In the Unlikely Event

  “I suppose you think I should get a Nash,” Henry said. “One with a seat that turns into a bed.”

  At which point Rusty threw her shoe at Henry. But Henry ducked and laughed.

  “I will never get into another Nash as long as I live,” Rusty said. “And neither will my daughter.”

  Miri kissed Rusty goodnight, something she didn’t automatically do these days. Rusty gave her such an appreciative look she vowed to be kinder to her mother.

  On her way out of Rusty’s room, Miri spied part of a white box tied with a red ribbon, sticking out from under Rusty’s bed. Could it be a gift from Longy? That would be disgusting! Or from Natalie’s cousin Tewky? Even worse. Or wait, maybe it was for her. Rusty might have bought her something for Valentine’s Day. Maybe pajamas with hearts, or a set of day-of-the-week underpants. She knew she was way too old for day-of-the-week underpants but she’d always wanted them. Natalie said when she was young she’d never worn hers on the right days. Too much trouble. But Fern was obsessive about getting the days of the week right.

  —

  ON VALENTINE’S DAY the Other Naomi came home from the office with Rusty to join the family for dinner. Miri thought of the Other Naomi as “Miss Rheingold” because she’d been a finalist in the national contest. She lived in a studio apartment in Greenwich Village, a fourth-floor walk-up opening into a tiny kitchenette. Miri and Rusty once spent the night when Miss Rheingold got them tickets to see a production of Peter Pan. Miss Rheingold knew the guy who wrote the music and lyrics, Lenny Bernstein. She showed Miri his photo. He was sitting at a piano. Good-looking, isn’t he? Miss Rheingold had asked Miri. The photo was signed To Naomi, Best wishes, Lenny. Now Miss Rheingold was thirty-one and single. Miri didn’t know about Lenny. But she knew Miss Rheingold’s fiancé had been killed in the war and she swore she’d never fall in love again, though she wouldn’t mind marrying somebody rich. Miri didn’t understand why Rusty enjoyed spending time with Miss Rheingold, except they were close to the same age and single. All of Rusty’s old friends from Battin High were married and didn’t include her when they threw parties or went out with their husbands on Saturday nights. She was a double threat—too good-looking, and with a reputation for being loose, which she wasn’t. As far as Miri knew she’d never had another boyfriend—not since Mike Monsky got her in trouble. Once a month Rusty spent the night at Miss Rheingold’s apartment and always brought the Playbill and theater ticket stub home to Miri.

  Rusty could have entered beauty contests when she was younger and she’d probably have won first prize. She could have been Miss Rheingold for real, not some runner-up, except you weren’t allowed to enter unless you were single and certainly not if you were a mother. Well, too bad. Miri never liked the way Miss Rheingold talked to her, using the same tone she used to talk to her cat, as if she were the cat’s mother. Miri found that people without children either did that or they acted like you were the same age as them, which at this point, would have been better.

  —

  LEAH AND UNCLE HENRY WERE already there, making small talk with Rusty and Miss Rheingold, when Ben Sapphire came in carrying a box from Nia’s Lingerie tied with a fancy red bow.

  “For me?” Irene asked when Ben presented it to her. “Should I open it in public?”

  “Why not?” Ben said.

  Rusty and Henry exchanged looks. Leah looked down at the box of twenty-four valentines on her lap, one from each child in her class. Miri couldn’t imagine why she’d thought the family would want to see them.

  Irene raised her eyebrows and smiled at Ben without opening her lips. She untied the red ribbon and handed it to Miri, reminding her to roll it up and save it in the ribbon box. Then she took the top off the box, and peeked into the layers of tissue paper, finally pulling out a silky white robe covered with red poppies. She held it up for the family to see. “Is this beautiful or what?”

  Ben Sapphire beamed.

  “What a thoughtful gift,” Irene told him. “How did you know I needed a new robe?”

  “Who doesn’t need a new robe?” Ben asked.

  “Try it on, Nana,” Miri said.

  “Now? Over my clothes?”

  “Yes,” Miri said.

  “Well…if you insist.” Irene pulled on the robe, which fit perfectly. She tied it around her waist, and paraded around the room like a model at a fashion show. “Ta dah!” she sang, stopping to give Ben a peck on the cheek. “Thank you, dear friend.”

  “It’s the least I can do,” Ben told her.

  Again, Miri caught the looks between Rusty and Henry.

  “I saw a box just like that, with the same red ribbon, in Mom’s room,” Miri said. She didn’t know why she said it. She was just filling up what felt like an awkward moment. She didn’t want any awkward moments tonight. She wanted it to be perfect for Mason, though he hadn’t yet arrived.

  “No, you saw that box,” Rusty said. “I hid it in my room so Nana wouldn’t see it.”

  “Or are you suggesting Rusty has a secret admirer?” Miss Rheingold asked Miri.

  “No,” Miri said. “I mean, how would I know?”

  Rusty laughed. “You think there could be any secrets in this house?”

  “She should only be so lucky,” Irene said. “Who wouldn’t want a secret admirer?”

  “How about one who’s not so secret?” Ben Sapphire asked.

  “Better yet,” Irene told him.

  When the doorbell rang, Miri jumped up. “I’ll get it.”

  She opened the door to find Mason holding a single red rose and a box of Barricini chocolates. She would not tell him that Leah had brought boxes of candy, gifts from the mothers of her students, or that Miss Rheingold had brought a box of chocolate-covered cherries, all stashed in the pantry. He handed her the rose. “Happy Valentine’s Day.” He checked to make sure the coast was clear before he kissed her.

  Fred was inside his jacket. “I had no place to leave him.”

  “He can stay in my room.” Mason handed the dog to Miri and she ran up the stairs with him while Mason waited.

  When she came down again she led Mason into Irene’s living room. “Mason brought me a red rose for Valentine’s Day.” She made a big thing out of running water into a bud vase, trimming the stem and placing it just so.

  “And these are for you.” He handed Irene the box of chocolates.

  “For me?” Irene said for the second time that night. Miri could tell she was pleased.

  Miri introduced him to Miss Rheingold. “This is my friend Mason. This is Mom’s friend Naomi.”

  “Miss Corsini,” Rusty corrected her.

  “Please, call me Naomi,” Miss Rheingold told him. She held out her hand with her bright red nails and Mason shook it. “Pleased to meet you, Mason.”

  “Same here,” he said.

  “So, this is the boyfriend?” Miss Rheingold asked Rusty in a whisper loud enough for everyone to hear.

  Miri shot Rusty a look. What business was it of Miss Rheingold’s?

  “They’re just friends,” Rusty told Miss Rheingold.

  But it was clear to Miri that Rusty had told her more.

  “Friends are good,” Miss Rheingold said.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Ben Sapphire said. “Friends make all the difference.”

  Miri stole a quick look at Mason, who was looking at the floor.

  For a minute Miri’s thoughts went to Natalie. But she didn’t want to think about Natalie tonight or where or how she might be. She was glad when Irene called them to the table, where Henry proposed a toast to Mason, calling him a “true hero.”

  “I’m proud to have a hero at my table,” Irene said.

  “I’m not a hero,” Mason argued. “I didn’t even stop to think. I just did it.”

  “You saved the stewardess’s life,” Henry told him. “She’ll never forget you. And neither will the others.”

  Mason’s leg was jiggling under the table. Miri could feel it. He didn’t want to be the center
of attention.

  “What do you call this?” he asked, holding up a spoonful of soup.

  “It’s soup,” Miri whispered.

  “Yeah, but what kind?”

  “Potato leek,” Irene said. “Do you like it?”

  “Yeah, a lot.”

  Later, in the middle of the brisket, kasha, and peas, Mason said, “You know, I’m almost sure one of my grandfathers was half-Jewish.”

  Irene put down her fork and looked over at him. The others waited.

  “My mother’s father. I never knew him and it was kind of a secret but when my father got mad at my mother he’d call her a—” Miri kicked him under the table and Mason dropped it. Was it true, or did he think he had to fib to get the family to accept him?

  “I’d like to marry a Jewish man,” Miss Rheingold announced. “Everyone says they make the best husbands. How about it, Henry? You know someone for me?”

  “My girlfriends have first dibs on Henry’s friends,” Leah said in a serious voice.

  Miss Rheingold smiled her beauty-pageant smile and said, “Of course they do. I was just joking. You never know where you’ll meet Prince Charming.”

  “Well,” Henry said, “how about seconds, Mason? You won’t get a brisket like my mother’s anyplace else in the world.”

  “I already know,” Mason said, holding out his plate. “Sure, I’ll have seconds.”

  Irene was pleased he liked her food. When she brought out a chocolate cake for dessert, frosted with white buttercream and decorated with red hearts, Mason licked his chops. “Boy-oh-boy, I can’t believe you baked that!”

  Miri couldn’t decide if he was stuffing himself to impress her family or if he was really that hungry.

  Later, they gathered around the television set that Uncle Henry recently brought home to Irene. He’d moved the old set, with rabbit ears, upstairs to Rusty’s living room.

  “That’s some television set,” Ben Sapphire said, when he saw the twenty-inch Motorola. Henry tuned in to You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx. If they stayed late enough they’d get to see Dragnet, the new police show. Just the facts, ma’am.

  “Did you know, Naomi,” Ben Sapphire said to Miss Rheingold, “Henry is making quite a name for himself. He’s getting offers from big papers around the country. And newsmagazines, too.”

  “I had no idea, Henry,” Miss Rheingold said. “You must be an ace reporter.”

  “He is,” Leah said proudly. “His paper just gave him a big bonus. They don’t want to lose him.”

  Everyone looked over at Henry. Ben Sapphire held up his glass of brandy and proposed a toast. “To our Ace. You’re going places, Henry.”

  “Are you thinking of moving to another paper?” Miss Rheingold asked.

  “I’m considering my options but I can’t help feeling a twinge of guilt at finding success at the expense of tragedy.”

  “Come on, Henry,” Ben Sapphire said, “that’s what reporting is all about. You make a name for yourself reporting wars, bad politics, tragedy. Not the social section.”

  Miri didn’t want to think about tragedy tonight. But it always came back to that, didn’t it?

  Steve

  He’d swiped a photo of Kathy from her house when he’d been there for shiva. Just a little photo. Probably no one would notice it was gone. He bought a Valentine’s Day card for her and signed it, Love Steve. Then he scrawled, Hope it’s nice wherever you are, at the bottom. Maybe he was going cuckoo like his sister. But he didn’t really believe that. He was just pissed off. He took the story he’d torn from the newspaper out of his desk drawer, the story about how Kathy was going home to see a boy she’d met over the holidays. A boy she really liked. He folded it and slipped it inside the Valentine’s Day card. He laid her photo on his pillow and kissed it. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Kathy.” Then he went downstairs to the finished basement and grabbed a bottle of Scotch from the bar. Scotch, his father’s drink of choice—he liked it on the rocks. His mother was more of a whiskeysour drinker. One was more than enough for her. Back in his room he took a swig straight from the bottle. Jeez, the stuff was awful. It burned his throat. Here’s to us, Kathy, he said. This time he poured himself a shot and gulped it down. It got easier. By his sixth shot he was blotto. He lay on the floor while his room spun around. Whirly-beds. It didn’t feel good. He crept on all fours to the bathroom—spinning spinning—and puked his guts out. Then he fell back on the cool tile floor and everything went black.

  Elizabeth Daily Post

  SURVIVORS

  They Live to Tell Their Stories

  By Henry Ammerman

  FEB. 15—The bus driver’s classic call to “step to the rear” might be heeded by airline passengers. Most of the survivors of the National Airlines DC-6 crash on Feb. 11 had been seated in the rear of the aircraft. When the plane broke apart in the crash it left the rear section less damaged and more accessible to rescuers.

  Gabrielle Wenders, the stewardess, was the only surviving member of the crew. She had been found hanging upside down, still strapped in her seat. “I don’t know how I ever got out alive. It was a fiery nightmare. We were all so helpless. If it hadn’t been for that young man, Mason McKittrick—a name I’ll always remember—I might have died that way.”

  Chubby little Patty Clausen, age 5, was unharmed, but her mother perished. With her father hospitalized, hospital authorities put out a plea. “Can’t someone take this most adorable child home? She keeps asking for her ‘bow wow.’ ” The dog had been left in a kennel while the family went on vacation. Her uncle picked her up last night, but said he would wait before telling her of her mother’s death.

  Hospitalized newlywed Linda West, 25, was unaware of the status of William, her husband. They were married at noon on Feb. 10, and pulled from the wreckage 12 hours later. “When can I see my husband?” She begged her mother to bring him to her bedside. Her mother didn’t know how to break the news to her daughter that Mr. West had died of a fractured skull and brain injuries the previous night.

  In much better spirits was 17-year-old Cele Bell, who was anxious to get on another flight. “I want to go on vacation to Miami! I’d go tomorrow if I could,” she told reporters. She had been traveling with her mother, who was pinned under her seat after the crash. But Cele was able to pull her to safety. They had been in the last two seats on the right side of the plane.

  Of the 38 who survived the initial crash, two have died in the hospital. Some remain in critical condition, but the prognosis for most is good.

  24

  Natalie

  Natalie’s parents took her to New York, to the Central Park West office of some old man who smelled bad. Her mother assured her he was a famous psychoanalyst from Vienna, that he knew Anna Freud, daughter of the great man. Anna lectured frequently in the United States and Dr. Boltzmann might be able to arrange for Anna to see Natalie. Today’s appointment with Dr. Boltzmann was a consultation, not a session, not that Natalie knew the difference.

  The walls were paneled in dark wood, the floor covered with overlapping Oriental rugs. A faded red brocade sofa strewn with needlepoint pillows stood in the middle of the room, a crocheted afghan folded at one end. There was a big leather chair and two smaller chairs. Dr. Boltzmann sat in one of the smaller chairs, a cushion behind his back. She didn’t like this. Didn’t like that her parents were in the waiting room, not with her. Maybe the famous doctor had already seen them. Either way, she wasn’t going to tell him anything. Half the time she couldn’t even understand what he was saying, his accent was so thick. It reminded her of when they used to play Dracula. They’d run around the playground shrieking, I vant to bite your neck! She knew enough not to lie down on that faded sofa. She would never lie down on it, even if her parents brought her here every week. Instead she slumped in the big chair, feeling small, feeling like her old Raggedy Ann doll, which she still kept in her closet.

  The famous doctor cleared his throat. It sounded like he had phlegm. Robo’s father had phlegm. When
he drove he often rolled down the window and spit it out. Natalie hated when he did that. She had to look away to stop herself from gagging. She thought she might gag here, in this dark, faded room.

  “You can talk,” the famous doctor said. “No one can hear you.”

  You can hear me, she thought. But she didn’t say it aloud. Instead she said, “I don’t want to talk.”

  “Ah…you don’t want to talk and you don’t want to eat.”

  “I want to eat but I can’t. I have a disease.”

  “Not a disease. A condition.”

  “Did my parents tell you that?”

  He shrugged. “We both want to help you get well. The parents and the doctor. Do you want to get well?”

  That was a stupid question, a trick question, and she wasn’t going to answer it.

  “What would you like to talk about?” he asked.

  “My hair. It’s falling out.”

  “Do you pull it out?”

  “No. Why would I do that?”

  “Just now,” he said, “you pulled out a clump.”

  She looked down and saw a golden-blond clump in her hand. How did it get there? She didn’t remember pulling it out. She needed to ask Ruby about this. Ruby would tell her what to do. But lately, she felt Ruby had other things, other people on her mind. Natalie wanted to cry, roll herself into a ball and let the tears come. But she was not going to cry in front of this old man, in this old room, which smelled as musty as he did.

  She wished she could twirl. Twirl and twirl until she was so dizzy she’d collapse on the floor. She’d like to slap her taps on the wood floor under the rugs, making more noise than this old doctor had ever heard. She couldn’t believe her parents had brought her here. He was like a relic from the olden days. Something right out of a movie.

  “Why are you here?” he asked. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t have to think—I know the answer. I’m here because my parents brought me.”

  “Why do you think they brought you?”

  “To see you, obviously.”