Palisades Park (34 page)

Toni blushed. “What do you mean?”

In a low voice, Arlene counseled, “You know what I mean. Maria’s a sprinter, not a long-distance runner. Bide your time.”

“Why are you telling me this? Isn’t Maria your friend?”

Arlene smiled slyly and shrugged. “What can I say? I find it more entertaining than radio serials.”

The word
serials
stirred a vague unease at the back of Toni’s mind, but was forgotten amid her elation that Slim Welker had finally noticed her.

She practically ran all the way home, where her buoyant spirits were abruptly punctured by the sight of a glowering Jack.

“Oh my God!” she said. “The movie!”

“Yeah, it was pretty good, thanks. Where the hell were
you
?”

“Jack, I’m so sorry! Some girls invited me to Bischoff’s for ice cream, we were talking, listening to music, I lost track of time, and I—I
forgot
.”

Jack said, “Yeah? What was so important that you forgot about me?”

“Well, these girls, they’re really nice, they’re my friends … and there was this boy there, well technically he’s Maria’s boyfriend, but I’ve been trying to get him to notice me for the longes—”

Jack looked at her in disgust. “I’ve got a news flash for you, Sis,” he said caustically. “You can’t bring Mom back by
becoming
her.”

Toni felt as if he’d just slapped her. Anger boiled up inside her.

“That—that’s just stupid!” she yelled at him. “You don’t know anything about anything!”

“I’m going out to look for Dad,” Jack called over his shoulder. “You want to be Mom so bad, why don’t you go fix us all some dinner?”

“Go to hell!”

Jack stormed out, and Toni’s elation melted suddenly into tears.

*   *   *

Eddie, bundled up in his old Navy sea jacket, walked along wintry Hazard’s Beach, surveying the flotsam and jetsam that lapped out of the Hudson and onto the shore: gnarled tree limbs, splintered pieces of a packing crate, the occasional rubber tire tread. He walked for ten minutes before he found what he was looking for: a piece of driftwood about two feet long and six inches in diameter. It looked like part of the trunk of a white birch tree, the kind that studded the hillside below the Palisades. He picked it up, turning it over in his hands; it was smooth, and free of blemishes. He took a pocketknife out of his jacket and made a small cut in the wood near the top. The bark was soft but not too soft, and came away clean with one stroke. This would do just fine. Already he was envisioning the face he would uncover with his chisel: a beetled brow of ridges, deep sunken cat’s eyes, and a scowl that was almost a smile. A good face: the face of Kū.

15

Palisades, New Jersey, 1946–47

T
HE SUMMER OF
’46 saw the return of old faces to Palisades: not just Eddie but Dr. Frank Vita, back on duty at the first-aid station, as well as PR man and hero of Guadalcanal Jack Morris, and a dozen more ride operators and concessionaires. Only Laurent Schwarz would not be coming home—the one fatality in the park “family”—even as his father prepared to mark his fortieth season with Palisades.

Despite frigid weather on its April 20 opening, the park was packed with twenty-eight thousand patrons in heavy overcoats, intent on having fun. All across the nation returning GIs and their wives or girlfriends were flocking to the parks they frequented before the war. This season there would be more entrants than ever in Palisades’ annual Baby Crawling Contest as America’s “baby boom” got under way. Eddie raked in bigger profits than ever before, and working alongside Toni and Jack in the family business helped to mitigate the grief he’d felt upon receipt of Adele’s divorce petition earlier that spring. He didn’t contest the divorce. His marriage was over; he had to accept that.

Jack took the news badly, becoming moody and withdrawn, deflecting Eddie’s one attempt to console him: “You okay, pal?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jack lied.

“Good. Sometimes you just have to roll with the punches in life.”

In truth, Eddie didn’t want to discuss this with Jack or anyone; it hurt too much. Jack’s namesake, Eddie’s father, would never have discussed such things with him—he would have expected his son to follow his example and “roll with the punches”—and so that became Eddie’s example as well.

“We don’t need her” was Toni’s only comment. She had found the maternal guidance she needed in Minette, and her attitude toward Adele only hardened. But equally distressing to her was the return to Palisades of Peejay Ringens, whose bicycle act was as popular as ever. Though tempted to watch at least one of his dives, Toni couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.

She had weightier issues on her mind, after all. Her friend Arlene had been right about Maria DeCastro: Slim and Maria broke up that summer. Toni wasted no time buying several stylish new fashions at Helene’s Dress Shoppe on Anderson Avenue, and Minette instructed her in more sophisticated “war paint”—mascara and eye shadow. Suitably armed, Toni marched into her junior year. She shared no classes with Slim, unfortunately, but when word got out of the semester’s first after-school softball game, Toni hurried to the athletic field—not to participate, but to sit in the bleachers and watch the teams compete. She thrilled to the sight of Slim, who’d grown even more strapping over the summer. At his first turn at bat, he hit a home run and she cheered for him—loudly enough, she hoped, that he could hear her. Watching the game, part of her longed to be out there on the field too, running the bases or playing outfield; but she told herself that she was out to catch something bigger than just a pop fly.

Her cheers did catch Slim’s attention, and now he glanced over to the bleachers and looked straight at her. She put two fingers between her ruby lips and whistled. He smiled, waved, then went back to the game.

After Slim’s team won 7-2, he came over to the stands, stood with one foot on the bench in front of Toni, and smiled. “Hi. Missed you out there.”

“Oh, you did fine without me,” she said. “You were super.”

“Would’ve been a shame, I guess, getting that pretty hair of yours mussed up,” he said, sitting down beside her.

“Can’t have that,” Toni said, fluffing her curls. Sweat was dripping down Slim’s forehead and into his eyes; she took out a handkerchief. “Here, let me get that for you,” she said, standing up to mop his brow.

“Thanks.”

The handkerchief had his scent on it, and she resolved right there and then to never, ever wash it again.

“Hey,” he said, “you want to go to Bischoff’s and get some ice cream?”

Toni beamed. “I’d love to.”

The rest of the afternoon was strictly a dream, the two of them talking and drinking malteds as Tommy Dorsey and Sinatra played on the jukebox. They chatted at first about baseball, and Slim seemed impressed with this girl who not only enjoyed the game but knew who Ted Williams and Snuffy Stirnweiss were; she could even rattle off their batting averages and RBIs.

“I really like baseball,” Slim told her, “but I’m thinking about going out for football.”

“You should! You’re so big and strong, you’d make a great quarterback. Or wide receiver.”

Slim grinned. “Are you an expert in
every
kind of sport?”

That flustered her—was she being unfeminine? “Oh, no … not—”

“It’s okay. I like sports. I’ve never known a girl who liked them as much as me … especially not a girl who’s a knockout like you.” She blushed at the compliment. “So what’s your favorite sport?”

“Oh, that’s easy. Swimming and diving. For a long time I thought about being a high diver, but…”

“A high diver? Like those guys who dive into tiny tanks of water?” He laughed. “Girls don’t do that, do they? Doesn’t seem very … ladylike.”

Her worst fear realized, Toni said quickly, “Oh, that was when I was a little girl. Like little boys wanting to be cowboys when they grow up.” Slim looked relieved. “But I do like swimming … my family owns a French fry concession at Palisades, I practically grew up in that pool.”

“French fries? With that malt vinegar? Those are the tops.”

“I know how to make them,” Toni said, “if you ever want some.”

He looked at her as no boy had ever looked at her before and said, “Oh, man. She cooks, she’s beautiful, and she knows who Spud Chandler is. You
are
a rare dish.”

Slim moved fast—he was “active duty,” as Arlene would say—wasting no time in asking her out again. The next afternoon, he took her bowling at Taylor’s Bowlarium. Toni had never tried this game before, but being a good softball pitcher she had a fair sense of aim, and did well in her first few frames—a little too well compared to Slim, who left more than a few spares. Afraid of showing him up, Toni pulled back, allowed herself a couple of gutter balls, and finished just a few points behind Slim.

Afterward they walked down to Miller’s Ice Cream Parlor, ordered milkshakes, and Slim held her hand as they drank. Despite the cold shake, Toni felt herself overheating like a car radiator on a hot, sultry day.

That weekend they had their first formal date, Slim picking her up in his pre-war jalopy, a ’39 Oldsmobile. Slim passed inspection from Eddie, who told him with a smile, “You seem like a nice guy, Slim. But that won’t stop me from gutting you like a trout if you don’t have her back by eleven. Enjoy yourselves, but not too much.”

Slim didn’t let it faze him. “Yes, sir. Understood.”

Eddie shook his hand and settled in to make dinner and prepare to listen to Harry Owens’s
Hawaii Calls
radio show at eight o’clock.

They had dinner at the Fairmount Diner in Hackensack and then walked down to the Oritani Theater, showing Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, and Orson Welles in
The Stranger.
As they sat under the lush fabric dome of the theater auditorium, Slim looped an arm around Toni’s shoulders and she felt as if she was going to pass out right there. Somehow she managed to retain consciousness, if not the plot of the movie, which vanished from her memory within minutes of leaving the theater.

It was almost eleven and all the way home to Edgewater, all Toni could think about was whether Slim would try to kiss her goodnight and whether she should let him. This wasn’t technically their first date, after all—Bischoff’s and bowling counted for something, didn’t they? If this wasn’t their third date it certainly wasn’t their first, either.

Lights were on in the second floor of Toni’s house as Slim walked her round back and up the stairs to her door. When he leaned in and kissed her, she shut her eyes and welcomed the soft but firm press of his lips against hers. It was a brief, polite kiss—the kind a boy gives when he’s standing on a girl’s doorstep with her father lurking nearby—but it thrilled her more than anything had since she had seen Bee Kyle dive that first time.

“See you again?” Slim asked when they broke the clinch.

“You bet,” Toni replied, which may not have sounded “ladylike” but it made him laugh.

She watched him walk back to his car and drive off, excited and amazed that she was actually dating Slim Welker.

Inside, Eddie was waiting up. “Have a good time?” he asked casually.

“Oh yes,” Toni said dreamily.

“Do I have to kill him?”

“Oh, trust me, Daddy, that would be
such
a waste,” she said, and her father laughed. “G’night.”

“G’night, honey.”

Before she went to bed she washed her hair, painstakingly rolled and pinned her curls into place, and didn’t complain to herself for a moment about the discomfort. She marveled at how much better life was when you were pretty, something her mother had tried in vain to tell her.

Whether it was buying the latest Sinatra records at Taliferro’s Record Shop with Arlene, Celia, Bridget, and Maria—who tried not to show her annoyance that Toni was now dating her former boyfriend—or sitting in the bleachers watching Slim, nicely filling out his crimson and black uniform, quarterbacking for Cliffside as they trounced Tenafly 8-0 and Hackensack 35-6—everything about her life
was
better than she could have imagined six months ago. She and Slim grew closer over the winter months, ice-skating together at Sunny Park Rink or necking—and a little petting—in Slim’s car as they parked in a quiet turnout on River Road along the waterfront.

When Slim had picked her up at her house a half-dozen times without meeting Toni’s mother, Toni finally admitted the truth, though couching it more casually than anyone in the family really felt about it: “Oh, my mom and dad are divorced,” she said, and when Slim displayed no shock, only sympathy, she gradually told her friends at school—leaving out any mention of magicians. They found it only mildly scandalous: this was 1947, after all.

Toni’s relief at this was tempered by increasing tensions with her brother, once he found out who she was dating: “Slim Welker?” he said incredulously. “The guy who kicked me off his softball team?”

“For Pete’s sake, Jack,” Toni said as she painted her nails at her mother’s old vanity table, “that was four years ago! He was just a kid.”

“So?”

“So, people change.”

Jack said pointedly, “Yeah. They sure do.”

Stung, Toni snapped, “Will you grow
up
? You’re just jealous because I’m popular and you’re not!”

Jack snorted. “Like hell!”

“Ever since Mom left you’ve been sulky and moody. I don’t think you’ve made a single friend at school this year, have you?”

“That’s none of your beeswax,” Jack snapped, walking away. And he pretty much stayed out of her way for the rest of the school year. Toni felt bad, wishing there was some way to convince him that just because she was making friends—and dating Slim—it wasn’t a personal betrayal of him.

She wished that he could see Slim as she saw him—never more so than on one chill night in February, after a snowstorm. The roads were cleared by evening, and as Slim drove Toni down Palisade Avenue she looked out and saw the slopes of the Cyclone padded with two feet of snow. “Oh, wow,” she said. “The coaster looks like a map of the Himalayas.”

The park gates and the towers behind them were also draped in snow. “Yeah,” he said, and then, with a grin: “You want to take a closer look?”