I had a lot of friends at school and I’d met a number of girls from around the country who had come down to vacation in Ft. Lauderdale during spring break.
One sad episode occurred to my Jewish friend, Joseph Albert, during the spring break of our freshman year. We were on the beach and a drop-dead gorgeous girl stepped out of an open beer garden along the ocean front, wearing a blue bikini, big sunglasses, and flip flops on her feet. Her blonde hair cascaded out from under the tan, wide-brimmed, straw sunhat she was wearing. She was slim and likely six feet tall. If memory serves, at least five feet of those were legs.
“Hi, Tom,” she called out to him.
“I’m Joseph, but if you would rather call me Tom, it’s okay with me.”
“Joseph—I am so sorry,” she said to him in a beautiful southern drawl. “I didn’t mean to forget your name.”
“It’s okay,” he told her. “I’ve also forgotten your name.”
“Well, honey, I’m Jeanette, and I’m from Atlanta, Georgia.” She pronounced it Alana, instead of Atlanta. They had a great few days together. Besides being pretty, she was bright and had a great sense of humor.
As he related it to me, one morning, as Joseph was leaving to head off to his classes, he’d told her, “I’m having a great time with you. I hope you feel the same way.”
“Ah do feel the same way, honey,” she drawled. “Besides ah’m easy to please. The only thing I hate is Nigras and Jews.” Let me tell you, Joseph did a perfect impression of her when he told me.
Joseph said he was so shocked that he fell silent for a moment, but then told her, “Well you should know, for the last couple of days you’ve been screwed by a high-yellow Jew.”
Apparently, with a look of utter disgust on her face, she violently slammed the door of her hotel room as he left.
* * *
Our apartment building was too noisy in the evenings so Larry and I started studying at the public library. We were sitting at a table with room for four, when I heard a young female voice say, “Can we sit with you guys?”
I looked up to see identical twin sisters smiling at us. Larry nodded in the affirmative, so I said sure.
Danielle and Michelle Warshawsky were sophomores in high school, serious about their studies, and drop-dead gorgeous. Cute, petite, and both wearing Chai’s on gold chains around their necks. Michelle was working on an AP biology project and Danielle was looking up information on ethics. It wasn’t long before boys started stopping by our table to try to talk to the twins. One angry look from Larry or me and they would quickly leave.
As the library was about to close, Michelle whispered to Danielle, “I told you.” Danielle grinned and Michelle said, “I thought the boys would leave us alone if we sat with you guys.”
“And it worked,” Danielle announced. “Thank you. I hope you don’t mind but we told everyone you’re our big brothers. Now no one will come over and bother us while we’re studying.”
Great, I always knew I would be useful for something one day.
The twins sat with us once a week for the next couple of months. Sometimes I helped Michelle with her AP bio and Larry would help Danielle research various ethics topics, occasionally sitting together in the lobby of the library discussing them. Larry seemed to love what I would call a big-brother role with Danielle.
After a few months, our apartment building settled down and we went back to studying there. We didn’t see the twins again until we were invited to the local Synagogue for the first-night Seder, the special prayers and ritual meal on the first and second nights of Passover.
The twins were excited to see us and brought their parents over to meet us. We talked to them for a while before the Seder started and once their parents learned we were students from out of town; their mom invited us over to their house for second night Seder.
Larry and I would certainly accept an offer for a home cooked meal any time—but a home cooked Seder was to die for. We quickly agreed and they invited us to sit with them during the first night’s Seder. It didn’t seem significant at the time, but as Michelle and the twins’ parents led Larry and me to the dinner table, Danielle pushed her way in front of me so she would be sitting next to Larry.
The Seder at the twins’ house the following night was wonderful. Their parents were kind people who truly felt honored to have the chance to open their home to guests. We learned their father owned a business that made plastic pellets for extruding and molding. He told us Danielle was curious about the whys behind right and wrong from a young age. Michelle had to know how things worked. She especially wanted to learn the science behind diseases.
“My daughters look identical but they each think differently,” he told us.
It was completely obvious the girls were the light of their parents’ lives. Their mom told us, with obvious pride, which parts of the dinner her daughters had prepared.
* * *
The following summer the Warshawsky family traveled to Israel. Before they left, Larry and I went over to their home and we each gave Danielle and Michelle eighteen dollars to donate as Tzedakah while they were in Israel. They could use the money for charity all in one location or divide it up. Upon their return they had to tell us how they distributed the money. This custom was to ensure a safe return. They loved the idea and promised to keep track of their donations.
During their trip Danielle wrote a lovely letter to Larry detailing what a wonderful time she and her family were having exploring Israel. At the end of the letter she posed an interesting ethics question. He replied with a four-page letter on possible solutions.
In her next letter to him, she suggested they both read a certain book on Jewish ethics they might discuss sometime in the future. Larry found it at the library and devoured it
“I’m an only child so having a little sister is special for me,” he said.
I received a postcard from Israel with a picture of a restaurant in Tel Aviv on the front and on the back was the message, “We ate here—Michelle.”
On the family’s return we were invited for Sabbath dinner. They were excited about all they learned during their trip and could hardly wait to tell us.
Mr. Warshawsky told us with enthusiasm in his voice, “Everyone knows you can’t grow corn in a desert—but the Israeli’s are growing corn in the desert. Everyone knows you can’t grow wheat in a desert—but the Israeli’s are growing wheat in the desert.”
He went on and on, telling us how the Israelis were making the desert bloom. Then, Larry, Danielle, and the twins’ mom and dad, started discussing ethics while Michelle and I discussed the mathematics of chemistry and physics and what she could look forward to when she started studying calculus. At some point Danielle commented she wanted to visit our apartment.
“Not until you’re eighteen,” I said in an older brother sounding voice and everyone laughed.
I had classes early every morning that lasted until the mid-afternoon or later. My longest days were Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, but lucky Larry had no classes on Mondays or Wednesdays.
I learned some years later that the first Monday after Passover began the following spring, Danielle arrived at our apartment with a box of Matzo. Larry met her at the door and accepted the gift. As it happened, the twins’ school was on spring break.
“Can I see your apartment?” she asked.
“Meyer and I agreed no one under eighteen is allowed inside. I know he’s not here, but ethically speaking...”
He told me she gave him a huge smile and said, “I know. I know. You’re still my big brother. Well big brother, how about going for a walk?”
So, off they went to the beach…then to a nature center…then to a hamburger joint for lunch. Larry said to me, it amazed him they never ran out of things to talk about—not that day or when they were together again on Wednesday and Thursday.
Michelle spent the next summer working and writing a research paper on some aspects of muscular dystrophy. She called me in tears one day a
nd told me the paper she was trying to write was a disaster and could I please come to her home and look it over.
I arrived at the Warshawsky home and found their dining room table covered with papers and books. As I read Michelle’s paper, I found it was horribly disorganized. I’d asked to see her outline and she showed me a couple of pages from a legal pad that probably should have been better used to wrap fish, rather than be the backbone of a research paper.
It took us four hours to rework the outline into a decent framework. I showed her where her ideas weren’t explained clearly enough and where she needed more information to back them up.
“My college ID will get us into the tech libraries at the U in Miami, so we should head down there a couple of afternoons this week.”
When we arrived at the library, I started filling out eight-by-five cards with sources from the Periodic Literature that Michelle might want to examine while she looked for books on the weak areas of her paper.
We repeated this activity four more times over the next few weeks and after many more weeks of hard work, she finally created, what I thought, what was an excellent bit of research. She submitted it for peer review. The peer review committee asked for some clarifications and a couple of changes. It was then published in a biological research journal.
Michelle called me and asked me to come over so she could give me a copy of the journal with her paper in it. She was absolutely beaming as she handed it to me. As I started examining her work, I saw she’d listed me as Assistant Researcher.
“You shouldn’t have put me on there. This is your paper.”
“You always took time to help me. Who turned my “only for fish wrapping” outline into the backbone of the paper? If my writing wasn’t clear, you helped me clarify my thoughts. I never would have had the time to find all the information and sources without your help. You were the library expert. You patiently taught me all the organic chemistry I needed to understand. In the four months it took me to write this paper, you never once told me you were too busy to help.”
If I was the library expert, it was due to a small-town librarian in the Northwest who taught Joan and me how to look up things when we were young. God bless that librarian, wherever she is.
“Well—thank you for including me, but that’s what big brothers are for.”
Michelle embraced me. “Thank you, big brother.”
* * *
The following fall, a fifty-foot Chris Craft Constellation limped into the boatyard. It needed both engines and transmissions replaced. The new owner also hired a carpenter to repair a lot of the woodwork. The once proud boat was the equivalent of a nautical bag lady, but with new Ford engines replacing her original Lincoln engines, new transmissions, and repaired woodwork, she would once again look and sound like the dignified lady she was intended to be.
Larry loved working on the boat and often asked the carpenter questions on how he repaired the beautiful wood joinery. The boatyard hired one of our friends, who worked on leather car interiors, to repair the furniture in the cabin of the Connie.
As I helped install the engines and was better at boat handling, I drove the Connie onto the Atlantic for a test run. The rebuilt boat demonstrated her designed-in stability and ease of handling. She was a safe, stable, and dignified cruiser needing only minimal tuning to perfect her. The newer electronics we added worked well and complimented her already capable cruising abilities. When we tied her to the dock, we learned the owner had been arrested for counterfeiting.
Within days, the boatyard put a mechanics’ lien on the boat and immediately put it up for sale hoping to get some of their money back. Fiberglass boats were beginning to be all the rage, but the Connie was mahogany and teak—beautiful mahogany and teak, mind you. Unfortunately, the wood took a lot more maintenance than fiberglass, but looked immaculate if you put in the time to properly care for it. The Connie wasn’t being sold at a fire-sale price, but it was pretty low.
Before the paint dried on the for-sale signs, Larry convinced his father to front him the down payment money and he purchased the boat. He was so excited—like a little kid with a new toy. He rented covered dock space at the boatyard where we worked so we could keep an eye on her, and then spent nearly every spare moment working on the old girl. Larry kept it so clean, I was certain dust wouldn’t dare settle on it. The Connie was named Salty Boot and I kept asking him if he was going to rename it.
With a Cheshire-cat grin on his face, all he would say is, “I’ve plans.”
The following spring Larry and I decided we should take the Connie on a four-day trip down to the Keys during our college spring break. Lots of students from around the country would be there and it would be a great time. It would be especially great traveling on our own boat.
* * *
Michelle and Danielle celebrated their eighteenth birthday on a Tuesday evening. Mrs. Warshawsky had put together a lovely birthday dinner for the twins. Many of their friends were invited, including Larry and me, but I was finishing a paper for school so I didn’t make it. Larry did attend and told me Mr. Warshawsky was spending more and more time talking business with him. Larry told him we were planning to take the Connie down to the Keys the following weekend.
It was early Friday morning, when I heard two people knocking on our front door and giggling something terrible. I opened the door and found the twins standing there grinning at me. They were wearing matching white short-sleeve blouses and denim short-shorts. Each had a florescent bikini top on under their blouse.
“Well, aren’t you going to invite us in?” Danielle was grinning ear to ear.
“Let me guess, you’ve turned eighteen.”
They collapsed in peals of delighted laughter.
“Where’s Larry?” Danielle asked.
“He’s probably still asleep. He’s a much sounder sleeper than I am. I’ll tell him we have visitors.”
Danielle pushed me aside. “No you won’t. I will.”
“He might not be decent.”
She turned to me then, and if looks could talk, hers was saying, she had plans and I better not interfere. Danielle quietly opened the door to Larry’s room, went in, and loudly slammed the door shut.
Larry yelled, “What the hell!” This was followed by laughter, as if two little kids were tickling each other, and then, of course, silence.
I turned to Michelle. “Something I should know?”
She told me how Danielle said she was going to marry him after the first night she and Larry discussed ethics. “At the time, I told my sister, he’s just a boat engine installer and didn’t she have higher aspirations for herself—we didn’t know anything about you guys except you were students and installed boat engines. I remember her telling me, ‘He’s in school so I’m sure he’ll be able to take care of a family, but I’ll tell you the truth, when he smiles at me, I know I wouldn’t care if he was a camel jockey.’ For months afterward we kept referring to Larry as the camel jockey.”
We both laughed.
“They’ve been going out for long walks the last couple of months, you know. I ran interference for Danielle at the birthday dinner and made sure Larry was seated next to her. At one point, I noticed Larry put his hand on Danielle’s arm to get her attention then, as if her hand had a mind of its own, she grabbed his and they sat there holding hands under the table, talking with people, looking as if nothing special was going on.
Finally, Danielle looked as if she might burst and she leaned over, whispered something to him and they left the table. She told me earlier that day that she was finally telling Larry how she felt about him. They snuck upstairs. She told me everything that happened, although I would have known anyway—we are twins you know! Do you want me to tell you?”
I nodded.
“Well, she told me they entered her room, she closed the door, and still facing away from—because she was afraid of his reaction—she said, ‘Larry, I have something difficult to tell you.’ Then, in one motion he spun her arou
nd, and kissed her. Happy as a clam, she said she slid her arms around his neck and they kissed for a long time—I guess he felt the same about her all this time too. Danielle said she felt herself warming from the kiss and embrace, but she felt joyfully secure with his arms around her.”
I understood that feeling—I remembered when he’d first felt it with Joan.
“Danielle told me she was certain Larry felt the same way about her and she never wanted him to let go. She said he grinned at her and said, ‘Happy eighteenth birthday, special lady.’ And she asked him, ‘I’m not your little sister anymore?’ To which he replied, that he knew from early on how special she was and he knew they would end up together. He said, ‘Danielle Warshawsky, I don’t know what the future holds, but I know for certain I want my future to include you.’ To which, Danielle told me, she kissed him again and again.”
I wondered why Larry hadn’t said anything about this. Perhaps he was unsure of how she felt about him, too.
“Remember the first night when Danielle asked Larry to walk with her to the lobby of the library and they talked about ethics?”
“Certainly. You and I had chatted about our mutual interests as well.”
“Well, Danielle made some notes on what they’d talked about and when she looked them over later, she wrote the word Bashert on the same notebook page. She saved the page and showed it to him when they were in her room. They talked about how she’d felt sometimes when she acted childish and became angry over silly things, but Larry never became angry with her. He’d always stayed calm and talked to her until she calmed down.”
Finding a Soul Mate (Meant to be Together Book 1) Page 5