reached the front of the line, and we were at the counter.
“What’s god’s favorite flavor of M&M?” I asked the boy who was helping us. He looked about twelve, and very confused.
“Uh?”
“Pretzel,” I said.
“Obviously,” said Miriam, giggling.
“We don’t have pretzel,” he said. “Only peanut and plain.”
“Well, darn,” I said.
“It’ll have to be peanut, then,” said Miriam. “And an extra-large Cherry Coke.”
“So, this is what it’s like to be an adult?” I asked her as I collected the candy from the counter.
“What do you mean?”
“Just, like, you can do whatever you want?”
She picked up the gigantic soda, wrapped her wild mouth around the straw.
“Well, yeah,” she said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“Oh.”
“Why? Don’t you do what you want?”
She was so cute standing there, Cupid’s buxom sister, all pinks and creams and honeys and golds, pure and indecent.
“No,” I said. “Not often.”
As we watched the movie, I ruminated on a question, and the question was: Did I want to fuck Audrey Hepburn? I realized I didn’t. I coveted her black mesh veil, the red suit, the white trench. But I had no desire to kiss those lips. When I imagined her tiny titties, I thought, Okay, if requested, I would lick them. I’d give the nipples a little flick. And if I put my face between those concave thighs and stuck my mouth in her little pussy with the black hair, straight like an arrow, it could be nice—a Givenchy fuck, swank and lovely. But compared to Miriam, it would be nothing.
When the movie was over, Miriam and I stood together in the lobby of the theater by the exit doors. We were both silent, looking down at the blue rug, which was covered in a pattern of shooting stars and popcorn clusters. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, if I was supposed to do anything at all, but I knew I wanted to stay in Miriam’s presence as long as possible. I kept opening my mouth to speak and then closing it again.
“Well,” she said, breaking the silence.
“Well?”
“There’s three left,” she said, handing me the bag of Twizzlers and grinning. “You take them. Okay. Bye.”
“Bye,” I said.
She walked out the doors.
As I drove home, I felt high.
“Wasn’t that a beautiful rug in the lobby?” I said out loud. “In all my life, I don’t think I’ve seen such a beautiful rug, Miri. Can I call you that? Oh, Miri. Miri, Miri, Miri.”
I kept touching the almost-empty bag she had given me and smiling. At a stoplight, I took out the last remaining Twizzlers and whipped them gently over my eyes.
CHAPTER 28
My mother had stopped calling. She was no longer sending family emissaries, weather warnings, or a narrative history of my upbringing. Now what I received daily was a lone text. The text simply said: Hi.
On Friday it was: Hi.
Saturday: Hi.
Sunday: Hi.
Monday: I mailed you two coupons for Bed Bath & Beyond. 20% off WHOLE PURCHASE and 20% off one item!! Use in good health and prosperity!!!
Tuesday: Please make sure you use coupons fpr big item. Maybe a vacuum?? Do you have a cacuum??
Wednesday: Hi.
The Hi was alluring. I wanted desperately to respond to the Hi. What was wrong with writing back a little How are you? or Hey or even I miss you? The Hi was so simple, so casual. The Hi made it seem like I could have an easy relationship with my mother—as though it were not a trapdoor to an emotional onslaught, a bombardment, a PowerPoint presentation of guilt—as though my mother and I were friends, great friends, as though I were one of those daughters who said, Oh yeah, my mother is my best friend. Those women were upsetting.
Mothers who doted on their baby daughters also killed me. I couldn’t be involved in their attempts to get me to cosign a child’s cuteness. I’d see a mother walking down the street with her little toddler, the toddler babbling on about something or other, the mother smiling at the toddler, then looking at me, expecting me to celebrate her precious little one. I couldn’t smile back.
When I met Ana for teatime the day after the movies, I felt like weeping.
“I’m sorry,” I wanted to say as she handed me my hot cup of Harney & Sons, our fingers touching. “I’m sorry,” and also, “Please help me.”
I couldn’t not want it: the approval, that feeling at afternoon teas past when my stomach rumbled and I was proud of its rumbling,