doesn’t.”
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
The Girl Next Door
W ELL, THAT LITTLE EXPERIMENT IS OVER,“ my mother said. ”You tried it, it didn’t work out, so what do you say we just move on.“ She was dressed in her roll-up-the-shirtsleeves outfit: the faded turquoise skirt, a cotton head scarf, and one of the sporty blouses my father had bought in the hope she might take up golf. ”We’ll start with the kitchen,“ she said. ”That’s always the best way, isn’t it."
I was moving again. This time because of the neighbors.
“Oh, no,” my mother said. “They’re not to blame. Let’s be honest now.” She liked to take my problems back to the source, which was usually me. Like, for instance, when I got food poisoning it wasn’t the chef’s fault. “You’re the one who wanted to go Oriental. You’re the one who ordered the lomain.”
“Lo mein. It’s two words.”
“Oh, he speaks Chinese now! Tell me, Charlie Chan, what’s the word for six straight hours of vomiting and diarrhea?”
What she meant was that I’d tried to save money. The cheap Chinese restaurant, the seventy-five-dollar-a-month apartment: “Cut corners and it’ll always come back to bite you in the ass.” That was one of her sayings. But if you didn’t have money how could you not cut corners?
“And whose fault is it that you don’t have any money? I’m not the one who turned up his nose at a full-time job. I’m not the one who spends his entire paycheck down at the hobby shop.”
“I understand that.”
“Well, good,” she said, and then we began to wrap the breakables.
In my version of the story, the problem began with the child next door, a third-grader who, according to my mother, was bad news right from the start. “Put it together,” she’d said when I first called to tell her about it. “Take a step back. Think.”
But what was there to think about? She was a nine-year-old girl.
“Oh, they’re the worst,” my mother said. “What’s her name? Brandi? Well, that’s cheap, isn’t it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but aren’t I talking to someone who named her daughter Tiffany?”
“My hands were tied!” she shouted. “The damned Greeks had me against the wall and you know it.”
“Whatever you say.”
“So this girl,” my mother continued — and I knew what she would ask before she even said it. “What does her father do?”
I told her there wasn’t a father, at least not one that I knew about, and then I waited as she lit a fresh cigarette. “Let’s see,” she said. “Nine-year-old girl named after an alcoholic beverage. Single mother in a neighborhood the police won’t even go to. What else have you got for me?” She spoke as if I’d formed these people out of clay, as if it were my fault that the girl was nine years old and her mother couldn’t keep a husband. “I don’t suppose this woman has a job, does she?”
“She’s a bartender.”
“Oh, that’s splendid,” my mother said. “Go on.”
The woman worked nights and left her daughter alone from four in the afternoon until two or three in the morning. Both were blond, their hair almost white, with invisible eyebrows and lashes. The mother darkened hers with pencil, but the girl appeared to have none at all. Her face was like the weather in one of those places with no discernible seasons. Every now and then, the circles beneath her eyes would shade to purple. She might show up with a fat lip or a scratch on her neck but her features betrayed nothing.
You had to feel sorry for a girl like that. No father, no eyebrows, and that mother. Our apartments shared a common wall, and every night I’d hear the woman stomping home from work. Most often she was with someone, but whether alone or with company she’d find some excuse to bully her daughter out of bed. Brandi had left a doughnut on the TV or Brandi had forgotten to drain her bathwater. They’re important lessons to learn, but there’s something to be said for leading
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
The Girl Next Door
W ELL, THAT LITTLE EXPERIMENT IS OVER,“ my mother said. ”You tried it, it didn’t work out, so what do you say we just move on.“ She was dressed in her roll-up-the-shirtsleeves outfit: the faded turquoise skirt, a cotton head scarf, and one of the sporty blouses my father had bought in the hope she might take up golf. ”We’ll start with the kitchen,“ she said. ”That’s always the best way, isn’t it."
I was moving again. This time because of the neighbors.
“Oh, no,” my mother said. “They’re not to blame. Let’s be honest now.” She liked to take my problems back to the source, which was usually me. Like, for instance, when I got food poisoning it wasn’t the chef’s fault. “You’re the one who wanted to go Oriental. You’re the one who ordered the lomain.”
“Lo mein. It’s two words.”
“Oh, he speaks Chinese now! Tell me, Charlie Chan, what’s the word for six straight hours of vomiting and diarrhea?”
What she meant was that I’d tried to save money. The cheap Chinese restaurant, the seventy-five-dollar-a-month apartment: “Cut corners and it’ll always come back to bite you in the ass.” That was one of her sayings. But if you didn’t have money how could you not cut corners?
“And whose fault is it that you don’t have any money? I’m not the one who turned up his nose at a full-time job. I’m not the one who spends his entire paycheck down at the hobby shop.”
“I understand that.”
“Well, good,” she said, and then we began to wrap the breakables.
In my version of the story, the problem began with the child next door, a third-grader who, according to my mother, was bad news right from the start. “Put it together,” she’d said when I first called to tell her about it. “Take a step back. Think.”
But what was there to think about? She was a nine-year-old girl.
“Oh, they’re the worst,” my mother said. “What’s her name? Brandi? Well, that’s cheap, isn’t it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but aren’t I talking to someone who named her daughter Tiffany?”
“My hands were tied!” she shouted. “The damned Greeks had me against the wall and you know it.”
“Whatever you say.”
“So this girl,” my mother continued — and I knew what she would ask before she even said it. “What does her father do?”
I told her there wasn’t a father, at least not one that I knew about, and then I waited as she lit a fresh cigarette. “Let’s see,” she said. “Nine-year-old girl named after an alcoholic beverage. Single mother in a neighborhood the police won’t even go to. What else have you got for me?” She spoke as if I’d formed these people out of clay, as if it were my fault that the girl was nine years old and her mother couldn’t keep a husband. “I don’t suppose this woman has a job, does she?”
“She’s a bartender.”
“Oh, that’s splendid,” my mother said. “Go on.”
The woman worked nights and left her daughter alone from four in the afternoon until two or three in the morning. Both were blond, their hair almost white, with invisible eyebrows and lashes. The mother darkened hers with pencil, but the girl appeared to have none at all. Her face was like the weather in one of those places with no discernible seasons. Every now and then, the circles beneath her eyes would shade to purple. She might show up with a fat lip or a scratch on her neck but her features betrayed nothing.
You had to feel sorry for a girl like that. No father, no eyebrows, and that mother. Our apartments shared a common wall, and every night I’d hear the woman stomping home from work. Most often she was with someone, but whether alone or with company she’d find some excuse to bully her daughter out of bed. Brandi had left a doughnut on the TV or Brandi had forgotten to drain her bathwater. They’re important lessons to learn, but there’s something to be said for leading
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