The Unfortunates. Laurie Graham

young bloods. Stay liquid, that’s what I always advise. You won’t catch me buying big houses in Oyster Bay.’

      That was Harry’s latest thing. He foresaw a need for convalescent homes on Long Island once we had won the war.

      I said, ‘But when shall I be old enough to manage my own fund?’

      I believe Uncle Israel looked a little hurt.

      ‘Well, of course,’ he said, ‘I shan’t be around forever. And when you marry …’

      I said, ‘But I’m not allowed to marry. I have to stay home and take care of Ma.’

      ‘Who told you such a thing?’ he said. ‘Of course you’ll marry. And then your husband will advise you on your investments. But no hurry. I’m good for a few years yet.’

      He ordered a rack of lamb with pommes de terre boulanger. It was news indeed to me that I was no longer expected to remain an old maid. I thought this over as we ate, Uncle making short work of the ribs while I concentrated on the potatoes. They were the best I had ever tasted.

      The champagne wine had made me feel a little fizzy, but I was suddenly awake enough to see a connection between my secretly restored eligibility and the abrupt silences that fell whenever I walked in on Ma and Aunt Fish. They were matchmaking.

      ‘Uncle Israel,’ I said, ‘did you ever meet Mr Jacoby?’

      He choked a little on a piece of meat and turned quite purple before he was able to catch his breath and order a glass of brandy. He dabbed at his eyes with his napkin.

      ‘Judah Jacoby?’ he said, eventually. ‘Yes, I know him. I remember his father, too. Of course, they were just importers when they started, but they’re in everything now. Everything from the pelt to the finished garment. Fine quality and square dealings. That’s Jacoby.’

      I said, ‘His wife died, you know, and her sister helped him raise his sons?’

      ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I hear all about it, never fear.’

      I said, ‘And Oscar Jacoby is gone for a soldier. Do you happen to know which lot he’s with?’

      ‘No idea,’ he said. ‘Though I’m sure I’ve been told. I leave my superiors to keep up with that side of things.’

      And he gave me a funny greasy smile. My heart was racing.

      I said, ‘Uncle Israel, Ma and Aunt Fish are always laughing and whispering when they come home from the Jacobys’ but they don’t tell me anything. Do you suppose … ?’

      ‘Pops,’ he said. He leaned across the table and patted my hand. ‘I have learned not to suppose anything. Who can possibly fathom what Dora and Zillah find amusing? Perhaps they’re matchmaking. Perhaps they’re just enjoying their war. Now, who’s for charlotte russe?’

      I went home with a warm, fluffy feeling inside my tummy. Ma was already in bed, but her light was still burning so I went into her and gave her a kind of hug that was not customary in our family.

      ‘Oh Ma,’ I said, ‘I’m so happy.’

      ‘Poppy,’ she said, ‘I do believe you’re tight. Did Israel explain everything? About your money?’

      ‘He did,’ I said. ‘He explained everything.’

      Alone in my room I tried on Grandma Plotz’s tourmaline ring, then I lay down and counted my blessings.

      1. By November I would be a mustard heiress and Uncle Israel would keep me liquid. Whatever that meant.

      2. Destiny was conspiring with my mother and my aunt to unite me with none other than the very beau of my choice, Oscar Jacoby.

      3. I was Jewish, to just the right degree.

       FOURTEEN

      Toward the end of July Mrs Considine received a Western Union telegram informing her that her son had been killed during the Battle of the Marne. I didn’t know him, of course, and I never much liked Mrs Considine but, still, I did feel sad for her, him being her only boy and now he wouldn’t be coming home. He had been a bugler, which sounded like a safe kind of soldier to be, so when I heard I became anxious about Oscar who was probably doing far more dangerous things.

      A night nurse and a tutor were engaged for my nephew Sherman Ulysses and they accompanied my sister Honey when she went away to Long Island for her health. She had seen a number of doctors but every one of them gave her different advice and none of it helped. She tried sitz baths. She ate charcoal biscuits till her teeth turned black. And she had her magnetic fields adjusted by a person from Brooklyn who only ate nuts and berries.

      It was my belief that Honey’s problems were the result of lying too much on her couch, but Ma believed quite the opposite.

      ‘Now she can really rest,’ I heard her say to Aunt Fish, after Honey had left for her convalescence, ‘because she won’t have Harry bothering her.’

      As Honey faded, so I bloomed. I was much happier in my work because I could almost count in days when I would come into my money and be able to buy a field hospital and take it to France and be talked about, like Cousin Addie. Also, Ethel Yeo, who had become a thorn in my flesh always inquiring after Oscar and trying to catch me out, had left to become a manicurist at the Prince George Hotel. Junie Mack was gone, too, having caught a baby from a soldier, and although I missed her, this left me more at liberty to talk to any good-looking boys who passed through the depot. I had no intention of being unfaithful, but I welcomed the chance to gauge my powers of enchantment. I wanted to learn to spoon, so that when Oscar came home from the war I should be word perfect. I allowed one boy to walk me to the trolley-car and light my cigarette and everything seemed to be most satisfactory, but he never offered again nor was even especially friendly when he saw me.

      Then an older man called Albert began to make love to me. He was thirty-two and couldn’t go to war because he had rickety legs, but in every other respect he was a handsome devil.

      He took me to Riker’s for an ice-cream soda and asked me all about my fortune. Everything was going along just fine until he tried to put his arm around my waist. I told him to keep his distance. I told him I had no wish to catch a baby just when I was about to go to war, and the people standing nearby seemed to find this amusing.

      I said, ‘I’m sure I don’t know what any of you find so droll. I’m one of the mustard Minkels and I’m going to buy a hospital and take it to France.’

      This made them laugh all the more.

      I said, ‘And I’d sure like to know why all of you are leaning on this counter, drinking sarsaparilla when you might be volunteering.’

      That quietened them. I held my head high and made my exit, but I heard that Albert say, ‘Crazy kike.’

      Of course, I hadn’t meant it about him not volunteering. I knew he was too old and crippled. It made me realize, though, how easily I might have gone the way of Junie Mack. Men seemed to believe treating a girl to an ice-cream soda entitled them to certain liberties.

      Ma, meanwhile, was forever leaving off her knitting to go to any charity bazaar Yetta Landau might recommend, and sometimes to lectures on subjects relevant to the war effort. These, I know, she found as draining as she had once found the giving of dinners, but she tried to bear up and listen attentively, because she knew this would earn her Miss Landau’s respect.

      ‘As Dear Yetta says,’ Ma would report, rubbing her temples to ease her aching brain, ‘education is our hope and insurance against another war.’

      Harry said he believed a safer bet was to shell the Hun until they came out with their hands raised.

      ‘President Wilson,’ Ma said, ‘has laid down Fourteen Points for peace.’

      ‘What