Dumping Billy Read Online Free PDF Page B

in Brooklyn at Kim’s Korean place for about one-quarter the price. And I bet it’s every bit as good, too.”
    Kate smiled. “Maybe—maybe not. But here you have ambience.”
    “Well, my mother would say, ‘Ambience, schmambience, paint my nails.’”
    “You know I love your mother, but sometimes she’s not exactly au courant.” Bina looked perplexed. “And by the way, how do you spell schmambience?” Kate asked with a smile.
    “You don’t,” Bina told her. “It’s Yiddish. It’s a spoken language.”
    Kate laughed. This was typical of the verbal exchanges she and Bina had been having since Kate first entered the Horowitzes’ household and Mrs. Horowitz pronounced that Kate’s father knew
“bupkis”
about raising a
“sheyna maidela.”
    At the time, Kate didn’t know that
bupkis
meant “virtually nothing” or that
sheyna maidela
meant “pretty little girl,” but she figured it out from the context. She learned what
putz
and
shnorrer
and
gonif
meant, all of them words that sounded better and more accurate than their English equivalents.
    Kate had celebrated every holiday at Bina’s house—even if they weren’t Kate’s holidays—and learned to love sweet noodle kugel. When the time came for Kate’s first Holy Communion, Mrs. Horowitz sewed up Kate’s white dress and bought a headpiece. (When Bina wanted a white dress and headpiece, too, she got one, though Dr. and Mrs. Horowitz drew the line at allowing Bina to get on line with the little Catholic girls for the ceremony.)
    Kate, told by a priest in her catechism class that trick-or-treating on Halloween was a mortal sin, felt tremendous disappointment. When she shared this with Bina’s mother, the reassurance Kate got was, “Sin, schmin! Do your best with that
meshugene
in a dress and go out to get your candy. Don’t worry about it.”
    “But I don’t want to go to hell after I die,” Kate told her tearfully.
    “Hell, schmell,” Mrs. Horowitz responded. “Trust me, there’s no such place except here on earth.” She drew Kate onto her lap and held her close. “There’s only heaven, honey,” she whispered. “And that’s where your mama is.”
    Somehow, Mrs. Horowitz’s complete conviction sank in. A few months later, after catechism, when Vicky Brown told Kate and Bina that Bina’s Jewish mother was going to hell after she died, Kate turned to Vicky and declared, “Hell, schmell! What do you know?” After that, Kate and Bina made a pact to stick up for each other.
    Maybe it was from that day they became known as the “Witches of Bushwick.” As teenagers, their posse grew, with Bev and Barbie and, later on, Bunny, but they stayed the same, though in the neighborhood their nickname changed to “Bitches.” Then Kate drifted from the group.
    Bina was still holding on to Kate’s hand. “Oh, Kate,” she said, and squeezed hard. “I’m so excited! Tonight’s the night I get proposed to by the man I love.”
    “Don’t forget to act surprised,” Kate warned her. “You don’t want Jack to know you already knew.”
    “I wish Barbie hadn’t told me that he bought the ring.” Bina sighed. “I’m so nervous. Why couldn’t she just have let it be a surprise for me?”
    “Oh, honey.” Kate laughed. “You don’t want surprises. You want to look your best.”
    Just then another Asian woman even more beautiful than the receptionist walked into the waiting area. “Kate Jameson?” she asked. Kate nodded. “We have your room all ready. Follow me, please.”
    Kate and Bina followed her into a small room, and Kate sat in one of two facing chairs. Each was thronelike, with a built-in foot Jacuzzi already filled with delightful-smelling bubbling water. The softly lit room, all in soothing sea blue, also had two glass tables on wheels prepared for hand pampering. Two young Asian women knelt on blue silk pillows on the floor beside the foot baths. They helped their clients out of their shoes and indicated that they should