There was a lot of drinking that night and I felt the men were showing off with it. They weren’t succeeding. We all went out to a restau- rant and Herman and I took a walk together. The next day my mother asked me about my date and I practically stamped my feet I was so emphatic that he was not my type. Like Shakespeare says, perhaps “the lady doth protest too much.” After a couple of weeks Herman called and we went out again. This time he seemed nicer. A third time Pearl and I visited Herman at his home in Chester. Pearl had just had her heart broken by
Marty Shulman. After a month in which Pearl and Marty had been together for practically every breakfast, lunch and dinner, Marty had eloped with an ex-chorus girl who lived in his building. Pearl was devastated. Herman talked to Pearl the way a father would talk to a child. He gave her good advice and impressed me with his maturity and kind- ness. I was becoming very attracted to him. We stayed so late talking and listening to classical music that Herman’s mother yelled at him to go to bed. On the way home at two o’clock in the
morning I told Pearl, “I wouldn’t mind marrying that boy.” Pearl said, “I don’t blame you, if I had met him first you wouldn’t stand a chance.” I told Pearl, “I wouldn’t mind marrying that boy.”
Not one to feel sorry for herself for very long, a week later Pearl went off to Atlantic City. When she came back she reported that she had met a very cute guy on the beach by the name of Albert Nipon and she couldn’t wait for me to meet him. Back in Atlantic City the next weekend Pearl pointed Albert out to me. I told her I didn’t think he was so cute. Al told Pearl he already had a date for Saturday night so he couldn’t take her out. But, he told her, he had a friend who was an All-Amer- ican football player, named Bernie Lemonick, who could be her date so that we could all go out together. Al was right; Bernie was a Jewish All-American lineman at the University of Pennsylvania.
PEARL’S BIG SPLASH
83 I was not yet going out exclu- sively with Herman and I had a date with Bernie Shapiro, a hand- some young lieutenant (who is still a bachelor). Together with Al and his date, Pearl and Bernie
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