The Short Shelf Life of Bialys and Us

“If I die first,” my husband said, “I want you to find someone else.”

“Great! Just let me know ahead of time so I can put the word out I’m on the prowl.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“You’re right,” I said. “If I’m first,” he sadly hung his head, waiting to hear my inevitable words of love, “and you so much as look at another woman, I’ll haunt you in the night. I’ll make things crash. I’ll run in front of the car wearing a flowing white gown while you’re driving on a dark isolated road and I’ll shriek a sick wolf howl. Ah-Ooooooooo!”

Bob’s been emotional lately. And it being near my birthday, I decided to use this to my advantage.

“You know what I’d like more than anything?”

He got this sappy look on his face and said, “For us to go together.”

“Actually, I was thinking of bialys.”

He shook his head. “What the heck are bialys?”

“It’s like a bagel without a hole, only more oniony.”

On Cape Cod, where we live, bialys are not only hard to find, but impossible for anybody to pronounce. Even though it’s a resort area, it’s not known for its culinary diversity. My mother, from the big city, remains unconvinced that the Cape is part of the United States, and therefore thinks of it as a uncivilized place of sand dunes and clam shacks. She still sends me care packages containing extra fine dental floss, which she insists can not be found in our prehistoric drug stores.

So I thought that Bob had decided to secretly locate a New York bialy supplier for my birthday. But two days later, he brought home a Jewish cookbook. “I’m going to make them for your special day,” he said, then added, “love of my life” as his stare lingered on and on.

I opened the cookbook to the bialy page and saw that Kossar’s Bakery in New York was mentioned. I punched in their name on the internet. Bob looked pale.

“I found their web page!” My typing quickened.   

“Really,” he said. I looked up at him as he hovered above and that’s when it hit me. Bob gets what I call a ‘thing’ on his face when he’s hiding something. The right side of his lip goes up, like Elvis. He knows this, and tries to flatten it back. This never works and he gets this up and down movement going. (It also happens when he’s angry at me, but I keep quiet about that.) So when I saw his lip, I figured he had already ordered from Kossar’s as a surprise. But I had to play along so I e-mailed them asking for a product list.

“I’ve got to make a call you can’t hear,” he said and ran to his office, slamming the door behind him. I assumed he was calling Kossar’s to say, “Ignore my wife’s e-mail!” 

“They sent a list,” I yelled out later. Then I had to follow through so as not to spoil his surprise. “Let’s order a lot. Fire up the downstairs freezer. Bialys don’t keep.”

He gazed in my eyes with a ‘life’s so short’ look and said, “I’ll call it in.”

“What is this new death thing?” I asked. “Our friends won’t come over if you keep asking them where they’ll be buried.”

“That’s not what I discussed at our barbecue,” he answered, defensively.

“No you didn’t. But standing around the fire, asking people how they like their steaks, should not be followed by your commentary on the environmental impact of cremation.”

He went back into his office to fake (I assumed) a call to Kossar’s.

Five minutes later, he came back out. “They said to send a check so it’ll take awhile.” My birthday was in three days. Bob typed what he said was an order. He didn’t seal the envelope because the checkbook was in the car. I snuck a look, assuming I’d find a blank page. But the order, all filled out, was there. Doubt built in my mind about a birthday bialy shipment.

He wrote down ingredients on a shopping list. “You’re really going to make them?” I asked.

“For you . . . .”

“You’re not going to call me ‘dearly beloved’ as a nickname, are you?”

“No. I was just going to say that I’d make anything you want for your birthday.”

“But I was so sure that  . . . .”

And so my birthday arrived, and with it came a little package with a gold bow. Inside, a note read, “Open the front closet.” And when I flung open the door, baked onions permeated the room like the aroma of the moist earth on the morning after an all night rain. And there, in a huge box, were Kossar’s bialys. A whole twelve dozen of them.

Later that night, we sat close on the couch with the quilt covering both our legs. “It’s hard for me to talk about you-know-what,” I said.

“I know.”

And nothing further needed to be said right then. I knew Bob’s obsession wouldn’t last, but I suppose it’s good to think about these things once in a while. And this thought of loss will hopefully make us dwell instead on the richness of what we have for now.

And that, thank God, includes mama’s extra fine dental floss and bialys.