LITMIR.BIZ

      Jack Pool had been awake for a while already, but he waited in bed until the hallway clock chimed quarter past eight—the exact beginning of his sixteenth birthday. At least, that’s what his birth certificate said. Earlier, the neighbor’s mutt Agatha had snuck up on the Pool’s chicken coop and gotten the hens squawking. If Jack were more like Harry, he’d have snoozed right through the racket, but he was a light sleeper. So he lay there, lightly humming, moving his fingers to his upcoming audition piece, and waited. When the clock finally rang the magic number, he slid off the bottom bunk, pulled his shirt and trousers onto his lean frame, and headed downstairs.

      There was a light rap at the door. He opened it and found Emaline Durham standing on the front steps with her little sister Daisy. Emaline, the girl with the caramel hair and the voice like a flute. The girl he adored.

      “Emaline, Daisy, hi,” he said, pushing his black hair off his forehead. “Come on in.”

      “Hope we didn’t wake you,” Emaline said, smiling all the way up to her topaz eyes. “Your mother said it was all right for Daisy to come play this morning.”

      “Daisy?” came a little girl’s voice from the kitchen.

      “Martha!” Daisy took off.

      Emaline moistened her lips and rocked gently on the balls of her feet. “Happy birthday, Jack. Wow, sixteen.”

      “Thanks. Yeah, can’t wait to get my driver’s license.” For a split second, he imagined the two of them sitting close together in the front seat of the Pools’ Model T.

      “That will be great,” Emaline said.

      “What?”

      “You driving, Jack. That will be great.”

      The image of them in the car disappeared. Driving would be fantastic, but driving with Emaline, that would never happen. Being casual friends with her was one thing. Being something more was something else. Impossible.

      Emaline inhabited a different world from Jack’s: the world of Christians. Normally, her orbit never would have intersected his. The only reason Jack and Emaline were friends, the only reason their younger sisters were playmates, was the miracle of their mothers’ unlikely alliance.

      The mothers had moved to Massena—and into Mittle’s Boarding House—at the same time. They were both newlyweds, knowing no one except their husbands. The newcomers helped each other pass the days, with Eva Pool reading Jenna Durham the stories she was forever, almost obsessively, scribbling down—there was so much to write about! —and Jenna Durham playing her mandolin for Eva. Years later, when Emaline’s father and uncle died in a car accident, it was Jack’s mother who watched baby Daisy while the entire Sacred Heart congregation attended the double funeral.

      “Do you get the day off for your birthday?” Emaline asked.

      “Doubt it. We’re taking delivery on a shipment today.”

      “Maybe I’ll see you at the store then. Lydie and I are going shopping, so we’ll probably stop by.” She bit her lip, leaned toward his ear and whispered, “I was really hoping we could meet up in Paradise Woods so I could wish you happy birthday properly.”

      He could feel her breath on his neck. The blood rushed to his face in a hot wave. Over the summer, he and Emaline had twice managed to “bump into” each other on the path that cut through the local woods. The first time, they’d touched fingertips while they talked, flushed with anxiety over being caught. The second time, they’d gone behind a fat oak tree and almost kissed. Almost, because some men came trudging through on their way to work at the aluminum plant. Still, the thought of that kiss—and others he imagined—often kept Jack awake at night.

      That was in August. When school started a few weeks later, George Lingstrom set his eye on Emaline. George—the captain of Jack’s baseball team, the popular high school senior, the notorious flirt. Jack wondered if Emaline was interested in George. Why shouldn’t she be? George was well-liked, good-looking. And Christian. That was that.

      Jack groaned. “I’ll probably be working late tonight,” he said.

      Emaline took a deep breath. “Rain check then?”

      “Rain or shine.”

      “Good.” She touched Jack on the sleeve, color spreading up along her cheeks, and then quickly turned and disappeared out the door.

      “Someone here?” asked a drowsy voice from the top of the stairs.

      Jack turned to find Harry, still in his nightshirt, plodding down the stairs. “Let’s ankle it, pipsqueak,” Jack said. “Go get ready for shul.”

      “Again?” Harry grumbled.

      “Yup.” They’d spent two full days in the synagogue last week for Rosh Hashanah, the New Year, and would be back again tomorrow for Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, but that didn’t get them off the hook for the Sabbath. “And don’t use up all the hot water,” he added as he headed for the kitchen.

      Martha and Daisy were sitting on the counter, watching his mother slice challah bread.

      “Happy birthday, Jackie,” the little girls chirped.

      “Happy and healthy,” added Mrs. Pool, a small, olive-toned woman with a single chestnut braid halfway down her back. She always wore her apron in the house, the one she made with the pocket big enough to accommodate a pad of paper and a few pencils. Just in case of a story, she always said. “Till a hundred and twenty.”

      “Are we gonna have a party?” Martha asked. “Daisy and me could make you a cake.”

      “No party this year, squirt,” laughed Jack. He had much bigger plans than that. Plans for learning how to drive. Plans for getting a nickel-an-hour pay raise. And best of all, in three days, plans for interviewing at the Bentley School of Music in Syracuse.

      Jack

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