“Can you tell me how the contract thing works?” Joni asks, and Rob’s face burns. Not that the question is in any way risqué (her husband’s contract is up for renewal; Rob is on the board), but because Rob, forty-seven-year-old husband, father and homeowner, has a crush like a thirteen year old.
Well, he tells himself when he is feeling ridiculous about all the time he spends daydreaming about Joni, at least he’s not some pathetic midlife-crisis cliché, flirting with a bimbo secretary at the office or puppy-dogging a Spandex-clad trainer at the gym.
Nope, not him.
He is in love with the rebbetzin.
Of course, Rob would never think of Joni Schleiffer as a “rebbetzin” – the traditional title for a rabbi’s wife, calling to mind a kerchiefed crone who smells like pickled herring. No, Joni Schleiffer is not a rebbitzen. She is a goddess. She is Aphrodite, goddess of love. She is Isis, goddess of magic. She is Freya! Maat! Demeter! Shortly after Rob met Joni, he Googled “goddesses” and couldn’t find even one whose description didn’t remind him of her – well, except for the huntress, Diana. Joni is a vegan. Rob is thinking of becoming a vegan, too.
Yes, Joni is a goddess, and Rob thinks about her night and day, the way Deuteronomy commands him to worship the other deity, who merely created the mountains and the seas. Rob thinks about Joni “when he dwelleth in his house and when he traveleth on the road; when he layeth down to sleep and when he rises.”
And oh, how he rises – often, and...
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