Play Dates (14 page)

I offer Zoë my hand. She’s been silent and extremely well behaved during the entirety of this impromptu meeting.

After she stopped kicking Kiplinger’s desk, she took her social studies reader out of her knapsack and immersed herself in its pages.

She hops off her chair and stuffs the book back into her bag.

Then she turns to Mrs. Hennepin with narrowed eyes.

PLAY DATES

101

“Buck
you
!” she says to her teacher, before bolting from the room.

I leave before they can schedule another conference.

Dear Diary:

Because I had to wake up so early today, Mommy wanted me to
take a nap before we go to Sag Harbor to have dinner with
Granny Tulia and Grandpa Brendan. But I had to write in my
diary because I don’t want to forget and I want to tell all about
the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Powerpuff Girls
and MiMi and me.

MiMi was right. We really did have to get up when it was still
dark out. It was cold but it wasn’t raining. Mommy made me put
on two pairs of tights. I put on a long underwear shirt too, because
I just wanted to wear my special outfit and not have to put on a
coat. I wore one of my white school blouses and I have a light
blue jumper and Mommy put my hair in two ponytails so I
looked like Bubbles. MiMi told Mommy that each of the little girls
on the float had to dress like one of the Powerpuff Girls. So the
girls with red hair had to dress like Blossom and the girls with
brown hair had to dress like Buttercup. We didn’t have to buy
anything new, but in case some people did, Macy’s has a Powerpuff Girls section in the kids department.

MiMi came to get me. Mommy was still wearing her bathrobe
and she said goodbye to us and she wished she was allowed to
come on the float with us. I felt very grown up doing something
special with MiMi. She’s my favorite person because we always
do something really fun that none of my friends get to do.

When we got to where the parade was going to start it was still
dark out and all the balloons were lying on their sides on the
street with big nets over them. When my Daddy lived with us we

102

Leslie Carroll

used to go watch them blowing up the balloons on the night before
Thanksgiving. Then we would have hot chocolate at E.J.’s which is
a restaurant that Daddy says looks like a restaurant Grandpa
Brendan might have gone to when he was a teenager and it gives
very big portions.

This year Daddy didn’t take me to the balloons or for hot
chocolate. I wished he would have, but he told Mommy and me
that he was busy at Serena’s restaurant.

The TV star on the Powerpuff Girls float was really pretty and
MiMi made her look even prettier with her makeup. Her name
was Janyce. She had beautiful long black hair and a white fur
coat and she looked really warm. She was young like Mommy
and MiMi and when one of the other little girls asked her if she
was rich because she had a fur coat she laughed. She told all the
little girls that we were supposed to smile and wave at everybody
and to go from one side of the float to the other so that we didn’t
play favorites with people on only one side of the street.

But something made me disappointed. The real Powerpuff Girls
weren’t there. I know they are just cartoons on TV but for the parade they had ladies dressed up like Buttercup and Blossom and
Bubbles with big heads on them like big puppet heads, like the
seven dwarves wear in Disney World, and I thought they looked
silly, because the heads were so heavy that they wouldn’t be able
to fly. I asked MiMi how we were supposed to jump up and down
and cheer for the Powerpuff Girls when it was just regular people
inside costumes like Halloween. MiMi said we should use our
imaginations and pretend they have super powers.

That was okay. By the time the parade started I was having so
much fun that it didn’t matter that they weren’t the real Powerpuff girls on the float. It was so special being in the parade and
being right near the bands and the balloons and the other floats
and the clowns. The clowns didn’t scare me this time. MiMi said
they were just people who work at Macy’s and being a clown in
the parade was a big treat. MiMi even helped some of them with
PLAY DATES

103

their makeup. I got to see the Jimmy Neutron balloon close up
and the Captain Nemo balloon, too. The people holding the
strings were all dressed in costumes. The people with the Big Bird
balloon were all dressed like Big Bird with yellow tops and yellow
pants and yellow hats that looked like rooster hats. It was very exciting and like being at a great big party. I didn’t even think about
being cold.

I was waving at all the people and we passed my house and I
waved up at our window and I think I saw Mommy up there
waving back. We stopped a few times along the way for Janyce to
sing her song. She didn’t really sing, though. Someone pressed a
button and it was her singing on a CD, but she opened her mouth
and was pretending to be singing the song. There was a lot of pretending today. I asked her why she wasn’t singing for real and she
said that even with a microphone, not a lot of people would hear
her and it was so early in the morning and it was cold and those
things were not good for singers. And the float went fast enough
that people couldn’t tell if she was singing for real or on tape. It
was still her voice, she said, so she wasn’t really cheating. At the
end of the parade she gave each of the little girls a copy of her CD

with her autograph on it. She was wearing a beautiful blue
sparkly gown on it and she looked like a Barbie but with dark
hair.

MiMi rode on the float, even though she was too big to be a
Buttercup, but she dressed up, too. She took pictures of me with the
ladies dressed as the Powerpuff Girls with the big heads and with
the beautiful singer Janyce and I’m going to bring them to school
for show and tell next week. It was the best morning. I hope I get to
do it again next year. I love my Aunt MiMi soooooo much.

If the Pilgrims had been forced to brave the rigors of the Long Island Expressway, they would never have left England. I

104

Leslie Carroll

thought about taking Zoë to my parents on the train, but that’s a three-hour trip and the closest stop to Sag Harbor is Bridge-hampton, which means a cab ride to my parents that costs half the price of the train fare, or else disturbing their dinner preparations by asking them to come fetch us. So I rent a car, which costs a fortune in New York City, but MiMi and I, plus her date, are splitting the expense and it probably isn’t much more than the sum total of four round-trip fares on the Long Island Rail-road. And at least this way, our time is our own and we’re not dependent on the train schedule.

Second Avenue is a parking lot until we get south of 59th Street and the bridge, then it becomes a snarl again as we approach the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. Zoë must be really exhausted from the parade this morning, because she and Baa are zonked out in the booster seat. I pull up to Mia’s building in the East Village and honk the horn. Our special Marsh signal. She comes down the stoop in an oversized trench coat, wet hair tucked into a bun, followed by Happy Chef (I guess Robert Osborne is history; I’ll ask her about it tomorrow), gingerly negotiating the steps while balancing a decorated sheet cake. I scoot over to open the front door.

“Happy early birthday, sweet thing,” Happy Chef says, leaning in down to give me a peck on the cheek. “I’m singing for my supper tonight,” he adds, indicating the cake. “Maybe I should sit up front with it.”

Thanking him profusely for such a generous treat, I agree, consigning Mia to the back where my Powerpuff Girl is still sleeping. Ordinarily, she wakes up as soon as I stop the car.

Apart from the appalling traffic, it’s an uneventful journey to the East End. Zoë awakens about two thirds of the way there and asks to sing, which means an invitation to all of us. She likes it when Mia and I run through the shows we did in after-school and camp programs when we were kids:
Oliver! Annie, Bye, Bye
Birdie, Grease, Peter Pan
, and
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown
.

PLAY DATES

105

Mia was one of the best Lucys on the planet. Of course that review has to be filtered through the eyes of her then eight-year-old kid sister, but she really did internalize the role and I think she’s always seen being the queen of crabbiness as a sort of badge of honor. Zoë loves it when Charles and Mia rock the car with their rendition of “Summer Nights” from
Grease
, reprising the roles they played when they met at the Cultural Arts summer camp up in Pearl River sixteen years ago. She and I chime in on the doo-woppy choruses. I bite my tongue, resisting teasing Mia about that being the last time she ever played the “good girl.”

As we roll into Sag Harbor and pass the Whaling Museum, Zoë starts bouncing up and down—as much as the booster seat will let her. “We’re almost there!” she announces, clapping her hands, then turns the almost-there-ness into a chant that lasts for the next few minutes. I finally allow myself a moment to enjoy the surroundings. There’s a surprising amount of foliage for late November, though the leaves on the trees have lost their burnished luster. I turn off the main drag and pull into my parents’ driveway, giving the Marsh honk of the horn, then shut off the engine and catch my breath. I think I’ve been holding it ever since we left the Upper West Side.

My parents emerge, my mother wiping her hands on a hot pink dishcloth and my father carrying a small, yellow-ruled notepad and pen, to which I believe he must be surgically attached, as he never seems to be without them.

“I love it when the babies come back to the nest,” Tulia says to no one in particular as she takes the cake from Charles. “Why, thank you. This looks stunning as usual. Another masterpiece.”

The master baker blushes a bit and says something modest and self-deprecating, to which my mother responds in kind and their exchange threatens to become an Alphonse-Gaston “after you” routine.

Charles finally gets out of the car and stretches. I don’t think

106

Leslie Carroll

he’s moved a leg muscle in three and a half hours, for fear he’d ruin my birthday cake. Yet another thing over which I can self-impose a little guilt. “Now I’m nervous,” Tulia teases, properly greeting him, “with a real chef at the table tonight.”

Zoë, released from her booster seat by Mia, has launched herself full throttle into my father. She’s got her arms around his waist and is blowing raspberries against his tummy, just the way
he
always did to
us
when we were little. She’s laughing her head off, thinking this behavioral reversal is a hoot.

“Hey Dad, hey Mom,” Mia says, giving each of them a peck on the cheek. “What can I do to help?” She follows our mother into the house.

“How’s the celebrant?” my father asks me.

I stand in their front yard, inhaling the aromas of autumn . . .

the decaying leaves, wood-burning fireplaces—one of my favorite scents ever—fresh, crisp air, and the mélange of fra-grances emanating from my mother’s kitchen. “Better, now, Daddy,” I reply. “Sometimes . . . sometimes, you know, everything’s moving so fast that you forget . . .” I inhale again. “You just . . . it’s that . . .”

“I know,” my father says softly. He gives my shoulder a little squeeze. “Come inside when you’re ready.”

He’s always been able to decipher my shorthand.

There’s a log or two blazing and crackling away in the fireplace in the living room. The rooms are numerous but small given the cost and difficulty of heating large spaces back when the house was built. My mother takes its landmark status very seriously and has been quite keen on keeping the interior design as period-accurate as possible. If you’re not prepared for it, you think you’ve been thrust into a time warp. Don’t enter the parlor and living room expecting to see a wide-screen TV blaring one of the Thanksgiving football games at no one in particular. You have to know where to find it—upstairs, tucked into an 1830s armoire, along with the DVD player and my Dad’s state-of-the-art stereo system.

PLAY DATES

107

Zoë is now out in the yard, playing croquet with her imaginary friend Wendy and with my parents’ Irish Setter Ulysses, perfectly safe, taking out her second-grade frustrations on the wooden ball, fighting with Wendy over whose turn it is. I walk into the kitchen to see how I can help my mother. Mia is gar-nishing something. Happy Chef has been put to good use adding the finishing touches to a ginger-carrot soup. Orange for Zoë. I give my mother a kiss.

“Well, we can’t have the child starving, can we?” she says.

“Everyone should enjoy the Thanksgiving bounty.” Charles holds out a wooden spoon for her to taste the soup. “What is that?” She makes little tasting-smacking sounds. “Did I put that in there?”

“Nutmeg. No, I did,” Charles says.

“I like it! I’ll have to remember that for next time. You girls were terrible eaters,” Mommy reminds us. “Clairey, you still won’t eat anything if you think it smells bad.”

This is true. Bologna and peanut butter were crossed off my dietary list decades ago. Ditto for most cheeses, with the exception of cream, cheddar, smoked gouda, American, ricotta, mozzarella—and mascarpone, since no one in her right mind could give up tiramisu.