In the Unlikely Event

“Ah…you don’t want to talk and you don’t want to eat.”

“I want to eat but I can’t. I have a disease.”

“Not a disease. A condition.”

“Did my parents tell you that?”

He shrugged. “We both want to help you get well. The parents and the doctor. Do you want to get well?”

That was a stupid question, a trick question, and she wasn’t going to answer it.

“What would you like to talk about?” he asked.

“My hair. It’s falling out.”

“Do you pull it out?”

“No. Why would I do that?”

“Just now,” he said, “you pulled out a clump.”

She looked down and saw a golden-blond clump in her hand. How did it get there? She didn’t remember pulling it out. She needed to ask Ruby about this. Ruby would tell her what to do. But lately, she felt Ruby had other things, other people on her mind. Natalie wanted to cry, roll herself into a ball and let the tears come. But she was not going to cry in front of this old man, in this old room, which smelled as musty as he did.

She wished she could twirl. Twirl and twirl until she was so dizzy she’d collapse on the floor. She’d like to slap her taps on the wood floor under the rugs, making more noise than this old doctor had ever heard. She couldn’t believe her parents had brought her here. He was like a relic from the olden days. Something right out of a movie.

“Why are you here?” he asked. “What do you think?”

“I don’t have to think—I know the answer. I’m here because my parents brought me.”

“Why do you think they brought you?”

“To see you, obviously.”

He ignored her sarcasm, not a good sign. “But why to see me?”

“Because their friend who is our doctor told them to.”

“Yes, but why would he make such a suggestion?”

“Because you’re famous.”

“Ah, famous.”

“And because they don’t have any idea what’s going on.”

“And you won’t tell them.”

“That’s right. And I won’t tell you, either.”

“Of course. Why would you tell me?”

“Because you really want to know, don’t you?”

“Yes. I’d like to help you get well.”

“I’d like to get well so I can dance again. That’s what I do, you know. I dance.”

“I hear you’re a very good dancer.”

“You heard that from my parents?”

“Is it not true?”

“Yes, it’s true.”

“So.” A statement, not a question.

“Sew buttons.”

“What is sew buttons?”

“Nothing…just an expression.”

“To dance you have to be strong,” he said.

“I was strong until I got sick. Now I just need some medicine to make me better.”

Silence.

She yawned. She was just so tired.

When he called in her parents, when they were seated side by side on the sofa, the famous doctor suggested a rest home in the country for Natalie. He knew of one, just the right place for her, in Westchester County. But her father said it would be better if she could be closer to her family. He’d made some inquiries and suggested the Watchung Hills Children’s Home, in New Jersey.

They were sending her away? She couldn’t believe her father would send her away. But she didn’t have the energy to argue. She’d argue tomorrow or the next day. She was sure she could persuade them to wait. Especially her father.

In the car, on the way home from the famous doctor’s office, Natalie nodded off in the backseat, but she could still hear her parents talking softly about the children’s home in Watchung. And then, something about how, at the end of the school year, they would relocate as a family. Her father had been asked to open an office in Nevada in a place called Las Vegas—a place with clean air, wide-open spaces, where the girls could ride horses. “Hell,” her father said, “they can have their own horses.”

Horses…Natalie thought. What did she care about horses? Fern was the one so obsessed with horses she wished she could be a horse.

“What about me?” Corinne asked. “I don’t want to ride horses. I don’t want to leave my home, my friends, a life I’ve worked so hard to create. I gave up everything to marry you, Arthur—my family, my roots, because I loved you the minute I met you—like a flash of lightning…”

The old flash-of-lightning story, Natalie thought.

“And now you’re asking me to start all over in some strange place, surrounded by your gangster friends?” Corinne sniffled.

“It’s an opportunity, Corinne.”

“It’s not one I choose to take.”

“Suppose I say I want to do this?”

“There are many things in life we’d like to do, Arthur, but we don’t because we consider the needs of those we love above everything else.”

“We don’t have to sell the house right away,” her father said. “We can give it two years.”

“What about your practice here—who’s going to wait two years for their next appointment?”

“I’ve been thinking about bringing in a partner, or selling the practice. I’ve got a good offer from Myron Ludell.”

“No,” Corinne said. “It’s a commitment I’m not prepared to make.”

“And what if I say I’m going anyway?” Her father’s voice turned angry.

“Is that what you’re saying? Because if it is, you’re going alone. I’m not going to let you take the children.”

Natalie let herself doze. Dozing wasn’t exactly sleeping. Dozing meant she could come awake whenever she wanted. Dozing meant she couldn’t die.

Sometime later, after they’d come through the Lincoln Tunnel, her mother raised her voice, waking her. “It’s all your fault,” she cried, and for a minute Natalie thought Corinne was blaming her. “You and your crazy ideas. Las Vegas—some hick town in the desert. How many Jews are there in Las Vegas?”

“There will be more and more Jews,” her father told her mother.

“Gangster Jews.”

“Doctors, lawyers, accountants, businessmen. They’re already constructing a medical arts center. It will be finished by the end of the school year. I’ll have a beautiful office with the latest equipment, and plenty of patients to pay the bills. Daisy is willing to come.”

“Daisy!” her mother said. “You’ve already talked to Daisy? Daisy before me? Well, that proves it. I’ve always suspected but until now I wasn’t sure. You and Daisy—”

“That’s ridiculous and you know it,” her father said, his voice rising.

“Is it?”

The car swerved.

“Arthur!” Corinne shouted.

Had they forgotten Natalie was in the backseat?

Her father pulled off the road onto the shoulder, got out and slammed the door. He paced up and down, lighting a cigarette.

Her mother cried softly, then blew her nose. Natalie thought it best to keep quiet.

When her father returned to the car, he said, “I know this is the right thing to do for Natalie. Get her mind off…get her out in the fresh air.”

“And what about her dancing?”

“There will be classes there.”

“How do you know?”

“Entertainers have classes. And since when do we want to encourage her to pursue this cockamamie idea she has of becoming the next Ruby Keeler?”

Natalie held her breath when he said “Ruby”—how did he know? How could he possibly know?—but when he said “Keeler,” Natalie understood he had no idea about her Ruby.

“We have to save her, Corinne.”

“If we can’t save her here, how can we save her there?”

“We have to try. I’m begging you to reconsider.”

“And I’m begging you to forget this crazy idea. Who’s behind it—Longy? And when it fails—and you come home begging for forgiveness—and there’s nothing left of your practice or our marriage, then what? How will we live? How will we pay for treatment for Natalie, send Steve to college and Fern to Vail-Deane? You expect my family to support us? You’ve always resented my family money but now, all of a sudden, it smells clean to you? You’re a fool, Arthur. I never thought I’d say that but it’s the truth.”

“I don’t think you understand, Corinne. Natalie is very sick. If we don’t do something we could lose her.”

Corinne breathed in, teared up, waved a hand at her husband. “Don’t ever say that again! There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s just sensitive. It’s all been too hard on her. That’s why she stopped eating.”

“And I’m saying get her out of here so she doesn’t have to worry about planes crashing into houses, into schools, so she doesn’t have to think about death and dying.”

Natalie slumped to the floor of the car, her hands over her ears.

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