The Middlesteins(47)
Once he had counted their fingers and toes, just to make sure they were all there. Their nails were like dewdrops. This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home.
He sighed and closed his eyes and tried to achieve bliss: Beverly! What did her toes look like? He knew she got a manicure (and a pedicure) once a week from the Polish girls in the same mini-mall that housed his pharmacy. She strolled in afterward, her nails glowing coral, afraid to fish out her wallet from her purse. “I always end up chipping,” she said with that adorable British accent of hers, offering her purse to Middlestein. As he roamed through her sunglasses and cell phone and lipstick and checkbook and a paperback novel, on the cover of which was a dark-skinned man with bright blue eyes against some sort of Middle Eastern backdrop (it looked smart), a package of Wrigley’s peppermint gum (a classic and elegant choice if one had to chew gum), and a dozen pens (freebies from local businesses, he had a box of them himself that he handed out to customers, all bearing the Middlestein Drugs logo), he was touched by the intimacy of the moment, even if she was a complete stranger. There were three quarters at the bottom of her purse, and a tube of ChapStick. A plastic comb, also bearing the logo of a local business. Did she just say yes every time someone handed her something? Was she too nice to say no? Nobody needed that many pens.
She was buying a greeting card, for a college graduation; on the cover there was a young man wearing a mortarboard in a hot air balloon, and on the inside, opposite a flap to hold a check, it read “Congratulations on moving on up in the world!” It was a dumb sentiment, but he carried only five different kinds of college-graduation cards in his display. (He had been trying to phase them out since 1998 but couldn’t bring himself to throw them away.) He suddenly wanted nothing more than to impress this British beauty, and all he had to offer were decade-old greeting cards.
He waved the card at her. “Mazel tov,” he said. “Your son?”
“Nephew. Michigan State.” She blew on her nails.
“That’s a gorgeous color on those nails,” he said.
She pulled her hands away from her face and cocked her head as she stared at them. “But it’s a bit bright, isn’t it?”
“Nah, it’s perfect,” he said. “You should always wear that color.”
He pulled a five-dollar bill out of her wallet.
“I don’t like to be too flashy,” she said.
“Add a little sparkle to your day, there’s nothing wrong with that,” he said.
She straightened herself and stared at him meaningfully. “Truer words were never spoken,” she said. And then she collapsed slightly. “Life is so dull sometimes.” She gave him a wistful but (he was almost positive) flirty smile. “It’s as if I can hear the clock ticking off the minutes of the day.”
“I can’t imagine a woman like you, with nails like those, would ever be bored.”
“I keep myself busy,” she said. “I have hobbies.” She said “hobbies” with a bit of spite. As much as he had hated his ex-wife’s ire and venom, he did find a woman with an edge extremely attractive; they were so fearless. “But lately I’ve found myself just waiting for something to happen.”
Did this gorgeous, witty, well-read, nicely groomed, age-appropriate, mostly organized woman really just walk into his pharmacy and lay out an invitation for him to flirt with her? Had he done anything good that day to deserve this moment?
“I noticed there’s no ring on that finger,” said Middlestein.
“I noticed there’s no ring on your finger either,” she said.
Ante up, Middlestein.
Down the aisle Emily flung herself into a coughing fit, a grimacing Josh patting her on the back, and then Beverly’s smile gave way to a vision of his any-second-now-ex-wife. She had been hovering somewhere in the back of his mind and then pushed her way to the front, knocking Beverly over until she returned, timidly, to a dark space out of frame. Edie said nothing, she just stood there, her hands in fists, her presence enormous. Everyone in the temple sang, and so did Richard, and he looked at his grandchildren, and Josh was singing, and Emily had her arms crossed and was staring into space. An angry young girl. She looked at her grandfather, sneered, and turned back toward nothing in particular. Richard faced forward, folded his hands together, rested his forehead on them, and began to pray on behalf of his (if he had to be honest with himself now that he was in an actual conversation with God here) long-drawn-out-legal-battle-until-she’s-his-ex-wife. Because she was sick, she was very, very sick, in the head, in the heart, in the flesh, and even though he could not watch over her anymore, it never hurt to ask God for a little help. Here he was, in his house of worship, asking for help for her. Because now that he was really being honest, he’d give up Beverly in a second if he knew that it would heal Edie. But he knew that nothing would make her better. That’s what he knew that no one else did, not his daughter or his son or that little grimacing monkey two seats down. That Edie didn’t care if she lived or died.
Middlestein almost felt like he might cry, and where better to do it but here, under the watchful eye of God? He had seen so many people cry over the years in synagogue, in this long life of his, particularly during the Kaddish. He was born a few years after the Holocaust had ended, but it seemed like it dragged on for years, the wailing and the moaning, gradually fading to tender streams of tears accompanied by a choked-up sound, the sadness trapped in the heart and the chest and the throat, resolving, years after the fact, into just a whimper, for some faraway soul. (Could they even remember what their lost loved ones looked like anymore?) Then there was Vietnam. There was cancer. Heart attacks and strokes and car accidents. A surprising amount of cliff-diving accidents. (Six.) Suicides, hushed. Old age. Bankruptcy. Runaway children. Hands clenched across the heart, as if the white-hot force between the palms could make a miracle happen. If one believed in miracles. So many wars over the years, sons and daughters came and went. Pray for them, and pray for Israel while you’re at it, too. (Everyone always should be praying for Israel.) Hold on to hope. Hold on to love. Hold on to your family, because they won’t always be around.