him to come pick me up. But it would take too long. So I just walked fast, with my head down, and didn’t raise it again until I got back to Jefferson Street.
—
snow kept me company as I embraced The Joy of Cooking . She sat up on the counter with an apron over her dungarees and tasted the cake batter and the cream sauce for the chicken. She looked extremely doubtful about the cream sauce, but how sophisticated could her six-year-old palate be anyway?
“Maybe you’ll get a mother for your birthday,” she said. I dabbedthe end of her nose with a square of kitchen paper, even though there was nothing there.
“Who said I want a mother? Maybe I want a daughter.”
“What kind of daughter?” Snow said, with the air of a department store attendant, invisible stock list in hand.
“I said maybe. It depends. I might forget to feed and water her.”
“That would be very bad, because mothers have to give their daughters cookies all the time.”
“Oh, like Grandma Olivia and Grandma Agnes give you cookies?”
“Yeah, but then they pat my stomach,” she said, stabbing toothpicks through the anchovy ham rolls. She hit the dead center of each one. She parted her own hair in the mornings with that same extreme precision. I think she observed her father’s work more closely than he might have guessed.
“Okay, so cookies yes, stomach pat no. What else?”
“You have to hide her.”
“Hide her?”
“Not all the time. Only sometimes. Like if a monster comes looking for her, you have to hide her.”
“Well, of course.”
“Even if the monster comes with a real nice smile and says ‘Excuse me, have you seen my friend Snow?’ you have to say ‘She’s not here! She’s gone to Russia.’”
“I’ll do better than that. I’ll say: ‘Snow? Who’s Snow?’”
She clapped her hands. “That’s good!”
“Anything else?”
“You have to come find me if I get lost.”
“Lost? Like in the woods?”
“Not just there. Anywhere.”
“Hmmmm. Let me think about that one. It’s a big job. Meanwhile, do you think you can get your daddy out of his workroom so he can help you dress?”
She threw her arms around my neck, gave me a kiss, and hopped down from the counter. What made her so trusting, so sure of people’s goodwill? If I was like her I wouldn’t have shrunk back later when Olivia Whitman draped a gray fur stole around my shoulders and said: “Happy birthday!” It felt expensive, thick to the touch but a lighter weight on the skin than it looked. Mrs. Fletcher asked: “Is that chinchilla?” and gave me a stern look, as if I were at fault for accepting it.
(The only thing I felt guilty of was already knowing that it was chinchilla fur—Olivia had worn it the week before, when she took me to see The Magic Flute in Worcester. We’d smoked cigars outside the opera house and she asked me how I liked the show. “Isn’t it marvelous?” she said. I said that as far as I could gather it was a tale about a woman who could be led out of captivity only by a man, and that the man could save her only by ignoring her.
“Correct,” she’d said.
“Uh . . . I really like the costumes,” I said.
Olivia switched my cigar from the left side of my mouth to the right side and looked approvingly at me through her opera glasses. “Yes, the tale is what you just said it is, but it’s also about two people who walk through fire and water together, unscathed because they are together. You’ll agree that that’s not a sentimentalinterpretation, that that’s literally what happens? The trials those two undergo are about being beyond words.”
I shivered, and she’d offered me the stole. “Chinchilla. It keeps you warm.” But I’d declined. Cuban cigars and chinchilla stoles; this was more Mia Cabrini’s scene, and I was better off not developing a taste for it.)
Olivia stood back, admiring the effect. “Yes, it never looked quite right on me. But Boy, you were born to wear this.”
Arturo
—
snow kept me company as I embraced The Joy of Cooking . She sat up on the counter with an apron over her dungarees and tasted the cake batter and the cream sauce for the chicken. She looked extremely doubtful about the cream sauce, but how sophisticated could her six-year-old palate be anyway?
“Maybe you’ll get a mother for your birthday,” she said. I dabbedthe end of her nose with a square of kitchen paper, even though there was nothing there.
“Who said I want a mother? Maybe I want a daughter.”
“What kind of daughter?” Snow said, with the air of a department store attendant, invisible stock list in hand.
“I said maybe. It depends. I might forget to feed and water her.”
“That would be very bad, because mothers have to give their daughters cookies all the time.”
“Oh, like Grandma Olivia and Grandma Agnes give you cookies?”
“Yeah, but then they pat my stomach,” she said, stabbing toothpicks through the anchovy ham rolls. She hit the dead center of each one. She parted her own hair in the mornings with that same extreme precision. I think she observed her father’s work more closely than he might have guessed.
“Okay, so cookies yes, stomach pat no. What else?”
“You have to hide her.”
“Hide her?”
“Not all the time. Only sometimes. Like if a monster comes looking for her, you have to hide her.”
“Well, of course.”
“Even if the monster comes with a real nice smile and says ‘Excuse me, have you seen my friend Snow?’ you have to say ‘She’s not here! She’s gone to Russia.’”
“I’ll do better than that. I’ll say: ‘Snow? Who’s Snow?’”
She clapped her hands. “That’s good!”
“Anything else?”
“You have to come find me if I get lost.”
“Lost? Like in the woods?”
“Not just there. Anywhere.”
“Hmmmm. Let me think about that one. It’s a big job. Meanwhile, do you think you can get your daddy out of his workroom so he can help you dress?”
She threw her arms around my neck, gave me a kiss, and hopped down from the counter. What made her so trusting, so sure of people’s goodwill? If I was like her I wouldn’t have shrunk back later when Olivia Whitman draped a gray fur stole around my shoulders and said: “Happy birthday!” It felt expensive, thick to the touch but a lighter weight on the skin than it looked. Mrs. Fletcher asked: “Is that chinchilla?” and gave me a stern look, as if I were at fault for accepting it.
(The only thing I felt guilty of was already knowing that it was chinchilla fur—Olivia had worn it the week before, when she took me to see The Magic Flute in Worcester. We’d smoked cigars outside the opera house and she asked me how I liked the show. “Isn’t it marvelous?” she said. I said that as far as I could gather it was a tale about a woman who could be led out of captivity only by a man, and that the man could save her only by ignoring her.
“Correct,” she’d said.
“Uh . . . I really like the costumes,” I said.
Olivia switched my cigar from the left side of my mouth to the right side and looked approvingly at me through her opera glasses. “Yes, the tale is what you just said it is, but it’s also about two people who walk through fire and water together, unscathed because they are together. You’ll agree that that’s not a sentimentalinterpretation, that that’s literally what happens? The trials those two undergo are about being beyond words.”
I shivered, and she’d offered me the stole. “Chinchilla. It keeps you warm.” But I’d declined. Cuban cigars and chinchilla stoles; this was more Mia Cabrini’s scene, and I was better off not developing a taste for it.)
Olivia stood back, admiring the effect. “Yes, it never looked quite right on me. But Boy, you were born to wear this.”
Arturo
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