She gave him a kiss, then went up to her room. She thought on the way of what he had just told her. That her mother loved him more intensely than he loved her.
Well, she had always known that. As she had always known that Mark’s love for her was somehow deeper and stronger than hers for him.
At eleven o’clock she went downstairs again. Her father looked quite elegant in a black mohair suit. “I thought brides took forever to dress,” he said. “We don’t have to leave for an hour yet. Your mother is busy making every minute count.”
“I have to go out for a minute.”
“What for? It’s still pouring.”
“I thought I’d run over to Van Slyke’s. I want to get something new. These shoes are old and I borrowed Mom’s diamond chip earrings and the dress is blue—”
“The dress is also new.”
“It seems cheating to use one thing for both. I’ll just get something.”
“You’ll also get out of the house. Fair enough. Take my car, it’s out front.”
She was able to park right in front of the drug store. It was raining lightly and she hurried inside and went directly to the telephone booth. She dropped the dime in the slot, then realized that she could not remember his number. It had been at least a year since she called him last, but there had been a time when his number seemed permanently filed in her mind. She dialed New York Information and asked for the number of John Riordan, on Perry Street.
The operator supplied the number. Then she started to place the call before deciding that it wouldn’t do to call collect. She got a couple of dollars’ worth of change and returned to the booth, only to find that she had already forgotten the number. She got it from Information again and dialed it, and he answered on the third ring.
She said, “Jack? It’s Andrea Kleinman.”
“It is? Well, I’m damned. Hang on a minute, I want to get a cigarette.” He was gone for a few moments, and she pictured him rubbing sleep out of his eyes and puffing desperately at the day’s first cigarette. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes and drank unblended Scotch, and the two vices combined to produce a voice that could scratch glass. It had been the first thing about him that attracted her.
Now he said, “Andrea. Christ, I thought the earth swallowed you. Where in hell are you?”
“I’m in Buffalo.”
“Buffalo. Why, for Christ’s sake?”
“I’ve been here since August.”
“So that’s where you went to. I haven’t seen you in what, almost a year. But why Buffalo?”
“It’s where I’m from. I was born here.”
“I know a woman who was born in Buchenwald. She’s never felt the slightest compulsion to return. When are you coming back to the city, kid?”
“I’m not.”
“Oh, that’s what they all say.”
“I’m getting married, Jack.”
There was just the slightest pause, as though the information had to take its time crossing the state.
Then he said, “No kidding. I think that’s terrific, Andrea.”
“You do?”
“I really do. Christ, it’s good to hear from you. I didn’t know what happened to you, nobody seemed to know anything except that you weren’t around any more.”
“Well, that’s what happened. I wasn’t around any more.”
“Must be a year since I saw you.”
“Something like that. I was in New York for a while after I saw you last, and then one morning I packed my suitcase.”
“Problems?”
“No, not really.” She drew closer to the phone, as if afraid of what she might see out of the corners of her eyes. She began remembering the last weeks in New York, the hectic pace, the ragged breathlessness, the bits and pieces chopped out of memory and lost. “It stopped being fun,” she said.
“And you were trying so hard to have fun.”
“I don’t know if I like the way that sounds. Anyway, I came back home because I didn’t know where else to go, and it turned out to be right for me.”
“I’m glad for you. Who’s the guy? Childhood sweetheart?”
“Not really. He was four years ahead of me in school so I never knew him. I knew his sister vaguely.”
“What’s he like?”
“Oh, he’s a sweet guy, Jack. Really. He’s a lawyer, he’s doing pretty well at it and he’s really involved in it.”
“That’s great. When’s the wedding? I’ll send you a present.”
“It’s in about an hour, as a matter of fact.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. And don’t send a present. You’re sweet, but don’t.”
“The past is past, that means.”
“That is just what it means.”
“Fair enough. Andrea?”
“What?”
“Why the phone call?”
“I don’t know. I had this urge.”
“That certainly explains it.”
“No, let me finish, because I’ve been asking myself the same question. I wanted to tell someone from New York. I wanted, I just wanted someone to know. I don’t know why.”
“Well, I think I’m flattered.”
“Well,” she said.
“The last time I saw you, you weren’t that good at being friendly.”
“I was probably pretty drunk.”
“You probably were. You told me to fuck off, as a matter of fact.”
Well, why don’t you? she thought. This call had been a mistake, and she was no closer than before to guessing why she had made it.
“How have you been, Jack? What have you been working on?”
“The usual. Something for the Voice now and then. And we’ve got a primary coming up soon, as you probably know. Or as you probably don’t know, come to think of it. Way up there in Eskimo country.”
“We get the Times every Sunday. The dog team brings it right to the igloo.” The operator cut in to say that her three minutes were up. She said, “I’ve got to go now, Jack.”
“Well, I’m damned glad you called. Happy Wedding.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll see you.”
No, she thought. You won’t.
She was at the car before she remembered she hadn’t bought anything. She went back inside and picked out a stainless steel identification bracelet. They had been very much in demand when she was in high school. You had your name engraved on it, and when you were going steady you traded bracelets with the boy. She paid for the bracelet and drove home.
The marriage ceremony was performed by Rabbi Morton Farber in his study in Temple Beth Sholom. The temple was an imposing building downtown on Delaware Avenue. For much of her youth it had been if the focal point of her social life. Her Girl Scout troop met there on Wednesday afternoons. Her dancing classes were held there Saturday nights. For seven years she attended classes at the temple every Sunday morning, and for the last two of those years she was frequently present at services on Saturday mornings if a boy she knew was having his Bar Mitzvah. It was not until she had gone away to college that she was able to appreciate just how thoroughly Jews in Buffalo isolated themselves from their neighbors. The student body of her high school had been almost exactly half Jewish, and the social segregation had been virtually complete. There was no friction between the two groups; rather, it was as if neither was much aware of the other’s existence. Of course she never dated a non-Jewish boy in high school. Outside of the classroom, she scarcely knew any.
At the time, it had never occurred to her to question this social structure. And afterward it was incomprehensible to her that things had been as they were, and that she had regarded them as normal and natural.