Bigfoot Dreams by Francine Prose Page A

they feed cows?” she says. “You know what’s in this stuff?”
    “Protein,” says Dave, but he’s smiling. Norma, too. For though like the rest of their generation they believe in the life-giving sustenance of animal flesh, they approve of Rosie’s vegetarianism, in which they see a nascent understanding of the harmful excesses of capitalism.
    “It really is terrific,” says Vera, chewing extravagantly, heroically, as if for them all—for Dave’s teeth, Rosie’s fears, Norma’s need for approval and love. And it is; it’s delicious. The hot food makes Vera break out in a sweat and even that feels pleasant. After a while Norma clears her throat and says, “Dave, guess what Rosalie’s been doing in summer program.”
    Eyebrows bristling, Dave focuses on Rosie. Vera wonders if her mother means Rosie to tell about Carl and the water gun, and so is relieved when Rosie says, “We went to the planetarium.”
    “Was there some kind of special show?” asks Norma, though probably she already knows. She’s been retired from her counseling job for a year; but much remains, especially this mode of inquiry, this dogged pursuit of information her students were too timid to offer or didn’t even know they had.
    “It was mostly for the little kids,” says Rosie. “ Sesame Street garbage. Kermit and Big Bird up in the sky.”
    “For the children!” says Norma. “Isn’t that wonderful!” Dave’s gone back to eating. There’s a silence, then Norma says, “Guess where Daddy and I went this week.”
    “Where?” says Rosie.
    “The Whitney, they have the most fabulous show. The Ashcan School. Gropper, Marsh…”
    Vera thinks of muddy colors, subway riders with grimy faces, shopgirls’ legs splayed on spinning amusement-park rides, yet understands that Norma’s affection is complex: part esthetic, part political, part nostalgic. Probably Ashcan prints were what young Lincoln Brigaders tacked up on their bedroom walls.
    On the wall above Norma’s head is a picture Dave painted just after McCarthy got him fired from the public-school system. It’s a crowd of faces, red, brown, and black, crudely done; it looks like a UNICEF card. Vera has almost no memory of that time. Used to keeping secrets, they kept that one from her so well her only recollection is of watching daytime TV, of Norma switching channels back and forth from Joe McCarthy to her favorite cooking show, Dione Lucas, until some shadow of the senator seemed to linger on the cook; even years later, when Lowell watched Julia Child, Vera would feel queasy and have to leave the room. It’s all still there, thinly camouflaged, lodged in neuron and synapse and cell. When Vera thinks Carmen’s Holy Trinity sounds like a congressional committee, what else could she have in mind?
    Dave’s painting was only an interim distraction until he found work at the sporting goods store. Vera’s never understood why, of all jobs, he picked that. He never showed any interest in games, and once at a dinner she heard him telling friends how sports were popularized by the early industrial bosses, who found that their wage slaves functioned better if allowed to toss a ball around a few minutes a day. There was just that one time at a picnic for the guidance people from Norma’s school; someone brought a ball. Vera’s still astonished by the agility with which Dave jumped and dunked and made the net swish with shot after perfect shot.
    That’s what Vera wants to ask about, but Dave won’t want to answer, no more than he wants to talk about Reginald Marsh. The one story he’s still interested in telling is the story of the Spanish Civil War, and they’ve heard it a hundred times. She remembers how Dave used to charm new people with those stories and wonders if he ever wishes she and Rosie were new people.
    The last time she urged him to tell them was that first night she brought Lowell home. Her hope was that Dave and Lowell would recognize each other as fellow