“My mother’s father. I never knew him and it was kind of a secret but when my father got mad at my mother he’d call her a—” Miri kicked him under the table and Mason dropped it. Was it true, or did he think he had to fib to get the family to accept him?
“I’d like to marry a Jewish man,” Miss Rheingold announced. “Everyone says they make the best husbands. How about it, Henry? You know someone for me?”
“My girlfriends have first dibs on Henry’s friends,” Leah said in a serious voice.
Miss Rheingold smiled her beauty-pageant smile and said, “Of course they do. I was just joking. You never know where you’ll meet Prince Charming.”
“Well,” Henry said, “how about seconds, Mason? You won’t get a brisket like my mother’s anyplace else in the world.”
“I already know,” Mason said, holding out his plate. “Sure, I’ll have seconds.”
Irene was pleased he liked her food. When she brought out a chocolate cake for dessert, frosted with white buttercream and decorated with red hearts, Mason licked his chops. “Boy-oh-boy, I can’t believe you baked that!”
Miri couldn’t decide if he was stuffing himself to impress her family or if he was really that hungry.
Later, they gathered around the television set that Uncle Henry recently brought home to Irene. He’d moved the old set, with rabbit ears, upstairs to Rusty’s living room.
“That’s some television set,” Ben Sapphire said, when he saw the twenty-inch Motorola. Henry tuned in to You Bet Your Life with Groucho Marx. If they stayed late enough they’d get to see Dragnet, the new police show. Just the facts, ma’am.
“Did you know, Naomi,” Ben Sapphire said to Miss Rheingold, “Henry is making quite a name for himself. He’s getting offers from big papers around the country. And newsmagazines, too.”
“I had no idea, Henry,” Miss Rheingold said. “You must be an ace reporter.”
“He is,” Leah said proudly. “His paper just gave him a big bonus. They don’t want to lose him.”
Everyone looked over at Henry. Ben Sapphire held up his glass of brandy and proposed a toast. “To our Ace. You’re going places, Henry.”
“Are you thinking of moving to another paper?” Miss Rheingold asked.
“I’m considering my options but I can’t help feeling a twinge of guilt at finding success at the expense of tragedy.”
“Come on, Henry,” Ben Sapphire said, “that’s what reporting is all about. You make a name for yourself reporting wars, bad politics, tragedy. Not the social section.”
Miri didn’t want to think about tragedy tonight. But it always came back to that, didn’t it?
Steve
He’d swiped a photo of Kathy from her house when he’d been there for shiva. Just a little photo. Probably no one would notice it was gone. He bought a Valentine’s Day card for her and signed it, Love Steve. Then he scrawled, Hope it’s nice wherever you are, at the bottom. Maybe he was going cuckoo like his sister. But he didn’t really believe that. He was just pissed off. He took the story he’d torn from the newspaper out of his desk drawer, the story about how Kathy was going home to see a boy she’d met over the holidays. A boy she really liked. He folded it and slipped it inside the Valentine’s Day card. He laid her photo on his pillow and kissed it. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Kathy.” Then he went downstairs to the finished basement and grabbed a bottle of Scotch from the bar. Scotch, his father’s drink of choice—he liked it on the rocks. His mother was more of a whiskeysour drinker. One was more than enough for her. Back in his room he took a swig straight from the bottle. Jeez, the stuff was awful. It burned his throat. Here’s to us, Kathy, he said. This time he poured himself a shot and gulped it down. It got easier. By his sixth shot he was blotto. He lay on the floor while his room spun around. Whirly-beds. It didn’t feel good. He crept on all fours to the bathroom—spinning spinning—and puked his guts out. Then he fell back on the cool tile floor and everything went black.
Elizabeth Daily Post
SURVIVORS
They Live to Tell Their Stories
By Henry Ammerman
FEB. 15—The bus driver’s classic call to “step to the rear” might be heeded by airline passengers. Most of the survivors of the National Airlines DC-6 crash on Feb. 11 had been seated in the rear of the aircraft. When the plane broke apart in the crash it left the rear section less damaged and more accessible to rescuers.
Gabrielle Wenders, the stewardess, was the only surviving member of the crew. She had been found hanging upside down, still strapped in her seat. “I don’t know how I ever got out alive. It was a fiery nightmare. We were all so helpless. If it hadn’t been for that young man, Mason McKittrick—a name I’ll always remember—I might have died that way.”