“I CAN’T GET ENOUGH of Liam,” Margaret Klasko declared. “Adele said the same thing.”
“Good,” Layla told her with a smile, “because he’s likely to be the only grandchild either one of you will have. Don’t get to used to the British accent, though. That’s subject to change.”
They sat down together on the sofa, looking across the street to Kirk and Paul’s house. “I just wonder if I’ll be able to measure up to being a mother is all.”
“Look, Layla,” Will’s mother said. “Mothers are just women who had children. And you chose to have a child. You got up and looked at this child and said you wanted to be his mother. You didn’t just wake up knocked up and decide to make the best of. That says a lot about you, so don’t you worry.”
Layla nodded and Margaret touched her knee.
“I’ve always considered you a daughter, and now you really will be. I was alright with whatever you and Will chose to do, but I’m so glad you all are going to be married now. You’re still staying in this house?”
“Yes, I think.”
“Good,” Margaret said. “What about the wedding? Do you know when it will be?”
“It’ll have to be soon.”
“At Saint Barbara’s?”
Layla sighed.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t think so. I’m not really big on having a Catholic wedding. I haven’t been to church in forever. And then with Todd and Maia going to synagogue—”
Margaret fixed her with a look.
“Yes?”
“Layla, would you and Will like to have a Jewish wedding?”
“Yeah,” Layla discovered. “I think I would. I don’t know how Will would feel—”
“He’ll love it! I never had one. I wish I had.”
“I don’t know that he will love it, Marge. He’s only been in a synagogue three times, and Sheridan hasn’t been in one at all. I think he pretty much forgot he was Jewish.”
“I forgot too,” Margaret admitted. “But it came back to me, and it could come to him.”
“I’m game for anything. I’ll see.”
“He’ll like it,” Margaret told her. “I’ll make him like it.”
NINE
THE LAW OF LOVE
Layla already knew she didn’t like the rabbi. She had actually never met him, though she had, of course, been to the synagogue for High Holidays on the occasions when Will and his mother went. She remembered once Sheridan had tagged along, and on their way out, the pale, freckled, blue eyed boy with light brown hair had looked at the crowd of mostly swarthy dark haired, mostly myopic people, talking about things he did not understand and said, “This shit is not me.”
Now Layla sat in front of a lugubrious, swarthy, dark haired man who said, “I don’t perform mixed marriages.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” she started up.
Will put a hand on hers.
“It’s not about us being black and white,” he said.
The rabbi looked at her startled and said, “I hadn’t even thought of that.”
Layla didn’t necessarily believe that, but the rabbi continued, “I will not marry a Jew to a non Jew.”
Layla nodded and rose while Will was still thinking of this.
“Thank you for your time,” she said.
“Layla!” Will began.
“What?” she said.
“You are Jewish. I am not. You’re Methodist too. We can get married there. Or in a courthouse.”
“Or you could become Jewish,” the rabbi said.
Layla looked at him.
“You,” the rabbi repeated, “could convert, could promise to raise your children as Jews, live as a Jew.”
At the look on Layla’s face, Will said, “Would that be such a bad thing?”
“It would be a hypocritical thing,” Layla said. “Seeing as neither one of us ever sets foot in a house of worship.”
“But you believe in God,” Will said. “I mean, I believe in God too. And you read a Bible. I know you pray. How do you know that maybe what we shouldn’t be doing is going to a synagogue instead of a church?”
“I don’t,” she said. “But I know I’m not going to promise to raise my children as something I don’t even do myself.
“I’ll see you in the car,” Layla told Will, and putting her purse over her shoulder, she left the office, threading through the lobby to head out the door of Beni Y’isroel.
When Will finally came out to the car, he said, “The rabbi was willing to work with us.”
“I’m not willing to work with him,” Layla said. “I don’t like him. I’m at the age where I don’t have to justify my feelings to myself. When someone comes at me like that, I don’t want anything to do with him.” She muttered to herself, “I don’t do mixed marriages.”
“Well, can’t we think about it?”
“And why is it so important to you, anyway?” Layla demanded. “When have you ever cared about synagogues or having a Jewish life or any of that? And what about Liam? I’ve never seen the boy’s business, but… is he… you know?”
“No, I don’t.”
“In England they don’t… well, they do. But not everyone. Is he…?”
“Is he what?”
“Holy shit! Is he circumcised?”
“Ohhhh!” Will said, late to the game. “I didn’t even think… Well, that’s not the issue. It’s just us getting married.”
“It’s just that random silly Jew trying to bribe us into making our children more Jews. And last I checked, that involves circumcision.”
“Well…” Will thought, “I could check.”
“That really wasn’t where I was going.”
“I know,” Will said. “How ‘bout we get out of the parking lot before continuing this discussion?”
Layla said nothing while Will pulled out of the lot in front of Bnai Y’isroel and turned onto Birmingham Street.
“Talk to Todd about it,” Will said. “Just… promise me you’ll talk to Todd.”
Layla looked at Will and said, “My God!”
“What?” Will turned from her to look at the street.
“You really want this, don’t you? You really want us to have a Jewish wedding.”
“Yes,” Will said. “I do.”
Maia shut her locker and screamed.
“Good to see you too,” Bennett said.
“What are you—” she stopped. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s my lunch, I thought I’d come over. Actually, Dylan’s over at Rossford, so I borrowed his car. Wanna have lunch?”
“Bennett, I have class in fifteen minutes.”
“You could skip it.”
“No,” Maia said. “No, I could not. I mean, I know I look all carefree and shit, but I’m not big on missing school.”
“Fine,” Bennett said, drawing it out. “Suit… yourself.”
Bennett began walking down the hall, toward his car, very slowly, and Maia sighed and then said, “Oh, hell, let’s go!”
Bennett turned around and, grinning, he held out his hand to her. As she ran down the hall, Laurel stuck her head out of the classroom and said, “Where are you going?”
Maia stopped and caught her cousin’s hand.
“I’ll tell you where I’m not going,” she said. “I’m not going to class.”
She beamed, released Laurel’s hand, and then ran down the hall, and out of the door with Bennett Anderson.
Dylan Mesda was standing on Demming Street in front of Rossford High school, and Elias was watching him fume.
“He’s not late yet,” Elias reminded him.
“I should never have loaned your brother my car.”
Elias was about to say something, but it was replaced by: “Oh yuck.”
“Wha?” Dylan turned in the direction of three girls walking in the mid February afternoon toward them.
“Elias,” Maggie said, “where’s Bennett?”
“Hello to you, too,” Elias said to her.
“I’ve forgotten my manners,” Maggie apologized.
“See, I didn’t even know you had them.”
“That’s cute,” Maggie even gave a spiteful little laugh to prove how cute it was.
“I am Maggie Biggs,” she held out her hand and, it seemed to Dylan, somehow her cleavage, “and these are my friends Maris and Lindsay.”
Lindsay gave a small smile and waving at Dylan said, “I’m waiting for Bennett too.”
“He’s with his girlfriend,” Elias placed a strong emphasis on the word.
“Oh,” Maris said.
Just now, Dylan’s car came from downtown, making a right turn and racing toward them to a sudden stop.
“What the fuck, Bennett!” Dylan demanded, coming toward the car before saying, “Maia!”
“You all know each other?” Maggie said.
“Maia is Dylan’s stepsister. Sort of,” Elias said. “And you’ve seen her, she’s my brother’s girlfriend.”
Maris opened her mouth, but Maggie gave a half smile Elias didn’t trust, and touching Maris’s shoulder she said, “I think we should leave, now.”
Bennett, in trouble with Dylan, had just noticed the three girls and that one of them was Maris.
He opened his mouth, but Maggie said, “We need to get to class. You should probably come too.”
On their way up the walk, Maris said, “I didn’t really see her coming into the picture.”
“We’re going to have to find another plan,” Lindsay said.
“Fuck that!” Maggie shook her head.
“Look!” she said, turning around and looking down the path to where the Anderson brothers, and Dylan and Maia, were talking,while Dylan and Elias kept looking back at them.
“I’ve got nothing against that girl. She’s pretty. Hell, I wish I had some Black in me. She’s probably very nice, but she’s in the way and, well,” Maggie decided as she opened the door and they walked back into the school, “if we didn’t see her in the original picture, then it looks like we’re going to have to just push her the fuck out of it.”
Meanwhile, before the car, Bennett said, “Dylan, can I please, please, please, keep it this afternoon if I drive you back to school?”
“Keep it for what?”
“Keep it for taking me out!” Maia said.
Dylan frowned.
“I don’t like the idea of you all riding around, skipping school,” he added, “in my car.”
Elias touched his side though, and Dylan looked at him.
“I think you should,” Elias said. “Just make sure he’s got it back by the end of school.”
“Fine,” Dylan said, trying to look rough, but smiling at Elias.
“But you have to promise,” Dylan told him, “to pick Elias up and bring him to Saint Barbara’s with you when you come.”
Bennett jumped up and hugged Dylan.
“Thanks, man.”
“Thanks, big brother,” Maia said from the car, and put on her shades.
Later that afternoon, when they wheeled into Saint Barbara’s parking lot, Dylan was sitting on the steps patiently, and in the car, Elias kept quiet the way he felt, as he sat in the passenger seat beside Bennett. Dylan in dark blue pants and a blazer, his white shirt, his short dark hair, the serious face, was so soaringly handsome to him, if soaring was a word. Maybe he’d picked it up from Wuthering Heights. The young man got up, messenger bag over his shoulder, and came to him as Maia and Bennett got out of the car.
“Okay, so how about I drive all of you wherever you’re going?” Dylan said as he slid in and touched Elias on the leg. He hadn’t looked at him, but there was that touch.
“I thought I’d just go with Laurel,” Maia said. “She’ll want to know everything anyway.”
“And you’re going to tell her everything?” Bennett said, plaintively.
Maia only smiled.
“Well, you guys can give me a ride home,” Bennett said, climbing into the back.
“Walking is good for you,” Elias told him.
“Not in February.”
“Where’s Matthew?” Elias added. “We should give him a ride, too?”
“He went home with Riley. They’re taking Rob back to Dena’s on the way.”
“Alright. Then we’re off.” Dylan pulled his seat belt across him.
“And I’m off too,” Maia said, heading toward the school. “Good bye.”
On the way to Paul and Kirk’s house, Bennett decided he wanted to be dropped off at the arcade, and when Elias asked him how he’d get home, he said, “I’ll take the bus home.”
Then they continued to drive until they arrived at Lee and Tom’s modern house, so different from where Fenn and Todd lived.
“There’s cookies and milk in the kitchen,” Lee said, turning from working at his desk in the raised office area that overlooked the snowy side yard.
“You made milk and cookies?” Dylan said.
“Don’t be simple. Danny did. Hello, Elias.”
“Hey, Mr. Phillips.”
“I’m as surprised at Danny doing it as you,” Dylan noted.
“Who all lives here?” Elias asked as they walked through the large living room toward the kitchen.
“Well, technically just Dad and Lee. But usually Danny and Ron and then their kids even though they have a place on the north end. And then Mathan and Carol and their kids are here a lot.”
In the kitchen, Danny was scraping cookies onto a plate and she cried, “Hey, short man!”
“Danny!” Dylan said.
“Elias Anderson,” Danny acknowledged. “Why don’t yawl get some milk. I’m learning how to be a housewife. I figure I better try it out here, first.”
“Chocolate chip,” said Dylan and then, “ouch.”
“You know better than to just bite into a cookie thirty seconds out the oven,” Danny told him. “Elias, why don’t you go and get some milk.
“Layla was over here, earlier.”
“Talking about the wedding?” Dylan’s mouth was full.
“Yes,” Danny said. “And mad because the rabbi said they won’t marry her unless their both Jewish.”
“I’d say screw it and do it at city hall,” Dylan decided, pouring Elias’s glass and then his own.
“And I thought Will would too. She’s not going to get married at Saint Barbara’s. She doesn’t know the priest, and doesn’t really want to be Catholic anymore. But,” Danny added, “here’s the kicker, Will wants the Jewish wedding.”
“Will’s like… hardly Jewish at all,” Elias said.
“Well, that’s what Layla said, so,” Danny shrugged. “We’ll see what happens.”
Upstairs Elias said. “This room is huge.”
“It’s bigger than the one at Fenn and Todd’s.”
“But Fenn and Todd’s is your real home.”
“Why would you say that?” Dylan said.
“I didn’t mean to offend.”
“You didn’t,” Dylan brushed it off.
“Yeah, I did,” Elias told him. “A little.”
Dylan thought, and then he said, “It’s cause you’re right. A little. I dunno. This is my home too. I like being both places, but it’s like this is vacation and Fenn and Todd are… not vacation. I know I’m probably there more. Sometimes I forget to come here and then I feel bad because I love both my dads, like, I really, really love Tom and he’s my biological father, and I have his hair and his eyes and… unfortunately, his lack of height. And music. We’ve got that. But it’s different with Fenn.” Dylan shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“It’s like I feel that Paul is like my mom and Kirk is what a father’s supposed to be. And I care for both of them a lot,” Elias explained. “But there’s just something about Paul.”
“Right.”
“And really, I have a mother. She’s the same woman that gave birth to Bennett, but I don’t know her. And Kirk is my biological father, but in some ways I feel… not closer to Paul, but… like I said, sort of like he gave birth to me. Which is funny. And then Bennett’s so different from me, and he’s Paul’s real son, and he’s my real brother, but I feel like Matthew’s more related to me cause he looks like me and he’s quiet like me and he’s my baby brother. I feel protective about him and then the worse thing is this, I know he doesn’t believe it, because he feels like he’s this outsider cause me and Bennett are blood related and he isn’t related to any of us. It’s like he doesn’t get that it doesn’t matter.”
“I love Lee and I love Todd. Actually I love Todd more,” Dylan said. “But sometimes when it’s just me and both of my Dads and I can see what they had a long time ago, I don’t know, I almost—not quite and not really—but almost wish they were together. They almost make since together but I know Fenn Houghton, and really, he and Tom make more sense apart.”
“That’s it?”
“Whaddo you mean that’s it?” Maia said as the bus crossed Main Street and headed into Laurel’s neighborhood of old and unrenovated Victorian houses.
“If there had been more you would call me a slut!”
Laurel pulled the cord for their stop and laughed.
“I would never say that.”
“But you’d think it, you dirty bitch,” Maia accused.
The girls hefted their backpacks and left the bus, thanking the driver and then headed up the block.
“All we did was go to lunch, and he kissed me, and he’s good at it, and I’ll tell you what,” Maia said, “I’m surprised because I like it, and I like him.”
“But you always had something for Bennett.”
“Right,” Maia agreed. “But it was something. Only something. And now it’s a real thing. He’s my boyfriend, and I’m surprised that I like it.”
Laurel thought about it and then said, “I know. I saw Dylan have so much trouble in that department that when Alex came a long I—”
“What?” Maia said.
“What’s that?”
Caroline didn’t drive, but there was a car in front of their house. True, it could have just been a neighbor, but they needed to park in front of their own damn house, then.
“Illinois plates,” Maia said, and lifted the gate latch, going up the path to the large porch of Caroline’s house.
Caroline opened the door before Maia could knock.
“Your mojo scares me sometimes,” Maia said.
“It’s not mojo,” Caroline told her. “It’s just lots of glass windows to see you all coming down street. Laurel, you’ve got a surprise visitor,”
“Huh?” Laurel said, coming into the house and then putting her bag down in the hall beside Maia’s. But as she was taking off her coat, he came out of the living room and stood there before her. It took her a moment to know him because she’d never seen him in jeans and a high end sweat jacket. He was wearing a ball cap.
“Moshe?” she said.
He gave her a side grin.
“Laurel, I’m glad you’re finally home.”
SEE YOU SATURDAY NIGHT
