An Almost Perfect Moment (5 page)

Despite the sexual revolution, the folkways in this part of
Brooklyn really hadn’t changed much at all in the years since Miriam and her friends refrained from putting out for that very same reason. In fact, the only change really was the price of the cow, which now cost a gold locket instead of a wedding band.

“He’s definitely going to get you the locket for Hanukkah,” Valentine assured Beth.

“Really? You think so?” Beth asked, although how could Valentine be sure of such a thing?

“I don’t think so. I know so.” Valentine told Beth exactly what Beth wanted to hear, and then it would seem she ventured to dip her toe in the waters of public opinion by asking, “Do you think teachers know about the gold lockets with the diamond chips? I mean, do you think they have that same rule?”

“Teachers?” Beth said. “How would I know? Besides, who cares?” Then Beth launched into some story about the cuteness of Joey washing his car.

Valentine put down the phone. Beth could babble on for another twenty minutes without taking a breath. At the window, Valentine looked out into the winter’s night. Her reflection in the glass was vague, indefinite; a visual parallel to the way that church music was audible but elusive.

Down the hall, in the bedroom Miriam once shared, albeit briefly, with Ronald, Miriam snapped off the light. In the darkness, her hand, the right one, traversed her belly, not too fast but directly, as if being guided by the spirits. She opened her legs wide enough to accommodate this hand because everyone, even Miriam, has needs. Her fingers stroked gently at first as she imagined, as she always imagined, that it was Ronald caressing her. Lost in the pleasure of
the memory and the act of pleasure, stoking the flame that would neither be entirely gratified nor consumed, but eternal, she was only dimly aware of her daughter’s voice, and maybe it wasn’t even Valentine singing, but a choir of angels rejoicing as Miriam groaned to the faint sonants of
Arrrre Vey Ma-ree-erhh
.

L
iterally overnight the weather turned from cold to a freezing and exhilarating cold. Children, on their way to school, exhaled so as to see their breath. Teenage boys zipped up their parkas. Under their pea jackets and midi-coats and bunny furs, teenage girls sported the latest in sweaters, novelty sweaters with a puff to the sleeve and patterns of kittens or apples knitted into the weave.

As if he’d had a mild headache for the last few years, and now it was gone, John Wosileski felt okay, maybe even good. Having something to look forward to does that, brings light. John Wosileski walked to work with a slight bounce to his otherwise
shlubby
step.

Joanne Clarke ducked into Nevins Bakery, selected four cupcakes with vanilla icing, and asked the woman behind the counter to put them in the tin Joanne had brought from home instead of a bakery box.

During homeroom, the fifteen minutes at the start of each school day when attendance was taken, when announcements were made concerning choir practice or class elections, when information was given concerning schedule changes, Mrs. Kornblatt passed out a flyer announcing the formation of a ski club.

Valentine Kessler looked down at the flyer, at the words
SKI CLUB
printed in large, bold letters. What use would she have for a ski club? For all her loveliness Valentine was a spaz. This was a girl who could not throw a ball so that it would sail past her feet. Unable to master riding a bicycle, she never got beyond wobbling for perhaps half a block before falling sideways into the hedges. In gym class, she was the one left standing when teams were chosen; then the team that got stuck with her would groan audibly. Not once in her life had Valentine volunteered to partake in an activity which required coordination. But as she was halfway into the act of crumpling up the Ski Club flyer, her eye landed on the fine print at the bottom of the paper.
Faculty Advisers: Mr. Ornstein and Mr. Wosileski.

Skiing, a rich man’s sport, was beyond John Wosileski’s means until Mark Ornstein, a history teacher, had left a note in all the faculty mailboxes asking for someone to assist him in the formation of a school ski club.
If we can get 25 kids signed up for a ski trip, all our expenses will be
paid. i.e. WE SKI FREE!
To sign up twenty-five students, to arrange for a bus, to endure three hours in a bus with twenty-five students, to purchase the lift tickets, to rent skis and bindings and poles for those without equipment was an atrocious job, but oh so worth the effort. Thirty-five dollars, the price for a day on the slopes, was, for a school teacher in those days, a hefty chunk of change.

And yes, the thought did cross John Wosileski’s mind—
Leave it to a Jew to come up with a way to ski for free
—but he didn’t think it in a mean way, the way his father would have. Rather, he was impressed with how clever they are, the Jews. With the note flapping in hand, John raced to the third floor, to Mark Ornstein’s room, hoping, hoping he wasn’t too late, hoping some other teacher hadn’t gotten there before him, and he burst through the door and said, “Yes. Please. Me.”

John Wosileski was a skier, and a good one, which could be considered out of character. That he should be skilled at a sport and that there was something about which he was passionate seemed antithetical to his otherwise passive and bloblike demeanor.

When he was eleven years old, John was sent from Brooklyn to Plattsburgh, New York, to stay with relatives—Uncle Joe and Aunt Marie and their three sons who were much older than John, teenagers already—because his mother was sick and needed an operation for something that no one would mention by name except to call it female troubles. On his first Saturday in Plattsburgh, very early in the morning, so early that really it was still night, his cousin Thomas woke him up and asked, “You want to come skiing with me and my father?”

John Wosileski knew nothing of skiing, but that his cousin Thomas, John’s idol, had extended the invitation was reason enough to say yes.

“Dress warm,” Thomas said, “in layers. We’ll meet you downstairs.”

In the kitchen, Aunt Marie insisted they have a hot breakfast. Farina, which John had never had before and didn’t much like either. Nonetheless, he ate it all because Aunt Marie had said, “No one’s going nowhere until those bowls are empty.”

The drive was short, and when they arrived, John’s feet were fit into boots that were bound onto skis. Uncle Joe gave him a few pointers. “Knees bent, like this. Poles here. Yeah, like that. You’re a natural,” Uncle Joe said. “Ready?” he asked, and John was set free. He let go. Let go and down the slope and
whoosh,
he let go of all that was bleak and dour and sad. Let go of his unhappy parents and their dreary apartment with the yellow ruffled curtain at the kitchen window that faced an air shaft, the only attempt at gaiety, yellow which was fading to a dingy off-white the same color as his underpants. Let go of the stink of kielbasa and cabbage and beer that permeated the walls and the ceiling and even his pillow smelled from it. Let go of the tension between his mother and father, tension as thick as his father’s neck. Who knew there could be such absolution? Who knew there could be snow crisp and clean, free of black soot, free of yellow dog piss; white snow as it was meant to be, and fir trees, evergreens, and
whoosh
down a mountain trail and his cheeks were red like candy apples and his nose ran and even falling was like being sprung from a trap, the way he could get up and go
whoosh
again in an instant.

John skied as if the trail and towrope were perpetual, with no beginning and no end. Refusing to stop even for lunch, and on the drive home, his uncle behind the wheel and Thomas in the passenger seat and John alone in the back staring out the window, he
prayed to God for his mother to die. If his mother died in the hospital, then maybe he could stay here in Plattsburgh, live in the house with Uncle Joe and Aunt Marie and his cousins, especially Thomas, and he could go skiing every day.
Please, please, please, God. Let her die. Please.
Then, realizing what he was asking, the horribleness of it, worse than a mortal sin, a one-way ticket to hell for sure, John took it back and instead asked if God could keep his mother in the hospital until the spring thaw.

Two weeks later, John Wosileski was back in Brooklyn and whatever female troubles his mother had appeared to be over. Everything was exactly the same as it had been before except maybe now his mother looked even more pinched, more haggard, and also now John had a dream for himself. His dream was to someday, somehow, find a way to live in Plattsburgh, New York.

When it was time to go to college—something his mother had wanted for her son but his father considered a waste of four years when the boy could be out earning a decent wage—John went to the State University of New York at—ta-da!—Plattsburgh—Ski Whiteface! Instead of living in a dormitory with other students, he stayed with Uncle Joe and Aunt Marie, his three cousins now grown and living away from home. A student loan covered the tuition, and his part-time job as a clerk at a convenience store at night afforded him a pair of secondhand skis and lift tickets. During the winter he got to ski on weekends. During the winter, on weekends, he could be happy and it was wondrous until the end of his junior year, when Aunt Marie and Uncle Joe told him that they were selling the house and moving to Arizona because they were getting too old for the harsh Plattsburgh winters.

John returned to Brooklyn, finished his last year of school at
Brooklyn College, and because he had no idea what he was going to do after graduation, he went to see the career counselor, who suggested he fulfill the required number of education credits so he could teach high school math. “They always need math teachers,” she said. “Math and science can always get a job.” If nothing else, the job provided him with the relief of his own apartment. Although his own place was not a cheerful one, it was not oppressive; no longer would he have to bear witness, every morning, to the circles under his mother’s eyes, or be confronted with her collarbone, jutting out from the top of her ratty bathrobe, vulnerable like a wishbone to be snapped but without the hope attached. He was free from his father’s temper and his misery and his fat face. What went so terribly wrong for these two people? John often wondered,
Were they ever once in love?
Or like so many, did they come together only because the timing was right and the fear of being alone was too great, too much?

Valentine Kessler folded the Ski Club flyer in half and in half again before tucking it away in her purse. She spent the remainder of the homeroom period, which was but a matter of two minutes more, making an addition to her Hanukkah Wish List.

Between the first and second periods, the woeful Joanne Clarke popped into Mr. Wosileski’s room. She did this at least once a day, stopping by on some pretense or another: Does he have an extra piece of chalk? What time is the faculty meeting on Friday? Would he like a homemade cupcake? She baked them herself. Yet, for all
her efforts, Joanne Clarke was no further along on the road to romance with John Wosileski. He didn’t want a cupcake.

“Thirty-five dollars and you have to sign the permission slip.” Valentine placed the paper beside her mother’s plate and pointed to the dotted line. “Here. You have to sign here.”

It was not the money which caused Miriam to hesitate signing the permission slip for a one-day ski trip to Hunter Mountain. For all the hardships in her life, the lack of money, thank God, was not one of them. True, she was no Mrs. Rockefeller, but she was comfortable. She owned the house outright. And when, the year after Ronald left, her parents, may they rest in peace, died in a car accident, a head-on collision with a truck whose driver had fallen asleep on Interstate 95, Miriam, their only child, inherited their savings account, their insurance policy, and the condominium in Florida, which she sold. Also there was a settlement with the trucking company, but that money was tucked away for Valentine’s college education. On top which, Ronald’s parents were very generous. Each and every time they came to visit, which was often because Valentine was their joy, Sy Kessler would press an envelope upon Miriam, an envelope containing cash. “Please,” Miriam would say. “I don’t need it. We’re fine.” Nonetheless, after her in-laws left, Miriam would find the envelope in the silverware drawer or in the coffee canister. Plus, there was Ronald’s check, which he did send regularly. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Miriam kept this particular source of income from Valentine because, as Miriam had told The Girls, “I don’t want to get her hopes up that maybe he cares about her.” Although he never missed one payment
of child support and alimony, Ronald Kessler made no attempt ever to see or to speak to Valentine. He lived somewhere up in Canada, way north of Brooklyn.

No, the expense of the ski trip was not the cause for Miriam’s hesitation. It was simply the oddity of it, the sudden desire springing from nowhere on Valentine’s part to engage in an athletic activity. Out of doors. In the cold.

“Does this have to do with a boy?” Miriam wasn’t born yesterday.

“No. I just want to go because, you know, all the kids are going.” Was Valentine Kessler becoming something of a prevaricator?

Although she feared, more than she feared most anything for her daughter, that Valentine would get married and have a baby before she got a chance to finish college and have a life of her own, Miriam was a modern person, up on things like psychology. She knew perfectly well that if she harped on her fear, if she forbade Valentine to go out with boys, all she would be doing was pushing her daughter into maternity dresses before she was twenty. Valentine was a good girl and Miriam had no reason not to trust her, and besides—let’s be real here—the times had changed. They had birth control now. And Miriam was no hypocrite. When she’d sat Valentine down for the “facts of life” talk, she advised only, “Save yourself for someone you love.” She wasn’t going to feed her daughter the bit about the cow and the milk. Not only was it nonsensical in this day and age to suggest she save herself for marriage, if Miriam had saved herself for marriage, she would’ve lost out on those, albeit few, most spectacular nights of her life.

But even under ideal circumstances, even if Mr. Wosileski had been closer to her own age and Jewish, it’s not likely that Valentine would have confided in her mother about her love for him.

Never before did Valentine speak to Miriam of any boy in particular. Even the subject of boys in general, she brushed off as if somehow she thought she was protecting her mother’s feelings, as if Valentine were a
have
and Miriam a
have not
. When Miriam spelled out the facts of life—his thingie goes into your thingie—it probably never occurred to Valentine that Miriam was a woman who knew passion. No one much thinks of mothers in this position: sprawled naked, bosom heaving, mouth open, knees apart, legs flailing, hips rollicking, and loving it. And who in this world would have looked at Miriam Kessler and thought,
Now there’s a hot tamale?

Miriam signed the consent form and wrote a check for thirty-five dollars. “You skiing.” Miriam shook her head. “I must be out of my mind to let you do this. What if you break your legs?”

“Ma, I’ll be fine. I swear to you. I won’t get hurt,” Valentine promised, and Miriam said, “From your mouth to God’s ear.”

Valentine took the check and the permission slip and kissed her mother on the cheek. As she headed to her bedroom, Miriam called her back. “Your Hanukkah Wish List,” Miriam said. “Do you have it?”

Sitting on his couch, an orange-and-navy-blue plaid, stained and worn and purchased at the Salvation Army for seven dollars, John Wosileski drank an after-dinner beer. The television was on, but he wasn’t watching it. He was thinking about the ski trip, not just the skiing part, but the possibility that this venture might result in a friendship between himself and Mark Ornstein. “My friend Mark,” he said out loud. “My buddy Mark. I think I have plans with my chum Mark that night.” Then he fantasized plans to meet
Mark at the diner for a hamburger and who should be there but Valentine Kessler, and John fantasized saying,
Valentine, fancy meeting you here. Me? I’m meeting my buddy Mark. Mr. Ornstein
. “My buddy Mark.”