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My Macrofamily3 A frown here and a frown there warned me that the relationship between Judy and me was disturbing Mom, Dad and the Bingles. The three years between us would expose me to a disaster called adolescence before her. Maybe I would become a sex fiend and prey on her! Judy and I agreed that adolescents were crazy, so we vowed never to behave like them. When our parents heard that, they smiled the smile parents smile when their kids make a promise they would like to believe. They know from experience that kids can’t grow up as kids would like. But that didn’t discourage us: we were going to show them a thing or two. We took up in the fall where we had left off in the spring, swinging in Dad’s swing in his half of my week and, in Mom’s in her half, unless it rained and then we swung in his. We continued to take lessons from Mrs. Adams, one alone and one together. Mom was asking us to give little concerts for her guests when she threw a cocktail or a dinner party and the Bingles asked us a few times too. One of Mom’s friends asked us to perform for her guests and, soon, we were getting more inviations than we could accept. Although Dad and Millie seldom had parties, they also asked us to give them a concert from time to time. Entertaining Dad’s family accustomed us to remarks, exclamations, laughter and even sabotage by Midge, such as an earsplitting whistle some urchin had taught her. The more we played, the more “feedback” (Mitch) we got, and yet we didn’t mind and I wonder if we didn’t enjoy it. It seemed like audience appreciation to us, even when they jeered or cheered in the middle of a piece. We just grinned like jazz musicians and kept on playing. We even gave a concert at Elmhurst Elementary, where Judy was is in the first grade and the twins, in the third and I, in the sixth. The audience gave us an enthusiastic ovation, except for Midge who was clapping half-heartedly on the back row near an exit. _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 49 © Mom was going to a lot of parties, meeting friends in restaurants and going to concerts, movies and plays with them. I didn’t mind so much because she was hiring Maggie to keep me company and babysit with Florin. Maggie knew how to handle him and maybe even better than Mom. She didn’t mind babysitting with us because Rex and his new girlfriend were neglecting her and we had fun together. We did our homework first and, since she was in middle school, she could give me any help I needed. Sometimes we had discussions, like one about Israel which changed my mind despite everything I had heard and read. If we finished our homework early enough, we watched PBS or a DVD or read and listened to Mom’s CDs. Maggie always wanted to hear me play the latest music I had learned. If Florin started crying, she changed his diaper and put him back to sleep by singing nursery rhymes to him. What a mom she would make, if only she could find a guy who didn’t have to marry a movie star! Mom was taking trips and, when she took one during her half of my week, I stayed with her parents. She took one with friends to Mammoth for shopping and Eugene Onegin at the opera. I asked my grandparents why she was doing so many things like that. They looked at each other, then GrandDad said:
GrandMom: “She needs a man, Fi Fi. She’s still looking for the right one.”
Poking him in the ribs: “You are inflating our grandson’s ego.” Then she gave me a serious look: “Sooner or later, she will introduce you to one. You probably won’t like him, but be nice and give him the benefit of a doubt. Save your comments for later when you are alone with her.”
GrandMom shrugged. Softly: “That’s what we tried to do with Mickey and Rex.” _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 50 ©
“Growing up is finding out that there aren’t any solutions for most personal problems.”
I worried every time I expected Mom and, especially, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday when she came home from work. Would she bring somebody with her? I watched when she drove up to see if somebody was in the front seat beside her or if another car was following her. After Rex, though, she knew she had to treat me more subtly than that. One Friday after supper, she got a call from somebody named John.
“Who is he?” I demanded as soon as she hung up.
So this guy knew all about me! As soon as she had gone to the kitchen to get the coffee ready, I ran upstairs to my room, closed the door and sat down with my homework for Monday. I had read the same sentence twenty times when I heard Mom’s and John’s voices downstairs. Then I heard her calling me from the bottom of the stairs. I didn’t budge. A few minutes later, I heard her footsteps outside my door.
“I have a test Monday, Mom.” Which wasn’t true.
“Do you expect me to every time I have one?”
It took me a while to raise my head, get up and follow her downstairs. I felt pretty bad about lying and all the worse because she knew I was lying. John _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 51 © looked about ten years younger than her, while Rex was a few years older, yet Rex was more handsome. In contrast with him, John had a slight build and didn’t seem to realize how attractive he was to women. Maggie agreed with Mom on that. Right from the start, I suspected him of hiding calculation behind a clever show of spontaneity. "Felix!" he said shaking my hand. It was just the right dose of enthusiasm. Had he rehearsed the smalltalk that had to come afterwards? Had he even cleared it with Mom? “I heard you play the recorder.” “Yes, Sir.”
“I’m afraid I can’t tonight. I have a test Monday.” I was watching him to see if he suspected a lie and he was watching me to see if I looked guilty. He won that contest, he had more experience than I did. I told him I was looking forward to hearing Pahud, which came more easily because I really was. From then on, every time I meowed over John, Mom gave me a catpat and I purred, but only enough to be polite. Hints at and glimpses of him only made me equivocate. When she mentioned that he had a BA in Creative Writing from Yale, I said a variation on the theme of “Isn’t that nice?” When she admired his writing, I asked her what he had published and she explained the difficulty of getting a publisher to accept a manuscript. So what was he living on? Translation: French, German and Italian. He had a gift for languages. “Perlyvoo!” an imitation of Dad.
“Well, what’s he writing?”
“Doubly fictitious!”
“Somebody ought to tell him. Why don’t you?” _____________________________________________________________________________________________ 52 ©
“I read a few historical novels. The authors blend their story into a part of history that appeals to readers. Where does truth stop and fiction start? The authors blurr the distinction. Readers who care would do better to read real history.”
“Maybe the story is exciting because of the namedropping.”
At that point, I expected Mom to ask me why I had it in for John, but she never did. It would have encouraged me to express my disapproval of her boyfriend and she didn’t want me to think I had a right to do that. I don’t know when they started making love, but it probably happened in his apartment. They could go or meet there any time she was free, because he was living and working there alone. When she started coming home late, I knew she had gone beyond the point of no return. Meanwhile, John was devoting a lot of ingenuity and effort to bringing me around. Invited to lunch or supper, he played the perfect guest, helping her with the table and the dishes, taking care of Florin and offering to help me with my homework. Florin was the chink in my armor, because he gave Mom a lot of trouble and John could handle him. John didn’t even flinch over changing his diapers and Mom swore he did it better than she did. Anticipating our preferences, he always brought a CD to play for us or a DVD to show us. I let Mom thank him, although I knew he wanted to hear it from me. He listened carefully whenever I spoke and tried to draw me out as if interested in my opinion. He even charmed Maggie when she came to sit with Florin and me. His charm didn’t work on Judy, though, and she confirmed my worst fears about him. She treated him more bluntly than I dared. I was always finding excuses 53 © not to play for him, like cutting the grass or cleaning my room as Mom had asked me to do. Judy and I were practicing on Mom’s swing one afternoon and, when we finished the piece we were playing, John came around from the side of house clapping and bravoing. He told us his excuse before we could complain, claiming that he had hoped to find Gretchen at home. Hearing us play for the first time, he couldn’t help listening and hoped we didn’t mind. He said he was really impressed and he looked entirely sincere. Yet Judy wasn’t fooled.
He seemed delighted with her reproach. “No, M’am: I don’t have anything better to do than listen to you and Felix play. What wonderful musicians you are!”
“I have been asking Felix to let me hear you play and there’s always something else he has to do.” Always sounded ironical.
“Sorry! Sorry!” But he didn’t sound very sorry beating his retreat. I knew I had a formidable adversary, but John knew he had one too. He was determined and yet discreet, I was stubborn and yet elusive. He had to seduce or at least neutralize me before Mom would let him move in with her. Since the outcome depended on her, he had to convince her that he could live with me and I, that I couldn’t live with him. She wouldn’t let him spend the night at her house while I was there, but she might, if I was at Dad’s. I persuaded Dad, who sympathized with me, to let me spend four nights with her instead of three. I told her that I could concentrate on my homework better while alone in my room at her house than in the one I shared with Mitch at Dad’s. She didn’t know that Dad let me study in the office. Yet she hesitated, wondering if she would have to change her schedule. The only difference, I argued, was that I would spend Saturday night with her instead of Dad. I would have breakfast at his 54 © house the next morning as usual. We were looking each other in the eyes and we both knew the real reason why I wanted to spend Saturday night with her. She gave in to avoid an argument over that. She could still have John Sunday, Monday and Tuesday night without my knowing it. How could I stop him? Come and get something I had forgotten? Although Mom had given me a key, she had asked me to ring three times so she would know who was entering. How many times had she told John to ring? Did he have a key too? I went over to Mom’s twice in the evening, forgot to ring on purpose and entered with my key. Both times, Mom came to see who it was and, as soon as she saw me, reminded me to ring three times. She wasn’t upset, she had left the door to her bedroom open and I saw no sign of John. I was studying in the office at Dad’s one Monday night when I saw the light go on in Mom’s bedroom at nine o’clock, which was early for her. I went down to the living room where Dad was reading and Millie was sewing.
Dad gave her a no-no look and told me: “OK, Son. Fifteen minutes before I come looking for you.” Although I didn’t see John’s car in front of Mom’s house, I suspected him of parking it up the street and around the corner. Mom’s bedroom windows were dark now. The lights were on in her living room and the television set was flickering, but I couldn’t see inside because of the blinds. Maybe she had gone up to get something in her bedroom and cut the light out before going back down to watch television. On the other hand, Rex had Florin and Maggie on Monday night, so Mom was free to have a date with John. I turned my key in the front-door lock, turned the knob and pushed, but the door wouldn’t open. Bolted on the inside! Now I really was suspicious! I prowled around the house trying windows, the garage and patio doors, and finally the backdoor, which my key didn’t fit. All were locked. Then I remembered Mom’s irritation with a carpenter because he hadn’t gotten around to barring the window on the backdoor. My 55 © fifteen minutes must have run out, so I went around to the side of the house, where I saw Dad out on the sidewalk looking at me. A minute later, he turned and headed back towards his house. He must have decided that interfering would do more harm than good. I was under Mom’s bedroom window and I heard some strange noises coming from it. Listening carefully, I could distinguish a woman’s whimpering from a man’s groaning. Imagine my disgust and rage! I ran back behind Mom’s house, took my sweater off, took a brick holding the top of a garbage can down and wrapped it in my sweater. I bumped the backdoor window harder and harder until it shattered and, reaching through the hole, I unbolted the door. Soon I was sneaking upstairs and, the higher I climbed, the better I heard the male and female noises coming from Mom’s bedroom. Stealthily, I cracked the door, reached for the wallswitch with my fingers and snapped it down. The light exposed two naked bodies on top of each other. A scream and a shout hit my ears as they struggled to free themselves from each other. Two heads popped up and two horrible faces stared as I recoiled and I ran down the stairs, stumbling and almost falling. I ran to the back door and all the way to Dad’s. Waiting for me out front, he told me to sit down and get my breath.
I started to get up and go back for it, but he put his hand on my shoulder. It was a sweater I liked a lot, because Mom and I had chosen it after I had tried lots of others on. It resembled a Rothko painting. Horizontal swaths of red, yellow and blue crossed a background of brown on rough-textured wool. Once I had my breath back, I explained what had happened. He convinced me that I had no right to eavesdrop on Mom and John. As for entering her bedroom, he made me feel more ashamed than ever before.
“You never gave me a whipping.” 56 ©
“... ”
“What will she do?”
“How could she blame it on you?”
“The first thing I’m going to tell her is that you never said a damn thing about her boyfriend.”
“What else am I going to tell her?”
“It won’t be easy.”
“Couldn’t I just promise never to go into anybody’s bedroom again without knocking and being told to come in?”
“I guess I was desperate to stop him from seducing her.” 57 ©
“He’s just a leech, Dad. He’s found a nice sweet lady to take care of him while he dabbles in writing. When he finds a younger, prettier one, he will drop her.”
“You mean money?”
“He wallows in culture. How could he write anything worth reading?”
“There must be millions of writers who will never be published.”
“It was disgusting, Dad. Like worms wrapping themselves around each other in the dirt!”
“I don’t want to grow up!”
“... How can Mom and John go to parties and concerts where everybody who sees them together knows what they are doing?”
“... I told Judy I didn’t want to grow up.” 58 ©
“She said she did want to grow up, marry me and have kids.”
“Do you think I will marry Judy?”
Tuesday evening, Dad told me he had invited Mom to lunch. They hadn’t sat at the same table since she had left him years ago. He didn’t say much about their conversation, except that she hadn’t scolded him. She had also invited me to breakfast the next morning. Dad enjoyed my reaction. When I got to the front door, I rang three times and waited until she came and let me in. She looked at me as if she had to tell me I had a melanoma. Without a word, she led me to the kitchen, where I saw a jagged hole in the backdoor window. She gave me my sweater, which she had washed and dried, and I broke down and cried like Florin when he needed his diaper changed. Have I ever felt that humiliated? Mom hugged me as if she wanted to squeeze all the pain out of me. I could see Florin behind her in his highchair and he looked surprised to see me crying instead of him. Still no word spoken. Mom knew I knew she was a more efficient, skillfull and healthy cook than Millie. She knew I liked hot cereal better than cold, wholewheat toast instead of bagels and, although I didn’t like cocoa as much as hot chocolate, I knew it was better for me. I didn’t miss butter and I welcomed unsweetened jam. Nobody could prepare and serve a meal and clean up afterwards as swiftly and gracefully as her, and without neglecting a baby like Florin, a kid like me or even herself. Only when she turned her back to wash the dishes did I dare say anything.
“He told me. I hope you keep your promise.”
She was rinsing things. “He said you agreed that I have a right to live my life as I like.”
“I know you were. I don’t think I should be that explicit with you.”
She put the last dishes down and turned around. “Yes and you are wrong.” We looked at each other a few minutes without saying anything, which intrigued Florin. Finally, I said:
“You have done the right thing so far, Fi Fi. But you have something even harder to do.”
“He doesn’t like hypocrisy any more than you do. But you do have to apologize and be courteous. From now on.”
“You just keep it to yourself. I don’t need that kind of help and I don’t want you spying on John.” After another melanoma look, she turned around and put the dishes away. Apologizing to John must have been the hardest duty I ever had to do. It wasn’t because he ignored me, sneered or scowled at me; because he avoided or bullied me; nothing like that. It would have been easier to apologize if he had given me an excuse for sarcasm. On the contrary, nobody ever suffered an outrage more gracefully, treated his worst offender with more dignity and kindness, facilitated a reconciliation with more tact. His attitude had the effect, deliberate maybe, of aggravating my humiliation. It also complicated the difficulty of apologizing for the wrong I had done him without implying that my motive was wrong. He played his role so well that he convinced me of his intention to exploit Mom and sacrifice Florin and me. Rex had been a parasite, John was a predator. With all of this in the back of my mind, I blurted my apology out, while John pretended to have forgotten that there was any need for one. Opening the door to Mom’s bedroom and switching the light on had effectively neutralized me, the only opponent of John’s moving in and taking over. At her house, he had already left CDs, DVDs, books and an umbrella, which he invited us to use. I guessed that he had left other things in her bathroom, such as a tooth brush, an electric razor and aftershave. He had 60 © converted Mom’s stereo into a surround-sound system by placing his speakers around the living room and connecting them to the tuner. I was finding him at Mom’s so often that I didn’t have many chances to talk to her alone. Once I had spoken to him, I went to my room or Dad’s house. Judy and I were doing all of our practicing on his back porch and, when it started getting cold, we moved into the family room. His family welcomed us and enjoyed our music, except for Midge who sulked in her room. Mom complained about seeing so little of me, but, when John wasn’t there, I told her I didn’t want to be unpleasant. He was already staying with her the three nights that I was at Dad’s. Even when I stayed with her, he was coming to supper and spending the evening. Then one afternoon, I found him there alone when I came home from school. He was in the kitchen wearing an apron and preparing a dinner to serve that evening. Welcoming me as if I were his guest, he invited me to sit down with him for orange juice and cookies at the kitchen table. I wondered if Mom had told him he could enter her house when she wasn’t there, but I didn’t dare. It was hard to challenge a grownup as congenial, tactful and clever as him. Reading my mind, he converted my suspicion into friendly conversation. I was smiling, laughing, I hated myself. When I got up to leave, he proposed: “Why don’t you and Judy practice here? In the living room, for instance. I will be so quiet you will forget I’m here.” He sounded like he wanted to hear us so badly that I suspected his sincerity. I couldn’t repeat the excuse of distinguishing between practice and performance because he knew everybody except Midge was listening to us at Dad’s. “We can’t compete with your surround-system,” I said leaving before he could refute that ridiculous excuse. Since Rex continued to attend the same church and sing in the choir, Mom moved to John’s and sang in the choir with him. His tenor wasn’t as good as Rex’s baritone, but he loved music as much as he did. Mom had bought a baby grand as soon as she could afford one and, before she started inviting John, we played together. Since I refused to play for John, she played alone and they sang together. I always went to my room and closed the door, but I could hear them under the door and John’s voice seemed worse to me than it probably was. I blamed him for keeping me from concentrating on my homework. Meanwhile, Judy and I continued to play together at parties and Mrs. Adams, in her enthusiasm over our progress, organized a concert for us in an auditorium she had rented from the Mapleton Museum. Everybody came: the Bingles, Mom and John, Dad and his family including Midge, even Rex and Maggie but without his girlfriend. The audience filled the auditorium and late arrivals had to stand in back or sit on the steps in the aisle. The last piece on our program was a suite for flute and piccolo by Lucello that Mrs. Adams had transcribed for our recorders. Although 61 © he hadn’t written it for an eleven and a six-year-old musician, it suited us perfectly. It’s full of surprises, such as a passage in which Judy mocked a pretentious one I had just played or another one in which I ridiculed a childish one she had just played. We illustrated this satire by our movements and the glances we gave each other. Judy and I had so much fun playing it together that we ignored the man on the back row with the bushy brows and the eyes aimed at us. Later we heard that he was Hamel Bishkin, the music critic of The Vigilant. When we lowered our recorders at the end of the suite, applause hit our ears. John stood up shouting “bravo!”, then Rex too and soon they were all standing and clapping. Though stunned, I felt Judy’s warm little hand in mine and we started bowing together. Could this be happening to us? The Bingles and my two families clustered around us talking and laughing. John was shaking my hand and telling me how glad he was finally to have heard us play. Behind him, I saw Rex waiting beyond the crowd for a chance to speak to me. I thanked John and went around him to Rex, who hugged me as if I were his own son. I don’t remember what he said, I just remember that he meant every word of it. Maggie hugged me too. Later, Judy made everybody laugh when she asked: “Who was that girl who hugged you?” A photo of us playing together appeared in The Vigilant and a clip, on Channel Eight. Bishkin, who often condemned famous musicians, admitted promise in us: “Time will tell,” he finished his article. Dad kept saying he was afraid it would go to my head, until Millie told him it wasn’t my head it had gone to. Mitch appreciated his roommate’s success without wanting to imitate it. The basketball season had just begun. Midge neither said nor showed anything that revealed her reaction to our concert, but she started coming to hear us play in the family room at Dad’s. Though proud of me, Mom complained about the peremptory way I had left John for Rex. She assured me that my performance had made a profound impression on him. I didn’t tell her what I was thinking: She had left Dad for Rex and Rex for John. Shouldn’t she have started with John and ended up with Dad? The best boyfriend for her wasn’t the best dad for me. Despite the tears in Mom’s eyes, I couldn’t agree to apologize to John. Finally, I conceded: “When he convinces me he isn’t just using you... ” “How can he do that?” “I don’t know, but I’m sure I will when it happens.” “You aren’t so easy to convince.” I shrugged for lack of anything to say. “Why can’t you leave it up to me?” “... Because you are already convinced, Mom.” She gave me a look I will never forget. I had wounded her innocence. 62 © Everything I said or did against John merely persuaded Mom to make another concession to him. Soon he was not only sleeping with her the three nights I was at Dad’s, but also the four nights I was at her house. There he stayed except on weekdays, when he went to his apartment to write his novel. It came up almost every evening at supper. He described it as the love story of Fervio and Elysia, a disciple of Verdi and an illegitimate daughter of Wagner. He often told us the latest episode. Fervio was taking a walk trying to decide how to finish the final movement of a symphony he was writing. It had reached a climax involving most of the instruments in the orchestra. He saw a young woman hanging her wash up to dry, as the wind blew it on the line and her dress around her legs. Moved by this scene, he approached, excused himself and asked if he could help her. Surprized but willing, Elysia gave him the basket to hold, while she took the clothes one by one and pinned them on the line. The spectacle fascinated him so much that he didn’t even notice that she had emptied the basket. She laughed and, though amused by his own oversight, he detected a correlation between the sound of her laughter and that of the clothes flapping in the wind. It inspired a coda for the final movement of the Elysian Symphony. John: “All I need now is a composer to write the symphony.” Mom laughed and I couldn’t help laughing a little bit too. “It would make a good scene in a film too,” I conceded. He had scored a point against me, but I scored one against him over the ending of his novel. After an increasingly passionate series of separations and reunions, Fervio and Elysia agree that they can’t live with or without each other. They have a final quarrel over which suicide they will commit together. She prefers embracing each other and leaping off of a cliff together, and he, taking poison as they lie beside each other on the altar of a gothic cathedral like Medieval recumbents. Unable to agree even on that, each commits his own suicide. I burst out laughing. John was embarrassed and Mom, annoyed. Mom: “What’s so funny?” John: “I guess irony can be tragic or comic.” Me: “Fervio and Elysia care more about other people than each other.” Mom and John didn’t know what to say. After a minute or two of silence, we were talking about something else. Every time I went from Dad’s to Mom’s, I found more of John’s things in the house. Then, on the way to Dad’s one Tuesday afternoon, I saw a U-Haul truck in her driveway, so I knew he was bringing the rest. He would be living with her all week and I, only half as long. When I went there after school on Wednesday, he had set his office up in the den where Mom kept most of her books, including her reference works. If I had to look something up in an encyclopedia, I would have to excuse myself. Would I get overtures from him? It didn’t occur to me that I might 63 © disturb him. When I came home Thursday afternoon, he had orange juice and cookies with me, asking me about my schoolwork like any conscientious parent. Struggling to avoid his friendly clutches, I kept reminding myself that he knew I knew what he was up to. I knew why he was keeping the kitchen, the house and even my bedroom and bathroom neater and cleaner than Mom ever had time for. Why he was doing the shopping, the cooking, the laundry, replacing light bulbs and toilet paper, replacing the felt tabs on the legs of the furniture, taking the recycling bin and the garbage out to the street the night before collections and bringing them back the next day. Florin, whom he was taking to the crèche in the morning and retrieving in the afternoon, bawled when Rex came to get him for weekends. John was even opening the utility bills, which he was splitting with Mom, although he left the mortgage payments to her. I had never understood the word househusband until he illustrated it for me. He must have been the world’s best, but, as I hinted to Mom when I had her to myself, he had his reasons. “How can he write anything as complicated as that novel of his when he’s doing all this other stuff?” “He’s doing all that other stuff for you and me!” “And especially himself. He’s trying to make us dependent on him.” “You are just jealous!” “Jealous? I love my mother, that’s all!” “... His problem isn’t not writing enough, it’s writing too much.” “Too much?” “No publisher is going to publish a thousand-page novel by a first-time novelist.” “... I guess I was barking up the wrong tree.” “You haven’t got a tree to bark up.” “The hell I don’t!” “Don’t say ‘hell’!” “Every time Fervio and Elysia make up and fall in love again, they have another fight and hate each other again. Bowing the strings and blowing the horns will get you a hundred pages every time. Since it keeps happening and getting worse, you will get to a thousand or two pretty soon.” Mom sighed and rolled her eyes, but she must have said something to John. When I went to look a name up in the encyclopedia, he showed me a stack of paper six inches high. “Maybe too much is better than too little, but cutting something you have worked pretty hard to write... ” He shrugged his frustration. “Why print it? Wouldn’t it be easier to cut it on your screen?” “That’s what I thought, but I was adding as much as I cut, maybe I was adding even more than I cut.” 64 © “So you are going to cut it with a red ballpoint like a teacher correcting a composition?” “I hadn’t thought of the ballpoint and teacher analogy, but they will help.” “I guess correcting and cutting aren’t the same thing.” He gave it a little thought. “If you do the cutting right, they are the same thing. Every cut ought to improve the text.” Now I gave it a little thought. “I see what you mean. Saying less can mean more, can’t it?” I had forgotten the temptation to check the stack on his desk to see whether the pages were blank. Thanksgiving comes too close to Christmas. I wish we could move it back to October when it starts getting cold. You need cold weather for Thanksgiving, don’t you? I complained about having to put up with two Thanksgivings, but Judy laughed at me. “Two tummy aches instead of one?” “Do I look like a glutton or something?” “There you go with another word! What’s a glutton? Somebody who eats too much?” “I wish I could give you one of my Thanksgivings!” “Am I skinny or something?” “You are skinny and something!” “Hey, what do you mean by that?” “You could use a little flesh on your bones.” “I like myself the way I am!” “I do too. Lord knows what you will be like when you grow up!” “How come you are always insulting me? What kind of boyfriend are you?” “I kid you all the time because it’s fun. If you weren’t any fun, would you be my girlfriend?” “Mom and Dad are always kidding each other.” “... My moms and dads don’t kid each other, except for Millie who kids Dad, but he doesn’t know how to kid her back.” “My dad says you are a smart kid.” “Does he tell you the same thing?” Judy giggled. It was the kind of giggle that made you giggle too, whether you knew what you were giggling over or not. Nobody kidded anybody at Mom and John’s Thanksgiving. John welcomed my grandparents as if he didn’t know they suspected him as much as I did. He said a pretty good grace that he had written for the occasion, reminding us of just about everything we should be thankful for. It sounded a little more fervent than I thought he really was, but how did I know? He roasted and carved the turkey 65 © skillfully; kept the conversation cheerful, interesting and uncontroversial; fed Florin in a highchair between him and Mom; dealt swiftly and surely with every crisis. Florin delighted GrandMom no matter how badly he behaved. GrandDad kept asking me questions, but I was afraid I might say something unpleasant. GrandMom, who had a knack of finding you under tables, gently stepped on my toe. The four adults agreed that concentration in the airline industry had resulted in abuse of passengers. Afterwards, I played my recorder, both solo and with Mom on the piano, but I missed Judy. Everybody and especially John praised me. As they left, my grandparents complimented Mom and John on their dinner, which deserved it. John washed and rinsed, Mom put the dishes in the dishwasher and wiped the glasses with me. We didn’t have much to say, which Mom explained by the risk of waking Florin up. When the time came to get him up, John proposed a stroll in Amos Fletcher Park, but I said I had to practice with Judy. Mom made her usual face. Dad persuaded Millie to have Thanksgiving on Sunday when I would be there. She let me invite Judy and traded Thursday for Sunday with the twins’ dad so they could come too. We had never used the dining room, where dust covers still hid the furniture. Dad sat at one end of the kitchen table and Millie, at the other with Fragra in a highchair beside her. Midge grabbed a chair on the other side of the table from the stove, because she didn’t like the heat. Scolding her, Millie told her to sit on the near side, but Judy and I said we didn’t mind the heat. Judy sat down directly across the table from Midge, who shrugged and sighed. Mitch, who was sitting beside her, laughed: Midge: “What’s so funny?” “If I were you, I would be jealous too!” “Me? Jealous?” Mitch and Millie laughed, while Dad smiled. I must have smiled too. Mitch asked Dad: “Are you going to say grace?” Dad looked perplexed. Millie laughed: “He doesn’t know any.” Judy: “I already heard one. My dad made it up.” Me: “I have too. John wrote it.” Dad: “Amen!” Midge: “What are we supposed to be so thankful for?” Millie: “A nice sweet kid like you!” Everybody laughed except Midge. After a little silence, Fragra beat her tray with a spoon several times, then threw it on the floor. Midge, who sat next to her, laughed but laughed alone. Neither she nor Millie bothered to lean over and pick it up. Although Fragra often did things like that, I was worried: what did Judy think? Yet she seemed to be enjoying a typical meal in Millie’s kitchen. Lots of noise; lots of kidding, usually at Midge’s expense; lots of laughter, often at Midge; sarcasm 66 © from Midge scolded by Millie; the twins’ lapses in table manners rebuked by Millie; outbursts by Fragra; Dad in the eye of the storm. Millie was constantly telling Midge and Mitch or asking me “please” to get or do something: bring the mustard which she had forgotten or turn the gas under the mashed potatoes down a notch, things like that. We only lacked a begging dog and a prowling cat. Although Millie cooked as well as Mom, she prepared a different kind of meal. Taking the health of her diners for granted, she concentrated on pleasing and satisfying them. She ignored warnings against excessive fat, salt, butter, sugar, spice, etc. Only taste and quantity mattered. Rather than planning and efficiency, she relied on inspiration and improvisation. Instead of drawing up a list, she wandered around the supermarket, filling her cart with things that struck her fancy. Measuring and timing mattered less to her than adjustments and corrections. When she set suppertime at six-thirty, we knew she might call us as early as a quarter past six or as late as a quarter to seven. Mom always served at exactly six-thirty according to the clock on her kitchen wall, which coincided with the time announced on the radio. The three clocks in Millie’s kitchen varied by as much as three minutes and she didn’t pay them much attention. While Mom measured with spoons and cups, and weighed with a scales, Millie pinched, squirted or shook the quanitity she wanted. If the turkey was done and the potatoes weren’t, she served the turkey at once and the potatoes later. If we discovered pink flesh in the breast, she took the servings from our plates and put them back in the oven. Mom never had to do anything like that. Millie let us drink whatever we liked, so the twins drank coca cola for Thanksgiving, while Millie and Dad drank Budweiser. Millie and the twins kidded Judy and me for drinking milk. Fragra was making little cries, which Millie interpreted as “Mom” and “Dad” and Mitch, as “heck” and “shucks!” I don’t think Fragra was saying anything in particular. Far from washing up as she cooked, like Mom, Millie piled greasy pots and pans up in the sink, so her kitchen was a mess by the end of the meal. After too much apple and pumpkin pie à la mode, she postponed washing up until after a concert by Judy and me in the family room. We played for an hour, holding their attention despite “feedback” and remarks by Midge, while Millie and Dad sipped their coffee. Finally Dad stretched and yawned, so we stopped and, soon, everybody except Judy was explaining why somebody else should wash the dishes. Me: “Well, Judy isn’t going to do it.” Judy: “Why?” “ Because you are a guest.” “ So is everybody else except Millie.” Millie: “I’m glad somebody appreciates me.” 67 © Dad: “I would volunteer, but I break things and put them back in the wrong places.” Everybody scoffed, except Judy. Midge: “Fi Fi should wash because he has good fingers and Mitch should wipe because he admires Fi Fi for reasons I never could figure out.” Mitch: “Midge should do it all by herself, because she’s used to being all by herself. Besides, if she’s alone, she won’t be able to siss the rest of us off.” Midge: “What do you mean: ‘siss’?” Millie: “I want to know too.” Mitch: “You are my sister and you siss me off. Any resemblance to any other word is... What do you call it?” Dad: “Fortuitous. She sisses me off too. Maybe doing the dishes will desiss her.” Millie: “I’m afraid it will resiss her and she will smash them all.” Judy: “Millie did the cooking. It’s up to the rest of us.” We all took the hint, even Dad and Midge. After my two Thanksgivings, I had two Christmases. I found my best presents under Mom’s, but I had more fun opening the ones under Dad’s. Mom and John gave me a flute and Santa Claus gave Judy a piccolo even though she didn’t believe in him. Consulted by Mom and Mrs. Bingle, Mrs. Adams had agreed that we were ready for more sophisticated instruments. Mom’s generosity inspired gratitude and John’s, embarrassment, a conflict that troubled me to tears. Seeing my predicament, they urged me to try the flute and what a wonderful remedy that was! After a few minutes of experimentation, I managed to play the main theme of the fourth movement in Lucello’s Suite. Yet my new flute was the kind of present I had dreaded, because I couldn’t afford one that would really appeal to John. Mom and Dad were giving me an allowance of ten dollars a month and I was earning five an hour for mowing lawns, raking leaves and other jobs for both of my parents and the Bingles. I only had a hundred dollars in my savings account to buy presents for both of my families as well as Maggie and Judy, an average of ten dollars for each of ten people. Maggie and even Rex, who regretted what he had done to Mom, made suggestions and helped me shop. On Christmas Eve, he and Maggie delivered a bottle of Fossez Champagne to Mom and John; the next morning, a sixpack of Guiness, to Dad and Millie. For Judy, Maggie helped me choose a ring mounted with glass gold and green droplets clasping each other. On Christmas morning, Judy came rushing over on her tricycle and her parents, behind her bringing the piccolo. She ran and jumped in my arms and showed me her ring on the fourth finger of her left hand, which embarrassed her parents. We practiced Lucello’s fourth movement until we could play it all the way through. The ring looked terrific when her little fingers danced on the piccolo. I told her it was another reason not to grow up and we had our favorite argument. |