Don't Talk to Me About the War (12 page)

I hope she’s right. I’m sure she does, too.

After dinner, Mom goes to her chair. Dad offers to help her, but she tells him she can get there by herself. Dad and I do the dishes. We don’t talk. There’s really nothing to say.

In bed, with nothing else to do but think, I get real upset. What can I do to help? I guess I can cook more or even bake bread. I can ask Beth for her recipe. I hope we don’t have to move, and if we do, I hope it’s to someplace nearby. I don’t want to change schools.

The next morning when I wake up it’s already after ten, but that’s okay. It’s Memorial Day. There’s no school. I lie there and just stare at the ceiling for a while. Then, I reach down to the shelf under the small table by my bed and take
Lefty o’ the Big League
, a baseball book Dad once gave me, and reread one of my favorite parts. It’s after eleven when I finally get out of bed. I wash up, get dressed, and go to the kitchen. Mom and Dad are sitting at the table.

“I feel good,” Mom says.

Mom’s hands are on the table, folded and still. Her eye looks better, not so red. She seems relaxed.

There are a few rolls and a plate with crumb cake on the table. I guess Dad went to the bakery. I take butter and milk from the icebox and join them.

I cut a roll, spread on some butter, and bite into it.

“In a while,” Dad tells me, “we’re going down for a walk, maybe to the park. If you like, you can come with us. We may even go for ice cream.”

Ice cream! I have a date with Beth. I have to meet her at noon.

I look at my watch. It’s almost twelve. I quickly finish my roll and milk. “I have to go,” I tell my parents.

“Where?” Dad asks.

“I have a—” I was about to say “date.” I start again. “I said I would meet a school friend, and it’s set for noon.”

“Oh, then go ahead,” Mom tells me, “and have a nice time.”

While I’m at the sink washing my dishes, I remember I’ll need money. I go to my room, open my bottom drawer, and take my wallet from its hiding place, beneath my pajamas. I open it. Two dollars. I hope that’s enough.

Just then I wonder if Beth remembered our date. All yesterday, she didn’t say anything about it.

As I go toward the door, Mom calls to me. “It’s nice out. You don’t need a jacket.”

“Thanks, Mom. Bye.”

This might sound wrong, but it’s nice to get away. When I’m with my parents, all I think about are Mom and her illness. I shake my head as I walk toward the stairs when I realize that probably all I’ll talk about when I meet Beth is just that, Mom’s illness.

B
eth did remember. There she is, sitting at her regular table, and even though it’s not a school day, she’s wearing her regular school clothes, a pretty blue dress with lots of stripes. As I walk in I feel something is different, that somehow Beth is changed, but I don’t know why.

I sit across from her. She smiles. “I wasn’t sure you would remember. Now tell me, what did the doctor say?”

I don’t know where to begin.

“He said Mom has some nervous system disease, multiple sclerosis.”

We just sit there quiet, I guess while Beth thinks of what to say, and I realize what’s different. There are no newspapers on the table. I’ve never seen her at Goldman’s, at this table, without newspapers.

Then it starts. Beth asks me lots of questions, and I do the best I can to answer them. At last, we’ve said all we can about it and Beth reaches her hand across the table. She takes my hand and says, “Let’s get some ice cream.”

I look over at Mr. Goldman sitting by the counter. He’s reading a magazine.

“What flavors does he have?”

Beth laughs and whispers, “This is not one of those twenty-eight-flavor places. He has just vanilla and chocolate.”

“That’s fine,” I say. “Even if he had lots of flavors, I’d still want chocolate.”

We sit at the counter and Mr. Goldman gives us each a dish of ice cream, chocolate for me and vanilla for Beth.

I take a dollar from my wallet. Mr. Goldman waves his hand. He doesn’t want to take my money.

“No,” I tell him. “I want to pay for both of us.”

He thanks me and takes my dollar. Beth thanks me, too. The ice cream costs ten cents a dish, twenty cents in all, so Mr. Goldman gives me lots of change.

Mr. Goldman gives himself a dish of ice cream, too, vanilla, and then takes out jars of nuts, chocolate syrup, and maraschino cherries.

Beth says, “Let’s make sundaes.”

I look at the chalkboard behind the counter with the price list. Sundaes cost fifteen cents. I take two nickels from my pocket and put them on the counter. Mr. Goldman laughs, gives them back, and tells me, “A sundae is only an extra five cents if I make it. If you make it, it’s still just ten cents.”

I sprinkle chopped walnuts on my ice cream, pour on chocolate syrup, and top it all with a maraschino cherry.

Wow! It’s delicious. I eat slowly, enjoying every spoonful, and do you know what? I didn’t pay the extra money, but even if I had, it would have been worth it. If you ever have a choice of just ice cream or a sundae, take the sundae.

We sit there, eat, and talk.

Beth misses Buffalo. She had friends there and lived in a house with a garden where she planted tomatoes and carrots. She even had a bicycle. When Beth moved here, she gave it to Carol, one of her friends. “There’s really no place to keep a bicycle in the Bronx, and my dad said with all the traffic it’s too dangerous.”

Beth pours more syrup on her ice cream.

“Carol was my best friend. Our mothers knew each other from when they were kids. When I moved, Carol said she’d write to me every week and I said I’d write to her. But we haven’t. When you move, things change.”

Mr. Goldman talks, too. He tells us about his two children, a son in Brooklyn and a daughter in New Jersey. They’re both married and visit often, especially on holidays. His son has a son, so Mr. Goldman is a grandfather. And he has a wife and says that in the shop he prepares the food, but when he gets home, “Deborah always has a good hot meal waiting for me.”

Mr. Goldman takes our empty plates to the sink and washes them. He serves a man who comes in and wants coffee and toast.

Beth suggests we go to the park.

“Not the park,” I say. “Dad said he’s going there with Mom and then maybe for some ice cream.”

“So what. I don’t mind meeting them.”

Yeah, I think, so what!

We walk outside and I look at the headlines on the newspapers on the bench: DUNKIRK BOMBED! BATTLE OF FLANDERS LOST! and MILLIONS FOR TANKS, GUN, PLANES—FDR TO ASK CONGRESS.

I ask Beth, “How come you didn’t read the papers today? ”

“I did read them. I was here earlier. You know, I can’t start the day without reading the news. Then I did some food shopping, brought it all home, and came back.”

The weather is nice. We walk slowly past the bakery, turn at the corner, and go to the park. It’s crowded. I guess with the holiday and nice weather, lots of people decided to go outside. I look past the open area and the swings to the benches and see my parents.

“There they are,” I tell Beth, and point.

“The man with the dark hair and blue shirt and the woman in the green sweater?”

“Yes.”

Beth starts toward them. I have to hurry to keep up. I guess she’s anxious to meet Mom and Dad.

“Hi,” she says. “I’m Beth Doyle, Tommy’s friend from school. We’re in the same homeroom and history class.”

Dad stands, shakes Beth’s hand, and says, “I’m Louis Duncan and this is my wife, Barbara.”

We sit with them for just a few minutes and talk, really about nothing—you know, the weather and that the summer break from school is coming soon. At last Beth says she must get home, and I say I’ll walk with her.

“They’re very nice,” Beth tells me when we’re outside the park, “and your mom looks fine. I looked at her hands a few times and they didn’t shake.”

Beth looks at me, smiles, and says, “You look like your dad.”

That’s okay. I’ve heard people say he’s handsome.

We walk past the bakery and Goldman’s and at the corner Beth says, “Thank you for meeting me. It wasn’t the celebration we’d planned, but it was nice.”

“I thought I was walking you home.”

She smiles and says, “Sure.”

Instead of walking straight, the way I go to get to my house, we turn left and walk about three blocks. We stop in front of a building just like mine. An old man is sitting in front on a folding chair. There’s a small dog on his lap.

“Hi, Beth,” the man says.

“Hello, Mr. Barnett.” She pets his dog and says, “Hi, Skipper.”

Beth introduces me to Mr. Barnett and Skipper. “Come on,” she tells Skipper and takes his paw. “Shake Tommy’s hand.”

I feel silly doing it, but I shake Skipper’s paw.

“Hi, Beth,” a young woman says as she leaves the building.

“Hey, everybody knows you.”

“Not everyone,” Beth says, and smiles.

We stand there for an awkward moment. Then Beth kisses me quickly on my cheek, says, “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” and runs into her building.

“Sure,” I say, and watch her run off. “Tomorrow morning.”

Mr. Barnett tells me, “I like your friend.”

“I do, too,” I say, and start toward home.

There are just a few weeks left to the school year. I wonder what I’ll be doing this summer, if I’ll go to any games, if I’ll see Beth. I want to.

When I get home, I turn on the radio to listen to the Dodgers games, the Memorial Day doubleheader at Ebbets Field. I shouldn’t have. They’re playing the New York Giants, and if there’s any team I really want them to beat, it’s the Giants. It’s what you call a “cross-town rivalry,” because both are New York teams.

The first game is depressing. Carl Hubbell is pitching for the Giants, and he gives up just one hit the entire game. He’s a screwball pitcher. I don’t mean he’s crazy, it’s just that his best pitch is the screwball. The Dodgers lose 7-0.

The second game starts out better. The score is tied in the twelfth inning, so that’s not as bad as losing a one-hitter, but then the Giants score eight times. I keep listening, hoping the Dodgers will come back in their half of the inning, but they score just once and lose 12-5. What’s worse is, with the two lost games, the Dodgers are no longer in first place!

Mom and Dad come home in the middle of the second game. Mom is tired. Dad tells me it’s the steps. Climbing them is difficult for her.

Later, Dad helps Mom prepare dinner, and while we eat, Dad says he’ll help Mom with the laundry and cleaning. The doctor said exercise would help, and Mom says, if it’s okay with me, from now on when I get home from school, she’ll be downstairs. “If you don’t mind, you can help me shop, or just walk with me.”

I say, “Of course, I don’t mind,” but I think about Roger and Charles and stickball. I can’t play with them after school, not if Mom will be sitting in the lobby waiting for me.

“You don’t have to hurry home,” Mom says. “I won’t leave the apartment until three fifteen, after Helen Trent.”

It takes a long time for Mom to get down the stairs, so I figure she won’t reach the lobby until about three thirty. That gives me time to wait for Beth after school, walk with her, even time to talk a little.

During dessert, strawberries with some powdered sugar sprinkled on them, Mom smiles and says, “Your friend Beth seems very nice.”

“Yes,” I say. “She is.”

The next morning, when I get up, Mom is already sitting by the table. At my place is a plate with a roll, a tab of butter, and a glass of milk. Mom hadn’t done that for a while, prepare my breakfast and sit with me in the morning.

“It’s nice out today,” Mom says. “You don’t need a jacket.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

I guess this will be one of Mom’s good days.