Those Goldbergs

By Charlotte Pregnolato

The first thing I saw was the gleaming chrome grin twinkling down the street, followed by the biggest car I’d ever seen. When the grinning monster turned into our driveway, I stopped twirling my hips, and my hula-hoop clattered to the ground. Daddy got out with a grin almost as big as the car grill. Mom, who’d been looking through the picture window, ran outside with a little frown between her brows, “Chuck, whose car is this?”

My dad swept his arm towards the car like a circus ringleader. “This, my dear Rosie, is our very own De Soto deluxe sedan, a fitting car for the new senior salesman at Henchley’s.” It took up almost the whole driveway—the sparkling black finish shined like wet ink.

My mother squealed and threw her arms around his neck, “Hijole! Chuck, that’s wonderful news. I’m so proud.” My dad’s face glowed pink like the bulbs around my mother’s dressing room mirror. It wasn’t often my mother was visibly excited, in a good way, I mean. We were one happy family at that moment.

Dad opened the passenger doors for us. The inside was a traveling living room that smelled sharp and intoxicating, rich people smell. Dad took us for a spin around the neighborhood. I waved madly at the Keltons as they watched from their porch, and I hoped they were thinking, “Getaloada that! Those Goldbergs must be so rich!”

Weekend nights, it was thrilling to watch my mother in a cloud of Bal de Versailles, sparkling with jewelry, slide into the De Soto while my dad, suave in his dinner jacket, held the door for her. The grinning grill backed out of the driveway slowly, gliding them away to dance and dine like the movie stars in Look Magazine.

On Saturdays, dressed in a party dress and patent leather Mary Janes, I’d sit on a cushion so I was high enough to rest my elbow on the sill, just like my dad. We’d go to Canters for bagels and pancakes while Mama slept in. It was her favorite thing to do.

The waitresses brought bowls of dill pickles as soon as we sat down. They puckered my mouth, especially after orange juice, but I had one anyway just to show my appreciation. All the waitresses knew my name.

After the De Soto, my mom was different. She laughed more, especially when we went to funny movies. She tried harder to cook for us and said yes when Aunt Ana suggested she drive us to church on Palm Sunday.

I kept running to the window every other minute until my mother yelled, `’Calm down, it’s just church.”

Before we got out of the car, Aunt Ana handed my mom and me each a lacy, white mantilla to wear on our heads to show “respect.” Her own was black and looked pretty next to her white, white skin.

I was supposed to do everything my aunt did, “Just like we’re playing Simon Says.” I loved it all: dipping fingers into the holy water and making a cross-my favorite, bowing, kneeling, and closing our eyes for prayers. The sweet smells of candles and flowers seemed so mysterious and beautiful. I wanted to know everything, “The church is so pretty, Aunt Ana; where is the music coming from? Why are there so many candles? Why is that guy waving that lamp-is it on fire?”

Aunt Ana tapped my mouth gently with her finger and whispered, “I’ll tell you later.” My mother was quiet and sometimes didn’t even kneel or cross herself, but I never missed a chance.

As we walked out of the church, Aunt Ana stopped to kneel in front of a statue of a woman she said was Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Madonna of Mexico. There were tears in her eyes when she stood, “When I was your age, Benni, Our Lady meant everything to me.”

My mother was silent but slipped her arm through Aunt Ana’s as we returned to the car. When we got home, I asked Mom, “Do you love church like Aunt Ana?” My mother looked at me but didn’t answer until she finished her pancakes. ” I don’t like how people act so holy in church but do such bad things the rest of the time. Maybe Aunt Ana forgets.”

She looked angry, and eventually decided she’d rather sleep on Sunday mornings. I continued to go with Aunt Ana until she moved back to Mexico to get married again.

After that, I was sad. Like Aunt Ana, I missed church, and Dad told me he couldn’t take me because he was Jewish. To cheer me up, on Sundays, we went on little outings in the De Soto, like to Santa Monica Beach or Griffith Park.

Something slowly deflated between my parents. My father often came home after dark. Mama’s Bal a Versailles bottle stayed unopened, even though she could have used a good spritz of it; she smelled not so nice after sleeping so much.

Saturday mornings, my dad still took me to breakfast; we expanded our outings to Ships, where they had toasters on the tables, and sometimes we’d go to the Beverly Hills Hotel for milkshakes. We’d drive right up to the valets as if we were the king and queen of the place.

By the time I was eleven, my mother was a ghost in the house, appearing and disappearing in her nightgowns. I went to my friend Maxine’s house as much as I could. I loved eating dinner in their bright yellow kitchen at the table covered in shiny red and white checkered plastic. Maxine’s father always said corny stuff to me, “Please pass the sugar, you’re so sweet you don’t need any.” Maxine’s mom and I giggled, but Maxine and her brother just raised their eyes to the ceiling.

Maxine’s mother picked me up for a sleepover during Easter break that year. My mother waved good-bye from her bedroom window, but I pretended not to see. I didn’t want anybody else to see her in her nightgown with her hair like a big frizzy black cloud around her head.

The next morning, Maxine and I were still in our PJs when I heard my dad’s voice. I saw the grinning grill in front of the house through the window. I ran downstairs and was about to burst into the kitchen when I heard Maxine’s mom cry out, “Oh, no, poor Rosie!” She was sobbing. I got scared then and heard my dad say, “I just need time to take care of all…” He sounded like he was crying, too.

I hid behind the door of the TV room, pressing myself into the wall. After the front door closed, I changed my mind and ran after the car in a wild panic, calling, “Dad, Daddy!” I would have kept running, but Maxine’s mom caught me and held me for a long, long time.

Then everything changed- every single thing.

For one thing, that was the last time I saw the De Soto. Dad got another car, an Oldsmobile, not nearly as glamorous, in my opinion. The same was true of his new wife, who wore ruffled aprons and favored the sort of drug store perfume my mother called ‘ordinaria‘.

I held on to that good-bye wave from my mother for a long time, wondering if she would have changed her mind and lived if I’d waved back. My father got so busy with his new wife that he never took me to brunch alone again. All that was shiny and bright drove right out of our lives that day.

Before Covid, Charlotte Pregnolato wrote food and lifestyle related articles for publications in South Africa, her adopted home since 2002. Currently she belongs to a literary fiction writing forum at Writer’s Village University where she’s in the process of writing a collection of linked short stories titled “Mock Saints” about an artist who uses her work to make sense out of her troubled childhood and her bi-polar condition.  The stories are placed in Charlotte’s native Los Angeles during the 1970s and serve to stave off heart-rending bouts of homesickness. “Those Goldbergs” is a story from the “Mock Saints” collection.