Mary Jane by Jessica Blau (debian ebook reader TXT) 📗

and Izzy was thrilled with her centerpiece. Each time someone passed something across the table, she stood on her chair to make sure no shell from the centerpiece was disturbed.

After dessert, Jimmy pushed back his chair and said he’d clean up. Mrs. Cone stood and said she’d help him. Like Sheba, shewas wearing a long sundress, but hers wasn’t batik and looked a little pilled and old. She was barefoot too. Every time someonewalked across the kitchen, I said a quick thanks that no glasses or dishes had been broken and there were no unseen shardswaiting for a soft, tender foot.

I pushed my chair back and looked at Izzy. “Bath time.”

“But wait.” Izzy stood on her chair. “We need a polar bear photo of my centerplace!”

“Excellent idea.” Dr. Cone went off to find the Polaroid camera as Sheba and I took dishes to the sink. Jimmy and Mrs. Conehad already started washing.

Dr. Cone returned within minutes. Izzy sat on the table near the shells and lifted her hands in a wide V. Dr. Cone clickeda picture and the flash exploded with a brilliant white light that made me see stars for a minute.

“Now everyone with my centerplace!” Izzy said.

“Another excellent idea.” Dr. Cone leaned over Izzy and kissed her head. “BONNIE!”

I was surprised Dr. Cone had shouted the way he and Mrs. Cone did at home. The dining room was open to the kitchen. We werelooking right at Mrs. Cone and Jimmy, side by side at the sink, chatting and laughing.

“WHAT?” Mrs. Cone turned and looked at her husband.

“GROUP PICTURE.”

“Oh, we have to take a group photo.” Sheba was carrying the pot roast platter into the kitchen. She came back with Jimmy and Mrs. Cone.

“I’ll do it. Long arms.” Jimmy took the camera from Dr. Cone and we all gathered around behind him, Izzy’s centerpiece somewherebehind us.

“Say sober!” Jimmy pushed the button, the flash exploded again, and stars swam before me. Jimmy pulled out the photo and layit on the table next to the one Dr. Cone had taken.

“We’ll look at them after your bath,” I said to Izzy. I could smell the gluey odor of the fixing agent Dr. Cone was applyingto the Polaroids as I picked up Izzy and carried her to our bathroom.

In the tub Izzy sang the Beanie Jones song again.

“Let’s sing the rainbow song instead.” I’d taught Izzy “The Beautiful Land” from The Roar of the Greasepaint—The Smell of the Crowd soundtrack.

We started together, “Red is the color of a lot of lollipops. . . .”

When Izzy was in her pajamas, her hair combed, her skin smelling like line-dried cotton sheets, I carried her into the diningroom to look at the Polaroids. The grown-ups were in the living room. The smoky eraser smell that accompanied them at nightfiltered into the dining room.

Izzy stared down at the photos. “We look pretty.”

“Yeah, we do.” Disaster was looming and yet we did look beautiful. Everyone was smiling. We all seemed relaxed, like we’d just fallen into place. And each body was connected to another body, closely. An unbreakable chain of love. It was the opposite of the staged family photo my mother sent out every Christmas. In Mom’s picture, our decorated tree—put up on the first of December—was in the background. My mother and I wore dresses and shoes the same color. Always red or green, with beige stockings on our legs. My father put on the same tie each year: red with a pattern of green Christmas trees. I stood a couple of inches in front of my parents, whose bodies didn’t touch. My mother placed her right hand on my left shoulder and my father placed his left hand on my right shoulder. Usually the photo was taken by our next-door neighbor, Mr. Riley. Once, on a family trip to San Francisco, we visited the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. When I saw the wax people there, I thought of our Christmas photos. I’d always thought that waxy strangers-in-an-elevator look was just because no one in my family was comfortable in front of a camera. But now I wondered if it was because no one in my family was comfortable with any other person in my family.

“I love Mom, I love Dad, I love Mary Jane, I love Sheba, I love Jimmy.” Izzy leaned off my hip and put her finger on the photo.On Jimmy’s heart.

“I love you.” I put my finger on top of Izzy’s. Then I picked up the two photos and carried them into the bedroom with Izzy.I dropped Izzy on the bed and then propped the picture of her with the horseshoe crab centerpiece against the lamp base onher bedside table. The other photo I placed on the lamp base of my bedside table. Later I’d ask Dr. Cone if I could keep it.

I was in the middle of the moment, the picture had been taken less than an hour ago, and already I felt the loss of time, the loss of this summer, the loss of this makeshift family. I supposed it was preemptive nostalgia, inoculating me for what was to come. Would Izzy forget me? Would Dr. and Mrs. Cone remind her of the summer she spent with me? Would Sheba and Jimmy remember this the way I would? Was this summer changing their lives the way it was changing mine?

Izzy fell asleep as I was reading to her. I slipped out of her bed, shut the door behind me, and followed the smoke to theliving room. Though I felt tremulous about family therapy this evening, I also wanted it to happen soon, just so I could stopwondering and worrying about how Sheba might react and how Jimmy would respond to Sheba’s reaction. My heart hurt for Sheba.And it hurt for Jimmy, too, even though I knew this was his fault.

Dr. Cone clapped his hands when he saw me. “Mary Jane!”

“Hey.” I awkwardly lifted my hand and waved. I hadn’t been this nervous since the first day I’d met