by Brad Graber
The class was quiet as Mr. Rosenfeld looked about for someone to answer his question.
“Barbra Winer,” he called out. “We haven’t yet heard from you. Can you help shed some light on Dreiser?”
Rikki turned about and caught Barbra’s frightened look. Had she even read the book? Rikki wondered.
“Well,” Barbra tentatively began, a nervous tremor in her voice. “It’s such a sad story. And it takes place in America. So, the title totally makes sense.”
Tittering broke out among the students and Mr. Rosenfeld insisted everyone quiet down. “We don’t do that here,” he said, most indignantly. “When we discuss great writers, we all learn something valuable. I’d suggest,” he said, looking about, “that everyone here listen up. You never know what pearls of wisdom are about to be presented.”
The room was once again quiet.
“And do you feel,” Mr. Rosenfeld directed the question to Barbra, “that it’s a story that resonates today?”
Barbra nervously twirled a jet-black curl, seemingly lost in thought.
Mr. Rosenfeld slid down to sit on the edge of his desk as he waited.
“Yes,” she finally blurted out, to Rikki’s immense relief. “The desire to succeed, to be better than your parents, is still a powerful story. But I think,” and as she said the words her eyes brightened, “if Dreiser were telling the story today, it might be about an undocumented immigrant. That seems to be the modern story of struggle and injustice,” she announced, head held high.
“Very good, Barbra,” Mr. Rosenfeld was up on his feet. “Bravo. I think you’re right.”
◆
“That was impressive,” Rikki said as she and Barbra pushed their way through the crowd of students heading into the cafeteria. “You really pulled that one out.”
Barbra laughed. “I did have a moment there.”
“Did you even read the book?” Rikki quietly asked, conspiratorially.
“Of course,” Barbra snapped back.
Rikki gave her a sideways glance that left little doubt that she didn’t believe her.
“I did,” Barbra insisted before offering a short giggle. “But that question! Who expects that kind of question?”
Rikki nodded in agreement. “I just wish he’d get off Dreiser. You’d think they were lovers,” she said off-handedly.
Barbra quickly turned to her friend, grabbing her arm. “Oh, my God. Do you think Mr. Rosenfeld is gay?”
Rikki had never given it a thought. As far as she was concerned, Mr. Rosenfeld had no existence outside of the classroom. And certainly no sexuality. None of the adults with whom she interacted seemed in any way sexual. “I have no idea,” she innocently answered. “How would I know?”
“Oh, Rikki,” Barbra said in a shrill voice. “I think you hit on something. I think he is!” she said, with the wonder of having discovered the meaning of life.
“Don’t be so silly,” Rikki answered, increasingly uncomfortable with the discussion. “How could anyone know that? And what does it matter?”
Barbra’s eyes bulged as she leaned forward and whispered in Rikki’s ear. “You know how parents are. They wouldn’t like knowing that their child is being taught by a gay teacher.”
Rikki sneered. “It’s not a disease, Barbra. You can’t catch it.”
“Maybe not,” Barbra answered, pretending to be aloof to Rikki’s admonition. “But it’s nice to have something on him.”
Rikki was shocked by Barbra’s suggestion. “Barbra, what are you talking about? You wouldn’t dare do anything to hurt him. He’s such a nice man. And he hasn’t bothered us.”
“So you do believe he’s gay,” Barbra said, jabbing a finger in Rikki’s direction.
Rikki shrugged.
“He keeps calling on us in class.”
“He does that with everyone,” Rikki answered.
“Well, I don’t like it,” Barbra said as she opened her Tupperware bowl and began to mix her salad with a white plastic fork.
“You’re just lucky you had such a great answer in class,” Rikki told her friend.
“No,” Barbra said ominously. “He’s lucky.”
◆
“But you can be an artist in New York City,” her mother said during one of their many Sunday evening long distance phone calls. El closed her eyes in disbelief.
It was April 1977 and college graduation was just around the corner.
“Mom, forget it,” El said, exasperated after discussing the same subject every Sunday. “I’m not coming back to Queens.”
There was an awkward silence. El held her tongue and waited. She knew that if she spoke first, Rita would think she’d have to get in the last word. The moments seemed to pass slowly as mother and daughter reached a stalemate.
Rita was the first to break. “I just don’t know what I did to make you turn against me.”
Unable to control herself, El let out a deep laugh. The more Rita tried to paint herself as the victim, the more confident El was in her decision. “Okay, Mom,” she said, cutting off the conversation, happy she’d won out. “I’ll speak to you next week. I’ve got to run.”
“But wait, El,” Rita begged, unwilling to let the conversation end. “What about graduation? We haven’t spoken about graduation. Should I come up for the day? I only ask because your brother will come up from Cornell and then I’d have to stay overnight with him in a motel and you know how I feel about that.”
El hated it when Rita talked about Richard. She could be so mean.
“If I have to stay in the same room with him, I’m going to make him wear a muzzle. Last time he was home he told me, ‘You’re one crazy bitch.’ Nice, huh, talking to your mother that way?”
El’s heart went out to her little brother. He’d written her letters regularly since she’d left for college—filled with things Rita had said, or worse, did. “She says I’m the smartest moron she ever met,” Richard complained. “I just placed in the top ten in my class and she thinks I’m a moron.”
It had been rough since El had left. She was relieved when Richard headed off to Cornell through an early-admissions program on a full scholarship. But distance didn’t seem to solve the problem between mother and son. El couldn’t help but wonder what caused Rita to treat Richard so poorly.
“He thinks he’s better than all of us,” Rita would complain. “All smartass and fresh.”
El sighed. It seemed, from as far back as she could remember, Rita had disliked him. And then amid one of Rita’s rants, El had simply posed the question. “Mom, tell me. What is it about Richard that you don’t like?”
Rita had seemed taken aback by the question. “What do you mean?” she had said indignantly. “I love both my children.”
El had only to give her mother a knowing tilt of the head before Rita confessed.
“I don’t know,” she lamented. “A mother should love her children. I know that intuitively. But what do you do when you don’t? There’s no book to consult on that one. Trust me,” Rita said, an index finger wagging at El. “Dr. Spock never wrote about that.”
“But when did you first know?” El pressed.
“Know what?” Rita asked, feigning ignorance.
El’s jaw jutted forward. “That you didn’t like him.”
Rita thought for a moment. “It was one of the times when your father walked out on me.”
“What? You two had split before?”
“Yes,” Rita admitted. “This was the first time. And, of course, Richard was sick again. There I was. At my wit’s end, and Richard demanded my attention. He was throwing up and he had diarrhea. It was disgusting. I spent the night cleaning up after him and doing the laundry. It was as if he knew all I wanted to do was be left alone—but he had to have my attention.”
The mere memory produced a sour look on Rita’s face.
“How old was he?” El wanted to know.
“Two,” she said quickly.
El could hardly believe her ears. “Two? When he
was two, you decided you didn’t like him?”
Rita simply nodded. “That’s right. Two.”
◆
“I’ve had it with that bitch,” Barbra hissed. The background noise of the crowded cafeteria was deafening. “I should hire a hitman to kill her.”
Rikki had heard it all before. Barbra hated her stepmother. There seemed nothing the woman could do that was ever right. “What happened now?” Rikki asked, more out of exasperation than sympathy.
“She thinks I should consider applying to ROTC. Me!” Barbra said most emphatically, a finger nervously twirling a lock of black hair into a tight knot.
Rikki listened, intent on saying nothing until Barbra had gotten it all out of her system.
“Jews don’t do ROTC,” Barbra squealed. “Our parents pay for our college education.” She spat the statement out as if it had been written in the Talmud.
Rikki nodded her head, not so much because she agreed, but because she couldn’t imagine Barbra in military garb. How could she ever get that beehive hairdo under a helmet?
“She wants me gone,” Barbra said, sliding her uneaten salad aside. “Killed in action. Dead. Out of here.”
Rikki had no idea what to say. Instead, she moved closer to her friend, rubbing Barbra’s back in a circular motion.
A female voice asked, “What’s going on?”
Rikki turned and locked eyes with Janet, a tall, red-headed girl, with fierce green eyes and a striking figure, wearing a sweater dress so tight that Rikki wondered how she didn’t blush just walking through the hallways. Her long hair was slicked back into a ponytail, and even though she was very beautiful, it was hard for Rikki to truly see her. Meanness clouded any external effect that Janet attempted to create.
Janet leaned down, too close, the glint in her eye threatening. “What are you two lesbos up to?” she said with a nasty smirk on her face.
“What?” Rikki pretended as if she hadn’t heard her.
“Deaf too?” Janet said it so loud that Rikki blushed.
“Go away,” Rikki pleaded, still rubbing Barbra’s back. “Can’t you see Barbra’s upset?”
“All I can see,” Janet said, “is that you and your little missus are in love.”
Rikki paled. “We’re not scared of you.”
“Really?” Janet pulled hard on Rikki’s chair, momentarily shifting Rikki off balance.
“Everything all right here?” Mr. Rosenfeld said, appearing out of nowhere.
Janet backed away.
Barbra wiped her eyes.
Rikki smiled awkwardly.
“Good,” he said, looking intently at Janet. He nodded his head in the direction of where Janet’s friends were sitting. The table of seven girls was looking over. “Then we should all be eating our lunches.” Janet abruptly turned and left. “You girls okay?” he asked again, this time taking notice of Barbra’s red eyes.
Rikki and Barbra meekly nodded, and Rikki offered a weak smile.
“Rikki, have you thought any more about that essay contest?”
Rikki had put it completely out of her mind.
“Don’t make a mistake and lose an opportunity,” he warned. “When you get to be my age, you’ll learn that opportunities are few and far between. If you want something, you’ve got to grab for it.”
Rikki listened, but she had no idea what he was talking about. It was just an essay contest.
“You should enter it,” Barbra agreed.
Rikki wondered if she was saying that since Mr. Rosenfeld had ushered Janet away.
“Take my advice,” Mr. Rosenfeld said as he scanned the lunchroom, his attention slowly drifting away. “Grab the first lifeline that’s offered.” A loud clatter and laughter drifted from across the room, the sound of a tray dropping to the floor, and Mr. Rosenfeld was gone.
“Did you see that shirt he was wearing?” Barbra remarked to Rikki.
Mr. Rosenfeld had been dressed in a white shirt with pink stripes topped by a bow tie of bright blue that matched the color of his eyes.
“What a fag,” Barbra snickered.
◆
“I should never have come back here,” El sighed as she lowered the volume on the portable black-and-white television Rita kept atop the kitchen counter. Walter Cronkite had just announced that David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer, had received twenty years to life. “Who does such a thing, running around the city, shooting innocent kids in their cars?”
“It can happen anywhere,” Rita assured her as she cleared the dishes from the table. “Now, don’t forget. Put the gloves on first.”
El gave her mother a dismissive glance. “Like suddenly I don’t know how to do this,” she snapped back as she opened the Revlon box and removed the plastic bottle before opening the packet of Playtex gloves. “God, I hate these things,” she said as she pulled on the yellow rubber gloves, wiggling her fingers as they slipped into place. Holding her hands up in the air she announced, “I’m ready. Where’s that dime they’re always talking about?”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Rita sniffed, as she dried the last plate with a red kitchen towel and put it away. “How you do go on.”
El examined the plastic bottle now mixed with the solution and gave it another shake. “When was the last time we did this?”
“Who remembers?” Rita answered, now seated in front of the kitchen sink wearing a plastic poncho. She flattened down the front of her hair to show El the gray roots. “I’m just glad you’re home. It’s a big world out there. But you have only one home. And that, my darling, is here with me.”
“Now that’s depressing,” El countered. “You know, this is only short-term.”
El sighed. She hated the whole affair. Mixing the henna. The smell. Slipping on the rubber gloves. Parting her mother’s hair in strategic spots to apply the dye. And the mess. It always seemed the dye got everywhere.
“Mom, I don’t understand. Why can’t you go to a hairdresser like everyone else?”
Rita shifted, sliding the chair closer to the sink. “Of course I can. Have you looked around lately?” she said, waving her hand about the small galley kitchen. “This isn’t a mere two-bedroom apartment—it’s an estate on Long Island. My name isn’t Rita Goldenbaum. I’m Lady Astor. Come to think of it, I’ll be wearing those lovely yellow gloves tonight with my ball gown when the Prince picks me up.”
“Prince Spaghetti?” El added.
“Oh well, yes. I like all my beaus to be made of semolina.”
El just shook her head. “Sometimes I think this is the only reason you wanted me to move back to Queens. So you could save money by having me do your hair.”
Rita laughed. “I love having you here,” she admitted, her voice uncharacteristically tender. “I can’t help it if I like being with my daughter,” she said turning to look at El as she grabbed a rubber-gloved hand. “I can’t help how I feel.”
El smiled. She loved Rita. Absolutely. And yet, she also knew that she had to get out of Queens.
“I know this is not for you,” Rita admitted, leaning forward as El searched for the first spot to apply the dye. “I know you aspire to bigger and better things in life.”
“I’m going to be a famous artist, Ma. You’ll see. One day, my work will hang in the New York City galleries.”
“Oh, El,” Rita moaned. “Why not use your talent to make real money? You’ve been to college. You’re a smart girl. Apply yourself and maybe you could live in Manhattan.”
El applied the cold, wet dye to her mother’s scalp.
Rita held a paper towel to catch any stray liquid that might drip onto her face. “I know how you feel about painting, but wouldn’t it be more practical to start a career with a chance of success? Something within reach. As an interior decorator?”
El had heard it all before. Rita had nagged for years that the idea of being an artist was absurd. “Jewish girls from Queens don’t live to hang in the Louvre,” she was fond of saying. “They live to carry Louis Vuitton.”
/> “Mother,” El repeated, irritated by rehashing the same point. “I want to paint. I want to do faces. It’s thrilling to capture the essence of a person in oil. Can you understand what I’m saying?”
Rita leaned forward as El added more dye to the back of her crown. “Darling,” she answered, her voice low, “the only oil I’ve ever been interested in comes from Texas. The rest is Crisco to me.”
El rolled her eyes. There was no point arguing. Not unless she wanted to hear more of her mother’s sass. And she’d already heard enough.
“Hon,” Rita’s voice had softened. “How do you think I’d look in that Dorothy Hamill haircut?”
5
Rikki pleaded with Rita. “I want to go. Please . . .” An uneaten plate of spaghetti sat before her. Despite Rikki’s request, Rita had not stopped serving pasta. Rikki had read in Cosmo that pasta was her enemy. “I’ll be with Barbra’s family,” she said. She held her hands before her in entreaty.
“No way,” Rita said as she began to twirl pasta about her fork. She leaned forward and popped the ball of gluten into her mouth.
“But why not?” Rikki demanded to know.
Rita finished chewing. She dabbed each corner of her mouth with a tip of the napkin. “I don’t like the idea of two young girls traveling alone on Amtrak. God only knows what can happen.”
“Are you kidding?” Rikki could hardly believe her ears. “We live in Queens. Since when is this neighborhood so safe? Just last week, someone was mugged around the corner. And the Chinese laundry was robbed two months ago. And you drive me to school every day. It seems to me that Amtrak couldn’t be much worse.”
Rita twirled another forkful. “It’s not just that. Amtrak is unreliable. And they’ve have a lot of accidents,” she said shaking her head defiantly. “We just can’t risk it. You’re too precious. And far too young.”
Rikki clenched her fists. When Rita’s mind was made up, it was impossible to change it. “Then I’ll go without your approval.”