Never Nosh A Matzo Ball: A Ruby the Rabbi's Wife Mystery - Hardcover

Chapter One

I always wondered if exercise could kill you, and now I'm about to find out.

"Kevin, you're drifting."

He's too busy doing the water aerobics version of cross-country skiing to hear me, so I yell it.

"You're drifting!"

Too late. Kevin's short, hairy, and hefty frame is inexorably backing into me as he treads through the water on pretend skis, and he knocks me like an eight ball, right into Essie Sue's line just behind me. She delivers a swift, defensive kick. Why didn't I think of that?

We've now caused a three-line pileup, throwing the water aerobics class into an uproar. Celeste, our teacher -- a cute brunette and ninety-nine-pound role model -- is forced to run over and turn off the accompaniment tape of Rock with the Classics. Trust me, she'd rather eat solid cholesterol than interrupt the High Intensity portion of our daily workout. I say "daily" with a grain of kosher salt, since three days a week is all I can take of being sandwiched between my old nemesis, Essie Sue Margolis, and our new spiritual leader at Temple Rita, Rabbi Kevin Kapstein.

"Rabbi and Ruby, why can't you stay in your lines like everyone else?" Just as I thought, this is Celeste's vision of the apocalypse.

"I didn't do anything. He bumped into me." Even in school, I hated it when they lumped you all together without finding out who was at fault.

Celeste isn't hearing any of it. She's looking out for her boss. "Are you all right, Mrs. Margolis?" I'm Ruby -- Essie Sue is Mrs. Margolis, I notice. Of course, I'm not the new half-owner of the Center for Bodily Movement, either. If I were, you can bet the gym's name wouldn't sound like something you need extra plumbing for.

Essie Sue insisted she wanted the name to reflect the "dignified spirit" of her new venture -- "gym" sounded much too sweaty. Not that she wanted to keep males away -- her first gesture was to present Kevin with an honorary membership. "It's smart business," she said, and who am I to second-guess? It remains to be seen if he'll have the male population of Eternal flocking after him. So far, the composition of our particular class is fifteen women and two men -- the other man is Mr. Chernoff. He drives Mrs. Chernoff and stays.

"You're a menace, Ruby!" Essie Sue concentrates on me. "I think I broke a toenail."

She lifts a tanned leg, waxed smooth enough to make a plucked Empire chicken jealous. "See? My pedicurist waited two weeks for a bottle of Bronze Goddess polish to come in, and now a whole corner of the nail is torn."

I'm still reeling over the fact that she has a pedicurist. I only know from manicurists. When I had my first and only manicure, I was expecting the dominatrix type I'd observed in the hair salon -- the one who grabbed your hand and shoved it unbidden from bowl to bowl. Unfortunately, my young lady had just graduated from beauty school, and our encounter was something like two virgins having sex. She expected me to know where to dip, and I was waiting daintily to be dunked. We never quite got the do-si-do right, and I didn't have the patience to go look for a better handshake. The story of my life.

Twelve other class members are now shivering chest-deep in cold water, and I know Celeste won't interrupt Essie Sue, so I do.

"I'll spring for a new pedicure, Essie Sue, but only when Kevin pays for my medical bills -- he left bruises all over my body when he slammed into me. Let's get back to the exercise."

Celeste looks extremely disappointed -- in me, of course. The others seem to have gotten off unscathed. "We've lost all our momentum," she says, glaring at me, "and I don't know what to do about it. I'm supposed to keep you in the high breathing range for twenty minutes, with ten minutes for cooldown. But we only have fifteen minutes left before the next class."

Uh-oh. She's panicking. Don't look at me. I couldn't solve those eighth-grade math problems about the train ten miles from the next station at seventy-three miles an hour with an unexpected stop, so don't expect me to solve this.

I don't have to. "Put on the William Tell Overture," Essie Sue barks, "and get us into double time. I'm not letting Ruby Rothman spoil my workout -- I'm under orders from my personal trainer."

Oy. Her personal trainer, yet. Another one of her money-saving ideas. If this guy is a personal trainer, I'll eat my weight in matzo balls. Bogie, as he so charmingly calls himself, is a wanna-be tough guy whose persona comes across more like Clark Kent on acid. Essie Sue hired him because he claimed to be Mr. Texas Muscle and also because he accepted her salary range. I have no doubt which qualification pushed him over the top. Now I'm involved with him because The Hot Bagel, my own new venture in entrepreneurship, is a sponsor of the All Faiths Baseball Team. Essie Sue loaned out Bogie as the coach and, in a giant leap of faith, just appointed our own Rabbi Kevin Kapstein to play for the Temple. She says it'll enhance the Temple's image. I can't wait to e-mail this latest sports bulletin to my friend Nan in Seattle. She saved my life long-distance last year when we had a killer in the bakery, and she knows all about the Terrible Twosome, Kevin and Essie Sue.

Celeste jumps out of the water to put on William Tell. She's smiling. Now it's her boss's responsibility if we all drop dead. I don't think you're supposed to go from standing in the water to double time, but what do I know?

No more with the cross-country ski. We do a fast jog in a circle, wall to wall. Those who can't keep up get trampled on unless they're quick enough to move aside, which, being the slow ones, they usually aren't. The rules of the road don't apply here, unless you happen to be driving in Rome. Essie Sue's headed right for me, but I run faster than she does.

"Reverse!" This is the special torture Celeste saves for the moment the current has built up in one direction, allowing slackers to go with the flow.

Ha! Essie Sue is having trouble reversing, and she sneakily grabs on to Kevin's arm underwater as ballast.

"You're cheating," I say sweetly as I charge past them.

Our circle is now looking more like ring-around-the-rosy than the Charge of the Light Brigade. Mr. Chernoff has dropped to his knees, causing Celeste to do a quick body count. I sympathize with her, though -- you don't buck Essie Sue so easily. Not in this life.

I'm here because I'm cheap. When Essie Sue bought the place a few months ago, she offered Founding Member discounts -- not that we're founding members of anything. Essie Sue wanted a classy tone for the spa, as she now calls the former Sam's Gym, our little town of Eternal's only prior attempt at fitness. Fitness was not what Sam originally had in mind, I should point out. He managed wrestlers at the time, and the gym was a hangout for his buddies. He went bankrupt when he overextended himself by putting in a pool. He should have put in a pool table, but he found that out too late.

It's a leap from Sam's to classy, trust me, but I love the water and the exercise is great -- I alternate the water aerobics classes with lap swimming on my own time. Other than making the half hour trip up to Austin where fitness centers abound, this my best choice -- I can fall out of bed early in the morning and be ready for the rest of my day by nine o'clock. I can use all the time I can get. Today I have to order supplies and check on the help at the bakery (my partner Milt's handling the lunch rush), then put on my other hat as a computer consultant. Leffert Jewelers' newly installed accounting software is telling them they have six million dollars on hand. I don't think so.

We're finished with circles and are now jogging backward. "This is very good for your gluteus maximus," Celeste yells, patting her own behind. Kevin, displaying mor