Candy Bill
Meryl stood with her two sisters, peeping through the display window of the candy shop, and silently observing the striking array of sweets which were perched upon beautiful crystal dishes and vivid red skirting. Meryl licked her pale pink lips. At her side stood Wendy who, at seven, was three years younger. And next to Wendy and leaning with her nose against the window, was Karen, the baby, at four years of age. All three girls' mouths were watering.
On a step ladder next to, but totally ignored by, the girls was Albert Weissmann, AKA Candy Bill, the proprietor for whom the shop was eponymously named. Bill was busily squirting the already shiny glass with glass cleaner and wiping it even cleaner. Meryl fretted that they were creating a nuisance. Her father had told her to steer clear of Mr. Weissmann; he was a cranky old guy. According to her papa, he had lost family in the war, years before. One never knew what might set him off.
"Do you think we'll get some candy for Christmas," Wendy asked, turning to regard her older sibling. Karen hung on Meryl's reply.
"Don't be silly," scolded Meryl. "We're Jewish," she reminded the other two girls. "We don't believe in Christmas."
Little Karen's face puckered up and she looked as if she might cry. "Not fair," she said, pouting. Her faded print dress hung limply from thin shoulders.
"You're forgetting," Meryl reminded them, "that we have Hanukkah."
"Yay!" shrilled Karen happily. "We'll have gelt! Then we can buy candy!"
"But," said Meryl, pointing an admonishing forefinger at her younger sister, "we have to give part of our gelt to charity."
Karen instantly grew sober and nodded. "Yes," she agreed half- heartedly, "to charity."
"Can't we buy some candy now?" implored Wendy, dying to bite into a piece of chocolate.
"We don't have our gelt yet," replied Meryl. "We get it on the fifth day of Hanukkah, remember? This is just December 19th. The fifth day isn't until the 21st."
"But, Ruth gets gelt every night of Hanukkah," protested Wendy, referencing her best friend.
"Ruth's parents are rich," remarked Meryl a little sharply. "Mother and father have to work hard to earn what little we have." Bill glanced surreptitiously at the children.
Wendy remembered that Mr. Kaplan, Ruth's father, owned a string of shoe stores in the city, whereas Wendy's mother and father worked as a tailor and a housekeeper, respectively. Wendy dug the toe of her shoe into the pavement. "Yeah...."
Suddenly, Candy Bill descended from the ladder and nudged the girls back from the window. Spraying where they'd left smudges on the glass, he wiped the surface clean and glared pointedly at the sisters.
"C'mon," murmured Meryl, taking charge as she always did. "We hafta' get home. We have latkes tonight," she said with feigned enthusiasm. Even though she loved them, she knew they were a poor substitute for Candy Bill's home made chocolate, for her sisters. She placed a hand round each of her sisters and began to steer them away.
"Come back here," growled a stern voice over their shoulders. The girls froze and looked back to find Candy Bill standing formidably in the doorway to his candy shop.
"We were just leaving, Mr. Weissmann," squeaked Meryl at the imposing figure before them. Wendy's eyes grew large and Karen actually began to tremble with fear.
"Get in here," he ordered, holding wide the door. Terrified out of their wits, the children complied with the directive and filed timidly through the portal. Once inside, they breathed in the intoxicating aroma of fresh made candy: chocolate-covered caramels, sugar wafers, and Meryl's favorite, enormous bars of pure brown chocolate.
"We...we didn't do anything," murmured Meryl fearfully, wondering what offense the trio had committed.
"You were standing at the display window," charged Bill wrathfully. "Blocking my paying customers from getting into my shop. How am I supposed to make an honest living?" he demanded, and furrowed his silver brows menacingly.
"We...we...I," replied Meryl in bewilderment. Now Karen began to whimper.
Taking notice of her, Candy Bill's face suddenly creased into an enormous smile. "There, there, hertzele, cooed the bear of a man, gently touching her cheek. From a shelf he pulled three bright white bags loaded with candy. He presented the gifts to the little girls and smiled warmly at them. They stood, agape, until Bill, suddenly embarrassed by his own largesse, shooed them out of the shop. The two younger children danced merrily away, but Meryl paused for a moment and glanced back at her benefactor and gave him a dazzling smile of gratitude. He merely flicked his fingers in the opposite direction, and she likewise fled.
Candy Bill, his always busy shop now empty, walked back of the ice cream counter, past the many confectionery displays, and laid his hand on a photo, nearly twenty years old and fading. Across the photo, in the unsteady hand of a child, was written, "Love you, papa. Your sweet hertzele, Miriam."
