she’d show me even one boob.”
“Not for me,” Trey said. “She’s an oldie. That face. Makes me sick to think about looking at that face while I screw.”
“Bullshit,” again Chuck Goodhue.
Trey’s final comeback: “Give me a girl in uniform any day.”
Thirty years later those words, for those of us who remembered them, made us shiver.
A fter Nora disappeared, Mrs. Dinnerman’s role in our lives changed slightly. We still visited her kitchen, still threw grapes onto her linoleum floors, still admired the perfect roundness of her foreign rear end. But we visited now to hear her version of Nora’s fate. While the other mothers discouraged our fascination, Mrs. Dinnerman sought it out.
“I have a gossip, boyz.” She waited for Minka to take her book bag upstairs; she never had gossips for Minka. “Do you want to hear my gossip?” Before we could answer: “Nora is not deed, boyz. The facts is no, Nora is not deed.”
“Then where is she?” Paul Epstein often carried the conversation. Mrs. Dinnerman appealed to him, sure, but she didn’t make him dizzy the way she made the rest of us. After all, he was already in love with Sissy by that time, already completely preoccupied with another female.
“Feh. And why would I know where she is? No, I do not know where she is, bet I know that when I go missing from my family house at sixteen, I do not go missing as deed. I go missing as alive and—” she pinched her lips together with her fingers, a gesture so sexy that its effect required most of us to cross our legs in a show of attempted decency “—as a wolunteer.”
I t was during these afternoons with Mrs. Dinnerman—Minka and her friends, sometimes even Sissy, upstairs, safely out of earshot—that we learned about Mrs. Lindell, famously absent from our lives, famously absent and undeniably dead.
“She was kraseevaya , you know, beautiful.”
Probably what we wanted to say was, “No, Mrs. Dinnerman, you’re the beauty. We love you.” But probably what we said was nothing. Probably we waited, sitting on her awful, tall stools, positioning and repositioning our feet, crossing and re-crossing our legs, for her to say something else.
“The mothers, your mothers, boyz, they were nice to her like they are nice to me.” The sibilance in her speech was mesmerizing, snakelike and sharp. Russian, so very, very Russian. How strange and wonderful to be with a woman who understood her beauty and was not embarrassed by it. How very un-American. “Yes, I see you turning red, Chuck Gootyue. You know of what I am talking about.” She wagged her finger in our directions. “They were nice to her only as of much as patreeabny , you know, as much as they must be.”
Drew Price threw a grape on the floor. We listened to it bounce.
“When she is round,” she made the shape of a baby in front of her, “they like her wery well because she no longer has her shape, you know. Because when she is not round,” again the gesture in front of her own belly, “she has a wonderful shape.”
She spotted the grape where it lay against the base of Danny Hatchet’s stool. She picked it up, blew on it, and popped it in her mouth. Then she dusted off her hands and looked at us. “Bet den she die. Baby number two is too much baby for her. Out you go, boyz. Baby Minka and her papa must eat.”
6
I t’s possible that, in Arizona, Nora Lindell’s hair turned a burnt yellow. Her skin became a caramel color she’d never seen before. She aged quickly. She waited tables. She worked hard. She rented a trailer.
Nights, she sat in a folding chair set up on the dirt patch outside her home. She looked up at the sky and thought things like, “Tonight the sky is Arizona.” Some nights, she might even have thought of us. She wondered which of us had graduated, which hadn’t. She wondered who’d gotten into what schools. She thought about Trey Stephens, maybe, and whether he’d taken another girl to prom after all. Of
“Not for me,” Trey said. “She’s an oldie. That face. Makes me sick to think about looking at that face while I screw.”
“Bullshit,” again Chuck Goodhue.
Trey’s final comeback: “Give me a girl in uniform any day.”
Thirty years later those words, for those of us who remembered them, made us shiver.
A fter Nora disappeared, Mrs. Dinnerman’s role in our lives changed slightly. We still visited her kitchen, still threw grapes onto her linoleum floors, still admired the perfect roundness of her foreign rear end. But we visited now to hear her version of Nora’s fate. While the other mothers discouraged our fascination, Mrs. Dinnerman sought it out.
“I have a gossip, boyz.” She waited for Minka to take her book bag upstairs; she never had gossips for Minka. “Do you want to hear my gossip?” Before we could answer: “Nora is not deed, boyz. The facts is no, Nora is not deed.”
“Then where is she?” Paul Epstein often carried the conversation. Mrs. Dinnerman appealed to him, sure, but she didn’t make him dizzy the way she made the rest of us. After all, he was already in love with Sissy by that time, already completely preoccupied with another female.
“Feh. And why would I know where she is? No, I do not know where she is, bet I know that when I go missing from my family house at sixteen, I do not go missing as deed. I go missing as alive and—” she pinched her lips together with her fingers, a gesture so sexy that its effect required most of us to cross our legs in a show of attempted decency “—as a wolunteer.”
I t was during these afternoons with Mrs. Dinnerman—Minka and her friends, sometimes even Sissy, upstairs, safely out of earshot—that we learned about Mrs. Lindell, famously absent from our lives, famously absent and undeniably dead.
“She was kraseevaya , you know, beautiful.”
Probably what we wanted to say was, “No, Mrs. Dinnerman, you’re the beauty. We love you.” But probably what we said was nothing. Probably we waited, sitting on her awful, tall stools, positioning and repositioning our feet, crossing and re-crossing our legs, for her to say something else.
“The mothers, your mothers, boyz, they were nice to her like they are nice to me.” The sibilance in her speech was mesmerizing, snakelike and sharp. Russian, so very, very Russian. How strange and wonderful to be with a woman who understood her beauty and was not embarrassed by it. How very un-American. “Yes, I see you turning red, Chuck Gootyue. You know of what I am talking about.” She wagged her finger in our directions. “They were nice to her only as of much as patreeabny , you know, as much as they must be.”
Drew Price threw a grape on the floor. We listened to it bounce.
“When she is round,” she made the shape of a baby in front of her, “they like her wery well because she no longer has her shape, you know. Because when she is not round,” again the gesture in front of her own belly, “she has a wonderful shape.”
She spotted the grape where it lay against the base of Danny Hatchet’s stool. She picked it up, blew on it, and popped it in her mouth. Then she dusted off her hands and looked at us. “Bet den she die. Baby number two is too much baby for her. Out you go, boyz. Baby Minka and her papa must eat.”
6
I t’s possible that, in Arizona, Nora Lindell’s hair turned a burnt yellow. Her skin became a caramel color she’d never seen before. She aged quickly. She waited tables. She worked hard. She rented a trailer.
Nights, she sat in a folding chair set up on the dirt patch outside her home. She looked up at the sky and thought things like, “Tonight the sky is Arizona.” Some nights, she might even have thought of us. She wondered which of us had graduated, which hadn’t. She wondered who’d gotten into what schools. She thought about Trey Stephens, maybe, and whether he’d taken another girl to prom after all. Of
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