A Town of Empty Rooms by Karen E. Bender

did. Betty had belonged to the Temple since she was a child, longer than anyone here — she had been a member for fifty-six years. She had been the first female Bat Mitzvah, the first woman president; the Temple had evolved because of her. She was a pioneer. She liked showing people what she had done for the Temple. As a girl, the Temple had prepared her, she thought, for her later achievement — her catering service. Norman, Tom — they had to just think beyond the small and embrace the potential grandness.
    Lately, she had lots of ideas for the Temple. Betty spent a great deal of time thinking about the Temple and its future. She thought about it when she sat in her home, trying to become accustomed to
the immense silence; it had been six months since her husband had left — suddenly, after thirty-three years of marriage. After Pearl came to her, eight months ago, she had begun compiling the list. Betty wanted to find someone who would understand the gravity of the complaints on it.
    Norman Weiss had been at the Temple second to Betty in terms of time. She had grown up here, and he had come here by choice, when he moved from the North after the death of his first wife. He had seen so many others join and drop, leave and die. He was still here. He had run the most sought after pediatric practice in the western part of Long Island; he did not even know why the children had liked him, or why the stocks he had picked had risen. He could never quite trust the good luck that befell him. He wanted to spread it around this place. If people looked around, they would see him everywhere. He had bought back the second Torah when he returned from Israel in 1979. He had paid for the new and elegant gold-plated Eternal Light that hung over the Ark. If the others knew what he had bought for the Temple, they would appreciate him. Now, with the news of his throat, after the doctor had sat down with him and told him what the results of the biopsy could mean, he wanted anyone to walk into Temple Shalom and know that Norman Weiss was the most generous member of the congregation — that he was somehow essential.
    Tiffany Stein understood immediately why Serena had dressed in a suit; it was to show respect for the board. This was why Tiffany wore the large golden Star of David, the Chai charms around her neck. Her husband joked that she looked like a Jewish gangster, but she was trying to show the others her respect for the religion and also to convince them that she belonged. Her life as a Jew dated two years and seven months — it had coincided with her marriage to Harvey Stein. She had been recently divorced and had not believed she would ever marry again. Harvey loved her, but he wanted her to be Jewish, and she had never felt particularly attached to her Methodist upbringing, so she studied with Rabbi Moshe Rappaport in Tampa, and then the couple moved here. She came to Temple Shalom a fully certified — or however one would say it — Jew. And then, a year into her membership, she was
invited to become a member of the Temple Board. She had cried when she had been asked; she believed they took her seriously.
    Serena walked into the Temple basement to join the eleven members of the board hunched around a folding table. The room gave the general impression of a cave. The fluorescent lights let out a long, aching buzz, and there was the undersea gurgle of the coffee machine. Betty Blumenthal was smiling at her.
    Rabbi Golden saw her and clapped his hands together. “We’re all here,” he said. “Let’s begin. Tom, do you want to lead the opening prayer?”
    Tom sat up, visibly brightening to have been singled out by the rabbi. His face assumed a blank expression that concealed something infinitely more complicated. The board members lowered their heads.
    â€œDear God,” Tom said, lifting his hands. His eyes were closed. “Watch over us tonight as we perform our duty of leading our