Fifteen

Friday was a school holiday, because there was a teacher’s convention. My mother was feeling much better. She thanked me for taking care of her and being such a big help. She thanked Teddy too, but I figure she sort of had to.

“I’m proud of you,” she said. “You really took over and ran the house.”

“Yeah,” Teddy said. “We sure did.”

“Why don’t you and Al do something fun today? You deserve a break.” She gave me five dollars and said, “Don’t spend it all in one place.”

“Let’s go check the mink coats at F A O Schwarz,” I said.

Ever since Al’s mother brought home an F A O Schwarz catalogue that advertised, among other exotic playthings, mink coats in sizes 2T, 4T, and 6T, we’d planned on going down to inspect the joint. F A O Schwarz has got to be the most fantastic toy store in the world.

T stands for toddler, I told Al.

“Surreal,” Al said.

“Let’s go,” I said.

We took the bus. It was raining.

The driver was an old crank. Sometimes the drivers were really nice. They sing and make little jokes and are kind to old ladies who don’t walk very well. This one slammed the brakes on and snarled at anyone who asked him for a transfer or whether this bus stopped at Forty-second Street.

We sat in the back, right over a heater that was sending forth blasts of hot air.

“Get the picture,” Al said, waving her hands to send the heat my way. “This four-year-old kid who is spoiled rotten, due to the fact both parents are lawyers and making big bucks so they believe in quality time instead of quantity time and give the kid anything she wants, gets a mink coat for her birthday. It’s a 6T on account of even rich folks like their kids to get two seasons out of their outerwear. So the kid goes to the park with her nanny in her mink coat. All kids wearing mink coats have to have a nanny. That’s a rule. The kid’s also got a power bike with a V-8 engine, which she plans to enter in the Grand Prix when she grows up.

“And in the park lurks this nefarious guy who keeps tabs on kids wearing genuine mink. He hangs out there and chats up the nannies while they’re sitting tatting on the park bench, demure as heck, hoping some bigwig TV producer will discover them and put them in a sit com.”

“Tatting?” I said.

“Yeah. It’s like knitting only it’s tatting,” Al said. “So the guy chats up the nanny, tells her he’s a retired bank president or something soothing like that. He says isn’t her charge a little doll, stuff like that. He even carries a bag full of sour balls that he hands out. Then, while he’s got the nanny’s attention, his cohort sneaks up on the kid, who’s riding her power bike in her mink coat and really working up a sweat.

“Talk about sweat!” Al rolled her eyes and her eyebrows went flying up underneath her bangs. “Try riding a power bike while you’re wearing a mink coat. Man, it’s the most! Anyway, the cohort walks right in front of the kid’s bike so the kid brakes, and the cohort, who is very swift, rips the fur coat off the kid before she even gets her thumb out of her mouth. By the time she catches on and starts hollering, the cohort’s over the river and through the woods with the goods.”

Al took a breather. Story telling is very draining work, she says.

“So what does the cohort do with the size 6T mink?” I asked her.

“Well, he hands it over to his own kid, who’s only two but fast growing. But when the kid’s wicked stepmother gets a load of the coat, she goes ape. She says if he doesn’t get her a mink coat in her size, she’ll rat to the fuzz. The End.”

“No,” I said. “That’s not what happens. This is what happens.”

Al watched me closely. She’s very jealous about her stories. She wants them to go her way. Before I knew Al, I never made up stories. Now I’m getting pretty good at it.

I cleared my throat.

“The guy who rips off the kid’s coat owns a doggy boutique,” I said. “They sell doggy silk pajamas and bikinis and plaid bathrobes for lounging in. The guy cuts up the kid’s mink coat and makes it into little muffs and belly bands for tiny dogs about Sparky’s size. Dog lovers go beserk. Sparky’s mom buys him a complete outfit. Sparky and his mom go on TV talk shows, the whole bit. They’re instant celebrities.”

I looked at Al. She pretended to be dozing.

“Pretty good, huh?” I said.

“What’s a belly band?” Al asked, with her eyes still closed.

“It’s what they used to put around a newborn baby’s belly to make sure the belly button didn’t fall off and get lost,” I said.

“I never heard of such a thing,” Al said.

“Just because you never heard of it,” I said, “doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

The bus slowed for our stop.

“Maybe the toddler furs are on sale today,” Al said. “Let us hasten inside and see what’s up.”

“Which way are the toddler fur coats?” we asked the man who paces back and forth in front of the store and opens taxi doors for customers.

He pointed upward. I think he was giving us the finger, but Al said, “Thank you, sir,” to put him in his place.

First thing we saw was a Ferrari in kid’s size that actually runs.

“How much?” we asked the man standing guard.

“Fifteen K,” he said.

“What’s K mean?” Al said.

“Thousand,” the man said.

“Charge it,” we said, and zipped up on the escalator.

We checked out the gold-plated carousel and a nine-foot-tall stuffed giraffe. We ogled the black-walnut rocking horse and the miniature baby grand piano. But we never did find the toddler minks.

When we’d had our fill, we went back down and out.

“Unreal,” I said.

“Pure sci fi,” Al agreed.

“Let’s go check the Russian Tea Room,” I suggested. The Russian Tea Room is close to F A O Schwarz. It’s a celebrity hangout where the celebs chow down on caviar and blinis.

“There’s Woody Allen!” I hissed.

“Where?”

“There. Just going into the Russian Tea Room. Don’t speak to him, though. He gets very upset when fans say ‘Hi, Woody Loved your last picture.’ He likes to travel incognito. That’s why he always skulks around with his collar pulled way up.”

“Why doesn’t he just eat lunch at home, then?” Al said.

“Polly said she saw Donald Trump coming out once,” I said.

“Phooey on Donald Trump,” Al said. “Let’s shoot for a biggy like Jackie Onassis or Andy Rooney.”

“How about Shirley Temple?” I said. “I read she was autographing copies of her autobiography this week. I wouldn’t mind seeing her. She’s about our age, you know. I bet we’d have lots in common.”

“You’re crazy,” Al said. “She’s old. She’s a grandmother and everything.”

“I saw her on the silver screen only last week,” I said. “She looked pretty young to me.”

“I understand she wears a wig,” Al said.

We hung around, but Woody didn’t show. Neither did any other celebrity.

“You want to go to Carnegie Hall?” I said.

“How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Al said. Then, before I could beat her to it, she said, “Practice, baby, practice.”

“That’s as old as the hills,” I said. “I heard my grandfather say that years ago.”

“If we had any moola,” Al said, “we could take a hansom cab through the park.”

“People always stare at people in hansom cabs,” I said. “I’d hate having all those people staring at me, thinking I was a rich tourist or something.”

“Maybe the Rockefeller Plaza skating rink is open,” Al said. “We could go down and watch them twirl.”

“Too early,” I said. “Anyway, I hate to skate there. I fall down too much and everybody stares. It’s embarrassing.”

“Hey, you’re getting a real complex about people staring at you, kid,” Al told me.

“Yeah, I know.”

“All right, sports fans, let’s try Radio City Music Hall, see if we can get in for the Christmas show,” Al said.

“It hasn’t started yet, dummy,” I said.

“We might have to give up and go home,” Al said.

“Let’s walk,” I said. It had stopped raining.

We walked east, across to Park Avenue. Park Avenue’s fun to walk up, it’s so sort of snazzy.

“I read that when Shirley Temple was fourteen the Hollywood moguls wanted to keep her a child star as long as they could, so they bound her bust,” Al told me.

“No kidding?” I said. “That’s a good idea. Why don’t we try that?”

“I thought we already had,” Al said.

We laughed until we both came down with the hiccups.

“Hey, look!” I grabbed Al’s arm. “I don’t believe it. Twice in one day. It’s Woody again.”

Al squinted into the distance.

“You may be right,” she said. “Let’s say hello.”

“Hi, Woody,” we said. “Loved your last picture.”

The little man in the big glasses looked startled, then alarmed. Then he pulled up his collar even further and scuttled off, incognito.