Then, back to Rusty. Stop arguing. Let him put money away for college. You know you worry about how you’re going to pay. You think I don’t know that for fifteen years you’ve done everything? You and Nana and Uncle Henry. You think I don’t know what a family I have? A family I can count on. I don’t need him. That’s true. But if it turns out I want to know him, if it turns out I want to meet his other kids—so what? That doesn’t change anything between us. I love you, Mom. Don’t worry. You’re not going to lose me. Ever.
Henry gave her a little nudge and she came back from her fantasy in time to hear Rusty say, “I don’t want his money, Rabbi. I’ve managed all these years on my own.”
“But the child is entitled, Mrs. Ammerman. I’m suggesting Mr. Monsky set up a fund for Miri,” the rabbi said, “to help with college expenses. Perhaps the amount can be decided by your lawyers. You are entitled to nothing, Mr. Monsky. It will be up to Miri if she wants to see you or not. At fifteen, she can make that decision herself.”
Her feelings for this rabbi just went from cool to warm.
“That sounds fair,” Mike Monsky said.
Gregg looked at Henry, who nodded, and at Rusty, who shrugged.
Then the rabbi asked, “Do you want to see your father again?”
“I don’t know,” Miri answered.
“I understand,” the rabbi said. “Personally, I think you owe it to yourself to get to know him, even though he hasn’t yet had the chance to show you what kind of father he will be. I hope he’ll be responsible, kind, supportive, but that’s going to take some time, some proving. Maybe a week over the summer? Think about it.”
Miri nodded. Rusty blew her nose again.
“Mrs. Strasser,” the rabbi said, “thank you for bringing these two families together.”
Frekki nodded.
“Mr. Monsky,” the rabbi continued, “your wife is Jewish?”
“She’s a convert, Rabbi. The boys are being raised Jewish. It’s a way of life for us.”
The rabbi said, “Good, very good.”
Henry stood and shook hands with the rabbi. So did the others. Then Henry shook hands with Mike Monsky. When Mike extended his hand to Rusty, she didn’t want to take it, Miri could tell, but finally, with Henry’s urging, she held out her hand. Mike Monsky took it and said, “You’re even more beautiful now than you were then.”
Rusty gave him a kind of ha, without smiling. “You haven’t changed,” she said. “You’ve still got a line a mile long.”
“It was always the truth,” Mike Monsky told her, “whether you believed it or not.”
Rusty turned, took Henry’s arm and walked out the door.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Frekki said to Miri.
“I guess that depends on who you ask,” Miri told her.
Mike Monsky put his hand on Miri’s shoulder. “I hope you’ll decide to give me a chance. I hope you’ll come for a visit this summer, like the rabbi suggested.”
“Maybe,” Miri said.
“I’ll write,” Mike Monsky said.
Miri nodded.
“Can I have a hug?” he asked.
“Not here. Not now.” And she hurried to catch up to Rusty and Henry.
—
LEAH HAD INVITED them to stop at Aunt Alma’s house for brunch after the meeting. Before she got out of the car, Rusty changed from her new pumps into her comfy weekend flats. Leah came outside to greet them. Henry said something to her in private, probably telling her how it went at Rabbi Beiderman’s, probably warning her not to bring up the subject.
Alma’s house was small, and neat like her, barely big enough for two. Once Leah and Henry were married, she’d have it back to herself again. Miri wondered if she’d be sorry or glad to see Leah go. Inside, it was decorated in old-world style, with crocheted doilies on the arms of the sofas and chairs.
Rusty took one look at the whitefish salad, the lox and bagels, and said, “This looks like an after-funeral lunch.”
Leah looked hurt. Henry put his arm around her. “Come on, Rusty—nobody’s died.”
Rusty was quick to apologize. “I’m sorry, Leah. I didn’t mean…it’s very sweet of you and Alma to have us over.”
“I hear Irene is in Miami Beach,” Alma said. “With that nice Mr. Sapphire.”
“Yes,” Rusty said. “And she seems to be enjoying it.”
“Mr. Sapphire’s apartment has two bedrooms,” Miri said, feeling she had to defend Irene’s honor.
“Maybe he could invite me down to stay in the second bedroom,” Alma said. “I wouldn’t mind getting away from this crazy weather. Spring or winter. Winter or spring. You never know from day to day. Pneumonia weather.”
“Well,” Henry said, “I’m famished. Let’s eat.”
“Me, too,” Miri said.
Even Rusty helped herself to a bagel piled with lox, cream cheese and tomato.
They’d made it through. They’d survived the stormy seas of Frekki and Mike Monsky, at least for today.
“Are we going to tell Nana about this?” Miri asked.
“When the time is right,” Rusty said.
“What do you think she’ll say?”
Henry answered. “I think she’ll say it’s a good thing for a girl to know her father so she can make up her own mind about him.”
Mike Monsky
He wasn’t sure he should have let his sister talk him into this. She was a bossy big sister when he was a kid and she was still a bossy big sister, a bossy wife, too, he was betting. He was sure the good doctor who’d married her didn’t know what he was in for. And now, J. J. Strasser wasn’t thrilled about complicating his life with Frekki’s long-lost brother or some recently found niece. That was pretty clear. But Frekki had some nutty idea this daughter of his had to be rescued, from what he didn’t know.
He’d made the right decision staying on the West Coast after the war, marrying Adela. So he’d told a little white lie to the rabbi this morning about how she’d converted and how they were raising their boys in the Jewish faith. As if his in-laws would have gone for that. It was bad enough when their only daughter was marrying a Jew. And the Jew was going to be working in the family business.
But okay, according to his father-in-law he was a good-looking guy. You couldn’t tell he was a Jew from just looking, and his own son had been Mike’s shipmate in the Pacific. That counted for something, didn’t it? That he’d even made it into the navy, which didn’t favor Jews, was, in itself, a statement. This was no pasty-faced faggot who’d tried to get out of serving his country. As long as he, Rufus Collingwood, didn’t have to meet Mike’s family—and thank god he’d already changed his name to Monk. Mr. Collingwood had said this to Mike, face-to-face, man-to-man.
No problem there. Mike had told Frekki he and Adela had eloped, when the truth was they’d had two hundred to a sit-down dinner with dancing at the country club. Where he, Michael Monk, was now a member.
Mike and Frekki had grown up in the Weequahic section of Newark. In high school he was Mr. Popularity. The girls loved him. As a student, just so-so. Still, he’d gone to Rutgers, played basketball, joined Phi Ep, where he’d met Rusty at a party in February of his junior year. He fell for her before they’d exchanged two words. Hell, who wouldn’t have fallen for her? She looked like a movie star, maybe Rita Hayworth with green eyes. Had he ever met a girl with green eyes? He didn’t think so. She was tall and lanky. But he was cocky, came on too strong, scared her off. She was just a senior in high school while he was a BMOC. He reminded himself to take it slow and easy.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her today in the rabbi’s study. It all came rushing back. Her scent, the silky feel of her skin, the long hair wrapped around his fingers. And she’d loved it, hadn’t she? She was always ready to hop into the Nash for hours of kissing, touching and finally—Bingo!—the night she gave in. After he demonstrated the bed-in-a-car, she wanted to do it again. He remembered because the Hauptmann guy, the one convicted of killing the Lindbergh baby, was executed in New Jersey the same night. Mike hadn’t been strapped into the electric chair like Hauptmann but he’d been on fire for that girl.
It lasted until Fourth of July weekend, when he drank too much at a party down the shore and made a pass at some other girl—a mistake, and one that cost him. Rusty wouldn’t stop crying and it was never the same between them. No more make-out sessions in the Nash or anywhere else. From what he heard, she was relieved when he enlisted. And so was he. There were plenty of other girls waiting. Anchors Aweigh, my boys…Anchors Aweigh…
His parents were ready to kill him. A Jewish boy enlists in 1936, in peacetime? Are you crazy? his father shouted. Okay, so college didn’t go the way it should have. You were sowing your wild oats. You’ll go to summer school, make up the two classes you flunked. You’ll do better next year. If war comes and we get the contract for military uniforms we’ll be rich. You can work with me. Eli Tucker would give you a medical excuse. You have flat feet, like me, don’t you? We’ll be making the uniforms instead of wearing them. Come on, son. Say it was a mistake.