Up From Orchard Street (26 page)

“Come see the new truck,” he said. “It’s like a piece of sculpture, a Ford and a beauty. Shiny black. You’ll love it.”

We came from a family that had little connection to cars. Uncle Geoff owned one and of course so did Uncle Goodman, and John, the handyman for Uncle Goodman, drove a truck, but I couldn’t tell its name or year. When my father remarked on the subway or in the street that “it’s a Ford,” he meant that a woman wore a coat or dress that had been copied from an original and reproduced so often that you saw the same style on dozens of women. To me a Ford meant a garment, not a car.

By now, everyone at the hotel had gathered to survey the new truck, parked in front of the barn. Estelle climbed up, put the key into the ignition and maneuvered the wheel. “It handles beautifully. Better than my own Buick.”

Estelle was the first woman we knew who drove a car. Aunt Bertha hadn’t bothered to learn.

With his father in the passenger seat, Hal maneuvered the new truck into the garage. We watched as Hank leaned over, hugged his son and kissed him on the lips before tousling his hair. I had to turn aside. That gesture of love came from my fantasy.

On Tuesday after dinner, guests played bingo. Children were allowed to play but I sat next to Lil and helped her. She had forgotten her outburst at me—one of the best characteristics of our family was not to stay mad for more than the batting of an eye. Lil wanted desperately to win—not a good card player, she found bingo to be her style. But in the first round Aunt Bea won.

Her prize consisted of five picture postcards with Colchester in script printed across four of the views: the village square, the lake at sunset, cornfields under a blazing sun and the fruit trees. Aunt Bea, ecstatic with her prize, didn’t offer us a single card. No doubt the postcards made up for the imagined slight to Alice at the Book Barn.

During the games and in honor of Maurey’s arrival the med students soaked the front lawn with hoses, washed the chairs and hosed the entire veranda. Margie began her sweaty task of oiling the floor of the lobby, the banisters and the steep steps.

None of us could sleep late the next morning. Several youths with rusty lawn mowers shaved the grass, up one lane, down the next. Two women from the village scoured the kitchen while the med students Bon Amied the French doors and windows in a spirit of high fun and low humor. The laundry room was off-limits—Mr. Pankin didn’t want drying laundry fluttering like flags when Maurey walked by.

Cousin Alice waved one of the postcards her mother had won at bingo the night before, fluttering it like a fan. Much as I wanted one of those cards to send to Bubby, I suggested, “Why don’t you write that card to your father?” She stared at me blankly. “With words on it,” I explained. “Like ‘Dear Dad, How are you?’ ” Alice communicated with her mother by cupping her hand to Aunt Bea’s ear and whispering. Aunt Bea rummaged through her purse for a discarded envelope. “Practice on this first,” she instructed.

Watching Alice write was like seeing some aged horse pulling a wagon too heavy for its creaky bones: you expected it to drop to the sidewalk foaming at the mouth. She covered most of the writing space on the card with the salutation and half of the first line. The pencil fell from her sweaty fingers, and the exertion reddened her face and throat.

Alice burst into tears. “There’s no room,” she cried.

She ran to her mother, sobbing, just as a yellow taxi drew up to the hotel. Its occupant leaped out. “I’m home!” he called. “It’s Maurey!”

Hal and his father burst onto the porch. Maurey embraced both men for an instant before kissing his father on the lips, on both cheeks, on the lips again. Then he reached for his brother and did the same, lips, both cheeks, close body hugs. “It’s so great to be back, to be home!”

Maurey, very tall, very slim, wore his streaked blond hair long, curling at his shoulders. When the
New York Daily Mirror
ran the novel
Ivanhoe,
by Sir Walter Scott, as a comic strip, Willy cut it out every day and pasted it in one of his ledgers until he had the complete story. That’s what came to my mind at first sight of the youngest Pankin, with his pageboy hair and strong, suntanned arms.

Jack kissed Manya daily, sometimes on the cheek, often on the mouth, particularly when he needed a lucky omen as he left to bet a horse at Rocco’s. The kisses Maurey bestowed on his father and brother were different, grown-up, stemming from joy at his homecoming. Neither Lil nor I had ever witnessed an outpouring of affection mingled with happiness like this. “Sunny, darling Sunny,” Hank Pankin murmured. Later he explained, “The name is not S-O-N-N-Y but Sunny, for the sun he brings to us.”

At that moment, Estelle came out of the cottage and she and Maurey locked eyes. He did not dash down the steps—he placed one hand on the railing of the porch, vaulted clear of the house and ran to Estelle.

He was wearing tan pants and a blue button-down shirt, with a striped tie in red, gray and blue stripes. He didn’t run, he flew, and he picked up Estelle in the yellow-orange sundress and whirled her around, crying, “My dearest heart, my darling love.” He spun her at a dizzying rate, doing some crazy step, covering the lawn with his feverish antics. Their clothes melted together like multicolored Popsicles, with blue yellow orange red swirling together.

“Maurey,” Estelle cried out, “I’m going to faint.” His long blond hair fanned out. “Great it was this dawn to be alive,” he shouted, “but to faint with Maurey is heaven.” He fell to the ground, Estelle with him. Breathless.

Estelle rested; Maurey jumped up. “I have a present from Paris, from Chanel, just for you.” Dr. Koronovsky’s comb to Bubby came from Cartier’s. To us Chanel created suits and perfume. We were now to learn differently.

Leaping to his suitcase, Maurey tumbled his clothes until he found a flat box wrapped in white, silky paper bordered in black. It had a red double intertwined
C
in the middle, for Coco Chanel. “Wait until you see what I have for you,” he cried as he ripped the paper from the box. He tossed the box aside, and held aloft a long scarf in a dark brown and dark orange abstract design banded by gold thread. In the center was the double
C
in glittering satin.

Maurey placed the scarf over Estelle’s red hair, then around her slim shoulders. “How do you like it, dearest dearest heart?”

“Maurey,” she replied, “you’re incorrigible.”

The scarf didn’t ignite desire in me; the wrapping paper did. I needed that paper more than any gift from Paris, more than the maroon box with Bubby’s comb from Cartier’s. It was a strange obsession, this need for paper to write on other than wrinkled paper bags, my desire for notebooks without bits of wood pulp to mar the smoothness of the writing. I longed for picture postcards, sheets of Uncle Goodman’s company stationery, the clear side of engraved invitations from weddings.

Pretending to tidy the lawn, I crept along the grass and began to harvest the wrapping paper. Maurey smiled at me. His eyes were azure blue—I recognized the color because Jack had taught me the names of every shade of blue. Since I was my parents’ daughter I tried to think of a movie star whom he resembled, but he was an original. “You’re a dear girl,” he called out to me—not a funny duck, not a sweetie pie, but a dear girl—as I smoothed the wrapping paper with my hands and with shaky legs walked to the porch.

I didn’t want to appear obvious, to rush up the stairs with my treasure. Before I could sidle up to my room, Maurey finished his shower in Estelle’s cottage and emerged with a towel wound around his waist, his long wet hair dripping in rivulets across his suntanned back. From the instant Maurey appeared, Lil’s eyes followed him. Without the slightest bit of self-consciousness, he crossed to the barn and started to climb the ladder to the med students’ dorm. “Dad,” he called out, “any chance for Belinda to cook some fried chicken for tonight? And I’ll nap in the loft instead of the cottage.”

“Of course, Sunny, of course. I’ll pick her up in the truck.”

Maurey stepped through the door of the loft. “Where’s Gabe?” he called, sticking out his wet blond head. “I forgot to kiss him.”

As Estelle crossed the lawn, she waved to Lil and said, “Maurey, he’s the freest person in the world.”

Slowly I ascended the steps, heaved a sigh at being safe in our room and turned the white jagged pieces of Chanel paper over and over as if they could radiate sparks like diamonds. Then, carefully, I put them in my suitcase. I kept those scraps for many years, until they began to disintegrate.

15

A Fearful Week

FROM MY UPSTAIRS window at the farm, I watched the grass and leaves, the bushes and the top of the barn blacken under the beating rain. A streak of lightning scratched the sky; the thunder shook the house and subsided. Lil was writing to Ada in her large, childlike handwriting. Willy had dozed off and my mother whispered, as she handed me the note, “This is what I have so far.”

“Dear Ada, this is not such a hick place. The waiters are young doctors. The food is terrible accept for sat. nite. Not much to do. Having a good rest.”

“What else?” she asked me. “Anything else? Shall I tell her Bubby and Jack are coming next week?”

“No, suppose she wants to come along?”

“To a farm?”

“For the young doctors.”

Lil studied her nails. Anxious to give herself a manicure, she had heeded Dr. Scott Wolfson’s warning that nail polish remover could start an asthma attack in Willy and had colored her nails outside, on the porch. “Should I cross out the sentence about the doctors?” she asked.

“You have to recopy the letter. Ada will figure out that the crossed-out sentence was important. Just end it with ‘See you soon.’ ”

Lil wrinkled her brow. “If she reads about the doctors, she’ll be jealous. Men are the only thing she cares about.”

This did not come as news to me. When Jack and Lil quarreled over some nonsense, he always called Ada a “who-a.”

My mother busied herself copying the letter, to which she received no reply.

Fried chicken, prepared at Maurey’s request, was our pleasure in the evening, but none of the waiters appeared. Mr. Pankin and Margie waited on tables. The rain stopped. My mother urged me to walk with her. The roads were soft rather than muddy. She linked her arm in mine.

“Let’s play ‘Favorites,’ ” she said.

We sauntered past the dilapidated house with its neglected blond children and realized the grounds were deserted. The front door banged open and shut in the evening breeze. The fence more gap-toothed than ever and the tall dry wheat-colored stalks had taken some battering in the recent storm. Not a child was in sight.

“Maybe for once they went on a pitnic,” Lil said. She used the New York pronunciation that put a
t
instead of a
c
in the middle.

“Maybe their father is visiting and the whole family is in Middletown.”

“Maybe they moved. Got tired of this dump and moved.” Lil stepped carefully over a soft, waterlogged rut in the road. “So are we playing ‘Favorites’ or not?”

“Favorites” was a simple child’s game where you had to name your favorite color, first name or movie star. One player was the caller, who yelled out one two three four five six seven; you had only seven seconds to answer or else you were “out.” No color or name could be repeated, and when it came to rivers or states or names of presidents we usually collapsed. But we were quick to respond to movie stars, popular songs or movies.

Lil did not have our ordinary categories in mind. “Favorite person,” she suggested. “Who’s Bubby’s favorite?”

“Daddy,” I answered cautiously. “Jack, her son, is Bubby’s favorite.”

“Photo finish,” Lil replied gaily. “Who else is her favorite?”

“Me and Willy.”

“No, just you. Daddy and you.”

She bubbled with excitement. I could see the pulse in her wrist beat against her thin skin.

“Aunt Bea.”

Without hesitation, “Cousin Alice.”

“More than Geoffy? You should have seen them when they were going steady. Bea lost ten pounds just from hugging and kissing. She couldn’t rest. She couldn’t eat. I say it’s Geoffy.”

“Does that mean I’m out?”

“A few more, a few more.” She wore last year’s blue sailor pants and a blue-and-white knitted top, and could have passed for my older sister. “Mr. Pankin’s favorite?”

“Hal.”

“Not even a photo finish with Maurey?”

“Maurey and Hal.”

My mother blushed. I thought she would progress to Estelle Solomon, or on more familiar ground, Aunt Bertha or one of her older brothers. But the game was over when she asked, “Who’s your favorite, Hal or Maurey?”

“I don’t know about Maurey. He just came here this afternoon.”

“Don’t be such an old lady. Pick one.”

“Hal. He brought me two books, he found me when I was reading and missed lunch . . .”

“But he calls you ‘funny duck’ and Maurey calls you ‘dear girl.’ ‘Dear girl’ is much nicer than ‘funny duck.’ ”

“You’re right,” I said. I kept my eyes straight ahead. As we approached the main house we heard laughter and shouting from the dorm over the barn.

“I wonder why they laugh so much?”

“Maybe Maurey is telling stories about France.”

“Maybe he’s telling about the girls he had there.”

The sky changed and a light mist enveloped us. On the porch the two overweight women friends were playing mahjong. I went upstairs and Lil followed, taking one step at a time. Aunt Bea’s door was open. Willy and Lenny were shuffling cards while Aunt Bea filled a sheet of paper with tasks to be done before her husband paid his visit on Friday.

“I found out that there’s a good beauty parlor in the village,” she said to Lil without preliminaries. “I’m having my hair done Friday morning, shampoo and set. Want an appointment?”

“I’ll wait until next week when Jack and Manya are here.”

“You went for a walk?”

“You know that family with those children running around? No one was there. Not a soul.”

“Didn’t you hear? She’s in the hospital to have another baby and the social service from Middletown came and took all the children away.”

“To a home, to an orphanage?” Lil expressed the New Yorker’s fear of social workers, of charitable agencies, of meddling do-gooders.

“You’ll have to ask Mr. Pankin. He’s on the board of some charity organization. The children ran around like wild Indians. They want the mother to get fixed so she can’t have more and to put the new baby up for adoption.”

“That’s terrible,” Lil protested. “Look how many in my family, no one took the children away. We were poor but honest.”

“Those were different times, and besides, Rae was very strict and you cleaned and scrubbed and hung clothes on the roof. Not for Jack and Manya, you’d still be there, slaving away.”

Lil grew pensive. “I think I’m one of the luckiest women in the world. I love Manya with my deepest heart. And of course Jack.”

Nevertheless, Lil hastened to my bed, kneeled on it and stared out of the misted window at the dorm that housed the young men. “Do you think we’ll see any of the waiters tonight?”

I didn’t answer, and I didn’t want to think about what my mother meant when she asked the last question.

Maurey showed up late for breakfast, wearing shorts with deep pockets front and back held down with large silver snaps. He introduced himself to everyone, bending down to kiss a hand here and a cheek there. The male guests found him as captivating as the women, asking him about France, inviting him for cards, treating him with easy camaraderie.

We noticed his long, straight, well-developed legs with their fuzz of golden hair. “We have a date,” he told Lil. “Ten o’clock sharp. I have to hear the golden voice that everyone is talking about. I’ll sing with you, we’ll do duets.”

“I only do that with my husband,” she replied without irony.

“Then you’ll sing by yourself. You name it, I’ll play it.”

Promptly at ten, Maurey came looking for her. She had gone upstairs to shower and dab her precious Chanel No. 5 on her wrists. “Stay with me,” she whispered when she came down. With the most natural movement, Maurey led her to the piano. “What shall it be?”

“ ‘Margie,’ ” she replied without hesitation. She closed her eyes and belted it out, clear, fast, without artifice. “Margie, I’m always thinking of you, Margie . . . I have bought a home and ring and everything for Margie . . .”

He joined in, “After all is said and done, Margie you’re the only one. Oh Margie, Margie, it’s you.”

He had a young boyish voice, nothing special, but his piano playing was. His long fingers barely touched the keys. Unlike Hal, who tended to bang on the keyboard, Maurey called his playing “The Rubenstein touch.” He played some chords and crossed his hands to conclude.

“Does your voice come from your throat or your diaphragm?” he asked.

Lil blinked. The last word was unfamiliar. He placed his long elegant hand directly beneath her throat. I saw her jump, steady herself. “Does your voice come from here?”

“Oh, I couldn’t hold my breath for that long.”

He slid his three middle fingers to her chest. “From here?”

“I guess.”

“Lil, I’m going to make a torch singer out of you, better than Libby Holman, better than the other Lilian Roth. Do you know the song ‘I Still Get a Thrill Thinking of You’?” She shot me a hurried pleading glance. “Not every word,” I answered for her.

“Dear girl,” he asked, “are you the prompter?”

I nodded.

“Fine, then prompt away.” He faced Lil. “The key to being a torch singer is to sing slowly with a lot of vibrato, you know: sort of a gargle, in the lowest register. Like this.” He did a poor imitation of a cabaret singer, “I still get a thrill thinking of you.” He instructed, “Go very slowly, one word, one sound at a time, don’t rush. Sing, ‘I still get a thrill,’ then pause, rest, nod at the audience, then continue with, ‘thinking of you.’ The phrase ‘thinking of you’ has to mean something. You want everyone to believe that you’re thinking of
him
. The words to hit are ‘thrill’ with a gargle and ‘thinking of you’ as slow as you can.”

“Are you a music teacher?”

He pouted his lips before replying. “No, but in France, I had contact with lots of vocalists and I went with them to their lessons.” His blue eyes never left hers. He tossed his long blond mane. “Have you ever had voice lessons?”

She shook her head. “I used to sing with the bouncing ball in the movies. You know, during intermission, they would have sing-alongs and I would start the singing.”

“That’s fine, I was curious.” He laughed into her eyes. “Do you know what George Gershwin said to Ethel Merman? ‘Never take lessons, it will ruin your singing.’ ”

“Ethel Merman is Jack’s favorite.”

“But you’re a Libby Holman type.” He placed his hand over hers. “Courage,” he said in French. Lil understood what he meant. “Now let’s see if you can nail this song.”

Lil’s hand trembled, but she prepared to sing her heart out. As slowly as she could, and with her voice in the lowest register, she began, “I still,” pause, “get a thrill,” pause, “thinking of you.”

“That’s it, that’s it. Once more.”

She growled deeper, her voice trembled more than her hand.

“You know I still,” pause, “get a thrill,” pause, “thinking of you.”

He thanked her with a grandiose hug. She nearly toppled from the piano bench. “You’re going to be wonderful, wonderful,” he said and kissed her on both cheeks.

After the music lesson, Maurey sauntered outside where his father was waiting for him in the shiny truck. They drove off toward the lake. I stood on the porch, confused, gripped by a sudden unshakable anxiety. I grabbed
Jane Eyre
and headed for the fruit trees. Lunch held no allure. No matter how meaty and sweet the tomatoes, how fresh the vegetables from the garden, I had tired of them.

An hour might have passed, possibly two. I could hear the voices of Mr. Pankin and Maurey in the fields, and the wind carrying Maurey’s exclamations of “great” and “amazing.” He said the word
amazing
like two words, aye-mazing. His father’s reply faded along with his receding footsteps. Had Maurey gone with him? I listened intently, and could detect soft thuds spaced between the silences, like pears falling from the tree under which I sat.

I couldn’t stay there forever. My legs had grown stiff. Trying to be inconspicuous, I scurried with my head down, only to discover Maurey standing amid the corn, devouring one after the other, discarding the cobs by tossing them over his shoulder. He cast a shadow against the afternoon light. His blond hair lay against his bare shoulders, his shirt was jammed into his shorts. His blue eyes settled on me and he called out, “I was hoping it was you, dear girl. Come here, I’ll pick one for you that’s young and sweet.”

Nothing in my background prepared me for standing in a field eating uncooked corn from the husk. Maurey placed my book into his waistband, selected a small ear of corn for me, pulled away the silk and peeled it as if it were a banana. Then he handed me my prize.

“Sweet as sugar candy,” he cried. “Every day I spent in France, I dreamed of this cornfield, of standing here eating. Go ahead,” he winked, pleased at sharing this secret with me, “make a fool of yourself.”

I dug my teeth into the raw kernels. They were, in fact, better than candy. He watched me closely. “What did I tell you? Ecstasy. Right? I’ve had five or six of them. Allez!” he commanded.

It seemed impossible to deny him. We chomped in unison, he making humming sounds. He signaled to me that he was sated by pulling my book from his waistband. He entwined his fingers over mine and led me into the clearing. “I have a date with one of our guests, Si Ratoff. He thinks because I’m starting law school at Yale that I can help him with his legal problems. He’s a sweet old man.”