IGMS Issue 8 (18 page)

When Kevin arrives at my apartment for dinner, I'm a wreck. My eyes are red-rimmed from all Big Ma's crying. I haven't had enough sleep because she tossed and turned.

Kevin is grouchy that I don't have any beer in the fridge. He teases me about Big Ma being a teetotaler. This bends her all out of shape. She demands that I inform him that she brewed hooch in her bathtub during Prohibition.

Kevin whistles. "You got a lot of books, Adrienne."

"Someday I'm going to build my own little research library," I say while tossing the salad. I'm proud of my books. Big Ma is not so proud. She says that my books are all about ideas. She wants to know where my travel and picture books are.

Unlike me, Big Ma has been everywhere. In spite of bad knees, worse English and no formal education, she used her flea market savings to travel the world after Grandpa August died. She reminds me that the farthest
I've
ever been is to college in New Jersey.

"Mind if I switch on the game?" Kevin asks.

"Go ahead," I say. But I brood because I want Kevin to be the sort of guy who asks me if I need help in the kitchen. I don't need help, but it bothers me that he doesn't ask.

Big Ma thinks I'm being unreasonable. She points out that he hasn't tried to get me in bed yet and he holds down a steady job. She says that even during hard times, there's a need for cops.

Kevin grabs his keys. "Uncle Pat and I are gonna run down to the corner store and grab a six pack."

I think about telling Kevin he drinks too much, but Big Ma informs me there's no way to bring this up to an Irishman without causing a fight.

When he gets back, dinner is cold, and his team is losing. I read while he watches television, and imagine what it would be like to live with Kevin and Uncle Pat. It would be tolerable, I guess.

Then the game ends and my TIVO switches to the History Channel. "Hannibal Invades Italy?" Kevin asks. "People actually watch this?"

"They use computer animation to reproduce the battle strategies," I tell him. "It's actually kinda cool."

"I learn enough history from Uncle Pat," Kevin says. "More than I'd get from your book-learning."

There's that word again. Book-learning.

Kevin switches off the television. Big Ma has gone to sleep, but I'm not entirely sure about Uncle Pat. When Kevin kisses me, I can't get over the feeling that I'm being leered at by some drunken old man.

"I really like you, Adrienne," Kevin whispers.

My sister, the artist, is horrified.

"You painted your living room pink?" she asks, shielding her eyes from the gilded angels.

Big Ma and I are defensive. "We like it."

"Sure. I get it. It's Brothel Chic," my sister says. She knows this will irk me, Big Ma, and Henri all at once.

I tell my sister about my most recent date with Kevin.

She snorts. "The History Channel can't be book-learning. It's not a book!"

"Who even says that anymore?" I ask. "Book-learning."

My sister rolls her eyes. "Adrienne, try using book-learning in a sentence without sounding like a knuckle-dragger."

"Try saying knuckle-dragger in a sentence without sounding like an uppity snob. We don't come from fancy roots," I reply.

"True enough, but look, Kevin O'Brien is just one guy."

"But he's really into me. And he's one of those responsible guys," I say. "And some day, that's going to be important."

"What about now?" my sister asks.

Kevin is on the phone inviting me to another baseball game. "You should go with your friends," I say. "But I'd love to meet you for dinner after."

"You don't like baseball?" he asks.

I've read all the magazines. I know I'm supposed to say that I just don't understand baseball yet, but that I'd love to learn. The truth is that I don't like baseball and I don't want to learn, and Kevin seems like the kind of man who appreciates honesty. "I'm not a fan, no."

Silence.

"But I did have fun last time," I chirp like a coward.

"Uncle Pat isn't sure he can abide a girl who doesn't like baseball," Kevin says.

He's breaking up with me! I try not to sound as relieved as I feel. "Well, I hope we can still be friends."

"That was a joke, Adrienne," Kevin says.

"Oh."

Then there's more silence. This is really awkward.

"Are you ending it?" Kevin's tone is bitter.

"I just can't see us going the next step," I say.

We have
the
fight.

I try to be nice, but Kevin is drunk and he's taking it much worse than expected. "What is it? You don't want Uncle Pat to see you naked? You think you're too uptown for me, Adrienne? Well, good luck finding someone to date you and the old guinea bat. You're stuck-up and your Big Ma is a judgmental bitch."

It's really his attack on Big Ma that makes me petty. "And your Uncle Pat is probably not really your uncle. Ask your mother about that."

Kevin hangs up on me. I stand there holding the phone.

I expect Big Ma to berate me, but instead, she offers to make me some
risotto
. Comfort food. But I'm too upset to eat. Big Ma tells me that I should take a vacation. Italy is beautiful this time of year, she says. But Italy is a romantic place -- the kind of place I thought I'd wait to see with someone special.

I must look as pathetic as I feel, because Big Ma doesn't even rant about how I just threw away my future. I'm sure that will come tomorrow. For now, she is suspiciously quiet.

I wake up in my bed, alone. Like, really alone. On weekends, I sleep in late and Big Ma wakes up early, but it's silent in my head. Big Ma's gone.

I trip over the damned flea-market rug again, open the door to my bedroom, and find the apartment tidied. Big Ma has stored meals in Tupperware, and labeled them with instructions on how to heat them up.

I call my sister and she comes right over.

"She can't be gone," my sister says. "Henri's Limbo Lottery number is before hers; if room had opened up, he'd know."

I sit down in front of the garage-sale-special coffee table and start to cry. "Big Ma bought this for fifty bucks. I told her to stop bringing crap into my apartment. She was driving me crazy. What if I drove her crazy too? What if I drove her so crazy she decided she'd rather wait her time out in Hell?"

"Or . . ." My sister's eyes encourage me to look up at the angels on the wall. One of them looks like Big Ma. Has it always? "Maybe she found some way to get into Heaven."

Inside, I believe that's true, but it doesn't make me miss her less. I curl up on the couch with my sister, Henri, and a box of tissues. We tune into the History channel and watch Hannibal kick ass. Henri enjoys it. He tells me that monks have a thing for book-learning.

"At least you have your place to yourself again," my sister says after a while.

"I'm going to build bookshelves," I say.

"And you can repaint."

"Why? Pink and gold were Eleanor Roosevelt's favorite colors."

My sister has no easy way of disproving this.

When I go to bed, I find a note on the nightstand. My handwriting. Big Ma's words. "You didn't love him Adrienne, and that's alright. I see now, it really is alright."

As it turns out, Chang's name is actually Chang.

He's helping me pack salt and pepper shakers into boxes for the donation center. "I'm sorry she's gone," Chang says, and he really means it. "Not that she liked me much."

We both laugh. I still like Chang's lopsided smile. Now he has a lopsided nose to match and I like that too.

Chang and I are clearing out Big Ma's junk so that I can build more bookshelves in the spare bedroom -- half for his stuff, and half for his new DSA, Lady Ling.

Lady Ling says she used to be an Emperor's concubine. She brews the best tea ever and thinks pink and gold are beautiful together -- especially with all the souvenirs I collected on my trip to Italy.

Lady Ling would prefer I was Chinese, but otherwise thinks I'm a nice girl. I think Big Ma would have liked her.

Chang has changed. So have I. He wants to get married, but I'm in no hurry. We have even talked about buying a house somewhere.

But for now, we're going to live where we are.