The Boston Girl

I said, “She wouldn’t know me from a hole in the wall. I hope we’re not going to sit next to her.”

He laughed. “Don’t worry.”

When it was time to go in, the swells like Tessa went downstairs and Aaron and I headed to the balcony with the regular people: students, shopgirls, clerks. I even saw some laborers’ hands on the banisters as we climbed the stairs. I heard people talking Yiddish, Italian, German, and French. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood.

Our seats were in the last row of the highest balcony. Aaron held out his hands like he was handing me Symphony Hall on a platter and told me who the statues were and how many lightbulbs were in the chandeliers.

A man in a black suit walked out to the podium and stretched his arms wide, like one of the black seabirds in Rockport that hold their wings out to dry in the breeze. Aaron whispered, “Kousse­vitzky.”

The music was different from anything I’d heard on the radio or from the piano at the movies. Some of the slow parts made me feel like crying, but when it got faster and the violinists were sawing away, my heart pounded like I was watching a horse race. I was listening not just with my ears but with my hands and my heart, too. I can’t describe it. It’s like trying to explain what chocolate tastes like; you just have to try it for yourself.

When the music ended I clapped until my hands hurt. Aaron said, “I’m glad you like Mozart, too.”

Taking me to the symphony turned out to be part of his plan to make me a real Boston girl. He said it was too chilly for a Red Sox game, but he took me to Harvard Yard and the Bunker Hill Monument. He even stayed in Boston an extra day for the opening of the swan boats at the Public Garden. We were on the very first boat of 1926.

I took your mother and aunt to the opening day of the swan boats every year when they were girls, just like I took you and your sister when you were little.

Aaron got the night train to Washington and I went back to my room and cried myself to sleep. When I went to work the next morning, Katherine said I looked like death warmed over and sent me home. I knew I wasn’t going to feel better in my dark little room, so I went to see Irene.

She had married Joe Riley the year before, and they were living in a little apartment in the North End. They had met at work, where he was an electrician. It had taken him months to get her out on a date—she was off Irishmen at the time—but he finally got her to agree by getting down on one knee and singing “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” in front of God and everyone. Irene admitted that he had a nice voice but said, “I had to put a stop to it.”

She was nine months pregnant at the time, so I knew I’d find her at home.

I told her about Aaron and started crying about how awful it was that he had to leave. But instead of holding my hand and telling me, “There, there,” she grinned. “It’s about time you took a shine to a nice fellow, and this one sounds grand. I like the sound of his name, too. If I have a boy, maybe I’ll call him Aaron. Would you mind?”

That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I was blubbering, “But he’s gone. He left me.”

Irene crossed her arms. “Didn’t you just tell me he’s coming back to see you next month? If you think he was lying, then you’re better off without him and good riddance.”

That set me off. Aaron was the most honest and decent man I ever met and how could she say such a thing?

Irene laughed. “All right then,” she said. “So let’s talk about what I should cook when you bring him over to meet us. I’ll try to make something that won’t make us all sick. I could send him an invitation, or maybe a warning would be better.”

I say so.

I read Aaron’s first letter a thousand times. He made a list of everything he missed about me: my hazel eyes, my lovely hands, and my red shoes. He said to send him a list of novels he should read so he wouldn’t feel stupid when I talked about books and writers he’d never heard of. As if he was stupid. A college man. A lawyer!

We sent each other two or three letters a week. He wrote about what was going on at work and what it was like to live in Washington. I didn’t have anything interesting to say about my job, so I introduced him to my friends. Gussie was making so much money she bought herself a big house in Brookline and was renting rooms to Simmons girls who needed a cheap, decent place to live.

Irene was so bored at home, she spent the whole day talking to her belly and when she ran out of things to say she read out loud from the newspaper. She said the kid was going to come out of her wearing a Red Sox rosette.

I wrote to Aaron about the postcards Filomena sent from New Mexico and Betty’s love affair with her electric mixer and how my sister was already planning Jake’s bar mitzvah, which wasn’t for months.

I started checking off days on the calendar until his visit, but then he wrote that the other lawyer in his office had quit and unless someone else got hired, he might not be in Boston for another month or maybe more. He said he was sorry three or four times and that he felt terrible.

He felt terrible? I was holding my breath until I saw him again and now I didn’t even know when that was going to happen.

I started wondering if maybe Aaron wasn’t so honest after all. Look at how stupid I’d been about Harold and Ernie. What did I really know about him? Who knows? Maybe he’d met someone else in Washington.

I wrote back, very polite, and said thank you for letting me know. I think I made some crack about how I hoped he’d enjoy the cherry blossoms and that I looked forward to his next letter.

Well, Aaron got the message and his next letter was three pages long about how much he missed me and how he hated being away from me and how bad he felt about keeping me waiting. He said he’d started working late every night and told his boss that he had to take a few days off to take care of some family business.

He ended with a cute little P.S. I was glad that you ordered pancakes when we had breakfast together. Pancakes are the only things I know how to cook and I will make them for you every day for the rest of your life—if you say so.

I don’t know how many times I read that P.S. before what he was saying sunk in. My letter back to him had only three words. I SAY SO.

Maybe a week later, when I got home from work, my landlady was waiting for me at the door. She waved a piece of paper in my face and blamed me for almost giving her a heart attack. In those days the main reason people sent telegrams was to say that someone had died.