The hello/goodbye.
Chapter 1, part 5.
Summer 2005.
S. and A. and I all found each other somewhere in the middle of the summer; they used to let themselves into uncle's apartment to steal bagels and use the couches as a place to do homework and make faces at the cat and read the comics; it was basically the same things I did there, except replace homework with the crossword and bagels with peanut-butter-and-jelly-on-tapioca-bread (I have celiacs, so wheat bread is useless except at making me sick). Anyway, one beach invitation (and an unusually stern warning from my uncle that the kids had known too much dissapointment in their lives to have me stand them up) turned into weekly trips anywhere, and eventually a ritual of picking up my pseudo-children almost every day for the rest of the summer, taking them wherever I went (even the dumb stuff; the bank, course registration at mt. sac, whatever), feeding them, getting them home, introducing them to my boyfriend, teaching them violent femmes songs, singing violent femmes songs REALLY loudly in the car, pretending to be interested in deGrassi,et.cetera; the girls are wonderful; S. is eleven and loud and huyper, A. is twelve and sweet and guarded; their baby sister is the heartbreaker; B. is four and she tries to get my boyfriend and I to play parent-child games of house with her; she tries to get us to hold hands as a threesome, she sees families in Claremont and sees us and that we are the right age to be her parents and that there are two of us and one is a boy and one is a girl, and she keeps trying to put all these elements together to make a picture of a family like she thinks families ought to look; everyone in preschool with her is middle-class two-parent; jher best friend is a girl whose parents are one of my regular tables at the press; there are two blonde parents and a blonde child, they order wine with dinner, they have money, they are loud and happy; we don't know who B's father is; he mother looks Italian, but B. is dark-eyed and dark, dark skinned and has long, coarse black hair; she is a beautiful baby; she is happier and quieter, and far, far smarter than any 4 year old I've ever seen.
Summer 2005.
S. and A. and I all found each other somewhere in the middle of the summer; they used to let themselves into uncle's apartment to steal bagels and use the couches as a place to do homework and make faces at the cat and read the comics; it was basically the same things I did there, except replace homework with the crossword and bagels with peanut-butter-and-jelly-on-tapioca-bread (I have celiacs, so wheat bread is useless except at making me sick). Anyway, one beach invitation (and an unusually stern warning from my uncle that the kids had known too much dissapointment in their lives to have me stand them up) turned into weekly trips anywhere, and eventually a ritual of picking up my pseudo-children almost every day for the rest of the summer, taking them wherever I went (even the dumb stuff; the bank, course registration at mt. sac, whatever), feeding them, getting them home, introducing them to my boyfriend, teaching them violent femmes songs, singing violent femmes songs REALLY loudly in the car, pretending to be interested in deGrassi,et.cetera; the girls are wonderful; S. is eleven and loud and huyper, A. is twelve and sweet and guarded; their baby sister is the heartbreaker; B. is four and she tries to get my boyfriend and I to play parent-child games of house with her; she tries to get us to hold hands as a threesome, she sees families in Claremont and sees us and that we are the right age to be her parents and that there are two of us and one is a boy and one is a girl, and she keeps trying to put all these elements together to make a picture of a family like she thinks families ought to look; everyone in preschool with her is middle-class two-parent; jher best friend is a girl whose parents are one of my regular tables at the press; there are two blonde parents and a blonde child, they order wine with dinner, they have money, they are loud and happy; we don't know who B's father is; he mother looks Italian, but B. is dark-eyed and dark, dark skinned and has long, coarse black hair; she is a beautiful baby; she is happier and quieter, and far, far smarter than any 4 year old I've ever seen.
posted by remy holwick at 6:57 PM
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