Christmas walking around the house in them.
"Take those off," my mother says. "Those are for decoration."
I keep wearing them, even at the dinner table. They knock together if I don't watch out. With these clogs I could stomp out whole colonies of ants. I could walk on water.
My father tells a bad joke and I clap the heels together. My mother gets exasperated. "Take those off now, please." "What's your problem?" Freddie asks my mom.
My mother tries to justify her anger with a medical excuse: "I'm sure you're not doing your feet any good."
"Please, Ellis, you're upsetting your mother."
My father takes her side these days. This and other things he does never cease to catch my interest: that he gets up at five to make her oatmeal before she goes to work; that he turns on the outdoor lights when he knows she's coming home late; that once a month, he'll accompany my mother to an event where only Italian is spoken, even though he doesn't speak a word of the language.
I take off the clogs and place them in the corner of the room, their toes toward the wall, like those of a punished child.
Toward the end of dinner, the phone rings and my father gets up to answer it. We can hear his conversation: he's giving his friend John an update on our lives. He mentions that Freddie is eighteen. Freddie looks at me, gestures in the direction of my father, and squints her blue eyes into slits.
My father always thinks Freddie is a year younger than she is—he can never get it right.
When he comes back to the table, she corrects him. "I'm nineteen," she says. She holds up all ten fingers, and then nine.
"Oh," my father says. "Sorry. I don't know why I thought you were eighteen."
"Maybe it's because you missed my fifteenth birthday," Freddie says. "Maybe that's why you always think I'm a year younger."
My mother looks up from her plate and stares at my father.
He closes his eyes. "I tried calling, but the line was always busy. You girls use the phone way too much. How do you get your homework done?"
"For a whole year the line was busy?" Freddie says.
I look out at the neighbors window. Mrs. Alarid is watching a Rudolph cartoon on TV. On her fifteenth birthday, Freddie didn't leave the house. She stayed by the phone until midnight, drawing mazes on yellow legal pads.
My father pours himself some more water. Then he gets up and goes upstairs.
I expect my mother to scold Freddie, but she doesn't. Instead she says it never feels like Christmas without snow. My mother, Freddie, and I talk about skiing, how long it's been since we've been.
"Look what we have here," my father says, as he comes back to the table. He's holding an envelope with Freddies name on it. "I found it behind the bureau. It must have fallen back there years ago and gotten lost."
Freddie slowly opens the envelope. Inside is a card on which my father's written: " Happy 15th Birthday ." "Not funny," she says. "That's just not funny." She stuffs the card into the envelope and hands it back to him.
I look at my mother and I can see from her eyes that she's disappointed too: my father still hasn't apologized for what he's done.
I wake up the next morning and Freddie's kneeling by my bed. "What are you doing?" I ask. Above my head is a moth and I try to remember: Don't they only live for a day? Or is it until they mate and then they die ? All this information I learned and forgot.
"Let's go do something girly," she says. "Like what?"
"Something normal girls do." We both are silent, thinking.
"Let's go to a salon," Freddie says. "Like a spa day." "I'm broke and so are you," I say.
"Well let's go and do the cheapest thing we can have done."
I agree to go. I have nothing else to do. And besides, the next-door neighbor gives piano lessons from her living room. Monday is her day for all the beginning students, and I can hear them flubbing their scales. It reminds me too much of Nicholas's violin tapes.
We go to a beauty store in the nearby
"Take those off," my mother says. "Those are for decoration."
I keep wearing them, even at the dinner table. They knock together if I don't watch out. With these clogs I could stomp out whole colonies of ants. I could walk on water.
My father tells a bad joke and I clap the heels together. My mother gets exasperated. "Take those off now, please." "What's your problem?" Freddie asks my mom.
My mother tries to justify her anger with a medical excuse: "I'm sure you're not doing your feet any good."
"Please, Ellis, you're upsetting your mother."
My father takes her side these days. This and other things he does never cease to catch my interest: that he gets up at five to make her oatmeal before she goes to work; that he turns on the outdoor lights when he knows she's coming home late; that once a month, he'll accompany my mother to an event where only Italian is spoken, even though he doesn't speak a word of the language.
I take off the clogs and place them in the corner of the room, their toes toward the wall, like those of a punished child.
Toward the end of dinner, the phone rings and my father gets up to answer it. We can hear his conversation: he's giving his friend John an update on our lives. He mentions that Freddie is eighteen. Freddie looks at me, gestures in the direction of my father, and squints her blue eyes into slits.
My father always thinks Freddie is a year younger than she is—he can never get it right.
When he comes back to the table, she corrects him. "I'm nineteen," she says. She holds up all ten fingers, and then nine.
"Oh," my father says. "Sorry. I don't know why I thought you were eighteen."
"Maybe it's because you missed my fifteenth birthday," Freddie says. "Maybe that's why you always think I'm a year younger."
My mother looks up from her plate and stares at my father.
He closes his eyes. "I tried calling, but the line was always busy. You girls use the phone way too much. How do you get your homework done?"
"For a whole year the line was busy?" Freddie says.
I look out at the neighbors window. Mrs. Alarid is watching a Rudolph cartoon on TV. On her fifteenth birthday, Freddie didn't leave the house. She stayed by the phone until midnight, drawing mazes on yellow legal pads.
My father pours himself some more water. Then he gets up and goes upstairs.
I expect my mother to scold Freddie, but she doesn't. Instead she says it never feels like Christmas without snow. My mother, Freddie, and I talk about skiing, how long it's been since we've been.
"Look what we have here," my father says, as he comes back to the table. He's holding an envelope with Freddies name on it. "I found it behind the bureau. It must have fallen back there years ago and gotten lost."
Freddie slowly opens the envelope. Inside is a card on which my father's written: " Happy 15th Birthday ." "Not funny," she says. "That's just not funny." She stuffs the card into the envelope and hands it back to him.
I look at my mother and I can see from her eyes that she's disappointed too: my father still hasn't apologized for what he's done.
I wake up the next morning and Freddie's kneeling by my bed. "What are you doing?" I ask. Above my head is a moth and I try to remember: Don't they only live for a day? Or is it until they mate and then they die ? All this information I learned and forgot.
"Let's go do something girly," she says. "Like what?"
"Something normal girls do." We both are silent, thinking.
"Let's go to a salon," Freddie says. "Like a spa day." "I'm broke and so are you," I say.
"Well let's go and do the cheapest thing we can have done."
I agree to go. I have nothing else to do. And besides, the next-door neighbor gives piano lessons from her living room. Monday is her day for all the beginning students, and I can hear them flubbing their scales. It reminds me too much of Nicholas's violin tapes.
We go to a beauty store in the nearby
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