The birthday party was held the next day at a roller-skating rink outside of town. Carol had rented the rink for three hours in the afternoon and had replaced the in-house DJ with one of her own choosing. The regular musical fare, she said, was “too rinky-dink”—an odd criticism, thought May, for the music of a roller-skating rink. Carol had also hired a roller-skating game leader (a rarefied version of the tummler May remembered from vacations in the Catskills), who led the thirty boys in various roller-skating tricks and games. Carol had assigned May the task of waiting near the opening of the rink with a box of Band-Aids and tissues, with instructions to minister to injured or otherwise disgruntled boys who sought to exit. No one, as it happened, seemed inclined to do so. The boys remained in a state of frenetic activity within the parameter of the rink, lunging, shouting, attempting with variable success to roller-skate, occasionally kicking and grabbing at each other and having to be torn asunder by the roller-skating game leader. Their mothers sat, huddled and exhausted, at a picnic table in the corner of the room. It was clear, looking at them, why Carol predominated within her circle. She alone appeared energetic and bouncily efficient, her brightness undimmed even by the demands of thirty preadolescent boys. She was wearing black leggings, a long Donna Karan wraparound sweater, and black mules, giving her the look of a high-fashion security guard as she flitted back and forth among the group of mothers; Alan, whom she was directing in the use of the camcorder; the DJ, with whom she had struck up a lively rapport and whose business card she had promised to distribute to her friends; and May, whose well-being she was not above considering. Carol had even found May a comfortable swivel chair in the rink manager’s office. Though the manager was sitting on it, she had snatched it out from under him and dragged it over to May with the order that she sit down and relax.
The next morning, Carol directed May to help Adam write his thank-you notes while she fielded calls from the mothers. At some point in each call, she would pause in her conversation to shout out that “Billy’s mother wants the recipe for the truffles,” only to cover the phone with her hand and mouth in an exaggerated whisper: “Don’t give it to her.”
It should be noted that among the calls received that morning one was from Carol’s friend Sandy, a resident of Scotch Plains, whose son Jeremy was in a play group with little Benjamin Graf-stein. Sandy, it must be added, was privy to Stephanie Grafstein’s intention to purchase an armchair for the corner of her living room that weekend—a fact to be kept in mind when considering ensuing events of the day
In the afternoon, it was decided they would go to the Short Hills mall to look for pillows for the den. Carol had already visited several department stores and seen a number that she liked, but she was a fiercely thorough comparative shopper. Every possible version of the item in question had to be inspected, its merits cataloged and weighed, before the idea of purchase could begin to be contemplated.
It was in the mall that May saw him. They had left Bloomingdale’s after Carol quickly ascertained the absence of the desired pillows, and May was standing holding Adam’s hand as Carol maneuvered the stroller out of Ann Taylor, where she had been looking at the sale sweaters. Norman Grafstein was walking with a tall pregnant woman, also pushing a stroller with a toddler in it; Stan Jacobs was on the woman’s other side. Norman must have seen her, too, because she saw him stop for a moment, then lean across and say something to Stan, who looked her way. Before she knew it, they were face-to-face, and May, overcome with emotion, had turned white as a sheet. She felt weak and might have lost her balance had she not had Adam’s hand to steady her.
Norman, looking flustered and excited, was the first to speak: “May Newman, as I live and breathe, what a delightful surprise!”
May was too shaken to say anything, but fortunately, Carol, who was never at a loss, jumped in and took over:
“May came up for Adam’s birthday,” she explained, smoothing her son’s hair for emphasis. “Alan and I think it’s important that he have his grandma with him on such a special day.” She smoothed Adam’s hair again, and he pulled away in annoyance, sensing he was being used. She then concentrated her attention on Norman. “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Grafstein. This must be Mark’s wife, Stephanie, and this must be little Benjamin.” Carol’s ability to call forth names mentioned in passing at an earlier date was nothing short of miraculous.
The tall woman acknowledged that she was indeed Stephanie Grafstein, and reintroduced Carol to her father. Stan shook Carol’s hand, then turned back to study May. He had registered her paleness and noted that she had not yet spoken.
“These are the Newmans,” Norman continued with more confidence now, his eyes focused on May, who had begun to turn from pale to red as she felt herself scrutinized. “Alan, Carol’s husband, went to high school with Mark, if you remember my telling you. Carol was kind enough to visit a few months ago. May”—he put his hand on May’s arm—”lives in Boca, and has become a good friend.”
Carol quickly engaged Stephanie and Stan in conversation about the comparative virtues of shopping in Short Hills, New Jersey, versus Boca Raton. She had understood, with her usual rapidity of deduction, all the particularities of their circumstances, down to the proportion of Jewishness in Stephanie’s makeup. It was Carol’s gift to be able to take the measure of things very quickly and assume the right tone when the situation demanded. In this case, she knew instinctively to reign herself in so as to give these somewhat aloof, somewhat alien people a chance to orient themselves. During the duration of her conversation with Stan and his daughter, she was not for a moment unaware of the engrossing conversation that was proceeding off to the side between May and Norman Grafstein.
After his original embarrassment, Norman seemed to embrace the occasion with enthusiasm. The decision to flee commitment had sprung less from his friend’s influence than from his own vanity; he had resisted giving up the heady pleasures of geriatric dating. Suddenly he saw things differently. While he had balked at the idea of being hooked, he now asked himself: Had he really enjoyed the dating scene so much? The answer was no. The various women whom he had squired about were hardly recognizable to him as individuals. He could never recall their last names, and he was often allergic to their perfume. It suddenly seemed obvious to him that May was the sweetest woman he had ever met. He would be happy to have her as his date for what remained of his life.
Though it had taken May several minutes to regain her bearings, she soon felt at ease again. Perhaps she had been wrong in her interpretation of his phone message. Clearly he was glad to see her. Her misery was all forgotten, and she felt herself recovering the spontaneity that had marked her manner with him over the past several weeks.
After ten minutes or so, Carol, having assured herself that Norman and May had sufficiently connected and knowing that too much time can be as detrimental as too little in such circumstances, brought the meeting to a close. She announced the necessity of getting Adam to his swimming lesson at the JCC (though the lesson wasn’t for an hour). Perhaps they could hook up one of these days, she said to Stephanie; Alan would love catching up with Mark. As for her mother-in-law, Carol explained that May would be returning to Boca directly, where she was sure that Norman and Stan would have occasion to see her.
“And when are you going back?” she asked innocently, turning to Norman.
Although he had planned to stay up north for a while, he suddenly felt inclined to shorten his trip. “Soon,” said Norman, “sometime next week, if not earlier. I haven’t firmed up my plans yet.” He looked at May. “But I’ll call you. We can have brunch as soon as I get back, and maybe, if I’m good”—he winked—”you’ll make me that kugel you promised.”
May left the mall holding Adam’s hand, but hardly aware of it. She was floating on air.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
FLO HAD BEEN RIGHT ON THE SUBJECT OF RUDY SALZBURG. HE was perfectly agreeable to the filming, seeing in it the possibility of a starring role for himself However
, he explained, his support was not enough. They still required the approval of the club board.
This was unforeseen. “Going before the board,” as the phrase went, was a daunting prospect. The board, Flo knew, was a notoriously contentious body. Its meetings had entered the popular folklore of Boca Festa as occasions for ferocious power struggles and vituperative backbiting. Only last month, there had been an enormous fracas over the issue of relocating the trash bins in the parking lot. A fight had ensued between Pinkus Lotman and Manny Schaeffer, requiring three other board members (one with a heart condition) to separate them. A careful review of the minutes had shown that Pinkus had raised the concern about the bins because his Lincoln had been scratched when someone had pressed up against it in the process of getting from the path to the nearby bin. Though Manny’s name was not directly mentioned, Pinkus had already put it out that he suspected him, since he was known to transport large bags of trash from his second-floor apartment and to carry his keys on a chain attached to a belt loop on his Bermuda shorts. Manny flatly denied the charge and resented what he took to be a public accusation. Subsequent meetings had done nothing to clarify whether the bins should indeed be relocated or whether the subject was a personal one, to be resolved between Pinkus and Manny alone.
Such things were standard fare at board meetings and resulted in very few concrete decisions. In the past, Rudy had found it expedient to bypass board approval on minor issues, simply proceeding as he saw fit. He would have most willingly done so in this case, he explained to Flo, only recent events had made this impossible. It all stemmed from a decision he had made two weeks ago abolishing the breadsticks on the table at lunch. It was a cost-saving measure that he had deemed to be uncontroversial. The sticks tended to get stale quickly and were rarely sampled, since guests liked to leave room for more substantial fare. Yet the decision to abolish them had resulted in a storm of protest.
Roz Fliegler had been the first to mention the absence of the breadsticks in a pod meeting. “Where are the breadsticks?” she had asked in a peremptory tone, after which others were quick to second the question, though they hadn’t noted their absence until Roz had pointed it out.
Finally, Rudy had been called in to explain. He noted that the breadsticks were rarely eaten and that the chef found himself with more croutons than he knew what to do with.
“That’s not the point,” noted Roz huffily. “They were decorative. Now the tables look naked.”
Others chimed in, with some maintaining that they actually ate the breadsticks.
Ultimately, the point was raised that this was, after all, a board issue. Why had Rudy not gotten the approval of the board before removing the breadsticks?
“It’s a matter of democratic process,” noted Isadore Waxman, whose interest in history and political theory was well known. “We pay our dues and we expect proper representation. This kind of high-handed decision making”—he waved his hand toward Rudy, who straightened defensively—”does not reflect the principles upon which our club has been duly constituted.” The statement drew enthusiastic applause.
The Issue had become a firebrand, taken up across the complex, with a special committee assigned to look into recent decisions that Rudy had made without board consultation. It had been, he confessed to Flo, a humiliating ordeal. Eager as he was to facilitate her niece’s project, he was obliged to conform to the letter of the law, though he admitted that taking anything before the board, especially now in the wake of the LotmanSchaeffer dispute, was a gamble.
It was decided that Amy would accompany Flo to the meeting and, with her aunt’s help, present her request in person. Flo had convinced her niece to use a cream rinse on her hair, remove her nose stud, and wear a skirt. “There’s no point giving them fodder,” explained Flo. “We’ll have enough on our hands as it is.”
The board listened to the case politely.
“What,” someone asked, “is the story the film is going to tell?”
Amy responded that this was a difficult question to answer. “We’ll try to capture the daily life of the club: how you spend your day, what you like to do and talk about, that sort of thing.” A number of members nodded their heads as if rehearsing their day as she spoke. Amy continued, “In time, what happens is that a story emerges; it kind of finds its way into the film—like a lost child.” There were further nods and murmurs as they tried to take this image in. “But you have to understand,” she concluded, smiling her most ingratiating smile, “with a documentary we can’t entirely predict what the story will be in advance. It has to take shape on its own. It’s fishing for diamonds, so to speak.” There was another murmur and rustle among the audience as they considered this metaphor.
“Personally”—it was Pinkus Lotman, rising slowly with the mannered deliberation of Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind, a film that had much impressed him—”I’m against it. It’s a powder keg. She says she’s fishing, and fishing is not what we want here. She’ll start filming and find things that make us look bad. It happens on 60 Minutes all the time. Bad is always more dramatic, so they make it a smear job.”
“It’s only bad if you have something to hide,” piped up Manny Schaeffer, jumping to his feet. He was a small man with a high, reedy voice that nonetheless carried a great deal of authority (some people said he bore a striking resemblance to that fearsome Hollywood mogul Harry Cohn). “I think it’s an excellent idea. It will make us stand out from the other clubs and show us to advantage.”
In no time at all the group had polarized along two lines, strangely reminiscent of the breakdown in the trash-bin controversy. There was the Lotman side, which feared an embarrassing expose, and the Schaeffer side, which saw the opportunity for free publicity. It was clear that a stalemate had been reached and that a creative maneuver was called for to break the impasse. Not by accident had Rudy Salzburg made a fortune in the ice cream business.
“You know,” he said, tapping a manicured finger on the table where the refreshments committee had laid out a nice spread, “correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there an Academy Award given for documentary film?”
There was silence. The board looked expectantly at Amy.
“Well, this happens to be true,” she said, nodding to Rudy and smiling at the group before her, “and I might add that NYU has done very well at all the awards. I mean, it’s common knowledge that most of the winners in the major festivals nowadays have attended either NYU Film School or USC, and I’d say that recently, NYU has the lead. That’s one of the reasons I chose to go. And besides, everyone knows New Yorkers are smarter.”
This drew a laugh and a murmur of agreement.
“I have a really talented crew,” continued Amy, “and as my aunt mentioned, I’m on a merit-based partial scholarship, and last year my student film won an Olive Branch at the Village Film Festival, where there were over five hundred entries. I don’t want to get your hopes up, of course, but with a subject with this potential interest and visual richness, an Academy Award nomination is not out of the question. And in the event that we were nominated, it stands to reason that we’d want the subjects in the film at the awards ceremony. It’s great human interest and publicity value for the film.”
Flo was impressed to see that Amy was as good as Rudy at working her audience. Everyone had a question, including what to wear to the Awards. And when it came time for a vote, it was discovered that opposition to the project had evaporated. Permission for filming was unanimously approved.
CHAPTER FORTY
TO HER SURPRISE, FLO FOUND THAT AMY AND HER FRIENDS ASsimilated with relative ease into the life of Boca Festa. The cameras, initially feared by many of the women concerned about cellulite on their thighs and hair in need of a touch-up, were soon forgotten.
Amy used the analogy of science fiction genre films to explain this to a puzzled Flo. “Once the society accepts the alien visitors,” she said, “nobody ever notices them much. They lose their shock value and everybody just goes back to busines
s as usual.”
The analogy, Flo thought, was apt in other ways as well. Amy and her friends were so different in appearance from the general run of club members that their cameras seemed like just another piece of physical exotica, like Amy’s nose stud or George’s corn-rows—or, to use Amy’s analogy, like the third eye on an alien visitor.
There was also the kibbitzing factor that soon wore away any sense that the filmmakers were aliens. The population of Boca Festa was by temperament curious and inclined to engage. They liked to question, probe, and commiserate, and they held to the steadfast assumption that everyone, however superficially different from themselves, was at heart really exactly like them. Amy and her friends were therefore continually peered at in a penetrating though not entirely unpleasant way, as though those scrutinizing them had seen them somewhere before—perhaps at their daughter’s wedding—and were trying to place them.
It helped as well that the filmmakers were an easygoing and appreciative lot. Amy knew Boca from her numerous visits during childhood, when her parents, during rough spots in their marriage, had taken short jaunts there to unwind. Later she had been shipped down to Eddie and Flo (an exposure that her parents now thought far less benign than they had imagined at the time). But even George and Jordan, for whom Boca was an entirely new experience, quickly developed a taste for the pastimes and personalities of the place. George took to playing cards with some of the men in the evening and was judged an above-average pinochle player, while Jordan was known to spend time at the pool putting suntan lotion on the women’s backs and admiring their jewelry. The manicured grounds, the leisure activities, and the pleasant weather were all seductive, the group agreed. They were particularly taken by the quality and quantity of the food, not only at Boca Festa but everywhere in West Boca.
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