What were you thinking! I said, when he arrived in the kitchen with more dishes. Making a decision like that without consulting me! I am not a child — I have a life here!
We’d be better off there; Andrea would be better off there.
Why would you say that? Why would we be better off there?
Why wouldn’t we? he said, opening the dishwasher.
I started counting reasons on rubber-gloved fingers: museums, the Film Forum, the Balalaika. What’s in Connecticut? Lyme disease, off-road vehicles that never leave the road …
Good schools, Ahmad said, counting on his fingers. Parks not overrun by rats …
Connecticut? Connecticut isn’t ready for the likes of us!
That’s bollocks, and you know it. I’d think you’d be willing to do this one thing for me. After all I’ve done for you.
All you’ve done for me? You did me a favor by letting me give you a family?
It’s time for a change, Shira. You’re in a rut! We both are. Andi needs role models who can show her how to change, take risks.
You think living in Connecticut is a good example of risk-taking? I shouted.
Ahmad was maddeningly calm. This was how he worked his opponents into a lather. I was no exception. As if on cue, Andi arrived in the kitchen wearing her Supergirl pajamas and clutching Tamika, her African American Orthodontist Barbie. Ahmad growled and chased her around the kitchen. She squealed as he picked her up and held her upside down by the ankles.
Six points if you don’t laugh, he shouted, and she tried, with Supergirl resolution.
Good night, Angel, I said, kissing her feet, then turned half upside down to kiss her nose. Who’s going to give you your story tonight? I asked, thinking, Pick me! Pick me!
Ahmad! she shouted. Get me down from here!
Ahmad flew her out of the room like a 320 Airbus, my little flying girl, and I stayed behind and cried: big tears, plop, plop into the Palmolive.
24. MYSTIC CLAM SHACK
Over oatmeal the next morning, Ahmad explained Andi’s options: she could hang out all day doing nothing or she could have extremely good fun with him on an outing.
This is what’s known in the kid business as a no-brainer.
What should she bring? Andi wanted to know. Bag lunch? Shovel and pail? Should she wear play clothes or dress up, should Mommy curl her hair or braid it?
Ahmad put down his cup, appeared to concentrate. Wear the Gap Kids overalls I bought you, and that green and pink flowered T-shirt. Sneakers. Braids, no curls. Ritz Bits in a baggie. One Ho Ho, pre-wrapped. Two dolls, your choice. And books for the car.
Topeka! Andi cried, jumping up. We’re going on an excursion!
Ahmad had a 1986 Mercedes SLE, with leather seats and a faux-wood dashboard, which he stored at great expense and rarely drove. Andi hopped in circles and shouted again, We’re going on an excursion! We’re going on an excursion! Then ran out of the room to get dressed.
You can come, too, Ahmad said, in what sounded like an afterthought.
I didn’t think so. Ahmad’s excursions usually involved traveling to outer boroughs to find curry ingredients he could just as easily find in Manhattan or driving along Riverside Drive so Andi could count boats on the Hudson. Then they’d find themselves in a park so Ahmad could read economics journals and Andi could play. Not my idea of a good time. Besides, I had work to do.
I spent that morning considering Romei’s first poem, looking for antecedents in his early books. I’d been right: every line was a fragment of an earlier poem. He’d employed his earlier “anti-narrative” poems to tell a story — of how Esther refilled his inkless pen, allowing him to write “anti-narrative” poems. Twisted!
I had already read all the pages Romei had sent me, I’d read them carefully more than once. It was time to “trot” the work: I’d retype the original, leaving five or six spaces between each line, then handwrite a quick “literal” translation above each line, adding towers of alternative translations above problem words, which is to say most words. I’d use different colored highlighters to note difficult phrases or lines I didn’t fully understand. If its rhythm was complex, I might scan the work, or I might note its rhyme pattern. On the back, I’d make notes about possible approaches, which elements seemed most important, what the author was getting at; I’d also start a leitwort lexicon, for key words that appeared several times. I’d end up with an indecipherable page, full of color, ornament, and scrawl, which I’d then throw away so I could get down to the real business of translation, trusting that everything I’d noted had sunk into my cells, available when I needed it.
And if it hadn’t, there it was, in the wastebasket, where it would remain till I was done.
I left the house just three times: to get a mocha frappe from Joe, a dunedog from Cohn’s Cones (Cohn’s served all manner of beach food — wieners, pretzels, slush), and another frappe from Joe. After the latter, I snuck over to Benny’s side display, which now featured books about motherhood and Jimmy Hoffa. Labor? Going into Labor? Labor Day!
But thinking about Benny made me angry, so I returned to Joe’s for a cookie and ate it in Slice of Park. Benny and Marie were probably on an excursion, too, it being Saturday, when Benny always closed his store — everyone excursioning but me!
I’d just finished my cookie when Andi called.
I made a friend, she shouted. Her name is Lisa. She has a hamster, but she thinks it’s dead. She doesn’t mind being my best friend if I don’t make her play Chutes and Ladders. She’s nicer than Pammy. Now that Pammy’s got chicken pox she thinks she’s so cool, but she’s not!
I couldn’t remember the last time my daughter had strung together so many sentences.
That’s nice, I said. Where did you meet her?
But Andi had passed the phone to Ahmad, who promised fried clams, then said, What? What? You’re breaking up!
•
I was setting the table for dinner. I thought fried clams was a joke, but was bringing out the Bounty just in case. And rehearsing what I should have said to Benny three days before, what I’d definitely say next time I saw him, which would be never.
Ahmad was first in the door.
Don’t be alarmed, he said as Andi burst in behind him, her arm in a cast up to her elbow, shouting, Look, Mommy! Look! Look!
Andi! I cried, dropping the Bounty. What happened?
Look what I got! she shouted, raising her cast in the air. Her name was already written in sixteen colors along the ulna, and along the other side, Ahmad had drawn her, making a comical face and falling out of an apple tree.
Which was when I saw the cardboard tub: Mystic Clam Shack.
Mystic?
You took Andi to Connecticut and she fell out of a tree?
Look, Mambo! Everyone can sign! Ahmad got me magic markers that smell like fruit!