know divulged that two years ago , at the time of the aging actress ’ s disappearance , her brain was transplanted into the body of that beauty queen killed in the midnight crash on FDR Drive just north of Battery Park —’ ”
“ Please , Ruthie —”
“ I ’ m not done , Sam !” Ruth stamped her foot , but the sound was lost in the plush carpeting of their spacious Second Avenue penthouse . ‘ Of course , anyone today with five million bucks can have that same procedure at any of our great teaching hospit —’”
“ Oh , forget it . My breakfast is getting cold ,” he muttered before retreating into a smoldering silence .
Nevertheless , they made the deal that very day , the February morning of their fiftieth wedding anniversary , but perhaps the idea of a brain transplant had been poking at her imagination and bubbled to the surface only then . Samuel S . Shapiro , renowned Broadway lyricist , and his wife , the former Ruth Berg , New York ’ s top agent for those multi-million-dollar condos in the sky , had been dancing around the breakfast nook , reminiscing about their first date .
“ Tell me again how it felt .” “ You mean like a gravitational pull ?” “ Yeah , and that tingle in your knish .”” “ Oh , Sam !”
“ Don ’ t ‘ Oh , Sam ’ me . You were trembling when we tucked ourselves into that car of the Wonder Wheel in Coney Isl —”
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