May 3, 2020

Salad Dressing

My friend Steve wants to play golf. It is a beautiful Saturday afternoon in July and he and his lovely wife have rented a lakeside townhouse in cottage country. The townhouse is a stone’s throw, or rather, a choked-up pitching wedge, away from one of the most beautiful golf courses in all of Muskoka. A golf course called Taboo.

By all rights, he should be able to sling his travel golf club, with five clubs and even fewer balls, across his back, cross the road and challenge himself on the picturesque course.

But he can’t.

He needs some backup.

This is where I come in.

I receive a text from Steve.

It says, “Come for lunch.”

Steve texts as if he is being charged by the word. Am surprised he didn’t just text “Lunch?” But I guess he was feeling generous.

I understand lunch doesn’t mean lunch. Steve doesn’t care about food. If he could, he would eat a peanut butter sandwich every day. He actually does eat a peanut butter sandwich every day.

I receive his text and immediately understand what it means.

He wants to play golf. Having me at lunch will make it a bit harder for his wife to say no.

I text back and say I am on the way.

When I get to his house I am immediately irritated. Because, in addition to Steve and his lovely wife, there is another woman in the kitchen. She appears to be tossing a salad. Steve’s wife says, “Ron, this is my friend Debbie Wasserman.”

I say nice to meet you but it is not. I don’t like people. I don’t like to meet people. And worse, I worry this might be one of Steve’s wife’s harebrained fix-up schemes. I worry that Steve, so determined to play some afternoon golf, has decided to throw me under a rather fast-moving bus.

Although I possess a world-class poker face, I elect to keep it in storage for the time being.

Steve, to his credit, has anticipated my dismay.

“Debbie’s husband and kids are out fishing on the lake.”

Husband and wife.

Fishing.

Okay. Perfect. I can now eat my bagel, egg salad, and recently tossed salad in relative peace.

There will be some mildly painful small talk but Taboo is a really nice course.

“Where are you from?”

We start with the Jewish geography.

I was actually born in Haifa, moved to the West Island of Montreal, moved to Ottawa, spent a couple of years in Singapore, then back to Ottawa for university, and then eventually to Toronto.

But I don’t say any of that.

Instead, I say I am from Ottawa.

That usually ends the conversation.

“Ah, Ottawa.” She nods her head.

The salad could use a little more dressing. I am wondering who I should be speaking to about that.

“I am also originally from Ottawa,” she says.

Can’t catch a break. What are the chances.

“Oh, yeah,” I say. Now it looks like I am going to have to forage through the fridge like an animal to find the salad dressing.

“What was your maiden name?”

“Shomberg.”

“That’s funny, my best friend growing up in Ottawa was David Shomberg.”

“He’s my first cousin.”

“David Shomberg is your first cousin?”

“Yes.”

“So you are Debbie Shomberg.”

“Well, yes. I was.”

“You’re Debbie Shomberg?”

“Yes.”

“But Debbie Shomberg was from Toronto.”

“Yes, we moved there.”

“Oh, so you’re Debbie Shomberg.”

“Yes.”

“You’re Debbie Shomberg.”

Debbie Shomberg Wasserman is now looking at Steve’s wife. Her face says, ‘I could be fishing with my husband and kids now instead of having lunch with what appears to be a crazed man.’

I really can’t blame her.

It was not my finest moment.

David Shomberg was my best friend growing up in Ottawa. He had a powder blue Ford Mustang convertible. It was a car he drove barefoot. I was the first-born son of Egyptian Jewish immigrants and he was the first-born son of third-generation Ashkenazi Jews who were living the American, although actually Canadian, dream. I wore my shame like an albatross around my neck and he strutted around like a peacock. He would walk out of the bathroom and proclaim that he had just taken the biggest shit. I could barely work up the nerve to say “number two.” I had a minuscule stack of Playboys stashed behind a tower of suitcases in the attic while he had the walls of his bedroom plastered with Penthouse centerfolds.

Wall to wall.

Not Playboy.

Penthouse.

His parents were, although I did not really understand the concept at the time, nudists. There were naked pictures of his mother on the wall.

On the wall.

We had pictures of the Lubavitcher Rabbi.

But, despite the powder blue Mustang, the wall decorations, and the uninhibited mother, the best thing about David Shomberg was his older cousin Debbie.

David and I were 15.

Debbie was 16.

Am not going to explain it to you if you don’t already understand.

That one year was not a year.

It was a chasm.

David and I stayed at Debbie Shomberg’s house in Willowdale, a Toronto bedroom community, the weekend we went to see the Rolling Stones.

Bob Dylan had just released Blood on the Tracks. We listened to it over and over again. David eventually went to bed. And then it was just me and Debbie and Bob Dylan.

She was the coolest girl ever. I had a huge crush.

“I was actually once at your house,” I said, trying to recover my composure.

“Really? What is your family name?”

“Zevy,” I replied. “I would have been Aaron Zevy at the time. I think I may have heard Blood on the Tracks the first time at your house.”

I think?

And this is what Debbie Shomberg says.

Debbie Shomberg, the it girl. The cool girl. The girl I had a year-long crush on.

She says:

“Fun.”

And I say, “Yeah, fun,” as I realize she has absolutely no idea who I am.

Life is like that sometimes.

I open the fridge and stare. The cold blast feels good against my face.

I don’t understand what kind of people don't keep salad dressing in the house.

Are we at war?

The end.