Broadway Baby by Alan Shapiro

should this day be different from any other day,” Miriam said. “But eat something more. You can’t learn on an empty stomach.”
    She heard the door slam and Julie’s “Yeah yeah yeah” as she went down the front stairs.
    “Ethan,” she said, “we have Stuart tonight.”
    “Aw, Ma,” he whined, “not again. I don’t want to go. I got too much to do, I got a lot on my plate.”
    “A lot on your plate,” she said, “like what?”
    “You know, homework, and stuff.”
    “ Th at’ll take you what, fifteen minutes, a half hour at most?”
    “Okay,” he said, “so it’s a small plate. I don’t want to go.”
    “You’re going.”
    “Shit,” he said, throwing his napkin down and stomping out.
    “Don’t use that language with me,” she yelled after him, “or I’ll tell your father.”
    Now Sam was leaving. His shoelaces were untied. “Wait,” she said. She bent down to tie them.
    “Don’t touch my laces,” he said. “Don’t you tie them!”
    “What do you mean, don’t tie them? If you don’t want me to tie them, learn to do it yourself.”
    “I don’t know how,” he said. “And I don’t like the way you do it. Th ey always come untied at school. And I’m always tripping.”
    “Get Mrs. Cunningham to tie them,” she said.
    “ Th en the kids’ll laugh at me.”
    “So what are you going to do?” she asked. “I can’t let you leave with your shoes untied.”
    “Mrs. Rosenberg,” he said.
    “Sigrid? Down the street? What about Sigrid?”
    “She’ll tie them. She said she would.”
    “When did she say she’d tie them?”
    “A while ago, ’cause I told her you didn’t know how to.”
    “Why were you talking to Mrs. Rosenberg?”
    “ ’Cause she saw me walking home from school and said I was going to fall on my head, and that would be it, caput, I’d die, just like that, if I didn’t tie my laces, and so she tied them for me, and they didn’t come untied until I went to bed.”
    So now she couldn’t tuck in his shirts and couldn’t tie his shoelaces. He’d rather have a Holocaust survivor tie his shoelaces than his own mother? Plus, the neighborhood probably thought she neglected her children, and for all she knew maybe they thought she abused them, too. Who knew what crazy ideas that woman would put in Sam’s head? And Ethan wouldn’t go to Stuart without a fuss, and Julie—Julie was never home.
    And then there was Curly to look forward to at the end of the day—angry as ever, full of complaints, wanting to know where Julie was and why Miriam couldn’t control her, and why did she have to push Ethan so hard, it wasn’t right for a kid to spend so much time singing and dancing with that “faygela” Stuart. “You want him to end up working for your father, too?” she’d have to say to shut him up. “ Th ink that will make him happy?”
    Same routine—morning after morning, night in, night out. Th e happy family in their happy home.
    S HE SPENT MORE and more time at the studio, arriving early, staying late. She’d go on days when Ethan didn’t have a lesson. Stuart had such a way with children; one group would be tap dancing while another would be singing. He wrote music; he choreographed dance numbers; he was always busy, always doing a thousand things at once. His energy and exuberance were contagious. After a while, she found herself helping him with his books and making appointments. She had even begun helping him compose and arrange.
    One day, during a break, Stuart put his hand on her shoulder. Th e gentle pressure of it made her blush. Th ere was trust in the pressure, and comfort, an undemanding intimacy she’d never felt before. And the pleasure she felt just then sent a jolt of fear right through her heart.
    “Miriam,” he said, “you seem a little blue lately. Everything okay?’
    “I’m just tired,” she said. “You know—the kids, my mother.”
    “No,” he said, “I don’t know, being a confirmed bachelor and