Tony nodded, knowing that would be the end of it. Evelyn wasn’t the only Bergman everyone in town knew. Joseph, in the more than thirty years since he had arrived in the sleepy seaside town, dirty and tired from his voyage, had established himself as a pillar of the community. He began by working for Mr. Klein in his dry goods store, first by stocking the shelves, then working the register as he gained Mr. Klein’s trust. He was a fast learner, studying first English, then business, then how to charm the people of Hereford. And when Mr. Klein dropped from a heart attack one day, his widow sold Joseph the store—what he couldn’t afford outright, she allowed him to pay off gradually.
Once he was a business owner, he met and wed Miriam, the daughter of a wholesaler with whom he did business, and set about populating the town with his seven offspring. He sat on the town council, the only Jew and the only immigrant to do so. He believed in the country he had made his own and appreciated a place where an immigrant could rise and be respected. He was honest and fair, respecting hard work above all else.
Except with any man courting one of his five daughters, in which case the young man needed to be Jewish and college educated in addition to hardworking. Joseph himself would only have passed two-thirds of that test, but religion was the area where he refused to budge on any form of assimilation. And the young men of the town learned that quickly when the elder Bergman girls came of age.
“Do you like Frank Sinatra?” Evelyn asked.
“I—yes?”
“Great. We’ll see that movie with him and Gene Kelly tonight.”
“We’ll—what?”
“You’re taking me on a date,” she explained slowly.
“I am?” She nodded, and he couldn’t stop himself from grinning.
“Don’t get any ideas now. Remember, two brothers, and I always have a hat pin on me.”
Tony placed his hand over his heart in a pledging motion. “I’ll pick you up at seven?”
“Oh goodness, no. My father would murder you. I’ll meet you there.”
“Um . . . okay.”
“Great,” Evelyn said with a bright smile, then turned to walk away. She took two steps, stopped, and turned back, holding out her hand. “Wait. Here’s your cigarette.”
“You can have it.”
Evelyn laughed. “Oh, I don’t smoke.” She placed it between his fingers. “I’ll see you tonight, Tony.”
“What was that?” Felipe asked as they watched her cross the street to the two girls who gaped at her brazen display.
“I think I just fell in love.”
Felipe shook his head. “That’s the kind of girl who ruins your life.”
“Maybe. But she might be worth it.”
CHAPTER SIX
“What does that mean, you crashed into the movie theater?” We were nearing the Delaware state line.
My grandmother chuckled. “I was infamous for that one. We lived at the top of a hill. It was—that house had some kind of magic to it. It didn’t look that big, but it was like it took a deep breath and expanded when everyone was there. There were only two bathrooms for the nine of us. And on Fridays, you couldn’t use the downstairs tub. Mama kept the fish for Shabbos dinner in there until it was time to kill it and cook it.”
“She kept a live fish in the bathtub?”
“Every week.” She shrugged. “We were used to it. And you’ll never taste a fish that fresh.”
“Okay,” I said, my eyebrows raised. “But the movie theater?”
With a slight shake of her head to clear away the other path her thoughts had taken, she returned to the hill. “The movie theater was down the hill. They had only built it a few years earlier. Maybe in 1935? It was still pretty new. It was the old kind—not like these big ones today—with one screen and a balcony. Papa used to park his car on the street outside the house. I was seven and decided I was going to ‘drive.’ I got some friends, and we hopped in the car and were playing. But I must have knocked the brake off, and then I was really steering down the hill. Crashed right into the front doors.”
“Were you hurt?”
“Nah. But they were showing The Wizard of Oz, and when people came running to see if I was okay, I said something about not being in Kansas anymore. That was the story that went all over town.”
“What happened?”
“Mr. Ambrose owned the theater. He saw I wasn’t hurt, so he marched me home by the ear and delivered me to my mother. Horrible old man. If he’d had a decent bone in his body, he would have taken me to Papa’s store.” She looked over at me. “I was Papa’s favorite. I was never in trouble if he was there. Mama was a different story.”