would change; she would become quite aggressive on the subject of her second marriage; she realized it was time. Pity whatever boyfriend was with her at this time; he would be blamed for leading her on-and worse, for never allowing her to develop a proper career. There was no honorable course left to him but to marry the woman he had made so dependent on him-whoever he was. She would say he was the reason she'd never stopped smoking, too; by not marrying her, he had made her too nervous to stop smoking. And her oily complexion, formerly the responsibility of her ex-husband, was now the present boyfriend's fault, too; if she was sallow, she was sallow because of him. ^ He was also the cause of her announced depression. Were he to leave her-were he to abandon her, to not marry her-he could at the very least assume the financial burden of maintaining her psychiatrist. Without his aggravation, after all, she would never have needed a psychiatrist. How-you may ask-do I, or did I, 'know' so much about my classmate's unfortunate mother, Mitzy Lish? I told you that Gravesend Academy students were-many of them-very sophisticated; and none of them was more 'sophisticated' than Larry Lish. Larry told everyone everything he knew about his mother; imagine that! Larry thought his mother was a joke. But in January of , Owen Meany and I were terrified of Mrs. Lish. She wore a fur coat that was responsible for the death of countless small mammals, she wore sunglasses that completely concealed her opinion of Owen and me-although we were sure, somehow, that Mrs. Lish thought we were rusticated to a degree that defied our eventual education; we were sure that Mrs. Lish would rather suffer the agonies of giving up smoking than suffer such boredom as an evening in our company.
'HELLO, MISSUS LISH,' said Owen Meany. 'IT'S NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN.'
'Hello!' I said. 'How are you?'
She was the kind of woman who drank nothing but vodka-
tonics, because she cared about her breath; because of her smoking, she was extremely self-conscious about her breath. Nowadays, she'd be the kind of woman who'd carry one of those breath-freshening atomizers in her purse-gassing herself with the atomizer, all day long, just in case someone might be moved to spontaneously kiss her.
'Go on, tell him,' Larry Lish said to his mother.
'My son says you doubt that the president fools around,' Mrs. Lish said to Owen. When she said 'fools around,' she opened her fur-her perfume rushed out at us, and we breathed her in. 'Well, let me tell you,' said Mitzy Lish, 'he fools around-plenty.'
'WITH MARILYN MONROE?' Owen asked Mrs. Lish.
'With her-and with countless others,' Mrs. Lish said; she wore a little too much lipstick-even for -and when she smiled at Owen Meany, we could see a smear of lipstick on one of her big, upper-front teeth.
'DOES JACKIE KNOW?' Owen asked Mrs. Lish.
'She must be used to it,' Mrs. Lish said; she appeared to relish Owen's distress. 'What do you think of that!' she asked Owen; Mitzy Lish was the kind of woman who bullied young men, too.
'I THINK IT'S WRONG,' said Owen Meany.
'Is he for real?' Mrs. Lish asked her son. Remember that? Remember when people used to ask if you were 'for real'?
'Isn't he a classic!' Larry Lish asked his mother.
'This is the editor-in-chief of your school newspaper?' Mrs. Lish asked her son; he was laughing.
'That's right,' Larry Lish said; his mother really cracked him up.
'This is the valedictorian of your class!' Mitzy Lish asked Larry.
'Yes!' Larry said; he couldn't stop laughing. Owen was so serious about being the valedictorian of our class that he was already writing his commencement speech-and it was only January. In many schools, they don't even know who the class valedictorian is until the spring term; but Owen Meany's grade-point average was perfect-no other student was even close.
'Let me ask you something,' Mrs. Lish said to Owen. 'If Marilyn Monroe wanted to sleep with you, would you let her?'' I thought that Larry Lish was going to fall down-he was laughing so hard. Owen looked fairly calm. He offered Mrs. Lish a cigarette, but she preferred her own brand; he lit her cigarette for her, and then he lit one for himself. He appeared to be thinking over the question very carefully.
'Well? Come on,' Mrs. Lish said seductively. 'We're talking Marilyn Monroe-we're talking the most perfect piece of ass you can imagine Or don't you like Marilyn Monroe?' She took off her sunglasses; she had very pretty eyes, and she knew it. 'Would you or wouldn't you?' she asked Owen Meany. She winked at him; and then, with the painted nail of her long index finger, she touched him on the tip of his nose.
'NOT IF I WERE THE PRESIDENT,' Owen said. 'AND CERTAINLY NOT IF I WERE MARRIED!'
Mrs. Lish laughed; it was something between a hyena and the sounds Hester made in her sleep when she'd been drinking.
