REBECCA'S MOTHER - DELETED SCENE FROM REBECCA'S CHILDHOOD

 

Each night, when I got home at seven, my mom would be sitting at our small kitchen table, eating her dinner alone. Usually it was boiled potatoes cut into cubes and peas with ground beef or maybe a hotdog. Mom was short and trim, with the same dark hair as me, except hers was less frizzy and she wore it in a businessy style: short, blow-dried and feathered at the front. She had a scratchy, cartoonish voice that could sound entertaining when she wasn’t irritated, and when I was six, a friend had said that she sounded exactly like a hedgehog. To me, this description made perfect sense.

 

“Did you invite Mrs. McKenzie to come in?”

 

“She was in a rush to get home,” I always lied. “She has to study for her real estate tests.”

 

The truth was, I didn’t want Mrs. McKenzie to get a chance to see inside our house. Mom wouldn’t have wanted her to come in either, but she always pretended she was dying to show the woman our living room where the stained carpet was pulling up and the sofa smelled like sour milk. As if Mrs. McKenzie would feel right at home sitting among stacks of magazines, dust bunnies, and cassettes without cases. Mom meant well, but we both knew we’d be humiliated if I asked her in. And each night, when I jumped out of the car, Mrs. McKenzie kept her engine running and honked the horn as she drove away.

After Mom was finished being offended by Mrs. McKenzie, she liked to harass me about whether I’d made it clear to Joyce’s family that she was perfectly capable of picking me up herself.

 

“I don’t see why you have to go over there every day,” Mom complained. “Why can’t Joyce come to your house for once?”

 

I had to be careful here. I knew how quickly she could slip into a prickly pride-induced rage. I had to sound like I knew what I was talking about, so I did my best impression of Joyce. With confidence, I told Mom we were doing a science project and needed to use her dad’s encyclopedias. Calmly, I explained that we were teaching Joyce’s little neighbor how to roller skate. Mom seemed to buy each new excuse.

 

Our evening talks took on a pattern, and my favorite part always came last. As mom speared the remaining pea on her plate, or scraped up a bit of gravy with the side of her fork, she would ask what I’d had for dinner. Then I would delicately lean forward on my elbows and list everything I’d eaten at Joyce’s. Grapefruit in a bowl. Ravioli with meat sauce. Slices of cheesecake topped with strawberry sauce for dessert. I described every food in detail, explaining how Mrs. McKenzie used a knife to cut around each triangle in the grapefruit so it would be easier for us to scoop out with a spoon. This fascinated both me and Mom.

 

“With the grapefruit,” Mom mused, “what does she go to all that trouble for? If it’s just sour anyway?”

 

“We sprinkle sugar on it. Joyce’s dad drips honey on his,” I said, enjoying my expertise.

 

“You’d think she could give you some fruit that tastes sweet already. What’s wrong with an apple or banana?”

 

“Sometimes we eat slices of cantaloupe.”

 

Mom frowned like she’d heard enough about fancy food, but a few weeks later she came home from Pathmark with a straw-colored cantaloupe wedged at the bottom of one of the brown paper bags.

 

“Because you’re used to it now,” she said, turning away from me. When I caught her eye, she clicked her tongue. “It was on sale, Rebecca.”

 

She rolled the cantaloupe to the back of the refrigerator, and when she took out her largest knife, later that week, and pushed the blade deep into the rind and flesh, she shook her head as though she felt sorry for something. Maybe the cantaloupe, maybe me. Yet when we sat down to eat the slices, she seemed at ease, and finished it quickly, as though she’d been eating it her whole life.

©Lauren Frankel 2014