Three people are waiting at an intercom. A weird moment. More precisely, an awkward moment, uncomfortable.
“You’re here for Avner’s birthday too?” one of them, a guy with a graying mustache, asks the guy who pressed the buzzer. The guy who pressed the buzzer nods. The third one, tall with a Band-Aid on his nose, nods too. “No kidding.” Mustache massages his neck nervously. “You’re friends of his?” They both nod. A female voice rings out from the intercom.
“Come on up, the twenty-first floor,” and then the buzz that opens the door. The elevator buttons only go up to 21; our Avner lives in the penthouse.
On the way up, Mustache confesses that he doesn’t really know Avner. Mustache is just the manager of the bank in Ramat Aviv where Avner and Pnina Katzman have an account. He has never met them, didn’t start at that branch till two months ago. Before that he managed a smaller branch in Ra’anana. That’s why he was surprised when Pnina called to invite him to this party, but she insisted, said that Avner would be so happy.
Band-Aid-on-the-Nose, it turns out, isn’t really a close friend either. He’s the husband’s insurance agent, only met him a couple of times. And that was a while ago. For the last few years, they’ve been doing all their business by e-mail.
The guy who pressed the buzzer, nice-looking, but with connected eyebrows, knows the Katzmans best. He’s their dentist. He filled four cavities for Pnina and made a crown for one of her molars. He also worked on Avner’s teeth, filled one cavity and did a root canal, but he wouldn’t really call himself a friend.
“It’s strange that she invited us,” Mustache says.
“It’s probably a big party,” Band-Aid decides.
“I wasn’t planning to come,” Eyebrows admits, “but Pnina is so sensitive.”
“Is she pretty?” Mustache asks. That’s not a question a bank manager should ask, he knows. Eyebrows nods and shrugs at the same time as if to say, “Yes, but what good will that do us?”
Pnina really is pretty. She’s forty-plus and looks it. No face-lifts to keep the wrinkles away. If you could match a particular male sexual fantasy to every woman, Mustache thinks as he shakes her limp hand, then Pnina would be the perfect damsel in distress. There’s a certain lack of confidence about her, a helplessness. Apart from the three of them, it turns out, no one has shown up yet. Just the catering staff, who are putting out more and more giant aluminum-covered bowls and trays jam-packed with hors d’oeuvres. No, Pnina assures them, they’re not early. It’s just the others who are late.
“It’s my fault,” she explains. “I decided on everything at the last minute. That’s why I didn’t invite any of you till today. I apologize.” Mustache says she has nothing to apologize for.
Eyebrows is already standing over one of the trays, getting to work on the bruschetta. So beautifully are they arranged that every one he takes is made conspicuous by its absence, like a pulled tooth.
He knows it’s not very polite and he should wait for the rest of the guests, but he’s dying of hunger. He operated on an old man’s upper and lower gums today, a three-and-a-half-hour procedure, then he just changed clothes and took off for this party. He didn’t even have time to go home first. He’s hungry now, hungry and embarrassed. The bruschetta is good. He takes another one, his fifth, and walks off to stand at the side.
The living room of the apartment is absolutely enormous, and there’s also a glass door leading to the roof. Pnina tells them that she invited three hundred people, everyone she found listed in Avner’s BlackBerry. Not all of them are coming, she knows, definitely not at such short notice, but it’s going to be such fun.
The last time she organized a surprise party was ten years ago. They were living in India then because of Avner’s business, and one of the guests brought them a lion cub as a gift. In India, it seems, they’re more flexible about laws for the preservation of wildlife, or maybe they just obey them less. That lion cub was the most adorable thing Pnina had ever seen in her life. In fact, that whole party was a tremendous success. Not that she’s expecting anyone to bring them a lion today, but people are coming and they’ll drink and laugh together, and it’ll just be such fun.
“Letting ourselves go like that is just what we all need, especially Avner, who’s been working like a dog on the stock issue for the last few months,” Pnina says.
That story about India reminds Mustache of something—he brought a gift too. He reaches into his pocket and takes out a long box wrapped in colored paper imprinted with the bank’s logo.
“It’s just a little something,” he says in an apologetic tone, “and it’s not from me, it’s from the entire branch.”
Anyway, it’s hard to give a gift after such an amazing story about a lion. Pnina says thank you and hugs Mustache—a rather surprising gesture, considering they don’t know each other. That, at least, is what Band-Aid thinks. Pnina insists that Mustache hold on to the gift for the time being and give it to Avner personally.
She’s sure, she says, that Avner will be so happy, he always loves gifts.
That last remark makes Eyebrows feel uncomfortable for not bringing something. Band-Aid didn’t bring a gift either, but then again, he isn’t eating anything, and Eyebrows has already finished off six bruschetta, two pieces of herring, and some squid sushi, which, as the kid with the tray insisted on pointing out, twice, isn’t kosher. Eyebrows knows he shouldn’t have come, but now all he can do is wait till Avner and the other guests show up, and then, when everyone is busy partying, make his exit. But meanwhile, he’s stuck here, he knows, totally stuck, and in the twenty minutes that have passed since he walked in the door, not one other guest has arrived.
“When did you say that Avner is supposed to get here?” Eyebrows asks, trying to be nonchalant. It doesn’t work. Pnina gets upset.
“He should be here by now,” she says, “but he doesn’t know about the party, so maybe he’ll be a little late.” She pours Eyebrows a glass of wine. He refuses politely, but she insists.
Band-Aid asks if there’s any cognac. That makes Pnina very happy and she totters off to the liquor cabinet in her spike heels and takes out a bottle.
“The catering guys probably have cognac,” she says, “but not as good as this. This might not be enough for all the guests, but it is for our intimate little group, so let’s make a toast.”
She pours cognac for Mustache and herself, too, and they raise their glasses. Mustache, seeing that no one else is planning to say anything, quickly steps into the breach. He wishes all those present many parties and many surprises, nice ones, of course. And to Avner he wishes a speedy arrival, otherwise there won’t be anything left for him to eat or drink. He and Pnina laugh.
Eyebrows feels as if that remark is somehow about him. True, he’s eaten a lot since he came in, but he still thinks it’s kind of nasty for Mustache to sell him out for a joke. And Pnina too—it’s insulting, the way she’s laughing at that tasteless bit of humor, exposing crowns that wouldn’t be there if not for him. That’s it, he decides, time to go. He’ll do it politely so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings, but with all due respect, he has a wife waiting at home, and all this place has to offer is a slightly tense atmosphere and nonkosher sushi.
Pnina’s response to Eyebrows’s stammered goodbye is extreme. “You can’t go,” she says, clutching his hand, “this party is so important to Avner, and without you … as it is, almost no one else came. But they’ll be here”—she pulls herself together quickly—“they probably just got held up on the road, there’s heavy traffic at this hour, but if Avner arrives before them, he’ll open the door and see only two people. Wonderful people, but only two. Not counting the catering crew, of course. That could be a letdown. And the last thing anyone needs on his fiftieth birthday is a letdown. It’s a rough age as it is. And Avner hasn’t had an easy time of it these last few months, so the last thing he needs when he comes in is to be welcomed by an empty living room.”
“Even three’s not a lot,” Eyebrows maliciously states the obvious. The truth is, he adds, that if he were Pnina, he’d just cancel the whole thing and try to clear the place before Avner got home.
Pnina is quick to agree. She calls the catering manager over and tells him not to bring up any more food and to take his crew and wait downstairs in their truck for the time being. When the rest of the guests arrive, she’ll text them and they can come up again.
Till then, she explains to everyone without letting go of Eyebrows’s hand, they’ll all sit here in the living room and wait for Avner with a drink.
Maybe she should have planned something a little more intimate from the beginning. After all, fifty is not the age for wild dancing and loud music; fifty is more the age for stimulating conversation with close, insightful friends.
Eyebrows wanted to tell her that none of the people here are close to Avner, but he sees that she’s already on the verge of tears and decides to keep quiet and let her drag him to the couch. She sits him down, and Band-Aid and Mustache join them.
Mustache is a world champion calmer-downer. He’s already had more than a few conversations in his life with clients who lost all their money after the bottom fell out of one investment or another and he always knows how to act, especially with women. Now he bombards them with jokes, pours them all drinks, puts a comforting hand on Pnina’s pale shoulder. If a stranger walked in, he’d probably think they were a couple.
Band-Aid seems pretty much at home too. What he has going for him is that he’s in no great hurry to leave. He has a wife who always looks as if someone close to her has died, and an annoying two-year-old kid it’s his turn to bathe today.
Here, he can sit around, drink a little, rub shoulders with someone who’s had a bit more success in life than him, at least financially, and officially it could even be considered work.
Back home, whenever he gets there, he’ll just have to make a tired face and say they talked his head off all evening and all he could do was smile and take it because they’re really good clients.
“That’s how it is,” he’ll tell his wife, “to make a living, I have to listen to people’s crap just like you have to …” and then he’ll shut up as if he’s forgotten, as if it just slipped his mind that she hasn’t worked for more than two years and the entire financial burden falls on him alone.
She’ll probably cry then, tell him that the postpartum depression isn’t her fault, that it’s a scientifically proven illness, that it’s not just in her mind, it’s chemical, like any other illness. She’s dying to go back to work, if only she could, but she can’t, she just can’t … and he’ll interrupt her stream of words and apologize, say he didn’t mean anything, that the words just slipped out of his mouth. And she’ll believe him, or not. With all that wasteland between them, what does it really matter.
Mustache seems to pick up on everything that’s going through Band-Aid’s mind and pours him a little more cognac.
That Mustache is something, Band-Aid thinks, a special guy. Eyebrows, on the other hand, is kind of neurotic and makes him nervous. When they first got here, he kept eating the whole time and now he just looks at his watch and scratches himself. Before, when Pnina tried to persuade him to stay, he almost wanted to break into the conversation and tell her to leave him alone, to just let him go. No one needs him here. You might think he’s Avner’s childhood friend or something when he’s just some guy who drilled his teeth.
And anyway, when he thinks about it, it’s a little strange that they’re the only ones who came. What does that say about Avner’s really close friends? That they’re so egotistical? That he’s offended them? Or maybe he doesn’t have any?
The intercom buzzes and Pnina runs to answer it. Mustache winks at Eyebrows, and Band-Aid and pours another round of cognac. “Don’t worry,” he says to Eyebrows, as if he’s another customer of the bank who’s fallen on bad times, “it’ll be fine.”
It’s just the catering guy on the intercom. Their truck is blocking someone. He asks if he can park in the building parking lot. Before Pnina can answer, the phone rings. She hurries over to pick up the receiver. Silence on the other end.
“Avner,” she says, “where are you? Is everything okay?” She knows it’s Avner because his number is on the display. But there’s no answer on the other end, just the drone of a dead line.
Pnina starts to cry, but it’s a weird kind of crying. Her eyes are wet and her whole body trembles, but she doesn’t make a sound, like a cell phone on vibrate. Mustache goes right over and takes the cognac glass out of her hand a second before it would have fallen and shattered.
“He’s not okay,” Pnina says, throwing her arms around Mustache, “something isn’t right with him. I knew it, this whole time I knew it. That’s why I decided to have the party, to cheer him up.”
Mustache takes her to the couch and sits her down next to Eyebrows.
Eyebrows is bummed out. When Pnina came back from answering the phone, he planned to tell her that he had to go. His wife is waiting for him or something, but now he knows he can’t. Pnina’s sitting so close to him now that he can hear her irregular breathing. And her face is totally pale. It looks like she’s going to faint.
Band-Aid brings a glass of water and Mustache puts it to her lips. She drinks a little and starts to calm down.