back in the drawer. It was four-thirty by the time I crawled into bed. Four hours later my mom woke me up to go to our mother-daughter Pilates class.
Our Pilates instructor was a woman named Pilar who was, I think, half Mexican and half android from the future. No matter what she did—even some impossible-to-look-good-doing-it thing like scratching her butt—she did it gracefully. Also she was seventy years old and looked forty. My mom was thirty-nine years old and looked twenty-nine, so I am expecting to age gracefully as well. Pilates is supposed to help because even if you get all wrinkly or flabby or bald you can still stand up straight and do things like bend over to pick up a penny, even though it isn’t worth it for just one penny. Pilar could practically make that penny jump off the floor into her hand. Pilates is all about knowing where your center is.
The class was my mom’s idea, of course—once again, she’d read a book or article about successful parenting thatsaid mother-daughter activities produced healthy bonding. I’m not making fun of my mom. She means well, and we both like the Pilates class. It gives us a few minutes to talk on the way there and back, but we don’t have to talk at all during the class. Pilar had some good ideas too, like that it helps to visualize an action before trying to do it. You imagine yourself bending like a pretzel and pretty soon you can practically tie yourself in a knot. She liked to say, “Head,” pointing at her head, “then core,” pointing at her center.
That day my mom let me drive home. I backed out of the parking stall, pulled out onto the street, and brought the car smoothly up to precisely thirty miles per hour.
“You’re getting very good,” she said.
“I’ve been practicing.”
“You have? With Dad?”
“In my head,” I said. “Driving the car in my head. Just like Pilates.”
Jen had left me a couple texts I ignored, being somewhat perturbed at her for a number of reasons that I hadn’t had time to sort out yet, mostly having to do with her going to Taylors Falls with Jim Vail and then making me risk going to jail to come get her and then screaming in my ear so loud my right ear rang for hours. I was stewing over that instead of reading while slumped in the big chair in the TV room with Moby-Dick in my lap (Pilar would have shaken her head gracefully and told me to align my neck and shoulders) when my mom summoned me to assist in her latest culinary effort by going to Byerly’s for some capers.
“The little tiny ones,” she said, handing me a five-dollar bill. “The ones about the size of a peppercorn.”
“Can I take the car?”
“Ha-ha. No.”
“I’ll be super-careful. It’s only six blocks.”
“All the more reason to walk,” she said.
“What if they cost more than five dollars?”
She rolled her eyes, then took her five back and gave me a twenty.
“I’ll expect change,” she said.
I noticed as I was leaving that there was a white card stuck on the Hallsteds’ front door. I walked over and looked at it. It was a small envelope from the police department. I put it in my pocket to give to my dad later.
After buying a jar of capers for $4.65, I walked over to Charlie Bean’s and ordered a Phrap-o-chino. I figured it might power me through another twenty pages of Moby-Dick. My plans for Ishmael, however, were interrupted by one Deke Moffet,the most disreputable member of the soon-to-be senior class. Except he wasn’t really a member anymore. He’d dropped out last spring.
“Hey, did you pay for that drink or steal it?” he asked.
Deke was sitting at a table with Marshall Cassidy, the second-most-disreputable member of the soon-to-be senior class. I had always made it a point to never associate with either of them, but it wasn’t like me to ignore someone who had spoken to me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
Deke and Marshall were your standard-issue middleclass suburban
Our Pilates instructor was a woman named Pilar who was, I think, half Mexican and half android from the future. No matter what she did—even some impossible-to-look-good-doing-it thing like scratching her butt—she did it gracefully. Also she was seventy years old and looked forty. My mom was thirty-nine years old and looked twenty-nine, so I am expecting to age gracefully as well. Pilates is supposed to help because even if you get all wrinkly or flabby or bald you can still stand up straight and do things like bend over to pick up a penny, even though it isn’t worth it for just one penny. Pilar could practically make that penny jump off the floor into her hand. Pilates is all about knowing where your center is.
The class was my mom’s idea, of course—once again, she’d read a book or article about successful parenting thatsaid mother-daughter activities produced healthy bonding. I’m not making fun of my mom. She means well, and we both like the Pilates class. It gives us a few minutes to talk on the way there and back, but we don’t have to talk at all during the class. Pilar had some good ideas too, like that it helps to visualize an action before trying to do it. You imagine yourself bending like a pretzel and pretty soon you can practically tie yourself in a knot. She liked to say, “Head,” pointing at her head, “then core,” pointing at her center.
That day my mom let me drive home. I backed out of the parking stall, pulled out onto the street, and brought the car smoothly up to precisely thirty miles per hour.
“You’re getting very good,” she said.
“I’ve been practicing.”
“You have? With Dad?”
“In my head,” I said. “Driving the car in my head. Just like Pilates.”
Jen had left me a couple texts I ignored, being somewhat perturbed at her for a number of reasons that I hadn’t had time to sort out yet, mostly having to do with her going to Taylors Falls with Jim Vail and then making me risk going to jail to come get her and then screaming in my ear so loud my right ear rang for hours. I was stewing over that instead of reading while slumped in the big chair in the TV room with Moby-Dick in my lap (Pilar would have shaken her head gracefully and told me to align my neck and shoulders) when my mom summoned me to assist in her latest culinary effort by going to Byerly’s for some capers.
“The little tiny ones,” she said, handing me a five-dollar bill. “The ones about the size of a peppercorn.”
“Can I take the car?”
“Ha-ha. No.”
“I’ll be super-careful. It’s only six blocks.”
“All the more reason to walk,” she said.
“What if they cost more than five dollars?”
She rolled her eyes, then took her five back and gave me a twenty.
“I’ll expect change,” she said.
I noticed as I was leaving that there was a white card stuck on the Hallsteds’ front door. I walked over and looked at it. It was a small envelope from the police department. I put it in my pocket to give to my dad later.
After buying a jar of capers for $4.65, I walked over to Charlie Bean’s and ordered a Phrap-o-chino. I figured it might power me through another twenty pages of Moby-Dick. My plans for Ishmael, however, were interrupted by one Deke Moffet,the most disreputable member of the soon-to-be senior class. Except he wasn’t really a member anymore. He’d dropped out last spring.
“Hey, did you pay for that drink or steal it?” he asked.
Deke was sitting at a table with Marshall Cassidy, the second-most-disreputable member of the soon-to-be senior class. I had always made it a point to never associate with either of them, but it wasn’t like me to ignore someone who had spoken to me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.
Deke and Marshall were your standard-issue middleclass suburban
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