Mary Jane by Jessica Blau (debian ebook reader TXT) 📗

records in my house were all cast albums from Broadway musicals or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Kids at school talked about bands and rock music, but the names of the singers and bands were as foreign to me as the neighborhoods and streets east, west, and south of where we lived. For all I knew, the rock star and the movie star, the drug addict and his wife, might be less recognizable to me than Dr. and Mrs. Cone.

3

All weekend long, I thought about the Cones and the addict rock star/movie star couple who would be moving in. On Saturday,I walked up to Eddie’s market and flipped through People magazine to see if there was any mention of a rock star/movie star couple dealing with an addiction. I wondered if the addict wouldlook like the addicts I’d seen downtown from the window of the car. Skinny people in dirty clothes, leaning against doorways.Or the man with only one limb who pushed himself around on a wide skateboard. I’d seen him many times. Once, I asked my fatherif we could roll down the window and give him money. Dad didn’t answer, but my mother said, “We can’t roll down the windowhere.”

That Sunday night, my mother was serving ham, peas with bacon, coleslaw, succotash, and corn muffins and a trifle for dessert. I always stood by and helped while she made dinner. Step by step she’d narrate what she was doing so that I could do it myself when I grew up. If she handed me a knife, she showed me exactly where on it I should place my fingers. If she handed me a whisk and a bowl, she showed me the angle at which I should hold the bowl in the crook of my left arm, and the speed and force with which I should use the whisk with my right hand. But that night she let me prepare the trifle all by myself. Mostly.

When it was time to eat, after I’d set the table, my mother and I sat in our padded-seat chairs, waiting in silence for myfather. He finally arrived, still wearing the tie he’d had on at church that morning. The Sunday paper was tucked under hisarm.

Dad sat, placed the paper on the table, and put his hands together for prayer. Before he spoke, he dropped his forehead ontothe pointed tip of his first fingers. “Thank you, Jesus, for this food on our table and for my wonderful wife and obedientchild. God bless this family, God bless our relatives in Idaho, God bless President Ford and his family, and God bless theUnited States of America.”

“And God bless that man with no legs and only one arm who hangs out near the expressway,” I said.

My father opened one eye and looked at me. He shut the eye and added, “God bless all the poor souls of Baltimore.”

“Amen,” my mother and I said.

“Mary Jane,” my mother said, forking ham onto my father’s plate, “what country club do the Cones belong to?”

“Hmmm.” I chugged from my cup of milk. “I don’t know. They haven’t gone to one since I’ve been babysitting.”

“Certainly not Elkridge.” My dad removed his tie, placed it on the table, and picked up the newspaper. My mother loaded succotashonto his plate.

“How do you know they don’t belong to Elkridge?” I asked. That was our country club.

“It’s spelled C-O-N-E,” my mother said. “I looked it up in the Blue Book.” The Blue Book was a small directory for our neighborhood and the twoneighborhoods that abutted us on either side: Guilford and Homeland. You could look up people by address or by name. Childrenwere called Miss if they were girls and Master if they were boys. The Blue Book also listed the occupation of every man, and any women who worked. Sometimes, when I waslying around the house doing nothing, I flipped through the Blue Book, read the names, the children’s names, the father’sjob, and tried to imagine what these people looked like, what their house looked like, what food they’d have in their refrigerator.

“The Cones are Jews,” my father said. “Probably changed the name from Co-hen.” He turned the page and then folded the paper in half.

“Well, then not L’Hirondelle, either. What are the names of those two Jewish clubs?” My mother stared at my father. My fatherstared at the paper. She was holding a corn muffin aloft.

“Are you sure the Cones are Jewish?” I didn’t know any Jewish people. Except now the Cones. And Jesus, who, if I were to believeeverything I heard at church, knew me better than I knew him.

“Jim Tuttle told me they’re Jews,” Dad said without looking away from the paper.

“I should have known sooner. A doctor.” My mother placed the muffin onto my father’s plate and picked up the coleslaw.

“They haven’t said anything Jewish,” I said. Though I had no way of knowing what Jewishness might sound like. I knew there was a neighborhood in Baltimore where they all lived—Pikesville—but I’d never been there and I’d never even met someone who’d been there. I’d just heard my parents and their friends mentioning the area in passing, as if they were talking about another country, a country far, far away, where they were unlikely to ever travel.

“I’m sure they’re just being polite.” My mother was onto the peas and bacon. “But being a doctor makes up for being a Jew.”

“What do they have to make up for?” I asked.

My father put the paper down on the table. “It’s just a different type of person, Mary Jane. Different physiognomy. Differentrituals. Different holidays. Different schools and country clubs. Different way of speaking.” He picked the paper back up.

“They look normal to me. And they sound the same to me.” Well, there was the shouting. Did all Jews shout? And there wereMrs. Cone’s breasts, which usually seemed on the verge of being exposed. Was that a Jewish thing? If so, it would be interesting,though maybe embarrassing, to travel to Pikesville.

“Look at