three nail polishes, each one a wildly different seductive shade.
Bina took the bag and peeked into it. ‘Ooooh! They look like the magic beans from Jack and the Beanstalk,’ she said. Then she started to giggle. ‘Get it? Jack and his Beanstalk?’ she asked, suggestively raising her eyebrows.
Kate gave Bina her ‘I’m-not-in-the-mood’ look. Clearly her moment of nervousness had passed. ‘Hey, spare me the details of Jack’s beanstalk or any other part of his anatomy,’ she begged. ‘Consider that your bridesmaid’s gift to me.’ Kate took Bina’s arm to get her around the guy selling used magazines on the sidewalk and across to their destination.
Just then, as they crossed the street, Bina stopped – as if the Manhattan traffic would wait for her – and pointed to the corner. ‘Ohmigod! That’s Bunny’s ex.’ Kate looked in the right direction as she simultaneously pulled Bina’s arm down. She was about to tell her not to point when she caught sight of one of the best-looking men she had ever seen. He was tall and slim, and his jeans and jacket had the perfect casual slouch. The sun reflected off his hair as if he had a halo around his head. He had stopped for the light, and before he began to cross the street he fished in his inside pocket.
‘He went out with Bunny?’ Kate asked. Of her posse, Bunny was probably the most garish and certainly the dimmest bulb.
Bina nodded. Kate could only see the movement in her peripheral vision because she couldn’t tear her eyes off the man just twenty feet away.
‘Are you sure that’s him?’
Just then a taxi honked, the driver deciding he would warn them before he ran them over. With a shriek from Bina the two of them scampered across the street. By the time they had walked single file between parked cars and got to the sidewalk, the Adonis had put on sunglasses and strode away.
‘What color do you think I should do for bridesmaids?’ Bina asked.
Kate repressed a groan. Bev had them all in silver and Barbie had picked a pistachio green that not even a blonde could wear without looking sallow. ‘How about basic black?’ Kate asked, but she knew there wasn’t a hope in hell. She sighed. She and Bunny would be the last of their high school crowd not to be married – at least there was still Bunny. Kate would try not to mind, but everyone else would. No one at Bina’s wedding would leave the naked state of her left finger unnoted. ‘Please, Bina! Don’t make me walk down that aisle again. Why not just make me wear a sign that says “unmarriageable”?’
‘Kate, you have to be my maid of honor. Barbie was always closer to Bunny and Bev … well, Bev never really liked me.’
‘Bev has never liked anyone,’ Kate informed Bina, not for the first time, and took her arm. ‘Hey, I’m really touched.’
The pair came up to the door of the salon. Kate held the door open for Bina, who nervously stepped inside.
Kate knew the spa was unlike any place Bina had ever seen in her life – a sort of post-industrial French boudoir with Moorish touches. That was exactly why she had chosen it. Not to show off, but to make it very special for her friend. ‘This is,’ she informed Bina in a dramatic stage whisper, ‘the most expensive spa in the city of New York.’ She studied Bina’s face to make sure what she was telling her was sinking in. ‘And I mean the entire city,’ Kate continued.
‘Wow,’ was all Bina could manage, looking around at the sheer curtains, the concrete floor and the Louis XVI bergère armchair.
Kate smiled and walked up to the counter. A chic young Asian woman smiled back and, without speaking, raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows. They did a good brow wax here. ‘Kate Jameson,’ Kate announced. ‘There are the two of us here,’ she added, because Bina had disappeared shyly behind Kate. ‘For manicures, pedicures, and toe waxing.’
From behind, Bina whispered, ‘Toe waxing?’ but Kate ignored her. ‘We have a reservation. I have the confirmation number.’
‘It will be just a moment,’ said the beautiful receptionist. ‘Please, have a seat.’
Of course, that was difficult with just the one antique armchair, but Kate motioned for Bina to sit and she did, albeit gingerly.
Then she looked up at Kate and grabbed her hands. ‘Oh, Kate. I’m nervous. What happens if I go through all this and it jinxes me. What if Jack doesn’t …’
‘Bina, don’t be silly. You can’t “jinx” things.’ Kate sighed. ‘I just spent an hour trying to convince an eight-year-old that magic won’t work. Don’t make me repeat myself.’
‘Look, I know all about you. Little Miss Logic. But I’m superstitious, okay? No black cats, no hats on the bed, no shoes to friends.’
‘Shoes to friends?’
‘Yeah. You give shoes to a friend and she walks away from you,’ Bina said. ‘Don’t you know that?’
‘Bina, you are truly crazy,’ Kate said. ‘Anyway, this is your big day and I want to be a part of it. So relax and enjoy. Everything will be fine, and tonight with Jack will be wonderful.’
Bina still looked doubtful. She craned her neck and looked around again. ‘It just must be so expensive,’ she said. ‘You know, I can have all of the same thing done in Brooklyn at Kim’s Korean place for about one quarter the price. And I bet it’s every bit as good, too.’
Kate smiled. ‘Maybe – maybe not. But here you have ambience.’
‘Well, my mother would say “ambience, schmambience, paint my nails”.’
‘You know I love your mother, but sometimes she’s not up-to-date. And by the way, how do you spell schmambience?’ Kate asked with a smile.
‘You don’t,’ Bina told her. ‘It’s Yiddish. It’s a spoken language.’
Kate laughed. This was typical of the verbal exchanges Kate and Bina had been having since Kate first entered the Horowitz household, and Mrs Horowitz pronounced that Kate’s father knew ‘bupkis’ about raising a ‘shana maidela’.
Kate, at the time, didn’t know that ‘bupkis’ meant virtually nothing or that ‘shana maidela’ meant pretty little girl, but she figured it out from context. She learned what ‘putz’ and ‘shnorrer’ and ‘goniff’ meant, all words that sounded better, more accurate, than their English equivalent. And from that time on she had been asking Bina for Yiddish spellings and translations.
Kate had celebrated every holiday at Bina’s house – even if they weren’t Kate’s holidays. And the cultural expansion wasn’t just limited to Jewish events. When Christmas and Easter rolled around, Mrs Horowitz made sure Kate got a Christmas tree and an Easter basket, complete with a chocolate bunny, and just for extra, sweet noodle kugel (which had nothing to do with Easter but was a dish Kate loved). When the time came for Kate’s first Holy Communion, Mrs Horowitz sewed up Kate’s white dress and bought a headpiece. (When Bina wanted a white dress and headpiece too, she got one, though Mrs and Dr Horowitz drew the line at allowing Bina to get on line with the little Catholic girls for the ceremony.) And, though Kate didn’t take the weekly ballet lessons Bina did, she did get a pink tutu just like Bina’s. Not to mention a dozen Halloween outfits over the years. Kate sometimes thought of it as the Costume School of Child-rearing but she was always grateful.
Kate, told by a priest in her catechism class that trick or treating on Halloween was a mortal sin, felt tremendous disappointment. When she shared this with Bina’s mother, the reassurance Kate got was, ‘Sin – schmin! Do your best with that meshugana in a dress and go out to get your candy. Don’t worry about it.’
‘But I don’t want to go to hell after I die,’ Kate told her tearfully.
‘Hell