Dating Kosher Read Online Free Page A

the phone.
    “Hi Mr. Levine, it’s Shoshanna, is Max there?”
    “Hi Shosh,” he said and I could hear the smile in his voice. “Yes, he’s here. We’re looking forward to having you for Shabbat dinner Friday night. One second, I’ll go get him.”
    Shabbat dinner? I didn’t remember signing up for a Shabbat dinner. I opened my date book frantically turning the pages to Friday’s date. Sure enough, there it was: Shabbat dinner at the Levine’s. Maybe the fact that Max hadn’t told them I wouldn’t be coming for dinner was a good sign.
    “Hello?” Max came on the line before I had a chance to figure out a strategy.
    “Hi Maxie,” I said in my best smitten girlfriend voice.
    “Oh, imagine that. I thought you’d fallen off the earth. I was about to start sitting shiva .”
    Oy, a drama queen, I thought, but bit my tongue. “Sorry, babe, just been really busy. Mom’s been having another post-divorce crisis.” Well, that was true, at least. “I was just calling to see what you think I should bring to Shabbat dinner at your parents’ place on Friday.”
    “Are you kidding?” he sounded pissed.
    “Why would I be kidding?” I tried to sound like a poor kitten stuck up in a tree—that had always worked on him in the past.
    “I haven’t heard from you since you disappeared from my place Saturday night. You haven’t returned my phone calls. As a matter of fact, I thought you dumped me.”
    “I told you, Maxie, Mom’s in crisis.” I couldn’t have sounded more pathetic. I had years of practice manipulating men. Tippy had been a damn good teacher.
    He exhaled loudly. “Why don’t you bring a challah ? And make sure you’re on time; you know how my mother gets.”
    Yes, I did. Last time I was only twenty minutes late (I had broken a heel on my favorite Jimmy Choos in a sidewalk grate and needed a few moments to grieve) but Candace Levine had just about given birth to a heifer right there in her kitchen. She stood there, hands on hips, telling me that the Shabbos didn’t wait for me and I should have some respect. She was as much a bitch as her son was a moron.
    “Of course, Maxie. I’ll be there right on time,” I purred.
    “Why don’t you come by tonight?” he suggested. In the back of my mind, I could hear the clank clank clank of the fireman’s ladder as he came up the tree to rescue his kitten.
    For the first time that morning, I was able to smile. “Okay, I’ll come by after work. Oops gotta go, there’s a client here.” It was a lie; there was no one there. But I hung up on him, not wanting to bother with the formality of saying goodbye. What if he had said he loved me? Easier just to avoid those situations. It wouldn’t be too hard; it was only a month until the wedding.
    I looked at the empty lobby in front of me and then back to my computer screen. I opened up Solitaire on my computer, eager to break my record—the day before I had won six games in a row.
     
     

 
    Chapter 5
    “So what’s on your agenda for today, Bubby?” I asked my grandmother over my shoulder. My nose tickled from the mixed smells of rosewater and mothballs; anywhere else the aroma would be nauseating, but here in my grandmother’s apartment nestled in the new wing of the retirement complex, it smelled just like home.
    I’d finished my apple-cinnamon tea and stood up from the too-soft sofa, restless. Picking up a picture of my grandparents from the mantle over the electric fireplace, I held it only inches from my face for closer inspection. It was an old black and white photo of them on their honeymoon. They were in their early twenties, both slim and in bathing suits on the beach in Florida; ever after their favorite vacation spot. My zaidy stood barefoot in the sand, his arms around my tiny grandmother who stood in front of him. They were both laughing, making me think he’d told a joke right before the shutter clicked open and closed, sealing their happiness on celluloid forever.
    I’d seen the