Sunday the Rabbi Stayed Home

Chapter Nineteen

Didi cupped her hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone and whispered to her mother. “Remember that boy from school I told you about? Alan Jenkins? The colored boy? Well, he’s in Lynn and wants to come over. What shall I tell him?”

“Ask him to come over, if you want.” said Mrs. Epstein matter-of-factly. “Does he have a car?”

“He’s got a motorcycle. But what about the cookout—”

“Invite him along if he wants to come.”

“You think it will be all right.”

“I don’t see why not. What’s he like, anyway?”

“Oh, he’s a little older than most of the freshmen; he was out working a couple of years. He’s terribly talented. And he’s easygoing and pleasant—I mean he’s not surly or—you know—angry like some of them. I mean at school, it being an art school, well, it doesn’t make any difference. I mean we don’t think of him as being different, if you know what I mean.”

“Then—” Mrs. Epstein shrugged her shoulders.

Didi uncupped the mouthpiece and said, “Oh, Alan? Sorry to keep you waiting. Look, some of the kids I went to school with—we’re having a cookout on the beach. How would you like to make the scene?… About six or eight of us…. You can? Good—Oh, I just thought of something; I promised our rabbi I’d show him that painting I was working on at school—you know, Moses and the tables of the Law? So why don’t you pick me up there?… No, we won’t get hung up…. All right, here’s what you do: Take the shore road out of Lynn and go along until the first set of traffic lights….”

Alan gunned the motor and then let it die. Didi in white slacks climbed down from behind him, and he walked the bike up the driveway to the garage. “That rabbi seemed like a straight guy,” he said. “Funny, I thought he’d be an old crock with a long beard. I thought all rabbis have beards.”

Didi giggled. “No, just the kids at school. Come to think of it, though, I’ve never seen one with a beard.”

“I figured he’d talk like a preacher—you know, about God and all that.”

“Rabbis really aren’t preachers; they’re more like teachers,” she explained. “Actually, according to our rabbi, his real job is interpreting and applying the law—like a lawyer or a judge.”

Mrs. Epstein greeted them in the living room. “Your first time in Barnard’s Crossing, Mr. Jenkins? Didi has told me so much about you.” He was a nice-looking young man, of a deep coffee-brown. His lips, though bluish, were not over-large. His nose, too, was high-bridged and well-formed. His hair was cut close to his head, and she was pleased to see no attempt had been made either to straighten or to smooth it down. He was of medium height but had a large chest and square shoulders, which seemed tensed at the moment.

“Yes, ma’am. I’ve been to the North Shore a couple of times—to Lynn. There’s a guy—a man who sometimes sells some of my paintings for me there—”

“An art dealer? I didn’t know there was an art store or gallery in Lynn,” she said, offering him a chair.

“No. ma’am. He’s got like a bookstore and greeting cards and some gift items—things like that. He hangs up some of my paintings when he’s got the space, and when he sells one, he pays me.”

“And do you sell many?” she asked.

He laughed, a fine, open laugh. “Not enough to retire on. I’m riding down to New York first thing tomorrow morning, and I was hoping he might have some loot for me.” He shook his head. “Zilch—although he did say he had a couple of people interested in one picture.”

“And what kind of pictures do you paint, Mr. Jenkins?”

“Oh. Alan does these marvelous abstracts—”

An auto horn sounded outside. “There’s Stu now. Come on. Alan.” said Didi.

“Take a sweater, dear. It can get chilly on the Point.”

“Don’t need one.”

“Well, have a nice time, dear. Good-bye. Mr. Jenkins. And good luck on those paintings.”