Skiers at Cranmore Mountain mostly remember the Skimobile—those little cars on the wooden track—and the European-run ski school. But I remember those sleepovers with my mother. How we would talk and laugh. How soon I forgot how much I’d missed her. How quickly my resentment vanished.
My mother didn’t drink a lot; she said she was “too small for alcohol.” She drank only beer, at most one or two. She told me two beers made her tipsy, but I liked her when she was silly—when her voice was a girlish whisper, or when she giggled like a child. Sometimes, on a two-beer night, the most confounding non sequiturs would slip out, often following a pause in her speech. She would speak in a childlike whisper—secretively, as if someone could be listening to us. We would be lying in the dark, and my mom hadn’t said anything for a while; naturally, I was beginning to think she’d fallen asleep. Then her whispering, seemingly apropos of nothing, would start.
This happened in one of those twin beds in North Conway. I don’t remember how old I was, but I was already listening to Moby-Dick—my paying attention to language was more advanced than the rest of my development. (I had my mom’s small hands—and, according to Henrik, my poor penis was like my little finger.) I was in the gentle process of disentangling myself from my mother’s arms; I was about to get into the other twin bed, where I would have more room.
“Have you seen them?” my mom whispered in the dark.
I waited until I thought she’d gone back to sleep; it had sounded like something she might have said in her sleep. I felt her lips brush my ear. “You haven’t, have you?” my mother whispered.
“I haven’t what?” I asked her. “Have I seen whom?”
“Oh, silly me!” my mom exclaimed. “Was I talking in my sleep?” At the time, I thought she was.
9. MOVIES, GIRLFRIENDS, FOREIGNNESS, OUTLIERS
Most of the musicals in the 1950s and 1960s were safe for children. I remember seeing Singin’ in the Rain with my mother, mainly because I recall her saying she would have liked to teach Debbie Reynolds how to ski. I was about ten. I was confused by my mom’s remark, because there was no skiing (only singing and dancing) in the movie.
“Debbie may not be a very experienced dancer,” my mother explained, “but I can tell she’s a good athlete—that’s all I mean.” My mom liked Gene Kelly, too.
“Because he’s handsome?” I asked her.
“Because he can dance!” Little Ray exclaimed. “He’s handsome enough, sweetie, but not the kind of handsome you’re going to be.” (Not small enough, I guessed.)
The year before, my mother and I had seen An American in Paris together. “I think you look a little like Leslie Caron,” I told my mom.
“I don’t, sweetie!” she exclaimed, kissing me. “But thank you.”
I saw other musicals in the 1950s and 1960s—I don’t remember with whom. Brigadoon, Carousel, Oklahoma! I didn’t see these fifties musicals with a date. I was too young or out of it to go with a date. West Side Story was later, in 1961. I was nineteen—I might have had a date, but I don’t remember taking anyone to see that movie.
“You could’ve been with one of your unfortunate girlfriends—you know, one of the early ones,” Nora reminded me. “On second thought, not the overweight one—she wouldn’t have fit in a theater seat,” Nora went on. “Didn’t Sally get stuck in a shower? Nana told me the shower door had to be removed to get her out.”
“I didn’t take Sally to West Side Story,” I said.
“I can’t see the clubfooted one having much fun at a musical—poor Rose wouldn’t have enjoyed the dancing,” Nora said.
“Rose wasn’t clubfooted—she just limped, and she was prone to muscle spasms,” I said.
“Rose had more like a lurch than a limp, as I remember it,” Nora pointed out. “She fell down the attic stairs, didn’t she?” I just nodded. Nora moved on—to Caroline, who was very strong. Caroline had injured her knee playing field hockey; when we dated, she was on crutches. I’m sure I never took Caroline to a movie theater. She was broad-shouldered and very tall, and her crutches were very long; something awkward would have happened.
Nora moved on to Maud, who was also very tall—a tall and thin cross-country runner. Maud had fallen and broken her arm; her arm was in a cast when we were going out. I knew my mother had told Nora about Maud. My mom referred to Maud as “the virgin.” Maud and I had remained friends.
“I didn’t know Maud was a virgin,” I told Nora, as I had told my mom. Nora knew Maud and I were friends.
“I know about first-timers,” Nora told me. “I’ve been with girls who haven’t done it. You don’t have any idea what’ll happen when they do it. But I’ve never been with a girl in a cast,” Nora admitted. She paused. “Your mother said Maud clubbed you with her cast—she said Maud beat the shit out of you,” Nora told me.
“Maud got me mostly in my face. She never meant to hurt me,” I explained. “Maud was just flailing around. She was basically out of control with a cast on her arm.”
“I can picture it,” Nora assured me. “It could happen to anyone.” She paused again. “I guess the only good thing—I mean, about those musicals in the fifties and sixties—is that they were safe for virgins.”
“I didn’t take Maud to West Side Story,” I said.
“I don’t blame you,” Nora immediately said. “With her cast, Maud wasn’t safe to take anywhere!”
“I never took Sophie to a musical, either,” I volunteered quietly.
“Jesus Mary Josephine—poor Sophie!” Nora exclaimed. “She was your first writer girlfriend, wasn’t she?”
“My first writer girlfriend,” I repeated sadly.
“All the bleeding!” Nora cried. “It never stopped, did it? A writer who has her period all the time—that’s got to be depressing!”
“Sophie was never in the mood for a musical,” I admitted.
“The story of a nonstop bleeder is not likely to be adapted as a musical,” Nora pointed out. “Fibroids, the musical! I don’t see it happening.”
“My mom still talks about the wear and tear on the washing machine, all our sheets and towels—occasionally, even our pillowcases,” I told Nora.
“You know Ray still calls Sophie ‘the bleeder,’ don’t you?” Nora asked me.
“I know, Nora.”
“Your mom’s not into musicals, is she?” Nora asked me, at last changing the subject from my unfortunate girlfriends—if only “the early ones,” as Nora had called them.
“No, Ray doesn’t give a hoot about musicals,” I said.
My mom was a Hitchcock fan. She loved Westerns and war movies, too. My grandmother and Aunt Abigail and Aunt Martha were enthralled by the “big-band sound”; my mother wasn’t. While Nana and my aunts were watching The Glenn Miller Story and The Benny Goodman Story, my mom and I saw (and loved) High Noon, Stalag 17, The Bridges at Toko-Ri, The Searchers, and The Bridge on the River Kwai.
My mother and I were sad when James Dean was killed in a car crash in 1955—“He was barely ten years older than you!” my mom exclaimed, hugging me. But regarding James Dean’s movies, Little Ray was equivocal. “I wouldn’t watch East of Eden or Giant again—Rebel Without a Cause, sure,” my mom said.