The Rules of Inheritance (8 page)

 

Her gaze is steady as she continues.

 

But you, kiddo? You have bigger fishes to fry. I predict great things for you.

 

I nod at her. I want to believe her.

 

My mother lies back again and we are quiet, both of us looking up at the ceiling. Our arms are touching and I feel sleepy.

 

I think about how, when I grow up, I want to be just like my mother. I'm going to have a daughter too, and we're going to lie in bed at night just like this.

MY MOTHER WAS BORN in New Canaan, Connecticut, the second of four daughters. The first, Phyllis, was the most beautiful and the last, Pamela and Penelope, were fraternal twins. Sally Edith Chatterton, my mother, was set apart from her sisters by more than the first letter of her name.

 

She grew up in a big white house in a good neighborhood. My grandfather struggled with depression, and his wife was stern with desperation. The four girls, fueled by jealousy, driven by competition, tore at one another in their claim for parental approval.

 

The Thoroughbred, my grandfather called my mother.

 

Penny was pudgy, with red hair and freckles; Pammy was plain but perfect; and Phyllis, “Oh, Phyllis . . .”

 

My mother's sister Phyllis died at thirty. She died of a cat scratch, of blood poisoning. Phyllis was an alcoholic. Every story I've heard about her is the kind you forget immediately, the details at once jumbled even as you're crossing the threshold of the room you heard it in.

 

There's much I don't understand about my mother growing up, about the venom whispered after lights out, about the pinches, the dress stealing, the silent treatment, the lap claiming. I only saw the aftermath.

 

My mother left home early. She went to Endicott Junior College, several hours away from New Canaan. She cried herself homesick before she even got there, but once her trunk was unpacked she flung herself into the nearest pack of girls and did what she knew best: flashed her ready smile and charmed her way into this new existence. She was class queen; she was never without a date; she was blond and loudmouthed and everyone loved her.

 

She went straight from boarding school to Rhode Island School of Design. She and her roommate, Nancy, both of them painting majors, shared an apartment on Benefit Street. They flirted with the boys in the apartment across the alley, giggling as they sipped martinis and pretended not to look. Both of them met their husbands at RISD, my mother the first to date Bob, the man that Nancy would end up marrying.

 

It was 1958 when my mother met Gene, a painter, a jazz musician, Gene who drove a motorcycle and Gene who, without a moment's hesitation, swept my mother off her feet. I won't actually hear about Gene until I am in high school, and when she talks about him a look will come across her face that I have never seen before. She will tell me about how they eloped one night, just before she graduated, and moved to Manhattan several months after that. The first night there they crashed on jazz musician Cecil Taylor's couch.

 

Their marriage was over within five years, both of them too young, too stupid to see it through. My mother stayed on in Manhattan. She had become a New Yorker—it was where she was always meant to be, she felt. She married again in her early thirties. That one only lasted a year. She was thirty-seven, living month to month in a walk-up near Murray Hill, when my father rang her buzzer unexpectedly one warm June morning.

THE NEXT DAY AT SCHOOL I am sitting in Home Ec when Tonia walks by. We met in fourth grade and became fast friends. Our families couldn't have been more different, but neither of us cared. As it turns out, Tonia will not be one of those girls who gets stuck in Destin. She'll go on to run an aviation company, be president of it even. Just like she always said.

 

Tonia pauses awkwardly and looks down at the bottle of berry nail polish that I have placed in front of me. It has become like a talisman, this bottle. A symbol of something bigger.

 

Where did you get that?

 

I stole it, I say, hoping to impress her.

 

She flinches and I feel a thread of excitement run through me.

 

I could get some for you too, I say. The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

 

Her eyes light up. Really? And then they darken again, remembering that we aren't friends anymore.

 

Sure, I say. I could get some for Jamie too.

 

Whatever, she says suddenly, trying to downplay her enthusiasm.

 

But it's too late. A plan has been formulated. This is how I'll win her back, I decide.

 

I have to get off the school bus every afternoon at an intersection with a Circle K convenience store. From there, I walk two blocks up, to where my parents are working. The kids on the bus tease me. They say my mom works at the Circle K. My cheeks burn as I make my way down the steps of the bus to the sidewalk.

 

They couldn't be further from the truth.

 

When we lived in Atlanta, my friends had been the children of ambassadors, of lawyers, doctors, wives who sat on the boards of museums and husbands with wine cellars that rivaled my father's.

 

Here in Florida, what friends I do have usually live with just one parent. They have four or five siblings. Their parents are young, work all day, and return home at night to drink six-packs of beer in front of the television. My parents aren't friends with any of them.

 

I actually love these families. I love how different they are from mine, and I am enchanted by the liveliness of a Saturday morning in one of their homes. But right now, walking up the street, the Circle K behind me, I hate them all.

 

They know nothing, I think.

 

As I walk up Route 28 I begin planning my heist. When I will go, what colors I will choose. I think about how Tonia and I will be friends again. About how maybe school won't be so torturous anymore.

 

By the time I get to the restaurant I'm burning with my plan.

 

As usual, my mother is in the kitchen and my father is in the office.

 

Hi, sweetie, my mother says, smiling softly at me as she sifts flour into a large metal bowl. How was school?

 

Fine.

 

Do you have homework?

 

Not really.

 

Why not?

 

I did most of it on the bus, I say.

 

This is a lie. I know it's only a matter of time before my mom finds out how behind I am in my classes, but for now I'm determined to keep up the illusion.

 

Do you want to help me with this cake?

 

Nah, I say, I'm think I'm going to Kmart. I want to see if they have any new Baby-Sitters Club books.

 

Okay, honey. Do you need any money?

 

Nah, I say again, and my mother nods absentmindedly as she scans a recipe book, drawing her finger down the page until she finds what she's looking for.

 

Inside Kmart I wander through the clothing section for a few minutes. I have specific ideas about what makes me look conspicuous and what doesn't. I think that pretending to browse for long periods of time in random parts of the store simply makes me look like an indecisive customer.

 

Finally I make my way over to the cosmetics section.

 

I spend a long time mulling over the different colors and combinations. After several more minutes I finally make a decision. A soft, classic pink for Tonia and a deep magenta for Jamie.

 

As I go over these choices I notice that a man has appeared behind me. He is looking over a display of fishing tackle boxes. I've already managed to slip the two lipsticks into my pocket, but I have yet to take the nail polishes that match.

 

I risk a glance at the man. He is in his midthirties, plainly dressed, expressionless. Maybe he is just a customer, I think. But something in my gut tells me otherwise. I briefly consider leaving, forgetting about the nail polishes for now. But then I think about Tonia and how much I want to be friends again.

 

Suddenly the most brilliant idea occurs to me. I'll just keep them in my hand and walk over to another section, like I'm still browsing. I mean, that's what I would do if I was going to buy them, right?

 

I do just that, and in the toy section, after taking a quick look around to make sure no one is watching me, I stuff the nail polishes into my pocket.

 

 

 

Done.

 

Perfect.

 

My heart is racing nonetheless and I know it's time for me to get out. At the front of the store I walk casually through an empty checkout line and am within feet of the doors when someone steps in front of me. It's the man.

 

Excuse me, I say, trying to make my way around him.

 

He doesn't move.

 

I realize that he's blocking my way on purpose.

 

What happened to those bottles of nail polish you had?

 

My cheeks burn. My heart explodes into tiny pieces and scatters across the linoleum. The bottles of nail polish in my pocket grow to enormous proportions, sucking all the air out of the store.

 

I left them in a different aisle, I stammer. I decided not to buy them.

 

Show me, he says.

 

Slowly I lead him back to the toy aisle where I had so confidently put the little bottles into my pocket.

 

I point to a shelf.

 

I left them here, I say, shrugging.

 

There is a moment in which I think he almost believes me, but then I see a glint in his eye. He has been waiting all day for this.

 

Empty your pockets, he says.

WHEN MY PARENTS ARRIVE, I am sitting in the manager's office, the two bottles of nail polish and their perfectly matched lipsticks lined up in a neat row in plain view on the manager's desk. My mother immediately begins to cry.

 

The manager tells all of us that he could have called the cops but didn't. My parents nod and thank him. I stare at the floor. Then he says that I'm not allowed to enter the Kmart without parental supervision. I burn with shame. After that it seems like hours before we all walk out of the store, but the whole affair really only takes about twenty minutes.