Rich Boy

by Sharon Pomerantz

  Only on the food for the shivah did Barry and Robert have no trouble reaching agreement—they had ordered it at the deli, and there was no skimping. Robert paid. It arrived Sunday morning as they were dressing for the cemetery. Corned beef and roast beef and pastrami; piles of rye bread and pumpernickel; coleslaw and pickles and olives; a tray of sliced fruit and another with six different kinds of cookies, nuts, and candy, plus a dark chocolate cake.

  The food made everything easier. After the service, people came to the house and gathered around it, grabbing for plates and talking. The crowd grew bigger at lunch. Neighbors came and more cousins, people he barely recognized. All so old now. They asked after his wife and daughter and embraced him, shouting near his ear. Robert piled cold cuts on a plate, then walked to the couch where Uncle Frank, still silent, made room for him. Barry joined them.

  “So where are you living?” Barry asked.

  “In my apartment,” Robert said. “Or I will be when I get back.”

  Barry lowered his voice. “With the shoe-shine girl?”

  “No,” Robert replied. “She’s away right now. She got a job.”

  “Oh,” Barry said. “I haven’t been back to the office.”

  “I heard,” Robert spat. “Tell me, how, exactly, did you happen to lose ninety percent of the money in my account?” When he’d finally gotten the total, the numbers had made him dizzy. From over $200,000 at its height, he now had just over $25,000 — exactly enough to pay his debts and be left with about $5,000, most of which would be used to pay the funeral expenses. At least he was not in a hole. “Only you could manage to leave me not far from where I started.”

  “Not here.” Barry stood up. “I need some air.”

  “Fine,” Robert said. “I’m going to offer some of her jewelry to the aunts and cousins.”

  Upstairs, Robert went through the glass and plastic beads that had tangled into a heap, and the tarnished pins and bracelets. He recognized a circular pin dotted with green stones that had once belonged to Cece, and turned out to be fourteen-karat. He saved it for his daughter, along with Stacia’s modest diamond engagement ring, then separated the rest of what was not broken into a pile. Slowly the aunts and a few cousins came and sorted through, took what they liked. They wanted keepsakes, though, as Aunt Lolly whispered to him before she made her way carefully back down the stairs, a person would have to be crazy to look at a piece of jewelry and remember Stacia Vishniak. She rarely wore so much as an earring.

  Relatives and neighbors drifted in and out; the front and screen doors remained open to accommodate them. The more ambitious used the chairlift to come up and say a few words to him. They needn’t have bothered; everyone was so loud down there that he could hear perfectly. About an hour after he’d first entered his mother’s room, he became aware of a conspicuous silence on the first floor, and walked halfway down the steps to see what was happening. Two tall black men stood at the bottom. They wore jeans and bright yellow T-shirts with truck logos on them and carried large padded blankets.

  “They’re the movers!” Robert yelled down. “They’re here to move some furniture!”

  A loud, relieved “Oh!!” went up from the living room crowd. And then the ceaseless buzzing of the words, “Movers? movers! Almost gave me a heart attack!” Over and over again. And then, “Moving furniture at a shivah?!” This, they would say, was crossing a line, but Robert didn’t care. He had other things to worry about that afternoon.

  There was the chest of drawers in the bedroom, made of cherrywood, and an oak secretary that sat at the bottom of the steps. His mother had inherited both five years ago, when Cece died. Robert couldn’t get a sense of the date on the furniture. It had not been made by anyone famous, but these were the only things in the house worth keeping, and they weren’t covered in protective plastic, and he wanted both for himself.

  He instructed the movers to take the chest first, and they set to work covering it, then hoisted the thing on their shoulders and walked down the steps. Conversation halted and children scurried. A cousin had made the movers sandwiches—there was so much food—and followed behind them to offer corned beef or chopped liver. As the men returned to pack up the secretary, then took it slowly out of the house, Robert heard Barry return, heard him yelling Robert’s name and heard the thud of his footsteps as he ran up the steps. “What the hell are you doing?!”

  “Moving the furniture to my apartment,” Robert said calmly.

  “Today?”

  “What are you, religious all of a sudden?”

  “You’re stealing from me. I deserve half of that!”

  “You want to talk to me about stealing?” Robert asked. “Really?” He had restrained himself for two days, working in the same house with Barry, swallowing his anger, but now he could not. He lunged at his brother and the two men fell to the ground. But Barry, who was so much heavier, had the advantage, and he pinned both Robert’s hands to the floor.

  “She was my mother, too!” Barry yelled. “I am not a stepchild!”

  Barry had heft on his side, but Robert was angrier. He raised his knee, jabbing his brother in the groin then grabbing him by the neck as the two went rolling into a nightstand. When the lamp fell to the floor, Robert was on top, hands around Barry’s throat. “You ruined my life! You ruined my fucking life!”

  “You ruined your own damn life—,” Barry gasped.

  “Where is my money?! Where is my money?!” Robert repeated, banging his brother’s head repeatedly against the floor. Relatives gathered around, calling out to him, but it did no good.

  “Stop it, Robert! Stop it now!” Sally Johannson was suddenly by his side, pulling on his arms. “You’ll kill him. He’s your brother,” she said. “You’ll kill him.”

  Robert let go of Barry’s neck. Barry coughed and gasped, then sat up, backing into the corner like a wounded animal. Robert’s inhaler was in the jacket in his bedroom and slowly he stood up to go get it. Uncle Frank, who had been there with Aunt Lolly and the two old Vishniak uncles, came over and spoke to Robert for the first time all day. “Go downstairs and sit shivah for your mother,” he said wearily. “It would kill her all over again to see you like this.”

  The guests limped and shuffled down the steps. Robert got his inhaler and used it, then went outside. Sally followed.

  They might have sat on the patio. There were two metal and plastic chairs folded up against the wall, but like most things in his mother’s house, they were old and rusted and torn, and likely wouldn’t hold an adult of any significant size. So they sat on the steps. They could hear the announcer on the television in the living room, the volume turned up so loudly that they had to raise their voices just to talk to each other.

  “I thought you were in Hartford,” Robert said. She was dressed for the occasion, wearing a skirt and a cardigan, and some lipstick. Her hair was brushed off her face. He could hardly take his eyes off her.

  “Tech rehearsal tonight. Somebody can walk through it for me.” She paused. “My dad told me. He heard from a neighbor. Everyone was talking about that business with the cat.”

  “Thanks for coming,” he said. He needed to say something, but perhaps later was better than sooner. Still, he blurted it out: “Crea and I are separating.”

  She was quiet for what felt like a long time and he wondered if he had told her too quickly. A divorced man, unemployed, fifteen years her senior, with a child to boot. He could find another job, make more money, but it would take time.

  “I got cast in another play after this,” she said. “In Denver.”

  “See,” he said, “I told you things were going to happen for you.”

  “I’m going back to New York tonight to pick up a few things. I hope you don’t mind storing some of my stuff in the apartment, until I get back?”

  “When will that be?”

  “About three months. Before I leave for Colorado, I can come in for a day or two to look for a new place.”

  He wanted to tell her that she d
idn’t have to do that, she could stay. But he’d always moved quickly with women, taking their love as his due, and he could not do that with Sally. She would have to be courted, won over. “You sure you’ll come back?” he asked. He did not know if he could bear it if she didn’t. Too many losses.

  “You’ll have my stuff. Consider it a hostage situation,” she said. “How’s Gwen?”

  “Custody is going to be complicated,” he said. “Crea is very angry.”

  “You think a court can keep that little girl from finding her way to the West Side?”

  Robert smiled. For the first time all day, he felt on the verge of tears.

  His brother stepped out of the house with an ice pack on his head, a bottle of Chivas Regal, and three paper cups in his hand. “Drinks, anyone?” he asked, and sat down on the lowest step. Sally took the bottle and poured some into each cup. “There’s bottles and bottles of the good stuff in there. Unopened. Years of Christmas gifts from the PO.” He turned to Sally. “None of them drank much.”

  “Mine neither,” she said, swallowing what was in her cup in one gulp.

  “There’ll be a little from the sale of the house,” Robert said, “and there’s about two hundred thousand in savings and treasuries.”

  “All that skimping, all those coupons and sleepless nights.” Barry took a long swallow of whiskey. “My half won’t even pay my legal bills. Looks like I’ll be away for a while.”

  “I heard.”

  “Sometimes I wasn’t exactly accurate in my depiction of the risks. Or the companies.”

  Robert didn’t say a word.

  “Maybe I exaggerated how much money I was making you,” Barry added, “jacked up the numbers a little. I liked how it felt, being the big man. Going to the parties.”

  “Me too,” Robert said, finishing his drink. “And after you get out?”

  “I don’t know,” Barry said. “Maybe I’ll go back to my old business. At least there, the technology was reliable and the rules were clear.”

  Dusk was nearing, the sky fading to pale gray and indigo, and the tiny yellow patio lights came on up and down the block, creating jaundiced little halos next to each doorway. A group of girls started a game of double Dutch between two parked cars, the ropes slapping hard at the asphalt. Across the street, somebody honked a car horn over and over. Two houses down, a man in an undershirt, blue shorts, and heavy black shoes limped up the sidewalk, his footsteps squeaking as he walked. He was greeted by two little boys, one dark-haired and the other blond, and each took one of his hands. In the distance, Robert could smell meat roasting. His brother belched loudly; Sally smiled at him. And for a moment, a strange and wonderful moment, Robert Vishniak knew where he belonged.

  Acknowledgments

  Words are inadequate to express my gratitude to my agent, Bill Clegg, who, over endless drafts, and many years, never gave up on this novel or its author. Rich Boy could not have been in better hands than those of the very wonderful Jonathan Karp and his team at Twelve, who grasped so quickly what I was trying to do and helped me make it better.

  Jonathan Freedman has read every draft and fragment related to this novel since 2001; thank you especially to him and to Sara Blair for publishing an early story about these characters in the Michigan Quarterly Review. I am grateful for the support of all my teachers and colleagues at the University of Michigan, especially Nicholas Delbanco, Peter Ho Davies, and Eileen Pollack. Many thanks to the generous, talented writer friends who served as readers for drafts of this novel: Natalie Bakopoulus, Sara Houghteling, Aric Knuth, Valerie Laken, Patrick O’Keeffe, and Raymond McDaniel. Also, Peggy Adler, Margaret Lazarus Dean and Chris Hebert, and Karen Outen. Before there was Ann Arbor, there was New York. Thank you to Wendy Lamb, Min Jin Lee, and Andrea Louie. Meir Ribalow, who does his father and family proud in his constant and unselfish support of his fellow writers and artists, not only read drafts and offered comments, but also encouraged me to preview a very early chapter of Rich Boy at New River in Healing Springs, North Carolina—a big thank you to him and to everyone I met there. Some funding for this novel was generously provided by the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation; over the years, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts has provided me with important space and time.

  Lawyers who helped me with the legal and real estate information in this novel: Elliott Meisel, Michael Mervis, and most especially, the very patient Ronald Burton. They are all brilliant, and any mistakes are fully my own. Robert Barandes read this as a lawyer, a dear friend, and a huge supporter—thank God I didn’t miss that Hampton’s jitney back in 1998. Thank you to Lori and Arie Abecassis for their Northeast Philadelphia knowledge, and Diane Saltzman, who came to my aid on last-minute art questions —it’s a lucky woman whose friends are also resources.

  I was helped in my research of New York in the 1970s by the archives of the New York Times, especially articles written by the inspiring architectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable; also by the books Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle by Moritz Thomsen; The Peace Corps Experience: Challenge and Change, 1969–1976 by P. David Searles; and 740 Park by Michael Gross. Thank you also to Nanci A. Young at the Smith College archives, and to the folks at Merchant’s House Museum in lower Manhattan.

  Many people helped keep me going over years of writing this novel; I can’t thank them all, but I must thank a few more: Rachel Aranoff and Neil Zuckerman; Mark Eisman; Ricki and Josh Lowitz (and the entire extended Chicago clan); my partners in crime since college, Julia Harrison and Monique Skruzny; Mindy Mervis; Naomi Morgenstern; Harris Rosenweig; and Marcie Wald, who has witnessed my life, ministered to my problems, and made me laugh for over thirty years. Thank you also to cousins Robin Berman, Steven Pomerantz, Jill Bucinell, and Steve Swerdlow for service beyond the call of duty.

  Last, but most of all, thank you to my mother, Estelle S. Pomerantz, who read to me, sacrificed for me, and always told me stories. And to Bill Richert, who enriches my life in more ways than he knows.

  About the Author

  SHARON POMERANTZ’s short fiction has appeared in a variety of literary journals, most recently the Missouri Review, Ploughshares, and Prairie Schooner. Her story “Ghost Knife” was selected for inclusion in Best American Short Stories 2003; another story, “Shoes,” was read as part of the Selected Shorts series at Symphony Space in 1996 and broadcast on National Public Radio in 1998. Sharon has also contributed nonfiction to the Chicago Tribune, the Village Voice, Hadassah Magazine, and many other publications. She is a graduate of Smith College and the University of Michigan and currently teaches at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Rich Boy is her first novel. She can be contacted at sharon@sharonpomerantz.com.

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