While We're Far Apart (20 page)

“Peter and I can pay our own way,” she said when they reached the ticket window. She quickly shoved enough nickels through the slot to pay for both of them.

“Suit yourself,” Jacky said with a shrug. But when they got inside, he sat down right beside her and shared his box of Jujubes with her. Peter sat on Esther’s other side, acting mad. Too bad. She was glad for once that he couldn’t talk. She could ignore him easier this way. Even if Peter tried to write her a note, she wouldn’t be able to read it in the darkened theater.

The newsreel played first, showing tanks rolling across a desert, airplanes flying low, and a huge ship with hundreds and hundreds of soldiers aboard, waving as they sailed away. The film brought tears to Esther’s eyes. Her father might soon be one of those men, sailing away into danger.

After seeing all those soldiers going off to war, Esther didn’t think the cartoons were very funny at all. They were all about the war, too, and even Donald Duck was marching off to fight. The weekly
Masked Marvel
serial was next, then the first movie began to play. Jacky tossed his empty candy box on the floor and draped his arm around the back of Esther’s seat. Once again her heart thumped like Double Dutch skip rope, even though he wasn’t really hugging her or anything.

The double feature – one film with Judy Garland and another with Abbott and Costello – distracted Esther for a little while, but the afternoon ended much too quickly. The lights came on, the fantasy faded, and she was back in a movie theater with sticky floors and worn velvet seats, stale popcorn crunching underfoot. Happily-ever-after was only an illusion.

They emerged from the theater, squinting in the bright afternoon sunlight. Jacky brushed up against Esther a few times as they walked home together, their shoulders bumping. She suspected that he’d done it on purpose, and it made her feel excited. As they neared home, Peter hurried on ahead, disappearing around the corner. Let him go. She didn’t know why he acted so weird, almost as if he was jealous that Esther had another friend besides him. Too bad. He would have to get used to the fact that she was growing up and wasn’t going to do everything with him all of the time.

They rounded the corner and the burned-out synagogue came into view, a dreary pile of burned bricks and twisted beams. Esther still couldn’t get used to the ugly sight, and even though the cleanup work had begun, it reminded her of the bombed-out ruins in Mr. Mendel’s newspaper pictures. And of Daddy’s last night at home.

“Do you think the synagogue will ever look the way it did before the fire?” she asked.

“Are you kidding? I hope they tear it down and turn the vacant lot into a ball field.”

“Where would the Jewish people go to pray?”

“Who cares? This neighborhood could use a nice park – and fewer Jews.”

His harsh words startled her. He seemed like the old Jacky Hoffman all of a sudden.

Then he smiled his roguish grin and punched her lightly on the arm. “Just kidding.”

They halted on the front steps of her apartment building. They were alone. Peter had gone inside, and Jacky’s brother had gone home. Esther usually had no trouble thinking of things to talk about, but today she felt tongue-tied. For a long moment neither of them spoke. Esther could hear the rush of traffic on the next block. Why couldn’t she think of something to say?

“Um . . . what did you think of the movies?” she finally asked.

“They were okay. The newsreel was my favorite. Boy, I sure would love to fly an airplane and drop a few bombs on some yellow-faced Japs.” He gripped imaginary airplane controls as he imitated the sounds of planes diving and bombs exploding. He was still making bombing noises when Mr. Mendel came around the corner and walked up the sidewalk toward them. Esther waved when she saw him coming.

“Hi, Mr. Mendel.”

“Good afternoon, Esther.”

Jacky’s expression hardened as Mr. Mendel went past them. “You always talk to kikes?” Jacky asked after Mr. Mendel had gone inside.

Esther wasn’t sure what
kikes
were, but the ugly face Jacky had made as he’d spat out the word told her that it wasn’t good. “Mr. Mendel is our landlord.”

“He’s just another dirty little kike, if you ask me.”

The popcorn and candy Esther had eaten churned uncomfortably in her stomach. Once again she felt pulled in opposite directions. Mr. Mendel was her friend and she wanted to defend him, but Jacky Hoffman was her friend, too. The day suddenly seemed tired and faded, like threadbare clothes that had been washed too many times.

“Well, I should go inside,” she said. “Thanks for going to the movies with me.”

“We should go again sometime.”

Esther hesitated. Would she be betraying Mr. Mendel if she did? But the excitement of having a friend like handsome Jacky Hoffman was too strong to resist.

“Yeah, we should.”

“See you later, then.” Jacky gave a little salute and sauntered away as if the pavement rested on box springs.

The apartment was very quiet when Esther went inside. Penny still wasn’t home, and Peter had probably crawled back into a hole somewhere. Esther trudged up the stairs to the third floor, then stopped outside Penny’s bedroom. No, she wouldn’t call it Penny’s bedroom; it was Daddy and Mama’s bedroom. The door stood open, and she went inside to rummage through Daddy’s closet, searching for Mama’s photograph album. Esther felt like a snoop, but she didn’t care. She found the album on the closet shelf beside the hat Daddy used to wear to church every Sunday. Esther sat cross-legged on the bedroom floor to page through it. Tears blurred her vision as she studied her mother’s face. She missed her so much. The black-and-white photographs couldn’t capture the rich brown color of Mama’s hair or her hazel eyes. She recalled how Mr. Mendel had asked about Mama’s family the other day, and suddenly Esther wanted to know all about them.

The album began with pictures of Mama and Daddy, looking very young and happy. In nearly every picture her parents were holding hands or standing with their arms around each other, belonging to each other. In several photos they stood in Grandma Shaffer’s backyard beside a table filled with food. Mama had said that those photographs had been taken on the day she and Daddy got married.

Esther saw pictures of her parents on a beach wearing swimsuits and pictures of herself as a little baby. It made her tears fall faster to see how happy Mama looked as she held Esther in her arms. She turned the page and saw Mama standing on the sidewalk in front of their apartment building, holding Esther’s hand. She could see part of the synagogue across the street, and that made her sad, too. Why did everything have to change?

She turned the page and saw pictures of Peter, including one of Esther holding him in her arms. Mama sat right beside them, smiling and happy. Always happy. In another picture, Mama smiled as she sat at her piano keyboard. Esther remembered the day Daddy had taken that picture. He had brought the piano home as a surprise for Mama’s birthday. Uncle Steve and Uncle Joe had helped him wrestle the heavy instrument up the stairs.

“I guess we’ll have to live in this apartment forever,”
Daddy had joked,
“because I’m not moving that blasted piano again.”
Daddy was smiling in all of the pictures, too. Esther had nearly forgotten what his smile looked like.

There were pictures of some of the trips they’d taken together – a day at Coney Island, a ferry ride across the river, an afternoon at Luna Park. There were pictures of Grandma Shaffer and Daddy’s two brothers, Uncle Joe and Uncle Steve. Pictures of Uncle Steve and Aunt Gloria when they got married. But among all the photographs, Esther couldn’t find a single one of Mama’s family. Didn’t everyone have a family? Was Mama an orphan?

The apartment door downstairs banged shut. “I’m home,” Penny called out. “Esther? Peter?”

Esther scrambled to her feet. She felt guilty for snooping, even though it was Daddy’s bedroom and Mama’s album. She quickly shut the book and put it back on the shelf in Daddy’s closet.

“We’re up here,” she called before running into her own room and flopping onto her bed. Peter sat on his bed reading a comic book and eating the last of his candy from the movies. Esther heard Penny climbing the stairs and quickly grabbed a book and pretended to read.

“How was the movie?” Penny asked from the bedroom doorway.

The voice sounded like Penny’s, but when Esther looked up at the person standing there, it wasn’t Penny Goodrich at all! The hair that she always wore pulled back had been cut to shoulder length and curled in a pretty wave around her face. There was something different about her eyebrows, too. They used to remind Esther of caterpillars, but now they were thin and arched like Betty Grable’s eyebrows. Penny was wearing lipstick. And a new dress. And she had real shoes on her feet instead of grandma-shoes. She looked like a completely different person, as if she finally had taken off the Halloween costume of a dowdy old maid, revealing a much younger person underneath – years younger. You would almost say she was pretty if you didn’t know Penny very well.

“What did you do to your hair?” Esther asked. Her question didn’t come out the way she had meant it to. Penny seemed to shrink away like melting butter. And there she was again, the old Penny Goodrich, not the new one.

“I-I just wanted a change. I thought it was time to try something new. My friend Sheila said that since I might be getting a new job soon, why not get a new haircut, too? Try something new for a change, you know?” She paused, her smile wavering as she patted her hair. “Do . . . do you like it?”

“It’s okay.” Esther shrugged and went back to reading her book. She didn’t know why, but the change in Penny made her furious. Maybe because it was yet another change in Esther’s life and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all. How would she ever get her old life back again if everything kept on changing?

C
HAPTER 18

P
ENNY MADE UP HER MIND
not to let Esther’s reaction to her new hairstyle discourage her. Shopping with her friend Sheila had been fun. Getting her hair cut had been fun, too. When the hairdresser had spun the chair around at the beauty parlor and Penny had looked in the mirror for the first time, she hadn’t recognized herself. She had wobbled home in her new shoes feeling giddy, like a brand-new person. Then she had made the mistake of asking Esther’s opinion. Penny felt as though she had blown the biggest chewing gum bubble ever, only to have it burst, leaving a sticky mess all over her face.

She carried her purchases into Eddie’s bedroom – her bedroom – to unpack them. She had worn her new dress home. Maybe she would wear it to church tomorrow, too. She had used up all her ration coupons to buy the new shoes, but they had been worth it. The heels weren’t as high as the ones Sheila wore, but they were still very stylish. Penny had also purchased a new gray suit and a pale blue blouse to wear to the train station when Eddie came home on Monday.

And Sheila had talked Penny into having her eyebrows plucked at the beauty salon. The pain had made her eyes water, but what a difference! Her brows didn’t resemble her father’s bold, glaring ones anymore. After the beauty salon, Penny had gone with Sheila to Woolworth’s five-and-dime store to buy just a teeny bit of makeup – Tangee rouge to brighten her cheeks, Maybelline mascara for her eyelashes, and a tube of Max Factor coral lipstick for her lips. For the first time that Penny could ever remember, she had felt like a woman.

“You should come with me to volunteer at the USO sometime,” Sheila told her. They had stopped at a diner on the way home to buy Cokes and slices of cherry pie. “It’s fun. They have dances on the weekends, and you get to meet a lot of nice people. The servicemen come from all over America.”

“But you’re married. Doesn’t your husband mind if you go to a dance without him?”

“He can’t expect me to become a hermit while he’s away. Besides, all I do is serve coffee and talk to people, maybe dance with one or two of them, that’s all. These poor guys are so far away from home, and they’re lonely and scared. They’re about to be shipped who knows where. Dancing with a pretty girl helps boost their morale. Wouldn’t you be happy to know that somebody’s keeping your boyfriend’s mind off the war while he’s far from home?”

“No,” Penny said, taking a sip of soda. “I think I would be a little jealous.”

“Oh, it’s not like that at all.” Sheila’s diamond sparkled as she waved her hand. “Come with me sometime, and you’ll see. Most of the men have wives or girlfriends back home. There’s nothing to it.”

Penny watched her friend scoop up a bite of pie and pop it daintily into her mouth. She wished she were as feminine as Sheila. Penny felt awkward in comparison, like a plodding mule beside a graceful deer. “I don’t know how to dance,” she said with a sigh.

“You don’t have to. The USO always needs volunteers to pass out coffee and doughnuts. Or just talk to the fellas for a while.”

“I’m real good at talking.”

“You sure are,” Sheila laughed. “It’s a lot of fun, Penny. You’d be doing something for the good of our country. And if you decide you want to try dancing, I could teach you how. I mean, look at you! You’re already a brand-new person with your new dress and hairstyle and shoes – why not take up dancing, too?”

Penny smiled to herself, happy with the thought of doing something for the war effort. But talking to a group of strangers? Mother would have a conniption fit. “I guess I could think about it,” she told Sheila.

“Good. We could go together. And if I teach you to dance, you’ll be able to dance with your boyfriend when he comes home. He’d like that, I’ll bet.”

Penny had no idea if Eddie liked to dance or not.

She’d had so much fun on their shopping trip, only to return to the apartment and Esther’s indifferent reaction. Penny changed out of her new dress and shoes and put them away in her closet. She hung up her new suit and blouse and put on her old dress and her sensible shoes again. She sat down at the dressing table that had once belonged to Eddie’s wife and arranged her new makeup on top of it. She had remembered what Roy had advised and had bought a small bottle of perfume, too.