| didn’t you call me, Krista? If you were in a place with a phone? You must have known I’d be waiting for you.” “I did call, Mom. I tried… “No. I was here, I’ve been home since four-fifteen. I would have heard the phone ringing.” “Mom, when I called the line was busy. Two or three times I tried, the line was busy… This was true: I’d tried to call my mother from the County Line. But I’d only tried twice. Both times the busy signal had rung. Then I’d given up, and I’d forgotten. Now my mother was saying, conceding: maybe she had been on the phone, for just a few minutes. Maybe yes she’d missed my call. “I called Nancy’s number”—Nancy was a classmate of mine who lived in Sparta, at whose house I sometimes stayed overnight—“to see if you were there, or if Nancy knew where you might be. She didn’t.” “Mom, for Christ’s sake! Why’d you call Nancy.” “Krista, don’t use profanity in my presence. That’s crude, and that’s vulgar. Your father might say ‘For Christ’s sake’—and a lot worse—but I don’t want to hear such words in my daughter’s mouth.” Fuck, Mom. Such words are all I have. My heart beat in resentment that in my mother’s eyes I was still a child when I was certain I had not been a child in a long time. “How badly was he drinking? Was it bad?” “No.” “And he was driving. Was |
with the intention of buying a strawberry whipped-cream pie, a chocolate mousse, a three-tiered birthday cake, a luscious glazed fruit tart or a platter of fudge, chocolate-chip cookies, macaroons. “O.K. Ben, Krissie—say what looks good to you. What’d you like best.” Earnestly Ben and I debated: the strawberry whipped-cream pie, banana cream pie, cherry pie with strips of golden crust like a pinwheel instead of the usual boring solid upper crust… An entire display case of birthday cakes! This debate could occupy minutes. While Eddy Diehl glanced at Zoe Kruller in the mirror behind the display case, took in his own reflection with a critical frown and slicked back his tufted rust-red hair like a rooster’s comb with a quick movement of both his hands. Eddy Diehl’s big carpenter’s hands. Eddy Diehl’s big thumbs. Eddy Diehl’s heavy-lidded eyes behind flat sea-green “aviator” sunglasses with the metallic rims. Eddy Diehl’s wordless appeal to the pert petite strawberry-blond woman with the glamorous made-up face like a Dolly Parton doll, white sleeves pushed back to bare her pale freckled forearms. After some Sundays of this, Ben began to object: “You always ask us what we want, Dad, but you never buy anything. So why ask us?” I didn’t want to hear this. I’d made my choices to tell Daddy: banana cream pie, caramel custard pie, triple-layer chocolate cake with HAPPY BIRTHDAY scrolled in pink frosting on the top. Once I’d watched Zoe Kruller squirting a coil of pink frosting like toothpaste |
