“No one saves us but ourselves. We ourselves must walk the path.” - Buddha
As Steve and I grew into teenagers with summer jobs, busy schedules and close friends to hang out with, our summer visits to see Dad and June didn’t last for a full three weeks any longer. June still planned our excursions around the city to the Guggenheim Museum, an occasional Broadway show and to a pizza place she discovered in a magazine called Goldberg’s Pizza. Dad loved that place, probably the real reason we ate there so often. He loved to comment how he didn’t know how a Jewish man could make such good pizza.
Mom still drove us to the airport giving us instructions on how to behave as she drove. Dad picked us up and got us one of those big taxis with the fold up seats in back even though for the three of us we didn’t need all that space. Steve and I thought those big taxis were cool.
When we arrived June was in the kitchen cooking the dreaded pot roast for dinner. Each time we came to New York, we had to get used to a new apartment. The days of the large wrap around terrace with views of the Empire State Building were gone. Each place seemed smaller and more cramped, barely enough room for four people even if we only stayed for a week.
Why they moved so much, I don’t know. June was back working but Steve had started college. I wouldn’t know until later that possibly Dad’s gambling was the issue. He loved betting on the horses and he may have been losing more that he won. June went along with a smile on her face, claiming she wanted to live in a better building. I didn’t stay long enough at this point to do laundry, so if these were buildings without bugs in the basement, I couldn’t be certain.
In 1973 I went off to college at Bowling Green State University. It seemed like a good idea at the time since my parents told me I couldn’t accept an offer from Wittenberg University, a private school in Springfield, Ohio. I was told there wasn’t any money left to pay the pricey private school tuition. Susan and Steve had both gone to college there, Martha to similar sized school in Michigan. Didn’t my parents realize they had four children who needed an education? I would get one; just one that was a lot cheaper.
I made the decision to major in Fashion Merchandising. When June started working as the dress buyer at Rogers Peet along side Dad, she sometimes took me with her to visit vendors on 6th Avenue in the fashion district when I was in town. I loved looking at all the new styles with her. I commented on the dresses I liked and didn’t like and why. June wrote out her purchase orders for what she knew would sell. We didn’t agree but I learned that a smart clothing buyer didn’t make selections based on their personal taste.
I never considered myself any kind of a fashionista even back then, but I did know what I didn’t like. As the youngest child, I wore hand-me-downs. That might not be so bad except that my sisters were only 2 years apart and Mom dressed them alike. We have hundreds of photos of the two of them in the identical Christmas, Easter and back to school outfits. That meant I wore each one twice. First Martha’s smaller size and then Susan’s larger one. It made sense to me to break out into a style all my own.
The summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college, Mom sold the house in Cleveland and moved to New York City. Her job at McKinsey and Company in Cleveland had been transferred to the Big Apple. Mom insisted she wasn’t searching for ways to get my father back; I secretly believed she was. I couldn’t come up with any other reason for moving to New York. We were Midwesterners; Mom grew up in Detroit and had settled into a nice life in Cleveland with lots of friends, active in the church, a job she loved. I stayed in the same school district from first grade until high school graduation unlike my older sisters who changed schools every time Dad took a new job. She had roots here. Why upset the balance if she wasn’t secretly searching for Dad?
I don’t have a lot of memories of my parents together before they divorced. My father worked late nights and traveled quite a bit on buying trips. As kids we only remember one vacation that the six of us went on together. We lived in Minneapolis at the time, we were all packed in the car and Dad drove us to Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills. It’s the one event in our childhood all four of us remember, even though each recollection is different. I was only four or five so Susan would have been twelve, Martha, ten and Steve, six.
My memories of Dad and June are as a couple. Everything about Mom is her as a single person. He had found the true love of his life, moved on and was never turning back. I never sensed even an ounce of discontent between my father and his Junie. Mom hadn’t come to terms with living a single life, but she was not his college sweetheart any longer, that was clear to me.
Even though I had spent time in the city during summer vacations as a teenager visiting my father, being yanked out of my quiet suburban life was a shock to me. I felt lost and alone, without any friends or roots to ground me. I gained a built-in summer job at Rogers Peet, an old, established New England men’s clothing store originally opened in 1874, since Dad was the president of the company. Once he showed me a custom suit he had hanging in his office, tailored for Bobby Kennedy shortly before his assassination. No one was quite sure what to do with it after the tragedy. I worked in the women’s department, June was the new ladies dress buyer while the company tried to adapt to a changing marketplace.
June would visit the store in Rockefeller Center I’d been assigned to. The other sales people would busily clean and straighten their sections, while praying she wouldn’t ask them any questions about sales of a particular line of dresses or handbags.
Me, I waved and said, “Hi, June. How are you?”
My casualness with those in charge drove all rest of the salespeople nuts.
One day, my father stopped into the store. After his inspection of the men’s suits to make sure they hung perfectly in line on the racks, he walked over to the ladies side.
“Linny,” he called out. “Junie and I are taking you out on Sunday. Be ready at our apartment at eleven.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“It’s a surprise,” he said with a grin. “Dress nice.”
He turned to leave and once out of sight the other sales girls relaxed and put the Windex and paper towels back in their hiding spot. The jewelry and scarf cases sparkled at least for the next few minutes until a customer came in and decided to smear their greasy fingers all over it.
Sunday morning came. Mom and I both tried to get ready in the small quarters of her one bedroom apartment. She for church and me for my big surprise. I picked out a new skirt I purchased at Rogers Peet with my employee discount, gray with dark red and olive green stripes cut on the bias. With a matching green sweater, I did look adorable, young and thin wearing the latest fashion. Mom pulled a gold necklace out of her dresser drawer and put it around my neck.
“You look so grown up,” she said. “Where do you think he’s taking you?”
“I have no idea, but I hope it’s somewhere fun.” A visit to a new museum, lunch at the top of the World Trade Center or even a Broadway show crossed my mind. No matter what Dad chose, I didn’t expect to be disappointed.
“Whatever it is I hope you have a good time,” Mom said.
I’m grateful for the fact that my parents kept their divorce civil. They never involved their children in their disputes and never held us hostage in them either. June always asked how Mom was doing when I came cross-town for Sunday dinner at their apartment. Mom asked about both their wellbeing when I returned home in the evening. Once Mom asked me to deliver to Dad a past due dental bill for me on my weekly visit but that’s the only time I remember being used as the middleman.
Maybe I was wrong that she was looking to get my father back. Mom settled in nicely here making lots of friends at her new church. Church was a solid foundation for her. It always had been. Looking back, church became a solid foundation for me too; I was just too young to recognize it. Occasionally I went with her on Sunday in New York but often I didn’t. She didn’t mind going alone.
Dad and June were waiting outside their building when I walked up from the bus stop. He hailed a cab and said to the driver, “Penn Station.”
When we arrived at the train station, Dad bought three round trip tickets to Belmont Race Track. Off to the horse races we went, Dad’s favorite pastime with June and I tagging along. June acted excited but even then I had the impression she was going along for the fun of it, not that she had any real interest in watching a horse race.
At nineteen, I’d never been allowed at a racetrack before though I knew a lot about them from hanging around with Dad. The Daily Racing Form must have been delivered to his door every day. I have many memories of him sitting in his favorite chair, with his little stub of a pencil, figuring out his bets for the day’s races. No talking allowed while the manual calculations happened. Gambling on horse races took precedent over everything else.
Belmont is a gorgeous place and I took in all the sights and sounds of a new experience. Flowers blooming, perfectly green grass surrounding the neatly combed dirt track. Scores of people milling about, eyes down studying today’s racing form trying to decide which thoroughbred would be a winner. I became enthralled with the electricity of the place.
We watched a couple races from our grandstand seats, Dad disappearing a few minutes before the betting windows closed and reappearing when the announcer said, “And they’re off!”
As the first horse crossed the finish line, he broke out in a big smile before disappearing again, I assumed to pick up his winnings. June and I snacked on hot dogs and cokes and gossiped about the women wearing elegant hats and men in mismatched outfits passing by.
June had been in my life for almost ten years now and I’d grown to love her excitement at every crazy hairdo or fashion statement that walked by. New York City turned out to be the perfect place for coo-koos as she liked to say. June never tried to mother me; she had too much respect for my own mother. So we found common ground in the silly people and places she loved.
“Linny, c’mon,” Dad said as the fifth race was announced.
Dutifully I got up and followed him.
Up the steps, across the concourse, down the escalator, around the corners we walked before ending up in the paddock. I don’t know the general rules of horse tracks, but how we were able to get so close to the main attraction here was mysterious. Dad glanced over the majestic animals before heading back toward the betting windows.
What I didn’t know was I was part of a perfectly choreographed ballet. He walked through a deserted corridor at a frantic pace. A tall, sloppily dressed man in a dirty, wrinkled white shirt and baggy plaid pants limped toward us from the opposite direction. I struggled to keep up and lagged slightly behind Dad.
The two men abruptly stopped in front of one another. The other man looked suspiciously down his nose and over his bushy gray mustache at me.
“My daughter, Linda,” Dad said. “This is The Mustache.”
“Hello. Nice to meet you,” I hesitated not knowing what else appropriate to say to a man whose name was Mustache.
“Escapade to win,” said The Mustache.
Dad palmed him some money and ran to place his bet seconds before the window closed. The Mustache disappeared back into the shadows from where he’d come.
Dad’s smiled exceptionally big and broad as Escapade crossed the finish line first and by a furlong. So did June. Her years spent by her husband’s side at the racetrack taught her to instinctively know the wins from the losses. Somehow I couldn’t picture my father emptying his wallet at the dining room table to give June her share of his good luck. Maybe she did love him enough that it made her happy just to see him smile that winning smile.
I had quite the story to tell my college roommates when I returned to school. The most exciting day of summer vacation was spent at the racetrack getting tips from a mysterious man named The Mustache. Their eyes would widen and their mouths fall open when they heard my tale comparing it to their summers working at Cedar Point amusement park loading a non-stop stream of vacationers onto roller coasters.
Forty years later I view this day quite differently. Dad didn’t want to surprise me at all. He wanted to do what he wanted and I was finally old enough to go with him. Why not turn his favorite pastime into a father daughter outing? I never made many demands on either of my parents. I would have been happy going to the fancy ice cream parlor June kept talking about. June probably would have chosen that too. As the youngest and last in line, I typically went with the flow, never sticking my neck out. I was up for any new experience. That made me, in many ways the perfect child to live in between my mother and Dad and June and get along well on both sides of the city.
I suspect that’s where the money went for my college education, but maybe he made it back that day and didn’t want to share his good fortune on anything more productive than betting on another horse race. Maybe I ended up with a self-absorbed parent who had no idea how to be a parent and had little concern for anyone other than himself.