No One Must Know (7 page)

Mom’s face brightened. “Isn’t that nice. Was it Jean who asked you?”

I fixed my eyes on the carpet. My cheeks felt hot, a sure sign that a major blush was about to follow. “There’s a new boy in my class. His name’s Jacob, and he wants me to come to his house for Friday night dinner. His father will drive us to the dance afterward.”

“It’s out of the question,” Dad said. “You’re too young.”

“Dad’s right, darling,” Mom said. “You’re only thirteen, much too young to be going out with a boy.”

“It’s just dinner at a friend’s house.” I tried to speak in a reasonable tone, though I was silently thanking my lucky stars that they didn’t know about my walks with Jacob. “Please let me go! Jacob’s parents are very nice,” I pleaded, casting an imploring glance in Mom’s direction.

“I’m sure they are.” She seemed to be thinking things over. “What do you think, Jonah?”

Dad’s face softened. “If you agree, Agi, I’ll go along with your decision.” He turned to me. “You may go to this boy’s house for dinner, and to the dance afterward, but only this once.”

“Oh, thank you!” I jumped up and kissed them both.

“Wear your new dress,” Mom said. “It looks very pretty on you.”

“There’s a stain on one of the cuffs.”

Mom sighed. “You should be more careful with your clothes, dear. I’ll take it to Freddy’s for you. I just hope the new owners are as good as poor Freddy was.”

I burst out laughing. “You’ll be meeting Jacob’s parents, then. Freddy was Jacob’s father’s uncle. When he died, he left his shop to Jacob’s father. That’s why they moved here.”

“But Freddy was Jewish,” Mom said.

“So is Jacob. That’s why he invited me to his house on Friday night. His family always has a special dinner on Friday.”

“Shabbos dinner,” Mom whispered.

“How did you know that’s what Jewish people call their Friday night dinner?”

Mom bit her lip and was silent for a long moment. “You must refuse the invitation,” she finally said in a hoarse voice. “You must not go.”

“Agi, we already gave our permission,” Dad said.

“She must not go,” Mom repeated.

I jumped up from my seat. “You never want me to go anywhere!” I cried. “You don’t know what it’s like to have friends!”

“Sit down, please,” she said. “I do know, and I also know what it feels like to have a boy ask you out for the first time.” She patted my arm. “Please, dear, sit down.”

I lowered myself back into my chair. “Please, Mom! Please, Dad! Let me go.”

“We already told her she could go,” Dad said. “Be reasonable, Agi.”

“But, Jonah, it’s Shabbos dinner.”

“I’m sure the … er, what’s their name, Alex?”

“Pearlman.”

“I’m sure the Pearlmans are perfectly respectable people. There’s nothing wrong with her going to their house.”

“But Shabbos dinner!” Mom repeated.

“If you won’t let her go, you must explain why,” Dad said.

Mom gave a shuddering sigh. There was an almost palpable cloud of unhappiness surrounding her. “You may tell your friend, Alexandra,” she finally said in a melancholy voice, “that you can have dinner with his family.”

I bit my lip to keep my tears from falling. “What’s going on, Mom? I’ve never seen you act like this. You’re scaring me!”

“Agi, can’t you see that it’s time for Alexandra to be told the truth?” Dad asked.

“Mom, please tell me what’s wrong!” I sounded desperate even to my own ears.

She squared her shoulders. “I can’t, my darling. Not yet. Give me time.” She got up from the sofa and hobbled over to my chair to kiss me on the forehead. “Be patient with your old mother,” she said. “I have a lot of thinking to do.”

O
ur teachers had a staff meeting on Friday afternoon, so we were let out of school early. As I hurried home, I realized that I had forgotten to give Mom the note about the early dismissal It didn’t really matter because I had my own key, and anyway she was always home.

I let myself into the house. Through the kitchen door, I could hear my mother talking to somebody in a strange language. I was fairly certain it wasn’t Hungarian, which I usually recognized, but some other language I’d never heard before.

I peered around the doorframe and saw Mom standing beside the kitchen table, her hands fluttering over the
bright flame of two tapers in my grandmother’s candlesticks. Her eyes were closed and her hair was covered by a scarf. At the sound of my footsteps, she spun toward me, her face white and full of surprise.

“Hi, Mom. What are you doing?”

“Nothing … nothing,” she stammered. “I was just praying.”

“But you never pray! And why is your head covered?”

She didn’t meet my eyes. “Covering our heads was an old custom in my church back home.”

“Well, what language were you speaking? It didn’t sound like Hungarian.”

“I was using an old dialect my mother taught me. I’ll teach it to you when you’re older.” She blew out the flames and put the candlesticks into a cupboard. “Why are you so early?”

“The teachers had a meeting. I forgot to give you the note.”

She sighed. “Alexandra, you must become more responsible.” She looked at me and smiled. “Take your books upstairs. I’ll get you something to eat in the meantime. I baked some cookies for you today.”

I ran up to my room, dropped my school bag to the floor, and went to my closet to take out the dress I was going to wear that night. Molly was coming over, and I wanted to try it on for her. But the dress wasn’t in the
closet. I pushed aside all of the hangers and looked more carefully. Mom always hung my dry-cleaned clothes in my closet after she picked them up from Freddy’s, but the dress definitely wasn’t there.

I bounded back down the stairs two at a time. She was at the kitchen table, reading and smoking. A plate of cookies and a glass of milk were waiting for me.

“Where’s my new dress?” I asked. “I can’t find it anywhere.”

She looked up reluctantly, her index finger separating the pages of her book. “You’ll have to wear something else,” she said. “Your father was held up at the office, and Freddy’s was closed by the time he got home.”

“Why didn’t you go by yourself?” I yelled. “It’s so close by that you could have walked there. You know how important this is to me!”

“And you know that I never go anywhere by myself,” she said in a calm voice.

“Well, you should! All of my friends’ mothers do. Why can’t you be like them?” I cried.

She looked at me for a long moment. “Because I am not,” she said simply, before returning to her book as if I wasn’t even in the room.

I stood in front of her, shaking with fury. But when I saw that she was intent on ignoring me, I turned and stormed upstairs. Once I was in my room, I sat down on
the edge of my bed, taking deep breaths to calm down. Then I stood up and walked over to my closet to choose another dress to wear. I couldn’t make up my mind, though, so I decided to wait for Molly and ask her opinion. Gradually, I began to feel guilty for yelling at Mom, so I went downstairs to apologize. I found her in the living room, at the piano, her fingers caressing the keys, her eyes closed, her face full of emotion. I could see that she was a million miles away.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I stammered. “I didn’t mean what I said.”

Her fingers banged the keys into a startled crescendo.

“I’m
so
sorry, Mom,” I repeated.

She pushed herself up from the piano stool and opened her arms wide. I ran into them. I wanted the embrace to go on forever, but just then the doorbell rang. Molly was waiting for me on the doorstep.

“Perfect! This is the outfit you should wear,” Molly said. “I like it even better than your new dress.” She was sitting cross-legged on my bed, surrounded by the contents of my closet. I had tried on and discarded every garment I owned. Now I posed in front of my dresser mirror in a navy blue dress with a sailor collar. Even though it hadn’t been my first choice, I had to admit that I looked nice in it.

With a knock on the door, Mom came into the room. “What happened here – a hurricane hit your room?” she asked.

“I’ll clean up first thing tomorrow morning, I promise! How do I look?”

“Beautiful, darling,” she said. “But you must hurry up. Dad says you’ll be late if you don’t leave right away.” She turned to Molly. “They’ll drop you at home first.”

Dad drove off as I climbed the steps to Jacob’s apartment with a box of Laura Secord chocolates clutched in my hands. I paused for a moment to catch my breath and looked around. There was no nameplate on the door, but a small metal cylinder had been affixed to the doorpost. I forgot all about it when the door swung open on the first ring. Jacob’s smile widened as his eyes swept over me.

“You look nice!” he said as he helped me off with my jacket. “Everybody wants to meet you.” He led me into a small living room full of comfortable worn furniture, soft lighting, and lots of books on shelves.

“This is Alexandra Gal,” Jacob announced awkwardly. “These are my parents, Alex,” he said, pointing to a middle-aged couple on the sofa. “And this is my sister, Marnie.” He nodded at a freckle-faced girl perched in an armchair, and she stuck out her tongue.

Jacob’s mother rose from her seat. “Welcome, dear,” she said with a smile. “You’re the first friend Jacob has brought home since we moved here.”

“Nice to meet you,” I replied.

“Hi, Alex,” said Mr. Pearlman, a large, rumpled man with a pipe. “You’re just in time for dinner.”

We crowded around the dining-room table, which had been set with cream-colored melamine dishes. Two tall tapers in heavy silver candlesticks burned in the center. Mrs. Pearlman noticed that I was looking at them and said, “They were my mother’s. They’ve been in our family for a long time.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“Thank you. They mean a lot to me.”

“They remind me of our candlesticks. Mom told me that they belonged to my grandmother.”

“Isn’t that nice,” she said as she motioned me toward the chair beside Jacob.

“That’s my chair!” Marnie cried.

“Not tonight, pumpkin,” Mr. Pearlman said. “Let Alex sit beside Jacob. Come, sit next to me.”

“But I always –” She broke off mid-sentence at a stern look from her mother and threw herself down on the chair beside her father. “Jake has a girlfriend … Jake has a girlfriend,” she muttered under her breath.

Jacob’s face turned crimson. “Why, I’ll –”

“Enough, Jacob!” Mrs. Pearlman said. “Marnie, do you want to spend Shabbos in your room?”

The girl gave the table leg a swift kick but kept quiet.

Satisfied, Mrs. Pearlman turned away to cover her head with a silk scarf. Jacob and his father put on black skullcaps, then Mr. Pearlman poured a glass of red wine into a small silver cup and pronounced a few sentences in a language I couldn’t understand. He passed the cup around the table, and we all drank from it. Next, he said a few more sentences in the same language over a braided loaf of bread that sat in front of him on the table. He broke off several small pieces, dipped them in salt, and passed a piece to each person around the table. I noticed that everybody was eating their bread, so I ate my piece too. When all of us had finished, Mrs. Pearlman stood up.

“I’ll bring in dinner,” she said.

“Let me help you,” I said.

“Thank you, dear. Marnie will help too.”

The table was soon overflowing with bowls and platters. Chicken soup and salad were followed by something Mrs. Pearlman called brisket, which turned out to be the same kind of roast Mom made. We ate potato knishes, homemade pickles, and even a fancy green-bean casserole with onion rings arranged on top. For dessert we had dry cookies that were delicious. Mrs. Pearlman
called them komish. We ate and ate until I was so stuffed that I couldn’t have eaten another mouthful. Finally, Mr. Pearlman leaned back in his chair.

“It’s so nice to have our family together to welcome Shabbos,” he said. “And it’s also nice to have a guest joining us in our new home. Do you live far from here, Alex?”

“Five minutes away, on Ash Street.”

“Jacob tells me that you’re in some of his classes,” he said.

I nodded. “Social studies and music.”

“We’ve been told that your school is the best high school in the city,” he said.

“My school too, Daddy?”

“Yes, Marnie. Your school is very good too.” He poured himself a glass of wine before turning back to me. “We’re fortunate that our apartment is so close by. It’s important to us that Jacob attend a school with such a good reputation.”

“You mean it’s important to you, Nathan,” Mrs. Pearlman said. She shot her husband a quick glance, then turned to me. “Are there many Jewish kids in your school, Alexandra?”

I had to think for a moment before answering, for I had never considered it before. “I guess not. Most of the Jewish people live in the North End, and their kids go to
school there. Even the Jewish kids who live around here go to the parochial school in the North End.”

“I told you it doesn’t matter, Mother!” Jacob cried. “Why do you have to keep harping on the subject?” He cracked his knuckles. I was learning that this meant he was nervous.