The Sunset Gang (17 page)

"You're terrific, Harvey," she heard the bleached
blonde call. "Like you played this game on cruise ships."

So he was not called Heshy anymore, Frieda thought, proud
of her special knowledge. She stood behind him now, imagining that she appeared
intent on watching the game and wondering quite seriously if there was such a
thing as telepathy so that she might will herself into his thoughts. As she was
thinking this, he turned and she forced herself to smile slightly, a gesture
miraculously returned by him but so casual as to indicate his nonrecognition.
His partner was a fat woman, whose chins shivered as she expended energy on her
shot, her big hips and behind shaking visibly beneath her muumuu.

"Not bad," Frieda said, making him turn. She
could hardly just stand there watching them without making some sort of
comment.

"It's only my second time," he said.

"You're a natural."

She barely understood the game and, after a while, felt
uncomfortable about just standing there like a pear ready to be plucked from a
tree. The reference triggered her memory and gave her a momentary twinge of
pleasure. Schmuck, this is Frieda, she told him urgently to herself. Stop that
stupid game and notice.

But he would not stop that stupid game and after watching a
long time, she knew that she would have to catch him when he wasn't
concentrating so hard.

In bed that evening watching Johnny Carson, she pondered
the ways in which she might catch Harvey Feinstein's eye. It was obvious,
although she harbored secret feelings to the contrary, that his memories of her
were too deeply embedded, so far beneath the surface of his consciousness that
it would not be easy to dredge them up. She did not want to shock him with her
presence, nor upset him, nor do something that would make him guilty or force
his avoidance of her. Frieda Goldberg, she told herself, might have been many
things, a cold domineering wife, a little overbearing as a mother, stubborn,
independent, but not stupid. Frieda Goldberg was definitely not stupid.

She was still pondering the method the next day as she
lounged in a chair beside the pool watching the spot where Harvey Feinstein and
his wife sat yesterday, wondering if her new bathing suit set her off well. She
imagined she had lost weight. It was obvious to her that Minnie thought she was
acting strangely.

"You want to play tonight, Frieda?"

"I'll see later."

"You've got to give us time to get someone else."

"I'll give you time."

Without seeing, she knew that Minnie had turned away in
disgust, rolling her eyes upward to indicate to their friends that something
strange was going on in Frieda's head--which, of course, was true.

When the bleached blonde walked across her field of vision,
Frieda sat up alertly to see if Heshy was behind her. It was a peculiarity of
this place for men to walk, or lag, behind their wives, and she waited
patiently for a sign of him. When he did not appear after several minutes and
the blonde had settled down to her ablutions, the smearing of the sun lotion,
the tying of the kerchief, the adjusting of the lounge, the placement of the
ashtray and the cigarettes beside it, she understood quite clearly what her
method would be. She would reach Heshy Feinstein through his bleached-blond
wife.

Getting up casually, she strolled slowly to the pool next
to the spot where the blonde was sitting and put her foot in the water.

"Cold," Frieda squealed.

"The water is cold?" the blonde asked.

She now stood over the lounging woman, being sure not to
block the sun. It was, she knew, a mark of politeness in this place.

"It warms up later. Then it gets too hot. Like
pishocks."

The woman laughed. She had an even, good set of matching
teeth, although the lines around her mouth were quite pronounced. From far she
looks better, Frieda thought.

"I saw you and your husband playing shuffleboard last
night," Frieda said. She knew she was courting danger as being dubbed a
yenta, but she hoped that the woman would take that role before she did.

"You're very good players," she added after a
pause.

"Considering," the bleached blonde said,
"we've just been here two weeks and this is only our second time."
She seemed eager for friendship.

"You like it here?"

"Wonderful. Brooklyn was getting impossible. The
schwartzes everywhere. We live in Flatbush."

"They're everywhere now in Flatbush? I lived in Crown Heights. I'm here two years. Thank God, my daughter lives in Chicago."

"You don't miss New York?"

"You miss it?"

She moved upright on the lounge, engaged at last. Frieda
sat down at the foot of the chair, just as Heshy had sat the day before.

"My children live there. And my grandchildren. It's
not easy to break away. They both live on the Island. My boy is a dentist. And
my daughter married a furrier. I figure that once a year they'll come here and
once a year we'll go there. And their children will come for the
holidays."

"Everyone figures that."

"My name is Frieda Smith," Frieda said, holding
out her hand.

"Ida Feinstein," she said, taking it gratefully.

"I'm a widow."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry."

"How long is he gone?" Aha, Frieda thought,
bracing for the interrogation, a true yenta.

"Seven years."

"There's a lot of widows here?"

"You wouldn't believe it."

"I'm so lucky to have my Harvey. He was a
schoolteacher in the New York Public School System, in Forest Hills, which was
lucky except for the long ride to Brooklyn. I used to worry myself sick. Thank
God," she knocked her knuckles on the metal lounge, "he never had a
problem."

"He likes it here?"

"Loves it. He doesn't like the hot sun so much. But he
stays home, does the housework, the dishes, and reads. He'll come later. He
taught biology. A very smart man. Not so sociable as I would like, but I'm sure
he'll adjust."

Frieda caught the tinge of regret, noting that Heshy was
having a hard time adjusting to retirement. It was not uncommon.

"You like to play cards?"

"I love canasta. I miss my regular game. Also
mah-jongg. I'm sure I'll find a regular game here," she said expectantly.

"Ida," Frieda said, "you've come to the
right store." She led her over to her friends and introduced her to Minnie
and the others. Soon they were exchanging histories and information and Minnie
was filling her in on the gossip, especially as it pertained to the new section
in which the Feinsteins had just moved.

"She'd be a perfect replacement," Frieda said
after they had talked for a while.

"A very attractive woman," Minnie said loudly
enough for ingratiation. She could see Ida Feinstein beam.

"Yes, I quite agree," Frieda said, turning to
Ida. "You'll love it here. You'll see how the place grows on you."

"It all depends on the friends you make. That's
exactly what my son told me."

Frieda made sure she left before Heshy came down to the
pool. She stoop up and announced that she wouldn't be playing that night.

Minnie smirked. "Can you make it, Ida?"

"I'd love it."

"Your husband wouldn't mind?" Minnie asked.

"If he minds, he minds," Ida said, flaunting what
seemed like independence in this circle of widows. She paused a moment.

"Perhaps he can find someone to play shuffleboard
with."

Frieda was too excited to eat, and she carefully pored over
her make-up bottles and vials and tubes to make what she imagined was the best
face possible. Why lie to yourself, she asked, putting on one of her new
outfits, a bright-yellow dress that the clerk had said made her look youthful.
That was the way they sold goods in Florida.

She deliberately set off early for the shuffleboard courts
to avoid the eyes of Minnie and the yentas who did not burrow out of their
condominiums until later and, most important, to be able to flag down Heshy
Feinstein before he found a partner to play that detestable game with.
Sometimes a little sacrifice doesn't hurt, she told herself, climbing into the
gaily colored open-air trailer bus and looking toward the bright sunset that
turned the whole western sky molten red and gold.

Picking a vantage point near the shuffleboard courts, she
watched the emerging groups of people seeking the evening's play. The lights
seemed to brighten as the sun went down and soon she felt her own impatience
and uncertainty. Suppose he had chosen not to come? Suppose Ida had not won her
battle for independence? It was past the hour when they would have assembled in
the cardroom and she was growing impatient when she finally saw him walk
through the clubhouse exit toward the courts. Standing up, she moved toward the
fence. She had taken the precaution of putting her name on the list and now
noted that her court would be coming up shortly--providing that the honor
system of vacating the court after an hour was adhered to, which did not always
happen without the use of intimidation.

She felt him standing behind her watching the games in
progress. She wondered if being close to her, smelling her, had not jogged his
memory. I am Frieda Goldberg, she screamed within herself, hoping he would
hear. She dared not confront him openly with such a confession, fearing
rejection. Another couple was standing next to her.

"I'm looking for a partner," she said so that he
might hear.

"We're already a twosome," the man said.

"A gruesome twosome," the woman said, obviously
wanting to ease what she considered the pain of the other's rejection.

"I'm in the market," Heshy Feinstein said. His
voice was clear, strong, and came to her over the distance of half a century.
She turned and looked at him, looked deep into his eyes, which she had
recognized instantly. He, however, quickly glanced at his feet.

"Perfect," she said. "My court comes up in a
few minutes."

"Say," he said, "aren't you the woman who
was here last night?"

"Yes."

"My wife said she met you at the pool."

"Oh?" She feigned a slow recollection.

"Ida Feinstein."

"Ida," she said, noting that he was searching her
face, "a lovely woman." She paused. "You've just only arrived?

"Two weeks," he said. She detected a note of
sadness.

"You miss your work," she said softly, a trifle
breathless she imagined, wanting to offer him greater understanding than he had
had in fifty years.

"It's not easy. I've been active as a teacher for all
those years. It'll take some getting used to."

When their court was ready, they proceeded down the line
and took their sticks from the rack.

"I'm really not good at this," she said.
"You're much better."

"I've only played twice in my life."

"You're probably a natural athlete."

"Yes, people have said that."

She held the stick and moved forward with her disk
overshooting the board and crashing into the wall beyond.

"Too hard," he said.

The next barely made it to the point of the triangle.

"I think I need a little instruction," she said.

He was a teacher and immediately began a pedantic lesson in
the relationship of the disk to the stick to the muscles of the arm. He gently
took her bare arm and moved it in a pushing motion. She felt the goose pimples
erupt, her arm grow limp.

"Stiffer," he said.

I can't stand this, she told herself. She managed to move
the disk to the easiest score.

"Now watch me." Gracefully, in a slow motion, he
moved the disk across the court, knocking her disk aside.

"You're fantastic," she said, noting his concentration.

After they had played for three-quarters of an hour and she
was growing bored with the game and frustrated at his lack of recognition, she
turned to him. "Maybe I should rest for a moment," she said. "I
am absolutely the lousiest player here."

He sat down beside her on the bench and pulled out a
package of chewing gum.

"No thanks," she said, thinking of her bridge.

"I've done this for years. I've still got all my
teeth."

"Did you enjoy being a teacher?"

"Yes, I did."

"You didn't want to be anything else but a
teacher?" she asked.

"Not really." He paused. "My father wanted
me to be a doctor."

She felt her heart beat swiftly again, the memory and the
pain washing back.

"You didn't want to be a doctor?"

"Not really."

The anger of fifty years came rushing back.

"It didn't cause you any trouble?"

"Trouble?" He turned and looked at her, as if for
the first time, almost as if the inquiry had offended him. She imagined she
could hear old doors squeak open and smell the musty odor of her father's
cellar.

"I have a son that's a dentist," he said, still
watching her, although his frame of reference seemed deflected.

"Did you put pressure on him to be a dentist?"

"Never," he said. He continued to look at her.
She hoped that the floodlights weren't too revealing and that her make-up was
clever. She felt her attraction to him, untrammeled by time, the old feelings
of wonder and pleasure that she had had when he was in her presence, close to
her.

"Do we know each other?" He seemed confused.

"I don't know," she answered, feeling at last the
tug on her line.

"You lived in Flatbush, my wife said?"

"Yes."

"You were never a teacher?"

"No. My husband was a cutter in the garment
center."

"I went to City College. Did you go to college?"

"No."

"We didn't meet at Rockaway, someplace at the beach.
Maybe at the PTA. I used to teach in Brooklyn."

"I never went."

"Where did you grow up?"

"Brooklyn."

"Where?"