Page 37 of Tributary

Flustered, my mother asks if Diana and I would open the door for Elijah. I nod and usher Diana to the French doors that open to the balcony, which overlooks Central Park.

“What the hell is going on?” She hisses at me. “I am furious.”

I want to tell her about my mother and her matchmaking. Or about my father coming to my apartment at night to lecture me about how he thinks I should be making promotional decisions, despite him handing over the reins of the company. Instead, I just beckon for her to follow me to the balcony.

“This is my favorite part,” I tell her. “Seder always begins on the full moon, so when we open the door to see if the prophet has come, we’ll see the moon just as it rises over the trees.”

To demonstrate, I yank open the door, and sure enough, the moon glows brighter than the light pollution. High and round, it shines down on Diana. She gasps. I don’t blame her. The sight is magical.

We stare at it in silence for a moment, and she turns to me, frowning. “You can’t just do things like this, Asa. You can’t just decide to do things and not discuss it with me. This trip? This dinner? It’s not the same thing as you buying me a special plant.”

“Diana, I’m sorry.” I rake my hands through my hair. “I’m not used to this.”

“To what? Interpersonal relationships? Do you not run a company?”

“The people who work for me…they do whatever I tell them. And my parents. Well you see my parents…”

She sinks into a chair on the porch, staring at the moon as it continues to rise before our eyes. I sit in the chair next to hers, desperate to reach out and touch her, but I don’t.

She sighs. “I don’t know why I’m going to tell you this. I don’t know why I haven’t left yet. But I just keep thinking of you paying attention to me when my brother was being a dick…” She drifts off for a minute, but I resist the urge to respond. “I trusted someone once. And he fucked me every way possible. And he made a fool of me, and then he stole six years of my work and sold it, and now he’s living some slime ball rich life on the tails of my hard work.”

“You mean Jay Buford? His patent?” When her eyes widen, I say, “I had Andrea look into it, because it was my father who gave him the seed money, and you bet your ass he didn’t cross his t’s or dot his i’s.”

She looks more furious than I’ve ever seen her, like the mention of his name makes her physically ill and I remember how she stiffened up when I brought him up in Pittsburgh. “What do you mean ‘look in to it?’”

“Exactly that—I can’t have Wexler Holdings associated with criminal activity, and acquiring a patent through deception and omission is not how we do things in my company. Not on my watch.”

Her chest rises and falls quickly and she brings a hand to her lips, silent for a moment. “Just let it go, Asa. Please.”

“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to keep my name associated with someone who stole intellectual property, Diana.”

I can’t take it anymore and I pull her hand in between mine, squeezing. “And you’re out of your mind if you think I won’t hunt down someone who hurt you.”

“I just wanted you to understand why you can’t lie to me. Why you can’t deceive me and spring surprise religious dinners on me. I don’t want to talk about…Jesus, Asa. I let him know me,” Diana chokes out. “He made me love him, and I let it happen. He was fucking me, Asa, and stealing my notes after. Taking my slides, my equations. Needling himself into my conversations with collaborators. And I loved him.” She seems to sink into herself, seemingly disgusted that she would ever believe her lover when he said he cared about her.

“And that makes me want to dismantle him one bone at a time, Diana, and I fucking swear to you, I will find the holes in his paperwork and I will burn him to the ground.” I can feel my nostrils flare. I’m getting heated just thinking about this asshole, thinking he can shit on this goddess like this and shatter her sense of self worth. “And I will hand you his ashes for fertilizer,” I vow.

I tug her into my lap in the chair, and feel her body relax as she leans back against my chest. I wrap my arms around her, reveling in the magical moment as I do every year—but knowing I never want to spend another full moon without this woman in my arms. I can’t help but lean in for a kiss. I’m thankful that she lets me, despite me dragging her into an awkward family dinner and drudging up all her difficulty with trust. I don’t deserve her giving me another chance, and yet her lips are molded against mine. I savor every taste, swiping my tongue along her lips.

“What’s a shiksa?” She whispers.

I kiss her again. “It’s a very rude word for a non-Jewish woman,” I tell her.

She turns back toward the moon and wraps one arm around my shoulders, curling into my lap in her fancy ass dress that makes me want to do very dirty things. I whisper into her hair. “I am sorry I didn’t prepare you for dinner. I needed you to come because I couldn’t bear another family dinner with my mother setting me up with the Rabbi’s daughter.”

“She’s trying to do that?”

I nod.

“How can I ever compete with the rabbi’s daughter?”

I reach under her chin and tip her face toward mine with my finger tips. “There is no competition, Diana.”

She is quiet for the rest of the night. She’s polite in conversation with my parents, and perks up when I tell them about her beer making, but she seems withdrawn in the cab back to her hotel.

“What did I tell you?” I smile as we pull up to the front door. “I’ve got you home in time for a good night’s rest before your train.”

She doesn’t smile back.

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