In a long-ago gentrified cul-de-sac, somewhere on the East Coast, Gertrude was preparing. At 77, with classic Ashkenazi features, her face had a tendency to look the way a piece of dough does when she scowled. Like it had been rolled and unrolled ad nauseam; a life full of reaction.

She was scowling now.

From the linen closet, Gertrude begins to toss back embroidered tablecloths onto the matted ochre carpet and shouts in a geographically unidentifiable, but clearly Jewish accent:

“Don’t forget to add chocolate babka to the list!”

Mumbling to herself, she continues:

“We have enough smears to make it into next year… but sweet, what’s to nosh?”

Sounds of clanking can be heard in the distance.

She continues:

“Mort! Did you hear me?! Add babka!”

“What?”

“Mort!!”

A plump figure emerges from the second bedroom of the condo. He hobbles down the narrow hallway to address his wife. The hair lacking on his head seemingly compensated by his inner ears, and with it all, a gurgling baritone that made almost everything he said sound like a complaint.

“What!? What!? What!? What!?”

“Chocolate babka!!!”

“Gertie, there’s not enough time.”

“There’s never enough time!” Gertrude throws up her hands. “What is that? Why are you holding that right now?” She motions at the humidifier in Mort’s arms.

“I was changing the water out.”

“No, no. Not now. Not for this.”

“It’s going to get dry. You hate it when it gets dry.”

“Yes, I also hate it when it makes that whoosh woosh noise,” Gertrude replies. Then adds, “If you’re gonna dump it out, do it off the balcony. The sink’s full of potatoes and I’m washing my delicates in the bathroom.”

At the same time, two friends walk down a sidewalk. They pass a row of identical buildings, only varying by number and the occasional gardener. In the distance, a round man can be seen dumping water off a second-floor balcony.

“Where are we going?” Janelle, a lanky figure with a coiffed fro, breaks the silence first.

Becca exhales. “I told you, it’s a surprise.”

“You know, I really wanted to celebrate this one in the comfort of my own home, wrapped in a warm blanket of cynicism and self-pity.”

“Okay, new category: ‘Blews.’”

“Indigo.”

“Who’s Indigo?”

“Um, a type of blue?”

“Blews, as in ‘Black Jews.’”

Janelle rolls her eyes. “My bad. Drake.”

“Sammy Davis.”

“Maya Rudolph.”

“Lenny Kravitz.”

“I raise you, Zoë Kravitz.”

“Mmm, do we know Zoë is Jewish?”

“I mean, what’s the criteria?”

Becca does her best Fran Drescher impersonation:

“It has to be on ya mother’s side.”

The two stop and Google Lisa Bonet.

“Looks like that’s one for the win.” Janelle does a victorious freeze-frame. “But also, don’t you think it’s kind of fucked up that there’s so much exclusivity in your community?”

“I mean, when you’re still here after hundreds of years of oppression and scapegoating, you tend to develop labels like ‘The Chosen People’… whether you like it or not.”

In her Fran impersonation again:

“Can I say that without it, there’d be such delicious things done with smoked fish? No!”

They stop in front of a condominium duplex.

Janelle looks up. “What are we even doing here?”

“I told you, it’s a surpriseee!” Becca bends over and top-buns her wily mane as she speaks. “We just have to make a pit stop before we get to the main event.”

“Well, I have to pee. So can we make that the main event?”

“Calm yourself. We right here,” responds Becca.

She isn’t following her friend up the condo stairs, though. She’s looking behind her, admiring something to her left.

It’s a guy.

Janelle rolls her eyes and rushes up a flight. “For the love of God, can you please?”

Becca reluctantly follows. “Oh, you should have seen him. The style, the smile, the class, the ass…”

She begins to ascend, but on the first stair—

“Ow, fuck me,” snaps the heel of her mule.

Becca sits on the bottom stair to review the damage when, to her delight, The Class Ass begins making his way toward her.

“Oh no, what do we have here?”

“Just another case of don’t expect a two-time wear out of a Forever 21 purchase.” Instantly regretting her reply, she follows up: “Now I don’t know how I am going to make it all the way up there.”

“Well, I can help with that.”

Oohhh. The Class Ass is flirty.

“I can’t,” says Janelle, exasperated. “Where is it?” She races upward and doesn’t turn back to hear the reply.

“Top floor. To the right!”

Janelle is out of breath by the time she finishes the second flight. She should really stop smoking. She waits a few seconds, unsure what the protocol is about knocking on a stranger’s door to use the bathroom, but figures Becca is right behind her and will clear it all up, post-relief.

She knocks.

“Oh, they’re here already. Mort! They’re here! Mort!”

Gertrude swings open the front door.

The scowl on her face when she sees Janelle is quickly replaced with understanding, but not quick enough for Janelle not to notice.

“And so tall! I mean, a shiksa, I knew. But I didn’t think you’d be a tower!” Gertrude notes incredulously.

Not sure how to respond, Janelle figures first things first:

“May I use your facilities?”

“Of course, dear. Right this way.” Gertrude gestures down the hallway. “First door on the left.”

Janelle scurries down the hall and hastily undoes her jeans. Relief.

Still on the toilet, she takes out her phone to check the birthday wishes so far. One from Nonni, Auntie Evie, and what’s that? A drunk text from an old English teacher?

HBD, Jornelle!!
Damn, Jornelle.

The sounds outside the bathroom seem to be getting louder. More people have arrived.

Assuming it’s Becca and The Class Ass, she wraps up and goes to wash her hands. It’s a little tricky. There seems to be something clogging the sink. It’s off-white. And quite large.

Is it? It is?

Grandmama’s panties.

Janelle looks up to check her hair, only to find the mirror has been covered by a sheet.

Spooky.

She exits and makes her way back down the hallway, realizing now that all the mirrors in the house seem to be covered. She also realizes that Becca and The Class Ass are two of a much larger group of people sitting along the periphery of Gertrude’s tiny living room.

What the hell kind of birthday event did Becca have planned at this poor woman’s home?

And perhaps more critically: how long was she in the bathroom?

What the hell? Janelle texts Becca.

Becca definitely feels her phone vibrate but does not check. She is too consumed in a dialogue with
The Class Ass.

“A doctor?” Becca clutches her chest in a half-swoon.

Janelle does not know whether she should sit down, leave, or what. Gertrude decides for her.

“Dear, take off your coat. Please, sit. Sit!”

“Oh, that’s okay. I’ll keep my jacket.” Janelle awkwardly adjusts her studded denim, thankfully remembering that underneath lay the outfit Becca described as “optimized, b-day slut-chic”: a detailed bralette under a mesh leotard, etc.

Looking around…yeah, she’ll keep her jacket on.

Janelle sits in a hard chair in the corner of the living room, next to a shriveled man in a yarmulke (thank you, Becca’s cousin’s Bat Mitzvah), and a kid who keeps sliding off to grab roast beef from the elaborate meat assortment on a fold-out table in the center of the room.

“Well, I heard he used to take her to his apartment in the city and play a game of mouse and kitty,” the shriveled man attempts to whisper to his neighbor, a slightly less shriveled, also yarmulke-donning man in a gravelly tone. “I heard that game involved stuffed animals.”

The fuck?

Janelle couldn’t help hearing what she’s hearing. It’s not eavesdropping when there’s nowhere else to go.

Then, before she can get any more of the kink-story, Gertrude yells in a voice that could have easily done Fiddler’s Yente without a mic:

“Okay, okay. Everybody’s here. Shhhhhh.”

“First of all, thank you for making it. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble from the cemetery to our house. Mort wrote the directions out, but still, it’s confusing.”

Gertrude pauses.

“We all knew Moshe.” Maybe not all of us.

Janelle and Becca exchange a look.

“He was a complex man. Many interests. Many hobbies…”

“Moshe was the kind of guy with an air of mystery about him; alluring, and hard to unwrap. We are so lucky to have his son…” She motions toward The Class Ass. “…and sad, but grateful we were able to know Adam’s mother Judy before she passed. I hope we can spend these next few days remembering the beauty Moshe bestowed onto us in the years he lived and honor the time we had with him.”

Days?

Janelle texts Becca again.

Please get us out of here.

Maybe it’s because the allure of mystery has dissipated once Becca learns The Class Ass’s name is Adam, but she finally looks down at her phone.

She responds:

Made mistake on address. This is a shiva. Whoopsie 🌼 loveee u.

Then, an immediate follow-up:

Adam’s cute, right?

Janelle texts back furiously:

But, why are we *here?*

Becca looks down again and starts typing:

🎂 🥦
💨 🤤

“What?” Janelle mouths toward Becca.

“For your birthday,” Becca mouths back.

“What?”

Becca subtly mimes smoking a joint, then shouts:

“Your birthday!”

Gertrude hears this.

“Your birthday? Oh, today of all days? It’s your birthday. Mort, it’s her birthday. And this is why we needed the babka.”

At that moment, there’s a knock on the door.

“And who could this be?” Gertrude asks around the room, to no one. “Mort, the door. The door, Mort.”

Mort paces to the front door. No one seems to be paying much attention; they’re too involved in their own unceremonious conversations, speculating Moshe’s cryptic past.

He opens it.

A young woman stands there. Her complexion the color of coffee with a tablespoon of heavy cream. She’s wearing a teddy bear backpack and thigh-high patent-leather boots in lavender.

She could probably take her jacket off, for a second. Janelle thinks.