Daughter of the King (19 page)

When I went home after my extended “vacation,” during which I had pretended that I had caught a severe cold, Mommy went psychotic. She shrieked when she saw me. “What have they done, what have they done?” she wailed. This was the only real emotion I had seen in my listless mother for the longest time. It was a kind of shock therapy. Too bad it didn’t last, or make her better. Luckily, Daddy was away, so she couldn’t call him. I gave Mommy a song and dance about health rather than vanity. I did this for Dr. Eagle. I did this for my sinuses. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to worry you. Sure . . .

Things had been going from bad to worse. Mommy’s father had passed away, so she had lost that ballast. She never spoke to Esther Siegel anymore, or to Flo Alo. She had no friends, other than the television, which she never turned off. For the last year I could barely do my homework. Mommy insisted on the rooms being so dark, no overhead lighting allowed, so that the only light I had was the sliver of light from the bathroom or the flickering light from the television screen.

I wasn’t a very inspired student to begin with. Adding darkness to laziness was not a good formula to prepare me for Vassar, which was near West Point and where so many of the Calhoun girls were planning to go. Aside from the fit she threw over my new nose, Mommy barely spoke to me at all, about my education, or anything else. She spent a lot of time talking to herself, in a mumble I couldn’t understand. “What, Mommy?” I’d often ask her, thinking, hoping, she was saying something to me. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing. Nothing . . .” she trailed off. Other times she would say stuff to herself, then burst out laughing. I felt so creepy being around her. You don’t want to think of your mother as a crazy person, like the bag ladies who walked up and down Broadway near the Westover, talking, laughing, cursing to themselves. She’d only go to Steinberg’s Dairy Restaurant, which had to be the most depressing restaurant in New York

Mommy had greatly reduced her frequent trips to the psychiatrists. I’m sure they wanted to see her, but she had gotten too despondent to keep her appointments. However, she still was hooked on their prescriptions. Her medicine cabinet looked like one big drugstore. I saw a lot of bottles of Lithium. Sometimes she would come to get me at Calhoun looking ragged and unkempt, which was embarrassing. It was bad enough not having a boyfriend. I wanted to disappear. The very worse thing was the day I found my mother in her bedroom arranging something in a cigar box. I walked over to see what it was. I screamed! In the box was a collection of dead cockroaches. She was arranging the bugs in military file, like a marching platoon. “My West Point cadets,” Mommy said, without a smile or a change in her flat tone of voice.

I wasn’t sure what was scarier, the cockroaches or Mommy. I never told anyone. I was too afraid, too ashamed. My brothers never saw her. Daddy never came up, always dropping me off downstairs. She was my secret. But her brother, Uncle Julie, who lived very close by on
Riverside Drive, would come by weekly. He was clearly distressed at his once elegant sister’s tragic decline. He didn’t tell me to find a way out, but I could see in his eyes that he wanted to try to save me.

Instead Daddy came to the rescue. When he got out of Ballston Spa, I met him at Dinty Moore’s to show off my now healed and un-swollen nose. He seemed impressed. Then I told him I’d love to live with him and Teddy in Florida, where he was spending more and more time. I told him if I lived there, I could see more of him. He didn’t ask me about what Mommy would say. But he asked about my horse, about my school. I told him that school would come first, that I had always liked going to school in Florida during our winters when we were a family, that the horses could wait. So Daddy said yes. He always said yes to me. That was the good part.

The hard part was telling Mommy. The sadness on her face when I told her was different from the shock at my redone nose. She looked crushed, betrayed. She had taken many blows in recent years, losing Daddy, then Buddy, then Paul going away. And now me. This was, as they say, the unkindest cut of all. Yet Mommy was too defeated, too far gone, to try to argue with me. She didn’t cry. She just stared into space, like someone in court who just heard a guilty verdict they knew was coming.

Mommy had come to expect everything in her life to go wrong. This was one more awful and final thing. I tried to give her some hope to cling to, saying that this was just an experiment, that I wanted to try a new place, some place where I could finally meet some cute boys. I sensed that she didn’t believe me. She knew her daughter, the last life preserver in a life that was sinking fast, had drifted away from her reach. I don’t know how I got through that hideously sad farewell.

I started public school in Hollywood, Florida, in August. New York schools started in September, but before widespread air conditioning, Miami schools started in the brutal heat of summer, but finished in the relative coolness of early spring. The luckier kids could then head north for the summer. This lucky New York kid was going
in the opposite direction, hoping for the best, or for better than I had had it. Daddy and Teddy had a new rental in Hollywood. It wasn’t much nicer than the first one, but it was better than the Westover. And, aside from the endless smoking, Teddy seemed friendly enough, better than Paul had given her credit for.

Daddy enrolled me in the tenth grade at South Broward High School. My younger cousin Linda Lansky was in seventh grade there. Her parents, Uncle Jack and Aunt Anna, had been living in Florida for years. Jack was Daddy’s man in Miami, running his clubs and properties. He lived in a fancy white Spanish mansion, much grander than Daddy’s place, but Daddy’s rule was don’t attract attention. At South Broward I broke the rule right away. I hated the way the teacher made me sit in typing class. It made my back ache really badly. I was also placed in beginning Spanish. At Calhoun I’d taken intermediate French, but they didn’t teach French here. I had no idea how valuable that typing would have been—much more useful than the French. I complained to Daddy about the public school, and he immediately, put me in the private Pine Crest, in Fort Lauderdale, where they taught French and not typing.

Typing was for secretaries, the people the Pine Crest girls’ husbands would hire, not for the little ladies and pampered housewives-to-be. I made one friend there, Mary Ann Turner. Her father owned the patent on the cellophane that bread was wrapped in. That was the kind of rich girl atttending Pine Crest. Before the bus picked me up every morning at 6:30, Daddy joined me for my breakfast ritual of Rice Krispies and a daily vitamin. I never liked those vitamins, but they were orders from my once-beloved Dr. Eagle, so I followed them.

Before I could figure out whether or not I hated Pine Crest, I discovered that I hated Teddy, far more than Paul ever dreamed of hating her. Living with Teddy, even though I had my own room and was gone most of the day in school, quickly became a strain, a battle for Daddy’s attention, a battle that Teddy would never win. As usual Daddy took me everywhere with him, to show me off to his friends, at handball,
at card games, at dinners. To Daddy, I became the trophy child. To Teddy I became “the other woman.”

If anything went wrong in the house, I would get the blame. One day after school, Teddy was waiting for me, hands cocked on her hips. She led me into the living room and pointed to a pastel portrait of herself hanging in the center of the wall. “Look what you’ve done!” She glared daggers at me.

I couldn’t tell what she was talking about. “Huh?” I asked.

She pointed out smudges on the portrait with her long, blood-red-manicured nail finger. “You did it. You ruined my picture.”

“I didn’t touch it.”

“Don’t lie to me! You ruined it.”

Suddenly, the live-in black maid rushed into the living room, to my defense. “Oh, no, Miz Lansky. It was me. Don’t blame that poor child. It was me. I dusted it. It was dirty. I’m sorry, Miz Lansky.”

“Get out!” Teddy screamed. I’m not sure who she was screaming at, me or the maid. I never saw the maid again. But Teddy never apologized to me. I ran out of the house crying and went down the block to see Grandma Yetta, who, after Daddy, became my best friend, my only girlfriend, in my new home. She was in her seventies then, and she spoke with a heavy Old World accent. But I knew she loved me. I stayed with her until dark, when Daddy would be home. When I got there, Teddy was all sweetness, as if nothing had ever happened. I bit my tongue. Never complain.

There was another blow-up a few weeks later. Someone gave Daddy a little poodle that became fond of me. Teddy, who was phobic about animals, confined the dog to the kitchen at night. One school evening I was doing my homework and listening to the radio, which was way better than the homework. They were playing Patti Page’s “How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?” Almost as if they were playing his song, the poodle began scratching at my door. He had escaped from the kitchen. Like any normal dog lover, I opened the door and let him in to enjoy Patti Page and Tony Bennett and Perry Como
and Frankie Laine, all my “boyfriends.” And then I let the dog come to bed with me. No sooner had we fallen asleep than Teddy roared into my room and snatched the poodle from my arms. The poor dog began whimpering. I was even more scared.

“I told you that dirty mutt was never to enter your room, never mind ruining the bed!”

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” I cried.

Daddy heard the fracas. He came in and quickly rendered his judgment. “She didn’t do anything wrong. Leave Sandra alone, Teddy.” Meyer Lansky’s judgments were final. Daddy took the trembling dog from Teddy and gave him back to me. Teddy turned on her heel and left the room. Daddy kissed me goodnight, winked at me, and closed the door.

Down the hall, I could hear Teddy yelling at Daddy. It went on and on until I finally fell asleep, dog in my arms. The next afternoon Daddy picked me up at Pine Crest and told me great news. Teddy had left. I hoped it was forever. No such luck. Ten days later she was back. Daddy had to give the poodle back to the people who had given it to them. I tried to stay away from Teddy as much as I could, escaping to Grandma Yetta’s or sometime to Flo Alo’s. What I did know was that I couldn’t live in the same house with Teddy. I wanted to go home to Mommy. Bad as that was, it was better than this.

As a dry run for coming home, I got Daddy to let me fly to New York in early November to go to my favorite annual event, the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden. This was as big a deal in New York as the World Series. So was seeing Mommy after four months away from her. It was an emotional reunion. She was so happy on the first day, but then she lapsed back to her old sadness and despondency. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t handle Mommy; I couldn’t stand Teddy. I was the girl without a country.

And then it happened. I was “saved.” On the second night of the Horse Show, a tall, fair, nice-looking boy came up to me at the Garden and introduced himself. Or rather, reintroduced himself. He was
Marvin Rapoport. I had no idea who he was. I didn’t remember him, which seemed to deflate him. He reminded me that we knew each other from the Aldrich Stables long ago. Then it hit me. He was the spoiled rich brat who had stolen my horse Bazookie.

“Come on,” he pleaded. “I didn’t steal him. Only borrowed. He was stunning.”

“All right. You’re forgiven,” I relented. He seemed a lot nicer, and a lot cuter, than I remembered him. Also a lot older. As we talked and talked and talked that evening, I found out he was twenty-three. A grown man. Eight years older than I was. Why was he being so nice to me? Atoning for his theft? No, it had to be something else. Could it be me?

Marvin asked if he could buy me a soda, then another. And another. We talked all evening and had a wonderful time. He knew everything about riding, jumping, and breeding, but we had a lot in common besides horses. His brother Raymond was Buddy’s age, and the two had been friends in New York. Marvin was from a rich family that owned Rapoport’s Dairy Restaurant down on Second Avenue. It was a New York dining landmark, nothing at all like Steinberg’s Dairy Restaurant where Mommy took all her meals. Rapoport’s, and its chief rival Ratner’s, were the Jewish Sardi’s and Dinty Moore’s. The Yiddish theatres, which had their heyday earlier in the century and whose leading light was Sholem Aleichem, who would inspire
Fiddler on the Roof
, were all close to Rapoport’s.

All the actors and playwrights had hung out there. Even when they changed their names and went to Broadway or Hollywood, like Paul Muni or Edward G. Robinson or Lee J. Cobb, they continued to go to Rapoport’s and Ratner’s. A “dairy restaurant” was a very kosher, rabbi-approved place that did not serve meat or chicken. Today this kind of restaurant would be considered very healthy. Rapoport’s was famous for its smoked salmon and sturgeon, its lox and eggs, its blintzes, its soups and onion rolls. Because of my weird diet, I wouldn’t
eat most of this stuff. I had never been to the restaurant, but I had certainly heard of it. It was as much a part of New York as 21.

Marvin worked at Rapoport’s for his family, as a host and manager. Dealing with all the celebrities, he had a lot of charm. He knew just what to say. I remembered Mommy pointing that out years ago when he took Bazookie, then tried to sweet talk his way out of it. Now I liked all the sweet talk. At the end of the evening, he offered to drive me home. He had a fancy black Cadillac convertible with red leather interior. When he stopped at the Westover, I wished I were still living at the Beresford or the St. Moritz so I could invite him up for a snack. I wished Mommy was her old self, so I could show her off as the woman I was going to grow up to be. Now I didn’t dare. Marvin asked if we could meet the next day to go to the horse show again. I was thrilled to accept.