't want to pressure you. I've pressured girls in the past and you mean too much to me now."
Joanie pulled back from me and I regretted my words. I was sure she wasn't happy to know how I had acted before.
"Well, even if you wanted to try to pressure me," she said, "It wouldn't do you any good here and now."
"I know that," I said.
"You'll get what you want at some point and you won't have to pressure me to get it," she went on and I was, well, I don't know the word for what I was but it's something stronger than surprised. "Girls have wants too."
Her words didn't help my predicament and I think she knew it. I could see her amusement mixed with a bashful look as well. She knew what was happening to me but at that time had little experience with men in that state. I know she wasn't sure what else to say and I wasn't either. Joanie, as she always did, sensed that I was uncertain and maybe a little shocked at what she'd said. I hadn't ever considered that girls wanted sex too.
"So," she said and her tone let me know she was changing the subject. "Al said he'd give you next week off so you can come up to the cabin with us."
I sighed. She'd been asking since Lou and Kid's wedding and I had been dodging and using excuses like Al wouldn't let me off work and stuff like that. I should've known Mr. Cohen or even Joanie herself would bring it up with Al.
"Why don't you want to go?" she asked. "Is it spending that much time with my parents?"
"I can't say I'm comfortable with that much time in a car with them," I answered, "But that's not all. I guess I'm just not the cabin in the woods kind of guy."
"Have you ever been in a cabin or a woods?" she asked.
Well, that was the issue right there. I had never been outside civilization. Hell, I'd never seen a farm that wasn't in some picture book back in grade school or on the TV. The woods was just too different and I didn't know what to expect and that made me a little scared.
"It's only a week," she said, "It's one of my favorite places and I'd really like to share it with you." She paused. "Please, James."
Yeah, I was a sucker for those big dark eyes of hers and I agreed to go. I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth but there was no taking them back. I was now officially part of the Cohen family summer vacation in the great wild north.
I only had a few days to prepare to leave for the cabin and I worried through all of them. Friday, which was the day before we left, I remember storming into Al's office.
"Why did you say I could have the time off next week?" I asked, no, I demanded. "You know we are swamped with work. There's no way I'll have that Fury done and ready before we close today."
"Sit down son," was all Al said. But he said it with a smile I was more than half tempted to remove with my fist. I did sit though.
"What's really bothering you, Jimmy?" he asked, "'Cause I know you ain't worrying yourself silly over that Plymouth out there."
"I just ain't sure about this trip," I said. I was scared as hell of that trip was the truth of it but I wasn't sure how to say it and even less sure how to explain it.
"Sounds like a great trip to me," Al said, "Fresh air, fishing, and a pretty girl to sit beside the campfire and admire the stars with."
"I can sit and watch stars with Joanie on the roof," I said looking to argue any way I could.
"There's more stars where you're going."
"More of a lot of other things too," I said.
"You scared of the mosquitoes hauling you away?" he asked.
I shook my head and said, "Bears."
He laughed for a while and I wanted to hit him again.
"There might just be some up there but they want even less of you than you want of them," he said once he quit laughing at me. "They eat fish and bugs and berries, not people. And they surely don't want some greasy little city boy like you. Why you'd mess his digestion up a good week."
I still wasn't sure about going and he could tell.
"Look son, Joanie wants to show this place to you and you want to make Joanie happy," he said like he was talking to a three year old. "Go, give it a chance and then see if you don't just have a good time in spite of yourself."
Okay, um, a Fury is a model that Plymouth used to make...I think Chryseler doesn't even make Plymouths anymore and they discontinued the Fury ages ago. There was a fair amount of Yiddish in here and I know some of it is translated for you in the course of the story. Um Fercockte means crazy, messed up, etc. Luzzem means leave him alone or let him be. Bubbe is grandma. Ikh hob im lib is I love him. Schlimazel is sort of a ne'er do well, a bum I guess. Shemozzle is a quarrel or brawl. I think I covered them all but if I didn't, ask please. There will be more to come of the Yiddish and heaven help us all. Anyway, here it is and next up Jimmy goes on a road trip with Joanie and the rest of the Cohen's. Good times.-J