The Witch and the Borscht Pearl

by Angela Zeman

  Tonight she looked sensational. I told her so.

  She laid a warm hand on my shoulder and grinned. “Did you hear about the guy who dreamed God told him to fix himself up? He gets a hair transplant, a nose job, diets until he’s nice and slim, and buys new clothes. All of a sudden, he’s struck by lightning on a local golf course. He goes to heaven, but God doesn’t talk to him. No matter what he does he can’t get God’s attention. Finally he shouts at God, ‘Hey, you told me in my dreams to better myself. I had a nose job, got a hair transplant, I took off weight—now you won’t even talk to me?’ God says, “Don’t holler at me, Irving. I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Ooof,” said Mrs. Risk, making a sour face.

  I laughed.

  Pearl tsked at Mrs. Risk. “Rachel obviously has all the sense of humor between the two of you.”

  Then a commotion at the door drew our attention. Solly strode in, flushed with cold and as radiant as a traffic light gone amok. His proprietary hand cradled the elbow of a woman, and that woman was Bella. Petite, at least eight inches shorter than her sister, her fragile frame had obviously come from a separate branch of the family tree. Unlike, and yet—a resemblance existed. Both were dark and had strong features, with prominent cheekbones and large eyes. They had similarly low foreheads, from which their thick glossy hair, with no visible grey, swept back, although their styles couldn’t have been more different. Bella swirled her hair into a simple twist and tuck, where she anchored it with a long pin. Pearl’s short cropped hair spiked like a little boy’s when she dragged her fingers through it, a habit she had. Still, even ten years apart, no one could miss that Bella and Pearl were sisters. I didn’t know them well enough to compare beyond physical attributes.

  Even though I’d been warned what to expect, I still breathed in Mrs. Risk’s ear, “Look at that!” as Solly marched towards us, towing his prize.

  “Hush,” she replied, eyeing Pearl.

  I lowered my voice even more. “Don’t kid me! You’re as amazed as I am! You didn’t know what was happening, or you would’ve told me long before now! Gee, I hope your powers aren’t slipping.”

  After a long suffering sigh, she said, “You might want to collect your things from that chair so somebody can sit there.”

  I hastened to comply, then here they were.

  “Hello, hello!” Solly hugged and kissed all around, even me, and especially Pearl. “Has anyone else arrived?” He bounced on his toes like a little boy. Bella and Pearl nodded to each other warily, omitting the regulation hug.

  “Take a deep breath, Pearl,” murmured Mrs. Risk, peering at her closely. Pearl flushed, which, to my relief, added color to her skin.

  Then two more couples entered the room and made straight for our table, followed by a very thin deeply tanned older woman with unnaturally vivid red hair—the Leeann woman I remembered from Pearl’s party.

  One of the couples I knew and greeted enthusiastically—Dr. Tony Savoia and his tall, elegant, and indulgent wife, Fran. The other couple was introduced to Mrs. Risk and me as Stephen and Melissa Graham, Pearl’s new accountant and his wife. A medium tall, medium sized guy with medium brown hair, Graham had the perky wholesome air of a spit-shined Boy Scout. His wife, also a collection of ‘mediums,’ looked equally young, but defensive and a little sour. Both had under-dressed, or maybe L. L. Bean ruled their closets.

  Then a slim darkly beautiful woman in her forties quietly glided up to us: the jazz singer, Ilene Fox. She had come alone and stood silently until Pearl claimed her with a warm hug.

  With some chaotic maneuvering, for the restaurant was crowded, a beaming Solly arranged the seating of everyone while chattering male nonsense. “Well, well, we’re all here! Look at this! Doc, Stephen, and I have collected the most gorgeous women on Long Island. What can all the other men be doing tonight, poor things?”

  Leeann giggled as if she believed every word.

  While Solly sent our waiter running for champagne, I admit I stared, who could help it? After Bella’s startling appearance at Pearl’s house, the theft of Pearl’s necklace, and then Pearl’s condemnation of Bella as the thief, who wouldn’t stare? How had events progressed from there to this? ‘This’ turned out to be Solly’s and Bella’s engagement party. Solly and Bella sat centered in the long banquette across the table, entwined hands on the table between them. A pale yellow diamond the size of a sugar cube winked and gleamed in the candlelight from its home on Bella’s third finger of her left hand.

  “Well.” Solly cleared his throat and stood, speechmaking obviously his intention. I thought I detected a tinge of panic in his smile. “This little family gathering tonight makes it official. Thank you, Stephen and Melissa, Tony and Fran, and you girls,” (meaning the rest of us women—to Solly, I’d already learned, single women of any age are ‘girls’) “for joining us to help celebrate this, the happiest event in my life.” A brilliant spot of crimson dotted each lean cheek.

  After a deep breath, he began a confused explanation of why certain close friends (naming Vivian Steiner, Roselle and Simon Lutz, for example) were absent tonight, moved into some kind of philosophic essay—and my attention wandered.

  It must be an awkward, maybe even an unnerving experience, marrying for the first time after a bachelorhood of sixty years. Especially if you intend to marry the sister of a woman who’d agreed to marry you only a few short months ago. What had happened? Had the sisters bargained over Solly like the last sweater on a sale counter? Had Bella won?

  And what about managing Pearl’s life and career for twenty seven years—wouldn’t there be a certain amount of closeness, a bond between Solly and Pearl after so long an association? What would happen to that now that he’d ditched her, romantically speaking? And with Pearl’s big comeback to manage? Thanksgiving wasn’t far away.

  I peeked at Pearl. She sat on my side of the table with Mrs. Risk between us. As she impassively watched Solly make his speech, was she thinking about how Bella had made off with her fiancé thirty years ago, comparing that event and now?

  Throughout Solly’s speech, the candlelight made twin flames in the dark pupils of Bella’s eyes. Her stillness fueled my curiosity about her feelings, which were not on display. Was she normally this reserved? I sighed. So many questions, none of which would likely be answered, so I might as well spare myself.

  Solly’s words finally trickled away. Reading his silence as a cue, we all surged to our feet in relief and grabbed up our now warm champagne. After clanking glasses to shouted toasts and ‘hear, hear!’, we drank and sat down again. Memories of my own brief but disastrous marriage darted through my head and I shuddered. To banish the ghosts, I seized the basket of hot fresh bread. “Rolls?” I asked the table in general, which brought the conversation around to refreshments. Our waiter, sensing his moment had arrived, dashed up to take orders.

  When that was settled, Mrs. Risk commented, “I see this as a special occasion in more ways than the obvious.”

  “What d’you mean?” asked Pearl brightly.

  “This is the first time the village has seen the two of you sisters together in public since the theft,” Mrs. Risk explained.

  I closed my eyes in disbelief.

  Pearl looked down at her clasped hands where they lay in her lap. “That’s true.” Her vivid personality diminished briefly, then revived, like the temporary flicker of a dazzling candle.

  Mrs. Risk lifted her wineglass, “To the wisdom of reconciliation,” she declared. After an extra heartbeat, everyone followed suit, touching glasses in a subdued manner.

  “Solly, are you responsible for this event?” Mrs. Risk continued.

  Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed to me that everything she said could be understood in more than one way, if you wanted to think so.

  Solly attempted a roguish wink, but failed. “I guess I am. I’ll take credit for it, anyway. Managers are expert at taking credit for somebody else’s work, aren’t they?” We all obliged him and laughed.
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br />   “Everybody wants to be a comic,” Bella complained suddenly, to my overwhelming surprise. That was Pearl’s customary line.

  After Mrs. Risk’s bombshell opener, I suppose everyone felt nothing much ruder could be said (except for the obvious issue of stolen fiancés which Mrs. Risk seemed content to ignore—for now) and the relief made conversation flow. Everyone else discussed the weather (harsher than the normal November), the variety of food on the menu, and the latest theater offerings (On Broadway and Off). And I studied the two sisters.

  Bella, like myself, left conversation mostly to others, but sent me a guarded glance now and again. I suppose my scrutiny was a little open, maybe it bothered her. I tried to remember my manners.

  The waiter brought a fresh bottle and refilled our glasses, then laid out a presentation of paté. Mrs. Risk picked up a knife and, while delicately shaving off a sliver, asked, “Pearl, was your necklace ever recovered by the police?”

  My glass slipped through my fingers, splashing champagne across Bella’s hand.

  “I’m sorry!” I exclaimed, my face hot as I dabbed at her with my napkin. Why can’t Mrs. Risk signal when she’s about to plunge into disaster? What if Bella had really stolen the necklace? What if Pearl had merely misplaced it and had falsely accused her own sister? What if they’d rather forget the whole thing?

  Bella pressed her linen napkin to her lips. Her eyes shifted warily from person to person.

  Solly gripped the table edge with both hands and leaned back, pressing his torso into the soft banquette as if wanting to put as much distance between himself and Mrs. Risk as possible. I could sympathize with this attitude.

  Pearl gave a shaky laugh. “I, uh, never called in the police. I didn’t want to deal with the—the publicity, and so on. Anyway, no, it hasn’t been found.”

  Mrs. Risk asked in astonishment, “But how did you make an insurance claim without a police report?”

  “I don’t want the insurance money,” said Pearl, not meeting Mrs. Risk’s eyes. She waved a bony hand negligently in the air as if a quarter of a million dollars was mere lunch money.

  “Pearl, this just isn’t sensible of you. Unless of course, there’s some question of whether the necklace was actually stolen. Do you think you just misplaced it?”

  “Uh, no. I’m sure that’s not the case.”

  “Then theft? Who do you think took it?” Mrs. Risk pressed. I could barely keep myself from groaning aloud.

  Solly, bless his managerial instincts, leaped to action. “Proof, my dear Mrs. Risk. Surely you see how harmful it could be to cast about casual accusations without proof. Why, even that caterer woman could’ve taken it.”

  Mrs. Risk looked startled. “Arlene? Absolutely not. You don’t know who you’re talking about.”

  “Forgive me. Of course you’re right. I only meant her as a hypothetical example.” He fished for Bella’s hand under the table and, on finding it, plopped it onto the tablecloth between them again, firmly grasped in his own. He declared as if asked, which he hadn’t been, “Bella left before the theft—or loss—occurred, so she could contribute nothing to the investigation.”

  “Oh, so there was an investigation?” inquired Mrs. Risk.

  “I conducted one,” Solly stated. “And as I was saying, Bella, having lived abroad for years in extremely reduced circumstances, had no idea that such a necklace even existed until reading about the loss in the newspapers.” He patted Bella’s hand. “Frankly, I feel sure it’ll turn up and we’ll all be surprised at the simple explanation.” That, his expression seemed to say, was that.

  He obviously intended to keep both his fiancé and his client. I imagine the two years Pearl had taken off from her career had squashed his financial position pretty drastically, since Pearl had been his only client for the last ten years of his professional life. I’m repeating Mrs. Risk’s information, of course.

  Pearl nodded rapidly. “I agree with Solly, the necklace will turn up. That’s why I didn’t call in the police. I’m not worried, really.”

  “Then I propose another toast,” said Mrs. Risk. A subject change, I hoped to God. We obediently lifted our champagne flutes.

  “To both Pearls’ comebacks,” she pronounced. “To the Borscht Pearl necklace’s restoration to its rightful owner, who treasures it in memory of the beloved husband who gave it to her. And to the living Borscht Pearl’s restoration to her fans, who treasure her as much.”

  A mixed bag, but it ended well, so I drank to it, as did the others.

  Pearl’s eyes misted. “From your lips to God’s ears,” she said firmly.

  The dinner itself went more smoothly. Toasting occurred now and then, like celebratory hiccups while we ate, and the mood became jollier and jollier. Even Bella began saying bright little nothings at which everyone giggled.

  “How do you like being Pearl’s accountant?” I asked Stephen Graham, who sat to my left, and who I’d begun calling Stevie an hour ago.

  He beamed. “Love it. I’m star struck, I admit it. Six months ago, when she agreed to let me take over her account—”

  Melissa, his wife, interrupted, “Steve was hired by Marvin only a few weeks before the heart attack. The idea was that Steve would assist Marvin with his accounts and eventually work his way up to full partnership. Then, of course, you know.” She twitched a khaki wool covered shoulder.

  Mystified, I ventured a shake of my head.

  “Oh, you didn’t know?” Melissa asked. “Marvin died. Heart attack.”

  “Oh.”

  “And so you see, months before Steve had time to learn the accounts or how the firm was run or anything, he was suddenly put into a position of scrambling to get up to speed.” She beamed. Obviously, she had no qualms that he was perfectly capable of ‘getting up to speed.’ “It’s kind of complicated, but my Steve will end up owning the firm one day.”

  “Congratulations,” I told Steve, who hadn’t been allowed to comment. “And Pearl was this Marvin’s client before he died?”

  “Marvin Steiner. Oh, yeah. Since the beginning of her career,” she said.

  “They must have been old friends.”

  “For years! It was really hard on her, him dying like that. Just when she started to get herself together from her own widowhood. Her husband died from a heart problem of some kind, too, you know.” She clutched at her husband’s hand as if to ward off any such evil happening to him.

  I was happy to see that at least some married couples had a good thing going.

  Then the dishes were cleared and out came Solly’s surprise.

  The owner of the restaurant himself wheeled in the tray, dodging artfully between tables so as to garner the most attention possible. He skidded precariously to a halt beside us.

  With a flourish he unveiled the pièce de résistance. It was a cake, iced with jewel-bright festivity to the point of causing retina damage. The cake was topped with a glittering figure with arms held out, Pearl fashion, to a tiny bride and groom. A tableau of Pearl blessing Bella and Solly’s wedding? Spun sugar tiny bells—or maybe they were stage lights—arched coyly over the cake and supported a lacy chupah over the bridal couple.

  I could only blink. Tacky to the extreme, but it was Pearl’s warm kind of kitschy—tacky. I glanced at her to see if she’d been a co-conspirator. However, she looked as stunned as I, so it must have been all Solly’s doing.

  We heaped upon Solly the praise and admiration that he obviously expected and he beamed as if he’d baked it himself.

  Taking an ornate antique gold pillbox from his breast pocket, Solly offered around saccharin tablets for our coffee, which all refused except Pearl, who took one. He tapped a few into his own steaming coffee. I’d seen him do this routine with the saccharin at Pearl’s party and someone there had explained it to me. He had a dislike for other sweeteners that had become something of an affectation, and his love of fancy pill boxes was well-known. We all examined this latest acquisition with admiration before he tucked it back into his
pocket.

  Bella stood to cut the cake amid a chorus of cheers. I cringed to think what purple and fuchsia glitter would taste like, but it was actually delicious.

  The merriment was high, and so was I. Overabundant champagne and sentiment made us feel incredibly devoted to each other, friends to the death. I began perspiring in the crowded room. I fanned myself with my napkin and laughed at Pearl’s and Mrs. Risk’s teasing comments about Solly’s coming lifestyle adjustments. Even silent Ilene Fox giggled. I noticed sweat breaking out on Solly’s face, but laughed only the harder at his discomfiture. It all seemed so happy.

  When Solly began frowning and rubbing at his chest I hardly noticed. Pearl had begun a routine about in-laws when Solly tilted over against Bella. He ignored her protests and began saying something like “Eeeeehhh,” with his teeth clenched. I figured Solly’d had too much to drink, a condition with which I could sympathize.

  Melissa edged further down the banquette to give Bella more room. Stephen had just leaned over the table to assist Solly when Bella shifted, accidentally upsetting Solly’s balance. He fell crashing to the floor at our feet.

  Mrs. Risk leaped out of her chair and pulled the table out of the way, upsetting glasses and provoking protests from our neighbors. Dr. Savoia squeezed in to crouch at Solly’s side.

  “Call 911, Rachel,” he ordered in his soft voice. “Say a possible heart attack.” While he spoke he pulled at Solly’s tie and shirt buttons. Solly no longer made any noise, but frightened me all the more with the agonized expression on his face. Dr. Savoia began giving Solly mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

  The people at surrounding tables stared, horrified. Pearl, face as white as our tablecloth, braced herself rigidly against Mrs. Risk’s chair.

  Bella made a noise like a sobbing inhale that drew Pearl’s attention. For a long minute, they stared at each other. Pearl was the first to turn away.

  The ambulance arrived.

  As I tended the distraught Bella, Mrs. Risk took a moment to examine Pearl closely, I noticed to my relief. One heart attack was already one too many.