She tried to pull off his wig, but he wouldn’t let her. “Eltinge,” she hissed, “didn’t look like my mother.”
The Money Show tried out in Providence and opened in New York in the middle of September 1938. The show was a modest hit, but Carter and Sharp, all the reviews said, were a real find — Rocky Carter never played his scenes the same way twice, and Mike Sharp kept up with every turn he took. Brooks Atkinson said we were the only reason to go. Between that and spots on the Vallee show and a few late-night club gigs, we did pretty well for ourselves. Before 1938, if we’d broken up, nobody would have noticed. Now we were The Boys. That’s what people called us. Where are The Boys? The Boys are headlining at the Steel Pier next month. The Boys won’t work for less than two thousand a week.
We had more money that we’d ever had in our lives. Rocky spent every dime, on fresh flowers for his buttonhole, on good suits and good food and drinks for everyone in the house, no matter what the house was. Rocky loved gratitude. Gratitude from strangers was even better. The Money Show closed after two months, but we didn’t care. We’d been called to California, by a big studio, for a feature.
“We’ll stop in Valley Junction this time,” said Rocky. I was helping him pack up his apartment, which in two months he’d managed to fill with outgrown-clothes and half-eaten sandwiches. He was rewarding himself for his industry by taking sips from a silver flask that Penny had given him.
“No,” I said. “Are you saving these magazines?”
“Why,” he asked, “are you so pigheaded about this? You got a family who loves you. I want my sixty percent of that love. Course, I’m willing to take all of my cut of the love from Rose—”
“Stop that. I’m not pigheaded. I want. .” Even talking about going to Valley Junction terrified me. My fear, I know now, was a brand of homesickness so thorough you feel helpless, and so want to stay away from the thing that infected you in the first place.
I’ve lived a long time, and so people ask if longevity runs in the family. Now I can say yes: my sister Annie lived to be more than a hundred, my sister Sadie ninety-two. Various nieces and nephews who are about my age still walk the earth, and by walk I mean actually walk. But if you’d asked in 1939, I would have said no, sadly. My mother had died young; so had Hattie. I did not know any forebears other than my parents and Rabbi Kipple, and I always thought of Rabbi Kipple as exactly the age he was in his portrait, in his forties. Everyone else was dead; everyone else had died before I was born; therefore, everyone else had died young.
When I’d left town more than ten years before, I’d reconciled myself to the fact I’d never see my father again. My sisters, I figured, would show up in my life eventually. They’d come to a show, or I’d walk into a train car and there one would be, or — this was most likely — I’d get a telegram informing me of my father’s death and if I got it in time and wasn’t on one of the coasts, I’d go to the funeral. But my father would die. Who survived old age?
Sometimes I thought: surely he’s dead by now, and nobody’s told me. Then I’d get a letter from Annie, bless her heart, filling me in on the news of the family. How could it be that a man who died in my head once a month could live so long? Understand: I wanted him to live forever. Thinking about his death was how I punished myself. Heartless boy (I would always be a boy in my father’s presence) to have left a father who loved you. Heartless brother, to leave your sisters weeping in the parlor. People in Valley Junction knew my mother, but they loved my father. I imagined the back steps piled high with offerings. Soon the steps would fill, and the neighbors would hang the branches with tureens of soup. They’d line up as many pound cakes as would fit on windowsills. There’s a loaf of bread in the mailbox. There are pies in the bushes, their meringues dusted with snow. Someone has slipped a stack of pancakes under the doormat. Candy like fallen leaves lies in heaps everywhere, everywhere.
But he didn’t die. Over and over he didn’t die.
Now Rocky shook his flask at me. “I’ve already cabled them,” he said. “I signed your name. It’s all set.”
“Oy vey,” I said. My hands and feet began to prickle with fear. “No—”
“You’ve already said yes. You can’t just change your mind. You promised me.”
“When did I ever—”
“We were thirty-two miles southeast of Chicago, sitting in the dining car of the Wolverine. You said, ‘Next time. I promise.’ It’s next time. You promised. Me, and now the rest of the Sharenskys.”
“Goddamn your memory.” I massaged my eyebrows, which for some reason usually calmed me. “Rocky. Rocky. I’ll—”
“Don’t break our hearts, Mosey,” he said quietly.
I sighed. He had me. It was one thing not to go home; it was another thing to say I would and then not show up, even though I hadn’t said I would. I sat down on the sofa. Something broke beneath the cushion — a plate, maybe. I held out my hand for the flask. “Okay. Good God. Why on earth? I guess we could.”
“Sure!” said Rock. “And I’ll stay in a nice hotel — the Corn Cob Arms, that the best one?”
“The Fort Des Moines,” I said.
“The Fort Des Moines. And maybe you can invite poor goyishe me over for dinner so I can meet your sisters. I’ve been dreaming about those sisters for a while now. I mean, I’d never be unfaithful to Rose, but I’d like to get a gander at the whole sorority. How many are there? Thirty-six?”
“Five,” I said.
He said, “Annie-Ida-Fannie-Sadie-Hattie-Rose.”
“Five living sisters,” I said, “and three of those are married.”
He took back his flask and toasted. “Many a fine woman is.”
7. An Orphaned Girl Is Hard to Marry
Rocky and I got separate sleepers for our trip West. “No more berths for us!” he declared. In Chicago, we’d change for the the Rock Island Rocket.
“You’ll get off in Des Moines,” I said, consulting the timetable in the dining car. “And I’ll—”
“We’ll both get off in West Des Moines,” Rock said.
“There is no West Des Moines,” I explained, but there it was in print, the next stop after Rock Island Station, right where Valley Junction should be.
“Annie wrote you,” said Rocky. “They changed the name last year. And I’m coming with you.”
“That’s not—”
“Yes, it is. First West Des Moines née Valley Junction. Then I’ll investigate the fleshpots of Des Moines, and you’ll reconvene with your sisters.” He thought I’d bolt. I’d keep going west till I got to Nebraska.
You would have thought he was the one going to meet his family, whom he loved. In the dining car he wondered what Annie would cook.
“Green beans,” I said. “And cookies that taste like pencil drawings of cookies.”
“I can’t wait.” He sighed. “And to see little Rose, all grown up. Do you think she’ll remember me? Do you think she’s been true?”
“Rocky.”
“Little Rose Sharensky. I do love that girl. . ”
“Why did you do this to me?” I asked. I swiveled to sit sideways in the booth, then got a little motion sick and swiveled back.
“You’re not mad, are you? You’re going home a hero!”
“Of course I’m mad,” I said. “I don’t want to do this. You’re making me.”
“You know what I’ve never understood about you?” said Rocky. “I’m being serious now. Tell me why you left home.”