THE WOMAN GIVES ME on the knee like a tap with her fingers and then she picks herself up and with another groan again she goes and checks on the things she put for her daughter in the machine, whereupon then the woman turns herself around to me and says to me, she says, "Your boy, tell me, are you telling me you got just the one son?"
But why should she wait for an answer?
I promise you, people know there is something which, whenever you look at a father's face, you don't need to ask another question.
"Sure, sure," she says, sticks in two more quarters in her dryer, then comes back to where she was in the first place and plunks herself down in the row of chained-down chairs with another new groan like the last one I forgot the meaning of already.
She says, "Pardon me, but do I still have your undivided attention? Because I know you got your own mind on your own kid and your own troubles, but you didn't hear yet what happened, which is the child goes down there, and it could not be more perfect — the weather, the service, the accommodations — everything is absolutely first-class, so all she has to do is jump into a bathing suit and start being the happiest girl in the whole wide world. But does she go sit around the pool like the other youngsters do so that maybe there might happen to arise a little excitement from whichever direction? The answer is no — the answer is the girl did not even begin to give herself credit. Instead, she drags herself all of the way out to the beach with the wind and with the sand, which is utterly unnecessary, and with a book which nobody ever heard of and with not even a little bag with her with at least a lipstick in it, not to mention she knocks herself out finding herself a place for her to sit herself which is as far away from everybody in humanity as is humanly possible and, lo and behold, this is how the girl spends the five days, the six days, whatever you actually get when they give you one week's free vacation, and not once, when all is said and done, not once does the girl have a single solitary conversation with a single solitary human being of any gender. She reads a book, and this is the entire nature of her entertainment, period, with the lone sole exception of this friend she makes, this little animal which comes running along the beach to her and which comes up to her, like she thinks like a little Mexican hairless or whatnot, like this tiny little dog like the bandleader, if you remember him, used to hide in his pockets, like a Chihuahua is what they call it, like two Chihuahuas in his pockets. So the whole first day, would the thing go away? Forget it, what it loves in this world is all of a sudden my unmarried daughter. It could not get enough of my own personal daughter — huggy-huggy, kissy-kissy, two permanent lovebirds from the first minute they laid eyes on each other. So naturally the next day the girl can't wait to get back out to the beach again, God forbid her friend should miss her for two minutes, and this time she's got with her what? Because the answer is a handbag. Do you hear this, a handbag! But for lipstick and mascara and eye shadow? Don't make me laugh. Because the answer is it is not for something serious but instead for the child to sneak her brand-new one-and-only in through the lobby and up in the elevator and for the rest of the whole vacation feed it scraps from the table and watch it sleep between two clean sheets in the bed with her like a person, please God it should not all night long have its little head on its own personal pillow. And why not? In all of the girl's whole life, aside from her mother, who ever paid her two seconds of attention before? But on the other hand, outside of her mother, tell me who ever got the chance! Even the girl's own father, may the man rest in peace, he had to hire an army every time he wanted the child to hold still so he could talk to her or get even in the light of day even a good look at her.