shoulders are cold. She lies in bed and worries some more.
Her class. She must prepare for tomorrow’s class. And Leah. She must build herself some armour.
In the morning, while the kids and Lew sleep in, she makes coffee and takes it to her desk upstairs, and there she sits remembering the previous week – the last week of November, when for a day or two it was unexpectedly warm and she became aware of the birds singing and the highway going on and the wind picking up.
Life isn’t so bad, though it would be better, it would be much better, without wind chimes. Listen to them. Listen to them ruining my life.They sound like Auntie Muriel clicking and sucking her false teeth. To be twenty-one, to he at Covent Garden, to be listening for the first time in my life to
Carmen
and to have it ruined by my opera-singing auntie with the blue eyeshadow and the great crooked nose that turned black in the cold and the long fingernails painted red except where the paint had chipped away – to have it ruined by my dear old auntie clicking her teeth and humming over the arias. Is it any wonder? Is it any wonder that Iget depressed?
Ottawa has done this to me. Ottawa has sucked the juices from my brain and the marrow from my bones. But I can’t say so or Lew’s eyes will light up and he’ll exclaim: Montreal. Cuba. Brazil
.
One night earlier in the week, when they were lying in bed together, she said, “I am one-third my mother and two-thirds my father. One day out of three I work hard, everything interests me, I am glad to be alive. Two days out of three I rot. I sulk. I’m incapable of anything but self-pity. My mother should have married someone else. She should have married an Asian.”
Lew, only half listening, said, “You think you’d do better if your dad was an agent?”
“Okay. My mother should have married an Asian agent. Then my book would be a howling success
and” –
returning to her own point – “I wouldn’t have so much body hair.”
The hair on her legs was thickening as was the hair on bucktoothed beavers in their lodges and glutted raccoons in their holes. It would continue to grow and flourish until the end of April, when the summer harvest would begin. Then she would take a razor to her legs and the yield would be enough for a little fur coat. She could sell these coats, she thought. If
that
failed, if worst came to worst, and no doubt it would, she might develop a line of gum makeup. She had acres of gums. Voltaire on Canada?Nothing but a few acres of snow? Well. Check out these few acres of gums.
She tried out her idea on Dinah. “You’re a career woman,” she said, “what do you think?”
“A career woman? I was fired ten days ago.”
“Dinah.”
“Not to worry. I’ve already lined things up. Dinah Bloom, speech writer.”
“So you’re all right?”
“And as a career woman with a new career, I think gum makeup has a great future, so long as you do a little modelling on the side.”
They had watched
Bells Are Ringing
not long ago, and as soon as Judy Holliday began to sing about the Bonjour Tristesse Brassiere Factory, where she did a little modelling on the side, Harriet took a page from her daughter’s book and said, “I’m her.”
“You can’t be Judy Holliday,” said Dinah. “You’re Greta Garbo.”
“I can be Judy. I have room for
many
enthusiasms.”
“Okay. Have it your way. But I’m Audrey Hepburn.”
“We’re
both
Audrey.”
Dinah looked at Jane and Kenny. “Your mother,” she said, “is out of control.”
Dear Pauline
, wrote Harriet the morning after
Bells Are Ringing. Now I’m in love with Dean Martin. Tell me. What is it, exactly, that makes him so sexy? Dinah says he has the look and manner of someone from her father’s generation, the sort who only has to say, Hi, dollface, and you feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven. But Dinah is cruderthan I am. To say nothing of older. I would say it’s his relaxed but ardent humour, his easy good
Her class. She must prepare for tomorrow’s class. And Leah. She must build herself some armour.
In the morning, while the kids and Lew sleep in, she makes coffee and takes it to her desk upstairs, and there she sits remembering the previous week – the last week of November, when for a day or two it was unexpectedly warm and she became aware of the birds singing and the highway going on and the wind picking up.
Life isn’t so bad, though it would be better, it would be much better, without wind chimes. Listen to them. Listen to them ruining my life.They sound like Auntie Muriel clicking and sucking her false teeth. To be twenty-one, to he at Covent Garden, to be listening for the first time in my life to
Carmen
and to have it ruined by my opera-singing auntie with the blue eyeshadow and the great crooked nose that turned black in the cold and the long fingernails painted red except where the paint had chipped away – to have it ruined by my dear old auntie clicking her teeth and humming over the arias. Is it any wonder? Is it any wonder that Iget depressed?
Ottawa has done this to me. Ottawa has sucked the juices from my brain and the marrow from my bones. But I can’t say so or Lew’s eyes will light up and he’ll exclaim: Montreal. Cuba. Brazil
.
One night earlier in the week, when they were lying in bed together, she said, “I am one-third my mother and two-thirds my father. One day out of three I work hard, everything interests me, I am glad to be alive. Two days out of three I rot. I sulk. I’m incapable of anything but self-pity. My mother should have married someone else. She should have married an Asian.”
Lew, only half listening, said, “You think you’d do better if your dad was an agent?”
“Okay. My mother should have married an Asian agent. Then my book would be a howling success
and” –
returning to her own point – “I wouldn’t have so much body hair.”
The hair on her legs was thickening as was the hair on bucktoothed beavers in their lodges and glutted raccoons in their holes. It would continue to grow and flourish until the end of April, when the summer harvest would begin. Then she would take a razor to her legs and the yield would be enough for a little fur coat. She could sell these coats, she thought. If
that
failed, if worst came to worst, and no doubt it would, she might develop a line of gum makeup. She had acres of gums. Voltaire on Canada?Nothing but a few acres of snow? Well. Check out these few acres of gums.
She tried out her idea on Dinah. “You’re a career woman,” she said, “what do you think?”
“A career woman? I was fired ten days ago.”
“Dinah.”
“Not to worry. I’ve already lined things up. Dinah Bloom, speech writer.”
“So you’re all right?”
“And as a career woman with a new career, I think gum makeup has a great future, so long as you do a little modelling on the side.”
They had watched
Bells Are Ringing
not long ago, and as soon as Judy Holliday began to sing about the Bonjour Tristesse Brassiere Factory, where she did a little modelling on the side, Harriet took a page from her daughter’s book and said, “I’m her.”
“You can’t be Judy Holliday,” said Dinah. “You’re Greta Garbo.”
“I can be Judy. I have room for
many
enthusiasms.”
“Okay. Have it your way. But I’m Audrey Hepburn.”
“We’re
both
Audrey.”
Dinah looked at Jane and Kenny. “Your mother,” she said, “is out of control.”
Dear Pauline
, wrote Harriet the morning after
Bells Are Ringing. Now I’m in love with Dean Martin. Tell me. What is it, exactly, that makes him so sexy? Dinah says he has the look and manner of someone from her father’s generation, the sort who only has to say, Hi, dollface, and you feel like you’ve died and gone to heaven. But Dinah is cruderthan I am. To say nothing of older. I would say it’s his relaxed but ardent humour, his easy good
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