The Big Nap (7 page)

One of the young men turned to look at me. He pointed to his chest and frowned as if to ask, Who, me?

Of all the felafel joints in all the towns in all the world.

“Yossi?” I said again.

He walked over to me. “Do I know you?” he asked. His voice was soft with just the slightest trace of accent.

“I think you know a friend of mine, Fraydle Finkelstein?”

He stiffened for a moment and looked at me more intently. “Do I know you?” he asked again.

“My name is Juliet Applebaum. Fraydle was watching my baby the other day? On Orange Drive?”

“We did not meet.”

“No. No, we didn’t. But Fraydle told me all about you.”

He looked doubtful.

“Well, maybe not all about you. She told me that you guys are friends.”

He smiled ruefully. “Friends. Yes, we are friends, I suppose.”

“Yossi, would you sit down a minute so that we can talk?”

“I’m sorry. I cannot help you. I know her only a little. Just from the neighborhood.” He turned his back to me and began to walk across the floor.

“Yossi!” I was almost shouting.

He turned back to me. “Please. I don’t know what you want from me. I barely know this girl. We talk once, maybe twice. I did nothing wrong.”

I looked at him. What made him assume that I was accusing him of anything?

“Do you know where Fraydle is?”

“What do you mean? She is where she always is. She is with her father. The rabbi.” He fairly spat the words out.

“Actually, that’s just where she’s not. She hasn’t been home since yesterday.” It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t spoken to Fraydle’s family all afternoon. For all I knew, she was back home safe and sound.

“At least, she hadn’t come home as of this morning,” I continued.

Either Yossi was an accomplished actor or he was genuinely surprised at what I’d said. He pulled a chair over from another table and sat down between Ruby and me.

“Hey!” my daughter cried. “This is our table!”

“Ruby, this is Yossi. Mama just has to talk to him for a minute. Eat your felafel.”

Ruby listened to me for once and turned back to her dinner. At that moment, Isaac gave a belch and I switched him to the other side. Yossi studiously avoided looking at my exposed breast.

“You said Fraydle is not home?” he asked.

I recounted to him how she’d failed to show up for work and my subsequent experiences with her father. “Not the most easygoing of men,” I said.

“I have not met him. Your name is Juliet?”

“Yes.”

“Juliet, this is not good. This is not like Fraydle to go away. She is not, how do you say, sophisticate?”

“Sophisticated.”

“Yes, sophisticated. She is not. She has not spent a night away from her parents in her life. She would not just go away.”

“And you have no idea where she is?” I was suspicious. After all, the first thing this guy had done was proclaim his innocence. And that was before I’d told him there might be something for him to be guilty of.

“I? Is that what you think? That she is maybe with me? That is crazy. I know this girl only a little bit.”

“So you said. But you do know her enough to know she isn’t sophisticated. Right?” He didn’t answer. “Yossi,” I said, “is Fraydle your girlfriend?”

“No! No! Nothing like that. I know her from the neighborhood. I told you this!” He shook his head angrily. “None of this is important. Where is she, that is what is important. You said you did not speak to them, to her family, this evening?”

“No. I haven’t.”

“So maybe she is at home.” With that, he got up to leave.

“Wait. Yossi. Please wait. Let me just call her mother and see if she’s home. If she is, fine. I won’t bother you anymore. If not, then don’t you think we should try to figure out where she might be?”

He looked at me for a moment, and then, shrugging his shoulders, sat back down at the table.

Ruby mumbled something incomprehensible from around a mouthful of fries.

“Just a minute, peach. Mama’s got to make a phone call,” I told her.

Reaching around Isaac’s head, I dug in my purse for my cell phone and the scrap of paper with the Finkelsteins’ phone number. I punched in the numbers. The phone rang only once.

“Hello? Fraydle?” a voice shouted into the phone. She wasn’t home yet.

“No, this is Juliet Applebaum. Is this Rabbi Finkelstein?”

“Mrs. Applebaum. Yes. You have news of my daughter?” I could tell that I was not high on the rabbi’s list of desirable conversation partners. I could also tell that he was desperate for news of his child.

“No, no, I’m terribly sorry, Rabbi. I was just calling to find out if she’d come home.”

“No.” And he hung up.

I stared dumbly into the phone receiver. “He hung up on me!” I announced.

Yossi didn’t look surprised. “She is not home,” he said, rather than asked.

“No.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I don’t know where she is.”

“Exactly what are you and Fraydle to each other?” He didn’t answer. “I know that you don’t think this is any of my business, but maybe we can work together to figure out where Fraydle has gone.” He remained silent. “Is it that you’re afraid I’ll tell her parents about you two? Is that it?” Silence.

“Hey, mister! My mama asked you something!”

“Shh! Ruby!”

Yossi looked at me for a moment and then, his face pale, he stood up again. “I cannot help you. I know her only a little bit. From the neighborhood,” he repeated and made as if to walk away.

“Wait, Yossi. Let me give you my phone number, in case you think of anything. He shrugged his shoulders and stuffed the card I handed him into his pocket without looking at it.

“What’s your last name?” I asked.

“Zinger,” he said, turning on his heel and walking across the restaurant to the table where his friends were sitting.

“I want to go home, Mama. I want to see Daddy,” Ruby whined.

“Okay, honey,” I said. I hustled the kids out of the restaurant and into the car and, within an hour, had them both bathed and ready for bed. Ruby was out like a light as soon as her head hit the pillow. Isaac, as usual, was ready to rock and roll until the wee hours.

I took him into my bed and faked sleep, hoping to trick him into following suit. He was unimpressed. He lay in the crook of my arm, grunting and waving his arms about, his fingers gracefully outstretched like a miniature Thai dancer. After a futile ten minutes or so of playing possum, I gave up.

“So, what do you want to do?” I asked.

“I don’t know, what do you want to do?” I answered in a squeaky baby voice.

“I don’t know, what do you want to do?”
Et cetera.

This scintillating exercise was interrupted by Peter’s arrival.

“Hey,” he called as he thumped up the back stairs.

“Hey,” I called back.

“Are you still up?”

“No. I’m asleep. Can’t you tell?”

Peter walked into the bedroom, stripping off his clothes as he crossed the worn wooden floorboards. In seconds he was next to us in bed, clad only in his boxer shorts.

“Hi, Isaac,” Peter said, scooping the baby up and buzzing him on his belly. Isaac giggled.

“Hi, Daddy,” I said in my squeaky voice.

“Did you guys have a good day?”

“Not really.”

Peter pushed a long curl out of his eye. “Me neither.”

“You go first,” I said, rather generously, if I do say so myself.

“Oh, you know, just the usual garbage. The studio guys are insisting that the special effects are too expensive for TV and the director is threatening to quit unless they’re left in. Blah blah blah. I swear to God, if it weren’t for Mindy, I’d be going out of my mind.”

I felt a flash of jealousy. The producing partner Peter’s agency had set him up with was a woman of about my age with the unlikely name of Mindy Maxx. She was blond and brilliant and weighed seventeen pounds.

“And what did Maximum Mindy do today?”

Peter laughed perfunctorily. “She’s really adept at handling those network drones. She keeps them in check but somehow convinces them that they’re in charge. She’s amazing.”

“So you’ve said before.”

He was oblivious to my sarcasm. “You do remember that we’re going to her house for dinner tomorrow night, don’t you?” he asked.

I hadn’t remembered. “Oh God, is that tomorrow? Peter, I totally forgot. I didn’t set up a baby-sitter. And Fraydle, the girl who was supposed to sit today, has disappeared. I don’t know where I’d begin to find someone to watch the kids.”

“I figured. That’s why I found someone.”

“
You
found a baby-sitter? What are you talking about? How did you find a baby-sitter?”

“Well, actually, it was Mindy’s idea. Her assistant, Angelika, is going to do it.”

“Angel-eeeka? Who’s Angelika? We can’t just let some total stranger take care of the kids.” What was he thinking? Did he really believe I’d leave my kids with someone I’d never met?

“She’s not a total stranger. I’ve known her for months—since we started developing the series. She’s a nice young kid, a year or two out of college. She went to Yale, like Mindy.”

“Oh, well, if she went to Yale, by all means.” I was being snide. I’m a Harvard girl, after all.

“Juliet, do I need to remind you that you left Isaac with some girl you met once in a grocery store?”

That shut me up, for a moment.

“It’ll be fine,” Peter continued. “Angelika is a sweet kid and she’s very responsible. Ruby will love her; she’s got a stud in her tongue.”

“Oh, well, why didn’t you tell me that to begin with? Sure, no problem, as long as she’s heavy into self-mutilation. I mean, who would ever want a baby-sitter who couldn’t set off a metal detector or two?”

Peter sat up and lifted Isaac up over his head, zooming him around like an airplane.

“She’s a nice kid,” he said.

I gave up. “I’m sure she is. Ruby will love her.” I sighed. “Don’t get the baby all revved up. I’m trying to convince him that it’s bedtime.”

“Okay.” Peter brought Isaac in for a landing and handed him to me.

“Why was your day so bad?” he asked, finally.

I launched into the tale of Fraydle’s disappearance. I had
just started telling him about my conversation with Yossi when I noticed that he’d fallen asleep.

“I love you, too,” I whispered. I looked over at Isaac, who smiled at me. At least
he
cared what I had to say. “C’mon, buddy. Let’s let Daddy get some rest.”

P
ETER
was gone by the time Isaac and I got home from driving Ruby to school the next morning. My darling husband had left a note on the kitchen table.

“Better? Why do I need to feel better? I feel just fine, thank you.” I muttered to myself as I crumpled the note. I had already decided to go by Mrs. Tannenbaum’s store. I wasn’t up to facing Fraydle’s father, but I wanted to find out if Fraydle had come home. Afterwards, if we had time, Isaac and I could hit the Beverly Center and try to find something to wear to Marvelous Mindy’s dinner party.

I drove the block and a half to the kosher grocery and
parked in front of the store. It was open. Measuring the distance between my car and the shop at about ten feet, I decided it was safe to leave the baby in the car. I opened his window a crack, hopped out, and went to the door of the shop. Poking my head inside, I called out to Fraydle’s aunt. “Nettie? It’s Juliet Applebaum.”

She stood behind the register, ringing up the purchases of an elderly woman wearing a wig that appeared to be made out of molded plastic.

“Hello, darling. No word yet,” Nettie said, looking up at me and shaking her head.

“Nothing?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

I glanced out at Isaac, who sat, undisturbed, just as I’d left him. “I can’t stay,” I said. “Isaac is in the car. I was just hoping . . .” I let the sentence trail off.

“We’re all hoping.”

The customer looked up curiously. “What hoping?” she asked, in a thick Yiddish accent.

“Nothing, dear,” Nettie reassured her. She gave me a warning glance over the top of the woman’s head. I nodded and waited in the doorway, where I could watch Isaac. He was busy trying to fit both fists into his mouth.

In slow motion, the old woman packed her purchases into a net bag and crammed that into an incongruous, pink suitcase on wheels emblazoned with the words “Going to Grandmas.” Finally, after about twelve hours, she trundled past me and out the door. Nettie came out from behind the counter.

“Come, we’ll go stand next to your baby.
Chas v’shalom
someone should steal him out of the car.”

Suitably rebuked, I followed Nettie to the car. I leaned against the front passenger door, watching her as she made
goo-goo eyes at Isaac. She tickled him on his belly and spoke to him in Yiddish. The woman clearly had been born to be a grandmother. It seemed a cruel twist of fate that she’d been robbed of her chance to have children, let alone grandchildren.

“Nettie, has your brother called the police yet?”

She shook her head. “No. Baruch says we’ll find her ourselves.”

I shook my head, frustrated at the man’s obstinacy. “And Fraydle’s mother agrees with this? She’s willing to let days and days pass without going to the police? For crying out loud, Nettie. What if she
hasn’t
run away? What if something has
happened
to her? You could be making a terrible mistake by waiting.”

Nettie whirled around to face me, her eyes flashing. “You think I don’t know this? You think I don’t imagine that girl dead somewhere? Or kidnapped? What do you think? I don’t care? Her mother doesn’t care? We don’t love her? Is that what you think?”

“Of course that’s not what I think. I know you love her. That’s why this refusal to call the police doesn’t make sense to me. It’s almost as if her father doesn’t want her to be found.”

“Pah!” She flung her hand at me in a dismissive gesture. “What do you know? The poor man does nothing but look for her. He drives all over this city looking for her. I’m telling you, he hasn’t slept since she left. The only thing he wants in the world is for her to come home.”