Page 9 of One of Them

Two days before the much-anticipated event, Miriam went over to Lizzie’s apartment to show her the wine-colored dress and jacket she’d found at Saks just the night before; it was so grown-up.

She was on her way to Lizzie’s room—Opal had let her in—when Lizzie’s mother stopped her in the hallway.

“Hello, Mrs. Hunnewell,” she said. “Do you want to see my new dress? I have it right here.” She patted the paper shopping bag on her arm.

“Maybe later.” Mrs. Hunnewell seemed—what was it? Uncomfortable. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

“Of course.” Miriam felt a small twinge of apprehension.

“It’s about the luncheon at the Colony.”

“Oh, I’m so looking forward to it! We all are. That’s why I want to show Lizzie the dress. And you too.”

“I’m sure it’s lovely, dear,” Mrs. Hunnewell said. “And I’d love to see you in it. But you see, something’s come up. I’m afraid you won’t be able to go to the luncheon after all.”

“Why not? Has it been canceled?” Miriam asked.

“No, it’s not that.” Mrs. Hunnewell seemed to be struggling for words. “The luncheon is still on, and the other girls are going. It’s just that you won’t be joining them.”

“I don’t understand.” Miriam was growing more confused.

“Well, it’s because of your father.”

“My father? What does he have to do with it?”

“The secretary at the club knew of him, and since the club is restricted...”

“Restricted.” Miriam repeated the hateful word. It had kept her from going to Camp Oneida, and now it had come back to haunt her.

“I wish it weren’t so, but those are the rules, and even though I advocated for you, I really did, it seems that they are quite inflexible on this point—” Somewhere in the apartment the phone rang, and Mrs. Hunnewell’s relief at the distraction was painfully evident.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Opal just left, so I’ll need to get that. ”

Miriam opened the door to Lizzie’s room without knocking. “Did you know?” she asked without any greeting. “Did she tell you?”

Elizabeth didn’t pretend not to understand. “She did. Just a little while ago.”

“I thought your mother liked me.”

“Oh, she does, she’s very fond of you. But given your background and all...”

“You mean because we’re Jews?” There, the word was out, pulsating and hot. Neither of them spoke for a few seconds.

“Mimi, please don’t be angry, it’s not Mummy’s fault.” Elizabeth began to twist the end of her ponytail. “She wanted you there. We all did. It was only when she gave them your name that someone connected it with your father, and—”

“And everyone knows that he’s a Jew,” Miriam said bitterly.

“That we’re Jews.” Did they talk about it when she wasn’t there?

Call them yids, or worse? Her father had changed his name from Jacob Berkowitz to Jay Bishop, but that was when he was just starting out as a young lawyer.

And though in the intervening—and highly successful—years, he’d not gone out of his way to advertise his background, he’d made no special effort to hide it either.

So people did know that both he—and of course she—were Jewish.

“I’m so sorry, and if you only knew how sorry my mother is—she feels just terrible—”

“Don’t go.”

“What do you mean?”

“You heard me. Don’t go. Not you, not Astrid, not Willa.

If they won’t let me in, don’t go to that stupid, snobby club.

” But even as she spoke, she knew it was pointless.

And the look in Elizabeth’s eyes only confirmed it—neither she nor any of the others were about to take such a stand on her behalf.

They would say they were sorry a dozen, a hundred times, they would tell her they’d miss her, that it wouldn’t be as much fun without her, but they would go.

Of course they would. They were all on a single path, headed in a single direction; it was just one that didn’t include her.

Anne heard voices outside. Was the mixer over yet?

She hoped not. Sliding even farther down in the seat, she waited to see if the voices got closer.

They didn’t. Whoever was out there wasn’t heading to the bus.

Her chest, which had tightened from anxiety, relaxed a little; she had a reprieve.

She’d replayed that conversation about the Colony many times in her mind, and each time, her sense of indignation flared again.

The club, Mrs. Hunnewell, and the girls had wronged her.

But there was still another incident, a memory Anne did her best to bury.

It had been a chilly, early spring day. Miriam and Lizzie had spent the entire afternoon in the Hunnewells’ living room, assembling an enormous jigsaw puzzle.

Music from a radio in another room drifted in; rain tapped delicately on the windowpanes.

The bell rang and Lady emitted a single, dignified woof. Opal went to the door.

“Oh, that must be Mr. Feinstein.” Mrs. Hunnewell came into the room as Opal was taking the man’s umbrella and coat.

Miriam looked up from the puzzle. Mr. Feinstein wore a rumpled shirt, and suspenders that were visible because he had on a vest that wouldn’t close over his big belly and no jacket.

Two bunches of white curly hair sprang from the sides of his bald, pink head, and he carried a canvas bag splattered by dark drops of water.

“Nice to see you again, Mrs. Hunnewell,” he said.

His accent was familiar to Miriam—it was an accent that her grandparents had, as well as some of her older relatives, like Aunt Riva and Uncle Max.

It conjured images of cramped houses with dirt floors, glasses of schnapps, a woman, hair hidden under a scarf, lighting candles, loaves of challah baked to a shellacked shade of brown, cows mooing balefully outside.

“I’ve brought you some new samples—they just came in.

Wait until you see them.” He reached into the bag and pulled out several rolls of fabric, which he unfurled with great fanfare.

“Look at this brocade,” he said. “Fit for a queen, for a castle! Touch it! And this chintz—did you ever see such a beautiful pattern?” His voice was booming, and he pronounced the word bee-YOU-tee-ful.

On and on he went; Mrs. Hunnewell nodded and smiled, occasionally extending a hand, its slim wrist encircled by a lovely gold charm bracelet, to indicate the ones she liked best. She was as cordial to Mr. Feinstein as could be, but when he left, she turned to the girls and sighed deeply.

“Some people...” That was all she said, but Miriam knew exactly what she meant, and she was mortified.

Was this how Mrs. Hunnewell saw her and her father, who, it had to be admitted, did stand apart from the parents of her friends and classmates?

His voice was louder, his gestures more dramatic, his words flowed more quickly.

He operated at top volume, and even though she adored him, Miriam had begun to wish he would turn it down, even just a little.

So no wonder she didn’t want to think about that rainy day; she’d been complicit, wanting to align herself with the Hunnewells and keep as much distance as she could from Mr. Feinstein.

Elizabeth and the others had gone to the luncheon, and to their credit, they tried not to mention it in Miriam’s presence.

But sometimes a reference slipped out, like the time they served a Waldorf salad in the cafeteria and Willa said, “Oh look, it’s just like the Colony!

” There had been an awkward silence that lasted until Elizabeth started chattering about something else.

And afterward, she seemed to assume that their friendship would continue on as it had before.

She was wrong. Miriam couldn’t forget, and, it turned out, she couldn’t forgive either.

Summer came, and with it an invitation to join the Hunnewells in Darien.

Other invitations followed: Greenwich, Newport, Marblehead.

She declined every last one. Now that she fully understood the weight of that hateful word, restricted , she could imagine the country clubs and beaches where, though her name wouldn’t have given her away, the fear of discovery would have hovered around her, never allowing her to fully relax.

Her father had rented the same house in Deal Beach, New Jersey, every summer since she was a small child. She would go to the shore with him.

But just a week before they were set to leave, her father died.

Miriam had been grateful that her aunt Betty and Mrs. Shifrin, wife of the rabbi at the Temple of Israel Synagogue on East Seventy-Fifth Street, where her father had been a sporadic congregant, organized first the funeral and then the shiva.

Those were slow, somber days, the reality of the loss gradually sinking in, like a series of boulders placed on her shoulders and back, each one bigger and heavier than the last. She couldn’t believe that he’d never again come striding through the door, calling her name, leaving his ever-battered fedora, coat, briefcase, and newspaper scattered around the apartment for Hannah, the maid, to pick up.

No more accounts of his day in court, or questions about hers at school.

No more singing—he had a full-bodied baritone—no humming, no expostulating over an article in one of the several newspapers he subscribed to, no heated phone calls with his clients, his partner, Barney Weiss, or his devoted secretary, Miss Fishbein.

He had been such a large presence, physically and every other way.

How could he just be—gone? And even worse was thinking about how she’d begun, just the littlest bit, to disdain him, and to wish he’d been more polished, more refined.

She burned in shame, remembering all that.

Along with this monumental loss was the loss of the only home she’d ever known; Barney sold the apartment and put its contents into storage.

She was to spend school holidays with Barney and his family—they had a town house in the East Thirties—and summers and vacations with her aunt upstate.

“Everything will be stored away,” Barney said, “ready for you if you want it someday.” Someday?

She didn’t want to wait until someday; she wanted everything she knew and loved, every scrap of it, from the dotted Swiss curtains and matching bedspread in her room to the small Oriental rug with its jewel-like colors in the foyer, now .

The chesterfield sofa, the mahogany sideboard in the dining room, the pair of blue-and-white ginger-jar lamps that sat on the mantel, the enormous Windsor chair that had been her father’s favorite and which he would not hear of having reupholstered despite the fact that its faded fabric was practically in tatters.

Her aunt fussed and clucked, and told her repeatedly that she should consider the house in Skaneateles as her home.

How could she say that? It wasn’t her home now, and it would never be.

Still, she miserably succumbed to her aunt’s insistence that she spend the rest of the summer upstate. Really, where else could she go?

The sound of voices brought Anne back to the present; the Yale mixer was ending, and the girls were heading back to the bus.

Virginia’s voice carried through the night, and she thought she could hear Peggy too.

She didn’t want to talk to either of them, so she slid down in her seat, hoping that would hide her.

The darkness was like an animate presence, heavy and enveloping.

The girls were filing into the bus now. Soon the driver would appear, shepherding them back to Vassar’s campus.

She’d never been to Yale before, and after tonight, she didn’t think she would ever be back.