Flavor of the Month by Goldsmith Olivia Page B

the chair in front of the vanity table. She stared into the triple mirrors. She picked up the Victorian silver-backed brush, and began to run it through the accumulation of knots at the back of her usually silky red hair. “What I don’t understand,” she said, as she strained against a tangle, “is how my own mother could have absolutely no regard for my feelings. She manipulated me into this engagement, but she didn’t do it for me .” Lila dropped the brush, helpless against the snarls, and turned to Aunt Robbie, who was now sitting on the end of the bed, legs crossed, one skated foot swinging slowly.
    “It’s called narcissism!” Robbie said. “I’ve known your mother a long time and I love her, but I can’t say I’ve always liked her. Still, Lila, you have to try to remember there are reasons why people are the way they are.” Rob’s foot stopped moving. “Do you know anything about her childhood?” he asked.
    “Oh, give me a break! Are we going to start that bit about how she went to her first audition in L.A. through the snow without shoes?” Lila snapped.
    “You know, Lila, the only training for being a good parent is having a good parent. She didn’t, so she raised you the same way she developed a career—by the seat of her pants.” Lila angrily stood up and started walking toward the door. “No, wait, you’ve got to hear this,” Robbie continued. “Do you think you could do any better raising a child than she did, Lila? Given the way you were raised?”
    “ I’m not having children.”
    “But if you did?”
    “I’d like to think I would do better,” Lila said.
    “That’s my point. So did Theresa. And she did do better than her folks did to her.” Robbie got up.
    They both stood in silence for a moment; then Aunt Robbie skated back over to the open window. He looked out at his lover, Ken, who was cleaning the pool wearing only a tiny chartreuse Speedo swimsuit. Suddenly Robbie shouted to Ken: “Mary, what did I tell you about wearing that marble bag? You look ridiculous!” He turned back to Lila as if there had been no interruption.
    Lila had to smile and look, too. She could see Ken moving the pole of the pool vacuum slowly up and down on the sides of the pool, as if he hadn’t even heard Robbie’s voice. Someone else was with him, she could see.
    “Look at this, Lila.”
    “Like I haven’t seen Ken in his bathing suit before,” Lila said, more grumpily than she felt. “Why don’t you leave him alone? You know he never listens to you.” Lila paused, looked at Robbie’s getup, and then laughed. “And how can you say he looks ridiculous?”
    “No, I don’t mean Ken. Do you see that girl sitting on the chaise longue talking to Ken?”
    “You mean the little black kid?” Lila asked.
    “That’s Simone Duchesne, the star of the TV show Opposites Attract . And she’s no kid. She’s twenty-two.”
    “ That’s Simone Duchesne? But I thought Simone was the same age as her character—about six or seven.”
    “Yeah,” sighed Robbie. “So does everyone else. She only looks like a kid. She has a benign tumor on her adrenal gland. It stunted her growth. It could have been removed by simple surgery when it was first discovered, but her parents—who, by the way, managed her—decided against it. Now it’s too late.”
    “Why?” Lila asked, though the feeling in the pit of her stomach told her she already knew.
    “They say they were too poor. But, hey, if she’d grown normally, she would have outgrown the TV role. The parents chose the money instead.”
    “Poor kid. I mean, woman,” Lila said and shivered. “So is she after Ken?” she asked.
    “Oh, no, she’s asexual,” Robbie said. “Her parents robbed her of that, too, when they wouldn’t allow the surgery. No, she’s just become attached to Ken, follows him around like a puppy dog. You know what a good listener Ken is. They met on the show. Ken did the lighting for it.” Robbie came away from the