with those wands, leaving brief trails as we trucked down. Right before we went inside, Eli pulled my head back so I’d look up. Millions of sharp, small stars; it was dizzying how far the sky went back. The smell of the pine pressed close to us. This was a different kind of vacation than we’d taken before. I asked my mom if I could recite my poem for ten dollars. I was cleaned out. She told me sure, then had me turn around while the Boops pulled pajama tops over their heads.
I tripped through “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.”
“Tea and Waffle Maid?” Boop Two said, from inside her top. The Boops lived on frozen waffles.
I’d made two tiny errors. My mom told me to practice more.
“Oh, honey, I think articles are fungible,” Eli said. “May I pay him?” He gave me a twenty and said, “I have another Yeats for you.”
When you are old and grey and full of sleep ,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book ,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace ,
And loved your beauty with love false or true ,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you ,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars ,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars .
He was sad, I thought, because she didn’t remember his hometown. She loved him, though; I could see that. I used to count on being able to enchant her: with chess, the suspenders I snapped against my shirt when I was small, the night of paper airplanes. But now, Eli could. More. Even with his twenty in my pocket, I didn’t like that.
My sister whispered to me in the dark, “If Mom married Eli, would he still bring presents or would he get like Dad, not wanting to spoil me?”
“Like Dad,” I said.
The next day, on our way home, we stopped and wandered through the grounds of Caltech. On the highway, Eli said to the Mims, “After you drop them at Cary’s, I’ll take you somewhere you can wear that dress. To a place where we’ll hear trains at night.”
“What are you doing, Mom, while we’re gone?” Boop Two asked. She never liked being away from the Mims.
“Eli’s staying.”
They were playing some game in the front seat, handing back and forth my mom’s small graph-paper notebook. She wrote something, and then he did.
Keep your hand on the steering wheel , I felt like saying.
“Thank you, sweetie,” he said after he read her move. “I won’t hold you to it.”
31 • A Graph-Paper Contract
Then we flew to Boston. On my dad’s side, we had traditions, too. Each year we met in a new city and shopped. We all loved the great American malls. We ate in restaurants my aunts and uncles had read about; though they didn’t cook, the Harts appreciated food. My sisters and I talked about the cabin among ourselves, but we liked this, too. For Hanukkah we each got eight presents. We didn’t light the candles and receive one every night the way Simon’s family did. We skipped the candles altogether and got the presents all at once. I missed Hector. But he wasn’t home either; they’d gone on another epic road trip.
By the time we returned to LA on Christmas Eve, Eli had vanished. He was working in the DC shelter again, my mom told us; he’d fly to Wisconsin in the morning. What about his brother? I remembered all of a sudden. Was Hugo just alone? Why didn’t Eli go there, instead of to the shelter? For that matter, couldn’t he have brought Hugo here? I hoped the Mims had invited him. Maybe she hadn’t. She should have. But then she’d forgotten Eli’s birthday.
The doorbell rang, and Charlie stood there, buttoned into adress shirt, holding a ridged glass canister filled with roses, holly, and pine. Every year, Sare gave presents with one flea-market component and something else she made. Last year, she delivered alcoholic eggnog in antique jugs. I
I tripped through “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.”
“Tea and Waffle Maid?” Boop Two said, from inside her top. The Boops lived on frozen waffles.
I’d made two tiny errors. My mom told me to practice more.
“Oh, honey, I think articles are fungible,” Eli said. “May I pay him?” He gave me a twenty and said, “I have another Yeats for you.”
When you are old and grey and full of sleep ,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book ,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace ,
And loved your beauty with love false or true ,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you ,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars ,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars .
He was sad, I thought, because she didn’t remember his hometown. She loved him, though; I could see that. I used to count on being able to enchant her: with chess, the suspenders I snapped against my shirt when I was small, the night of paper airplanes. But now, Eli could. More. Even with his twenty in my pocket, I didn’t like that.
My sister whispered to me in the dark, “If Mom married Eli, would he still bring presents or would he get like Dad, not wanting to spoil me?”
“Like Dad,” I said.
The next day, on our way home, we stopped and wandered through the grounds of Caltech. On the highway, Eli said to the Mims, “After you drop them at Cary’s, I’ll take you somewhere you can wear that dress. To a place where we’ll hear trains at night.”
“What are you doing, Mom, while we’re gone?” Boop Two asked. She never liked being away from the Mims.
“Eli’s staying.”
They were playing some game in the front seat, handing back and forth my mom’s small graph-paper notebook. She wrote something, and then he did.
Keep your hand on the steering wheel , I felt like saying.
“Thank you, sweetie,” he said after he read her move. “I won’t hold you to it.”
31 • A Graph-Paper Contract
Then we flew to Boston. On my dad’s side, we had traditions, too. Each year we met in a new city and shopped. We all loved the great American malls. We ate in restaurants my aunts and uncles had read about; though they didn’t cook, the Harts appreciated food. My sisters and I talked about the cabin among ourselves, but we liked this, too. For Hanukkah we each got eight presents. We didn’t light the candles and receive one every night the way Simon’s family did. We skipped the candles altogether and got the presents all at once. I missed Hector. But he wasn’t home either; they’d gone on another epic road trip.
By the time we returned to LA on Christmas Eve, Eli had vanished. He was working in the DC shelter again, my mom told us; he’d fly to Wisconsin in the morning. What about his brother? I remembered all of a sudden. Was Hugo just alone? Why didn’t Eli go there, instead of to the shelter? For that matter, couldn’t he have brought Hugo here? I hoped the Mims had invited him. Maybe she hadn’t. She should have. But then she’d forgotten Eli’s birthday.
The doorbell rang, and Charlie stood there, buttoned into adress shirt, holding a ridged glass canister filled with roses, holly, and pine. Every year, Sare gave presents with one flea-market component and something else she made. Last year, she delivered alcoholic eggnog in antique jugs. I
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