The 25 Sadies

Morelia, Mexico by Felix Pasilis
6/30/07 Saturday “The 25 Sadies”

When my parents needed help or favors, Marshall from apartment 4C, who had stayed in the apartment he grew up in after his parents moved to Florida, was the one who helped my parents. My father had bought a digital watch and didn’t know how to set it and reset it. It was Marshall who reset it when Daylight Savings began and then reset it for him when Daylight Savings ended. When I went back home for my father’s memorial, I finally got to meet Marshall, I sat next to him at the table. My mother had rented the conference rooms in a hotel close to the airport, so everyone could get up and talk about my father, and when it was over there was a catered buffet luncheon in the next room. I sat next to Marshall, who I had heard so much about from my dad, who loved the guy so, and appreciated all his little favors. “Yes” Marshall said, “I have it marked on my calendar, reset Leon’s watch, I was looking forward to it.”

Most of the people at the memorial were my father’s friends from the Party. My mother was very concerned they would begin off their speeches by saying “Comrades,” and use “comrades” in their speeches, because she had invited her friends from work, and she didn’t want them to know about my father’s political activities. She was also concerned that she wouldn’t be able to recognize and identify each one of them, to give them special warm individual hello, 25 of them were named Sadie, and she was worried she would get all the Sadies mixed up. The night before the memorial she sat with a pack of index cards with each one’s name on it, and tried to memorize all the information. My father was very close to all these people and worked with them all the time, went to meetings every week. But my mother was peripherally involved, I guess she showed up with my dad at demonstrations, and possibly to other memorials, since 99 percent of them were the same age as my father. There was only one young man my age, and I stood next to him at the buffet table putting the food on our plates. I think this young man was the president of the group, and he did say “comrades” in his speech. “I guess Leon is up organizing in Heaven now” I said, “he probably thinks a lot of changes need to be made, and he is organizing as we speak.” “I don’t think Leon believed in an afterlife” the young man said to me. “You’re right” I said to the young man. It’s true my dad was atheist, but I was 100 percent New Age by that point, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that my dad was in Heaven, I had just been joking about the organizing part.

I enjoyed meeting all the alte cocker friends of my father’s when they arrived, all 25 Sadies from his Party, and all the rest. Some of them had known my father from way way back. “I was in a theater group with Leon before he married your mother, when he still lived on Central Park West, we all acted in plays together.” I wasn’t aware that my dad’s earliest dreams involved acting and he acted in plays and had been in a theater group. My dad had been 30 when he met and married my mom, he had had a 10 year bachelor life before that. He was 7 years older than my mom, and the women who showed up for his memorial, all members of his Party, were his age, not my mom’s. One of the women said to me “I am Leslie Roth’s mother.” Leslie and I had been at communist camp together when we were 12, and then at regular camp together when we were 13 and 14. I had met her at camp, and we went to camp parties together till I was 15. That is how I got to go to her apartment in Sunnyside, Queens. Sunnyside, Queens, I had become aware of from my camp friends, is where all the communists in Queens lived. Leslie had a big sister Martha, a teenager who was a counselor-in-training at the first camp I had gone to, the communist camp. I saw her at camp but I don’t remember seeing her again.

Leslie was small and slender and diminutive and wore glasses, she looked like a mouse. And everyone was surprised, at the teenage work camp that we all went to when we were 14, Nancy and Leslie and Paula and me, that a huge 16 year old young man chose her for his girlfriend. Bob Levine was not only huge physically, but he belonged to such a sophisticated world. His whole life was jazz, he came into Greenwich Village to hear jazz, and he even wrote about jazz. Most of the teens at that camp went to private school and were rich. In fact the camp itself was at a private school in the Berkshires. Many of the students at that school stayed in the summer for the camp too, they didn’t want to be home with their families, and I think Bob Levine was one of those. For Leslie and me, who lived in housing projects in Queens it was another world. (It turned out to be my favorite of all the camps I went to, the people were nice, and I had a great time.)

I had a boyfriend at that camp too. He was 15, but he was small and slight, my size. He was also rich, and in that private school world. He too loved jazz, and he and Bob Levine, Leslie’s boyfriend, would talk about jazz all the time. Bob Levine decided to make Shelia his girlfriend and she accepted. She had never had a boyfriend before. Neither had I actually, Fred was my first, but I was more popular at that camp than Leslie was, other boys wanted to be my boyfriend. I don’t think any boy had wanted Leslie to be his girlfriend till Bob Levine chose her. I liked Bob Levine and thought he was a nice guy, I was friends with him, but I wouldn’t have chose him to be my boyfriend.

At first I wouldn’t make out with my boyfriend because I didn’t know how to kiss, and I thought if he found out I didn’t know how to kiss, he wouldn’t want me, he would break up with me, and I wanted him so much. And the news that I wouldn’t make out with Fred spread like wildfire around the camp. No one knew the reason why, I didn’t confide to anyone it was because I didn’t know how to kiss. Most of the boys thought it was because I was a prude. Jokes were made to my face at breakfast. The boys would all say “pass the prudes, I mean prunes” and look at me and smile. Once coming back from swimming Bob Levine took me aside and solemnly explained to me it was because I was afraid of my father. I guess he knew psychology. In this camp, not only did they go to boarding school, were rich, went to jazz clubs in Greenwich Village to hear jazz, but they also went to psychotherapy. I think that was my one personal conversation with Bob Levine, he was helping me with my “problem”. He and Leslie were not boyfriend and girlfriend yet, that came later.

He determined to make Leslie his girlfriend and went all out to court her. We all saw it, because at camp everything was public. And then he succeeded, she became his girlfriend. And huge Bob Levine and diminutive Leslie were always together. And then out of the blue he dumped her. That had a terrible effect on me, because I had seen how he chose her, courted her, determined on her, won her. And then stopped wanting her and dumped her. It hadn’t worked exactly like that with my boyfriend. He had been popular, all the girls wanted him, and I was one of the girls who wanted him. I was thrilled when he chose me, when he and his first girlfriend fought too much and eventually broke up. I always lived in dread that he would break up with me, and wished on every first star at night that he would keep me (or that I would keep him).

He had not gone thru any of the effort Bob Levine had gone thru to get Leslie. I assumed if Bob Levine had done all that he really wanted Leslie. It didn’t add up for me at all that two weeks later he dumped her just like that. It made this whole business of having boyfriends seem so precarious to me, as if you are totally at the mercy of someone else’s whim. And Leslie had liked being his girlfriend, he had treated her like a queen, and I liked seeing my friend Leslie treated like a queen. Altho Leslie and I were never close, I don’t even remember one actual conversation between us, altho the 4 of us shared a room together, we had all been to camp together when we were 13, and had come to this camp together.

And here gazillion years later was Leslie Roth’s mother. I hadn’t even seen Leslie since the year after camp, at the camp parties. I hadn’t seen Leslie since she had been Bob Levine's girlfriend and then Bob Levine broke up with her. “How did you remember me?” I asked when she told me she was Leslie Roth’s mother. But I realize now she couldn’t have. She had been Leon’s friend all these years and in the Party with Leon, and knew me as Leon’s daughter who had been at camp with Leslie. “Leslie is in Colorado now,” she told me “married and with children.” “I remember when she had that boyfriend, Bob Levine” I said. “So do we!” she said, “we were shocked, he was such a big boy.”

I can see why Bob Levine would be shocking to parents when your daughter is only 14, and quiet little mouse with glasses. Altho I liked him and found him easy to talk to, he had big overwhelming appearance, and black rimmed glasses. He looked like a giant when he was with Leslie. He did all those romantic gestures with her when he was first courting her. I remember his reaching down and plucking a rose for her. He was like a knight from the middle ages courting a fair maiden. Altho I had no experience of affairs of the heart at that point, I still had intuition. I knew something wasn’t computing right. So even tho I was deeply shocked and surprised and baffled when he broke up with Leslie, none of it from first to last had felt real to me.

I took Leslie Roth’s mother and enfolded her in my arms. You don’t realize how much affection you have for your friends of yore, till you meet their mother a million years later at your dad's memorial, and the love overflows in your heart for them and for their mom.