(9 page)

70

EILEEN GOUDGE

of the fat woman’s lip against the rim almost grinning up at her. It hit the table with a spray of milky dregs, then suddenly, like a billiard ball shooting into a side pocket, the cup skidded over and dumped itself, along with the little bit of coffee still left in it, smack in the fat woman’s bulging lap.

Mrs. Fat let out a yowl and began mopping frantically at the stain covering the front of her lime-green polyester pants suit. “You stupid thing! Just look what you did! I’ll just bet it’s ruined for good.”

“I’m sorry,” Annie said. Flustered, she grabbed a crumpled napkin, dabbing at the wet spot, but only succeeded in adding a new catsup stain.

Mrs. Fat swatted her hand away. “I want the manager! Get me the manager!” She glared at her husband. “Don’t just sit there, Hank. Do something.”

Annie felt as if the whole scene were taking place underwater. She watched the woman’s rubbery lips opening and closing, like a fat carp’s, and now her husband lumbering heavily to his feet. A noise like rushing water filled her ears, and the light filtering in through the steamy plate-glass window seemed to ripple strangely.

Then Nick Dimitriou, the boss, was scurrying over, and everybody was staring, forks poised in midair at tables all around her. Annie wanted to be swallowed up by the floor. Her heart thumped, and now she could feel the sweat rolling down her neck and back.

But she stood her ground. She’d show them. She wasn’t just some knock-kneed kid who was going to fall apart at the drop of a hat. But, oh God, Nick did look pissed, his thick brows scrunched together, his dark eyes glowering.

“Go on, go,” he hissed at her. “Wait in kitchen. I take care of these people. Then we talk.”

Annie, her cheeks burning, carried the dirty plates back and lowered them into the big rubber bin by the dishwasher. She felt tears pressing against the backs of her eyes, but she wouldn’t let herself cry. Not with Loretta and J.J. and Spiro watching. She fixed a squinty gaze on the cloud of steam rising from the sink, where shaggy-haired

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS 7/

J.J. was scrubbing out one of the huge stockpots. From the other end of the kitchen, the sizzle of something abruptly dunked into the industrial-sized fryer hit her ears like a muffled blast from a machine gun.

Then Loretta was touching her arm, and Annie realized she must have seen the whole thing. “Don’t worry,” she said, her faded blue eyes full of sympathy. “Nick can fly off the handle for a minute, but he’s okay. It wasn’t your fault anyway. Coulda happened to anyone.”

But Annie knew that wasn’t true. Loretta wouldn’t have dropped that cup. And mixed up all those ordersyesterday alone, at table five, split-pea soup instead of minestrone, and a steak well-done instead of rare. All of which had to be scrapped, and replaced.

No, Loretta might never have studied French or trigonometry, but when it came to waitressing she was a genius compared to Annie.

Annie had a sudden vision of herself seated at the long, Spanish-style dining table at Bel Jardin, helping herself from the platter of roast beef Bonita was holding out. Plump Bonita, in her black-and-white uniform, her brown face shining, as if she were offering Annie some wonderful gift. And I just took it for granted … I never appreciated how hard she worked.

She felt a sharp pang of loss; she missed Bel Jardin so. The tears she had been holding back now sprang to her eyes. She wanted so much to bury her face in a dish towel and just let herself sob. But she knew she couldn’t. Laurel would be waiting for her back in their empty apartment. No food in the refrigerator, except a carton of milk and a half-eaten can of tuna fish-hardly enough to feed a cat. If the lips weren’t good today, she’d been planning to ask Nick for an advance on her paycheck, then pick up some groceries on the way home.

But now, as she watched her boss shoulder in through the swinging doors, Annie felt herself shrivel inside. How stupid she’d been, how smug, thinking that this job would be a cinch.

But even though she felt like running out the back

72

EILEEN GOUDGE

door, she forced herself to stay put and hold herself tall. I need this job, she thought.

She walked over to the boss, a wiry Greek man with a livid pink scar extending from the corner of his right eye down to his jaw. He’d worked as a stevedore while saving up to start his own business, Loretta had told her, and one day a piece of baling wire had snapped, springing up to slice open the right side of his face. Now, where the scar pulled down the corner of his mouth, it gave him the look of a permanent scowl.

Annie, her heart hammering, made herself look him square in the eye. No whining, no lame excuses, she cornmanded herself. Dearie, with all her bad luck and sickness, never let anyone get away with whining, herself included.

“I’m sorry for what happened back there,” Annie said. “I’m trying my best, Mr. Dimitriou.”

Some of the sternness left his face, and he shook his head. “This I know … but, listen, I have business to run. I can afford one mistake, maybe two. But you, Annie … maybe you try too hard. You make yourself trouble that way. You make me trouble. Lady in there, she’s a regular customer, and she wants I should pay for cleaning dress. I smile and say, ‘Nicholas Dimitriou always make good,’ but what way is that to make money? No, sorry, you got to go.” He turned, and started to walk away.

“Wait!” Annie called after him. She couldn’t beg … and yet she couldn’t let him fire her. A trapped sob quivered in her chest, making her voice come out high and shaky. “I’ll pay for my mistakes. Take it out of my paycheck. Mr. Dimitriou, I really n-need this job. Please … give me another chance.” For a terrible instant, everything went wavy and hot, and she was afraid she was going to be an idiot and burst into tears.

Nick’s ruined mouth screwed downward in a sad smile. “I give you good advice, Annie. This no place for girl like you.” Annie watched, stunned, as he turned, and disappeared through the swinging doors.

Loretta came up, and put her arm around Annie. “You don’t want to hear it right now, I know, but he’s right,” she said. “You’re too good for this dump. I bet

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS

73

you’re an actress or a model, waitin’ for the big break, right?” Loretta’s watery blue eyes grew wistful. The worst part of this job, she’d once confided to Annie, was that she had to miss watching Days of Our Lives.

Annie, who purposely had avoided talking about herself, couldn’t help feeling flattered. She was grateful to Loretta, too, for distracting her. But the black thoughts at the edge of her mind couldn’t be kept out. How was she going to get another job, pay next month’s rent, feed herself and Laurel?

In her locker in the back there was exactly forty-two dollars and seventy-two cents-tips she’d earned so far, plus the last of her jewelry money. That, with the week’s pay she had coming, ought to be just enough to last them until the end of the month … if she was really, really careful. But after that …

Oh God, what am I going to do?

Feeling shaken, like that time at Bel Jardin when she’d accidentally walked into the sliding glass door of the pool house, Annie collected her pay envelope from Mr. Dimitriou and left.

On Eighth Avenue, passing a greengrocer with bushels of lettuce, tomatoes, and apples sitting out on the curb, she thought of that scene in Gone With the Wind, where Scarlett upchucks the radish, then shakes her fist at the sky and vows, “I’ll never go hungry again.”

Thinking just how much like a movie her own predicament was, Annie gave a harsh laugh. “Now what?” she said under her breath.

But she’d think of something. She would.

” R

Daruch a% adonai, elohenu melech ha-olam …”

Annie closed her eyes and let the sound of Rivka’s voice, as she fanted the blessing over the candles, flow through her. She felt herself relaxing, this afternoon’s ordeal at the Parthenon fading from her thoughts.

Adding a little prayer of her own, Annie muttered, “Please, God, let me find another job.” Something I’d be good at… a place where I’d fit in.

I

74

EILEEN COUDGE

Now, opening her eyes, Annie watched Rivka, in her neatly coiffed brown shaitel and longsleeved flowered dress, take her place at the crowded dining-room table opposite her husband, between Laurel and Sarah. There was more chanting in Hebrew, this time led by Mr. Gruberman, with the others joining in, their voices overlapping-the sweet high tones of Sarah and Leah and their four younger brothers mingling with the wavery, selfconscious contralto of thirteen-year-old Moishe. Beside her, Annie could hear Laurel softly chiming in, just a phrase here and there. Annie looked over at her sister in her blue-and-white checked jumper and navy cardigan, feeling a little jolt of surprise. When had Laurel learned that?

Rivka must have noticed, too, because now she was smiling at Laurel. “That’s good, shainenke. Now you will help me say the blessing over the bread, nul”

Laurel nodded shyly as Rivka handed her the sterling bread knife, in which Annie could see reflected the dancing flames of the Shabbat candles in their silver holders atop the sideboard.

“Baruch ata adonai …” Rivka and Laurel began together; then Rivka stopped and nodded to Laurel, beckoning for her to continue. Laurel faltered, her pale cheeks blooming with color. She looked up, casting a furtive glance about the table, then when she saw that no one was snickering at her, she pulled in a deep breath, and finished haltingly, “… elohenu … melech … ha-olam … hamotzi… le-chem min ha-oretz. “

Beaming, Laurel pulled off the snowy linen cloth covering the challah, and waited while Rivka sliced off one end of the large braided loaf. Following Rivka’s lead, she tore off a small piece from the chunk Rivka handed her, and popped it into her mouth, passing the rest to Annie. The chunk of challah went around the table that way, everybody tearing off a shred until it was all gone.

This was the second time Rivka had asked them down for Shabbat dinner. Last Friday night it had been the same, Annie recalled, the lighting of the candles, then the blessings over the wine and the bread. But then, Laurel

SUCH DEVOTED SISTERS

75

had just sat quietly, looking down at her plate throughout the chanting. Now she was joining in, and in Hebrew.

Annie had known her sister was quick at picking up new things-card games especially, and after only a couple of weeks of tagging after Rivka she was becoming a pretty good cook, too-but she couldn’t help being impressed. What would Laurel come up with next?

Now, with Rivka and Sarah and Leah getting up and ferrying in from the kitchen steaming platters of roast chicken, potatoes, broccoli, and noodle kugel, and the boys chattering to one another in Yiddish, Laurel nudged Annie and asked, “Do you like the challah? I made it.”

“You did?”

“Well, mostly I just helped, but Rivka let me knead the dough for this one, and then braid it. What makes it shiny on top is you brush it with egg whites.”

“Egg whites,” Annie repeated. She was staring at her sister, noticing how much more poised and grownup she seemed than even a few weeks ago. Even her hairshe’d stopped wearing it in braids and pigtails, and now it was clasped loosely at the nape of her neck. Her eyes, too, had a new sparkle in them.

Annie thought of how last night, arriving home from the Parthenon, reeking with grease and sweat, hungry, and so tired she could hardly stand up, she’d found Laurel in their tiny kitchen with dinner all prepared-meatloaf and scalloped potatoes she’d made herself, along with a slightly wilted salad. The meatloaf was a little burned around the edges, and the potatoes were on the watery side, but Annie had gobbled them up, and hadn’t lied when she told Laurel it was the most delicious meal she could remember.

She’d hadn’t yet told Laurel that she’d been fired. She hadn’t had the courage. And Rivka? What was Rivka supposed to do if next month Annie failed to come up with the rent money—keep them on as charity cases? No, the Grubermans, with all these kids, were having a hard time, Annie knew, just making ends meet. They needed the money from the upstairs apartment.

No, she had to find something … and quick.

But meanwhile …oh, how wonderful just to sit

7(5

EILEEN GOUDGE

here, soaking in the good, savory smells rising from the laden platters and bowls being passed around the table, and feel the bounty of warmth and togetherness filling this room. Even the squabbling between the younger Grubermans didn’t break the spell.

“Ma, Chaim is kicking me under the table, make him stop!”

“Chaim, stop,” Rivka ordered calmly, and without even looking up from cutting chicken into tiny pieces for Shainey, perched in her high chair just behind Rivka, she added, “And, Yonkie, your broccoli-it belongs in your mouth, not in your napkin.”

Annie watched five-year-old Yonkel, his yarmulke askew on his close-cropped curls, his chubby cheeks growing pimc, sheepishly untie his napkin and shake the smashed-looking broccoli inside it back on his plate.

“I’m not eating mine,” announced pole-thin Moishe, who looked far younger than his thirteen years, except for the peach fuzz sprouting on his chin. Steam from the potatoes he was shovelling onto his plate misted his thick square eyeglasses. “How do I know there’s not a bug in it?”

“Bugs?” Rivka looked up sharply.

“Well, I haven’t ever actually seen one … but if I eat one by mistake, they’re treyf.”

“Says who?”

“Rabbi Mandelbaum.”

“Listen, if Rabbi Mandelbaum wants to eat at my table, then he can come over first and personally wash every bit of broccoli himself. Until then, I cook, and you eat.” Rivka sounded indignant, but her eyes sparkled with amusement.

“Look, Yonkie, I’m eating it,” Laurel said encouragingly, spearing a huge chunk, and popping it into her mouth. “It’s really good!”

Everyone at the table except Laurel and Annie burst out laughing.

“You can eat anything you want,” giggled Leah. The dark-eyed fifteen-year-old, with her rosy cheeks and