Too Jewish (20 page)

"I understand," was all I said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she said.

"I understand perfectly what you're saying."

Either she was going to get what she wanted, or I was going to call her bluff. Whatever happened, I'd know exactly what was going on.

* * *

Bernie sometimes did a little grocery shopping on his way home after sales rounds. It wasn't good for him to have shopped on that particular day because it meant he came home to especially treasure Rena. He and she were laughing it up as they unbagged, and telling him wasn't going to be easy. "Oh, Mr. Cooper," she was saying, "these the kind of banana you buy when you going to die tonight."

"I got the whole bunch for a nickel," Bernie said.

"And what you pay for the Pepto?" She held up a can of tuna. She saw me. "You see this? Chunk light."

"I'll buy solid white if you want me to take it out of your pay," Bernie said. Oh, no.

""Don't make me no never mind," Rena said. "I bring me my own sandwich. Nothing like poor folk working for poor folk."

He tried to edge out before the bag was empty, but Rena was too fast. She held up a half-gallon carton of ice cream. Fudge ripple. "This gonna be here tomorrow?" she said.

"Maybe empty in the garbage," I said.

"You're not my boss," Bernie said to Rena.

"I don't want to be your undertaker, neither," she said.

Bernie had gained probably forty pounds since I married him. Men could do that, at least in terms of shame. His arteries were another story.

"You'll be here pushing me when I'm in my wheelchair," he said.

"But not next week," Rena said.

Bernie was crazy about Rena. This wasn't going to be simple.

He followed me into the living room. Darby was on the sofa, and Roy Rogers was on. Bernie kissed the top of her frozen little head.

"Daddy and I need to talk," I said. "Could you go in your room for a little while?"

"Aw, Pat Brady's coming back on in a minute. He's the reason I watch. I only like the funny parts. The story parts are for boys. Can I wait?" Her head still didn't move.

"Tell you what," Bernie said. "We'll go in our room."That was probably better anyway. Rena had good ears. I was on her side. Bernie was on her side. But I didn't see a win in this for her.

"You don't put people out of the room for good news," Bernie said. He was being careful with his clothes. He only wore a suit to go out selling, and he tried to get a week's wear out of a cleaning. He even tried to get two days out of an ironed shirt.

"All I did was tell my mother Rena wanted a raise."

"I trust she said no."

"She was delighted," I said. "Delighted to say no."

"What are we talking about? Five dollars a week?"

"I would imagine," I said. "All Rena said was that she'd been with us for three years. She knows we have a conscience. She's forgotten who hired her."

"So what's the big deal?"

Bernie was undressing smoothly, easily, as if nothing was wrong. So far nothing was.

"As long as she was getting tired of giving with no gratitude," I said, "she decided to get disgusted. So she said she's tired of paying for Newman."

Bernie had just pulled his belt off, and he whipped it across the bed. "I knew it," he said. "I goddamn knew it."

All I could do was nod.

He started tearing off his clothes, throwing them on the bed. He still was neat, but he was fast. Furious. Poor Bernie. He'd never learned where to put rage.

"I don't know what to do," I said finally. "She wants us to beg."

"I'll tell you what to do," he said. "You remember when Darby was three? She didn't go to fancy school. She didn't have a fancy maid. We did just fine. Then your mother started sticking her nose into our business. She wanted us to be snobbish just like her. She wanted to be able to brag to her friends that Darby went to Newman. She wanted Darby to invite her friends over and let them see she had a maid. Never mind that she lives in the smallest house in the whole school and never invites anyone over here. All that counts is that your mother can talk to her friends."

He thought for a second. "I forgot the most important part. She wants to have something to hold over your head." He went falsetto. "Okay, Letty, see what I've given you? You like it, don't you? Well, I'll take it all away if you don't kowtow to me.'"

"You warned me," I said. "For what it's worth, you win." I'd thought I could get away with taking the money with no consequences. I'd thought I could make changes that had nothing to do with money. I'd thought I was a stronger person.

"Well, no more maid, no more Newman," Bernie said.

"It's not no more maid, it's no more Rena. Rena's a person."

"We'll find Rena another job. One where she won't have to work for poor folks," Bernie said.

"Is that what you really want?"

He was quiet. "Not really. I sure like her. To tell the truth, she helps me with the office."

"So hire her," I said. "Or at least give her the extra five dollars a week."

Rena was a person. Newman was supposed to be a complex of buildings. Making a decision about Rena had been easy because it was all about our feelings, and we would find a way. Bernie had a motive to sell a little more. Five dollars a week was an easy goal, and if he passed it, he'd be pleased. With Newman, buildings did nothing for him. He couldn't push sales for cold old buildings. I certainly wouldn't beg my mother for those buildings. They were cold and old, but cold and old did something to children.

We asked Darby if Newman meant something. She was ten, so it was school to her. School. "Do you like it there?" I said. "How do I know?" Darby said. She was a little old soul. "Do you want to go somewhere else?" I said. "How do I know?"

Darby wasn't the one to ask. My parents certainly weren't the ones to ask. I considered Shirley. Shirley donated to the alumni fund, but at Newman Shirley had complained all year as soon as she showed any sense. Now what was she thinking? "I'm hedging my bets," Shirley said. Meaning? "I'm not ruling the place out." Did that mean she recommended it? "How would I know?" Shirley said. Shirley still wasn't married, probably out of fear of having children she'd have to send to school.

"I'm the person you need to ask," Bernie said. I'd just reported to him about Shirley. He'd done some asking, too. Really, he'd done some talking. The Scheinmanns were trapped by age now, but their minds kept moving fast. They were two young learners, stuck in that apartment in bodies that shuffled and teetered. They knew everything that was going on, probably because they listened. They listened to Bernie, and they told Bernie that he wanted Newman. It wasn't a German education. Darby should be fluent in French by now. She should be reading nineteenth-century literature. Why can't she do mathematics in her head? Never mind. Newman was the best America offered. They knew about the magnet schools in New York, and they were no better. Stuyvesant. Music and Art. Bronx Science. Never mind that those were high schools: she was going into her teens soon, and if she couldn't get it all in one place in New York, she might as well stay here. Stay at Newman.

The cost was something else.

The Scheinmanns must have heard this story before. Probably not exactly the same; probably there was no Adler family involved. But Bernie wasn't the first smart immigrant with a smart child, and Darby wouldn't be the first child on scholarship that she deserved. Scholarship!

"I told them I wasn't a beggar," Bernie said.

"Newman is buildings," I said. "It won't be mean like my mother."

Bernie gave me a cockeyed look. I'd told him for a long time that Newman had a strange culture of meanness. It wasn't just bricks and glass.

"It won't be mean to you," I said.

"Your child is there," he said.

"Oh."

I thought about that. We'd asked Darby, and Darby thought Newman was school. Darby was comfortable. She made the best grades in her class, boy or girl. Teachers liked her. I talked to them when I saw them. I was never called in. I could read it on them: they weren't pretending. But I knew the culture of meanness only washed onto the teachers when they were defensive. They were mean when they had too many nasty children. Alone with me, they weren't ugly. Darby wasn't mean. "Darby's not mean," I said.

"But what about the rest?"

I hadn't seen unkindness, at least not directed at Darby. Other girls respected Darby. I'd never experienced unkindness as a student, either. No one particularly respected me, at least not for my mind. They were sweet to me because I wasn't an orphan. I was driven to school by an old black man, I lived on a private boulevard, I had a lot of shoes. Among well-off students, I was considered particularly rich.

"No one's going to be mean to Darby," I said.

"Even when they find out she's not paying her way?"

"She's not paying her way now," I said.

Bernie looked peeved. I was sorry I'd said that. "Darby knows on some level she comes from a wealthy family. A scholarship will change her. She should be proud to be there on her merits, but she'll be ashamed," he said.

"She doesn't need to know," I said.

Bernie gave me a sorry smile. "Someone will tell her. I don't know if it'll be the school or your mother, but she'll find out. I don't like this at all."

I reminded him about the Scheinmanns. They were the ones who'd said Newman was the best.

"The Scheinmanns have lived long enough to think suffering is not so bad if you live long enough," Bernie said.

I told him I didn't see any suffering. I meant it.

"Look," he said. "I haven't set foot in the place. I haven't wanted to have any part of it. I assume we have to go over there and ask for money. They're not going to come over here and beg us to please keep sending our child there. So let me see what I think when we go. Is that a fair deal?"

It was his choice.

"I don't see many good choices these days," he said. He went into the kitchen for a snack. He was going to need new undershirts. That one was too tight, but I didn't care. I loved him chubby. Rena called him portly. I loved that, too.

***

It felt different walking in there that day. I'd walked in as a student, and I'd walked in as a paid-up parent, but I wasn't either. I was on my way to the principal's office. I'd never been to the principal's office. Except when I had my college talk. That had only lasted fifteen minutes. Almost everybody went to Newcomb. The girls, that is. You could walk into Newcomb College at Tulane if you could walk out of preparatory school at Newman. Maybe one girl would go to Vassar or the University of Alabama. But they knew they'd be back, usually junior year. I just had to say I was staying. Anyway, this was different. I didn't feel like I owned anything. That's a strange way of thinking, but that's the best way to put it. I was empty-handed.

Mrs. Prescott tried to make us feel better, which of course made me feel awful. Her desk was probably four feet wide: she'd picked it out on purpose. Bernie and I sat across from her like two kids in trouble. "We definitely want to keep Darby in Newman," Mrs. Prescott said. She smiled, but I didn't see any teeth. She was from New England, at least I thought she was. Prescott wasn't a Louisiana-sounding name.

I had decided to give this my best. "Yes," I said. "I went here. So did my mother."

"These things happen in families," she said. Her tone was almost tragic.

"What does that mean?" Bernie said. His was the tone of a man who'd been the family tragedy for quite a while.

"Oh, I apologize," Mrs. Prescott said. "I just meant that every generation's different."

I could feel exasperation coming off Bernie. He was not going to be in his seat long. Newman was not selling itself, no matter how it might soothe him about New York.

Mrs. Prescott had her job for a reason. She sat at the pinnacle of upset people. Usually they were rich upset people. She could read what anyone wanted. Most Newman people wanted prestige, whatever they could buy. Bernie wasn't here buying anything. She looked almost refreshed, as if something from her long-ago past was surfacing, when schools meant learning. "Darby is an extremely gifted student," she said. "She would be bored in a public school where they have to teach everyone."

"I want Darby in a school where she feels comfortable," I said. "Let's be honest. Everyone else has a lot of money."

Bernie squirmed. Mrs. Prescott couldn't see it. No one could have seen it. I only sensed it because I knew him so well. But I had to be honest.

"Oh, please," Mrs. Prescott said. A lot of New England in that voice. "Darby's from a fine family. Believe me, I've talked to her teachers about where she fits in."

"You have to understand, where I was growing up, fitting in' was an entirely different matter," Bernie said.

He wasn't playing fair.

Mrs. Prescott was probably living in Connecticut during the Holocaust. They probably ignored the Holocaust in Connecticut. She looked at him blankly, then she figured it out. "Oh," she said. "I'm so sorry."

"We're getting away from the numbers," I said quickly. "Do we qualify?"

Bernie wasn't ready to stop being hurt. "This isn't just a matter of numbers. If Darby is on scholarship, will there be a stigma? In fact, will people know she's on scholarship?"

"Of course not," Mrs. Prescott said. "No one knows but me and the board. But you know, it's not just need, it's merit, so there's some prestige in financial aid." Prestige was her stock in trade.

"For Darby," Bernie said. "If we tell her."

"Oh, Mr. Cooper, I'm sure you earn more than a lot of our teachers."

I dreaded walking out. We had all the paperwork to take home. Nothing was signed. Bernie hadn't made a commitment. Our car was the oldest one parked within three blocks of the school, and I knew those were mostly student cars. Bernie wasn't missing one detail, not even the polished wainscoting, the trimmed azaleas, Mrs. Prescott's posh accent. "I don't like that place," he said.

"I thought you wanted her to go there."

"I didn't know being smart meant being conceited."