The vast Book Barn smelled of ancient pages and bindings, the floorboards creaked. Neither Jenkins was in sight, but young men with uncut hair and bare feet sat around in chairs, some reading, some taking notes, glancing up every now and again. Signs, freshly painted, or dim, read Best Sellers, Children’s, Junior Adult, Foreign Language, followed by specific subjects, Africa to Sanskrit. Books ranged from First Editions to Out of Print. At the head of the stairs, an arrow on the wall led to “Rare Books: ask for key.” The peaked roof was at least four stories high, and the aisles of books covered a space several times as large as the public library on East Broadway. Hal brought me up to one of the young men who sat reading. “We’d like to start an account for this young lady with a deposit of five dollars.”
“I have a dollar. My grandmother gave it to me for spending money.”
“Put your money away.” Hal’s hair fell over his eyes and he tossed it back. “This is from me and Gabe and Estelle. We want you to have an account here.”
“But five dollars . . .” I didn’t finish my sentence. My parents gave five dollars for a bar mitzvah or an anniversary present. It bought more than two tickets for a Broadway show. My mother sweated over an old washboard in order to save a quarter by washing our clothes herself, and Hal proposed a five-dollar gift at a bookstore. I would have been content to read the free books or to buy some at a dime each. What were they thinking?
“We want to do this for our one and only child reader. If you don’t spend it during the next few weeks, you can buy some books and have them sent home or keep the money in your account for next year.”
I hesitated, red-faced, remembering a writer from the
Forward
who remarked to Bubby, “Manya, you’re a great giver. You give away everything. But you have to learn to accept presents graciously.” He had bought a carving knife with a fake ivory handle as a gift. Thinking of his words I said, “I accept, but only for half the money.”
“Done,” Hal laughed. “Two-fifty it is, you funny duck.” He guided me away from the free books and within a few minutes he selected Charles Dickens’s
Great Expectations
and Charlotte Brontë’s
Jane Eyre
.
“These are for tenth graders,” Hal said, “but the reading isn’t hard and they will keep you busy for days.”
I could see myself rereading them on cold winter afternoons in my parents’ bed with Bubby hovering over me, bringing in warm kaiser rolls filled with her strawberry jam.
Back in the truck hugging my two books in my lap, I asked shyly, “Why did you pick these two books?”
“I love those crazy English names. Like Pip and Miss Havisham in
Great Expectations
. And the women are named for the months of the year, March, April, May and August. Or Fiona. I love that name. Have you ever met a Fiona?”
“I met a Sybil.” My face reddened.
“Don’t worry about mentioning her name. I struggled for hours last night, trying to decide whether to follow her, race off to Europe, live a more unstructured life. But it’s not me. It’s not what I want. Sybil deserves her adventures. I’m not the type. She’s right when she says I’d like to practice medicine here. Why not? Hank would love it.”
And so would I. To change the subject I asked, “What’s your father’s real name?”
“You mean his original name? Herbert. He hated it. Hated Herb and Herbie. He thought Hank sounded more manly.”
The truck shook, trembled, stuttered over the slightest bump in the road. We headed for the village. “What’s your father’s original name?” he asked.
“Abraham.”
“Abraham Jacob? Is that where the Jack comes from?”
“No, he heard it in the street when he was a little boy. He’s been Jack ever since.”
“And your Uncle Geoff?”
“I don’t know. All my mother’s brothers have different names. My Uncle Jack liked my father’s name so he took it for himself. Cousin Alice, she has two Uncle Jacks, my father, Jack Roth, and Jack Simon. There’s also two Roberts. Only my Uncle Abe, he never changed his name.”
“And your mother, Lil, is she really Lillian?”
“Oh, no! Something horrible like Gussie or Tessie, something she hated. At the store where she works they call her ‘Miss Lilyan,’ with a
y
in it.”
We approached the main street when the postmaster, with a watermelon stomach and a thatch of white hair, waved an envelope and cried out, “It’s a Western Union, from Maurey. He’ll be here Wednesday.”
The truck stopped on a dime. Hal leaped out and tore open the telegram. “Arriving Wednesday. Can’t wait. Love Maurey.”
Hal seemed to forget our reason for being in the village. He reversed the truck and gunned the engine. “This truck is held together with spit. What a relief to buy a new one tomorrow.” We zoomed back to the farm, the books bouncing in my lap, Hal bouncing up against the small head space.
“Has Willy ever shown dislike for you?” he asked.
“Willy?”
The question startled me. “Why should he?”
“Because you are everything he’s not. I used to feel that way about Maurey,” Hal replied. “My mother’s favorite, good to look at, a born charmer. He rarely studied and got A’s. Everyone adored him, he didn’t have to work at it. He’s a natural. Do you know what that means?”
The truck stopped dead, as if it was incapable of moving another foot. Hal jumped out and pulled me with him, racing up the steps of the porch. “Dad,” he called. “Dad, a telegram from Maurey. He’ll be home tomorrow.” Father and son escaped into the kitchen.
My one desire was to start reading one of my books in the fruit orchard, but my mother stopped me. “Daddy will be calling soon. He and Bubby want to speak to you.” This reminded me that I hadn’t written to Dr. Wolfson. I galloped up the steps quickly and pulled a postcard from my notebook.
Dear Dr. Scott Wolfson
There’s a big barn that sells books, I got C.
Dickens and C. Brontë. Both of their names
start with C. See? Love it here and you too. E.
I wished my handwriting was tiny and neat. Postcards were too small for me. I had forgotten to tell him how healthy I felt. I wrote his name and address at the hospital neatly and was debating writing him a second card when the door burst open. Hal lifted me under one arm and carried me down the stairs.
“It’s your dad. Lil is speaking to him on the phone in the library, but you can talk to him on the extension in the kitchen.” Extension. A foreign word to me. Hal lifted me onto a stool and handed me the receiver attached to the kitchen wall. Everyone in my family except Jack screamed when we spoke into the phone, but especially for long distance, I heard my mother, a few rooms away positively shouting. “So where is Farber going, where, where?”
“To the Catskills for the weekend. Mister Big Shot, he’s taking his wife for three days and I have to open and close Saturday and Sunday. God knows if a single customer will walk in, it’s hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. I have to do it and besides on Friday Dr. Wolfson is taking Manya to a kidney specialist.”
Dread flooded me. Bubby was a
shtarka
from Odessa. How was she capable of having a serious illness?
“Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe she needs less salt in her diet,” Jack tried to convince himself and Lil. “So I won’t be coming this weekend. Geoff is driving up. The following week I’m bringing Manya with me. Geoff said it would be fine.”
“Where’s Bubby?” I shouted.
“Mine shayna kind,” she crooned, and I tried not to cry but I did. “Vayn nisht. I’m coming soon. You’ll tell me everything.” I heard her smack her lips to send me a kiss.
“We miss and love you!” I yelled. Jack hung up.
My mother put my hand to her heart when we met in the lobby. It raced like a horse at Belmont Park. “Let’s go upstairs and rest.” Willy had not spoken into the phone, nor did he expect to. He enjoyed staying in the room during the afternoon.
We were resting there when Hal knocked and poked his head in. “I forgot to mention that Monday is movie night. Want to go?”
“Of course,” Lil trilled.
“Dinner is a half hour earlier because I’m treating everyone to a soda before the movie. And you,” he laughed pointing to me, “get to ride in the rumble seat. Have you finished reading a hundred pages by now?”
We could hear his laughter as he bounced downstairs.
In my notebook I started a list of new words I learned since coming to Connecticut. Some I spelled perfectly, others I wrote as they sounded: med school, bah eggzam, eggstenshun phone, Ford rummel seat, black and white: chocolate soda with vanella ice cream.
The last two I added when we returned from the movies. Lil loved Kay Francis, her hair parted in the middle, her height, her glamorous clothes. But she hated the end of the picture. Instead of choosing her stage producer who lived in a penthouse and wanted to take her around the world, Kay Francis renounced her career as an actress and returned to her secret husband, in jail for holding up a store when they were poor.
Still absorbed in the movie, Lil was startled when Aunt Bea turned on her once we entered our rooms.
She stood in our doorway, legs wide apart, and glowered at us. “The end of the movie was true to life,” she announced in her no-nonsense manner. “A woman is married, she stays married. That’s the way it should be.”
Lil shrugged her shoulders. “I would pick the producer. He had everything. Money, a British accent, beautiful clothes. He would give her anything she wanted.”
“Do you mean that you would leave Jack for a man like the producer in the movie?”
Lil replied, “My Jack
is
the producer.”
The answer infuriated Aunt Bea. I saw her face swell with rage.
“What are you talking about? Jack plays the horses. He spends his money on good times. You’ll stay on Orchard Street forever.”
“What are you talking about? Always the same thing, Orchard Street, Orchard Street. Jack has the best taste. He’s six feet tall, taller than any of my brothers. And he’s so smart. Tell me one person you know that’s smarter.” There was a brief pause when Lil ran out of words. “And anyway, why are you so excited about a silly movie?”
“Because I don’t want my Alice to be treated like an orphan.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Why didn’t Hal buy Alice a book today?”
“Buy Alice a book?” Lil choked on her laughter. “I know Alice since she was born and not once did I see her with a book. Besides, you would have to be crazy to want a daughter who reads and maybe needs glasses, and doesn’t go in the street because she is reading.”
“Alice likes to look at the pictures. And that’s not the point, it’s the principle of the thing.” Bea stormed into her room, shooting arrows at us with her eyes.
It didn’t help matters the next morning when Estelle Solomon-Sullivan came over and sat with us at breakfast. “I feel so blue since Phil left yesterday,” she confided. “I really wanted to pack up and go home with him, but it’s not much longer to Labor Day and I should stay with my son. Once school starts Gabe is either in classes or at the hospital and when he comes home he sleeps and sleeps. So I decided to be here with him.” She attempted a smile. “He’s off with Hal to New London to pick up the new truck and tomorrow everything will be crazy getting the farm ready for Maurey.”
She placed her hand on Lil’s arm. “Lil, I hope we see each other in New York. I take the train there two or three times a year. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have lunch together?”
It was more than Aunt Bea could endure. Like a frog, her face puffed up to the point of bursting. My mother and I exchanged uneasy grimaces. Suppose Aunt Bea blurted out, “Be sure to call them on Orchard Street and not in Yonkers.”
Orchard Street! Why had it become such a problem? In Atlantic City or Long Branch when other vacationers asked where we lived, we answered, “New York City,” or Jack diverted them with an anecdote. No one cared that much about us to ask detailed questions. Here in Connecticut, though, we established immediate friendships. Hal had only to sweep his hair from his eyes and call me “funny duck” for my heart to quicken. Gabe asked, “How’s my sweetie?” and I blushed. As for Estelle, I could tell her my deepest secrets and not be afraid. Yet I couldn’t confess to her that we came from Orchard Street. The entire family, with our uncle reminding us not to show our origins, had created a Yonkers identity for us. We had no power to destroy it and I was on edge lest Aunt Bea in a fit of rage reveal our secret.
But her anger soon evaporated. The mail arrived early and a letter from her husband pleased her. She called, “Lil, can I see you for a minute?” Lil went to her on the porch. I followed.
“Geoff is coming for the weekend and he’d like Lenny and Alice to sleep in your room Friday and Saturday. He wants us to have privacy. You won’t mind, will you?”
“Of course not, it’s no trouble. The girls and I will sleep in the big bed and the boys on the cots.”
Because of Aunt Bea’s abrupt change in mood, I couldn’t withhold the words that flew out of my mouth. “Did he have a fight with his steady girlfriend?” I asked Lil. “Is that why he wants his children in our room?”
My mother’s outburst was swift and went for my jugular. “What are you, an old lady, maybe fifty years old? What did I do to deserve this?”
I backed off, shivered slightly, then left on a run, carrying my notebook and
Jane Eyre,
sprinting past the vegetable garden and cornfields to the fruit trees. Once I started to read I forgot everything except the story—the orphaned child, the mean auntie, the dreadful boarding school. Nor was I aware of hunger, thirst, or of the time of day. The grass rustled; I didn’t lift my head.
“Hey, you funny duck. I thought I’d find you here. You skipped lunch. We called and called. You didn’t hear us.”
It took me a minute to shift from Jane Eyre’s sad, bitter, lonely existence to the beauty of Hal’s suntanned face, to his muscular legs in his shorts, to the floppy hair that I ached to touch. Emerging from the book was like coming out of an intense, complicated dream into daylight.