Chapter Two

TWO

JUNE 1922

Growing up in the apartment above her father’s drugstore meant that Augusta Stern was bound from childhood to the world of the shop below. As a baby, she was mesmerized by the show globe in the window—an antique glass pendant filled with emerald-green liquid that hung from the ceiling on a shiny brass chain. Her favorite sound was the bell on the door that chimed whenever a customer entered. Not only did she take her very first steps in the aisle between the Listerine and the St. Joseph’s Worm Syrup, but when, as a nearly mute eighteen-month-old, she slipped and fell headfirst into the display of McKesson past the banks and the cobblers and the stationery shops; past the carcasses that hung like so many trophies in the kosher butcher’s windows. Wherever they walked, the sidewalks were packed. The Sterns had moved to Brownsville from the Lower East Side immediately after Bess was born—a move made by those who were lucky enough to afford bigger homes, brighter light, and better air. But every year Brownsville grew shabbier and more crowded, more like the place they had left behind.

When the girls got to Stern’s Pharmacy on the corner, with its window displays of bottles and brushes and its red-and-white Coca-Cola sign, they remembered their mother’s repeated instructions to neaten their hair and smooth their skirts before stepping even one foot inside. “Once you go through that door,” she used to say, “the customers will look to you. I want them to know that your father and I raised polite, intelligent, and well-groomed young ladies.”

Augusta was kept busy tidying shelves and dusting the displays in the storefront windows, while Bess was allowed to work behind the cosmetics counter, helping customers choose face powder and perfume. Augusta could not care less about makeup, but she resented the fact that Bess was given what was viewed as a more important task.

“I want more responsibility,” Augusta told her father one night after they’d finished dinner. Dinners had become forgettable affairs—meat that Bess left in the oven too long or sandwiches they slapped together at the table. Gone were the days of their mother’s roast chicken, with its golden-crisp skin, herbed carrots, and beans. Gone were the days of tangy meatloaf, whipped potatoes, and freshly baked rolls. Gone was the cheerful gathering at the table, their mother’s laughter, their father’s smiles. Meals were no longer something to be savored.

“A fourteen-year-old can’t work behind the makeup counter,” said Bess.

“I don’t want to sell makeup,” said Augusta. “But even if I did, age shouldn’t matter. What should matter is intelligence and maturity.” She turned to her father, who was busying himself with the evening newspaper. “Isn’t that right, Papa?”

“Hmm?” said their father, his head buried deep within the pages, pretending he hadn’t heard the question. Since their mother’s death, Solomon Stern’s jet-black hair had dulled to a wispy silver-gray, and the pillowy skin beneath his eyes sagged even more than the unstarched col lar of his shirt or the pale green sofa on which the three of them sat. Since Augusta’s mother’s death, everything in the apartment drooped with grief.

Augusta knew that her father was still stuck in the quicksand of his sorrow. At the store, he managed to keep up with his duties. But at home, he had a more difficult time. There was a barrier between him and his daughters now, as if he were standing behind a screen—one sheer enough so that they could see him, but opaque enough to blur all his edges.

“No woman wants a child’s opinion on lipstick,” interrupted Bess, who had recently grown confident in both her retail skills and her burgeoning feminine charms.

If their father took up less space now, Bess seemed intent on making up the difference. She was uncomfortable in the quiet their mother’s passing had created. If their father spoke less, she would speak more. If the shine on him dulled, Bess would become brighter.

“As if you know what looks best,” said Augusta. “You barely pay attention to the customers anyway. You’re too busy staring at the new soda jerk, batting your eyes, trying to get him to notice you.”

The new soda jerk had been hired as an assistant to the full-time clerk who’d been there for a decade. Fred, the old-timer, was a no-nonsense fellow who ran the soda fountain like a soldier on patrol. He kept the zinc counter polished to a shine at all times, piling soda glasses, ice cream dishes, and sundae spoons in perfectly symmetrical, tidy stacks. The new assistant, George, was not quite as precise, but he was a step up from the last one, who was always having to mop up his own spills. George never overfilled the glasses; he was not sloppy with the walnuts. After a week, George had mastered the lingo. A glass of milk was a “baby.” A scoop of vanilla ice cream was a “snowball.” If someone wanted a Coke with no ice, George shouted, “Hold the hail!”

“I do not bat my eyes at George,” Bess insisted. “Besides, even if I did, he’s too busy to notice.”

It was true that the soda fountain was packed every afternoon. Customers clamored for the red leather stools while calling out their orders for ice cream cones and egg creams. Since George’s arrival, business was even busier—pretty girls in dresses sat sweetly at the counter, sipping their sodas more slowly than usual. In between sips, they smiled at George, who seemed completely immune to their charms. Augusta had seen him sneaking glances at Bess whenever he thought she wasn’t looking.

“He notices,” said Augusta, but she would not elaborate. At sixteen, Bess was already more concerned with men than Augusta considered necessary—she didn’t need any additional encouragement. Augusta turned to her father again. “Papa, I want to learn more about your work. I want you to teach me about prescriptions.” When Solomon Stern did not reply, Augusta spoke up again. “I refuse to take no for an answer.”

This time her father looked up from his newspaper. He sat up a little straighter in his chair and blinked at Augusta from behind his glasses as if she’d suddenly appeared in the space before him. “You sound like your mother,” he said before escaping back into his pages.

The next day, after the school bell rang and the girls made their way to the pharmacy, Augusta carried her books to the narrow back room where her father filled prescriptions. Shelves filled with carefully labeled bottles lined the neat, well-lit space. A locked cabinet held the most dangerous substances—medicines Augusta knew had to be handled with special care. Her father hadn’t said she could be there, but he hadn’t sent her away, either.

When her homework was done, Augusta watched as her father measured powders on a set of gleaming brass scales. As usual, he wore a white cotton coat over a knit sweater vest and a striped bow tie. After a while, he grew tired of her gawking and put her to work dusting bottles and shelves. This continued for weeks on end; in this way, she began to learn the names of the drugs. Whenever Augusta asked a question, her father pointed to the books sitting on his counter. Then she would skim the pages of the U.S. Pharmacopeia and the thickly bound copy of the National Formulary until she found the answer.

From where Augusta sat reading in the prescription room, she was certain to overhear at least a portion of many of her father’s private consultations. Once Solomon Stern realized this fact, he gave his daughter an ultimatum. “In this store, people speak to me in confidence,” he said. “They trust that whatever they disclose to me will not be revealed to anyone else. Whatever you hear, whatever you learn about a customer, is never ever to be repeated. If you break this rule, there will be no second chance.” As he spoke the words, his eyes bore no trace of their usual softness.

“I understand,” Augusta said.

“Being a pharmacist is more than powders and pills.” Her father glanced toward the locked cabinet behind her. “Sometimes it means keeping other people’s secrets.”

For the first time, Augusta had an inkling that her father was more than the melancholy man she knew. He was not only a father and a widower, but a confidant to people she had never even met. She wondered whether that was what helped to keep him going after his heart had been hammered by loss: the part he’d pledged to play—both professional and personal—in the constantly evolving stories of strangers.

When Augusta grew bored of dusting bottles, she tried convincing her father to assign her more substantive tasks. Eventually he set her to work making simple suppositories. Her father mixed the ingredients first, using cocoa butter as a base. Only then was Augusta allowed to take over, placing the material in a cast-iron machine bolted to the wooden counter. As she turned the crank, the medicated paste was forced into bullet-shaped molds. It was a decidedly unglamorous job, but Augusta was determined to prove herself capable.

She was there, leaning over the heavy machine, her braids half unraveled, her forehead dripping with sweat, when her father came into the stuffy room accompanied by a boy she had never seen before. He was a few years older than she, at most, with an untamable cowlick and chalk-blue eyes. His pants, she noticed, were a bit too short, as were the cuffs on his shirt. He looked as if he could use a hot meal—even one of Bess’s overcooked roasts would do.

“Augusta,” said her father, “this is my new delivery boy. He’ll be coming in on weekdays after school, like you. The two of you will be seeing a lot of each other.”

The boy stepped forward to shake her hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said. “Your pop’s got a terrific store.”

“Welcome,” said Augusta. “What’s your name?”

The boy ran one hand over the top of his head, but the spiky tuft of hair would not be subdued. “Irving,” he said. “Irving Rivkin.”