Pretty in Plaid: A Life, a Witch, and a Wardrobe, or the Wonder Years Before the Condescending, Egomaniacal Self-Centered Smart-Ass Phase (3 page)

Jesus Christ, who brings someone a gigantic plate of
liver
and
egg sac
? What kind of messed-up, Draconian diner is this that they would serve such a plate of horrors to a child? On her
birthday
? I mean, I’m only eight! I can’t possibly be expected to deal with the trauma of all that’s on my plate right now.

“Did you think you’d just get a tail and some claw meat?” my father asks wearily.

I nod. Here’s the thing—I wanted Big Mean Green to die for being a jerk to the other lobsters in the tank; I just didn’t want his—or I guess
her
—blood on
my
hands. My father takes my plate and gives it to my mom. “Julia, make this less prehistoric for her.”

My mom begins to break the lobster down, stealthily stuffing disgusting little bits of entrails into her mouth. My mother is descended from a race of people whose diets primarily consisted of whatever crap they could find washed up on the beach. That part of my ancestry must be recessive.

Minutes later, she returns my plate with nothing but tail and claw meat on it. I nod with approval—this is better. I saw off a part of the white flesh and give it a few generous dunks in the vat of drawn butter. I tentatively place the bite in my mouth and begin to chew.

The lobster is . . . rubbery. Not fishy or crabby or meaty or velvety. It’s just rubbery. This tastes like I took a Wham-O Super-Ball, cut it in half, and dipped it in herbed butter. I bet if I threw my lobster tail on the floor it’d bounce around all crazy-like, knocking over coffee cups and spilling soup. I take another bite and chew and chew and chew, but I seem to make no headway. I may as well be nibbling on my dad’s new set of Firestones. We drove all the way to Connecticut for
this
?

“What do you think?” my mom asks expectantly, smoothing a hand over her Carol Brady-esque modified mullet.

I contemplate before I answer. “I think I’d like a cheeseburger.”

And no, I’m not sorry. If someone would have just saved me one damn bite last summer in Maine at the lobster boil and hadn’t greedily wolfed down every scrap themselves, we could have avoided this whole fiasco.

No one gets me a burger
¹⁰
so I concentrate on dipping my French fries in the butter sauce. Not bad! I poke a bit more at my lobster and move it around my plate so it looks like I’ve eaten whatever arbitrary amount is enough to score me ice cream afterward.

If my dog Samantha were here, I could try to slip her some of the gristly white meat, but she’s not much of an accomplice.
¹¹
She’s as likely to spit out yucky stuff (e.g., spinach, zucchini, anything my Noni grows in her own garden, which I’m relatively sure she fertilizes,
ahem,
herself) as I am. Chances are if I’m not into it, Sam’s not either.

The waitress returns to clear our plates and she’s smirking again. Listen up, Flo, at least my hair isn’t so big I have to scratch my head with a writing utensil.

“Didn’t like it?” She snickers.

“I’m eight; I don’t eat that much,” I reply. Seriously, I will not be mocked by someone in a
smock
. “However, I’ve left room for dessert. I shall have pistachio ice cream, please,” I tell her officiously.

I’m only guaranteed dessert when we’re dining out, so I make sure to order my treat when I select my entrée. (I suspect the waitresses appreciate my efficiency.) The only problem is my mom always dives into whatever confection I receive, which is
so
not fair. She says she doesn’t want a whole dessert; she just wants some of mine. I counter by telling her that’s unfortunate, because I want
all
of mine and to keep her damn fork away from my pie.

Ninety percent of the trouble I’ve been in in my life started with dinner in a restaurant.

The waitress tells me, “Comin’ right up, hon.” And then she winks at my parents, who wink back. What does that mean? Is she in on our at-home no-dessert policy? Is that bitch going to bring the check in lieu of my ice cream?

Before I can figure out what kind of cryptic Morse code is being blinked out by all the adults around the table, I’m descended upon by a crowd of waitresses. They all rush up on me from out of nowhere, their itchy beehives undulating in the wind created by their acceleration. In the center of this huge, hasty group, I notice a giant glowing orb and it’s headed straight for me.

Suddenly, I’m enclosed by a wall of flames and smocks and aprons and everyone begins to shout at me at once. I look around and I can’t see any of my loved ones, not even Todd. Where are they? What’s happening to me?

The noise!

The fire!

The beehives!

The humanity!

The . . . oh, wait.

They’re not screaming.

They’re singing what sounds like “Happy Birthday.” They’re trying to celebrate me, not assassinate me.

And yet this still is singly the most terrifying moment of my entire fucking life.

This is probably why we had to drive all the way to the sticks of Connecticut. No quality restaurateur in New York would agree to frighten a child in this manner.

I claw at my thighs because my legs are suddenly covered in raised, itchy red bumps. I rub my scratchy calves together and practically light myself on fire with the friction. I feel like I’m crawling with hundreds of biting ants or like I’ve caught the chicken pox again times ten.

Seriously?

Stop singing and get me some calamine lotion.

The waitresses finally, mercifully end the song and I make a pledge right here and now that I’m going to go to college and get a good job afterward so I will never be responsible for making a poor little eight-year-old break out into
hives
on her goddamned birthday.

The cake is nice, though.

You Say Extortion Like It’s a Bad Thing

(Green Dotted Swiss Dress)

N
o one tells you how financially demanding it is being eight. Now that I’m eight, I have the freedom to swing by the candy store when I’m out riding bikes with Donna and Stacey. I’d go there every day, but Swedish Fish aren’t free, you know. I also need money to stop in the park and grab a hot dog from the Sabrett guy so I don’t have to down as much of my mother’s lunchtime culinary abominations.

You think I’m exaggerating? Once she ran out of grape jelly so she gave me peanut butter and lime marmalade on sprouted wheat bread.

Um, yes, thanks, I
would
prefer a spanking to this.

Point? Being eight takes cash and my meager allowance is not cutting it. I
was
able to increase this ration last fall by staging a strike while my dad tried to watch football. I marched around in circles singing “Look for the Union Label” until he promised to increase my weekly allotment from twenty-five to fifty cents. Had I known he’d just come off of six weeks trying to break a union in California and the last thing in the world he wanted was to hear one more word about organized labor, I’d probably have played it a bit more hardball. I bet I could have upped my stipend to a saw-buck.

I still don’t have nearly enough capital, so occasionally I will supplement my cash flow by sneaking a single or two out of my father’s wallet. I figure it’s not really stealing since I’m using the money to buy hot dogs, which provide the kind of sustenance that peanut butter and lime marmalade fail to deliver. I can’t swipe currency from my mom, though. She never has more than five dollars in her handbag and knows exactly how many quarters are in her coin purse. She’s always complaining how my dad doesn’t give her enough money to take care of the household, so her bag is off-limits.

The issue here is I find crime distasteful. I don’t like the surge of anxiety I feel when I have to tiptoe into my parents’ bedroom, ease open the middle drawer of the dresser, and furtively grab a buck, especially because sometimes I put in all that effort and he doesn’t even have any singles. (I can’t swipe a five; that’s a felony.)

When I offer to start picking up the slack around our house in exchange for goods, services, and cold hard cash, my mom informs me if I’m capable of doing more, then it’s my duty to do so and my payment is being provided with food, shelter, and the occasional Girl Scout sash. (FYI, any statement to the tune of
“Yay, you, for providing the bare minimum”
will get you sent to your room posthaste.)

Fortunately, a solution to all my financial woes presents itself in the most unexpected of places—my grandparents’ fiftieth anniversary party. To preface, my mother’s side of the family is a very festive group. They’ll find any reason for an impromptu get-together. My Auntie Virginia and Uncle Kelly are the queen and king of entertaining, and many a pleasant holiday has been spent sleeping on their living room floor, surrounded by snoring cousins, listening to the dulcet tones of Frank Sinatra on the hi-fi and the sound of elder relatives laughing, the smoke from their cigars creating a spicy cloud over the dining room table, where they play pinochle into the wee hours. Last summer my aunt and uncle hosted the Spirit of ’76 Fourth of July party, which turned into the Great Watermelon and Marshmallow Fight of ’76 when my Auntie Virginia started spitting watermelon seeds down my Auntie Fanny’s bathing suit.
¹²
Although it pained me to waste so many perfectly good marshmallows, the end result of nailing my brother in the face with a wad of wet foodstuff was well worth it.

Because my extended family makes everything a party, when there’s an actual event to be celebrated, ’tis a sight to behold. This particular bash boasts a seated dinner for three hundred, a giant dance floor, a live band, an ice sculpture, and an enormous pink mountain of shrimp. There’s a vast wall of presents for my grandparents and someone even got President Carter to send my Noni and Grampa an anniversary card.
¹³

I’m profoundly enjoying the sparkling apple cider provided for the kids’ table when I notice my brother hitting up my dad for a dollar to buy a soda at the cash bar. We don’t keep many carbonated beverages in our house except for the undrinkable stuff like tonic water, so having a Coke is a real treat for my brother. I watch as Dad opens his thick brown leather wallet and without a second thought or any kind of negotiation hands my brother a couple of bills.

Hold the phone—Toad got money just for saying he was
thirsty
?

I’ve got to get in on this action.

“Hi, Daddy,” I say, sidling up in such a way as to highlight what a delightful young lady I am in my fabulous mint green dotted Swiss gown with batwing sleeves and my white patent leather Mary Janes. “I’m thirsty and so’s cousins Stephanie and Karla. Can I have a couple of dollars to get us all a Coke?”

My dad smiles and whips out a five-dollar bill.

Whoa.
Do you know how many times I’d have to wash his car and vacuum the family room to get five bucks?

“You can keep the change,” he says, ruffling my hair.

You can bet your ass I will.

I don’t actually like soda, so I don’t go to the bar at all. Stephanie and Karla are probably swiping champagne off the grown-up tables, anyway.

I do like five-dollar bills, though. A lot.

I scan the crowd to spot my next victim. “Uncle Tony? I want to get a Seven-Up. Can you give me a dollar, pleeeeease? I can’t find my daddy to ask him.” Uncle Tony obliges in much the same way my father did, and now I’m up ten dollars. Sweet.

“Hey, cousin Mark? I can’t find my father and I want to get a root beer. Can I have a dollar?”

“I’m going to the bar; I’ll get you one,” he replies kindly.

“No!”
I exclaim, desperately trying to find a way to spin this. “No, no. You sit, relax. Take it easy. I’ll go for you.”

He shrugs. “Okay, here’s ten bucks—get me and your cousin Steven a Heineken and whatever you want for yourself. Keep the change.” Ding, ding, ding,
score
.

Never doubt the power of a little girl in a party dress!

The bartender serves me the two beers—apparently I’m a very mature-looking eight
¹⁴
—and I return to Mark’s table with his beers and a tidy seven-dollar profit.

I learn pretty quickly to ask only male relatives after a disappointing and potentially disastrous reaction from my aunties. One grilled me about whether my mother knew I was drinking so much sugar and the other told me it was rude to ask anyone for money. They must be immune to the cute overload that is me in dotted Swiss.

In the next half hour, I make almost seventy dollars, but my run of good luck ends when my uncle Jimmy generously throws down a handful of bills and opens the bar.

Damn. Shoulda tapped Uncle Jimmy.

The next morning my mother finds my bankroll next to my bed and is aghast when she hears where it came from. I try to explain money is “really sort of a gift if you think about it,” but she’s not hearing any of it. She confiscates my cash and I never see it again.

I suspect she uses it to buy groceries.

God help her if she comes home with any more lime marmalade.