Read Online The First True Lie: A Novel by Marina Mander - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Marina Mander
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me.”
“Shall I put a bow on it?”
“No, thanks, that won’t be necessary.”
Every time the same questions and the same answers. Mama tries not to pay attention to the old busybody. She drops a coin or her wallet on purpose, or she fixes her hair like it’s no big deal and swallows a few times before saying good-bye. Then the flower woman’s hand touches my forehead and it feels like there’s the bottom of a shoe on my face or a bare foot with warty calluses.
I don’t understand old people’s obsession with touching children. They should keep at least as far away as the years separating us.
I walk past, as far away as possible.
But I could, I should, I would like to buy some flowers for Mama, because people bring flowers to the dead. People bring flowers to their lovers, to sick people, and to the dead (there’s not a lot of common sense in all this).
Mama likes white irises or red roses.
“It may be a cliché, but if a man buys you red roses it still makes you happy.”
I know what she means. I don’t have to be a woman. It’s that it’s important to feel important to somebody.
People are ashamed of not feeling loved enough.
People always keep themselves to themselves. If someone thinks about you enough to send you roses, it means that he or she thinks about you a lot, that you’re not alone. It’s more or less the same with all presents. Actually, that’s what presents are. That’s why they matter even if they’re not worth much. It’s the thought that counts, they say; and about this, they’re right.
Tomorrow I’ll buy Mama some beautiful flowers, the most beautiful flowers of her life. But not today. I can’t deal with the old witch and her questions and her sandpaper touch.
The last time Mama got flowers it made her very happy. It was a bunch of red roses so big that it didn’t fit through the door, and there was a little card attached with a pin. In her rush to read it Mama pricked her finger, then fell into a trance like Sleeping Beauty for a couple of days.
To be honest, she’d seemed happy for a while before then, strangely enough, and a bit absentminded. She bustled around in high heels,
tick tack tick tack,
and acted like someone who’s just gotten away with something. That was a couple of years ago. The night before the roses she’d left me at home with the babysitter with the big boobs, Juana, and had stayed out late. I’d fallen asleep on the sofa between Juana’s boobs, soft as a mattress, and Juana fell asleep too because it was past midnight.
When Juana heard the key turn in the lock, she was really embarrassed.
“Desculpe, senhora, but I’ve been up since six in the morning, so sorry.”
Juana’s boobs shook like Jell-O with a cherry on top, but Mama didn’t even notice.
“It’s nothing, dear, nothing to worry about. I’m the one who’s late. It’s my fault.”
Mama seemed more concerned with looking at herself in the mirror above the chest of drawers than with us, as if some detail might have revealed why she was late. And in fact when Mama returned to the apartment she had a run in her tights on the right ankle; earlier, before leaving, she’d had one on her left. I’d tried to warn her.
“One should never arrive at an appointment with torn tights. If you have an accident and have to take your clothes off, who knows what they’ll think of you.”
But she’d been too busy getting ready to go out.
She apologized again, even gave the babysitter a tip, and came to kiss me good night. Her perfume was different than usual, sharper. It smelled like the little green trees people hang in their cars.
It didn’t last long.
After a few days the petals fell on the table and also on the floor. As Mama went down on all fours to pick them up among the chair legs, she declared that when the roses wilt quickly it means that it wasn’t true love.
Whose love she meant, I never asked her.
In any case, that was one of the few times I ever saw her truly
“Shall I put a bow on it?”
“No, thanks, that won’t be necessary.”
Every time the same questions and the same answers. Mama tries not to pay attention to the old busybody. She drops a coin or her wallet on purpose, or she fixes her hair like it’s no big deal and swallows a few times before saying good-bye. Then the flower woman’s hand touches my forehead and it feels like there’s the bottom of a shoe on my face or a bare foot with warty calluses.
I don’t understand old people’s obsession with touching children. They should keep at least as far away as the years separating us.
I walk past, as far away as possible.
But I could, I should, I would like to buy some flowers for Mama, because people bring flowers to the dead. People bring flowers to their lovers, to sick people, and to the dead (there’s not a lot of common sense in all this).
Mama likes white irises or red roses.
“It may be a cliché, but if a man buys you red roses it still makes you happy.”
I know what she means. I don’t have to be a woman. It’s that it’s important to feel important to somebody.
People are ashamed of not feeling loved enough.
People always keep themselves to themselves. If someone thinks about you enough to send you roses, it means that he or she thinks about you a lot, that you’re not alone. It’s more or less the same with all presents. Actually, that’s what presents are. That’s why they matter even if they’re not worth much. It’s the thought that counts, they say; and about this, they’re right.
Tomorrow I’ll buy Mama some beautiful flowers, the most beautiful flowers of her life. But not today. I can’t deal with the old witch and her questions and her sandpaper touch.
The last time Mama got flowers it made her very happy. It was a bunch of red roses so big that it didn’t fit through the door, and there was a little card attached with a pin. In her rush to read it Mama pricked her finger, then fell into a trance like Sleeping Beauty for a couple of days.
To be honest, she’d seemed happy for a while before then, strangely enough, and a bit absentminded. She bustled around in high heels,
tick tack tick tack,
and acted like someone who’s just gotten away with something. That was a couple of years ago. The night before the roses she’d left me at home with the babysitter with the big boobs, Juana, and had stayed out late. I’d fallen asleep on the sofa between Juana’s boobs, soft as a mattress, and Juana fell asleep too because it was past midnight.
When Juana heard the key turn in the lock, she was really embarrassed.
“Desculpe, senhora, but I’ve been up since six in the morning, so sorry.”
Juana’s boobs shook like Jell-O with a cherry on top, but Mama didn’t even notice.
“It’s nothing, dear, nothing to worry about. I’m the one who’s late. It’s my fault.”
Mama seemed more concerned with looking at herself in the mirror above the chest of drawers than with us, as if some detail might have revealed why she was late. And in fact when Mama returned to the apartment she had a run in her tights on the right ankle; earlier, before leaving, she’d had one on her left. I’d tried to warn her.
“One should never arrive at an appointment with torn tights. If you have an accident and have to take your clothes off, who knows what they’ll think of you.”
But she’d been too busy getting ready to go out.
She apologized again, even gave the babysitter a tip, and came to kiss me good night. Her perfume was different than usual, sharper. It smelled like the little green trees people hang in their cars.
It didn’t last long.
After a few days the petals fell on the table and also on the floor. As Mama went down on all fours to pick them up among the chair legs, she declared that when the roses wilt quickly it means that it wasn’t true love.
Whose love she meant, I never asked her.
In any case, that was one of the few times I ever saw her truly
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