Lily White by Susan Isaacs

say it himself, being smart enough to realize the first word was probably not pronounced “Poo is-gee.” But of course Leonard would insist the salesmen switch to English if he saw the customer getting scared. Fear was bad, he explained. Intimidation, on the other hand, was good, because then the customer and her husband would order an even better garment, just to prove they could afford to buy in such classy surroundings.
    So he’d poured all this out to his wife for almost an hour and a half, and she’d
shrugged.
“Is that all you can say?” he’d demanded. Finally, she’d said, “I think it sounds wonderful,” but hecould tell she didn’t. She was probably scared. Selling a booming business in Queens and opening up cold in Manhattan. Such a risk. Didn’t she realize he woke up at four in the morning with his intestines tied in knots? Such a huge outlay, what with inventory and a showroom with parquet floors and those antique French chairs with arms that cost about two hundred dollars each.
    Still, the way her skirt fit over her backside, like the skin on a knockwurst …
    “I said pinch
myself
,” Sylvia laughed, wriggling out of his grasp, moving into the kitchen to deal with the bags of groceries that filled the room. Stock up, Leonard had commanded her the day before, their first full day as home owners. She had left the baby with her mother, who was helping out till they got settled, and had gone on a shopping spree that had left the assistant manager of the A & P with his jaw hanging open—although he
badbeen
able to say: Can I have one of the boys put your bags in your car, Mrs. … And she’d filled in his blank. White, she’d said. To be perfectly honest, it had been humiliating, going from Weissberg to Weiss to White, but now that they were in a new community, starting out fresh as White, knowing he wouldn’t change it again (despite a few days’ flirtation with “Whyte”), she was glad Leonard had insisted. Anyway, the A & P assistant manager—he was very broad-shouldered, probably from lifting all those cartons of canned peaches—he said …
    “How much did you spend?” Leonard inquired.
    “What you gave me,” Sylvia responded, a little edgy because she
had
gone overboard, sweeping roll upon roll of paper towels into her cart, stocking up on Chicken of the Sea chunk white like the tuna was pheasant under glass or something. And she had pulled jar after jar of preserves off the shelf, until she had strawberry, black-currant, cherry, raspberry, gooseberry, plum, apple butter, and orange marmalade.
    But to his credit, Leonard wasn’t cheap. Nothing but the best. Well, not
the
best, because the best kind of a house was an English Tudor or something called a Georgian, he’d told her. Except then your furniture had to be antiques or at least come from B. Altman, so it was better to have a modern house. Then it could be spare. Spare. That was his new favorite word; it superseded “classic,” which came after “luxuriant,” which supplanted “discriminating.” He always had some snotty new word. To be honest, he had some nerve acting so snotty, what with Lard Lady, his mother, and his old man, Nathan the Red. “Spare.” Well, her clothes were spare, but then, she’d always had terrific taste. It was part of her artistic talent. Like, with her Hardy Amies green wool suit: a green felt hat trimmed with green feathers, but black suede pumps. She didn’t want to believe it when the salesgirl had suggested green alligator. No! She knew when enough was enough. Black suede gloves, large gold button earrings, and
that was it.
No bracelet, no necklace, no scarf. Spare.
    She loved buying. The dark jewel colors of the jams in the A & P. The sleek Danish-modern coffee table with those skinny blond legs that made it look as though it was tiptoeing over the cocoa-colored carpet. And on top of the table, casual, as if someone had just stopped reading them, not in a neat pile, the half-price art