Mail

by Mameve Medwed

  “Not so many things to break and spill stuff on.”

  I look at the clock. He’s been here ten minutes and so far everything is going well. I’ve been prepared for the worst. When I went to borrow the sheets from Milly, she handed them over with a warning. “Don’t get your hopes up,” she said. She told me about the overnight guests her two boys host. How these visitors might call their parents at three A.M. to fetch them immediately. Some friends demanded to go home in the middle of dinner if they didn’t like the way the broccoli touched the rice. And many was the time Charlie himself would throw a raincoat over his pajamas and set out on a rescue mission to the outer suburbs. “We finally set a limit,” Milly said. “The kids couldn’t sleep over beyond a ten-mile radius of our house.”

  “A good idea. Max’s parents, though, will be in Amsterdam.”

  “You have my sympathy. Be prepared, Katinka. You’ve only met Max once. Unlike my kids, he’s not going to have the comfort of a brother or a friend along.”

  “Max has Daniella.”

  “Well, then,” Milly said. But I could tell from her tone her opinion of Daniella pretty much echoed Harriman Slade’s.

  “Besides, his grandfather’s upstairs.”

  Milly patted the batch of sheets, traced the border of batters with big grins on their brown and white multicultural faces. “Maybe you’ll be lucky,” she responded, her voice bright, her expression unconvinced. “It’ll be just fine.”

  Now I feel lucky. Max looks just fine, not about to call the airport and get his parents off the plane. He likes his makeshift room. He adores his Red Sox bed. He examines the pillowcases with as much care as you’d check out some valuable baseball cards. “These are the real Red Sox colors,” he notes. “In my house we have only white sheets. My father says dyes aren’t good for you.” He exclaims over the TV, which I gather at home is kept in a vault. He can’t believe his luck in having it in his room. “Can I watch cartoons?” he asks.

  “Of course,” I say.

  “Awesome,” he exclaims. He claps his hands. He jumps. His cowlick waves like a palm tree in a tropical hurricane.

  His enthusiasm puzzles me. Cartoons are for children, right? I tell myself. When I was a kid, I spent my Saturdays watching them from the balcony of the Bijou Theatre where bubble gum was stuck to the underside of the seats and we spent more time throwing popcorn than eating it. Harmless childhood amusements, right? I console myself. Since I don’t have cable, I don’t have to worry that Max will be surfing through Adults Only channels or learning bad values and bad words from Beavis and Butt-head. I’m sure children’s entertainment is not as innocent as when I was a child, but neither is the world. And the sixties were hardly a repressive age.

  I bring out the cache of toys from the laundry basket where I have been stockpiling them. Max’s joy knows no bounds. He falls into the basket with the same bliss that people who have taken the Lord fall into the baptismal stream. “Power Rangers!” he shouts. “Cowboys and Indians!” he sings. “My parents don’t allow me to have these at home,” he whispers.

  I freeze. How many commandments in the tablet of parenting have I broken already? Colored sheets, TV, war-mongering toys. If (A) he’s not allowed these at home, and (B) he’s not at home, then … “Then, since you’re not at home, you can play with them here,” I brilliantly deduce. Though my brilliant reasoning is irrelevant, since Max is now fiercely sampling the forbidden fruit.

  He is setting up battle lines when I leave him to go into the living room. His parents will hate me, I think. I nearly trip over Daniella, a discarded lump in the corner of the hall. His parents will love me, I think. I have weaned him of an old habit. I start to congratulate myself. And introduced him to a new probably even worse one, I realize before I get carried away.

  I fetch the bargain silver crown and stick it on a place approximate to Daniella’s head. It makes her look more pathetic. Like a courtesan in the last throes who has wound a velvet bow around her throat. Mutton dressed as lamb, my mother would point out. I remove the crown. I adjust it on my own head where it slides down to my nose. No wonder it was so cheap. I throw it into the trash.

  I sink onto the sofa. Being a parent is exhausting. I wouldn’t mind a drink. Not champagne but a beer, a glass of jug wine. But in parenting begin responsibilities. I have been irresponsible enough. From my study I can hear Max’s voice erupting in “Pows!” “Take that!” “Got ya!” “Bang Bang!” like the words in cartoon clouds. Be prepared for homesickness, Milly warned, for sadness. Max sounds happy. How cheaply I have bought the happiness of a child.

  I leaf through some manuscripts, make desultory notes with my pen. What’s Louie doing? I wonder. Eating the dinner that I was invited to? Did he find a substitute for me, a second-choice date? Cheryl? Or maybe—this gives me pause—I am the second choice after Cheryl refused. I know what Jake’s doing. A partners’ meeting. A seminar on real estate. He’s got clients from out of town. “My meatpackers from Chicago, you wouldn’t like them,” he’s explained, “but it puts money in the bank. And pays the alimony that provides the money to help Laura make sperm withdrawals from the donor bank.” This last was said with more humor than bitterness. Maybe my presence in his life has leavened the usual recipe. At any rate, Jake will be spending Sunday with me and Max. We will play at being a couple, being parents just the way Max is playing now. “Arrrrgh, you’re dead,” I hear Max yell. Does playing war turn you into a warrior? Does playing house lead to joint purchase of real estate?

  I go to the phone to give my mother a progress report. Nobody answers. Arthur is too much of a classicist to own a modern answering machine. And since my mother has Arthur, she no longer has to wait for that certain somebody or anybody to call. They’re out yet another night in their wild social whirl. My mother is more popular than I ever was. I do have two men in my life, I remind myself. My mother has one. But I am too old and too liberated to count suitors like notches in a belt. Besides, for my mother, one of my suitors wouldn’t even count. Then I think of her Sears man: am I being fair?

  At dinnertime I rouse Max from his game to check the menu with him. “I have chicken breasts,” I offer, “green beans, broccoli, cauliflower. Lamb chops. Turkey burgers, salad, potatoes baked or mashed. Seven-grain bread. Your choice.”

  “Pizza,” he requests.

  I order pizza from the Harvard House of Pizza. Two large pizzas with the works although there are only two of us, both rather small.

  “Anchovies?” asks the man who takes our order.

  “Anchovies?” I ask Max.

  “Please, yes.”

  We eat the pizza straight out of the box sitting cross-legged on Max’s bed and watching The Simpsons. A pepperoni falls onto the sheets and looks, Max and I agree, just like a baseball. When cheese dribbles next to it we are amazed at how you can’t even tell. “At home my sheets show everything,” Max says. “Even the fuzz from my stuffed animals.”

  “This bed is going to smell like pizza,” I warn.

  “Great,” Max exclaims.

  At bedtime, Max takes a bath. I brush pizza crumbs from the bed. Smooth the sheets. I daub at the cheese and pepperoni stains, I scoop away an anchovy that has fallen between the folds of the pillowcase. The bed smells like pizza. Max comes out of the bathtub rosy, smelling of the lilac bath salts I have poured into it. His pajama top is buttoned wrong. His hair is plastered to his forehead. I can see soap bubbles that he hasn’t rinsed out. I want to take him in my arms. Put my nose against his hair, hold this delicious flannel-wrapped child in my lap. I restrain myself. Do you hug and slobber over eight-year-old boys? Do they settle happily against you or thrash around in the maternal overflow? Perhaps there’ll be hints in Zenobia’s notebook as to what’s acceptable in mothering. Perhaps Max will let me know what he wants. Or will tolerate.

  I tuck Max in bed. I lie down beside him. Is it my imagination or does he move closer to me and snuggle against my hip. “Do you want a story?” I ask.

  “Jo
kes,” he says.

  I sigh with relief. I’ve done my homework. Only this morning I stood in line at the checkout counter reading supermarket joke books for kids instead of the usual National Enquirer. The joke books are better value. Even if you don’t buy either—which I don’t—at least you learn a few jokes to liven up social situations or enhance your baby-sitting skills. Liz Taylor’s love life, on the other hand, is not something easily put to use.

  I put the jokes to use. “Did you hear about the guy who walked into the bar?” I ask. “It hurt.”

  Max laughs. I am relieved. I figured it was sensible to choose a book with jokes for kids over ten even though Max is only eight. It stands to reason that the child of Zenobia and Harriman Slade, the grandchild of Arthur T. Haven, would be precocious if not yet Harvard bound. Max and I, in fact, are probably the same age humor-wise.

  Proven by the nearly identical hilarity with which we both offer and receive the following jokes:

  Max: “Knock knock.”

  Me: “Who’s there?”

  Max: “Annie.”

  Me: “Annie who?”

  Max: “Anybody there.” Pause. “Get it?” he asks.

  I nod. Then …

  Me: “Knock knock.”

  Max: “Who’s there?”

  Me: “Duane.”

  Max: “Duane who?”

  Me: “Duane the tub, I’m drowning.”

  “That’s a good one,” he concedes.

  “You’re telling me?”

  “You’re funny, Katinka,” Max says. “Where do French fries come from?” he adds.

  I could pretend not to know the answer. A common flirting maneuver to flatter a date. But for Max—my nephew-to-be by marriage—I choose honesty. “Grease,” I say. “You told me that one the first time we met. It’s my favorite joke.”

  “I know,” Max says. “Mine, too. I made it up.”

  “Here’s one not quite so good I read in a book.” I poke his pajama top, which soft, plaid, flannel, and misbuttoned really touches me. “What did the policeman’s pants say to the policeman’s shirt?”

  Max is already laughing before the punch line. “What?”he giggles.

  “I’ve got you under a vest!”

  We go on like this for ten more minutes until I run out of jokes and both Max’s laughs and hiccups are running out of steam. “Bedtime,” I declare with a sudden leap to maturity.

  “Can I read for a while?” he asks. He points to his backpack. “I brought my books.”

  “Okay,” I say. “But only for a while,” I add parentally.

  I kiss him good night. If he doesn’t quite kiss me back, he still flings his arms around my neck and allows me to.

  In the kitchen I put away the leftover pizza. I fold the pizza boxes by standing on them until they are small enough to fit into the trash. So far so good, I congratulate myself. The telephone rings. I lunge for it before the sound can disturb Max’s reading or his sleep.

  “Katinka, is everything all right?” my mother asks. “We wanted to be here when Zenobia brought Max but we had yet another Harvard function we couldn’t miss.”This last she says in her world-weary tone which does nothing to disguise her delight in an endless round of Harvard functions none of which she’d want to miss.

  “Everything’s fine,” I say. I enumerate my triumphs with Max, our instant rapport, how latent skills have suddenly bloomed.

  She and Arthur sign up Max for tomorrow night. “To give you a break,” she says.

  “I don’t want a break. Don’t need one.”

  “Nonsense. Just you wait.” She pauses. “Next thing you know you’ll have one of your own,” she says in her Mother Knows Best voice.

  “Right now I’ve got Max. For now that’s all I want.” I hang up the phone. If I’ve got Max I think I better figure out what to do with him. Even with my great instinctive skills, I can’t trust that winging it will continue to work.

  I go to the hall and get Zenobia’s vinyl notebook. I’m struck again by its size. It’s heavier than the later Dr. Spock, who covers all of childhood and society. You have to admire Zenobia, her attention to detail. I, too, know how prolific you can get moving from the general to the specific, from childhood to your own child. My obsessions with Louie would fill pages more than a more philosophical discussion of men. His toes alone would merit paragraphs. But I can’t think of his toes now, one foot’s worth so adorably peeking out of his cast. A foot for playing footsie with under Rosalie’s dining table. Just thinking of Louie makes me feel guilty, like one of those untrustworthy girls who sneak her boyfriend in after she’s been hired to baby-sit.

  I open Zenobia’s notebook. Under Meals it says, avoid fast food. Dinners should include two green vegetables and fresh fruit. Under Toys, it says, avoid action figures, anything that depicts violence or war. Legos and anything from Learningsmith is best. Under TV, NO CARTOONS in capitals. Under Bedtime, avoid jokes and other kinds of overstimulation. Once tucked in bed, no reading and lights out.

  I wish the no-reading rule applied to me. If I hadn’t read this, I could still be patting myself smugly on the back. Chastised, I pore through all the chapters, all the lists, all the instructions with an increasingly heavy heart until I get to the end. On the last page— about bathing with instructions that Max’s hair get thoroughly rinsed—sticks a square yellow Post-it note. These are the rules for our own home, it reads, we can hardly and do not expect others to maintain such high standards but trust that they will use it as a guideline if they can. This should make me feel better. It doesn’t. Perhaps with some syllogistic twisting, however, I can manage to make the case that these rules are too rigid for safe passage through a community. That I am doing Max a favor by exposing him to mass culture, letting him travel in coach with me. But have I exposed him to mass culture—the way you expose a child to bits of a toxin to make an antidote—or drenched him in it? My once proud shoulders sag. I return Zenobia’s notebook to the hall table. I notice Daniella swept in her corner like an unloved mound of trash. I pick her up. What if Max should reach for her in the night? I pat her. Dust rises from her in little clouds. What if Max should get h-o-m-e-s-i-c-k and need something familiar? With Daniella against my hip, I tiptoe down the hall. Gently I nudge open the door, expecting to see a sleeping angel bathed in moonlight. Instead Max is sitting up in bed reading by Luxor lamp. I move closer. Propped against his knees is Playgirl magazine.

  I drop Daniella, who lands with the thud of a half-filled mail bag and a bigger cloud of dust.

  Max looks up. “Oh, hi, Katinka,” he says casually, then lowers his eyes to the magazine.

  “What are you reading!” I exclaim. A stupid question since I know exactly what he’s reading. My head spins. I have to hold the door jamb to keep myself from joining Daniella in a lump on the floor. For the first time in my life I find myself considering the value of censorship.

  “I found these on your desk,” he says. “There’s a bunch of them, all the same.”

  I look over at my desk where the magazines are piled under a couple of flimsy folders of my students’ manuscripts, little more cover-up than a peekaboo bra I once bought at Freese’s and which my father made me take back. The store gave me a refund even though there were signs all over saying underwear was not returnable. My mind races. When I think of all the dirt I scrubbed getting ready for Max, and then to leave this dirt. I catch myself. Calling a magazine dirt which publishes your story reveals a self-deprecation women need to stand guard against. But what about guarding a child from one particular woman’s stupidity? I consider how to proceed. Do I snatch this magazine out of Max’s hands as if it’s in flames? Or do I approach him carefully, obliquely, with a calm voice, deliberate gestures as if it’s an unexploded grenade propped against his knees?

  None of my tumult communicates itself to Max. He’s turning pages desultorily with a pleasant and measured look on his face that by no jump of imagination could be translated into a leer. His face is a mask of innocence. Inno
cence I’ve done my best to destroy. “This has cartoons and jokes,” he says, “not as funny as the ones we know.”

  “Oh,” is about all I can manage to get out.

  “Some I don’t understand,” he continues, “and ads with stuff I’ve never seen before.”

  “Ohhhh,” I say, this time stretching it into two syllables.

  “The weirdest is men without any clothes on in their offices.” He knits his brows, perplexed. “My dad always wears a suit and tie to work.” He considers. “Do you suppose this is in Florida?”

  I nod mutely. I’m not going to tell him that these are members of the Windy City bar, that Chicago winters make Maine blizzards seem like slight turbulence.

  “In Amsterdam, it’s very cold. You even need an overcoat.”

  “I suppose that’s so.” I reach for the magazine, grab it, roll it up behind my back, placing myself between Max and it. Too late.

  Max giggles. “My friend Joel’s dad has a bunch of magazines with naked women in his desk. Joel knows where he keeps the key.” He pauses. I can practically see the cartoon lightbulb spark above his head. “Katinka, is this a dirty magazine?”

  I know it when I see it, is what Potter Stewart said. Nothing human is alien to me stated Voltaire. “It all depends on your point of view,” I equivocate.

  Max rubs his eyes. Slips down under the covers. Talk about over-stimulation, I think, pizza, cartoons, war toys, pornography! I wait for him to say don’t tell my mother. He doesn’t. I am tempted to say let this be a secret between the two of us. That I don’t indicates that I have at least a thread left of moral fiber or a well-developed sense of shame. I will have to tell his mother. Who will no doubt tell my mother. Who will … what? My imagination fails to conceive of the horrors in store. The repercussions. I study Max. He looks so innocent. Perhaps he is innocent. Sees the photographs as simply men in tropical climates who go to the office in their birthday suits.

  I pick up Daniella and place her next to Max. I turn off the light. “Sweet dreams, pumpkin,” I whisper. Max curls his body around Daniella the way Louie—back when Louie was a body in my bed— used to curl his around mine. I scoop the pile of magazines off my desk and take them out to the hall closet. When I open the closet door, a broom and an ironing board fall out. I put them back. I hang Max’s jacket up. Then I lock the magazines in a suitcase I keep on the upper shelf. In the kitchen I drop the key into the sugar canister.