Read Someday the Rabbi Will Leave for Free Online Page B

connected with it anymore, however. We sold out back in twenty-nine, although they still use our name.”
    â€œWell, that’s what I mean. The name is known.”
    â€œBut I have no organization—”
    â€œYou say the word, and I’ll get an organization.”
    Magnuson smiled. “You’re very persuasive. I’ll tell you what, make a few inquiries around, drop a few hints, and report back to me. Then we’ll decide.”
    As they drove home, Belle Halperin was ecstatic, her color even higher than usual. “They’ve got a Chagall and a Seurat, and in the bedroom they have a real Renoir. Imagine, in a bedroom.” Then abruptly, “Was it law business he wanted to see you about?”
    Her husband chuckled. “No. He wants to be president of the temple.”
    â€œPresident? But—but he’s never been an officer or anything. Can he?”
    â€œWhy not? There’s no regulation against it. Any member can run. And he’s a member.”
    â€œAnd he wants you-to run his campaign?”
    â€œSomething like that.”
    â€œCan he make it? Has he got a chance? I mean nobody knows him or anything.”
    â€œNo-o, but on the other hand everybody knows the name, and everybody loves a millionaire.”
    â€œIs he going to pay you for your work?”
    â€œThere was nothing said about it.”
    â€œThen what will you get out of it?”
    â€œOh well, I figure when you hang around people with the kind of money Howard Magnuson has, some of it rubs off.”

7
    Laura Magnuson at twenty-five was nice-looking, even handsome if not pretty. Her mouth was a shade too wide, her nose a little too long for contemporary taste, judging by models on magazine covers. Her eyes were alert and penetrating, and her chin showed determination and resolve. Her brown shoulder-length hair was parted in the middle and brushed back behind her ears in a style that required the least amount of fussing.
    She had graduated from Bryn Mawr magna cum laude in political science and gone on to the London School of Economics for three years, only to return without a degree. As she explained to her father who adored her and to her mother who understood her, “I had the feeling that if I got a doctorate, then sooner or later, I’d find myself teaching. And I don’t want that.”
    â€œWhat do you want to do?” asked her father.
    â€œOh, I don’t know. Something in government, maybe.”
    She had been home a couple of months now, doing nothing, at least from the point of view of her parents. She had visited New York several times, to buy clothes, to go to the theater, to visit friends and former classmates. The Magnusons had given a couple of parties for her in Barnard’s Crossing so that she could meet new people, sons and daughters of their own acquaintances who came down from Boston. During the day, if the weather was good, she would get into her car and drive about the countryside, up to Rockport to wander about the picture galleries, or to Gloucester to lunch on the wharf and watch the seagulls. Evenings she was apt to go into Boston or Cambridge, where there might be a lecture or a meeting she thought might be of interest.
    This night she decided to drive downtown with the vague idea that she might go to a movie, or perhaps just wander about the streets in order to renew her acquaintance with the old town. As she passed the Unitarian church, she noticed a sign announcing, “Candidates’ Night, A Chance to Meet the Candidates.”
    She drove another block to find a parking place and then walked back. The meeting was being held in the vestry, which seated a couple of hundred people. But the room was less than half full when Laura arrived, a few minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin.
    In the wide aisle that encircled the room, small folding tables had been set up, each displaying the campaign material of a particular candidate.