There was only one thing to do. She’d borrow the telephone in the nurses’ lounge and call the apartment. Ask to speak to Florence directly. It was dinnertime. Everyone was sure to be at home. In fact, it was likely her mother had cooked a big meal, a special send-off for the Channel swimmer. She imagined the table laid with her mother’s Adams Ironstone Calyx Ware and silver-plated cutlery. Sometimes, on special occasions, her mother filled a vase with fresh-cut cornflowers. Were they in bloom now? Fannie couldn’t remember.
She steadied herself. She had gotten so little practice lugging this new body around. Even her trips to the bathroom, which had begun to feel like outings, had been curtailed. Most of the nurses, with the exception of Dorothy, who was lazy, now urged her to use a bedpan instead.
Fannie barely managed to tie her robe around her midsection. She had no hope of getting her feet into her slippers—it was as if they’d shrunk two sizes—so she kicked them under the bed and padded, barefoot, out of the room and down the hall.
Dorothy was in the lounge eating a tuna sandwich when Fannie rounded the corner. “Hey! What are you doing out of bed?” she asked, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. The smell of the tuna invaded Fannie’s nostrils and nearly turned her stomach.
“I was hoping to use the telephone.”
“You’re not supposed to use this one.”
“I don’t have one in my room.”
“Yes, well…” said Dorothy. Her voice trailed off.
Dorothy had been behaving oddly for several weeks now, and Fannie began to worry she’d overheard her poking fun at her, to Esther or one of the other nurses. Fannie had also complained about Dorothy to Superintendent McLoughlin on at least two occasions, and she suspected her mother had as well.
“I have to call my sister.” Fannie didn’t wait for Dorothy to grant her permission. Rather, she made her way toward the small table where the telephone sat, figuring that if Dorothy didn’t like what she was doing, she’d stop her.
“Your sister?” Dorothy asked.
“That’s right,” said Fannie, the handset already in hand. She dialed the operator and waited until she heard the familiar, “Number, please.”
“Yes, can I have 4452, please?”
While Fannie waited for the line to connect, she strummed her fingers against her stomach. What was the right tone to take with Florence? She was angry, sure, but also disappointed. She had learned that sometimes, with Isaac, disappointed worked better.
Her father answered the phone.
“Hi, Pop.”
“Fannie?”
It had been almost six weeks since Fannie had seen or heard from her father, and it felt good to hear his voice—always quiet and calm—in her ear.
“How is everything?” she asked.
A few seconds slipped by before her father said anything. “Oh, you know how it is.”
She didn’t, so she tried a different tack.
“How’s the bakery?”
“We just hired a few new drivers. I think we’ve almost got enough manpower to start distributing in Philadelphia.”
“Wow. Philly?” she repeated, astonished. Isaac hadn’t breathed a word of this to her. Did he think she wouldn’t find it interesting? “How easy is it to increase production?”
“Your mother’s eager to… say hello.”
Fannie ignored him. Now that she had him on the phone, she didn’t want to be passed off to her mother. “How’s Gussie?” she asked.
“She’s fine. Eating a giant serving of rice pudding as I speak.”
“I miss her like crazy.”
She could hear her mother whispering to him in the background.
“And how’s Florence?” asked Fannie. She could feel the hair on her arms stand up. “That’s really the reason I called. I assume she leaves for New York tomorrow.”
“Here’s your mother—”
Fannie sighed. Sometimes there was no moving beyond the roles each of them played. Her father, a quiet supporter. Her mother, an assured arbiter. What was Fannie’s role? Did she even have one anymore? Had she ever had one?
“Fannie?” Esther said, too loudly, into the telephone.
“Hello, Mother.”
“You’re not meant to be out of bed. Where are you?”
“The nurses’ lounge,” said Fannie, eyeing Dorothy. Dorothy had stopped eating her sandwich and was watching Fannie intently. “One of the nurses was sweet enough to let me use the phone.” She flashed Dorothy a smile.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, walking all the way to the lounge in your condition.”
“Well, it’s too late now,” said Fannie, unable to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “I actually called to speak to Florence. Can you put her on?”
The phone line went quiet, and for a moment, Fannie wondered if they’d lost their connection. “Mother?”
“What?”
“Can I speak to Florence?”
“Yes, oh, you know what? I think she just stepped out.”
“I thought you were in the middle of dinner? Pop said Gussie’s eating rice pudding.”
“She had some errands that couldn’t wait,” her mother said, then paused, as if she were reading Fannie’s mind. “I think she said she was going to stop by the hospital, too. To say good-bye.”
“Well, she doesn’t have much time. Visitors’ hours end at nine.”
“Right.”
Was Florence really so angry with Fannie that she’d ignored her apology letter? Then put off a visit until the last hour of the last day she was in Atlantic City? She and Florence had fought—surely—but they’d gotten in terrible arguments before and had always managed to patch things up quickly enough.
“You know how she is,” her mother said, with what sounded like forced enthusiasm. “Just leaves things to the last minute. I’m sure she’ll be by soon.”
Fannie glanced over at Dorothy, who was looking more uncomfortable by the second. She had thrown the crusts of her sandwich away and was wiping down the tabletop with her unused napkin.
“Which train is she catching tomorrow?”
Now it was her mother’s turn to sigh. “I can’t recall.”
“You can’t recall?” Fannie’s mother had never failed to recall anything in her entire life. She could recall the moment Fannie had lost her first tooth, the number of matzo balls she’d made for last year’s Seder, and the name of every flower she’d ever planted in the beds at the Atlantic Avenue
