Love and Other Four-Letter Words Read online

  After a second, I gulped in some air, turned to Shira and said, more confidently this time: “Really I am.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Shira reached over and tousled my hair, in such a motherly way that the tears instantly piled up behind my eyes again. I turned back to the lettuce. This is going to be the most pristine fucking salad in the whole world.

  Shira resumed slicing the bread. “But if you ever need someone to talk to—”

  “Thanks.”

  My fingers had grown so cold from the water that they were practically numb. When I ran them under the hot tap, the blood rushed in so quickly it made them ache. But I caught myself before I cried out, biting my lip instead.

  When Mom returned from Long Island, her neck and stomach were covered in red blotchy hives. “Uncle Steve was worse than ever,” Mom said, unbuttoning her blouse and standing in front of the oscillating fan. Mom always dresses up to see the Original Asshole, like the middle-aged version of a “good girl.” And today she'd come through in spades: a pressed white blouse, a beige linen skirt (below the knees, of course), pumps. Yes, real, honest-to-goodness canoe shoes! The last time Mom had worn pumps was to her coworker's son's bar mitzvah two years ago and on the car ride home she'd had Dad pull up next to a Dumpster so she could toss them in.

  I didn't respond. I was busy hanging a new poster above the futon. Mom had said it would be okay, as long as I used thumbtacks. Well, it's not new exactly. More vintage. I bought it at a used-book-and-record shop on upper Broadway. It's an old placard from the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where Bob Dylan notoriously plugged in an electric guitar. Some say it changed the course of music. I just like looking at the names of all the folkie legends like Pete Seeger and Joan Baez.

  “He laid into me about uprooting you from Ithaca, bringing you to the city.”

  I glanced at Mom.

  “Do you feel uprooted?”

  I shrugged. I really didn't feel like having this conversation right now.

  “And get this.” Mom began running a washcloth under the tap. “As we were driving to the train station in his brand-new Lexus, he took it upon himself to stress that he won't bail me out, you know, financially.”

  Mom was wringing the washcloth like she wished it was the Original Asshole's neck.

  “As if I'd ever ask him.” She sighed.

  I studied the poster. I'd hung it pretty crooked, with the left side at least an inch higher than the right. I should probably do it over. But not now. Now, I just wanted to split before Mom started up about money again. She'd nearly had a breakdown yesterday morning, as she attempted to balance her dwindling checkbook, a stack of unpaid bills at her side.

  “Remind me how difficult he is the next time I get the bright idea to go out there.” Mom blotted the washcloth against her bare neck and stomach.

  “Gladly,” I said, and then I grabbed my keys and headed up to the roof.

  On Friday, Mom's forty-third birthday rolled around. She'd been saying all week that she wanted to low-key it, that she wasn't up for a big celebration. But it still seemed like she needed something to snap her out of the malaise that has descended over the past few weeks. I'd already trekked back to the boutique where she'd gotten that vanilla spray and purchased an assortment of fruit-scented soaps. But the real present I was saving for dinnertime.

  I spent the morning scouring Moosewood, the bible of vegetarian cookbooks. Moosewood Restaurant— located in none other than downtown Ithaca—is Mom's favorite place to eat. Since Dad and I used to take her there for her birthday every summer, I decided to recreate the granola-lovin' café right in our apartment.

  I had to hit three different grocery stores to find all the ingredients for Balkan cucumber salad, eggplant curry with basmati rice and, for dessert, homemade berry sorbet, which I would mix right in our blender. And just before I reached the cashier at the second place, I tossed a box of plastic straws into my shopping basket. I can't remember if Moosewood is too ecopsycho to use straws, but I thought it would give it more of a restauranty feel.

  As I chopped and peeled and sautéed and spiced away the afternoon, I made Mom steer clear of the kitchen. I even served her a glass of iced coffee and a plateful of Oreos when she said something about being hungry. So by the time dinner rolled around, as I led her to the table blindfolded by my hand, I'd successfully concealed the Moosewood theme.

  “Ta-da,” I sang, steering her into her chair. “Happy birthday!”

  “Wow,” Mom said as she surveyed the spread. I noticed her eyes resting on the sheet of loose-leaf paper that I'd tacked above the table, with the words Moosewood Restaurant scrawled in neon-pink highlighter, the only marker I'd been able to find for my last-minute inspiration.

  I hovered above her chair, grinning expectantly.

  “Wow,” Mom said again, with even less gusto than the last time.

  I didn't want her lack of enthusiasm to get to me. But after fifteen minutes of me declaring how sumptuous the food was, exaggeratedly wiping my lips with a (ahhem) cloth napkin and generously helping myself to seconds of everything, I began to worry. Mom had eaten about three bites of the salad, and besides picking out a few fresh peas, she hadn't even touched the eggplant dish.

  I set down my fork. “It's delicious, Sammie.” Mom nibbled at a walnut. “Really it is.”

  I tried not to let my lower lip protrude too much. Mom began rearranging the food on her plate. “I'm just not that hungry tonight … you know …the hives …”

  As Mom's voice trailed off, I noticed her looking past me, over my shoulder. I followed her gaze to my Newport poster, which I'd finally gotten around to straightening this morning.

  “The first year Dad and I were together, we went to hear Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie play at Carnegie Hall.” She pushed around her rice until it formed an O, like a doughnut. “Dad was so wired when we back to our apartment that he stayed up half the night playing protest songs on his guitar.”

  I glanced across the room at my guitar case propped against the wall. My mouth suddenly felt dry. I sipped at the fresh-squeezed lemonade until there was nothing left but ice cubes, and then I began grinding the straw between my incisors.

  “He played all of them … ‘If I Had a Hammer,' ‘We Shall Overcome, ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’ The corners of Mom's lips were turned up in a faint smile. “Vietnam was long gone by then, but if you took one look at him that night, you never would have guessed it—”

  And then Mom choked up. I looked away.

  “I'm sorry.” Mom shook her head as she swabbed the rivulet of tears rolling down her cheeks. “You made a beautiful dinner, Sammie … I'm so sorry …I just need to lie down for a bit.”

  Mom headed toward the bathroom. A second later, I heard the tub running. I got up and closed the door between our rooms.

  When I turned and caught sight of the table, the sign, the beeswax candle I'd forgotten to light, I felt nauseous.

  Nice try, kid. Fooling yourself into thinking a little food could make it all go away.

  After a half hour or so, Mom switched out her light. I can always tell because the strip under the door goes black. I reached over and picked up the phone. I've dialed Kitty's number so many times I can do it with my eyes closed.

  Kitty answered on the third ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi,” I said, not even trying to keep the edge out of my voice.

  “Sammie …I was about to call you,” she moaned, “I'm so upset. …”

  “Why?”

  “Remember how Jack wanted to spice up our sex life?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I have a hunch he's been shopping on another spice rack.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I think he's having an affair,” Kitty said flatly.

  “Are you serious?”

  “He's been, quote, busy the past three nights, and I pulled up next to his ex at a traffic intersection yesterday and she gave me a funny look.”

 
“Did you ask him?”

  “No,” Kitty whimpered, “he's always saying how trust is essential to a relationship.”

  I should become a therapist. I swear, I wouldn't have to do one thing differently and I'd make a bundle more than as a baby-sitter. Except I'd really needed someone to listen to me tonight, to reassure me that I hadn't fucked up.

  As Kitty blew her nose, I considered telling her just that. But that's when she said something that piqued my interest.

  “You know those people who sublet your house?”

  “Sure… the Oscar Mayer Wieners.”

  “Call them that all you want,” she sniffled, “but they have a daughter our age who's totally gorgeous.”

  “A daughter?” Up until that moment, I'd maintained my illusion of the son, the farm boy, the monkeyspanker.

  “Every guy in Ithaca wants to ask her out.”

  Hearing that was the final straw. I lived in that damn house for fourteen celibate years and this girl is in town for what? A few weeks? And she's already the hit of the social scene? If I were a camel, I'd be in a body cast right now because my back would be broken.

  Phoebe was the only one in the dog run when I arrived the next morning. I spotted her from half a block away, sitting on a bench with Dogma on her lap.

  “Sammie and Goobermeister!” Phoebe shouted, waving. “I was hoping you'd come back.”

  I lingered near the gate while Moxie galloped over to Phoebe. As Dogma hopped onto the ground, Phoebe slid over on the bench, patting the empty spot next to her.

  “Are you trying to goober up my tennis ball again?” Phoebe asked Moxie, who was nosing at her backpack.

  Joining Phoebe, I noticed she still had that brace on her knee. I bet she's torn a ligament or something.

  “How was your week?” Phoebe asked, tossing the tennis ball across the dog run.

  I shrugged.

  “Not so good?”

  I shook my head as I fiddled with the metal gadget on Moxie's leash.

  “Me neither.” “Why not?” “I asked you first,” Phoebe said.

  I paused. Part of me was tempted to spill the emotional beans, like those tell-all families on daytime talk shows who curse, throw chairs at each other and eventually make up. I wondered how Phoebe would react if I told her about Dad taking off for California without me. Or the fact that Mom had been curled in the fetal position under her sheets when I'd left the apartment a few minutes ago.

  “I just moved here this summer,” I finally said, “so I don't really know anyone in the city.”

  “Really? Where did you move from?”

  “Ithaca. It's a town in central New—”

  “I know where Ithaca is! My older sister went to Cornell.”

  “Really?” I couldn't believe it! Maybe she'd even taken a class with Dad. Supposedly his American lit class was so popular that undergrads audited lectures just for fun, a notion that always struck me as bizarre.

  “She went to the vet school, but now she lives in Tucson. Guess what she specializes in.”

  My mind flashed to Oscar Mayer Wienermom, who I remembered was going to work at the vet school. Which then led me to Oscar Mayer Wienerette and the droves of guys lining up at my front door. I can see it now, with them saying, Who lived here, again? Samantha who? Never heard of her.

  “Dogs,” Phoebe continued. “We're a big dog family.”

  I glanced over to where Moxie and Dogma were digging a hole.

  “I mean, we're big into dogs, but the only dogs we've ever had are small ones.”

  I had to laugh.

  “By the way, now you know one person in New York City.”

  Just then Dogma bounded over and leaped back into Phoebe's lap, smudging dirt all over her legs.

  “And one dog,” she added.

  Phoebe didn't tell me about her bad week until we were in Riverside Park, where she suggested we go after the dog run was invaded by three snarling boxers and a springer spaniel. Or at least that was the type of dog that Phoebe deemed the guy who corralled them in on a web of knotted ropes.

  Riverside Park turned out to be on a narrow stretch of land bordering the Hudson River, overflowing with families, mutts and little kids teetering on their bikes. I could have ridden Mariposa here, if I'd been able to bring her. As Phoebe and I walked up the promenade, I discovered I'd been wrong about her on two counts:

  She's going to be seventeen in September, so she's nearly a year older than I am. I must have looked surprised because she laughed and said, Don't worry, people always assume I'm younger because I'm such a runt.

  Her knee wasn't injured, as she confessed during part of her bad-week story, which went something like this: Earlier this summer her parents had sent her to a six-week tennis camp where her older siblings had thrived, even though she hates the sport. But three days in, opportunity knocked when she tripped on a tree root and twisted her knee. The sports doctor banned her from the courts. The camp offered to reimburse tuition. Phoebe hopped the next bus home. But now her parents are saying she has to return when her knee heals, so Phoebe is faking a limp whenever she's in their presence.

  Phoebe was still walking fine by lunchtime, when we bought hot dogs from a street vendor. As we dangled our feet over the river, Moxie begged for a scrap of my food.

  “It really is a dog-eat-dog world.”

  Phoebe giggled. Phoebe was always making dog references, every opportunity she could get. Like when we were throwing our wrappers into a trash bin, she pointed to a woman jogging by us, with a sturdy build and strawberry blond hair.

  “What do you think she is?”

  “A golden retriever?” I whispered.

  “Not bad.” Phoebe wiped some relish off her cheek. “A Chesapeake Bay retriever.”

  Phoebe also pointed out cute guys. “I'm the first to admit I'm boy-crazy!” she exclaimed as we passed a schoolyard where some guys were playing three-onthree basketball.

  “Mmmm,” she moaned as one of them ripped off his shirt, exposing a six-pack stomach, “I like my men built.”

  I stepped back a little so it wasn't obvious we were watching them. I wonder how much experience Phoebe has, if she's more like Kitty or more like me. If I had to guess, I'd say she's somewhere in between.

  By late afternoon, we found ourselves back at the metal gate outside the dog run.

  “Well.” Phoebe gestured toward Columbus Avenue. “I go up here.”

  “And I go down.”

  We stood there for a second. Dogma began whining and tugging at his leash.

  “Hope to see you soon,” Phoebe said.

  “Me too.”

  We'd just started off in opposite directions when Phoebe called out, “Sammie?”

  “Yeah?” I turned around.

  Phoebe grinned. “I had a dog-day afternoon.” “Me too,” I said again, smiling this time.

  But when I entered our apartment a few minutes later, I got a queasy feeling. It was stuffy and still and exactly the way I'd left it in the morning, with my bowl on the counter, two pillows situated on either end of the futon and my sorry-ass Moosewood sign crumpled on top of a stack of newspapers ready to go out for recycling. Directly within my eyeshot was Mom's pen-andink sketch, still clipped to the easel, untouched now for several weeks. It was strange to look at the half-finished cityscape, with windowless buildings and partially erected skyscrapers. Almost as if the contractors had pricked their fingers on a cursed spinning wheel and fallen into a deep slumber for a hundred years.

  My gut told me to go right back outside again, but my bladder insisted I had to pee. Phoebe had fasttalked her way into a diner a little while ago, but I always feel weird about doing that, especially when there's a sign posted on the door that says Rest Room for Customers Only.

  When I peeked into Mom's room, my fears were confirmed. The blinds were drawn and Mom was sprawled on her stomach with her bare legs twisted in a tangle of sheets. While I was tiptoeing out of the bathroom, she glanced at me through a veil of matted hair.


  “Are you okay?” I whispered. “Do you have another headache?”

  Mom shook her head, but I wasn't sure if that meant no, she wasn't okay or no, she didn't have a migraine.

  “Can I get you anything? A glass of water?”

  “That'd be great.” Mom's voice was barely audible, what with her face burrowed in a mound of pillows.

  I twisted some ice cubes out of the tray and plunked them into a tall glass. I couldn't get this unsettling thought out of my mind: What if Dad suddenly attributed the trial separation to a temporary brain lapse and rolled into town, intent on nestling back into connubial bliss? I bet if he saw Mom like this he'd run for them thar hills. Sprint would be more like it.

  As I took her the water, I decided that I should do everything within my power to keep things around the apartment as normal as possible. Because if I didn't, who would?

  Over the next few weeks, I was in a near-constant state of anxiety, to a point where it was normal for my throat to be tight, my cheeks tense, my breath hard to catch. At night I would fall into bed, my body zapped of energy, and dream about separating lights from darks in the laundry room and ATM machines running out of cash. There was just so much to remember that my brain felt like our wearied old fan, whirring night and day in a cycle like this:

  Is there anything to eat in the apartment? Answer is often no, which means I have to make a shopping list and trek to several grocery stores in an attempt to hit all the sales advertised in the windows.

  2. Has Moxie been fed and walked? And why does she keep gnawing that raw patch on her back?

  Is today a day I have to remind Mom about alternate-side parking? And what if another episode like last Thursday happens? I hadn't been able to rouse her in time, so as the street cleaners advanced, I'd grabbed her car keys and begged the super to move the Volvo while I hyperventilated from the sidewalk.

  The only times my mind slows down are when I'm playing guitar or hanging out with Phoebe. We've been meeting in the dog run every morning. Sometimes we just sit on a bench, chatting as Moxie and Dogma horse around. Other times we wander around Central Park for hours, until Phoebe “limps” off to physical therapy.