View from Saturday (9781439132012) Read Online Free

invitations.”
    â€œOh, yes,” I said, “the fifth gift is the best gift of all.”
    Everyone asked at once,
Whatisit? Whatisit? Whatisit?
I sucked in my breath until my lungs felt like twin dirigibles inside my ribs. “The best gift of all is … the very best … the very best gift of all is … to give up your gift.”
    A thick silence fell over the room. Then Tillie Nachman started clapping. Soon the others joined in, and I noticed Grandma Sadie and Grandpa Nate looking proud.
    At first everyone who held a cat’s-paw invitation wanted to be the one to give up his gift, but I did not want that. Ifthey didn’t take my presents, I would feel as if they didn’t matter. Mr. Cantor stepped forward and took the Post-it notes. He said he could use them for labeling his plants. He said that he was donating an orchid plant as the fifth gift. Then Tillie promised calligraphy lessons to the person who took the pen and ink, and Bella promised fabric painting lessons to the person who took the tuxedo T-shirt. In that way each of my gifts kept on giving.
    Four cat’s-paw gifts were now taken.
    Only the red wagon remained. Guess who had the fifth cat’s-paw invitation?
    Allen, the son of.
    Allen said he didn’t want the little red wagon. He said that he had no use for a wagon in the real world where he was an accountant.
    When Izzy, the groom, rose from the table to make a toast, he lifted his glass of wine and said, “Margy and I want to thank all our friends in Century Village. We don’t know if we can ever thank you enough for giving our life together this wonderful start. As you know, Margy and I have pooled our resources and bought a little condo on the ocean. Not exactly
on
the ocean. It is, after all, a high-rise. We will miss the community life here, but we don’t want to miss our friends. We’ll visit. We want you to visit us. Our welcome mat is out. Always. We leave many memories behind. And we are also leaving this little red wagon. Every time you use it, please think of this happy occasion.”
    Izzy started to sit down, but halfway he got up again and added, “Consider it a gift to everyone from the best man.” He never said which best man he meant, but I’m pretty sure he meant me.

    Now back in the real world, I sat at my desk and crossed every single item off the list. I didn’t have the wagon, the Post-it notes, the T-shirt that Bella Dubinsky had designed, or the pen and ink that Tillie Nachman had bought me. I did have a new pad of Post-it notes and a new calligraphy pen—both of which I had bought with my own money when I got back to Epiphany.
    I never had to write a B & B letter when we stayed at Disney World or Sea World. Of course, Century Village is not exactly Disney World or Sea World either. Century Village is not like any other place in Western Civilization. It is not like any other place in the entire world.
    I picked up my pen and filled it
properly,
the six-step process that Tillie had taught me. She had said, “You must think of those six steps not as preparation for the beginning but as the beginning itself.” I knew then that I had started my B & B. I let my pen drink up a whole plunger full of ink and then holding the pen over the bottle, I squeezed three drops back into the bottle.
    And I thought—a B & B letter is giving just a few drops back to the bottle. I put away the tiny notepad and took out a full sheet of calligraphy paper and began,
    Dear Grandma Sadie and Grandpa Nate,
    Thank you for a vacation that was out of this world
…

2

    T he contest had warmed up, and so had Mrs. Olinski. From her seat on the aisle she waited.
    On her left sat Dr. Roy Clayton Rohmer, the District Superintendent for Clarion County. Both Dr. Rohmer and Mrs. Olinski paid strict attention to the commissioner, the man at the podium. There could be no mistake: This was the man of the hour, king for the day.
    He