Chapter 5 Natalie #2
Natalie had looked at her pretty, golden-haired children and felt a stab of sympathy for Charles. Having produced the wrong card, his cheeks were aflame. He ran a hand through his wavy red hair, and it stuck up in peaks like a torch.
She might have said something kind to Charles, this ugly boy with no friends, but the nearly empty popcorn bowl next to Jill’s
leg had caught her eye.
That girl eats every second I’m not watching her!
“Let’s go, Jill,” she’d barked. “Clean up your mess, all of you, and then come upstairs and say good night to Mr. and Mrs.
Bernstein.”
“I can show you another trick,” she’d heard Charles whisper to Jill. “It’ll take two seconds! I was saving my best for last.”
Natalie knew Charles had a crush on her daughter. She also knew that Jill couldn’t wait to escape the Bernsteins’ basement.
Jill felt sorry for Charles and was never mean to him, but his obsequiousness made her squirm. Natalie had barely made it
out to the patio when Jill appeared, holding Justin’s hand, and politely thanked Elaine before heading down the hill toward
home.
“I’m glad they’re doing swim team together again this year,” Elaine had said after Jill left. “Charles is doing sailing camp,
too. He doesn’t want to, but Benjamin insisted. Are J.J. and Jill sailing, too?”
“They are. I need to fill their days because I’ll be at work and Una will have enough on her hands taking care of Justin,
the house, and the dogs.”
The Bernsteins didn’t have any pets. Elaine claimed that Charles was allergic to pet dander, but Natalie didn’t believe her.
Elaine just didn’t want a cat or dog scratching the white leather sofas or shedding on the cream-colored shag rugs. Elaine’s
house was photoshoot ready at all times, as if she were constantly anticipating a magazine spread.
To be fair, the Bernsteins’ home had been featured in magazines. Six of them, to be precise, a fact which Elaine seemed to mention at every yacht club dinner and neighborhood party.
Elaine was enormously proud of their big, blocky, modern house. She loved to talk about its architectural details, the art
hanging from its walls, or how the light passed through the banks of floor-to-ceiling windows to warm the spacious rooms.
Working with a team of decorators from Manhattan, Elaine had filled the house with Lucite, chrome, and glass. She’d rejected
the trendy Laura Ashley prints, pastel walls, and bold geometric rugs in favor of an elevated art deco look. Everything had
been painstakingly chosen, from the living room lamps to the salad bowls.
The Bernsteins were the wealthiest family in the neighborhood. If Elaine wanted something, she got it.
Benjamin was nothing like Jimmy. Natalie was always explaining why she’d spent money on new swimsuits, shoes, and school supplies
for the kids. At the end of every month, when Jimmy went through the bills, he’d grumble about various doctor, dentist, or
orthodontist visits. Natalie would keep her temper until he asked her to justify the price of women’s haircuts or asked why
she needed more perfume when he’d gotten her a bottle from the duty-free shop last year.
“This is why I want to go back to work!” she’d snap every time. “I’m sick of sitting here, like I’m being called into the
principal’s office, and explaining every item on the Visa bill. I want my own money so we don’t have to do this ever again!”
Elaine shopped at Lord & Taylor. Natalie shopped at Macy’s. For once, she’d like to spend money the way Elaine did. She’d
like to hand her Visa card to the clerk with the disinterested ease of someone who could do whatever she wanted. Who could
buy things without guilt. Who could take pleasure in shopping for herself.
Looking at the petunias in her wagon, Natalie decided to invest a few hundred dollars making the McCreedys’ house look good. She was impatient to get started, but first, she needed to find out what was bothering Elaine.
“What’s wrong with Charles?”
“Nothing’s wrong with him. It’s his bar mitzvah.”
Inwardly, Natalie rolled her eyes. She’d been hearing about this bar mitzvah for six months. It was all Elaine talked about,
which was why Natalie already knew that there’d be a ceremony at Temple Beth-El followed by the biggest, most memorable soiree
in Cold Harbor history.
“For one night, we want to be the Jewish version of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan,” Benjamin had said one night over dinner.
Jimmy assumed his friend was joking, but Natalie knew he wasn’t. Elaine had converted her entire dining room into her bar
mitzvah “war room.” The table was covered in articles, magazine clippings, a desk calendar, and a chalkboard listing possible
themes. One by one, the themes had been crossed off. Safari, outer space, arcade, candy factory, pioneers, underwater, punk
rock, rock climbing, travel around the world—they’d all been rejected.
“I thought you found a great party planner and everything was going well,” Natalie said, noting the shadows under Elaine’s
eyes.
“It was. We finally came up with a theme, and I’m ready to have the invitations printed. However, there’s a hitch, and it’s Mrs. Smith. If we
weren’t in public, I’d call her something that rhymes with hitch.”
Natalie was intrigued. Elaine expected Charles’s social status to do a total one-eighty because of this bar mitzvah, and she
was so used to getting what she wanted that Natalie couldn’t wait to hear how the neighborhood recluse was standing in her
way.
“What’s the theme?”
Elaine wagged a manicured finger. “I’m not telling. You’ll find out when your invitation comes, but I will need Jill and J.J.’s help with something.”
“Sure,” said Natalie, lifting her voice at the end of the word as if not quite willing to commit.
“The temple kids will come to the party with their parents, but for this to be a true success, I need kids from outside the
temple to show up. And I have a plan. It came to me when Charles went to Ian Fielder’s bar mitzvah and got a Walkman as a
party favor.”
Natalie whistled.
“That’s nothing.” Elaine pulled a shriveled petunia flower off its stalk and tossed it to the ground. “At Robbie Weitz’s,
the boys got baseball gloves signed by Dave Righetti, and the girls got sterling silver bracelets. A few months ago, I would’ve
sold the house if I thought I could get cassette tapes signed by Michael Jackson or lightsabers signed by a Star Wars actor, but I can’t. And that’s okay because our party favor is better than any of that stuff.”
“What is it?”
“An Atari 2600 system with two all-new games. Empire Strikes Back and something called Donkey Kong. That game isn’t supposed to be out until August, but Benjamin knows someone at Atari, so Charles’s friends will have it
before anyone else.”
Natalie was impressed. J.J. and Jill would be over the moon to be gifted a new gaming system. “Wow.”
Looking pleased, Elaine went on. “If your kids are excited about going to the party, they’ll get their friends to go, and we’ll have a full house. Will they do that?
For Charles?”
Seeing the naked need in Elaine’s eyes, Natalie said, “Leave it to me. Every kid in Cold Harbor will be running to their mailbox, hoping to find an invitation. But what does any of this have to do with Mrs. Smith?”
After casting a furtive glance at the other women in the annuals section, Elaine said, “Let’s move over to ground covers.
I need a few flats of pachysandra.”
Natalie pulled her wagon past tables of shade-loving plants until she and Elaine reached the section devoted to ground covers.
Elaine walked all the way to the back, where rows of sedum, trailing periwinkle, and creeping juniper were packed tightly
on a long table.
“I don’t want to spoil the surprise by telling you what I have planned for the party, but I can tell you it’ll be at the yacht
club,” Elaine began. “Linda, the woman I’m working with at Premium Parties, called yesterday to let me know that Peter couldn’t
sign off on the fireworks.”
Peter, the yacht club president, was one of the most congenial people Natalie had ever met. “What’s the problem?”
“Peter told Linda about a special clause in the bylaws. The club doesn’t own the land it sits on. They lease it from Mrs.
Smith, and part of the lease agreement stipulates that she has to approve all club-related events that take place outdoors
after ten at night. I guess she said no to the fireworks, because Peter denied my request.”
Natalie was taken aback by this news because Benjamin and Elaine were Commodores, the highest level of membership. Not only
did they pay a king’s ransom in dues, but Benjamin’s company donated very generously to club fundraisers and sponsored several
regattas each year. After all the Bernsteins had done for the club, how could Peter turn down Elaine’s request?
“He says his hands are tied,” Elaine said. “So, I contacted Mrs. Smith myself.”
“Really?”
“You know I’d do anything for Charles. Anything. This woman isn’t going to ruin my son’s big day.” Elaine smoothed her hair. “It’s not like I haven’t tried to be nice to
her, either. Remember when we first moved in and I went over to introduce myself, but she never came to the door? Then I went
back the next day with that potted hydrangea. It was a gorgeous plant.”
“I remember it turning brown on her front porch.”
Elaine scowled. “She came out to collect her newspapers—probably in the middle of the night, because I’ve never seen her do
it—but left that plant out there to die.”
“It stayed there until one of her yard guys took it away.” Natalie’s gaze went glassy. “All these years we’ve lived next door
to her, we’ve only seen the yard guys and the hot tub repairman pass through her gates.”
“And Don.”
Natalie’s mouth fell open. “What? Beth’s Don?”
“Yes. He strolled through the gates, casual as you please, and took an envelope taped to the front door.”
“When was this?”
Elaine shrugged a delicate shoulder. “A week ago. Maybe more. Benjamin saw the whole thing and didn’t think to mention it
to me until today. Anyway, I called Beth to ask her about it, but she said she’d tell us tomorrow night at garden club.”
“Why would Mrs. Smith be writing Don?” Natalie was practically panting. This was the juiciest gossip she’d heard in ages.
“I don’t know, but if she can tape an envelope to the door for him, she can reply to my letter the same way.”
When Natalie had pulled into the garden center, she’d been in a huge hurry to buy plants and get to work at the McCreedys’,
but her desire to sell a house was completely overshadowed by what Elaine was telling her. “Wait. You already wrote her?”
“Yes. I politely asked for permission to shoot off fireworks the night of the party and told her why it was such an important event for our family. She might’ve brushed off Peter’s request, but I won’t take no for an answer.”
“What if she doesn’t reply?”
Elaine tossed her head. “Then I’ll stand on her porch and ring her doorbell until she opens the damn door and speaks to me.
The woman lives in a neighborhood, which means she’s part of a community. She can’t just hide in her house and make decisions
that affect her neighbors without looking us in the eye.”
Elaine’s intensity discomfited Natalie. On one hand, she thought her friend’s obsession with a party for a thirteen-year-old
was ridiculous. She couldn’t imagine spending such a crazy amount of money on a kid. Then again, Natalie had three kids. Three
times the expense of Elaine’s one child. But even if she and Jimmy could afford such an extravagant party, they wouldn’t throw
their money away to impress a bunch of teenagers.
Elaine thinks she can buy friends for Charles, but it won’t work.
The kids would be nice to him for a while, but when the afterglow of the party and the satisfaction of having received a new
Atari faded, so would his newfound popularity.
“They should ship him off to boarding school,” Jimmy had said more than once. “He’ll be a sissy for the rest of his life if
he doesn’t get away from his mother.”
Deep down, Natalie was envious of Elaine. The Bernsteins flew first-class to Europe twice a year and spent every spring break
in the Caribbean. Elaine had the most exquisite clothes, jewelry, and purses. She owned several fur coats. She had her hair
and nails done every Friday. Every three years, Benjamin bought her a new Mercedes.
Benjamin’s company, Rose’s Frozen Foods, was the main supplier of frozen kosher meals for all Long Island.
He had several hundred employees and an army of delivery trucks bearing the company logo and a big blue rose.
These trucks zoomed from the distribution center in Queens to grocery stores all over Nassau and Suffolk Counties.
“Benjamin might expand into New Jersey next year,” Jimmy had whispered to Natalie a few nights ago. “If that happens, he will be the Jewish Gatsby.”
“It’ll take more than money to fix Charles,” had been Natalie’s petty response.
Jimmy had kissed her neck, his hand sliding under her nightgown to stroke the silky skin of her inner thigh. “You could fix
him. You always know what to do.”
Turned on by the hint of pride in his voice, Natalie had shrugged out of her nightgown and pulled her husband on top of her.
Now, standing in a quiet corner of the plant store, Natalie didn’t feel jealous of Elaine. She felt admiration.
Elaine Bernstein was going to tangle with Mrs. Smith.
“What can I do to help?”
Elaine smiled. “You can make me a double G&T tomorrow night. Either I’ll be celebrating a victory, or I’ll need some liquid
courage before I make my next move. Because if she doesn’t give me what I want, I’ll be declaring war on Mrs. Smith.”