Only Mr. and Mrs. Theodorakis ordered down. The other tenants of Sunset Towers lined up at the reservations desk, waiting for Grace Windsor Wexler to lead the way. Oversized menus clutched in her arms, Grace felt the first proud stirrings of power rush up from her pedicured toes to the very top curl on her head. If Uncle Sam could pair off people, so could she.
“You see your brother every day, Chris, how about eating with someone else for a change?” She wheeled the boy to a window table without waiting for an answer. It would have been yes.
The two cripples together, Sydelle Pulaski thought. She’d show that high and mighty hostess, she’d show them all. She and Chris could have private jokes, too, and everybody would be sorry they weren’t sitting with them.
“Whas moo g-goo g-gipn?” Chris asked, baffled by the strange words on the menu.
“I think it’s boiled grasshopper.” Sydelle screwed up her face and Chris laughed. “Or chocolate-covered moose.”
“Frenssh-fry m-mouse,” Chris offered. Now Sydelle laughed. They both laughed heartily, but no one envied them.
“YOUR BROTHER SEEMS to be enjoying Ms. Pulaski.”
Theo nodded, awed by the beautiful Angela, three years older than he, so fair-skinned and blonde, so unattainable. Here he was sitting at the very same table with her, just the two of them, and he couldn’t think of a single thing to say that wasn’t stupid or childish or childishly stupid.
Usually the quiet one, Angela tried again. “Are you planning to go to college next year?”
Theo nodded, then shook his head. Say something, idiot. “I got a scholarship to Madison, but I’m not going. I’m going to work instead.” What big, worried sky-blue eyes. “The operation for Chris will be very expensive.” That was worse, now she’s feeling sorry for him. “If Chris had been born that way, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, but he was a perfectly normal kid, a great kid. And he’s smart, too. About four years ago he started to get clumsy, just little things at first.”
“Perhaps my fiancé can help.” Angela bit her lip. Theo was not asking for charity. And fiancé, what an old-fashioned, silly word. “I went to college for a year. I wanted to be a doctor, but, well, we don’t have as much money as my mother pretends. Dad said he could manage if that’s what I really wanted, but my mother said it was too difficult for a woman to get into medical school.” Why was she gabbing like this?
“I want to be a writer,” Theo said. That really sounded like kid stuff. “Would you go back to college if you won the inheritance?”
Angela looked down. It was a question she did not want to answer. Or could not answer.
LONG BEFORE BECOMING a judge, Josie-Jo Ford had decided to stop smiling. Smiling without good reason was demeaning. A serious face put the smiler on the defensive, a rare smile put a nervous witness at ease. She now bestowed one of her rare smiles on the dressmaker. “I’m so glad we have this chance to become acquainted, Mrs. Baumbach. I had so little time to chat with my guests last night.”
“It was a wonderful party.”
Flora Baumbach appeared even smaller and rounder than she was as she sat twisting her napkin with hands accustomed to being busy. Was her face permanently creased from years of pleasing customers, or was a tragedy lurking behind that grin? “Have you always specialized in wedding gowns?”
“Mr. Baumbach and I had a shop for many years: Baumbach’s for the Bride and Groom. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
“I’m afraid not.” The judge would have said no in any case to keep her witness talking.
“Perhaps you’ve heard of Flora’s Bridal Gowns? That’s what I called my shop after my husband left. I don’t know much about grooms’ clothes, they’re mostly rentals, anyway.” Flora Baumbach lost her timidity; the judge let her chat away. “I’m using heirloom lace on the bodice of Angela’s gown; it’s been in my family for three generations. I wore it at my wedding, and I dreamed that someday I’d have a daughter who would wear it, too, but Rosalie didn’t come along until I was in my forties, and . . .” The dressmaker stopped. Her lips tightened into an even wider grin. “Angela will make such a beautiful bride. Funny how she reminds me of her.”
“Angela reminds you of your daughter?” the judge asked.
“Oh my, no. Angela reminds me of another young girl I made a wedding dress for: Violet Westing.”
THE HEAVY CHARMS on Sydelle Pulaski’s bracelet clinked and clunked as she raised a full fork and flourished it in a practiced ritual before aiming it at her open mouth. Chris’s movements were even jerkier. She’s a good person, he thought, but she thinks too much about herself. Maybe she never had anybody to love.
“Here, let me help you to some of this delicious sweet and sour ostrich.”
Their laughter drowned out the loud groan from another table where Turtle sat alone, a transistor radio plugged in her ear. The stock market had dropped another twelve points.
“I’m starved, let’s sit down to eat.” Head held high, Grace Wexler led her husband across the restaurant. “All I want is a corned beef sandwich, not a guided tour.”
“Would you prefer to sit alone or with that young lady over there?”
“I thought I was going to sit with you.”
“Please be seated,” Grace replied. “Jimmy, I mean Mr. Hoo, will take your order shortly.”
Jake snatched the menu from his wife and watched her glide (gracefully, he had to admit) to the reservations desk and whisper in Hoo’s ear. (Jimmy, she calls him.) “That’s a fine kettle of fish,” he exclaimed, then turned to his dinner companion. “Fine kettle of fish. I’m so hungry even that sounds good, and from the looks of this menu that’s probably what I’ll get.”
“I’m okay,” Turtle replied, the final prices of actively traded stocks rumbling in her ear.
Mr. Hoo waddled over. “I recommend the striped bass.”
“See,
