“Just making up a goodbye song for you, Miss Burton.” He began to sing, in his sweet and lilting voice:

On a roller coaster, she travels far

Searching for who-knows-what, in her Mustang car.

She’s going to try to make her own home,

With dreams and drums, and this nonsense poem.

What will happen? Without a doubt,

It’s for Hashem to know – and her to find out.

Marjorie laughed. “You know, you’re very good at this. Why don’t you do it professionally?”

“Huh?”

“You know, write songs for children. Maybe even make a record. About things that matter to you. Like Hashem, and Shabbos, and being Jewish and all.”

“The things that matter to me,” he repeated thoughtfully.

He stopped walking and looked steadily at her. “And what things matter to you, Miss Burton?”

She whirled around and quickened her pace. “Remember, you promised. No questions. And anyway, it’s time for me to go. Say goodbye to everyone from me.” A moment’s pause. “And thanks.”

Without exchanging another word, they returned to the hotel. Marjorie gave a quick wave, dived into the Mustang, and roared away.

“O

kay, I’m calling this meeting to order. The ‘Save-the-Freed-Hotel’ committee will now begin proceedings.”

Moe grinned at Abe’s words, but Annie’s face remained somber. She’d told Abe all about the troubling news that Moe had brought with him this morning, and she’d suggested that she and Abe meet with him after dinner to discuss what they could do about it. But Abe’s cavalier attitude to the crisis — “Maybe it’s not such a bad idea, to close the hotel if it’s not financially viable” — was upsetting her.

“Abe…” she began, her voice holding just a hint of imminent tears.

“Okay, sweetheart, okay. Seriously, Moe, tell us what’s going on and we’ll see what the next step will be.”

The talk around the Levine’s kitchen table became financial, with words like outlays, expenses, loans, and equity being bandied about. Moe had done his homework, and he and Abe discussed the figures he’d carefully worked out. Annie tried to follow the conversation, but her thoughts kept wandering far away from accounts payable and receivables and balance sheets.

Finally, she’d had enough. “Can everyone please remember that this isn’t only about money, it’s about people. Lives.”

“That’s true, sweetheart, but bankers aren’t really interested in those lives. They want cash.”

Anxiety and frustration brought a sharp edge to her voice. “Abe, you don’t understand. Moey,” she looked pleadingly at her brother, “this is the hotel we’re talking about. What’s it going to do to Papa if you take it away from him? He started it for us, so he could take care of us. We owe our lives to that hotel, Moe.”

Before Moe could say a word, Abe had jumped up from his chair and was standing next to his wife, his eyes alight.

“Say that again, Annie.”

“Say what again?”

“About your father starting the hotel to take care of you.”

She cast a puzzled look at him. “What about it, Abe?”

“Sweetheart, I hate to drag out the old family skeletons from their closet, but we all know your father started the hotel so that a certain not-religious aunt of yours wouldn’t be given custody of her sister’s two little kids, Annie and Moe.”

“Aunt Cele? What in the world….”

“Yes, your Aunt Cele. Who, in case you’ve forgotten, my sweet nonmaterialistic wife, left you a small fortune.”

“You mean—”

“Yes, I mean. You told me to take care of the money Aunt Cele left to you. I’ve invested it in liquid assets — that means I can get my hands on the money quickly.” His smile grew broader, and his voice was tinged with laughter. “What a delicious irony, Annie, to use her money to help keep the hotel open after what she did.”

“Please, Abie, no lashon hara. But—”

Decades-old memories flashed through Annie’s mind. Meeting Cele Mayer, Annie’s late mother’s twin sister, whose existence she hadn’t dreamed of: Aunt Cele, with her exciting, wealthy, and completely secular life. The shocking story that Annie later discovered, of how Aunt Cele had tried to grab custody of Annie and Moe, her sister’s children, and how Papa had started the hotel so he could be home with them and raise them as Torah-observant Jews.

Aunt Cele and Papa hated each other. And though Papa told me after she died that he was mochel her for what she’d done, Aunt Cele never actually asked him for forgiveness. Using her money to keep the hotel open, for Papa’s sake, and even more for the sake of the survivors… maybe it would be closing a circle, an aliyah for her neshamah.

Moe broke into her thoughts. “You’re saying you would use Cele’s money to get us out of this hole?”

“That’s what’s he’s saying,” Annie almost shouted. “Abe, you’re brilliant.”

His laughter grew more pronounced. “Well, maybe occasionally.”

Moe sounded a more serious note. “It’s not the end of our problems, Abe. The neighborhood is getting worse and worse, and no money can fix that. But,” he allowed himself to join in Abe and Annie’s joy, “it will sure help now, and buy us some time to figure things out. So,” he said, raising his cup of now-cold coffee, “let’s drink to the new and improved, and financially viable, Freed Hotel.”

T

he pawnshop’s bell jingled as Marjorie entered, but she hardly heard it over the beating of her heart. This was it: the last stop before… freedom.

The musty scent of old leather and dusty trinkets filled the air. The pawnbroker, a grizzled man with a cigar hanging from his lips, gave her a look of profound disinterest; he’d seen these kids before.

No sense in beating around the bush. “I need cash,” Marjorie announced, pulling out the bag she’d stuffed full of jewelry.

While the man was appraising each piece with a critical eye, the door creaked open. In walked a woman draped in vibrant mismatched fabrics.

“Hey, baby, are you taking my advice and getting ready to go?”

Marjorie gave her a distant and impatient nod. This pawnbroker was taking forever, gazing at every stupid earring with his loupe like it was something from the British crown jewels, and laboriously writing down descriptions and dollar amounts with a stubby pencil. And now here was Mama Mumu to delay her even more.

Marjorie actually liked the old lady, and it was her urging that was sending her on this wild trip, but still….

I just want to get out of here already.

It was not to be. Mama Mumu settled herself comfortably on a leather chair that was marked for sale. Its upholstery was worn and torn in some places, Marjorie noticed.

Accepting the inevitable, Marjorie turned to her.  “I need to get out of here.” The heavyset woman chuckled, a sound heavy with experience, a little bitter, a little nostalgic, a little wise. “So you’re searching, babe? Or are you just escaping? They’re not the same thing, you know.”

Marjorie hardly heard the question. She wasn’t interested in deep philosophical discussions. She just wanted to get out. Out of the stuffy pawnshop. Out of the confines of her home and the expectations that seemed to trail her every step. Off the merry-go-round that was oh, so not merry, and onto the roller coaster, with its terrifying climbs and dizzying drops.

And she wanted to do it now.

The pawnbroker finally handed her a crumpled wad of dollars in exchange for her years of memories. Not too much, but enough for gas and cheap motels. Enough for her to traverse the 3,000 miles that separated the quiet suburbs from the frantic excitement of Haight-Ashbury.

“The Haight, huh?” Mama Mumu grinned, her eyes gleaming, as they left the shop behind. “I spent some wild days there back when nobody knew about it except for a few wandering folks like me.”

They’d reached the Mustang at last. “Thanks for everything, Mama. I’ll send you a postcard when I get there.”

“Hold off, honey. Why dontcha grab yourself an espresso for the road?  It will take me just about fifteen minutes to pack my things.”

“What?!”

“I’ve got a hankering to see the old neighborhood. Mind if I come along?”

Mama Mumu? With her in the Mustang?

This was going to be Marjorie’s own personal adventure, her solo journey, her chance to cut ties with everyone and everything in her life. And now she’d be saddled with this undoubtedly cheerful but also weird and possibly crazy woman for the week or two it would take her to get to San Francisco.

Marjorie looked at her: at the dark, frizzy hair, the gold-capped front tooth that glimmered when the sun beamed on Mama’s smile, the eyes that had seen all sorts of things but still could look with kindness at others.

Eyes that you could trust.

And it might be nice to have someone to talk to along the way. Hey, it’s part of the adventure.

“Sure.” Marjorie laughed. “I’ve got my map, my money, and my Mustang. And now… I’ve got you, too, Mama. But hurry up… the Haight is waiting for us.”

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 875)