But okay, according to his father-in-law he was a good-looking guy. You couldn’t tell he was a Jew from just looking, and his own son had been Mike’s shipmate in the Pacific. That counted for something, didn’t it? That he’d even made it into the navy, which didn’t favor Jews, was, in itself, a statement. This was no pasty-faced faggot who’d tried to get out of serving his country. As long as he, Rufus Collingwood, didn’t have to meet Mike’s family—and thank god he’d already changed his name to Monk. Mr. Collingwood had said this to Mike, face-to-face, man-to-man.
No problem there. Mike had told Frekki he and Adela had eloped, when the truth was they’d had two hundred to a sit-down dinner with dancing at the country club. Where he, Michael Monk, was now a member.
Mike and Frekki had grown up in the Weequahic section of Newark. In high school he was Mr. Popularity. The girls loved him. As a student, just so-so. Still, he’d gone to Rutgers, played basketball, joined Phi Ep, where he’d met Rusty at a party in February of his junior year. He fell for her before they’d exchanged two words. Hell, who wouldn’t have fallen for her? She looked like a movie star, maybe Rita Hayworth with green eyes. Had he ever met a girl with green eyes? He didn’t think so. She was tall and lanky. But he was cocky, came on too strong, scared her off. She was just a senior in high school while he was a BMOC. He reminded himself to take it slow and easy.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her today in the rabbi’s study. It all came rushing back. Her scent, the silky feel of her skin, the long hair wrapped around his fingers. And she’d loved it, hadn’t she? She was always ready to hop into the Nash for hours of kissing, touching and finally—Bingo!—the night she gave in. After he demonstrated the bed-in-a-car, she wanted to do it again. He remembered because the Hauptmann guy, the one convicted of killing the Lindbergh baby, was executed in New Jersey the same night. Mike hadn’t been strapped into the electric chair like Hauptmann but he’d been on fire for that girl.
It lasted until Fourth of July weekend, when he drank too much at a party down the shore and made a pass at some other girl—a mistake, and one that cost him. Rusty wouldn’t stop crying and it was never the same between them. No more make-out sessions in the Nash or anywhere else. From what he heard, she was relieved when he enlisted. And so was he. There were plenty of other girls waiting. Anchors Aweigh, my boys…Anchors Aweigh…
His parents were ready to kill him. A Jewish boy enlists in 1936, in peacetime? Are you crazy? his father shouted. Okay, so college didn’t go the way it should have. You were sowing your wild oats. You’ll go to summer school, make up the two classes you flunked. You’ll do better next year. If war comes and we get the contract for military uniforms we’ll be rich. You can work with me. Eli Tucker would give you a medical excuse. You have flat feet, like me, don’t you? We’ll be making the uniforms instead of wearing them. Come on, son. Say it was a mistake.
And now, today, in the rabbi’s study—sixteen years later and she looks the same, better, if that’s possible. He’s never cheated on Adela, not that he hasn’t been tempted. But this was different. He doubted he’d have the strength to resist, should she be interested. Mother of his daughter and all that.
Elizabeth Daily Post
A-BOMB DRILL FOR TIMES SQUARE
APRIL 5—The New York Civil Defense Corps announced an air-raid drill for Times Square tonight. The exercise will be programmed as if an atom bomb had exploded and incendiary and high-powered bombs had rained down on the entire amusement area.
The drill is timed for the height of pre-show congestion. Traffic will be diverted.
28
Christina
Christina didn’t feel married. She still lived at home and slept alone in her small bedroom with the faded pink floral wallpaper. She may have pressed her wedding corsage in her scrapbook, but she hadn’t annotated the page, in case somebody—her mother, Athena—got suspicious and went looking for clues. At night she’d take her wedding ring out of her jewelry box where she kept it hidden, pulling on the secret tab that lifted the black velvet false bottom. And even then she kept the real bottom covered in fabric left over from Yaya’s latest sewing project, making dolls for children who’d lost their toys in the crash. She’d lock her bedroom door, slip on the wedding band and wave her hand around in front of the mirror to see how it looked. Then she’d take it off and kiss it goodnight before hiding it again. Her wedding ring. It must be real if she had a wedding ring. Sometimes she’d say Christina McKittrick, just to see how it sounded. She’d caught herself at school, scribbling her married name in her notebook, but she always stopped in time and erased the evidence.