“Why not what?”
“Why not make a day of it? Just you and me on a date.”
“What would we do?”
“Anything we want. Starting with a better park.”
We walked out to the main avenue, and we stood by the curb, looking for a taxi. She hailed a couple, and finally one stopped, and a man named Albert Solomon Gluck drove us to a better park, to Riverside Commons. In those days, there weren’t Plexiglas shields between the front and back seats, because no one yet imagined a time when drivers would be in danger from some of their passengers. Mr. Gluck entertained us with imitations of Jackie Gleason and Fred Flintstone and Ernest Borgnine, who were all big on TV back then, and he said he could do Lucille Ball, too, but he made her sound just like Ernest Borgnine, which really made me laugh. He wanted to be in show business, and one joke after another flew from him. I had my mom write down his name, so when he became famous, I would remember meeting him. Years later, I had reason to track him down, and though he didn’t become famous, I’ll never forget the first or the second time we met.
At Riverside Commons, he pulled to the curb and, before Mom could pay him, he said, “Wait, wait,” and got out of the taxi and came around to the rear curbside door and made a production out of opening it for us and presenting the park with a sweep of his hand, as if he had prepared it just for us. He was a portly man with bushy eyebrows and a rubbery face made for comedy, and everything about him suggested fun, except that I noticed his fingernails were bitten to the quick.
When we were on the sidewalk and Mom paid him, he took the fare but refused the tip. “Sometimes the quality of the passengers is the gratuity. But here’s something I want you and your boy to have.” From a pocket he took a pendant on a chain. When my mom tried to refuse it, he said, “If you don’t take it, I’m going to yell ‘Help, police’ until they come running, and I’ll make the most outrageous charges, and by the time we resolve the matter down at police headquarters, it’ll be too late to have your day in the park.”
Sylvia laughed, shook her head, and said, “But I can’t accept—”
“It was given to me by a passenger six months ago, and she told me she wanted me to give it to someone, and I asked who, and she said I would know when I met the person, but now it turns out to be two people, you and your boy. It’s luck on a chain. It’s good luck. And if you don’t take it, then it’s bad luck for me. Good luck for you, bad luck for me. What—you want to ruin my life? Were my jokes that terrible? Have a heart, lady, give me a break, take it, take it, before I scream for the city’s finest.”
There was no refusing him. After he drove away, we found a bench and sat there to examine the pendant. It had been fashioned from two pieces of Lucite glued together and shaped into a heart roughly the size of a silver dollar. Within the heart was a small white feather. It must have been glued there, but such an excellent job had been made of it that the feather looked fluffy, as though it would flutter inside the heart if you blew on the Lucite. A small silver eyehook, screwed into the top of the heart, received a silver chain.
“It must be really valuable,” I said.
“Well, sweetie, it’s not Tiffany. But it is pretty, isn’t it?”
“Why did he give it to you?”
“I don’t really know. He seemed to be a nice man.”
“I think he likes you,” I said.
“Actually, Jonah, I believe he gave it to me to give to you.”
With something like awe, I took the pendant from her when she held it out to me. “You really think so?”
“I’m sure of it.”
When I held the chain and allowed the dangling heart to turn back and forth, the polished Lucite looked almost liquid in the sunlight, as if the feather floated in a great drop of water that cohered magically to the eyehook. Or in a tear.
“What bird do you think it’s from?” I asked. “A pigeon?”
“Oh, I expect it’s from something more grand than a pigeon. Don’t you think it must be from some kind of songbird, one with a particularly sweet voice? I do. That’s what I think.”
“Then it must be,” I said. “But what’ll I do with it? It’s a heart, it’s like a girl’s jewelry.”
“And you can’t be seen wearing a girl’s jewelry—is that it?”
“I already get teased about being skinny.”
“You’re not skinny. You’re lean.” She elbowed me in the side. “You’re a lean, mean music machine.”
She always made me feel like more and better than I knew myself to be. I thought then that lifting a child’s spirits was something every mother did effortlessly. But as the years passed, I saw the world more clearly and knew how fortunate I was to have been brought to life by the grace of Sylvia Bledsoe.
There on the park bench, I said, “Mr. Gluck said it’ll bring good luck.”
“Never hurts to have some.”
“He didn’t say you could make a wish on it.”
“That’s easy luck, Jonah. Easy luck always turns bad. You want the kind of luck you have to earn.”