It was still early but already it looked like Irene would get a good turnout. Rusty replenished the stock from Irene’s closet, handled the cash and the occasional check, and was available for gift-wrapping. When the phone rang Rusty excused herself and picked it up.
“Irene?”
“No, this is her daughter, Rusty.”
“Oh, Rusty, dear, I haven’t seen you in ages. This is Estelle Sapphire from Bayonne. I can’t get to Elizabeth tonight. I’m busy packing, leaving for Florida in the morning, but I was hoping Irene could put away six compacts for me. My husband will pick them up tomorrow on his way back from the airport. He’s driving to Miami but I’m flying.”
Lucky Mrs. Sapphire, Rusty thought, to be escaping this weather. She wouldn’t mind a trip to Florida, but she took her two weeks of vacation in the summer so she and Miri could spend time together down the shore.
“Any special design?” Rusty asked.
“No, dear. Whatever Irene thinks.”
“Price range?”
“Mid. Really, I’m just taking them in case I meet someone, a good hairdresser, a pleasant maid. You know. As a way to say thank you. So much nicer than giving money.”
“Of course,” Rusty said. “I’ll get them ready for you right now.”
“Thank you, Rusty. Please tell Irene I said hello.”
“I will.” Rusty was willing to bet the pleasant maid or the good hairdresser would prefer cash, but a gift was better than nothing.
“Rusty, darling,” Irene said, handing her four compacts and two Ronsons. “Could you gift-wrap these for Mrs. Delaney? Red ribbon.”
Red ribbon was a code for Christmas, not Hanukkah, which would be blue ribbon.
Rusty knew Mrs. Delaney’s son, a good-looking guy who worked at the branch bank on Elmora Avenue. He always flirted with her. Sometimes she flirted back, just to keep up her skills, though she knew he was married with four children. Not to mention Catholic.
Steve
A few blocks down East Jersey Street from the Martin Building, where Steve Osner’s father had his dental office and you could get a great-tasting burger at Three Brothers Luncheonette, Steve was shooting baskets at the YMHA with his best buddy, Phil Stein, both of them seniors at Thomas Jefferson High. They’d been born two weeks apart at Elizabeth General Hospital and bar mitzvahed a week apart at Temple B’nai Israel, across the street from the Y. A couple of regulars were playing with them in a pickup game, and one of them must have brought Mason McKittrick. He seemed like a nice enough kid, not that Steve knew him well, since he was just a junior, but he had good moves and a great hook. “You should go out for the team next year,” Steve told him. “Bet you could make varsity.”
“I work after school,” Mason said, “at Edison Lanes—not much time for practice.”
“You set up pins?”
“Yeah, that and other stuff when it gets busy.”
“I’ll look for you next time we go bowling.”
“You in a league?”
“No, just bowl for fun.”
Mason nodded.
In the locker room, Steve asked Phil, “You want to grab a burger at Three Brothers? I’m starving.”
“Nah. My mother’s probably got dinner in the oven.”
“Okay, but come over later.”
“You have a plan?”
“Don’t tell me you forgot already?”
“Remind me.”
“My sister’s party.”
“We’re going to your sister’s party?”
Steve swatted him with his damp towel. “I have to chaperone. My mother thinks if I’m around there won’t be any trouble. What a joke! Remember ninth grade? That’s the first time I copped a feel.”
“You were always ahead of the rest of us,” Phil said.
If only that were still true, Steve thought. A lot of the guys talked about how much they were getting. Their girlfriends let them touch and look. Steve had touched but no one had ever let him look. He didn’t have a regular girlfriend. He liked playing the field. Maybe he just hadn’t met the right girl yet. He knew girls who’d invite you into their houses to neck on the sofa in the living room, but it never went any further than that. Maybe he was doing something wrong. It might be different if they went to a coed high school. Theirs was the only city in New Jersey with sex-segregated public high schools, Jefferson for boys, Battin for girls. Even St. Mary’s was coed and those kids were Catholic.
“I’ll set up a card table in the laundry room,” he told Phil. “We’ll play a little acey-deucey. You in?”
“Why not?” Phil said.
Mason didn’t say anything.
“You know what they do at their parties?” Steve said.
“Who?” Phil asked.
“Jeez, Phil, my sister and her friends! Who do you think?”
“No idea.”
“They play Rotation,” Steve said. “The musical chairs of making out. That’s a prelude to sex if ever there was one.” It was one thing to make a joke of it with Phil, but if he ever found some guy messing around with his sister, he’d tear him to shreds. Not just Natalie, but Fern. The men of the family had to be vigilant. It was their job to protect the women. That’s the way it was, whether the women liked it or not. The family’s honor was at stake. No one told him this in so many words, but he understood what his mother expected of him. To be an honorable man. He was his mother’s favorite and he knew it. Natalie and Fern were more daddy’s girls. He had ten years before he had to worry about Fern. She was just in kindergarten. By then he’d be, what—twenty-seven, almost twenty-eight? He’d probably be married, maybe with his own kids. Jeez, that was a scary thought.
“So what time tonight?” Phil asked Steve.
“Around eight.”
“I’ll be there.” Phil turned to Mason. “You want a ride home? I got the car outside.”
“Yeah, sure,” Mason said. “I just have to pick up my dog. The janitor’s watching him in the basement.”
Steve had a car outside, too. But they were going in different directions.
Mason
Phil took Mason home for supper, introduced him and his dog, Fred, to Phil’s parents. Phil swore it would be okay, said his mother liked dogs, and it was true—she took to Fred right away, scratching him behind the ears like she knew what she was doing. “Look at this little fellow. What a darling boy you are,” she said to the dog, who cocked his head at her. “I miss my dog Goldie very much,” she told Mason.
At the dinner table, Fred sat at Mrs. Stein’s feet, looking up at her, hoping for scraps. There was no more talk of Goldie and Mason didn’t ask any questions.
Phil’s father was some big-deal executive. He and Phil talked about football over the roast beef. They were New York Giants fans and had tickets for tomorrow’s game, the last of the season, against the New York Yanks.
“Are you a fan, son?” Phil’s father asked Mason.
“Yes, sir,” Mason answered.
“What team?” Phil’s father asked.
“Yours, sir, the New York Giants.”
“Attaboy!” Phil’s father said, clinking his fork against his glass.
Mason preferred baseball to football but he kept that to himself. He still couldn’t believe Joe DiMaggio was retiring.
After dinner Phil asked Mason if he wanted to go to Steve’s. When Mason hesitated, Mrs. Stein picked up Fred. “It’s too cold for such a sweet little fellow to be outside. He can spend the night here and you can get him tomorrow.” Fred didn’t complain, didn’t even run to the door when Mason left with Phil.
Natalie
The Osners’ house was down Shelley Avenue on the left, across the street from School #21, where Natalie had gone to elementary school.
“I don’t see why Steve needs to be a chaperone tonight.” She was arguing with her mother in the upstairs hallway. “I mean, really, what do you think is going to happen? You know all these kids. I’ve been going to school with them since seventh grade. They’ve been here a million times.”
“Boys can get rambunctious, especially this time of year,” her mother said, her southern drawl more pronounced during an argument. “The holiday season makes them crazy. I don’t want any trouble. We have a responsibility to the other parents.”
“But it’s not like you won’t be home. You’ll be in the den.”
“Steve will be unobtrusive.”
“I hope you know you’re ruining my get-together. I hope you know that.”
“You won’t even know he’s there. He’ll be in the laundry room.”
“The laundry room?” This almost made Natalie laugh. The laundry room was next to the finished basement and almost as big.
“With some of his friends.”
“His friends? I don’t want his friends anywhere near my get-together.”
“I just told you—you won’t even know they’re there.”
“I’ll know. I just hope my friends don’t find out. If Daddy were here he’d understand.”
“I’m sure your father would agree with me.”