Augusta Played by Kelly Cherry

things? No. Your face tells me. So I say to you, as a mother would, Do unto yourself as you have just done unto me.” She kissed the envelope. “Mario,” she said, “don’t pick your nails with the penknife.”
    â€œThey’re dirty, Mama.”
    â€œWhat I don’t understand,” Norman said, “is why you’re doing this. Shouldn’t you be at home?” He had a vision of her, wrapped in a black shawl and cleaning fish. “In the movies, it’s the men who do this kind of thing.”
    â€œWhat kind of thing? I told you, I’m not blackmailing you, I’m earning the money for my son’s education, that’s all. Also I’m giving you a brief lesson in economics. Think of it as a trade. Besides, my late husband was a man of refinement and education. What makes you think all people of Italian heritage are members of the mob? You confuse us with Sicilians. My late husband, he couldn’t stand cruelty. His heart was so tender that if he stepped on an ant by accident he hated himself for the rest of the day. A heart with Accent on it, a heart pounded with a mallet to make it tender. The mallet was Life, what else? He was like you, I would wager, smart but not too bright. And he worked too hard. He was a stockbroker. I met him at Harvard Business School; we were studying for our masters in business administration. He was a good man but, like my son Mario here, sit up, Mario, he was a man. Basically, he thought women should wear black shawls and clean fish, like his mother. The shawl could come from Lord and Taylor and the fish from Gristede’s, it was the same thing. So I sat at home and read the theory behind the practice. Durkheim, Talcott Parsons, Max Weber. True economics is home economics. And I learned that my husband was a stockbroker with a Harvard degree but like all these men, he didn’t really understand the first thing about money. He had a weakness for the horses.”
    â€œMama!”
    â€œSit up, Mario. My son worshiped his father. This was reasonable, his father was a fine man, but what does it mean for the son in the end? Sadness, nothing but sadness. The heart took such a beating it gave out.”
    â€œMrs. Solaroli—”
    She patted Norman’s hand, fleetingly, a pat so restrained it was as erotic as a caress. “Now my son shall go to a good school, with this”—snapping a crimson fingernail against the envelope—“and he will learn from professors to be a jerk about money like you. Or maybe he will become a Marxist. Would you like that, Mario?”
    â€œNo, Mama,” Mario said, angrily.
    â€œYou see, he wants to be an actor. All the time, he’s dreaming of Hollywood. Maybe this helps.”
    â€œMrs. Solaroli,” Norman said in a last-ditch, effortful push for terra firma , “I wasn’t kidding. That’s it for money from me.”
    Mrs. Solaroli stood up, her regally sad and hat-shadowed form towering over Norman. “Good-bye, Norman,” she said, in that gently expiring voice, conveying dignity in the face of insurmountable tragedy, as if these were her last words on earth, “we will never meet again. I promise.” She held out her hand and he took it; it rested in his for a single moment. “But maybe you will think about what I said, okay? Come, Mario. Arrivederci.”
    As they left, Mario leaned down and whispered into Norman’s ear. “Punk,” he said, hissing, and looking at him violently with his beautiful blue eyes.
    18
    E ACH DAY , Norman expected to hear from Mario’s mother, but she seemed to be well and truly gone. There were several snowfalls that winter. The snow lay in long-running ridges like ploughed rows with a black crust of soot on top. There was ice on the sidewalks in the morning and slush in the streets by noon. The chains of the garbage cans clanged against the railings, the tops of the garbage cans slipped and