with some of her plans. For instance, the year we were ten, she wanted to camp out on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena on New Year’s Eve so we’d have front-row seats for the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day. She persuaded Papa, Aunt Pearl, and even Mr. Berlov to go. Mama, who stayed at home with Audrey, bundled us up in our warmest jackets and made us take every blanket from the house. For the first time, I stayed awake until midnight, drinking cocoa and telling ghost stories with Barbara and Danny, and the next day, the flower-covered floats in the Rose Parade were the most beautiful things I had ever seen.
Even when it was just Barbara and me, I never got bored. And I sometimes got in trouble, like when we took Mama’s just-washed sheets from the line and built a fort in the yard. Once, though I protested all the way, I trotted after her to stand on the bank of the Los Angeles River when it surged with water during the rainy season. I couldn’t stop thinking about Micky Altschul, the Boyle Heights legend who’d been swept away by the river in flood. Still, seeing the river in its glory as La Reina de la Puebla de Los Angeles was terrifying and thrilling. Barbara let out a yell of excitement, and I yelled, too, trying to outroar the river. It was worth the slaps we got when Mama somehow found out. On my own, I might have been a tediously good child, scolded only for spending too much time with my nose in books—and perhaps a tedious, line-toeing adult. Would I have become such a rabble-rouser if Barbara hadn’t brought out the mischief in me?
But Barbara didn’t just have a gift for mischief. My sister could be dangerous.
One afternoon in November 1932, not long after Roosevelt was elected president—we were eleven, and in the sixth grade—we went with Danny to Chafkin’s grocery store. Barbara and I had a shopping list from Mama, and Mrs. Chafkin helped us find what we needed. After she figured out what everything cost, she took the strip of cardboard with our family’s name on it from the collection of such strips hanging behind the counter and wrote down the amount to add to the total Mama and Papa would pay at the end of the month.
“There you go, girls.” Mrs. Chafkin handed us the groceries and two pieces of bubble gum. She gave Danny a piece of gum, too, but ignored the items he’d placed on the counter—two cans of soup, a five-pound sack of potatoes, and a pint of milk.
“I want to get these,” Danny said.
Mrs. Chafkin had seemed a little nervous when she was helping Barbara and me. Now discomfort streamed from her, though all she did was call out, “Eddie?”
Eddie was Mrs. Chafkin’s energetic son, who had come into the business after graduating from high school a few years earlier. (Eddie Chafkin would eventually build a supermarket empire and become Los Angeles’s leading promoter of Israel Bonds.) He hurried out from the back office.
“Danny Berlov,” Mrs. Chafkin whispered, as if her voice had gotten trapped in her throat.
Eddie Chafkin glanced at the groceries on the counter. “Danny, have you got money to pay for these?”
None of us ever carried more than a nickel or two. “Put it on my father’s tab,” Danny said.
“Your father needs to come talk to us about his bill.” Eddie took out the strip of cardboard with Gershon Berlov written on it and pointed to a black X next to the name.
“My father, he always forgets!” Danny laughed, but his cheeks flamed. “I’ll tell him, and I’ll just get this for tonight.” He pushed one can of soup toward Eddie, who stood with his arms crossed. Everyone knew that, as well as being named for a dead ancestor whose Hebrew name was something like Efraim or Eliezer, Eddie Chafkin’s parents had also named him for King Edward VII of England, and he always acted hoity-toity.
“That’s not enough for dinner,” Mrs. Chafkin said. “How about a few potatoes, too?” She took three potatoes from the sack Danny had placed on the counter and put them and the can of soup in a bag. Then she added the milk, too. “You’ll need this for breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“Ma!” I heard Eddie say as we went out the door.
Taut with shame, Danny mumbled that he had to get home. He hugged the small sack of groceries to his chest