All this time Mason was standing next to her, listening. “Hey…” he said, giving a small wave to her friends.
“Where does he live?” Natalie asked, ignoring Mason.
Miri didn’t know where he lived or why it mattered.
“I live on Salem,” Mason said. Then he whispered to Miri, but loud enough for the others to hear, “They don’t trust me.”
“They don’t know you,” Miri told him.
Robo said, “As soon as we get home I’ll have my father call your mother so she doesn’t worry.”
“No, don’t do that,” Miri said. “I’ll call her myself.”
She borrowed a nickel from Mason and used the pay phone inside the Y.
Rusty answered on the second ring. “I’m walking home from the Y, okay?”
“I thought Robo’s father was picking you up.”
“He is, but I’d rather walk home.” She knew Rusty was waiting for more. “With a very nice boy,” she added. “You don’t have to worry.”
“Okay,” Rusty said, just like that, surprising Miri. “But don’t dawdle. If you’re not home in half an hour I’m calling the police.”
“Mom…it’s a long walk.”
“I know exactly how long it is.”
“Okay.”
“And not in my shoes.”
“I’ve already changed out of them.”
“Okay then.”
Miri was grateful for Rusty’s good mood.
She took off one of her mittens and stuffed it in her pocket so she could hold Mason’s bare hand as they walked home. His skin was rough, probably chapped from not wearing gloves in this weather. He had a strong grip. Some guys held your hand like it was a fish they wished they could throw back.
Mason spoke first. “That was Dr. Osner’s daughter, right?”
“Yes, Natalie.”
“My brother’s girlfriend works for Dr. Osner.”
“You know Christina?”
“She got me an emergency appointment one day when I had a toothache.”
“He’s my dentist, too,” Miri said, then wondered why they were talking about teeth when the moon was shining and the sky was full of stars. Maybe he was wondering the same thing because after that they stopped to kiss at every tree, her back pressed up against it, Mason leaning into her. When they came to the site of the crash, they stood silently, his arm hugging her shoulder.
“Where were you when…” he said.
“I saw it happen,” she told him. “I was coming home from the movies with my mother.”
“Jeez…”
“What about you?”
“I was at work…at the bowling alley on East Grand. We didn’t hear anything but we felt it. I thought it was an earthquake.”
“We don’t have earthquakes in New Jersey, do we?” Right away she regretted asking such a stupid question.
He shrugged. “There’s a first for everything.”
There’s a first for everything, she repeated silently, and he was a first for her.
When they got to her house he asked if her number was listed.
“Yes. N. Ammerman. That’s my mother. Or I can give it to you now.”
“I don’t have a pen.”
“I do.” She dug a leaky pen out of her bag and handed it to him. He stuck the top in his mouth, holding it between his teeth, the way he had with the cigarette. As she recited her number he wrote it down on his arm, just above his wrist. Miri had never seen anyone do that, would never have thought of doing it herself.
He kissed her goodnight, touching her face. “Miri Ammerman,” he whispered.
For the first time her name sounded musical. It sounded like a love song. What did it mean that he said her name that way? What did it mean that he touched her face? Did it mean he was in love with her the way she was with him?
Mason
Phil was the one who told him if he wanted to see her again to go to the dance at the Jewish Y, that she’d probably be there. It didn’t cost anything to get in, he said. And you didn’t have to be Jewish. Nobody asked. Nobody cared. He said he and Steve wouldn’t be there. They’d been invited to a party given by Phil’s cousin Kathy Stein, in Perth Amboy. Kathy was a freshman at Syracuse, and aside from the two of them, everyone at the party would be older, would already be at college. It wasn’t necessary for Phil to make excuses about why Mason wasn’t invited. But Phil was a decent guy.
There was a holiday dance at the YMCA that night, too, and Mason planned on going until Phil told him about the girl from the Osners’ party. Miri. That was her name. And as long as Steve wouldn’t be there to get all hot under the collar about him dancing with his sister’s friend, why not go?
At the YMCA he’d have known all the girls, most of them, anyway. And they’d know him, dance with him, laugh with him, but none of them would feel the way Miri had in his arms. He couldn’t explain it. He half hoped she wouldn’t be there tonight. Because he sensed he was just looking for trouble. She was young. He had to be careful. Above the neck only. And only if she wanted him to kiss her. Only then.
And there she was, in that red dress, and her mother’s shoes making her three inches taller, and when it came to kissing, it turned out she was more than willing.
Miri
Mason wasn’t a secret love for long. During the ten days of vacation, she saw him whenever he wasn’t working. She was allowed to stay out until 10 p.m. as long as Rusty knew exactly where she was—a get-together at Robo’s house or Eleanor’s, or at the movies with Suzanne and Natalie and the other kids. Miri had to introduce him to Rusty—that was the deal—then to Uncle Henry and finally, to Irene, who’d had a conniption fit when she first heard his name, but not, thank goodness, in front of him.
“For god’s sake,” Rusty said to Irene later. “She’s not getting married. She’s in ninth grade.”
“Be careful,” Irene warned Miri. “All boys want the same thing.”
So do girls, Miri thought. But she was never going to make the mistake her mother did. She wouldn’t go all the way until she was twenty-three or married, whichever came first. And they’d use protection. A funny little rubber circle called a diaphragm that you somehow had to shove up there, like Corinne used—Natalie had shown it to her in its circular container. “I’m not sure how well it works,” Natalie said, “because I think Fern was a mistake. Or maybe my mother got it after Fern was born.”
Last year Robo had snitched one of her father’s rubbers from under his shirts in his dresser drawer. They’d stretched it over a cucumber. “Do they get that big?” Suzanne asked. “Because if they do, I’m never doing it.”
“Maybe we should have used a carrot,” Robo said, and they all laughed.
Now Irene told her, “Be a good girl. Promise me you’ll be a good girl.”
“I am a good girl,” Miri said. “So stop worrying.”
Rusty didn’t say anything.
Mason
If he wanted to see her he had to meet her mother. And not just her mother but her uncle, maybe to prove there was a man around the house, and her grandmother, who looked like she’d swallowed a lemon when Miri introduced him and she’d heard his name. “McKittrick?” she’d said, like she’d never heard it before.
He knew to shake hands with them. He knew to call the uncle sir. Jack had taught him all that. He had no idea who’d taught Jack. He knew to tell them exactly what their plans were and that he’d have her home by ten o’clock or else she’d call to explain.
The mother didn’t ask the questions he was expecting, starting with, What do your parents do? She didn’t say, Maybe I know them, like some of the girls’ parents from the YMCA so he didn’t have to give his standard answer, I don’t think so. No, you wouldn’t know my parents. No, we’re not new in town. I was born here at St. Elizabeth’s. He might not have told the truth if she’d asked those questions, so he was glad she hadn’t.
Miri
In the middle of vacation Miri had an appointment at Dr. O’s office
for a checkup and to have her teeth cleaned. As Christina attached the bib around her neck, Miri said, “You know Mason McKittrick, right?”
Christina was surprised. “He’s my boyfriend’s brother. Why?”
Miri wasn’t sure how to answer. “No reason.”
“Are you going with him?”
Was she going with him? Did being in love for a week count?
Christina didn’t wait for her to answer. “He’s a nice boy,” she said. “A hard worker. He wants to get out of Janet Memorial and as soon as Jack can move into a better place…”
But Miri didn’t hear the rest of what Christina was saying. She was stuck at Janet Memorial.
“It’s temporary,” Christina continued. “Like I was saying, as soon as Jack moves into a better place he’ll be able to take Mason to live with him. In the meantime, you want to do something nice for Mason—take his dog, Fred.”
She had no idea he lived at Janet Memorial, the orphanage on Salem Avenue. He hadn’t told her anything about his life and she hadn’t asked him any questions. But so what? She knew how she felt when they were together. Wasn’t that enough?
Fred was a different story. Mason took Fred everywhere, except to work and to school. One day over vacation he asked if she could keep him for the afternoon, while he was at work. She’d told him sure, without thinking about what she’d do with him. She couldn’t risk bringing him home. If Irene caught her with a dog in the house she’d be in big trouble.
So she’d gone to Suzanne’s, whose parents were both at work. She’d had to hold Fred in her arms to keep him from setting foot on the floor or, worse, jumping onto the furniture. In Suzanne’s room they’d made a little bed for him out of a box and some rags. Barking was off-limits. Suzanne lived in an apartment house on Chilton where dogs weren’t allowed.
After her visit to Dr. O’s office she told Mason she’d had her teeth cleaned and that Dr. O had found a small cavity. “I have to go back to get it filled. He said I won’t need Novocain.”
Mason wasn’t impressed. “I’ve had teeth pulled without Novocain and it hurt like hell.”
“Dr. O would never hurt you.”
“That’s where I’m going from now on.”
They were walking home from the movies. “So I was wondering,” she said, not able to stop herself, “where does Fred live?”
A shadow fell over his face. Why was she doing this?
“He lives around,” Mason said. “He stays with one of my friends. But I pay for his food and I walk him every day. I can’t have a dog at Janet, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
She hated herself for putting him in this position. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“That you’re an orphan.”
He forced a laugh and grabbed her hand, pulling her behind him as he ran.
Elizabeth Daily Post
C-46 HAS A CHECKERED HISTORY
GIs Nicknamed the Transport “The Flying Coffin”
By Henry Ammerman
DEC. 26—The C-46, the aircraft that crashed into the Elizabeth River on Dec. 16, began life with a bad name. It was rushed into military service in 1943 to fly supplies over the Himalaya “hump” from India to Burma. Allied pilots called her the “flying coffin,” with at least 31 known instances of fires or explosions in flight between May 1943 and March 1945. Many others went missing and were never found. Disabled C-46s were stranded at bases from Kansas to Karachi. It was standard procedure to save two of every five that reached the theater just for parts.
The plane was gradually modified and improved, and in 1948 the Air Force made surplus C-46s available to airlines for rental at the very attractive rate of $300 a month. Here was a transport that could be modified to carry 52 passengers, enabling non-scheduled airlines to offer cut-rate service across the country, and between this area and Florida in the winter.
Despite the improvements, a summary of aircraft accidents shows 45 involving the C-46 between January 1947 and October 1951, 11 of them fatal, taking 137 lives. The need for careful maintenance is obvious, yet like any plane, it makes money only when flying.
Miami Airlines, the non-scheduled operator of the ill-fated Dec. 16 flight, is already in litigation with the Civil Aeronautics Board for flying an excessive number of flights between Newark and Florida. But because the crash is still under investigation it is too soon to say whether pressure to keep the plane in the air contributed to the disaster.
7
Miri
The fathers took turns driving their daughters to and from events, a get-together in someone’s finished basement, a dance at the Y, a Saturday night movie. Miri was the only one without a father. Not that any of her friends asked about him. They figured either he was dead or her parents were divorced. Either way, they understood she didn’t see him, didn’t talk about him, and that was enough. Once, when they didn’t know she was in the girls’ room at school, she’d heard them speculate that maybe he’d died in the war. She sometimes hoped he had died in the war. That would simplify everything.
Mothers might drive them somewhere during the day, but at night it was strictly fathers. Anyway, Rusty didn’t drive. She’d never had a car. She and Miri walked or took the bus around town. Sometimes Henry would give them a lift, but only in decent weather, because one of them, almost always Miri, would have to sit in the rumble seat.
Ben Sapphire, on the other hand, drove a big black Packard. The car was new. It was the car he’d planned on driving to Miami Beach. Miri had seen photos of his wife standing next to it. Not that she wanted to see his family photos, but he’d brought an album to Irene’s one day and she knew Irene expected her to be polite. She couldn’t tell him that when she pictured his beloved Estelle, it was inside the ball of fire that had fallen out of the sky. No, she could never tell anyone that. Well, maybe Natalie, since she claimed to have a special connection with Ruby Granik, but if Ruby knew anything about Estelle Sapphire, Natalie hadn’t shared it with Miri.
They’d held the funeral for Estelle three days after the crash. Irene had baked for the shiva at the Sapphires’ house in Bayonne, and now Ben Sapphire’s sons were headed back to Chicago and Los Angeles with their wives and children. Once they’d left, Ben offered to drive Miri and her friends to the Y, or wherever they wanted to go, in his fancy new car, but Miri wasn’t about to let him drive her anywhere. He was too old, too hairy and sometimes—you never knew when—he’d break down and cry. It was dangerous to drive that way, wasn’t it? She understood he was sad. She understood why. But she wasn’t ready to accept a ride from him. “Thank you,” she said to his offer, “but my friend’s father is driving us tonight.”
He nodded. “Maybe another time.”
“Yes, another time.”
Ben Sapphire
He’d open the door to the house in Bayonne, the house where he and Estelle had raised their family, calling out, Stellie, honey, I’m home—but no one ran into his arms, no one slept curled around him, telling him every night before they went to sleep how much she loved him. Estelle was gone, gone forever. He wanted to believe he’d catch up with her on the other side but he didn’t believe in the afterlife. It was all shit. Dead is dead. Dead and buried. All he had left was his memories and their children and grandchildren. He and Estelle had vowed long ago they would never become a burden to their children. The children had their own lives. And he wanted it that way.
He didn’t know what his future held. Only that he had to get out of that house. He’d already made the decision to put it on the market. His daughters-in-law had disposed of Estelle’s things. They’d taken the good jewelry and furs for themselves, with his blessing. The new leather gloves, gloves Estelle hadn’t yet worn, they gave to Irene for the compassion she’d shown Ben since the crash. He could see Irene didn’t want the gloves. But what could she do? She was a mensch. She thanked them for thinking of her. Now Ben would move to the Elizabeth Carteret hotel until he found an apartment that suited him. In the meantime, t
here was always Irene’s couch.
After the funeral, he wanted to talk to the rabbi about something so personal, so shameful, it was eating away at him. But he couldn’t admit it to this rabbi, who had bar mitzvahed his sons, who had married one of them, this rabbi who thought of Ben Sapphire as a loving husband and father, a pillar of the community. Instead, he went to a Catholic church in Elizabeth, where no one would know him, and sat for a long time before he told the priest he had something to confess.
He had not been faithful to Estelle. Men are different, he’d explained early on, men have needs. And she’d understood. Not that she hadn’t cried the first time, until he’d taken her in his arms and reassured her. I will never leave you. You understand? I will always be here for you and the boys. The others, he didn’t love them, they weren’t worth the hem of her dress. He just couldn’t help himself. Couldn’t ask her to do the things he could pay for, things that made him feel dirty. She was his wife. Now he was done with all that. He’d been done with it for years. Couldn’t remember the last time. But there it was, gnawing at him, giving him sharp pains in his left side, as if he’d eaten popcorn and set off his diverticulitis.
The priest listened as Ben explained he was a Jew but too ashamed to talk about this with his rabbi. The priest was kind and forgiving. He asked Ben to think of others before thinking of himself, to help others before helping himself. To do good with the time he had left. Ben promised. He made a generous donation to the church and another to his synagogue.
He visited the cemetery every day to talk to Estelle, to apologize for the things he’d done, to tell her she’d been his one and only love. If I could do it over…he’d cry. Please, Stellie, give me another chance to prove how much I love you. But Estelle never responded. He stood alone as the winter wind whipped his hat off his head, hoping for a sign—a falling leaf, a dove flying by. He’d have settled for a pigeon. But there was nothing. This was why he cried.