In the Unlikely Event

“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.”

13

Miri

Everyone Miri knew considered The Tavern, in the Weequahic section of Newark, the best restaurant in New Jersey. Some families, like the Osners, treated The Tavern like a club. They were Sunday regulars. Other families, like Miri’s, celebrated only the most special events there.

Miri wasn’t surprised to see the Osners lining up just as she and her family arrived. The Tavern didn’t accept reservations. Miri had had Sunday dinners at The Tavern with Natalie and her family more times than she could count. She knew what they would order before they even sat down. Corinne, Natalie and Fern would start with consommé and they’d slice dill pickles into it. Slicing dill pickles into chicken soup struck Miri as disgusting but Natalie swore it was delicious. Every time Natalie said, Have a taste, Miri would say, No thanks. Miri supposed dill pickles in chicken soup was another tradition Corinne had brought with her from Birmingham, Alabama, like the Jewish Santa. Probably Tewky Purvis sliced dill pickles into his consommé, too.

When Irene had asked Rusty about the New Year’s Eve party, Rusty told her Tewky was the best dancer she’d ever danced with. “A lovely man.”

Irene brightened. “And…you’re going to see him again?”

“He lives in Birmingham, Alabama. His family owns a bank there.”

“A bank!” Irene sang. “So what’s a few miles between friends?”

“Unfortunately, he’s a confirmed bachelor.”

Irene paused. “He told you so?”

“He did.”

“Did you ever hear that meeting the right girl can change all that?”

“I’ve heard it but I don’t believe it.”

A confirmed bachelor? So Natalie was right. He was never getting married. Well, that was a relief.

At 4 p.m. the line to get a table at The Tavern was already long, extending down Elizabeth Avenue all the way past the Krich-Radisco building, where Fern would tilt her head back to see her reflection in the mirrored overhead. Families laughed and talked while waiting as if the wait were part of the whole experience, even in winter. Rumor had it the only person who never had to wait was Longy Zwillman. No one complained about that, either, at least not to the owner, Sam Teiger. They all wanted to stay on Sam Teiger’s good side. Not that Miri had ever laid eyes on Longy, but she listened when his name came up.

Miri introduced Leah to the Osners. “We’re celebrating our engagement today,” Leah said, holding up her hand as if she couldn’t believe it was her hand, with polished fingernails, a white orchid wrist corsage and, to top it all off, the ring. Corinne called the ring a truly elegant heirloom piece. Leah looked pleased. “Yes,” she said. “It is, isn’t it? Thank you so much.”

“It was my grandmother’s,” Miri told Natalie.

Natalie said, “My mother wears my grandmother’s ring, too. But she had the diamond reset to look more modern.”

Miri would never change Irene’s ring. She hoped Leah wouldn’t, either.

After forty-five minutes of waiting outside in the cold, they made it to the heated vestibule of the restaurant, where they shed their winter coats. Ben Sapphire helped Irene out of her Persian lamb, worn only on special occasions. Miri had always liked the way it smelled from the cold. When she was little she once napped on it at a family party. Lately she’d been thinking about how before it was a coat it was a real lamb, a little black lamb, maybe more than one little black lamb, and that thought haunted her now whenever Irene wore the coat, which was older than Miri. Every few years the furrier on Bergen Street in Newark would update it, making any necessary repairs. Last year he’d relined it with black-on-black patterned silk, embroidering IRENE AMMERMAN in shocking pink just inside the waist, like a fancy name tape, in case someone went home with the wrong coat.

Both Irene and Leah’s aunt Alma had purple orchid corsages pinned to their suit jackets. Alma had never been to The Tavern but, like everyone else, she’d heard of it.

Sam Teiger greeted everyone. “Doc,” he said to Dr. O, “have a little something,” as a waiter passed around a tray of hors d’oeuvres in case a person got hungry while waiting for a table.