In the Unlikely Event (4 page)

“You're not fifteen yet, Natalie Grace Osner.”

“But I will be soon, unless I die of humiliation first.”

Just before the party began Natalie confronted Steve in the laundry room, where he was setting up a card table. “Just stay out of our way. Don't ruin my get-together with your wisecracks.”

“I'll bet your girlfriends wouldn't mind. They like my wisecracks.”

“Stay away from my girlfriends!”

Steve laughed. “As if I'm interested.”

“You're just three years older than me, big shot. Remember that. Your wife will probably be younger than I am. The girl you're going to marry is probably Fern's age now.”

“Gee, I wonder if she has a toy rabbit.”

If Natalie had had a bottle of soda in her hand she'd have shaken it and squirted it in Steve's face. But she didn't, so she couldn't.

Ruby

In Sunnyside, Queens, Ruby Granik was giving herself a facial, massaging gray clay into her delicate skin. Her hair was wrapped in a towel. She was careful not to let the clay drop onto her chenille robe, as warm and comfy as a childhood blanky. Her suitcase sat open on her bed, a pale-pink cardigan sweater with pearl buttons thrown on top.

Her family was going to celebrate Christmas tonight, ten days early, because she was leaving tomorrow morning, on her way to Miami to dance at the Vagabond Club on Biscayne Boulevard. She'd just appeared at Café Society in New York, though she was still waiting for her check on that one. All in all, not bad for a local girl.

Her gifts for her mother and father were wrapped. She just needed to tie them with ribbon. For her mother, the same pink cardigan with pearl buttons as the one in her suitcase but in a larger size. Her mother loved wearing the same things as Ruby, something
about being a twin, Ruby thought. When she was little her mother made them mother-daughter dresses. But the day she'd turned ten Ruby had balked. “I'm not your twin!”

“I know that, Ruby. You're my daughter.”

“I don't want to wear the same clothes as you.”

“Well, if that's the way you feel, you don't have to.”

“You and Aunt Emmy can wear the same clothes. You're twins.”

“Yes, we are. But we're grown-up twins now and we only wear the same clothes if we're going to a family party.”

Even that struck Ruby as strange, but as long as she didn't have to wear matching dresses anymore, she was satisfied. Funny, because now that she'd grown up herself, she didn't mind, from time to time, buying two of something, since her mother's life was difficult and it gave her so much pleasure. For her father, she'd found a large magnifying glass in a leather case. Her father was confined to a wheelchair since his foot was amputated in August, a complication of diabetes. Now, with his failing eyesight, another complication, her mother had had to quit her job to stay at home and take care of him. These days Ruby was their sole support. Not that she brought in much, even when she had a steady job, but she was sure that was about to change.

She felt a twinge of guilt for leaving her parents over the holidays but she had a career to think about. Her aunt was coming from New Jersey, from Elizabeth, where she and her mother had grown up singing in the church choir. The singing Konecki twins. Emmy and Wendy. At least she wouldn't be leaving her parents completely alone. Her mother and father could argue about anything and everything and having Aunt Emmy in the house would help. Her father liked Emmy. He called her the reasonable twin, which sometimes infuriated her mother and other times made her laugh.

From downstairs she heard her mother call, “Ruby…do you need me to iron your white blouse?”

“Thanks, Mom, but I'll do it later. I have a few other things to press.”

“I don't mind. Bring them down.”

Ruby gathered a pair of shorts, two skirts, and an off-the-shoulder
blouse. She ran down the stairs with them just as the doorbell rang. She pulled the door open, expecting to see Aunt Emmy. Instead it was Dana, Ruby's best friend, another long-legged dancer.

Dana burst out laughing. “You look cute,” she said, reminding Ruby her face was still covered in gray clay.

“Dana, you're frozen,” Ruby's mother said, greeting her daughter's friend. “A cup of coffee or tea?”

“Thanks,” Dana said, “but I'm okay.”

Dana followed Ruby up the stairs. They'd met and roomed together on the national tour of
Kiss Me, Kate
. Ruby wasn't sure she'd ever have that much fun again.

“Looks like you're all packed,” Dana said.

“Almost. I was just finishing wrapping presents for my mom and dad.”

“Give me the ribbon. I'll do it. You get that goo off your face. I can't take you out for a holiday drink like that.”

“We're going out for drinks?”

“We are.”

Ruby passed the red and green ribbon to Dana. “Give me ten minutes. So long as I'm back for supper with the family. You should stay. My mother's making pierogi.”

“I love your mother's pierogi.”

“She'll be happy to have another guest. Aunt Emmy's driving in from Elizabeth.”

“With handsome Uncle Victor?”

“Afraid the handsome fireman has to stay at home. He's on duty. Anyway, he's old enough to be your father.”

“I like older men.”

“My uncle is off-limits.”

“As if I don't know.”

They laughed as they walked arm in arm to Billy's, the tavern on the corner, where they sat in a booth. Ruby's skin was glowing from the facial. Without makeup she could pass for a high school student.

“What can I bring you lovely ladies?” Billy asked. Billy was bald, short and round, but he moved fast.

“Two hot toddies,” Dana said.

“With pleasure, though neither one of you beauties looks old enough to be legal.” He knew they were. Billy had known Ruby's family since before she was born. Knew she'd turned twenty-two over the summer, just before her father's surgery. Billy knew almost everything about her family, and he kept it to himself.

When they were served, Dana held up her glass. “Cheers. Here's to a great year for both of us!”

Ruby clinked glasses with her. “I'll second that.”

They talked for forty-five minutes over a second hot toddy, taking turns feeding nickels into the jukebox. When they tired of holiday songs they started on Broadway musicals, singing along with “Why Can't You Behave?,” reminding them of their good times on the road and entertaining the few customers who were seated at the bar.

When it was time to leave, Billy called, “Have a good trip, Ruby.”

“Thanks, Billy. And don't let my father have more than one, if anyone brings him in.”

“Don't worry, sweetheart. And a Merry Christmas to you.”

“You, too, Billy.”

Miri

That night, Suzanne's father dropped Miri and Suzanne at Natalie's house. Mrs. Osner answered the door. Small and pretty, she wore a single strand of pearls whether she was in a skirt and sweater, like tonight, or a cocktail dress on her way to the country club. Miri liked to think of her as Corinne. She liked thinking of all the adults in her life by their first names. It made them seem more interesting, less like parents and more like regular people with stories of their own. Steve and Fern were dark-haired like Dr. Osner, but Natalie was dirty-blond, with short, soft curls like her mother, and the same gray-blue eyes.

Even though Natalie's family was Jewish and attended Temple B'nai Israel on the High Holidays, same as Miri's family, they had a big, beautiful tree in their living room, which they called a Hanukkah bush. It was decorated with handmade wooden animal ornaments.
On Christmas Eve Natalie and Fern would hang up stockings by the fireplace and Fern would leave out milk and cookies for the Jewish Santa, who flew through the sky wearing a blue suit with silver Jewish stars. Instead of reindeer his cart was pulled by camels because he came from Israel, not the North Pole.

Dr. Osner didn't approve of celebrating this way, but Mrs. Osner, who came from Birmingham, Alabama, had grown up with the custom and refused to give it up. Miri wished her family celebrated the Jewish Santa, too. She would have enjoyed decorating a tree and leaving milk and cookies for him even though she was way too old to believe.

“The young people are downstairs,” Corinne told Miri and Suzanne, as if they didn't know.

Natalie wasn't the only one in their crowd to have a finished basement, but if they put it to a vote Natalie's would win by a mile. It wasn't just the red leather banquettes, the knotty-pine walls, the red and black floor tiles, or even the oval bar with its flip-top counter and glasses in every size imaginable lined up neatly on mirrored shelves. Forget all that. What made Natalie's basement take the prize was the jukebox.

“It's not new,” Natalie always said, as if it would be a crime to have your own
new
jukebox, the kind with swirling colors and flashing lights. Natalie still got to change the records herself and nobody had to put in a coin to start it up. You just had to push the button. Dr. Osner brought home the jukebox with all the latest hits thanks to one of his patients who was in the music business.
Some gangster
, Natalie once confided to Miri.

When Natalie pushed the button and the jukebox came to life, the dancing began with something swingy, something they could Lindy to—
Hey good lookin', whatcha got cookin'?
It left them laughing, breathing hard, ready for more.

But when Nat King Cole came on singing “Nature Boy” the mood shifted. Miri was wondering who she'd dance the first slow dance with, when out of nowhere a dark-haired boy, someone Miri had never seen before, came up to her, wrapped his arms around her and held her close, as if they'd been dancing together forever.
Well, swaying was more like it, but even so…
There was a boy, a very strange enchanted boy…
She could feel the pack of Luckies in his shirt pocket. She didn't
know
they were Luckies but she imagined they were. She wondered what he felt holding her that way and hoped it wasn't her Hidden Treasure bra.
Give a girl a Peter Pan and she will grow, grow, grow
….Not likely Nat King Cole would record that one.

She had to stop herself from talking, from asking questions the way she did when she was nervous, because she sensed this boy didn't want to talk. She prayed the palms of her hands wouldn't sweat, that her deodorant was working, that the faint scent of her mother's Arpège would reach his nostrils. His breath was near her ear, making her tingle. Then the song ended and he was gone, like Cinderella racing from the ball, but without a shoe, glass or otherwise, left behind to help her find him. She didn't even know his name. She doubted he knew hers, either. She hoped her blue angora sweater—the one she kept in a garment bag on the top shelf of the fridge—had shed just enough onto his flannel shirt to remind him of her.

When someone turned out the lights Miri snuck away and headed upstairs to Natalie's bedroom. She wasn't in the mood for playing Rotation after dancing with the sexy stranger.

Upstairs, she lay on one of Natalie's twin beds, the bed she slept in almost every Saturday night, but not tonight, because tomorrow was her mother's birthday and she needed to be home to bring her breakfast in bed, a tradition started three years ago, when permission to use the stove was finally granted. Miri liked to pretend this was
her
room. The starched organdy skirt on the dressing table was as pretty as any summer dress. Attach a couple of straps and she could wear it to the ninth-grade prom in June. She knew that inside the dresser lay piles of cashmere sweaters. Miri had once counted them. Fourteen. Natalie was embarrassed. “We get them at a discount. From the cashmere sweater lady. You should come over next time she's here.” As if Miri could afford to buy cashmere sweaters, even at a discount.

More than once Miri had allowed herself to fantasize being a part of Natalie's perfect family. If Natalie's mother died—not a gruesome,
slow death, but something fast and dramatic, say a car crash—Natalie's father could marry Miri's mother, who was young and beautiful and single. Then Miri and her mother and grandmother could move into Natalie's big red-brick house and Miri and Natalie would be sisters and Miri could start collecting cashmere sweaters like Natalie. Not that Miri didn't like Natalie's mother. Mrs. Osner, Corinne, had always been very nice to her. She treated Miri almost like another daughter, which was just one reason this fantasy left Miri feeling ashamed and sick to her stomach. She didn't want to be a disgusting and immoral person.

Fern suddenly appeared in the doorway to Natalie's room, clutching a toy rabbit dressed in cowboy gear. Fern called him Roy, for Roy Rogers, the singing movie cowboy. Fern was obsessed with Roy Rogers.
“Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above…don't fence me in…”
she sang.

Fern was wearing flowered flannel pajamas with feet. “Is the party over yet?” she asked.

“No,” Miri said. “Does Mrs. Barnes know you're running around?” Mrs. Barnes took care of Fern and cooked dinner for the family four nights a week. She made dishes Miri had never heard of, dishes with foreign names like boeuf bourguignon and veal marsala. They tasted better than they sounded.

“She's not here tonight,” Fern said. “Mommy and Daddy are here. They're in the den.”

“Oh.”

“Roy Rogers has a penis,” Fern said, waggling Roy Rabbit in Miri's face. “Did you know that?”

“Yes,” Miri said. She'd heard it often enough, every time she was at Natalie's house, but she still wasn't sure how she was supposed to respond. Fern was just in kindergarten.

“I've seen two penises,” Fern said. “Daddy's and Steve's.”

Miri hadn't seen any penises and she wasn't in a hurry to, either. “How about I tuck you into bed?” she said to Fern.