Peter and Veronica

by Marilyn Sachs

  “Very good,” he said, “and maybe sometime today, when you get a chance, you can look at the hot-water faucet in the bathroom sink. It’s leaking again.”

  Marv hit his head. “I keep forgetting to buy a washer,” he said. “Tomorrow I’ll pick one up after school.”

  “Fine!” Mr. Green said, and laid a hand on Marv’s shoulder. “But also, how about trying to let Frances have a piece of the yard too? She’s upset and I can’t blame her. You know, Marv, she likes flowers and she should have a chance to use the yard too.”

  Marv hung his head. A word from his father was like ten thousand words from his mother.

  “So how about it?” Mr. Green said gently. “You’ll try, Marvin?”

  “I’ll try, Papa,” Marv said earnestly, “I’ll really try. Maybe I should build a little fence around her part of the yard and then I won’t forget.” Marv brightened. “I’ve got some posts and some chicken wire, and I’ll make one—no—maybe two round plots just for her.”

  “Good boy,” Mr. Green said, and began walking back toward the cellar.

  “Papa,” Marv said longingly, “are you going somewhere, Papa?”

  “I have to go to the union hall,” Mr. Green said.

  “Oh.”

  Mr. Green hesitated at the cellar door and looked back at his son. “You want to come, Marvin?” he asked.

  “Sure, Pa. It’ll take me a minute. I’ll hurry and clean up.” Marv’s voice was eager.

  Mr. Green smiled. “Good. I won’t have too much to do there, and maybe afterward we’ll go somewhere.”

  “There’s a new boat down at the navy yard,” Marv said hungrily. “I saw it in the paper. It’s an aircraft carrier, and they let you go on it.”

  “So we’ll go see the new boat,” said Mr. Green. He walked through the door, and Marv quickly began assembling his tools.

  “Guess I’ll go home,” Peter said brightly, wondering if he might be invited along.

  “You can stay and work if you like,” Marv said.

  “Well, I’m not going to stay by myself,” Peter said, and waited.

  Marv avoided his eyes. “How about tomorrow, then?”

  “Tomorrow I have to go to cheder, but today I don’t have anything to do.”

  Marv picked up his tools and began hurrying across the yard. It was plain that Peter was not going to be invited along.

  “I’m going home,” he repeated, and followed Marv out of the yard.

  In the cellar, Marv laid his tools down and said meekly, “I’m sorry, Peter, but ... well ...”

  “Oh, forget it,” Peter said, hiding his disappointment. He knew Marv had very little time alone with his father. “I’ll see you around.”

  He walked through the cellar out to the front, across the little bridge, and back to his own house. Slowly he climbed the stairs of the stoop and wondered what to do next. Maybe he’d just mention the boat to his own father.

  Both of his parents were in the kitchen. His mother was busy cooking, and his father sat with a big book in front of him at the kitchen table.

  “Papa,” Peter said, “there’s a new boat at the navy yard. Do you want to go see it?”

  His father looked up at him. “A boat?” he asked. “Why do you want to look at a boat?”

  “Don’t bother your father,” his mother said. “Let him rest.”

  “It’s a big one, an aircraft carrier,” Peter said lamely. “Marv and his father are going so I thought ...”

  Papa smiled but shook his head. “No, I don’t think I’d like to go. But you go ahead with them.” He began reading again.

  Peter thought for a moment and then went off to find his skates.

  “Where are you going, Peter?” his mother called as he passed the kitchen on his way out.

  “Skating.”

  “I told her already you couldn’t go.”

  “Told who?”

  “That girl.”

  Peter came into the kitchen. “Was Veronica here this morning? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  His mother ran water in the sink. “You didn’t ask.”

  “Ma,” Peter cried, “why didn’t you tell her where I was?”

  “I didn’t know where you were.”

  “But I told you I was going to Marv’s house.”

  “I forgot.”

  “Mama,” Peter said angrily, “what have you got against her? What did she ever do to you?”

  He dropped his skates on the floor, and his father looked up, startled, from his book.

  “Now you’re disturbing your father. Why don’t you go and play with Marvin?”

  “Now you want me to play with Marvin, but you used to say I shouldn’t play with Marvin because he was stupid. How come you changed your mind all of a sudden? How come now you want me to play with Marvin?”

  “Because,” said his mother, turning off the water and facing him angrily, “Marvin may not be the smartest boy in the world, but he’s still a nice boy— a big difference between Marvin and that crazy, wild, fresh girl you’ve been hanging around with all of a sudden. And let me ask you a question: what do you have in common with such a girl, a boy like you, a smart, well-brought-up, Jewish boy with a ... a ..."

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” Peter yelled triumphantly. “It’s because she’s not Jewish, isn’t it? Mama, you’re prejudiced, that’s what you are.”

  Peter’s father closed his book and sighed.

  “Prejudiced! I’m prejudiced!” shouted Mrs. Wedemeyer. “That I should live to see the day that my own son stands there to my face and calls me prejudiced! And for what? For an ignorant, stupid, ugly stranger.”

  “She’s not stupid and she’s not ignorant and she’s my friend. You wouldn’t care if she was the most beautiful genius in the whole world. It’s just that she’s not Jewish. Well, she’s my friend and I like her and I don’t care what she is.”

  His father began chuckling. “Thine own friend, forsake not,” he quoted in Yiddish. Peter’s father always seemed to have a proverb handy, culled from all the years poring over his religious books. “You’re making a fuss over nothing, Jennie. Leave the boy alone. He’s old enough now to pick his own friends. Don’t ask for trouble.”

  There was a moment of silence. Mr. Wedemeyer opened his book again, and Peter picked up his skates. Then his mother exploded.

  “Some father you are!” she shouted at her husband. “You sit there all the time with your nose in a book and you don’t take any interest in him. Why don’t you go places with him, like right now. Take him out to see ... to see that boat.”

  “I don’t care for boats,” Mr. Wedemeyer said pleasantly.

  “You don’t care where he goes or who he plays with. You don’t know the kind of girl this is. She’s a juvenile delinquent, that’s what she is. I found out. I asked around in the neighborhood. He thinks I don’t know what she is, but I look out for him. But you, all you’re interested in is sitting there reading the same books over and over again.

  Mr. Wedemeyer rose, picked up his book, and, speaking in Yiddish, said with dignity:

  “It is better to dwell in a corner of the housetop Than in a house in common with a contentious woman.”

  As he left the room, Mrs. Wedemeyer burst into tears, and Peter grabbed his skates and ran.

  Chapter 4

  “I changed my mind,” Veronica said. “I’m not going in.”

  Peter had his hand on the door, but he turned around and said irritably, “Why not?” What a day this was turning out to be! First that scene with his mother, then Stanley blubbering away, and now, after skating miles and miles down to West Farms, Veronica was going to give him a hard time.

  “Why not?” he demanded again.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Wasn’t my idea in the first place. You talked me into it, and I just don’t want to go in. That’s all! Now let’s go.”

  The door of the diner opened, and Peter had to step to one side as a big man with a toothpick in his mouth came through the door. B
efore the door closed again, Peter caught a glimpse of the inside of the diner and got a warm, fragrant sniff of hamburgers and onions. Maybe Veronica had eaten lunch, but he hadn’t, and it reinforced his desire to act as peacemaker between Veronica and her kin.

  The man proceeded slowly down the stairs, and Peter said persuasively, “Let’s just take a look inside. We don’t have to stay.”

  “No!”

  “What have you got to lose? Your uncle will probably be so happy to see you that he’ll ...” Peter licked his lips in anticipation of the way in which Veronica’s uncle would show his joy at the sudden appearance of his niece.

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I haven’t seen him for four years, and the last time he came he fought with my mother, so why should I go out of my way to see him?”

  Veronica’s parents were divorced. Her mother had remarried, and her father lived in Las Vegas with his second wife. Veronica hadn’t seen her father since she was little. She and her sister, Mary Rose, were children of her mother’s first marriage, while Stanley was her half brother. The uncle, whose diner they were standing in front of, was her father’s older brother.

  “Well, let’s just go in, and see what he has to say.”

  “No!”

  “You shouldn’t be so hardhearted, Veronica. Let bygones be bygones,” Peter said righteously. “I bet he’s sorry. After all, we all make mistakes, and if he’s sorry, you shouldn’t go on like that, carrying grudges. Give him a break.”

  Veronica snorted, but she looked hesitantly at the door,

  “Come on, we’ll try him out,” Peter said, taking her hand and pulling her up the stairs. “Let’s see what he has to say for himself.”

  “If he says one thing about my mother ...” Veronica said fiercely, but she allowed Peter to haul her up the stairs with him, through the door and into the diner.

  They stood for a moment inside the door, expanding in the warmth and looking around them. There were some booths against the wall and a long counter with a row of seats that ran down the length of the room. Peter, holding Veronica’s hand, skated her over to two unoccupied seats at the counter. There was a tall, blond, teen-aged boy behind the counter, and Veronica nudged Peter, and whispered, “That’s Charles, Jr.”

  “Who’s Charles, Jr.?” Peter asked, enjoying the view of three or four pies with triangular pieces cut out of them.

  “The youngest one. My uncle has two boys—August and Charles, Jr.”

  “Oh.” Peter inspected the case that held a large chocolate cake, an equally large coconut layer cake, and a variety of doughnuts. After a while, Charles, Jr., came over to them and said, “Yes?”

  Peter finished his appraisal of the baked apples, smiled at Charles, Jr., turned a little toward Veronica, and waited.

  But Charles, Jr., just looked at the two of them blankly and said, “What do you want?”

  “Let’s go,” said Veronica, beginning to rise.

  “Just a minute,” Peter said, holding her down and catching a fleeting glimpse of some apple turnovers off in the distance. “Is Mr. Ganz around?”

  “My father? Yes, he’s in the back,”

  “Could we see him, please?” Peter said, trying to sound important.

  Charles, Jr., poked his head around the partition that separated the kitchen from the front and said, “Pa, there’s a kid here who wants to see you.”

  “What did you do that for?” Veronica hissed.

  Peter let his eyes move from the tray of

  Jell-O to the one filled with rice pudding and murmured gently, “Just give him a chance.”

  A very tall, powerful, blond man emerged from the kitchen. His son motioned in their direction, and Veronica’s uncle approached them.

  “You wanted to see me?” he said.

  Peter smiled benignly at him, and then motioned with his head at Veronica, and waited for the reconciliation scene.

  Mr. Ganz looked at Veronica then back at Peter. “Well, what is it?” he asked impatiently.

  Peter was astonished. Veronica’s uncle did not know who she was. Why, in his family, everybody knew everybody else down to the third cousins, four times removed. He could feel Veronica stiffen next to him, and he said quickly, “Uh, could I have a glass of water, please?”

  Mr. Ganz impatiently filled a glass with water and slapped it down on the counter. “Now what’s up?” he demanded.

  Peter sipped his water, glanced at Veronica with her eyes down on the counter, and beyond her to a case filled with Danish pastries.

  “Nice place you got here—Mr. Ganz?”

  “How do you know my name?” said the man suspiciously.

  “That your boy over there?” Peter asked.

  Mr. Ganz’s eyes narrowed.

  “Nice boy,” Peter said nervously. “Have you got any girls?”

  “Look, who sent you over here?” Veronica’s uncle said, bending over him.

  “Nobody. I just wondered if you had any daughters or maybe nieces, because it’s nice having girls in a family,” Peter said lamely.

  “I’m going,” Veronica said, rising.

  Veronica’s uncle put out a huge hand and caught Peter’s jacket with it.

  “What do you want, kid? What kind of a game are you playing?”

  “Let him go!” Veronica yelled. She pushed her uncle’s hand away, and Peter said sadly, “O.K., Veronica, you’re right. Let’s go.”

  “Veronica?” said Mr. Ganz. He came quickly around the counter and loomed above them just as they reached the door. “Veronica?” he said to Veronica. “Are you Veronica?”

  “Yes,” said Veronica, trying to skate around him to the door.

  “Veronica Ganz?” He put his hand on her shoulder and looked at her. She struggled for a moment and then stood there with her eyes on the ground.

  “Well, what do you know,” said Mr. Ganz slowly. “It’s Veronica.”

  He propelled her over to one of the tables and eased her into a seat. Then he sat down across from her and suddenly began grinning. “The image of Frank,” he said. “The image of him.”

  “You didn’t know who I was,” Veronica said, stubbornly keeping her eyes away from his.

  “Just for the minute,” said her uncle, “and that kid kept on talking. I didn’t know what he was up to.”

  He looked up at Peter who had slowly followed them over to the table. “Come here, boy, sit down.” Peter sat down carefully next to Veronica, and Mr. Ganz laughed and said, “Well, that’s a good joke on me. Do I have any girls in my family?” He laughed a loud, hearty laugh and leaned over to poke Peter’s shoulder. “You’re a real comedian, son. What’s your name?”

  “Peter Wedemeyer, sir.”

  “Yes, sir, Peter Wedemeyer, you’re a real comedian.” Veronica’s uncle laughed some more. Then he looked Veronica over again and said, “Wait till I write your father and tell how his beautiful daughter came to visit me and played a joke on me.”

  Veronica’s face turned red, but she still kept her eyes down and didn’t say anything.

  “You know, just the other day I was saying to your Aunt Margaret that you and Mary Jane must be grown-up now, and that one of these days I was just going to have to come over and see the two of you. Just the other day I said it. Isn’t that funny?”

  “Her name is Mary Rose, not Mary Jane,” Veronica said between her teeth.

  “That’s what I said—Mary Rose, and here you are. Isn’t that great! So many times I wanted to run over and see the two of you, I can’t tell you.”

  “But you never did,” Veronica said, looking up at him finally, with a serious face.

  “Aw, honey, don’t be like that,” Uncle Charles said, leaning toward her. “Lots of things a kid like you doesn’t understand. But now here we are together, so how about giving your uncle a big, sweet smile.”

  Veronica just looked at him without smiling.

  “She’s shy,” Peter murmured.

  “Shy, is she, my b
eautiful niece?” Uncle Charles reached over and patted Veronica’s cheek. “I bet she doesn’t have any teeth—that’s why she’s not smiling.”

  Veronica struggled for a moment, but then her face grew very red and she burst out laughing. Peter did, too, and so did Uncle Charles.

  “That’s better,” Uncle Charles said comfortably, rumpling her hair. “And how about some lunch, something superduper for my superduper niece?”

  “I had lunch,” said Veronica.

  “I didn’t,” Peter said happily.

  Peter had two hamburgers, a piece of apple pie, and a Coke. Veronica refused to eat anything. But after Peter had finished eating, and the two of them stood up, ready to go, Uncle Charles said, “Just a minute.” He went into the kitchen and returned with a big, flat, white box.

  “Some things maybe I don’t remember so well,” he said, “but some things I do. Is lemon meringue pie still your favorite?” he asked Veronica,

  Veronica’s eyes shone.

  “Here,” he said, holding the box out toward her, “for you and Mary Rose.”

  Veronica’s hands remained at her side. “And Stanley too?” she asked tensely.

  “And Stanley too,” Uncle Charles said gently. She took the box then, and Uncle Charles put an arm around her shoulder and said, “You’re a good girl, Veronica. You were very good to come and see me, and after this, I won’t wait for you to come. I’ll be by to see you and Mary Rose real soon. So give her a kiss from me, and ... and ... say hello to your mother.”

  Veronica was halfway up the block before Peter caught up with her.

  “He’s a pretty nice guy, your uncle,” Peter said, “and watch out, you’ll drop the box.”

  Veronica was holding it with two fingers crooked under the string. Her face was glowing, and she giggled and said, “I thought he was going to break your neck when you said that about him having any girls in his family. What a nut you are!”

  “Uh, huh,” said Peter, his mind on more important matters. “But how are we going to get home with that. Well never make it skating. We better take the trolley. Do you have any money?”