“Bring me some lightly salted peanuts,” she says, “I’m sick.”
• • •
My parents’ parents, survivors of the Great Depression, had prudent families, two children maximum. My mother claims today that when she got married she planned on having six kids; and my father, whose only sibling was a sister nine years younger, also felt that he’d missed out on something special. Kids, his philosophy went, need siblings. And so, for whatever reasons, fifteen months after my arrival into the world Molly Beth was born. She would be my roommate for the next seventeen years.
When Molly would pick fights or pull my hair or break my toys, I would complain to my mother, who would sigh in response, “Molly was born angry.” As I got older, she would elaborate. “You were a boring baby,” she told me. “Slept through the night from two weeks on. Instead of giving you night feedings, we would wake up every two hours to make sure you were still alive. You weren’t really into . . . interaction,” my mother concluded, “you just liked your mobile a lot.”
Molly was into interaction—the more violent, noisy, and energetic, the better. Family myth has it that her first word was not “mommy” or “daddy” but “gimme.” Photo albums feature a small girl with a broad smile and dimples, usually in motion and wearing a shirt that read HUG ME. The strained, wearied expressions of those in the pictures with Molly tell the story better.
• • •
Molly and I are on the plane that will take us to our grandmother in Florida. Molly is excited about the vacation, and the chance to see our younger brother, twelve-year-old Joe.
“I can’t wait to terrorize him,” she declares happily. Our seats are near the back of the plane, and behind us is a mother-grandmother-toddler combination. The toddler has a phenomenally deep, wet cough, and within minutes of takeoff Molly has dubbed it the Exorcist Baby. Every time the Exorcist Baby coughs, Molly and I dissolve in laughter. The mother laughs with us. “I bet you’re waiting for something to come flying out of her mouth,” she says dryly. “No,” says Molly, sotto voce, “actually, we’re waiting for her head to spin around.”
• • •
The most important thing about Molly is her temper. From her infancy, her temper has flared up violently, and even now, at the age of eighteen, she throws the temper tantrums of a two-year-old—albeit laced with very adult profanity—when she doesn’t get her way. Understandably, that isn’t often. All of us—my mother, me, our brothers, Jake and Joe—know enough to tread carefully around Molly. My father’s the only one who doesn’t have to worry. He left three years ago, so he considers himself immune to Molly’s wrath, as he sees her only when he wants to. But the rest of us suffer it frequently. Our fear of her fits, combined with the knowledge that Molly, despite her pretensions otherwise, generally has a good soul, makes us willing to do her bidding. And so—with a blend of good-natured orneriness, a slight touch of nastiness to come, and just a hint of the pitiable—Molly rules our family. Or at least, for the seventeen years we shared a room, she ruled me.
• • •
As we begin our descent I point out the lights of Fort Lauderdale. Molly peers haughtily through the window at the cars creeping along the highway. “These people,” she remarks grandly, “drive like dump. Also, the stewardesses have not offered me the Beverage of my Choice.” She rummages around in the seat compartment until she finds what she’s looking for—an evaluation form. She locates the series of questions on “flight attendants,” and checks off “poor” after “poor.” In the comment section, she scrawls “was not provided with drink.” A picture of the founder of Northwest Airlines appears on the form. Molly scribbles horns and a beard on it, and draws a balloon coming out of his mouth with a statement urging the reader to perform an obscene act.
“Molly,” I tell her soberly, “I don’t think they’ll take that seriously.” She jabs one pink-nailed finger at the call button.
“Bug off!” she growls.
Nanna greets us at the airport. She nods a distracted hello at me, then turns to Molly with concern etched on her face.
“Mamma told me you have a kidney infection,” she says. Molly rolls her eyes and clutches her back dramatically.
“I’m dying,” she says sincerely. Nanna glares at me angrily.
“How could you let her come here with a kidney infection? Now take her luggage!” Meekly, I comply. Molly smirks at me until she’s distracted by an elderly woman driving something like an electric golf cart.
“Oh, can we get one of those?” she asks.
“We’re almost to the car now,” my Nanna replies. Molly weighs her options and decides to continue walking.
“I called my doctor, he’ll meet us at the apartment,” says Nanna. “How’s school?”
“It’s a dump!” Molly cries, and begins enthusiastically listing her university’s shortcomings: bad food, too far away from the college her boyfriend attends, library too far from her dorm, unsympathetic RA, hallmate plays Janet Jackson incessantly, infirmary sucks. Nanna looks at her suspiciously.
“Just what’s wrong with the infirmary?”
“Well, for one thing they said there was nothing wrong with my kidney. They didn’t even give me a blood test! They didn’t even ask me the right questions!”
Nanna turns to face Molly. “So you don’t have a kidney infection,” she says. It’s a statement, not a question. Molly refuses to give in.
“I might have one,” she says petulantly. “They forgot to ask me if I was experiencing pain upon urination.”
“Well, are you?”
“No, but that’s not the point.”
Nanna throws up her hands in despair. “Molly, Molly, Molly,” she says. “What are we going to do with you?” But Molly isn’t listening. Kidney pain forgotten, she is dashing toward Nanna’s silver four-door, in which, folded uncomfortably in the front seat, is Nanna’s boyfriend, Harold.
Molly’s most vivid childhood memories are of torturing people. She remembers bathing our infant brother Joe and pouring alternating pitchers of hot and cold water over his back—never hot enough to burn him, just hot enough to make him extremely uncomfortable.
“I liked the noises he made,” she explains. She remembers hiding my books, listening in on my phone calls, wearing my clothes to school.
“Kept my life interesting,” she said. When she began high school, she found what she solemnly terms her “niche in life”—as a coxswain for the crew team, where her lung power and sadistic impulses were both put to good use.
“Then I could torture people on a professional basis,” she comments.
For the three years that Harold has been in Nanna’s life, he has been one of Molly’s favorite tortur-ees, second only to Joe. Harold, who is eighty-two years old, has experienced what doctors politely term a substantial hearing loss. In other words, Harold, despite hearing aids, is as deaf as a post.
Molly throws open the door of the Buick and flings her arms around Harold’s wrinkled neck. Her lips move in a soundless semblance of hello. It’s an old trick, but Harold responds admirably. “Hello, Molly,” he booms. “Glad to hear it!” Nanna shakes her finger at Molly, who sticks out her tongue in reply. Harold regards this interplay with confusion. As we drive through Fort Lauderdale, he notes the passing attractions in a loud, careful voice. “Heavenly Delights,” he reads, “Naked Oil-Wrestling Nightly. Now Hiring.”
“I could get a job!” says Molly. Harold, who has only caught the last word, nods with a smile. “Jobs,” he intones, “are wonderful things.” My Nanna rolls her eyes. “Why I let your mother talk me into this . . .” She glances back at Molly and me. “You’ll have to share a bed,” she says sourly. “Uh-uh,” says Molly, “she could accidentally kick me in my kidney.” Nanna screeches onto the freeway. “Too bad,” she says.
As long-term roommates, our routine is well established. Without speaking, we arrange ourselves on the sides of the bed that parallel the sides of the room we sleep in at home. I get the bathroom first, sh
e turns off the light, and, after some perfunctory bickering about whether or not this bed is really the most uncomfortable we’ve ever been in (I say yes, Molly maintains that the bunks at Camp Tanuga were worse), we fall asleep.
• • •
At three a.m., Molly wakes me up. “Can you die from a kidney infection?”
No.
“If I needed a new kidney, would you donate one of yours?”
Sure, whatever.
“Do you think there are alligators in that pond out there?”
Molly, we’re on the third floor.
“Oh.”
There is silence for about ten minutes. Then, just as I am drifting back to sleep, Molly mutters, so softly that I almost miss it, “If there’s something really wrong, will you tell Nanna that I need to see the doctor again?”
Sure.
“Bring me some orange juice.” Seventeen years of training conditions you well. I get up, search out carton and glass, but by the time I return Molly is sound asleep again.
• • •
Our wake-up routine is as well established as the one for going to sleep. Molly sneaks over to my bed and begins to jump on it, singing “Get up, you sleepyhead, haul that heinie out of bed,” until I smack her or my mother makes her stop. Today she’s made accommodations for the fragility of the hideaway bed, and contents herself with yanking the covers off me and making fun of my nightgown until I grab my bathing suit and slink into the bathroom.
“How’s your kidney?” I ask sarcastically.
“Much better, thanks,” she answers. “In fact, I think I am well enough to go to the beach.”
Nanna drops us off at the beach at eleven-thirty, and promises to pick us up by four. Molly stalks along the burning sand, looking for the perfect spot. “How about here?” I ask. As usual, I am carrying everything. “We have to find interesting people we can be near,” she says.
“And why is that?”
Molly looks at me as though I’m crazy. “So we can eavesdrop, of course.” Finally she finds three who suit her: a very skinny blond girl in a white string bikini sharing a blanket with two short, swarthy, heavyset men whose necks and wrists are liberally festooned with gold chains. One of the men is extremely tan; the other is deathly pale. Both have flabby bellies and hairy backs.
“Yuck,” I say, but Molly motions me to be quiet.
“I wonder if they’re brothers or what.”
I try to get interested. “Yeah, and I wonder which one of them the girl’s with.”
Molly gives me her you-must-be-crazy look again. “She’s sitting on one of their laps.” Embarrassed, I run into the water. When I come back, Molly is full of news. Her words tumble over one another as she rushes to tell the story.
“The girl—her name’s Deedee. Well, she went up to their hotel room to get some Cool Ranch Doritos, and as soon as she was gone they both started talking about all the action they were getting.”
I look at the men with new interest. One of them is sleeping, his mouth lolling open, his hands loosely cradling his belly. The other is lazily perusing a copy of Penthouse Forum. Deedee’s chest is powdered with Dorito debris, and she’s smearing her bony arms with suntan lotion.
“Gross,” I say.
“You should hear how she pronounces Bain de Soleil!” Molly whispers. “Now go buy me a hot dog.”
“Don’t you want to come with me?” I offer hopefully.
Molly waves me away, her brown eyes intent upon the trio. “I wish I had binoculars,” is the last thing I hear her say as I head down the boardwalk in search of a hot dog. When I come back with the hot dog, a large Coke, and little plastic packets full of mustard and relish and ketchup, Molly is composing a note on a postcard that features a grinning alligator and bears the legend WELCOME TO FLORIDA!
“Dear Deedee,” it reads so far. “Your boyfriend is seeing other women. Bain de Soleil is not pronounced exactly the way it is written. You can do better than Rich.”
“How do you know his name is Rich?” I ask.
Molly sips her Coke and hiccups. “I am a champion spy.”
“But of course,” I say, and run back into the water. When I return I notice that Molly’s legs have ugly pink streaks running down the back.
“I think you need to rub your sunblock in better,” I tell her. I toss her the tube.
“Bug off,” she says sleepily. She’s shifted her attention away from the Deedee/Rich saga, and is engrossed in V. C. Andrews’s latest.
“Well, at least put some on my back,” I tell her.
Molly grimaces. “No unnecessary touch!” she commands.
“Molly,” I tell her, “it’s not unnecessary. I’m your sister.”
She flings the tube back at me. “Why don’t you just put your shirt back on,” she grumbles.
By four o’clock, the streaks on Molly’s legs are more pronounced, and my back is roughly the color of a stop sign. Nanna is displeased. “I told you not to get too much sun!”
I explain that Molly has refused to put lotion on my back.
“What’s your problem?” Nanna demands.
Molly defends herself: “You know I don’t like touching people.”
Nanna is bewildered. “But she’s your sister.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Molly says.
“Meshuggenah!” Nanna snorts.
“Oy vey!” Molly replies.
We go out for early bird specials at my Nanna and Harold’s favorite Italian restaurant. Nanna and Harold are both having eggplant parmigiana. I’m eating chicken. Molly is poking halfheartedly at a meatball.
“Eat!” says Nanna.
“Ess!” says Harold.
“Mangia!” enthuses the waiter.
“Uh, can I have a doggie bag?” asks Molly. Molly’s status as a family legend was made by her temper, but is perpetually ensured by her distaste for things corporeal—touching people is one, and eating is another. We are used to this sort of performance, and aren’t overly afraid that she’ll starve. The meatball is stowed in a doggie bag with a minimum of fuss, and we proceed to a movie.
We have arrived early enough to get good seats—Harold on the outside, long legs stretched into the aisle, my Nanna next to him, with me next to her, and then Molly. As the previews begin, an older couple attempt to take two seats next to Molly.
“Excuse me!” the man says.
“Shhhh,” says my Nanna again.
Molly, outraged by this gravest of unnecessary touches, whacks his Bermuda-clad bottom with her meatball bag. “You pervert!” she cries. Half of the theater turns to look. The man sinks into the empty chair next to Molly with an air of abject humiliation.
The first ten minutes of the movie are uneventful, but slowly Molly and I begin to notice something strange. As the actors on the screen say their lines, about half of the people in the theater repeat them in loud stage whispers to their hard-of-hearing companions. The result is a kind of three-part harmony.
“I’ll be going now,” says the actor.
“Huh?” say half the people in the theater.
“He said he’ll be going now,” choruses the rest of the audience. Even my Nanna is busily translating for Harold, with occasional pauses to ask me for lines that she herself has missed. Molly invents a new game. Unceremoniously dropping her meatball bag on the floor, she leans over in her seat and begins feeding Nanna misinformation.
“I have good news,” says the actress.
“Huh?” says Harold.
“She says she has blue shoes,” whispers Molly. Harold’s brow furrows in puzzlement as Molly’s whispers get wilder.
“I love you,” the actress murmurs softly.
“Huh?” says Harold.
“I’m having Elvis’s love child,” Molly says. Nanna purses her lips and reaches over to pinch Molly’s arm. She gets mine instead.
“Ouch!” I yell.
The two rows in front of us all go “Shh!” at once. Molly picks up her meatball bag and whacks me smartly. “Stop disr
upting the entertainment,” she says.
• • •
Nanna has promised to take us all to the flea market in the morning, so she wakes us up early, and by eight-thirty we’re down in the parking lot. She opens the driver’s door and gasps. Molly, it seems, has accidentally left her meatball in the car, and the humid Florida night has saturated the new upholstery with the smell of oregano and decaying meat.
“MOLLY!” she roars.
“What did I do?” Molly demands. Nanna reaches into the backseat and removes the offending meatball.
“Oops,” says Molly in a small voice. She throws the meatball out by herself and makes profuse apologies, trying to work herself back into Nanna’s favor.
The flea market is uneventful. Molly is on her best behavior, offering suggestions on watches or T-shirts, promising that if we go to the beach again she’ll put lotion on my back, even offering to drive to the airport in the afternoon to pick up our mother and brothers.
“Not a chance,” says Nanna, gathering her purchases. “I’m taking you out to breakfast, I’m dropping you off at the beach, and I’m turning you over to your mother as soon as she gets here. You’re too much for me!”
Molly is aghast. “You’d trade me in for one of the boys?”
“I’d trade you in for both of them,” says Nanna grimly.
Molly sulks all the way to the restaurant, where, to our amazement, she orders the lumberjack special and proceeds to finish everything—eggs, bacon, home fries—except the stack of six pancakes. She drops her fork queasily, silent for once.
“Uhhgh,” she says weakly.
The waitress looks sympathetic, my Nanna unmoved. “Would you like to take those home?” asks the waitress, pointing at the pancakes.
Nanna snaps the clasp of her wallet with a final-sounding click. “Absolutely not,” she says.
Molly and I are lying on the beach. Or rather, I am lying on the beach, while Molly is huddled miserably under the sparse shade of a palm tree. The sun, she claims, makes her feel too full.
“I wasn’t that bad, was I?” she frets.
“You were pretty awful,” I tell her honestly. “Mocking Harold was a bad idea, and Nanna’s car reeks of meatball.”
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