Bess and Frima

by Alice Rosenthal

  Mama had not commented on the pleasures and convenience of living so near to Jack’s folks, an omission not lost on Frima. If Jack noticed, he said nothing. Very wise of him. Mama did invite Sam and Sarah to dinner, bowing to convention.

  “This is not an engagement party, I hope.” said Frima. “I won’t have anything to do with such a thing if Beth and Vinny aren’t here.”

  “Do you take me for an imbecile? This is a duty, not a pleasure. Later, you can have any kind of celebration you want with your friends. As for me, you know I’m always happy to see Beth, and I find this Vinny intriguing. For now, with Sam and Sarah, just think of them as difficult guests at the hotel. You know how to behave.”

  The dinner was pretty much as anticipated. Sam Erlichman, somewhat pacified by Mama’s brisket and potato pancakes, managed to toast the coming union with a glass of schnapps: “Mazel tov, mazel tov. But watch your step. Marriage is no picnic.” He managed a smile.

  Sarah glared at him. “From me, I say every mazel to the young couple. You’re marrying a fine, beautiful girl, Jack.” And then without missing a beat, a big sigh. “This should only happen to my Bessie—and with a nice Jewish man!”

  “Don’t worry, Mama, you’ll see,” Jack said heartily. “Bess will come to her senses.”

  Or you will, Frima thought unbidden, stifling a snicker. Jack’s folks made her nervous, and when she was nervous, she had a tendency to laugh, the more so if it were forbidden.

  There was nothing amusing, though, about the little interchange she and Jack overheard as her future in-laws departed. Sarah and Sam were waiting for the elevator in the hallway, a space that exaggerated every sound. In a voice that could be heard above a subway train, Sam gave free rein to his feelings.

  “He needs a wife now like he needs the cholera. What good is this for him?”

  “Shah! Keep your voice down! She’s a nice girl from a good family. I like her.”

  “There’ll be a baby before you know it. And then what?”

  “From your mouth to God’s ear.”

  “Tsuris. That’s what it will be. He has to marry so soon? You heard maybe the expression a shotgun wedding? Don’t you know tsuris when it’s right in front of your face?”

  “Me, you’re asking? When it’s standing right in front of me? I married you, didn’t I?”

  The happy couple inside the apartment looked at each other and groaned.

  “At least your mother is pleased,” Frima offered. “And your sister is, I know.”

  Jack nodded his head. “More so than I am about her.” He sighed.

  All of which was true.

  CHAPTER 15

  “I knew it!” Beth exclaimed. “I felt it in my bones. My brother, the heartthrob, following you around like a puppy. And you know something? I’m really truly pleased about it. Sisters at last! So when does it happen?”

  “The wedding?”

  “What else?”

  “Late April in Ellenville. We haven’t set the date yet.”

  “So soon? And you told me to slow down! Ahem, no hurry is there? Okay, okay, don’t bite my head off, I’m only kidding.”

  “One of these days, you will allow me to bite your head off after you say something provoking without heading me off at the pass,” Frima replied testily. “And if you don’t stop, I won’t let you be maid of honor.”

  “Oh my God, you want me to be maid of honor? Really? Now, that’s what I call exciting! But what about Vinny?”

  “Won’t work. He’s a man.”

  “Hilarious. You know what I mean.”

  “Well, I doubt that Jack would choose him as his best man. But, believe me, if you and Vinny aren’t there together and openly, there ain’t gonna be no wedding.”

  “Atta girl! Well, I am tickled pink to be your maid of honor. I don’t have to wear pink, do I? I mean I will if I have to, but—”

  “Pink? Wear anything you want, even if it’s as bright red as the worker’s flag. Just don’t overshadow me.”

  “Strong words.”

  “I need them these days. Ever been engaged? Well, don’t be. Not that I wouldn’t be quite happy to see you married. Any chance that you and Vinny are thinking along those lines?”

  “I wouldn’t count on it. I don’t think I’m the marrying kind.”

  “But you love Vinny, don’t you?”

  “Yes, and he loves me, but remember I grew up the daughter of a terrible marriage.”

  “So did Jack. But I guess one marriage among the four of us is enough for now,” Frima said lightly, backing off. It was evident that Beth didn’t want to talk about this.

  Beth sat by the phone after they hung up, relieved that she was home alone. Her feelings were too roiled up to talk to another human being, and for a wild moment she wished that Rhubarb were there with her. She could talk to the dog, say anything whatsoever, and he would look at her with complete acceptance in his soulful eyes, hoping for no more from her than a dog biscuit. “One marriage is enough for now,” Frima had said. That was a mouthful. She wondered if Frima was aware of how loaded those few words were.

  She was pleased that Frima was marrying Jack. She had learned to be optimistic about this union. She tittered to herself. Now that was a Jane Austen attitude, if there ever was one—you learn to be happy, you endeavor to be satisfied—and you are amiable, always amiable. Funny how much she loved Austen. Probably because she was so unlike her. Those witty, elegantly written fantasies, always a well-deserved happy ending—in marriage. Well, Beth couldn’t take refuge in a novel now. And for her there would be no happy ending in wedded bliss. Could Frima find it with Jack? Maybe she could. He loved Frima, that was obvious, and though he was the son of that same bitter marriage, he had always had the best of it in their family. The older one, the handsome son. Smart, ambitious, so engaging. And he looked up to Frima and her family. Not a bad formula for success.

  She glanced down, pencil in hand, at the word she’d unknowingly jotted down on the message pad: pleased. How odd. She was pleased about the coming marriage. Pleased wasn’t quite the same as happy for the couple. But it was accurate, and it made her uneasy. Pleased, as in gratified. Yes, it was gratifying that Jack was marrying into the Eisner family, for it suited her own need to remake herself. She’d always secretly longed to be a part of that family—who wouldn’t want Hannah Eisner as a mother, Frima for a sister? But it still made her sad, guilty. It was disloyal to her own poor mother. Nevertheless, Jack’s marrying into that family would make both sister and brother more Eisner and less Erlichman. A big step up for both of them. Okay, so it was ambitious. Nothing wrong with that. It wasn’t the whole story, was it? It would be a loving connection. Besides, couldn’t she someday achieve a new family by marrying Vinny and creating her own? No way! The thought of marrying Vinny and having his children was almost as terrifying to her as the thought of losing him.

  The pencil broke in her hand, startling her. Time—time is on my side. I’ve only known Vinny for a few months. Nobody would expect her to marry so soon, let alone have a baby, especially not Vinny. He’s a responsible guy. Let Jack and Frima be the impetuous ones, for once.

  Except it wouldn’t wash. True, neither she nor Vinny felt ready for marriage and children, but Vinny didn’t panic at the thought, and she did. Timing was everything to him. She’d come to realize how different she was—how unnatural—on one occasion when they were being a little spontaneous in someone else’s bedroom and she hadn’t been wearing her diaphragm. Vinny had been taken aback at her fear.

  “It’s only once—what time of the month is it?”

  “Rhythm method? You know that doesn’t work! Judith Ginsberg says—”

  Vinny put his hand over her mouth. “A hell of a time to quote Judith Ginsberg.” He paused. “Okay, no coitus,” he annunciated carefully. “Just shut up and pretend you’re underage in the back of my car.”

  “Just like a man,” she muttered wrathfully. “Thinks all he has to do is unzip, wave it around.”
<
br />   “Are you trying to imitate my mother or yours?” Vinny spoke evenly, even smiled a little, but she knew he was not happy.

  “I’m sorry, love, maybe I’m being a nervous ninny, but I worry. I can’t get pregnant!”

  “But why all the terror about it? Would it be the worst thing in the world? We could have a child. Or not have it, if necessary. I mean, I’d be sorry to have it happen, but there are ways, safe ways.”

  “No! I don’t want either—at least not now.”

  “You really are terrified,” he said slowly, and rolled over.

  She waited anxiously—would he get up and walk out on her? But she had underestimated him. In a few minutes he rolled over and nuzzled her again.

  “This is a very big bed,” he whispered intimately. “It could accommodate all kinds of acrobatics, unlike ours at home.”

  “Yes?” She giggled.

  “And pleasures that don’t require any perfumed spermicide.”

  “You mind that?”

  “No, not really, but face it, Bethie, you do sometimes lay it on a little thick, and I prefer the fragrance of you.”

  Well, she’d mend her ways, which was easy enough. She knew what the instructions called for, yet she’d used about twice as much diaphragm jelly as necessary just to be safe. It just showed how important not getting pregnant was to her. The mildly perfumed jelly was virtually an aphrodisiac to her, it so freed her from anxiety. Vinny could tease her about Judith Ginsberg, but that good woman had opened her eyes to a world that young men like Vinny or her brother could only see dimly, if at all. An unwanted pregnancy was serious trouble; but an unwanted child was a tragedy. Diaphragms were the safest, best means of avoiding this, as well as the best prevention of that other tragedy, an unsafe abortion. Before this last summer, abortion was barely in Beth’s vocabulary; she had never encountered anyone who had experienced one.

  “You think you haven’t, my dear girl, but the practice is rampant,” Judith had informed her. “Terminations are readily available in safe clinical conditions for women with money. For poor women, they are also readily available, but rarely under safe conditions, except with the aid of some generous and courageous doctors and midwives. The worst is when a woman is desperate enough to try to end the pregnancy herself. You are shocked? Well, it’s true and has always been true, here and in the rest of the world, civilized and uncivilized. Your own mother, she is alive and healthy? And she has only two children? It’s probable she has had one or more.”

  “My mother? I thought she just didn’t have sex with my father, which I can really understand, as he’s pretty grim. This is amazing!”

  “What’s amazing,” Judith smiled a little dryly, “is that you think of abstinence as a likely explanation. She might not enjoy sex much, but she is his wife, and your parents aren’t old, except perhaps as seen through your young eyes. Remember, life begins at forty! But let’s concentrate on you. What we want for you is to enjoy lovemaking, knowing that you will become pregnant only when and if you wish to.”

  In those rare dark hours when Beth visited the issue in that private cabinet in her mind, she could not envision herself married and pregnant without evoking an image of a caged wild bird, squawking over an alien egg. At those hours, as now, she clung to two comforts: Judith’s words and time. Naturally she became a true believer in birth control and wanted to proselytize. But to whom? Certainly not to any women of Vinny’s acquaintance; they had long been far more informed than Beth, herself. Instead, she had tried to convince Frima to follow her example and visit Judith. This was a blunder, to say the least. Frima had no interest in doing so. Her intimacies with Jack were just that—intimacies, and therefore private. She was entirely kind about this but also quite firm. What was good for Beth didn’t mean it was good for Frima. Beth had only succeeded in feeling less fastidious than she should be. So what else was new?

  The shrill ring of the phone again. Resisting the impulse to hurl it across the room, Beth answered it. Another mistake. It was her mother, in tears.

  “What’s wrong? Everything is wrong. Wherever your Papa is, is wrong. You know that Jack and Frima are engaged?”

  “Well, yes, but you’re happy about that. You like Frima.”

  “Of course—a darling girl! But your father! He says if you’re at the wedding, he won’t be there.”

  Beth, stabbed by pain and rage, was silent, but her mother continued without noticing. “He says—you don’t have to know what he says—I shouldn’t repeat it. But who is Vinny? You’re living, God forbid, with an Italian? I know nothing about my own daughter?”

  “Mama, shh, calm down!” Holy shit, who told him? Jack? She couldn’t believe he would do that.

  “Anyway, Frima says if you’re not there, and with this Vinny—she likes this Vinny—she says if you’re not there, there won’t be a wedding. So you don’t go or Papa doesn’t go and I go alone, which makes me so ashamed. What to do? Hannah Eisner says not to worry, that everyone will be there, but what can she do? She says she’s going to call you. But still, what to do?”

  “What you can do is not worry about any of this. Papa isn’t home, right? So go put your feet up, make yourself a cup of tea, take a nap. Everything will be fine. Believe me. It will be a very lovely, happy occasion. You know Hannah and Jack and Frima will make everything just fine.” Beth was pleased with herself. This last had been a heroic effort—Vinny would be proud of her. He’d also suggest that some of his Dago red was what her mother needed most.

  What she, Beth, needed now was some time with a paint brush. Did she have time to go up to the studio at the League before Vinny came home? Probably not, but she could get to her sketch book. When the phone rang not five minutes later, she picked it up, thinking she might go nuts. She greeted Hannah Eisner’s voice with a little bark of laughter.

  “I say hello, and that’s funny?”

  “Oh, Hannah! Forgive me, but first Frima calls, then my mother, now you—one after the other. I half-expect Jack to call me, and I’m sure Vinny will have something to add before I’ve even had time to digest the big news. It seemed to me suddenly like a speeded up scene in a one-reel comedy. But first, mazel tov! I’m quite sincere about that.”

  “Thank you, my dear. I won’t keep you long—we’re both busy woman these days. I just wanted to assure you, Beth, that we are all delighted that you will be maid of honor. Who else so fitting? Also, everyone will be there as they should be, and if one of them isn’t happy, he will still behave himself. Don’t you worry your pretty head about any of it. You know, I’ve never become acquainted with your Vinny, except by reputation, and he sounds quite fascinating. I’m eager to know him.”

  “Oh, I knew you’d feel that way, Hannah, and I’m so happy that you do, but my father, oh my God, a royal pain in the you know what.”

  “To say the least.” Hannah gave a comfortable little laugh. “But I’ve not been a successful hotel manager for nothing. Also, remember I’m a dressmaker, and your Papa sells notions—buttons, ribbons, zippers? He and I will have a little talk. Just you remain deaf and dumb to all of this idiocy. I’ll take care of Sam.”

  “No blunt instruments?”

  “What a thought, my dear girl. I am a diplomat.”

  Just how Sam Erlichman had divined that his no-good daughter had been up to even more no good was a mystery. Neither Jack nor Frima had a clue. But secrets were hard to keep, and gossips talked. Sam, it was clear, was happy to have anyone see his rage.

  “That’s it! I won’t have a whore for a daughter, a nafkeh. I never set eyes on her again. She can’t get married like a normal person? Not her! She has to shame us by living with an Italian? A Dago? A gangster? If she goes to the wedding, I don’t. And that’s all!”

  “You can sit here and soak your feet, or your head, though it won’t give you any more brains. I’m going to my son’s wedding if I need to walk there,” Sarah retorted. The battle was joined.

  Jack’s first reaction was to mutter that whenever his
sister was involved there was trouble. Why did she have to entangle herself with this guy anyway? But greeted with stony silence and Frima and Hannah’s eyes boring into him, he promptly thought better of complaining. He knew quite well which side his bread was buttered on; Frima and Hannah were his sister’s champions and thereafter he wisely left the combat with Sam to them.

  Sarah, arriving at Hannah’s door, marched into the kitchen and planted herself on a chair.

  “I’m going, he isn’t, and that’s that. In the ground he should be!” Then, more quietly, “I hope you’ll have room for me in the car.”

  “Of course, Sarah,” Frima assured her. “Why, you’re part of the wedding party, you know.”

  “Ah, well, thank you, dear.” Sarah managed a little smile. “I hope I have a dress fancy enough for the occasion. From that schnorer, I’ll get nothing.”

  “Have a cup of tea, Sarah,” Mama said calmly. She set a steaming cup and a slice of apple cake in front of her.

  “Thank you, but I have no appetite—I’m too upset.”

  “This is just what you need. Now, Sarah, don’t you worry. I promise you right now, you and Sam will both be there. He doesn’t have to say a word to Beth or anybody for that matter. The wedding is a small country celebration, nothing fancy, but Sam will be in a suit and you’ll have a nice dress. I’m making it myself, just like I’m doing for Frima. After you finish your tea, I want to take your measurements. Then we’ll talk.”

  Masterful, Frima thought. Still, Sarah was a piece of cake compared to Sam. Mama would need a bludgeon to get anywhere with him.

  She did, nevertheless. Neither Frima nor Jack knew exactly how. She sent them on an errand, announcing that she was going to call Sam. No, she didn’t need them for moral support—they’d just be in the way. They dawdled around, full of curiosity, but she closed the door on them. Ears to the door they could hear that she spoke in rapid Yiddish, her voice rising in intensity and determination. They couldn’t make out much more.