Page 161 - WhyAsInY

sons (anD Mostly DauGHters) of tHe Blue anD WHite
• Lesley Posner, an attractive, very smart, and extremely decent per- son, was my steadiest of girlfriends in high school. Her previous boyfriend, Jack Kushnick, was the captain of the basketball team. I had been told that the far cooler and, in any event, far taller Kush- nick had given her a locket in the shape of a heart. I therefore tried to duplicate my Valentine’s Day triumph with Harriet Levin by buying my own heart locket for Lesley at (where else?) Edna Nel- kin’s. It worked out well. She wore it for the balance of high school. Lesley lived on Grand Army Plaza on the top floor of a six-floor apartment house that her parents owned at 20 Plaza Street, very far from the Midwood district. I don’t know how out-of-district stu- dents, of whom there were a mere handful, got to go to Midwood, but the inference was that some sort of clout was involved; when Arnold Deerson first saw Lesley’s beautiful top-floor apartment, which consisted of two that had been combined, he famously said to her, “Marry me, and I’ll take you away from all of this.” Lesley’s par- ents were thought to have owned the building at 10 Plaza Street as well. Years later, Phyllis, Danny, and I would share an apartment in that building.
Lesley and I spent a lot of time in her apartment listening to Johnny Mathis albums. One weekend during senior year, Lesley’s parents left town, leaving her alone at home with her younger sister, Amy, and I’m somewhat embarrassed to disclose that I told my par- ents that I was going to Mamaroneck to spend the night with Joe Chassler but went instead to apartment 6D at 20 Plaza Street. When I awoke on Sunday morning, I was horrified to find that there had been a major snowstorm during the night. That meant one thing: worried that I was stranded in Westchester, my mother was going to call me in Mamaroneck. I immediately called Joe, told him to expect that my mother would call, and asked him to say that I was shower- ing and would call back. My mother did. Joe did. I did.
I liked Lesley a lot but wished to date others as well. Accord- ingly, while sitting with her on Sandy Miller’s front porch one evening, I broke up with her. (“We should see other people,” “It’s not
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