Their apartment was already feeling cramped. Even though her parents owned this house and lived upstairs, which was a huge help, she was ready for the move. They’d worked on the new house all weekend while her parents watched the girls. She measured for curtains in the bedrooms, and lined the kitchen shelves with wallpaper in a pretty pattern left over from her cousin’s new kitchen, while Tim worked on building a cedar closet in the attic.
Before driving back they’d stopped for a shore dinner to celebrate their anniversary. She promised that next time she’d at least taste the lobster. Tim laughed. He was more adventurous than her in every way, but he didn’t seem to mind. Only a month ago he’d returned from Korean airlift duty. Then it was a round-trip to Tokyo. She was so proud of her husband. He’d seen the world. Someday, when the children were grown, she’d travel with him.
She’d already prepared a meat loaf for supper. Tim loved her meat loaf. She just had to pop it in the oven. The potatoes were peeled, sitting in ice water, ready for boiling. She’d take out the frozen peas at the last minute. Bird’s Eye vegetables were a godsend, never mind what her mother said. Of course, nothing beat her mother-in-law, Helen’s, cooking. She’d be at work now in the Osners’ fancy kitchen, watching over Dr. Osner’s little girl while preparing dinner for the family. Maybe someday, when Helen retired and had more time, she’d help out Laura, moving down the shore and taking care of the three kids. Then Laura could go back to school, get her degree in education and teach kindergarten or first grade. At the very least, Helen could show her how to fix those fancy meals she made for the Osners.
The baby jumped up and down in her arms until she started dancing again. She sang along with Patti Page. “I was dancin’ with my darlin’ to the Tennessee Waltz…”
Miri
Miri and Natalie rode the #24 bus from school, got off at the corner of Shelley and Magie, then walked down to the Osners’ house. In the kitchen Fern was dunking Oreos in milk while Mrs. Barnes prepared dinner. Whatever she was browning on the stove smelled delicious. The salad leaves were drying in a cloth towel, waiting to be torn into an ebony bowl with Corinne’s initials in silver. CMO for “Corinne Mendelsohn Osner.” Someday, when Miri was married with her own house, she would have the same salad bowl with her initials in silver. MAM for “Miri Ammerman McKittrick”—if she married Mason. But would Irene ever forgive her for marrying a boy who wasn’t Jewish? Maybe she would just spell out MIRI and leave her husband out of it.
“Will Tim fly over our house today?” Fern asked Mrs. Barnes.
“I expect so,” Mrs. Barnes said. “Any minute now, unless they were delayed by the weather.”
Fern pretended to feed an Oreo to her cowboy bunny. “Roy Rabbit might be a pilot when he grows up.”
“I hope he’s smart,” Mrs. Barnes said, “because you have to be smart to be a pilot.”
“Don’t worry,” Fern said. “Roy Rabbit is very smart.”
Natalie grabbed a bunch of green grapes and she and Miri headed for the den, where the windows looked down on a stand of Japanese cherry trees, bare now, but come spring she knew they’d be heavy with pink blossoms. She wished it could be spring now. Then she and Mason wouldn’t have to worry about where to go to be alone and warm.
Natalie tuned the television to the Kate Smith show, though it wasn’t quite four o’clock, while Miri made a quick phone call to remind Irene she was at Natalie’s for the afternoon. Then both girls settled on the floor. Miri popped a grape into her mouth. Natalie rested her head on Miri’s lap. “Play with my hair,” she said.
Miri lifted one soft curl, then another.
“What are you thinking?” Natalie asked, looking up at her.
“Guess,” Miri said.
“I’ll bet it’s about Mason.”
“Not really.”
“I’ll bet you think about him every minute of every day.”
“I think of him a lot but I wasn’t thinking of him just now.”
“Are you in love with him?”
“I’ve only known him thirty-eight days, not that I’m counting.”
“My mother says she knew from the minute she first looked into my father’s eyes she was going to be with him for the rest of her life. She says it came to her in a flash, like lightning.”
“I haven’t had that flash yet,” Miri said, which was a complete lie. Didn’t she know it the night they danced together in Natalie’s finished basement? And if not then, at the Y, the first time they kissed? Who was she kidding? But what went on between her and Mason was private. That’s how she knew it was special. Every other time she’d liked a boy she’d blabbed to all her friends about him. But not this time.
“Are we still best friends?” Natalie asked out of nowhere, winding a piece of gray wool she’d found on the carpet around her finger.
“I can’t believe you have to ask,” Miri said.
“It’s just that lately you’ve been so…” Natalie stopped, searching for just the right word. “Remote,” she finally said, looking satisfied.