RUSTY CAME DOWNSTAIRS to help at the open house. Irene looked smart in a simple gray wool dress with a white collar. She was at her most charming, chatting with her customers, offering a glass of sherry to the few husbands who’d accompanied their wives, and to the women, too. “It will warm you up,” she told them. Was anyone better at this than her mother? Rusty didn’t think so. Irene had once confided to Rusty she’d had the opportunity, when she was young, to marry into the family who’d started Volupté. But her parents thought Max Ammerman was a better catch. He was fifteen years older and already established in business. If she’d married the Volupté boy she’d be powdering her nose in the best clubs and restaurants, instead of selling compacts wholesale from home.
It was still early but already it looked like Irene would get a good turnout. Rusty replenished the stock from Irene’s closet, handled the cash and the occasional check, and was available for gift-wrapping. When the phone rang Rusty excused herself and picked it up.
“Irene?”
“No, this is her daughter, Rusty.”
“Oh, Rusty, dear, I haven’t seen you in ages. This is Estelle Sapphire from Bayonne. I can’t get to Elizabeth tonight. I’m busy packing, leaving for Florida in the morning, but I was hoping Irene could put away six compacts for me. My husband will pick them up tomorrow on his way back from the airport. He’s driving to Miami but I’m flying.”
Lucky Mrs. Sapphire, Rusty thought, to be escaping this weather. She wouldn’t mind a trip to Florida, but she took her two weeks of vacation in the summer so she and Miri could spend time together down the shore.
“Any special design?” Rusty asked.
“No, dear. Whatever Irene thinks.”
“Price range?”
“Mid. Really, I’m just taking them in case I meet someone, a good hairdresser, a pleasant maid. You know. As a way to say thank you. So much nicer than giving money.”
“Of course,” Rusty said. “I’ll get them ready for you right now.”
“Thank you, Rusty. Please tell Irene I said hello.”
“I will.” Rusty was willing to bet the pleasant maid or the good hairdresser would prefer cash, but a gift was better than nothing.
“Rusty, darling,” Irene said, handing her four compacts and two Ronsons. “Could you gift-wrap these for Mrs. Delaney? Red ribbon.”
Red ribbon was a code for Christmas, not Hanukkah, which would be blue ribbon.
Rusty knew Mrs. Delaney’s son, a good-looking guy who worked at the branch bank on Elmora Avenue. He always flirted with her. Sometimes she flirted back, just to keep up her skills, though she knew he was married with four children. Not to mention Catholic.
Steve
A few blocks down East Jersey Street from the Martin Building, where Steve Osner’s father had his dental office and you could get a great-tasting burger at Three Brothers Luncheonette, Steve was shooting baskets at the YMHA with his best buddy, Phil Stein, both of them seniors at Thomas Jefferson High. They’d been born two weeks apart at Elizabeth General Hospital and bar mitzvahed a week apart at Temple B’nai Israel, across the street from the Y. A couple of regulars were playing with them in a pickup game, and one of them must have brought Mason McKittrick. He seemed like a nice enough kid, not that Steve knew him well, since he was just a junior, but he had good moves and a great hook. “You should go out for the team next year,” Steve told him. “Bet you could make varsity.”
“I work after school,” Mason said, “at Edison Lanes—not much time for practice.”
“You set up pins?”
“Yeah, that and other stuff when it gets busy.”
“I’ll look for you next time we go bowling.”
“You in a league?”
“No, just bowl for fun.”
Mason nodded.
In the locker room, Steve asked Phil, “You want to grab a burger at Three Brothers? I’m starving.”
“Nah. My mother’s probably got dinner in the oven.”
“Okay, but come over later.”
“You have a plan?”
“Don’t tell me you forgot already?”
“Remind me.”
“My sister’s party.”
“We’re going to your sister’s party?”
Steve swatted him with his damp towel. “I have to chaperone. My mother thinks if I’m around there won’t be any trouble. What a joke! Remember ninth grade? That’s the first time I copped a feel.”
“You were always ahead of the rest of us,” Phil said.
If only that were still true, Steve thought. A lot of the guys talked about how much they were getting. Their girlfriends let them touch and look. Steve had touched but no one had ever let him look. He didn’t have a regular girlfriend. He liked playing the field. Maybe he just hadn’t met the right girl yet. He knew girls who’d invite you into their houses to neck on the sofa in the living room, but it never went any further than that. Maybe he was doing something wrong. It might be different if they went to a coed high school. Theirs was the only city in New Jersey with sex-segregated public high schools, Jefferson for boys, Battin for girls. Even St. Mary’s was coed and those kids were Catholic.
“I’ll set up a card table in the laundry room,” he told Phil. “We’ll play a little acey-deucey. You in?”
“Why not?” Phil said.
Mason didn’t say anything.
“You know what they do at their parties?” Steve said.
“Who?” Phil asked.
“Jeez, Phil, my sister and her friends! Who do you think?”