The Next Three Stories (13-15) From the Boarding House

13.Cousin Jessie

14.Cousin Jessie Redux

15.Phyllis and Nancy

This photo is (L-R) Jackie (Jessie's friend) ; cousin Sonny (Jessie's brother), cousin Jessie and me (8 years old, with arms akimbo).

13.Cousin Jessy

Jessie was the one I always went to. Being an only child, I loved her like a sister. She

was 13, four years older than me, and lived in the boarding house next to mine. Her

father, my Uncle Mose, was my father’s brother. He and his wife, my Aunt Betty,

owned the house and I spent a lot of time with them and Jessie’s two siblings, Muriel

and Sonny. They all were there for me, but Jessie was my favorite.

Christmas Day was always a big holiday for my family. Our living room had

a fireplace and was large enough to hold a tall tree which we placed directly to the

left of the fireplace. Our boarders loved Christmas, too, and though their rooms were

small, they all found space for their own tree, often no more than 2 feet tall, and

decorated as elaborately as an eight footer.

On Christmas Eve, after dinner, Jessie came over to help trim the tree and help

make the peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich on Silvercup bread that we left for Santa

next to the fireplace. Then she went back home. Christmas morning, long before dawn,

I’d lay in bed and wait for Jessie to return. Finally, at 6:00 am, I heard a knock on our

door. Jessie had come back to share my excitement of opening the gifts under the tree.

First we’d clean up the half piece of sandwich that Santa didn’t eat. “He takes a bite

of food everywhere he goes, so he can’t finish them all,” she’d explain. Then we’d sit crosslegged in front of the tree and opened my presents. She would ohhh and ahhh at my new pair of pajamas, help me set up the jigsaw puzzle, show me how to lace up my new ice skates, and stay for the special apple pancakes that Mom made every Christmas morning.

We ate, still sitting on the floor, overlooking the glorious mess of opened boxes

and torn Christmas wrap. By now it would be 8:00am, time to go to her house to

wake up her family and open their presents. I’d tag along,and after all their gifts were opened, we’d have a second breakfast at her house. We’d stay together the whole afternoon, going back and forth from house to house, wishing all the boarders a Merry Christmas and sharing our excitement over what we’d all found under the Christmas tree. After Mom’s traditional Christmas dinner of baked ham, beans and homemade bread, we’d be exhausted. Jessie would kiss me good-night and go back home.

Jessie was Mom’s favorite, too. “She’s an old soul,” my mother would say. “So

thoughtful of others at such a young age.”

When I was nine and my mother had to go a rest home for over six months,

and my father was still recovering from tuberculosis, I moved next door and lived

with my aunt and uncle. Dad, who was home from the hospital, had all he could do

to hold a part-time job. He stayed in our apartment and came over for dinner with us

every night. But it was Jessie, then 16 and in high school, who shared her room

with me and took me under her wing. She walked me to school every morning, on her way to the subway, helped me with my homework in the afternoon, and tucked me in at night. She taught me how to dance the jitterbug, introduced me to the movies on Saturday afternoons, and explained what menstruation was all about.

But of all that Jessie did for me—taking me to the library and introducing me

to the world of fiction was the most influential. It was because of Jessie that I read authors like Beverly Cleary (Fifteen),Maureen Daly (Seventeen), and Pearl S. Buck (The Good Earth). I adored them all. But it was Carolyn Keene’s Nancy Drew Mysteries that I loved most.

Nancy Drew was more than a fictional character to me. As a 16-year-old living

with her father and housekeeper, she showed me what a girl could be. She was smart

and independent, yet had a basic good-girl-ness to her. Who cared when she went to

school? That she didn’t have a mother? She had a blue convertible—and a boyfriend!

That was enough for me.

She showed me that girls could be feisty but respectful; outspoken but wellliked;

adventurous but domestic. I believed in Nancy Drew as fervently as I had

believed in Santa Claus. It mattered not when I learned that Carolyn Keene was

a pseudonym and that the Nancy Drew books had been ghost-written by several

authors. Nancy was real and suddenly a different life seemed possible for me because

it was possible for her.

Cousin Jessie and Nancy Drew were my earliest role models and, in retrospect,

I could have done a lot worse.

14.Cousin Jessie, Redux

She didn’t look much different. Older, yes, but still the big smile, the bright brown

eyes, the freckles, and the infectious personality. As we hugged, I wondered why it

had been so long.

I hadn’t seen Jessie in 20 years. She’d always been my favorite cousin. Five

years older than me, we’d grown up living next door to one another in Queens. I

was an only child and Jenny was the oldest of three. She’d always had a maternal

instinct and had looked after me in many ways, especially when I was nine and

my mother was sent to a sanitarium upstate “to rest her nerves” and my father was

recuperating from TB.

When Jessie graduated from high school, she got married and moved with

her husband, Jim, to Massachusetts. When I finished high school, I started college,

but soon dropped out to marry my best friend’s brother, and eventually move to

Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

Now, in her late thirties, Jessie had three kids and was a part-time teller at a

local bank. She was in New York visiting her mother (my Aunt Betty) and we had

made a date to have lunch. Her father (my Uncle Mose) and my father had died

many years ago, but our mothers still lived next door to one another. Over egg salad

sandwiches on toasted rye, and tall glasses of iced tea, it was if a time capsule had

opened. We were both speaking at once—“Why have we waited so long!”—rushing

to catch up on the years apart.

Her husband, Jim, had been promoted at the insurance company; they’d bought

a bigger house; Kevin and Dennis were in high school; Eileen was in 8th grade. Jessie

couldn’t be prouder. When my turn came, I said that our family was still in the city. The kids were doing fine in elementary school, and I had returned to teaching. I paused and then

said, “But my husband and I are getting a divorce.”

“What?” she asked, stunned. “Like why?”

“Like lots of things,” I answered. “I wanted to finish my degree and he didn’t

want me to; I went back to school anyway. When I needed to go to a therapist, he

wouldn’t let me tell the kids. When the kids were in school and I wanted to work, he

said it wasn’t necessary. He keeps asking why I can’t stay the way I was; he thinks

that I don’t love him anymore.” I stopped and sipped my tea.

“And do you?”

"Yes, but I can’t make him believe that.”

“But there must be something you can do!” she said adamantly. “It’s up to you!”

It wasn’t just her words that stunned me, it was the tone of her voice. Jessie sounded just like my mother when I had told her that we were separating: “You’re the wife; it’s up to you to make it work.”

“But Jessie, the problem isn’t just mine to solve. Marriage is a two-way street.” We both looked down and gave all our attention to our sandwiches.

Being with Jessie made me wonder if I had made a mistake. Maybe I ought to

have been more satisfied with what I had. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed myself to

see a therapist, struggle to finish college, or become a high school English teacher.

“Why can’t you be happy with the way things are?” my husband and my

mother always asked.

Looking at Jessie, I wished that my floors and faucets shined, that I had a clean

refrigerator, a scrubbed bathtub, and neat closets. I wished I still believed in God,

confessed my sins on the first Saturday of the month, and had had my kids baptized.

Jenny’s voice broke through my thoughts:

“Hey, I was offered a great promotion at the bank last week. Office manager! I

was over the moon! But it was a full-time position and Jim said it would take up too

much of my time, that I was doing just fine as a part-time teller. He usually knows

best, so I said no.”

Now she was the one who didn’t know what to say. She picked at her sandwich.

I kept sipping my iced tea.

Suddenly she closed her eyes and pressed her lips so tight they looked like

a straight line between two points. A moment later, she looked up and managed a

smile.

“Isn’t this fun?” she asked, squeezing my arm. “Why’d we wait so long?”

Jessie had been the one I always went to. Being an only child, I loved her like a

sister. She and her family lived in the house next to mine. Now, as Jenny and I finished lunch, I thought: “Her life hasn’t changed at all.” It hadn’t needed to. She hadn’t needed a different life for herself, one different from how she’d been raised.

On the other hand, I had desperately needed to get away—from dad’s tuberculosis, from mom’s nerves, from the welfare workers, from the Church. At the time, I needed a different role model and didn’t know how to tell her. So I said nothing and, if Jessie ever wondered what had happened, she never asked.

Over the next 18 years, we exchanged birthday and holiday cards, but went our

separate ways. Our mothers kept us in touch with our lives. They talked on a regular

basis. Mom would lose no time in telling me how well Jim was doing, how much

Jessie loved her new home, that Kevin and Dennis had become altar boys, and that

Eileen had just received her First Communion.

“They’re such a perfect family,” Mom would say to me. “Jessie does such a

good job.” I’ve never been sure what Mom told Aunt Betty about me.

Now, as we finished lunch, Jessie asked for the check. “My treat.”

“It seems you haven’t changed a bit,” I said, finally understanding why this

might be so.

Finishing her tea, Jessie said, “Not much, but some. Mainly, I feel lucky for

what I have and thank God for it.”

As we hugged one another good-bye, she implored me to “try to make your

marriage work; fifteen years is too long to lose.”

“It’s not that simple,” I said. “People change.”

“Not necessarily. It’s up to them.”

I felt an urge to get away.

“It was great getting together,” Jessie said. “Let’s do it more often.”

I nodded, but knew it would be a long while before we got together again. It

was enough that my mother couldn’t understand, for as long and hard as I tried to

explain, Mom would always believe I could, and should, have saved my marriage.

I knew that Jessie felt the same way, but I didn’t feel obligated to persuade her

otherwise.

Time for me to let it be.

15.Phyllis and Nancy

I was 15 when Phyllis rented a room in our boarding house in Queens. Its appeal was

that the room was on the first floor. “I have a fear of heights,” she explained, when

she answered the ad that Mom had placed in the local paper.

Phyllis had a beautiful face—high cheekbones speckled with freckles, a

great, wide smile, and huge, almond-shaped brown eyes. She applied her makeup

immaculately—brown eye shadow, black mascara, pink rouge, bright red lipstick.

Her shiny red hair was short but sassy.

Barely 5’ tall, she was tiny from neck to waist. But from there down, she was

a big, round ball, reminding me of the Russian dolls that fit into one another. She

always wore black long-sleeved tops and full, brightly colored skirts, a wide belt to

accentuate her tiny waist, and layers of colorful necklaces and bracelets.

In her late twenties, and divorced for several years, Phyllis was trying to get

over a man with whom she’d been living for the past ten months. She was the first

divorced woman I ever knew, as well as the first who had lived with a man without

being married. None of this was lost on my impressionable young mind.

My dad had died when I was 13, so it was just Mom and me. As much as I

loved my mother, she couldn’t be depended on to tell the truth. She had me believing

in Santa Claus until I was ten. When I got my period, she told me that virgins

couldn’t use tampons. Mom thought that college wasn’t necessary for women and,

being a devout Catholic, prayed that I’d become a nun, for which a college degree

wasn’t mandatory.

After Dad died, people often remarked that Mom and I seemed as close as

sisters. “You’re so lucky to have one another,” they’d say. This pleased Mom, but my

secret hope was that she’d meet someone to help take her mind off me. At this time,

her main job was managing the boarding house but she also worked part time at

Schrafft’s restaurant to bring in more income.

Schrafft’s was a popular place for ice cream sodas and sandwiches with

restaurants all over the city. It also serviced many of the large companies in

Manhattan by providing coffee and Danish on site every morning and afternoon.

Mom had the early morning shift at a bank; she brought around the trolley with

coffee, bagels and Danish to every floor in the company. She was good at it and got

great tips. And she met the only man that I can recall she had a date with. His name

was Howie. Afterwards, all she said was, “Howie is OK, but he’s not for me. As long

as I have you, I don’t need anyone else.” It's not what I wanted to hear.

I often wished for an older sister, and Phyllis fit the bill. Nothing was

unspeakable as far as she was concerned. She had little regret over her divorce

(“It was the right thing to do.”), nor did she feel guilty that afterwards she had, as

my mother dutifully reminded her, lived in sin. (“There’s nothing I can do about

yesterday, but today has possibilities.”) Every once in a while she’d disappear into her room and not come out for a couple of days. When I knocked on her door, she didn’t answer, even though she was in there.

My mother lost no time in pointing out “that Phyllis may be cheerful on the outside, but

she’s sad on the inside. Something’s there that makes her overweight and unhappy.”

Despite her moodiness, and the difference in our ages, Phyllis and I became

friends. Like me, she was an only child and been raised a Catholic, but there

ended the similarities. Her parents had encouraged her to assert herself and be

independent. In college, she had left the Church because “the priests didn’t have the

right to tell me what to do.” When she told her parents, they said, “You’re old enough

to figure life out for yourself.” I hung on to her words, in case I’d need them one day.

She took me to movies that had been banned by the Church. The Moon is Blue

was about a young woman interested in losing her virginity. I am A Camera had to do

with a young woman who gets pregnant, but doesn’t want to get married. My mother

would never have condoned these movies, so I never mentioned I saw them. Instead,

it went on my list of sins to confess on the first Saturday of the month. We went shopping, too. One day, while buying some bras and underpants at Macy’s on 34th Street, I saw Phyllis slip a camisole in her purse. On the escalator down, I asked, “Weren’t you afraid someone would see you?” “No; it’s only a small item," she said.

As we went through the revolving door, an alarm sounded. A second later, a

tall man in a dark suit was asking Phyllis to open her shopping bag. Then he asked to

see the contents of her purse. “Miss, there’s an item here with the tag still on it. We better go back to the cashier’s desk.” Phyllis apologized immediately and said she’d meant to pay for it. “It’s my mistake, sir, and it won’t happen again. I’ll return it to the lingerie department.”

He looked at her for a moment, hesitating. I braced myself for the worst.

“No problem, miss. But make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Boy, were you lucky,” I told her, coming out of my shock.

“Once in a while I need to get something for nothing. My therapist says I’ve

been pick-pocketed so many times, I feel I’m owed something.”

“Have you been in therapy long?” I asked.

“Just since Joe and I split; it helps me understand why I do certain things.” I

didn’t mention the camisole to Mom, nor did I mention that Phyllis was seeing a

therapist.

Most often, Phyllis and I would spend Sunday afternoons polishing our nails,

shaving our legs, or playing Canasta. She talked a lot about Joe. Divorced, and ten

years older than Phyllis, he had two young boys, and hadn’t wanted to remarry.

“I wish he’d told me before I moved in with him,” Phyllis said. “I’m not getting

any younger.”

Public transportation was another one of Phyllis’ fears. Trains and buses filled

her with anxiety. The only way for her to get to work was by car or foot, which

severely limited her employment opportunities. Fortunately, Phyllis worked for Foster Wheeler, an engineering firm downtownnear the Battery, with her best friend from high school, Nancy, who lived nearby andhad a car. They drove to work together every morning and drove home every night. Nancy worked for the president of the company and managed to find an office for Phyllis on the second floor, so she wouldn’t have to use the elevator—another thing that Phyllis tried to avoid.

The summer I was 16, I was hired as a summer intern at Foster Wheeler, thanks

to Nancy. I envied Nancy’s looks —tall, lean and blond—and her carefree ways.

Being with her was addictive. But she was so brazen and unscrupulous—everything

I had been raised not to be—that I often felt uneasy when we were together.

As the three of us drove to work, I learned more about Nancy—she, too, was

divorced, and was having an affair with her boss, who was married. She’d tell us

about their weekly lunch-hour rendezvous at a nearby hotel and how they handled

it so no one at the office would notice. All ears, I tried to act as if I heard this kind of

stuff before. Another item not to tell Mom.

At day’s end, Nancy would fling her shoes into the trunk of the car—a secondhand,

red-and-white Chevy convertible dripping in chrome—and drive home barefoot, something else I tried to act nonchalant about. With her hands on the wheel at 7:00 and 5:00, Nancy would open the windows and start singing along with whatever was playing on the radio—Earth Angel (The Penguins), Maybelline (Chuck Berry), and Ain’t That a Shame (Fats Domino). The car was a rolling jukebox. But she didn’t even need the radio to belt out her favorite song, Only You by The Platters.

Only you can make this world seem right,

Only you can make the darkness bright,

Only you and you alone can thrill me like you do,

And fill my heart with love for only you.

Weekends, Nancy would take us to Jones beach. After unrolling our beach

towels and arranging them side-by-side, horizontally on the sand, we’d lay on our

stomachs—heads up, arms crossed, sunglasses on. Nancy then instructed us to count

the number of men in tight bathing suits with visible erections. After spotting as

many as 8 or 10, it was all I could do to remember to blink and breathe. Mom never

heard about this either.

According to Phyllis, when Nancy was married, her husband had called all the

shots. Now she was enjoying the renegade life she had promised herself during the

divorce. But that wasn’t the real Nancy, Phyllis said. “Deep down, she’s still the scrawny kid from Queens who wants to settle down and have a family.”

Mom never understood why they were such good friends. “Such an odd pair.”

Then came her primary criterion for judging people, “And they don’t go to church.”

Although Mom eventually accepted Phyllis, Nancy was another matter. She

warned me not to spend so much time with Nancy, but where Phyllis went, I wanted

to go, too. Mom then appealed to Phyllis.

“I won’t let anything happen to your daughter, Tillie, I promise.” Mom was not comforted. “Why spend so much time with a 16-year-old?”

“I like being like an older sister; I didn’t have one, either.”

Mom didn’t press her further, but I began to suspect that my friendship with

Phyllis might be threatening to Mom. She had always been afraid that I’d leave her,

or leave the Church, maybe both, if I was exposed to too many different ideas. “Too

many ideas and too much education isn’t good for you,” she’d warn.

Three weeks into my internship at Foster Wheeler, I met Frank Collins. He had

just graduated from high school and was working in the mail room for the summer.

I liked his cute nose and easy smile. He’d stop by my desk every morning to deliver

the mail and always find something to say. On Mondays, he’d ask how my weekend

had been; Fridays, what I had planned for that weekend. In between, what were my

favorite movies and TV shows.

Phyllis thought we’d be good together: me, 5’2” with short brown hair and dark

brown eyes, stocky but trim; Frank, 5’7”, brown hair and eyes, slim and, like me, shy

but friendly. Most important, Phyllis had learned from a friend in Personnel that he

was Catholic.

“He’d be perfect for a first boyfriend. Even your mom will approve.”

One Tuesday night, Frank called and asked if I’d like to go to Jones Beach that

weekend. After the call, I ran to Phyllis’ room to tell her the good news.

“What did you say to him today?”

“Just that if he was interested, I thought he should give you a call.”

Wednesday morning, I told Nancy and Phyllis not to wait for me after work.

I went to Ohrbach’s on West 34 Street and bought a two piece bathing suit, new

sunglasses, and a beach towel for two. Thursday, I got my period.

Mom always had cautioned me about exercising when I had my period. She

believed that exercise could increase the blood flow or worsen the cramps. And,

she now said, if I went swimming, my pad would surely get soggy and no longer

be absorbent. “Make up an excuse,” she said. “Ask Frank if he could make it the following

weekend.” But I didn’t want to wait another ten days.

I went to Phyllis. “If you used tampons,” she told me, not for the first time,

“you’d have no problem swimming or exercising. But I know your Mom. So call

Frank and tell him the truth: you’d love to go to the beach but you can’t go in the

water. He’ll know what you mean. Suggest a movie instead.”

“I understand,” Frank said, when I called. “Thanks for telling me.” But he

didn’t say yes to a movie or mention another date. At work, he started delivering the

mail when I was away from my desk. In the hallway, he’d say “hi” but nothing more.

Two weeks later, he still hadn’t called. Mom tried to console me.

“You shouldn’t tell men everything. Most of them can’t handle the truth.”

“It’s not you, it’s him,” Phyllis said, as she sat me on her bed and dried my

tears. “He didn’t know how to deal with what you told him. Lesson learned in how

to tell which guys are worth it.”

I spent my days avoiding Frank and my nights hoping he would call. By mid-

August, I was so unhappy I looked forward to returning to school. On my last day of

work, I saw Frank in the hall. It was his last day, too. As we passed one another, our

eyes met but we didn’t say a word, neither hello nor good-bye.

On the way home, Nancy tried to lift my spirits. “Look at it this way: You

can tell your friends you had an experience with an older guy.” Mom was more

pragmatic. “Stick to boys your own age.”

September brought me back to school and took my mind off Frank, but

telling my friends about him offered small comfort. Then Nancy called Phyllis with

shocking news: her boss had ended their affair. “It’s kaput,” she cried, “after two

years.” She refused to say anything more about it. When not at work, she stayed

home, refusing to answer phone calls.

“It’s not like Nancy to clam up,” Phyllis worried. “That’s how I know she’s

really hurting.” Silently, I guessed that telling a friend about an experience with an

older guy wasn’t helping Nancy any more than it had helped me.

One mid-November morning, Phyllis’s old beau, Joe, called to wish her a happy

30th birthday. By the end of the phone call, she’d said yes to dinner. The next day,

she said it had been good to see him again; he’d missed her and wanted to make

up for their time apart. I could hear the excitement in Phyllis’ voice as Mom and I

exchanged looks that said, “We’ll see.”

Much to my surprise, by the end of the year they still were dating, and in

January, they started living together on weekends. During the week, Phyllis would

invite me to her room to talk, but mostly it was about Joe. She still drove with Nancy

to and from work, but otherwise they seldom saw one another. Nancy was still

healing her wounds and wasn’t ready to hear about a relationship-in-the-making.

“Joe wants this to work,” Phyllis told me. “He’s really serious about us.”

“How do you feel about it?” I asked, not sure that Joe could be trusted.

“He’s a good guy, and I’m still not getting any younger. It’s time.”

I acted happy for her sake, but I felt sorry for myself. When Mom found me

crying in our bedroom, she tried to comfort me, saying we’d still see Phyllis from

time to time; after all, Joe’s apartment was only a few blocks away.

On Valentine’s Day, Joe asked Phyllis to marry him. By the end of the month,

she had moved in with him. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep in touch,” she promised, as she

paid her last week’s rent.

For a while, she did. Mom hosted a bridal shower, and at her wedding Nancy

and I were her bridesmaids. Joe’s sons were his best men. It was a small affair at the

restaurant where Phyllis had said yes. Phyllis continued to come for dinner once a

week. Joe was always invited, but he never came and we never knew why.

Then one spring day Phyllis called. “Joe has custody of the boys now and

they’re coming to live with us. I’m quitting my job and staying home.”

By summer, Phyllis had stopped coming by and her phone calls had stopped,

too. Occasionally, I’d run into her on Broadway and we’d exchange a quick hug and

kiss. I’d get a brief update: the boys are doing great; Nancy’s dating again, an eligible

guy; Joe’s got a new job; and guess what—I’m learning to drive! But she always was

in a hurry to get going.

I missed Phyllis, and Nancy, too. They had shown me that I could think for

myself, it was OK to be myself, and that it wasn’t wrong to find out what I wanted for

myself. Now it was just me and Mom again. She sensed my loneliness and tried to be

reassuring.

“Just as well,” Mom said. “Phyllis was too old for you. You’re better off with

friends your own age.”

I didn’t argue, because I didn’t want to upset her, but I knew different.