the librarian wasn’t Jewish.
Then, easy as you please, Valentine joined her mother in the kitchen, where Miriam asked, “What was that about? The charge upstairs?”
“I had to go to the bathroom,” Valentine said, which Miriam knew to be a lie. The upstairs bathroom had plumbing that reverberated throughout the house. When that toilet was flushed, the Sabatinis could hear it next door.
Later that evening, Valentine curled up on the couch with a bag of Cheez Doodles watching Get Christie Love, the adventures of a sassy undercover girl cop, on the television. In real life, Teresa Graves, the actress who played Christie Love, died under suspicious circumstances in a fire, but that was to happen far off in the future, in the next millennium.
With Valentine thusly engrossed, Miriam took the opportunity to snoop. You can’t expect teenagers to consistently be honest, and what mother isn’t nosy? It is a rare mother who doesn’t snoop every now and then, and Miriam Kessler was no exception to the rule. The last time Valentine tried to sneak something past Miriam, it was one of those tube tops, a strip of elasticized cotton covered with sequins designed to barely conceal the boobs. “Over my deadbody will you go out of the house with this on,” Miriam had said, and Valentine had cried and sniveled about how all the girls were wearing them, but Miriam wasn’t interested in what the other girls were wearing. So what was it this time? A micromini? Bikini underpants?
After finding nothing new in the closet or the chest of drawers, Miriam got down on the floor, no mean feat for her, and reached under the bed, where, alongside the box from Kleinman’s, she found a book. On the spine was the white label displaying the Dewey decimal. A library book. Well, Miriam reasoned, a library book, it’s not pornography . But still. Saints? What could she want from saints? Then Miriam opened the book to the table of contents, and she had to laugh. Saint Valentine, and Miriam was satisfied. Here was nothing more than a display of adolescent self-absorption. Valentine .
Valentine. Like the offspring of most young Jewish couples, now second- and even third-generation American, Ronald and Miriam Kessler’s baby would be named in memory of a deceased loved one, but not exactly. You couldn’t saddle an American kid with a moniker from the old country. So you compromised. A daughter named for Bubbe Hodle got called Holly or Honey. Tante Lippe would get remembered as Larry or Lisa. Children named for Zeyde Moshe were called Michael and Marla, and because it never occurred to Ronald or Miriam or anyone on either side of the families that Willy was spelled with a W and not a V as it was pronounced, Villy, the young couple—in memory of Ronald’s zeyde, may he rest in peace, who had died the year before but, thank God, didn’t suffer much—bandied about names such as Veronica, Vera, Vance, Valerie, and Victor.
Perhaps knowing that he would soon enough dishonor the family name, Ronald opted, on this occasion, to honor the patrimony. Besides, Ronald Kessler had adored this grandfather of his, Zeyde Willy, a small-time bookie.
According to Dr. Isaacson, Baby Vera or Vance was due to be born during the third week of January. By the end of the second week of February, with Miriam the size of Cleveland and about to rip her hair from her head, Dr. Isaacson induced labor. On February 14, Miriam and Ronald Kessler became the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl, and in an unimaginative gesture, but one of loving enthusiasm, they scrapped Vera and named her—what else?—Valentine.
That Valentine’s Day was a Catholic feast day and not only a holiday by Hallmark was not of concern to the Kesslers. All that mattered to them was that their precious little girl was as sweet as the candy that came in a heart-shaped box covered with pink satin.
Sharing a large buttered popcorn, but each with their own Coke, in the fifth row from the back
Then, easy as you please, Valentine joined her mother in the kitchen, where Miriam asked, “What was that about? The charge upstairs?”
“I had to go to the bathroom,” Valentine said, which Miriam knew to be a lie. The upstairs bathroom had plumbing that reverberated throughout the house. When that toilet was flushed, the Sabatinis could hear it next door.
Later that evening, Valentine curled up on the couch with a bag of Cheez Doodles watching Get Christie Love, the adventures of a sassy undercover girl cop, on the television. In real life, Teresa Graves, the actress who played Christie Love, died under suspicious circumstances in a fire, but that was to happen far off in the future, in the next millennium.
With Valentine thusly engrossed, Miriam took the opportunity to snoop. You can’t expect teenagers to consistently be honest, and what mother isn’t nosy? It is a rare mother who doesn’t snoop every now and then, and Miriam Kessler was no exception to the rule. The last time Valentine tried to sneak something past Miriam, it was one of those tube tops, a strip of elasticized cotton covered with sequins designed to barely conceal the boobs. “Over my deadbody will you go out of the house with this on,” Miriam had said, and Valentine had cried and sniveled about how all the girls were wearing them, but Miriam wasn’t interested in what the other girls were wearing. So what was it this time? A micromini? Bikini underpants?
After finding nothing new in the closet or the chest of drawers, Miriam got down on the floor, no mean feat for her, and reached under the bed, where, alongside the box from Kleinman’s, she found a book. On the spine was the white label displaying the Dewey decimal. A library book. Well, Miriam reasoned, a library book, it’s not pornography . But still. Saints? What could she want from saints? Then Miriam opened the book to the table of contents, and she had to laugh. Saint Valentine, and Miriam was satisfied. Here was nothing more than a display of adolescent self-absorption. Valentine .
Valentine. Like the offspring of most young Jewish couples, now second- and even third-generation American, Ronald and Miriam Kessler’s baby would be named in memory of a deceased loved one, but not exactly. You couldn’t saddle an American kid with a moniker from the old country. So you compromised. A daughter named for Bubbe Hodle got called Holly or Honey. Tante Lippe would get remembered as Larry or Lisa. Children named for Zeyde Moshe were called Michael and Marla, and because it never occurred to Ronald or Miriam or anyone on either side of the families that Willy was spelled with a W and not a V as it was pronounced, Villy, the young couple—in memory of Ronald’s zeyde, may he rest in peace, who had died the year before but, thank God, didn’t suffer much—bandied about names such as Veronica, Vera, Vance, Valerie, and Victor.
Perhaps knowing that he would soon enough dishonor the family name, Ronald opted, on this occasion, to honor the patrimony. Besides, Ronald Kessler had adored this grandfather of his, Zeyde Willy, a small-time bookie.
According to Dr. Isaacson, Baby Vera or Vance was due to be born during the third week of January. By the end of the second week of February, with Miriam the size of Cleveland and about to rip her hair from her head, Dr. Isaacson induced labor. On February 14, Miriam and Ronald Kessler became the proud parents of a beautiful baby girl, and in an unimaginative gesture, but one of loving enthusiasm, they scrapped Vera and named her—what else?—Valentine.
That Valentine’s Day was a Catholic feast day and not only a holiday by Hallmark was not of concern to the Kesslers. All that mattered to them was that their precious little girl was as sweet as the candy that came in a heart-shaped box covered with pink satin.
Sharing a large buttered popcorn, but each with their own Coke, in the fifth row from the back
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