“Isn’t it awful? I got carried away, and now I’m stuck with it. If we have another girl we’ll have to name her Caitlyn, I guess.” The man who’d led the screaming child into the school emerged from the double doors in front and walked halfway down the walk, looking from one end of the road to another. He was still wearing the whistle and carrying a clipboard, and his face was as flushed as my own.
“Vice principal,” Cindy said, her arms folded on her chest. “Mr.Riordan. Nice man, but a little—” she whiffled a slender hand through the air like a bird. “Maybe not. I can’t tell.”
“You never can,” I said, grinning. I remembered the day at the hospital I pulled an aide into the supply closet and gave her hell for telling one of her friends as they were unloading lunch trays that Dr. Silverstein smelled like a fairy. “Jesus,” I said to my friend Winnie afterward, “if a man dresses nicely and has the littlest bit of drama about him, everyone has him written off as gay.”
Winnie had patted my hand with her own, with its square nails and short fingers. “Fran, I love you dearly,” she said, “but Dr. Silverstein’s been living with an architect named Bill since he was in medical school. You need to pick your fights.”
I missed Winnie, the head nurse in the emergency room at South Bay Hospital, who could calm a rape victim just by rubbing the back of the woman’s hand as I combed her pubic hair for evidence, Winnie who made me feel afterward, as I cried in the bathroom, that I’d done good instead of harm. I missed Mrs. Pinto, our neighbor, who left Baggies full of ripe tomatoes on my steps during August and September and called Robert “handsome man,” making his olive skin darken to a dull red-brown. And God, how I missed Grace, missed talking to her on the phone every blessed day, about her students, about my patients, about nothing at all, where to buy cheap sneakers, what mascara didn’t irritate your eyes. “Where were you?” she’d say if she couldn’t reach me in the morning. God, how she must miss me.
I wished I missed my mother more, but after my sister had gone away to college and my father had died, she’d moved in with her sister Faye and out of our lives into a life of day trips to factoryoutlets and Atlantic City, of communion breakfasts and bingo games. It was as though her marriage and children had been only a brief interlude in her real life, Marge and Faye, two sisters watching the Weather Channel and bickering about the verisimilitude of their girlhood memories. I had talked to my mother once a week, said less than I’d just said to Cindy Whatever-her-name-was, a complete stranger squinting at her watch in the merciless sun.
“You going to work?” she said.
I shook my head. “What about you?”
“Not until this afternoon,” she said. “I sell Avon part-time. In this weather the lipsticks melt half the time. Sometimes I keep everything in the fridge—they don’t like it if you do that, but darned if I can sell cream blush that’s as soupy as paint.” She sniffed down the front of her blouse. “Lord, I wish I could get inside into the AC. The first year with Chelsea I had to sit in the kindergarten for half the day and then sneak out when she was at music. That’s how I wound up doing PTA. First grade we tried to make her go cold turkey, but she cried so hard I had to stay out in the hall where she could see me at least until circle time. Second and third grade I stayed around for the first hour until January. Volunteered in the library and all that. This year, I said, Chelse, honey, it’s time to cut the cord. But she asked me to stay outside where she could see me out the window for just half an hour the first day. Craig said, first it’s half an hour, next thing you know it’ll be until lunch. I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
“Nah,” I said. “It’s hard being a kid, never mind a mother. Ican’t ever
“Vice principal,” Cindy said, her arms folded on her chest. “Mr.Riordan. Nice man, but a little—” she whiffled a slender hand through the air like a bird. “Maybe not. I can’t tell.”
“You never can,” I said, grinning. I remembered the day at the hospital I pulled an aide into the supply closet and gave her hell for telling one of her friends as they were unloading lunch trays that Dr. Silverstein smelled like a fairy. “Jesus,” I said to my friend Winnie afterward, “if a man dresses nicely and has the littlest bit of drama about him, everyone has him written off as gay.”
Winnie had patted my hand with her own, with its square nails and short fingers. “Fran, I love you dearly,” she said, “but Dr. Silverstein’s been living with an architect named Bill since he was in medical school. You need to pick your fights.”
I missed Winnie, the head nurse in the emergency room at South Bay Hospital, who could calm a rape victim just by rubbing the back of the woman’s hand as I combed her pubic hair for evidence, Winnie who made me feel afterward, as I cried in the bathroom, that I’d done good instead of harm. I missed Mrs. Pinto, our neighbor, who left Baggies full of ripe tomatoes on my steps during August and September and called Robert “handsome man,” making his olive skin darken to a dull red-brown. And God, how I missed Grace, missed talking to her on the phone every blessed day, about her students, about my patients, about nothing at all, where to buy cheap sneakers, what mascara didn’t irritate your eyes. “Where were you?” she’d say if she couldn’t reach me in the morning. God, how she must miss me.
I wished I missed my mother more, but after my sister had gone away to college and my father had died, she’d moved in with her sister Faye and out of our lives into a life of day trips to factoryoutlets and Atlantic City, of communion breakfasts and bingo games. It was as though her marriage and children had been only a brief interlude in her real life, Marge and Faye, two sisters watching the Weather Channel and bickering about the verisimilitude of their girlhood memories. I had talked to my mother once a week, said less than I’d just said to Cindy Whatever-her-name-was, a complete stranger squinting at her watch in the merciless sun.
“You going to work?” she said.
I shook my head. “What about you?”
“Not until this afternoon,” she said. “I sell Avon part-time. In this weather the lipsticks melt half the time. Sometimes I keep everything in the fridge—they don’t like it if you do that, but darned if I can sell cream blush that’s as soupy as paint.” She sniffed down the front of her blouse. “Lord, I wish I could get inside into the AC. The first year with Chelsea I had to sit in the kindergarten for half the day and then sneak out when she was at music. That’s how I wound up doing PTA. First grade we tried to make her go cold turkey, but she cried so hard I had to stay out in the hall where she could see me at least until circle time. Second and third grade I stayed around for the first hour until January. Volunteered in the library and all that. This year, I said, Chelse, honey, it’s time to cut the cord. But she asked me to stay outside where she could see me out the window for just half an hour the first day. Craig said, first it’s half an hour, next thing you know it’ll be until lunch. I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
“Nah,” I said. “It’s hard being a kid, never mind a mother. Ican’t ever
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