Read Online Bertrand Court by Michelle Brafman - Free Book Online

Mama to allow her to recite all four questions the first Passover she knew how to read. Sylvia’s stomach burned, though, when she thought about Goldie’s first Rosh Hashanah feast, and how she’d schlepped to Saltzberg’s when she should have stayed in bed recovering from her miss. So much blood she’d lost. Ten weeks, she figured from the womanly calendar she kept in her jewelry box. She had thought about telling Goldie, but how could she? Goldie was bursting with her own news; she was carrying little Simon. Sylvia was happy for her sister, but God strike her dead for not being able to bear Goldie’s big smiles over her perfect kugels and the new life growing inside her. She’d fasted for an extra hour that Yom Kippur for lying to her sister about Irving making her stay home from the lunch.
    Rosh Hashanah used to be Sylvia’s favorite holiday. Mama and her sisters would begin planning the menu the minute Uncle Seymour wolfed down the last Passover macaroon. And then, the week before the first night of Rosh Hashanah, Sylvia would help her mother polish the silver, wiping the metal until it turned shiny. She loved presenting Mama with a sparkling kiddush cup or candlestick.
    Sylvia caressed the slender handle of the spoon in her pocket; its metal ridge moved up and down against her leg as she walked. Goldie was expecting her second child on Thanksgiving Day, and Sylvia knew she should have given her sister Grandma Hannah’s baby spoon for Simon. Soon Sylvia would turn thirty, too old for babies.Besides, Irving said no more trying; two accidents, that was enough. He sent his girl Katie Flanagan from the office to teach Sylvia about the rhythm method. The nerve. She knew he used to shtup Katie before he and Sylvia got serious. She swallowed her humiliation, felt it lodge in her stomach, where Dr. Klein told her that an ulcer was forming.
    â€œHeads up, Sammy!” The sound of Marshall Plotkin’s man-boy voice interrupted her thoughts. She watched him throw a baseball to one of his friends. So big they’d gotten. Marshall would be embarrassed if the lady who used to wipe his tush bothered him when he was with his friends, although she did catch his eye and smile.
    She glanced up through the elm trees, and sure enough Goldie was waiting at her post, her fancy chair, with Simon on her lap. Just to utz her little sister, Sylvia gave Goldie’s downstairs neighbor, Zelda Greenberg, an extra-warm smile, and poor widowed Zelda, whom Goldie had no patience for, climbed all over her. Zelda wasn’t so bad. Sylvia wanted to offer to help her pluck her eyebrows; she’d shaped one so oddly that it always looked raised.
    â€œNu, Sylvia, that sister of yours got you running around town?” Zelda glanced inside Sylvia’s shopping bags and then snuck a quick peek at Sylvia’s flat belly, her questioning eyebrow arching further toward the top of her head.
    â€œHappy New Year to you, Zelda.” Sylvia climbed up the steps to Goldie’s door, now wanting to be rid of Zelda altogether.
    Goldie greeted her sister with an extra place setting for Zelda in her hands. “Did she at least offer to bring anything this year?”
    â€œYou can invite her if you want.” Sylvia spoke without emotion. The last thing she needed was Zelda staring at her belly all afternoon.
    Goldie gave her a look but said nothing.
    â€œCome here, my little Simon.” Sylvia plunked down her bags and took her nephew in her arms. “I brought you a banana.”
    Goldie rubbed her belly. “I’m going to put him down for his nap.”
    â€œGo nap yourself. Tell me what’s left to make.”
    When Sylvia opened the Frigidaire to put away the groceries, she saw that Goldie had already prepared the cabbage rolls, kugels, and briskets. What was she trying to prove, that one?
    Goldie reappeared in the kitchen and smiled sheepishly. “In case the baby should come early.