The Blood Lie (2 page)

No one except Jack. Every day he felt this place trying to
squeeze the music right out of him. No concert hall, no local quartet, no classical music on the radio. Jack didn't know what he'd do without Mr. Morse, who taught the skimpy school orchestra, gave lunch-period lessons, and, most importantly, spent untold hours with him after school, talking about fingering, bowing, rhythm, and the inner workings of the music. But Mr. Morse would be retiring at the end of the year. What then? What would he do then if he didn't get into the Bentley School?

Harry nudged Jack out of his reverie. “I saw Sarah gawking at you yesterday,” he whispered.

“Huh? Sarah who?”

“Sarah Gelman, who else? Don't tell me you've never noticed her looking.”

“Well, I haven't,” he said, and it was the truth. How could Jack think about other girls when there was Emaline, the girl he'd almost kissed? The
only
girl he wanted to kiss.

“Don't you think she's pretty?”

Jack didn't hear him.

“Don't you?” Harry asked again.

“Don't I what?”

“Think she's pretty, genius.”

“Yeah, she's okay.”

“Want me to tell her brother next week?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Jack had nothing to say, so he said nothing.

“You think she's a bug-eyed Betty, don't you?” Harry said.

“I told you she's okay. I'm just not interested.”

“How come?”

Rabbi Abrams saved Jack from Harry's inquisition by singing
Adon Olam
, the closing song. Harry had his shawl folded and put away before the hymn was over.

“Come, the store,” Mr. Pool said to Jack. “Harry, your mother needs your help at home.”

Pool's Dry Goods was one long room divided into departments by handwritten signs: SHOES. LADIES'. MEN'S SUITS & JACKETS. CHILDREN'S. HOME WARES. Roscoe, Mr. Pool's head clerk, was standing by the window, dressing the mannequins in work pants and boots. Other clerks were milling about the departments, chatting with browsers, folding clothes, and ringing up purchases.

“Who you rooting for today?” Jack asked Roscoe.

Roscoe took a straight pin from between his lips. “Yankees, 'course. You?”

“Any team with Lou Gehrig and the Babe is my team. It's the one good thing about having to work today—I can listen to the game on the radio here.”

“You ain't got a radio at home?”

“Not on Saturdays. Got the delivery?”

“Shoulda been here half an hour ago. I'm just killing time. Why don't you…let's see…” He clicked his tongue, something he fell into when he was thinking. “How about you straighten up the men's pants?”

Jack frowned. “Got anything a little more interesting?”

“More interesting?” Roscoe blew a raspberry. “What you got in mind—cleaning the bathroom?”

Jack turned in resignation to the denims, figuring he'd
use the mental downtime to walk through his piece for the Bentley audition, but he stopped short when he heard a sweet and airy laugh nearby. He peeked around the pants rack to find Emaline and her older cousin Lydie sorting through the ladies' hat display.

In the sunlight, Emaline's eyes shone gold, and her ash-blonde hair reflected hints of red. Jack wondered what her hair smelled like today and decided on nutmeg or aniseed—something fresh and lively and a little exotic. She looked so beautiful to him that even her little flaws—the crowding of her teeth, the asymmetry of her eyebrows—made him feel crazy.

And her hands—what else had they touched today: her pillow, her skirt, her lips? Had they ever held another fellow's hand or felt anything close to the desire she inspired in him? From his hidden lookout behind the denim rack, he allowed himself to picture those exquisite fingers where he knew they'd never go. As that vision pulsed through his brain, he suddenly wished he weren't in public.

“Ooh, Em, I like the one you got there,” said Lydie, a tall girl with round eyeglasses and a mouthful of Tutti-Frutti chewing gum.

Emaline tried on the wide-brimmed gold hat and studied her reflection in the wall mirror. “I don't think so,” she said. “You try it.”

“Not me,” Lydie said, holding her hands up to her dark hair, which was cropped blunt and angular in the popular short style. “But here, try on this black one with the flower.”

“Okay, help me with my hair, will you?” Lydie held Emaline's long curls high on her head while Emaline pulled on the bonnet.

Jack imagined that Emaline would pile her hair just like that when he took her to the school's fall festival dance next month. He pictured himself arriving at her front step wearing his best suit, the one he'd gotten for the Bentley School audition.
Her mother answers the door. Emaline's not right there. She's keeping me waiting while she slips into her heels. Then there she is at the top of the stairs, and it's like she floats down to my side. I have a corsage for her, white roses, and I pin it on the shoulder of her dress.

It was one of Jack's favorite fantasies.

“Hey, Jackie,” called a voice from behind. It was Roscoe.

Emaline glanced up. “Hi, Jack,” she beamed. “Lydie, you remember Jack, don't you? It's his birthday today.”

Lydie pushed her chewing gum against her cheek. “Happy birthday, Jack.”

Jack had to force his eyes off of Emaline. “Hey, Lydie, it's been a while.”

“From the looks of you, I'd say it's been at least three inches. How'd you get taller than me?”

“Listen, Jackie,” Roscoe said, “the truck won't be here before one.” Tongue-click. “You might as well go home till then.”

“Hmm?” asked Jack. “Oh, right, I'll come back after lunch.” Turning back to Lydie, he said, “I eat like a horse, that's how.”

“Boys are so lucky that way,” Emaline said. “They eat whatever they want, and it never goes out, just up.” She smiled at his lanky frame, an unhurried, unselfconscious smile.

If only Jack had left for home right then, he'd have had that parting smile to keep him company. Instead, he helped Roscoe get a stubborn mannequin to stand up properly, and the extra five minutes was all it took for him to run into the last thing he wanted to see: George Lingstrom talking to
Emaline, eyeing her, laughing, standing too close, right there on the Main Street sidewalk.

Emaline was wearing the hat she'd just bought at Pool's Dry Goods—the black one with the silky red rose pinned to the side—and George was touching the flower in away that brought the two of them nose to nose. Jack felt sick.
Is she flirting back at him?
he agonized. But no, he didn't really want to know, so he crossed the street and fled home, his fingers itching for the cello strings. Come January, with any luck, he and his instrument would move the 160 miles to Syracuse, and he wouldn't have to see George getting what he could never have.

When Jack got to the house, Martha and Daisy were clomping around the kitchen in Mrs. Pool's buttoned pumps and costume beads. Daisy had her face hidden behind a scarf, exposing only her golden eyes. They looked so much like Emaline's, he winced. Martha wore evening gloves up to her armpits and tripped on her too-long necklace.

“Careful now, girls,” Mrs. Pool said without looking up from her writing. “Harry,” she called out through the screen door, “how's the horseradish doing?”

“Almost done digging,” he yelled from the backyard.

“What are you making?” Jack asked. He picked up a handful of the walnuts she'd just chopped before he realized he didn't have an appetite.

“Making ready for tomorrow's
shlug kapporus
,” she said but kept on writing.

The
shlug kapporus
service took place every Yom Kippur eve in Rabbi Abrams' backyard. The rabbi took a live hen—
usually one of the Pools'—and held it over the congregants' heads while praying for the forgiveness of their sins. Then a few of the women cooked the bird in the rabbi's kitchen, preparing the meat to share with a needy family in town and using the bones to make soup for breaking the Yom Kippur fast.

This year the chicken meal would go to Frenchie LaRoux. It didn't matter that he wasn't Jewish; what mattered was that he needed it. People said he was so poor he didn't have electricity or a stick of furniture. When he won a used car at the Sacred Heart raffle over the summer, they claimed he just cut a hole through the wall of his shack and drove the car right inside so he could read by the headlights, sleep in the back seat, and warm his food on the engine. Regardless of where the truth ended and the tall tale began, Mrs. Pool clearly wanted the meal to be delicious.

“Jack,” she said, pocketing her notepad, “I'm up to my ears in matzo balls. Take the girls out for a while, will you?”

Jack groaned. He wanted to be alone with his cello, to practice for his audition, to drown his thirst for Emaline in a sea of music. But it was useless to argue. Besides, watching Martha and Daisy for a while sure beat working in the kitchen. “How about a walk?” he asked the little girls.

“Downtown!” they shrieked at the same time.

“Just have Daisy home by noon,” said Mrs. Pool. And so it was settled.

The girls held Jack's hands for a little while, but as soon as they rounded the corner onto Main Street, Martha and Daisy raced ahead to the confectionery shop. Crammed with penny suckers, licorice whips, saltwater taffy and all sorts of
chocolates, the tiny store was a magnet for children. The girls pressed their noses against the window until it fogged up.

Jack stepped next door to the barbershop, where Walter Robinson displayed photos of the high school sports teams. Not that Jack was in any of the pictures—he wasn't, even though he'd been on the baseball team for two years now. He missed the photo shoots because they were taken at games. Games were played on Saturdays, and Mrs. Pool wouldn't hear of sports on the Sabbath (working on
Shabbos
was bad enough, she said, but at least that was out of necessity). Coach Romeo grumbled about it but let Jack work out with the team five afternoons a week—“because you can bat, dammit, and my outfield needs the practice”—even though he missed every game. He couldn't tell whether his teammates admired him or resented him.

Actually, he found out last spring how at least one of the guys felt about him. The team was in the common shower after practice when Moose Doyle called out in his larger-than-life voice, “Hey, Pool, were you born that way, or were you in a freak accident?” He wasn't pointing at Jack's crotch, but he might as well have been. Jack was the only circumcised boy on the team. Maybe he was the only circumcised boy Moose had ever seen.

Some of the other boys snickered. Some of them laughed out loud. Only when George Lingstrom told Moose to shut up did they all stop making noise. But they didn't stop staring. From that day on, Jack showered at home.

“C'mon,” Jack said to the girls. “Let's keep moving.”

They passed the apothecary, the jeweler's, J.J. Newbury's, the A&P and finally Pool's Dry Goods. “Can we go in, please, pretty please?” asked Martha. “I want to see Pa.”

“He's busy,” Jack said. “Let's cross the street instead.”

He took the girls' hands and walked them across the road until they were standing in front of Gus' Sit Down Diner. The Sit Down was a shiny linoleum-and-Formica place that became the center of the universe early every morning and again at lunchtime. Sarah Gelman worked there part-time.
Maybe she's the one I should be pinning white roses on
, he thought. Sarah was likable and nice-looking, and, of course, she was Jewish, a fact that placed her within reach. But who was he fooling? Sarah wasn't Emaline and never could be.