huddle with Avi Young, Freddy Katz, and two friends of his.
“Who is that woman who is making all the men laugh?” one of Freddy’s daughters asks her mother.
“Never mind her, honey. She came to shul by car this morning. She’s from New York.”
Oh, and you’re straight from Lyubavichi, are you, Margele?
In contrast, Elvira—a buxom, Sephardic-looking woman who I’m guessing is a few years older than Bernie—welcomes me, literally, with open arms. And with a plan.
“Anna, would you like to come to our house-warming party? Might be nice for you, get to know a few of the locals? Danny, hmm—what do you think? Or Jake?” She turns to Bernie and gives him a significant look.
“Listen, I thank you both, but I’m not actually…I’ve only been here for a few weeks, it’s a little early for a shidduch date!” I squirm.
“Anna’s right.” Bernie nods. “Anyway, a party isn’t really a good occasion to catch up. Should we take her to Los Viejos Amigos first, after Yom Kippur, for a quiet glass of wine? That’s our favorite Mexican place here in Shaftsboro,” he informs me, as if I didn’t know that already, and as if we hadn’t already agreed to meet there in two weeks’ time. Bernie, it seems, is a bit of a heel, still. But I don’t mind. I like him much better now than when we were fourteen, and I am looking forward to knowing him a little better, too.
Chapter 13
THE VERY NEXT MONDAY MORNING I bump up against the realities of what it means to have Matthew Dancey take over the department chair because other people are shirking their administrative duties. When I check whether I have any snail mail, I come across Tim, squatting on a big box of Xerox paper and apparently meditating into a letter.
“Hey! All right?” I have learned that Tim is liable to lash out when pressed, but I also want him to know that he can confide in me.
“It’s…nothing.” He shrugs. “They’ve re-shuffled my committee.”
“Your tenure committee?”
“Mmhm. Hornberger is out, obviously, but Dancey is in. That’s…not so good. The good news is, the first paychecks of the semester are here!”
“Oooh—yay!” I make a beeline for L in the wall of pigeonholes. “This, my friend, is a moment I’ve been waiting for since I started college and realized that I would rather be a professor than a rabbi!”
Tim stares at me with his mouth open like a cartoon character.
“A rabbi?” he echoes. “But, babycakes, you wouldn’t look at all hot in a whachamcallit—that prayer rug—what? Anna? What’s wrong?”
I should shut up, but I can’t.
“This is wrong,” I say, and my voice sounds odd in my own ears. “My monthly net salary should be more than this. Almost two hundred dollars more than this, actually.”
“Probably just a mistake,” he says, almost too calm to sound confident.
“Maybe I should…my contract is in my office; I’ll go and see whether Dancey is in.”
“Or wait till next month?” Tim cautions me. “See whether by then—”
Let us cast away the sin of vain ambition, which prompts us to strive for goals, which bring neither true fulfillment nor genuine contentment.
The verses from the tashlikh service linger in my mind, but I do not see how it is evidence of vain ambition to insist on the salary that I negotiated. Those extra two hundred may not bring me genuine contentment, but being cheated out of them would make me genuinely discontented.
“Professor Dancey? Sir? May I ask for a couple of minutes of your time?”
“Sure, Anna. Go through.” He points me to his open office door while he continues his exchange with Mrs. Forster in a low voice. I walk in and wait next to one of the two broad metal-and-leather chairs in front of his desk. He makes me wait for about five minutes before he comes in.
“You should have sat down, Anna! Or do you find us so very formal here at Ardrossan?”
Matthew Dancey. Always a master at the “Have you hit your child today?” sort of question. I smile politely and sit down.
“Thank you, sir. It’s kind of you to make time for me at such short notice. I’ll come right to the point: there’s been a hiccup about my salary—”
“Oh, while you’re here, Anna—sorry to interrupt you.” He looks at the collection of Post-it notes on the cupboard door and peels one off. “Anna’s shoes,” he reads.
“Pardon me?”
“An odd request, isn’t it?” He smiles. “Indulge me. Would you show me your shoes?”