Too Jewish (19 page)

It took a moment to figure out what that meant. It meant everything. Bernie was all right. And what did Axel leave him with? In particular, I meant. I was feeling like a girl who'd just been asked for her hand in marriage. "I'm sorry," Bernie said. "I'm sidetracked. Axel says the only way to win is for him to buy the building."

"What?" I was delighted. I'd never known a good person to have money power before.

"He says for me to make the offer. He'll front me the cash."

"Is there a problem that it's not for sale?" I said.

"Axel said everything's for sale."

* * *

I won't say Axel met his match in Daddy. I will say Daddy got more than he bargained for in Axel. The landlord had no intention to sell: it was a good piece of property because it was a half block from Canal Street. Canal Street was never going to go down in value. All the finest department stores were there. Everyone in town shopped on Canal Street, which divided the entire city. Downtown and uptown. But Bernie made an offer, and the landlord promptly called Daddy. I dare anyone to say men don't gossip. There was no other reason to call him.

But Daddy thought it was a request for bids. I learned this from my mother, who threw herself right into the fray. Daddy asked what Bernie offered, but he didn't ask where Bernie got the money. He didn't care. He was too furious. He offered five hundred more. The landlord said he didn't plan on selling, and he probably meant it. Daddy offered another two hundred. The landlord called Bernie back, and the bidding was on.

It took three days. Axel quit making much business sense: he wanted to wreck my father. He was protective of Bernie. Daddy never made sense to begin with. He was an investment broker, so he didn't have liquid assets. He was going to have some capital losses. I didn't know what that meant, but my mother said it the way she might say "tuberculosis."

Finally, I came up with the decision.

Bernie and Axel would let Daddy buy the building, and Daddy would be the new landlord. Then Bernie would refuse to sign a new lease, and he'd move out. With the money he was saving on rent, we'd get a new place to live. Not a new apartment, a house for rent, if we could, and we surely could. New Orleans was mostly houses. Bernie would use the front of the house for an office. That was what people did in New Orleans, except on Versailles Boulevard.

My father called me. "He set me up," he said. He was cold furious.

I didn't say anything.

"Where did he get the money?" Daddy said. "Come to think of it, I bet he didn't have a dime going into this. It was all a scam. What did I do to that man besides try to help him out?"

"Bernie has a business partner," I said. "You know you can't make an offer on real estate without proof of funds."

"I didn't see his business partner paying his rent."

I didn't want to get stuck in this conversation. I wasn't going to win it, and it was a win-or-lose conversation. "Let's not talk about this," I said.

"Listen, Missy, I don't know about that dummy you married, but you think you're too smart for words. And you're going to be sorry you're such an ingrate."

I frankly didn't see that happening.

Bernie was lucky. It didn't take long for my mother to find sabotage boring. She preferred direct wormholes. Bernie was unlucky. He could sabotage himself as well as my mother could. Fortunately he wasn't too successful at it.

My mother might walk into a shop with attitude. "Hmph," she'd say and pick up a pillbox from Bernie's line. "Not his best," she'd say. The owners were used to her. Maybe her judgment worked subtly, but probably not enough. Bernie's lack of enthusiasm was more effective. He was no Axel. He walked into shops with a here-I-am-again expression, or so I imagined.

We were doing all right, but just all right. I didn't mind. One night I asked Bernie what he'd expected as a boy. "My mother called me her little professor," he said. I asked if that was what he expected. "I don't think you can separate what your parents expect from what you expect," he said.

I had to mull that one over.

Darby was almost ten. We were thinking about our childhood selves, but we were parents.

"I taught myself," Bernie said. "My mother never paid attention to what I was learning after I left school. Women weren't educated in her generation. She saw nothing but the thickness of my books. She'd say, Such a big book!' I could have brought home a world atlas with no text, and she'd never have known the difference. Actually, I did bring home a world atlas."

"You should have gone back on the G.I. Bill," I said.

"There should have been an equivalency exam," he said. "I didn't need to sit in a classroom to do everything over. And for what?"

"For credentials."

"Your father wouldn't hire me. Who hires people with accents?"

"Tulane." I'd had a lot of professors with accents.

Bernie took some time answering. I thought that meant he wasn't going to tell the truth. "Oh, well," he said finally.

I knew the truth. I hadn't liked going to school, not when my parents would find out how I did and never be satisfied. Bernie was now in my old predicament. I was sure he expected my parents would see one B on his grade report and use it against him. He could try to hide it, but they had their ways.

I had to talk to Bernie that night, and I was dreading it. As I said, my mother had her new wormholes. Once Daddy lost his control of the rent, she moved in. And she found a much weaker opening than Bernie's office.

Darby.

It had all started when Darby was three. "That child can't sit around and look at you all day," my mother said. I saw some truth in that. I took her to Danneel Park. Other children baffled her. She was full of fantasy. Other children wanted to strive. To swing. To push the merry-go-round faster. To run. Darby wanted to stand too long at the top of the slide. She was Rapunzel. No, she was a pterodactyl. We sat on the bench, and I learned to bring a book along.

My mother insisted on nursery school. I saw where that was going right away. Nursery school was not free. "I guarantee you that ninety percent of all kids in nursery school are being paid for by grandparents," my mother said. JCC and Valencia were my two choices. Newcomb was all filled up even though I went to Newcomb for college, and I'd have thought that counted for something. The other two were uptown. Uptown with a lower case "u", meaning location. We lived nearby. They also were Uptown with an upper case "U", meaning snootiness. Especially Valencia, which was brand new. JCC was all Jewish. Valencia tolerated paying Jews, as long as they were small. Valencia wasn't crazy about teenage Jews. It was opened so the debutante set could have lovely parties. Darby looked like her father. My mother figured she'd get into Valencia in ten years, especially with a name like Cooper. Bernie actually didn't care. I'd have thought he'd ask for the JCC where the kids would learn to say the shema and make latkes. Bernie had stayed home with his mother when it had cost nothing, and no grandmother had paid. I drove past the carpool gates. My mother might have been right. Some mothers drove cars that said their husbands were on the partner track, but others had cars like mine. They came from money, but weren't headed toward it. They probably had good complexions. My mother said social class was measured by complexion. Surely she didn't mean it.

Once I had made myself believe it was something almost everyone did, I assured Bernie that everyone relied on grandparent money. It was no reflection on us. My mother couldn't feel she was doing something special. Darby went to JCC. She was going to be a normal girl.

But Darby spent most of her days with Lydia, the Negro classroom assistant. Lydia was her substitute mother all morning, every morning. They stayed alone in the room during outdoor play time. They jabbered. They did puzzles. Lydia read books to her. Darby got into the car one noon and said, "How the cow go?" "The cow goes moo," I said, no harm done. But she wasn't there to control adults. She wasn't even there to become another Bernie. She was there to be comfortable as a child. I told her teacher to lock her out of the room at play time. Darby made a friend, and that was what Darby did for three years. Each year she made one friend, and Lydia clucked with pride.

I hadn't seen it coming. My mother knew what she was doing. I thought nursery school was for a happy child. My mother thought it was for a happy grandmother. The JCC was Jewish all right, but the kind of Jewish my mother just
loved.
Before it was the JCC, it had been an orphanage. I didn't know why children weren't afraid of it. It looked like a Charles Addams cartoon, red brick gothic. And in my generation, all the kids went for manual training up the avenue to what was now Newman School. The JCC was Newman Jewish.

Newman School. I went. My mother had gone. Ted went. Of course Shirley also went, so nothing was perfect in my mother's estimation. It was the best school anywhere in the South. Or so we were led to believe. We might have gone to school with orphans, but they were Jewish orphans. That didn't bother my mother. The lines were drawn, social lines, between us and the orphans. The orphans went back down the avenue after school. And they weren't stupid. They were Jewish, after all. That was one good thing about being Jewish, my parents were the first to admit.

Kids who went to JCC Nursery went to Newman. As I said, my mother knew what she was doing. Darby would be the smart kind of Jewish. Rich with deep roots. My mother would have something to show off.

"You can't let Darby be a freak," she said.

We lived ten blocks from Lusher. It was a public school. Free. I thought that was a good plan.

"You can't take her away from everyone who's familiar," my mother said. Of course she said this in front of Darby as she knelt down. "Do you know about Newman School?" she said to Darby.

"Ellen's going to Newman School," Darby said. Ellen was one of her three friends. "She knows she's going because her brothers go. Everybody else is going if they can get in. You have to be smart to get in."

My mother stood up slowly. But not like someone getting a little arthritic. More like a woman triumphant. "You see? Darby knows what's going on." She looked down her nose at Darby. "Are you smart?"

"Cut it out," I said.

Darby shrugged. I hadn't made her a competitive type. She was an only child, and she didn't need to be a striver.

My mother got her way because Darby was my weakness. I couldn't use Darby to prove a point, and my mother knew it. When Darby was five, she walked into kindergarten at Newman School. Bernie didn't care. He said he saw some good in it, and he'd quit seeing the harm in my mother paying. "Just take the money for something valuable," he said. "Otherwise she's going to throw it at you for something useless."

Now I had to talk to Bernie. Darby was ten now, and my mother needed a new game. I didn't like it, but I still hoped I might win it.

* * *

When Darby was in second grade, my mother had become bored with the thanklessness of paying for Newman and had compounded the load.

"This is not a house for a Newman student," she had said.

We definitely were not moving. Ours was a converted Victorian double, an architectural prize, a house only found in New Orleans. Close to Maple Street with its drugstore and snowball stand and grocery and gas stations. Close to Tulane. Shaded by oak trees. I was proud of our house.

"I mean it's sloppy," she said. That hadn't been her meaning.

"Then you come clean it," I said. Talk about a slob. Without Louise, she'd have been in a sty. She and Daddy hadn't picked up a towel in their entire lives or washed a pair of underwear. My mother did not know what cleanser was.

"I'll hire you a maid," she said.

"Is that a question or an announcement?" I said.

"It's a gift."

I didn't want a maid. Louise was in her house all day, so Louise was in her business all day. She had no privacy. Well, she had privacy because she had two stories, now that I was gone. She used to have two or three servants. But in my house it would be different. I'd have a guest from morning until evening. I'd have to stay dressed and be entertaining. I'd have to keep things neat. Besides, this was one more way my mother could pay for something I couldn't afford. No.

"She's coming at two o'clock," my mother said. It was ten minutes before two.

Rena showed up at two on the dot, and I couldn't tell her no. She was tall and reed-thin, and she read my mother right away. She knew how to be quiet. "Who I'm a work for?" she said. Nice as you please. She was going to be my friend. And Bernie's. And Darby's. My mother was going to treat us to Rena. Not a maid, but a Rena. All right.

Bernie had been furious that night when he came home and heard about Rena. A maid was wrong on so many levels. Of course he wanted life easier for me. He hoped I knew he would hire help if we could afford it, but right then a maid was nothing more than pretentious. And a maid paid for by my mother was downright dangerous. "She'll get us so accustomed to hired help that we'll depend on it," Bernie said. "I'm already nervous every year when tuition time comes around. You know your mother is just waiting to pull the rug out."

When he met Rena the next morning, he reacted the same way I did. She was like Newman. Too good to be seen as connected to my mother.

Now I had to talk to Bernie. Because Rena wanted a raise after three years. My mother was saying no, and while she was at it, she was tired of paying for Newman.

That was what my mother said. Tired. I had to step into that. Not having the money was one thing. Not approving of the expense was another. But tired? She wanted me to ask, and I wanted desperately not to.

"Of course I'm tired," she said. "This is a huge gift I give to that child. Every year in one lump sum. Does she ever call to thank me? Does she ever call me, period? Maybe bring me a drawing? Or show me a report card? It wouldn't hurt for you to thank me, too, you know."

She wanted gratitude; at least that's what she said. I knew better. She wanted me to beg. She'd spent a lot of time and money waiting for me to beg for something I hadn't asked for. A grateful child was a subservient child. "Sub" and "servient" both meant I was beneath her. She wouldn't respect me.