Climbing in Heels

SOUTH OF THE BOULEVARD

Everything is better in Encino.

1969

"They have a built-in," Miriam Rosen said, showing both her husband and daughter a brochure for the fancy pool at the fancy synagogue she'd been pestering Harry to join. They were sitting at the dining table, fronted by a curio cabinet where the little Lladro salt and pepper shakers sat shiny, pristine, and protected; safely displayed but never used. Harry glanced at the booklet where young upwardly mobile couples swam with their children, either pre- or post-worship, enjoying the view south of the Boulevard.

"Why would a temple have a pool?" Beanie asked, thumbing through other photographs showing a young rabbi welcoming smiling congregants in party dresses and business suits.

"Because it's more than a temple, it's a community," Miriam said, showing pictures of the young families listening to lectures, running charity drives, having picnics, and swimming. "Wouldn't you like to swim there, too?" Miriam asked, pointing out the diving board and the chaise lounges and the oversized umbrellas protecting congregants from too much of the Lord's light.

Beanie nodded. It was impressive. A built-in, she knew, was something that was landscaped and architectural, with tiles around the periphery and a diving board that gave air and acrobatics to the swim and the swimmer, while a Doughboy, common in Pacoima, was a plastic aboveground drum that you could get for peanuts at any Sears.

"I'm tired of Beanie swimming in watering holes and praying in a church," Miriam told Harry, referring to the local Temple Ahavat Shalom- which was otherwise, six days a week, Our Lady of Peace. Miriam, who was neither devout nor religious, had no qualms about leaning on God to win an argument. "How long can we disrespect Hashem by reading scripture out of a rented Torah?" she asked. It was hard to argue with Hashem.

Harder still to argue with Miriam.

In May of 1969, Harry conceded. They would live in Pacoima, call it Arleta, and worship in Encino. South of the Boulevard.

If Miriam's happiness was a balloon, then Temple Beth Torah, with its built-in pool and community of young a?uent people, would keep it afloat. Cost be damned.

Miriam dressed carefully for their first High Holiday service at Beth Torah. It was Rosh Hashanah, and for $15, which Harry had shelled out, there would be dinner and dancing afterward. She spun around in her purple and yellow floral party dress, cinched at the waist, showing off the swishing crinoline underneath along with her phenomenal figure.

"How do I look?" she asked Beanie while putting combs in her red wavy hair.

"Perfect," said Beanie, lying on her mother's twin bed. The Rosens had two beds, separated by one night table and a good amount of dissatisfaction. Beanie studied her mother, who was, inarguably, at thirty-one, a knockout. Her skin, which she carefully kept out of the sun, was unblemished and lily white, and her eyes, a blue green, contrasted with her red hair, giving her a sort of Maureen O'Hara look. Or at least that's what Harry said.

Only more beautiful, Beanie thought.

Harry looked equally handsome in his double-breasted suit and tie. His black hair, combed back with Brylcreem, looked like polished patent leather.

"You look like William Holden," Beanie told him, having heard her mother reference the movie star once. And since Miriam had said it, it had become an absolute.

Like Arleta.

After the services, people milled around outside the synagogue, waiting for the outdoor dinner dance to start. There were twinkly lights strung under a gazebo and buffet tables with carving stations under an adjacent canopy.

Harry spotted Alan Steinway, who had a chain of shoe stores, standing by the hi-fi. "I'll be right back," he told Miriam.

She grabbed his arm. "Don't embarrass me, Harry," she said, knowing that he was going to try to sell a policy, and reminding him that Steinway didn't believe in insurance. "He already turned you down on Mitzvah day," she said, but Harry was out of earshot.

"Damn him," she hissed, spitting mad. "It's bad enough he sells insurance, but not here. Not to someone as important as Mr. Steinway."

Beanie, unsure if Miriam was talking to herself or to Beanie, was confused as to what made Steinway so special. After all, they both were salesmen, only one sold shoes and the other insurance.

Miriam looked at her eight-year-old daughter, sighing. "Mr. Steinway," she said, taking a drag off the Viceroy cigarette she'd just lit to calm her nerves, "is the boss."

She didn't need to explain to Beanie that her father wasn't. Beanie had heard it enough in their fights. Still, from afar at least, it looked friendly, like Mr. Steinway was enjoying his conversation with her father. They talked for at least twenty minutes before Beanie's mother, anxious and fearful, sent her in.

"Mom says it's time to eat," Beanie said.

Her father put his arm around Beanie and continued with his story as Miriam anxiously watched from afar. Finally, after an excruciating fifteen minutes more, Harry walked with Steinway and Beanie back to the tables.

"I hope he hasn't talked your ear off," Miriam said to Steinway to ease what she presumed had been an uncomfortable situation.

"Not at all," Steinway said, shaking Harry's hand. "Your husband is quite the salesman."

As Steinway walked away, Miriam, perplexed, turned to her husband, who put his arm around her and whispered, "Platinum, baby."

"What?" Miriam said, barely able to absorb the enormity of the whisper. Had Harry, her Harry, just sold a platinum policy?

Even Beanie knew how big this was. No one bought Platinum. Ever. Her father would be hailed, written about in the MetLife newsletter, and maybe even get a raise. Beanie looked from her mother to her father. They were both afloat in a sort of platinum-bliss bubble as Frankie Valli sang "You're just too good to be true" on the outdoor speakers.

"Dance with me, handsome," her mother said as they floated under the twinkly lights. For that moment, her father was enough. She was enough. And the world was good.

"How did you get Mr. Steinway to buy the platinum package?" Beanie asked a few nights later. She and her father were walking hand in hand to the empty lot around the corner. A neighborhood landmark, the empty lot had been purchased months earlier by a grocery store, and a steel skeleton now rose from its weeds. They liked to walk there for different reasons: her father to chart the progress, Beanie to pay homage. This had been her lot. And now it was gone. Or soon would be.

She was having trouble wrapping her mind around the futility of it all; to have existed, and then-poof!-without ceremony or sentiment, be wiped away, transformed into something sterile and lifeless.

"Future home of Safeway," she said, reading the freshly painted sign which, to her, was a confirmation that everything she had loved would soon disappear. And that made her profoundly sad. It wasn't the empty lot, per se, or even the trees, transplanted to a more forgiving lot, she hoped, one that wouldn't displace them without thought or memento. It was the idea of the empty lot. The idea of it somehow had provided comfort. And soon that idea would be gone.

Beanie clung to ideas. They protected her when reality didn't. Like pretending to have parents who didn't fight.

Beanie pulled at her thick dirty-blond hair until the plaits her mother had carefully braided that morning began to unwind. She needed to take her mind off the impending future of the empty lot.

"How did you sell a man who didn't want any insurance a platinum policy?" she asked again.

"By not trying to sell," her father told her, going on to explain that Mr. Steinway didn't buy insurance, he bought Harry Rosen.

"You see?" he asked, trying to land the message. "They buy you," he told her, adding that "People need to see and appreciate the person behind the sale. Understand?" he asked.

She turned it over in her mind, nodding slowly. It made sense to her. In a way. If people think you're on the make, they might get suspicious. "What's the angle?" they might ask themselves. But if they can get to know you, and like you, then they might be able to hear you better, and trust that what you're saying is helpful. After all, Beanie's father was doing Mr. Steinway the favor. Only Mr. Steinway couldn't see it, until he got to know who Harry Rosen was. She looked up at her father with a mix of curiosity and pride and slipped her hand in his.

Beanie loved her father's hands. They were strong and smooth and made her feel safe when the rest of the world didn't. They sat together under the one remaining orange tree in the corner of the lot that Beanie hoped would somehow remain.

He picked an orange and began to peel it. "There's a secret to getting the yes. You want to know what it is?" he asked conspiratorially.

She nodded her head yes and waited anxiously, elated that she was being let in to some secret club.

He leaned in....