Perky, disgusting little Cochran the Cockroach had reached a level of popularity that had my publicist talking book tour. Not the talk show circuit or high-style launch parties. No, she wanted me to make an endless round of library story hours and school assemblies filled with packs of children asking questions like, “Why are there bubbles in spit?” and “Do you curl the hair in your nose?” I gave up teaching elementary school to get away from questions like that.
I explained my family problem and the role I was to play in the tragic-comedy.
“You could be on the radio!” she countered
“Well, I don't need some guy asking me why I write about a roach and haven't ever married. I have my mother to do that.”
“All right,” she conceded with a sigh, “but I think you're nuts. The tour isn’t forever. Moving in with your mother could be.”
Before I realized I’d been insulted, she rang off and I went back to abandoning all hope and packing. It wasn’t without a pang or a million that I gave up my apartment, bid farewell to the pastries and jazz of the Big Easy, and moved in over Rosemary's garage to be part-time house-aunt and resident thorn in my mother's side, freeing Rosemary to pursue her quest to strip Dag of the trappings of his mid-life crisis, from his gold chains to the Mercedes-Benz. She didn't want the twenty-year old.
In the interests of her long term mental health, it was a good thing she was successful. Though Rosemary and I possess the same physical attributes, they seem to work better for her. She made a favorable impression on the judge, aided by Dag who dragged his child-lover to the proceedings and forgot to request visitation rights to his children. Rosemary didn't get the gold chains, but she got most everything else—including the Mercedes.
No surprise our fractured little family was rubbing along about as smooth as chalk on a blackboard when Reverend Hilliard called and asked me to sub for Mrs. Macpherson at the organ during youth choir practice. I like playing the organ and I had no reason to think it might be dangerous. And they have hot chocolate afterwards. They have to. It’s January in our tiny suburb of DC and our church is old and cold.
Since I have an aversion to freezing to death and my blood was thinned by my time down South, I dressed for the impending arctic conditions. Starting with thermals, I worked my way out to jeans and a woolly mammoth sweater, finishing with snow socks and boots. I pulled my hair back in its customary braid and brushed artificial roses onto my unremarkable cheekbones. When I could do no more, I collected coat, hat, and gloves, and opened the door that separated my over-the-garage apartment-by-Goodwill from my sister’s House Beautiful.
Down in the kitchen I found my mother watching the Gulf War on television. It felt weird, but everyone was doing it. It was our first televised war. My favorite part was the scud studs—and the soldiers. Men in uniform. What wasn’t to like about that? The only thing that could distract my mother from smart bombs—she’d never admit she watched the scud studs, too—was me. It’s a gift.
Her meticulously plucked brows arched into her gray fringe as she examined my jeans. She thinks jeans are too comfortable and should be banned. Comfort isn’t the road to true happiness. Discomfort is—if you rejoice in it. Or something like that.
“Slacks, Isabel?” My mother has the perfect voice for registering disapproval. It is light, smooth and cool, but with bite, like plain yogurt.
“I’m allergic to frostbite.” I bent to root through the refrigerator for the pickles. Rejoiced when I found them, used my fingers to dig out a big one.
“You’ll reek of pickle juice. You know Reverend Hilliard dislikes pickles.”
I knew that. It was why I was pickle diving. I looked up in time to catch the match-making gleam in her eye. I wanted to believe she wasn’t that desperate to remove the stain of singleness from my name, but I knew she was. The only thing she wanted more than my marriage to a testosterone carrier was Rosemary’s ex-husband castrated and forced to live the rest of his life as an impotent handyman for a women’s sorority.
She’s still got some work to do on the forgiveness thing.
“How could anyone dislike pickles?” Holding her avid gaze with my limpid one, I submerged my hand in the jar again and then wiped the pungent residue down the side of my jeans. If I had to, I’d hang dill around my neck to keep the reverend away. No way I was getting intimate with a guy under close scrutiny from God.
“Maybe her tight jeans will distract him from the smell,” Rosemary, said from the doorway, her smile shadowed. Suffering agreed with her. Our mutual assets still looked better hanging from her bones than they ever had from mine.
“They are very tight.” She looked and sounded conflicted. Tight was bad, but men were men and if that’s what it took to get one she would consider looking the other way—even as she planned my guilt trip.
A good thing the telephone rang and dislocated the conversation. Before any of us could answer it, Rosemary’s eldest daughter, Candice, swirled into the room and scooped up the receiver. Telephone answering is the only known benefit of having a thirteen-year-old in the house.
“Jeez,
