by Roger Herst
“You were pretty brave to stand up to that mean-looking hombre,” she said.
“Gay men know how to defend themselves. You’ll note that straight men no longer go around bashing us. It’s not because they’re frightened of the law. The truth is, they’re scared to get their balls kicked in. We know where they’re located, if you catch my drift.”
She laughed, enjoying his humor. “I would hope so.”
Once in the Nissan, she referred to the list of additional names. She knew Chuck would prefer they confine themselves to searching the school system’s database, but she wasn’t ready to give up yet. She offered to stand him to a Cuban dinner in Columbia Heights if they could locate at least one of the Mothers Against Guns. He agreed, a little reluctantly, and they turned their attention to finding Denise Crosby.
The address they had was about twelve blocks away, on 11th Street. Abandoned furniture blocked the sidewalk near her apartment, a four-story complex. Denise was supposed to live on the ground floor, but there was a different name on the door. The new occupants did not answer the bell. Nor did the occupants of several nearby apartments.
Their efforts were finally rewarded when a helpful elderly woman with ill-fitting dentures answered her door. Denise Crosby, she reported, had lived in the apartment but moved about three months before. From time to time she would return to visit with friends. According to the local gossip, she was too embarrassed to invite them to her new residence. The government had cut her Section 8 rent support, and her economic situation had gone from bad to worse. The man in her life had left for another woman.
“Do you know which school her children go to?” Gabby asked.
The woman thought a moment. “Last I remember, her oldest boy left school. Her daughter had a baby. Don’t know what she’s doing now.”
Frustrated, Gabby asked, “Can I call you again for help?”
“No phone. When I need one, I walk down to the grocery store. When it isn’t jammed up, I use the pay phone.”
“Thanks anyway. At least I know where you live. Mrs.….?”
“Elizabeth T. Turkey. Yeah, yeah. That’s my name all right. The T. stands for my daddy who was Thomas Taylor Turkey. Of course, folks called him Tom Turkey. Strangers never believe me, but it’s the living truth.”
“Well, I believe you, Mrs. Turkey.” Gabby stifled a chuckle. “If you hear from Denise Crosby, tell her please that Rabbi Lewyn is looking for her. She knows my phone number. I need to talk with her.”
“Yeah, I’ll tell her, but I think you’re putting me on. You ain’t no rabbi.”
“It’s the truth, Mrs. Turkey. I know you have women preachers in your churches. Why shouldn’t there be women rabbis?”
“Well, they didn’t have ’em in my day. But this is a new world, now ain’t it?”
“You bet, ma’am,” Gabby replied as Chuck began to tug her away. He knew of her proclivity for chat. If he didn’t pull her away now, conversation would go through the dinner hour. The encounter had proved that he was right from the outset. There were better ways of making contact than going door to door.
***
It was difficult to reach Dr. Caleb Shaboya by phone, but Chuck eventually transferred a call into Gabby’s study. After preliminary chitchat, she related the discussion about a memorial for Bart and the possibility of assisting Mothers against Guns. She asked for his assistance in contacting the group’s members.
Shaboya grunted ambiguously. He confirmed that school computers had rosters of students and that tracking down parents wouldn’t be difficult, but the school system had stringent safety and confidentiality rules in place. However, he continued, assistant principal, Donna Graham, was in weekly contact with several members of the group and should be able to provide the information required. If nothing more, she could relay messages.
Shaboya took a list of names from Gabby and pledged to respond as soon as possible.
“On another subject,” she said, “can you give me an update on the tennis team? Any success in finding a replacement coach?”
“Still looking, Rabbi. Please understand the dollar constraints. To make my budget work, I’ve got to steal from one account to feed another. Dollars for tennis must come from the basketball program. And around these parts, taking pennies from basketball is like stealing from the collection plate. I can rob the Mathematics Department, pillage the English Department, mutilate Spanish and Latin, but lay a finger on basketball and they’ll burn me in effigy. I sometimes think I’m paid to promote the sport, not to educate youngsters. Between you and me, we’d all be a lot better off without the damn National Basketball League putting foolish dreams into the heads of my young men. Without the NBA you’d probably get your tennis team, and I’d get better reading, writing, and arithmetic from my kids. But that isn’t likely to happen in the time left to me at this institution.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, Doctor, I’m still working on some outside funding for the team. One group, with whom I have some leverage, is interested, but I will have to come up with matching funds.”
“I’m praying to the Good Lord for you,” was all he could offer for encouragement. “Mrs. Graham will call you with some phone numbers. If she can’t help, we’ll go through the computer downtown and get what you want.”
CHAPTER TEN
LOS ANGELES WOMEN’S INVITATIONAL
Gabby’s tendency to over-schedule herself became especially problematic during her trip to Los Angeles. Joel Fox, who had postponed a previous trip to California, wanted to introduce his sons to her. And her father insisted she reserve time to meet his new girlfriend, a woman he’d invited to move into the house where Gabby had grown up after only three months of dating. Since Lydia was intolerant of any distraction from the upcoming tournament, Gabby’s scheduling problems had become a matter of friction. At times, it seemed to her that the most obvious solution to the mess would be simply to invite everyone to the tennis tournament at Rancho Cienego Sports Center and visit with them between matches. But there were compelling disadvantages to this arrangement. Leaving aside the distasteful manipulation of friends and family, it was guaranteed to affect her game. Having people in the stands whose opinions she valued would exert its own pressure, and she could just imagine how satisfying would it be to make conversation between matches with Lydia snarling at her.
If she and Lydia lost early in the tournament, of, course, her schedule would open up. But Gabby hadn’t flown all the way from the East Coast to lose. In the midst of her scheduling angst, that thought struck her with force. The Gabby who’d been calmly philosophic about defeat was gone. The fire was there; Lydia had been right.
She was also part of the problem. Normally, Gabby would have stayed at her father’s home on Bonita Avenue, but his new relationship made that awkward, and she decided to not to interfere with the couple’s privacy. She’d accepted the Beverly Hills Hilton accommodations that the tournament organizers offered to players and been assigned a room with Lydia. It was a natural enough decision, of course, but one that presented complications of its own. She attempted to quietly move to a private room, but the Hilton was full, and there didn’t seem to be a spare hotel room in the vicinity. She would have to hope that the pressure of competition would keep Lydia’s attention on tennis. Lydia was not only her coach, but her friend as well; she wanted to avoid a situation that would damage that friendship.
Her father eased the scheduling problems by demanding to see her play in the tournament. He didn’t mind that her preliminary round was assigned to Court 7, where there were no viewing stands and where spectators would have to stand behind the fences at both ends of the court. She caught his eye and smiled as she and Lydia entered the court.
Their opponents, dressed in designer tennis clothes, were already there, warming up with ground strokes behind the base line. Their legs were tanned and trim, their waists narrow. Matching yellow and orange ribbons held their professionally coifed hair in place. An earlier singles vi
ctory had made Lydia cocky, and she quickly sized them up as country club ladies unaccustomed to her brand of power tennis. Once the match started, her serve was un-returnable three out of four points each game. And at the net, her volleys angled sharply, positioning Gabby for easy put-away returns. Neither woman had sufficient control to force the play at Gabby and, with a partner like Lydia, exploiting her weaknesses became impossible. The country club ladies marshaled their best fight in the first set before collapsing entirely in the second. They extended congratulations to Gabby and Lydia and headed into a crowd of fans, dismayed at having been eliminated so early in the tournament.
Gabby greeted Dr. Samuel Lewyn and his girlfriend, Mickey Charles, outside the gate. Lydia could do little more than say hello before she had to dash off to her second singles match of the day, but Gabby guided her father and the slender, tanned, and very well-manicured woman beside him to an outdoor café where they could talk.
By the time Sam Lewyn’s faltering eyesight had led him to retire, insurance companies and managed-care providers had all but wrecked the medical profession he loved. A year after Gabby’s mother died, he sold his half of their internal medicine practice to his younger partner. Now he filled his days with musical concerts, lectures at UCLA, and fly fishing in Canada. He’d met Mickey Charles as she climbed out of a trout stream clad in Orvis waders and looking like an advertisement in Woman Fly Fisher.
Gabby had always known her father had an eye for pretty women, and family photographs revealed her mother’s youthful beauty. But in middle age, her mother’s figure had thickened and her face had lost its lean angularity. Mickey Charles, by contrast, had avoided the physical ravages of age with scrupulous control of her diet, a daily exercise regime, and a discrete, almost unnoticeable face lift. Twenty years Sam’s junior, she glided to the shaded table and took a seat. Gabby seated herself on the opposite side to study them as a couple. She was dismayed that her father had fallen for Mickey’s glamour, and more than a little embarrassed to realize that she’d formed this opinion of the woman before they’d even been introduced.
“I can’t believe how your tennis has improved,” said Sam Lewyn, every inch the proud father. “Send you to rabbinical school and you come out a tennis star. By the way, your partner is absolutely ravishing. Not only can she wallop the ball, but she could be a model for sports clothes or just about anything else. Hard to imagine such power coming from a woman as well put together as that.”
“Lydia coaches you, doesn’t she?” Mickey commented. To show she’s been paying attention to what Dad tells her, Gabby thought sourly. She immediately chided herself for her own lack of charity and smiled.
“Yes, if what she does could be call coaching. Taking lessons from her is like learning military maneuvers from Attila the Hun. She intimidates, humiliates, and demoralizes. Many of her students can’t take the heat and fire her. I’ve often vowed to quit, but don’t because she improves my game, and there’s no way I’d be in this tournament without her.”
Voices in the outdoor café muffled the ring of a cell phone, and Gabby ignored the sound until she recognized it was coming from her tennis bag. Then she dug through the clutter—three racquets, wrist guards, towels, a change of shirts, and numerous other essential items—until she retrieved the phone. A more easily discouraged called would have rung of by now, but Chuck Browner hadn’t.
“Gotcha!” he exclaimed, his exuberance undiminished by the 2,200 miles that separated her from Ohav Shalom. “I expect you and Lyddy to bring home a big silver-plated trophy. Something really tacky that you’d be ashamed to display anywhere in your house and that must be stored in the basement to collect dust. “
“How’s Dov making out without me?” she asked.
“Like a fox in the chicken coop when the farmer goes to Florida. He enjoys being Numero Uno. When you’re away he’s in rabbi heaven. Unfortunately, that’s only half the story. The other is that your schedule book fills with congregants he ignores.”
“Let’s be careful to take care of them when I return. Any emergencies that I can handle by phone from here?”
“No. But Joel Fox just called from L.A. He knew you were playing and didn’t want to disturb you. He asked me to tell you that he’s coming to the tennis center with his boys this afternoon. He’ll look for you on the courts.”
“I may no longer be a contestant this afternoon,” she said, eyeing her father’s hand in Mickey’s.
“Don’t bullshit an old bullshitter, Rabbi Gabby. You’re playing doubles with my sister. And Lyddy doesn’t lose. But if she does, God help you. You’ll return to Washington in a coffin. But there’s something else I need to tell you.”
A waitress with close-cropped black hair and skin-tight shorts offered iced tea from a pitcher, and placed a plate of sugar-glazed donuts and bran muffins on the table. Sam Lewyn reached for a donut, but Mickey blocked him. A second attempt earned him a warning not to clog his arteries with sugar and fat. Gabby noted to herself that while scolding might be good for her father’s health, it would probably doom any long-term relationship. Mickey obviously hadn’t learned how little her father liked being disciplined on matters of health—especially by a non-physician.
Chuck, unaware of this scuffle, continued on the phone. “I’ve followed up with the assistant principal at Anacostia High. She gave me phone numbers for Ersiline Patricia North from MAG and another lady, Daphne Styles. I called and left messages. Eventually Ms. Styles returned my call, but it was a poor connection on her mobile phone.”
“She’s got a cell phone?” asked Gabby.
“You’re a little behind the times, Rabbi Gabby. There are services that cater to the poor and lots of people choose them over landlines. Anyway, I asked Daphne for a meeting. I said we’d go to them. No response. You’d think I’d offered to bivouac the entire Confederate Army in her living room. Then I suggested we meet here at the shul, but Daphne scoffed at the idea. We settled on a rendezvous at zee world-famous restaurant s’appelle Burger King at Buzzard’s Point in Southeast. This Wednesday, after work. That means I must ride shotgun with you. They don’t call the place Buzzard’s Point for nothing, you know. There’s always something dead there for the vultures.”
“Better we visit the ladies in their own homes.”
“That’s not an option.”
“This is getting more complicated than visiting with the president.”
Chuck terminated the conversation abruptly. “Sorry, gotta go, Rabbi. The lights on your phone suddenly look like a broken robot in a sci-fi flick. Give Lyddy a hug for me. And don’t forget to bring back a gaudy trophy. You’re a pretty lucky lady.”
This parting remark surprised her. “How so?”
“How many people travel across the country with their own private dentist?”
“Thanks, smart ass. I needed that. Wait until I get you at Buzzard’s Point. The vultures may have a new corpse to pick.”
When Gabby’s attention returned to the table, her father was wiping sugar from a glazed-donut off his index finger.
“What do you do with a man like this?” Mickey asked, pointing to what was left of the donut.
“If everybody ate only non-fat, low calorie foods,” Gabby replied, “physicians like my father would have fewer patients.” She gave Mickey points for trying to curtail her father’s sugar consumption, but Sam Lewyn, though warm, charming, faithful, and decent, was also as stubborn and intractable as they came.
Tuning out the women’s chatter, Sam Lewyn stuffed the last bite into his mouth. When he finished chewing, he said, “Anything new on the social scene, Gabrielle?”
She had wondered how long it would take for him to ask. Her status as an eligible but unmarried woman had become his obsession since her mother’s death; he brought up the subject at every opportunity. Did he really think his interest would make her path to the marriage canopy any easier? “You don’t beat around the bush do you, Dad?” she said, hiding her discomfort, especially from Mickey. “Wan
t to see my dance card? The problem is that if I mention anyone I’ve so much as had a cup of coffee with, you’ll imagine me standing under the chupah with him.”
“Just interested,” he responded, showing no signs of embarrassment.
“I promise to let you know when Cupid’s arrow strikes. It’s been a slow season. Somewhere along the route, I missed the first, maybe even the second, crop of eligible men. What’s left are confirmed bachelors, gays, and divorcees.”
“Which group are you targeting?” he pursued, unwilling to drop the subject.
Her eyes darted to Mickey to gage her reaction. She had purposely failed to mention widowers like her father as a potential category of eligible men. “I’m not actively targeting any group, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the odds. Confirmed bachelors and gays advertise that they aren’t interested. A single woman at least has a chance with a divorcee.” To change the subject, she turned to Mickey. “How are your children? Dad tells me you see them often.”
“I do, but only two of the three. My daughters, who live in the area, come by when they can. There’s rarely a day we’re not on the phone. Karla is a single mother, struggling to raise two kids without financial support from the sonavabitch father who abandoned his family. Jeannie plays minor roles in low-budget movies, but seems to be making a living. My son, Alexander, lives in Kuala Lumpur and rarely writes or calls. He sells irrigation pumps, I believe, and has a companion from Vietnam--a relative, would you believe, of General Giap, the North Vietnamese commander who beat us in the war over there.”
Sam had often told Gabby and her sister, Terry, how Mickey had incorporated him into her family. It had left both sisters struggling with the feeling that he’d replaced their family with a new one. But they were pleased he was not alone. And since neither she nor Terry lived in California, Gabby wondered how much of their feelings stemmed from unacknowledged, and probably inappropriate, guilt.