All or Nothing Read Free Page A

mat, a potato, and a peeler, and I’d sit at the breakfast bar, peeling the potato inward toward myself. Nothing was as gratifying as the feeling of the starch splashing against my face. I took the thick, heavy potato cutter that shaped them like waffle fries and slammed it down against the potatoes in all different directions, causing slices of potato to fly everywhere.
    I’d walk over to the stove and watch the oil glistening in the pan. My dad would instruct me to put in one piece of potato, but it would just fall to the bottom and stick there. The oil was never ready yet. I’d wait a little longer, and then I’d drop another slice of potato in the oil and watch it sink to the bottom and then sizzle up to the top, feeling a surge of excitement as it fried.
    I did the whole batch, adding one slice at a time. Then I laid paper towels on a plate and spooned the fries out. I could almost hear Nana Mae saying, “Kosher salt! Kosher salt!” as I quickly sprinkled them. And then we all enjoyed our delicious, salty, crunchy-on-the-outside and soft-on-the-inside French fries. I didn’t think anything could be better than that.
    I made a mess when I was cooking, not on purpose but just because I had so much extra energy that sometimes food spilled onto the countertops . . . and onto the floor . . . and even the walls. My mom would go ballistic when this happened. She took a lot of pride in our home and wanted the house to be perfectly polished and clean at all times. My mother wouldn’t go to sleep if she knew there was a dish left in the sink. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night to hear the sound of a vacuum running or furniture being rearranged.
    We weren’t allowed to eat fish in the house because my mom didn’t want the house to smell, but I was allowed to have tuna as long as I drained the can in the sink, cleaned out the can with soap and water, and then immediately took the trash out and cleaned the sink with bleach. We had one wooden bowl that was specifically designated for making tuna salad. My mom had strict rules about that kind of stuff, but my dad just did what he wanted.
    One morning he grabbed the wooden bowl at random, put eggs, milk, and pancake mix in there, and handed it to me to start whisking. My mom came into the room and gasped in horror. “Jesse! What are you doing?” she cried. “Not that bowl!” My parents started bickering, which made me feel uneasy, but my dad just laughed it off. “Calm down, Randi,” he said, which never succeeded in calming her down. He got out the big stovetop griddle and plugged it in. I turned it up to high and poured a capful of oil onto the surface, full of anticipation as I watched it sizzle. My dad poured some batter onto the griddle, and I was so excited that I flipped the first pancake too soon. Batter splattered everywhere. “Jesse!” My mother started yelling at me again, furious that I was making a mess.
    But strangely, as angry as she got, she never made me clean up after myself. Sure, my mom asked me to do routine chores. I can still hear her voice saying, “Clean your room,” or “Take out the garbage,” but I learned from an early age how to get out of it. I became a master manipulator, at least when it came to my parents. Just when it was time to clear the dinner table, I’d disappear into the bathroom for an hour and leave my sister to deal with the mess. Or I’d come up with one excuse or another for why I couldn’t do it.
    At some point my parents must have just given up, because they simply stopped asking. My entire childhood passed without me ever having to set the dinner table, take out the trash, vacuum a carpet, or clean a bathroom, and I learned that it was possible to get away with just about anything. My parents never attached consequences to my behavior. They never set rules, and when they did they didn’t enforce them. My