A Forever of Nows
/Marlene Olin
Outside, palm trees dip and sway. Tourists snap pictures. An ocean breeze brushes cool but leaves you warm.
Inside, Naomi Leftkowitz stares at four cement walls. To save money on air-conditioning, the school has filled in the windows. Her long blouse covers her elbows, and her skirt hides her knees. Things used to be different. But two years ago, her mother got breast cancer and her parents found God. Now they live in a new neighborhood, and Naomi goes to a new school. Once again she stares at the walls. She’s in eighth grade, and just hates hates hates her science teacher. It’s like she’s serving time for the crime of being born.
“Spit out your gum, Micah. This is the Samuel M. Horowitz Day School. Not some hip-hop festival on Miami Beach.”
Her rituals keep her mind clear and the knots unraveled. Her pencils are perfectly parallel. She scratches her nose three times. Then she remembers to squeeze her knees.
Toots Lederman, her thighs plump as drumsticks, sits with her feet crossed and her knees a football field wide. Naomi can just imagine the view. Mr. Plasky probably keeps an inventory. The sluts who wears thongs. The nerds wear granny panties.
The chalk squeaks while he writes on the board. Zeno’s Paradox. His belly’s slung over his belt, and each time he scribbles the belly follows. Left. Right. Left. Naomi tries to sleep but the voice drones on.
“Picture an auto race. The cars are speeding around the track. They’re a mile away. A half mile. A quarter mile. An eighth mile. A sixteenth of a mile.” Then his face screws into a scary pumpkin smile. “Fractions, we have learned, progress to infinity. But then how, young men and women, do we cross the finish line?”
Her friend Hannah Leesfield sits in front of her, her shoulders rising up down up down, her pencil scratch scratching her notebook. Naomi squeezes her knees tighter. Maybe Mr. Plasky has X-ray vision. Like Superman or God.
“Consider the flying arrow,” says Mr. Plasky.
Then he draws the world’s longest arrow from one end of the board to the other. It’s a penis constellation shooting across the sky.
“Our friend Zeno tells us that time is composed of moments. And in each moment an object is at rest. So if time is a series of nows, our arrow remains motionless. Our flying arrow stays in a state of stasis. It never really flies.”
When the bell rings, the class collectively wakes from a stupor. A shiver runs down Naomi’s back. But Mr. Plasky’s not finished. He scuttles to the door talking fast, trying to cram in every single last word. He’s pathetic, really.
“It’s “Zeno’s Paradox,” says Mr. Plasky. “The law of intellect versus the law of nature. Sometimes the facts in your head don’t match the facts in your life.”
The next class is eighth grade Honors Literature. Naomi feels a bounce in her step. It’s her favorite subject, and Mrs. Miller is hands down her favorite teacher. Once again, Hannah sits directly in front of her. Lederman. Leesfield. Leftkowitz. When Naomi transferred to the school, she knew no one. Chemo. Cherish. Childhood. The alphabet, like fate or fortune, has somehow thrown them together.
Again, Naomi lines up her pencils. Then she watches Mrs. Miller unpack her briefcase. First out comes her laptop. Next a stack of papers. Like Naomi, she also likes her pencils just so. Papers are shuffling and butts are shifting. But suddenly Naomi feels wide awake, the scene shot through time-lapse photography, a flower opening and closing, a bird building a nest in no time flat. Every sense is sharpened. Every movement’s amplified.
In Mrs. Miller’s hand is a book. Like the Statue of Liberty, her arm is raised and her posture’s perfect.
“Hester Prynne. Victim or villain? Saint or scoundrel?”
There’s no doubt about it. Mrs. Miller is flawless. Anime eyes and unblemished skin. Her long skirt hugs her calves. Most of their mothers wear flats or sneakers. But Mrs. Miller glides through the classroom on red-bottomed four-inch heels.
Naomi’s hand shoots up. She has both read the book and seen the movie. Mrs. Miller nods.
“It’s like there are two sets of rules,” says Naomi. “One for the women and one for the men.”
Naomi feels twenty pairs of eyes lasering in. Nowhere is this binary distinction more prominent than in the Orthodox community. Women dress frum so they don’t tempt men. And the men have neither scruples nor self-control. Your father. Your brother. The guy who drives the bus. Everyone’s a potential rapist.
Once Naomi gets started, the words percolate inside her brain. Seduce. Semen. Sex. But suddenly there’s a distraction. Big fat Toots is bouncing up and down in her seat. Plus she’s making weird throat noises to get Mrs. Miller’s attention. But the more noises she makes, the more Mrs. Miller ignores her. It’s a trick worthy of Houdini. Toots sits in the first row and is roughly as wide as her desk.
Instead Mrs. Miller turns to the blackboard and writes the letter A.
“A for adultery!” Toots shouts.
Duh.
Mrs. Miller looks at everyone but Toots. “Any other possibilities?” says Mrs. Miller. “Able? Artistic? Authentic?”
When she turns back to the board, Mrs. Miller’s long blond hair swings with her. At the Samuel M. Horowitz Day School, swinging hair’s as controversial as a ham and cheese sandwich. Mrs. Miller’s gentile and is the only female teacher who doesn’t wear a wig.
All of their mothers wear wigs. Before she got sick, Naomi’s mother had glossy brown hair that caped her back. She’s in remission now. As good as new! Absolutely healthy! But the Miriam Leftkowitz that used to be no longer exists. Inside their home, her mother keeps her hair short for modesty’s sake. Even though it’s grown back, outside she wears the cancer wig.
Fat. Female. Fertile. The day before Thanksgiving, Mrs. Miller announced that she was pregnant. By winter break, she was wearing lightweight sweaters over her baby bump. Now that it’s May, she looks like someone inflated her with a tire pump. She and Hannah hope hope hope there’s a baby shower. Jews don’t have baby showers, says her mother. You want to tempt the evil eye? But Mrs. Miller will definitely have one. Naomi pictures champagne in glass flutes. Cloth napkins. Those little sandwiches served on silver plates.
Every day she and Hannah check their mailboxes and inboxes, praying for an invitation. Hannah’s pathetic, really. Her home life is even worse than Naomi’s. She has two bratty brothers on the lower campus and two older brothers who go to a yeshiva in Israel. When Hannah was in third grade, her mother wrote a letter to each of them, packed her bags and left. In one grand gesture, she parted ways. With her children. Her husband. Her community. Every year on Hannah’s birthday, an aunt sneaks her a card.
“Dimmesdale. Chillingworth. There’s plenty of guilt,” says Mrs. Miller, “to go around.”
Naomi prides herself on her subterfuge. She writes Hannah a note, leans forward, and brushes Hannah’s free hand. Wanna come over for dinner tomorrow?
It’s Friday. Naomi used to love Fridays. Thank God for Fridays! But now the weekends seem endless. Instead of cooking normal food, her mother tries recipes that have time-traveled from another century. Stuffed intestines. Bread slathered with chicken fat. Their meals aren’t meant for consumption. They’re more like offerings to the gods.
By five o’clock the next day Hannah has walked over to Naomi’s house. The girls enter the kitchen, lift the lid on the crockpot, and gag. The cholent, a stew made from leftovers, looks like dismembered body parts. Kisha. Meat bones. Floating eggs.
“So gross,” says Naomi. “Could it be grosser?”
“It’s so slimy and sticky,” says Hannah. “Who would put that in their mouths?”
Once again, they vow to be vegan forever and forage in the refrigerator. Finally, they locate carrots. Sitting at the table, they munch daintily, their pinkies poised, their teeth taking the tiniest of bites.
Just to make sure they haven’t over-eaten, they pinch each other when they’re done. Up and down their arms the flesh turns white then pink. The goal is to be not only skinny but concave. When they’re done, they progress to Naomi’s bedroom. Turning switches on and off is forbidden. The television’s been on the same channel for twenty-four hours straight.
Naomi stands in front of the mirror, lifts up her blouse, and examines her chest. She studies nutrition on the computer like some scholars study Talmud. Carrots, she knows, have a high glycemic index.
“Do I look fat?”
Her sports bra fits like a bandage. It’s at least one size too small.
“My parents want me to take that gene test,” says Naomi. “You know. The one for breast cancer.”
This is a conversation they’ve had many times before. Their fears are like a grocery list with the cart piling higher and higher. But Hannah has her own worries. Lying on Naomi’s bed, she stares at the ceiling, her hands glued to her stomach, her lips quivering. Without another woman in her home, Hannah’s life is a video game booby-trapped with hazards.
“Can you die from your period?” she whispers. “It’s like chunks of me are falling out. It’s like I’m losing something important. Livers. Kidneys. Spleens.”
“They’re fetuses,” Naomi replies. “You’re losing tiny little fetuses one blood clot at a time.”
Somewhere in her parents’ bedroom she hears a drawer opening and closing. Once her mother was helpful. Together they saw chick flicks, bought clothes, had fun. But now Survival has become her mother’s breakfast, lunch and dinner. Support groups. Counseling with the Rabbi. Having a daughter is an afterthought. She’s something her mother can point to like a trophy on a shelf
On the television screen reruns blare. The people look vaguely familiar. Like distant relatives or long-lost friends. Rachel. Ross. Ruckus.
“I wonder if Mrs. Miller will need help,” says Hannah. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”
They are still on high alert for a shower invitation. But this new idea is like oxygen, their spirits lifting like balloons. “It can be our summer jobs,” says Naomi. “Hanging out with Mrs. Miller. Helping with the baby.”
During the next few weeks, as their classes wrap up and they take their final tests, the two can’t think about anything else. The shower was a stupid fantasy. Why would Mrs. Miller invite two students to a shower? But babysitting is a real option. Hannah practically raised her two younger brothers. And Naomi is willing to give anything a shot. Sponging. Swabbing. Sweeping.
“We can make up business cards,” says Hannah. “Be entrepreneurs.”
With nowhere else to turn, Naomi corners her housekeeper. Josefina’s been working for the family for years. Though she’s in her forties, Naomi imagines she’s decades older. There’s a long-suffering husband. Boatloads of grandchildren. When she irons, Naomi hears bits and pieces of Spanish songs.
As soon as school ends, Naomi embarks on a plan. She decides to shadow Josefina’s every step. She takes notes like it’s homework. Together they Windex the plastic couch cushions. Load the washer. Mop the floors.
Of course, Naomi’s mother is suspicious. Now you’re helping out? But there’s a crack in Naomi’s education the size of Nebraska, and there’s no one to fill in the gaps. Desperate, she turns to Josafina. The sky’s the limit, the questions endless.
Scrubbing the tub, Naomi asks, “Can you get pregnant in a swimming pool? Can sperm, like, find their way in?”
Meanwhile Josefina rubs an ear. She’s not quite sure she’s heard right. She stops in her tracks Lysol in hand. Then she smiles like she’s getting a ticket and Naomi’s the traffic cop.
“What? What you say?”
Tugging the bed linens off the bed, Naomi blurts, “The Orthodox don’t have sex until the honeymoon. Then they hang a sheet across the room. The man’s on one side and the woman’s on the other.”
Once again, Josefina acts confused. Maybe it’s a language problem, thinks Naomi. She remembers to talk loudly and slowly. When all else fails, she mimes.
“Imagine a hole in the sheet about this big.”
Naomi’s right thumb and index finger at first form a quarter-sized hole. Then reluctantly, she makes it bigger.
“They do it through the hole. See?”
Naomi plants herself two inches from Josefina’s face. With her left hand, she takes another finger and plunges it through the hole.
“The logistics sounds kinda difficult. Don’t you think?”
They are well into June when Naomi gets the news. Mrs. Miller had her baby, but something went wrong. Mothers whisper while rumors fly. The doctor dropped the baby. The baby was born with two heads. The husband is a bolter. The husband is a saint.
But Naomi’s paralyzed. Outside, trees hang heavy and the air’s like soup. Inside, she’s preserved in a brine of air-conditioning. She walks like a zombie, her feet plodding, her arms stiff. It hurts to move. It hurts to breathe.
It’s nearly July when she and Hannah decide to pay Mrs. Miller a visit. It must be ninety degrees in the shade. First, they take the #105 bus to Alton Road. Next, they wait at the bus stop. Then they catch yet another bus to the mainland.
Riding over the causeway, they see the ocean, the waves churning, boats bobbing. In the distance, downtown Miami stands in a cloud of haze. Soon Naomi’s drifting in and out of sleep, the bus clunk clunk clunking over concrete seams. Her dreams are more like fleeting snapshots, the stuff of nightmares come true. The bus careening. The waters rising. A doctor drawing blood. Her mother’s padded bra. The Styrofoam head that holds her mother’s wig. When she wakes, she feels both relieved and guilty. Mostly guilty for feeling relieved.
A half hour later, the bus drops them off three blocks from Mrs. Miller’s home. The neighborhood’s pretty, the yards well-kept, the houses small but tidy. Finally, after stopping and going and pausing and plodding, they reach their destination. They check their phones one two three times. They had emailed Mrs. Miller days earlier. Can we visit? This coming Monday? A thumbs up had been the reply.
Naomi has no idea why she’s so nervous. She stands on the stoop and shifts from one foot to the other, scratching her nose and sucking her lip. They knock on the door and wait for a reply. After what feels like hours, they hear footsteps and watch the door as it slowly opens.
An older version of Mrs. Miller stands before them, a line of lipstick on her lips, her long gray hair neatly tied. The two girls have no idea what to do or say. Instead they pose with their baby gifts in their hands, a onesie from Hannah, a set of bibs from Naomi. For days they had agonized over the perfect wrapping and the perfect cards.
The woman rubs her hands on an apron while she speaks. “I’m Sally, Margret’s mother. We’ve been so looking forward to your visit.”
Inside, the air-conditioning’s working full blast. The change in temperature is like a slap, the house dark and cave-like. The windows are sealed. The drapes shut. Their eyes zoom in and out.
“Can I offer you some iced tea?” says Mrs. Miller’s mother. Her voice is high and perky, her palms splayed like a supplicant. “Maybe some refreshments? Perhaps a little lunch?”
Naomi looks around. There’s a trail of pink objects leading from one room to the next like Hansel’s and Gretel’s crumbs. Baby bottles. Pacifiers. Rattles.
The mother follows Naomi’s gaze. “Sorry it’s a bit of a minefield. I can’t pick things up fast enough.” Turning, she heads to the kitchen while the girls follow two steps behind.
At first glance, everything looks normal. Cans of formula. A bowl of fruit. A shelf filled with baby food. But on the windowsill over the sink, Naomi notices at least a dozen medications standing at attention. Valium. VapoRub. Vicodin.
“Would you stop scratching your nose?” whispers Hannah. “You’re gonna scratch your nose clean off.”
Meanwhile the woman called Sally is opening and closing the refrigerator, hauling out platters, covering the table with food.
“I’ve got tuna. Egg salad. Some leftover casserole.”
Naomi looks at Hannah while Hannah looks at Naomi. Then the two girls in unison reply. “Do you by any chance have carrots?”
“Of course, I have carrots! Carrots it is!”
But instead of sitting down, Sally keeps moving. She’s a human Roomba, bouncing off corners and ricocheting off walls.
“Did I tell you about Mavis? She’s perfect! Just perfect! Gained two pounds the first month. They lose weight at first you know. But then she roared back with flying colors!”
From the distance, they hear a noise like moaning. And all at once Sally stops like her batteries died. Naomi glances at the carrot with something like hatred. She’ll never eat carrots again.
While the three of them wait in the kitchen, the moaning gets even louder. It sounds like a wounded animal. They're back in colonial Boston. That evil Chillingworth must have set a bear trap. Look what he’s done now.
“Well,” says Sally. Smiling, the makeup on her face perceptibly cracks. “It seems like someone’s up from her nap.”
The walk down the hallway feels endless. Each door shudders as the air-conditioning gasps and heaves. The baby’s nearly an afterthought. A burst of light, a shock of pink and there she is.
“I told you she’s perfect.”
In one swoop, Sally’s reaches into the crib and plops the baby on her shoulder. When Naomi thinks of babies, snotty faces and shitty diapers come to mind. But Mavis isn’t real. Mavis is more like a Gap ad someone photoshopped and tweaked. Her eyes are big blue marbles, her hair like the silk on corn. Two kewpie doll lips blow the tiniest of bubbles. Two chubby little hands open and close.
“Look,” says Naomi. “I think she likes me.”
“That’s not a smile,” whispers Hannah. “That’s gas.”
With the baby in tow, Sally transforms. She’s dancing and humming, her arms and legs a whirl of ribbon. Instead of walking she waltzes them out of the room. Naomi’s in shock. The baby. The moaning. Plus she can’t believe that something that large emerged from Mrs. Miller’s stomach. Naomi’s mother was in labor for two days before they cut her open. Naomi imagines pools of blood and a floor slick with guts. In the Leftkowitz family, giving birth is more like assault. They had to rip Naomi out.
Baby. Birth. Breech.
The moaning gets louder as they creep down the hall. Each wall bleeds into the next.
“The master bedroom is on the right,” says Sally. “For the time being, Margret’s staying on the left.”
A hospital bed takes up the whole space. Mrs. Miller is part upright, part reclining. One eye looks at them with a hint of recognition while the other stays half-mast. One hand weakly trembles. The other’s clenched in a claw.
“It happens sometimes,” says Sally. “We were all celebrating. Pink carnations. Pink Balloons. Pink cigars.” She shifts little Mavis from one shoulder to the other. “And then it happened like a bolt of lightning. The world’s worst headache. Then boom. A stroke.”
The room’s small and getting smaller. Hannah takes two steps back. “Does she know we’re here?”
“Of course,” says Sally. “Of course. Of that I have no doubt.”
But instead of backing up, Naomi inches forward. Boxes of adult diapers are stacked in one corner. A pile of books in the other. A jar of baby applesauce sits on an end table along with a tiny spoon. Naomi edges closer. Then she gently positions her butt on the bed. First, she brushes Mrs. Miller’s long blond hair with her fingertips. Then she pats her hand.
“I think she’s hungry,” says Naomi.
As soon as Naomi picks up the spoon, her teacher opens her mouth like a bird.
“There’s a bib in the top drawer,” says Sally. “Help yourself.”
Open. Close. Chew. Swallow. Open. Close. Chew. Swallow. It’s a rhythm Naomi could get used to.
“Instead of one newborn, we have two,” says Sally. “Every day Margret grows.”
Open. Close. Chew. Swallow. It’s like a fresh start, thinks Naomi. A do-over. And suddenly she sees a starting gate. The cars are revving, the flags held high.
“Therapy is key,” says Sally. “Physical therapy. Occupational therapy. Speech therapy.”
Or maybe it’s more like that arrow. Pointing forward yet forever still. Of course, the past is past and the future’s uncertain. But like that frozen arrow, each now is a moment to be savored, a sweetness sitting on the tip of your tongue. Naomi feels her eyes water and her chest fill. Her worries are shelved and her head clear. And for the first time in a long time, something like happiness courses through her.
Author’s Note: I wanted to capture the binary nature of adolescence, the way a teenager plunges forward while desperately clinging to the past. Naomi is so fearful that she is oddly relieved-- even happy-- at the conclusion of the story. In her eyes, their beloved teacher is frozen in time and protected from hardship. The title is taken from Emily Dickinson: "Forever--is composed of Nows."
Marlene Olin was born in Brooklyn, raised in Miami, and educated at the University of Michigan. Her short stories and essays have been published in journals such as The Massachusetts Review, Catapult, PANK, and World Literature Today. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of The Net, Best Small Fictions, and for inclusion in Best American Short Stories.
