by Rose Marie Zurkan
Regina stood in the bedroom doorway, arms folded. Her daughter, Marguerite, should have been through dressing by now. "Hurry up," Regina said.
"Why can't we take the train?" Marguerite grumbled. "I hate the bus. The fumes make me sick."
"Me too," Regina acknowledged, "but it's cheap. The train costs too much."
"Why do we have to go anyway? We were just there. You said we wouldn't have to go back for another month."
"My brother and his wife are leaving the New York," Regina said. "We have to say goodbye."
"Why do I have to go?"
"He's your uncle. He wants to say goodbye to you and me. Don't be rude."
They left the house before eight o'clock, but the trip by bus took longer than the train, a couple of hours. Regina's younger sister, Telka, was waiting for them at the door. "You're late," she said.
"How can we be late?" Regina asked. "We left so early." She launched into a description of the young man she had met on the bus. "He has a job," she said. "He's saving up to buy a car."
"And so?"
"Why shouldn't Marguerite marry a boy like that?"
"He's shorter than me," Marguerite objected.
Telka did not react as Regina hoped she would. "No, no," Telka cried, "you aim too low. A beautiful girl like her, six feet tall, she should marry a diplomat."
"I am not six feet tall," said Marguerite.
The door bell rang, and Regina opened the door, admitting her brother, Otto, and his wife, Violette. "No coat, aren't you cold?" Regina asked Violette, who, removing her jacket, revealed her secret. She had wrapped her body in plastic wrap. "I don't own a coat," Violette explained, "and I'm not about to buy one now. I won't need a coat in Las Vegas. I don't need the plastic wrap anymore, Telka. You want it?"
After it had been wrapped around her body? Under her arms? Regina was aghast.
"I don't know, maybe," Telka said. "Leave it."
"So," Regina asked, "what made you pick Las Vegas? I thought you were going to retire in Portugal."
Violette shrugged elegant shoulders. Telka and Regina's shoulders were fleshy and broad, unlike Violette, who had thin arms like a child. "Because she never does any work," Telka always said when Violette was not present.
"Las Vegas is cheap," Violette told them. "Portugal is lovely, but—" Violette dismissed Portugal summarily. She allowed her gaze to rest first on Telka, then Regina. How they dressed, such frumps. The daughter was a frump too, always in jeans and a shapeless sweater. With some satisfaction, she thought, this one will never have any success with a man.
Suddenly, Regina clapped a hand to her forehead. "The chocolates. I forgot the chocolates."
"It's all right, Regina," Violette said. "We don't eat candy."
"Something for the train, in case you get hungry."
"They will have a dining car," Otto assured her. "We'll order something."
Telka and Regina looked at each other. It was inconceivable that one could take a trip without carrying a shopping bag full of food. At this moment, a shopping bag full of food waited in the kitchen for Regina to haul home, items Telka had been saving for her all week, stale cake from the kitchen where Ivan worked, cans from Telka's own shelves which she had decided she never would use, and, in the bottom of the shopping bag, a perfectly good frying pan which someone had thrown out and Telka had retrieved from next to the incinerator. "You can't believe the things people throw away. Marguerite, you want this?" Telka picked up a scrapbook, handed it to Marguerite.
"What is it?"
"What is it, a scrapbook. You want it?"
"No."
Telka was insulted. "You're as bad as your mother. Nobody can tell you anything."
Telka went to the kitchen to check on dinner, and Regina told Violette about the young man she had her eye on. Violette put her soft, warm hand with its manicured nails over Regina's rough paw. "Cherie, Marguerite is only, what, fourteen? Why are you worrying?"
Regina worried because worrying was what she did. "Maybe Marguerite will go to college," Violette added.
This was too much for Regina, who shook off Violette's hand. She could not bear to think of a future in which Marguerite's dependency went on past the age of eighteen.
They sat down to the first course, soup, as always, even in the middle of the summer, the sun hammering on the window and no air conditioning. The dessert was apple pie. "I made an extra pie for the fairies," Telka said.
"Why are you so nice to them?" asked Regina.
"I feel sorry for them, they're nice boys," Telka said. "Ice cream, anyone?" They all said yes except Marguerite, who said it would make her skin break out.
"Go to the French drugstore on Eighth Avenue," Violette advised "and buy cucumber soap." Telka and Regina believed in soap and water and scrubbing uncooperative skin with a rough washcloth, rubbing it dry with a rough towel, but Violette had a beautiful, clear complexion so how could they challenge her?
After lunch, they accompanied Violette and Otto to Penn Station. Telka carried a bag of peanuts to feed the squirrels in Washington Square Park.
"The squirrels are quite capable of cracking their own nuts," said Violette. "Are you aware they are rodents? They are the same as rats."
But Telka liked feeding the squirrels and liked saving them the trouble of cracking the shells. "Don't forget to write," she told Otto.
Regina was crying. "Why are you crying?" Telka asked her.
"I'll never see my brother again."
"Of course you will. Stop it!"
Violette and Otto had been inching toward the train. "Goodbye," they called as they mounted the steps. "Goodbye."
The others waited until the train had pulled out of the station. Regina and Marguerite descended to the LIRR; it was too late to take the subway.
Regina was afraid of being mugged. She carried the shopping bag. "Why is it so heavy?"
Marguerite looked inside and saw the frying pan and the scrap book.
* * * * *
