The Smartest Woman I Know by Ilene Beckerman Read Free Book Online Page A

without his boater straw hat, spats, walking cane, and the young man by his side he called darling.
    Mr. Goldberg didn’t wait on them. Ettie went out of her way to be nice to them.
    You understand about boyfriends of boys, God? I don’t. But if I had to choose between a somebody who fights with somebody and a somebody who wants to make believe that a boy is his girlfriend, it should be my business? If it were up to me, everybody should mind their own business.

    Mrs. Vanderhaven was also a regular customer. Her elbow-length gloves always matched the silk flowers on the wide-brimmed picture hats she always wore.
    Ettie said she kept the tags on her dresses tucked in the sleeves so she could return them to Russeks of Fifth Avenue after she’d worn them a few times.
    Every Friday, Mrs. Vanderhaven would buy two Will & Baumer ten-inch ivory candles for her dining room table. The first of every month, she’d come in and spend an hour standing at the magazine rack looking through
Vogue
and
Harper’s Bazaar
.
    “Madam,” I once heard Mr. Goldberg say, “this is a store. We sell things. If you’re not buying, it would be my honor to escort you to the public library on 58th Street.”

    Mrs. Vanderhaven

SARA DELANO ROOSEVELT, FDR’S mother, lived in a brownstone at 47 East 65th Street, around the corner from the store. Every once in a while 5′10″ Sara, who ruled over her son Franklin and her daughter-in-law Eleanor, would come into the store and visit with 4′10″ Ettie.
    What did they have in common? They were both mothers of sons, so they both worried.
    Sara worried about her son Franklin’s future because of his polio. Ettie worried about her son Larry’s future because of the draft.
    “Don’t worry,” Ettie told Mrs. Roosevelt, “your son’s got a good head on his shoulders. I bet someday he’ll be president.”
    Ettie told that to every customer who had a son. “That’s how you make a customer,” she told me.
    If a customer had a daughter, Ettie would say, “Don’t worry. Your daughter’s got a good head on her shoulders. I bet someday she grows up to marry the president.”

NOT EVERYBODY WHO CAME into the store was a “somebody.”
    Mrs. O’Reilly was an Irish governess who worked for a fancy lady on Park Avenue. Every other sentence out of her mouth was “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
    Mrs. O’Reilly had come from Dublin when her hair was red and she still had freckles. Even after her hair turned gray and her freckles turned to liver spots, she spoke with a brogue.
    She had three grown sons. One was a priest, one was a policeman, and one she never talked about.
    What did Ettie and Mrs. O’Reilly have in common? They both worried.
    Mrs. O’Reilly would come in with a cheery “And how are ya today, Mrs. Goldberg? Did ya have your good-morning tea?”
    After Tootsie and me, what Ettie loved most was hot tea and lemon. It had to be Lipton tea. In a glass. She’d put a sugar cube in her mouth and sip the steaming tea through the sugar cube.
    “Yes,” Ettie would answer Mrs. O’Reilly. “Two glasses. Thank you for asking. But I know how much you like your Irish coffee.”
    Mrs. O’Reilly would say, “Indeed, I do. Indeed I do. But I have it at night after I take off my shoes and my girdle.”
    “Kineahora
, Mrs. O’Reilly. You should only live and make a habit of it. You drink coffee. I drink tea. But otherwise we have so much in common.”
    “Because we both have three children?”
    “No, I mean the Irish and Jews have so much in common.”
    “That’s what’s called malarkey, Mrs. Goldberg.”
    “You ever hear of corned beef? So, the Irish eat theirs with cabbage, we eat ours with a pickle.”
    “Mrs. Goldberg, are ya sure you never kissed the Blarney stone?”
    “Kissed the Blarney stone? I never even kissed Mr. Goldberg.”

ONE DAY MARLENE DIETRICH, wrapped in furs, came into the store. Immediately Mr. Goldberg hurried over to wait on her.

    “Madam,” he said, “I