This follows Chapter 18 Vera—Love and Politics

Grandma Rae: Oy, Vera should know better. It’s not the right thing to do. It’s not how a good girl behaves. How will she get a husband?

Baba Lyuba: Rae, you are so old-fashioned.

Grandma Rae: My granddaughters wouldn’t have done that. They knew better.

Baba Lyuba: No, Rae. You just had your own home as did they, so they had more privacy. Of course they did.

Grandma Rae: (peeking over the edges of heaven) Les, Meryll is this true?

Les/Meryll (together): Yes, Grandma. But it worked out.

Grandma Rae: I should have been there.

Les/Meryll (laughing): You’re always here.

Grandma Rae: (turning back to others at table) Good thing their grandfather doesn’t know.

Baba Lyuba: Face it, Rae, your ideas about marriage are bourgeois. You should have been in Russia during the times of the real Bolsheviks. You would have a completely different idea about what women can and can’t do? Why shouldn’t a woman be free? A woman can do everything a man can do and more.

Rosa: Except get paid an equal amount for the same work.

Baba Lyuba: True.

Grandma Rae: I’m worried about Vera. I don’t think she should be fooling around like this and not with a married man. This won’t end well.

Baba Lyuba: Sasha is an intelligent man and I promise you it will have a good ending. Fira and Misha will see to it. He just needs some education.

Rosa: But Sasha doesn’t want to change. He doesn’t want trouble. Also even though Sasha’s father is Jewish, they won’t marry under the huppah. I don’t think his family will like Vera.

Baba Lyuba: Sasha will change. You’ll see. Who cares what his family thinks? They’d be lucky to have Vera. Let’s be quiet and see what what happens.

Grandma Rae: We’ll have a little strudel while we wait and see. Also some tea.