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EPILOGUE / PROLOGUE
The parade carried the great aviator up Fifth Avenue under a fusillade of paper streamers and ticker tape so thick it looked like snow in summer. American flags had been hung from high windows and balconies; they fluttered against the sides of buildings, a patriotic drapery. And why not? The aviator, Charles Augustus Lindbergh, was the nation’s new favorite golden boy, a certified American hero. He’d done something remarkable, and for a moment, the people forgot all that had come before. Forgetting was a pastime as popular as baseball.
Through the windows of Goldberg’s Delicatessen, over plates of the world’s best pastrami-on-rye, Sam and Evie watched over the heads of the shouting, streamer-throwing crowd. They were hopeful they could catch at least a glimpse of the motorcade.
Evie grabbed for the binoculars on the table and took a look.
“Anything yet?” Sam asked. He seized the opportunity to steal three bites of her unattended coleslaw.
“No, just a lot of police on horses and old men in top hats,” Evie said. She put the binoculars down and frowned. “Didn’t I have more coleslaw than that?”
“Was I telling the truth about that sandwich?” Sam asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
“You were pos-i-tutely on the money. I could eat this every day for a week,” Evie said and tucked into another generous bite.
The diner wasn’t very crowded. Most people were outside on the streets, eager to cheer on the aviator, to feel like they were part of his triumph. Mrs. Goldberg fiddled with the radio on the diner’s sparkling countertop so that the regulars who were there could hear the announcer’s play-by-play of the parade.
“I used to be big on the radio, you know,” Evie said to Sam nonchalantly.
“You don’t say! Let me guess: the farm reports.” Sam grinned and winked, and Evie burst into giggles.
“You should hear me read in cow,” she said.
“You might not want to say that in front of the pastrami,” Sam whispered.
A smiling Mrs. Goldberg stopped by their table. She was a soft, round woman with large brown eyes. “More coffee?” Her English still carried a faintly German accent. Sam had told Evie that Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg had emigrated to New York from Berlin. The rest of their family—aunts and uncles, parents, sisters and brothers—still lived in Germany, but, as Mrs. Goldberg had said, “New York is for me.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Goldberg,” Sam said.
“Maxie!” Mrs. Gold
berg called across the cafe. “We have fresh coffee?”
“In a minute, in a minute, Fanny,” Mr. Goldberg called back.
Mrs. Goldberg shook her head. “That man. We have been married twenty-five years last Tuesday. So. When is the big day?”
“As soon as she’ll let me,” Sam said and kissed Evie’s hand, and it made Evie so happy she was afraid her happiness was a bird that might fly away.
“You’ll come to see me after, right?” Mrs. Goldberg said.
“Yes. You can make us special wedding pastrami,” Sam said.
“With extra coleslaw,” Mrs. Goldberg said with a wink as she walked away.
Mrs. Sam Lloyd, Evie thought. And then, Evie Lloyd. And then, Mrs. Evie O’Neill-Lloyd, like British royalty. It would look very dignified on her calling cards. She’d mail a bunch of them back to the girls in Zenith. The pettiness of this warmed her.
“What are you smiling about?” Sam asked.
“Oh, nothing.”
“Now I’m worried.”
Through the diner’s windows, Evie watched the parade and daydreamed about a wedding at City Hall downtown, with Theta and Ling by her side. She thought of Mabel and felt the twinge in her heart. I’m getting married, Mabesie, she thought, and she wished that she could share the day with her best friend. She thought of James and Will, Woody, Bill, and Jericho. She could do nothing but face the future. She would live every day fully. She was not the same girl she’d been nearly a year ago. She would never see things so blithely again. Even now, as Evie watched the parade and the people alight with pride and joy, she knew how easily that same crowd could become angry. The things that divided them. The things that brought them together, too. They couldn’t afford to become complacent.
Sam swiped the pickle from Evie’s plate and took a big bite.
“I saw that!”
