Acquainted with the Night Read online

  Well, to return to tonight, there they are, she and Pat, having themselves a fine time fooling around with their shakers and glasses like kids playing tea party, the way my mother used to do with me.

  “I can’t drink all this garbage,” my mother announced. “No one drinks this stuff anymore. I’m going to make myself a nice martini and sip along as we work.”

  “I’ll sample,” said Pat. “I’ve always had an experimenting nature.”

  “Why do you have to practice making all those drinks if no one drinks them anymore?” I asked.

  “We have to do what the teacher says,” my mother answers. She and Pat find this remark highly droll. They are old friends from high school and laugh at everything the other says as though they are a TV comedy team. It’s true that Pat is a lot of fun to have around, as my mother says, but I get the impression she doesn’t quite realize she is over the hill. She’s very tall and has long auburn hair and wears fancy pants suits and silk shirts and scarves. She chain-smokes and laughs a lot and talks constantly, and she seems to bring out a silly streak in people around her. My mother is basically a more quiet type, and wears jeans with turtleneck sweaters and junk jewelry and clunky Frye boots. (She paid eighty-five dollars for those boots, incidentally, and bought me a fake pair for only thirty-two.)

  “Now, do you serve this straight up or on the rocks?” Pat asks, holding up this shaker full of some yellowish stuff. Straight up means with no ice.

  “Wait, I’ll have to check my notes.” In the midst of their giggling they had to keep putting on their glasses to check things in their notebooks. My mother wet the tip of her finger to turn the pages, which is another sign of age.

  “On the rocks, it says. Wait, hold it, that’s much too many rocks, Pat. Get some of those rocks out.”

  “I don’t think there’re too many.”

  “Come on,” my mother says, “off with those rocks.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Pat says, laughing. She is poking around at the ice cubes in the shaker with a long spoon, trying to get a few out. “You can’t have too many rocks. I distinctly remember him saying that, Barbara.”

  “Like the Big Rock Candy Mountain,” my mother says. “‘Oh, the buzzing of the bees in the cigarette trees,’” she starts to sing.

  “‘Get a piece of the Rock,’” Pat sings.

  “‘Rock of ages, cleft for thee. Let me hide—’” But my mother has to stop singing, as they are both collapsing with laughter and Pat’s rocks are melting all over the kitchen table. At this point I opened my math book and tried to do some homework, though there was not much room left. Besides being wet, the table was cluttered with pink and yellow and grayish concoctions in different-shaped glasses. I forgot to mention that they were both helping themselves to everything in sight. They said they had to, to see if they were coming out right.

  “Do you have to be so noisy?” I said. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

  “Oh, Jodie is disapproving again. Do you feel left out, Jodie?” my mother said. “Wait, I’m going to make you something you can drink. Something spectacular, just for you.”

  “I don’t like that stuff. It smells bitter.”

  “This won’t be bitter.” She put her glasses on again and flipped around in her notebook, then she poured a little bit of some really pretty green stuff over a shaker of ice, added cream and sugar and a few other things, put a big silver shaker on top, and began to shake it up.

  “Remember, he said to shake very vigorously, Barbara,” said Pat.

  My mother shook harder. She looked like she was doing some kind of tribal dance, jiggling that thing up and down, and her whole body and her hoop earrings jiggling along with it.

  “Watch out for your rocks, they could fall out,” Pat said. “Did you remember to put in Frothee?”

  “What’s Frothee?” I asked.

  “Frothee,” my mother told me, still dancing around, “is this wonderful milky-white substance that spurts out of a little plastic container. On the table there, see? It’s a magic fluid that makes everything it gets into creamy and yummy.” Pat is again going into fits of laughter.

  “I don’t see what’s so hilarious about Frothee,” I said.

  “Oh, you will,” said Pat. “You will.”

  Finally my mother finished shaking and poured this beautiful thick light-green drink with a nice creamy top into a cocktail glass. “Here, try this. It’s called a Grasshopper. But take small sips.”

  “Will it be bitter?”

  She sipped it herself and smiled and twinkled her eyes at me over the rim of the glass. “Why don’t you risk it?” she said.

  It smelled light and minty, so I tried it. It was fantastic, like mint ice cream, not bitter at all. I must say, about my mother, that when she makes an effort she can really do things well.

  “Is it good?”

  “Not too bad.” I drank some more. It felt smooth going down, like a malted with a little sting.

  “Now, Jodie,” said Pat, “for our next act I am going to demonstrate the wonders of Frothee, on the rocks.” She studied something in her notebook for a couple of minutes, then filled her shaker with rocks, poured from a couple of bottles, and held up the little plastic container. “I squeeze the container gently,” she said in this funny accent, like a foreign magician, “I squirt in three or four drops, and abracadabra! Whoosh!” She began to shake the mixture very vigorously. Since she is so tall the whole kitchen seemed to shake with her.

  I didn’t want to interrupt her performance to tell her that when she squeezed the white stuff out it reminded me of those spitters I had been passing all day. Spitters are mostly old men with baggy pants and dangling shoelaces, but on occasion you will see boys in tight jeans and leather jackets doing it (who will probably grow up to be old men with baggy pants and dangling shoelaces). What they do is, they sort of jerk their heads back and make this choppy gurgling noise in their throats like a car engine trying to start in cold weather, then flip their heads forward and shoot the stuff sideways out of the corner of their mouths, if they have any decency left aiming it off the curb. If you are watching closely you can see the gob shoot out and land in the street, where it makes a splatter and then lies there in a sunburst pattern till a car or bus comes along and rides over it. Naturally this is not the most pleasant thing to see, especially first thing in the morning on the way to two midterms, and I had the good fortune to run into quite a few, both going and coming. What bothers me most about the spitters is that they have no self-control whatsoever. It is also called expectorating. My mother and I have this routine that began last year when we saw a funny sign about it in a bus terminal. Since then whenever we see a person doing it one of us whispers, Don’t Expectorate if You Expect to Rate, and the other one answers, Don’t Expect to Rate if You Expectorate. I realize it is extremely corny but for some reason it makes us crack up.

  Anyhow, Pat was doing this flamenco-type dance as she shook the drink, and my mother was clicking her fingers and providing background music. It did come out very frothy, I must admit. I think it was a Brandy Alexander. Needless to say, they went into ecstasies over the way it looked. When they calmed down I asked my mother if she would make me another Grasshopper, but she said no, one was quite enough.

  “But I don’t feel anything.”

  “Absolutely not. You’re still a child. Do you want to get drunk?”

  “You’re the ones who are drunk. I really believe you two are drunk.”

  “Oh, Jodie, come on. I haven’t even had the equivalent of two drinks. When have you ever seen me drunk? That child is so strict with me,” she said to Pat.

  “Well, you’re both acting so silly,” I said.

  “What is wrong with having a little fun?”

  So I shut my mouth and went back to the math homework.

  Pat took off her glasses and laid them on the table, then leaned back in her chair and blew out a long puff of smoke at the ceiling. She suddenly seemed very tired, and she waved her arm i
n a tired way over the table, full of half-empty glasses. “What are we going to do with all of this? It’s a pity to waste all our efforts.”

  “Listen,” my mother said. “I have an idea. I can call James and ask him if he wants to come over and drink some of it. Maybe he can bring that friend of his I told you about, Sam Larkin? The reporter. They live on the same block. You would like him, I think.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not dressed or anything.”

  “You look fine, Pat. It’ll be fun.”

  “Well, I don’t know.”

  “Every encounter is not a major thing. Look, you don’t have to marry the man. I’m only suggesting that they come over for a drink. Informal, friendly, no big deal.”

  “Oh, all right,” Pat said. “I’ll have to use your hairbrush, though. I left mine home.”

  So my mother went to the living room to phone James, and they arranged that he would ask Sam and call back in a few minutes to let her know. While she and Pat sat around waiting for his call this jittery feeling crept into the air, like they were two kids waiting for their first date. One of them would make a remark and laugh a little, then it would die down and the creepy silence would come back. To pass the time they sipped from the drinks lined up on the table, first one then another, as if it didn’t matter which.

  “What is he like, anyway?” Pat asked.

  “Who, James or Sam?”

  James.

  I took my homework into the living room and shut the door, because if there is one thing I cannot stand, it is to hear grown women sounding like the high-school seniors who have taken over our pizzeria. They are both revolting, but at least the seniors are going through a normal phase for their age. I could still hear everything through the door, though. My mother told her how intelligent, good-natured, witty, etc., James was. Prince Charming himself, except for the horse. “Still, he’s very reserved about some things,” she said. “His privacy is important to him. I get the message that I shouldn’t push anything. Not that I want to. I feel the same way myself.”

  “How about in the rocks department?” Pat asked, and she laughed.

  “Pat, honestly, you must be looped.”

  “You’re blushing, Barbara. Well, how about Sam? What is he like?”

  Since my mother had only seen Sam twice there wasn’t much to say, fortunately, as I was becoming sicker and sicker. After all, they are supposed to be mothers, though you’d never know it. First they spend the whole evening fooling around and drinking, with no self-control whatsoever, then they arrange this date, which will probably turn out to be a drunken orgy, music and laughing and everything, and I will have to go to my room to avoid it, then Sam will take Pat home and James will want to stay over and my mother will feel funny about it because of me, but in the end she’ll let him, and I’ll hear them whispering in her room, and in the morning he’ll be gone before I get up and my mother will have that bright rosy but slightly guilty look, eyeing me like she’s thinking, I dare you to say one word about it, and I’ll go to school feeling all alone in the world and to top it off I will most likely meet a few dozen spitters along the way, not to mention pregnant women, since spring is almost in full bloom.

  So when the phone rang about ten minutes later I dashed to get it first. My mother had taken Pat into the bedroom to give her the hairbrush and show her the new Frye boots.

  It was James. He made his usual awkward attempt to be friendly, then said, “Can I speak to your mother, please?”

  “Oh, she went out to meet some people. She just left.”

  “That’s funny. I was supposed to call her back and come over with a friend.”

  “Yes, well, she got another call meanwhile and rushed right out. I think she was tired of waiting. Sorry.”

  There was a long pause. “I see. My friend’s line was tied up before. Will you tell her I called, please?”

  My mother appeared then. “Is that for me, Jodie? I’m expecting a call.”

  “Okay, ’bye,” I said. “See you,” and I hung up fast. “It was just Jennifer about the math homework.” Jennifer calls every other night about the math homework.

  “Oh.” She looked like she was shrinking right before my eyes, very small and sad. “Well, listen, don’t tie up the phone. James might call. He might be coming over.”

  They went into the kitchen again. It was very quiet. I could hear the glasses clinking on the table every now and then. Pat said, “Did you know Lisa had an abortion?”

  “No! How awful.”

  “It wasn’t so bad. She had broken up with him weeks before.”

  “Still,” said my mother. “I’m glad I never had to. I don’t know if I could.”

  “You’ve never ...”

  “No. Just lucky. Also careful.”

  Long silence.

  “What do you suppose happened to them?” Pat asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Maybe the signals got crossed or something. Why don’t you try again.”

  “Oh, all right. I don’t like to but I will.” She came into the living room and dialed. I watched her. Her shoulders slumped as she wound the cord round and round her wrist like a bracelet. I got a little scared, but it turned out to be a false alarm. “There’s no answer,” she told Pat back in the kitchen.

  “Maybe he’s on his way.”

  “I doubt it. He’s not like that. He would have called first.”

  “Something must have happened.”

  “I’ll wash out these shakers,” my mother said. I heard water running for a few minutes, then silence again.

  “I thought you and he were getting along so well,” said Pat.

  “So did I. You never know what they’re thinking. They’re so peculiar, all of them. Maybe he didn’t like the idea of my asking him on the spur of the moment, or of asking Sam. Who the hell knows.”

  “There must have been a mix-up. Don’t you think you ought to try once more?”

  “Pat, I don’t want to call again, all right? I’m going to make some coffee. I don’t like those fancy drinks. I’m getting a headache.”

  “You’re upset.”

  “No, it’s nothing. I just thought it was different. ... I’m sorry about Sam.”

  “Don’t be silly. I never even met him. I’m sorry about ... Finally Pat said she’d help clean up. “We might as well throw all this in the sink, right?”

  “Yes, go ahead. I’m certainly not going to drink it. Jodie,” she called, “you should be going to bed, you have the dentist tomorrow.” Then she said to Pat, “I wish I had never thought of calling, then this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “Don’t get so upset. He’ll probably turn up tomorrow with some perfectly reasonable excuse.”

  “That’s the whole trouble,” my mother said. “They always have wonderful excuses.”

  They drank their coffee and finished cleaning up and Pat left. I kissed my mother good night and went to bed. She didn’t look like she was in the mood for talking.

  This incident is actually no big deal. I mean, James will call again sooner or later, I suppose, and then it will all come out. My mother will be furious, and when she’s through yelling at me she’ll calm down and explain for the twentieth time how she’s not over the hill yet and wants some fun out of life, but don’t I know I’m still the most important person to her. And I guess I will feel rotten. Still and all, a person has to make some effort to keep things under control and I’m glad I did, even if it was only for one night. Because with kids it’s different, I mean, that is why they’re kids, but if grownups don’t act their age who is going to keep any kind of order in the world?

  THE ACCOUNTING

  RON, MY ACCOUNTANT, CAME over one morning to review our records of the six-month period just past. Usually I go to his office because I don’t like a lot of people coming to the apartment, but I was recovering from mononucleosis—brought on by overwork, the doctor said—and was supposed to take it very easy.

  Since it was Sunday, his day,
Ron explained, he had brought along his five children from various marriages. They were four boys and a girl, which puzzled me. I had had the impression that his children were all boys. But the girl called him Daddy, so I must have been mistaken. He called her Erica or Angela; he introduced us in his customary offhand, mumbling manner, so that I couldn’t quite make out whether he said Erica or Angela. Erica or Angela was wearing a dress, and that was puzzling too: all the girls I see out my window nowadays wear jeans or shorts. It was a white sundress with tiny blue and yellow flowers and a wide sash. A trifle short for this year, but at her age that hardly mattered. Very delicate, very girlish. A throwback to an earlier day. I might have had a dress like that. The girl’s long scrawny arms and legs stuck out plaintively from the pretty dress, and her light-brown hair needed washing and was not well combed. She looked like a girl without a mother, a girl dressed by a well-meaning amateur, although according to my accountant she did have a mother, a most attentive one. Three of the boys were dark, ruddy, and robust, wore red shirts, and smiled a lot. The fourth resembled his father: reedy and tall for his age, very pale, with straight rust-colored hair, full lips, and inquisitive, cunning green eyes. All the children seemed about five or six years old, though surely that was impossible. No, not impossible if they all had different mothers. Yes, impossible, if my accountant had been married to each of the mothers in succession, as he claimed. I would have liked to ponder this mystery for a while, being a writer of mysteries, wildly successful ones; it is precisely such anomalous little gems that shatter into stories when handled. But real life was trotting along with its demands: I led the hungry pack into the kitchen and gave them juice and cookies, and then we settled down, my accountant and I, spreading our papers on the dining room table rather than in my study down the hall, so we could keep an eye on the children. I poured him some coffee.