Libby and her works of art made from cake. Nora, handling half of Broadway’s contracts and logistics. Sylvie had iconic photographs landing on the covers of TIME and Rolling Stone. Talia? She was the face and the force behind the Jewish Grandma food revolution, for fuck’s sake. And he couldn’t even mention the name Jay Katz without someone falling at his feet to beg for tickets to one of the hottest events around town.
Never mind dropping Avi or Eli into conversation. People usually didn’t even believe him.
“Do you know how much Taylor Swift makes?”
“Does Merlin the Pig have to pay TikTok taxes?”
“What’s the most expensivest thing you’ve seen?”
“Can you help do my mom’s taxes?”
The kids weren’t even bothering to raise their hands now. Julie got them to settle down long enough for Jonah to answer some of their burning questions, but not all.
“Accountants have to take a vow of silence on some things,” he explained. “Like a monk. It’s called ‘client confidentiality.’”
“Client confidentiality,” they repeated dutifully.
Julie shook her head and rolled her eyes, but she was smiling a genuine smile, at least. “Can you give us an everyday example of how an accountant helps a client save money, Mr. Klein?”
“Sure!” Jonah ran a hand through his short russet curls. “My friend Avi is a great example, because every night, he wears leather pants on stage for his concerts.”
“Avi Wolfson?” This time it was the zookeeper in back, gasping. “As in Painted Doors concerts?”
Even her bearded dragon looked impressed back in its cage, tongue flicking excitedly.
“The man has dry cleaning bills like you can’t imagine,” Jonah continued. “Not very rock n’ roll, amiright?” He began to pace, like during one of his stand-up routines. He wished he had a microphone. “But you can’t just toss those bad boys into a washing machine after a sweaty concert.”
“Do they smell?” the kids chorused.
He nodded emphatically, waving a hand in front of his nose. “Just imagine, some poor drycleaner, dealing with ripe rock and roll pants, wondering how this became their life.”
His sister had zero control over her class now, as they howled and chattered excitedly. Like a superhero, Jonah planted his hands on his hips and took a wide-legged stance.
“That’s where I come in,” he boomed. “someone has to keep those leather pants on budget. Rock stars break guitars, but not the bank. Not on my watch.” He turned to Julie. “Where’s your chalk?”
“Chalk? This isn’t Little House on the Prairie. Keep talking, Willie Oleson. I’ll work the Smartboard.”
“So, say Avi plays two hundred shows a year…” These days, it was far less, since the band was taking a well-deserved break after last year’s snafu when the tour bus left Avi behind and he was the one questioning his life choices. But to illustrate his point, Jonah stuck to the basic math. “And how much do you think it costs to dry clean a pair of leather pants?”
A few kids threw out their best guesses.
“Let’s say it’s fifty dollars. Not bad, but…if poor Avi has to send them out for cleaning after every show?”
Julie took over the lesson, using whatever Smartboard woo-woo combined with good old-fashioned math magic. The kids quickly multiplied fifty times two hundred with her help. “Ten thousand dollars, guys…just to keep his pants clean. That’s a lot of money.”
“Imagine some regular Joe Schmoe trying to explain that on his taxes? But guess what? Thanks to me, Avi can write off not only the cleaning but even the cost of the pants themselves as a business expense because I can prove they are – repeat after me – ordinary and necessary!”
“Ordinary and necessary.”
“So you can get paid for cleaning your pants?” A boy up front asked, incredulous.
“Only if your job involves sweating on stage in front of twenty thousand people,” Jonah explained. “Otherwise, sorry – no pants deductions for you.”
Julie was facepalming, but maybe it was to cover up her smile. Or her blush at the thought of the rocker and his leather pants.
Avi had been a regular fixture at the Klein family dinner table for over a decade now. He’d detoured to Paris after their gap year in Israel, learning just enough French to impress half the women in the tri-state area. That included all the women in Somerset County, where Jonah and his sisters grew up.
Of course, Jonah had threatened his best friend with bodily harm if he hit on any of his mishpacha. But none of the Klein women were exactly immune to his charms. Their mom still sent that lucky bastard Hamentashen every Purim, no matter where he was on the road. And stocked his favorite Kosher snacks in case he dropped in for a visit.
