Lily White Read Online Free

one customer thought of him as a Jewish Robert Taylor), and a developing sense of style. All he needed was a wife.
    Early in 1948, Sylvia Bernstein came into Tudor Rose (the fur salon’s new name, which Leonard selected after nights in the library poring over everything from Amy Vanderbilt to
Boutell’s Heraldry
). Leonard checked out her well-cut gray wool suit with its flared-at-the-hips peplum jacket which only the slimmest women could wear successfully, looked into her blue-gray eyes, took in her prominent cheekbones and her sleek, blond-streaked hair and thought, in essence: Hubba hubba! But he acted all business, assuming she’d been recommended to him by one of his more genteel customers. Wait, she had no wedding ring. So she must be one of his customers’ daughters. Ah well, at least she might be good for a red fox chubby. He asked, “May I help you, Miss …?” When she answered, in the most euphonious tonespossible: “Sylvia Bernstein,” he would have fainted, if he hadn’t found himself falling in love.
    It wasn’t just her looks. Sylvia had class, Leonard was relieved to discover. All right, people hearing her speak would realize she wasn’t a Vassar girl. But she never, even on the hottest summer day, left the house without wearing gloves. Her apartment building was classy too (Tudor style, no less), with leaded windows in the lobby and a lion stantant on the pediment over the elevator. Not only that: Her mother, at age forty-five, was still a natural blond.
    And her father was a judge!
    The first time Leonard met the Bernsteins, he could scarcely breathe. That was how emotional he became, wishing that he could have had such parents. They were perfect.
    Take Sylvia’s mother. Not only did she cook and clean. If sock-darning were a competitive sport, Eva Bernstein would have had a mantel full of trophies. What a housewife! But there were holes too big for even Eva to repair, and when one of these occurred, she would adopt the sock as her own, wearing it and its non-holey brother over her stocking feet so she could glide through the apartment without running her nylons or disturbing her husband, Judge Bernstein. “Shhh!” she’d warn Sylvia and Sylvia’s younger brother, Victor. “The Judge is taking a nap!” “The judge is reading!” “The Judge is on the phone!”
    Judge Arthur Bernstein was more than a pillar of rectitude; he was a five-foot-nine-inch pillar of quietude. In the Queens Domestic Relations Court, where he presided, court stenographers griped that they deserved battle pay, they had to strain so hard to hear his feathery voice. But other than that, there were no complaints. His reputation was neither sterling nor tarnished; he was not unduly harsh with the litigants who appeared before him (although he did seem a little too eager to rule an ex-wife’s petition for support out of order if her ex-husband was representedby a lawyer with links to the Ronald Goldberger Kew Gardens Democratic Club). However, to colleagues, neighbors, friends, and certainly to Leonard, Arthur Bernstein was nothing but a gentleman. He removed his hat in the presence of a lady. He wore an alpaca coat, used a small but genuine tortoiseshell holder for his Philip Morrises. When expressing gratitude to anyone, he simply nodded—but in such a gracious and dignified way that he made those who vocalized their “thank you”s seem almost vulgar.
    And compared to Leonard’s parents! Nat the Commie had an articulated opinion on everything, from dialectical materialism to how to grow string beans on the fire escape: “Hey, Lenny, you don’t drown ‘em, you schmendrick. You water ’em every other day!” And Bella, with her demands that he loosen up! Each day as he left for work she made a game of blocking the door. “What d’ya got, an ice cube up your
tuchis,
Lenny? Smile! It don’t cost nothin’.” He’d try to sidestep her and grab for the doorknob, but despite her bulk, she was more agile than he.