Philly Stakes (19 page)

Junior sounded like an overgrown baby, throwing tantrums because life wasn’t fair. I was relieved, and surprised, that Minna didn’t try to arrange a date for me with him. Perpetual babies are always being fixed up because they are always in need of repair.

The next former child in the spotlight would be me and the next topic why I hadn’t yet married, so I changed tacks. “I read your story,” I said. “It’s really good.”

One of the TV watchers had quietly moved closer for a better view or an invitation or simply as a way of breaking the monotony of her day. “Yes,” she said now, “Minna is quite a storyteller.”

Minna White tilted her head, as if to verify the speaker. Then she smiled. “Don’t you listen to Rose Levitt. What does she know? This is a schoolteacher, Rose. So watch yourself. Let me introduce my friends, Amanda and, ah—”

“Laura,” I said.

“You can join us, Rose, but you cannot have my cannoli.”

Rose accepted the deal. “So, Minna, did you tell them what your storytelling got you?” She turned to me and repeated the question. “Did she tell you about her beau? Scheherazade, we call her. You know, the gal who told the stories and kept the fellas interested?”

“Such talk!” Minna said, shaking her head.

“Am I lying?” Rose eyed the pastry box, I knew what she was looking for—broken off corners, crumbs and crumbles that didn’t count as official “eating.”

Eventually, Rose dislodged a cannoli corner, and quietly, quickly popped it into her mouth, winking at Laura and me. “So,” she said, “you want me to tell them, or will you? Everybody loves a love story, right?”

“Some love story. They aren’t going to make a movie out of this one,” Minna White said. “Don’t tell your mother, Amanda. It’s not nice. I’ve had two husbands, that’s enough. And besides, he was so interested, so interested, right? And have you seen him lately, Rose?”

Rose shrugged eloquently. “Do I know everything you do? Do I follow you? Am I in your bedroom? Ignore that remark, young lady,” she added for Laura’s benefit while Minna gasped.

“Take a cannoli and be quiet,
all
right?” Minna turned her milky lenses toward me. “You liked my story, then?”

“It was unusual. Not like anything else in the collection. I’m not sure if I understand it completely, though.”

“You weren’t supposed to understand it. Not exactly. Not
all
the way. Uh-uh. I know what happens to writers, about being sued. So I didn’t use any real names. Except Etienne’s, and that didn’t matter because Etienne was dead. And I changed everything and made it
a
fairy tale. The creative-writing teacher suggested that. And everybody says they like it.”

“Inmrsfhk—”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Rose!”

Rose swallowed and smacked her lips. “Including Mr. Wonderful, so tell her about him.”

Minna shrugged. “There was this special program last Tuesday during class. We read our things out loud and had cookies and tea. Everybody was invited, and we could bring guests. Even Junior came. And this man. He called himself my secret admirer. He lives somewhere near here, maybe even here at Silverwood. I don’t know. I never met him before, even though he said he comes here for book reviews and special events. Good times. He saw my story in Mining Silver and he said he came to the reading to meet its author. Very elegant sounding, I thought. Very gentlemanly. My friends said he was handsome, too. I couldn’t tell—he could look like the Phantom of the Opera, for all I’d know. Or care. That’s a nice part of being blind, you know. You don’t worry about some of the things anymore.”

“Is that all you’re going to tell them?” Rose had finished her cannoli and was surveying the box for crumbs.

Minna sighed and shrugged. “Not much of a story. He complimented my writing style and imagination. Said the story haunted him. That’s exactly what he said. Then he said he had known an Etienne once, too, so he wondered about mine. Being such an unusual name and all. And we talked. That’s all. Mr. Secret Admirer, Junior and me. Actually, the two of them did most of the talking. They really hit it off. So that’s the big deal, big story. Satisfied, Rose?”

“What about the flowers?” Rose dipped her forefinger into the filling of both remaining cannoli.

“Mandy, you’re thirty years old and you aren’t married—your mother told me—so I’m sure you know how men are. Rose is a little bit older than you, like two and a half times, and she still doesn’t understand that men are only interested until you’re interested back. Then they disappear.”

“I heard it was until they had their way with you,” Rose said tartly.

Minna waved away the suggestion with disgust.

“What happened to Mr. Wonderful?” I asked.

“He came calling the next day. He brought me flowers, wonderful scents, and acted like he really was interested in me. Not a whole lot of men listen, you know? But I have some good stories. Not just the fairy-tale version. There was lying and cheating and stealing and a murder to cover it up, and my Dom ruined because of it.”

“Next time, stick to fairy tales,” Rose said. “Men don’t like women with sad stories.”

Minna shrugged. “He loved the story. He came the next day, too, smelling of extra after-shave, kissed me on the cheek—on the cheek, Rose—and said I should wish him good luck because today was his big test. Like in fairy tales, like in mine, he said, you know? I said, Oh no, that’s for young people and fools. That’s what I said, I don’t know why. Maybe it was too rude. I didn’t know what he meant, anyway. I thought maybe another woman. I still think so, because he never came back. Not even today, even though this is another special event, isn’t it?”

How had we leaped from Minna’s story—the one with lying, cheating, robbery and murder to the overfamiliar ancient one of how men are cads? “About your story,” I said, “the real one. Did you say murder?”

“I did indeed. Etienne was murdered. Didn’t you get that? They found his letter jacket, you know how boys win one for sports in high school? See, I changed it to a cloak in the story, get it? But it was true. He loved that jacket. It was like it was a piece of him. I don’t care if nobody ever finds him, and it was a long time ago. I know he was murdered, and I know why. And—I know who did it.”

“You and that story!” Rose said. “No wonder he ran away!”

“It’s my story. I never told anybody till now. But when that teacher said What do you remember, what will you never forget, out it came, like it had been waiting. Besides, Amanda asked me, so why shouldn’t I tell her about that no-good thief! Who am I hurting?”

“Do you realize there’s a child here? You’ll frighten her!” Rose winked at us and mocked a yawn, using eloquent sign language to tell us she was bored silly.

“What child? Amanda’s a full-grown—”

“I think Rose means my friend, Laura Clausen,” I said. “Except that Laura’s not a child at all. She’s fourteen.”

Minna had slammed back in her chair as if yanked.

“I’m not frightened, Mrs. White,” Laura said, “so do go on.” The Laura I’d known was so webbed in by silence, I was again surprised, although in the last few hours I had noticed that words, few though they still were, were falling out at random, filling up what I kept expecting to be silent crevasses.

“That’s an unusual last name,” Minna said. “Are you by chance related to…well, I mean, the news stories lately, all I hear…is—was he…?”

“Laura is Alexander Clausen’s daughter.” Even without Laura here, I would not have brought up his name, no matter what my mother had suggested, if Minna herself hadn’t touched on it. With Laura here, it seemed nearly impossible to pursue it, however. She’d be glad to see him dead, my mother had said, more or less, and that hardly seemed a topic to explore in front of his daughter. Well, it was ancient history, anyway.

“Your father,” Minna said. “Oh, my. He was—well, this is a surprise and… My condolences, of course.” Her hands were clasped on the top of the pastry box in her lap, and her head swiveled from one to the other of us.

“Mine, too, you poor dear,” Rose said. “And we don’t have to hear any more sad stories. I tell Minna all the time—there’s enough sad things in the news every day. We need to be cheery, to laugh a little instead.”

“I hope I didn’t say anything to upset you.” Minna seemed truly worried. “I didn’t realize who you were, or I would never have…”

“Of course not.” Rose leaned over to pat Minna’s shoulder. “Minna is a sweet old thing. And a sexpot.”

“Rose!”

“You’ll see. That man will crawl back to you, to woo you. I know men.”

We were again deciphering male behavior, a futile game I had played and lost often enough. A good time to bid farewell.

“Will you come back sometime soon?” Minna seemed to have lost a few vertebrae during the course of our visit. Her voice was low and meditative. “I get lonely. Junior’s never here.”

“But you said he was here last Tuesday.”

“Almost never. And that last time, he talked to my new friend, that man, the whole time. But I don’t like to complain.”

Why don’t people who say that ever mean it? “I’ll be back,” I promised. “With more cannoli.”

She clapped her hands, reinvigorated. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you know what my favorite flavor is. That way, next time, no matter which one Rose steals, the ones left over will still be my favorite.”

I said goodbye to the Tuesday group after telling them again how much I’d enjoyed their writing and cooking, and then I returned to tell Minna I was leaving. She grasped my hands and pulled me close. “Thank you, dear,” she said. “Thank you for visiting an old lady. And I hope—I sincerely hope I didn’t say anything wrong. I had no idea.”

I assured her she had been fine, but as Rose walked us to the door, I could still feel her grasp and I wondered at the very real fear that had been in her hands and voice.

“You were a godsend,” Rose said as we headed for the lobby. “She’s been in the dumps. Holidays do that, y’know. And with that man disappearing and all… She liked him, I can tell. I like to joke around, cheer her up, but it doesn’t always work. He’s broken her heart.”

It made me sick to think that even when she was in a wheelchair, even blind, some geriatric lothario could still kiss and run and leave a woman pining away. Wasn’t there a statute of limitations?

“He was so elegant,” Rose said. “Gallant and old-fashioned. Or maybe it was just the fancy cane that made you think he was like—like Maurice Chevalier, you know? A boulevardier. Then it turns out he’s just a jerk.”

There was this program last Tuesday. He came the next two days. Flowers on Wednesday. The kiss—the big test—on Thursday. No sign of him since.

No. Impossible. Stop forcing connections. “Fancy cane, did you say?”

“Yes. Compared to the walkers we see, anyway.”

“I’ve seen some really gorgeous walking sticks,” I said. “Works of art, with silver chasing all through them, or jewels set into the top.”

“This was a cane, not a walking stick. The man limped. A flaw, yes, a leg that didn’t work, but at our age, you get excited when they can walk at all. Besides, Minna couldn’t see it.”

“But it was fancy?”

“How could a limp be—oh, you mean the cane. Yes. Ornamented. You know.”

“Like what?”

“Why?” Rose Levitt looked at me as if I were bizarre.

“I find cane ornaments fascinating. It’s an obsession, frankly. Can’t get enough of them, and I love hearing about different sorts.”

She gave me a slightly wider berth, but she humored me. “This wasn’t much. I’ve seen nicer, and I don’t even think about such things. I can barely remember what it…some animal? A duck, that’s what it was. Silver-colored, but not silver. Probably chrome, like a toaster oven. Not very fascinating to me, but maybe to you, I don’t know.”

There’s a buzz that starts in the sternum when you’re about to fall in love but don’t know it yet. It happens sometimes when a passage of prose or poetry is so right that it hurts. And it happens when you finally understand what the picture in the puzzle is, even if you don’t have all the pieces right yet.

I was buzzing away. I asked Rose if she knew the man’s name or how to find him, but she didn’t, not even after she told me how strict her children were about her diet and I promised her her own box of cannoli.

After Laura was back in the car, I said I’d forgotten my scarf, and raced back inside.

“I’m looking for somebody who might live here,” I said to the woman behind the reception desk.

She had an enormous, toothy smile. “Minimum care A or B?” She pulled over an oversized Rolodex.

“Which would you be in if you had a limp?”

She scowled and shook her head. “Neither.”

“Then he’s probably somewhere else in the complex.”

“You’re talking all of Silverwood?” The toothy mouth no longer smiled. “You’ll have to go to the business office for that.” She pushed back the Rolodex.

“Where is it?”

“Turn right outside the front door. Up a block, make a left. Can’t miss it. It says ‘Business Office’.”

“Thanks.” I waved and turned around.

“But they won’t let you see any names. I can tell you that.”

“But I really need to—”

She shook her head, slowly, eyes closed. “Against all the rules. Names are private property. No way.”

I returned to the counter. “Don’t you have some kind of directory right here? This is important. His name is Jacob.”

She reached under the counter and pulled out the Philadelphia telephone book. “Jacobs?” She flipped pages with a wet index finger.

“Jacob. First name. And he walks with a cane. He’s been in this building recently.”

“Give me a break!”

“I know it’s hard,” I said, “but he’s—he’s my grandmother’s lost love. She’s ill—” I am superstitious about making bad things come true by saying them, but both my grandmothers are enjoying eternal rest, so I proceeded to add details. “She can’t speak, except to say ‘Jacob.’ I’m sure you could help me find him.”

“If she can tell you he walks with a cane, honey, then ask her to open up and tell you his—”

I straightened up indignantly. “The cane is family lore. Grandma’s lost love walked with a cane since childhood. He had polio.”