Read Online The Matzo Ball Heiress by Laurie Gwen Shapiro - Free Book Online

got a deal then. How was your meeting at the factory by the way?”
    “Fine. I led a production team from the Food Channel on a tour of the place. Actually it was more than fine. Two very cute guys on that crew.”
    “Send one my way. I just broke up with my boyfriend.”
    “Sorry to hear that.”
    “Congratulate me! He was seeing two other suckers ‘exclusively.’ I can’t even, like, think about him too long without getting nauseous. So, wait, how did you get to tour two hunks if you don’t work in the factory?”
    “My cousin would normally do the tour, but I step in for him from time to time. Jake’s over at City Hall, being toasted by the mayor.”
    “The mayor? Isn’t that a huge deal?”
    “It’s Passover season, which means Greenblotz season. We get serious attention this time of year.”
    “My last name is Cohen. My dad’s Jewish, but we never celebrated anything.”
    Cohen? With her Asian face and that “those people” comment Sukie had made about the factory, I didn’t see that coming.
    “My father met my mother when he was trekking,” she continues. “Mom’s from Tibet, and was raised Bön.”
    “Raised what?”
    “Bön. It’s a Tibetan religion.”
    “The first I’ve heard of it.”
    “No one in America has. And believe me, there aren’t too many Bön houses of worship in Sacramento. So we were raised in Sacramento like blank pages. I may be the only Tibetan Jew you ever meet!”
    “Probably! I thought Sukie was Japanese or something.”
    “No it’s an old nickname for Susan. I got it out of a baby book when I was fifteen and reinventing myself.”
    I grin and say, “I went the other way. Years ago my mother told me they were dithering on my name before I was born. Dad wanted Joan after Joan of Arc and Joan Crawford, and Mom wanted a prettier name, a bird name or a flower name. They flipped a coin—Mom won. But during the semester in ninth grade when all the jiggling bimbos on TV were named Heather, I made my friends call me Joan.”
    Sukie laughs, and sighs. “Maybe it’s fate that we met. My mother thinks everything happens for a reason. I’ve been telling my family I’d like to know more about my Jewish side, and along comes a Greenblotz who can fill me in. Can you believe I’ve never been to a seder? Even Jesus got to go to a seder.” Her joke hits a chord with me. I’d like to be friends with Sukie Cohen, but I am sure she is foxing for a possible invite to a Greenblotz seder that doesn’t exist, so I quickly feign delight at an off-the-shoulder gold lamé eighties shirt.
    “You can try it on if you like.” She points to an Oriental screen with hand-painted butterflies, next to a vintage rack of seventies sunglasses with Polarized! tags still on them.
    When I emerge, Sukie claps silently. “Perfect on you.”
    “How much is it?” I ask.
    “Forty,” she says with a whiff of embarrassment that suggests she scooped it up at a vintage buying spree at a Salvation Army or Goodwill for two or three bucks.
    “I’ll take that as well.”
    She wraps the lamé shirt in white tissue paper and tucks it in with the dress. The shopping bag is matte white with a silk-screened logo—daisies woven into the words Upsy Daisy. She hands me a card with the same design.
    I’m about to put it in my Filofax, when I remember our first conversation. “Hey, when’s a good time for my cousin Jake to show you the factory? I really meant that.”
    “Cool! Mornings are best. No one shops in the Lower East Side in the mornings. My customers crawl out of bed at, like, noon maybe.”
    “Then I’ll give you a call sometime soon. I’m usually here several times a week this time of the year. Maybe I can even do it myself.”
    Sukie smiles, retrieves the business card from my hand, and writes her home number with a little h next to it.

FOUR
    The Request
    T uesday afternoon, Jake calls me again at my office. “You might like this favor. It’s up your alley. It’s exotic.”
    What can