by Min Jin Lee
“Congratulations!” Isaac said.
“Thank you.” Casey took a tiny sip of her tea.
Isaac knew full well that Sabine wanted Casey to take over the store one day. He liked the girl very much, and in many ways, Sabine’s wish made sense to him. She was smart, young, and could do possibly anything. But it was clear that Casey couldn’t be pushed. Isaac understood the young girl’s wish to work as an analyst at Kearn Davis. She must’ve wanted to know what it was like to be a banker, even a junior one, at a white shoe firm. As poor immigrants, her parents had to manage a dry-cleaning store. People like Sabine and him had been forced to start from nowhere to earn their living. Straight out of Hunter College, he wouldn’t have dreamed of getting an interview at a single Wall Street firm. As he’d ascended the moneyed heights of New York, there were plenty of folks who believed that real estate was a dirty field, and as successful as Sabine was, she was still a merchant, and that meant she got her paws dirty. Isaac could imagine Princeton as having enough of these line-drawing types, and no doubt they’d done a head scramble to this girl who was never getting a trust fund. He felt sorry for her, because one thing he knew for sure was that you could never wash yourself clean.
His own first job had been to show rentals in the Bronx owned by Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz, formerly of Co-op City. And Sabine had started out selling her handmade handbags and gloves in a two-hundred-square-foot store. Casey could’ve made a pile of money if she’d paid her dues with Sabine for a dozen years or so, but Isaac understood that she might have wanted to be legitimate right away.
Casey swallowed the last bite of her creamy dessert. She scraped her silver spoon across the wide Bernardaud dessert plate to get at the last bits of chocolate sauce. The handle of the spoon was engraved with the interlocking initials of Sabine and Isaac.
“This is beautiful. I always mean to tell you that,” Casey said, holding up the silver spoon.
Sabine winked at her.
Isaac picked up his spoon and looked it over. He and his wife had gone to an antiques and silver shop on Park Avenue to order these. Each piece was hand-forged by some ancient English maker. Sabine had ordered flatware service for sixty people, and each eight-piece setting had cost two thousand dollars. They had used the marrow spoons maybe twice when the cook served osso buco.
“Did you know that my namesake uncle was a silver engraver?”
Sabine glanced up from her teacup, looking at her husband quizzically. No, she did not know that. “Who?”
“Irv. Uncle Irv. You never met him. I never met him. He died. A long time ago. Lungs.”
“Oh,” Sabine said.
“You mean a person who does these things?” Casey pointed to the monogram on the handle of her spoon.
Isaac nodded, not having thought of Uncle Irv in several decades. His father had told him that the “I” from Isaac was from the “I” from Irving.
“So who is Uncle Irv?” Sabine sat up tall.
“He was the eldest in my father’s family. They were maybe fifteen years apart?”
Casey nodded.
“So, all Uncle Irv ever wanted was to become a lawyer. He lived and breathed the idea of being some Clarence Darrow.” Isaac raised his hands joyfully toward the clear glass Venini chandelier. “And naturally, my grandparents were delighted. But. . .” Isaac grew quiet.
“So did he not have the money for school?” Casey asked. Lately, she believed that most of her problems in life could be boiled down to the lack of dollars and cents.
“No. My father’s family had no money, but my grandfather had a sister whose husband owned a feather factory in Manhattan, and she, who had only three daughters, had promised to pay for Irv’s education.”
“Feathers?” Sabine said out loud.
“For trimmings, blankets, and pillows,” he said. “Anyway, Irv went to City College, because Columbia turned him down.” He raised his eyebrows, amused. Isaac thought everything had some sort of comedy in it.
Casey nodded solemnly. “He’s in good company.”
“Well, Irv thought Columbia turned him down because he was Jewish and poor.” Isaac shrugged. “Whatever. Their loss, right? So, Irv goes to City College. Pre-law. Gets A’s. And in one of his classes, he meets a boy who has a very pretty cousin who is very religious. Now, mind you, my grandparents believed that religion was the root of all evil.”
Sabine nodded knowingly.
“But Uncle Irv’s still sore because he believed that he didn’t get into Columbia for being Jewish, but then he figures since he is Jewish, he should get some perks. Like getting to know his friend’s pretty cousin Sarah.”
Casey smiled at him. Isaac was half Jewish and half Italian-Catholic. He swore that on his deathbed, he’d ask for a priest and a rabbi (“Maybe heaven has several entrances”).
“So his friend, I don’t know his name, and his pretty cousin ask Irv to come to shabbos dinner. Before you know it, Irv gets involved with some Orthodox community in Brooklyn. When my grandparents get wind of this, they threaten to cut him off, but he keeps seeing the girl and her people anyway.”
“And?” Casey asked.
“He decides to join up.”
“With who?” Sabine asked.
“With the Jews.”
“But he’s already Jewish.”
“You know what I mean—he wants a bar mitzvah, grows his beard, and all that jazz.” Isaac shrugged, because he didn’t know much about Judaism and kept himself from it as much as he could. “He wanted to be a practicing Jew. And to marry this Sarah, who will not marry him unless he becomes really Jewish. The funny thing is that Irv got religion, and he started to really believe this stuff. So my grandparents stop speaking to him, but his aunt continues to pay his tuition.”
“The Jews and the Koreans. . .” Sabine shook her head. “So crazy.”
Isaac laughed. “Then the girl Sarah asks Irv to write to the head rabbi to get permission for them to get married and to ask if it’s okay for Irv to become a lawyer.”
Casey tilted her head, fascinated. “Permission?”
“Yeah, I know. Crazy,” using his wife’s word. “But get this—” He raised his pointer finger.
“Darling, you are giving me a headache,” Sabine said.
“I take no responsibility for your headaches.” Isaac winked. “The rabbi says yes to the marriage. So Sarah becomes my aunt. Another one who dropped off before I was born, but he says no to Irv on his lifelong wish to become a lawyer.”
“What?” Casey and Sabine said at once.
“Lemme finish,” he answered, enjoying his hold on the women. “The rabbi says, on reading Irv’s letter and recognizing his excessive passion to become a lawyer, he has come to the conclusion that it would be a mistake. If a man loves his job far too much and has a lust for it, he will make that an idol and he would destroy his own life and his family’s.”
“So, what? Then take a job you hate?” Casey winced in her chair.
“No, he thinks you should take a job, and a job should be a job and not something that you could love more than God.” Isaac felt confused himself. “So the rabbi writes to Irv and tells him to be a silver engraver. A job for which Irv would not feel great passion.”
“That’s so crazy,” Sabine said. “I love my job. I feel so much passion for what I do.”
“Well, the rabbi would not like that, I guess.” Isaac smiled. “But so what? We’re not Jewish. And you don’t believe in God anyway, so what does it matter? Besides, it’s just one rabbi’s nutty idea.”
Casey didn’t know what to say.
Isaac raised his teacup. “He died a happy man, though, my father said. Seven sons and two daughters. He was my father’s favorite. My father always snuck around—so my grandparents wouldn’t find out—to visit him where he worked. Near the diamond district. But my father never could make sense of the religion stuff. And my mother never liked the church, either. Anyway. . .” Isaac smiled at them. “Tea?” He looked at the pot.
They both shook their heads no.
“So, you shouldn’t find the meaning of your life in your job?” Who would disagree with that? Casey thought, searching for a moral, like a faithful student writing a book report. “So you shouldn’t love work more than God.”
“Not if you’re Irv, anyway. I mean, I guess he was kind of a romantic guy. You know? My father said he knew no one smarter than his brother Irv. He did everything in an intense way. Maybe the rabbi understood that about him. Eh, what do I know?”
Casey couldn’t say what a Christian would believe. But a minister would have likely agreed on this point. The Bible was clear that idolatry was a sin, and a person could make anything an idol. Why not a job?
Sabine snorted. “I don’t believe that stuff. It’s all magic and voodoo, and I think you should just be a good person. And it’s crazy to not let a person who wants to be a lawyer be a lawyer. That’s a nice job where you could really help people.”
It was time to leave. Casey thanked her hosts and excused herself for the evening. “The dinner was delicious,” she said.
“You have to come by more,” Isaac said.
Sabine said nothing as she and her husband walked Casey to the door. She pulled out Casey’s jacket from the closet and helped her put it on. She stood in front of Casey to wrap her thin scarf around her neck, and Casey let Sabine do this. The scarf was tied elegantly—a large square knot, its ends off by an inch of material.
“I want you to be happy, Casey,” Sabine said, looking sober. “And I’m—sorry. I’m sorry I never know how to help you in the right way. It’s just that I don’t know how to love. Without taking over.” She started to cry.
A grown-up had never apologized to her before, and Casey didn’t know what to say. She was a grown-up, too, but around Sabine and Isaac, she still felt like a girl.
“No, no, Sabine. Please don’t cry.” She took her friend’s hand into her own. And in her mind, Casey was telling her how much she loved her, how complicated it was between them, and how she’d be lost without her. There was a debt, and loyalty, too, and so much affection. But Casey said nothing of how she felt inside. The words just swam inside her head. Isaac put his arm around Casey and reached over to kiss his wife’s forehead. Watching the kiss, Casey thought, A blessing must feel like that.
4 PRICE
THERE WERE TWENTY-ONE BUSINESS SCHOOL STUDENTS in her summer intern class at Kearn Davis, and Casey had a lot to prove. Rumor had it that only sixteen of them would get permanent offers. Hugh Underhill would neither confirm nor deny this (as he was unwilling to ask his buddy Charlie Seedham, who served as Casey’s summer boss), but thought that holding an eight-week beauty contest was hilarious and told her so. But Walter Chin, who had joined them for drinks after Casey’s first week at work, assured her, “Oh, Casey, you’ll make the cut.” Regardless, when assignments were passed out, Casey completed whatever was given, then immediately raised her hand for more. Thankfully, Sabine had let her take a leave of absence for the summer, and for the past two weeks, since she’d started her internship, Casey had toiled both weekends at Kearn Davis on the sixth floor, where Jay Currie and Ted Kim had once worked. Her desk was only four desks down from where Jay used to sit when he was an associate.
As to have been expected, her hours were unreasonable, but Unu was trying to be as supportive as possible. On Saturday morning, he made coffee for her before she went to the office.
“I miss seeing you around here, kiddo.” Unu handed her a mug of black coffee and sat beside her.
“Oh, baby, I miss you, too,” Casey said, and she reached over and kissed him. “How are you?” she asked, feeling as if it had been a long time since she’d carefully thought about him. The frenetic summer program was packed with a wide variety of assignments and after-hours mixers. The first two weeks had zoomed by, leaving her breathless.
“Hey, you know what? I’m going to finish making that book on transportation today for Karyn, so I’ll sneak out early and take tomorrow off. If I drop off the assignment on her chair when she’s out and hide in the bathroom stall for a bit, I might not get weekend duty.” Casey raised her eyebrows and exhaled. “I can’t keep up this pace, and besides, I want to go to church on Sunday. Maybe we can have dinner tonight? Even go out. I got paid.. . .” Casey hesitated, not wanting him to feel bad about spending money. He hadn’t found work yet.
“Go away with me,” he said. “Tonight.”
“What?” She smiled in her confusion.
“To Foxwoods. You’ve never been there. We’ll get comped a room, and I’ll teach you how to play blackjack. Pack an overnight bag now, and I’ll keep it in the car, and we’ll drive from your office. It’ll be fun. And baby, I want to see you more.” Unu looked at her thoughtfully. “I think we need a date.” He moved closer and put his hands inside her bathrobe. He put his mouth on her neck, and Casey closed her eyes.
“I have to get to—”
“Shhhh,” he whispered.
Joseph McReed stood by the barbershop on Lexington Avenue, shifting his weight between his feet, his hands resting on the aluminum walker. His bus came, but he let it pass. It was a breezy June morning, and the wind caught the wisps of his white hair and blew it about his face pleasantly. Not that he expected many customers in his bookshop on a Saturday in the summer months, but he preferred to be there rather than at home by himself. He was certain that he would see her today, so when Casey walked briskly toward him a few moments later, he didn’t regret his decision to wait.
“You did come. How are you?”
“Were you waiting?” she asked, thinking that it would be lovely to be on a bus with him even for a little while. She looked forward to seeing him on Saturday mornings.
“Not long,” he said cheerfully. “How are you, dear?”
“I’m fine. This job is tough, though. I just have to nail that offer.”
“I guess you do,” he said, smiling. “I brought you something.” He lifted up a hatbox. Casey hadn’t noticed that he’d been carrying it with the hand that still leaned on the walker.
“Did you bring me a hat? One of Hazel’s?”
“Yes, I had to. It’s insufferable watching you wear these business-lady clothes. I’ve no taste for them,” he said, laughing. “I don’t think you’ll ever wear this hat to work, but I did promise to bring you one of Hazel’s hats. There are so many of them in the house.”
“Thank you. It’s so kind of you.” Casey felt intensely curious about what might be in the black hatbox, having seen marvelous old hats at FIT that her teachers had brought in as examples.
“This one she bought in London.” On the side of the round box, “Lock & Co. Hatters. St. James Street. London” was printed in old-fashioned type.
“May I?” She pointed at the box.
“Of course, you goose.”
Casey lifted the lid, and in it was a dove gray hat, like a top hat that a man might have worn to the opera at the turn of the century, but with a shorter crown. The band was a charcoal color. “Oh my. This is the most amazing—amazing thing.” Casey held it forth with both hands in wonder. It was a thing of great beauty in its craftsmanship and design.
“I think she wore it only once. It might be something a person wears for riding. My brother-in-law, John, thought it resembled a bridegroom’s wedding hat. I’m not sure. But Hazel loved this hat. She always had it out on a stand so she could see it. You know, it was the most costly hat she ever bought, too.” Joseph closed his eyes briefly at the memory of his wife in that hat. How pretty she had looked, how full of personality. She had been so girlishly proud to own a hat from the most famous hatmaker in England.
Carefully, Casey put it on her head. She looked at Joseph shyly, awaiting judgment. It was remarkable in its good fit. Head sizes were curious things and difficult to predict.
“Marvelous,” Joseph said. “Hazel would have wanted a girl just like you to wear it. I always wish we had girls in the family, there being so many of those hats, but. . .” He
smiled sadly. “I want you to have this. I wish you could have all of them. But I don’t know how you’d store them all—”
“Oh, thank you, Joseph. I love it. So much. It’s. . . it’s the most wonderful present.” Casey hugged the bookstore owner, reaching over his walker, and he hugged her back. His frail body felt small to her, and she wanted to protect him.
The bus came soon after, and they boarded it. Joseph got off first at his stop, and Casey remained until she got to midtown, but she wore the hat on the bus for the rest of the trip, feeling like a queen. As the bus approached her office building, she packed up the hat in its box. Once in the office, she hid the gift beneath her desk.
At the end of the day, Unu came not ten minutes after she phoned him. The old Volvo station wagon whirred as it came to a stop in front of her office building. He was always on time, and it meant a great deal to Casey, who was not very good at waiting. Her overnight bag was in the trunk, and the drive there took less than two hours.
One of the managers, Randy, was a friend of Unu’s from back home. He gave them meal vouchers and handed her some tokens for slot machines.
The complimentary suite was enormous but unattractive. There was a gigantic Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom as well as a shower. “I want to take a bath,” she said, her eyes brightening at the thought of a long soak. She dashed to her bag to find her toiletries. The hotel shampoo and soap weren’t nearly as nice as the things at the Carlyle Hotel. The memory of staying there the night she’d found Jay screwing those girls made her feel funny. It had been four years ago to the month. She hadn’t shared a hotel room with anyone but Jay before.
Casey pulled a towel off the rack and looked behind the door for a bathrobe. The rack fell off the door with a crash.
“Leave it,” he said. “You silly girl. You don’t come to a casino to take a bath. You can take one before going to bed. Let’s go eat. I’m starving,” he said.
The quantity of food at the buffet was obscene: industrial blocks of cheese, punch bowls full of pasta, platters of red meats and cutlets, horn-of-plenty baskets overflowing with breads and pastries. There was a whole wall dedicated to desserts. The diners piled food on their plates and tucked in quickly. Casey was very tired. She was happy to see Unu as excited as a boy, but she was desperate to go upstairs and rest.