When the judge delivered his decision, my father asked if he could offer a few words of advice to his wayward son before I was carted away. The judge acquiesced, probably assuming that my father would take me aside and be quick about it. Instead, my old man stuck his thumbs under his suspenders, puffed out his chest, and addressed the judge, the bailiff, the peanut gallery, and the stenographer. Especially the stenographer!
—As we part, my son, he said to one and all, my blessing goes with thee. But in my absence carry with you these few precepts: Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment. And this above all: to thine own self be true. For then it must follow, as night follows day, that thou cannot be false to any man. Farewell, my son, he concluded. Farewell.
And as they led me from the room, he actually shed a tear, the old fox.
—How terrible, said Sarah.
And I could see from her face that she meant it. Her expression had suggestions of sympathy, indignation, and protectiveness. You could just tell that whether or not she became happy in her own life, she was bound to be a wonderful mother.
—It’s okay, I said, trying to ease her distress. Salina wasn’t all that bad. I got three meals a day and a mattress. And if I hadn’t gone there, I never would have met your brother.
* * *
? ? ?
When I followed Sarah to the sink to clean my empty glass, she thanked me and smiled in her generous way. Then she wished me good night and turned to go.
—Sister Sarah, I said.
When she turned back, she raised her eyebrows in inquiry. Then she watched with that same muted surprise as I reached into the pocket of her robe and removed the little brown bottle.
—Trust me, I said. These won’t do you any good.
And when she walked out of the kitchen, I stuck the bottle in the bottom of the spice rack, feeling like I’d done my second good deed of the day.
FOUR
Woolly
On Friday at half past one, Woolly was standing in his absolute favorite spot in the store. And that was really saying something! Because at FAO Schwarz, there were so many wonderful spots to stand in. Why, to get to this spot, he had to pass through the collection of giant stuffed animals—including the tiger with the hypnotizing eyes, and the life-size giraffe whose head nearly hit the ceiling. He had to pass through motorsports, where two boys were racing little Ferraris around a figure-eight track. And at the top of the escalator, he had to pass through the magic set area where a magician was making the jack of diamonds disappear. But even with all of that to see, there was nowhere in the store that made Woolly quite as happy as the big glass case with the dollhouse furniture.
Twenty feet long with eight glass shelves, it was even bigger than the trophy case in the gym at St. George’s, and it was filled from bottom to top and side to side with perfect little replicas. On the left side of the case was a whole section dedicated to Chippendale furniture—with Chippendale highboys and Chippendale desks and a dining-room set with twelve Chippendale chairs neatly arranged around a Chippendale table. The table was just like the one that his family used to have in the dining room of their brownstone on Eighty-Sixth Street. Naturally, they didn’t eat at the Chippendale every day. It was reserved for special occasions like birthdays and holidays, when they would set the table with the best china and light all the candles in the candelabra. At least, that is, until Woolly’s father died; and his mother remarried, moved to Palm Beach, and donated the table to the Women’s Exchange.
Boy, had his sister Kaitlin gotten mad about that!
How could you, she had said to their mother （or sort of shouted） when the moving men appeared to pick up the set. That was Great-grandma’s!
Oh, Kaitlin, replied his mother. What could you possibly want with a table like that? Some fusty old thing that seats a dozen people. No one even gives dinner parties anymore. Isn’t that right, Woolly.
At the time, Woolly hadn’t known whether people gave dinner parties or not. He still didn’t know. So he hadn’t said anything. But his sister had said something. She had said it to him as the moving men carried the Chippendale out the door.
Take a good hard look, Woolly, she said. Because you’ll never see a table like that again.
So he had taken a good hard look.
But as it turned out, Kaitlin had been wrong. For Woolly had seen a table like that again. He had seen it right here in the display case at FAO Schwarz.
The furniture in the display case was arranged chronologically. So as you moved from left to right you could travel all the way from the Court of Versailles to a living room in a modern-day apartment, with a phonograph, and a cocktail table, and a pair of Mies van der Rohe chairs.