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Neighbor News

Crossroads: the place where roads intersect

Short story about life, love, and family in Studio City

                                       Crossroads
                              by Dena Feldman Garfinkel

She is standing on the corner of Valley Spring Lane and Whitsett Avenue, trying to cross the street, waiting for traffic to clear so that she can cross. It's a legal cross walk, an intersection, a cross point, a cross road. Pedestrians don't have the right of way at unmarked crosswalks, but they do have a qualified one; she's not breaking any laws by crossing at that corner. She is patient, not rushing, waiting. Yet some drivers flip her the bird as they pass by, as though her mere presence at the corner of the intersection angers them, as if her desire to cross the street is a personal attack on their busy schedules. The wind from cars doing 50 creates an irate and irritated breeze that blows her hair back from her face.

Her sister is visiting this weekend from halfway across California, from 500 miles away to the north. They are opposite in build and beliefs, but close as twins. They shop in Panache and Susanne's, and everyone asks if they are best friends. "We're sisters," they say, smiling. She is showing her sister around town, taking her to Tujunga Village. They cross Tujunga together, moving from Vitello's to Diana's Boutique. She presses the button at the cross walk and remembers when that cross walk button didn't exist. It used to be harder to cross at that intersection. Cars wouldn't slow down. People and dogs had been hit and killed at that intersection. Five years ago, a mother and daughter were hit at that crossroad. Now the button is there, and a flashing yellow light blinks to warn drivers.

At twilight, they run in to one of her neighbors while walking the dog. "You two look like star-crossed lovers," he smiles. He is one of her favorite neighbors, serene and kind, very in love with his wife. His own short, stubby dog is walking with him. "We are star-crossed lovers," she tells him. "We're sisters." They stand on the sidewalk and talk about food and cooking for a few minutes. The night is balmy. The dogs sniff noses. The breeze is gentle and tranquil.

The upcoming work week crosses her mind. It's going to be a busy one. She is a college teacher, but no one understands the kind of teaching she does. She has students on traditional track and cross track. It is so hard to explain her job to people that she has stopped trying. She teaches online, on a camera and microphone, with students all over the country also on microphones. There are many accents in class. There are deep Mississippi southern drawls, voices hard boiled with New York humor, and Maine intonations so thick that she sometimes has a hard time understanding them at first. She gets to know them by voices, not by faces.

She remembers when she used to teach students how to cross multiply when she taught math for G.E.D. prep classes at an adult school. She also remembers when she taught English at the local community college. She used to teach students how to cross reference material from one part of a book to another part to find related information. She misses that kind of teaching. Her students were almost always non-native English speakers, and some of them came from tough backgrounds and tough neighborhoods. They were good students, respectful and earnest. There were no crosswalk buttons with safe flashing yellow lights to warn cars in the neighborhoods that those students came from.

Her parents live close by, in Van Nuys, just a hop, skip, and jump from Studio City. Her mother crossed the Atlantic by boat to live here. She came as a child from a D.P. camp in Russia at the end of World War II. Now she's pushing seventy, but she still gardens. Her father is at his own crossroads, dealing with failing health and dialysis four days a week.

She walks in the early morning, crossing quiet streets, looking at houses with yards, roses, and white picket fences. She lives here, belongs here, but she and her husband aren't wealthy. The last few years have been a struggle. They have manners, breeding, consideration of others, but not much money. They don't own; they rent. But they walk together at night, holding hands and talking. He knows the sky, and he shows her things. He shows her the stars of Orion. He points out Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel. She listens, his warm arm around her, and he tells her about Alpha Centauri, Hadar, and stars in the Southern Cross.

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