In the Unlikely Event (12 page)

NEW YEAR, BUT OLD BUSINESS

DEC. 31—We watched while giant machines of the air skimmed our rooftops in ever-increasing numbers. We warned against that inevitable day when disaster would follow in their wake.

They said it couldn't happen. They said we were attempting to block progress.

We watched as the last twisted wing of the plane that had claimed 56 lives was dragged from the banks of the Elizabeth River. We waited in vain for a solution that would make recurrence impossible.

We are still watching and waiting.

When will a concern for the safety of our citizens take precedence over a concern for the business of the Port Authority's Newark Airport?

8

Miri

Every year Corinne let it be known that Miri was welcome to bring her mother to the Osners' New Year's Eve party. Every year Miri explained to Corinne that Rusty never went out on New Year's Eve because New Year's Eve was when Rusty's father had died.

“I'm sorry,” Corinne would say. “But maybe this year…”

“I doubt it,” Miri would tell her. Not that she ever extended Corinne's invitation to Rusty. Why would she? It wasn't like the
Osners and Rusty socialized, it wasn't like they were Rusty's friends, or Rusty's second family, the way they were hers.

Henry dropped Miri at Natalie's house on his way to pick up Leah. They were going to the Riviera nightclub in Fort Lee, the place where Frank Sinatra sometimes sang, where Martin and Lewis did their comedy act and Pupi Campo and his band played Latin music. Henry looked dashing in his rented tux. Miri wished she could see Leah. Would she be wearing velvet, taffeta? Would she look like Doris Day in
I'll See You in My Dreams?
Sometimes Leah had that Doris Day look, other times she was more Debbie Reynolds, peeking out from under her bangs.

When he pulled up in front of the Osners' house, Henry turned to Miri and said, “Tonight's the night,” which embarrassed her at first, until he dug a small black velvet box out of his pocket. “I'm proposing to Leah at midnight.” He opened the box to show Miri the ring.

Miri felt herself choke up. She knew the ring. How many times had she gone with Irene to the vault when she was younger to watch as Irene checked the contents of her safe deposit box, making sure the ring was still there, along with her diamond pin and her important papers? The ring and the pin were the only pieces of good jewelry Irene had left from before 1929, before the stock market crash, a different kind of crash from the one in the Elizabeth River two weeks ago—back when Irene and Max Ammerman still had money, before Max lost his fancy food emporium, before Irene sold the rest of her jewelry to pay the bills, before Max had the first stroke, and then the second, the stroke that killed him on New Year's Eve, 1937, just weeks before Miri was born. Rusty named her for him. They always lit a
yahrzeit
candle for Max on New Year's Eve and another when the notice came from the synagogue listing the date of his death on the Hebrew calendar.

“It's beautiful,” she told Henry. And it was. A lacy design of small twinkly diamonds. Irene had always let her try it on. And even though Irene had said,
Someday, when Uncle Henry finds the right girl, he'll give her this ring
, she remembered exactly how disappointed she was at age nine to learn it would not be hers.

“You're the first to know,” Henry said.

“Nana doesn't know?”

“Maybe tomorrow, if Leah says yes.”

“Of course she'll say yes,” Miri told him. “If she doesn't she's crazy and you wouldn't want to marry a crazy person, would you?” She hugged him.

“Happy New Year, Miri. I hope someday I have a daughter exactly like you.” He ruffled her hair.

I
am
your daughter
, Miri told him inside her head.

“I know,” Henry whispered, as if he'd actually heard what she hadn't said. Then he hugged her again.

MIRI WAS NOT HAPPY
when Rusty showed up at the Osners' party. And even less happy to see she was wearing her good black dress, her dress shoes and stockings with seams. Then there was the hair. Rita Hayworth hair. To her shoulders. Heads turned when Rusty came into the living room. She waved at Miri but Miri turned away. “What is my mother doing here?” she asked Natalie.

“My mother wants to introduce her to Cousin Tewky from Birmingham.”

“Tewky? What kind of a name is
Tewky
?”

“Some family nickname. He's my mother's first cousin, from the banking side of the family. You know, Purvis Brothers Bank.”

Miri didn't know.

“My mother's from the department store side.”

Miri didn't know that, either. “You should have warned me,” she told Natalie.

“How was I supposed to know your mother didn't tell you she was coming?”

Corinne greeted Rusty and led her straight to a man, a man who must have been Tewky Purvis, balding, not especially handsome, but not ugly, either, with a mustache. Well, half the men in the room had mustaches, including Dr. O. She couldn't hold that against him. They were talking now, her mother and Tewky Purvis, and laughing, maybe even flirting. Miri didn't like it. She didn't know how
grown-ups judged each other, especially how women judged men. It never made sense to her.
It's about character
, Rusty once told her.
Strength, goodness. A sense of humor doesn't hurt, either
.

She didn't ask how men judged women because she already knew. It was obvious, and Rusty looked glamorous tonight. “That's not all of it,” Rusty had once argued. “But you're right—looks are certainly a starting point. Chemistry, too.” Miri understood chemistry now. Chemistry turned your legs to jelly and made your insides roll over.

If Mason hadn't had to work tonight Miri might not be at the Osners' party. She hoped she'd never have to choose between her best friend and the boy she loved. Since seventh grade, New Year's Eve had been for just the two of them, Natalie and Miri. She didn't think Natalie would have invited Mason. Maybe someday when Natalie was also in love, they'd invite dates to the Osners' party, but not now. Rusty must have thought that Miri would be out with Mason when she accepted Corinne's invitation. Now she'd have to deal with her daughter keeping an eye on her.

Rusty

She decided to go to the party at the last minute when Irene urged her to get out and enjoy herself. Seeing the worry on Miri's face now, she began to regret her decision. Maybe it had been a mistake to keep the men in her life a secret. Not that there had been many. But she'd never brought a date home. Not one man in fifteen years. She hadn't done a thing to get Miri used to the idea, to the possibility. In all these years, there had been just two serious boyfriends. One of them had been married. She certainly wasn't going to introduce him to her family. She knew from the start he would never leave his wife and children. She knew she wasn't his first affair. Yet she kept seeing him. For five years she saw him every week. If you asked her about him today she wouldn't be able to explain it. Just that she'd been young and she'd enjoyed the attention, the thrill, the sex.

The second man was decent and available. He'd proposed after a few months, with a diamond as big as her thumbnail. For a minute she thought she could learn to love him, could be happy with his
promise of a big house in the suburbs, a maid to clean and cook, summer camp for Miri. But when it came time to introduce him to the family she couldn't do it. They would see right through her. They would see the truth—she didn't love him, wasn't the least attracted to him and didn't want to marry him, not even for an easier life.

Sometimes she wondered about her first love, but not often. A girl gets in trouble, she marries the boy. They wind up hating each other, resenting each other and finally they get a divorce. By then it's taken its toll on both of them and their children. No, she never wanted that, which is why she'd refused to allow her mother to call the Monskys and force Mike to marry her. Maybe she would fall in love again. If and when that happened she would introduce him to Miri. But until then, what was the point?

Miri

The Osners' living room glowed. The Hanukkah bush was gone, replaced by a fire in the fireplace, and, at the baby grand from Altenburgs on East Jersey Street, Dr. O sat on the upholstered bench, covered by a needlepoint canvas hand-stitched by Corinne. His fingers danced over the keys, never hesitating, the same fingers that worked magic in his patients' mouths. The guests were singing around the piano, glasses of Scotch and rye and bourbon resting on coasters to avoid getting water marks on the polished ebony. If anyone was careless, Mrs. Barnes was there in a flash, slipping a coaster under a glass here, scooping a crumpled cocktail napkin into her pocket to be deposited in the trash in the kitchen, where Mrs. Jones and her daughters, Rhonda and Jamison, were stacking up Sloppy Joe sandwiches on silver platters.

Mrs. Jones was also the Osners' laundress, spending every Thursday at their house, washing and ironing the Osners' clothes, their bed linens. At the end of the day Natalie's blouses, every one perfect, would be lined up on hangers in her closet. Never any last-minute ironing with the ironing board set up in the Osners' kitchen, the way it was at Miri's, so that when you put on your blouse it was still warm. Mrs. Jones ironed their pillowcases, the tops of their sheets
and Suzanne once told Miri that Mrs. Jones ironed their towels, but Miri hadn't believed her. “Why would anyone iron towels?”

“I don't know, but she irons Natalie's dungarees, too. You can see the creases. And Corinne's underwear. I've seen her ironing Corinne's slips and nightgowns.”

Sometimes, when Miri was ironing one of her Ship 'n Shore blouses she pretended she was a laundress, like Mrs. Jones. But the one time she'd tried to iron a bra it had melted into nothing.
Poof
, and her pretty blue nylon bra was gone forever.

Miri and Natalie joined the singers around the piano. When someone called out the name of a song, Dr. O didn't hesitate. He moved right into it. For the first time every song spoke directly to Miri.
He dances overhead, on the ceiling near my bed
. Yes, she thought. One day you're a regular girl, two weeks later, you're someone in love—and wasn't that also the title of a song?

When Rusty and Tewky came to the piano, Miri stopped singing. Rusty knew every word of every song and sang them too loud, smiling at Tewky, enjoying herself. Not that Rusty didn't sing in her room, or when she was in the bathtub, but out in public? This was something new to Miri, and she found it embarrassing.

By then the dining room table was laden with platters. Not just the Sloppy Joe sandwiches, but a chafing dish of spicy meatballs in sauce, brisket sliced as thin as paper with white horseradish, cucumber salad, potato salad and pickles. There were trays of cookies and tarts. And rugeleh from the Jewish bakery.

Fern ran around the table in circles, like a small, badly behaved dog, and if not exactly barking and snapping at people's ankles, then close to it. Mrs. Barnes tried to catch her but Fern was too fast.

After the buffet supper the guests headed downstairs to the finished basement, where she and Mason had first danced together. She wished he could see it tonight, with gold and silver half-moons and stars hanging from the ceiling. At the bar, bottles of Champagne sat on ice waiting for midnight toasts. And the music—instead of Nat King Cole singing “Nature Boy,” the jukebox was filled with dance music for Corinne and Dr. O's crowd—the samba, the rhumba and the newest craze, the mambo.

“You'd think Pupi were here himself,” Miri heard one of the guests say, reminding her that Uncle Henry was dancing with Leah to the real, live Pupi at the Riviera.