room, then move into the kitchen, pretending I live there. I open the refrigerator door, sit at the kitchen table. It doesn’t work. The smell is not right. Your own house always has the right smell to you, the one that quiets a nervous place, no matter what. I hook my feet around the rungs of the chair, look around, then hear the low sweet sound of voices being carried on the air outside. Belle and Cherylanne. I get up and look into the backyard. Belle is hanging out sheets. She carries them, huge and fragrant, in a creaking wicker basket, clothespins in a faded striped bag. When the sheets are on the clothesline, they make an inviting U shape. I always want to lie in that damp bed, be rocked by the wind and look up at the clouds.
I used to stay near my mother when she hung out clothes. I made people out of the straight woodenclothespins, the ones with rounded heads. I didn’t like the spring-type ones, which could surprise you with their meanness. I took the round ones, wrapped them in Kleenex for clothes, and made families: two parents, many children, clipped all in a row on the edge of the basket high above the other clothespins, which lay naked and unchosen below them. I used to help peg things on the line. I liked the slight resistance you felt, the satisfying muffled squeak of wood anchoring cloth. And I liked the clothespins’ dependability. Say you used them to hang out some towels and then forgot about them: you could come back in three days and there they would be, just as you’d left them, still holding something up, even though days had passed and it had been dark, even though you had sat at the table eating your second dessert, with those clothespins a million miles from your mind. They kept on working until you said they were done.
Our laundry goes in a dryer now. He doesn’t like hanging out clothes. Sometimes it catches up to me in a rush, all that has changed.
Cherylanne is lying on a beach towel nearBelle, sunning herself. She has an alarm clock beside her—timed, I know, to go off every twenty minutes to remind her to flip over—and a fat new magazine wrapped around itself to hold its place. I want to know what she and Belle are saying but I can’t quite hear. Whatever it is, it is a warm and friendly thing. I have known it. My mother and I, walking to the grocery store together: I had a sunburn and was wearing my mother’s Mexican kind of blouse with the stretchy neckline pulled down like a gypsy, to spare my blistered shoulders. You could see fluid move inside the blisters like little oceans if you touched them. I carried an umbrella to shade myself. I felt glamorous, like someone a little bit famous. My mother told me about when she had to get glasses, when she was my age. “Oh, they were so ugly,” she said. “Not like the cute ones they have now. They looked just like Coke bottle bottoms, and the frames were ugly gray metal. All the kids made fun of me.”
“Even your brother and sister?” I asked.
She smiled. “Especially them.”
“What did you do?”
She stared ahead, remembering, “Well, I cried, of course. And I hardly ever wore them. I tried to get by without them.”
“Oh.” I took her hand, held it for a while, turned the wedding ring on it around and around. Then I said, “I think you look pretty in glasses.”
“Thank you,” she said, but she was out of the moment and on to her list. “Baked potatoes or mashed tonight?” She stopped walking, leaned close to me. “Or scalloped?” she asked, a little excited. “How would you like that?” It was a whole thing for her, rich and satisfying, planning what we would eat each night. She worked to make things match. She clipped recipes constantly, filed them in scented envelopes, used them like friends.
I come out the back door and wave to Belle. “Hey, Katie,” she says, and Cherylanne sits up, squints at me.
“Oh, good,” she says. “Put some on my back,will you?” She holds up the Coppertone bottle. I
I used to stay near my mother when she hung out clothes. I made people out of the straight woodenclothespins, the ones with rounded heads. I didn’t like the spring-type ones, which could surprise you with their meanness. I took the round ones, wrapped them in Kleenex for clothes, and made families: two parents, many children, clipped all in a row on the edge of the basket high above the other clothespins, which lay naked and unchosen below them. I used to help peg things on the line. I liked the slight resistance you felt, the satisfying muffled squeak of wood anchoring cloth. And I liked the clothespins’ dependability. Say you used them to hang out some towels and then forgot about them: you could come back in three days and there they would be, just as you’d left them, still holding something up, even though days had passed and it had been dark, even though you had sat at the table eating your second dessert, with those clothespins a million miles from your mind. They kept on working until you said they were done.
Our laundry goes in a dryer now. He doesn’t like hanging out clothes. Sometimes it catches up to me in a rush, all that has changed.
Cherylanne is lying on a beach towel nearBelle, sunning herself. She has an alarm clock beside her—timed, I know, to go off every twenty minutes to remind her to flip over—and a fat new magazine wrapped around itself to hold its place. I want to know what she and Belle are saying but I can’t quite hear. Whatever it is, it is a warm and friendly thing. I have known it. My mother and I, walking to the grocery store together: I had a sunburn and was wearing my mother’s Mexican kind of blouse with the stretchy neckline pulled down like a gypsy, to spare my blistered shoulders. You could see fluid move inside the blisters like little oceans if you touched them. I carried an umbrella to shade myself. I felt glamorous, like someone a little bit famous. My mother told me about when she had to get glasses, when she was my age. “Oh, they were so ugly,” she said. “Not like the cute ones they have now. They looked just like Coke bottle bottoms, and the frames were ugly gray metal. All the kids made fun of me.”
“Even your brother and sister?” I asked.
She smiled. “Especially them.”
“What did you do?”
She stared ahead, remembering, “Well, I cried, of course. And I hardly ever wore them. I tried to get by without them.”
“Oh.” I took her hand, held it for a while, turned the wedding ring on it around and around. Then I said, “I think you look pretty in glasses.”
“Thank you,” she said, but she was out of the moment and on to her list. “Baked potatoes or mashed tonight?” She stopped walking, leaned close to me. “Or scalloped?” she asked, a little excited. “How would you like that?” It was a whole thing for her, rich and satisfying, planning what we would eat each night. She worked to make things match. She clipped recipes constantly, filed them in scented envelopes, used them like friends.
I come out the back door and wave to Belle. “Hey, Katie,” she says, and Cherylanne sits up, squints at me.
“Oh, good,” she says. “Put some on my back,will you?” She holds up the Coppertone bottle. I
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