Interview With a Jewish Vampire by Erica Manfred Read Free Book Online Page B

organized by color and type. If she was wearing purple pants, guaranteed she would have a blouse with purple in it, and a scarf and sweater to match. Her feet were still a size six and she could still wear high heels, which I never could tolerate because of my big flat feet. It was sad that her beautiful clothes were now too big for her. Most of them were size fourteen’s. It was even sadder that they didn’t fit me because I was in the XX’s.
    My visits were a big deal to the ‘goils’, who looked forward to hanging out with me. They were in their eighties and at forty-one, I was the voice of “young people” to them, even though in New York, where the happening crowd was in their twenties, I was already a dinosaur. Women my age lived in the ‘burbs or Park Slope with their first husbands and kids. My first husband didn’t stick around for the kids. But I liked being treated like a kid again by Mom’s friends--being fussed over and catered to.
    I suppose most New York women my age would have dreaded keeping company with a bunch of eighty-year-olds in a Florida condo, but I loved spending time with the girls. They were funny, irreverent, and had a great time doing just about anything. Mostly we went out to lunch somewhere nice, since lunches were cheap, then to a museum, or shopping, then home for a nap, then to dinner before six, never missing the early bird. After dinner we’d take a stroll on the beach. Deerfield was famous for its scenic non-commercialized beach, and long pier that stretched out into the Atlantic. Mom and I had scattered my dad’s ashes off that pier. I said Kaddish and we cried and cried. Then we went for ice cream, Mom’s favorite indulgence. Hanging out with the girls was easier than being with my own fellow journalists, who made me feel inadequate because I didn’t work on a TV show or at the New York Times . They also made me feel fat and frumpy, since they worked out obsessively and dressed in the latest boho fashions. There were no expectations with Mom’s friends except that I be sociable and amusing, which was easy.
    At the China Palace they started grilling me about Sheldon. Judy had wasted no time in spreading the word about my latest exploits.
    “ Rhoda, I hear you’re keeping company with a new guy these days?” Ellen asked politely. Unlike Judy she was always polite.
    “ He’s new to me all right,” I replied. “But he’s been around for a while, 150 years or so but that’s young for a vampire.”
    “ C’mon, Rhoda,” Judy chided. “You can’t kid a kidder. What’s the deal with him? Vampires, shmampires, what does he do for a living?”
    “ He’s not exactly living, but he was a rabbi once upon a time. He lives as a Hasid and works as a diamond cutter, a night job.” I hadn’t told my mom yet about Sheldon’s job since it was a trade, not a profession. Even though she was a Socialist, she was still a snob. Only the Orthodox worked in the diamond district and they were as foreign to Mom and her friends as vampires. She was an atheist who disapproved of rabbis, priests, and other true believers.
    “ Noooo,” Miriam said in disbelief. “You’re not the kind of girl to get involved with a rabbi. Much less a Hasidic Jew. I thought you were an atheist.”
    Miriam was humoring me, and so were the rest of the girls. She just ignored the whole vampire thing, which was her way. She was very polite and wouldn’t have wanted to make fun of or contradict me. The girls were obviously not going to believe my story about Sheldon. I don’t know why I’d told them the truth—I guess because I wanted to make it easier on Mom, so she wouldn’t have to lie to them as well. I couldn’t lie to her—I’d never been able to lie to her.
    “ That’s my mom you’re thinking of, Miriam. She hasn’t been in a synagogue since she was a kid, even though you’d never know it considering how she carries on about me marrying a Jew. Rabbis are supposed to be married and have