Silenced by the Yams - By Karen Cantwell Page 0,8

Marr’s standards of the perfect housefrau for her perfect only son.

“Where are they?” asked Amber, who held a pathetic Puddles in her arms. He looked sadly at me in his blue, lace trimmed baby doll dress and matching bonnet tied neatly under his little gray chin. His despair was in direct contrast to Amber’s magnificent, semi-toothless smile that lit up her freckled face. Poor Puddles. I had to give him credit for putting up with Amber. Maybe he thought they were related since her hair was just as curly as his own.

Everything had happened so fast, I found myself without a reasonable explanation for my lie. “Um . . .” I was vying for time.

Bethany stood with a book in one hand and the other hand on her hip. A you-did-it-to-us-again look crossed her face as she peered through her smart, Tina Fey-style glasses. Bethany was eleven going on thirty-seven. She didn’t say anything, which was worse than her saying anything at all.

I gulped.

Sixteen year-old Callie, the spitting image of her father‘s dark eyes and hair, readjusted her long locks into a half-hearted ponytail and narrowed her eyes at me. “There aren’t any donuts, are there? This was your ploy to rally us for manual labor.”

I shrugged. “You can write your tell-all book later. But just for the record, kids in Africa have to walk miles every day in the hot blistering sun to carry gallons and gallons and gallons of water to their town and all I’m asking you to do is vacuum a few floors and wash some windows.” When in doubt, try the privileged children lesson. All mothers attempt this. Few succeed. Yet, I couldn’t stop. “And you know what they get as a reward for their hard work? Not a Danny’s Donut, I guarantee you. Probably just a few grains of rice, or a half a potato. Raw.”

Bethany slid Callie a look. “At least she’s off her Slumdog Millionaire ‘kids in the slums of Mumbai’ kick.” She turned back to me. “Have you been watching Out of Africa again?”

“I needed a Meryl Streep fix, what can I say? But that does not negate the fact, Miss Smarty, that Mama Marr will be here by two o’clock and we’ve got a house to clean.” I pointed to Amber. “You—you’re on cupboard detail. Get a washcloth and start wiping. Bethany, your mission, which you have no choice but to accept, is to vacuum every floor, upstairs and downstairs. Callie, you’re bathrooms.”

“Of course,” Callie said, rolling her eyes. “The oldest kids always gets the grossest job. Why don’t we have a maid like the Horners?”

“Because your dad is an agent for the FBI, not a CEO for a Fortune 500 Company like Mr. Horner. Nor am I a DDS for a chain of dental offices like Mrs.—I mean Dr.—Horner. Poor people like us have to get our hands dirty.”

“Well frankly,” said Amber, letting Puddles escape from her arms, “I think Dr. Horner is the poor one. I’d rather wipe cupboards than put my hands into people’s icky, slobbery mouths.” She scrunched up her face and stuck out her tongue. “She must cry herself to sleep every night.”

I doubted that. Judi Horner was one of the most together women I’d ever met. She was Super Woman and Mrs. America all rolled into one. I’d hate her if she wasn’t so darned nice. And if she wasn’t our family dentist. I have to admit to buttering her up with compliments just to make sure she wouldn’t conveniently find five “cavities” to drill.

Everyone agreed, grudgingly, to work, but only after I located Howard and convinced him to run and get two dozen Danny’s donuts, pronto. I had my sweaty head in the oven, scrubbing furiously with a steel wool pad, when someone tapped my shoulder. I jumped and bumped my head on the top of the oven. I extricated myself and discovered that the tapper was Peggy Rubenstein.

“Ciao, Bella!” she said with a smile. “Didn’t mean to scare you—Amber let me in.”

My fine friend Peggy was a pasty-skinned, red-headed, stout lady of obvious Irish lineage who had converted to Judaism before she married and then to Italian-ism after she married. She and her husband, Simon, spent a month-long honeymoon in Italy. Ever since, she has talked Italian, walked Italian, cooked Italian and often forgotten that her maiden name was O’Malley, not Minnelli.

“It’s okay,” I said, pulling off the long blue rubber gloves. “I needed a bit of a break.”

“Spring cleaning?” she asked.

“It’s