Gregory Flugal’s brother Fritz is a psychiatrist with his office in a tall building downtown in San Francisco. Fritz will be having dinner with Greg and Greg’s adored wife, Stephanie, but, in a significant interruption of his schedule, Fritz is going to be late for dinner.
It was a bright, sunlit afternoon in San Francisco. In town for a singing engagement of her stylized blues and rhythms, tangle-haired Jessica Dee, mini skirt and loose jacket , pulled off her dark glasses and crushed into a back corner of a crowded elevator. Five foot two or three plus heels, she was hidden back there as the doors, closing on that ‘up’ car, were pulled open to make room for one more passenger. Sherrie Dee, pretty executive, feminine suit, wedged inside and touched the Roof Garden button.
Dr. Fritz Flugal, comfortable gray suit, leaned into his corner until stops on fourth and sixth and then a mass exit on seventh left him alone with Jessica Dee, singer of blues, and Sherrie Dee, bank executive.
In that awkward turn of circumstances, the two women were forced to meet again. If they thought of each other at all it was with rancor they didn’t bother to define, and they would never willingly have taken the same elevator. Too many wounds inflicted, too much time gone by.
As the doors closed on the seventh floor, Sherrie Dee turned, and choked at the sight of her sister Jessica Dee! In reckless haste to escape, she slammed her palm against the rows of elevator buttons, and, somewhere between floors eight and nine, the car jolted to a stop. “Damn!” slipped out under her breath as she frantically scanned the operating panel while Jessica spat out, “Sherrie Diane Dee, how did you get in here?”
With an alarming jiggle, the elevator settled a foot lower in its concrete shaft, and Sherrie jerked back her hand in panic. “What did I do?” she squeaked.
“You did nothing,” Dr. Flugal assured her as he stepped over to push the emergency button. “I work in this building, and we have this touchy elevator. Elmo will fix it again when he sees the light flashing. It might be a few minutes.”
Unbuttoning his suit coat, Fritz returned to his corner and sat down on the carpeted floor of the elevator car. He gestured for the women to relax in their places, but Jessica pouted that she would rather stand.
In words striking with cannon ball impact, she jabbed at Sherrie, “You haven’t changed.”
Sherrie flung back at her, “In all of San Francisco, couldn’t you …?”
“How would I know?” she sputtered, and stopped to listen. There was nothing. In angry explanation to the other captive, she flatly stated, “She stays out of my life. I keep out of hers.”
Their antagonism sizzled as Fritz Flugal asked how long it had been that way.
“Years,” Sherrie answered. “Her fault.”
Jessica snapped back, “My fault? You were Daddy’s little girl who liked solving his mathematic brain teasers I could never get.”
Jessica scolded, “You and Mama were always together at the piano.”
The hostilities crackled in accusations that could only prolong the war. Dr. Flugal suggested, “You must have once felt deep fondness to be now so bitter.”
Jessica sulked, “We’re sisters.”
With squinting eyes, Sherrie corrected, “Were.” Silence simmered.
Contemplating the elevator carpet, the doctor quietly asked, “You never had times when you laughed together?”
Sherrie’s swivel inquired what that had to do with anything, while Jessica, leaning back into her corner, suppressed a titter, “Morry Binns.”
Sherrie frowned at Jessica’s silly grin, but gave in to shrug, “That stuffed shirt, showing off to dumber kids his A Plus grades. He wasn’t so smart with our poster paint on his head.”
“Skidding down our muddy slide into the river, he was all flying legs and lunch pail.” They laughed out loud.
“Lunch pails. Do you still like strawberry jam sandwiches? I’ve never forgotten Grandma’s wild strawberries.”
Fritz Flugal was drawing slow ovals on the rug while his mind swept back to picking blackberries on a camping trip with little brother Gregory. He
remembered the bottomless pit of fear when he knew for sure they were lost in the woods. Their mother had told him, ‘Fritzy, you take care of your brother.’ But it was little Greggy who told him not to worry and found the trail back to camp.
Greg, with his supermarket, and Fritz, psychiatrist, still needed each other. The brothers shared the pain when Lillian divorced her busy doctor. They shared the glow when Greg married the lovely dancer, Stephanie Prentiss.
In words frosted with reproach, Sherrie was saying,, “I miss Mama.”
Jessica reminded her sister, “I was in Europe, you know, when Mama died.”
Sherrie stabbed at her, “And you couldn’t leave, could you?”
Jessica argued, “If I had come back for the funeral, it wouldn’t have been any help to Mama.”
Turning to the wall, Sherrie whimpered, “It would have helped me.”
Subdued, Jessica said, “Oh.”
Sinking to the floor, she defended herself to the stranger, “I didn’t think Sherrie ever needed me. She was so everlastingly sure of herself.”
Sherrie spun around. “Sure of myself? I could never do anything right. Even now, getting a divorce!” She looked up as if she could see the Roof Garden high above. “Sir Malcolm is a really nice man, and he’s up there waiting for me while we’re down here, hanging helpless in an elevator shaft.”
“Don’t get me all scared again,” Jessica warned her. Pulling her big purse over her knees, she sat with legs curled back, and gloomily wondered how long they would be trapped, hanging in a cage, while, outside, the sun was still bright, seagulls wheeled, cawing, over ships docked in a blue bay, and the world of people and traffic went by, unaware. A word connected in her brain. “What do you mean, ‘divorce’? I hated you when I heard he had married Kevin, who was mine, I thought.”
Sherrie dropped to the floor beside Jessica. “I didn’t know that, Jessie. You had so many boyfriends.”
“Not anymore. Traveling around, it’s hard to find somebody decent.”
“Well, Kevin wasn’t decent, either,” Sherrie informed her. “Selling luxury boats tempted him into seamy schemes with rich and lonely women. He is in jail now for fraud and grand theft.”
Stricken, Jessica said, “Oh, Sherrie Diane, I am sorry. I didn’t know you had trouble.” Her eyes narrowed as she remembered one other thing. “The money,” she accused. “What happened to my share from Mama?”
Sherrie Diane shoved her little sister, hard. “Jessica,” she scolded, “you don’t think I took your money, do you? I’m the banker, remember? Mama knew how fast you would throw it away. Before she died, she told me to put it in an account at the bank where I work. It’s collecting interest for you down the street.”
Jessica stood up. “Keep it there,” she said, “until I grow up, will you?”
Getting up, Sherrie hugged her sister as she pleaded, “Don’t grow up. I’ve missed you.” Stepping back, she rearranged Jessica’s hair to see how it would look. She remarked, “I saw you last night on stage.”
“You did?” Eagerly, Jessica asked, “How was I?”
“Good enough, I guess,” Sherrie teased. “You held that room in the palm of your hand, and you know it.”
From the elevator’s control panel, a voice startled them, and the doctor went over to answer, “This is Fritz Flugal, Elmo. Is it fixed?”
“In a minute or two,” the voice promised, apologizing for the jamming of gears.
Jessica gasped, “You are Dr. Flugal? I am your appointment who can’t sleep. Your sister-in-law, Stephanie, is my leading dancer, and she promised me that you could solve my problem. Well, Doctor, I think you succeeded. I’ll sleep now. I don’t hate my sister, anymore.”
Hanging onto her, Sherrie informed Dr. Flugal, “This is Jessica Dee. Have you heard her stunning music?”
“Not yet,” he answered, “but her dancer, Stephanie, and my brother Greg are meeting me in the restaurant on the roof.” Taking the hand that Jessica held out to him, he asked, “Will you be my dinner date before we go to your theater?”
“I’d love it,” Jessica said. “But I can’t eat before I sing.”
“All the better,” Fritz laughed.
At the Roof Garden, they stepped again into the world where things were going on, tinkling silverware in a hushed room lit by shaded sunlight. Life seemed to be leaping out to greet them.
Stephanie and Greg were waiting for Fritz. Sherrie Dee found her banking client, Sir Malcolm, absorbed in the dramatic panorama of the busy harbor. Tables were pulled together for the group.
From her seat across the table, Jessica said, “Stephanie, when I saw you dancing in a TV commercial, I didn’t know you would send me to this doctor who has given me back my hateful sister!”
Sir Malcolm grinned at Sherrie., “You are the hateful sister?”
Sherrie made a face. “I didn’t like her, either.”
Stephanie told Sir Malcolm, “I crashed my car into Greg’s Market, and he keeps me dancing. Holding Greg’s hand, she proposed a toast, “To the Flugal brothers who make troubles disappear.”
A little misty, Jessica and Sherrie raised their glasses as Jessica said, “Anyone who hates her sister, should call Dr. Flugal.”
Taking her hand in his, he kissed it and said, “Please call me Fritz.”
* * *
There will soon be smiles of celebration with trailing ribbons when Jessica Dee marries Fritz Flugal. Family is maybe the most enduring richness of our lives.
–Mildred