I Can Get It for You Wholesale (33 page)

“Anything you want, Ma?”

“No,” she said, “nothing.”

“Don’t be bashful, now, Ma,” I said. “And don’t worry about my spending money. Anything I buy for you, I can get it for you wholesale, so don’t worry.”

“Thanks, Heshie,” she said. “I don’t need anything. If you want, if it’s not too much trouble, you could send me two or three small checks, instead of one big one. It’s easier that way for the grocery man to cash. But that’s all. Only if it’s not too much trouble—”

“No trouble at all, Ma,” I said. “I’ll do that.”

We were both quiet for a time.

“Where were you all afternoon, Ma?” I said. “I been trying to ring you since two o’clock.”

“Couldn’t be, Heshie,” she said. “I only went out a little after half-past two.”

“Maybe I got the time wrong, Ma,” I said.

“Must be.”

“Where were you?”

“Where should I be? I went out in the park a little, to sit in the sun.”

“That’s fine, Ma. I want you should take care of yourself.”

“All right,” she said.

“Keeping you busy these days, Ma?”

“With what? What should I be busy with? I don’t even have to cook any more.”

“You want to cook, Ma?”

“What?”

“I mean, you’d like to cook to-night, Ma?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Hello?” I said. “Hello, hello?”

“Hello.”

“I said, Ma, would you want to cook to-night?”

“Sure,” she said. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m getting lonesome for a good meal,” I said.

“You mean you’ll—?”

“That’s right, Ma,” I said. “You cook me a meal to-night, and I’ll come home. And I’ll sleep over, too. What do you think of that?”

Damned if I wasn’t working up an appetite already.

“You mean it, Heshie?”

“You bet,” I said. “And not only that. You be a good girl, Ma, and I’ll bring you home—”

“Don’t bring me no presents, Heshie,” she said quickly. “I don’t want you should spend—”

“Who said I’m going to spend? You let me handle this, will you? You just do the cooking. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said, and laughed at how funny the word sounded when she said it. I laughed, too.

“Say, Ma?”

“Yeah?”

“You know what I’d like to eat to-night?”

“Blintzes,” she said.

“Right,” I said. “Do I get them?”

“What a question! Of course!”

She sounded lonesome.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll be right home.”

“All right,” she said.

“Good-bye, Ma.”

“Good-bye, Heshalle.”

I walked into the back, whistling, to look for Meyer.

“Those dresses ready yet, Meyer?”

“A few minutes, Harry. The boy is wrapping them,” he said.

I waited until they were folded into the box and tied and took them. I went into my office for my hat and stopped at the switchboard on my way out.

“I’m leaving for the day,” I said to the girl.

She looked at me, a bit frightened, and said, “Yes, Mr. Bo—”

I put my hand on her lips quickly and grinned.

“Save it for to-morrow,” I said, and went out.

I got a seat in the subway, but I gave it to a woman at Ninety-Sixth Street. I like to do things once, just to see how they make you feel.

One mistake I almost made, though. I was a good block past the bakery on the corner of Daly Avenue and 180th Street before I remembered about the cheese cake and the
Stollen.
I went back and bought them.

When I turned into Honeywell Avenue I saw her leaning out of the window, watching for me. I shifted the packages to one arm and waved to her with my free one. She waved back and I quickened my step.

She opened the door and threw her arms around me without a word. I kissed her several times and then lifted her bodily, packages and all, and carried her into the kitchen.

“Heshie!” she said, when I set her down.

“In person, Ma,” I said. “How’s the girl?”

“Fine,” she said, “and you?”

“I didn’t feel so good in the morning, but I feel okay now.”

“What’s the matter?”

“I was hungry for blintzes.”

She laughed and took the boxes out of my hands.

“Let me see what kind of foolishness you went and spent your money on now.”

The first package she opened was from the bakery. She broke off a corner of the cheese cake, the way she always did, and nibbled at it while she smiled happily.

“You never forget your mother, hah, Heshie?”

“You bet, Mom,” I said. “Just take a look in the other box.”

She dusted the crumbs of cheese cake from her fingers and opened the second box.

“I’ve got so
many
dresses already, Heshie,” she said, “I don’t know when to wear them all. You didn’t have to spend money—”

“I didn’t spend any,” I said. “I had these made up for you in the place.”

“Yeah, sure,” she said derisively. “You had them made up in the place! Since when such a high-class firm like yours they make dresses this size, big like elephants?”

“We don’t,” I said. “But for you, Mom, we make anything. I wanted you to wear the same kind of dresses the young girls wear, and they should still be built for you, not for somebody thinner, so they don’t fit.”

For a moment her face took on a serious look.

“Dresses don’t help, Heshie,” she said quietly.

“Yes, they do, Ma,” I said. “Everything helps.”

She folded them back into the box and said, “Thanks, Heshie.”

“That’s all right, Ma,” I said. “Forget it.”

She went out of the room to put the dresses away, and I went to the gas range. Nothing was on the fire.

“Nothing cooking yet, Ma?” I asked when she came back into the room. “I’m starved.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, glancing at the clock. “You won’t die from hunger. It’s not even seven yet. So we’ll eat a little later to-night, so what’ll be?”

“Nothing,” I said with a laugh. “I was just hungry, that’s all.”

“So all right,” she said. “Come on, you’ll help me.”

I rolled up my sleeves and she tied an apron around me.

“Boy,” I said, “if some of those buyers could see me now!”

“So what do you think would be? Such a terrible thing it isn’t.”

“Who said it’s terrible? I even like it, for crying out loud.”

“Yeah, you like it. Well, for being such a big liar,” she said, “here, you can peel the potatoes.”

We worked in silence for almost a half hour, but it wasn’t as much fun as I’d expected it to be. After a while my thumb began to hurt from pushing the back of the knife across the potatoes. And I was getting hungrier by the minute. But I didn’t say anything. She seemed happy and contented, smiling to herself as she worked, and once in a while at me. But she didn’t work fast and I didn’t want to rush her. She looked at the clock two or three times, and by the time the blintzes were almost ready, she began to look a little worried.

Promptly at eight the doorbell rang, and her face cleared. Even before she answered it, I understood why she had been stalling the meal, and I knew who it was. And I decided, in those few seconds between the ringing of the bell and the sound of voices out in the foyer, that I wasn’t going to make a scene, either. Because it didn’t matter any more. The old magic no longer worked. I wasn’t worried. I knew I could handle myself.

Mother led me into the kitchen, smiling.

“Look who I invited to supper, Heshie.”

“Hello, Ruthie,” I said, taking her hand, and smiling. “Mom didn’t tell me you were coming. If I’d known, I’d’ve kept my coat on.”

“That’s all right,” she said, smiling back. “You don’t have to stand on ceremony for
me
, Harry.”

I let the smile on my face freeze into a slightly sarcastic grin. Then, slowly, I lit a cigarette, holding her eyes with mine through my cupped hands and the faint haze of smoke and flame from the match. She dropped her eyes and blushed. I wiped the grin off as I turned toward Mother to drop the match into the sink.

“Come on, Ruthie,” Mother said, putting her arm around her. “Come and take your things off.”

While they were out of the room I got an idea. I knew that unless I did something, this thing would drag on forever. Since mother, apparently, didn’t believe me when I said no, the trick was to scare the pants off her candidate. Knocking her off would have done the trick, but since, for reasons that I
still
couldn’t figure out completely, that had been a flop, there had to be another answer. And I thought at that moment that I had it.

“You know, Ma,” I said when they came back into the room, “if we don’t get something to eat pretty soon, not only will I starve, but the whole damn evening’ll be killed, too.”

“A guarantee that you won’t starve,” she said, “I can give you. And for the other, tell me, you got something better to do to-night than to sit here at home with us?”

“That’s not the idea, Ma. Maybe Ruthie and I want to go out some place, or something like that? When are we going to go, eleven o’clock?”

Mother’s face brightened at once.

“Oh,” she said, “why didn’t you
tell
me you and Ruthie had a date?”

“Did you ask me?” I said, winking broadly at Ruthie.

She blushed and said, “Oh, Harry, I don’t know if we should leave your mother all alone like this—?”

Mother pushed her into a chair playfully.

“Don’t be a dope,” she said. “An old woman like me, I got something better to do than to sit listening to the radio—you saw the new radio, Ruthie, that Heshie bought me?—and read the
Forward
?”

“Well, you could start dishing out blintzes,” I said. “That would be better than reading the
Forward
.”

“We’ll see how hungry you are when the food is on the table,” she said, and began to serve.

Mother did most of the talking during the meal, and Ruthie did most of the listening. I had plenty of time to observe her. This time it was curiosity. After to-night I’d probably never see her again. So I thought I might just as well try to see if I could figure her out. Because while I knew, now, that I was safe from whatever it was about her that had made me forget temporarily what my eyesight and my intelligence told me, still, I had to admit, she was an unknown quantity. It was one thing to get wise to the fact that a soft face and a gentle smile were making a sucker out of you. It was another thing to look beneath the skin and the smile to figure out why you knew they weren’t fake.

And looking at her as she smiled and nodded at Mother, I had it. Aside from that warmth and gentleness that drew you, there was nothing. She had no more personality than Babushkin, maybe less. At least he stood out in your mind as a dope. But when you thought of Ruthie Rivkin you thought of a gentle, warm smile. You didn’t think of a person. She was a lump of meat with an attractive cover.

Coming to that conclusion made me feel a little better about what I was going to do. And it made it easier to face the job. But it was worth spending one lousy evening to get rid of her for good and all.

“You sure there’s nothing I can get you, Ma?” I said as we stood in the doorway, ready to leave.

“Positive,” she said. “Only remember, Heshie, don’t forget the address here where you live.”

“Don’t worry, Ma,” I said. “I’m coming home to-night. And if you’re a good girl, I’ll stay home all day to-morrow, too. What do you think of that?”

“Hoo-hah!”
she said, shaking her head. “You sure you feel all right?”

“Of course I feel all right.”

I pinched her cheek.

“Have a nice time,” she said.

I was glad that wasn’t an order.

“We will,” I said.

“Good night, Mrs. Bogen,” Ruthie said.

“Good night, Ruthalle,” Mother said, touching her arm for a few seconds.

In the street Ruthie said, “Maybe we shouldn’t have left your mother alone like that.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “She likes it.”

We walked toward 180th Street and turned right, going toward the subway.

“Where would you like to go?” I said.

“Oh, I don’t care,” she said slowly. “Any place you want to go.”

Some day she’d actually prod that brain of hers into a suggestion, and I’d drop dead from the shock.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” I said. “I haven’t been to Coney Island for a long time, now. What do you say we take the subway out there and give the place a whirl?”

She looked startled, but didn’t say anything. I grinned to myself.

“That okay with you?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Let’s go, then,” I said.

I took her arm to help her cross the gutter, and then released it. At the foot of the subway station I bought two papers and we climbed the stairs.

“You want one of these?” I said, offering her one of the papers when we were settled in our seats.

“No, thanks,” she said.

I shrugged and turned to my paper. All the way downtown I read. Once or twice I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. She was sitting quietly, staring straight ahead of her, her eyes unblinking. Good, I said to myself. Maybe she was getting wise, finally.

At Forty-Second Street we got out and changed to the B.M.T. I offered the paper to her again, but she shook her head slightly and smiled. I guess I should have got her a picture book. I folded the paper and put it under the seat. Then I opened the second paper and read that clear out to Stillwell Avenue.

“Well,” I said, “here we are. Any particular thing you want to do first?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

“Suppose we get over to the boardwalk, then,” I said.

We crossed Surf Avenue, went past the concessions, and climbed the incline to the boardwalk. It was a comfortably cool night, with a light, steady wind blowing in from the ocean. The boardwalk was crowded, but not badly. We edged into the stream of people moving up the boardwalk slowly, and walked along, listening to the barkers roaring their spiels into microphones that sent them out so loud that they didn’t make sense.

Aside from the job I had to do, I was glad I’d come. There was something about the craziness of the place that got me.

“How about a drink of something?” I said.

“All right,” she said.

We stood in front of a stand and drank root beer. A custard-making machine caught my eye. I bought two cones and gave her one.