In the Unlikely Event (17 page)

It wasn’t until they’d taken off and reached their cruising altitude that his father leaned close and said, “You can never tell your mother we flew on a non-sked.”

Steve looked at him. Was he kidding?

“She’d never forgive me,” his father said.

“We’re on a non-sked?” Steve asked.

“You didn’t know?” his father said.

Steve shook his head.

“It’s not a C-46,” his father said. “I’d never fly with you on a C-46.”

Was that supposed to be reassuring?

“Even so, you know how your mother is, so this has to be our secret.”

When Steve didn’t say anything, his father gave him a playful punch in the arm. “Man to man. Agreed?”

“Sure,” Steve said. “Agreed.” But he couldn’t believe his father had risked
his
life, the life of his only son, because he had to get back to the office, back to his precious patients. You’d think, after spending night after night trying to identify burned and dismembered corpses, his father would never fly again, let alone take a non-sked.

Newark Sunday News

INSIDE HOLLYWOOD

By Virginia McPherson

JAN. 20—Hollywood is still digging itself out of the muck and mud from the latest West Coast storm disaster—and some marooned movie stars haven’t scooped out yet.

Humphrey Bogart waded hip-deep into muddy water on Sunset Boulevard to direct traffic. Hasn’t had so much fun in years. “Couldn’t get home for three days,” he grinned. “Just holed up in the Beverly Hills Hotel bar and stayed spiffed for 72 hours.”

Until his spouse Lauren Bacall phoned irately, “You get home tonight, with milk and orange juice for your son…or else!”

Bogie got.

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Miri

Miri was on her bed, reading her favorite columns in the Sunday paper, when the doorbell rang. She ran down the stairs to answer it. She was in a sour mood because Rusty wouldn’t let her invite Mason to dinner at The Tavern, where they were going to celebrate Henry’s engagement to Leah.

“It’s not appropriate,” Rusty told her. “This is just for the immediate family.”

“Nana is bringing Ben Sapphire,” Miri reminded her.

“Yes, but she’s hosting this party, so if she wants to bring Mr. Sapphire, she can.”

“He’s not immediate family.”

“He’s picking up the bill.”

“So you’re saying I should ask Mr. Sapphire about inviting Mason?”

“Damn it, Miri! Don’t push me. And don’t you dare ask Nana or anyone else about inviting Mason.”

So when the doorbell rang, Miri was more than glad to get away from Rusty. She wasn’t sure who she expected to find on the other side of the front door, but certainly not this woman in slacks and a matching wool coat with a big fox collar. A yellow Cadillac was parked in front of the house. Miri had never seen a yellow Cadillac on her street. The only yellow Cadillac she knew of belonged to one of the Levy brothers, who owned the department store on Broad Street.

“Are you Miriam?” the woman asked. Her voice was smoky, her lipstick red, not a strand of her dark hair moved in the wind.

“Do I know you?” Miri asked. No one called her
Miriam
.

“I’m Frekki Strasser but my maiden name was Monsky. I believe I’m your aunt.”

Miri grabbed hold of the door to steady herself.

Rusty called from the upstairs window, “Who is it, Miri?” Jazzy music floated down from Rusty’s radio.

When Miri didn’t answer, the woman called, “A voice from your past.”

Miri didn’t turn, didn’t take her eyes off the woman, but she could hear her mother’s footsteps on the stairs. Rusty had been vacuuming. Her hair was carelessly tied back. She was in an old shirt with the flaps hanging out, worn slacks and beat-up moccasins.

The woman held out her gloved hand. “Hello, Rusty. It’s Frekki Monsky Strasser.”

“Frekki?” Rusty went pale. She made no move to shake Frekki’s hand, which floated in midair, until Frekki shoved it into her coat pocket.

Rusty stood in front of Miri as if to protect her from this stranger. “What are you doing here?”

“Unexpected events…” Now she used the same gloved hand to gesture toward the sky, and Miri knew it wasn’t God she was talking about. “Well, it made me stop and think, I have a niece, I should know her.”

Rusty turned to Miri. “Go upstairs.”

“But I—”

“Right now.”

Miri moved toward the vestibule as Rusty said, “How did you know I have a daughter?”

“It’s not a secret, is it?”

“Fifteen years later you decide you want to know my daughter?”

“Better late than never,” Frekki said.

“I’m not sure that’s always the case.” Rusty turned back to Miri. “I
said
go upstairs. Now.”

Irene appeared at the door wrapped in a shawl. “What’s all this?”

“Hello, Mrs. Ammerman.” The woman held out her hand again. “Frekki Monsky.”

Irene’s hand went to her chest. “You have the nerve to show up here, at my house?”

“Now, Mrs. Ammerman—”

“Don’t you
now, Mrs. Ammerman
me!”

Miri had never heard such anger in her grandmother’s voice.

This time Rusty shouted, “Go upstairs, Miri!”

“I’m going to get Nana a pill.”

“I don’t need a pill,” Irene said.

“Yes, you do,” Miri told her. “I can tell.”

“Why don’t you invite me in?” Frekki said. “I mean no harm and it’s freezing out here.”

“That looks like a warm coat to me,” Rusty said, hugging herself.

Miri came back with Irene’s pill, but Irene waved her away.

“All right,” Frekki said. “If that’s how it’s going to be…” She pulled a creamy envelope out of her purse. “This is for Miriam. An invitation to lunch and a show at the Paper Mill Playhouse. I hope
you’ll be reasonable about this, Rusty. I live in South Orange now. I’m married to a doctor. I’m in a position to be a positive influence in Miriam’s life.”

Miri felt sick to her stomach. But at the same time, excited.

Frekki

Frekki’s husband, J.J., had a cousin in Elizabeth who owned Strasser Sports. How many times had she brought the boys to their store for their team uniforms, for the expert in athletic shoes, said to be the best in the state, to fit them properly? More than ten years of shopping trips for summer camp, and to make sure they had the best equipment for baseball, basketball, football, never mind the hockey skates, the cleats. They’d built a special closet in the finished basement just for the boys’ athletic equipment.

In September, during the annual trek to Elizabeth, Sherry Strasser, the cousin’s wife, invited Frekki to lunch. “Leave the boys at the store and come out with me.”

The
boys
, who were now seventeen and nineteen, were capable of looking after themselves, so she’d accepted Sherry’s invitation to lunch at Dorothy Dennis, a ladies’ tearoom. “We don’t get to see you often enough,” Sherry said.

“I know. J.J. and I were just saying the same thing.”

After their sandwich plates had been cleared and the tea served, Sherry said, “The store is so busy this time of year I help out as much as I can, and last week I saw a young girl, maybe fifteen, with eyes exactly like your brother’s.”

Frekki wasn’t sure how to respond.

“She’s friends with the Osner girl. You know the Osners, don’t you? He’s a dentist.”

“Yes, I’ve met them at the Club.”

“So while the Osner girl and her friend were trying on sneakers I told them they looked so cute together I just had to snap their picture with my new Polaroid camera.” She fished a photo out of her pocketbook and passed it to Frekki.

Frekki was surprised, but tried not to show it.

“What do you think?” Sherry asked.

“Makes me wish I had a daughter,” Frekki told her.

“About the resemblance, I mean.”

“I don’t see any resemblance.”

“Really? I’ve always thought your brother had the most unusual eyes, almond-shaped and hazel. And so does she. Of course I haven’t seen Mike in ages, not since he left town in a hurry.”

“He didn’t leave in a hurry. He enlisted.”

“Either way. We went to all the same parties that spring. He and Rusty Ammerman were crazy for each other. She was in my class at Battin.”

“I don’t remember that name.” The redhead. She hoped her face wasn’t giving anything away. Mike had brought her to the house in Weequahic a couple of times. And Frekki had been to the Ammermans’ house, too. Had enjoyed Mrs. Ammerman’s delicious chocolate cake.

“She’s still around.” Sherry said. “And this is her daughter, Miri.”

“What are you getting at?”

“Do I have to spell it out?”

“What you’re suggesting isn’t possible.”

“Are you sure? There was a story going around back then that Rusty had run off and married a boy that summer, a boy who was going overseas.”

“She didn’t marry my brother.”

“Well, she’s never married anyone else that I know of.”

“I think you should forget about this, Sherry. There’s no truth to it and all you can do is make trouble for both families.” Frekki glanced at the photo again. “She looks like a nice girl.”

“She is. The Osners love her like a daughter.”

Frekki dabbed at her mouth with the napkin, applied fresh lipstick and pushed back her chair. “I have to get back to the boys. Thanks for the lunch. Next time it’s on me.” Before she put on her jacket she said, “Oh, do you mind if I keep the picture?”

“Of course,” Sherry said. Was that a smirk on her face?

Frekki called her brother that night, made sure he could talk privately, then told him the story. “I just want to know one thing. Is it possible, yes or no?”

“No,” her brother said, convincingly.

She probably would have let it go if it hadn’t been for the plane crash. She didn’t need any more
tsoris
in her life. But by then she knew where Rusty lived, and how close the plane had come to her house and that beautiful young girl with Mike’s eyes, that girl who very likely was her niece. She couldn’t sleep that night thinking about it, or the night after that. Which is how she came to ring Rusty’s doorbell on Sunday morning.

Miri

Rusty and Irene were masters of cleaning up, putting everything away, keeping things in order—things they didn’t want to think about, as if they had a box in the closet and they could open it, shove in Frekki and her yellow Cadillac, close the lid, lock the box, put it back on the top shelf and be done with it. Sometimes Miri tried to imagine she, too, had a secret box on the top shelf of her closet, covered in burgundy velvet, a place to hide every hurt, every bad thought, every worry that she couldn’t do anything about—but it didn’t work as well for her as it did for Rusty and Irene. Still, she was good at pretending, good at putting on a happy face. She’d learned that much from her mother and grandmother. So she dressed in her best skirt and the sweater her friends had given her for her birthday, and went off to The Tavern restaurant in Ben Sapphire’s black Packard with Irene seated up front and she and Rusty sharing the back.

A few hours after Frekki Strasser came to their door, you would never have guessed anything unusual had happened that day. Neither Rusty nor Irene said a word to her about the unexpected visit. And Miri knew better than to ask them any questions today, a day they were celebrating the engagement of Henry and Leah.

Elizabeth Daily Post

POLIO CHAIRMAN NAMED

JAN. 20—Mr. Ronald T. Stein was today named chairman of the Union County division of the Annual March of Dimes Polio Drive. Mr. Stein is Chief Executive of Steinmack Trucking, a company he founded in 1938. With headquarters in Elizabeth, the firm has branches throughout the state. He resides in the Westminster section of Elizabeth with his wife, Sarah, and two children, a son, Philip, a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School, and a daughter, Deborah, a sophomore at the University of Michigan.

Long committed to community service, Mr. Stein is a Member of the Board of the Watchung Hills Children’s Home, which specializes in the care of polio patients. He is also on the Board of the Janet Memorial Home.

“Though polio cases have surged in recent years, we now see hope for a vaccine to prevent this dread disease,” Mr. Stein said. “We must redouble our efforts to raise funds to provide care for the afflicted and finance the research to end it.”

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