Bess shed her clothes and covered herself with a long T-shirt. She was suddenly so tired that she was tempted to forget about the ice. But that was what he told her to do, so she wrapped some cubes in a washcloth.
She sat down with a hysterical giggle. Start the evening dressed up for Arthur Midland, super-duper alrightnik, and end up with Vinny, the Italian bartender. And guess what? If Vincent Carmine Migliori wanted her to spend the night with him at a guesthouse or anywhere else, she’d be only too eager to do just as he wished.
CHAPTER 6
Whatever hope Frima and Jack might have harbored about nights on the town, the first week of the season left them too exhausted for more than a few words on the porch, stolen from valuable sleep time. Jack felt aches in muscles he had not known he possessed, and he began to look on five minutes on the porch swing to smoke a cigarette as a luxury. Frima, besides working in the office, babysitting, to-ing and fro-ing, fetching and returning, had undertaken a small flower garden so there would be fresh blooms on the table. She could barely keep her eyes open by the time she reached her room at night. Still, in a week or so, both of them had settled into routines, and feeling able-bodied again, they found the ways and means to spend more time together.
Grandpa was their chief ally in this. Despite his original protests that he was as fit as ever and needed no steady help during the summer, he had taken to Jack right away. “He’s a Jack of all trades,” he said and repeated this to anyone who would listen. Mama rolled her eyes the way she used to at Papa’s silly jokes.
“Frima, why don’t you take the kiddies down to the barn to visit Jessie and Toby. You could give kids a bareback ride or hitch up the little cart. It wouldn’t hurt either of those animals to get a little exercise. After all we don’t want freeloaders,” he said, with a significant wink at his daughter-in-law. “And you’d better take Jack with you. Those kids are too heavy for you to lift.”
Another time he’d announce, “I won’t need the car tonight. Why don’t you kids take the night off, drive to Monticello or Liberty. Have a hamburger, a couple of beers. You need a little relaxation.”
“Not too much beer,” was Mama’s only comment. Frima was relieved that Mama made no objection. She should have known she would hear from her mother soon enough.
She and Mama were taking a break from office work, watching Jack from the porch.
“So handsome,” commented Mama. “And so much like Bess, in his looks, at least. Isn’t it amazing that their parents, those small-minded sour pusses, could have produced such bright, charming children?”
“I think he’s beautiful—they’re both beautiful, he and Bessie.”
“And you, my darling. Aren’t you just as beautiful, to say nothing of being talented and bright?”
Frima peered suspiciously at her mother. “Just what are you getting at?”
Mama sighed, and when she spoke it was with an unusual hesitancy. “I think you admire both of them, and that’s fine. But you also seem to envy them a little. You’ve always looked up to Bess—a bit too much maybe. Exotic, you called her, original, courageous. Yes, yes, I know. I’m very fond of her myself. It’s just that now I see you have a crush on her brother, and you look at him as if he has so much that you don’t. As if he’s better than you somehow.”
“I thought you liked him!” Frima found herself close to tears.
“I must be expressing myself badly. Of course, I like him—I hired him, didn’t I? He is very likable—a fine young man. . .but Frima, you are impressionable and inexperienced. I am just saying, go slow. Be careful.”
“If this is going to be one of those lectures about how he won’t buy the cow if the milk is free, I refuse to listen to it. Do you really think Jack would take advantage of me with you and Grandpa here?”
“I think you are deliberately misunderstanding me,” Mama said firmly. “And I will tell you this. I see how much he is on your mind, how you study him, attend to him, fret about whether he is happy, wants to be with you. Do you think he does the same? Does he devote half as much care and energy to what you think and feel? What’s important to you? Oh, he likes you a lot, that’s obvious. He finds you very attractive and sweet and bright—who wouldn’t? Maybe he is even falling in love with you. But believe me, my daughter, you are not the center of his life, as he seems to be for you. It’s not possible. He’s a twenty-three-year-old man, and they aren’t made like that.”
Frima kept her voice light. “Papa wasn’t much older when you married him. Was he the same as Jack?”
“Could be he was,” said Mama, smiling. “But your Papa, he was very trainable.”
“I think you underestimate Jack.” She felt quieter now.
“Perhaps. But I don’t want you to underestimate you. Listen to me, darling. Go dancing with him, have a good time, even fall in love a little. But remember that you are a beautiful and talented young woman with such potential and so much to offer. He’s lucky to spend time with you.”
“Well, I’m not thinking about anything beyond the summer. I just want to enjoy this time.” She really believed she was speaking the truth.
“Which is just what I want for you. Enjoy it in good health.” Mama kissed Frima on the cheek and they parted friends.
She did not enjoy quarreling with Mama, and she was relieved to end it at that. But Mama was wrong about some things. She, Frima, was not so dewy-eyed and worshipful that she couldn’t see imperfections in Jack. And she was far from devaluating herself. For one thing, she knew very well that she was a lot more at home with the finer things in life than Jack was. She had noticed, for instance, that he was uneasy about his table manners when he first sat down to dinner with the family at the staff table. He had watched Frima surreptitiously and followed her lead about which cutlery to use, where to put his napkin. His eagerness to learn these fine points touched her. She recalled that Bessie had done the same the first time she had a meal at Frima’s house. Both of them, brother and sister, had this same desire to absorb the niceties, to better themselves. Well, she was their model, wasn’t she?
And then there was music. She had shown this talent from a very early age. She barely remembered this herself, but she had been told so often how her mother and father had discovered her picking out familiar melodies on a piano (some relative’s, no doubt) before she could read words, before she was even in school. Frima knew she wasn’t the wunderkind her parents thought she might be, but she had studied the piano and musical theory seriously for the love of it; not to perform professionally, but perhaps to teach. Jack knew nothing about classical music, but he wanted to learn, he said, if she would teach him. Didn’t that mean he looked up to her and admired her?
Yet, reluctant as Frima was to admit it, Mama was on to something. Frima did admire, even envy, both of them, Bessie and Jack. It was so hard to explain, but in some unarticulated way, she felt they were her more confident superiors. Now, why was that? She knew she was good-looking, bright, that she enjoyed more material comforts, more opportunities than either of them. But Mama’s perception plagued her, and she found herself coming back to it as the hours passed. She looked back over the years at her connection with both brother and sister. She and Bess had become fast friends in grade school, and since then they’d been in and out of each others’ homes virtually on a daily basis. The Erlichmans’ cramped apartment was as familiar to Frima as her own, and it was impossible not to make comparisons. Though it was obvious that Frima and Mama’s home was way more comfortable and inviting, she found it oddly stimulating and pleasant to spend time with the Erlichmans, loud, angry, and excitable though they were. Now for the first time, unbidden, Frima divined what the attraction was. They were a family—an intact family—secure even in what seemed to be their pervading dissatisfaction. No matter how much they hollered at each other, everyone who was supposed to be there was there—right where they ought to be. They didn’t have a papa who had died suddenly without a word of warning.
She stood very still.
Was this what Mama was hinting at? Did Mama understand this something, this feeling that Frima had hidden from herself? If she did, Frima was devoutly relieved that her mother had done no more than hint at it. It was a something that would not bear airing and close examination. She had firmly closed the door on it. From the porch where she stood, she could see that Jack had finished mowing and was driving off to town with Grandpa to do errands. It was almost three. She was free until about five. She would work on some music. The Beethoven. She could lose herself in it—just what she needed.
Frima had opted very willingly for having a really good piano in the city rather than a mediocre one in both town and country, but Mama still talked about providing her with a good instrument up here in Ellenville as well. It was always next year that this miracle would occur, and Frima knew that in reality it was too much of a financial stretch—a sacrifice was more like it—for Mama. She, Frima, would not allow it. Never would she be such a selfish daughter. She could study with a silent keyboard to practice fingering and phrasing. She was adept at reading and breaking down a score, even the characteristically dense pages of Beethoven. This required discipline and concentration, and she looked forward to a couple of hours of happy absorption on her own.
When not seated at an actual piano, or a dinner table, Frima habitually avoided chairs. Despite the comfortable desk and chair and quiet study space her conscientious parents had provided for her, she preferred to sprawl on a sofa or hammock to do her reading, and for quiet study she preferred the floor or her bed. In very short order, she was happily ensconced on her bed with the window wide open to the breeze (after all, nobody could hear her) and her keyboard propped up against the footboard in easy reach if she wanted it. She hummed as she flipped through the pages of the “Moonlight Sonata” to the movement she planned to work on. It was many minutes before she realized that though she turned pages, her thoughts had wandered far from Beethoven and moonlight. It was on just such an occasion as this, about a week ago, that Jack, finding himself with a couple of free hours, had come up to her room in search of her.
“Now what in the world are you doing?”
“I’m trying to work on this sonata.”
“In bed?”
“Well, it’s a large flat surface. The floor is too hard.”
“I can think of better things to do right here,” he said, half reclining on the bed and stroking her bare ankle. He raised his eyebrows like Groucho Marx.
“Get off!” She giggled as she said this and pushed him away gently. Probably too gently, as she thought back on it. She would not let him lie down here, but the thought of him there in bed with her had been distracting enough to push serious practice quite out of her mind.
“Well, if you won’t let me stay here with you, come out for a walk with me.”
“I’m studying,” she said, sounding lame, even to herself.
“Studying? Oh, come on!”
“Now don’t you laugh. It is study—serious study,” but she had smiled in spite of herself.
“Okay, I believe you. Some day you’ll have to teach me about classical music. But are you going to waste this beautiful afternoon when you could spend it with me? Come on, honey, how often do we get the chance to be alone together?”
She had needed no more coaxing. She grabbed a bathing suit and a towel in case they decided to end their walk with a swim.
Mama had seen the two of them running down the back porch steps and seemed a little surprised, but she had said nothing.
“Too beautiful today to practice—we’re going for a walk,” Frima called out to her, responding to her mother’s question before she could ask it.
The entire incident discomforted her now in light of her talk with Mama. Surely it was that occasion that had spurred Mama’s cautions to Frima this afternoon.
“Some day you’ll have to teach me about classical music.” Jack’s words, reassuring when she first heard them, suddenly were dismissive: some day, but not now. Could he simply brush past Frima’s love of music and her talent—this most special and defining part of her—like some bracken in his path to an afternoon’s pleasure? No! She refused to believe any such thing. Mama was making far too much of this. She was being a mother hen with one chick, and that was sweet of her, but she didn’t understand. Jack wasn’t riding roughshod over her talent, her special qualities. It was only that he wanted to be with her during his precious hours off.
Armed with this comforting interpretation, she turned to the score again, but it was no use. She couldn’t practice or study anything today. Maybe never this summer. She lacked the concentration and discipline—that was the problem. She never really wanted to practice diligently during these months. It was only to please Mama that she made the effort. Summer was her time off, like it had been when Papa was alive. Papa was not that caught up with Frima’s talent; he was proud of her and supported her, but that was all. It was Mama who was always pushing. A sudden keen anger toward her mother overwhelmed her. She felt her gut wrenching, and she began to perspire. She splashed her face with cold water and rushed outside. This visceral response was over in a few minutes, leaving her troubled and confused. Suddenly she longed to talk to, to be with Bess.
This was an unexpected feeling. Normally they were separated during the summer months and didn’t expect much contact, except maybe a postcard, if something exceptional happened. But this was no ordinary summer. Jack was in the picture, and it was clear if unspoken between the two girls (and very likely true for Jack also) that this made all the difference. Probably the very reason that none of the three spoke openly about it. She had been content to not speak of Jack at all, but now she longed to know whether Bess, too, was experiencing this whirlwind of confusion, conflict, joy and enchantment this summer. And this rebelliousness? Well, Bess was always rebellious. She was an expert at that.
Frima had on her bureau at this very minute a letter Bess had sent her several days ago. It was brief enough for a postcard, but it had come in a sealed envelope so Frima knew it was for her eyes only.
Hey, Frima,
Guess what? I’ve met this guy. He’s a guest here. Very intelligent, glamorous looking—may be the next Clarence Darrow. I don’t know, but he may be the one! Love to talk to you. Anyway, let’s try to connect by phone. What’s a good time?
Love,
Bess
Frima was, of course, dying to find out more. She could have called the Alpine Song and left a message if she didn’t reach Bess directly, but she couldn’t seem to get around to it. Now she made herself sit write down and write a card:
Great news! Can’t wait to hear more. Best time to call is late afternoon.
Love,
Frima
Now she could relax a little and wait for Bess to call. It would be so much easier to talk if Bess had a boyfriend of her own.
CHAPTER 7
“Remind me, Muriel, to have my head examined if I do so much as smile at another alrightnik. From now on, Bethesda Erlichman will keep a safe distance from anyone remotely resembling one.” She said this over her shoulder, as she sorted through her clothes laid out on her bed Sunday morning.
“I take it your date was not all it was cracked up to be?”
“I can’t even talk about it yet—it was so awful.”
Muriel looked at her, baffled. “Well, okay, but who is Bethesda?”
“That’s the name I’m going by from now on. I’m going to change it legally as soon as I get back to the city. So please, Muriel, call me Bethesda or Beth, or even Bethie, and nothing else, except maybe ‘idiot,’ when I act like one.”
“Whatever you like, but, tell me, are you planning to pack your bags and go, just because of that Midland creep?”
Beth, blushing, turned to face Muriel. “Well, no. It’s just that I met this other guy, and I really liked him and he said he’d call, so I think he may ask me out, and I’m just checking to see if I have anything I can wear—though he probably won’t call. But he said he knew
you and Jerry.”
“Whoa, slow down. And how did you get that bruise on your face? Did you bang into something or did somebody hit you?”
“Artie.” Beth was hardly audible.
“What!” Muriel steadied her voice. “I think you need to sit down and tell me the whole story.”
“Okay, the short version. Artie took me to a place for pork ribs and he drank too much, and he ordered oysters and I refused to eat one, so he called me a kike and I threw a beer in his face, and then he slugged me.”
“That bastard!”
“Yes. Well, anyway, the bartender, this Vinny Migliori, sort of rescued me and drove me back here.”
“Vinny Migliori? A lot of women would call him quite a fine end to a lousy evening.”
“He probably won’t call.”
“Oh, I think he will.”
He did. That very afternoon.
“So, Beth—that’s right isn’t it?—how are you feeling? Recovered from your night out?”
“Oh, great, great! You were right about the ice—no black eye, just a little swelling, and that’s almost gone.” She felt she was gushing but couldn’t seem to control it.
“And the welterweight? Is he out of the way?”
It took a moment to understand. “Oh, he’ll be leaving in a few days, I hear. Anyway, he’s staying out of my way, which is all right with me.”
“Then he’s smarter than I thought. So, Beth, I hope you won’t hang up on me if I ask you a question?”
“I won’t, I promise.” His voice, a little hoarse and gravelly, was somehow endearing to her, caressing, really.
“Well, this impulse of yours to use whatever is at hand as a weapon—a flashlight, a beer, maybe a rolling pin? Does it come over you often?”
Beth laughed. “Never a rolling pin, and the other two, well, only once each.”
“So, I guess it’s safe to ask you out for dinner. I promise I won’t take you to the same place, and you can eat anything you want, I assure you.”
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