Free Ms America and the Brouhaha on Broadway by Diana Dempsey Page B

of? On 46 th Street?”
    “The one with the brick walls and the Broadway posters? Where was it exactly?”
    Shanelle gives me directions. I alert her that my mother is likely to join us and I presume Bennie will as well. In short order, I find out I’m half wrong.
    “I’m about to pass out from hunger,” my mother informs me over the phone. “There was so much turbulence on that little plane, they didn’t give us any food. Why the heck pay for that first class if they don’t feed you? Anyway, that Bennie wants to go straight to some used-car lot in the Bronx there. How crazy is that?”
    Bennie himself warned me that his secret agenda during his Manhattan getaway was to visit a variety of used-car lots. I predicted that wouldn’t go over well with my mother. “Where are you now?” I ask her.
    “In a limo. Where are we?” I hear her ask the driver. “FDR Drive,” she tells me a moment later.
    “Give him your phone so I can tell him where to drop you off.”
    She obliges and I give the driver the directions. “You’re living large,” I tell my mother, “flying first class and riding a limo.”
    “And staying at that Plaza Hotel,” she reminds me. “That Bennie likes to do it up nice.”
    Shanelle and Trixie learn just how nice when we congregate at the restaurant. Shanelle is styling in a pink and black pencil skirt and pink cowl neck sweater and Trixie couldn’t be more adorable in a navy fit-and-flare shirtdress with a tie waist. But no one has more panache than Hazel Przybyszewski, who no doubt looked right at home in first class. No one would ever guess how thin her dyed red hair has become given the impressive pouf into which it’s been styled. And she is sporting not only lipstick but mascara and eye shadow, too. More to the point, she is dolled up in her new full-length brown sable fur coat.
    Yes, you read that right. My mother is now the proud owner of a genuine fur. I’m not sure she takes it off when she goes to bed at night.
    “Oh, my Lord!” Trixie holds my mother at arms’ length to better admire the fur. I note that our fellow would-be diners grouped around the maître d’s stand are giving it a gander as well. “Mrs. P, I have never seen anything like this.”
    My mother preens. “Russian sable. The very finest. That Bennie gave it to me for Christmas.”
    “Animal pelts sewn together may not be the most politically correct gift,” I observe. “But this is certainly beautiful.”
    My mother glares at me. “Tell me about it after you order your hamburger.” She strokes the fur. “Feel how soft it is. And I’m never cold. It could be twenty degrees below zero and I could be wearing nothing but my underwear—”
    “Mrs. P, you scamp!” Trixie cries, her eyes shining.
    “Not that I would ever do such a thing,” my mother hastens to add, “because you could get hit by a car and land at the hospital at any time, but you get my point. I’d be as toasty as a bug in a rug. And get a load of this.” She whips open the coat on both sides. “A hundred percent silk lining. Not that they have polyester at that Saks Fifth Avenue fur salon.”
    “They have one of those in Cleveland?” Shanelle asks me.
    “In Beachwood,” I report. “On the east side.”
    I have walked through that salon in years past to see if perchance any items fit my father’s budget. For you see, my mother has long hankered after a fur. And being my mother, she made no bones about it. My dad, with his cop’s salary, never could see his way clear to making such an extravagant purchase.
    But it took Bennie Hana barely two months’ acquaintance to gift my mother with this sable. I don’t know for sure, but I bet it retails for fifteen grand. Of course, Bennie is well-to-do and Pop isn’t. Still, seeing him outshine my father in this regard fills me with a certain melancholy.
    “And the lining is exactly the same color as the sable,” Trixie coos, “to avoid an unsightly contrast. And there are eye