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“Don’t get your hopes up,” Annie warned, but Laurel could see that She was excited herself. “It’ll probably be like that last man. They’ll say I’m too young, and we need references.”

Even so, Laurel squeezed her eyes shut, and prayed, Please, God, let Mrs. Shabbat take us.

She felt Annie tug on her hand, pulling her up the path. “Well, here goes nothing.” She pressed the doorbell.

“Coming, coming, I’m coming!” someone yelled to them from inside.

After a long minute, the front door swung open. A woman stood before them. A checkered apron was tied about her enormous belly and a flowered scarf knotted around her head. A round face with crinkly brown eyes smiled at them.

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“Miss Davis?”

“Yes,” Annie answered at once.

“Huh? … Um, yeah,” muttered Laurel at the same time. She flushed, and quickly shut her mouth, realizing she better let Annie take over now.

“I’m Annie … and this is my sister, Laurel. She’s the one who called you.”

“And I’m Rivka Gruberman.” She smiled at Laurel. “And you talk lovely on the phone, darling, but I’ve never seen such young girls as you two looking for an apartment. You understand, I can’t have someone who’s going to move in, and then bim-boom-bam, they move right back to Mama.”

“We don’t have a mother,” Annie answered quietly. “She died.”

“Oh,” said Rivka, nodding several times, then opening the door wider. “Well, you better look at it.”

Rivka gave them a sharp look as she ushered them into a dim vestibule smelling of cooked carrots, but said nothing more as, huffing and puffing, she led them up the narrow stairs. Laurel breathed a sigh of relief. / don’t think she believes Annie’s twenty-one, but she’s not going to make a big fuss about it.

The apartment was small: a tiny kitchen with yellow cabinets, a living room with a faded green carpet, and a bedroom not much bigger than her closet at Bel Jardin. But the place was clean, and all the walls had fresh lightblue paint. A delicious smell of baking bread drew Laurel to an open window. She peered out to see where it was coming from. Across a weed-grown lot, she saw a huge exhaust fan whirring on the roof of a small building.

“Is that a bakery?” she asked.

“Bagels,” Rivka explained. “All day long, and all night, twentyfour hours they don’t stop with the bagels. And as if we don’t get enough of it, what does my husband bring me every day on his way back from shulT’ She chortled and threw up her hands.

Laurel wanted to ask what a bagel was, but Annie shot her a warning look, and Laurel bit back her question.

“It’s a very nice apartment,” Annie said. “We’ll take

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it.” She sounded firm and grownup, but then a trace of unsureness crept in. “That is … if … if it’s okay with you.”

“I don’t know from Arizona,” said Rivka, eyeing them carefully. “But before you make up your mind, you would like to see our shul, no?”

Something was wrong; Laurel could feel it. Her stomach began to flop. And she could see from the way Annie was nibbling at her thumbnail that she felt it, too.

Annie, her face reddening, echoed, “Your shulT’

Rivka gave them a long look, and said gently, “Come, shainenkes, come downstairs with me. Manhattan’s a long trip, and you could use some hot tea, and maybe a piece of babka, yeah?”

Downstairs, the Grubermans’ apartment was a madhouse. Children everywhere-a cluster of older boys on the sofa, reading aloud to each other in that same foreign language she’d heard on the street. Two little ones with toy trucks, scooting about the cabbage-rose carpet. A baby sitting up in a playpen, banging a set of plastic keys against its bars.

The noise was incredible.

“Sha, everyone! We’ve got company!” Rivka yelled as she sailed through, stepping over dolls and stuffed animals, but no one paid any attention.

In the big cheerful kitchen, a dark-haired, pinkcheeked girl about Annie’s age was rolling out dough on the counter.

“My oldest,” Rivka said, “my Sarah,” waving a hand in her direction. The girl nodded shyly and went back to her rolling pin.

This house, this woman, reminded Laurel of the old woman who lived in a shoe, who had so many children she didn’t know what to do. Except Mrs. Gruberman seemed so happy. And nice.

Laurel and Annie sat down at a long table covered with a yellow-checked oilcloth. Looking around, Laurel noticed something odd: everything was in twos. Two sinks, two sets of cupboards, even two refrigerators.

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“I see you looking at my refrigerators,” Rivka observed. “You know why I have two?”

“I guess it’s because you have such a big family,” Laurel ventured, feeling shy, and scared because she could feel that Mrs. Gruberman was somehow working up to telling them no.

“No, darling, it’s because we’re kosher. Everything that’s meat, and everything that’s milk, we keep strictly separate.”

Laurel wanted to ask why, but it didn’t somehow seem like a good idea.

“I know about kosher,” Annie said. “My mother once took me to Fairfax Avenue for hot dogs. She said they were the best ones.”

Rivka chuckled as she bustled about the stove, putting the kettle on and lighting the fire under it. Then she turned to face them, hands folded over her fat belly. “So, what shall I do with the two of you? You don’t even know what Shomer Shabbat means. Am I right?”

Laurel’s heart sank. Shomer Shabbat plainly was not the name of Rivka’s husband. And worse, Rivka Gruberman was not going to rent them the apartment.

“We’re not Jewish,” Annie confessed.

Rivka sighed, and then ruefully nodded. “Darlings, this I saw the second I laid eyes on you. We don’t let our girls live alone, without a father or a husband.” The laughter left her face as suddenly as a cloud passing in front of the sun. “I’m sorry. Shomer Shabbat means Sabbath observers only.”

“We won’t make one bit of noise on the Sabbath,” Annie pleaded. “My sister and I, we don’t have a TV, or even a radio.”

Rivka shook her head, even while plunking mugs of steaming tea in front of them. “You seem like nice girls. Please, don’t take it personal. ‘ ‘ She set out a plate of yeasty cake laden with raisins and nuts, which smelled as if it had just come out of the oven.

Laurel’s mouth watered. Her eyes were watering, too. Feeling hungry and miserable, she helped herself to a big piece.

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“I have money. I could pay you the deposit right this minute,” Annie pressed, desperation in her voice. “Cash.”

“Please, it’s not the money,” Rivka replied sorrowfully. “It’s how we live.”

“But…” Annie started to plead, then suddenly her mouth clamped shut, and she sat up very straight, shoulders squared, as if there was an invisible needle poking her in the back. Laurel knew that look … it was Annie’s stubborn look. She wouldn’t beg, no matter how desperate she was. “It’s okay,” she said briskly. “I understand.”

Laurel took a swallow of hot tea, scalding her tongue. Tears welled in her eyes. Why didn’t Annie tell her that they’d looked everywhere and they were too exhausted to look anymore? Why couldn’t she admit she was hungry? Laurel saw Annie eyeing the plate of cake, but, no, she was too proud to take any.

Laurel’s stomach churned up into her throat, and for a second she thought she might be sick.

Then she had an idea.

“I could babysit for you,” she said softly. “I wouldn’t even charge for it.”

Shaking her head pityingly, Rivka turned back to her stove, picking up where she must have left off when they’d arrived, flouring chicken drumsticks and dropping them into a hot, sputtering skillet.

Annie stood up. “Thank you anyway for showing us the place. Laurey, I think we’d better be go-“

She was interrupted by a loud wail from the other room. The older girl, Sarah, shot her mother a pleading look, and said, “Please, Ma, I just gave Shainey her bottle. And I have to finish this before Rachel gets here. She’s coming special to help me with my algebra.”

“And I”-Rivka threw up her floury hands-“have four hands all of a sudden?”

Laurel, guided by instinct, rushed into the next room and scooped the crying baby from her playpen. The infant kicked and squirmed, letting out a loud screech, her round face bunching up, as Laurel, feeling awkward, tried as best she could to comfort her. Laurel wished she knew more about babies-she’d only helped Bonnie babysit her baby

brother that one time, and little Jimmy had screamed too until they got his diaper changed. Maybe that’s what this one needed.

While the boys on the sofa looked on in fascination, Laurel peeled off the baby’s plastic pants. Underneath, her diaper was soaking wet. Then Laurel saw why she’d been crying-one of the diaper pins had popped open, and was sticking her in the side.

She had just gotten the pin out and the diaper off when Rivka rushed in, drying her hands on a dish towel. “Oy, what now? My little shainenkel” She hoisted the baby onto her big belly, cradling its bare bottom with the dish towel. She smiled at Laurel.

“So? You know about babies? You’re just a baby yourself!”

“I know a lot about babies,” Laurel lied, careful not to meet Annie’s eyes.

“A pin was sticking Shainey!” cried a dark-haired boy wearing a round skullcap that had slipped to one side of his head, giving him a cockeyed look. “The girl pulled it out.”

Rivka covered the baby with kisses, then said, “By my husband, it’s enough already I have the older girls to help out.” She sighed. “But believe me, with Sarah and Chava and Leah in yeshiva all day and this new one coming any minute, I could use a little more help.”

Laurel looked up into Rivka’s kind face, and saw an uncertainty that hadn’t been there a few minutes ago. She felt a surge of hope. Was there still a chance? Had Rivka changed her mind?

She took a deep breath and thought, We’d be safe here. Safe from muggers and mean landlords and cockroaches. Safe from policemen and from Val.

“Stay,” Rivka said softly. “Stay and meet my husband, Ezra. He’ll be home soon. Maybe he meets you and then he’ll change his mind.”

Laurel let her breath out, feeling a rush of happy relief. And pride, too. Because she was the one who had made this all happen. She grinned at Annie, who grinned back.

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Somehow, Laurel felt sure it was going to be okay. For right now, at least. She didn’t want to think about tomorrow, or the day after that. She didn’t want to think about going to school in this weird neighborhood, or whether or not Annie would find a job before they went broke.

Later, if Rivka’s husband said they could have the apartment, she’d ask her about the bearded men with the round fur hats and curls. And the ladies with the red dots on their foreheads.

She could see she had lots and lots to learn.

Annie reached for the fat man’s empty plate. The stack of dirty dishes balanced against her other arm chattered and swayed, and for a dreadful second, she was sure the whole mess was going to crash to the floor. But she managed somehow to right it.

“Excuse me,” she said, trying to sound calm and polite, scooping up knives and forks and side-order plates from the Formica table where the fat man and his even fatter wife were finishing their lunch.

“Excuse me” the fat man’s wife snarled as Annie accidentally brushed her shoulder.

Annie noted that Mrs. Fat had just packed away a double cheeseburger with side orders of onion rings and coleslaw, and strawberry cheesecake for dessert. Probably miserable with heartburn from all that, Annie guessed, then remembered, no, the old cow had snapped at her even before she’d started packing it in, back when Annie mixed up her order, and brought lettuce and tomato instead of coleslaw.

Annie felt an angry flush ride up her neck. Sweat popped out on her forehead, and it frustrated her that she couldn’t just stop and wipe it away. But then she thought,

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It’s my fault. I’m just no good at this, and her anger cooled.

A full week at the Parthenon now, and she still hadn’t gotten the hang of it. Worse, she felt she never would. How did the others manage it? Loretta, for instance. Only a little older than Annie, she made it look so easy … as easy as walking and chewing gum at the same time.

What was it Loretta had said to her that first day?

“Honey, I was bawn with flat feet.” Looking Annie up and down, sucking in her pimply cheeks, she’d added, “What I can’t figure is what yaw doin’ here.”

Right now, Annie wondered the same thing. But she knew that without this job she couldn’t buy groceries or set aside money to pay next month’s rent.

No, she had to start getting better at this, or she and Laurel would be sleeping on the subway. And eventually they’d be picked up, and then Val-if he wasn’t deadwould surely find them.

A chill sliced through her. He could be out looking for them right now, this very minute. Suppose he’d gone to the Los Angeles Greyhound terminal and found out somehow that they’d bought tickets to New York?

“… so I told him, ‘If you can’t come up with a better excuse than that, young man, you can just march yourself up those stairs, and …’ “

The fat lady’s whiny voice grated like fingernails on chalkboard. Annie felt all sweaty. Hardly noon, and already she was dripping under each armpit. She’d have to wash her uniform again tonight, and hang it to dry in front of the oven. And, God, would she ever get rid of this rancid-grease smell? Her hair, her fingers, even her pantyhose smelled like yesterday’s hamburgers. One of these days some hungry dog would probably charge up and take a bite out of her.

The table cleared, she turned to go, clumsily bumping her hip against its corner. The coffee cup at the top of her leaning tower tottered, then slid. Annie, her heart lurching, grabbed for it, but the cup shot from her sweaty grasp. While she watched in horror, time seemed to wind down, as if this were some slow-motion movie-the thick white cup tumbling over and over, the smudgy pink imprint