An Almost Perfect Moment (26 page)

“You see what I see?” Enzio asked, because he wasn’t sure if he was seeing things or not.

Paulie nodded his head yes because he did not dare to speak, as if he feared locusts or frogs would emerge from his mouth instead of words. Guilt and sin; for all of his thirty-seven years on this earth thus far, Paulie lived with his mother, who was always on his case for not going to mass with her. He should’ve gone to mass with his mother.

There are psychiatrists and academics who interpret such things, things such as visions of the Blessed Virgin, in a traditionally Freudian way; that is, when a boy or a man thinks he sees the Virgin Mary, it really is nothing more than the manifestation of a repressed sexual desire for his mother.

But fuck that. She was here, eating pizza. The Blessed Virgin was eating pizza that Paulie made with his own two hands.

Enzio pulled Paulie back into the kitchen and asked, “The camera. Where’s the camera?”

“You’re going to take her picture?” Paulie was incredulous, as if to take her picture were the same as defiling her.

“And you think anyone is going to believe us if I don’t take her picture?” Enzio had a point. Without evidence, there’d be jokes up the wazoo about the two of them going soft in the head.

The cousins kept a Polaroid camera on the premises from that time when the health inspector came looking for a handout. Enzio wanted evidence then too, on-the-spot proof that in his pizzeria, you could eat off the floor, it was so clean, and let that money-grubbing
scifoso
try and claim otherwise.

While Paulie reached for the camera, which was on the shelf behind an industrial-size can of tomato paste, Enzio went for the telephone.

“What are you doing?” Paulie asked, and Enzio, covering the mouthpiece with his hand, said, “I’m making us rich, Paulie. Rich.” Enzio planted his lips on Paulie’s forehead. “Now get out there and take the frigging picture.”

Having decided to order in a pizza rather than go out shopping for food, Joanne Clarke called Enzio’s and got a busy signal, which she took as a personal affront. As if Enzio knew she was going to call and took the phone off the hook, which would have been a crazy notion even if Enzio knew who the hell she was, which he didn’t.

She had come to this: Joanne Clarke would have rather gone hungry than give Enzio’s Pizzeria the satisfaction of calling for a second time. Lucky for her, there were other pizzerias in Canarsie who delivered, and Dominick’s answered on the first ring.

There was only one shot left on the roll of film and one flashbulb to go with it, so it figures that Paulie put his thumb down on the wet print before it fully developed, which schmushed her face a little, but still, you could tell it was her. There was a halo around her head, a white glow like an aura, and maybe that was the result of the flash but maybe not.

By the time Enzio got off the phone and came out front, Valentine was gone. “Where is she?” he asked his cousin, and Paulie shrugged. “How would I know?”

Enzio went to the garbage can and extracted an oily paper plate, a couple of used napkins, a paper cup, and a straw. The same articles of debris that Valentine Kessler had, moments before, put in the trash. Enzio arranged them neatly on the table. He took the picture from Paulie, shook his head over what a
stugatz
his cousin was, schmushing it like that, and he propped up the photograph of Mary, Mother of God, against the red-pepper shaker. Outside, the Channel 11 News van pulled up to the curb.

The Sandlers were having a few friends in for a buffet. Nothing fancy. Deli. Pastrami and corned beef and a rye bread, and as Mrs. Sandler transferred the food onto plates and platters, she was struck with the fear that she didn’t have enough. There was nothing worse—
nothing worse, I tell you
—than putting out a chintzy spread. “Bethie,” her mother had called to her. “Do me a favor and run to Murray’s and pick up a pound of potato salad and a pound of coleslaw.”

At Murray’s Appetizing Store, Beth took a number, eleven it was, and last in line, she stood three inches taller than her God-given five-foot-one. The extra height was due to the platform shoes
she wore, forest green with a perfectly squared toe, and uglier shoes you could not find if you combed the annals of fashion history for all of eternity. When Murray called, “Six,” Beth felt a chill at her back, the wind rushing in as the door opened and in walked,
be still my heart,
Joey Rappaport, looking so handsome but, Beth noted, also a teensy bit queer wearing a toggle coat and gray flannel slacks from J. Press—what did Beth know from J. Press—and Earth Shoes. He had brown suede Earth Shoes on his feet. Earth Shoes were yet one more sartorial blunder of the decade, a decade of fashion which was remembered by the fashion mavens as a time best forgotten because it was all, from head to toe, ill-conceived, ill-made, and just plain offensive to the eye.

“Well, will wonders never cease,” Joey Rappaport said, and stepping into line behind Beth Sandler, he took number twelve.

Old habits don’t die easily, if at all. Despite the fact that she was rarely hungry at that hour, Mrs. Wosileski served dinner at five-thirty sharp. Even with her husband dead and buried, she served dinner at the time he demanded it.

At six o’clock, John Wosileski loosened his belt and went to the couch to watch the news, leaving his mother to clean up after dinner. She was drying a pot when John called out to her, “Ma! Ma, come here. Look at this.”

The babe reporter held a microphone for Enzio after some other babe had powdered his nose. “So you looked up and she was just there? You didn’t hear her come in?”

“I didn’t hear nothing.” Double negatives be damned, Enzio was
lying. He did hear the door open, but no one would want to think that she walked in through the door, the same as anybody else would. “Out of nowhere, she appeared and asked for two slices and a Diet Pepsi, which she ate at that table there.” The camera zoomed in on the table, the oily plates, napkins, and the photograph as proof positive, and then the camera was turned back on the babe reporter, who said, “This is Margaret Giffin reporting live from the Holy Miracle at Enzio’s Pizzeria on East One Hundred and Third Street, Brooklyn.”

Angela Sabatini watched the television and made the sign of the cross.

Miriam Kessler had the television on, but tuned in to Channel 2. Not that she was paying much attention to it regardless. She was seated on a chair, the baby in her arms, and all of Miriam’s attention was fixed on the child.

B
y the dozens, maybe the hundreds, maybe more, they came. Enzio’s Pizzeria was transformed into a shrine to the Holy Mother. Prayer cards were taped to the walls, votive candles crowded the tables, and on the sidewalk out in front, the pilgrims left more candles and flowers and wreaths, some of which were even real, although most were of the plastic variety. Plastic
was
better because it could withstand the elements. Among the candles and the resinoid foliage there were some personal effects—an orthopedic shoe, a photograph of a child, a Barbie doll in the bridal costume, a ceramic Siamese cat—
ex-voto
offerings, requests for prayers to be answered. And all these people who came, or at least most of them, ordered two slices plain and a Diet Pepsi as if two slices plain and a Diet Pepsi might be the new Eucharist.

Joanne Clarke turned on the television before getting into bed. It was her habit to fall asleep to Johnny Carson, who wouldn’t come on for another few minutes. A few minutes during which Joanne caught the tail end of the news. The human interest story, some preposterousness about the Virgin Mary showing up at a pizza parlor.

Margaret Giffin, perky-babe reporter, was over-the-top, euphoric. This story, her story, the story she scooped, was proving to be the biggest Christmas story since that one with Jimmy Stewart. “This story,” she told the cameraman, “is bigger than Santa Claus.”

Indeed, it was big, and to maximize its effect, for the late-night report, it was given an additional two minutes of airtime, an extra cameraman, and a writer, who was now, as the camera came in for Margaret’s close-up, holding the cue cards for her to read. “As Albert Einstein once said”—Margaret Giffin, consummate professional, spoke her lines as if she were not scratching her pretty head over what the hell some Jew scientist had to do with the appearance of the Blessed Virgin—“‘There are only two ways to look at life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is.’”

The camera pulled back and panned the flock who believed.

How pathetic can you get?
Joanne Clarke wondered, and then sat up and squinted at the television screen. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw John Wosileski’s face among the faithful.

By midnight, having already called everyone whom she thought of as Valentine’s friends—none of them had seen her anywhere—Miriam Kessler moved on from
worried
to
worried sick
. At a loss as to what to do next, she then called Judy Weinstein who called Sunny Shapiro who called Edith Zuckerman.

With The Girls by her side, Miriam called the police. “My daughter is missing,” she said, and then Miriam went to pieces.

Two policemen arrived at the house, along with Angela Sabatini, who saw the squad car pull up. Angela came to check on Miriam, who was in no kind of shape. Judy Weinstein took over. “She left a note,” Judy said. “Sometime this afternoon.”

“Show them the note,” Sunny prodded, and Judy produced the sheet of Snoopy stationery for the policemen to read, while Edith tried to get Miriam to drink some sherry.

“Who is Ronda?” the young cop asked. A baby himself, this cop.

“The baby. Valentine’s baby,” Judy explained, and the cops exchanged a look.

“The kid who’s missing has a baby? And she left a note saying she doesn’t know when she’ll be back? Has anybody here considered that she’s run away?” They, the policemen, had, for their purposes, solved the mystery of Valentine’s disappearance; it was one more case of a runaway teen, some kid off in search of a jazzier life, no doubt tempted by the lights across the bridge, and all too often coming to the same kind of end as the moth tempted by the flame.

“You’re wrong,” Judy said. “She’s not that kind of kid. She’s a good kid, this one.”

The policemen, they’d heard it all before.

By midnight, Enzio and Paulie had more money than they could count, and really this bonanza could’ve gone on all night, but the cousins had to get some sleep. “Tomorrow. Come back tomorrow.” Enzio herded the pilgrims out the door.

Enzio and Paulie walked home, and along the way, when they paused at one house, where a six-foot-tall polystyrene snowman stood guard over a molded plastic Nativity scene, Paulie sang softly, “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.”

First thing in the morning, before her husband and children woke, before she had so much as a cup of coffee, Angela Sabatini—she of such a good heart—made her way to Enzio’s Pizzeria, which was closed, but out front she lit a candle and prayed to the Virgin to please see to the safe return of Valentine Kessler.
As a mother yourself, you understand what Miriam is going through
. Angela spoke to the Blessed Virgin as if they were neighbors on good terms, as if she were borrowing a cup of sugar instead of asking for what might well be a miracle.
And as long as I’m here, watch over my Frankie, would you? I worry with him and drugs.

That ludicrous story about the Virgin Mary making an appearance at a local pizzeria showed up on the morning news show too. Not that she believed it, not any of it, but Joanne Clarke did own up to a degree of curiosity.
Who or what had they seen, and then so grossly mistaken for a miracle?

Decisions had been made. Lots drawn. Judy got care of Ronda, Sunny got care of Miriam, and Edith would take care of everything else, which entailed working the phone and feeding everyone.

Coffee was ready and Edith took six chocolate-covered donuts from the box and put them on a cake plate. Judy Weinstein came into the kitchen, jiggling the baby over her shoulder. “I forgot what it’s like,” Judy said. “The three
A.M
. feeding. The diapers. I’m dead on my feet.”

Sunny, bleary-eyed and looking worse for the wear, joined Judy and Edith at the table. Nodding in the direction of upstairs, meaning Miriam, Sunny said, “She hasn’t stopped crying. My heart is breaking for her. I don’t know how she’s going to survive this. That one person could have such bad luck…” Sunny trailed off, and reached for a donut. “Freihofer’s?” she asked. Freihofer’s made the best donuts.

They were swarming like maggots in front of his pizza parlor. Enzio had to push his way through a motley crew like you never saw before in your life. The lame, the blind, the ugly. Two—
two!
—hunchbacks. An old lady with a phlegmatic cough that sounded as if it rose up from the bowels of the inferno. An albino boy with his mother. Some broad with great legs but with pimples on her face that were like boils. A Vietnam veteran who’d lost an arm along with half his mind. The devout. The devoted. The disciples. The sorrowful. The righteous. The good. The lonely hearts. All the meek who shall inherit the earth had come for their piece of the pie.

Judy Weinstein accomplished the impossible: She persuaded Dr. Rosenzweig, who lived next door to her cousin Didi so it was a personal favor, to pay a house call to sedate Miriam.

With Miriam resting quietly, Edith was able to resume her calls to the area hospitals. You never know. Maybe Valentine got hit on the head and now had amnesia or, God forbid, she got run over by a car and was in a coma.

After Edith struck out at each and every Brooklyn hospital, but before trying those in the city, Sunny reached out and put her hand across Edith’s wrist. “We’re going to have to start calling the morgues. You know that, don’t you?”

Pushing up from the table, Edith went to Miriam’s bedroom. She stood over her friend, who was sleeping, but not peacefully. Miriam whimpered, and Edith took her stole, her precious white mink, and draped it over Miriam’s bosom.

Mrs. Wosileski, having finished her housework, dressed with care. She put on fresh-from-the-package nylons, something she didn’t don even for her husband’s funeral. But for this occasion, there was no holding her back. Today, like a bride, she would wear all her finery. She was going to go to the Blessed Pizzeria, to the place where Mary, Mother of God, the Holy Mother, revealed herself.

Saving the best for last, Mrs. Wosileski put on her hat. Her one good hat, and so what if it was two decades old. It was a snappy black felt toque with a half veil, netting that stopped at the tip of her nose. In her oversized handbag, along with her wallet and change purse, she put two candles, three prayer cards, and a framed photograph of Jesus in a meadow surrounded by little children.

Perhaps it was the fault of the veil or maybe it was simply one
of those blind spots, but Mrs. Wosileski did not see it coming, the car that hit her, the car that tossed her in the air as if she were a Frisbee. Crumpled and broken, she lay on the pavement, her eyes open, her hat gone, one shoe missing.

Judy Weinstein was upstairs, trying to get Miriam to eat some soup. She, Miriam, was like an invalid, getting up only to go to the bathroom. Downstairs, in the living room, Sunny Shapiro played tickle-poo with baby Ronda. She had to admit it: she was head over heels for this baby, this poor little baby who was something of an orphan. “Don’t you worry, little Ronnie,” Sunny cooed. “You have four
bubbas
who will watch over you.”

And although it was most certainly the result of gas, the baby smiled.

In the middle of the day, John Wosileski left school because of a family emergency. At the hospital John met with the attending physician. Clutching a file, the doctor said, “She’s lucky to be alive.”

Lucky to be alive.
That,
John thought,
was debatable
. Not for the first time, John considered how it might have been better if she’d never been born. And if she hadn’t been born, then John wouldn’t have been born, and even though to contemplate such an idea defies logic, as it is your own consciousness deliberating the world without yourself in it, John pondered it nonetheless.

“Her hip has been shattered.” The doctor took an X ray from the folder and held it up for John to see, as if looking at an X ray made it more official somehow. “And that’s about the nastiest
break there is. She’s going to be in a lot of pain. She’s going to be bedridden for a long time. She’s going to need physical therapy, and even then, she might not ever walk right again. Do you have any questions?”

John had been thinking about money, about how much all this was going to cost, and how was he going to pay for it, but he didn’t know how to ask that, so instead he asked, “Will she be home for Christmas?”

“No way,” the doctor said. “Not a chance.”

In and around Canarsie High School, the fact that Valentine Kessler had run away from home was news, but it was not big news. Perhaps it would have been more exciting at another time of year, but not now, not with Christmas upon them, and the ten-day vacation that went with it.

Joanne Clarke figured the little slut must’ve run off with her boyfriend, who was probably a sailor.

For John Wosileski, Valentine’s disappearance changed nothing; for him she remained there and not there, as always.

Beth Sandler was unable to concentrate on whatever it was Miss Ryan was babbling on about, something to do with comma splices. Staring out a window which offered a view of nothing but a patch of frozen ground, Beth did not have a good feeling about things.

Ever since she’d heard that Valentine went missing, Beth felt uneasy. As if she were somehow to blame, which was ridiculous. Beth hadn’t done anything.
Nothing at all
.

At the end of the school day, under the rubric of It-Couldn’t-Hurt, Beth Sandler journeyed to Enzio’s Pizzeria, where she could not believe her eyes. It was like a mob scene at Dracula’s castle or like the
Phantom of the Opera
with all those candles and the dripping wax and the portraits of the saints or popes or whoever they were.

Beyond the crowd and the first impressions, Beth honed in on some of the personal effects left: one of those copper MIA bracelets that were all the rage a few years before when Vietnam was still something of an issue, a pair of baby shoes designed for a kid with a clubfoot, a color photo of an old man with poofy hair holding a small dog with even poofier hair, a teddy bear, a bottle of wine, a drawing done in crayons of a Christmas tree.

Beth took off her red mittens and put them in the pocket of her bunny-fur jacket and from her wallet she took out a picture of Valentine and Leah Skolnik and herself; a picture taken one afternoon three summers ago at Coney Island, in front of the Steeple-chase. Each of the girls is holding an ice-cream cone.

Down on her knees, suppliant before a row of candles, as if she were going to pray the way the Catholics do, Beth Sandler fed the picture of the three girls to the flame and, the way memory does, it more melted than burned.