I'll Love You When You're More Like Me by M.E. Kerr Read Free Book Online

me.
    â€œWhen don’t we go to The Surf Club Saturday night?” I said.
    â€œMaybe I could call Ethel and we could go double.”
    â€œCharlie,” I said, “you said you were through dating girls.”
    â€œI can’t take Legs Youngerhouse to The Surf Club,” he said, “even if he’d go with me.”
    â€œWhat am I going to do with this bracelet?” I said.
    â€œGo back to the beach tomorrow and look for her?” Charlie said.
    â€œYeah, maybe.”
    â€œSo it’s okay if I invite Ethel along for Saturday?”
    â€œDo what you want to do,” I said.
    â€œI like to dance,” Charlie said. “Shoot me.”
    My mother called upstairs, “Dinner, everyone.”
    â€œCharlie,” I said, “I’m sorry about the meat loaf.”
    â€œ ‘Charlie Gilhooley,’ Mrs. Lingerman used to say to me when I’d go over to pick up Ethel, ‘Charlie Gilhooley, you walk as though you’re trying to hold on to a fifty-cent piece with your bottom. I never knew anyone to take such teensyweensie steps, leastwise not a member of the male sex.’ ”We headed down the stairs to the dining room. “Well, Mrs. Lingerman, rest in peace,” Charlie said.
    I still hadn’t decided what to do about Sabra St. Amour’s bracelet.

6. Sabra St. Amour
    Mama and I like hot foods like Indian curries and Mexican tamales, which was why she picked The Frog Pond for dinner that night—there wasn’t anything spicier on the menu than rib roast. I was supposed to watch my diet very carefully.
    The Frog Pond looks like an old-fashioned, gingerbread farmhouse, with a small lily pond behind it, and huge weeping willows on the bright green lawn around it.
    You’re not supposed to hear anything there but comforting, country sounds: the birds, the breeze ruffling the leaves, idle summer-night chatter, the chink of silver against china and ice cubes against crystal. Off in the kitchen was a whir of a blender beating butter and cream and salt into mashed potatoes . . . an oven door opening to pull out popovers . . . absolutely no music . . . and the waitresses whisper when they ask if everything is all right.
    â€œHoney, show Fedora your bracelet!” Mama shouted across the table at me.
    â€œYou know, I’ve been giving this situation of yours a lot of thought,” Fedora was saying at the same time.
    They hadn’t yet decided who would go first. I managed to slip in a lie. “I forgot to wear the bracelet, Mama.”
    â€œYou forgot to wear it!” Mama said. “I reminded you,sweetheart, don’t you remember?”
    â€œI didn’t sleep very much this week, for thinking about everything,” Fedora continued. She was a little woman with a very militant posture and a great deal of authority in this deep voice which seemed to come from someone behind her or above her.
    We were sitting at a round table in the center of the dining room under the apprehensive eye of the proprietress. Both Mama and Fedora had second-balcony voices. Fedora was drinking her usual, a bright red Campari on the rocks, with a twist of lemon; Mama was having her Manhattan with the two cherries. I sometimes think Mama invented that just to be different, though she says she craves a taste of something sweet immediately before and immediately after whiskey.
    I was toying with a ginger ale. Before I got my ulcer, I used to nurse a rum collins through other people’s cocktails; on holidays, I’d have a glass of champagne.
    Mama said to Fedora, “I gave her the most exquisite cuff bracelet, with a verse inside that’s to die, and she forgets to wear it. Do you love it?”
    â€œI finally came to a decision,” Fedora said, ignoring Mama.
    â€œAbout what?” Mama said.
    â€œAbout what do you think? I’ve been trying to tell you that I’ve been going over this thing in my head. I’ve had some very