The Leap Year Boy (21 page)

Abe said, “You say something?”

She smiled and extended her hand. “Wait. My name is Hannah Gerson.”

“Abraham Miller.” He put the emphasis on Abraham. He looked at her hand. Her fingernails were gone and the skin around the cuticles was ripped and raw.

“Well it’s so nice to meet you. Are you a new member of the congregation?”

“Well, not exactly. We just come by today for the first time.”

“It’s all right, you don’t have to be a member to come here. God and this synagogue welcome everyone.” She knelt down in front of Alex. “And what’s your name, my pretty little boy?”

“Alex Miller. I’m a Jewish.”

“You are?” She clapped her hands. “Me, too. That’s so wonderful. And how old are you, Alex?”

“Six, and one and a half, too.”

“What?”

Abe smiled. “He says that because he was born on leap year day.”

“Isn’t he clever? Such a clever little boy.” She moved within inches of Abe’s face. “I bet I can guess how old
you
are.” She tapped his chest.

“Pardon me?”

“You’re thirty-three. Am I right?” As Abe nodded his head, she said, “Oh, don’t look so surprised. I can just look at a person and tell things about them. I do it all the time, ask my aunts. It’s a talent I have.”

Abe put his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Yeah, well, sure is something. But we really shouldn’t be keeping you.”

“Don’t be silly, you’re not keeping me. I love talking to you.” She winked. “And to Alex.”

Abe looked around the empty sanctuary. “Well anyway, I guess we come by too late. I had wanted to speak to the rabbi or someone else in charge.”

“Oh my goodness, this sounds serious.”

“Well, it’s about my boy here.”

Hannah’s fingernails went to her mouth. “Oh my God, is something wrong with him?”

“No, it’s just that, I mean, if the rabbi isn’t here, I could come back another time.”

She shook her head. “Oh, but there’s no need for that.” She took Abe’s arm. She glanced around the empty sanctuary and said in a hushed voice, “Whatever you need to tell Rabbi Kaplan, no matter what, I can tell him for you—in strictest confidence, of course. We’re very close, the rabbi and me. You might say I’m his closest assistant. He relies on me quite a bit. In fact, not a day goes by we don’t speak about things. Important things.” She motioned to the last row of seats. “Come, sit down and tell me all about it.”

He wondered if he should tell this woman his story, but she seemed so genuinely concerned, and he was already there, and she said she was close to the rabbi. “Well, if you got a minute.”

As his father gave her the abridged version of the Alex Miller story, with special emphasis on the death of his mother and grandmother, Alex kept his eyes on Hannah. He watched how her hands fluttered from her chest to Abe’s forearm, the way she wiped away a sudden tear with the back of her hand, how she alternately gasped and giggled when Abe told her about the time Alex’s brothers had put him on display for money. He watched her feet bounce and twist around her ankles, and how she nodded and finished his father’s sentences, and how, every few seconds it seemed, she glanced back at Alex, as if she were worried he might suddenly disappear.

Although he was accustomed to having people stare at him, her look was different than the usual gawker, more intense, and not all pleasant.

After Abe finished, Hannah said, “Dear lord, you’ve been through so much. I hate to say it, but the synagogue doesn’t have anything for Alex right now. But don’t leave yet. I have an idea. Maybe I could help you out.”

“You could?”

As Hannah outlined her plan, Alex grew restless. He wandered toward the front of the sanctuary. The carpet was smooth and thick, and the wood smelled of fresh polish. He looked up at the oil lamp, the Everlasting Light that burned above the ark. Panic shot through him. He screamed, “Daddy! Fire, fire!”

Abe rushed forward, with Hannah on his heels. He scooped Alex up. “It’s all right, son, it’s all right.”

Tears rand down Hannah’s cheeks. She gasped, “Is he all right, Abe, is he O.K.?”

“He’s fine, just scared a little is all.”

She sniffed. “Maybe I should hold him. Do you want me to hold him?”

“No, I have him.”

He mouth turned down. “Oh, all right then. Anyway, I want you and Alex to come by tomorrow night for dinner and to meet my aunts. Once I tell them all about you and Alex and our plans for him, they’ll be dying to meet you. Promise me, all right? Please?” She grasped Abe’s hands in hers. “Six o’clock. All right?”

Abe looked at her hands squeezing his. This pretty woman, maybe she was a touch on the excitable side, but she seemed very sincere about wanting to help him out. She’d taken to Alex right off, that was for sure. He looked down at his son, who was looking at her. He hated to put him through so many changes, but he had to find something for him, at least until he was ready for school, and Hannah’s offer seemed perfect. What was the old expression? Never look a gift horse in the mouth? Sure, it all seemed to good to be true, but even so, he heard himself saying, “Yeah, all right, six o’clock. Thank you.”

She kissed Alex on the forehead. “Goodbye, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be so wonderful. See you tomorrow.”

On the trolley ride home, Abe explained the plan as outlined by Hannah. Since there was no school for him at the synagogue, Hannah—er, Miss Gerson—said she wanted to be his
au pair
, which means she’d be your nanny, Alex, she’d take care of you instead of Mrs. Traficante. She’s too old to be running around after you. Just think, she’s got a big house with a swing in the backyard and a dog, you like dogs, right, and lots of books to read, and you can bring your soldiers, too. And then when I pick you up after work you’ll be with me and Benjamin and Arthur and you can sleep in their room every night, if you like, how does that sound?

“But why can’t I go to work with you?”

Abe laughed. “Wouldn’t that beat all. But my boss, he wouldn’t allow it. A metal shop’s not safe for a little boy.”

“Is it safe for you, Daddy?”

“Oh, sure. Nothing’s going to happen to your old man.”

They rode two stops in silence. Alex turned from the window. “Do you like Hannah, Daddy?”

Like her? He liked how she looked, how she smelled, how she smiled, how she seemed to really care about him and Alex, but did he like her? “Yeah, I like her, I mean, she’s all right.” He opened the window and put his face out next to Alex to catch the breeze. “What about you? Did you like her?”

“Who do you like better, her or Mommy?”

“Well, your mother, of course, son, but she’s gone, you know that.”

“Her or Delia?”

“What?”

“Benjamin says Delia is your girlfriend. Is Hannah your girlfriend, too?”

“Well, I, no…Hannah is, she’s just going to take care of you, that’s all. All right?”

Alex turned back to the view. “I guess so.”

Chapter 17

Delia Novak leaned on her elbows as she watched the gold and white koi glide around the pond at the far end of the topiary garden, approximately 100 yards from the main house. She fingered the pack of cigarettes in her apron pocket, wondering if she should risk lighting up. She never knew when Marie was watching, acting as if she were the lady of the house instead of just a sniveling bitch of a housekeeper. If Marie caught her smoking again, however, she’d toss her out on her ass, and Delia couldn’t afford to get canned.

A gust of wind rattled the leaves on a huge elm tree. Thunder rumbled from a wall of black clouds massed to the west, moving her way. She sprinkled bits of dried bread on the water. The lousy fish had a better life than she did, at least they didn’t have to grub for money or ask permission to smoke a lousy cigarette. She felt like grabbing one of them and flipping it onto the lawn to watch it suffocate, so that it would feel the way she did.

Next to her cigarettes was an envelope she’d found in her mailbox that morning, postmarked Chicago, Illinois. What in God’s name was her old friend Lotte Henderson doing in Chicago? She had seven more minutes’ break time coming to her, and hell, they couldn’t fire her for opening a goddamn letter.

The wind kicked up again and rippled through the huge weeping willow that bordered the pond. She opened the letter and began to read:

Dear Dee,

How’s tricks, hon? Geez oh man, I wish I was there with you right now to see your face as you read this letter from your old partner in crime, but if I was there, then I wouldn’t have to write no letter! Anyways, I’m sorry I have not wrote to you since I got your letter what is it, four or five years ago, when you had wrote to tell me you moved to Pittsburgh, but my life has been crazy since then.

Remember how you always used to say I should join the circus, because I could do all them tricks like bending over backward and putting my head between my knees, and doing the splits and pulling my legs behind her ears, on account of I’m double-jointed? Well, guess what, I did! I joined Ringling’s! Which is why your letter took so long to catch up with me, because I’m always on the road, see.

So anyways, now they call me Miss Lotte Larue, The Elastic Lass, The World’s Most Flexible Female. Can you believe it? They even made up a poster of me bending backward over the mouth of a lion, which is just a made up painting, it ain’t something I ever really done. I stay as far away from them wild animals as I can. They smell bad and besides, their eyes look so sad it gives me the blues.

Sorry to read about your mother passing away. She was always good as gold to me, even when them other grown-ups in the neighborhood said I would never amount to nothing but a little tramp. She left you a pile of dough, huh? My folks never even left me a pot to piss in, excuse my language.

Anyways, it’s been a long time, Dee—they still call you that? Geez oh man, the trouble we used to get into when we was young girls and had them cute little heinies, huh? Golly, did we have the fun.

So how do I like the circus life? Hey, I can’t complain. I make good money for a girl—$70 a week, can you believe it, plus three squares a day. Hey, it sure beats sitting behind a sewing machine fifteen hours a day, working for peanuts, which by the way we got plenty of at the circus. Don’t mind me, I’m a kidder from way back, you know that.

No, the life here ain’t so bad, not really, once you get used to pulling up stakes most every night and taking a train from one burg to another, except when we stay put in a big city for a couple of days, like when we come to Pittsburgh this Labor Day, which is when we’ll be there.

Anyway, I been around these United States, the eastern part mainly, but to tell you the truth, a rube is a rube no matter what city you’re in, and there ain’t a lot you can tell about a place through a train window when you’re rolling through it at four in the morning. But like I say, it sure beats the pants off of hanging around in Youngstown and getting put in a family way by some mill-hunky and ending up as fat as a cow, with four brats by the time you turn 30.

Speaking of getting knocked up—hey, I know I’m going on and on but I have so much to tell you—I’m living with a real sweet guy, Mojo the Sword Swallower. He’s a Jew, can you believe it, and he treats me real nice. Jews, they make the best husbands, at least that’s what I heard, not that he proposed or nothing. So far there’s been no fooling around on me—believe me, there are plenty of good-looking skirts hanging around in little circus outfits to tempt a man. How do you think I got Morris! That’s Mojo’s real name, Morris Josephson. And he’s never hit me, not like that bastard Edgar Foster I used to go around with, you remember him. I hope he’s six feet under or better yet, he should rot to death with consumption.

Oh, so you probably want to know why this letter come to you from Chicago. That’s where I was when I mailed it. Where I am now while you’re reading, it could be any of many cities east of the Mississippi.

Anyways, like I was saying, my Morris is a smart guy, and we’re saving up so’s he can to go to school to become a dentist or a pharmacist, he’s not sure which, but something professional. There’s good money in that, and we could settle down somewhere nice—not Youngstown—and have a house with curtains on the windows and a white picket fence, and a family. That’s what I want. I can’t be the Elastic Lass forever.

Geez, Dee, you should see some of the characters we got walking around this place. Half of them can’t speak the King’s English to save their lives, but that’s okey dokey, everyone gets along pretty good most of the time, and we’re putting on the greatest show on Earth every day, sometimes twice, and I don’t know, getting out there in front of a crowd gets your heart pumping. Plus with all these circus people around, there’s always someone to yap with, except for the clowns, which are as miserable and dirty a bunch of goons as you’d ever see in all your born days.

About my act—well, for one thing, I bend over backward and stick my head between my legs and light a cigarette. Then I do a handstand and arch my back so my legs come down to my hair and then I scratch my head with my toes. Then I spell out the alphabet with my hands and legs. I know it sounds dumb, but the rubes, they love it. The men, you should see them, their tongues hang halfway out of their mouths, because I gotta say, all this exercise has the old body in very nice shape and the tight costumes with the spangles and sparkles, well, Mojo says I am an occasion for sin, if you know what I mean.

Anyways, I promised myself I wouldn’t write more than a page or two and here I am going on page five like I was Julius Shakespeare or something, but I just want to tell you, Dee, how excited I am that we’re coming to Pittsburgh and maybe you and me can get together like old times. Old friends are the best friends, that’s the truth. Write me back, o.k.? Just send it in care of the circus at the address here. You let me know how many tickets you want and they will be there waiting for you. And ask for me, we’ll go out when my show is over and you can show me the town!

Well, I gotta stop now, Morris will be wanting his supper. Love you, can’t wait to see you!