Chapter 21 The Exposed Parents

It's a short train ride from Manhattan to Long Island. So short, that Leah hadn't thought about bringing entertainment along for the trip. But Gabe had. As soon as they sat down on the Long Island Rail Road, he pulled out his book and started reading. Leah would be lying if she said she wasn't disappointed. She'd be lying if Gabe had asked her if she minded if he read and she said she didn't. She wasn't sure what she'd expected, but it had been some sort of interaction during the trip. Talking, playing a game, maybe even resting their heads together.

But reading was fine. It wasn't a "not nice" thing to do when sitting next to your girlfriend for an hour on the train while she bore herself by looking out the window and scrolling through her phone. She texted Maya: On the way to LI for Christmas with Gabe! Wanting to feel the same excitement that her text conveyed. But something felt off. Maybe it was because of Marissa's "not nice" comment. Maybe it was the ordinary feeling of being out of place, a Jew on Christmas, doing something she shouldn't like eating a cheeseburger or touching the Torah with her finger instead of the designated yad.

She had waited until the last minute to tell her parents about her Christmas trip. Her mom had asked if she'd be coming home for winter break.

"Mom, there's no winter break in the real world," she'd explained, even though Diamond Media's week off between Christmas and New Year's was precisely that. "Winter break is only for people in college, and I graduated." Leah felt the need to drive the point home even further since she, somehow, still did have a winter break in the real world.

"Well, I'm sure you get a few days off for the holiday." Leah noted that her mom used the word holiday instead of being more specific. Leah took a deep breath and knew she had to tell her mom. The same way she had to tell her when she had once snuck out of the house and broke the handle on the back door. Sure, she could have stayed silent, but eventually her mom would have noticed the broken handle, which had made it impossible to lock the back door and therefore endangered their whole family. You sure make it easy for someone to break in and steal all our stuff! Her mom had yelled. And also: Why didn't you just tell us you were going out instead of sneaking around? Leah had shrugged at both comments. Her mom had called a handyman to fix the door handle, just like she had always taken care of everything that needed care. And from then on, Leah simply used the front door and lied if she didn't want her parents to know where she was going like every other teenager.

But this was something that didn't need fixing, despite Leah's positivity that her mom would disagree and think her trip to Long Island to celebrate Christmas with her goyfriend (yes the nickname had caught on) was also something in need of care and fixing.

"I'm celebrating Christmas with Gabe," she confessed to her mom. Silence on the other end. Gabe had been a sore point since the Thanksgiving fiasco. Her mom pretended he didn't exist, while consciously avoiding setting her up with all of the potential husbands in her circles. Leah also consciously left him out when telling her mom about her adventures in New York, like salsa dancing with Maya (who her mom loved and desperately wanted to meet!) and lunch with her work friends (who were good people to network with!)

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Her mom asked. "Christmas is a very traditional holiday. His family probably has their own customs and I'm not sure you will feel comfortable there." Sure, Savannah was only thinking about Leah's comfort when advising her against the visit.

"I'm going." That was the end of that. The conversation then pivoted to the Hanukkah cookie baking competition at Savannah's synagogue and how Debbie cheated by using duck fat. (Everyone else used butter so that the cookies could safely be eaten after latkes smeared with sour cream. Duck fat, while kosher if not eaten after milk, was delicious and catapulted the cookies to another level, but seriously unfair in a Jewish baking competition!)

Now, on the train, Leah was starting to wonder if her mom was right. Her mom was often right, even though she would swear under oath to the opposite, and there was a small possibility that Leah might feel uncomfortable celebrating Christmas with Gabe's family, whom she had never met. Would she look silly, not knowing the traditions? Would she offend them if she hesitated with any unkosher foods? Did they know she was Jewish? Would they care?

Leah looked over at Gabe, who was hunched over, his eyes darting back and forth across the pages in his book. He was so focused, she felt guilty for watching him, as though that type of focus warranted solitude to ensure no interruptions were possible. But, solitude and girlfriends don't go together, especially not on long, boring train rides to anxiety-causing holidays.

"How's the book?" Leah asked, hoping to start a conversation as interesting as the words he was reading. Gabe didn't respond, didn't act like he heard her so she cleared her throat and asked again. He raised a finger and then silently flipped the page, which Leah saw was the end of a chapter. She waited a few moments, and then Gabe gently closed the book.

"It's exquisite. Really," he marveled. "The author is so clever and actually thought of everything. It's genius." She asked him about the story and tried to listen as he animatedly told her about kingdoms and species and warfare. She smiled and nodded and wondered if she would have been better off staring out the window rather than trying to feign interest in the fantastical story he held in his hands. When he noticed her eyes glazing over, he smiled and opened the book to the next chapter.

By the time the train pulled into the station on Long Island, Leah was sure they had been traveling long enough to reach Europe, but Gabe looked disappointed to have to—again—close his book. They took a cab from the station to the address of Gabe's parents' home, which apparently was a giant apartment complex.

"What about the house you grew up in?" Leah asked, wondering about the memories Gabe had relayed to her about decorating a fireplace and sledding in the backyard.

"They downsized after I moved out." He led her to a shiny elevator which shot them up to a dark hallway lined by vanilla-colored doors. Gabe motioned Leah to follow and knocked on a door that had nothing on it but the number.

The door swung open and a stout old woman appeared. She had red splotches on her face and white hair frazzled around her face. "Gabe!" she yelped, hugged Gabe, and then turned her head back. "Sam, Gabe is home!" The house croaked several times before an elderly bald man with posture like a candy cane appeared and joined in the hug. Grandparents? Leah wondered as she stood behind them wondering if their eyesight was good enough to see her there. When the hug ended, Gabe grabbed her hand.

"Mom, Dad, this is my girlfriend Leah," he introduced her. Leah stepped forward and further examined the red splotches on his mother's face. She tried not to stare at their cakey texture and wondered why Gabe didn't warn her about his mother's prominent skin disease. "Leah, meet Nancy and Sam." He paused. "Mom, were you just in the studio?"

Nancy threw her hands to her cheeks. "I'm a mess! I'm so sorry, dear, I usually give a better first impression, but I was just in the middle of something and lost track of time!" Nancy turned around and trotted down the hall through a doorway. Sam stood, his smile almost hidden behind a mustache.

"Come in," he offered, as though inviting in strangers. "Coffee? How was your trip? I'll get Nancy to put her things away so we can get you settled." Without waiting for a response to either of his questions, Sam followed Nancy down the hall, leaving Leah and Gabe in the doorway.

Leah looked around. The walls were covered in paintings, but not like the Chagall prints her mother liked to collect. It took Leah quite a few long stares to realize most of the paintings were nudes. Women in impossible poses and men standing just so.

"My mom took up painting in retirement," Gabe said as he noticed her stares. "They don't have space to store her work so they are all over. You get used to it." Leah chuckled and wondered if you could ever get used to combining your parents and nude bodies into the same thought. Leah could hear muffled voices as though Gabe's parents were arguing quietly in the room that must be the studio.

From Leah's count, there were only three doors in the apartment. One could assume that one was a bathroom, another a master bedroom, and the third the studio, which—Sam soon confirmed—was also the guest room, a storage room, and sometimes an office if Sam had any work to do, which he did not since he also retired several years before. "Nancy is going to air it out," he promised after emerging from the room. "How about that coffee?" He walked to the kitchen and started a pot.

Gabe had already dumped his bag in the hallway, the way you can only do at your parent's house. Leah could not dump her bag the same way, despite not having been given much of another option other than to hold it, which was less than ideal since aside from the nude paintings on the wall, there were also many clay statues and cases callously positioned around the apartment, waiting to be bumped into by something with an awkward-sized duffel packed with holiday outfits.

Leah didn't look close enough to examine the clothing status of the statues, she just held her bag close and waited for better direction of where she could store it as she followed Gabe and his dad to the kitchen. "Should we go buy a tree?" Sam asked. "Nancy and I weren't sure. We were going to, but then things got busy and we never made it out. We can easily go get—"

"It's fine, Dad," Gabe jumped in, making Leah feel much more disappointed than she ever had leading up to Christmas. "How about Leah and I go pick one out?" And then she felt like a child on Christmas morning and wondered if her heart could take such an emotional rollercoaster.

They drank coffee, while Sam asked Leah what seemed like an infinite number of questions about her work and for the first time, Leah was happy she worked at Club Business rather than Teen Club. She imagined Sam would have been less impressed (but also probably have had fewer questions) if she had said she researched fashion trends and tips to avoid common high school calamities. Sam mentioned he worked in "investments." Leah didn't know what that meant, other than that he was very interested in hearing about her job at Club Business. Leah suddenly felt very grown up discussing the TCR and her data entry and was more than flattered when Sam asked, "Are you sure you don't have an MBA?"

She was quite sure she didn't have an MBA, and also quite sure she had passed the test of being a serious person with Gabe's dad. The serious person test with his mom would come later, after Christmas tree shopping, by which time Nancy promised to be done airing out the studio.

Leah finally put down her bag next to Gabe's and they stepped out to buy the tree.