“Mama!” Studs ignored Penny’s complaints. “She’s unconscious. What is it, Mama? Speak to me?”
“My heart!” Mrs. Levine moaned.
“It’s her heart!” Studs looked panic-stricken.
“My ass!” Penny said.
“How can you talk like that?” Studs was indignant.
“Just look at it.” Penny peered over her shoulder into the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. “It’s going to be all blistered. I won’t be able to sit down.”
“Gee, it does look bad at that,” Studs sympathized. “Here, let me put some ointment on it for you.”
“I’m lying here dying with my heart and he’s playing with fannies,” Mrs. Levine moaned. “What mother deserves such a son?”
“Mama, how do you feel?” Studs turned away from Penny.
“So how should I feel? A naked Jezebel jumps out and attacks me from my son’s shower, I should feel good? I’m unconscious with my heart—and my gall bladder too, don’t forget—and my only son is too busy making like a Donald Juan to notice, I should give testimonials to my health? I’m lying here on the cold tiles—when was the last time you had this bathroom washed; it’s a disgrace— every breath could be my last, and he wants to know how do I feel? How do I feel? Hitler should feel like I feel. You should call a rabbi before it’s too late, that’s how I feel.”
“Does she really want you to call a rabbi?” Penny asked, becoming more concerned for Mrs. Levine.
“Miss, on top of everything else, you shouldn’t be meshuginah!” Mrs. Levine answered before Studs could. “You think I want a rabbi should see my son’s disgrace? You should call a rabbi so he could see how Sadie Levine’s son keeps naked women in his bathroom? But why should we stop there? Why not ask the whole Hadassah up? Then everybody should know how a son can shame his mother.”
“Come inside, Mama, and lie down on the bed. You’ll be more comfortable.” Studs pulled her to her feet.
“Your bed I wouldn’t lie on. What goes on there, such a place I wouldn’t pick to die.”
“All right. All right.” Studs led her into the living room and settled her on the sofa. “Put something on,” he hissed to Penny over his shoulder.
Unable to find her clothes, Penny threw on a bathrobe of Studs’ and went into the living room. “Are you feeling better now, Mrs. Levine?” she asked.
“Bitter I’m feeling, not better. But whatever you are, at least you thought to ask. My son, he wouldn’t think to ask his mother is she feeling better.”
“Are you feeling better, Mama?” Studs asked.
“Don’t ask!”
“Can I get you anything?” Studs wanted to know.
“Like what, for instance? A new heart you can’t give me. And the old one you already did enough to.” Mrs. Levine stared at Penny shrewdly. “So for this you left your mother’s house,” she said to Studs finally.
“You don’t understand, Mama. This is the girl I’m going to marry.”
“You have to marry her?” Mrs. Levine’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m not surprised.”
“I don’t have to, Mama. I want to.”
“Now, Irving, let’s don’t be hasty. Whatever I said, I didn’t mean it. I don’t want to push you into getting married. And this isn’t the girl for you!”
“What makes you so sure?” Penny asked indignantly.
“Just from looking I could tell.”
“What’s wrong with the way I look?”
“Who could tell, with no clothes on?”
“I think she looks fine,” Studs interjected.
“Fine? For what, fine? Blonde hair and a shiksa nose and big memories and legs like a Rockette she’s got. But is this what you want in a wife, Irving? Remember, beauty is only skin deep.”
“That’s deep enough for me,” Studs murmured, remembering.
“But the important things, Irving? You got to live with a wife day-to-day. Not just at night. She knows how to fix chicken soup the way you like it?”
“Nobody can make chicken soup the way I like it except you, Mama.”
“She could sew buttons on your shirts? With a figure like that? I don’t believe it!”
“Now wait a minute, Mama,” Studs said soothingly. “Let’s be calm and reasonable. You don’t want me to go in the army, do you? Well, if Penny and I get married, I can stay out.”
“I knew it!” Penny exploded.
“So if getting married will keep you out of the draft, that still doesn’t mean you should pick a girl who runs around men’s bathrooms in her bare skin to marry. There are lots of nice Jewish girls around. Mrs. Cohen’s daughter Marilyn, for instance.”
“Marilyn Cohen? With her acne? Her face looks like something a moon rocket would photograph!”
“So she’s no Jake Mansfield. She’s a nice girl anyway. And she’s very good to her mother.”
“Then let her mother keep her.”
“So all right, you don’t like Marilyn Cohen. How about Sarah Ginsberg? She’s also eligible.”
“Eligible for what? Fat lady at the circus, maybe?”
“So she’s a little zaftig. That’s a crime? She’s a healthy girl, she likes to eat.”
“I’d sooner marry a St. Bernard. It’d be cheaper to feed, too.”
“So all right. Forget Sarah Ginsberg. How about Ethel Schwartz, maybe? What’s wrong with her?”
“Rheumatism. Hemorrhoids. Kidney stones. Outside of that, nothing. And I might even marry her if I wasn’t afraid the AMA might declare her a disaster area. Think of the exercise I’d get just pushing her wheelchair around.”
“All right. If not Ethel, then how about——”
“Forget it, Mama. I’ve found the girl I want to marry and she’s right here. We’re getting married and that’s that.”
“That’s what you think!” Penny said through clenched teeth.
“But why does it have to be this girl?” Mrs. Levine whined.
“Because I’m pregnant, that’s why!” Penny blurted out angrily. “And if he marries me he’ll be a father and that’s the only thing that will keep him out of the draft!”
“This is true?” Mrs. Levine asked Studs.
“Yes, Mama.” He hung his head.
“And you’re the father?”
Studs could only shrug.
“And he’s the father?” Mrs. Levine turned to Penny.
“That’s for him to say!”
“The truth is, I don’t know,” Studs admitted. “I suppose I could be.”
“And this will really keep you out of the army?” Mrs. Levine’s mind was making a rapid adjustment.
“Yeah.”
“And he could be the father?” She turned to Penny again.
Penny was too angry to give her any more satisfaction than a noncommittal shrug. “He could be,” she said tonelessly.
“A girl who isn’t even sure, a girl like this you’re going to marry?” Mrs. Levine demanded of Studs.
“Yes.”
“A girl who’s pregnant you’re going to marry?”
“Yeah.”
“All right.” Mrs. Levine sighed. “It will keep you out of the army, so I’ll forget all the reasons you shouldn’t get married. I’ll make the arrangements for the temple and—”
“What temple?” Penny asked.
“To get married in. Where else but in a temple should a nice Jewish girl—”
“But I’m not Jewish,” Penny interrupted.
“You’re not Jewish?”
“No.”
“She’s not Jewish?” Mrs. Levine turned to Studs.
“No, Ma.”
“She’s not Jewish! Oy, vey!”
“Now, Ma—”
“She’s pregnant, she’s not sure by who, that’s not bad enough. But she’s not Jewish? My heart!”
“Now take it easy, Ma.”
“You run around with girls and maybe make them pregnant and they’re not even Jewish, I should take it easy? A minyan I should call to mourn for my son!”
“Now, Ma —”