“You guys,” I whispered. “We could charge money.”
“I wish we’d charged money already,” said Philip. “We shouldn’t be playing this wedding for free.”
“They should at least pay us something,” said Deb.
“No, no, they’re our friends,” I said. “Anyway they brought us together!”
“They were the instruments of fate,” said Mikhail.
“After this, we’re charging,” Deb said.
“No kidding,” I said. “A thousand bucks a pop.”
“That’s all?” said Philip. “I was thinking a thousand bucks a person.”
“Whoa,” Deb said.
We all contemplated that.
“But there’s one thing we need for starters,” I said.
“Which is?” Philip said.
“A name,” I said.
“Of course! A name!” said Mikhail. “Bashert,” he said.
“No way,” said Philip.
“It should start with klez, since we’re a klezmer band,” said Deb. “We are not only klezmer,” Mikhail objected.
“Yeah, but you have to think marketing. You have to think, the Jewish wedding market.”
“There’s a lot of good examples out there already,” Deb said. “Klez-magic, the Klezmaniacs …”
We were still brainstorming on names when Beth and Josh came home.
“Klezmaggots?”
“Klezmagma?” I suggested.
“How did it go?” Beth asked.
“Klezmagnets?” said Deb.
“These names are all too much the same,” Mikhail said.
Beth and Josh looked at each other.
“We could go scriptural,” I said. “We could do Joyful Noise. As in: Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.”
“That’s good,” said Deb.
“Can I tell you how much I hate that?” Philip said. “I’d rather just go off and shoot myself.”
“Maybe it sounds too Christian,” Mikhail suggested.
“You’re right. You’re right,” I said. “It’s got to say Jewish. It’s got to say folk. It’s got to say Old Country.”
“It’s a band,” said Philip. “It’s got to have an edge.”
“Hell o?” Beth was calling us.
I was deep in thought. Just staring at Mikhail, deep in thought. “The Refusniks,” I said.
“Woooo, baby!” screeched Deb. “That’s okay,” said Philip.
Only Mikhail looked unconvinced, because as he told me later, to him the connotations of Refusnik were of bureaucracy and paperwork, rather than Old Country rock ‘n’ roll. Yet already Deb and Philip were high-fiving me on the name. I knew I could talk Mikhail into it.
OUR debut at Beth and Josh’s wedding was fraught with some disasters. First off, we did end up playing the processional too fast. It was the classic problem of art versus life. We envisioned “Dodi Li” flowing right along, like a clear running stream; yet Beth had a whole long wedding gown to contend with and elderly parents taking her down the aisle. The three of them just could not keep up. However, our recessional was a big hit. When the ceremony ended we exploded into our klezmer riffs and brought down the house. Everybody was milling around and clapping with us as we started improvising and hot-dogging. We had our own miniconcert right there in the sanctuary, so people didn’t even realize they were supposed to go off into the social hall already.
Then during the meal, instead of playing soft dinner music, we were still so excited we kept playing klezmer sets, and Beth came over and had a hissy fit, and Philip said a few things to her that he probably shouldn’t have, given that she was the bride and all! I had to go patch things up. However, once I’d patched things and we began playing the dance music we started getting requests for songs and dances that we didn’t know, and we got really embarrassed and ended up repeating the stuff we did know, only twice as loud, which didn’t go over well with some of the guests. But as happens all the time with new ventures, these dilemmas turned out to be incredibly valuable, because from these experiences and some others we together as a band derived a whole mission statement for our organization, which went like this:
The mission of the Refusniks is to create great music, grow together individually and as a group, and make money.
The wedding is the customer.
Do not feud with the customer.
Sharon is the manager.
Sharon will be the liaison between band and customer. See number 2.
When hearing requests, do not roll eyes, make derogatory statements, etc.
Do not use the f-word to members of wedding party. See number 3.
Do not play weddings for free anymore. Ever.
It took a while for us to get another gig. However, we did get one through my boss Telemachus to play a wedding up at a B & B in Maine. And gradually, all through the spring we accrued more experience, and practiced and jammed together with various pieces of borrowed equipment, until by the summer we got a couple more opportunities. We rehearsed until our sound was so smooth we could play softly as well as loudly, tenderly and slow for the processionals, and peacefully enough that people could eat their meal during the reception. When we started we were raw and brash, but now I, being the manager, was steering us in a more refined direction. I had to take the leadership role because I was dealing with three musical geniuses who hated compromising their vision. Philip, Deb, and Mikhail were actually happier playing for themselves than for the customer. They didn’t want to think their art was actually a service business!—so I thought about it for them. And, in fact, I became something of a guru on the formalities and etiquettes of the whole traditional Jewish ceremony. Brides and grooms actually came to me for advice on the proper music, and the order of the relatives marching down the aisle, and the timing of the blessings—which was kind of funny, since my own wedding had been this last-minute civil ceremony after Mikhail and I ran off together. But now that I was fronting our Old World—style band, people really looked to me for answers—so, of course, I had to provide them, and when I didn’t know the protocol for something, and the rabbi didn’t care, then I’d just make up a few little new traditions along the way.
Our musicality was definitely making inroads, and the Boston Jewish folk music grapevine started working in our favor. By summer’s end we’d played Chatham, and the Arnold Arboretum, and the Armenian Cultural Center. We each got two hundred bucks a wedding—which meant four hundred for Mikhail and me, which at times seemed almost unfair, being that civilization rigged the economy that way—where you got twice as much just for the pleasure of being married!
The day after Labor Day, Mikhail and I had enough money to move. It was a stifling hot day, and I was just about nine months pregnant, and I wore a giant-size T-shirt over maternity shorts, and I felt for those guys with the humongous beer bellies, because I finally understood what it was like to have your shorts sliding down the curve of your rotundity, and having to tug them back up until they started sliding all over again. We were driving our new preowned Honda Accord, and the seats of the car burned our flesh, because the vehicle, although it was in fantastic shape, had no freon, which was how we had afforded it. Sweat trickled down our faces. But there we were, moving out to Sharon. We drove right out on the pike, and down past the Crescent Dairy’s white ice-cream-packing building, which had a whole row of little windows where you could drive up and buy ice cream. And we drove downtown, which was something between a main street and a strip mall. A little ways off there was a beach at this tremendous lake, Lake Mass-apoag, where you could go and sit, and bring your kid. And there was a community center, and over hill and dale, all these ranch houses and little white saltbox houses abounded, and Cape houses with yards, which we couldn’t afford, yet someday we were going to buy one. And then we’d finally have our cat, and our dog, and chickens (we were considering raising our own, in a chicken coop in our yard).
In the meantime we drove around the rotary right in front of the Gulf station, and ther
e it was: Sharon Garden Apartments. There were no gardens, but there was parking. There were numbered spaces. We pulled in and just sat a moment. We didn’t talk; we didn’t have to. We both felt the same way. Mikhail carried a lamp and a suitcase, and slowly, we walked up the outdoor cement stairs. We came to number twenty-four, and I turned the key. There it was. A living/dining area with royal-blue wall-to-wall carpet. There was the wall for our new Yamaha upright piano, and the pass-through to our own galley kitchen with white Formica. I opened up the freezer and stuck my head in just to feel the cold. I opened the refrigerator and it was sparkling white.
It was good we didn’t own much of anything, since it made moving in so much easier. We didn’t have really any kitchen stuff, except a couple of pots Aunt Lena had given us. Apart from the piano, we had no heavy furniture. For a bed we were just planning to spread out a buton on the floor. The baby’s room was all set. The band, i.e., Philip and Deb along with us, had chipped in to buy us this incredible white combination crib, changing table, and dresser. And it turned into a youth bed when the kid grew older!
In the master bedroom there was a built-in air conditioner. It was built in right under the window. So, of course, immediately, we turned it on. We just stood there in the cool air in that empty room.
I have to say, in a lot of ways the whole thing was mundane and bourgeois, yet at the same time, standing in that air-conditioned bedroom, it was such a spiritual moment. It was such a high point in my life. I would compare it to arriving in Jerusalem. I would put it up there with my rebirth. And actually, it was better, because I wasn’t doing it alone. Mikhail and I were coming to this whole new plane together.
WHEN you get to a certain size, you start to feel invincible. You get pregnant enough, and you feel as though armies would have to fall away before you. That was how big I was. I’d gained sixty pounds. Mikhail mentioned to me that maybe I should scale back my hours at Fresh Squeezed, but I scoffed at the idea, I felt so good. My legs were like tree trunks. My belly was no island anymore; it was a whole globe unto itself. My breasts overflowed. My hair rippled all down my back, it had such a sheen.
The bride at our Saturday-night gig in Cambridge was taken aback when she saw how much I’d grown. I guess when she’d hired us back in June I hadn’t looked so large, and I’d been somewhat vague about my actual due date, which to tell the truth was the day of her wedding, yet I hadn’t wanted her to feel any additional jitters on her special day! So Mikhail and I and Deb and Philip were unpacking all our equipment at Temple Beth Shalom, and the bride was standing with her parents getting photographed, and all of a sudden this look of alarm passed over her face when she caught sight of me in my black, plus-size gown.
“Excuse me,” she said to the photographer. “Excuse me.” And she came rushing over in her wedding dress, which was pink, and flapper style, and with one of those transparent wrappers, as if you were a movie star in a silent film. I thought, Now, that is a dress. I thought, Now, how come there weren’t any dresses like that at the Bialystoker wedding library?
“Cheryl. Hey, you look gorgeous!” I said to her. And I looked down and I saw she had silver lamé sandals on her feet. “Far out!”
“Are you gonna be all right?” she said. “Is she going to be okay?” she asked Mikhail.
“We can cover for her,” Philip said.
I shot him a look.
“I didn’t know you’d be so far along,” Cheryl said.
“She’s really not so far along. She carries ‘uge,” Deb insisted in her New Jersey accent.
We were all a little bit tense, warming up, since this was a more formal wedding than the ones we’d done so far. The temple was one of those gorgeous old buildings with the vaulted ceiling and the red velvet curtains at the front. Above the velvet curtains there was a decorative ceiling scooped out and scalloped like the inside of a shell, and painted in sunset colors to look like clouds of glory. And there were dark wood pews, and marble steps leading up to the front dais, and an actual aisle. At the end of every other pew was a bouquet of hot pink lilies, and the chuppah was decorated with lilies too. When the guests and relatives started filing into the sanctuary, the guys were all wearing suit and tie. And not that we liked to count the house, but there must have been two hundred people there. I turned around to face the band. “Hey,” I whispered.
“What!” Philip said, startled. He looked absolutely terrified of me. “Oh, my God,” Mikhail said.
“I’m fine,” I whispered furiously. “I’m fine, okay? I’m speaking to you as your manager. Nothing else! You people have to loosen up here. This is about beauty. This is about grace. This is about exposure!”
I turned around again to face the audience. I shook out my music. “Dodi Li,” “Hinach Yafa,” “Eruv Shel Shoshanim.” All music I knew from dancing, wedding lyrics from the Song of Songs. I signaled for the first relatives to start walking down the aisle, and began to sing.
Dodi li, va ani lo
Ha roeh …My beloved is mine, and I am his.
He feeds his flock.…
That was when I had my first contraction. Still, it was barely a contraction. Just a twinge. It barely registered the tiniest quiver in my voice. Only Mikhail looked over at me. Only he noticed.
All through the ceremony, which was kind of long, I sat and focused on the gardens in the music, and grapes on the vine, and hills of spices. Twinge! Another contraction. I bowed my head as if in prayer. But a great smile was covering my face. I couldn’t help it. Even though, in the short term, it was going to be a little bit sticky holding out through the rabbi’s sermon, not to mention the four-hour reception, all I could think of was Baby! You’re almost here.
You know the wonderful thing about our job—by which I mean weddings? Once the ceremony is done, no one even cares what’s going down. You can have the most detail-oriented bride in the world. You can have Cheryl herself, but as soon as the glass is smashed, the details fly out the window. The bride and the groom race off down the aisle, and all the relatives fall in, at ease. Once she and Jonathan tied the knot, Cheryl never gave me a second thought. And that was a good thing, since by the time we got set up again at the reception around the corner in the Dante Alighieri Cultural Center, I had to walk around in circles every once in a while with my hand on the small of my back. I found myself staring up quite often at the life-size portrait of the great poet Dante in his robes and Renaissance-style hat.
Philip said to me, “Why are you starting up on ’Romania’ again? We just did that one.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. I was a little bit distracted.
We took a break. We huddled at a back table with our chicken breast stuffed with wild rice.
“I am worried,” Mikhail said.
“I’m fine,” I told him.
“Admit it, Sharon,” Deb said. “You’re in labor.”
“Labor!” Philip drew back like it was catching.
“What’s the plan?”
“What do you mean, the plan?”
“The plan,” he said. “The exit strategy.”
“What do you think this is, some kind of fire emergency? I’m telling you I’m fine.”
The three of them glared at me. “And what if your waters … what if they break?” Mikhail demanded.
“They’re not breaking,” I said. “Didn’t you read the book? Don’t you even remember it is a rare occurrence for a woman’s waters to rupture before she reaches the hospital? We’re playing till the end.”
And, by God, we did play until the end of that wedding, and we got our money—by which time I had such hideous gut-wrenching cramps, Mikhail and I didn’t even help pack up the equipment. We just took off for the hospital.
We got there, and it turned out everybody else in Boston had gone into labor that night, too, and every other couple of child-bearing age was crowding the ward. And, even if you screamed, other people were screaming louder, because they’d been there longer. If you groaned, or looked like you were going to be sick
, no one even gave you a second glance. Laboring women were everywhere. Red-faced women, bruise-faced women, women with IVs on wheelie poles were staggering through the halls.
When I finally got into the nurse’s station I had the chills. I was shaking with cold. Whereas before I was powerful and I was smiling, and giving my whole band what for, now all I could feel was this huge baby’s head locked in battle with me, bruising my bones, and clawing at my flesh. And I was shivering, because I hadn’t known there was such a monster inside of me. And I was lying on a table, and there weren’t any labor rooms free. And I thought, Let me die. Let me die right here in my blue hospital gown. Draw all the curtains around the bed. Just let me die.
But then the contraction would pass and I’d open my eyes, and I’d come to. And I’d say, “Mikhail?”
“Yes!”
“Don’t crack your knuckles.”
“Okay, all right.”
“It’s really bad for your fingers, Mikhail!”
“Okay.”
“Owwwwwwww!”
“Another one?” He bent over me.
I put my hand up and pushed him away as hard as I could.
“Sharon!” he said.
“Ohhhh …” I sobbed. And my poor husband was looking at me so upset, and all I could think of was Good! All I could think of was hate and bile and spite, until the pain subsided again.
And this went on for I don’t know how long, and then I got wheeled to another room, and I got a so-called bed to writhe on, and I screamed, and I cried, and I tried to walk around and breathe. I tried everything except anesthesia, because I was having a natural birth. That was what Mikhail and I had decided. We would have had a midwife at home if we could have afforded it, but our insurance only covered hospitals. So because of the medical-industrial complex I was there in the ward. Yet I wasn’t giving in to epidurals and drugs and needles.