Twenty-Nine

Sarah was painting the week’s specials on the butcher shop window when Charley came by. “You painted liver much bigger than chicken,” he said.

Her pleasure in seeing him was dimmed by the fact that she was wearing the ugliest of her window-painting outfits. “I want people to buy liver. Otherwise we have to eat it.”

“Do you need any help?”

“Thanks, I’m nearly done.”

“My father gave me two passes to the World’s Fair. I wondered if you would like to go with me.”

She managed to ask matter-of-factly. “Oh. When?”

“This Saturday or Sunday. Whichever you want.”

“Saturday would be fine,” she said, thinking It’s closer.

It wasn’t until Sammy was asleep that Sarah brought up the subject of going to the Fair with Charley Weinstein. “He was the boy who talked at Subbie’s funeral,” she said. “His father gave him two passes.”

Rifke looked up from the letter she was writing. “On a Saturday there will be so many people at the Fair you won’t have an inch to stand on.”

“With six hundred acres, Rifke, they’ll find twelve inches.”

“We’ll be fine, Mama, really.”

“How will you get there?”

“We’ll take the streetcar and then the elevated train. Charley’s done it before.”

“I want you home before dark.”

“One more thing,” Jacob said.

Sarah waited.

He smiled, the old sparkle in his eyes as he fished his wallet out of his pocket and handed her a dollar. “Be sure and have a good time.”

She kissed his cheek. “Thank you!”

“I’ll give you a change purse for your money,” Rifke said. “I have a nice one.”

“Thank you, Mama.”

Could it be that her mother was nicer to her now that she had decided she had only one daughter?

§

Sarah wished she had something new to wear. She looked through the clothes that Fanny had left in her drawer and was surprised to see a light green blouse. It had been one of Fanny’s favorites. She put it on, but she swam in it. It gave her the shivers anyway. Like wearing the clothes of someone who had just died. She stuffed the blouse back in the drawer.

The loss of Fanny had made her mother and father into different people. Her mother did everything she had always done—dressing nicely, working in the shop on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, attending meetings of the Women’s Suffrage Committee, cooking (but not with much variety), cleaning, going to the library, reading Gogol and Turgenev, and playing chess with Leo—but she was like a colorless painting. And Jacob—everything about him sagged. It hurt so much to see him so sad that Sarah had stopped visiting him in the shop after school. It hurt her even more that he hadn’t seemed to notice.

Sammy burst through the blue curtains. “Mama said you were going to the Fair! I want to go too!”

“I’m sorry, Sammy, you can’t,” she said, booting him out unceremoniously.

Once she was dressed—she had decided to wear a white blouse and a wine-colored skirt—she went outside to wait for Charley, away from her parents’ attentive eyes. She had paid special attention to her hair, soaping and rinsing it twice, brushing it until it shone, then sweeping it back from her forehead and holding it in place with a white ribbon.

The dark-eyed, black-haired girl staring back at her from the shop window as she waited outside was… She pinched her cheeks, one of Fanny’s tricks, and turned away from her image just in time. One second more and Charley would have seen her gaping at herself.

He was wearing the same tan shirt and brown pants he’d worn for the funeral, and had again brushed his hair back from his forehead. Out of nervousness, Sarah said, “You’re wearing new glasses.”

“No.” He smiled. “I just cleaned them.”

“We have to go in to say good-bye to my parents. It’ll just take a second.”

Her mother and father looked up from their reading as Sarah and Charley walked into the apartment. Sammy stared.

Her father stood up and extended his hand. “Hello, Charley. I’m glad to see you. And this is Sarah’s mother.”

“You gave a beautiful eulogy at Subbie’s funeral, Charley,” Rifke said. “I’m sad you and Sarah lost such a good friend.”

“Thank you,” Charley said, flushed.

Sarah was relieved to be out of the house and walking. “I think you impressed my mother.”

“She impressed me!”

“What do you mean?”

“She…well, there’s something different about her.”

“Yes,” Sarah sighed. “Very different.”

“I like your father. I’ve never shook…shaked?” He grinned. “He has a huge hand!”

“And he can carve the tiniest things!”

“You’re close to him, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“My father practically lives in his law office.” Charley’s voice took a down turn. “If your father asked you, ‘How was school today?’ it would sound like a friendly question. When my father asks, it’s as if he’s in court and I’m in the witness box. If I say, ‘I was bored,’ he’ll ask, ‘Why? Didn’t you understand your assignment? Were you daydreaming again?’ Rat-tat-tat-tat, like a gun firing.”

“Well, it’s nice that he gave you the passes.”

Charley shrugged. “It’s not that he’s mean. He’s just…he doesn’t know how to be anything but a lawyer.”

“What’s your mother like?”

Charley’s face softened. “Oh, she’s the opposite. She enjoys life. She loves to laugh.”

A mother who loves to laugh. Sarah couldn’t imagine what that would be like. “It sounds like…” She stopped.

“What were you going to say?”

“It’s silly.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Oh…it sounds like my mother should have married your father and my father should have married your mother.”

“Would that make us brother and sister?”

Luckily the sound of the streetcar made it unnecessary for her to answer. Charley grabbed her hand. “Run!”

Sarah ran, at a disadvantage because of her narrow skirt. By the time the streetcar rumbled to a stop, she was gasping. Charley leapt the high step and helped her up. “Two,” he said, giving the conductor ten cents. Sarah took the change purse out of her sweater pocket.

“I’m paying,” Charley said.

“But…”

“Let’s get a seat.”

They found two in the middle of the car. Sarah pulled at her skirt as she sat down. She hadn’t realized it was so narrow.

“I brought money, Charley,” she said. “You didn’t have to pay my fare.”

“Let’s pool what we have. Then we won’t worry who pays for what.” He reached into his pocket and displayed two dollars in his palm. “My fortune.”

“I have one dollar.”

He laughed. “We’re rich.”

They took the streetcar east towards downtown and then switched to the El line at Congress. “Don’t forget that we have to save enough for the fare back,” Sarah said, once they’d gotten settled in their seats. But Charley hadn’t heard her. He was absorbed in the movement of the El as it rattled along the tracks above the city. And what was she doing? What her mother did, harping on how much they were spending. She looked at the apartments and houses, as they flashed by the windows, and banished all thoughts of money from her mind