Michael's Secrets (2 page)

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Florence Greenberg was standing in her kitchen in Hampton, Virginia, preparing the turkey for that afternoon’s gathering. Dressed in black Capri pants and a purple turtleneck sweater, one would never guess from her four-foot-eleven-inch, ninety-seven pound frame that she was the mother of three children, twelve, ten and eight years old. Her children were in the den watching the parade with her first husband, Al Greenberg. Florence, wore her dark brown hair in a style similar to Jackie Kennedy’s and was every bit as attractive as the day she was married in 1949. Known for her petite figure and large endowment, Florence never hesitated to have her picture taken in a bathing suit.

Florence had just slathered oil on her hands and was rubbing it on the turkey when the phone rang. It rang three more times before she yelled downstairs toward the den, “Would one of you pick that up?”

The ringing then stopped, followed by the familiar whine of her oldest, Sally, yelling from the den, “Mom, it’s for you. It’s Hannah.”

Hannah Bern was Florence’s best friend. They had met at a Rodef Sholom Temple Sisterhood induction of new members several years back when Hannah dropped a mini pizza in Arlene Feld’s hat. Arlene, along with Rona Sapperstein and Doreen Weiner, played Mah Jongg with Florence and Hannah every Tuesday, a game they started in 1955 and rarely missed.

Florence reached for a towel to wipe the oil off her hands and got on her tiptoes to reach for the receiver from the lavender, rotary dial wall phone that hung in her kitchen. As she tried to bring the phone to her ear, she had difficulty as the cord was tangled, so she screamed into the phone from a distance of a couple of feet, “Hold on, Hannah, the goddamn cord is twisted.” She held the cord as high as she could and let the receiver dangle, turn and unravel on its own. After gathering it up, she put it to her ear.

“Hannah, I thought you would be here by now, what’s holding you up?” she asked with a bit of annoyance in her voice.

“I’m in labor,” Hannah replied between puffs of her cigarette.

“Are you kidding? Billy Bernstein was actually right?”

Dr. Billy Bernstein, a friend of Hannah and Florence’s, had begun his private OBGYN practice a few months before Hannah became pregnant. Some people in the synagogue thought it was scandalous for Hannah to go to a friend for her pelvic exams, let alone a twenty-eight-year-old doctor who was fresh out of medical school, but Hannah didn’t care, which was unusual for someone who was always concerned not only with her physical appearance, but also her public persona. And, when he told Hannah in early November that the baby was due on Thanksgiving Day, she was skeptical as this was his first full-term pregnancy since beginning his private practice.

“When did the contractions begin?” Florence asked as she cradled the phone on her shoulder and reached for the salt and pepper to season the well-oiled turkey while the cord worked its way around her small frame.

“Around 6:00 am. I thought I was having indigestion,” Hannah told her best friend.

Typical Hannah, Florence thought. This was her first child, and at thirty-five, she was about to join her four other friends in the wonderful world of motherhood. However, Hannah would face it alone because her husband, Adam Bern, died in August 1962, when Hannah was six months pregnant.

“How far apart are they?” Florence asked as she bent down to check to see if the oven was preheated.

“Every twenty or thirty minutes, I don’t know,” Hannah answered with a strange nonchalance in her voice.

Florence could hear Hannah lighting another cigarette while she talked. Doctors were just beginning to worry about the effects of smoking on pregnancy, and Dr. Bernstein never warned Hannah of the dangers. He also felt that a pregnant woman should not put on too much weight. Hannah, a constant dieter who fasted once a week, thrived on his advice and managed to only gain twenty pounds, mostly in her belly.

“I’m coming to get you,” Florence said as she opened the oven door.

“I can drive myself; just meet me there,” Hannah told her.

“Are you
meshugina
? I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Florence yelled as she stood up, shook her head and realized she was fully wrapped by the phone cord.

“Florence, you cannot drive me, I want to get there alive,” Hannah told her.

Florence had a reputation for being a bad driver, but in her defense, she claimed all her accidents happened while going in reverse, so she rarely backed up.

Florence screamed again for Sally to come to the kitchen. Sally ambled up the stairs, sighed, and whined, “What, Mom?”

Poor Sally, Florence thought, the spitting image of Al and with his attitude, too. “Look, Hannah has gone into labor. I’m going to get her. Call Rona, Arlene and Doreen and tell them we will be at Mary Immaculate Hospital. Put the turkey in the oven in thirty minutes and baste it every hour. I will call you from the hospital,” Florence ordered as she unwrapped herself from the phone cord and reached up to put it on the hook.

“Mom, why can’t Shirley do it?” Sally whined again.

“Because, Sally, you’re the oldest, and I depend on you. Have Shirley and Danny set the table and no fighting!” Florence told her as she walked out of the kitchen, then she yelled, “Al, I’m going to Hannah’s. She’s in labor.” There was no answer. She didn’t expect one from her husband who rarely spoke to her unless absolutely necessary.

Florence grabbed her purse and searched for her keys, reached into the closet for her purple jacket and ran to her baby blue, 1962 Valiant, courtesy of Al’s Chrysler-Plymouth dealership. As she settled behind the wheel, she realized Al had driven it last, so she scooted the bench seat up as far as it would go. Even then, she could only reach the pedals with her tip toes. She started the car, adjusted the mirrors, pulled the park lever down and pushed the button for reverse. She was so happy to finally have a car with an automatic transmission as she went through clutches on a quarterly basis with her previous Plymouth station wagon and depressing the clutch with her tiptoes was never easy. She backed out the driveway quickly, taking a small hedge with her. Why Al had the landscapers plant a hedge so close to the driveway was beyond her. He should have known it would not survive a week.

Florence drove like a maniac, arriving at Hannah’s house on Dresden Drive in fifteen minutes on the dot. Hannah and Adam bought the house only a month before he died, and the newly developed Ivy Farms neighborhood was still full of empty lots. It was amazing that this neighborhood was once the city dump. Arlene and William Feld were the first to buy a house on Teakwood Drive six months before Hannah moved in. All of the girls had lived in Stuart Gardens in downtown Newport News before Florence and Al were the first to move out in 1957, buying a home in Hampton that at the time seemed a like a cross-county trek whenever the girls played Mah Jongg at Florence’s.

Florence pulled up in front of the house as Hannah’s 1958 brown Country Squire Wagon was parked in the one-car driveway. Hannah was standing at the door, smoking a cigarette, and holding a suitcase. She was dressed in her best maternity dress – a black knit with a Peter Pan collar and pearl buttons. She was also in full make-up, false eye-lashes, Pond’s “Peaches in the Snow” lipstick and all. At five-foot-ten with her black bouffant hair-do, she hardly looked pregnant as her figure, except for the bubble in front, had remained unchanged. Hannah stepped out, locked the door and made her way down the walkway to her car.

Florence took one look at her, grabbed the suitcase and said, “Vaysmir, Hannah, what the hell are you made up for? You’re going to give birth, not audition!”

Hannah ignored her and proceeded to walk around the front of her station wagon, aiming her key for the driver’s side door as Florence followed her.

“Hannah, I’m not driving your car. We’ll go in mine,” thinking that Hannah would actually let her drive her car for a change, for whenever Hannah went in Florence’s car, she drove.

“Florence, I’m not letting you drive me. You can ride along. I’ll drive,” Hannah said as she sat down behind the wheel.

Florence would have none of it and pulled Hannah’s key out of the ignition, which fortunately for Florence’s short arms was left of the steering wheel in the Ford. Hannah stomped her cigarette in the ash tray and crossed her arms in front of her.

“Either get in my car, or give birth in yours,” Florence said as she took the suitcase with her and walked to her own car. Florence put the suitcase in the trunk and opened the passenger-side door for Hannah, who resigned herself to riding with Florence and walked over to her Valiant. Hannah tried to get in on the passenger’s side; however, the bench seat was so far up that she had no room for her legs, so she got out and settled herself into the back seat on the same side.

Florence shut the door, walked around the front of the car, got in, started the engine and pushed the button for drive, satisfied that she had won this battle. She looked at Hannah in the rear-view mirror and saw her wince in pain.

“Another one, Hannah?” she asked as she watched her friend squint and breathe heavily.

Hannah did not say anything, just waiting for the pain to subside. When it did, she reached for a cigarette in her purse and put it in her mouth just as Florence pulled out and made a speedy U-turn to head up Beech Drive, cutting off three cars in the process and throwing Hannah into the door. The cigarette didn’t even fall out of her mouth.

“Florence, be careful. Pay attention, you’re going to get us killed.”

But, Florence was on a mission and ignored her as she sped up the street doing fifty, going through two stop signs and a red light. She leaned into the wheel as if making a getaway, and fortunately, she did manage to stop at the light at Jefferson Avenue, not wanting to risk crossing the busiest street in Newport News against a light. When she stopped, Hannah finally lit the cigarette that was dangling from her lips, all the while thinking that calling Florence was the craziest thing she could have done. At normal speeds, Florence’s driving was frightening, but now it was downright insane, and Hannah could not remember the last time she actually rode in a car when Florence was behind the wheel. The light turned green, and Florence burned rubber – no small feat from the slant-six engine – as she headed down Jefferson Avenue. Once downtown, Florence pulled onto Chesapeake Avenue and looked in her review mirror, spotting a bus on the sidewalk.

“Hannah, look at that crazy bus driver. He’s driving on the sidewalk,” Florence said as she smiled.

“That’s because you ran him off the road, Florence!” Hannah said, retaining the fearful look that was on her face during the entire trip to the hospital.

They reached their destination, Mary Immaculate Hospital at 245 Chesapeake Avenue, in an unheard of twenty minutes – and in one piece. Florence ignored the parking and lane restriction signs and pulled right up to the emergency room door. Two orderlies came out waving their arms and telling her she could not park there. Florence pushed the button for neutral, pulled up the park lever and hopped out of the car, running around the front to open the rear door for Hannah. Then, she said to the orderlies, “My friend in is in labor; get a wheel chair before she breaks her water in my new car.”

Hannah stepped out of the car and said, “Too late.”

As the orderlies wheeled Hannah inside, Florence got back into her car and parked it in the lot, retrieved the suitcase from the trunk and rushed in to join her friend. When Florence returned to the emergency room, she could not find Hannah and decided to take the elevator to the second floor to maternity. Once off the elevator, she looked down the hall, and she found Hannah sitting at the registration desk. Florence ran over to her just as the nun began taking down Hannah’s information.

“Mrs. Bern, is your husband here?” the nun asked.

“My husband died three months ago. He was killed by a runaway golf cart.”

The nun gave a look of incredulity as she raised her pen, so Florence interrupted with assurance, “That’s the truth. I’m here with her.”

“And, who are you?” asked the nun as she looked at Florence, who was a vision in purple.

“I’m Florence Greenberg. I am going to be the baby’s godmother,” she said with a smile patting Hannah on the shoulder.

Hannah started to say something, but another contraction came on, causing her to wince in pain. The nun, sensing her distress, stood up and yelled for two of the other nuns who were also nurses, to take Hannah immediately to her room. Within minutes, Hannah was in her room, and Dr. Billy Bernstein, who had arrived before Hannah, walked in to examine her. He was a youthfully handsome man with light-brown hair and a medium frame, who did not look old enough to be in college, let alone her doctor. He asked her if she wanted an epidural, and Hannah did not answer as the look on her face was enough to tell him yes.

“Oh and Sister,” Dr. Bernstein said to one of the nuns, “Make sure you get all that make-up and those eye lashes off her. We cannot have that in delivery.”

“You have got to be kidding me!” Hannah protested, raising her hands to protect her face. Florence just stood there shaking her head at Hannah. “Can I at least have a cigarette?” Hannah asked.

“Not here,” the nun answered. “You can only smoke in the waiting room.”

Dr. Bernstein lifted up Hannah’s legs to check how much she had dilated and crouched down like a catcher. “You better get that make-up off quickly and get her in the delivery room as soon as you can!” he shouted to the nuns. “Hannah, you’re ready,” he said as he stood up.

Florence knew she would not be able to accompany Hannah, so she told her, “Good luck,” and stepped out of the room just as Rona, Doreen and Arlene stepped off the elevator. The three girls spotted Florence and walked toward her.

Five-foot-nine-inch Rona was dressed in brown Capris and a brown and white striped sweater, with hair as orange as ever and styled in a reverse flip. She had pink lipstick on her large mouth, amber jewelry in her ears and around her neck and was the first to speak, “How did she get here? Who drove her?” she asked as she stood to Florence’s left, looking down on her friend.