sixties and living here, I think that having denied myself its delights for so long makes me appreciate them more now. I’ve earned the pleasure. “It’s dessert,” I tell people who ask, seven years after I moved to Los Angeles—to Wonderland Park Avenue, if you can believe it—how I’m enjoying the place. “Wilmette, Illinois, was a hearty breakfast, New York and Washington were lunch and dinner, and I saved L.A. for dessert.” Angelenos don’t seem to mind their city being compared to a crisp, warm, golden churro sprinkled with fresh raspberries and powdered sugar.
Waverly, wearing a bikini, lies on a chaise in my backyard. More than once a day I find myself astonished by her beauty. This is an objective truth, not automatic grandmotherly pride. Her grandfather and I were sevens at best when we were young, although he moved up to an eight as he got older because he ran 43.75 miles every week (ten kilometers every day) and therefore didn’t fatten up in his thirties and forties and fifties. Her mother, Greta, has always been an eight, in part because her father was named Jack Wu—that is, because she’s half Chinese. So in addition to Waverly’s particular good fortune, I think she’s a nine (arguably a ten) because her half-Chinese mother married a man whose grandparents grew up in Osaka and Port of Spain: Waverly is half white, a quarter Japanese, an eighth black, a sixteenth Punjabi, another sixteenth whatever—thus, to my loving postcolonialist eyes, approaching Earth’s aesthetically ideal racial mix.
“Clarence Two’s inside, yeah?” I ask. Clarence Darrow the Second is my cat. A coyote killed the first Clarence.
“Yup,” Waverly says as she stands to angle the chaise a few degrees so that she continues facing the sun. Even a dark-skinned freegan culture-jammer, when she visits L.A., uses every opportunity to improve her tan. She lies down again, her thin, sleek computer resting on her thin, sleek body, propped between knees and sternum, her black flash-drive necklace dangling above her décolletage. “Oh,” she tells me, “Mom called.”
Sometimes when she says “Mom,” I think for a split second that she’s referring to my mother rather than my daughter. I think of my mother, who died a few years ago, at age ninety-one, still giving her age as “sixty-plus.”
“Grams? I said Mom called.”
“Sorry. Did she want me to call back?”
“No? Yes? I don’t know. She probably just wants to make sure I make my flight tomorrow.”
I sit on the grass next to Waverly and unstrap my bionic instrumentation. “I’ll get you to the airport in plenty of time.” I extend both legs and start to stretch, lunging toward my feet.
“I know. She just … you know.”
“I know,” I say between grunts.
My daughter treats almost everyone like children, amusing but unwise wanderers who need to be managed in order to stay out of trouble. I wonder if it’s because I didn’t treat Greta enough like a child when she was one. Or maybe it’s just sensible, given that adults these days act like children, and children act like little adults.
Waverly touches her computer, commanding it to become black, and lays it on the chaise. She stretches out her legs and closes her eyes, letting the California sunlight have its way with her.
“Did you put on sunscreen?” I ask.
“Grams,” she replies, moving only her mouth, “don’t try to be like Mom just because she doesn’t trust you to get me to the airport two hours early. Yes, I did.”
I smile and snort. My husband, Jack, always hated my smiling snorts, although this one is a totally loving nonverbal guilty plea, which the thousands I did with Jack, I’ll admit, seldom were.
“So when I tell Mom and Dad I’m going to Miami? And they say I can’t?”
“Honey, it really won’t help your cause if I chime in. Probably the opposite.”
She opens her eyes and turns her whole body toward me. “I’m thinking if you remind them that when
Waverly, wearing a bikini, lies on a chaise in my backyard. More than once a day I find myself astonished by her beauty. This is an objective truth, not automatic grandmotherly pride. Her grandfather and I were sevens at best when we were young, although he moved up to an eight as he got older because he ran 43.75 miles every week (ten kilometers every day) and therefore didn’t fatten up in his thirties and forties and fifties. Her mother, Greta, has always been an eight, in part because her father was named Jack Wu—that is, because she’s half Chinese. So in addition to Waverly’s particular good fortune, I think she’s a nine (arguably a ten) because her half-Chinese mother married a man whose grandparents grew up in Osaka and Port of Spain: Waverly is half white, a quarter Japanese, an eighth black, a sixteenth Punjabi, another sixteenth whatever—thus, to my loving postcolonialist eyes, approaching Earth’s aesthetically ideal racial mix.
“Clarence Two’s inside, yeah?” I ask. Clarence Darrow the Second is my cat. A coyote killed the first Clarence.
“Yup,” Waverly says as she stands to angle the chaise a few degrees so that she continues facing the sun. Even a dark-skinned freegan culture-jammer, when she visits L.A., uses every opportunity to improve her tan. She lies down again, her thin, sleek computer resting on her thin, sleek body, propped between knees and sternum, her black flash-drive necklace dangling above her décolletage. “Oh,” she tells me, “Mom called.”
Sometimes when she says “Mom,” I think for a split second that she’s referring to my mother rather than my daughter. I think of my mother, who died a few years ago, at age ninety-one, still giving her age as “sixty-plus.”
“Grams? I said Mom called.”
“Sorry. Did she want me to call back?”
“No? Yes? I don’t know. She probably just wants to make sure I make my flight tomorrow.”
I sit on the grass next to Waverly and unstrap my bionic instrumentation. “I’ll get you to the airport in plenty of time.” I extend both legs and start to stretch, lunging toward my feet.
“I know. She just … you know.”
“I know,” I say between grunts.
My daughter treats almost everyone like children, amusing but unwise wanderers who need to be managed in order to stay out of trouble. I wonder if it’s because I didn’t treat Greta enough like a child when she was one. Or maybe it’s just sensible, given that adults these days act like children, and children act like little adults.
Waverly touches her computer, commanding it to become black, and lays it on the chaise. She stretches out her legs and closes her eyes, letting the California sunlight have its way with her.
“Did you put on sunscreen?” I ask.
“Grams,” she replies, moving only her mouth, “don’t try to be like Mom just because she doesn’t trust you to get me to the airport two hours early. Yes, I did.”
I smile and snort. My husband, Jack, always hated my smiling snorts, although this one is a totally loving nonverbal guilty plea, which the thousands I did with Jack, I’ll admit, seldom were.
“So when I tell Mom and Dad I’m going to Miami? And they say I can’t?”
“Honey, it really won’t help your cause if I chime in. Probably the opposite.”
She opens her eyes and turns her whole body toward me. “I’m thinking if you remind them that when
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