Unlike the entitled Appelbaum men, who didn’t budge.
Were their hands broken? No matter how much she loved Asher, the division of labor seemed unequal. Unbalanced. So unlike the scales of justice.
“Who’s ready for dessert?” Shirley asked.
Leon and Asher said, “I am,” and chuckled at some obscure family joke.
“Coming up.” Shirley brushed crumbs into a small silver dustpan, a tool Ruth had once seen in the hands of a tuxedo-clad waiter during a posh Manhattan restaurant birthday celebration with Dotsie, her best friend. Back then they’d tittered about the fussiness, each girl admittedly partial to the Automat.
The fussiness Ruth feared she was meant to emulate was no longer funny.
Here, the silver implement was part of Shirley’s cleanup repertoire. She spot-cleaned the tablecloth with the wet corner of a rag before dipping into the kitchen. Ruth followed.
But for the good of her marriage, and to earn Shirley’s favor, Ruth set aside her beliefs for now, hoping to promote shalom bayit, peace in the house. She’d known marriage required compromise but hadn’t realized only she would be compromising.
Things would start to change when she and Asher lived on their own, and when Ruth got a job. When that would be, she didn’t know. She and Asher had only agreed on “not long.” Or when Asher got established at his father’s accounting firm. Of course, Ruth had to pass the bar, which she’d never doubted before. But after a week in Philly, she was doubting her and Asher’s plan for her to sneakily study. They had wanted to win over the in-laws before telling them Ruth would work.
In the kitchen, Shirley handed Ruth two footed and chilled dessert dishes filled with rice pudding, sprinkled with cinnamon and polka dots of raisins. She carried them to the table on a doily-lined silver tray.
Spoons clinked against the sides of the bowls. Evidently, no one wasted any of Shirley’s rice pudding. Ruth had to admit she loved her mother-in-law’s cooking. It sure beat scrambled eggs or grilled cheese, or Campbell’s soup cooked on a hot plate in the boardinghouse room she’d shared with Dotsie for almost three years.
Once the desserts were done, Asher asked his mother, “Do you mind if we go sit outside?” He glanced at Ruth. Every night since they’d arrived in Wynnefield, Asher had checked with his mother for this particular time alone with his wife, as if he were a teenager asking permission to borrow the car. Shirley always said she didn’t mind, as if it were her job to manage the couple’s time together. Asher seemed bound to his role of obedient only son. Ruth didn’t know what to make of it, but she’d have to figure it out: They were married. Being single wasn’t an option for girls wanting a viable future, or for girls like Ruth—never mind that she loved Asher down to her bones and couldn’t—wouldn’t—picture a life without him.
In New York, Asher had been progressive, their relationship one of opinionated equals—Asher finishing his MBA at NYU and Ruth attending and graduating from Columbia Law, one of seventeen women. In Wynnefield, he had regressed to someone who asked permission to spend time with his wife. What was next? Cutting the crusts off his sandwiches?
Ruth stood and grasped Asher’s hand, tugging him toward the front door. “Of course your mother doesn’t mind.”
They sat outside on patio chairs, their backs to the sidewalk, foreheads slick with leftover summer humidity. Asher fanned himself with the Evening Bulletin and handed Ruth the front sections. She opened, folded, and folded again, laying a newspaper square on her skirt. She glanced at the screen door, then the open window.
Creatures of habit, Shirley and Leon would be deep in their after-dinner crossword puzzles. No one was eavesdropping.
Big breath. “How could you tell your mother it was okay for me to attend etiquette lessons? You know I have to study,” Ruth whispered. It was their first moment alone since that morning, when Asher had kissed her goodbye in the attic.
“I said if you wanted to,” Asher said, crossing his arms, his casual tone belied by downcast eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell her to ask me? She thought I was looking for your permission.”
Asher laughed. “Ruth! You have never asked for permission for anything.” He sandwiched one of her hands in his. “Nor should you, but—”
“But what?” Ruth pulled away.
“If it’s important to my mother, maybe you should go. The bar exam isn’t till when? February? You have five months.”
“Are you kidding me? You know I have to work twice as hard to have half the opportunities of male lawyers. I can’t lose my edge. I talked to some friends at Columbia, and they said prepare to spend forty hours a week for ten weeks. I don’t have forty hours in a week. The holidays are coming.” She tried not to hyperventilate. “And you promised me a honeymoon in the Poconos when I pass the bar.”
Asher nodded.
“I’m not asking for too much. You know getting along with my mother would be good for us both.”
Ruth’s stomach clenched as she felt her dinner coming back up. She’d understood this in theory, but she hadn’t realized getting in good with Shirley would take up so much of her time.
Why couldn’t Shirley have asked Ruth if she wanted to go instead of using Asher as ammunition? That would have made it more palatable. She had assumed that Ruth would be seeking Asher’s approval for everything—the quilt on their bed, Ruth’s choice of dungarees for gardening, one extra cup of sugar in the lemonade. Any decision made on Ruth’s own had been met by Shirley with “What would Asher think?”
Still, she tried to see the best in Shirley’s old-fashioned nature. Ruth had been taught by her father to respect her elders.
“The fact is, it’s not about you so much as about how she looks,” Asher said. He had a way of helping Ruth see things simply, clearly.
Eloping had etched a chink in Shirley’s maternal armor—she thought her son wouldn’t have eloped if she were a better mother. Maybe that’s why she had mentioned etiquette lessons at the beauty parlor. In front of witnesses. For public compliance, which equaled respect. Respect that had been stripped from the Appelbaums when they were excluded from the wedding. She heard it in Shirley’s snide remarks, saw it in the disapproving pursed lips of Shirley’s friends.
Ruth would have planned a traditional wedding if she’d known eloping would upend her in-laws’ lives. It couldn’t have been worse than what likely awaited her with etiquette lessons.
When she was growing up, Ruth had known girls who’d gone to charm school who emerged spouting rules, sticking their noses in the air. She didn’t know what they had learned, just that she didn’t want any part of it. Her father had never forced her. He had always afforded her the luxury of choice. Piano lessons or flute lessons （neither）， roller skates or bicycle （both）， charm school or chess （no contest）。
Now Ruth was twenty-three, no longer a child, no longer in her father’s home. Her choices were her own but affected Asher as well.
That didn’t mean Ruth had to forget what she wanted. She wouldn’t. The Asher she met and fell in love with in college drank Rheingold with his ZBT brothers and had a wry sense of humor but had always treated her with courtesy. He’d never told her what to do.