The Next Four stories (6-9) From the Boarding House

6.Piano Lessons

7.Miss Mellick

8.My Uncle Mike

9.Aunt Sophie

Heading this section is a picture of Uncle Mike and Aunt Sophie. She was my father's sister and, with my uncle, owned the boarding house. When my father died—I was 13—my uncle became my surrogate father and I adored him. He walked me up the aisle when I got married.

6.Piano Lessions In the 5th grade, my school offered piano lessons in the afternoon. I longed to learn to play, but Mom couldn’t afford the lessons. My aunt and uncle offered to pay, $2.00 per hour, once a week, but since we didn’t have a piano, they wondered how I would practice. The piano teacher had a solution. She gave me a cardboard keyboard to take home. I would unfold the long keyboard, which looked like the real thing, lay it across the length of the kitchen table, and play. As I stretched my fingers over the black and white keys, the sound of each note popped in my head. Even though my fingers were moving around on a soundless piece of cardboard, I pretended it was the real thing. Every Monday afternoon I’d run to my piano lesson to hear my practiced notes come alive. For a while, it worked and the teacher was pleased with my progress. But after a few months, playing on a paper keyboard got boring. There was just so much pretending my mind and fingers could do without having any sound come forth. One day Mom told me a new tenant was moving into the apartment next door and that she had an upright piano. The first time the woman came to pay the rent, she saw me practicing on the cardboard keys on kitchen table. “I have a piano,” she said. “You’re welcome to use it when I’m at work.”

“Such a nice woman,” Mom said. “Aren’t we lucky?” Lucky, yes, but more of a miracle. I couldn’t wait to tell my piano teacher and return the finger-worn paper keyboard. Twice a week, Mom let me into the apartment and reminded me not to touch anything but the piano. I sat on the piano stool, which Mom adjusted to my height, and let my fingers feel the luxury of the ivory and ebony keys. My attempts to play Chopsticks and Jingle Bells may have sounded screechy to some, but it was music to my ears. My only other accomplishments were learning the mnemonic devices for the treble clef lines, FACE (easy to remember), and the bass clef lines—EGBDF (Every Good Boy Deserves Fun). A year later, the nice lady moved into a more permanent place and took the piano with her. She said she was sorry and that I could come practice in her new apartment, but it turned out to be too far away. I was sorry, too, but I wasn’t about to return to practicing on paper. My piano lessons came to an abrupt end. But the feeling that miracles can happen has never left me.

7.Miss Mellick Miss Mellick was in no mood to teach. I could tell. As we sixth graders poured into the classroom, she sat at her desk at the rear of the room. She opened her compact, trying not to hear the shuffling of feet, the shrill voices, the dropping of books. The thought of looking up with a smile seemed so great an effort that, instead, she looked in the mirror, powdered her nose, and pushed in some loose hairpins. After applying a dab of red lipstick, she smacked her lips together. She looked in the mirror again and finally forced a small smile. “Wonder who she’ll pick on today,” I asked myself. After hanging up my coat, I went to her desk to say good morning and start the daily ritual of taking attendance. “Thank you, Lorraine,” she said, looking up from the mirror. “I can always count on you to do a good job.” She hesitated and looked as if she wanted to say more. Instead, she closed her compact, put it back in her purse, and gave me the attendance sheet. Miss Mellick seated her sixth grade students in alternate rows according to gender, boys in one, girls in another. We all hated the arrangement. It meant we’d never be able to sit next to our best friends. That was the point, Miss Mellick kept reminding us, and she seemed proud to have thought of such a good method of maintaining control. In her mind, the arrangement would insure a minimum of talking and a maximum of concentration. In reality, she left us with the only recourse: to pass notes voluminously, and continuously, across the aisles. I checked the attendance, put the completed sheet on her desk, and returned to my seat. Miss Mellick went to the front of the room and gave us our assignment: Draw an outline of the United States and fill in the names of each of the states. Certain to fill the morning quietly. As I reached for my pencil case, the boy across from me asked if he could borrow a pencil. Miss Mellick was on his case; her voice boomed across the room. “David, how many times do I have to remind you to come prepared! Don’t you ever check what’s in your book bag?” David’s face turned crimson as he grabbed the pencil I handed him. “Thank God she didn’t pick on me,” I thought. Even though, I could feel an involuntary pull in my lower facial and neck muscles. Miss Mellick went to the back of the room and resumed her position at her desk. Her smile broadened, as if she took pleasure in being able to observe her students from the rear of the room. But not for long. Her voice rang out. “Lorraine, please come to my desk.” I stood, and approached her desk tentatively. “Come closer,” she said. I took another step. “What’s wrong with you?” she whispered. “Why do you make those faces? What’s happening to your mouth and neck? “I can’t help it, Miss Mellick.” “Nonsense. You’re such a pretty girl. Those grimaces makes you ugly. Stop it at once.” I stood there, not knowing what to say. “Do your parents know what you do?” "Yes. They say I do it when I feel nervous. It’s not because I want to. I can’t help it.”

“Of course you can.” She got up and put her hand on my shoulder. “You just don’t try hard enough.” She gave me her biggest smile. “If you don’t stop, I’ll have to speak to your parents myself.” “I’m sorry,” I whispered, though not quite sure what I was sorry about. “I’ll try harder. Promise.” Miss Mellick seemed pleased. I turned and went back to my seat. I didn’t know how to tell Miss Mellick that my mom cleaned houses because my dad had TB and couldn’t work. I was couldn’t explain that we were on welfare and had to accept handouts from the Church. I was too embarrassed to say that I had had a nervous tic ever since I was seven, and that my parents and our family doctor were the only people I could talk to about it. They assured me that I was OK, that the tic wasn’t in my control, that I’d grow out of it. No one had ever ordered me to stop, until Miss Mellick. As I returned to my seat, I looked at everyone around me, praying that no one had heard what Miss Mellick had said. But I knew they had; all their eyes were glued to the maps of the United States on their desks. “Relax,” I told myself, remembering what my mother told me to do whenever I felt nervous. “Take deep breaths and let them out slowly.” As I did, I felt the tense muscles in my face and neck begin to subside. I picked up my pencil and tried to concentrate on the assignment but Miss Melnick’s words kept ringing in my head. “Try harder. Try harder.” Miss Melnick probably went home that day feeling pleased with how she’d handled the situation, believing that what all children needed was just firm guidance and direction. What she didn’t know was that the harder I tried, the more it kept happening.

8.My Uncle Mike My first memory is being rocked in a carriage outdoors. I’m ten months old and lying on my back, tightly tucked under the blanket. The heat of the noonday sun comes through the hood of the carriage and warms my face. I hear a sound and look up. There’s my Uncle Mike, pushing the carriage back and forth, both hands on the handlebar. He looks down at me and sings. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine You make my happy when skies are gray You’ll never know dear how much I love you Please don’t take my sunshine away. This song was a big hit in 1939, the year I was born, and it was Uncle Mike’s favor- ite pop tune. He sang it to me at nap time, whenever Mom was working and had asked him to put me down. It worked so well that my mother began singing it to me every night at bedtime. Even when I was ten, I still loved hearing the song when Mom tucked me in. And once was never enough. “Just once more,” I’d say, for the second or third time. When I was 21, Uncle Mike gave me away at my wedding. My Dad had died several years before, and I asked Uncle Mike to do the job. The next day, I called to say goodbye before leaving on my honeymoon. “Did everything go OK?” he asked tentatively. “Just fine,” I responded, smiling at his way of asking about the first night I’d spent with my husband. Uncle Mike was my father’s brother-in-law, husband of Dad’s older sister, Sophie. My father had contracted tuberculosis right after I was born and was hospitalized for the better part of my first year, so Uncle Mike stepped in as my surrogate dad. He and Aunt Sophie didn’t have any kids and they treated me as their own. They took my mother and me under their wing—renting us a room in their house in Queens, taking care of me during the day so my mother could clean other people’s houses—while my father recuperated and got his health back. My uncle was a tall, skinny man with a long, thin face. The first thing you noticed were his black-framed glasses set on his long, crooked nose, with a set of blue eyes above and firm, thin lips below. His bald head and ring of short white hair, more like fuzz, around the sides made him look older than his years. His left hand had only three fingers. His pinky and ring finger had been severed in a sawing accident when he was a teenager. To some neighbors, Uncle Mike could be a bit standoffish. He’d be polite but not really friendly; never abrasive but often abrupt. He gave little thought to how people thought about him, except those he loved—Aunt Sophie, me, my mother, and several other nieces and nephews, in that order.

Aunt Sophie was beautiful—tall and stout, with big breasts and wide hips—and loved everyone. She, too, was prematurely white, but her hair was thick, lustrous and wavy. She kept it short, brushed away from her face. She wore glasses with pearl- white frames to match her hair, and her blue eyes were always twinkling. She dressed beautifully and bought her dresses at Saks Fifth Avenue, Peck & Peck, and Best & Co. Some people wondered what she ever saw in Uncle Mike; their personalities were so different, as were their physiques. But together they looked as if they belonged—always well-dressed in clothes that complemented their pale, porcelain-like skin, blue eyes, and prematurely-white hair. I never knew what turned their hair white so early in their lives; maybe that’s what attracted them to one another in the first place. My uncle’s given name was Emilien, French Canadian for Michael (pronounced ee’-mill-ya). He came to the states in his early twenties from Nova Scotia, as did the rest of my family. I’ve always called him MonOncleEmilien (My Uncle Mike), running the three words together like one. So did everyone else. I’d ask my mother to play cards with me, and she’d say, “I don’t have time right now. Go find MonOncleEmilien.” When my friends heard the Good Humor truck coming down the street, they’d turn to me and say, “Let’s ask MonOncleEmilien to treat us to an ice cream.” I can’t recall his actually telling me he loved me, but I knew beyond words that he did. His love showed in his every expression and gesture. Whenever I walked into the room, his eyes lit up and he smiled. “Hello sunshine,” he’d say, “everything OK?’ I was his favorite and I didn’t care who knew it. I followed him everywhere: to the basement where he had his workshop, to the driveway to polish the car, to the backyard to cut the grass—always grabbing the two fingers (pointer and middle) he extended to me on his left hand. When he’d bring me back to my mother, he’d give me a hug and say, “Be good, sunshine,” his way of saying he cared about me. Uncle Mike loved cars and every other year he would trade in his big Buick for a new one. One year, he set his eyes on a 1955 Nash Rambler, a spiffy new car on the market, the first compact to match the horsepower of my uncle’s Buicks. With automatic transmission, push button radio, and integrated air-conditioning, it cost $1,800, a huge sum in those days. Only a limited supply was available, and it was so much in demand he had to put his name on a waiting list. It took six months and when the car arrived, my uncle was the talk of the neighborhood. Coincidentally, I had just turned 16 and gotten my driver’s permit. One Sunday afternoon, he offered me a ride in the new car. Just me; no one else—even though there was a group of neighbors standing around hoping for their own turns. We headed for LaGuardia Airport, our favorite Sunday afternoon destination, half an hour away. No one in the family had ever been on a plane and spending a few hours watching people come and go was always an exciting excursion. As my uncle was driving along Grand Central Parkway, he asked if I’d like to drive. I was stunned. He never let other people drive his car, and here he was offering me the chance. He pulled over and we switched seats. Feeling nervous but excited, I checked the mirrors, put the car in gear, took the wheel, and swung cautiously into the slow lane. It felt great being in the driver’s seat, and I soon became so confident that I leaned over to turn on the radio. “Stay in this lane,” he advised. “It’s safer. Don’t get carried away by the music.” After a few miles, I felt fully in charge and decided to switch to the middle lane. I turned on my signal and checked the rear view mirror. No cars in sight. As I crossed the line, I heard a crunch—metal connecting to metal. The rear fender had hit the front fender of the car coming up alongside me in the middle lane. I had forgotten to check the blind spot.

“Pull over to the side and stop the car,” Uncle Mike said. He got out and spoke to the other driver and exchanged insurance information. Crying and trembling, I switched over to the passenger seat. “Get back in the driver’s seat,” he said. “You’re driving home.” “But I just smashed your new car,” I said, staring straight ahead. “I know," he said, "but if you don’t drive again now, you’ll be afraid to drive later.” I looked to see if he was serious. He was holding the driver’s door open for me. Crying even more than before, but from gratitude and love, I threw myself into his arms and gave him a big kiss. He hugged me tight and said, “But turn off the radio!” I drove home, staying in the right hand lane, no more radio and no more accidents. A block away from home, my uncle switched seats with me. My aunt was sweeping the front steps when he pulled in the driveway. Seeing the damaged fender, she asked what had happened. I held my breath. “It’s my fault,” Uncle Mike said, taking the blame. “I switched lanes without looking.” Aunt Sophie looked at him skeptically but didn’t say a word. To this day, I swear I saw a glimmer of understanding in her beautiful blue eyes. To take our minds off the car, he took us to Schrafft’s for our favorite Sunday night supper—tuna salad sandwiches on toasted cheese bread, black-and-white ice cream sodas, and an apple dumpling split three ways. Many years later, at the end of my uncle’s life, I got a call from my aunt saying it was time for me to come. In the hospital, all I could see was his thin, gaunt face resting on the pillow. I barely recognized him without his glasses; his features seemed flattened, like those of a mannequin. As I bent over and kissed him on the cheek, he opened his eyes and smiled. “Hello Sunshine,” he said faintly.“ Everything OK?” “I’m OK,” I whispered in his ear. I reached under the blanket and squeezed his hand. “And I love you very much.” “Same here, always have,” he mustered the strength to say.

9.Aunt Sophie In the 1950’s, the notion that an only child might have a happy life contradicted many people’s beliefs. And if that only child had a father who was tubercular and died at 46, and a mother who had to clean other people’s houses and accept welfare to earn a living, it was a sure sign that the child was destined to have a deprived life. Truth was, I considered myself a lucky girl. Born and bred in a boarding house, I had a close community of neighbors who helped care for me. Best of all, I had an aunt and uncle, the owners of the house, who took me under their loving wings and became my surrogate parents. Aunt Sophie (or ma tante—French for my aunt—and which I called her only when I wanted something) was a tall, stately woman. She never appeared in anything but a dress. Early mornings, it was a light-colored, ankle-length housecoat with long sleeves, open in the front for easy entry, and a sash that tied around the waist. By mid-morning, she had changed into a flowery house dress, collarless, short- sleeved, and mid-calf length, with buttons down the front. Afternoons, she’d put on her go-out dress, a dark print garment with its own matching belt that she slipped over her head and zipped up the back. Always, underneath, she wore a bra and girdle, and clear colored stockings held up by a garter belt. A small leather handbag and low-heeled leather pumps finished the outfit. In cold weather, she added a high-collared black cashmere coat, buttoned down the front, and short black gloves. For special occasions—weddings, funerals and holiday get-togethers—my aunt had a collection of “good dresses,” which she bought at Peck & Peck or Sak’s, expensive women’s clothing stores on Fifth Avenue. When she invited me to go along, I felt like the daughter of a queen. Aunt Sophie was recognized by the sales women the moment she entered the stores. They had her measurements and knew her tastes—dresses in dark, warm colors, midnight blue, olive green, maroon—with three-quarter sleeves and low necklines studded with a bit of embroidery or sequins. And, always, a matching belt. Aunt Sophie never wore make-up and I never saw any need for her to do so. Her skin was beautiful, clear of wrinkles and blotches, and her cheeks always had a natural pink glow, which she attributed to Pond’s skin cream. Her hair, bright white at an early age, like her mother before her, was full of natural waves which, when brushed back from her face, emphasized her brilliant blue eyes through the rimless glasses. She and Uncle Mike never had kids, and no one ever asked why. But between them, they had eight siblings and 20 nieces and nephews, who took up all their time and affection. To be more precise, her time and affection. Uncle Mike limited his attention to a very few, but Aunt Sophie prided herself on loving everyone all equally. What’s more, she knew that we knew that she had the most money of anyone in the family, and that we had an expectation that she’d always be generous...and she was. At Christmas, the space beneath her tree was filled with presents for all of us. She’d invite every family member who lived nearby to her house so she could give them their gifts personally; she’d serve breakfast to the early birds, lunch to late sleepers, and supper to the stragglers. Out-of-town family got their gifts delivered by mail on Christmas Eve, not a day earlier or later. And she never forgot a birthday or anniversary. Aunt Sophie’s kitchen is where I learned how good food could be. My mother’s meals were OK—roast chicken or roast beef on Sundays (always at 1:00 after returning from church); hamburgers or franks, tuna casseroles, macaroni and cheese (before it became retro) during the week; on Friday nights, fishcakes or baked beans. Veggies included canned peas and carrots, limp string beans and overcooked broccoli. Mom seldom served salad except for quartered iceberg lettuce with Russian dressing on special occasions. For dessert, Jello— strawberry or lime. Aunt Sophie, on the other hand, always wearing an apron to protect her house dress, cooked for a king (aka Uncle Mike). Sunday dinner, also after church but at 2:00, was grilled sirloin steak with sautéed mushrooms, roast leg of lamb with browned potatoes, or pork tenderloin with onions and prunes. Weeknights: stuffed cabbage, spareribs and sauerkraut, or spaghetti and meatballs, always accompanied by a dressed green salad with sliced tomatoes. On Friday nights, steamed lobster or braised eel. Her desserts were my favorites. Always in her refrigerator was Junket custard, a delicious milk-based pudding that she first made for me when I was five and had the chicken pox. It was sweet to the taste and cold and slippery going down the throat. On my birthdays, she’d bake a glorious upside-down apple cake with caramel sauce that I still savor in my dreams. My aunt’s kitchen was a non-too-ample but bright, pleasant room. Located at the front corner of her apartment, it had big windows on two sides, one of which faced the street. All the kitchen paraphernalia was in a row along one wall: the fridge, the stove and a double sink. There was no counter space in between. Cooking preparations took place on the big kitchen table in the center of the room, in full sight of the street. This pleased my aunt enormously since it allowed her to prepare meals while watching the comings and goings of the tenants and neighbors. In those days, no phones were permitted in the rented rooms. My aunt had the only phone in the house and allowed tenants to come and make one call a day. She charged 10 cents per call, and I still can remember the phone number: HAvermeyer 4-7754. An area code was not necessary. Our address was 37-38 73rd Street, Jackson Heights, NY. No zip code was necessary. I loved the elegance and grace that Aunt Sophie brought to my life, with a balance of equality and fairness, too. No doubt my aunt loved me, but she made sure that I kept her affection in perspective. Since I was an only child, as well as her husband’s favored niece, she refrained from lavishing too much attention on me, for fear I’d become pampered and over-indulged; in more common terms, a spoiled brat. Twice she paid me special attention. For a combined 13th birthday and 8th grade graduation gift, she and Uncle Mike took me to Nova Scotia. There, on Cape Breton Island, I met family on both my parents’ sides for the first time. For two weeks, we stayed with Grandma Louise—my father’s and Aunt Sophie's mother—and visited dozens of cousins and friends, all of whom I’d heard about but had never met. I had a wonderful time, but for some reason that I still don't fathom, I never went back. The next Christmas, after begging for ice skates and an ice skating outfit but knowing Mom couldn’t afford both, I woke up to find two big boxes under the tree. One from my mother—brand new ice skates! The other from my aunt—a bright green corduroy skirt—lined in red plaid! that she’d made for me, with a white turtleneck sweater, trimmed in green and red. Shortly before my Uncle Mike died, he told me that I’d be well taken care of in his will. He didn’t specify an amount, but I expected that I’d be left a generous sum. Soon after his death, my aunt decided to write her own will. She sat me down to explain what she was going to do. She hoped I wouldn’t be disappointed, but she didn’t want me to expect more than a fair and equal share of their estate. All the cousins would be listed separately, she said, which now numbered over 40, including great nieces and nephews. We’d each receive exactly $1,000. Her intuition had been right: I had expected more. I didn’t let her see my disappointment, but I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t getting more than the others. If I didn’t get a generous amount from my aunt’s estate, there was no one else in the family I’d get it from. My aunt died five years later. By then, I was 25, and married with a newborn baby. With the check, I bought a crib and chest for the nursery but I still felt the disappointment. I knew it was selfish of me to feel that way, and didn’t even know how I would have spent the money if the amount had been larger, but that’s how it was. It wasn’t until much later, when I had two kids and saw, up-close, the value of having a sibling, that I knew what my aunt had tried to do for me. She wanted me to understand that even though I was an only child, I had an extended family; that with so many close cousins, in effect, I, too, had siblings.