Butterfly 1.4

Valentine's Day At the Bernsteins; Butterfly Serials 1.4

© 2024 by Amber Wright

June 1973.

It was a Saturday and Liza was teaching art with her mother at the Madison Mental Hospital, and Bibi was still having jetlag from her random trip to Ireland.

So Dinah Isaacs pulled out one of the diaries by herself—this time is was a letter dating back to 1902. One of her distant cousins was writing this—an Amie Bernstein, her great grandfather's niece.

Dinah settled onto the colorful cushions in her treehouse and felt the tree do a little sway...

Date: February 14, 1902

Place: London, England

Friday dawned crisp and cool, without a trace of rain. Valentine's Day, 1902. School was let out for the day since it was a holiday in the Bernstein household, and Amie thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. There were no endless lessons.

She got to help decorate the sugar cookies with pink and red icing, make the parlor alive with fresh flowers from the greenhouse and neatly stack the pink-and-red-wrapped gifts on the small tables lining the windows. It all simply looked perfect.

“I vote we,” Amie grinned with a dramatic pause, “etch this fantastic day into a stone vase! It's so beautiful.”

“And it will be even more beautiful when the food arrives!” Kitt grabbed at his flat stomach. “I'm starving, doing all this work. What time is it?”

“Eleven thirty. Oh my!” Mamma exclaimed, glancing down at her wristwatch. “We must get changed and ready within thirty minutes. Hurry, everyone—shoo!”

At 12 o'clock sharp, everyone gathered in the parlor and were ready to receive the Valentine's Day guests. Amie glanced around. Where was Gad and Annie? She began to ask when the door burst open and in stepped Mr. and Mrs. Flemings wearing their best silky suit and gown.

Amie stifled in a giggle. Mr. Flemings' stovetop hat looked like it was merely sitting on top of his hairless head, ready to topple over with the least wind. He walked over them, smiling from ear to shining ear.

“Cheerio, m'loves!” Mr. Flemings tipped his hat with a slight bow.

“What a delicious party!” Mrs. Flemings gushed as she spotted the tables heaped with platters of iced cookies, jars of fudge, little sandwiches, a silver pot filled with steaming vegetable soup and pitchers of lemonade. A large silver pot of tea set on its own table surrounded by teacups, saucers and teaspoons. “I say, Mrs. Bernstein, you have such fine tastes. I always seem to live in your shadows.” The old lady giggled.

“Not at all, Mrs. Flemings.” Mamma smiled. “But I thank you. Have a seat, yous.”

“May I try your hat on, Mr. Flemings?” Amie suddenly had the bright idea. “My tutor has one like this—but he's always too busy for me to ask him to try it on.”

“Certainly.” Mr. Flemings chuckled as he handed her his stovetop hat.

The hat slid down her forehead and Amie felt it jar against her nose. She laughed and pushed it back up. “Good thing I have my Jewish nose! Else it would have slipped right over my face. Thank you, Mr. Flemings, but it doesn't fit.”

“Perhaps I'll order you one your size that fits then.” Mr. Flemings merrily winked down at her.

“Aye, aye, sir!” Amie grinned with a salute. “Perhaps in red, hmm...?”

“Red t'will be! Now be a good lass and kindly steer me in the right direction?”

“Right sir! We begin at this table where the drinks are...”

• • •

The party was well underway by the time Gad Bernstein and Annie Montgomery arrived. All the girls from the orphanage were giggling away, playing with their gifts and eating to their heart's content.

And Amie was in the middle of dramatizing a Sherlock Holmes' story when she noticed her uncle and her maid enter. She blinked, and suddenly remembered they had not come to her party yet. Her eyes narrowed as she rushed to them, exclaiming. “Where were you?”

“Today is Valentine's Day.” Gad grinned, taking off his black coat.

“Yes, I know, and yous are late for my party!” Amie crossed her arms, upset.

“But love-heart...dot, dot, dot.” Gad's smile filled his face.

Amie blinked, and blinked again. Why was her uncle acting so ridiculous? Didn't he know he had all but spoiled her Valentine's Day party? Coming in late like this, she began to growl until— “Annie! You—you've got a ring on, a diamond ring on! Oncle Gad...”

“Yes.” Annie said quietly, planking a kiss on each of Amie's cheeks. “Now I am you aunt Annie Bernstein!”

“Yous already married!” Amie felt the blood drain from her face, she was that shocked.

“No.” Gad smiled sweetly. “We marry in the summer.”

“When the roses are in bloom,” Annie added with the dreamiest face Amie had ever seen on her. “And when the weather is warm and dry.”

“Well, it won't be dry, you can guarantee that.” Amie finally thought to say the proper words. “Oh yes, congratulations! But, Annie...” She felt her face fall. “I'll have to find me another maid.”

“I have a sister who has agreed to be your maid,” Annie's blue eyes twinkled. “That is, if you should want her.”

“How old is she?”

“Eighteen.”

“Just perfect. That's the same age as my cousin Shad.” Amie said in a grumble. “Next, they'll be married! Oh well,” she brightened with a little laugh, “by then I shall be old enough to—”

“Get married yourself.” Kitt teased from behind her. “Congratulations, yous!”

“Take care of myself, thank you! Now,” Amie pointed towards the half-empty tables. “Let's have some more food to celebrate!”

“Oui !”

“Like you really need any more food, Kitt.” Amie gave him a playful frown. “If any more food goes down that throat of yours, you'll pop!”

One of the girls from the orphanage giggled, “Then all the king's men and all the king's horses couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again!”

“I am not short and I am not fat, merci !” Kitt's black eyebrows looked fierce.

“Pardon, monsieur .” The girl replied and turned to Amie who was giggling. “Shall we play checkers?”

“Aye.” Amie took a seat on the floor opposite the girl. “You first 'cause you're red. I'm black.”

“And I'm white!” Kitt sat down cross-legged beside them. His eyes twinkled mischievously. “I get to stay on no-man's land and keep score. Uhm-mm.”

“I don't cheat, Kitt Lazar!”

“Didn't say you did.”

“Your turn, Tabby.”

Another girl from the orphanage came over with a little plate of fudge and glasses of milk. “This is fun! I would love to do this again, Miss Amie.”

Amie looked up in surprise. Why hadn't she thought of that before? Invite the girls from the orphanage over for little parties like this?

She would. And she would be so busy there would be no time to miss her best maid, Annie Montgomery, when she would become Annie Bernstein, officially. She smiled.

“That you will!” Amie promised the girl whose eyes lit up her whole face. “I shall have yous over sometime soon. Don't forget.”

“I won't forget!” the girl nearly spilled the milk in her excitement. She handed them their glasses of milk and set the plate of fudge on the floor beside them. “Thank you, Miss.”

Nearby, Amie saw Annie showing off her ring.

Amie suddenly declared, “Now, when I get engaged I'll make everyone beg to see my ring. That way, it'll raise the value of my ring.”

“Ha-ha, and then you'll sell it and buy a more expensive one, non ?” Kitt grinned.

“Non. I'll sell it and buy one for the same price—and keep the change.”

“I heard that, Amie Bernstein.” Gad laughed and walked over to them playing checkers. “You're already a business-lady, oui ?”

“Oui, and a to-be-prosperous one!” Amie grandly pointed to her poor friends surrounding her. “I want to help my friends. And someday I will! I just made up my mind about it. That's what I want to do when I grow up.”

“And when you grow to be successful and wise,” Shad said from his chair nearby, “you can think back to this day of Valentine's Day, 1902!”

“Precisely.” Amie smiled, happiness bursting her inside seams. “I can always think back of today. Sweet Valentine's Day!”

• • •

Dinah came out of 1902 and back to reality with the tree swaying more wildly below her. She looked out of the window sharply. The sky looked dark and looming. Looked like a tornado.

Dinah scrambled down the steps with the diary and rushed into the house, wind whipping her blonde hair. Everyone was scrambling into the cellar and Dinah clutched tightly onto the diary.