the curry dipping sauce is mixed. And dessert, a fluffy, frozen, lemon thing made with Cool Whip and condensed milk, waits in the freezer atop its graham cracker crust.
I am in the living room watching The Price Is Right when I hear a loud gasp coming from Mama’s bedroom. And then she appears before me, her natural prettiness exaggerated with extra blush and mascara, her hair stiff with Aqua Net, her panty hose and one-inch white pumps visible beneath her terry-cloth housecoat that zips up the front.
“Where is Sofie?” she demands.
Sofie, our sweet and slobbery eleven-year-old yellow Labrador retriever whose hips are as bad as her breath, was once full of energy. Sofie and I used to spend hours playing fetch in the backyard, or tug-of-war, or ride the doggie-horsey. But now all Sofie does is dig holes in the backyard, lie on the patch of monkey grass she’s claimed as her own, and sit under Daddy’s chair on the nights he is home for dinner, knowing that he has the most tender heart of all of us when it comes to animals and will often feed her scraps.
I shrug, not taking my eyes off the screen. An older lady with blue-white hair is trying to figure out how much a matching washer and dryer would go for retail.
“One hundred eighty five,” I say.
Mama walks to the television set and mashes the power button with her finger. The picture dissolves into silver and black static, which fades and then disappears.
“Robert Banks, listen to me. Where is Sofie?”
“She’s outside, I think.”
I must have given Mama a wounded look, because she sighs and her tone softens.
“I don’t mean to be short with you. Today is a big day. You know that. And everything is ready, everything is prepared, but I can’t find the undergarment I bought that works with the camisole. I know it was in my lingerie drawer last night, because I checked. It was curled up right beside the camisole, its price tag still on. But now it’s not there. I feel like I’m losing my mind. The only explanation I can come up with is that I somehow took it out of the drawer this morning when I woke up early to make coffee for your father and Sofie got hold of it.”
Sofie is famous for stealing underwear from the dirty-clothes basket. Over the years she has eaten through countless pairs of Mama’s panties and our briefs. But Mama has never complained of Sofie stealing bras.
“It probably got shoved into the back of your drawer somehow,” I say. “You just can’t find it because you’re nervous.”
“I’ve turned that drawer inside out. And I can’t find it because it’s not there. I don’t have anything else to wear besides the Mark Shale suit. My nails are painted to match. I bought a lipstick especially for it when I went to Davison’s for the bra. And I haven’t checked my other clothes for wrinkles or stains. Lord knows what shape they are in.”
Mama’s clothes are never wrinkled or stained.
“I need you to go outside and see if Sofie has dropped it in any of those holes she’s dug up. If she has maybe I’ll have time to wash it quick in the sink with Woolite and put it in the dryer on Delicate.”
I hoist myself from the plaid couch and walk through the kitchen to get to the back door. At the little breakfast nook in the corner, where two benches and a table are built into the wall, sits Hunter, wearing swimming trunks and a white Fruit of the Loom undershirt, stuffing a heaping spoonful of Cap’n Crunch and milk into his mouth.
I don’t say a word to him and he doesn’t say a word to me, either; instead he just stares ahead as if we aren’t even in the same room. That’s just what we do—ignore each other. But then out of the blue, he’ll attack. Like at the beginning of the school year when I opened my science book and discovered an index card, planted between the pages, that read, “FAG.” My brother hadn’t even bothered to disguise his handwriting, a small, slanted print I’d recognize anywhere. Soon after
I am in the living room watching The Price Is Right when I hear a loud gasp coming from Mama’s bedroom. And then she appears before me, her natural prettiness exaggerated with extra blush and mascara, her hair stiff with Aqua Net, her panty hose and one-inch white pumps visible beneath her terry-cloth housecoat that zips up the front.
“Where is Sofie?” she demands.
Sofie, our sweet and slobbery eleven-year-old yellow Labrador retriever whose hips are as bad as her breath, was once full of energy. Sofie and I used to spend hours playing fetch in the backyard, or tug-of-war, or ride the doggie-horsey. But now all Sofie does is dig holes in the backyard, lie on the patch of monkey grass she’s claimed as her own, and sit under Daddy’s chair on the nights he is home for dinner, knowing that he has the most tender heart of all of us when it comes to animals and will often feed her scraps.
I shrug, not taking my eyes off the screen. An older lady with blue-white hair is trying to figure out how much a matching washer and dryer would go for retail.
“One hundred eighty five,” I say.
Mama walks to the television set and mashes the power button with her finger. The picture dissolves into silver and black static, which fades and then disappears.
“Robert Banks, listen to me. Where is Sofie?”
“She’s outside, I think.”
I must have given Mama a wounded look, because she sighs and her tone softens.
“I don’t mean to be short with you. Today is a big day. You know that. And everything is ready, everything is prepared, but I can’t find the undergarment I bought that works with the camisole. I know it was in my lingerie drawer last night, because I checked. It was curled up right beside the camisole, its price tag still on. But now it’s not there. I feel like I’m losing my mind. The only explanation I can come up with is that I somehow took it out of the drawer this morning when I woke up early to make coffee for your father and Sofie got hold of it.”
Sofie is famous for stealing underwear from the dirty-clothes basket. Over the years she has eaten through countless pairs of Mama’s panties and our briefs. But Mama has never complained of Sofie stealing bras.
“It probably got shoved into the back of your drawer somehow,” I say. “You just can’t find it because you’re nervous.”
“I’ve turned that drawer inside out. And I can’t find it because it’s not there. I don’t have anything else to wear besides the Mark Shale suit. My nails are painted to match. I bought a lipstick especially for it when I went to Davison’s for the bra. And I haven’t checked my other clothes for wrinkles or stains. Lord knows what shape they are in.”
Mama’s clothes are never wrinkled or stained.
“I need you to go outside and see if Sofie has dropped it in any of those holes she’s dug up. If she has maybe I’ll have time to wash it quick in the sink with Woolite and put it in the dryer on Delicate.”
I hoist myself from the plaid couch and walk through the kitchen to get to the back door. At the little breakfast nook in the corner, where two benches and a table are built into the wall, sits Hunter, wearing swimming trunks and a white Fruit of the Loom undershirt, stuffing a heaping spoonful of Cap’n Crunch and milk into his mouth.
I don’t say a word to him and he doesn’t say a word to me, either; instead he just stares ahead as if we aren’t even in the same room. That’s just what we do—ignore each other. But then out of the blue, he’ll attack. Like at the beginning of the school year when I opened my science book and discovered an index card, planted between the pages, that read, “FAG.” My brother hadn’t even bothered to disguise his handwriting, a small, slanted print I’d recognize anywhere. Soon after
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