Favorite Literary Quotes or Passages
- Thread starter caitlin1214
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OMG Rileygirl- I adore Pablo Neruda, especially White Bee, here is some of it...
White bee, you buzz in my soul, drunk with honey,
and your flight winds in slow spirals of smoke.
I am the one without hope, the word without echoes,
he who lost everything and he who had everything.
Last hawser, in you creaks my last longing.
In my barren land you are the final rose.
Ah you who are silent!
Here is the solitude from which you are absent.
It is raining. The sea wind is hunting stray gulls.
The water walks barefoot in the wet streets.
From that tree the leaves complain as though they were sick.
White bee, even when you are gone you buzz in my soul
You live again in time, slender and silent.
Ah you who are silent!
I love Oscar Wilde (he's so funny), so here's a few quotes:
"Crying is the refuge of plain women. Pretty women go shopping."
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."
"I am not young enough to know everything."
"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about at all."
"My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people's."
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
This next one is from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare. I'm quoting this from memory, so it might not be the exact words:
"Your virtue is my priviledge.
For that, it is not night when I do see your face,
therefore I think I am not in the night.
Nor does this woods lack worlds of company,
for you, in my respect, are all the world.
Then how can it be said I am alone,
when all the world is here to look on me?"
"Crying is the refuge of plain women. Pretty women go shopping."
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."
"I am not young enough to know everything."
"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about at all."
"My own business always bores me to death. I prefer other people's."
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
This next one is from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare. I'm quoting this from memory, so it might not be the exact words:
"Your virtue is my priviledge.
For that, it is not night when I do see your face,
therefore I think I am not in the night.
Nor does this woods lack worlds of company,
for you, in my respect, are all the world.
Then how can it be said I am alone,
when all the world is here to look on me?"
My current favorite passage:
"Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
For now I see the true old times are dead,
When every morning brought a noble chance,
And every chance brought out a noble knight...
And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds."
Tennyson, Idylls of the King
That would probably make more sense if I gave some of its original context: Sir Bedivere, one of the knights of the round table, is speaking to King Arthur as he is dying
Here's one of my fave quotes, though the Author is eluding me at the moment...I'll remember eventually hah:
"Let us love life, for life is cruel but it is innocent of wrong doing and we are tough as nails...what does not kill me makes me stronger, happier, more sublime."
"Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
For now I see the true old times are dead,
When every morning brought a noble chance,
And every chance brought out a noble knight...
And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds."
Tennyson, Idylls of the King
That would probably make more sense if I gave some of its original context: Sir Bedivere, one of the knights of the round table, is speaking to King Arthur as he is dying
Here's one of my fave quotes, though the Author is eluding me at the moment...I'll remember eventually hah:
"Let us love life, for life is cruel but it is innocent of wrong doing and we are tough as nails...what does not kill me makes me stronger, happier, more sublime."
From The Wives of Bath by Wendy Holden:
He looked swiftly about him. The sight of so many pregnant women made him nervous. Their stomachs looked strained beyond endurance, about to bust any second. He imagined a huge cannon bang: a twenty-one tum salute.
Hugo stared fixedly at the floor. Nothing made his toes curl like forced social interaction. Like that bit in church when you had to offer each other a sign of peace.
Lotti was looking expectantly round the class. 'OK. Right. Now we all know each other, let's get down to business. Does everyone know what a uterus looks like?'
'Oh the support's not for me.' Sherry said. 'It's a therapy session for my partner to help him cope with the psychosexual implications of my breasts' new role as nurturers rather than erotic focal points.'
'We are gathered together in the sight of God-'
'Whoa,' said Bo, holding up his hand. 'Like . . . whoa!'
The vicar paused and looked at him over metal-rimmed half-moon spectacles. 'I'm sorry?'
'When you say God, man,' Bo said in his rapid, singsong voice, 'we're talking about any god, yeah?Not just the one in the Bible, right?We're including, like, nature gods and that?'
'And this,' she added, rotating her forefinger within the biggest circle, 'is the ten centimetres Mum needs before Baby can be born.'
There were a few gasps at this. Hugo leant foreward in horror. 'It's not humanly possible!' he exlaimed, realising, too late that he had spoken aloud.
It wasn't the blonde cherub she had imagined. It was dark, wizened and with unpleasant purple-red skin. In addition, something about its slimy bent angles reminded her of giblets and she was glad when Una took it away to clean it up.
Amanda was not unduly worried about her reaction. Maternal feelings came later, all the books said so. She therefore gave free reign to the fact her main emotion as a new mother was disgust.
Provincial standards of journalism were, meanwhile, beyond belief - the local papers were full of wind-chime wars and front-page headlines such as 'Pensioner Dies in fall Trying to Kill Spider with Slipper.'
He looked swiftly about him. The sight of so many pregnant women made him nervous. Their stomachs looked strained beyond endurance, about to bust any second. He imagined a huge cannon bang: a twenty-one tum salute.
Hugo stared fixedly at the floor. Nothing made his toes curl like forced social interaction. Like that bit in church when you had to offer each other a sign of peace.
Lotti was looking expectantly round the class. 'OK. Right. Now we all know each other, let's get down to business. Does everyone know what a uterus looks like?'
'Oh the support's not for me.' Sherry said. 'It's a therapy session for my partner to help him cope with the psychosexual implications of my breasts' new role as nurturers rather than erotic focal points.'
'We are gathered together in the sight of God-'
'Whoa,' said Bo, holding up his hand. 'Like . . . whoa!'
The vicar paused and looked at him over metal-rimmed half-moon spectacles. 'I'm sorry?'
'When you say God, man,' Bo said in his rapid, singsong voice, 'we're talking about any god, yeah?Not just the one in the Bible, right?We're including, like, nature gods and that?'
'And this,' she added, rotating her forefinger within the biggest circle, 'is the ten centimetres Mum needs before Baby can be born.'
There were a few gasps at this. Hugo leant foreward in horror. 'It's not humanly possible!' he exlaimed, realising, too late that he had spoken aloud.
It wasn't the blonde cherub she had imagined. It was dark, wizened and with unpleasant purple-red skin. In addition, something about its slimy bent angles reminded her of giblets and she was glad when Una took it away to clean it up.
Amanda was not unduly worried about her reaction. Maternal feelings came later, all the books said so. She therefore gave free reign to the fact her main emotion as a new mother was disgust.
Provincial standards of journalism were, meanwhile, beyond belief - the local papers were full of wind-chime wars and front-page headlines such as 'Pensioner Dies in fall Trying to Kill Spider with Slipper.'
Amanda's Wedding by Jenny Colgan:
Most of the really messy things in life don't actually have a beginning - they kind of bear down on you over years, like the consequences of not cleaning your bathroom floor (stickiness, cholera, etcetera).
This one did, though. It definitely did, and I remember it extremely clearly. Well, in a fuzzy kind of way.
Thank God - it was my bed. So: (1) I was actually in a bed, and (2) it was mine. I was beating the odds already.
Everything seemed weirdly out of proportion. Maybe I was still drunk. I pawed at the sticky stuff at the corner of my eyes. No, something was very wrong. An inappropriate hand was slung across me. It appeared to be about the size of my stomach, and my stomach is not renowned for its tiny-ness . . . A thought began to worm its way into my head.
But I still saw her. Every so often she'd phone, Fran and I would go see her, she'd gloat, and we'd get her to pay for all the drinks. And that's how it had started last night, when the phone rang.
'Great,' I said down the phone. 'We'd love to. Where?'
'The Atlantic?' she simpered.
No chance. Cocktails and nob-ends. Plus, she lived in posh North London and we lived in Kennington, one of the nice but scruffy ends of South London, so it was like trying to arrange an inter-galactic alliance. I parried with the Ship and Shovel - both dirty and potentially dangerous.
'Oh, for goodness' sake, Melanie. All right, the Ozone then.'
'I'll raise you to the Pitcher and Piano and no further.'
There was a sigh on the end of the line. 'Well, if you must . . . ' She pouted audibly, which had zero effect on me as I don't have a penis.
'Well, that's it then. Sean Connery's son has asked her to lunch. And we're going to have to listen to two boring hours of how fantastic everything is for her, and we'll be so bored we'll get accidentally drunk, then she'll drive off somewhere much more exciting, completely sober, and we'll stay and get totally plastered out of bitterness and self-loathing, and hate ourselves for days.'
'Unh huh. So, what are we going to wear?'
'Amanda, you met him once at a party, and you said he smelled funny.'
'Books?'
'Linda doesn't read books, she eats them.'
'Is that true, or is it just that you don't like her?'
'It's just that I don't like her.'
'Well, then, can we open it?'
'Why not? She wouldn't mind.'
'Fran, I believe she might, in fact, mind.'
By the following Saturday, I knew for a fact that everything was all right with the world and I was ready to hit Amanda's engagement do. I had it all worked out. No doubt there'd be a lot of nudging. Someone might even say, 'Hey, it'll be you two next!' and Alex would look at me tenderly and say, 'Well, you never know . . . maybe one day, If I'm lucky!' and that'd get all around the party and I'd be the queen! By the time my imagination had supplied a huge circular staircase down which we could descend to mass applause I had to pretend to be Fran and tell myself not to be so silly.
'SHE CAN SHOOT GREEN PEAS THROUGH HER FUNDAMENTAL ORIFICE!' shouted Charlie suddenly. Fran and I stopped talking and turned round.
'That's the wrong song, you twat.' said Alex.
'I KNOW!' hollered Charlie. 'Err . . . PUT YOUR POLE IN A FOAL, MATE!'
'Anyway, she was talking to Hello! Magazine.'
He paused dramatically. I looked at him like he was crazy.
'Hello! Magazine? That's it? You're trying to wreck their marriage before it even starts because of Hello! and its . . . its inane pictures of unhappy celebrities?'
You know, they love all that minor aristocracy ********. "Aren't Posh People Lovely? Here's a picture of one standing next to a horse."
Most of the really messy things in life don't actually have a beginning - they kind of bear down on you over years, like the consequences of not cleaning your bathroom floor (stickiness, cholera, etcetera).
This one did, though. It definitely did, and I remember it extremely clearly. Well, in a fuzzy kind of way.
Thank God - it was my bed. So: (1) I was actually in a bed, and (2) it was mine. I was beating the odds already.
Everything seemed weirdly out of proportion. Maybe I was still drunk. I pawed at the sticky stuff at the corner of my eyes. No, something was very wrong. An inappropriate hand was slung across me. It appeared to be about the size of my stomach, and my stomach is not renowned for its tiny-ness . . . A thought began to worm its way into my head.
But I still saw her. Every so often she'd phone, Fran and I would go see her, she'd gloat, and we'd get her to pay for all the drinks. And that's how it had started last night, when the phone rang.
'Great,' I said down the phone. 'We'd love to. Where?'
'The Atlantic?' she simpered.
No chance. Cocktails and nob-ends. Plus, she lived in posh North London and we lived in Kennington, one of the nice but scruffy ends of South London, so it was like trying to arrange an inter-galactic alliance. I parried with the Ship and Shovel - both dirty and potentially dangerous.
'Oh, for goodness' sake, Melanie. All right, the Ozone then.'
'I'll raise you to the Pitcher and Piano and no further.'
There was a sigh on the end of the line. 'Well, if you must . . . ' She pouted audibly, which had zero effect on me as I don't have a penis.
'Well, that's it then. Sean Connery's son has asked her to lunch. And we're going to have to listen to two boring hours of how fantastic everything is for her, and we'll be so bored we'll get accidentally drunk, then she'll drive off somewhere much more exciting, completely sober, and we'll stay and get totally plastered out of bitterness and self-loathing, and hate ourselves for days.'
'Unh huh. So, what are we going to wear?'
'Amanda, you met him once at a party, and you said he smelled funny.'
'Books?'
'Linda doesn't read books, she eats them.'
'Is that true, or is it just that you don't like her?'
'It's just that I don't like her.'
'Well, then, can we open it?'
'Why not? She wouldn't mind.'
'Fran, I believe she might, in fact, mind.'
By the following Saturday, I knew for a fact that everything was all right with the world and I was ready to hit Amanda's engagement do. I had it all worked out. No doubt there'd be a lot of nudging. Someone might even say, 'Hey, it'll be you two next!' and Alex would look at me tenderly and say, 'Well, you never know . . . maybe one day, If I'm lucky!' and that'd get all around the party and I'd be the queen! By the time my imagination had supplied a huge circular staircase down which we could descend to mass applause I had to pretend to be Fran and tell myself not to be so silly.
'SHE CAN SHOOT GREEN PEAS THROUGH HER FUNDAMENTAL ORIFICE!' shouted Charlie suddenly. Fran and I stopped talking and turned round.
'That's the wrong song, you twat.' said Alex.
'I KNOW!' hollered Charlie. 'Err . . . PUT YOUR POLE IN A FOAL, MATE!'
'Anyway, she was talking to Hello! Magazine.'
He paused dramatically. I looked at him like he was crazy.
'Hello! Magazine? That's it? You're trying to wreck their marriage before it even starts because of Hello! and its . . . its inane pictures of unhappy celebrities?'
You know, they love all that minor aristocracy ********. "Aren't Posh People Lovely? Here's a picture of one standing next to a horse."
From The Right Address by Carrie Karasyov and Jill Kargman:
She has zero taste."
"Zilch."
"What's that outfit all about? One-way ticket on the Tacky Express."
"Like Roberto Cavalli threw up on her."
"And her apartment . . ."
"You've been?"
"No. But the Kincaids have."
"And?"
"Constance said it looks as if it was decorated by Charles and Wonder."
"Oh, right, the cheesy firm that just did that new Architectural Digest cover from Hades?"
"No. I'm talking Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder. Only a blind person could select those horrendous fabrics."
"Oh, Joan, you're too much!"
"I mean, did you see those hideous metal cranes that she gave the Bates as an anniversary gift?" asked Wendy, incredulous. "Ugh! It was like Bangkok exploded in the foyer."
"Tell me about it," said Joan. "The worst."
"Admit it: they look shipped over from some Thai junk shop. You've got to be certifiably insane to buy those."
"Regina said they went right in the trash."
"I'm sure."
"She couldn't even give them to Goodwill. It would be bad will to rewrap those."
"Poor Arthur. He totally downgraded wives. I don't think he has a clue that Melanie is so declasse and maleleve. Most men trade up with their second wives."
As their laughter mixed with the sound of compacts snapping shut and Judith Lieber bags being reclasped, the two women exited to the dining room in a flurry of silks, gold, and perfume. As Melanie's knees were shaking both from squatting in a full-on Ashtanga yoga position and from sheer humiliation, she rose unsteadily to her feet. She listened again to make extra sure that her pummelers were gone, then walked out to look at herself in the mirror. What was wrong with her outfit? Roberto Cavalli was on Madison! Maybe it was a little tight, but hell, she had the figure for it, didn't she? Her jewelry seemed right--Catherine Zeta Jones had worn this very necklace to the Oscars. Arthur had told her just minutes ago that her hair looked very pretty. No one could accuse her of having roots. Until her spill of tears, her makeup had been perfect. She didn't understand--what was so wrong with her? Why were people snickering behind her back?
She has zero taste."
"Zilch."
"What's that outfit all about? One-way ticket on the Tacky Express."
"Like Roberto Cavalli threw up on her."
"And her apartment . . ."
"You've been?"
"No. But the Kincaids have."
"And?"
"Constance said it looks as if it was decorated by Charles and Wonder."
"Oh, right, the cheesy firm that just did that new Architectural Digest cover from Hades?"
"No. I'm talking Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder. Only a blind person could select those horrendous fabrics."
"Oh, Joan, you're too much!"
"I mean, did you see those hideous metal cranes that she gave the Bates as an anniversary gift?" asked Wendy, incredulous. "Ugh! It was like Bangkok exploded in the foyer."
"Tell me about it," said Joan. "The worst."
"Admit it: they look shipped over from some Thai junk shop. You've got to be certifiably insane to buy those."
"Regina said they went right in the trash."
"I'm sure."
"She couldn't even give them to Goodwill. It would be bad will to rewrap those."
"Poor Arthur. He totally downgraded wives. I don't think he has a clue that Melanie is so declasse and maleleve. Most men trade up with their second wives."
As their laughter mixed with the sound of compacts snapping shut and Judith Lieber bags being reclasped, the two women exited to the dining room in a flurry of silks, gold, and perfume. As Melanie's knees were shaking both from squatting in a full-on Ashtanga yoga position and from sheer humiliation, she rose unsteadily to her feet. She listened again to make extra sure that her pummelers were gone, then walked out to look at herself in the mirror. What was wrong with her outfit? Roberto Cavalli was on Madison! Maybe it was a little tight, but hell, she had the figure for it, didn't she? Her jewelry seemed right--Catherine Zeta Jones had worn this very necklace to the Oscars. Arthur had told her just minutes ago that her hair looked very pretty. No one could accuse her of having roots. Until her spill of tears, her makeup had been perfect. She didn't understand--what was so wrong with her? Why were people snickering behind her back?
From Big Trouble by Dave Barry:
Puggy liked everything about Miami. He liked that it was warm. He liked that most of the police seemed tolerant of people like him --people who, merely by existing, tended to violate laws that solid citizens never even thought about, like how long you were allowed to sit in a certain place without buying something. The attitude of most of the police down here seemed to be, hey, you can sit all you want; we're just glad you're not shooting.
When it was Puggy's turn to vote, he gave his name, per instructions, as Albert Green, which he spelled "Allbert Gren." The real Albert Green was a person who had died in 1991 but still voted often in Miami. Puggy cast Mr. Green's ballot for a mayoral candidate named Carlos somebody, then went outside and collected his ten, which looked like a million dollars in his hand.
The Jolly Jackal was not upscale. It would have needed thousands of dollars' worth of renovation just to ascend to the level of "dive." It had a neon sign in the window, but part of it wasn't working, so it just said "ackal." When you walked in the front door, you could see straight back through the gloom to the toilet, which had lost its door some years back when a patron, frustrated in his efforts to operate the doorknob, smashed his way in with a fire extinguisher. The bar was dark and rancid with stale beer. The TV was tuned to motorcycle racing. There were names scrawled on the walls, and crude drawings of genitalia. Puggy felt right at home.
Snake and Eddie referred to themselves as fishermen, although they did not fish. They did live on a boat; it had been abandoned by its legal owner because it had no engine and would sink if it were moved. Snake's and Eddie's actual source of income was standing in front of vacant parking spaces in Coconut Grove, and then, when a tourist car came along, directing the driver into the space, making arm motions as though this were a tricky maneuver that had to be done just right, like landing the space shuttle. Then Snake and Eddie would stand close by, waiting for a tip, which usually the tourists gave them, especially if it was dark.
So Puggy went looking for another place. He discovered that, if you walked just a short way in Coconut Grove, you could be in a whole different kind of neighborhood, a rich people's neighborhood, with big houses that had walls around them and driveway gates that opened by a motor. There were strange trees everywhere, big, complicated trees with roots going every which way and vines all over them and branches that hung way out over the street. Puggy thought it looked like a jungle.
Late at night, there was always music coming from one end of the house. It was some kind of music with a flute, soft, coming through the jungle to Puggy. He liked to lie there and listen to it. He was very happy the way things were going, both with his career and with his tree. It was the most secure, most structured, least turbulent existence he had ever known. It lasted for almost three weeks.
"I look at this ad," the Big Fat Stupid Client From Hell was saying, "and it doesn't say to me, ‘Hammerhead Beer.'"
Eliot Arnold, of Eliot Arnold Advertising and Public Relations (which consisted entirely of Eliot Arnold), nodded thoughtfully, as though he thought the Client From Hell was making a valid point. In fact, Eliot was thinking it was a good thing that he was one of the maybe fifteen people in Miami who did not carry a loaded firearm, because he would definitely shoot the Client From Hell in his fat, glistening forehead.
"Eliot," said Deeber, "Do you realize how important day care is to our readers? Do you realize how many of our readers have children in day care?"
There was a pause.
"Ken," said Eliot, "do you realize how many of our readers have *******s?"
Deeber said, "I see no need to..."
"All of them!" shouted Eliot. "They all have *******s!"
Quite a few people in the newsroom heard that through the glass wall to Deeber's office. Heads were turning.
"Ken," said Deeber, "I'm ordering you right now to..."
"Let's do a series on it!" shouted Eliot. "RECTUMS IN CRISIS!" The entire newsroom heard that.
Deeber, aware that people were watching, put on his sternest expression.
Puggy liked everything about Miami. He liked that it was warm. He liked that most of the police seemed tolerant of people like him --people who, merely by existing, tended to violate laws that solid citizens never even thought about, like how long you were allowed to sit in a certain place without buying something. The attitude of most of the police down here seemed to be, hey, you can sit all you want; we're just glad you're not shooting.
When it was Puggy's turn to vote, he gave his name, per instructions, as Albert Green, which he spelled "Allbert Gren." The real Albert Green was a person who had died in 1991 but still voted often in Miami. Puggy cast Mr. Green's ballot for a mayoral candidate named Carlos somebody, then went outside and collected his ten, which looked like a million dollars in his hand.
The Jolly Jackal was not upscale. It would have needed thousands of dollars' worth of renovation just to ascend to the level of "dive." It had a neon sign in the window, but part of it wasn't working, so it just said "ackal." When you walked in the front door, you could see straight back through the gloom to the toilet, which had lost its door some years back when a patron, frustrated in his efforts to operate the doorknob, smashed his way in with a fire extinguisher. The bar was dark and rancid with stale beer. The TV was tuned to motorcycle racing. There were names scrawled on the walls, and crude drawings of genitalia. Puggy felt right at home.
Snake and Eddie referred to themselves as fishermen, although they did not fish. They did live on a boat; it had been abandoned by its legal owner because it had no engine and would sink if it were moved. Snake's and Eddie's actual source of income was standing in front of vacant parking spaces in Coconut Grove, and then, when a tourist car came along, directing the driver into the space, making arm motions as though this were a tricky maneuver that had to be done just right, like landing the space shuttle. Then Snake and Eddie would stand close by, waiting for a tip, which usually the tourists gave them, especially if it was dark.
So Puggy went looking for another place. He discovered that, if you walked just a short way in Coconut Grove, you could be in a whole different kind of neighborhood, a rich people's neighborhood, with big houses that had walls around them and driveway gates that opened by a motor. There were strange trees everywhere, big, complicated trees with roots going every which way and vines all over them and branches that hung way out over the street. Puggy thought it looked like a jungle.
Late at night, there was always music coming from one end of the house. It was some kind of music with a flute, soft, coming through the jungle to Puggy. He liked to lie there and listen to it. He was very happy the way things were going, both with his career and with his tree. It was the most secure, most structured, least turbulent existence he had ever known. It lasted for almost three weeks.
"I look at this ad," the Big Fat Stupid Client From Hell was saying, "and it doesn't say to me, ‘Hammerhead Beer.'"
Eliot Arnold, of Eliot Arnold Advertising and Public Relations (which consisted entirely of Eliot Arnold), nodded thoughtfully, as though he thought the Client From Hell was making a valid point. In fact, Eliot was thinking it was a good thing that he was one of the maybe fifteen people in Miami who did not carry a loaded firearm, because he would definitely shoot the Client From Hell in his fat, glistening forehead.
"Eliot," said Deeber, "Do you realize how important day care is to our readers? Do you realize how many of our readers have children in day care?"
There was a pause.
"Ken," said Eliot, "do you realize how many of our readers have *******s?"
Deeber said, "I see no need to..."
"All of them!" shouted Eliot. "They all have *******s!"
Quite a few people in the newsroom heard that through the glass wall to Deeber's office. Heads were turning.
"Ken," said Deeber, "I'm ordering you right now to..."
"Let's do a series on it!" shouted Eliot. "RECTUMS IN CRISIS!" The entire newsroom heard that.
Deeber, aware that people were watching, put on his sternest expression.
From Skipping Christmas by John Grisham:
The tears were over, at least most of them. Blair was twenty-three, fresh from graduate school with a handsome resume but not ready for a career. A friend from college was in Africa with the Peace Corps, and this had inspired Blair to dedicate the next two years to helping others. Her assignment was eastern Peru, where she would teach primitive little children how to read. She would live in a lean-to with no plumbing, no electricity, no phone, and she was anxious to begin her journey.
The flight would take her to Miami, then to Lima, then by bus for three days into the mountains, into another century. For the first time in her young and sheltered life, Blair would spend Christmas away from home. Her mother clutched her hand and tried to be strong.
Two aisles over, next to a selection of rice from around the world, there was a shelf of baking chocolates. As he stepped closer, he recognized a one-pound bar of Logan's. Another step closer and it suddenly disappeared, snatched from his grasp by a harsh-looking woman who never saw him. The little space reserved for Logan's was empty, and in the next desperate moment Luther saw not another speck of white chocolate. Lots of dark and medium chips and such, but nothing white.
"You forgot the white chocolate?" Nora asked, fully recovered.
"No. I didn't forget it. They didn't have any."
"Did you ask Rex?"
"Who's Rex?"
"The butcher."
"No, Nora, for some reason I didn't think to ask the butcher if he had any white chocolate hidden among his chops and livers."
The tears were over, at least most of them. Blair was twenty-three, fresh from graduate school with a handsome resume but not ready for a career. A friend from college was in Africa with the Peace Corps, and this had inspired Blair to dedicate the next two years to helping others. Her assignment was eastern Peru, where she would teach primitive little children how to read. She would live in a lean-to with no plumbing, no electricity, no phone, and she was anxious to begin her journey.
The flight would take her to Miami, then to Lima, then by bus for three days into the mountains, into another century. For the first time in her young and sheltered life, Blair would spend Christmas away from home. Her mother clutched her hand and tried to be strong.
Two aisles over, next to a selection of rice from around the world, there was a shelf of baking chocolates. As he stepped closer, he recognized a one-pound bar of Logan's. Another step closer and it suddenly disappeared, snatched from his grasp by a harsh-looking woman who never saw him. The little space reserved for Logan's was empty, and in the next desperate moment Luther saw not another speck of white chocolate. Lots of dark and medium chips and such, but nothing white.
"You forgot the white chocolate?" Nora asked, fully recovered.
"No. I didn't forget it. They didn't have any."
"Did you ask Rex?"
"Who's Rex?"
"The butcher."
"No, Nora, for some reason I didn't think to ask the butcher if he had any white chocolate hidden among his chops and livers."
From The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisburger:
I raised a shaking hand to give him the finger and then turned my attention to the business at hand: getting nicotine coursing through my veins as quickly as possible. My hands were moist again with sweat, evidenced by the matches that kept slipping to the floor. The light turned green just as I managed to touch the fire to the end of the cigarette, and I was forced to leave it hanging between my lips as I negotiated the intricacies of clutch, gas, shift (neutral to first? Or first to second?), release clutch, the smoke wafting in and out of my mouth with each and every breath. It was another three blocks before the car moved smoothly enough for me to remove the cigarette, but it was already too late: the precariously long line of spent ash had found its way directly to the sweat stain on the pants. Awesome. But before I could consider that, counting the Manolos, I'd wrecked $3,100 worth of merchandise in under three minutes, my cell phone bleated loudly. And as if the very essence of life itself didn't suck enough at that particular moment, the caller ID confirmed my worst fear: it was Her. Miranda Priestly. My boss.
Maneuvering the green beast to head uptown sapped my last reserves of concentration, and by the time I reached Second Avenue, the stress sent my body into meltdown. It couldn't possibly get worse than this, I thought as yet another cab came within a quarter-inch of the back bumper. A nick anywhere on the car would guarantee I lose my job--that much was obvious--but it just might cost me my life as well. Since there was obviously not a parking spot, legal or otherwise, in the middle of the day, I called the vet's office from outside and asked them to bring Madelaine to me. A kindly woman emerged a few minutes later (just enough time for me to field another call from Miranda, this one asking why I wasn't back at the office yet) with a whimpering, sniffling puppy. The woman showed me Madelaine's stitched-up belly and told me to drive very, very carefully because the dog was "experiencing some discomfort." Right, lady. I'm driving very, very carefully solely to save my job and possibly my life--if the dog benefits from this, it's just a bonus.
"Just heading back to the Elias-Clark building," I said with a long sigh as the driver pulled around the block and headed south on Park Avenue. Since I rode the route every day--sometimes twice--I knew I had exactly eight minutes to breathe and collect myself and possibly even figure out a way to disguise the ash and sweat stains that had become permanent features on the Gucci suede. The shoes--well, those were beyond hope, at least until they could be fixed by the fleet of shoemakers Runway kept for such emergencies. The ride was actually over in six and a half minutes, and I had no choice but to hobble like an off-balance giraffe on my one flat, one four-inch heel arrangement. A quick stop in the Closet turned up a brand-new pair of knee-high maroon-colored Jimmy Choos that looked great with the leather skirt I grabbed, tossing the suede pants in the "Couture Cleaning" pile (where the basic prices for dry cleaning started at seventy-five dollars per item). The only stop left was a quick visit to the Beauty Closet, where one of the editors there took one look at my sweat-streaked makeup and whipped out a trunk full of fixers.
"And-re-ah," she called from her starkly furnished, deliberately cold office. "Where are the car and the puppy?"
I leaped out of my seat and ran as fast as was possible on plush carpeting while wearing five-inch heels and stood before her desk. "I left the car with the garage attendant and Madelaine with your doorman, Miranda," I said, proud to have completed both tasks without killing the car, the dog, or myself.
"And why would you do something like that?" she snarled, looking up from her copy of Women's Wear Daily for the first time since I'd walked in. "I specifically requested that you bring both of them to the office, since the girls will be here momentarily and we need to leave."
"Oh, well, actually, I thought you said that you wanted them to--"
"Enough. The details of your incompetence interest me very little. Go get the car and the puppy and bring them here. I'm expecting we'll be all ready to leave in fifteen minutes. Understood?"
I raised a shaking hand to give him the finger and then turned my attention to the business at hand: getting nicotine coursing through my veins as quickly as possible. My hands were moist again with sweat, evidenced by the matches that kept slipping to the floor. The light turned green just as I managed to touch the fire to the end of the cigarette, and I was forced to leave it hanging between my lips as I negotiated the intricacies of clutch, gas, shift (neutral to first? Or first to second?), release clutch, the smoke wafting in and out of my mouth with each and every breath. It was another three blocks before the car moved smoothly enough for me to remove the cigarette, but it was already too late: the precariously long line of spent ash had found its way directly to the sweat stain on the pants. Awesome. But before I could consider that, counting the Manolos, I'd wrecked $3,100 worth of merchandise in under three minutes, my cell phone bleated loudly. And as if the very essence of life itself didn't suck enough at that particular moment, the caller ID confirmed my worst fear: it was Her. Miranda Priestly. My boss.
Maneuvering the green beast to head uptown sapped my last reserves of concentration, and by the time I reached Second Avenue, the stress sent my body into meltdown. It couldn't possibly get worse than this, I thought as yet another cab came within a quarter-inch of the back bumper. A nick anywhere on the car would guarantee I lose my job--that much was obvious--but it just might cost me my life as well. Since there was obviously not a parking spot, legal or otherwise, in the middle of the day, I called the vet's office from outside and asked them to bring Madelaine to me. A kindly woman emerged a few minutes later (just enough time for me to field another call from Miranda, this one asking why I wasn't back at the office yet) with a whimpering, sniffling puppy. The woman showed me Madelaine's stitched-up belly and told me to drive very, very carefully because the dog was "experiencing some discomfort." Right, lady. I'm driving very, very carefully solely to save my job and possibly my life--if the dog benefits from this, it's just a bonus.
"Just heading back to the Elias-Clark building," I said with a long sigh as the driver pulled around the block and headed south on Park Avenue. Since I rode the route every day--sometimes twice--I knew I had exactly eight minutes to breathe and collect myself and possibly even figure out a way to disguise the ash and sweat stains that had become permanent features on the Gucci suede. The shoes--well, those were beyond hope, at least until they could be fixed by the fleet of shoemakers Runway kept for such emergencies. The ride was actually over in six and a half minutes, and I had no choice but to hobble like an off-balance giraffe on my one flat, one four-inch heel arrangement. A quick stop in the Closet turned up a brand-new pair of knee-high maroon-colored Jimmy Choos that looked great with the leather skirt I grabbed, tossing the suede pants in the "Couture Cleaning" pile (where the basic prices for dry cleaning started at seventy-five dollars per item). The only stop left was a quick visit to the Beauty Closet, where one of the editors there took one look at my sweat-streaked makeup and whipped out a trunk full of fixers.
"And-re-ah," she called from her starkly furnished, deliberately cold office. "Where are the car and the puppy?"
I leaped out of my seat and ran as fast as was possible on plush carpeting while wearing five-inch heels and stood before her desk. "I left the car with the garage attendant and Madelaine with your doorman, Miranda," I said, proud to have completed both tasks without killing the car, the dog, or myself.
"And why would you do something like that?" she snarled, looking up from her copy of Women's Wear Daily for the first time since I'd walked in. "I specifically requested that you bring both of them to the office, since the girls will be here momentarily and we need to leave."
"Oh, well, actually, I thought you said that you wanted them to--"
"Enough. The details of your incompetence interest me very little. Go get the car and the puppy and bring them here. I'm expecting we'll be all ready to leave in fifteen minutes. Understood?"
From I Don't Know How She Does It
The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother by Allison Pearson:
Monday, 1:37 a.m.
How did I get here? Can someone please tell me that? Not in this kitchen, I mean in this life. It is the morning of the school carol concert and I am hitting mince pies. No, let us be quite clear about this, I am distressing mince pies, an altogether more demanding and subtle process.
Discarding the Sainsbury luxury packaging, I winkle the pies out of their pleated foil cups, place them on a chopping board and bring down a rolling pin on their blameless floury faces. This is not as easy as it sounds, believe me. Hit the pies too hard and they drop a kind of fat-lady curtsy, skirts of pastry bulging out at the sides, and the fruit starts to ooze. But with a firm downward motion--imagine enough pressure to crush a small beetle--you can start a crumbly little landslide, giving the pastry a pleasing homemade appearance. And homemade is what I'm after here. Home is where the heart is. Home is where the good mother is, baking for her children.
All this trouble because of a letter Emily brought back from school ten days ago, now stuck on the fridge with a Tinky Winky magnet, asking if "parents could please make a voluntary contribution of appropriate festive refreshments" for the Christmas party they always put on after the carols. The note is printed in berry red and at the bottom, next to Miss Empson's signature, there is a snowman wearing a mortarboard and a shy grin. But do not be deceived by the strenuous tone of informality or the outbreak of chummy exclamation marks!!! Oh, no. Notes from school are written in code, a code buried so cunningly in the text that it could only be deciphered at Bletchley Park or by guilty women in the advanced stages of sleep deprivation.
Take that word "parents," for example. When they write parents what they really mean, what they still mean, is mothers. (Has a father who has a wife on the premises ever read a note from school? Technically, it's not impossible, I suppose, but the note will have been a party invitation and, furthermore, it will have been an invitation to a party that has taken place at least ten days earlier.) And "voluntary"? Voluntary is teacher-speak for "On pain of death and/or your child failing to gain a place at the senior school of your choice." As for "appropriate festive refreshments," these are definitely not something bought by a lazy cheat in a supermarket.
How do I know that? Because I still recall the look my own mother exchanged with Mrs. Frieda Davies in 1974, when a small boy in a dusty green parka approached the altar at Harvest Festival with two tins of Libby's cling peaches in a shoe box. The look was unforgettable. It said, What kind of sorry slattern has popped down to the Spar on the corner to celebrate God's bounty when what the good Lord clearly requires is a fruit medley in a basket with cellophane wrap? Or a plaited bread? Frieda Davies's bread, maneuvered the length of the church by her twins, was plaited as thickly as the tresses of a Rhinemaiden.
"You see, Katharine," Mrs. Davies explained later, doing that disapproving upsneeze thing with her sinuses over teacakes, "there are mothers who make an effort like your mum and me. And then you get the type of person who"--prolonged sniff--"don't make the effort."
So before I was really old enough to understand what being a woman meant, I already understood that the world of women was divided in two: there were proper mothers, self-sacrificing bakers of apple pies and well-scrubbed invigilators of the washtub, and there were the other sort. At the age of thirty-five, I know precisely which kind I am, and I suppose that's what I'm doing here in the small hours of the thirteenth of December, hitting mince pies with a rolling pin till they look like something mother-made. Women used to have time to make mince pies and had to fake orgasms. Now we can manage the orgasms, but we have to fake the mince pies. And they call this progress.
"Don't shout." He sighs. "You'll wake them." One candy-striped arm gestures upstairs where our children are asleep. "Anyway, Paula hasn't hidden it. You've got to stop blaming the nanny for everything, Kate. The sieve lives in the drawer next to the microwave."
"No, it lives right here in this cupboard."
"Not since 1997 it doesn't."
"Are you implying that I haven't used my own sieve for three years?"
"Darling, to my certain knowledge you have never met your sieve. Please come to bed. You have to be up in five hours."
Have just turned off the lights and am starting up the stairs when I have a bad thought. If Paula sees the Sainsbury's cartons in the bin, she will spread news of my Great Mince Pie forgery on the nanny grapevine. Oh, hell. Retrieving the cartons from the bin, I wrap them inside yesterday's paper and carry the bundle at arm's length out through the front door. Looking right and left to make sure I am unobserved, I slip them into the big black sack in front of the house. Finally, with the evidence of my guilt disposed of, I follow my husband up to bed.
I take my time brushing my teeth. A count of twenty for each molar. If I stay in the bathroom long enough, Richard will fall asleep and will not try to have sex with me. If we don't have sex, I can skip a shower in the morning. If I skip the shower, I will have time to start on the e-mails that have built up while I've been away and maybe even get some presents bought on the way to work. Only ten shopping days to Christmas, and I am in possession of precisely nine gifts, which leaves twelve to get plus stocking fillers for the children. And still no delivery from KwikToy, the rapid on-line present service.
When I can't sleep and, believe me, I would dream of sleep if my mind weren't too full of other stuff for dreams, I like to creep into Ben's room and sit on the blue chair and just watch him. My baby looks as though he has hurled himself at unconsciousness, like a very small man trying to leap aboard an accelerating bus. Tonight, he's sprawled the length of the cot on his front, arms extended, tiny fingers curled round an invisible pole. Nestled to his cheek is the disgusting kangaroo that he worships--a shelf full of the finest stuffed animals an anxious parent can buy, and what does he choose to love? A cross-eyed marsupial from Woolworth's remainder bin. Ben can't tell us when he's tired yet, so he simply says Roo instead. He can't sleep without Roo because Roo to him means sleep.
Benjamin never holds my absences against me. Too little still. He always greets me with helpless delight like a fan windmilling arms at a Hollywood premiere. Not his sister, though. Emily is five years old and full of jealous wisdom. Mummy's return is always the cue for an intricate sequence of snubs and punishments.
"Actually, Paula reads me that story."
"But I want Dadda to give me a bath."
Wallis Simpson got a warmer welcome from the Queen Mother than I get from Emily after a business trip. But I bear it. My heart sort of pleats inside and somehow I bear it. Maybe I think I deserve it.
There have been times over the past year when I have tried to explain to my daughter--I felt she was old enough to hear this--why Mummy has to go to work. Because Mum and Dad both need to earn money to pay for our house and for all the things she enjoys doing like ballet lessons and going on holiday. Because Mummy has a job she is good at and it's really important for women to work as well as men. Each time the speech builds to a stirring climax --trumpets, choirs, the tearful sisterhood waving flags--in which I assure Emily that she will understand all of this when she is a big girl and wants to do interesting things herself.
Unfortunately, the case for equal opportunities, long established in liberal Western society, cuts no ice in the fundamentalist regime of the five-year-old. There is no God but Mummy, and Daddy is her prophet.
The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother by Allison Pearson:
Monday, 1:37 a.m.
How did I get here? Can someone please tell me that? Not in this kitchen, I mean in this life. It is the morning of the school carol concert and I am hitting mince pies. No, let us be quite clear about this, I am distressing mince pies, an altogether more demanding and subtle process.
Discarding the Sainsbury luxury packaging, I winkle the pies out of their pleated foil cups, place them on a chopping board and bring down a rolling pin on their blameless floury faces. This is not as easy as it sounds, believe me. Hit the pies too hard and they drop a kind of fat-lady curtsy, skirts of pastry bulging out at the sides, and the fruit starts to ooze. But with a firm downward motion--imagine enough pressure to crush a small beetle--you can start a crumbly little landslide, giving the pastry a pleasing homemade appearance. And homemade is what I'm after here. Home is where the heart is. Home is where the good mother is, baking for her children.
All this trouble because of a letter Emily brought back from school ten days ago, now stuck on the fridge with a Tinky Winky magnet, asking if "parents could please make a voluntary contribution of appropriate festive refreshments" for the Christmas party they always put on after the carols. The note is printed in berry red and at the bottom, next to Miss Empson's signature, there is a snowman wearing a mortarboard and a shy grin. But do not be deceived by the strenuous tone of informality or the outbreak of chummy exclamation marks!!! Oh, no. Notes from school are written in code, a code buried so cunningly in the text that it could only be deciphered at Bletchley Park or by guilty women in the advanced stages of sleep deprivation.
Take that word "parents," for example. When they write parents what they really mean, what they still mean, is mothers. (Has a father who has a wife on the premises ever read a note from school? Technically, it's not impossible, I suppose, but the note will have been a party invitation and, furthermore, it will have been an invitation to a party that has taken place at least ten days earlier.) And "voluntary"? Voluntary is teacher-speak for "On pain of death and/or your child failing to gain a place at the senior school of your choice." As for "appropriate festive refreshments," these are definitely not something bought by a lazy cheat in a supermarket.
How do I know that? Because I still recall the look my own mother exchanged with Mrs. Frieda Davies in 1974, when a small boy in a dusty green parka approached the altar at Harvest Festival with two tins of Libby's cling peaches in a shoe box. The look was unforgettable. It said, What kind of sorry slattern has popped down to the Spar on the corner to celebrate God's bounty when what the good Lord clearly requires is a fruit medley in a basket with cellophane wrap? Or a plaited bread? Frieda Davies's bread, maneuvered the length of the church by her twins, was plaited as thickly as the tresses of a Rhinemaiden.
"You see, Katharine," Mrs. Davies explained later, doing that disapproving upsneeze thing with her sinuses over teacakes, "there are mothers who make an effort like your mum and me. And then you get the type of person who"--prolonged sniff--"don't make the effort."
So before I was really old enough to understand what being a woman meant, I already understood that the world of women was divided in two: there were proper mothers, self-sacrificing bakers of apple pies and well-scrubbed invigilators of the washtub, and there were the other sort. At the age of thirty-five, I know precisely which kind I am, and I suppose that's what I'm doing here in the small hours of the thirteenth of December, hitting mince pies with a rolling pin till they look like something mother-made. Women used to have time to make mince pies and had to fake orgasms. Now we can manage the orgasms, but we have to fake the mince pies. And they call this progress.
"Don't shout." He sighs. "You'll wake them." One candy-striped arm gestures upstairs where our children are asleep. "Anyway, Paula hasn't hidden it. You've got to stop blaming the nanny for everything, Kate. The sieve lives in the drawer next to the microwave."
"No, it lives right here in this cupboard."
"Not since 1997 it doesn't."
"Are you implying that I haven't used my own sieve for three years?"
"Darling, to my certain knowledge you have never met your sieve. Please come to bed. You have to be up in five hours."
Have just turned off the lights and am starting up the stairs when I have a bad thought. If Paula sees the Sainsbury's cartons in the bin, she will spread news of my Great Mince Pie forgery on the nanny grapevine. Oh, hell. Retrieving the cartons from the bin, I wrap them inside yesterday's paper and carry the bundle at arm's length out through the front door. Looking right and left to make sure I am unobserved, I slip them into the big black sack in front of the house. Finally, with the evidence of my guilt disposed of, I follow my husband up to bed.
I take my time brushing my teeth. A count of twenty for each molar. If I stay in the bathroom long enough, Richard will fall asleep and will not try to have sex with me. If we don't have sex, I can skip a shower in the morning. If I skip the shower, I will have time to start on the e-mails that have built up while I've been away and maybe even get some presents bought on the way to work. Only ten shopping days to Christmas, and I am in possession of precisely nine gifts, which leaves twelve to get plus stocking fillers for the children. And still no delivery from KwikToy, the rapid on-line present service.
When I can't sleep and, believe me, I would dream of sleep if my mind weren't too full of other stuff for dreams, I like to creep into Ben's room and sit on the blue chair and just watch him. My baby looks as though he has hurled himself at unconsciousness, like a very small man trying to leap aboard an accelerating bus. Tonight, he's sprawled the length of the cot on his front, arms extended, tiny fingers curled round an invisible pole. Nestled to his cheek is the disgusting kangaroo that he worships--a shelf full of the finest stuffed animals an anxious parent can buy, and what does he choose to love? A cross-eyed marsupial from Woolworth's remainder bin. Ben can't tell us when he's tired yet, so he simply says Roo instead. He can't sleep without Roo because Roo to him means sleep.
Benjamin never holds my absences against me. Too little still. He always greets me with helpless delight like a fan windmilling arms at a Hollywood premiere. Not his sister, though. Emily is five years old and full of jealous wisdom. Mummy's return is always the cue for an intricate sequence of snubs and punishments.
"Actually, Paula reads me that story."
"But I want Dadda to give me a bath."
Wallis Simpson got a warmer welcome from the Queen Mother than I get from Emily after a business trip. But I bear it. My heart sort of pleats inside and somehow I bear it. Maybe I think I deserve it.
There have been times over the past year when I have tried to explain to my daughter--I felt she was old enough to hear this--why Mummy has to go to work. Because Mum and Dad both need to earn money to pay for our house and for all the things she enjoys doing like ballet lessons and going on holiday. Because Mummy has a job she is good at and it's really important for women to work as well as men. Each time the speech builds to a stirring climax --trumpets, choirs, the tearful sisterhood waving flags--in which I assure Emily that she will understand all of this when she is a big girl and wants to do interesting things herself.
Unfortunately, the case for equal opportunities, long established in liberal Western society, cuts no ice in the fundamentalist regime of the five-year-old. There is no God but Mummy, and Daddy is her prophet.
From The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus:
The dark vestibule, wallpapered in some gloomy Colefax and Fowler floral, always contains a brass umbrella stand, a horse print, and a mirror, wherein I do one last swift check of my appearance. I seem to have grown stains on my skirt during the train ride from school, but otherwise I'm pulled together--twin set, floral skirt, and some Gucci-knockoff sandals I bought in the Village. She is always tiny. Her hair is always straight and thin; she always seems to be inhaling and never exhaling. She is always wearing expensive khaki pants, Chanel ballet flats, a French striped Tshirt, and a white cardigan. Possibly some discreet pearls. In seven years and umpteen interviews the I'm-momcasual-in-my-khakis-but-intimidating-in-my-$400-shoes outfit never changes. And it is simply impossible to imagine her doing anything so undignified as what was required to get her pregnant in the first place.
She offers to take my cardigan, stares disdainfully at the hair my cat seems to have rubbed on it for good luck, and offers me a drink.
I'm supposed to say, "Water would be lovely," but am often tempted to ask for a Scotch, just to see what she'd do. I am then invited into the living room, which varies from baronial splendor to Ethan Allen interchangeable, depending on how "old" the money is. She gestures me to the couch, where I promptly sink three feet into the cushions, transformed into a five-year-old dwarfed by mountains of chintz. She looms above me, ramrod straight in a very uncomfortable-looking chair, legs crossed, tight smile.
"So," she begins brightly, "how did you come to the Parents League?"
This is the only part of the Interview that resembles a professional exchange. We will dance around certain words, such as "nanny" and "child care," because they would be distasteful and we will never, ever, actually acknowledge that we are talking about my working for her. This is the Holy Covenant of the Mother/Nanny relationship: this is a pleasure--not a job. We are merely "getting to know each other," much as how I imagine a John and a call girl must make the deal, while trying not to kill the mood.
She stares at me expectantly, ready for me to bring it on home. "I love children! I love little hands and little shoes and peanut butter sandwiches and peanut butter in my hair and Elmo--I love Elmo and sand in my purse and the "Hokey Pokey"--can't get enough of it!--and soy milk and blankies and the endless barrage of questions no one knows the answers to, I mean why is the sky blue? And Disney! Disney is my second language!"
We can both hear "A Whole New World" slowly swelling in the background as I earnestly convey that it would be more than a privilege to take care of her child--it would be an adventure.
Two pieces of information are meant to be conveyed to me during the Tour: (1) I am out of my league, and (2) I will be policing at maximum security to ensure that her child, who is also out of his or her league, does not scuff, snag, spill, or spoil a single element of this apartment. The coded script for this exchange goes as follows: she turns around to "mention" that there really is no housekeeping involved and that Hutchison really "prefers" to play in his room. If there were any justice in the world this is the point when all nannies should be given roadblocks and a stun gun. These rooms are destined to become the burden of my existence. From this point on, ninety-five percent of this apartment will be nothing more than a blurred background for chasing, enticing, and point-blank pleading with the child to "Put the Delft milkmaid down!!" I am also about to become intimate with more types of cleaning fluid than I knew there were types of dirt. It will be in her pantry stocked high above the washer-dryer-that I discover people actually import toilet bowl cleanser from Europe.
We arrive in the kitchen. It is enormous. With a few partitions it could easily house a family of four. She stops to rest one manicured hand on the counter, affecting a familiar pose, like a captain at the helm about to address the crew. However, I know if I asked her where she keeps the flour, a half hour of rummaging through unused baking utensils would ensue.
"Brandford's meals are really quite simple," she says, gesturing to the frozen food as she closes the freezer door. Translation: they are able to feed him this crap in good conscience on the weekends because I will be cooking him four-course macrobiotic meals on the weeknights. There will be a day to come when I stare at the colorful packages in the freezer with raw envy as I re-steam the wild rice from Costa Rica for the four-year-olds maximum digestive ease.
It is at this point that she begins the Rules. This is a very pleasing portion of the event for any mother because it is a chance to demonstrate how much thought and effort has gone into bringing the child this far. She speaks with a rare mixture of animation, confidence, and awesome conviction--she knows this much is true. I, in turn, adopt my most eager, yet compassionate expression as if to say "Yes, please tell me more--I'm fascinated" and "How awful it must be for you to have a child allergic to air." So begins the List:
Allergic to dairy.
Allergic to peanuts.
Allergic to strawberries.
Allergic to propane-based shellac.
Some kind of grain.
Won't eat blueberries.
Will only eat blueberries--sliced.
Sandwiches must be cut horizontally and have crusts.
Sandwiches must be cut in quarters and have NO crusts.
Sandwiches must be made facing east.
She loves rice milk!
He won't eat anything starting with the letter M.
All servings are to be pre-measured--NO additional food is permissible.
All juice is to be watered down and drunk out of a sip glass over the sink or in the bathtub (preferably until the child is eighteen).
All food is to be served on a plastic place mat with paper towel beneath bowl, bib on at all times.
Actually, "if you could get Lucien naked before eating and then hose her down afterward, that would be perfect."
NO food or drink within two hours of bedtime.
NO additives.
NO preservatives.
NO pumpkin seeds.
NO skins of any kind.
NO raw food.
NO cooked food.
NO American food.
and . . .
(voice drops to a pitch only whales can hear)
NO FOOD OUTSIDE THE KITCHEN!
I am nodding gravely in agreement. This makes total sense. "Oh, my God, of course," I find myself saying.
This is Phase I of bringing me into the fold, of creating the illusion of collusion. "We're in this together! Little Elspeth is our joint project! And we're going to feed her nothing but mung beans!" I feel as if I am nine months pregnant and just finding out my husband plans to raise the child in a cult. Yet I am somehow flattered that I am being chosen to participate in this project. Completion Phase II: I am succumbing to the allure of perfection.
After having received the Rules I am braced to meet the boy in the bubble. I expect to see a full-out intensive care unit complete with a Louis Vuitton IV hookup. Imagine my shock at the ball of motion that comes hurtling across the room at us. If it's a boy the movement is reminiscent of the Tasmanian Devil, while a girl tends toward a full-tilt Mouseketeers sequence, complete with two pirouettes and a grand jete. The child is sent into this routine by some Pavlovian response to the mother's perfume as she rounds the corner. The encounter proceeds as follows: (1) Child (groomed within an inch of his/her life) makes a beeline directly for mother's leg. (2) At the precise moment the child's hands wrap around her thigh the mother swiftly grabs the child's wrists. (3) And she simultaneously sidesteps out of the embrace, bringing the child's hands into a clapping position in front of the child's face, and bends down to say hello, turning the child's gaze to me. Voila. And thus the first of many performances of what I like to call the "Spatula Reflex." It has such timing and grace that I feel as if I should applaud, but instead move directly into my Pavlovian response set off by their expectant faces. I drop to my knees.
The dark vestibule, wallpapered in some gloomy Colefax and Fowler floral, always contains a brass umbrella stand, a horse print, and a mirror, wherein I do one last swift check of my appearance. I seem to have grown stains on my skirt during the train ride from school, but otherwise I'm pulled together--twin set, floral skirt, and some Gucci-knockoff sandals I bought in the Village. She is always tiny. Her hair is always straight and thin; she always seems to be inhaling and never exhaling. She is always wearing expensive khaki pants, Chanel ballet flats, a French striped Tshirt, and a white cardigan. Possibly some discreet pearls. In seven years and umpteen interviews the I'm-momcasual-in-my-khakis-but-intimidating-in-my-$400-shoes outfit never changes. And it is simply impossible to imagine her doing anything so undignified as what was required to get her pregnant in the first place.
She offers to take my cardigan, stares disdainfully at the hair my cat seems to have rubbed on it for good luck, and offers me a drink.
I'm supposed to say, "Water would be lovely," but am often tempted to ask for a Scotch, just to see what she'd do. I am then invited into the living room, which varies from baronial splendor to Ethan Allen interchangeable, depending on how "old" the money is. She gestures me to the couch, where I promptly sink three feet into the cushions, transformed into a five-year-old dwarfed by mountains of chintz. She looms above me, ramrod straight in a very uncomfortable-looking chair, legs crossed, tight smile.
"So," she begins brightly, "how did you come to the Parents League?"
This is the only part of the Interview that resembles a professional exchange. We will dance around certain words, such as "nanny" and "child care," because they would be distasteful and we will never, ever, actually acknowledge that we are talking about my working for her. This is the Holy Covenant of the Mother/Nanny relationship: this is a pleasure--not a job. We are merely "getting to know each other," much as how I imagine a John and a call girl must make the deal, while trying not to kill the mood.
She stares at me expectantly, ready for me to bring it on home. "I love children! I love little hands and little shoes and peanut butter sandwiches and peanut butter in my hair and Elmo--I love Elmo and sand in my purse and the "Hokey Pokey"--can't get enough of it!--and soy milk and blankies and the endless barrage of questions no one knows the answers to, I mean why is the sky blue? And Disney! Disney is my second language!"
We can both hear "A Whole New World" slowly swelling in the background as I earnestly convey that it would be more than a privilege to take care of her child--it would be an adventure.
Two pieces of information are meant to be conveyed to me during the Tour: (1) I am out of my league, and (2) I will be policing at maximum security to ensure that her child, who is also out of his or her league, does not scuff, snag, spill, or spoil a single element of this apartment. The coded script for this exchange goes as follows: she turns around to "mention" that there really is no housekeeping involved and that Hutchison really "prefers" to play in his room. If there were any justice in the world this is the point when all nannies should be given roadblocks and a stun gun. These rooms are destined to become the burden of my existence. From this point on, ninety-five percent of this apartment will be nothing more than a blurred background for chasing, enticing, and point-blank pleading with the child to "Put the Delft milkmaid down!!" I am also about to become intimate with more types of cleaning fluid than I knew there were types of dirt. It will be in her pantry stocked high above the washer-dryer-that I discover people actually import toilet bowl cleanser from Europe.
We arrive in the kitchen. It is enormous. With a few partitions it could easily house a family of four. She stops to rest one manicured hand on the counter, affecting a familiar pose, like a captain at the helm about to address the crew. However, I know if I asked her where she keeps the flour, a half hour of rummaging through unused baking utensils would ensue.
"Brandford's meals are really quite simple," she says, gesturing to the frozen food as she closes the freezer door. Translation: they are able to feed him this crap in good conscience on the weekends because I will be cooking him four-course macrobiotic meals on the weeknights. There will be a day to come when I stare at the colorful packages in the freezer with raw envy as I re-steam the wild rice from Costa Rica for the four-year-olds maximum digestive ease.
It is at this point that she begins the Rules. This is a very pleasing portion of the event for any mother because it is a chance to demonstrate how much thought and effort has gone into bringing the child this far. She speaks with a rare mixture of animation, confidence, and awesome conviction--she knows this much is true. I, in turn, adopt my most eager, yet compassionate expression as if to say "Yes, please tell me more--I'm fascinated" and "How awful it must be for you to have a child allergic to air." So begins the List:
Allergic to dairy.
Allergic to peanuts.
Allergic to strawberries.
Allergic to propane-based shellac.
Some kind of grain.
Won't eat blueberries.
Will only eat blueberries--sliced.
Sandwiches must be cut horizontally and have crusts.
Sandwiches must be cut in quarters and have NO crusts.
Sandwiches must be made facing east.
She loves rice milk!
He won't eat anything starting with the letter M.
All servings are to be pre-measured--NO additional food is permissible.
All juice is to be watered down and drunk out of a sip glass over the sink or in the bathtub (preferably until the child is eighteen).
All food is to be served on a plastic place mat with paper towel beneath bowl, bib on at all times.
Actually, "if you could get Lucien naked before eating and then hose her down afterward, that would be perfect."
NO food or drink within two hours of bedtime.
NO additives.
NO preservatives.
NO pumpkin seeds.
NO skins of any kind.
NO raw food.
NO cooked food.
NO American food.
and . . .
(voice drops to a pitch only whales can hear)
NO FOOD OUTSIDE THE KITCHEN!
I am nodding gravely in agreement. This makes total sense. "Oh, my God, of course," I find myself saying.
This is Phase I of bringing me into the fold, of creating the illusion of collusion. "We're in this together! Little Elspeth is our joint project! And we're going to feed her nothing but mung beans!" I feel as if I am nine months pregnant and just finding out my husband plans to raise the child in a cult. Yet I am somehow flattered that I am being chosen to participate in this project. Completion Phase II: I am succumbing to the allure of perfection.
After having received the Rules I am braced to meet the boy in the bubble. I expect to see a full-out intensive care unit complete with a Louis Vuitton IV hookup. Imagine my shock at the ball of motion that comes hurtling across the room at us. If it's a boy the movement is reminiscent of the Tasmanian Devil, while a girl tends toward a full-tilt Mouseketeers sequence, complete with two pirouettes and a grand jete. The child is sent into this routine by some Pavlovian response to the mother's perfume as she rounds the corner. The encounter proceeds as follows: (1) Child (groomed within an inch of his/her life) makes a beeline directly for mother's leg. (2) At the precise moment the child's hands wrap around her thigh the mother swiftly grabs the child's wrists. (3) And she simultaneously sidesteps out of the embrace, bringing the child's hands into a clapping position in front of the child's face, and bends down to say hello, turning the child's gaze to me. Voila. And thus the first of many performances of what I like to call the "Spatula Reflex." It has such timing and grace that I feel as if I should applaud, but instead move directly into my Pavlovian response set off by their expectant faces. I drop to my knees.
From How to be Good by Nick Hornby:
I am in a car park in Leeds when I tell my husband I don't want to be married to him anymore. David isn't even in the car park with me. He's at home, looking after the kids, and I have only called him to remind him that he should write a note for Molly's class teacher. The other bit just sort of . . . slips out. This is a mistake, obviously. Even though I am, apparently, and to my immense surprise, the kind of person who tells her husband that she doesn't want to be married to him anymore, I really didn't think that I was the kind of person to say so in a car park, on a mobile phone. That particular self-assessment will now have to be revised, clearly. I can describe myself as the kind of person who doesn't forget names, for example, because I have remembered names thousands of times and forgotten them only once or twice. But for the majority of people, marriage-ending conversations happen only once, if at all. If you choose to conduct yours on a mobile phone, in a Leeds car park, then you cannot really claim that it is unrepresentative, in the same way that Lee Harvey Oswald couldn't really claim that shooting presidents wasn't like him at all. Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs.
Later, in the hotel room, when I can't sleep -- and that is some sort of consolation, because even though I have turned into the woman who ends marriages in a car park, at least I have the decency to toss and turn afterward -- I retrace the conversation in my head, in as much detail as I can manage, trying to work out how we'd got from there (Molly's dental appointment) to here (imminent divorce) in three minutes. Ten, anyway. Which turns into an endless, three-in-the-morning brood about how we'd got from there (meeting at a college dance in 1976) to here (imminent divorce) in twenty-four years.
To tell you the truth, the second part of this self-reflection only takes so long because twenty-four years is a long time, and there are loads of bits that come unbidden into your head, little narrative details, that don't really have much to do with the story. If my thoughts about our marriage had been turned into a film, the critics would say that it was all padding, no plot, and that it could be summarized thus: two people meet, fall in love, have kids, start arguing, get fat and grumpy (him) and bored, desperate and grumpy (her), and split up. I wouldn't argue with the synopsis. We're nothing special.
You -don't get conversations like this when things are going well. It is not difficult to imagine that in other, better relationships, a phone call that began in this way would not and could not lead to talk of divorce. In better relationships you could sail right through the dentist part and move on to other topics--your day's work, or plans for the evening, or even, in a spectacularly functional marriage, something that has taken place in the world outside your home, a coughing fit on the Today Programme, say--just as ordinary, just as forgettable, but topics that form the substance and perhaps even the sustenance of an ordinary, forgettable, loving relationship. David and I, however . . . this is not our situation, not anymore. Phone calls like ours only happen when you've spent several years hurting and being hurt, until every word you utter or hear becomes coded and loaded, as complicated and full of subtext as a bleak and brilliant play. In fact, when I was lying awake in the hotel room trying to piece it all together, I was even struck by how clever we had been to invent our code: it takes years of miserable ingenuity to get to this place.
"To be honest, David, I don't need to ask how you are. I can hear how you are. Healthy enough to look after two children while simultaneously sniping at me. And very, very aggrieved, for reasons that remain obscure to me at this point. Although I'm sure you'll enlighten me."
"What makes you think I'm aggrieved?"
"Ha! You're the definition of aggrieved. Permanently."
"Bollocks."
"David, you make your living from being aggrieved."
This is true, partly. David's only steady income derives from a newspaper column he contributes to our local paper. The column is illustrated by a photograph of him snarling at the camera, and is subtitled "The Angriest Man in Holloway." The last one I could bear to read was a diatribe against old people who traveled on buses: Why did they never have their money ready? Why wouldn't they use the seats set aside for them at the front of the bus? Why did they insist on standing up ten minutes before their stop, thus obliging them to fall over frequently in an alarming and undignified fashion? You get the picture, anyway.
Maybe in the film of our marriage, written by a scriptwriter on the lookout for brief and elegant ways of turning dull, superficial arguments into something more meaningful, this would have been the moment: you know, "That's a good question. . . . Where are we going? . . . What are we doing? . . . Something something something . . . It's over." OK, it needs a little work, but it would do the trick. As David and I are not Tom and Nicole, however, we are blind to these neat little metaphorical moments.
We said nothing for a while. He was in a North London kitchen saying nothing, and I was in a car park in Leeds saying nothing, and I was suddenly and sickeningly struck by how well I knew this silence, the shape and the feel of it, all of its spiky little corners. (And of course it's not really silence at all. You can hear the expletive-ridden chatter of your own anger, the blood that pounds in your ears, and on this occasion, the sound of a Fiat Uno reversing into a parking space next to yours.) The truth is, there was no link between domestic inquiry and the decision to divorce. That's why I can't find it. I think what happened was, I just launched in.
"I'm so tired of this, David."
"Of what?"
"This. Rowing all the time. The silences. The bad atmosphere. All this . . . poison."
"Oh. That." Delivered as if the venom had somehow dripped into our marriage through a leaking roof, and he'd been meaning to fix it. "Yeah, well. Too late now."
"Me not you. Come on, David. I'm trying to talk about a sad, grown-up thing, and you still want to score points."
"So I can tell everyone you asked for a divorce. Out of the blue."
"Oh, it's completely out of the blue, isn't it? I mean, there's been no sign of this, has there, because we've been so blissfully happy. And is that what you're interested in doing? Telling everyone? Is that the point of it, for you?"
"I'm getting straight on the phone as soon as we've finished. I want to spin my version before you can spin your version."
"OK, well I'll just stay on the phone, then."
And then, sick of myself and him and everything else that went with either of us, I did the opposite, and hung up.
Listen: I'm not a bad person. I'm a doctor. One of the reasons I wanted to become a doctor was that I thought it would be a good--as in Good, rather than exciting or well paid or glamorous--thing to do. I liked how it sounded: "I want to be a doctor," "I'm training to be a doctor," "I'm a GP in a small North London practice." I thought it made me seem just right--professional, kind of brainy, not too flashy, respectable, mature, caring. You think doctors don't care about how things look, because they're doctors? Of course we do. Anyway. I'm a good person, a doctor, and I'm lying in a hotel bed with a man I don't really know very well called Stephen, and I've just asked my husband for a divorce.
I am in a car park in Leeds when I tell my husband I don't want to be married to him anymore. David isn't even in the car park with me. He's at home, looking after the kids, and I have only called him to remind him that he should write a note for Molly's class teacher. The other bit just sort of . . . slips out. This is a mistake, obviously. Even though I am, apparently, and to my immense surprise, the kind of person who tells her husband that she doesn't want to be married to him anymore, I really didn't think that I was the kind of person to say so in a car park, on a mobile phone. That particular self-assessment will now have to be revised, clearly. I can describe myself as the kind of person who doesn't forget names, for example, because I have remembered names thousands of times and forgotten them only once or twice. But for the majority of people, marriage-ending conversations happen only once, if at all. If you choose to conduct yours on a mobile phone, in a Leeds car park, then you cannot really claim that it is unrepresentative, in the same way that Lee Harvey Oswald couldn't really claim that shooting presidents wasn't like him at all. Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs.
Later, in the hotel room, when I can't sleep -- and that is some sort of consolation, because even though I have turned into the woman who ends marriages in a car park, at least I have the decency to toss and turn afterward -- I retrace the conversation in my head, in as much detail as I can manage, trying to work out how we'd got from there (Molly's dental appointment) to here (imminent divorce) in three minutes. Ten, anyway. Which turns into an endless, three-in-the-morning brood about how we'd got from there (meeting at a college dance in 1976) to here (imminent divorce) in twenty-four years.
To tell you the truth, the second part of this self-reflection only takes so long because twenty-four years is a long time, and there are loads of bits that come unbidden into your head, little narrative details, that don't really have much to do with the story. If my thoughts about our marriage had been turned into a film, the critics would say that it was all padding, no plot, and that it could be summarized thus: two people meet, fall in love, have kids, start arguing, get fat and grumpy (him) and bored, desperate and grumpy (her), and split up. I wouldn't argue with the synopsis. We're nothing special.
You -don't get conversations like this when things are going well. It is not difficult to imagine that in other, better relationships, a phone call that began in this way would not and could not lead to talk of divorce. In better relationships you could sail right through the dentist part and move on to other topics--your day's work, or plans for the evening, or even, in a spectacularly functional marriage, something that has taken place in the world outside your home, a coughing fit on the Today Programme, say--just as ordinary, just as forgettable, but topics that form the substance and perhaps even the sustenance of an ordinary, forgettable, loving relationship. David and I, however . . . this is not our situation, not anymore. Phone calls like ours only happen when you've spent several years hurting and being hurt, until every word you utter or hear becomes coded and loaded, as complicated and full of subtext as a bleak and brilliant play. In fact, when I was lying awake in the hotel room trying to piece it all together, I was even struck by how clever we had been to invent our code: it takes years of miserable ingenuity to get to this place.
"To be honest, David, I don't need to ask how you are. I can hear how you are. Healthy enough to look after two children while simultaneously sniping at me. And very, very aggrieved, for reasons that remain obscure to me at this point. Although I'm sure you'll enlighten me."
"What makes you think I'm aggrieved?"
"Ha! You're the definition of aggrieved. Permanently."
"Bollocks."
"David, you make your living from being aggrieved."
This is true, partly. David's only steady income derives from a newspaper column he contributes to our local paper. The column is illustrated by a photograph of him snarling at the camera, and is subtitled "The Angriest Man in Holloway." The last one I could bear to read was a diatribe against old people who traveled on buses: Why did they never have their money ready? Why wouldn't they use the seats set aside for them at the front of the bus? Why did they insist on standing up ten minutes before their stop, thus obliging them to fall over frequently in an alarming and undignified fashion? You get the picture, anyway.
Maybe in the film of our marriage, written by a scriptwriter on the lookout for brief and elegant ways of turning dull, superficial arguments into something more meaningful, this would have been the moment: you know, "That's a good question. . . . Where are we going? . . . What are we doing? . . . Something something something . . . It's over." OK, it needs a little work, but it would do the trick. As David and I are not Tom and Nicole, however, we are blind to these neat little metaphorical moments.
We said nothing for a while. He was in a North London kitchen saying nothing, and I was in a car park in Leeds saying nothing, and I was suddenly and sickeningly struck by how well I knew this silence, the shape and the feel of it, all of its spiky little corners. (And of course it's not really silence at all. You can hear the expletive-ridden chatter of your own anger, the blood that pounds in your ears, and on this occasion, the sound of a Fiat Uno reversing into a parking space next to yours.) The truth is, there was no link between domestic inquiry and the decision to divorce. That's why I can't find it. I think what happened was, I just launched in.
"I'm so tired of this, David."
"Of what?"
"This. Rowing all the time. The silences. The bad atmosphere. All this . . . poison."
"Oh. That." Delivered as if the venom had somehow dripped into our marriage through a leaking roof, and he'd been meaning to fix it. "Yeah, well. Too late now."
"Me not you. Come on, David. I'm trying to talk about a sad, grown-up thing, and you still want to score points."
"So I can tell everyone you asked for a divorce. Out of the blue."
"Oh, it's completely out of the blue, isn't it? I mean, there's been no sign of this, has there, because we've been so blissfully happy. And is that what you're interested in doing? Telling everyone? Is that the point of it, for you?"
"I'm getting straight on the phone as soon as we've finished. I want to spin my version before you can spin your version."
"OK, well I'll just stay on the phone, then."
And then, sick of myself and him and everything else that went with either of us, I did the opposite, and hung up.
Listen: I'm not a bad person. I'm a doctor. One of the reasons I wanted to become a doctor was that I thought it would be a good--as in Good, rather than exciting or well paid or glamorous--thing to do. I liked how it sounded: "I want to be a doctor," "I'm training to be a doctor," "I'm a GP in a small North London practice." I thought it made me seem just right--professional, kind of brainy, not too flashy, respectable, mature, caring. You think doctors don't care about how things look, because they're doctors? Of course we do. Anyway. I'm a good person, a doctor, and I'm lying in a hotel bed with a man I don't really know very well called Stephen, and I've just asked my husband for a divorce.
From The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood:
Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge. The bridge was being repaired: she went right through the Danger sign. The car fell a hundred feet into the ravine, smashing through the treetops feathery with new leaves, then burst into flames and rolled down into the shallow creek at the bottom. Chunks of the bridge fell on top of it. Nothing much was left of her but charred smithereens.
The white gloves: a Pontius Pilate gesture. She was washing her hands of me. Of all of us. What had she been thinking of as the car sailed off the bridge, then hung suspended in the afternoon sunlight, glinting like a dragonfly for that one instant of held breath before the plummet? Of Alex, of Richard, of bad faith, of our father and his wreckage; of God, perhaps, and her fatal, triangular bargain. Or of the stack of cheap school exercise books that she must have hidden that very morning, in the bureau drawer where I kept my stockings, knowing I would be the one to read them.
What I remembered then was Reenie, from when we were little. It was Reenie who'd done the bandaging, of scrapes and cuts and minor injuries: Mother might be resting, or doing good deeds elsewhere, but Reenie was always there. She'd scoop us up and sit us on the white enamel kitchen table, alongside the pie dough she was rolling out or the chicken she was cutting up or the fish she was gutting, and give us a lump of brown sugar to get us to close our mouths. Tell me where it hurts, she'd say. Stop howling. Just calm down and show me where.
But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.
Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge. The bridge was being repaired: she went right through the Danger sign. The car fell a hundred feet into the ravine, smashing through the treetops feathery with new leaves, then burst into flames and rolled down into the shallow creek at the bottom. Chunks of the bridge fell on top of it. Nothing much was left of her but charred smithereens.
The white gloves: a Pontius Pilate gesture. She was washing her hands of me. Of all of us. What had she been thinking of as the car sailed off the bridge, then hung suspended in the afternoon sunlight, glinting like a dragonfly for that one instant of held breath before the plummet? Of Alex, of Richard, of bad faith, of our father and his wreckage; of God, perhaps, and her fatal, triangular bargain. Or of the stack of cheap school exercise books that she must have hidden that very morning, in the bureau drawer where I kept my stockings, knowing I would be the one to read them.
What I remembered then was Reenie, from when we were little. It was Reenie who'd done the bandaging, of scrapes and cuts and minor injuries: Mother might be resting, or doing good deeds elsewhere, but Reenie was always there. She'd scoop us up and sit us on the white enamel kitchen table, alongside the pie dough she was rolling out or the chicken she was cutting up or the fish she was gutting, and give us a lump of brown sugar to get us to close our mouths. Tell me where it hurts, she'd say. Stop howling. Just calm down and show me where.
But some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.