Lesley Kagen - Good Graces

“… through the bounty of Christ our Lord, amen,” Dave finishes up.

After we all make the sign of the cross, Mother tells him in a charming voice we don’t get to hear very often, “It’s so nice to have you home tonight.” It really is. Dave’s been so busy chasing the cat burglar that he’s had to skip suppers with us more than a couple of times every week. “Now… who’d like to begin this evening’s stimulating conversation?”

Mother has recently started making us talk at the table about important events while we listen to the music and chew with our mouths closed. Dave and her usually chat about what’s going on in the neighborhood, but lately they are very keen on discussing what is going on in our nation’s capital. Both of them really like John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who is an Irish political man, and more important-a Catholic. Dave and Mother think Mr. Kennedy might become president of the United States if he plays his cards right. I like Ike, so I don’t care who the next president is just so long as it isn’t that man, Nixon. I saw him give a talk on television. I know from going to the movies that heavy sweating and darting eyes make a person suspicious. That man is a twofer.

“Pass everything,” our granny bosses.

Granny doesn’t usually eat over unless it’s Sunday, but the potluck up at church got cancelled because of the heat making the cafeteria stink even worse than it usually does, so Dave drove over to 59th Street and got her out of her small house where she lives with our brain-damaged uncle who isn’t here. Uncle Paulie probably stayed in his bedroom to finish off his newest Popsicle-stick house or he went early to his job setting pins at Jerbak’s Beer ’n Bowl, which is at least one thing to be grateful for. He doesn’t sing, “Peek-a-boo, Troo, Peek-a-boo, Daddy,” every two seconds the way he used to, but just looking at him makes Troo remember the crash. (Our uncle was in the car coming home from the game, too. I think peek-a-boo is the last thing he remembers hearing before he flew outta the windshield.)

Granny’s name is Alice. Her and Mother don’t get along all that good except at church and on holidays. Granny thinks her daughter is too uppity for a girl that grew up across the street from the Feelin’ Good Cookie Factory and will ask her, “When will you learn that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, Helen?” if she thinks Mother is getting above herself. Granny is largish, especially in her underarm area, which looks like a sheet on a clothesline flapping on a windy day, but her face hardly has any wrinkles considering how old she is-eighty-five. Her hair is Wonder Bread white and she wears it in a page boy. If you ever met her, you would immediately think you’d seen her somewhere before. That’s because she looks a lot like George Washington on the dollar bill. Except for her clothes. She used to wear regular dotted Swiss old lady dresses, but lately she’s always got on a muu-muu. Mother buys them for her out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog. I think the dresses are a bribe so Granny will like her more than she does and Mother may finally be wearing her down because, I’m not kidding, my grandmother goes ape for these flowery dresses. I thought she looked kinda cute in them, too, when I still thought they were spelled moo-moos and made by some nice 4-H ladies who could use the extra money because their husbands are farmers and every little bit helps.

It was Mrs. Kambowski who once again wrecked it all.

Dave dropped Granny and me at the Finney Library a few weeks ago so we could get something new to read. She likes books about love and death. All Irish people adore those subjects. And whiskey. I picked up another Nancy Drew story, which I’ve started loving. (Her father musta told her to pay attention, too, because that girl doesn’t seem to miss a thing.)

When we were checking out, Mrs. Kambowski complimented Granny on her ensemble and then, because she can never leave well enough alone and just has to teach you something every time she runs into you, the head librarian said, “Do you know that your grandmama’s dress comes all the way from the Hawaiian Islands, Sally?”

I told her, “No,” a little snippy because her always teaching my sister French gets my Irish up.

“ Muu-muu means amputated in their language,” Mrs. Kambowski told us.

Granny said, “You learn something new every day,” but I said, “Am… pu… ta… ted?” and felt pretty queasy. “Doesn’t that mean not having an arm or a leg?”

Mrs. Kambowski said, “A gold star for you, Sally.”

So that means the purple-and-pink parrot one Granny’s got on tonight was probably made by some of the most famous armless and legless people there are-lepers, who live with the most famous of all Hawaiians, Father Damien, on an island called Molokai. We learn all about lepers at school. This is a big subject. How those poor people gotta walk around and yell, “Unclean” if they still got legs. Since they can’t work in a store or some kind of factory because they are so contagious, lepers must earn money by sewing muu-muus for Sears and Roebuck. That’s why I’m relieved Granny is sitting on the other end of the table tonight. Part of those lepers could have fallen off into her dress and I don’t need that disease to hop out of a hem and onto me. I got enough on my hands keeping Troo safe. And getting this supper down.

I am sorry to have to say this, but my mother is the worst cook in the neighborhood, maybe on the whole west side or the world. They don’t even ask her to contribute to the Pagan Baby Cake Walks at school anymore because the last time she did three people had to get their stomachs pumped out at St. Joe’s. That was the only good thing about her being in the hospital almost all of last summer. We didn’t have to eat her cooking. She made us SOS tonight. Shit on a Shingle. (Help us, o mighty God.)

Granny reaches across the table and scoops a heaping ladle of the slop onto her plate. Her eyes are always bigger than her stomach. She has a medical condition called a thyroid so her peepers look like two ping-pong balls.

“Did you hear about the boy who ran away from the orphanage?” Granny asks, starting off tonight’s stimulating dinner conversation.

I cough … cough … cough and say, “That’s… they’re talkin’ about Charlie Fitch. Did you hear why he ran away?” I am hoping it’s for some reason other than Artie Latour not listening to him. I’d love to be the one to tell him his best friend’s leaving wasn’t his fault.

Granny says, “All Sister Jean told me at morning Mass is that the boy took off in the middle of the night. Hand me the succotash, Sally.”

That’s okay. She may not have the scoop now, but she will hear some more about Charlie’s taking off sooner or later. Our granny always finds out what’s going on in the neighborhood, the really secret stuff. Like how Mrs. Delancey who owns the grocery store down the block from her, the one our half sister Nell’s apartment is over, used to work in a nightclub dancing with snakes. Granny drinks six bottles of Coca-Cola a day that she gets free from Mrs. Delancey to keep her mouth shut.

I lift another forkful to my mouth and cough some more into my napkin.

Dave says, “Gosh, Sally, you’re doing a lot of that tonight. Are you feeling all right?”

“Did you catch a cold?” Troo asks, seeing an opening. “A fever? Let me check.” When she reaches to put her hand to my forehead, she accidentally on purpose brushes her spoon down to the linoleum.

This was another one of her Troo genius plans. Coming up with this coughing-into-my-napkin trick and her dropping-the-spoon trick to avoid having to eat Mother’s food. Thank goodness for our little collie, Lizzie. She’s lying openmouthed at our feet like she got invited to an all-you-can-eat dog buffet the same way she does every night except for the ones Dave cooks.