Rabbi Gabrielle Ignites a Tempest Read Online Free PDF Page B

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genius. In the nightmare, I’m the one looking for a bridge to jump
off."
    Her eyes fell over painted toenails, then
focused on the beginning of a bunion behind the big toe where her
foot rubbed against the inside of her shoes.
    "But you don’t get off so easily," he
continued. "You’ve managed to screw up every relationship I’ve had
with other women. Each time I date someone and matriculate through
the get   to   know   you phase, I
compare her with you and nobody matches up. So I invent excuses to
end everything. What I always wanted was you and what I could never
have has always been you. Sure, we make wonderful love. It’s always
great until we separate. Then it feels like falling off a cliff.
For years, I’ve known that if I couldn’t break this cycle, I’d have
to commit myself to a loony bin. Sally’s my chance. I hope you
understand that."
    She untangled her feet and rotated forward on
her knees. Her nightgown fell open. With both hands, she held Tim’s
head, drawing him close and caressing his eyes, once, twice, then
smothering them with her lips. "Hey, sailor, what d’ya think of my
new outfit?"
    "It barely covers the most beautiful woman
I’ve ever known."
    "I appreciate that," she replied. "If I
didn’t believe that we’d be in the same pickle a month from now,
I’d strip off these shreds of nothing and jump you. But that would
only make me cry and I don't want to. Timmy, you’re my witness to
this extraordinary act of bravery. If anybody asks, tell them that
Gabby Lewyn didn’t shed a single tear."
    He wanted to say something soothing, but
nothing came to mind.
    "Forget about that bridge. When you leave,
I’m going to sit on this bed until I fall asleep. And when I wake
up tomorrow morning, I’m going get up and move on. No red eyes. No
self   pity."
    "We’ve prevented each other from finding new
lovers; somebody will snap you up in an instant," Tim said, his
eyes dropping to the bedspread.
    "Perhaps," she replied without
conviction.
    Gabby let Tim walk out of her life, rationalizing
that their romance had been destined to end the very moment it
began. As the friend she promised to remain, she attended his
wedding to Sally Goldsmith at the Central Presbyterian Church in
New York City, hiding tears behind dark glasses. Two years later,
by the time she learned that his marriage had floundered, she was
herself a married woman.
    Eight years after their breakup—and after Gabby had
lost her husband in an avoidable, and therefore thoroughly tragic,
scuba diving accident at St. Lucia—she resigned as senior rabbi of
Congregation Ohav Shalom in Washington D.C. and moved to Chicago.
Her reentry into Tim Matternly's life caught him at a propitious
moment, as if he had been waiting all the intervening years for her
return. As in their past life together, she loved his humor in
moments of stress, his passion for biblical history and, above all,
his cooking. His artichokes, poached in hot, but not boiling, water
to the perfect degree of tenderness, each leaf decoratively cut for
easy pulling, and served with his secret mustard vinaigrette, sent
her into culinary rapture. He, on the other hand, loved how her
smile punched endearing dimples in her cheeks and how her eyes
sparkled mischievously when she told tall stories. But mostly, he
adored how she animated stagnant ideas and fashioned them into
living adventures, always game to jump into situations way over her
head.
    After enrolling in the department of biblical
studies at the University of Chicago as a PhD candidate, she moved
into his Hyde Park home with him, two blocks from Lake Michigan.
When he was in Israel pursuing his research, she would travel to
Jerusalem every other month to stay with him in a rented apartment
on Ussishkin Street.
    While spiritual experiences drove fellow clerics
into God's service, Gabby had entered rabbinical school not because
she felt a calling, but because she wanted to help others. When she
completed her