The Four Temperaments by Yona Zeldis McDonough Page B

Broadway, whatever form it took. She loved its four busy lanes of traffic, interrupted only by the small urban islands that were still home to wooden benches, pigeons and the occasional squirrel, its familiar and dense mosaic of shops and services that had sustained her over all these years. She had befriended many of the shopkeepers: Mr. Weiss, who owned the shop where she brought shoes for repair and resoling, knew Lilli's relatives in Vienna. Mr. Lee, who owned the Chinese laundry, had children Ruth watched grow up: his son was now at Fordham University and his daughter, who turned out to have a real talent for the violin, was at Juilliard; Oscar helped arrange that.
    These events were the cornerstones of Ruth's weeks. In the evenings, she still sometimes cooked, although often she and Oscar went out for dinner. Friday nights, she tried to make a
Shabbas
dinner, with Lilli's brass candlesticks (though she now had someone come to clean once a week, they were polished by no other hand than hers) and a linen cloth on the table. Oscar was not a religious man, but he still enjoyed the ritual. When the ballet was in season, and he liked to eat out late after the performance (sometimes with another musician but usually with one of the dancers—yes, she knew all about it), she would get together with a friend, or with her sister, Molly, or attend the book club that had been running on and off for the last fifteen years. Every so often, she took a cooking class; not that she wasn't already an accomplished cook, but she enjoyed learning the techniques and skills required of some new cuisine. Fluted madeleines, Basque paella, ravioli hand-filled with pureed beets or pumpkin—all had been sampled and amply praised in her West End Avenue dining room. Though of late, given her concerns about health and weight—both Oscar's and her own—she had veered toward courses in lighter Asian fare. To find the ingredients required to prepare these foods, she made trips to Kalustyan on Lexington Avenue for earth-colored spices and curry powder; to Canal Street in Chinatown for slick baby eggplants and seasoned oils.
    But soon
it would be Thanksgiving, and Ruth would need to alter her routine somewhat to get ready. She loved these big holidays when she could count on seeing her family, and since Ben had said he was coming this year, she was especially excited. She wondered if he would like Ginny. Although now that she understood the extent of Oscar's feelings for Ginny, this seemed less like a good idea than she had initially thought. What if Ben and Ginny became a couple, or actually got married, and the bride had been the lover—real or imaginary—of the father-in-law? As tolerant as she was, Ruth didn't think she could tolerate a situation like
that.
    She therefore invited another young woman as a distraction. Molly had said something about her daughter's roommate not having anyplace to go for the day, so Ruth decided she should come along.
    This was how she was before a holiday—planning, scheming, dreaming the event. She wrote out a menu in a big, spiral-bound notebook and started her shopping early, before the lines at Zabar's got too long. Once there, she bought things that would keep, like the special balsamic vinegar she used in the stuffing, and the imported crackers she served with cheese and sliced fruit as a snack hours after the meal. She ordered the turkey from a local butcher where she had shopped for years and the flowers from the florist nearby; from a company listed in the Yellow Pages, she rented folding chairs and a small card table. Just in case. The wine came from the store on Seventy-second Street, the one that had been supplying her family with spirits since Gabriel's bar mitzvah. Who said New York City wasn't a village?
    Penelope called to tell Ruth when their flight was scheduled to arrive on Wednesday. They would be spending the night with her mother in Connecticut and then all of them would