Back in February, when she first brought this up, asking what I was going to do over the summer, I told her I had no idea. Then, a few weeks later, at the end of spring break, she announced that she had made some inquiries on my behalf and used some connections and now had two promising offers. One is working in a lab at one of the pharmaceutical companies near Philadelphia. The other is working in one of Dad’s doctor friend’s offices, a proctologist named Dr. Baumgartner (Melanie used to call him Dr. Bum-Gardner). Neither job would be paid, she explained, but she and Dad had discussed it and decided they’d counter the loss with a generous allowance. She looked so pleased with herself. Both jobs would look excellent on my résumé, would go a long way toward offsetting what she referred to as the “debacle” of my first term.
I’d been so irritated, I’d almost told her that I couldn’t take those internships because I wasn’t qualified; I wasn’t pre-med. Just to spite her. Just to see the look on her face. But then I’d gotten scared. I was getting an A in Shakespeare Out Loud. An A minus in Mandarin, which was a first for me. A solid B in my biology class and labs, and an A in ceramics. I realized I was actually proud of how well I was doing in my classes and I didn’t want Mom’s inevitable and perennial disappointment to poison that. But that was going to happen no matter what, though I was sticking to my plan A—to show her my final grades when I made the announcement.
But finals are still three weeks away, and Mom is breathing down my neck right now about these jobs. So as we pull into Grandma’s high-rise, I tell her that I’m still mulling it over and then I skip out of the cab to help Dad with the bags.
It’s so strange. Mom is the most formidable person I know, but when Grandma opens the door, Mom seems to shrink, as if Grandma is some ogre instead of a five-foot bottle blonde in a yellow tracksuit and a KISS THE MESHUGGENEH COOK apron. Grandma grabs me in a fierce hug that smells of Shalimar and chicken fat. “Ally! Let me look at you! You’re doing something different with your hair! I saw the pictures on Facebook.”
“You’re on Facebook?” Mom asks.
“Ally and I are friends, aren’t we?” She winks at me.
I see Mom wince. I’m not sure if it’s because Grandma and I are FB friends or because Grandma insists on shortening my name.
We step inside. Grandma’s boyfriend, Phil, is asleep on the big floral couch. A basketball game blares from the giant television.
Grandma touches my hair. It’s to my shoulders now. I haven’t cut it since last summer. “It was shorter before,” I say. “It’s sort of in between.”
“It’s better than it was. That bob was awful!” Mom says.
“It was a bob, Mom. Not a Mohawk.”
“I know what it was. But it made you look like a boy.”
I turn to Grandma. “Was she traumatized by a bad haircut in her youth? Because she seems unwilling to let this go.”
Grandma claps her hands. “Oh, Ally, you might be right. When she was ten, she saw Rosemary’s Baby and begged me to take her to the children’s beauty parlor. She kept making the lady go shorter until it was all off, and as we were leaving the salon, another mother pointed Ellie out to her son and said, ‘Why don’t you get a haircut like that nice little boy?’” She looks at Mom, smiling. “I didn’t realize that still upset you, Ellie.”
“It doesn’t upset me, because it never happened, Mother. I never saw Rosemary’s Baby. And if I had, at ten, that would’ve been entirely inappropriate, by the way.”
“I can show you the pictures!”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Grandma eyes Mom’s hair. “You might think of trying that pixie again now. I think you’ve been wearing the same style since Bill Clinton was president.” Grandma gives another wicked grin.
Mom seems to shrink another inch as she touches her hair—straight, brown, in a low ponytail. Grandma leaves her like that, pulling me into the kitchen. “You want some cookies? I have some macaroons.”
“Macaroons are not cookies, Grandma. They’re coconut cookie substitutes. And they’re disgusting.” Grandma doesn’t keep anything in the house with flour during Passover.
“Let’s see what else I have.” I follow Grandma into the kitchen. She pours me some of her diet lemonade. “Your mom is having such a hard time,” Grandma says. When Mom’s out of sight, she’s sympathetic, almost defending her, like I was the one who riled her up.
“I don’t see why. She has a charmed life.”
“Funny, that’s what she says about you whenever she thinks you’re being ungrateful.” Grandma opens the oven door to check on something. “She’s having a hard time adjusting, with you being gone. You’re all she’s got.”
I feel a pit in my stomach. Another way I’ve let Mom down.
Grandma puts out a plate of those gross jelly candies I can never resist. “I told her she should have another child, give her something to do with herself.”
I spit out my lemonade. “She’s forty-seven.”
“She could adopt.” Grandma waves her hand. “One of those Chinese orphans. Lucy Rosenbaum got a cute one as a granddaughter.”
“They’re not dogs, Grandma!”
“I know that. Still, she could get an older one. It’s a real mitzvah then.”
“Did you tell Mom that?”
“Of course I did.”
Grandma always brings up things the rest of us don’t. Like she lights a memorial candle on the anniversary of when Mom had her miscarriage all those years ago. This, too, drives Mom crazy.
“She needs to do something if she’s not going back to work.” She glances out toward the living room. I know Mom and Grandma fight about Mom not working. Once, Grandma sent a clipping from a news magazine about how badly the ex-wives of doctors fared financially in the event of divorce. They didn’t speak for months after that.
Mom comes into the kitchen. She glances at the jelly candy. “Mother, can you feed her some real food, please?”
“Oh, cool your jets. She can feed herself. She’s nineteen now.” She winks at me, then turns to Mom. “Why don’t you take some cold cuts out?”
Mom pokes in Grandma’s refrigerator. “Where’s the brisket? It’s almost two now. We should put it in soon.”
“Oh, it’s already cooking,” Grandma says.
“What time did you put in?”
“Don’t you worry. I got a nice recipe from the paper.”
“How long has it been in?” Mom peeks in the oven. “It’s not that big. It shouldn’t take longer than three hours. And you have to cover it in foil. Also you have the heat way up. Brisket’s meant to slow-cook. We’re starting the Seder at five? When did it go in?”
“Never you mind.”
“It’ll be like leather.”
“Do I tell you how to cook in your kitchen?”
“Yes. All the time. But I don’t listen. And we’ve dodged many a case of food poisoning because of it.”
“Enough of your smart mouth.”
“I think I’ll go change,” I announce. But neither one is paying attention to me anymore.
I go into the spare room and find Dad hiding in there, looking wistfully at a golf shirt. “What are the chances I can escape for a round?”
“You’d have to throw down some plagues at the Pharaoh first.” I look out the window to the silver-blue strip of sea.
He puts the golf shirt back in the suitcase. How quickly we all give in to her. This Seder means nothing to him. Dad’s not even Jewish, though he celebrates all the holidays with Mom. Grandma was supposedly furious when Mom got engaged to him, though after Grandpa died, she took up with Phil, who’s not Jewish, either.
“I was just kidding,” I say, even though I wasn’t. “Why don’t you just go?”