Effi
Recap: Effi takes Lieba Moskowitz on a date to Deal, only to run into Chezky, Mindy, Hennie and Chani on the boardwalk. Effi and Lieba are highly embarrassed and soon take leave of the others.
“Do you want to go find something to eat?” Effi asked Lieba, anxious for a change of scene and mood. She nodded enthusiastically and Effi, in a combination of desperate haste to put distance between himself and the Moskowitz group, not to mention a childish impulse to show off his machismo, jumped down the five steps leading from the boardwalk to the street. “Show-off!” Lieba laughed. “I can do it too!”
“Don’t even try!” Effi said. “It’s too steep!”
“What do you mean? I’m a great jumper! You should see me with my nephews at the park!”
“Please don’t,” Effi said. “You’re not as tall as me! Really!”
But she flashed him a mischievous smile that said “Just try me,” and began to take a leap just as he yelled, “Lieba, NO!”
That was the split second when everything unraveled. The heel of Lieba’s shoe—those ridiculous high heels she’d worn as if they were going to a wedding instead of a walk in a beach town—caught in a slat of the boardwalk, and she went flying towards the sidewalk before Effi could run to catch her. Suddenly Lieba was lying in a heap on the sidewalk, her head hitting the pavement with a heart-stopping clunk.
It was so terrifying that a woman standing nearby started screaming at the top of her lungs. Effi found his voice. “Help!” he yelled as loud as he could, running to her side and squatting next to her. He touched her, but she made no response. Her face was pale, her eyes were closed, and he wasn’t even sure she was breathing. Effi was terrified. Could a person kill herself by such a short fall? It had been what, five steps? But the angle had been terrible!
And then he was glad the Moskowitzes were still in hearing range, because they had recognized his voice even from a distance and came running. Not that they proved to be much help—as soon as Hennie and Mindy saw Lieba on the pavement they began screaming hysterically. Mindy passed out into Chezky’s arms and Hennie started panting in a full-fledged anxiety attack. Chezky himself gasped for breath at the sight of his sister lying seemingly lifeless on the ground, and the children were too cowed to do anything except stand meekly to the side. Only Chani had the presence of mind to take out her phone to call Hatzalah, and squatted down at Lieba’s side to check her pulse and breathing.
“What happened?” she asked Effi, all awkwardness between them forgotten in the crisis.
“I jumped down the stairs and she insisted on jumping too, but her heel got caught and she went flying down and hit her head on the sidewalk! I told her not to try it!”
Chani shook her head. “We probably shouldn’t try to move her by ourselves,” she said. “Let’s wait for the Hatzalah guys.”
“Her poor parents!” Effi gasped. “I feel responsible—I took her out for the day, and this happens on my watch!”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Chani said firmly. “Lieba decided all by herself to jump. She can be impulsive sometimes.” Then she clamped her mouth shut, because that was enough loshon hara said against a poor young woman who was now lying unconscious next to her. “Forget I said that,” she said to Effi, tears welling in her eyes.
The Hatzalah ambulance drew up, and two men hopped out and proceeded to check Lieba’s vitals as Chani had done, while listening to Effi’s account of what happened. With tremendous care, they lifted her head onto a pillow and put a stretcher under her, and lifted her into the ambulance. “We’ll be taking her to Monmouth Hospital,” they announced. “You can follow us there.”
Effi, still shaking, found his car keys. “I’ll be behind you guys,” he told Chezky. They all pulled away in a frenzy, no one noticing that one pink, high-heeled pump had been left behind, still stuck between the slats of the top boardwalk step.
* * * * *
Chani tried to ignore Mindy’s endless looping wails of “Omigod, omigod,” as she and Hennie buckled the kids into car seats and climbed into the back of their minivan. Hennie by contrast was silent and white with fear, and Chani pulled out the little sefer Tehillim she kept in her purse and passed it to her so that she’d have something to focus on. She tried saying Tehillim herself, all the ones she knew by heart, but despite her concern for Lieba, her mind kept circling back to the same disturbing thought that had plagued here from the moment they ran into Lieba and Effi on the boardwalk: Effi and Lieba were dating!
Chani tried to view this dispassionately. Why wouldn’t he date her? Lieba was a sweet, pretty girl from a good family. Okay, so he was a lot older than she was. That could put them on different wavelengths. But maybe he’d like that. A lot of guys go for young girls, she reflected. They’re so innocent and fresh, and when a guy is much older they look up to them like gods, which must be so gratifying to the male ego. She tried not to succumb to the jealousy coursing through her heart like some insidious, bottle-green poison.
But it was such cruel hashgacha pratis that she had to find it out like this, strolling innocently on the boardwalk in Deal with the Moskowitzes. That morning, they’d been sitting around trying to come up with something to do, and Chezky remembered that Effi had once mentioned he had a friend who lived in Deal, and there was a boardwalk there with arcades and ice cream and places to go for a drink. It was only an hour and change from Brooklyn, and they could drive by and ogle the beachfront mansions owned by wealthy Syrians, and in town there were kosher pizza places and restaurants. It seemed like just the ticket on a summer day, with the weather man predicting sun later in the afternoon, so they packed up and kids and the stroller and took off, stopping by the Moskowitz home to collect Hennie, who was also at loose ends for the day, especially since Lieba had disappeared on some unexplained outing.
And then there they were, Effi and Lieba, licking ices and strolling down the boardwalk. Mindy elbowed Chani immediately, hissing and gloating, “Look! I knew he was going to date her!” And of course Mindy, who had absolutely no sense of shame or discretion, began yelling “Lieba! Effi! Hi! I had no idea you’d be here!” Chani hadn’t known where to put herself, and Lieba and Effi looked equally mortified.
The conversation was kept mercifully short. Effi seemed reluctant to schlep it out, although he handled himself with admirable cool, and Lieba was red with embarrassment. They parted ways, and as they did, almost ran smack into a frum man in his thirties who apologized, looked them over with rapid curiosity, and continued on. Maybe Chani was dreaming, but it seemed to her he particularly fixed his eyes on her. Oh well, it was probably just some random stranger who perhaps thought she looked familiar.
And then they heard screaming and Effi’s voice yelling for help, and there was Lieba lying on the pavement looking half dead….
To be continued…