593 Riverside Drive - 5. Chapter 5

The other thing my father was concerned about was Howard, the man I intended to marry though not immediately. Howard and I were the same age, but like Lewis, he’d gone to school on the normal schedule so would only start his junior year in September. But he had a one-year Master’s degree planned, so we’d finish at the same time.

No matter what my father thought, I wasn’t planning to let Howard get away. I’d simply never met anyone like him in terms of his attitudes toward women. He claimed it was because he’d been raised in a houseful of them – his grandmother, mother, sister, and aunt – so he always thought of himself as their equals. His mother, Sadie, owned a cleaning store. His grandmother, Mollie, worked as a tailor there and also helped raise Howard and his slightly younger sister, Lillian. She and Howard alternately delivered laundry and dry cleaning to their mother’s customers, and she was just starting at Hunter – no expensive Barnard for her. Still, their family had money, though it came in an odd way – their father, Murray, ran a speakeasy.

With that came the expected: rum running across the Hudson River – which Murray’s two older brothers took care of – speeding in shiny roadsters to racetracks on Long Island, gambling everywhere, and being seen escorting Broadway showgirls to early morning night clubs – one reason why they didn’t always make it home on time to their wives. Even with my father’s years with the circus, those kinds of goings on went down hard.

Still, the Hirschlers – my mother, father, and me – had met the Eisbrouchs – Howard’s family – and all went well. Sadie was wise, Murray was charming, Lillian was even sharper than her brother Howard, and Grandma Mollie was funny. She also baked the best Viennese sugar cookies, which she brought a shoebox full of to the restaurant where we met. I couldn’t tell what my mother and father actually thought, or said, to each other afterwards, because though they often spoke openly in front of me, this time they kept it to their bedroom. My father’s confidant was usually his brother Herbert, who he worked with almost every day, but that went both ways. Herbert told Papa things the rest of us never heard. They were only hinted at.

My father had nothing personal against Howard. He mainly thought he was too young. “You should be looking for someone ten years older,” Papa advised. “Someone well established – with a career and money.”

“You’re only three years older than Mama,” I pointed out.

“Things were different then,” he assured me. “I may only have been twenty-four, but I’d been working for ten years and came back to New York to help my father in a successful business.”

Papa and Herbert had only expanded that, using my father’s years of experience selling advertising in the circus and Herbert’s artistic skills – he drew the most beautiful men’s clothes sketches. They always made me want to wear men’s shirts.

“Except for the collars,” Herbert warned. “Soft, starched, stiff – they’re always a pain. In the neck, of course.” He laughed at his easy joke then went on. “I can’t wait to take my shirts off.”

Father looked at him oddly when he said that but didn’t comment.

The ten years older rule also let out my mother’s favorite – Lewis. Until I met Howard, when he was working as a lifeguard at Orchard Beach, Lewis was my regular escort. “That’s fine,” my father acknowledged, “for now. But you know the Pecoras are Catholic.”

“Florrie is,” my mother corrected. “Pic doesn’t care.”

“But Florrie takes Lewis to church every Sunday,” my father insisted.

I couldn’t tell my parents that Lewis cared as little for religion as his father did. That was another of our secrets. I also couldn’t mention that my family had as little interest in religion as Uncle Pic. I grew up celebrating Christmas as part of “business assimilation” because, “Christmas is an American holiday,” Papa contended. “Easter, too. Men need new suits.”

“As long as we emphasize the man in the red one,” Herbert said laughing. “And go light on the crucifixion and the naked Jesus. And defiantly no ecstasy.”

“Herbert,” my father groaned.

“She’s not a child, Arthur. And the rest of us are no longer Victorian.”

So while Lewis was my closest friend, there was no hope of us ever getting married. Besides, Lewis gave his approval to Howard as soon as they met. “He’s the second best man.”