Page 36 of Tributary

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Asa

“YOU BROUGHT A date to Seder?” My sister, Esther, is beside herself, nearly as flustered as Diana, who is trying not to murder me in front of my family.

I’m not sure why I didn’t tell Diana where we were going, to be honest, but I brought her here because I wanted her to see my family. To see where I come from, and how different I am from my relatives.

Maybe I did it to get a rise out of my mother. All I know is Diana is sitting in the living room of my childhood apartment eating fruit and sipping Kosher wine while my sister starts texting all our cousins. Damn it, Diana’s a woman without a tiny handbag. None of my other moves were getting me anywhere. But the type of angry Diana emits right now feels different. This isn’t just pissed off fire. This is cold, distant, friend-zone attitude. Esther is giving Diana the third degree.

“Soooo you grow plants? Like for money?”

I hear Diana trying to summarize her research, watch her roll her eyes and give up, finally saying, “I grow medical marijuana,” to which Esther replies, “I’ve got chronic migraines…did you bring any with you?”

Uncle Mordy shows up just as Esther really picks up a head of steam. I wait for my mother to walk him into the room and grit my teeth, waiting for the reaction. “Asa! Why didn’t you tell me you’d arrived?” She pulls me in for a kiss and then I watch her notice Diana.

She places her hand on her chest and steps back, clutching my arm with her other hand. “Asa!” She puts on her polite voice, but I can tell she’s taken aback. And I’m not proud of how good it feels. “Did you bring a guest?”

Diana swallows her clementine and stands, smoothing her skirt. Her heels add a few inches to her height and she looks tall and lithe. With the fading light shining on her from the living room window, she looks much like her namesake. “Mother,” I say, stepping out of her grasp and putting an arm possessively around Diana’s shoulders. “This is Dr. Diana Crawford. She’s a botanist.”

“Oh this is going to be good,” Esther says, taking a flask from Mordy.

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Wexler,” Diana says, pumping my mother’s hand with a firm grip, even as my mother tries to offer her the typical wet fish hand that shows off her diamond tennis bracelet. “I want to apologize for crashing your dinner party. Asa didn’t tell me where we were going.”

My mother raises an eyebrow and I pull Diana close against me. When Mom leaves the room, shouting over her shoulder for us to follow and get started, Diana pinches the sensitive skin of my inner arm.

“Ouch! Shit! That hurt.”

“You dragged me into a family dinner without warning? Jesus, Asa. I would have at least brought wine.”

I shrug, rubbing the spot on my arm, and gesture that she should follow me into the dining room. The table is all set for Seder and my father bustles in the door just as my mom is instructing the catering staff about what to do during the candle lighting.

“What is this?” Diana seems unsure of herself. My father pours the wine and starts singing in Hebrew.

“This is Seder,” I tell her. “It’s a ritual meal…for Passover.”

Everyone drinks and I nudge the bottom of Diana’s cup. “You brought me to a religious thing? Without telling me first?”

I grimace, and dip my parsley into salt water, taking a bite as my father keeps praying. “I have good news for you.” I hand Diana a piece of dunked, salty parsley. “We’re each going to drink 4 glasses of wine tonight!”

By the time Diana bites my finger when I feed her matzah, I’m over my strange pleasure at her discomfort. I’m past my juvenile joy at seeing my mother’s bulging eyes and Esther laughing at the whole situation. “So,” Esther says as the meal is served. “How long have you and Asa been together?” She smiles wickedly as she bites into her brisket, and Diana chokes on her wine.

“Oh!” She says. “Well. We’re not really…Asa works with my family.”

“Her brother’s the astronaut,” I say, looking at my father, who nods appreciatively.

“That! Was a good investment.” He raises his wine glass to me. He tagged along with me to meet several competing drug companies eager to jump in on Hunter’s research now that the results are coming in from his latest mission to the space station.

My mother just looks confused. “But how do you come to be here? In New York? In our home?”

“Diana is here as my guest,” I tell her, as if that settles the matter. The truth is that I want her to be my girlfriend. I want this to be the first time she meets my parents. The story she tells our kids one day—that I tricked her into going on a date with me so I wouldn’t have to spend yet another evening with my mother asking me when the hell I’m going to settle down already.

Uncle Mordy squints over his green beans. “You’re dating a shiksa?”

“Mordy!” My father pounds his fist on the table.

“And she grows weed for a living,” Esther pipes in, making a face at me over her green beans.

Diana opens her mouth to say something, then closes it again and starts smoothing her cloth napkin in her lap.

---