The Unexpected Salami: A Novel by Laurie Gwen Shapiro Read Free Book Online Page A

I left the library and started to walk home down Fifth Avenue, admiring, as an incalculable number of people had before me, the beauty of the Flatiron Building in sunset. Finally, a day in which I didn’t mind that I was part of a continuum. Saved in the nick of time by Danny Death.
    On Fifth Avenue and Twenty-second Street, Eisenberg’s Sandwich Shop beckoned me inside. The Eisenberg tuna sandwich (Bumble Bee fancy white albacore moistened by just the right amount of Hellmann’s mayo, a pickle, and a sprig of parsley) would be a perfect cap to the day—a treat I’d missed while in Australia.
    Aunt Virginia had taken Frank and me to Eisenberg’s whenever my parents went on their “romantic getaway” weekend bus trips to places like Cape May, New Jersey, or Brandywine Valley, Delaware. Aunt Virginia was, and is, a no-nonsense woman. Everything about Eisenberg’s suited her “just fine”—the Old New York narrow room with the faux-marble counter, zero-pretense red vinyl stools, and water served in promotional cups bought in bulk—in recent times, last summer’s Disney tie-in.
    “Your Grandpa Ganelli ate soup here,” she’d remind us if we lobbied for McDonald’s (at the time, the early seventies, the golden arches had but one outlet on East Twenty-third Street, a destination as exotic and inviting as the only intimate café in drive-in suburbia).
    I smiled in relief as I took my stool. Some things are constants. Three hand-painted wooden signs were tacked onto the walls, plaques from opening day in 1929:
SALAMI
BACON & TOMATO
PEANUT BUTTER
ROAST BEEF
BACON & EGG
SWISS CHEESE
BOLOGNA
TUNA FISH
HAM & CHEESE
LIVERWURST
HAM & EGG
COTTAGE CHEESE
HOT PASTRAMI
SALAMI & EGG
 
SLICED HAM
CHICKEN SALAD
 
CORNED BEEF
 
 
    And a plastic fourth menu from the fifties over to the side:
     
    STEWED PEACHES
    J ELL- O
    PINEAPPLE
    GRAPEFRUIT JUICE
    TOMATO JUICE
    FRUIT SALAD
    I greedily accepted my tuna fish sandwich and savored each bite. I imagined Grandpa Ganelli, who I hardly remember, eating sliced meatloaf on a roll, perhaps crossing paths with Mom’s socialist father, Murray Levine, who was probably the first in his five-thousand-year-old line to abandon kosher laws to the temptation of a yummy BLT.
    I daydreamed about enrolling in Columbia’s film school, persuading Frieda and Janet to get me into their production assistant circle. Mom had those great PR contacts she was always offering to call. If I borrowed her old Rolodex I could set up some interviews for steady, non–fire extinguisher money. I had a pulse again.
    The guy at the far end of the counter wanted to pay his bill. “Ihad a tuna salad sandwich, mate,” he said, in a distinct Aussie accent.
    I knew that voice. I leaned in close to pinpoint who it was. One of my Dog’s Bar customers?
    I dropped a sandwich half in my lap. I went over to the end of the room to get a better look. It couldn’t be. I’ve been told by my friends and family that I amplify my details, but that moment I almost had a seizure of glacial proportions. At the very least, I could feel hot color blitzing my cheeks.
    Stuart looked like he was the one seeing a ghost. “Shit, Rachel!”
    “My God, Stuart!” I spit a large chunk of tuna onto his shirt. “What the fuck is fucking going on here?”
    He stared at me, frightened.
    “What the fuck?” My hand quivered. “I saw you dead. They pronounced you dead on arrival—there was blood—you were dead!”
    “I thought you’d be cozy in Oz with Colin,” he said shakily. He had a bit of lettuce on his lower lip.
    “What is going on?”
    “You have a light?”
    “WHY AREN’T YOU FUCKING ANSWERING ME?”
    “Some things you are better off not knowing about. I don’t think you should go telling anyone you saw me.”
    “Like fucking hell.”
    One of the two women at the far side of the counter called for her check, and the waiter reluctantly left our part of the counter space. Stuart leaned over; he smelled of pickle and drugs.