1969

Lucy was my babysitter. She had a round face with full cheeks that were taut like apples. She was five feet tall, with one green eye and one blue.

Despite her small stature, she was the strongest person I knew. She could change a tire and had her own set of tools. Her penmanship was elegant, and she was whip-smart, even though she had only completed the 8th grade. By the time I knew her, she worked as our building’s super instead of going to school and fulfilling her dream of becoming a nurse.

Lucy loved Elvis, Bing Cosby, Johnny Cash, Dean Martin, and Johnnie Carson. She went to church every Sunday and had ardent opinions about things. When she laughed, it was with such abandon that she sometimes peed in her pants.

My parents admired and adored her. She was a year older than my dad, the closest thing I ever had to a grandmother. When I asked my mom what we would do if the Holocaust happened again, she said that Lucy would take me in as her own and raise me Catholic.

One day Lucy and I were in the supermarket on Lefferts Boulevard in Queens. I was not yet five. There was an incident, and I’m not sure what I conjured from being told about it so many times; the telling and the memory are confused. But that was probably the day my love for her was heightened, a love that spanned the rest of her lifetime and has not dissipated since her passing.

We were in the frozen section, shopping for the thin steaks I liked so much. Two women in pink curlers standing around a shopping cart were saying something bad about Jewish people. We both heard it. Lucy looked at me, and with my hand in hers, we approached the women. Lucy stood in front of them until they took notice. “I am Jewish,” she said. It sounded like a dare, a scolding, a slap. It silenced them, which is what she wanted. Lucy pivoted, my hand still firmly in her grasp, and added my favorite Swanson TV dinner to our cart. The whole walk home, she never let me go. I understood that Lucy would protect me no matter what and that she was
fierce.

We went to her church. It could have been that day or soon after. I sat next to her as she knelt. The priest, dressed in white, was talking about saints. I had never been to a church before. It got me thinking, and I wondered if Lucy was a saint and maybe she wasn’t aware. Afterwards, we got into her blue Buick Electra. I was next to her in the front seat, which was like a large couch. An orange 8-track tape was jutting out of the tape deck. As she drove, I wondered again where saints came from. And then I had an idea. “Can I meet your parents?” I said.

“You can meet my mother the next time we go to Canada,” she said.

I had already been to Canada with Lucy several times but had never met her mother. Lucy took me with her every year for her two-week summer vacation in Longueuil, where she was from. On the drive from Queens, I’d sit on the armrest in the front beside her husband, Jerry, in the passenger seat. At the Canadian border, she’d hand over our birth certificates and exchange pleasantries with the customs officer; she was always so animated, almost gleeful, answering all questions asked. The year I was going to meet Lucy’s mother, I was giddy with excitement when the officer asked who I was to her. “Elle est la fille qui je garde,” she told him, needing to say nothing more than that I was the child she looked after. As we drove on, I gazed at her longingly. “Just say I’m your fifth child next time,” I half-whispered, and she laughed and pulled me close, close enough that I could smell her Jean Nate After Bath Splash.

In Longueuil I became absorbed into Lucy’s family. We stayed at Jerry’s mother’s house. I called her Grandma or Meme. She sat in a rocking chair wearing an apron, her hair in a bun at the nape of her neck, a chihuahua asleep in her lap.

Lucy and Jerry had four children, three of whom had moved back to Longueuil. They were grown, married, some with children of their own. I felt closest to Marie. Aside from Jerry’s mother, I referred to all the grown-ups as “ma tante” and “mon oncle.” Marie’s niece Lulu was my friend, and Lucy’s niece Viviane was also my friend. Everyone lived up the street or down the street, and I was free to roam from house to house. The immersion was complete when I came home speaking Quebecois.

Finally the day arrived when I would find out where saints came from. Lucy’s mom lived on the upper floor of Lucy’s sister’s house. The room was white, with a metal-framed bed in the center where Whilomena lay. She had dark-framed glasses and seemed very old. She smiled at me, and I saw that she was missing teeth. She looked so little, enveloped by the bedlinens. I approached, and Lucy introduced us, saying that I was the child she took care of in New York. Whilomena patted the space beside her, and I hoisted myself up and climbed in. Lucy slipped off my white sandals. Her mom opened the blanket for me. She spoke to me in French Canadian, which was Lucy’s language. I loved the lilts and twangs of the accent, so different from my parents’ Lebanese-inflected French. Once I was under the covers, Lucy looked at me and laughed. “What are you doing?” she said. “Elle est bien ici,” her mom said, swatting Lucy away. I got comfortable, pushing my body closer to hers. I had found the source of my love.

One afternoon, Lucy must have asked two of her nieces, Diane and Ginette, to take me to the park. One of them put me on the crossbar of her bike. She had a radio strapped to her basket. At the park they let me put my bare feet in a creek and fawned over me afterwards to put my shoes back on. I leaned on one while the other buckled the straps of my sandals. Back on the bikes, Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water was playing from the basket, and I didn’t want to be
anywhere else, nestled in the cage of the girl’s body, her braids brushing my skin. I listened to the music I knew like a lullaby, the warm breeze washing over me as we rode at sunset back to Lucy’s mother’s house.

I felt myself swimming in the knowing, the anticipation, that Lucy was waiting for me.

1981

Time passed, and I was a senior in high school. I wanted to go to college in Indiana because of the movie Breaking Away.

My father and I sat in the kitchen of our house in Forest Hills. “There are no Jews there,” my father said. “We are from the Levant.” I wanted to ask where the Levant was and wondered why I never heard of it. My dad blew his cigarette smoke in the air, a shushing sound. He took a sip of Turkish coffee, pursed his lips. The pungent smell enveloped me. I sighed. “How about Queens College,” he said. I realized that leaving home was going to be impossible.

1987

More time passed.

A new graduate of Queens College, I had a wedding to go to with my parents. The groom was the son of our family friends. We had once steamed up the windows of his Honda with a kiss.

My mom sent me to Bloomingdale’s. “Get something black tie,” she said. I wasn’t sure what to buy, but I hoped I would recognize it when I saw it.

I took the subway to my dad’s electronics shop on Madison Avenue. My father worked a lot, six days a week. The only place I could spend time with him was at his store. Mostly I watched him. He spoke Italian with one customer, Arabic with another, Spanish, Hebrew, and French with ease. He could sell someone their own shirt.

He inhaled on his cigarette, clearly happy to see me. “What are you doing in the city?” he asked, and then, “Did you eat?”, always his biggest concern.

“Dad, I need to get something for Ari’s wedding,” I said. “I have no idea what to buy.”

He stamped out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray in front of him and came around from behind the counter. “We will go together,” he said, and we stepped onto Madison Avenue.

I couldn’t believe I was going shopping with my dad. I felt like skipping or telling someone. We walked side by side, close enough for me to smell his pipe tobacco. I suddenly had a lot to say, and he seemed delighted to listen, his mouth open in a big smile.

At Bloomingdale’s we headed up the escalator. In the formal department, the saleswoman brought selections to my father to approve, and then they were handed to me in the dressing room. Each time I came out in a new dress, I did a twirl for my father. It was exhilarating to have so much of his attention.

We whittled it down to three options that worked. Suddenly exhausted, I said, “I can’t decide.”And with that, he signaled to the saleswoman and said, “We will take all three!”

For the event, I chose a black dress that was strapless and came to just above my knee, with ruffles around the top and bottom edges. On my feet, I wore my mom’s strappy sandals.

I was seated with my childhood friends. Maya, Marc, Misha, Caren, Michelle, David, and I
grew up sleeping at one another’s houses and apartments while our parents played cards together in a smoky living room.

My father came to our table to ask me to dance. Waltz music was playing. “Dad, I don’t know how to dance to this,” I said, giggling.

“Just follow my lead,” he said, and then, after a few fumbles, “Lozeh, my toes!” as he held me tight. We went faster and faster around the dance floor, my feet skimming his, everyone around us becoming a blur, just my father’s happy face in focus, and I felt so lucky in my little black dress that he had helped me choose.

1989

More time passed.

I was 25 years old, living in Queens with my parents. I was studying acting at Phil Gushee Studios on Broadway, right off Houston Street. Most days I was there, immersed in a way of life I wanted so much at the time. I longed for a man in my class who had long hair; he was muscular and the best of us all. He was interested just enough to keep me wanting him. I
practically twirled my hair in his presence. My older sister, Debi, told me to shake it off, that he wasn’t worth my misery.

My father was going through a trial at the federal courthouse in downtown Brooklyn. He was accused of things I didn’t really understand. I had full confidence that he was innocent, and my father was confident in the American judicial system. Our confidences were misplaced.

My father waited for a verdict, I for my big break, and my mother for her money not to disappear. She was right to worry. My dad hired a famous lawyer who took every cent we had.

During this time we joined the local pool at the Forest Hills Jewish Center. My mom liked swimming, and membership was cheap.

“Shall we go for a swim?” she asked one morning, peeking her head into my room. We both understood what this meant. We would swim a few laps and then spend most of our time in the sauna. I was not like my older brother, Dorian, who could swim methodically forever. I was not completely comfortable in any body of water.

The locker room was dark and metallic, with clanging warped lockers, dank floors, and a strong odor of chlorine. I tiptoed around puddles of water, and after I changed into my suit, I hung my clothes carefully in a locker so they wouldn’t touch anything. The pool was large and uncrowded. We swam back and forth a few times in our once-vibrant Lord & Taylor bathing suits, pausing when we reached the end of each lap to chat.

Back in the locker room, my mom opened her two-tiered burgundy leather bag. It stood firmly upright, with handles that reached mid-thigh. She had had this bag for as long as I could remember. She packed the top section with clothing, towels, and shower shoes. The bottom, which opened out on a hinge, held her shampoo, assorted creams, and some makeup and perfume. When she opened the bag, the locker room was transformed into an Elizabeth Arden spa.

We showered and went into the sauna, where she took out a glass capsule of hair oil by Jean Francois Lazartigue. He had a shop on Madison Avenue next to my father’s electronics shop.

She had to put the capsule in a towel to gently break off the end. “Give me your hand,” she said and poured half into my palm. “Massage it into the ends,” she instructed.

Then we showered again and returned to the sauna. This time my mom arranged all her beauty products on the wooden slats between us. We applied mud-like face masks by Borghese and slathered ourselves in body creams from Estee Lauder and Clinique. We lounged on the towels she’d brought from home, plush cotton printed with Gauguin’s colorful Tahitian girls. There must have been other women there, but I have no recollection of anyone except my mother.

After we dressed, I checked myself in the one dirty mirror. My curls had dried in place, with an especially springy one above my full eyebrows. I kissed my mom goodbye and drove straight to my acting class in my Honda Civic. It was my first car, an 18th birthday gift from my parents. I had no trouble finding a parking spot downtown, my car small enough to fit almost anywhere.

At home that evening, my father was on edge and I was increasingly lovesick. My mom made us something to eat, maybe a macaroni au gratin, or a chicken pilaf. Afterwards my father smoked, alternating between a pipe and his Marlboros, and my mom either read or watched something on Channel 13, her feet up and her arms folded across her chest. I went to my room and practiced my lines, worked on a project, or lay on my bed listening to an Anita Baker album.

I heard my mom coming up the stairs. She stopped at my doorway. “When shall we swim next?”
she said.

“Whenever you want,” I said, holding her eyes for an extra second.

She went to her room, and I followed her. “Put the towels in the hamper,” she said. I hung our
bathing suits in the shower.

“Let’s try to go more often,” she said.

“Okay, Mom,” I said as I watched her empty, organize, and restock her creams and oils for our next trip to the pool.

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Leslie Lisbona was featured in the Style section of The New York Times in March. BarBar Magazine interviewed her in an Author Spotlight in the September issue. She has been published in various journals, most recently in The New Croton Review, The Bluebird Word, and BarBar Magazine.  Her work has been nominated for Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net 2024 contest. Upcoming essays will appear in Manifest Station, Moon Park Review, and The Bookends Review. She is the child of immigrants from Beirut, Lebanon, and grew up in Queens, NY.  Three generations of her family have graduated from Queens College. She has completed her memoir, “Stand Clear of the Closing Doors”, and is looking for an agent.