Daughter Dearest

The phone in the kitchen demands attention.

            I sprint to answer it, holler through the house as I run. “I got it.” I grab the mustard receiver from its wall mount and press it to my ear. “Hello?”

            “Hey. What’re you doing?” It’s Karen, my best friend. She only lives a block away but it’s too cold and too late on a school night to meet on the corner to yack. I stretch the phone cord taut and huddle, legs criss-crossed-applesauce, in a corner of the dining room. 

             I cover my mouth so Mom can’t hear me. “Algebra, but it can wait. What’re you doing?”

            Karen and I chat for over an hour. Even though supper was ages ago, Mom doesn’t leave the kitchen. At one point I hear her announce to no one in particular, “Think I’ll make Toll House cookies.”

             More than once I spy her shadow as she hovers near the doorway. I twist myself even closer to the china cabinet, tuck the phone between me and the wall. 

~~~~~~~       

One day during my lunch hour in downtown Cincinnati (I lived and worked there in the 80s), I was walking toward Fountain Square and these two gals—mother and daughter—came at me, arm in arm. The younger woman’s grin was the spitting image of her mom’s.   When I stepped in front of them, they stopped walking and talking, their limbs suddenly stiff, their eyes wide.

            The mom gathered her girl close. “Yes?”

            “You all don’t know how lucky you are,” I said. I swatted my hand at their togetherness. “I wish— I wish me and my mom were like you two.” I blinked away the burn of close tears.

            In that moment, they seemed to melt. The mother reached out tentatively, rested her manicured hand on my forearm.

            “Why, you should tell her that, honey. Surely she wants the same.”

            I bit my lip and shook my head. “Nah, we’ll never be like you two. Enjoy what you have.” Before they could say anything else, I ducked inside Lazarus Department Store.

~~~~~~~

A couple years back, I got to thinking about the Ten Commandments, the one that says honor your father and mother.  I did okay with Dad but Mom was different. We were never  close but that afternoon as I puttered around the house, I thought maybe, just maybe, things'd be better if I came up with a list of good stuff I remember instead of . . .  

            I arranged myself, my journal, and fountain pen at the dining room table, cradled a mug of coffee, drew its hazelnut steam into my nostrils. Seconds then minutes passed as I tapped my pen on my front teeth, crinkled my forehead, and waited for good stuff to arrive. Then all of a sudden, there it was: good stuff.

            I like scallops, but Mom loved them first.

            My mother adores stories. I do too.     

            Mom used to take me shopping and in between Stone and Thomas and Nassar's, at McCrory’s five and dime, we'd order club sandwiches, wavy Lay's potato chips, and made-in-front-of-you cherry Cokes.

            "This'll pick us up," Mom always said.

            In the evenings, we’d sit side by side on the sofa and she’d teach me how to embroider. My French knots never got as good as hers.

            My mother was a nurse. I never told her but I thought that was pretty cool. She got so freaked out when my brothers beat each other up, it was hard to believe she could stomach blood and guts. From the hallway outside her bedroom, I used to watch her bobby pin her stiff and quirky nurse’s cap into her dark curls. No one told me how much I resembled her, not till years later.

            Sometimes we'd dress up and drive downtown to the Elephant Room in the Hotel Frederick for lunch. I’d clutch the armrests of my chair as the sweet, super old waiter with shiny mahogany skin scooted my chair in. I’d peek under the snowy table cloth to watch my patent leather Mary Jane shoes dangle above the plush, crimson carpet.

            When the waiter asked for our drink orders I’d cross my gloved hands in my lap and peer up at him.

            "May I have a Shirley Temple, please? With two maraschino cherries on a pink plastic sword?"

            Every year, out in our backyard when the weather warmed, Mom showed me how to grow lilies of the valley, zinnias, and Shasta daisies.

            "Poke your finger inside there," she'd say as we crouched beside a clump of snapdragons. "It's like a tiny mouth, don't you think?”          

            On summer mornings our Keds sneakers would leave green trails in the silver dew as we made our way to the pussy willow bush on our property’s edge. Mom would smile as she stroked the furry catkins.

            "Don't they feel like kitten paws?"

            I don't remember Mom saying no much.

            "Since I'm in fourth grade now, can I have my birthday party at the roller rink?” I asked her that one night as I sliced green olives for the salad.

            “That sounds fun.”

            One evening as we watered the garden I presented her with my heart’s desire.

            "Can I take horseback riding lessons with Karen? I checked, a half hour lesson costs ten bucks."

            “I think we can manage that.”

            “I’ve had my driver’s license a month now. Is it okay if I take the car tonight?”

            “Ask your father.”

            “Can I go to Myrtle Beach with Suzy, Stretch, and Natalie after graduation?”

            “Is it okay with their folks?”

            Mom did tell me no once, after she found Suzy's Eve cigarettes in my room, in a drawer, under my undies.

            "Do not ever, ever smoke cigarettes,” Mom said. Her mouth was a thin, coral-colored line. “You'll die of cancer. My best friend from high school's husband had to get a talk box put in his throat because of cigarettes."

            “But you smoke.”

            “That’s beside the point.” I whimpered as she gripped my wrist hard and marched me into the bathroom.          

            "But Mom, they're not mine. Suz— This girl I know asked me to hold them for her and I forgot to give ’em back. I swear."

            She pursed her lips and squinted. "Nice try. Now flush them this instant. I mean it.”

~~~~~~~

For the past few years, from time to time, I’ve been sending her my stories, some of them real, some not. I fold then crease them, tuck the pages into the stamped and addressed envelopes and hand them to the mailman. It’s wonderful to get real mail these days, not just bills. I wonder if Mom feels like she’s getting a present when she opens her mailbox and sees a letter from me?    

            When the phone rings these days I squint at the caller I.D. screen. Is it her? What’d she think of the last story I sent? Did she think I did good?

            “I liked your latest story,” she told me just the other day. “You’re getting better, you know.”

            Now here I sit with this one. And a stamped addressed envelope. It’s almost Mother’s Day. To send or not to . . . 

*French Kiss*

Back then, I hadn’t mastered the art of finding a flaw, hadn’t even thought of it yet, of protecting myself from little crushes with a prayer. Show me, God. Reveal something undesirable about this guy—halitosis, a lousy work ethic, a collection of naked Skipper dolls—that’ll make this constant thought of what if go away.

            I don’t remember the year. It’s not important. I can tell you where he worked though. At the change bank under the Arc de Triomphe, in the shade of it.

            The guy at the window next to him was tall, very. His smile was wonderful, so friendly, but he wasn’t beautiful. Not like Eric. Eric’s skin reminded me of crème brulee—the custard underneath, not the crispy, bubbled brown top. His eyes? They were polar ice water blue. How do you say that in French? Je ne sais pas. His gaze was intense. I wanted to ask if his eyes were tired because I never saw him blink. Ever. His lips looked like Cabernet, as if he’d recently taken a sip sans a glass. Just put his mouth in a vat of it. Juicy. What would that taste like? I felt heat in my cheeks at the possibility.

            I thought about him each day, in every country. Switzerland. Germany. Italy. Greece. The last time I saw him he’d pressed a bank business card into my palm.

            “Call me. The minute, no, the second, you return to France. Oui?”

            I tucked a wisp of hair behind my ears and smiled. “Oui.”

~~~~~~~

My tummy simmered when I called him from the payphone at Charles de Gaulle two months later.

            “Bonjour, Eric. C’est moi. Je suis ici, a  Paris.”

            “That is so great,” he said. His voice was soft, a whisper. “Will you have dinner with me? Ce soir?”

            My heart revved. “Yes. Oui.”

            I barely remember the meal except for the garlicky, buttery, snails and the wine, le tres bon vin. He wanted to order Ile Flottante—that floating island dessert—but I put my hand over my mouth.

            “I can’t eat another bite,” I said, “but I’ll have more wine, s’il vous plait.”

            He worked at the label, to peel it off for me.

            “It is from Alsace, my favorite wine region,” he said. “If you like, we can go to Reims and taste its champagne. I have an uncle there who would—”

            I sighed and shook my head. “I can’t, Eric. I have to go home, to America.”

            He buried his face in his hands, pretended to sob. “I will die. You will take my heart with you when you go.”

            I squeezed my chair seat with both hands and leaned across the table. “Silly boy.”

            He made his eyes big, pushed his bottom lip out. “It is true. Surely I will perish when you depart.”

            I glanced at my watch. “We should go. I have to catch an early hovercraft back to England tomorrow.”

~~~~~~~

We held hands inside his olive green Renault, over the gear shift. The moonlight came through the windshield, turned his creamy skin luminous. He made little brushstrokes on each of my fingernails, pressed my knuckles to his mouth. I wanted his lips on mine, not on my hands. I had to know, had to, if this was as good as that. If he, French boy, could be more wonderful than him, American guy. What if my man back home (Je sais. Je suis terrible!) wasn’t the one after all?

            It all depends on the kiss, you know. If you can’t kiss, if you’re not really good at it, what can you do? If you can’t melt chocolate with the promise of your lips, make its velvety sweetness drip and ooze so the other person wants to slurp up every drop, can you really love? Is it possible you can live well? I don’t think so. Everything rides on mouth-to-mouth contact. They should teach it in school. Well, college.

            I tried to speak without words, narrowed my eyes, mouth breathed. Come closer. Don’t wait for me. Be the man. Kiss me. And please, let it be wonderful.

            He leaned toward me but his seatbelt stopped him. I released it. He fell against me. I nudged him back so we were face to face then I closed my eyes, felt his breath on my cheek, smelled wine, café au lait. I smiled, softened.

            All of a sudden he was on me. What I wanted, but not. Everything was hard, sharp, open. Wrong. I retreated inside myself, like a snail, felt the coolness of the window through my hair.

            “?Qu'est-ce que c'est?”

            I squinted at the windshield. “Nothing.”

            He gathered my hands in his again, inspected them. “I must tell you one thing.”

            My inhale sounded hissy, disappointed. “Yes? Oui?”

            “Je suis marié.”

            I shook my head. “You’re Mary?” I said. “What does that mean?”

            His mouth hitched to one side. “Non. I am not Mary. I am Eric. I mean to say, I am married.”

            My stomach lurched. For a moment I thought the snails inside me had come to life. They crawled, slimed.

            “You’re married? Really?”

            “Really. But it is no good.”

            I huffed, chuckled, rolled my eyes. All at once. “Of course it’s not.”

            He came at me again, confirmed the fact, the facts. He’s not better. He’s not the one.

            I made my hands parentheses on his face to stop him, to show him.

            “Ici. Pour votre femme.”

            He tilted his head, squinted. “For my wife? What?”

            “Oui,” I said. “Pour votre femme. You must kiss her slow and small—petite, so she wants more—plus.”

            I opened my mouth in a silent roar, traced a circle in front of it with my pointer finger.

            “When your mouth is this big, it’s hard. To kiss, it should be soft, yielding. Accepting, giving. Comprenez-vous?”

            He crossed his arms, sagged a little. “Oui. Je sais. I am no good.”

            I focused on his lips, pressed my pinkie into the center of his bottom one.

            “But you can learn,” I said. “Make her ache, Eric, and burn. Pour vous.”

            He leaned toward me. “Like this?”

            I cupped my hand over his Cabernet smile. “Save it,” I whispered, “for her.”

            He sat back, shut his eyes, sighed. I returned to my side of the car, buckled my seat belt. And I’ll save it, for him.

Afraid Again . . . Naturally

I am afraid. Again. An ordinary woman with extra ordinary concerns, surely more than the average female.

            The fear comes to greet me each time a child prepares to fly-be-free. Anxiety bids me to taste it and I obey, cannot resist though I know the flavor hasn’t changed, has not improved one whit since the last time.

            Afraid’s mouthfeel is that of rust, peat moss, a scab slicked by a child’s tongue then dried by the wind. Burnt Sienna Crayon flaked on a box grater. A crushed cigarette eaten with no water to wash it down.

            Is all fear—of life, not death—like this? Suffocating, strangling? Causing one to quake like corn kernels in a heated and covered pot, skittering frenetically in order to avoid death by drowning in high temperature olive oil (not canola oil as it is really RAPEseed oil).

            Surely death, or considerable damage at the very least, is inevitable if I grant my fists permission to unfurl. Instead I clutch my balled hands in my lap, relocate them after a time to beneath my thighs so as to prevent their becoming manacles around her delicate wrists, the means by which I hold her here, close to my heart, gasping for breath.

            All I want is one person to acknowledge my angst, recognize it as a higher form of love. I need someone to watch me cup my hand over my mouth to silence my sobs, my keening. Will someone please applaud as I murmur, “You can be anything, accomplish whatever you set your mind to. I’m sure of it.”

            For eighteen years I’ve known this was coming, the severance of a second umbilical cord, this one invisible—a rope of me, her, her papa, and God—encased in a gleaming moist sheath which is love. It thrums with the possibility that each goodbye may be the last. Unseen hands tug the strand from “gone forever” to “wildly successful and full of joy.”

            Someone please fetch that box over there, the one lacquered almost black with open heart pink satin lining. Inside I’ll arrange the grayed strips of paper which when ordered correctly read: I can take better care of her than she can, He can.

            Now I need a brick, a hammer, or a gun so I can obliterate the square in one fluid WHAM! Next I’ll locate a sheet of diaphanous yet metallic vellum and a pen with silver ink. At the dining room table I’ll make loops and swirls on scratch paper to guarantee flow then I’ll form calligraphy letters big as baby fingers: I TRUST. After I trim the statement, the affirmation, I’ll fold it again and again till it’s the size of a vein, a whisper.

            Where is the wee velvet box my husband snapped open on a pier over the ocean two decades plus ago? I’ll tuck my trust wisp into its white satin cleft, let the lid bite shut then nestle it at the bottom of a fireproof chest hidden in the secret place. Surely it, she, will be safe then . . .