Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen - Dyan Sheldon [5]
That afternoon I caught Mrs Gerard looking at me as she put the snack she’d made us on the table. In my house, though my mother will occasionally stretch to tossing you a bag of potato chips or pretzels, the only way a person usually gets fed is if she feeds herself (and then she usually has to feed everybody else, as well), but not in Ella’s house. Mrs Gerard is a professional mother. She not only does three meals a day, she also does anything in between. That afternoon she made us grilled cheese sandwiches and fries in the microwave. She used two different kinds of cheese and she cut each sandwich in quarters and decorated it with a sprig of parsley.
“Wow,” I said, “this is just like eating in a diner.”
Ella choked back a giggle.
That was when I caught Mrs Gerard looking at me. I’d seen that look before. Kind of awe-struck but worried, as though she’d just realized I was related to Edward Scissorhands and couldn’t touch anything without cutting it into shreds.
When she saw that I was watching her with a contemplative look of my own, Mrs Gerard laughed. Hers is a laugh that makes me nervous. It doesn’t sound happy, like a laugh should; it sounds as though she couldn’t think of anything else to say or do.
“Surely you have grilled cheese sandwiches at home,” said Mrs Gerard. You could hear the rest of her sentence kind of dangling in the air: don’t you?
Mrs Gerard is always curious about what I do “at home”. You’d think she was taking a course in sociology and not advanced cooking.
I nodded. “Oh, sure, only they’re usually burnt because all we have is this sandwich toaster you put on the stove, and we never have parsley with them.” My mother’s idea of a garnish is a napkin.
“No microwave?” Mrs Gerard laughed again. “I thought everyone had a microwave these days.”
As far as I can tell, Mrs Gerard also thinks that everyone has a housekeeper, a gold American Express card, and limitless time to make sure there are no water marks on the glasses.
“We don’t.” I bit into my sandwich. It was delicious. “My mother doesn’t approve of them.”
I hadn’t meant to say that last part, it just kind of came out. Mrs Gerard’s even more curious about my mother than she is about what I do at home. Mrs Gerard can’t get over the fact that Karen Kapok and I have different last names, and she’s never before met a woman who has biceps like Bruce Willis and is always covered in clay.
Mrs Gerard arched one impeccable eyebrow.
“Doesn’t approve of them?” She rattled out a little more nervous laughter. “I’ve never heard of anyone taking a moral stand on an appliance before.”
Mrs Gerard had never before cracked a joke in my presence. Since Mr Gerard works fourteen hours a day and is almost never seen by me, he hadn’t either, but I’d always assumed that Ella’s sense of humour must come from him. This was the first time it seemed like I might be wrong about that. I laughed, too, enthusiastic and encouraging.
Mrs Gerard, however, had stopped laughing.
“Are you serious?” she asked. “Your mother really doesn’t approve of microwaves?” You’d think I’d said she didn’t approve of breathing.
I decided not to get into this discussion. If Ella’s mother pressed me on what things my mother did and did not approve of, we could be there till the morning.
“She has very strong opinions,” I said, vaguely. I took another bite. “It’s because she’s Polish.”
There’s no food allowed in the Gerard bedrooms because of Mrs Gerard’s terror of attracting insects, so after we had eaten Ella and I went to her room to listen to the new Sidartha CD again. We knew most of the songs by heart even though we’d only had it two days. Ella likes Sidartha’s first album better, but I think this one is more profound and emotionally powerful. Their other albums make me think, but this one really engulfs my soul. When Stu Wolff (the band’s creative heart) sings, There’s something in me that always wants more … more moons and stars