Ethel Merman was singing Gypsy, which was a play about a stage mother. You’d think Mama would hate it, because it wasn’t a flattering picture of a stage mother. Rose, the main character, was a hard, driving woman who didn’t care if her kids were happy, so long as they were stars.
Mama happened to love the story, though sometimes she’d laugh and say, “How’d you like it if I was like her?”
When I wanted to get a rise out of her I’d say something like “Oh, is there any difference, Rose?” and she’d give me her famous raised eyebrow, or the finger which meant “up yours,” or a mock punch to my $5,000 all-caps mouth.
Mama doesn’t happen to be at all like Rose, but if I want to bug her I call her that.
I turned down Ethel and sat on the footstool of the chaise Mama was stretched out on.
Mama said, “I have a Reluctant Admission.”
“Ohmigawd, I thought we left Lamont behind us,” I said.
One of Lamont Orr’s off-off-off-Broadway flops was a musical called The Wind of Reluctant Admissions. He was hoping it would be another smash like the old hit The Fantasticks, but the critics hated it. One reviewer printed just one comment: “Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.” It was a stupid play about a mythical kingdom which would be periodically hit by a strong wind. Whenever the wind blew, the people made reluctant admissions about things they feared, or hated, or wanted, or couldn’t help.
“Reluctant Admission,” Mama persisted.
“What is it?” I said.
“We’re going out for dinner tonight.”
I didn’t fall off the footstool or anything because we went out for dinner about three nights a week. I just waited for Mama to continue. Beside her, on the table, there was a More still smoking, though she’d tried to put it out when I entered the room.
“Mama,” I said, “did it ever strike you that cigarettes have strange names lately? More and Now and Merit, as if we all need more cancer now, as if we merit it?” I didn’t put it as well as Wally Witherspoon had, but it didn’t matter, anyway, because Mama wasn’t really listening.
“We’re going to have a long talk about cigarettes soon,” said Mama. “We might even enroll in Smoke-enders. But right this minute I have some news for you. Fedora Foxe came all the way out here by seaplane just to see you. We better be on our guard.”
“She’s delivering my obituary in person, probably,” I said. I was trying to be funny about it, because neither Mama nor I were completely honest with each other when it came to our feelings about leaving Hometown. It wasn’t just the money, though Mama would have to resist any impulses to buy $325 watches for a while. It was the hole it would leave in our lives, and the forcing of certain decisions like should I go to college? would Mama keep our large apartment in The Dakota if I did? what would happen to our lives now with no more of the familiar running around to keep appointments and stay on schedule?
“There’s something in the wind when Fedora hops on a plane, Tootsie Roll,” Mama said. “Fedora hates flying.”
“Why are you so in awe of Fedora?” I said. I used to be. I remember when my knees would shake and my lower lip tremble around Fedora. After I became featured and “Tell me more” caught on, I began to realize Fedora needed me as much as I needed her. Mama said I should get that idea right out of my head, I could be replaced overnight, but Mama was talking from her experience. She’d married Sam, Sam, Superman in a weak moment when her role had been written right out of a Broadway show. It wasn’t that big a role, but I don’t think Mama ever recovered from the blow. Mama never felt really secure in her whole life; she still didn’t.
“I’m not in awe of her,” Mama said. “I’m terrified of her. She’s a manipulator.”
“How can she possibly manipulate us, Mama?”
“She can connive,” Mama said. “We have to be firm.”
“She’s just an old lady, Mama.”
“Some old lady!” Mama said. Mama fanned herself with a copy of Daytime TV. The air conditioning was on; it was actually on the frigid side on the sun porch, but Mama liked to fan herself in mock irritation the way grand ladies do in old Oscar Wilde plays.
“Okay, Miss Know-It-All,” Mama said, “don’t let anything faze you. But would you mind washing the sand out of your hair and getting into something elegant? We’ve got a seven-thirty date, and I’m impressed enough to want to be on time.”
“I’ll put on knee pads,” I said.
“Meaning what?” Mama said.
“Meaning shouldn’t we make our entrance on our knees with our eyes down?”
“What did I do to displease you, God?” Mama said, looking up at the ceiling. “Was it so bad I had to be saddled with this wiseacre kid?”
As I was going upstairs, Mama called after me, “Wear your nice new bracelet, honey. I want Fedora to see it.”
I never liked bringing home kids from school because of the way they got quiet once they were in the house. I always had the feeling they couldn’t wait to talk about it once they got out of there. (“They’ve got three rooms in front for the corpses!” et cetera.) But Charlie Gilhooley was the exception. He was another bookworm, another receiver of A pluses from Mr. Sponzini, and almost as big an authority on Seaville and its history as old Mr. Sigh, who lived with his sister and wore knicker suits year round.
“Ramps instead of stairs!” Charlie exclaimed the first time I ever dragged him home from the library with me. “Of course! To wheel the bodies around! Makes perfect sense!” Charlie was slightly on the enthusiastic side about nearly everything—that was his way—but it was better than just clamming up and pretending my house wasn’t any different from anybody else’s.
Charlie wanted to know everything there was to know. He wanted to know more than I wanted to know about the Witherspoon Funeral Home, and I’d have to tell him I didn’t know the answers to half his questions because I had this deal with my father: I didn’t have to take an active interest in the business until I was out of high school. Charlie’d ask, “How can you not want to know?” “I’ll never want to know,” I’d tell him, “even after I know.”
Charlie was sixteen when he started telling a select group of friends and family that he believed he preferred boys to girls. The news shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone who knew Charlie even slightly. But honesty has its own rewards: ostracism and disgrace. Even Easy Ethel Lingerman, whom Charlie dated because he loved to dance with her—Easy Ethel always knew all the latest dances—even Easy Ethel was ordered by her grandmother to stop having anything to do with Charlie.
My own deal with Charlie was don’t you unload your emotional problems on me, and I won’t unload mine on you. We shook hands on the pact and never paid any attention to it. I went through a lot of Charlie’s crushes with him, on everyone from Bulldog Shorr, captain of our school football team, to Legs Youngerhouse, a tennis coach over at the Hadefield Club. Charlie, in turn, had to hear and hear and hear about Lauralei Rabinowitz. (“How can you be so turned on to someone with a name like that!” Charlie would complain.)
The same week Charlie made his brave or compulsive confession, depending on how you look at running around a small town a declared freak, Mrs. Gilhooley visited Father Leogrande at Holy Family Church and tried to arrange for an exorcist to go to work on Charlie. Charlie’s father, a round-the-clock, large-bellied beer drinker, who drove an oil truck for a living and in his spare time killed every animal he could get a license to shoot, trap or hook in the throat, practiced his own form of