being the baby and not having his older brothers around all that much. Heâs like a walking David Lynch movieâvery dark, very weird, with lots of incomprehensible erotic undertones. If I hadnât baby-sat for him when he was little, heâd probably creep me out.
To further complicate things, I think he has a crush on me. Heâs over here constantly when Iâm not at work, following me around, his big moony eyes peering out at me through his straggly black bangs, like prisoners whoâve lost all hope. Think Nicholas Cage in Moonstruck, then multiply by ten. And like Cher, I want to smack the poor kid and yell âSnap out of it!â
But I donât have the heart.
Then I remember, with a sickening thud, the main reason, or reasons, I canât leave the house tonight: Tina. Whom Iâm supposed to meet in a little over an hour.
âMama!â Starrâs shrill little voice darts out from the doorway. Her hands are on her hips. âThe big handâs moved past two numbers! Thatâs ten minutes! â
âAnother time,â I say to Frances.
She sighs and shakes her head, then turns toward her house, shouting, âDinner, here, Sunday, Heather wants to show off her ring,â over her shoulder as she goes.
And I head up the stairs, wondering how somebody with no discernible personal life can have so many demands on her time.
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An hour later, Iâm by the front door, slipping my fatherâs coat over an outfit more appropriate to PinkyâsâLeviâs, slouch boots (with heels that could double as shishkebob skewers), a dark red vintage mohair sweater I found on eBay for ten bucks. I donât know why I prefer older clothes to new, other than the obvious fact that I canât afford to buy new. Nor do I know anybody who can. I mean, I read Vogue and think, chyeah, right. Not that I donât think some of the stuff is seriously hot, but Jesus. Even if I werenât a foot too short to wear any of it, by the time I could afford it, Iâd be so old Iâd look like a freak in it, anyway. I mean, two grand for a fringed skirt shorter than something Iâd let my five-year-old wear? Please. And letâs not go anywhere near the six-or eight-or fifteen-hundred-dollar handbags. Youâre supposed to be afraid that somebody might steal whatâs in your purse, not the purse itself. Or am I missing something here?
So I wear old, cheap and/or free stuff. Mind you, having never harbored a secret desire to look like a bag lady, itâs old, good-looking cheap and/or free stuff. I do have, if I say so myself, a certain flair. For the ridiculous, perhaps, but at least nobody can accuse me of looking like everybody else.
Or around here, like anybody else. Sorry, but I donât do big hair.
Any wayâ¦by the time I read Starr the next chapter of Through the Looking Glass âinterrupted a billion times by her pointing out words she recognizedâand did two thorough monster sweeps of her room (thereâs a big hairy purple one with a snotty nose and âsticky-outtyâ teeth whoâs been a real pain in the butt lately) and tucked her in, itâs too late to eat, and my stomach is pitching five fits.
My grandfather, whoâs been vacuuming the downstairs rooms, glances up from winding the cord into a precise figure eight, over and over, around the uprightâs handles. It drives menuts when I use the machine after he does. I keep telling him, it takes twice as long to do it this way, why not just loop it around the handles and be done with it? All that matters is that itâs up and out of the way, right? But he insists itâs neater the way he does it, thatâs the trouble with the world these days, nobody takes the time to do anything carefully.
âYouâre going out?â he says, hauling the Eureka out of the room.
âYeah.â I cram an angora beret over my hair, yelling out, âJust to