10
A CATASTROPHE WITH A HAPPY ENDING
Dinner was long over. The dishes washed, only the burned pots remained. While preparing the meal, Judy’s thoughts had been engaged on more important matters. Karl’s cruel neglect! She told herself, so what? It isn’t the end of the world! But in her heart she felt it was. Mr. Lurie, perched on the step-ladder, was putting away into the inaccessible closets plates and platters Judy had managed to assemble for this, her first experiment in preparing dinner.
As she scrubbed at the stubborn stains on the aluminum, she was thoughtful. She’d come home early, early enough to see her mother wasn’t feeling well. Minna had sunk into a chair, too tired, she admitted, to move. It was at Judy’s insistence that she went to bed. What mattered that the onions were burnt to a crisp, that the creamed spinach had emerged like green glue? The smiles and pleasantries of her parents were compensation enough.
Minna had sat through the dinner, refreshed by her nap, the color once more back in her cheeks. She ate little. Occasionally she touched her throat, a gesture no one noticed. It was only when pouring coffee that her hand trembled so violently that the cup and saucer fell from her hands.
“What made me do that?” she asked in a troubled whisper.
“It means that you’re going right back to bed for another rest before the boys come to rehearse.” And with a great show of assumed indifference, he persuaded her to lie down once more.
The telephone rang. Judy, struggling with steel wool and pot, paid no heed to the insistent ring. Her father, still perched on the ladder trying to fit a platter into a space several inches too low for its bulk, said, “Take the phone, Judy.”
She dried her hands on her apron and unhurriedly reached the phone. No one ever calls me, she thought with a touch of bitterness as she picked up the receiver.
“Hello. Who’s this? Judy?”
“Yes, it’s me, Karl,” she answered, too surprised to say more.