Free Last Night at the Blue Angel by Rebecca Rotert

work. Jim shoots the main windows and the altar, the archways and the pillars, the sentences about God and the rows of candles where the old man prayed. The smell of the flash gets up in my nose, its white light hanging over my eyeballs long after it’s done.
    We are out before anyone else comes.
    I try to imagine how you would knock down something so big, so solid. When are they tearing it down?
    Any day now .
    It’s much colder with the sun down behind the buildings and I feel frightened by the idea of something just getting ripped down “any day now.”
    Can’t you stop them?
    Jim shakes his head. I write letters practically every day. No one is listening. Remember when you were real little and I brought you to our protest? We all had signs? You had one , too?
    What did my sign say? I ask.
    â€œMayor Daley Save the Garrick.”
    Oh, yeah , I say. I mostly remember Mother yelling at you .
    Me, too , says Jim.
    I want to ask about David again but I can see that Jim’s afraid I’m going to ask about David again.
    I decide to ask Rita when we get home but all the ladies are dancing and drinking when we arrive. They’ve pushed the furniture to the edges of the room and Sam Cooke is singing “If I Had a Hammer” on the record player. They are clapping and snapping the fingers of their free hands. Jim takes a few photographs of them, mostly Mother, and then takes his camera off his neck so he can sing and clap along with Sam Cooke. “I’d sing out danger! I’d sing out a warning!”
    Rita takes my hands and spins me around. When the song ends, Rita and Sister sit down and I squeeze between them. Sam Cooke starts to sing “When I Fall in Love” and Mother sways back and forth, singing along. She reaches her arm out to Jim. Jim shakes his head. She walks to him and takes his hand. He grabs her around the waist and pulls her close. They dance slowly, Mother singing lightly, her eyes closed.
    Sister sighs. She’s not fair to him .
    He’s a big boy , says Rita.
    Still , says Sister. Look at him .
    His face is against Mother’s hair. His eyes are closed.
    When that song is over, “Twistin’ the Night Away” comes on. Mother grabs Sister and Rita and me from the love seat and we all twist together, bumping into one another. I don’t realize until it’s over that Jim has slipped out without even saying good-bye.

Naomi
    CHAPTER 11
    KANSAS, 1954
    I WAS SEVENTEEN WHEN I graduated from school. Sister Idalia went to my parents and told them, Naomi really ought to go to college .
    What’s a woman do with a college education? Father said.
    Sister Idalia gave them all kinds of ideas but they just stared at her like she was speaking Italian.
    Father enjoyed listening to her talk about me, he did. But then he said, We need her here. Or maybe she gets a job and helps out that way , Sister. College is not realistic. We have so many bank notes , they could get called any day . He looked at his hands. Mother’s face was blank. She got up from the kitchen table and floured a board. She had long since given up on thinking about anything but the next thing to be done.
    I didn’t stick around for the rest of the conversation.
    T hat day, downtown Soldier was celebrating Eisenhower’s visit. He wasn’t even coming to our town but everyone cleaned up and decorated like he might drop by. It was a big deal that he had lived in Kansas and everyone was acting like he was their son. Laura and I sat at the soda shop. We were only apart when we had to be. Boys walked by us and said, Hi , Laura .
    Miss Catherine is leaving , she said, trying to spoon the last bit of root-beer float from her glass. She’s marrying that man she’s been going with. Maybe Daddy would take you on at the bank .
    Are you going steady with Alan? I asked.
    Laura squinted at me. What are you talking about?
    You do things with him .
    Her eyes traced the long row of