Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [68]
While I’m standing in line at the drugstore, I notice that the Waterpik Dental Care System is a featured special, so at the last minute I throw that into the cart as well, thinking it’s been a while since I’ve had my teeth cleaned. Chloe hasn’t been to the pediatrician since before we left Manhattan either, and I’m hoping that these over the counter medicines will nip this cold in the bud because I’m not ready to transfer our medical and dental care to Pittsburgh. That would make it too much like we were living here, rather than just visiting.
When I get home, Chloe is sleeping in the playpen in the living room, and Dad and Fiona are playing Scrabble at the kitchen table. At least I think they are. The board is open in front of them, but Dad’s reading a novel and Fiona is poring over the Official Scrabble Player’s Dictionary. They both look up as I enter.
“How long has Chloe been sleeping?”
“Just a few minutes. She’s tired, poor baby,” Fiona says, studying the dictionary.
“She fussed for a bit,” my father says, glancing up at me, “but Fi rocked her until she fell asleep.”
“Don’t forget, you read her a story, Grandpa,” Fiona says, looking up from the dictionary as she places her letters on the board. “Here we go. C-L-A-M, and this blank is P. That will be sixteen points. That makes the score”—she consults the score sheet—“um, two hundred fifty-six to ninety-nine.” She looks over her glasses at me. “Your father is winning. He even lets me use the dictionary, and he still wins.” She sighs.
My father immediately leans over and puts XI under the AM in CLAMP to make ax, xi, and mi. “The X is on a triple letter, counted twice makes forty-eight, so that will be fifty-four points altogether.”
He goes back to his book, a Robert B. Parker mystery.
Fiona lurches toward the dictionary, muttering under her breath.
“Xi is a Greek letter; mi is the third tone in the diatonic scale. And I presume you know what an ax is, Fi,” my father says, giving Fiona a look over his half-moon glasses. Not even a trace of a smile. How could it have escaped my notice for the last thirty-eight years that my father is an insufferable snob?
“Well, I didn’t know that, Mr. Smarty Pants. You use these silly two letter words all the time.” She turns to me. “Who ever heard of E-S being a word?”
“It is the spelling for the letter s,” my father says.
“I mean, really—you want to spell the letter, you just write it!”
They both sigh.
I take advantage of Chloe’s being asleep and cart all of our stuff upstairs. I think about hanging the Waterpik on the wall beside the sink, but looking at the directions, I see that it requires anchors and a drill. I tell myself I just don’t want to wake up Chloe, although she’s sleeping downstairs and I’m on the third floor. I put the Waterpik back in its box, stow the box on the back of the toilet, and lie down on the bed. The mere thought of hanging it has suddenly taxed me to the point of complete exhaustion.
Anchors and a drill imply commitment. I’ve been a renter long enough to realize that you just don’t go making holes in walls of places you won’t be staying. We’ve been here almost six weeks and, outside of registering for Gymboree class, I’ve done almost nothing else to settle in. I haven’t hung a single picture or unpacked a single box, and here I’m quaking at the thought of hanging a Waterpik in the bathroom. What am I waiting for? Some sign that our life here is about to begin?
Later, I make a halfhearted attempt to locate a drill and am surprised to find that someone, probably Fiona, has reorganized my father’s tool area in the basement. My father used to throw his motley collection of tools (a rusty hammer, a few loose screws and washers, a bunch of screwdrivers, and a drill with a fraying cord and a partial collection of drill bits that never seem to be the right size for anything you want to drill) into an orange crate by the washer. The rotting orange crate has been replaced by a red Craftsman tool chest filled with a small but impressive arsenal of brand new tools. Now, not