Read Online Best Friends by Martha Moody - Free Book Online Page B

Margaret said. “I’m sure the Jewish students don’t eat bacon when they’re home.” Her voice became almost belligerent. “And I bet a lot of them wear skullcaps, too!”
    Sally shot me an incredulous look and asked Margaret, “Do you have any idea what my father’s like? I’ll help you. He’s fifty years old and he grew up in a kosher home in Brooklyn. When he was a boy, he never thought of eating a cheeseburger, because that’s meat and dairy combined. And now he lives in Los Angeles and he’s a businessman. Do you have a mental picture of him?” She was reaching into her handbag. “Does he have a long beard? Does he wear a ‘skullcap’?”
    Margaret, stunningly, continued to miss the point. “Is he in the diamond business?” she asked eagerly.
    Sally laid a photograph on the table. Her father was standing in the sun on what I recognized as their patio, the espalier behind him. He wore a white shirt with the collar open, his face lit up with his most radiant smile, the smile he gave his daughter. “How does he look?” Sally asked.
    Margaret picked the photo up and studied it. There was no mistaking her surprise. “He looks . . . normal.”
    Sally snorted and took the picture back. The waitress arrived. Sally ordered a ham and cheese omelet, which I’d never seen her eat. Normally she didn’t care for eggs.
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    SALLY AND I SAW a bad cop-action movie, where a villain was shot though the door of a bathroom stall. I heard about that scene for weeks. I thought Sally would never get over it.
    Especially after Timbo died, Sally was always thinking how much something would hurt, how frightened a victim must feel. The person being hurt was always her. Ironic, because her parents never once even spanked her.
    Sometimes she wouldn’t run down the hall to answer the phone at the appointed time her father called and I would feel compelled to get it. “She okay?” Mr. Rose would ask.
    â€œShe’s fine,” I’d say. She’s washing up/in the shower/finishing a sentence in her paper, will be out in a minute.
    â€œTough thing,” Mr. Rose said once, and I knew he was referring to Timbo. I agreed.
    â€œYou hear about the ring?”
    I almost dropped the phone. Did Mr. Rose really have to mention the ring? Did everybody in God’s creation have to talk about the ring? Was it really that big a deal? My heart sank to hear that Sally had told even her father about it; but of course she told him everything. I realized that Mr. Rose was amused. I felt a kind of hopeless grief for Timbo, whose death evoked more titillation than tragedy.
    â€œYes,” I said shortly.
    â€œShe should have slept with the guy,” Mr. Rose said.
    â€œOh, I don’t know,” I said, exasperated. “I don’t see how that would have made any difference.”
    â€œFor Sally!” Mr. Rose said. “Now she’ll never know. Now she’ll always wonder: What would it’ve been like to sleep with Timbo? Remember, Clare, and I tell this to Sally too: you’re only young once. Once. And you said he was quality.”
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    WHEN I TOLD my mother, I started, “It irritates me, because everyone—” My mother jumped on this, because for once the thing irritating me wasn’t her.
    â€œWhat? What?” she said.
    â€œWell, when Timbo was in that car wreck, he was wearing . . .” I stopped. How could I do this? I wouldn’t. I was better than that. I had inner strength.
    â€œWhat?” my mother said.
    I scrambled: “He had an engagement ring in his pocket. He was probably going to ask Sally to marry him.”
    â€œOhhhh,” my mother sighed. She sat down at the kitchen table, wiped her hands on a towel. “Maybe it’s best,” she said after a pause. “They’re both so young.”

    I RELAYED OUR CONVERSATION to Sally.