Nine

My mother would know. She always knows things like people’s last names, how many times they’ve been married, how many kids they’ve had, where the money comes from. Minutiae, I believe it’s called.

“What’s the name of that woman on the top floor?” I asked her, casual as heck, peeling potatoes like a pro. “The one with the scroungy little dog.”

My mother was making pie crust and didn’t answer. I thought she hadn’t heard, although as I said, her hearing’s first rate. She doesn’t miss a cough or a sneeze, even if it’s midnight and I have a pillow over my face. She never misses the sound of the top of the cookie jar being lifted by experts, which I consider myself and which Teddy certainly is.

“Out of there!” she hollers. “It’s almost dinnertime. You’ll spoil your appetite.” One of the things I look forward to about growing up and moving out is not having my mother’s ears around. I know I’ll miss her like crazy, but the ears I can do without.

“There,” she said, putting the final crimp on the crust.

“Her name’s Mrs. Olmstead. He was president of a copper company and the money’s his. Third husband, I believe. No children.” My mother brushed the top of the crust with egg white to give it a professional glaze.

“Now she raises funds. Sells tickets for benefits to all her friends, gets the right people to take a table at a charity ball. That sort of thing. She used to be vice-president of a fragrance company. In everyday language, kid, that’s perfume. She’s not friendly. We’ve been in the building almost ten years and I think she’s said hello twice. I can take her or leave her.” My mother opened the oven and shoved the pie in.

“Why?”

Just when I’m sure she’s lost the train of thought, she zeros in. She kills me. She really does.

“She invited me and Al to a party she’s giving for her nephew,” I said. “She’s having lots of young people and refreshments.”

“Well, for pity’s sake.” My mother looked at me with something like admiration. At least, I think that’s what it was.

“What did you do to get in her good graces? Or what did Al do? I’m flabbergasted. Flummoxed, you might even say,” my mother said.

“Well,” I said, wondering if I could trust my mother not to tell Al’s mother. “Sparky ruined Al’s new shoe, you see.” I told her about the barf and the pee and how delighted Al was that her shoe was ruined on account of she’d hated those shoes that her mother bought her.

“So Al’s kind of grateful to the mutt,” I explained. “Even if he is sort of repulsive.”

“He’s all of that,” my mother agreed. “Imagine being cooped up with that face all day. Imagine having to take him to the park, where he has to be followed around with one of those dreadful pooper scoopers. Imagine having to scoop up his poop. I’d be embarrassed to be seen scooping up my dog’s poop.”

I burst out laughing. “You looked so funny when you said that!” I said. “You cross your heart and hope to die you won’t tell Al’s mother, though. She might get mad.”

“What do you take me for, a squealer?” my mother said indignantly. “I won’t say a word, though I do think Mrs. Olmstead ought to at least offer to get Al’s shoe cleaned. Are you going to her party, you and Al?”

“I said I’d let her know,” I said. “I wasn’t sure you’d let me.”

“Of course I’ll let you,” my mother said. “It’s only upstairs. If the nephew turns out to be a bummer, come on down. Besides, I’d like to know what her apartment is like. She had it decorated last year by one of the top New York designers. I understand it cost the earth. So keep your eyes peeled. I think she has silk walls in the drawing room and her dining room is black.”

My mother set her mouth in that way that she has when she disapproves strongly of something.

“A black dining room is not good form, it seems to me,” she said, pressing her lips into a thin line. “What’s the nephew like, did she say?”

“She said he was brilliant and a darling boy,” I said.

My mother clapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh-oh,” she said. “Beware of brilliant darling boys. How old is he?”

“I didn’t ask,” I said.

“How tall is he, then?”

“I didn’t ask that either. You sound just like Al. She always thinks boys are going to be midgets, that they’re going to come up to her sternum or her belly button or something. She has a thing about it.”

“That’s because she’s tall,” my mother said. “I was always tall for my age too. And for some inexplicable reason, the short boys went for me straight away and all the tall boys seemed to prefer the short girls. Unfair, but that’s the way it was. I know how Al feels.”

I’d never thought of it until that minute. How tall was Brian? Al had never told me. All she talked about was Brian’s big muscles and how he made the city boys look like Charlie Brown.

“Mom,” I said, “did you ever go on a blind date?”

“Why, I was the blind-date queen of the eighth grade,” my mother said proudly. “In that grade alone, I had three blind dates. Each one was with the brother of a friend who needed a date in the worst way and couldn’t get one. One of my friends charged her brother fifty cents when I said I’d go to the dance with him. It was a finder’s fee, she said. He put up a good fight, but in the end he paid her, and afterward she told me she should’ve charged him a buck. I thought I was worth at least a buck. Maybe more.”

“Was it fun? Did you have a good time?” I asked her.

“No,” she said. “I can’t honestly say it was fun. We were both too uptight. But I’d never been on a date and I felt I was ready to get my feet wet. We didn’t have a single thing in common. He was bored and so was I. He’d been to dancing school, so he knew how to dance. I’d been to dancing school too, but I wasn’t a very good dancer. He left me to dance with a girl in a pink dress. Her name was Felicia. Oh, how I hated her. I could hardly wait for the evening to end. Then there was the business of what I should do if he tried to kiss me. That kept me awake nights. You see, in those days,” my mother said, giving me a piercer, “a kiss was a big deal.” She fell silent and had a little smile on her face. I guess she was thinking about those olden days of her youth.

“Did he try?” I asked. I didn’t want to seem too eager. All I wanted was for her to go on and on, leaving nothing out.

“I think he did,” she said. “Remember, this was long ago. He sort of lunged at me and almost knocked me off our front steps. I lunged the other way and we missed contact by a good five feet. And when I went in, there was Tess, sitting on the living-room couch in her nightgown, pretending to read a book. She was waiting up for me because our parents had gone to the movies or something. ‘What happened?’ she asked me. I can still see her, wide eyed, wanting some tale of wild events, so, of course, I made some up. I went all out, until Tess’ eyes were so wide I could see myself in them as if they were a mirror. That was the best part of the evening, telling Tess my version of what hadn’t happened.”

My mother laughed at the memory.

“Oh, Mom,” I said. “I wish I’d known you when you were young.”

“Yes,” my mother said. “Just think. You might’ve been the friend whose brother I went to the dance with for a fifty-cent finder’s fee.”

“You’d never go out with Teddy!” I said, shocked. “Not in a million years.”