actual fruit and appeared to be made of latex. “Now,” she read, “in bright blue jazzberry flavor!”
“There is no such thing as a jazzberry,” said Carol, disapproving. “And, as you know, this color blue does not exist in nature.”
“For God’s sake,” said Natalie, “I’m not looking for nature here. I’m trying to buy them something they’ll like.”
She kept on like that, loading the cart with ranch-flavored chips and jumbo bags of red licorice. She realized that she did not know what sorts of things Sara’s friends ate, in actuality, but actual food held no appeal to her, so how could it to them ? This was novelty food; if you ate it, it was better than nothing, better than subsisting on air. From her perch by the register at this unfamiliarsupermarket, the checkout woman in her green smock took a cursory look at the items on the belt and said, knowingly, “Houseful of teenagers?”
“Yes,” said Natalie quickly. “That’s right.”
“I can’t get mine to eat anything decent either,” the woman went on, dragging each item over the price-code light buried under glass. “Kids today, their teeth rot in their heads, they kill themselves with drugs and I don’t know what else.” She shook her head, and Natalie shook hers too, momentarily enjoying the solidarity, enjoying being able to convey the impression that she, Natalie, still had a child. Kids today, she thought.
But she felt sorry for these “kids,” these thirty-year-olds to whom she was bringing gifts of near-food. She had refused to let them come to the burial—it was too overwhelming to imagine them all there, standing in the sun and crying, and then she would have had to have them to the house afterward. But they had plagued her with phone calls, telling her of their sorrow, wanting her to know about it, and finally, today, she understood that their sorrow was real. So she would attempt to placate them with Frooty Rollers and other such things. Her arms full of shopping bags, she walked from the cool of the store into the startling heat of the parking lot. The blacktop felt spongy and soft in the heat.
“Natalie, wait up!” Carol said from somewhere behind her. Carol was a faithful friend who was becoming less relevant to this mission, Natalie thought as she loaded the trunk of the car with shopping bags. Carol hurried over to Natalie. “I’m here for you, you know,” Carol said, but the comment was something of a non sequitur.
“No,” said Natalie simply, “you’re not.” She closed the car door and let herself in the front passenger side.
“How can you say that?” Carol said, her voice getting shrill as she herself went around and opened the driver’s door.
The two women faced each other in the little box of heat. “Because you still have a daughter, and I don’t,” Natalie said.
“Natalie, I barely have a child,” Carol said. “I mean, let’s face it, Tina is not exactly what I would have chosen.”
Natalie stared. “How can you say that?” she asked.
Carol’s remark reminded her that the world had divided, separating the devastated-by-loss from the untouched-by-loss. Carol had a daughter; her daughter had a heart that still beat inside her chest. It was true that Carol did not approve of Tina, and that while she claimed to love her, the love seemed founded more on ancient history (a Mary Cassatt vision of bathing a pink baby) than on anything that still lasted. For the pink-complected Mary Cassatt baby had turned into a large Doberman of a woman—a lesbian with a particular interest in self-defense issues. Tina ran a dojo near her home in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her hair had been sculpted into a brush cut, giving her the look of a handsome male pilot for a commercial airline. She seemed corporate, strong-jawed, and yet she lived outside the mainstream culture, in a small two-family house with an older woman named Ronnie, who taught feminist film criticism at a local college.
Who knew why
“There is no such thing as a jazzberry,” said Carol, disapproving. “And, as you know, this color blue does not exist in nature.”
“For God’s sake,” said Natalie, “I’m not looking for nature here. I’m trying to buy them something they’ll like.”
She kept on like that, loading the cart with ranch-flavored chips and jumbo bags of red licorice. She realized that she did not know what sorts of things Sara’s friends ate, in actuality, but actual food held no appeal to her, so how could it to them ? This was novelty food; if you ate it, it was better than nothing, better than subsisting on air. From her perch by the register at this unfamiliarsupermarket, the checkout woman in her green smock took a cursory look at the items on the belt and said, knowingly, “Houseful of teenagers?”
“Yes,” said Natalie quickly. “That’s right.”
“I can’t get mine to eat anything decent either,” the woman went on, dragging each item over the price-code light buried under glass. “Kids today, their teeth rot in their heads, they kill themselves with drugs and I don’t know what else.” She shook her head, and Natalie shook hers too, momentarily enjoying the solidarity, enjoying being able to convey the impression that she, Natalie, still had a child. Kids today, she thought.
But she felt sorry for these “kids,” these thirty-year-olds to whom she was bringing gifts of near-food. She had refused to let them come to the burial—it was too overwhelming to imagine them all there, standing in the sun and crying, and then she would have had to have them to the house afterward. But they had plagued her with phone calls, telling her of their sorrow, wanting her to know about it, and finally, today, she understood that their sorrow was real. So she would attempt to placate them with Frooty Rollers and other such things. Her arms full of shopping bags, she walked from the cool of the store into the startling heat of the parking lot. The blacktop felt spongy and soft in the heat.
“Natalie, wait up!” Carol said from somewhere behind her. Carol was a faithful friend who was becoming less relevant to this mission, Natalie thought as she loaded the trunk of the car with shopping bags. Carol hurried over to Natalie. “I’m here for you, you know,” Carol said, but the comment was something of a non sequitur.
“No,” said Natalie simply, “you’re not.” She closed the car door and let herself in the front passenger side.
“How can you say that?” Carol said, her voice getting shrill as she herself went around and opened the driver’s door.
The two women faced each other in the little box of heat. “Because you still have a daughter, and I don’t,” Natalie said.
“Natalie, I barely have a child,” Carol said. “I mean, let’s face it, Tina is not exactly what I would have chosen.”
Natalie stared. “How can you say that?” she asked.
Carol’s remark reminded her that the world had divided, separating the devastated-by-loss from the untouched-by-loss. Carol had a daughter; her daughter had a heart that still beat inside her chest. It was true that Carol did not approve of Tina, and that while she claimed to love her, the love seemed founded more on ancient history (a Mary Cassatt vision of bathing a pink baby) than on anything that still lasted. For the pink-complected Mary Cassatt baby had turned into a large Doberman of a woman—a lesbian with a particular interest in self-defense issues. Tina ran a dojo near her home in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her hair had been sculpted into a brush cut, giving her the look of a handsome male pilot for a commercial airline. She seemed corporate, strong-jawed, and yet she lived outside the mainstream culture, in a small two-family house with an older woman named Ronnie, who taught feminist film criticism at a local college.
Who knew why
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