Part 49 (1/2)
”What Max Teitlebaum thinks of Pearlie I already know. To-day he invited me to lunch with him.”
”Izzy!”
”Izzy! Why you been so close-mouthed?”
Mrs. Binsw.a.n.ger threw her short, heavy arm full length across the table-top and leaned toward her son, so that the table-lamp lighted her face with its generous scallop of chin and exacerbated the concern in her eyes.
”You had lunch to-day with Max Teitlebaum, and about Poil you talked!”
”That's what I said.”
Miss Binsw.a.n.ger leaned forward in her low rocker, suddenly pink as each word had been a fillip to her blood, and a faint terra-cotta ran under the olive of her skin, lighting it.
”Like--fun--you--did!”
”All right then, missy, I'm lyin', and won't say no more.”
”I didn't mean it, Izzy!”
”Izzy, tell your sister what he said.”
”Well, right to my face she contradicts me.”
”Please, Izzy!”
”Well, he--he likes you, all righty--”
”Did he say that about me, honest, Izz?”
Her breath came sweet as thyme between her open lips, and her eyes could not meet her mother's gaze, which burned against her lids.
”See, Poil! Wake up a minute, papa, and listen. When I mentioned Max Teitlebaum, papa, you always said a grand boy like one of the Teitlebaum boys, with such prospects, ain't got no time for a goil like our Poil.
Always I told you that you got to work up the appet.i.te. See, papa, how things work out! See, Poil! What else did he have to say, Izzy--he likes her, eh?”
Isadore turned on his side and flecked a rim of ash off his cigarette with a manicured forefinger.
”Don't get excited too soon, ma. He didn't come out plain and say anything, but I guess a boy like Max Teitlebaum thinks we don't need a brick house to fall on us.”
”What you mean, Izzy?”
”What I mean? Say, ain't it as plain as the nose on your face? You don't need two brick houses to fall on you, do you?”
Mrs. Binsw.a.n.ger admitted to a mental phthisis, and threw out her hands in a gesture of helplessness.
”Believe me, Izzy, maybe I am dumb. So bad my head works when your papa worries me, but what you mean I don't know.”
”Me neither, Izzy!”
”Say, there ain't much to tell. He likes Pearlie--that much he wasn't bashful to me about. He likes Pearlie, and he wants to go in the general store and ladies' furnis.h.i.+ng goods business. Just clothing like his father's store he hates. Why should he stay in a business, he says, that is already built up? His two married brothers, he says, is enough with his father in the one business.”
”Such an ambitious boy always anxious to do for hisself. I wish, Izzy, you had some of his ambitions. You hear, Poil, in the same business as papa he wants to go?”